“No…” answered Peribel. “I tell you, I wanted to test a reaction with meldus, a new formula that I could not test safely in the Furnace. I wanted to take it outside Rostane in case… in case something went wrong. I didn’t want anyone to be hurt.”
“So you’ve told me,” Darian said. “So, you take meldus out of this place under the darkness, expecting security to be lax. The Adders are very good, though, and detected your ruse. They followed you to that farm, where you simply read and waited. Waiting for someone.”
“No! I was reading manuscripts on meldus so I could be sure before I risked my life.” Peribel was openly weeping now, wiping at her eyes with trembling hands.
“Manuscripts that you stole from me.” Darian leaned forward, his voice the hiss of a venomous snake preparing to strike. Peribel struggled backward, but had nowhere to go. Her ankles were bound to the stool, and the stool was bolted to the ground.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I made a mistake! I should have known better, but I needed to know!” Peribel cried, her eyes darting between Fenrir, Ingla, and Darian.
“Despite the consequences?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“A poor quality in a scientist. A worse quality in anyone who works for me.”
Darian turned to Fenrir, his face as hard as the stone that encased them. “This is the unfortunate price of betrayal. Peribel stole from me and lied to me. The reasoning is inconsequential—perhaps she was, indeed, testing this formula on her own. Perhaps she meant to sell it to a competitor or enemy. It doesn’t matter. The disobedience remains. The lies remain. The price is the same.”
Darian carefully donned two thick leather gloves, and then he pulled out a small, clear glass bottle from an inner pocket of his black overcoat. He held it to the light for a moment, revealing a cloudy pink substance swirling around like a tiny storm. Was this a liquid version of his burning ice?
Peribel saw the bottle and renewed her struggles.
“Boy. Ingla. Hold her arms.”
Ingla shoved his back roughly, forcing him forward.
“Do what he says, trash,” she said, her voice filled with its typical anger. More quietly, punctuated by a small squeeze of his shoulder, she added, “Be strong.”
Fenrir tentatively grasped Peribel’s wrist, noticing, very acutely, her nakedness. Not in a sexual way, though she had a slim figure and near flawless, pale skin. No, he recognized the vulnerability of her nakedness. Fenrir wished, for a moment, that he could drape a blanket around her shoulders and take her from this place. He wished he had the strength to fight his father.
Darian dipped a tiny dropper into the bottle, extracting a miniscule amount of this pink substance. He held the dropper above Peribel, who was wheezing heavy, fearful breaths. Fenrir could feel the sweat beading on her skin.
“Peribel de Annos…” Darian began formally, “…in violation of your contract and in violation of the law, I find you guilty of theft and treason against the de Trenton family. It is with great difficulty that I will now carry out your sentence. You shall be put to death with the very chemical you sought to steal: meldus. Your family will not be paid your death pension, and will be made aware of your treasonous activities. If investigation reveals any culpability, they will be dealt the same sentence.”
“No…” Perible moaned, straining against Fenrir and Ingla. “My son is innocent. Please…”
Darian cut in. “You will not be allowed a Yetranian funeral, but will instead be cremated and given to the Fullane.” This was a deep insult to a Yetranian, only reserved for those who’d been damned or excommunicated. Peribel, like most Ardians, must have been Yetranian. Her struggles ceased at this condemnation, her head hanging limply in unrestrained defeat.
Without hesitation, Darian released a drop of the meldus onto Peribel’s bare thigh.
Fenrir’s eyes were trained on her exposed skin, terrified of what was to come. He’d heard stories, long ago, of the experiments conducted in the laboratory, of the mutilated sheep corpses that were fed to furnaces. Of the terrible, human-like howling of pigs that could sometimes be heard, late at night, emanating from the great, blocky building.
At first, nothing happened. Her skin remained pale and unchanged, and Peribel even looked up at Darian, hope thick in her gray eyes. And then she began to scream. It was a keening noise that cut through the small chamber like Fenrir’s blade had cut through the little duke’s body. Her flesh began to turn a soft red, color spreading slowly from the focal point of the drop. A deeper red bulls-eye was in the middle, and then that color spread, as well.
She bucked and pulled so strongly that Fenrir nearly lost his grip. Ingla, however, was granite.
The woman’s thigh began to bubble and blacken, muscle seeming to melt below what was left of her skin. The flesh was dying by degrees, from below her knee to near her pelvic bone. Her calf, untouched by this spreading plague, twitched compulsively against the bonds. It only took moments for her leg to die, the effect of this chemical taking only a dozen or so breaths. Though, to Peribel, it must have felt like a lifetime—blue, straining veins were pulsing on her forehead, and her face was twisted in a caricature of humanity.
When it was clear that this first torture was over, Darian grasped Peribel’s face in his leather grip and looked into her pain-filled eyes as she whimpered. His gaze was inscrutable, though a brief spasm of unrecognizable emotion flashed across his features before he let a drop of meldus fall onto her cheek.
This time, there was no delay. The thin flesh of Peribel’s face began to redden and blacken, bubbling and blistering as she howled. Her mouth twisted in a terrible grin as her lips were eaten away, and her scream turned into a garbled cry as her tongue began to shrivel and melt. Her eyes, though, were the worst to behold. They began to bulge out of her head, seemingly larger than possible. The gray irises filled with crimson, and each eye simply popped and deflated, one after the other.
Fenrir fought the urge to be sick, but could not look away.
After a few more moments of struggle, the meldus finally spread to Peribel’s brain. Mercifully, she was finally dead.
Darian de Trenton leveled his black-pool gaze at Fenrir without wavering, without a hint of empathy or guilt. Without humanity.
“If you betray me… if anything happens to me or my holdings as a result of your actions, this will be Astora’s fate before it be your own.”
Chapter 22
They would be safe in Agricorinor.
Meri clung to the idea like a woman slipping off a cliff would cling to shallow-rooted grass. Agricorinor would provide them with succor. Agricorinor would heal their wounds. Agricorinor would teach her to master her Yetra-forsaken powers, and then she would move on with her life. Whatever that looked like for her now.
There was no returning home. Even had Dunmore not been decimated, even had she not killed at least two townsmen—rapists, both—Ragen was gone. She has accepted her father as lost, and she had taken time to mourn and honor him. So then, would she pursue his kidnappers and murderers? The trail was colder than the harsh winter winds of Rafón. It would be like chasing a nightmare… impalpable, nebulous, and full of terrifying memories. She would be like Eramore, whose travels had launched a hundred stories.
Eramore, a Jecustan knight, had wandered the range of Saiwen searching for his lost wife. The stories said that she had been taken during a trip to the market in Farrow’s Hold, and by a dozen men, each wearing a symbol of a crimson sword over their hearts. The Band of the Crimson Blades, as they’d become known, had disappeared into the night with Lady Raslin as their prisoner. Everywhere in Saiwen, there were stories of her husband Eramore’s adventures in search of her. Once, he’d been in Nistling, and single-handedly boarded and destroyed a pirate ship on the Crown Seas, having gotten word that the Band of the Crimson Blades had an association with said pirates. In another story, this one from Thaul, he’d killed the lord of Yurinor in fair combat, thinking he had hidden information about h
is wife’s takers. Instead of taking the city, as would have been his right, he’d then continued on his hopeless quest for a woman long gone. He might still be hunting in his dotage; new stories popped up from time to time, though who could vouch for their veracity?
Merigold did not want to be an Eramore, a lost soul roaming the land searching for something that could not be found, saving and shattering lives in the process. She would not become a tragedy, a topic for roadside taverns and small town plays. “I’ve heard Merigold killed a dozen nobles in Farrow’s Hold.” “I’ve heard that she burned down a Yetranian chapel because they were hiding some knowledge of the men who destroyed Dunmore.” No, that would not be her. So, what would she be, then?
Months ago, in her pain and loss following the Battle of Florens, Merigold had decided that it was her goddess-given role to exterminate the world of magic. It was a terrible thing, this ability that she had. The blood on her hands painted the appendages crimson. The memories that she had stolen rendered her confused about her own past. And the lives that she had ruined left her awash with a conflicting guilt and a feeling of righteous pride. No one should wield such power, but who was she to take it away? Cryden had said hundreds of people in every major city had some capacity for magic—would she have to hunt down and kill each of those people? And what would that do to her soul, assuming there’d be anything left of it after that?
The height of arrogance, to think that she—Merigold Hinter—would be chosen for anything by a higher power, by a goddess who probably didn’t exist.
“Merigold!” A rough hand gripped her arm, yanking her near off her horse. “You were drifting off. It would be a shame to come this far and crack your skull on the road.” Lisan shot Meri a wan smile that she flashed back, though unconvincingly. It was dark out; they had to ride at night to remain undetected, and the frozen night lulled Meri into the less-traveled reaches of her mind.
“Sorry, I’ve never been very good on a horse, and fleeing an army is a bit exhausting.”
“Pfft. Hardly an army. Just a dozen patrols of Sun Guard bent on revenge after we maimed their highest-ranking and most well-loved captain. Tinto, with his formerly-perfect face, surely holds a bit of a grudge, as well,” Lisan said wryly.
“Quite reassuring. You should have been a Taneo, advising people on how to overcome their challenges and find peace in their lives.” Meri smiled in memory of Taneo Marsh, always lending an ear no matter how small the problem.
“Or I could just become a professional con artist and feed people the same number of lies,” Lisan spat, and with enough venom that Merigold started.
“Whatever you believe in—Yetra, other gods, or nothing—you have to admit that the Taneos do a lot of good. They help guide the people, keep them on some moral path. Even if the book that spouts those morals may be flawed in some way, these people have given their lives over to others,” said Merigold.
“I think we are considering different religions. Your average Taneo is just as greedy, corrupt, and manipulative as a noble. They just hide it under robes and behind a book.”
“We may have to agree to disagree. I’ve little love, these days, for the Yetranians….” it was hard to say that, but it was true. Every time she found some sort of hope, again it was dashed against rocks like a ship in a storm. “But the precepts of The Book of Amorum are sound. The parables speak of love, patience, kindness, and charity. Certainly, some simply do lip service to that, but others live that, day by day.”
“Those are dead values in this world. Love gets you betrayed. Patience gets you ambushed. Kindness gets you taken advantage of. And charity typically just helps line the pockets of people who don’t deserve it.” In the low light of the stars, Lisan’s ungenerous features appeared nearly violent.
“Then in what do you believe? Who is the Day Mother?” Meri asked, remembering that Lisan had used this name like as both praise and curse in their time together.
“The Day Mother is a fake goddess who does nothing, much like Yetra. I’ve spent some time abroad, and I simply like the sound her name. She was, in fact, widely worshipped on an island off the coast of Menoga, a place where they spoke a bastardized Jecustan, despite the hundreds or thousands of intervening miles. She may even have been an offshoot of Yetranian myth, were I to make a guess.”
“Tell me about Menoga. How did you find yourself there, in a country that barely anyone has ever heard of?” Merigold had been meaning to ask and learn more about their castaway attacker, but things had been so hectic, and frankly she had not been in the mood for conversation.
Lisan grimaced. “It was a long time ago, Merigold. I’d rather not…”
A painful half-moan, half-scream pulled Meri and Lisan away from their hushed conversation. Lisan whistled a piercing whistle to signal a stop, and their little party ground to a halt. Taking Lisan’s lead, Merigold dismounted and nearly slipped in the icy snow, just catching herself by grasping the stirrup of her ornery horse, who she had named Grumpy.
Marius was driving the farmer’s cart that they had stolen after escaping from Polanice. The simple brother had barely said a word since Remy had been sapped of his lifeforce. His eyes carried an emptiness that mirrored his comatose brother’s. Merigold had expected—maybe even hoped for—some ill will toward her; she had all but ended Remy’s life. But Marius treated her no differently from anyone else. That is to say that he ignored her. He followed any direction that Lisan provided with a mindless efficiency, but did little more than he was instructed. He had become an automaton.
Merigold nodded at him with the expected null response as she walked around to the back of the cart. Lisan loosened and rolled back the tarp, and the moonslight fell upon the two bodies within.
Remy did not move. He did not blink. He breathed, and that was all. He was simply meat, with no mind, no lifeforce remaining. The essence of humanity, the power indigenous to every living thing, was near gone. Merigold did not need to quest to see that his nerring was deflated and wilted, holding only a smidgeon of maenen. Cryden had told her that Feral were created by repeatedly draining a body of maenen, but that it was a careful process. Always enough had to be left in the nerring to prevent the ethereal vessel from collapsing, as he’d put it. Remy had been drained beyond that point when he’d tried to prevent Merigold from further staining her hands red.
They carried Remy with them on the slim hope that someone at Agricorinor knew more about this affliction, in case he could be healed. Lisan had argued against it as they’d readied their escape. An extra body would weigh them down, further slowing their flight from Polanice. Their chances were slim already; the Sun Guard had likely mobilized to find them almost immediately. Marius, though, would not budge without his brother, and despite his limited ability as a conversationalist, Marius was known as an unmatched warrior.
Besides, they had to cart Cryden along anyhow, so a second useless body wouldn’t slow them down much more than one.
He was moaning again, which meant he might be close to regaining consciousness. The Menogan castaway had sliced open his abdomen, and Merigold again recalled how his guts had been visible through the gash, some even having tumbled onto the deck. Combined with the blow to the head, the wound had left Cryden unconscious by the time Meri had ended the Menogan castaway. She’d been certain that Cryden had been killed—there’d been so much blood, such an awful amount of blood. But, he had still breathed, though laboring greatly to do so.
Of all people, Ill’Nath had tended to him. First, he’d cleaned the wound with the clean rags and whatever rotgut rum they could confiscate from the sailors. Then, he’d gently pressed any visible guts back into the wound, and begun sewing. He’d done so in layers—first, whatever muscles he could find, then followed by the skin itself. He’d proceeded to tend to all of wounded while still bleeding from his own chest wound. Merigold had supposed that a man whose face was covered with piercings, including a gaping cheek hole, would know a thing or two about body care. But Ill’Nath had gon
e to it like an experienced field surgeon.
Even then, the pasnes alna had not been guaranteed to live, if he even was now. He had lost a great deal of blood, and the threat of infection was almost a certainty. Ill’Nath had forced water and a thin broth down Cryden’s throat. Most of this had been vomited up, but Ill’Nath had tended to him like a lady-in-waiting would tend to a princess. Somehow, the man had pulled through the worst of it, the first two days, without ever regaining consciousness.
By the time they’d landed in Polanice, the wound had begun to sour, first with a spreading redness and then with a running pus. Whatever god was watching over Cryden was unkind, as they’d chosen that time to allow him to regain consciousness. He’d been in a feverish agony, and they’d had to place a stick in his mouth both to keep him quiet, lest they be ejected from their inn, and to give him something to gnaw on, lest he dig his teeth into his tongue. As the hours had passed, he’d begun to settle, and his glistening eyes, awash in pain and recognition, had beckoned for Merigold to tell him what had happened.
She had, speaking quietly and holding his hand. She’d told him of the Menogan who had sliced his stomach open, who had killed and injured several others. She’d told him of how she’d killed him with a magical plate, and he’d shaken his head, either in humor that she’d used the most common tool of her former trade or in disgust that she hadn’t kept the castaway alive to interrogate. She’d explained Ill’Nath’s surgical treatment, though not in great detail—so as not to alarm him. He’d pushed her, though, with short phrases, for as many details as possible. Then, she’d told him how, when they’d landed, the Polanicers had greeted them with nothing but suspicion, how their boat had been under constant scrutiny by the Sun Guard and who knew who else. She’d told him how they’d secreted away, one night, to this inn run by a Sestrian who seemed honest and sympathetic, while they’d sought to find a cart to get them on the road north to Agricorinor.
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