by Scottie Kaye
You've done well, it said.
Loren's hand closed into a fist. You've done well. Like a common servant. You've done well.
And Loren knew in that moment that he would kill Ragen Wise.
And he'd take the man's power for his own.
Part Two
Lassyne
Seven
Perched high atop the mountains on the eastern border of Olfact, the Temple of the Mind glared down on the countryside the way a rich man glared down at a beggar. Affectionately known by Olfact's Read mages as "Reading," the temple was the last place Lassyne wanted to be.
However, as with most things in her life, she had no choice in the matter. She'd been carried up the winding stone steps in a locked palanquin well before dawn, since her mother was convinced that the darkness soothed her daughter; she'd then been deposited in her rooms with guards at both the doors and the balconies, and left to her own devices, of which there were few.
Sighing now, Lassyne stepped toward one of the tall, thin windows built to look like they'd once been used by archers. It was all a sham, of course; no one had ever made war on Olfact. It was a clever country, likely because it was composed mostly of merchants—cheaters and opportunists, the lot of them.
Closing her eyes, Lassyne shut the window. She didn't want to think of her family right now. She wanted to think about Loren Stone.
Ten years had passed since she'd seen him in her father's study, curled on the floor, naked and weeping. Lassyne often saw the image when she closed her eyes. It twisted her stomach, the sickness of the thing; she counted her lucky stars every day that her own abuse had never been sexual. But at the same time, Loren's plight gave her a strange sort of comfort. To know that others suffered as she did, under the power of someone they could not deny—and even more so to think that a man like that, a man of war, could be just as much a victim as a weak young woman.... It made her feel less pathetic, less alone. No—he made her feel that way. As if, somewhere out there, there was at least one person who knew. One person who understood what she’d suffered.
As usual, the thought warmed her in less-than-ladylike ways. She had perhaps an hour before the maids would come and thrust her into a sheath of tinkling regalia. An hour to think and do whatever she wanted—and reading the book her father was currently "loaning" her, A Lady's Place in a Household of Commerce, would not be that thing.
Crossing the beaded rug in her slippers, Lassyne slipped under the covers of her monstrous bed, swiping a thick candlestick off its stand by her bedside. After setting a lamp of rose oil to burn—she'd long since run out of the perfume Loren had given her—Lassyne wriggled out of her shift and shoes. Beneath the heavy blanket, she laid the candlestick against her leg and placed her hands on her stomach. For a long, languorous moment, she built the fantasy in her head. It was always the same one.
In it, she sat beside an older version of the Loren in her memories. Handsome and wood-skinned, he'd have a few strokes of gray in his hair from the stressful life he'd endured. They would be attending a business dinner, where matters of state were discussed. She would enchant him with her wit, keeping his cloud-blue eyes on hers. And then Lassyne would surprise him, placing her hand on his thigh....
He'd excuse himself. She would as well. Her parents would miraculously fail to notice, too drunk or too high or too engaged with whatever statesmen they would take to their study that night. She'd follow Loren to the ducal bath house, which would be dark and empty at this time of night. He'd stand in a shaft of moonlight from the glass panels overhead....
Lassyne placed her hands on her own shoulders. He holds me. It's easy, it's right. We know each other. She cupped her own face in her palm, tilting her head back to kiss him. The kiss was like a flame tossed in oil, hot and bursting; it hissed with everything that they shared. The damage, the fear, the secret burn of revenge. The tears in the darkness, when no one was looking—
He whips my dress of my shoulders, his hands twist my breasts. Lassyne gripped her chest with her palms, violent with need, pinning her nipples between eager fingers. I get his belt off. We don't have time to make it last; we must get back to the party.
Still, I grip the back of his head, make him slow. "I know what happened to you," I whisper.
He pauses. He's not sure what to say. I kiss him.
"I know I can't erase it," I say, "but there is one thing I can give you. Something no man has had before you."
In her bed, Lassyne found the wide candle and ran her hands up and down its warming shaft. She bumped it against her inner thighs, her other hand drifting down between her breasts, to her stomach, until she exhaled and pressed hard to the sensitive nub at the front of her sex. The round bottom of the candle slipped between her folds, not insistent yet. Just there, ready to have her, ready to accept the only gift she could give.
"I thought Olfactory noblewomen had to save themselves for marriage," he would tell her, sounding worried now.
"We do," she would reply. "But I'll take that risk. For you."
She rubbed the candle as she rubbed herself. He touches me, puts his forehead to mine as our breaths grow hotter, faster. Lassyne held the candle with more pressure, pulling her lower lip between her teeth as it prodded closer, deeper.... He backs me into a pillar beside a pool of water, the rippling reflection of the moon lighting his wet mouth as he ducks into my neck—
And then with a grunt of effort, he raises my legs off the floor. Lassyne raised her knees. I feel him there. I'm ready.
"I'll take care of you," he whispers. It doesn't make sense. It's meaningless in this moment, because he's sliding into me. The two of us are finally one....
From that moment, they wouldn't need words. They'd be silent lovers, so engrossed in the hard-and-soft of their joining that they'd have no space in their heads for sound. She'd cling to him with one hand, touch herself with her other. He'd go stiff, he'd swear, and she'd feel it inside her. It would take her over the edge....
In the bed, Lassyne closed her legs, twitching as her insides pulsed around the softening candle. She made small noises into her blankets as the pleasure raced out of her, too fleeting, too insubstantial. It would be better with him, his sweat slicked against hers, their noses touching as he let her feet touch the floor.
Blinking awake from her reverie, Lassyne took a few steady breaths. Then she rose and hurried to her vanity bowl, where she washed the candle with soap and water. She knew it wasn't the best tool to put inside herself, but it was the only thing she could sneak past her parents and maids. It didn't seem like too much of the wax had worn off. Still shaking slightly, she stuck it back in the stand.
All before the maids arrived, thank the Scented Queen. Feeling spent, she slumped against one of her bedposts, naked and cold from the mountain air drifting through a crack in a window frame. Lassyne stood very still, knowing what was coming—the heave of emotion, the unavoidable tears. She had only ever seen Loren from a distance after that day. She had dreamt for years of telling him what she knew, that she loved him.
And now, she was marrying someone else.
"Stop blubbering, you fool," she snapped to herself through the tears. She snorted. "You can always have an affair."
Hells, maybe she'd even get a husband who'd let her out of the house. It's not like she knew yet which man her parents would choose for her, during this Arrival week atop their temple estate. Maybe the man would allow her to visit Soma, to meet her longtime hero, the now-Lieutenant General Loren Stone. Of course, she would no longer be pure for him. She'd have to give it up to her husband, first.
"I said stop blubbering," she muttered, slamming an arm across her face. After she had herself controlled, she stood up and twisted herself back into her shift. In her last few moments of alone time, Lassyne leaned against her window once more, gazing out at the ragged landscape as the dawning light kissed it.
Another day as the heir to a third of a nation, she thought bitterly. Another day as the richest unmarried woman in Olf
act.
And another day to wish I was dead.
Eight
After Lassyne had been dressed up in finery by six different women, she was finally allowed to attend to her breakfast—but she would not be allowed to actually eat until she completed her daily duties. Those included sitting at the head of a line of dignitaries and dabbing perfumes on them.
“Ugh, is that lavender?” her mother sniffed from across the table.
“I was out of everything else,” Lassyne lied. She always kept a case of Loren’s white rose perfume, purchased directly from his family’s estate. But she tended to use that in more... private ways. She preferred lavender for her work, but only because her mother despised it.
“Just be quick about it,” Jessyne replied, waving a hand. Lassyne sighed. Because her magic was Olfactory, she could only use her magic on people she could smell—and the best way to do this, typically, was to blot the person’s bare skin with perfume. A few seconds later, the scent would mix with their body oils and sweat, and it would become their smell, not the perfume’s smell. She was doing this now with her line of daily victims—male and female, common and noble, they were paraded in front of her, all with their nullbands removed.
The second-to-last man in today's line was from Gusta, some sort of visiting scholar. She took his inky-black hand and prodded his palm with a dropper of lavender oil. She waited a moment for the oil to mix into him, then put her nose close to his palm. Her magic tingled out of her fingers and into his flesh.
"What knowledge are you really seeking in our temple during this week's Arrival?" her father asked the man. The duke stood behind Lassyne's other shoulder, looming.
The Gustatory man blinked as Lassyne repeated the question. He answered jumpily as her truth magic compelled him.
"The lift—up your cliffs," he said. "The unusual—architecture of your manor. I've been sent to draw and study it," he concluded.
"Anything else?" her father asked. Lassyne repeated him. The Gustatory scholar did the only thing he could do, given he wore no nullband to protect him. He told the truth, caving in to her magic. The absolute, unequivocal truth.
"No," he said, uneventfully, and Duke Read waved him off. A guard gave back the scholar's nullband as he left the room.
The next man was Auditory, and he quivered with nervousness, like a feather held over a flame. Lassyne wanted desperately to eat breakfast, so she splashed the man’s whole arm with her oil, raised it, and asked the obvious question.
"What secret are you keeping?" she said.
"I'm a spy!" the man blurted.
The mood around the breakfast table didn't change. He was the third one this week.
"What is your mission?" Lassyne asked. The hunger was making noise in her stomach. Her mother and brother were eating across the table from her, mostly ignoring the proceedings.
"To uncover any useful information I can, for my mistress!" cried the spy.
"And who is your mistress?"
"I don't know her name! We only communicate via glass!"
Lassyne's father sighed, and she would have too if she weren't so ravenous. "Another spy of the Student, no doubt," he said. He flicked his fingers at the guard. "Take him back to the city. Don't let him back up here. But don't hurt him. We can't afford to piss off King Rastus right now."
The guard nodded and dragged the sweaty spy out of the room. The man had been posing as a foreigner's porter, and no doubt she'd be questioning that foreigner tomorrow.
Her father squeezed her shoulder. "You've done well, daughter. Very well."
She dipped her head, begging the Scented Queen for her father to leave. Sometimes he could patronize her for a full half an hour before he finally patted her on the head and left the damn room. And she was, quite frankly, too hungry to deal with his shit right now. Her makeup and hair had taken hours, and the dress had taken even longer. As a traditional Arrival sheath, it was made of gold coins strung strategically around her. Someone had to sew her into it.
All the harder to get at all that virgin goodness, she thought. It was expected that she drink nothing all day, so she wouldn’t need to go to the bathroom. So she was parched and hungry and tired and irritable, and being drop-dead gorgeous didn't help that one bit. It was an hour before noon, and she hadn't eaten since a rushed supper yesterday, in a carriage. At this rate, she'd lose five pounds this week.
"Well, I'm off," the duke said to his family, rounding the table to kiss his wife on the mouth. "You keep our darling bride occupied, now," he told Jessyne, and finally, blissfully, he was gone.
All the same, Lassyne had to accept a tray of food from a servant gracefully, and eat in small bites, and in general make her stomach even more angry at her, all for the sake of appearing proper. Across from her, her brother and mother clinked their utensils over lunch—their second meal of the damn day—while sitting close together across the small wrought-iron tabletop. The three of them sat, as always, in an enclosed room, where Lassyne couldn't surprise them with any suicide attempts off a balcony. It didn't matter that Lassyne had never once done such a thing. They believed their perfect son, not their half-crazy daughter, whenever they got wind of her most recent "jump."
But at least this place had windows, a view. She'd spent entire months of her life without windows, and fully-enclosed spaces now gave her anxiety.
"I daresay the weather shall be lovely this week," her mother said noncommittally. They ate in the cozy dome of one of the temple's lapis towers, which overlooked the vicious crags common to the area. Lassyne liked to imagine her brother dashed open upon the rocks. It was one of the few things that gave her peace.
As she was picturing the way his head would break apart, her mother said to her steward, "When did you say Housemaster Form would arrive?"
The tall steward stood behind the Lady Read, against the wall, as silent as shadow. The man had listed off the day's events only minutes ago, but her mother often made a point to ignore her servants, forcing them to say everything twice.
"Midday, Your Grace," the man said. His name was Boris, a middle-class name. He'd had gray hair at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, and at thirty-something, he looked halfway to the grave.
"Good, good," Lady Read said. "He's the frontrunner, for certain. Although Prince Rastus is expected to put in a bid, and of course there are a few Audits who've booked rooms for the week. Ten to one, they will offer the most."
Lassyne scowled into her poached rockspinner eggs. She had turned twenty this year, the eligible age of marriage for elites in her country. And now she was being sold off to the highest bidder, as was tradition for the future leader of the duchy. All her parents cared about was that the suitor had coin—provided the man in question could also advance her family name.
She wondered which of the men, if any, would let her have the most freedom. Would they all keep her under guard, for fear of her "fits"? Or would some of them let her do whatever she wanted, as long as she made it to their bed in the evenings?
The thought made her nauseous. She stabbed an egg. The yolk dribbled out like gold blood.
"What do you think, Ossyne?" Lady Read said to her son, who sat at her right hand, as usual. "You're going to be her adviser, after all. You'll have to work with her husband daily."
Roseless King, Lassyne swore internally. Why did her mother always do this? How could the woman be so oblivious? Ossyne hated to be reminded that he came second to his sister. That despite being the eldest, he'd have to defer to Lassyne forever. Her magic was stronger, and so she'd continue the ducal blood line. Even if it was her husband and brother who did most of the ruling.
Like always, Lassyne was the only one to catch Ossyne's flicker of a scowl. "I would put my money on Form," he said casually, leaning back in his chair. "I'm told the man is all about structure. He'd be good for her, I think. She needs structure. It keeps her from having her fits."
Lassyne wanted to bend her fork in half, but she had been here before. Any open displays of
emotion resulted in different levels of hell. Bend a fork, and they'd take away what little private time she had, to make sure her every move was analyzed until the source of her "rebellion" was discovered. And if she dared to raise her voice too high, they'd shut her up in her rooms for a week to "calm her." And gods forbid she leave any mark on her brother. A single bruise on his arm would send her to a monastery for a month, and no one would ever believe it had been self-defense. Her reward would be thirty days of bare gray walls and endless prayers to the Scented Queen. She really would go mad if she had to do that again.
Lady Read was nodding now. "Yes, that's what I was thinking. He's the most powerful man in Optic, after the king. But I hear King Daisuke's commoner wife is pregnant. I wonder if we should wait until the birth? If she happens to die, he might need a new wife."
Carefully, slowly, with perfect attention to every tiny movement and sound, Lassyne laid her egg fork on her plate.
"Mother," she said sweetly. It took all she had not to say the words through gritted teeth. "I can barely contain my excitement. Please, may I go for a walk to expel this nervous energy?"
Her mother raised her gold eyes to her daughter. The two of them looked incredibly alike; straight noses, arched brows, skin like red amber, and curly ringlets piled atop their heads, shining with scented essential oils.
"What a fine idea," her mother replied. She glanced at Lassyne's uneaten food, but merely smiled. She never worried about Lassyne starving herself. To be thin was to be attractive. And if Lassyne ever grew weak from lack of nourishment, it was always chalked up to her "condition.”
"Thank you, Mother," Lassyne said, rising with studied grace from her chair, taking care to keep the yellow coins of her regalia from making any noise whatsoever. A woman should be silent, unless she was dancing. Or in the throes of pleasure, a maid had once told her.