Battles of Salt and Sighs (Rise of the Death Fae Book 1)

by Val Saintcrowe

  She should have known.

  Death fae were evil through and through. They couldn’t stop themselves from being evil. It was in their magic. Their magic infected them with death and destruction and vileness. Perhaps when Duranth had the piercings, he’d had some measure of protection from the evil, but those piercings had never worked on him, and she’d known this for a long time.

  So, perhaps he’d never had much protection.

  Maybe…

  Maybe he’d been sweet and good as a child, and maybe it was only as his power grew that he was corrupted. But whoever he was now, he was only worthy of her hatred.

  He helped her out of the chariot and wrapped his arm around her again, digging his fingers into her shoulder. He turned her, forcing her to face the gathered crowd beyond the gates of the palace as he gave one last final wave, and then he tugged her inside.

  The door shut, and they were in the great hall of the palace.

  The palace was mostly unchanged, except for the fact that here—as in the previous villa—the paintings of the csaer and the previous csaers had all been removed. Also, anything that referenced Fortune or the human religion was gone.

  The palace was sparse, but it wasn’t vandalized, and it was still clean and resplendent.

  She hiccuped, tears drying up as she looked around.

  “It’s not as if I haven’t seen you cry before,” came Duranth’s low voice. He wasn’t touching her now, and she was glad of it. He was close, however.

  She fought everything within herself which wanted to turn in the direction of his voice. Instead, she gave him her back. She gazed up at the crystal chandelier in the ceiling.

  “You would cry often,” said Duranth. “You were often displeased. Of course, everyone around you did whatever they could to stop your tears, so you found them to be your best weapon. You employed them at any opportunity to get whatever it was you desired.”

  She pressed her lips together. He’s evil and he’s a liar, she told herself. He’s just saying whatever he can to torment me.

  “But I have to say, I’ve never seen you cry like this. Not so silently, as if you wish to hide it. Never so… genuinely.”

  She clenched her hands into fists.

  “I suppose I might have convinced myself you weren’t capable of such emotions.” He came around in front of her. He reached out to touch her face.

  She jerked away, glaring at him.

  He let his hand drop. “Little Magda,” he murmured, looking her over. There was a furrow in his forehead, as if he was attempting to puzzle her out.

  She cast her gaze over his head, doing her best to pretend as if he was of no consequence to her.

  “Why do you cry?” he said. “Is it for your father? Did you love him so very dearly, that man who thought of you as part of his property?”

  She flinched, but she refused to meet his gaze.

  “Your brothers who never paid you any mind?”

  “Maybe it’s the memory of the vicious treatment I had on your ship,” she snarled.

  “Ah, yes, when you were ‘passed around.’” An ironic lilt to his tone.

  “You really think I’m lying about it.” Now, she did look at him. “I’m not.”

  His expression changed. He went utterly blank for a moment, and it chilled her.

  “What do you want me for?” she said. “Is it for an army of Csaers? You wish us to raise the dead?”

  He inclined his head.

  Her breath caught in her throat and then she couldn’t help but let out a sob. “B-but why? Do you even need me? It seems as if the war is going very well for you already.”

  He smiled. “Oh, how good of you to notice. The csaer and the other humans seem to be in a state of denial about our wins, and about what we have accomplished. But this is their own fault, because the full force of the imperial legions is scattered around the empire. There are always more places to conquer, more skirmishes over territory to have with Emmessia. So, they have refused to take the fae army seriously, and they have not called back their forces. When they do, we will lose whatever edge we have now.”

  She drew in a deep breath, relieved. Oh, thank Fortune, who smiled upon the Vostrian Empire.

  “I tell you this because, as I said, I trust you,” he said. “Because I am confident that you’ll help me. You love me, Magda. You always have, and you—”

  “I hate you.” She sounded petulant, not unlike the small, squalling little girl he’d been forced to play games with all those years ago. She had rarely thrown a tantrum for his benefit, of course. She liked him far too much to behave in that manner with him. But he had witnessed them, of course he had.

  But she had been a child.

  She had stopped those sorts of childish displays of emotion quite some time ago.

  “Do you?” He didn’t sound concerned.

  “You don’t believe me?” She drew herself up. “How shall I prove it to you?”

  He reached out and wrapped his hand around her wrist. It was a tight grip—too tight—and it grew tighter until it was very painful.

  She cried out.

  He pulled on her, and she stumbled after him. Five of his long strides across the room and then she was pressed into the wall and he was in front of her, boxing her in, hands planted against the wall on either side of her face. He leaned down until he was eye-level with her. “I can force you, Magda.”

  A tremor went through her, one of fear, against her will, and it was the most awful thing she’d ever felt, because she had never been afraid of him.

  “I don’t need to use magic. I don’t need to use the vast number of people who answer to me. All I need is one simple thing, and that’s my superior strength. You are a weak young woman, and I am a man, and I can force you.”

  She shook her head.

  “I can force you to do anything.”

  “No.” Her voice wasn’t strong.

  “I can make it a choice between helping me and pain, helping me and degradation, helping me and a complete loss of dignity. I can do anything I want with you, and you can’t stop me.”

  She tried to say no again, but this time, she only mouthed it, and no sound came from her throat.

  Abruptly, he rocked back on his feet, moving his arms, and now he was a full foot away from her, and he wasn’t blocking her in.

  She let out another breath, not a relieved breath, but it almost sounded like relief.

  “But I don’t want to do that to you,” he said, and his voice had grown soft. “You may hate me, but I don’t hate you. I have a great deal of fondness for you on account of our childhood together, and I recognize everything you did for me, little Magda. I would not be here without you, and I don’t intend to repay that debt with abuse.”

  Her breath came out too loud—as if every breath was a wheeze.

  “I don’t want to do that,” he repeated. “But if I have to, I will.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ONIVIA AND THE other women like her were not put to use in the kitchens, and this was not because the fae wished to save them from the labor, but because the human women were terrible at cooking. It was fae who were still at work in the kitchens, then, the slaves who had once worked in the villa before the fae had taken over there.

  Onivia found it curious, because these slaves had supposedly been “freed” when the revolt had occurred here, but near as she could tell, not much had changed for them. They still lived in the same place they had lived and did the same work. She knew that slaves were supposed to be paid under the dictates of the fae’s demands, but any money that the resistance had went directly into funding the army—paying for weapons and for outfitting the militem and for food—so she didn’t think these newly freed slaves were being paid in anything other than room and board.

  This was the female slaves, of course. The male slaves, once employed in the fields or in the stables, had mostly been subsumed into the army. In some ways, they might feel as though their lot had improved over the female sla
ves, who must still labor as they had labored. However, at least the female slaves knew their lives would not be forfeit. How many of these newly turned militus fae would be fodder in the resistance gristmill?

  Onivia tried to voice these thoughts to Marta, but Marta only laughed and said she was thinking too much.

  “But it is no different for them,” said Onivia. “They have not improved their lot in life at all. Do you think they think of this?”

  Marta shrugged. “The women in the kitchen are never going to be consulted about shifts in the fabric of the way the world works. Well, in general, women are never going to be consulted. This is the way things are. One can lament it, or one can accept it and adapt.”

  “Ah, yes, by perfecting cocksucking as a skill,” muttered Onivia.

  “You look down on me, but if you have not been called upon to do it for Larent, you will.”

  “I will bite it off if he tries,” said Onivia.

  Marta snorted. “I don’t think human teeth can bite clean through a—”

  “I could damage him, anyway,” said Onivia.

  “You could,” said Marta. “And that would be a wonderful way to get your head removed from your shoulders.” Now, she was deadly serious.

  Onivia didn’t say anything. She and Marta were engaged in ladling out soup into bowls. They were not required to do the cooking but were considered capable of serving, so they were remanded to the kitchen for an hour before meals began.

  This was Onivia’s second day at it. The day before, she’d managed to smile at Larent, but she hadn’t touched him, and he hadn’t touched her either. The previous night, however, he’d warned her that for their deal to work, this could not be the case between them. He’d said he was through with being timid, and that he didn’t care whether it caused her discomfort, that she had best steel herself for it, and perform as they had discussed.

  But while saying all this, he hadn’t seemed to be able to meet her eyes.

  She wasn’t sure what to make of all of that, but she supposed she must be grateful that Larent took no pleasure in causing her discomfort. He was a fae, and he was a violent warrior, but he had some sort of honor that extended to his dealings with her.

  In this, she was lucky, she supposed.

  She could bluster the way she did with Marta, claiming to be so very defiant, but the truth was that she would likely not be thus if she’d been taken again and again, night after night. Instead, she had been untouched, sleeping on the couch in his chambers. Why, she had a room to herself.

  He had, of course, installed a lock on the outside of the door so that she couldn’t leave, even over her protests of their bargain and how he could trust her word.

  He’d only snorted. I’m not stupid, domina.

  It was interesting to her that he continued to call her by that title. She could tell that he employed it as a fellow human of equal status might employ it, not the way that a slave would. It was respect, but it was not an admission of her superiority. It made things feel civilized and it soothed her.

  He was smart that way, Larent was. She could see that his fame as a military strategist was earned, and that he seemed good at applying his manipulations to her. She resented it.

  But she’d also witnessed Larent sending the message she’d dictated to Magdalia with a fae messenger. He’d written it down. Unlike other slaves, he could read and write. She had thought of asking him how that had occurred, but then she didn’t, because she didn’t want to seem too curious about him.

  She didn’t care about the particulars of Larent’s past. He was her captor, and she only cooperated with him because it served her. She could not afford to feel too grateful to him, no matter what he did. After all, this was a transaction between them. He was giving her something and she was giving him something in return. There was nothing there to inspire gratefulness.

  The sound of a palm against flesh caused both Marta and Onivia to start.

  Well, there was one difference between the lots of the fae kitchen slaves now and their lots before, and that was that they were permitted to slap the human whores whenever they deemed the women needed “discipline.”

  She and Marta turned to see that it was Loretia who had been struck. The thin, listless woman stood on the other side of the room next to an overturned bag of flour, which had spilled all over the counter top. Slowly, belatedly, Loretia brought a hand to her cheek.

  “Clumsy slut,” muttered the fae woman, hands on her hips. Her purple hair was growing out now. Even the fae women had been required to keep it short as slaves. Perhaps that was different too. Now, they could grow their hair. Was it enough? Apparently, it was, because there didn’t seem to be any sense of discomfort amongst the “free” slaves.

  Loretia hung her head.

  “Clean it up, then.” The fae shoved a wet rag into Loretia’s chest.

  Loretia only barely brought her hands up in time to stop the rag from falling to the floor.

  “What’s wrong with you?” demanded the fae. “You’re worse every day.”

  Onivia had yet to hear Loretia speak. She had a sort of shuffling gait, as if she was in a trance, and yesterday, she’d spilled wine all over Akiel, who hadn’t been pleased.

  Loretia was Akiel’s current girl, the one who Marta had spoken of that first day.

  “We should help her,” murmured Onivia, watching as Loretia only stared dumbly at the wet rag against her chest.

  “We need to keep our heads down and not call attention to ourselves,” said Marta.

  “But… something’s wrong with her,” said Onivia.

  “It’s just Akiel,” said Marta.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I hear he’s got particularly cruel tastes is all,” said Marta. “He enjoys humiliating his girls. He forces them to do demeaning things like lick dirt off his feet.”

  “No,” said Onivia.

  “He’s been known to urinate on them.”

  Onivia couldn’t even speak at the thought of that.

  “And he’s fond of the back passage,” said Marta.

  “You don’t mean…?” Onivia had never heard of such a thing. “With his…?”

  Marta made a sympathetic face at her. “I forget how innocent you are sometimes.”

  “That sounds painful.”

  “Quite,” said Marta in a voice that indicated she knew firsthand.

  Onivia went still, not quite able to process the fresh horror that was flooding her. She stood there for several moments, neither speaking nor moving.

  Then, deliberately, she set down the soup ladle and went across the room to take the wet rag from Loretia. “Here,” she said softly. “Let me do that for you.”

  Loretia blinked at her with wide eyes.

  Briskly, Onivia began to use the rag to push the spilled flour into a pile in the middle of the counter. She’d never really cleaned anything herself, but she’d observed slaves cleaning numerous times, and she mimicked the technique now.

  Loretia only watched, not speaking.

  Onivia brushed the flour into a waste bin and then set the rag on the counter. She put a hand on Loretia’s shoulder, trying to think of something to say to the girl, but she didn’t want to assure her that everything would be all right, because it wouldn’t, and she couldn’t think of anything comforting about this entire situation.

  She wanted to cry.

  Forcing herself to swallow her tears, she only squeezed Loretia’s shoulder and then went back to the soup.

  Marta shook her head at her.

  Onivia shrugged. “She was only going to get herself slapped again if someone didn’t help.”

  “Perhaps,” Marta allowed.

  They didn’t speak again but worked in silence.

  Soon enough, the sounds of men’s voices echoed out from the dining room, indicating that the officers had come in and were waiting to be fed.

  Onivia and Marta brought out the soup they’d ladled out and then took their places against the
wall behind the men who they were there to serve.

  Other women had filled the goblets with wine before the men sat down, had brought wooden spoons and forks and napkins and other such things, but if any of the men needed something specific, it would be up to their girls to wait upon them.

  Onivia was there to serve Larent.

  After only a brief time, he gestured for her to refill his wine glass.

  She moved forward, stepping next to him, reaching for the carafe of wine that sat on the table.

  Larent’s arm wound around her waist and he pulled her down onto his lap before she could even get to the carafe.

  She was stunned and stiff, but when her gaze met his—their faces were close, too close—his expression warned her of her promise. She forced herself to press into him, and she let out a very high giggle. It sounded forced, but Larent gave her a nod of acknowledgement.

  She was in his lap. She could feel his hard chest pressing against her. She could smell him again. He didn’t smell like blood, but like a man—a fae—a mixture of sweat and flesh and some hint of something wild—it wasn’t exactly unpleasant, and this realization horrified her.

  He reached up and snatched her by the chin, gaze boring into hers.

  No, he wasn’t going to—

  He kissed her, full on the mouth, and he tasted like wine, and his mouth was warm, and his lips were pliant, and that wasn’t entirely unpleasant either.

  She thought shamefully of the only other time she’d ever been kissed and how this wasn’t so different—why wasn’t it different? It felt like such a betrayal of Albus, not that she hadn’t betrayed him already, not that she hadn’t—

  No reason to think of Albus ever again, even if he’d likely put this thought in her head when he’d said that thing to her about thinking of him when she got married and her husband kissed her.

  The legatus was off to the north, battling Emmessia—

  Why hadn’t they called the troops home to put down the fae uprisings? Why wasn’t the senate taking this seriously? This was serious.

  Larent put two big hands on her waist and set her on her feet. He nodded at the carafe. One of his hands fell away, the other curved possessively and casually over her hip, as if he was used to touching her because her body belonged to him.