The Sorcerer’s Wife

by Dolamore, Jaclyn

  “For me, it will never be past. When I was at the House, no one had any secrets. I was never alone. I was constantly being told I wasn’t really a person. That isn’t so easy to forget.”

  “But I can’t fix that, so all I know how to do is treat you like we are the same. What do you want, Velsa? What can I do?”

  “I don’t know exactly…” It all went beyond whether he was overprotective, whether she lied. It was the weight of the world around them, the impending war and all the tiny battles they were subjected to every day. “It isn’t really you, Grau. I’m trying to figure it all out. Who I want to be, and how to be that person. I…I won’t lie to you any more, I promise. It was something I needed to test, just once, I think.”

  He finally reached for her, gently running a hand over her head. “I’m trying to understand. I love you, bellora. But whatever you’re going through, please don’t take it out on me. I need you by my side. I’m scared of what comes next. It was my idea to come here, and what a stupid idea it was.”

  She nestled her head against his shoulder, whether he wanted her there or not, and for a moment she just listened to his heartbeat and let her thoughts race. Her past seemed like a bad dream more often than not, but it was eighteen years of her life. She hadn’t even had a year with Grau yet, and as close to him as she was, a part of her always felt alone and terrified.

  “I’m here, Grau. Don’t blame yourself. I’m always at your side.”

  “And I’m always at yours. But I promise, next time, I’ll try not to punch anyone until you tell me to.”

  Chapter 16

  Grau went to work the next morning, taking his breakfast to eat on the walk. They both remained edgy. Everything will be all right, Velsa thought, if we can just get out of here safely.

  Sorla went to the woods to see if Dennis might approach her with any news while Velsa stayed home waiting for messages. But when Sorla came back, she only shrugged.

  “If we’re going to do this, I hope Flynn is quick,” Grau said the moment he walked in the door, before he even took off his coat. “All anyone could talk about today was this impending war.”

  “What did they say?”

  “There is a very real concern that the Miralem might try and gather a force of telepaths before Lord Jherin—I mean, Kalan,” he said hastily. “I’m sorry. I’ve been in ‘properly respectful work mode’ all day. Anyway, we have hundreds of telepaths and they have thousands of them, and if they think the information from the Fallen Lands is valuable, they might show up at our doorstep to grab it. There have been some rumblings that they might be on the move.”

  “The Miralem might show up to do battle right here in Nalim Ima?”

  “That’s the speculation. And I believe it. I think the Miralem do know just how important technology is. Even when we were raided by those Miralem on patrol, more than anything, they wanted to steal the guns, the books, even the canteens and the matches. They don’t know how to make a lot of the materials we’re using here. Like aluminum.” He glanced over at the stew Sorla was stirring. “I think we’re at a precipice, and Calban will move us out any day now. I think they’re just trying to determine which direction to place their forces in.”

  This did absolutely nothing for Velsa’s nerves. Most of the stew sat on the stove uneaten.

  Velsa was far from confident in Flynn. When she had been in his presence, she found him easy to trust, but bearing the tension of waiting, she wondered if she had been seduced into believing a stranger’s promises. The next day she went to the woods herself. She’d feel better if she could at least check in with Dennis.

  Spring was coming on strong this week, better late than never. The sound of dripping water and fast-running creeks came from every direction in the forest as the hilltop snows melted quickly. Green shoots poked up in sunny places. She always loved the way the air smelled in spring, rich with life.

  She reached the spot where Dennis had appeared in the past, and called his name, although not too loud. She knew his hearing was very acute.

  Some geese flew overhead, honking back and forth to one another. Otherwise, she was met by silence. She wished she could check on his camp, but it was too far for her to reach on foot, and she hardly even remembered where it was.

  Maybe Flynn found a safer place for him to stay.

  She settled down on an old wall of stones to wait for a little while, just in case, trying to let the spring air calm her nerves.

  Her senses pricked—as if someone else was near.

  She immediately got to her feet.

  A little tingle ran across her mind. A telepath?

  Was she just being paranoid? Or it might be Grau, trying to reach out to her.

  She felt outward, but she couldn’t find the source. Dennis was always hard to sense. It was probably wise to head home.

  She ran, grateful for the aluminum skeleton, so solid no matter the circumstance, where her wooden one would have been creaking at the joints. She had never moved quickly for any duration like this before, and it was so enjoyable that she almost forgot to be afraid.

  On the path ahead, a Halnari woman stepped out from between two evergreens. She was dressed as elegantly as the finest Halnari lady Velsa had ever seen even in pictures, holding her long braids and the train of her skirt over one arm so they wouldn’t get dirty on the muddy path. She was all out of place in the wilds; embroidered clothes, gossamer sleeves, pink silk, gold hair ornaments, marriage ribbons. Her slender boots walked carefully forward on the forest floor of wet, half-rotted leaves from the prior autumn.

  Velsa recoiled like the woman had struck her from ten feet away.

  “You can come peacefully,” the woman said. “Or I can knock you out.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Are you looking for Dennis Faraday?”

  Dennis had been caught.

  He’d given them up. Maybe under a telepath’s duress. Maybe he had bargained to go home. It hardly mattered. Their plan had been discovered.

  “The Wodrenarune knows what you really are,” the woman said. “It’s no use fighting.”

  Velsa’s mind scraped for a plan. Grau was at work, and if she did try to run, what would they do to him?

  Resignation swept over her. At least she could behave with dignity and maybe Calban would bargain for her telepathy. That was her best chance of protecting Grau.

  “I’ll come peacefully,” she said, trying to maintain a calm front.

  “I have a teleportation stone,” the woman said. “Take my hand.”

  Velsa touched her fingers with deep reluctance.

  In a disorienting flash, they were standing at one end of a long windowless hall with block walls painted white.

  The woman shifted her grip to Velsa’s arm and led her to a cell-like room with just a few wooden chairs and a wooden table. The walls here were painted a drab, sickly green.

  “Wait here,” the woman said. “Don’t even think of escaping. This place is crawling with guards.”

  Velsa suspected this was some branch of the prison. It was very quiet here. She felt like she might even be underground.

  Grau! She reached for him with her mind, his soul familiar enough that hopefully she could find him at a distance. I’ve been caught—where are you?

  A fierce flutter of emotion returned to her.

  Grau… Please don’t do anything stupid. I’m all right.

  Was she? Well, it didn’t matter. He might get himself in even more trouble if she didn’t reassure him.

  Did they catch you too? she asked. Try to send me an image of where you are now. Grau wasn’t able to speak clearly to her mind the way she could speak to his. Images and emotions were projected more easily than words.

  He answered with the picture of a plain room much like the one she herself occupied.

  Was he in this same building?

  The door opened, severing her concentration.

  “I am truly saddened to hear this.” Calban walked into the room.
He met her eyes, and his voice was calm. “I suspected from the moment I saw you, but I didn’t pursue the matter. I like you and Grau.”

  Calban’s bright green jacket, sashed at the waist, and loose patterned pants tucked into boots with silver buttons, seemed even more ostentatious here than other places. He sat down across from her. His eyes were not just lined in black, but had some smoky cosmetic applied to the lids.

  “Where is Grau?” she asked.

  “He is being held at present, but we’ll send him to the north as expected. This is not that dire a crime, but understandably, he is upset right now. I want to get you both calmed down.”

  “I am calm,” Velsa said, and it was true, although she felt it was more from shock than any actual acceptance of the situation.

  “Good.” He squinted at her, almost kindly, but she found this very condescending. “Velsa, I want you to know, I wouldn’t have done it this way. I was very much hoping we could keep working together. You’ve done an excellent job with Irik. Your power deserves better than this. I wish to fates you were a flesh and blood woman. But this is the law, and I can’t break it just because I like you. In the end, you are still our creation, not a free-born woman.”

  She stared at his hands, laced on the table—large strong hands with blue veins cutting under his skin, a network of miraculous passageways for the blood that gave him life. And in contrast, her own hands, which were rather bony because hands were hard to stuff well, although Parsons did a better job than anyone else ever had. Her perfectly smooth skin was evenly toned; her dainty fingernails carved from horn had a few chips that would not grow back.

  “My body is a creation,” she said. “But nobody created me.”

  “No one denies that,” he said. “But fate has declared that you are not our equal. We need some delineation between people who were born from a man and a woman, and people who were created from inanimate objects. Otherwise, we could get to a point someday where more people are born from magic than are born from flesh and blood. That hardly seems natural.”

  He sighed, as if he were the one pained by the situation. “Parsons was born of flesh and blood, but most people don’t see her that way. They don’t give her her due. And it’s worse for her if people thought she was keeping company with concubines. You lied to her about what you were.”

  Velsa’s stomach sank. “Is Parsons responsible for my—arrest, or whatever this is?”

  “Parsons was the one who investigated your background and found out what you really were. She had a hazy memory of you with Dennis…besides some other red flags, I suppose. She feels you are too pretty, although I say that’s hardly a crime.”

  “Parsons…” Velsa choked on the name. She understood how all of this must look from the other girl’s point of view. She suspected Parsons really had wanted to be her friend—that she had been seeking a kindred spirit in a world where she was so alone. But Velsa had no sympathy for Parsons betraying her. “Parsons would be better off if all Fanarlem were treated like people.”

  “Maybe, but would the world be better off?” He let the question hang a moment before continuing, “It isn’t so bad. When the war is over, Grau can have you back. We can have no more of this, posing as his wife. But he can still treat you the same way he does now. In the meantime, you can send him letters and photographs to remind him what he’s fighting for.”

  “Where will I be?”

  “I will keep you. You’ve met my concubines—they’re your spitting image. No one will even notice. And as I once told you, my concubines are part of the atmosphere of my home. They are not touched…only admired.”

  Velsa looked at the wall. Hatred made her hands shake. She clenched them.

  “You, of all Fanarlem, should enjoy your situation,” Calban said. “You are an exquisite creature who has been loved and cherished, and that will continue.”

  “I’m not a creature.”

  He waved a hand. “The Halnari have a slang word for the young—aksa, a snag in the river, something that attempts to hold back the current. You’re young. I get it. You have to battle me at every turn. Well, a year or two in my house won’t be any hardship. You’ll have food, music, fine clothes. For now, you must accept the place you were given.”

  “Where is Sorla?” she asked.

  “She gave us the slip. When we find her, it’s possible she might be able to join Grau as a servant at the camp, since he has never tried to pose her as flesh-born. No one is trying to hurt you for the fun of it.” He put a golden band on the table. “You will have to wear this, when you are in my house.”

  He surely must see her shaking now. She couldn’t hide it. “I won’t fight,” she said. “Stars above, how stupid I’d be to fight you! Just—please don’t make me wear that. I don’t think Daramons understand how it feels to wear those.”

  “I wish I could believe that you’ll behave, but I can’t. I am well aware that your telepathic powers exceed this band. I take a risk to keep you at all. I am trying to be as kind as I can, but I won’t be stupid either.”

  Kind? She suppressed a retort. This wasn’t kindness at all. In fact, this felt like the trap he had been eager to snare her in from the first day they met. Kalan Jherin and all of his closest comrades were very old and very patient. What was a few months to someone who had lived over a century?

  He clicked the band open into its two halves and paused.

  “Not even going to try to bargain?” he asked.

  “I didn’t think you’d want my telepathic powers anymore,” she said, quite honestly. The Daramons could have made use of telepathic Fanarlem, but they were always locked instead.

  “Well…you helped Grau bring down the dragon. I might be able to persuade Lord Jherin to let you travel north if you swore your powers to us.”

  If she was with Grau, then…their chances of escaping together were much better. If she was with Grau, somehow or other they’d find a way.

  Would we, though?

  Security must be tight up there.

  I said I’d rather die than work for Kalan.

  Why would I fight for his cause when he goes against everything I believe in?

  The Miralem aren’t perfect, but they don’t believe my soul is tainted. Why would I kill them or their dragons?

  “No,” Velsa said, choking on the word a little.

  “No?” He sounded surprised, but that only lasted a moment before he made a little “hm” sound. “No, I get it. But you will have to wear this band, Velsa, as long as you are my concubine.”

  Bracing her hands on the table, Velsa lashed out at him with her telepathy. For one brief moment, she let her anger take shape, and his eyes widened. It only took a second, but it was a sweet second.

  Another presence sharply invaded her mind, cutting her off. A Halnari guard, outside somewhere. They were alone in the room, but she sensed them nearby.

  She was being stupid, playing with fire, daring to hurt the Peacock General.

  He gave her a small smile. “Fair enough,” he said.

  She picked up the golden band and snapped it around her neck, before he could bring the guard in to subdue her, before she had to suffer the indignity of being forced into it. The world tightened around her, as the noose shut. She no longer had the same awareness of him— a subtle change, because like most people he had some natural defenses, but to her it made all the difference. It was like living with blurred vision. Her skin went cold, as telepathy gave her a slight natural warmth.

  “That particular golden band also has a tracking spell,” he said. “So if you try to leave, you won’t get far. Pan, Pen, Pin…,” he murmured, apparently naming off his concubines. “Maybe we can call you Pon.”

  “Pon isn’t a name.”

  “Would you like me to call you Velsa, for all the world to hear? For Grau’s former work partners to recognize you and remember that you were once his wife?”

  She shook her head, fighting off a choking sensation deep inside her chest.

 
The Peacock General handed her off to two guards, the Halnari woman from before and a man in a trim uniform. They directed her to the back of a motorcar and drove to Calban’s house. There, she was placed in the charge of a different woman, clad in a dress of blue cotton and a crisp white apron.

  “I’m Awnwi, I manage the General’s household affairs,” she said. “This way.”

  She ushered Velsa through one of the many side doors and up the stairs.

  Velsa was too numb to say a word.

  She had last seen the upstairs at the costume party, under romantic lights, with Grau at her side. Now the rooms were empty of people, although she heard laughter somewhere in the distance. The woman took her into some far corner of the mansion and pointed her into a bedroom with two bunks.

  “You’ll find a bed with some clothes laid out for you,” the woman said. “The girls will be in shortly to help you dress.”

  The four beds were neatly made. This room must belong to Pan, Pen and Pin. On one of the bedspreads was the uniform of Calban’s concubines, the sleeveless dress cut to show off her stitches, and an array of jewels.

  She felt fate closing in on her.

  Maybe she was the one living a delusion these past months. She was made to be a concubine, she had even struggled with it in her own mind, and now she was back where she’d started. A panicked, racing feeling was coursing down her bones, and she sat on one of the beds, trying to calm herself.

  No way. Never.

  I can’t do this. I can’t be trapped here until the war is over.

  The fates had no ear for prayers, for hopes or dreams. Fate was firm and unrelenting.

  She walked the room, a caged animal; she would have walked up the ceiling if she could. The thought of a caged animal brought her back to Parsons. She wanted someone to blame. Someone to hurt.

  As if she could hurt anyone. She tugged at the golden band.

  A full-length mirror stood in the corner of the room. She paused there to pull herself together. She didn’t really know what had happened yet. Calban had given no indication that he knew Flynn was involved. She knew Pin had rebellious leanings. Irik might help her, and Sorla was still out there somewhere.