"Who, then, stood by and did nothing?"
Perrin's face is hot and his eyes burn. With great effort he produces a flicker of witchlight-his first and only mastery of Elements to date-and burns the letter.
The next day Perrin learns that Bir has been dismissed from the academy. He is called into the headmaster's office and is asked to sign a statement to the effect that Bir is a deeply troubled boy and that he attacked Tremoin without provocation. It will be best for everyone involved, the headmaster tells him, if Perrin would agree with this interpretation of the story. Perrin signs the statement gladly; the knowledge that Bir is gone fills him with relief.
Silverdun awoke in his shambles of a bed, still dressed in his damp clothes, though his boots had been removed. His head throbbed; the worst hangover he'd ever had, with none of the concomitant fun.
Last night was a blur. Something had happened, something bad. What was it?
Darkness. Torches. Steps. Bones. Ilian's boot.
Ilian!
How much damage had Than managed to do while Silverdun had slept? He'd murdered the unknown man at the stone clearing. Was that the other recruit? Had he been drugged just as Silverdun had? Had Than murdered Jedron as well? Jedron had drunk from the same bottle Silverdun had.
Silverdun bounded to his feet and instantly regretted it. His gorge rose, but thankfully Silverdun the Professional Drunkard had more control over his gag reflex than most. He dunked his head into the washbasin on the table and felt more awake, at least.
He headed toward the closed door, moving silently as Jedron had taught him. The small bodkin came out of his boot without a sound. Silverdun had been no mean threat before coming to Whitemount; after six weeks studying with Jedron, he was now a true menace.
The corridor outside was empty, the witchlight sconces dimmed. The only real light came from the small windows set into the wall, and the wall was so thick that very little light actually found its way in.
The sound of steps clattered on the stair. Whoever was coming was making no attempt to mask his approach. Silverdun gripped the knife firmly but easily and faded back against the wall, unmoving, just as Jedron had taught him.
A figure reached the top of the steps; Silverdun watched his weak, muted shadow approach around the curved passage. The figure was holding something. A weapon? Silverdun waited until the figure was just upon him and then leapt, intending to sweep his opponent's knee and bring the knife to his throat.
He realized as he was being thrown to the ground, his arm bent backward in a most painful fashion, that his potential assailant was Jedron. Once he was on the ground, Jedron-for good measure, Silverdun assumedbludgeoned him on the head with what turned out to be a silver tray. The contents of the tray spilled onto the ground: bread, bacon, coffee.
Jedron stood over him, scowling. "Don't do that to me ever again."
"I thought ...... began Silverdun, confused, and in more pain than ever.
"I know what you thought," said Jedron. "But no worries. I've taken care of the Ilian problem for the moment. He's in the basement."
"What was he up to last night?" croaked Silverdun. "I saw a man, I think. He killed a man."
"That's none of your concern," said Jedron. He pointed at the food on the floor. "There's your breakfast," he added, then turned and walked away.
There is such a thing as too much power.
-Fae proverb
ela awoke full of expectations and impatience. Today she would go downstairs for breakfast, and Everess would meet her there and explain all of the wonderful things that she was going to do, and then she'd get started doing them. The Accursed Object hugged her upper arm, feeling more like a manacle than ever. She wanted it gone, but she was also afraid of losing it, afraid of knowing what she might do without it.
She was so frustrated she wanted to destroy something. But that wouldn't have been polite. She'd been taught all about propriety: Don't slurp your soup; don't speak with your mouth full; don't destroy things simply because you're impatient. She waited.
A few hours later, Everess finally appeared, with an elderly doctor. The doctor carried a worn leather bag that smelled familiar, like the hospital wing of Copperine House. It made her smile. The doctor, however, was not a pleasant man. Even with the Accursed Object in place, she could sense it.
The doctor looked her over appraisingly. "Amazing," he said finally, reaching out gingerly and touching her face. She wanted to flinch, but did not.
"She seems so tame," said the doctor. "So sane."
"She's a rare find," said Everess.
"She's also right here in the room with you," said Sela. "And she would prefer if the two of you would speak to her, rather than about her."
The doctor looked at Everess wide-eyed, as if unsure whether it was safe to laugh. Everess gave him a warm smile, and the doctor let out a chuckle.
"My my," he said. "Simply amazing. Consider my fears allayed, Lord Everess."
Sela maintained her composure, but inside she fumed. This was exactly the sort of thing that they'd said about her when she was first brought to Copperine House, after the horrors of Lord Tanen and Milla. After the deaths and the loud sounds and the look on Lord Tanen's face at the end.
Everess nodded to the doctor's bag. "So you agree that it's safe?"
The doctor knelt and opened the bag. "Oh, that I cannot guarantee, milord. But it will do what it was intended to do, that's for certain. And whoever made her this way appears to have succeeded admirably."
"I am right here," said Sela, gritting her teeth. "I am not a thing. I am not a creation."
The doctor looked again to Everess for guidance, and Everess gave him that confident smile and put an arm around him. "Perhaps you might wait outside for a moment," he said. The doctor did so, leaving Sela and Everess alone.
"It's not proper for the two of us to be alone together, Lord Everess."
Everess waved it away. "Propriety! That's something, indeed."
He motioned her to the bed and she sat. "Now listen here, Sela. I understand that you don't like being poked at and treated like a prize horse. But you must understand that you are something rare and unique."
"I'm not any kind of thing. I am Fae. That is all I am."
Everess looked at her. Even with the Accursed Object she could sense the momentary sadness that flashed through him. "You are Fae, yes. But that is not all you are." He sat next to her.
Everess took her face in his hands, but it was not a tender gesture. "Now we've gotten off on the wrong foot. The good doctor is here to lift a heavy burden from you, to give you a present. But you must promise to use it responsibly."
Sela's eyes widened. A present? Sela did not have a good history with presents.
"Let's let the doctor come in and go about his business and then you can see. Fair enough?"
Sela nodded, and Everess let the doctor back into the room. He looked into her eyes with a magnifying glass, blew some kind of powder into her ears. He pricked her finger with a needle and let a drop of blood fall into a tiny glass vial. From his bag, he took a small box the size of a stick of butter and dropped the vial into it. The box rattled for a moment and then produced a series of musical tones that appeared to satisfy the doctor.
"She's in perfect condition," he said to Everess. "Physically, anyway."
"Then let's do it," said Everess.
The doctor reached into his bag once again and took out a circular object wrapped in muslin. He held it out in front of her and unwrapped it slowly, showing it to Sela. "What do you think of this?" he said, finally speaking to her.
Sela looked. It was another Accursed Object. She wanted to cry. This one was much narrower, and it was trimmed with fine, filigreed silver, unlike the solid, featureless ring currently encircling her arm.
"What is that?" said Sela.
"Neither the doctor nor I believe that you're ready to have this thing removed entirely. We're not sure how powerful your Gift is without it, and I'm not sure I want to fi
nd out."
He paused, taking the band from the doctor's outstretched hand, and his face grew suddenly very serious. "This is power, girl. Power and freedom that I've decided you're capable of controlling." He held it up for her to see, and he gripped her forearm tightly. "If you ever, for a moment, abuse this freedom," he said, "I'll put you down like a buggane in heat."
Sela knew that threats were supposed to be upsetting, and she had seen others cowed by them. Sela assumed that the portion of the heart that cringed at being threatened must have been cut out of her. It was at moments such as this one that Sela frightened herself, when she got glimpses that she was so very unlike the others around her. She knew she was different, but that didn't make it any easier.
What passed through her mind next was a list of the ways that she could kill Everess where he stood. Not that she had any intention of doing so. She actually quite liked Everess; he was going to teach her how to be useful. But it made her feel better to think of killing him.
"We should lay her down for this," said the doctor, indicating the bed. "I imagine she may thrash around a bit."
"Should you give her a physick of some kind?" asked Everess.
The doctor only shrugged in response. He unscrewed the lid from a small jar and sniffed the contents. The smell seemed to satisfy him. "Lie down," he said. It was the first time he'd addressed her since he'd entered the room.
Sela did as she was told. Freedom? Power?
The doctor held up the replacement torque in both hands, turned it around in the light. "Such fine workmanship," he said. He handed Everess the small jar. "When I give the word, pour this over the existing torque.
"What does it do?" said Everess, sniffing the jar just as the doctor had done.
"It will dissolve the iron; the thing should just fall right off."
The Accursed Object? Fall right off? Surely this wasn't right. The Accursed Object was never to be removed. Never, never, never!
"No!" she shouted. She jerked herself up off the bed, twisting her arm out of Everess's grasp. Everess stumbled backward, spilling the liquid contents of the jar onto Sela's shoulder. The liquid ran down her shoulder, and she scrambled away from Everess and the doctor, screeching, her hands over her ears.
When the liquid touched the Accursed Object, it began to sizzle and sputter. Sela looked and saw acrid smoke and a fine red foam erupting wherever the jar's contents touched the Accursed Object. There was a cracking sound, and she felt something strange, something that made her stomach drop deep and clouded her vision.
The Accursed Object fell off of her arm.
She felt naked and exposed, but only for an instant. She touched her arm and the corrosive from the jar burned her fingers, but she didn't care. She felt the indentation in her skin where the Object had been for as long as she could remember.
"Get her!" shouted the doctor, and she looked around. Everess and the doctor were trying to get at her, the doctor in front, holding the Object's replacement. He was coming at her. He was trying to hurt her. And everything was clear, and everything was bright, and the thing that was inside her reared up and grinned from imaginary ear to imaginary ear because there was no more Accursed Object and it was free free free! And it licked out ever so lightly and ...
The doctor was gone, the only trace of his presence the currents of air that rushed in to take his place. The air currents were lovely. She could feel them. She could feel everything. Oh, it was beautiful! She sat back, reveling in the perfection and the connection of everything and all and ever!
And then she was dragged back from her reverie by Everess, who grabbed her roughly by the wrist and forced the replacement Object on her arm before she could react. It encircled her, brought her down, brought her back into control of herself.
She stood up, wavering. Everess helped her stand. "I've made your doctor go away," she said. "I'm very sorry."
"It was his own fault," said Everess. "He should have known better."
"Will you send me back to Copperine House now?" she asked, worried.
"No," said Everess. "But you must promise never to do anything like that again."
Sela looked down at the new Object and gulped. It was very pretty. It felt nice against her skin. It didn't encircle her as fiercely as the Accursed Object had. She could think. She could feel. She looked at Everess, and a thread leapt, leapt out of him, and she could feel him, and for the first time she realized that not only was he frightened of her, he was disgusted by her.
"I think I'd like some tea," she said coldly.
"Fine. Come along," said Everess. He led her downstairs for tea, and when she returned to her room an hour later, all evidence of the doctor and of the old Accursed Object was gone.
The crones are not nice. When Lord Tanen is at the manor, which isn't often, they are respectful to him, and tell Lord Tanen how well they are treating her. But when he is gone they are cold and cruel. There is no one to play with. No one to sing to her or tell her stories. The crones are always there, but all they do is stare into her eyes, poke and prod her. They say strange words and paint pictures on Sela's body and watch her and wait. Sela knows that they are waiting for her to manifest her Gift, and they say the words and paint the pictures to make it come faster and be stronger. She wants to manifest her Gift because she wants to please them. But she soon comes to understand that nothing she says or does will please them.
She learns to sew and knit, and learns to read and write in Common and High Fae, and she learns poetry and singing. She learns how to hold a knife and how to kill cats. She learns how to move quietly. She learns how to hurt a man by kicking him in a certain place. It will also hurt a woman, but not as much. The crones make her learn all these things, and if she makes a mistake they slap her.
The only one who is nice to her is the big man named Oca. He towers over the crones. He moves slowly and has a high voice. Oca is the only one who is ever allowed to be alone with Sela, and that makes him special. He brings her meals and stands over her while she eats, tut-tutting if she refuses to finish her entire plate. He is kind to her, but only when the crones are not around. If they catch him being nice to her, he will be punished. He says it is a shame what they are doing to her, but she doesn't know what that means.
Lord Tanen does not come often, but when he does, the manor house comes alive. The maids are given extra chores; a special chef comes to the kitchen. All of this belongs to Lord Tanen. The house, the land, even the village at the bottom of the road, which is like Sela's village. She would like to visit there but is not allowed. Sela understands that Lord Tanen owns her as well, though when she tells Oca this, it upsets him. She doesn't want him to be upset.
Everyone is frightened of Lord Tanen, and the crones pinch Sela and warn her to be on her best behavior whenever he comes to visit.
Lord Tanen is coming today, Oca tells her. When he arrives, the crones meet him, and the butler comes and gives him a drink. There is a lavish meal in the dining hall that's kept locked at all other times. The staff have been busy all day in preparation, but Lord Tanen never thanks them that Sela can tell. Oca has taught her that it is always polite to say "Thank you" when someone does something for you. But Lord Tanen is the owner, and the owner does not have to say thank you if he doesn't want to.
After Lord Tanen finishes his dinner, he asks to see Sela. Oca and the crones have dressed Sela in a stiff white dress, with flowers woven into her hair. Sela likes the attention and the dresses and the flowers, but does not enjoy being presented to Lord Tanen. She must curtsey, then stand quietly, saying nothing and not moving, until dismissed. He stares at her silently, nodding his head. He motions her closer and takes her chin in his hand and looks deep into her eyes. His hands feel like paper. He is neither kind nor unkind. Like the crones, he is waiting for her Gift. Until then, there is nothing to do but wait.
The next morning, Sela awoke in her new room expecting Everess to appear and take her somewhere, somewhere where she would do something other than hav
e tea and sit and read. She began to feel as though she were still at Copperine House, that nothing had really changed.
There was a quiet knock at the door, and a chambermaid appeared carrying a washbasin and clothing.
"Good morning, Miss Sela," said the maid, in an accent that Sela had never heard before. Sela looked into her eyes; they glinted in the morning sunlight that drifted in through the diaphanous curtains on the windows. She was not very pretty, and there was also something sad and damaged about her. Nothing unusual for Sela-she was used to seeing sadness and damage at Copperine House-but she'd assumed that people in the outside world were all like Everess: confident, direct, unbroken.
Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow Page 13