It wasn’t as useful as she would have liked, but the wand accepted it, and she moved on to another object that looked like a gilded horse’s tail with a knot at the top, each hair coated in real gold. She brushed the wand through the tail; the long strands rattled like ice-coated willow branches. The wand pulled magic from the tail, and Melaine felt a sudden rush of wind blow past her as if she was in a racing carriage. Her wine-red satin gown fluttered in its wake.
A speed spell. That could be very useful.
She was tempted to take the speed spell with her own hands, so it would permanently bind to her mind and body, but she couldn’t indulge in the luxury. For now, she had to absorb as much knowledge into the wand as possible. She needed spells that could help her fight or flee, should her life’s future provoke either.
Melaine passed by more objects, trailing her wand over them, allowing their knowledge to enter the wand for later use. Just a taste from each, like the lavish and unnecessary dinner feasts she had heard the rich were fond of. But the metaphor dripped away. In truth, she felt more like a beggar scarfing down scraps of bread before someone else came to steal them.
After wandering among the hexagonal ring of shelves for a time, she felt an almost tangible pull from a shadowed shelf ahead. She hadn’t even hovered her wand in its direction, yet strange magic twisted through the air and flooded her flesh, seeping into her bones. With her next breath, she felt magical tendrils creeping toward her brain.
She walked toward the dim corner that housed the mysterious shelf. What little light there was shone dark red, different from the crisp yellow sunshine pouring through the library’s tall windows and balcony. Melaine took a breath as she stepped into the red light that deepened the crimson fabric of her dress. Magic swept into her every pore, compelling and heady. Invisible strings seemed to latch onto her from every Insight on the shelf, hooking her like a carp in a strong river current.
Some strings pulled harder than others. As she closed the distance, she began to eye the Insights.
She felt called toward several, but one practically yanked her hand toward it. She snatched up a silver locket with words embossed on its oval surface. The chain of the necklace rattled against the edge of the shelf as she squeezed the locket and read the flourish of words.
Keeper of Lust and Seduction.
Melaine shivered, and her body flooded with heat. The locket pulsed, powerful and deep, urging her to open the little silver clasp and learn all of the secrets within. Her mind was overpowered by memories of the Overlord in her quarters during the clandestine night. The heat and intoxicating scent of his body, the unbidden longing she felt in his presence, the mesmerizing brush of his lips on hers before he turned away and disappeared.
Melaine shoved the memories from her head and threw the locket to the ground with a growl. It sprang open, revealing a lock of silky brown hair inside.
A shadow fell over the locket. She gasped and felt foolish when she saw the Overlord standing in the space between two shelves, blocking her way out of the disturbing library corner. He wore a simple black shirt and trousers as she’d come to expect in daylight hours. She couldn’t see his collarbones like she had the night before, highlighted by moonlight and softly brushed by his long hair in a pleasing way that made her wonder what the two textures would feel like under her fingers.
Her cheeks flushed as he bent down and retrieved the locket. He inspected the lock of hair, though he eventually set it back and left it alone, curled inside the silver oval casing. He closed the locket with a light click.
When he looked back at her, his eyes glittered, and he wore a subtle smile of dry humor.
“You have a problem with intimacy, Stonegirl?”
Melaine’s heart thumped, and her stomach squirmed. Thoughts about intimacy, both physical and emotional, had always been a problem, but that was none of the Overlord’s business. She didn’t want to think about what he might say if she ever revealed she’d almost been raped several times in Stakeside—that she had nearly been exposed to the filth and disease that could stem from physical contact. That she’d been weak enough at times that she had barely escaped. Or, would he judge her more if he knew she had never partaken in sex, that she was still ignorant of the intricacies?
She bit the inside of her cheek to restrain her frustration, hopefully suppressing the blush she felt burning all the way to her ears. She’d never cared what anyone thought about her choices regarding sex so far, but…after last night, she wasn’t sure what she thought or how to respond to his question. He had been so close to her in the dark, so warm, his scent intoxicating. The idea of willingly embracing a man, of welcoming him into her body, into her life, felt different from before. She felt lighter, like a shroud was lifted from her mind. And…not just any man. The Overlord.
Could intimacy be different than she’d always imagined? Salma sometimes spoke of her late husband with great fondness, and Melaine could guess from Salma and Jianthe’s flirtations that there might be more between them, whether casual or serious, Melaine didn’t know nor ask about. The only women who discussed sex in greater detail around Melaine were the prostitutes to whom she sold lodestones. Sometimes they’d mock their own customers or express bitterness of their lot, which Melaine could identify with. But sometimes, they would describe sex as bliss, that even love through intimacy could be achieved, even for people in their position, even for people like Melaine. Consensual intimacy, an equal exchange of equal desires, a partnership rather than a power-ploy, no one taking advantage of the other…. Could that sort of intimacy be possible?
The Overlord raised his hand and sent the closed locket slowly floating through the air on a wisp of bright blue magic. Melaine eyed the Insight until it slipped back into its place on the shelf. When she turned back, the Overlord was leaning against the shelf’s edge as if the small act of magic had drained him. His eyes flashed toward hers, and he turned around and walked to the library’s center. Melaine forced her unease and embarrassment down and followed.
“Did you know that woman?” she asked. “Whose hair is in the locket?”
The Overlord chuckled. Melaine blushed and wondered what had possessed her to ask that question first when others should have been more urgent.
“No,” he said. “An old woman pressed it into my hand when I was young and deemed…eligible. She candidly told me it was the hair of her ‘whore daughter’, but her daughter was dead from the pox and had no use of it. She said the spell would help me find a wife. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I wasn’t interested in such things.”
“You weren’t?”
“Not when I was seventeen,” he said. “I had a kingdom to establish, after all.”
Melaine thought “establish” was an odd choice of words, when “conquer” would have been more accurate. She wondered how the glorious and horrific tales she’d heard about the Overlord’s revolt would sound coming from his own lips. She almost asked him, but for now, his talk of women and seduction was leading her down an entirely different trail of thought.
He sat down in his favored chair by one of the tables. He took a few labored breaths and gestured with a single finger for Melaine to sit across from him. She circled the table and sat on her chair’s edge. The Overlord’s humor seemed to have faded fast. His glazed eyes were aimed at the table. Melaine picked at her glove’s black lace on the back of her hand. After a moment of silence, she gathered her courage and spoke.
“My lord,” she said. “Last night…”
The Overlord didn’t respond to her fishing. He didn’t respond at all.
“Did you sleep well last night?” Melaine asked.
It took a moment for the Overlord to register her question. Then, he looked up.
“You’ve never asked me such a trivial question before,” he replied. “Why the sudden concern for my wellbeing?”
“I…was just wondering if you felt as restless as I did. I kept waking up at odd hours. Did you sleep all night?”
“I was wondering when you would discover that shelf,” the Overlord said. “You resisted it longer than most would.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked with a frown.
The corner of the Overlord’s mouth twitched in amusement. “The Insights on that shelf have a way of influencing people. The spells they contain involve mind control.”
Melaine’s eyebrows rose. “Mind control? They…made me come to that section?”
“They called to you, yes,” the Overlord said. “But they only had the power to do so because for some reason, Melaine, you feel vulnerable today.”
“I don’t feel vulnerable,” Melaine countered.
The Overlord chuckled. “Deny it if you wish, but those Insights don’t lie. Their original creators imbued them with so much persuasive magic that their potency extends beyond their physical confines. A side effect of dealing with mind magic. The magic within can sense your desires and seek to control you through them.”
For an instant, Melaine was back in the Hole, smearing her blood-covered hand over a guard’s mouth, telling him to feed on raw meat with other degenerates so she could gain access to Scroupe. She had felt foreign magic coursing through her in that desperate moment. The guard had done as she ordered.
But that couldn’t have been mind magic. How could she have known how to do it?
The Overlord continued, drawing her from her thoughts.
“Insights that hold the most potential for control over you call to you the most. In this case,” he eyed the shelf, “seduction and lust seem to be on your mind.”
“That’s not true,” Melaine said. “You don’t know anything about me. Neither do those stupid Insights.”
The Overlord leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. His eyes were fierce, and his voice turned too quiet.
“Know your weaknesses, Melaine,” he said. “Deny them, and you are susceptible to failure.”
He was so close that she could have lifted her hands from her lap and laid them upon his if she wanted to. But she kept them hidden, clenching her fists tight.
“Was that a test, then?” she whispered. “Last night?”
A flicker of confusion passed through his eyes, which then narrowed with analyzation. Melaine sat still, disconcerted, but she held her ground and tried to read him as much as he tried to read her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in dismissal. “As you said before, this castle provokes nightmares.” He sat back, but his attempt to sit straight failed, and he leaned on the back of his chair. “Lodestones,” he said, his voice flat with exhaustion.
Melaine dropped her eyes, a disappointed twinge in her heart. “Two, my lord?”
“Yes.”
Melaine nodded and kept her hands under the table as she removed her lace gloves. She set them in her lap and concentrated. She gathered magic into her palms.
Weaker lodestones, Serj had suggested. She hadn’t yet decided if she would follow his advice. Now, as she physically felt her treasured magic leaving her, she stopped dredging it from her marrow and lifted it from her pores instead. She infused the forming stones with superficial magic. She clenched her fists and hardened them to purple-black crystal.
She opened her hands and hovered her palms across the table. The Overlord reached out for the first stone and grazed Melaine’s palm with his fingertips as he lifted it. Her heart bounced, and she yanked her hand back to clutch at the red satin of her dress beneath the table.
She looked up when the Overlord took the second stone and brought it to his lips. A low, ember’s glow burned in her chest and slowed her racing heart as she watched him inhale her magic from the stone. The process had never felt so intimate before. Those same lips had brushed hers, a fleeting sensation, yet so firm and lasting in memory. She could almost taste him, and she wondered what his magic would taste like. For a brief moment, she wished he could make lodestones, too, that they could exchange power, fuse with one another, share, dance…. Fanciful and strange, a reality that could never happen.
The empty stone disintegrated in the air, but the resilience the Overlord usually showed after taking her magic was dampened. She waited for him to notice and call her out on making weaker stones, but he only sat there with his head bowed. Melaine frowned as she watched his shallow breathing, and suddenly, she felt sorry for him.
Her instincts were shouting alarms at her. To feel sorry for the weak was the fastest way to become weak yourself in Stakeside. Sharing what little food and shelter you had with others could mean your death, ever faster if sickness was involved. Melaine had followed that creed her entire life, and she was alive because of it. She had made her way here because of it, and she couldn’t let something like…sympathy ruin everything.
The longer she watched the Overlord staring at the table, the more her worries grew. Not worries for herself, no, those worries slipped away into the background of her thoughts. She couldn’t deny it—she was worried about him.
“My lord?” she asked. He didn’t respond. She crinkled her brow. The stones she made were weaker than usual, but they still held more than enough magic to revive him.
Her disapproval started to return. She hadn’t suspected it before, but as she watched his shallow inhales and exhales, and saw that even her stones weren’t helping alleviate his pain, she started to connect his symptoms with others she’d seen in some of her more frequent clients.
To think the Overlord had weakened himself for lack of willpower…
“My lord,” she said, remaining cautious as she began to walk along a sheer cliff-line. “I’ve been making lodestones for a long time. I’ve seen…I know what happens when people overuse them. They start depending on them. They become addicted. The magic doesn’t affect them as strongly as it did at the start. It makes them weaker, my lord.”
The Overlord started laughing. It was a harsh, rasping sound, and he hunched over and leaned his head into his hand to cover his face. His fingers formed claws, and he dragged them back through his stringy hair as his laughter turned bitter at its end. He looked into her eyes, his burning.
“You think I’m weak because of addiction?” he asked. His tone was dangerous, and Melaine’s heartbeat quickened.
“I only wish you the best, my lord—”
“You wish the best for yourself!” His face contorted in a livid snarl. “You want to keep all your magic. You don’t appreciate what I’m teaching you, how spoiled you are to have a teacher, to have all of these rare Insights at your disposal.”
“No,” Melaine protested. “I want—My lord, I care about you!” She shut up after that, shocked at what she had just said.
The Overlord slowed his tirade. She wasn’t sure if it was because he believed her or because he was too exhausted to continue his strenuous rage. He steadied his breathing and sat still. His eyes were less vibrant than she had ever seen them, and he watched her with a soft, sorrowful frown that became tinged with gentle longing. He parted his cracked lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.
“I’m not addicted, Melaine. Not for the reasons you think.” He winced and glanced away, and for the first time, Melaine saw a different kind of weakness in the Overlord. It wasn’t physical or magical. It was emotional. His frown deepened into profound despair, and his bloodshot eyes watered. She took a breath to speak.
“I’ve had enough for one day,” he said.
“My lord.”
“Go,” he responded, but the word was barely audible, and he refused to meet her gaze.
Melaine sat back. Worry for his wellbeing gnawed at her with sharper teeth, claws scratching at the wall she had buil
t years ago to keep the world and everyone in it away.
She felt a strong pull to refuse his command, but she clenched her jaw, then gave a short nod and stood. She felt like she was crawling back into the half-buried supply crate she’d lived in as a young child, someplace just as small and dark. She made her way to the door and placed her hand upon the warm, soothing wood.
It had the same comforting touch she had experienced in a delicate flash when the Overlord’s fingers had touched her palm.
Chapter 9
The gate was opening.
Its heavy groans of iron on iron were enough to awake Melaine from a night of fitful slumber just as the sun rose. The floor vibrated under her feet as she bolted out of her bedroom to the nearest window in the hearth room. She stood, mouth agape, watching the thick iron bars of the gate descend, while others raised, opening like the jaws of an enormous beast.
Melaine had only spent a few days within Highstrong Keep’s surrounding walls, but she had grown accustomed to their stability and their protection of her new life. Seeing them open to the outside world was like tearing a hole in her gloves. She wanted it mended.
Melaine squinted as she peered through the window at a small figure of a man standing at the open gate with the reins of a pair of horses in hand. The horses were hitched to a large cart filled with wooden crates and canvas bags. Just inside the gate stood a second, pale figure in the shape of a woman. She wore a long dress whose color seemed to blend with the cold sunlight. The man with the horses paid her no mind, but she must have come with him.
The woman looked up at Melaine, somehow aware she was watching from the high distance. But the man looked past the woman toward the keep. Melaine followed his gaze and saw Karina exit the side door of the castle. Her gray, beehive hair floated over her quick, steady stride across the grounds toward the gate.
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