I blinked. “What are you plotting?”
“Do you know my favorite verse from the Immortal Scriptures? ‘As the gods warred, the seeds of chaos rained down across mortal lands, and foolish men, both lord and peasant alike, did sow their own destruction.’ ” His gaze darted between Reyker and me. “You should’ve taught your beast to use the map you gave him. He was heading the wrong direction when we found him.”
With that, Madoc left us.
I turned to face Reyker. He eased himself down into the far corner of the cell. “You were coming back? Why?”
He closed his eyes. “Go, Lira.”
“For me?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. I’d refused to go with him when he had asked. He’d risked himself to come back for me anyway. Now he was trapped here.
I started to leave, pausing in the open doorway, light spilling around me into the cells’ dark spaces. “Whatever it takes, Reyker,” I whispered, “I will get you home.”
REYKER
There was nothing to do but sleep. Sometimes Reyker wasn’t sure if he was awake, lying in the darkness of his cell, or asleep, wandering the dark halls of his mind. Sleep was torment. The nightmares—the memories—were relentless. They’d haunted him for years, but they were worse now, locked up, with no way to escape them.
He would die here, alone with his nightmares.
He didn’t want Lira to watch him waste away. “Go,” he told her when she came to the cells again, keeping his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to look at her.
“You really love that word, don’t you?” Something landed on his face. She’d thrown a wet rag at him. “I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well stop saying it. Come here. I brought you food and water to rinse with.”
“Don’t bother.”
“As you can see, I already did bother. And I’ll continue to bother until you bring your stubborn arse over here to eat and wash the bloody mess off your face.”
He knew what she was doing. She was from a family of warriors, and she knew sweet coaxing wouldn’t work half as well as barked orders when it came to men like him. Reyker sighed, but he eased himself forward until he was across from her.
She passed him a hunk of bread. “Eat.”
He bit into the bread, glaring.
“If you think I find that snarl the least bit intimidating, you don’t know me very well.” She badgered him until he ate every last bit of food, and then she pulled out a tin of liniment. “Wash your face so I can tend to your wounds.”
“Gods aflame.” He glanced up at the ceiling, as if his gods could hear him, as if they weren’t a thousand leagues away. “Don’t talk at me as if I am a child.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Reyker mumbled a few unpleasant phrases beneath his breath, but he saw the tightness of her jaw, the sheen of her eyes—the regret over what her kinsmen had done to him. Tending his wounds was her way of apologizing for things she couldn’t control.
“Fine.” He dipped the rag into the pail, mopping his face.
Lira reached through the bars, dabbing salve on his cuts and bruises. He caught her studying the black flames etched above his swollen eyelid. “Why is your warrior-mark different from the other Dragonmen?”
Reyker had never wanted to wear a Dragonman’s symbol. As with all things, Draki had given him no choice. “It marks me as an outsider, a warrior who can’t be trusted.”
“Why would Draki want a Dragonman he couldn’t trust?”
“Draki murdered my father when I was only a boy. He thinks himself to be like a father to me. The warlord would not kill me, and he would not let me go. He preferred to keep me with him, to torment me. To shame me.”
Lira rubbed a glob of liniment over the inflamed brand on the side of his neck, and he hissed, but it wasn’t just from the pain. Her clan had shamed him too, derided and spit on him, held him down instead of letting him stand to face their blows. Branded him like he was a bull instead of a man. They were no better than Dragonmen.
She pulled at his tunic. “Take this off.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She balled a handful of fabric into her fist.
It made him laugh, something he’d not thought possible in this wretched place. “You want to tear off my clothes?”
She blushed. Lira was bold, but her bashfulness emerged with a word, a glance, a touch. Reyker enjoyed watching her bite her lip, color rising in her cheeks. It was like watching a nymph yawn—a vulnerable, human gesture from a fey creature.
“I will.” Her shyness ebbed. She wasn’t going to give up. Reyker realized he wanted her to see, to know that her kin were as monstrous as his own. He eased out of the tunic, dropped it to the floor. She stared hard, her eyes glistening. “Trousers,” she said firmly.
Reyker slid them off. Clothed only in his breeches, he could hide nothing. Bruises stained his torso, arms, and legs. Gashes split his skin. He reached for the rag, wiping off blood and dirt.
She scooped out more liniment, her fingers treading cautiously over his injuries. He shivered beneath her touch. For a long time neither of them spoke, and then Reyker broke the dense silence. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t deserve this.”
“Reyker. Why would you ever believe you deserve this?”
He laughed again, but this time there was no light in it—the sound was thunder and rain, matching the tempest brewing inside him. “You think you know me because you read my soul? You saw only half my sins. If you knew all, you would hate me. You would fear me.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” She rubbed a nasty bruise on his stomach, pushing down the waistband of his breeches. He inhaled sharply and caught her wrist.
Did she not know what her touch stirred in a man? The vile things he could do to her if he were a man who did such things?
He’d nearly been that man once.
Reyker laced his hand with hers, examining how they fit together, her fingers dwarfed by his. Her body was too small and fragile a shell for the fires it contained. “You will.”
It was better if she hated him.
He slapped her palm against his chest.
The memory Reyker sought was buried in the bones of his past. It took effort to dredge it up, like ripping a sprawling root from a poisonous tree. He fell into it—into his own body, staring out through his own eyes as a boy. Lira was there with him, a warm spark in the cold heart of his fear.
Bodies litter the settlement’s ruins—crushed skulls and shattered limbs sticking out from blood-drenched armor.
My first raid. I killed six warriors. During the fight there was no pain, no hesitation, nothing but the black river’s whispers flowing through me, guiding my sword. Now I shake, I sweat, my stomach threatens to expel its contents.
The Dragonmen notice. “We’ve deflowered the battle-virgin!” They laugh. “A raging demon on the field and a quivering boy off it.”
I hate these dishonorable men. I’m only here because the warlord gave me a choice that was no choice: become one of his warriors or remain a hostage.
Dragonmen don’t deserve to call themselves warriors. They are warmongers.
“Leave the lad alone.” This from Einar, one of the older Dragonmen, a defector from Jarl Gudmund’s army. “You lot were all pissing your breeches after your first battles, as I recall.” He winks and tosses me a flask.
Perhaps good men are hidden among these fiends. I drink deeply from the flask, the burn in my throat blotting out the echoes of the river’s call.
Two Dragonmen haul a woman from the rubble of a bathhouse, arguing over her.
“Hey, give the battle-maiden his due.” The Dragonman nearest to me grins. It’s not friendly. “Go on, take first claim of her.”
I look at the woman. She’s
comely, older than me perhaps by ten years. She stands between the two Dragonmen, eyes vacant. Grief and fear have stolen her wits.
I’ve longed to discover the pleasures of a woman, but not like this. Never like this. “No,” I say quietly, a tremor in my voice.
“Prefer boys, do you?”
“Lad doesn’t know how to use his flesh-sword!”
“A virgin of battles and bedchambers!”
Flushing with anger and shame, I reach for my weapon just as it slides from its sheath. The warlord stands beside me, my sword in his possession. The Dragonmen hush.
“How old are you, Reyker? Fourteen?” Draki places a hand on my shoulder, and I cringe. “Old enough to spill blood, to take life. Old enough to enjoy the spoils of war.”
“It’s wrong. She is kin, a child of All-God Sjaf and Seffra.”
“She stands against us, against Iseneld. She’s a traitor to Sjaf and all his children.”
“No.” I glare at Draki. He knows what I’m thinking—I will never hurt a woman this way. I will never be a monster like him and his minions.
The warlord turns to the others. “Reyker is pretty for a boy, isn’t he? Soft hair. Fair skin. In the shadows, it would be easy to pretend he was a girl. And we do seem to be short on girls.”
In his words, I hear another choice that is not a choice.
Around me the Dragonmen rise, eager for the hunt.
I run. They chase me gleefully. The warlord has challenged them, making a sport of it. They want to please him. I’m fast, but they call out to their comrades ahead of me. Hands trap me, and I’m set upon by a mob, pushed down, my clothes ripped, my hair torn out in clumps. I cannot move. I cannot breathe. They laugh and shout, fight one another for first claim.
“Draki!” I scream. The men stop, looking to the warlord. “I’ll do it.”
Dragonmen crowd in to watch the spectacle. The woman is limp as seaweed, silent as a tomb. She’s not there, not really. The men shove me toward her, shouting instructions, passing around ale, chuckling. Einar shakes his head and walks away.
The warlord smiles.
Lira jerked her hand back, pressing it to her mouth. She closed her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Reyker didn’t blame her.
“This is who I am,” he said. “This is why I deserve to die.”
She grabbed a handful of the dirt floor and threw it in his face. “How could you? You’re no better than the rest of them. A Dragonman at heart.”
She rushed to the door and was gone.
This was what he’d wanted.
Reyker punched the stone wall until his knuckles bled, thinking of what happened to that woman whose name he didn’t even know, and to so many others. What might happen to Lira if he could not stop it.
Lira didn’t come the next day. Reyker held his breath when the door opened, hopeful despite himself. It was only a guard bringing food and water, shoving it at him, spilling most of it. She didn’t come the day after either.
On the third day, when he’d given up hope, Lira stormed into the cells.
Reyker stared, dumbfounded. Lira sat in front of the bars, offering her hand. “Show me the rest. Show me what you did to that woman.” The challenge in Lira’s voice told Reyker she’d figured out he didn’t go through with it.
He’d pretended not to know how to lie with a woman, feigned ignorance until the other Dragonmen tired of waiting and pushed him aside.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “That I considered it at all is unforgivable.” And the end result was the same. The woman was used. The warlord had made him watch.
“You were only a boy, Reyker. What you nearly did was monstrous, but you refused. You didn’t let Draki turn you into a monster.” Her next words were tentative. “Did the Dragonmen ever … hurt you?”
“They tried.” Over and over. A continuous game. He’d broken men’s arms, jaws, and noses as he fought to get away; he’d broken his own knuckles and fingers. Each time, his escape was narrow. Each time, he feared they would succeed. “I trained until I was strong enough that they stopped trying.”
Others weren’t as lucky. When Reyker could, he protected captives from the Dragonmen’s appetites, but usually he was forced to witness, helpless to stop it.
Reyker squeezed the cell bars so hard the scabs on his knuckles split open and oozed bloody tears.
“What happened?” Lira asked.
“I picked a fight with the wall.”
“Stupid boy,” she chided in Iseneldish. Though she spoke his native tongue awkwardly, it charmed him to hear it.
She tended his knuckles, then made him sit with his back to the bars as she rinsed blood from his hair, her fingers teasing loose the tangles, sending shivers down his scalp.
Why did her mercy hurt more than her hate? Why did it terrify him?
Because you aren’t worthy of it, a voice from the scarred crevices of Reyker’s soul answered. Because you’ll fail her, as you failed your mother.
“I’ve never told anyone about what the Dragonmen tried to do to me,” he said. “Do you think me less of a man for it?” It was easier to ask when he couldn’t see her.
Her hands stilled. Her voice was soft.
“No. You are a man, Reyker. More so than most.”
Days crashed on the shores of time, piling into weeks, each one pushing me closer toward the conclave. I did my best not to think on it. My life settled into ritual and repetition. I awoke behind a locked door every morning, retired behind it every night, and during the span between, I was followed and watched, escorts hounding my every step. The small sprig of this world that had once been mine narrowed to a splinter.
Other things changed as well. It started with the mirrors.
I rose one morning to find them gone, every last one in the manor. When I asked Torin’s attendants, they said he’d ordered them removed without explanation.
Another oddity: Through the floor of my room, I often overheard Torin in the parlor, arguing. With Madoc, before my uncle left to treat with our allies and the mercenary clans. With his other councilors. But there were times when no visitors called, yet he bellowed and bickered until dawn, and I couldn’t be certain—were there two voices in the parlor, or only one?
One evening, Torin bid me to dine with him.
“Tell me of your language lessons with the beast,” he said over a plate of roasted pheasant and a flagon of ale.
“They go well enough, my lord. The Westlander speaks, but his words are jumbled, his accent heavy.” A stretch, but not exactly a lie. Reyker’s command of Glasnithian was impressive, but not perfect.
“Have you learned anything of value yet?” It was more of an accusation than a question.
I was summoned to the council once every week, to update them on my progress. I fed them details Reyker gave me about Draki and his Dragonmen—enough to keep up the charade, but never enough to satisfy them. Never enough for them to decide Reyker had nothing left to offer.
I cut my meat meticulously, taking my time answering. “Nothing more than what I’ve reported, but I’m getting closer. There’s still time.”
“The date of the conclave has been moved up, due to the escalating Westlander threat. We leave for Selkie’s Quay in a fortnight. You and the invader will accompany me. If the beast has not spilled his secrets by then, I’ll oversee his interrogation alongside the other clan leaders.”
“A fortnight?” I’d thought I had more than a moon left.
“At least we’re getting some use out of the invader in the meantime,” Torin added.
The Sons of Stone had put Reyker to work loading rocks, hauling wood, digging trenches. His hands were shackled and he was surrounded by armed men who wouldn’t hesitate to cut him down if he made a wrong move. The workers and sentries harassed him—spitting on him, upending chamber pots over him. I saw what
it did to Reyker, the defeat in his eyes. It made me hate Torin and his men all the more.
“Why did you get rid of the mirrors?” I asked.
“Because they lie,” Torin muttered into his chalice. “The mirrors are wrong. That man is not me.” His fist slammed the tabletop. “Cursed frost giants invading from the west, barbarian mercenaries squabbling to the south, and my own council full of half-wits.”
“What do you mean squabbling? What’s happening with the mercenary clans?”
He ignored me. “I’m surrounded by enemies and simpletons. Madoc is the only one I can depend on.”
I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. “You can’t trust Madoc. He still wants to be chieftain. Given the chance, he’ll kill you for control of the village.”
“You lie!” Torin hurled the flagon across the room. It crashed to the floor. “All of you, nothing but liars!”
I jumped up, reaching for my knife as he stalked toward me. He stopped, gazing with morbid fascination. “When did you become so beautiful?” He touched a lock of my hair.
Why was he looking at me this way?
“You seem tired. Take yourself to bed.” He kissed my forehead. “Good night, Iona.”
Iona. My mother.
I wanted to cry, to scream. I wanted this man gone and my father returned. I ran to my room and slammed the door, for once thankful for locks and guards.
Offers of marriage arrived daily from clans hoping to strengthen or forge alliances with the Sons of Stone. Some sent messengers. Others came in person to present their proposals to Torin—lords and merchants and warriors, old and young, handsome and repulsive alike.
I wanted nothing to do with it, but Torin commanded a host of attendants to clean and dress me so that I might be paraded in front of these guests, like bait dangling on a fishing line. I wore an empty smile, keeping my tongue silent and my gaze upon the floor as I envisioned the ways I would murder these men if they ever tried to touch me. Torin sent them all away with promises to consider their offers carefully.
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