Branded

by Clare London

  She was shaking, but I didn’t hold back. I heard words tumble from my mouth as if they were from someone else, and each one seemed to jolt her further. “I will follow your orders, whatever they may be. I’m a soldier. I always have been. And this soldier has returned to offer whatever he has left for your use. Don’t question my loyalty. Don’t despise me, as you seem to do now! I have no shame at my wounds, for they were suffered for the city, and for you. Whatever the politics are between the city and the Exiles, it’s nothing to me. I’ve just done my duty.”

  “Then it’s my right to use or abuse you as I wish,” she snapped suddenly at me. “I may have no use for you at all! I don’t owe you anything. You have no right to anything, except to act on my whim.”

  I drew breath. “I rely on your whim being wise, Mistress. I can’t ask for anything else.”

  The tension between us shattered like a thin pane of glass.

  SHE SAGGED, very slightly, but I feared she’d fall. I took enough steps to reach her side, and caught her gently around the waist. For that moment she leaned into me, as she often had before with affection and desire. I touched my lips to her soft hair; my hand stroked at the soft dimpling flesh of her arm.

  “Everything has changed, Maen.” Her voice was like a sob.

  “I don’t know what to say to comfort you, Mistress.” I knew my own life had been rocked to its foundations, but that was nothing more than a minor inconvenience in my Mistress’s life. What else could be causing her such anguish?

  “You think the life of a Mistress is easy.” She sighed and broke away from me, stepping quickly back as if fearing to be too close to me. “That my rule is an easy task.”

  “No,” I said softly. “Never. I don’t envy you the burden.”

  She flashed a glance at me, as if she suspected me of mockery again. “You were always beside me, Maen. You were always there, always supporting me. The best Gold Warrior in the city, some said. And you were in my Household.”

  I still am, I thought, but didn’t dare say. Was this to do with her pride alone? That she’d lost a Warrior? That she’d somehow lost face?

  “And yet, because of my pleasure for you, I ignored the warning signs. Signs of your inherent weakness.”

  I clenched my fists at my sides as I fought not to protest. What did she mean? I had lived! I had survived the worst a soldier had ever suffered. I was the strongest she’d ever had in her Guard—

  “You were always a risk. I believe you still are. Even as a Bronzeman, you had a vulnerability toward the soldiers, toward other men. You always had need for them.”

  The chill was slow to surround me, but it was seeping deep into my bones. “Comrades,” I said. “That’s what they are to me. I’ve taken pride in building you a Guard of strong, fine men. I’ve been selfish, perhaps, in enjoying that achievement.”

  Mistress Luana moved back toward me, and now it was I who was shaky on my feet. My fear was more than anything I’d known in battle—more than the fear I’d known with the Exiles, even when they’d attacked Dax. I looked at the slight, lovely woman, and I saw nothing but my own disaster.

  She knew. She knew about Dax and me. I didn’t know how, but she did. The suspicion of magic flared in my mind, as it often had. Or maybe it was just her knowledge of me. Perhaps I’d never been in control of myself at all.

  “Selfish, yes. And to give you credit, you’ve fought your desires. You’ve hidden them well. But it’s eaten away at you, Maen, the need for something more than mere physical satisfaction. I’ve felt it sometimes when you’ve been with me, seen it in your eyes when you look at the men. You see more than their skills, more than their use to the city.”

  I couldn’t deny it. I’d thought it a strength that I cared for my men more than other Gold Warriors did. To my Mistress, though, it was a betrayal, a dilution of the total devotion to her that she craved.

  And in the case of Dax, so much more.

  I was distracted and didn’t see her hand rise. Her slap was vicious, knocking my head to the side. I bit at my lip, feeling the stinging warmth on my cheek.

  “You’re not entitled to anything more than existence, soldier!” she hissed. “I don’t ask you to have pride, to enjoy your life! What makes you think you can humiliate me by seeking more than that?”

  I didn’t even try to answer now. She wouldn’t have listened to me.

  “Since you came to me—since I first saw you as mine—you’ve been different from the rest. I thought I would teach you the singular joy of serving your Mistress, the satisfaction in controlling my Guard, the pleasure of battle for the glory of the city. I had such hopes of you, Maen! But I saw the seeds of restlessness early on, when you were a new Silver Captain.” She caught my shocked gaze. “Yes, I think you were tempted, even then, to seek the friendships you know are forbidden. And so I thought I should show you what it meant to care too much for your own. To give affection to your own kind.”

  To show me?

  “Don’t you remember that day? Your first execution?” She must have seen from my expression that I did. “I needed you to see what the role of Gold Warrior encompassed, to see what you’d be giving yourself to. You were so eager then, so ready to do my bidding.” A thin, sad smile tugged at her mouth. Her face was flushed with her argument. “But you had to know there’d be pain too, and punishment for disobedience. For allowing anything at all to become more important than service to the city. That’s what the disgraced Gold Warrior learned that day. And I hoped you would too.”

  I stared at her, aghast. I remembered her insistence that I attend the execution. Remembered standing next to Varden, scared of the whole event and yet comforted by his presence beside me. Remembered my Mistress’s especially sensual comfort of me that night.

  And then the banishment of Varden. Sudden and vindictive. That had all been part of her lesson.

  “I claimed you back,” she murmured, her voice slurring again. She reached out, but her hand stopped short of touching me. “You were only ever for me. And you’d been happy with that, hadn’t you? You were the most perfect Warrior, the most devoted servant.”

  I was silent.

  “But now the boy….” She moved slowly across the floor as if pacing out her thoughts, her brow furrowed and her hands clasped on her stomach. Maybe she held back nausea. But this time I didn’t step forward to help her. My feelings toward my Mistress were changing—had been changed—and I was never more aware of it. “Didn’t I look after him enough for you, Maen? He could never be yours, of course not. But I thought I would help you be strong. I would help you overcome your weakness. So I kept him from the others…. I kept him for myself.” Her laugh was low and truly bitter. “He was always different, like you had been. Beautiful as only a young boy can be, with a great strength and will. But he held something back. He hid something of himself from me. From me! Unlike you, I was never convinced he’d be as loyal.” She turned suddenly to face me. “Why wasn’t that enough for you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to repress all emotion in my voice.

  Her gaze bored into me. The expression on her face had twisted her so severely that her beauty seemed just a memory. “What happened to the pair of you there, Maen? At the Place? You must tell me, as your duty. I command you to! What happened to you?”

  It was a defining moment in our relationship. We both knew that. She was my Mistress still, but I felt the surge of confidence I’d known earlier, as if I had been released from a dark, clouded time, cast out into a bright, busy world that I knew only a fraction of. It was terrifying—but it was empowering. Of all things, it couldn’t be ignored.

  “I have nothing more to tell you,” I said. My voice sounded strained, but steady.

  Mistress Luana seemed to shrink back from me. “It’s not enough, Maen. Tell me things will be the same. That you will be the same.” She struggled to recover her composure, turning dark eyes back to me that she’d tried to soften, to fill with a plea. “Tell me you�
�ll still look at me the same way.”

  I bowed my head, for I wouldn’t do her the disservice of staring at her with my disobedience, with my rebellion. With my inability to give her the answer she wanted.

  She was silent for a long moment.

  “I no longer want you here,” she said finally, her voice hoarse. “Go! Go, and wait for my call.”

  I backed out of the room. Her whisper followed me, even as I closed the heavy door behind me.

  “And so now I know.”

  I WALKED through the barracks for another hour or more. Life had been difficult ever since I returned, but now I was truly honest with myself. I saw other men with different eyes, judged them with different standards. Had it really made such an impact on me, my time at the Place? Had I really absorbed so much of the Exiles’ ways that I couldn’t regain my objectivity? I’d blamed the pain of my injuries and my fear for what the Household would do to Dax. I blamed the break in my Devotions. I blamed everything but the change in my own attitude, and it was a revelation. I looked now at soldiers I knew and saw their character, rather than their military skill. I compared them with the people and the types I’d met at the Place. The two worlds seemed so very dissimilar, but humankind was still the same. I recognized a range of personality that I’d never acknowledged before. The generic soldier—loyal, obedient, servile—was no longer so obvious. I saw men I knew to be good, sound, compassionate, ugly in mind, selfish, cruel.

  Now my eyes had been fully opened. This was the true objectivity.

  Eventually I asked several Silver Captains where I could find Grien. Every request I made forced me to see the shock in their faces, the fear they had of associating with me. It was vivid and humiliating. These men had been respectful of me, had once been grateful for my leadership. But now they looked at me as if I were an Exile myself. I was an outcast, someone to fear, or at the very least to despise. Bernos was occupied elsewhere in the city, or I would have gone to him. I’d never built the same relationship with Hull. So Grien was the only one I could talk to.

  I found him in the office I once used myself. I paused at the door, ready to knock, then dropped my hand and just pushed the door open. He looked up with surprise, his eyes narrowing quickly. “Maen. The Mistress—”

  “I’ve seen her already. She’ll call me back, I’m sure. Before that, I need to know where Dax is.”

  “Dax?” Grien’s mouth started to form a protest, but something in my look stopped him. Instead, he stood so he faced me. His eyes had never shown the disgust that I saw in others; there was still residual respect. And now I played on it.

  “Tell me at once.”

  “He’s been taken to the Main Hall. Just an hour ago.” The hall was the central room of the Mistress’s quarters, used for major entertainments, and some of the indoor sports at the Games. The Household feasts and general Council matters were all attended to there. And so were any disciplinary hearings of her Guard. I turned to go there immediately.

  “Maen,” Grien called in a low but urgent voice. I paused, though I didn’t turn back to face him. It hurt too much to see the change in him, to know the change in myself. “The Queen-Elect has arrived back in the Household too. Seleste herself is here. She’s demanded to oversee the questioning of him personally.” He seemed to grow impatient at my silence. “What in Devotions’ name happened at the Place?” It was an unconscious echo of my Mistress’s earlier words. “What’s happened to you?”

  I didn’t answer him—couldn’t, for I didn’t know. “I must go there” is all I said, feeling he deserved some response. “I must see Seleste.”

  And seek my own answers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE CORRIDOR leading toward the hall was guarded by Silver Captains—many of them. Some of them were my own, or rather, they’d been part of the Guard when I was their Gold Warrior. A few I knew less well as they were under Bernos’s Guard, or Hull’s. I began to stride past them, but one soldier immediately moved away from his position and barred my way.

  “No one can enter the hall except with the Queen-Elect’s permission,” he said rather pompously. “Her questioning is in progress.” I knew he was young and untried. Even with my injuries, I could have taken him down in a moment. But because of all the others around, I knew I wouldn’t get any further if I did.

  “Then speak to her,” I said coldly. “She’ll want to see me. Tell her Maen is here.” I still had the bearing of a Gold Warrior; I still had the voice. I saw the young man hesitate. Two others moved in behind him, but they were uncertain. I moved my feet slightly, taking up a fighting stance.

  And then Bernos appeared from a side room.

  I’d not seen him since my return, and now I wondered if the Mistress had forbidden the other Gold Warriors to speak to me. His gaze landed on me: his eyes were dark and angry. It chilled me. He’d been my mentor for so long, I thought he would understand.

  “Leave,” he said quietly, though his voice carried easily through the corridor. “Leave it alone. Go back to your barracks.”

  “No,” I said. “This concerns me as much as the Bronzeman.”

  Bernos’s eyes narrowed and he stepped closer to me. “I know that,” he said sharply, though now our conversation was directed away from the listening ears of the soldiers.

  “Then let me through!”

  “I know,” he repeated, putting a hand to my chest to restrain me. “And that’s why you must keep away. His fate will be whatever the Queen-Elect decides, but yours will perhaps have a chance. If you ally yourself with him now, you place yourself in the same danger.”

  It was all wrong. Dax had been as loyal as I, as faithful as I. But I knew that a man after questioning was never accepted back into the Household as before. I knew this display was often a way to deal with men whom the Household could not subjugate. The results were a farce, for the decision had already been made as regards a man’s future. Or lack of it.

  And my future? Bernos implied I might have one, unlike Dax. That I might save myself if I distanced myself from Dax and the ordeal we’d been through. I looked at the Gold Warrior who’d been my companion and colleague through many years, and kept my gaze steady. I couldn’t accept any future on those terms. I couldn’t bear the pain it caused me.

  “Let me through,” I insisted. “I must talk to her.”

  With a weary sigh, Bernos stepped out of my way.

  I pushed hard on the door to the hall and it swung open with the groan that only comes from old, careworn wood. A room full of people turned toward me, startled. My Mistress was there, with Hull at her side. There were Silvers I recognized too—Fremer, looking very tired, and several others who’d been in my Guard. Also a cluster of unfamiliar soldiers in full armor and rich cloaks, surrounding and protecting the intimidating presence of the Queen-Elect herself.

  My gaze went elsewhere.

  Dax was bound upright on a frame at the far side of the hall, though if it weren’t for the ropes around his limbs he would have fallen. He was barely conscious. He wore nothing but his loose trousers, and there was a network of cuts and weals across his body. Admittedly, it was nothing like the crude brutality of the Exiles’ torture. Soldiers of the Household were trained in far more subtle, yet far more effective, methods of extracting information. But sweat glinted all over his skin and his face had an unhealthy yellow pallor. His gaze lifted as I entered the room, but I couldn’t see if he registered my presence or not.

  A tall, handsome Gold Warrior stood beside him, glaring at me. He must have been part of Seleste’s Guard, and relatively new. I knew most of the others from her previous visit. He was in formal armor with only the helmet removed, and I acknowledged the small gold hoop in his ear with a brief nod of respect.

  “Mistresses,” he said, in a deep, strong voice. “Do you wish this soldier removed from the hall?”

  There were plenty of Silvers in place around the room. If the Queen-Elect requested it, I could easily be ejected. My Mistress moved restlessly at
the edge of my sight.

  “No, my loyal Zander,” Seleste said in her powerful yet melodic voice. The soldier flushed slightly, as if he’d heard that voice in other settings and responded too readily to it. I knew he was likely a favorite of hers. “Maen will be my guest. Unless, of course, Mistress Luana has some objection?”

  My Mistress pushed herself out from behind Hull to face me. Her face was pale and her dark eyes wide and ringed with dark shadows. I was startled at her apparent disturbance. I had no idea why the women were so hostile to each other, but it’d never been clearer than at that moment.

  “My objections have no bearing on this matter,” she snapped. “The Queen-Elect has command of the hall and precedence over the people therein.”

  Seleste raised an eyebrow very slightly and answered clearly, though her gaze was on me, not my Mistress. “You speak truth, Mistress Luana. You are honored by the visit of the Royal Household, and the Council will credit you for it. We thank you for that and have made our desires and requirements clear to you. There is no need for you to bear any further responsibility for us.” There was a flickering light in Seleste’s eyes, the reflection from a lamp lit high on the wall. Strangely enough, her look reminded me of the Exile woman, Eila. I wondered if that was because they were part of the same family, however far removed.

  She moved toward me, the soldier Zander at her shoulder. “Do you come to offer any further information?” she asked calmly. “The boy has been as helpful as he can be, I believe.”

  What did that mean? “He’s already told my Mistress about the ambush,” I said, rather too fiercely. “About his abduction. There’s no need for further interrogation—”

  “Silence!” she ordered, and I bit back any further words. “I don’t ask your contribution to my decisions, soldier. Your attendance here is at my bidding, not yours. Of course, you may wish to tell me more about that time than you told your Mistress. In which case, I’ll listen.”