by Anna Steffl
Rapid footsteps approached.
She lowered the still-open razor to the table as she fluttered between the joy of him returning and embarrassment about the razor. What was she to say on either account? Oh Ari, what does it matter. He was back. She turned around.
The one-eyed Gherian captain was a blur of motion before her. He pressed his hand over her mouth, then pushed her into the table and bent her spine.
She felt for the razor, grasped it, and brought it to the small of her back.
“Don’t yell,” he whispered in Gherian, his breath bitter with coffee.
As she nodded, she brought the razor around, aiming to get in at his neck from beneath where he’d raised his arm to hold her mouth shut.
He lowered his elbow, knocking the razor off course. With his free hand, he grabbed hers and squeezing hard, wrenched her wrist to point the blade’s edge toward her face. She had to stop fighting. If her strength failed, the blade would gouge her. He guided it almost effortlessly to her eye. The blade was so close it was a blur. “Scream and I cut your tongue out. I have cut out the tongues of fifty men. I know how to do it.”
The socket of his missing eye puckered as he narrowed his good eye at her. “I hate cabinetmen and heathens. A heathen girl took my eye. A fine Gherian blue eye.” He kept talking, but the words began to come too fast for her to understand.
To gain a space from the blade, she arched back even more over the table. He moved the blade from between her eyes, to her lips, then back to her eyes. His single eye danced its gaze between her eyes and lips. His mouth twisted with wicked indecision. He was trying to decide whether to put out her eyes or cut out her tongue first.
There was no second-guessing on her part—she had to use the relic. She moved her free left hand slowly from the table where she’d been using it to brace herself, to her side, then to her stomach.
He sucked air loudly into his nose. “You smell good. You’re afraid. I like that. I’m going to put out both your eyes. But this one first.”
As he shifted the blade to her right eye, she found the relic and for once was glad that the dress was cut so low.
She pressed the latch.
CHOSEN
The Forbidden Fortress, Gheria
In his private room, Master Nils sat at his desk and swallowed a spoon of gruel. It stuck in his throat. Everything stuck in his throat, even gruel. He forced a cough and spit half of what he’d just eaten into a napkin. Worse yet, his nose began to fill with the gruel. He wadded the spit into a corner of the napkin, then used a clean part to blow his nose. It was humiliating doing this in front of even someone so lowly as the asher. Why had he come at this inopportune time? “Is it important?” His voice gurgled as he spoke.
“Yes, My Excellency,” the asher said.
“My nose runs when I eat.” Nils coughed again and picked through the napkin for an unused spot. “Shut the door.” His voice was clearer. “Now, tell me has happened?”
The asher closed the door. “Just after sunrise a Lily Girl was sent to fetch Rorke to the sovereign’s bedchamber. The sovereign was beside himself, shouting that the woman with the Blue Eye wasn’t dead. He’d seen her with a man he recognized. Juvenot was his name. I gather he is a soldier because the sovereign sent for Aleniusson to learn where this Juvenot was stationed. Then he told Rorke that if he could find this woman, the Blue Eye would be his, just as promised.”
So, the Blue Eye was in Gheria and likely coming straight to Rorke’s hands, if he could get his hands upon it. He’d have every spy in the kingdom looking for this woman. Well, not every spy. Nils still had his own little contingent and the asher was one of his most recent recruits. Hearing of Rorke’s abuse of the boy, he’d had the storeroom steward request him for an apprentice, but once he was within the sovereign’s compound, he’d had his duty changed to being an escort for the Lily Girls in the secret tunnels. The asher was quite good at listening outside the tunnel doors. “You’ve done a fine job...” He searched his memory for the boy’s name, but he could only ever remember him as an asher.
“There are strange, bad things in this place,” said the boy. “Is the Blue Eye the sovereign spoke of what the Judges used to steal souls during the Reckoning?”
“So it seems, asher. So it seems. This place isn’t what it used to be. I was the sovereign’s man in waiting before I became the first cleric. I was the one who gave Alenius kindness and good counsel when all others around him were false, even his own mother, even his love, that hateful girl Breena. His mother despised Breena, in part because she was a commoner, but mostly because the girl had a thirst for nobility and power. Alenius was nothing more than her foolish pawn. When his mother found out she was with child, they had a great fight and the girl accidently backed into a candlestick.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was badly burned and died a slow, terrible death. Against my advice, he tried to bring her back with the Beckoner. I myself put it in her decayed chest. But it was too late. Too late. And now, after all I’ve done, Rorke is his pet. I was the one people courted. They came to me for favors because I was the gatekeeper to the sovereign. You should have seen the payments I required. Mountains of gold and jewels. Fine furs. But I gave them all up to take care of the Fortress clerics. Now it is Rorke who has the sovereign’s ear and the gifts are showered on him, but he keeps it all and lives like a heathen king.”
“Rorke is a bad man.”
“And you are a good boy for telling me what Rorke does. The Eternal Master is pleased with the truth.” Nils thought he should give the boy a reward. Any small thing would make the asher grateful. A ceremonial knife might be just the thing. It commemorated many men’s sacrifices. Nils, his sight not what it used to be, had stopped performing the cutting several years back after he’d botched one boy. Now, it was just another reminder of what he couldn’t do. He opened his desk drawer and shuffled through the papers for a white box. Where was it? Had someone taken it? He reached far to the back, but it wasn’t there, either. He started again through the papers. Ah, there at the side. He pushed aside the gruel and napkin and placed the long, slender box upon the desk. “Open it.”
The asher opened the box and removed a small, curved blade knife with a mother of pearl handle in a white leather sheath. He drew the knife from the cover and said, “The blade is rusted.”
“Draw it through an onion a few times.”
The boy nodded, resheathed the knife, and returned it to the box.
“You know what kind of knife it is?”
“I remember that kind of knife very well. I was only made this spring. Thank you, My Excellency.”
“Tell me, is today the last day of the Winter Solemnity?”
“It is.”
Then it was time to act. Everything was starting over—the calendar, the very order of the world. And he would have a place in this new order. Because he was old, he’d been pushed aside. Aleniusson had received Paulus’s sword, Assaea. And now Rorke was on the verge of having a Blue Eye. The sovereign had awarded them these gifts to satisfy their need for power and to keep them enemies with each other, and not him. But they were fools to think the sovereign would let them keep the relics for long. The sovereign didn’t think his oldest and most loyal servant was still a capable player in this game, so he’d been given nothing, though the sovereign owed all his knowledge of the ancient arts to him. Nils had been the one to find the texts, to learn the secrets of the Beckoner and the creation of the draeden. And he’d not forgotten one word of it. Nils guessed he had at least another few years left in him—long enough to see to the maturation of a new draeden. “Go and make your morning prayers,” he said to the asher, “but stay close. Later you’ll be needed to escort a Lily to the sovereign’s bedchamber.”
“But I haven’t made my absolution yet.”
“You will want to wait.”
Six Lily Girls stood in a line before Nils. All were tall, blonde, and youthfully lithe as had been Alenius’s
long dead love, Breena. At one time, Nils would have been picky about which girl he chose, looking for the one who not only most physically resembled Breena, but the one whose character was most like hers: outspoken and domineering. Now, he hadn’t taken time to know them like he used to and they all had a sameness of appearance. It didn’t matter, though. Alenius had made a man of himself with the Beckoner, a man with an easily stimulated appetite.
Out of habit, Nils made a show of smelling the girls, touching their skin and hair, looking at their teeth. The aged Lilies, their instructors, sat in a semicircle of chairs. Each hoped her protégé would be chosen, as it earned her new finery and an extra draught of burned wine for two moons. He turned to these instructors. “Which is most ripe?”
They knew to tell the truth lest he checked by daubing a handkerchief between the girl’s legs, checking for the telltale clear wetness.
One of the old Lilies, Mathilde, pointed. “On the end. You will find her to your satisfaction.”
Nils went to the last girl. Her jaw trembled when his finger pushed her lower lip down so he might see her bottom teeth. Ah, might not a bit of fear be a good thing? Make her more susceptible to threat? “Today the sovereign will request you. Bathe, perfume yourself with rabian oil, bead your hair with a hundred sapphires, and make your face as white as snow and your lips as deep red as sweet cherries.”
She curtsied and replied something in such a thin voice that Nils couldn’t hear her.
“Rejoice that you are the chosen one on the day of the sovereign’s triumph,” he said as a reply that would be appropriate no matter what the girl had muttered.
The dismissed line filed to their rooms.
Nils turned to the aged Lilies. “Mathilde, stay and chat with me.” Unlike many other old Lilies, she hadn’t grown indolent, or any less ruthless, with time. Good. When the rest were gone, he grasped her outstretched hands. “Dear friend.” Rings covered her cold, bony fingers. Determined to keep her youthful figure, she had many years ago already aged into more skeleton than woman. “How would you like to spend the rest of your days among the world on your own estate?”
She pulled from his hands. “What is the price for such freedom? I’ve heard it was offered in the past but at great expense.” She referenced Lina. Though the official story was that Lina had taken ill and died, word from the outside world always eventually filtered back into the compound via new Lilies and indiscreet clerics.
“There is no expense to you, unless you fail at what I ask.”
“And what is that, dear Nils?” she said with a mix of charm and suspicion.
“You order your student to do two things. When the sovereign beds her, she must imagine the person she hates most in this world. Most likely, it will be me. She will give in to fear, to disgust, and imagine the most horrible disease consuming this person. She must picture him growing ill quickly, with blood seeping from his every orifice. Afterward, to ensure the seed takes root, she must remain in the sovereign’s bed until I fetch her. If her next moon blood fails to flow, I will immediately grant her the same freedom I promised you and special protection for the babe she carries.”
“The sovereign means to birth a wasting draeden?”
“So it seems.”
“Will my Lily not die from the disease it carries?”
“The mother is immune. She will never have to worry.”
“And what if she refuses or doesn’t become pregnant?”
“My clerics will kill her family. And you, you will always fear every sip of burned wine.”
Mathilde sighed. “What time must she be ready?”
“She is my gift to him in celebration of the ending of the Winter Solemnity. Bring her to the bedchamber this evening as he dresses for the meeting with the cabinetmen.” What a gift she would be, one to himself, one that bestowed on Alenius an apt reward for his disloyalty. For all history, the despised wasting draeden would tarnish Alenius’s claim as a benevolent god. “Don’t forget.” Nils tapped his temple. “I forget many things these days. But I won’t forget this.”
The Inn in Gheria
The coach driver’s voice came through the door. “Lord Degarius sent me up for the trunk.”
“A moment. I’m not ready,” Arvana called. Her voice had sounded tremulous. Would he notice?
What was she to do with the body? If it was discovered, they’d be detained and asked a thousand questions. Shove him beneath the bed. It was where the monsters of childhood lived, amidst the dust and dark.
She got upon her knees and first pushed him by the shoulder and then by the thigh. Though he was thin, he was still a dead weight and a strain to move. His feet caught upon the footboard. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t get the knees to bend so that the feet could be hidden. The driver was waiting. There was nothing to do but cover the rest of the Gherian as best she could. She pulled the bedclothes half off the bed, leaving the stain still covered, and arranged them to hide the underside and protruding feet.
Leery of the bed, she sat upon the floor to put on the leather riding breeches and boots. She collected her toothbrush and comb and flung them into the trunk. The razor lay on the floor where it fell from the stricken Gherian’s hand. She kicked it into the fireplace, then answered the door.
“You look a bit put out, miss.”
Arvana put on her fur hat. “I overslept and rushed.”
The answer seemed to satisfy him. She put on her coat and waited as he grappled the trunk out the door so she could close it. Please, let the maid take her time in coming to tidy the room.
As she came downstairs, the aromas of coffee and fresh bread drifted up to meet her. Usually, she was starving in the morning, but today her stomach felt like a small, hard stone. Would the Gherian captain’s friends be waiting? Did they know of his plan?
The soldiers from last night were there. She held her breath as she walked past, trying to read their faces and not seem that she noticed them.
Several looked at her, but it seemed more of a casual taking notice of a woman than a wondering of what had happened between her and their Gherian captain. She felt shameful just thinking of it, as if it had somehow been her fault.
Past them, she exhaled. Degarius, absently nursing a cup, was across the room sitting by a window, his eye to the weather like the other guests. How was she ever to tell him that she’d had to use the Blue Eye?
Degarius sat down his coffee cup. She stood at the edge of the table, her face pale. She glanced to the door, couldn’t even bring herself to look at him, let alone sit with him to eat the bread and coffee he ordered for her. It was as he told himself it would be. She despised him, and likely herself, for last night. The coffee went rancid in his mouth.
WEIGHTLESS
Gheria
Arvana rubbed her glove against the fogged-over coach window and peered out the clear circle but couldn’t see Degarius. All day he’d been taking turns with the driver guiding the team through the snow. The journey that should have been a matter of hours had turned into an all-day ordeal. They had to get to the Fortress before sundown when the Gherian day ended and the New Year began, when Alenius made his announcement. And she still had to tell him about the Blue Eye. It wasn’t just the dread about potentially losing all of their advantage of surprise; it seemed impossible to speak of the Gherian, of what he intended.
The coach slid sideways. She braced her back against the seat. The stomach-churning motion stopped. They were lumbering forward again. She hated being inside, at the mercy of the driver. Supposedly, he was a good coachman, had driven a hay wagon through drifts up to his waist. Just as she was reassuring herself the coach made a hard bump. It violently heaved to a stop, flinging her to the floor.
The door flew open and in whipped a blast of cold air and snow.
“Are you all right?” Degarius asked
“What happened?” Arvana uncrumpled.
“There’s a big rut in the road. The front wheels are caught.”
She edg
ed to the door.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Getting out to make the coach lighter.”
Snow caked Degarius’s hat and hair and his cheeks burned bright red. How cold his feet must be.
The coach ahead of them disappeared into the curtain of snow. Was another behind in this forsaken weather to help them if they couldn’t get free? To one side was a thick stand of trees, to the other, an endless field. No one was near to help them. If they couldn’t free themselves by sunset, they’d not only miss getting to the Fortress on time, but also probably freeze to death. What a cruel twist of fate it would be if they perished on the road, almost to the Forbidden Fortress. Not defeated by The Scyon or a draeden but the weather.
The eerie sound of slowly splintering wood crackled through air. The scent of pine wafted thick. Wet and heavy snow was snapping the pines.
“If we weren’t in this ridiculous coach, we’d have made it through the rut like everyone else.” Degarius circled the coach to examine the wheels and crouched to look at the axle. “Everything’s fine. On my mark, pull her out a bit.” He shouldered under the coach. With a grunt, he tried to stand straight. “Now.”
The wheels spun against the snow-packed edge of the rut. Degarius strained harder. His face and neck were crimson and his grimace was painful to see. The wheels raised a fraction but nowhere near enough.
The driver yelled, “Whoa.”