11th Illost, 998 NE
“Oh, my love, did you see the boy’s face tonight?” The sorcerer closed the door to their private room behind her. “That was another truly magnificent performance.”
“Thank you,” she said in the dead voice she’d learned to adopt when they were alone. It was the only thing that seemed to stop him thinking of her as a real human being, the only thing that curbed his cruellest impulses. She went to stand by the window, looking out over Tirremuir, its red sandstone walls and white-painted palaces, and she folded her arms across her chest, trying not to show the tension wracking her every nerve.
Tonight – the first night we’re really alone together…
How nice it would’ve been, to have been able to poison his drink tonight. To have been able to even plan to do it…
Spells or no spells, there were places she would not go. He would have to kill her first.
Mouth dry, she tried to ignore the worst stories she’d heard over the months from Kani, about the Twelve Hells, about the shadowland, about the depravities of sorcerers…
From what she understood, what she knew in her bones, she already had some idea that even if he killed her, that might not be a way out. Dying might, in fact, make her subservience to him all the more inescapable.
Nentheleme save me…
“His love for you is as a fresh young shoot,” the murderer mused, kicking off his boots, “struggling to bloom as such weeds and shadows as I might conjure choke, strangle it…” He crossed to a shuttered window and opened it, letting in the night’s breeze, and she breathed it in, wondering:
Is that how Pelteron died? Choking? Is he threatening Ibbalat’s life?
She didn’t miss his reference to shadows; she remembered the night she tried to refuse him, the night her sense of rightness flared in revolt and she went in tears to Kani… The degradation, being forced to endure his embrace, his touch on her skin, when he gently took the pencil she was failing to write with out of her fingers, drew her away… The confusion on Kani’s face…
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And she remembered the way Redgate then shocked her into stillness with a simple gesture – he’d extended an arm, and a red-eyed snake with two heads, its body long and thin and formed of pure darkness, went streaming like a ribbon of oil out of his clothing. It had disappeared into the hull of the boat and, just as the sorcerer said would happen, Pelteron had gone missing.
‘A casualty of this futile war you would causelessly wage upon me,’ Redgate had summarised. As though Pelteron’s death were her fault.
She knew what he was trying to do to her. She wasn’t stupid. He wanted her will broken. He wanted her to feel that it was her fault. And he would take every moment of her submission as a sign it was working.
So, tonight, she had to make it clear, before his demands went too far and the whole mission was thrown into disarray.
She whirled around. By now he’d removed most of his clothing, wearing only some light, flowing pants; he was stretched out on top of the covers, his slim, muscular body held in a relaxed pose, his hands behind his head against the pillow.
“I shared your hammock, but I will not share your bed,” she said. “Not living.”
He eyed her up and down, and she prayed he could see the determination in her eyes, her frown, the set of her shoulders and her folded arms…
“If you won’t share my bed, don’t,” he said coldly in the end. “You can stand there. All night.”
She stiffened, gritted her teeth –
“On one leg.”
She felt her eyes widen –
“Or your brother perishes. Now.”
Slowly, trembling more than she was wont to, she raised her right foot a few inches off the floor. She’d always been better, far better, at balancing on her left.
“A little higher. Higher… Good. Now stay like that. I know you can do it. The foot touches the floor, you kill someone.” He laughed lightly, as if tickled. “Osantya, my love, come here.”
Ana had to fight back the tears that suddenly itched at the corners of her eyes as she witnessed an example of what she might be forced to become. A squirming dead girl, scantily-clad and pale as snow, appeared on the bed next to him in a swirl of purple mist.
“Osantya, once I’m asleep, watch this girl’s right foot. If she touches it to the floor, wake me before heading downstairs and killing someone. The first person you can find not in this apartment. Do you understand?”
The white-skinned, black-haired girl nodded. The glittering eyes were downcast.
Ana felt a surge of sympathy, and it ripped a single sob from her throat.
Redgate smirked, but chose to ignore her outburst.
She closed her eyes as he turned to the undead thing – she clenched her jaw and focussed, ignoring the sounds she could hear, concentrating on keeping the already-locking muscles loose, on retaining the strength, the purpose, to see this night through – they’d be on the road tomorrow, they’d all be stuck in the tent together and he couldn’t do this again – it was just one night, one night…
She stood on one leg, not weeping, just waiting for the dawn.
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