Finally absorbing the words, Torin stopped. “Is this true, Lira?”
I twisted my head.
When I looked at Torin, I saw a broken man who didn’t have the stomach for this and wanted me to accept the lifeline Reyker had thrown me. Say yes, and I would be released, tended to, forgiven, my earlier confession ignored. Say yes, to save myself and damn Reyker. Paint him as the savage they all wanted him to be. Let him take my place, strung up and tortured for ravishing the chieftain’s daughter. Beaten. Castrated. Hanged. His death would be slow. They would do much worse to him than they would to me.
When I looked at Reyker, I saw my lover. My wolf. Begging me to say yes and condemn him. Reyker was willing to die to spare me this pain. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but I only had the strength to utter one word through my clenched teeth: “No.”
Torin drew back his arm.
Was this how you felt, Mother, when you walked into the sea?
The knout fell again.
“Three!”
Screams and cries swirled around me, a maelstrom of noise. Some of it spilled from my own mouth. Some was that ceaseless, inhuman roar coming from Reyker.
“You chose an invader over your own clan! Over your own father!” Torin said, and there was more than rage in him. There was disbelief. Jealousy. Sorrow.
Father—my father was there, beneath the surface. I cried out to him.
“I have no daughter, remember—that’s what you told me after the Culling. Just as I have no sons. No wife. I loved you, and you left me. You all left me!”
He let the knout fly.
“Four!”
My vision flickered. The pain was in me and apart from me, all around me and happening to someone else.
“Leave her be!” Torin grunted, struggling with someone. “Get away from my daughter, you demon!” And then, “She did this. She must be taught a lesson, like her brother.”
Himself. Torin was fighting himself.
The knout’s thongs licked me, the thorn-needles pierced me.
“Five!”
All the voices surged and shrank. I could no longer tell if it was my body that trembled, or the earth itself. There were more screams now, replacing mine, which had faded.
“Mother,” I whispered.
Screams. Roars.
Then, nothing.
PART THREE
COMETH THE DRAGON
REYKER
Warriors circled with swords and spears when they finally cut Reyker down from the tree. He planned to fight them anyway, but one of the men caught his gaze—Quinlan, his expression carrying a coded message: Calm yourself. You’re no good to her dead.
Why was Quinlan here?
They marched him to the great hall, filled to capacity with warriors. Not just the Sons of Stone, but others, some of whom he remembered from the conclave. The guards shoved him to his knees before Torin and Madoc.
The black river pulsed. Reyker wanted to wrap his hands around the chieftain’s neck. He wanted to bash in the commander’s skull.
“Behold,” Torin said, silencing the men. “Our secret weapon. The invader who will win us an entire beast army.”
Reyker’s laughter was a harsh, hateful thing.
“Don’t balk yet, beast. You will sail to the Frozen Sun with a band of emissaries. You will raise me the army you promised. You will bring them to Stony Harbor to fight for us.”
Grumbles and groans from the men.
“I won’t fight with invaders,” someone said.
Torin stalked forward. “Stalwart Bay has been taken over by the Dragon and his legion of fiends. We must take back what’s ours. Would you rather fight with some of the savages or bow to all of them?”
“But we can’t trust this beast, nor any he brings back with him,” another warrior shouted.
“Yes, we can. We’ll offer lands, titles, women. And our beast commander here will keep them in line.” Torin smiled. “Because we have a hostage he doesn’t wish to see harmed.”
Reyker’s breath lodged in his throat.
The black river turned to ice in his veins.
Urgent, muffled voices. Cool hands on my back, my face. Liquid poured down my throat. I coughed and swallowed. I was on my stomach, something soft beneath me.
Someone was petting me. My mother.
No. Not Mother. Mother was dead. Was I dead?
Mother smoothed my hair, cooing. Crying. Her tears spilled onto my cheek.
Then nothing.
I dreamed of flying arrows and falling thorns. Of bones beneath me and stars above. Of white petals showering down on me like rain.
Every time I woke, Ishleen made me drink her bitter potions. She spoke to me of her own shifting dreams. “The lammergeiers are circling, Lira. But something worse hides behind them, with claws and fangs and yellow eyes. It speaks of terrible secrets, but I can’t understand its tongue.”
My head was too heavy to lift. My back throbbed. The world tilted and bucked, trying to throw me off.
I dug my fingers in and held on.
Reyker’s hand clasped mine.
I was dreaming again.
He kneeled beside the bed, head down. I stirred and he looked up. His eyes bore a wet shimmer, and they were clouded like a tempest. He spoke my name, quiet and crackling. The sadness in his voice frightened me. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t leave me.”
“Never.” His fingers moved gently across my face, through my hair. He would never leave me, he swore, but he had to go away for a little while. He promised to come back for me soon, to take me far from here, where no one could hurt me.
I tried to sit up. Gasped at the pain. He made me lie still.
I fumbled with the medallion. “Take it. Please.” He helped me slip the rope off. “It brought you back to me before. It will keep you safe again.”
He fastened the medallion around his neck. Told me he would never take it off, not until he returned. Brushed his lips over my knuckles, my forehead. Pressed my palm to his chest, so I felt the strength of his heart. Whispered that he was mine and I was his.
And then he was gone, the light was gone, the dream was gone.
Light and dark played across my eyelids. Night and day blended like paint on a canvas. Time bent and swayed around me.
I dreamed of the ruins, before they were ruins. The grand, lavish castle it once had been. I stood at a high window inside one of the towers. Outside, the kingdom burned.
Below me, Reyker was tied to the thorntree, staring up at me, roaring.
There was a soft swish of boots behind me. A black-inked arm snaking around me. A firm body pressing into my back. A voice like poison poured into my ear: Mine.
A threat and a promise.
“Pray for death.”
I opened my eyes. Doyen lingered beside my sickbed. He held something out toward me, a crumpled piece of parchment—the verses from the Forbidden Scriptures Madoc took from me.
“To possess this page of filth and lies is blasphemy.” Doyen ripped it in half.
My head swam; my vision wavered. Was this another dream?
He leaned closer, but my eyelids drifted shut. “Pray for Gwylor’s mercy, for you’ll receive none from me,” the priest said. “Pray the knout’s kiss kills you, for if you live, I’ll end you myself.”
When I forced my eyes open a moment later, no one was there.
The world came into focus, bit by bit.
I was in a spare bed in the cottage Ishleen shared with her mother. This was where I’d been hauled, bleeding and unconscious, after Torin allowed me to be cut free and cared for. Days had passed since then, I wasn’t sure how many. My wounds had become infected. I’d burned with fever for so long that Doyen had been called to perform the final prayers to send my soul to the otherworlds.
&n
bsp; Ishleen cleaned and bandaged my wounds, coaxed food and water into my fragile stomach. Quinlan had come to Stony Harbor on clan business and stayed to help Ishleen look after me. As soon as I could make my mouth align with my thoughts, I asked about Reyker. Over and over. “He’s in the cells,” they told me. It was all they would say.
“Take me to him. I need to know he’s all right.”
“Soon,” they assured me.
Always soon. Never now.
My medallion was missing. No one could tell me where it went.
When I could walk on my own, they left me alone for longer spans of time. The first chance I got, I eased a cloak around my shoulders and snuck to the cells.
My legs were unsteady. My back shrieked in protest. But I had to see him.
There was no guard out front. I pushed the door open and went to his cell. I wrapped my hands around the bars, pressed my forehead against the cool metal.
There was no prisoner inside.
Reyker was gone.
Quinlan found me in the cells. This was where I’d spent so many hours with Reyker, where we began to fall in love in spite of the grate between us, in spite of the horrors our people inflicted upon both of us. I could still feel him here.
“You lied to me,” I said.
“You weren’t strong enough to accept the truth yet.” Quinlan sat down beside me. “Otherwise you’d remember him coming to see you. You’d remember his goodbye.”
“I didn’t think it was real. I thought Torin would kill him, or at least never let him near me again.” I replayed the sparse moments of Reyker’s visit—the strain on his face, the reluctance. He hadn’t wanted to leave me. He’d had no choice.
“You don’t know what’s happened,” Quinlan said.
“Tell me.”
He did. While Reyker and I had been missing—time had indeed passed differently for us on the other side of the loch’s portal, our single day in the ruins equaling more than a week outside—scores of Dragonmen had sacked Stalwart Bay. They’d killed or expelled every villager, confiscated or burned every ship, and taken up residence. Stalwart was the largest port in Glasnith, the only ideal port for ships coming and going to the rest of the world. Our island couldn’t survive without it.
“The invaders sent a message to Torin and the other chieftains. They plan to stay. They’re demanding allegiance and tariffs from any clans that want to use the port. They’re attacking incoming ships as well, plundering their goods, taking foreign hostages.”
“It’s beginning,” I said. “Draki seeks to conquer us.”
“The clans are desperate. They voted to form alliances outside of Glasnith to help defeat the Dragonmen. Emissaries have been sent to the Auk Isles and Sanddune. And to Iseneld, because Torin thinks it’ll take one army of beasts to destroy another. Reyker swore at the conclave that he could deliver an army of Westlanders to fight with us.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling Reyker slip farther away from me, the distance an unbearable pressure. “What makes Torin believe Reyker will return? Why would he help those who enslaved him?”
“He’ll come. For you.” Quinlan shifted uncomfortably. “Torin’s using you as a hostage. He gave Reyker two months to raise an army and sail back to Glasnith. At the second month’s end, he plans to lock you in the cells and starve you. He told Reyker once the cell door closes, you won’t be fed so much as a crumb until his army is delivered.”
“Oh.” Nothing should’ve surprised me, not after Torin took the knout to me, yet it did. He’d put me in the cells like a common prisoner, let me suffer a slow death.
Before Reyker departed, Torin had allowed him a brief visit to my bedside. A last look, to remind him what he was leaving behind, and to remind him—by the bloody bandages on my back—that Torin didn’t bluff. The chieftain would make good on his threats.
“What happened to him, Lira? Your father was one of the most honorable men I’ve ever known. Why would he do this?”
I told Quinlan everything. Not just of Torin and Madoc and the Culling, but of the nomads. Of Reyker. And Draki.
Quinlan sighed. “Sweet Silarch, this is a right fine mess you’re in. When Reyker came to see you before he left, I promised him I’d get you out of Stony Harbor. I aim to keep that promise.”
My hands went to my chest, found a hollow space instead of my medallion. “I’m going to Ghost Village.”
“To stay with the same nomads who nearly gave you to the invaders?”
“Zabelle would never have let that happen. I trust her. And their Ghost Prince will come.” Garreth, my heart whispered. “I have to see him. I have to know. If it is Garreth, he can take me to Aillira’s Temple so I can speak with the priestesses.” Perhaps Eathalin would accompany me. Together we might be able to convince the priestesses to join the fight against the Westlanders, now that things had become so dire.
“Aillira’s Temple.” Quinlan filled those two words with so much regret. “Lira, the temple fell. The Dragon and his men found their way inside. They destroyed the temple and took the Daughters of Aillira.”
The dream came back to me: Draki storming the temple with his army, setting fire to the buildings, slitting the head priestess’s throat. It wasn’t a dream after all, but a vision. I never saw how it ended, but I knew—I could almost hear the Daughters of Aillira screaming as Draki cut his dragon star into their flesh.
Quinlan touched my shoulder, but I pushed his hand away. “Took them where?”
“The Westlanders are using them. It’s part of how the invaders were able to take Stalwart Bay. The Daughters of Aillira are being forced to help them.”
No, not simply forced. Compelled. Controlled.
“We have to leave now.” I tried to get to my feet, but the pain in my back brought me down again. “I need to find Garreth, and then we can form search parties to track down the Daughters of Aillira.”
“You’ll need a month to heal before riding across the desert.”
“I can’t leave them, Quinlan. Draki will mark them, if he hasn’t already. You don’t know what it feels like to be preyed upon by the warlord’s power.” Though I’d never met most of them, the Daughters of Aillira were my sisters, and they might be Glasnith’s only hope to reclaim our country.
“I’ve seen your back, Lira. Your wounds—” He caught my stricken look and halted. “I’m sorry. They aren’t … I’m just concerned. If you push yourself too hard, you’ll never heal.”
I didn’t know how my back looked. No one would help me with the mirrors, and I couldn’t do it myself. I imagined an ugly mass of wounds that would leave hideous scars. My body was covered with the remnants of injuries inflicted by the monsters in my life.
I cleared my throat. “We must leave as soon as possible.”
“Three weeks,” Quinlan said firmly.
“One week.”
“A fortnight, and not one day less.”
I glared at him, but he crossed his arms stubbornly. “A fortnight, and not one day more,” I agreed with reluctance. “What will you do after we arrive in Ghost Village?”
“I’ll stay until I know you’re safe, but then I must leave. There’s a war on the horizon. I want to fight. I have to help defend our lands.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
He offered me a halfhearted grin. “Still worrying about me?”
“Not a whit,” I said, trying to smile. So much had changed between us. I wanted to tease him, to laugh with him, but I felt so awkward.
A scuffling sound outside startled us. Quinlan and I looked at each other. Stay here, he mouthed, rising to his feet, creeping out the door. Through the window, I heard a shout. A moment later, Quinlan dragged a cursing, scowling boy into the cells.
Dyfed the herdsman’s son.
“Vile, murderous witch!” Ennis hissed. “Stay away, beast-whore!”
Quinlan tightened his grip on Ennis’s shoulders, keeping him in place. “Watch your tongue or I’ll box your ears, boy.”
“You’re spying for Madoc,” I said. “And not for the first time.”
Ennis writhed under Quinlan’s fingers. “You helped that beast attack a sentry and steal a horse. I saw it. Traitorous beast-lover! I wish they’d killed you both. You murdered my father!” Ennis jerked forward and spit in my face.
Quinlan shook the boy hard, until I held up a hand for him to stop.
“My father was a good man. He didn’t steal weapons. He had permission. But you didn’t know that, did you? You condemned him for something he was ordered to do.”
I wiped off his spit, chills flickering up my spine. “Ordered by whom?”
“I don’t know.” Ennis pressed his lips together, on the verge of tears. Despite his bravado he was still just a boy, overwhelmed with grief. “Father only said he was doing clan business.”
“Do you know what he did with the weapons?”
“Hid them on carts. Sent them south.”
The chill became a blizzard. I looked at Quinlan, reading his thoughts, knowing they were the same as mine. Madoc. “Tell anyone what you heard today, or what you told us,” I warned Ennis, “and I’ll curse you. I’ll turn you into a traitorous beast-lover like me.”
Quinlan turned the boy loose, and Ennis ran from the cells.
“Sowing the seeds of chaos,” I mumbled, remembering the verse Madoc had quoted from the Immortal Scriptures. “None of the Glasnithian clans would dare cross Torin like this. If Madoc was sending weapons south, he must be securing alliances with the mercenaries. Even before Aengus’s death, he was planning a way to overthrow Torin.” And spouting insults about the mercenaries at every turn, to ensure no one ever suspected he was making deals with them.
“This is bad. It’s treason.” Quinlan leaned against the grate. “Madoc will kill to keep this from getting out.”
“He already has.” An image of Dyfed swinging from the gallows flashed through my mind. The herdsman had tried to tell me, asking me to look in his soul again, before Madoc knocked him unconscious. My guilt over his execution stung me anew. “We’ve no proof. A story forced out of a grieving boy by a traitorous, beast-loving hostage. Torin will never believe us. If we don’t stop Madoc ourselves, no one will.”
Beasts of the Frozen Sun Page 27
