“Seems like trouble comes with the occupation,” Sherakai pointed out, getting to his feet. Lifting his chin, he adjusted the collar as if he might settle it more comfortably. He refused to allow his fear to show. Keeping himself steady without the ever-present energy of the aro was another challenge altogether. Everything about his senses felt strangely flat and shallow.
“True enough, but we’d just as soon you didn’t break us to pieces. Will you come along quiet?”
He rubbed a fist and considered the alternatives while he waited for a sense of equilibrium to return. The weapons they’d declined to draw would be easy to take, but without the magic, he’d be handicapped. He couldn’t get the collar off without a key and he doubted the guards had one. If he escaped into the keep proper, more guards would unite against him. Many of them would die, and for what? Being stupid enough to work for Bairith Mindar? But the guards outnumbered him, and even so-called arena champions got hurt. The more hurts, the less likely a successful escape.
That slim chance tempted him sorely…
The tunnels presented another choice. They led far underground, delving deep into the mountain. He knew Bairith well enough to expect exits that direction, but finding them on his own might prove impossible. Did the eerie whispers haunting the lower passageways belong to some fell creature? Or were they merely defensive illusions? Even if he did go that way, he’d want to bring food and water.
He’d considered the possibility of both escape routes so often that it took only an instant to offer his decision. “Of course.” He didn’t have the magic, but he had enough experience to load his voice with mockery. “Would you like to bind my hands, too?” He extended his wrists.
They had the decency to look uncomfortable. “No, sir.” One assumed the lead, three more came behind. Bare feet measuring his stride on the cold stone, Sherakai pondered his obliging submission. Afraid to fight another unknown number of men, Tanoshi? he asked himself, or are you afraid of success? Much easier to stick to the familiarity of what you hate, isn’t it?
He didn’t need any kathraul’en whispering in his ear, he had himself.
“Is he terribly angry?” he asked, cutting off that line of thought in favor of conversation with humans.
No one answered right away. “I couldn’t say,” the leader offered at last.
“Couldn’t or won’t?”
“You know him. Hard to tell one way or the other.” Rough boots scraped and thumped. Torchlight wavered ahead and behind, sending shadows scuttling along the walls.
“He’s angry enough to collar me.”
“Aye, there’s that.”
Silence reigned until they started up the winding steps. The keep groaned, and the men drew closer together, faces pinched and shoulders hunched.
“What was that?”
“Just a noise.”
“Really…”
None of them answered.
“Where are we headed?” Sherakai ventured, hoping to coax them into humanity.
“Upstairs.”
His jaw worked. “I gathered that, but thank you for enlightening me. Can you take the obvious a little further?”
“No, sorry.”
“Do you think the knowledge of our destination will affect my cooperativeness, Sergeant Tezi?”
The guard glanced back over his shoulder as if surprised at the use of his name. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you at all.”
“I see. My apologies. I won’t ask you any more questions.”
A sigh echoed off the close walls. Past one landing and on to the next they went.
“Bold as brass, ain’t he?” a guard behind him whispered. “Especially after what th’jansu did to him.”
“And three days in the Hole.”
“Wasn’t down there long enough to matter to that one.” He sounded nervous. “Did you hear what happened?”
“No more talking,” Tezi cut in.
“I don’t mind,” Sherakai offered.
“I do. You three shut it.”
But not me, he reflected. Because really, what could they do to him? Nobody in this place would let him go or let him die. Bairith himself prevented—no, directed abuse, all to his exacting specifications.
Do you like abuse? the shadows asked with keen interest. Or maybe it was his subconscious. The kathraul’en couldn’t read minds. Even if they did, the collar would interfere.
Did he? The question irked him. He didn’t like pain, but he’d learned to deal with it.
You accept it. Throw yourself into it. Relish it.
“I don’t,” he growled, earning peculiar looks from all four men. “I don’t—remember everything that happened” It wasn’t a lie. He couldn’t recall a single thing between the arena and the Hole.
“Aye,” Tezi said, which was no kind of response.
The guards clomped and jangled the rest of the way up the stairs while he glided silently between them. When they opened the door upon the landing, bright light streamed in. Sherakai squinted.
Bairith rose from a bench near the window, waving off the attendants gathered around him. Garbed in clothes of spotless white, they resembled maggots, curling into bows, wriggling away. “I see you are well.”
In his torn shirt and pants filthy from the arena, Sherakai linked his hands behind his back and kept his eyes down. His back remained straight, and he refused to bow his head.
“Are you not?”
“I am as it please you.”
Bairith came close. The guards shifted and spread out in a loose semicircle, keeping out of harm’s way as best they could. Fesh and Teth were nowhere in sight. The mage bent to whisper in Sherakai’s ear. “I am not pleased. You are an unprofitable servant.”
“Then let me go or end me. Stop wasting our lives.”
“It disappoints me that you are so set on bringing our relationship to a close. I am not finished with you, and you still have much to learn.”
“I will never learn to be your willing cat’s paw.”
“And yet you have acquired skill in an astonishing number of areas. Still, you forget who is your lord. Whether or not it pleases you, you will call me master from now on, do you understand?”
Green eyes narrowed, hard as rock chips. “Oh, I understand what you want. You’ve made certain of that.” He thrust his arm out and yanked up his sleeve, revealing the blood brand. “Let me make myself clear, in case this bond isn’t doing that the way it ought: I will not call you master.”
The mage returned a long, frigid glare. “You will learn.”
“Know this, half-blood,” Sherakai dared to lean close, crowding Bairith’s space, deliberately tempting his anger. “It will never be of my own will. If I ever name you master, or father, or any other word that might suggest affection, respect, or acceptance, it has been forced from me.” His hands twitched with the need to strike out. He held them at his sides because Bairith could prevent a physical assault. “You can rob me of words. You can force me to bow and lick your shoes. You can twist my dreams, or compel me to do things I despise, but you can never make me love you. All you will have is the lie you create and drag from my lips.”
“And yet you name me lord.”
“Using your purchased title is better manners than calling you ‘elf.’ Or ‘halfer.’”
The jansu did not back down. His beautiful mouth curled into an expression fit to raise hackles. “You should be very careful, boy. Men have died for less.”
“You’re threatening to kill me?” He lifted his arms to either side in surrender. “Do it. Go ahead and do it,” he challenged, fury roiling up in him to batter the fragile wall between himself and his captor. The collar kept it bound. When he stepped further into Bairith’s personal space, the mage took one back.
The retreat gave him room to put force behind a slap to Sherakai’s cheek.
The blow turned his head. Bleakstone had blinded him to the telltale use of magic. He straightened, stretching his jaw. “You will have to do better th
an that. You taught me to take a beating, remember?”
“I have no wish to beat you, beloved.” Whatever had prompted the violence hid now behind cool eyes. It would come out some other way, wrapped in the guise of affection or generosity. “A beating would weaken you when I need you strong.”
His lip curled. “Another bout in the ring? Will it be a contest this time? Because that elf—Excuse me, half elf—A relative of yours, perhaps? Someone you needed to settle a score with or get rid of? That one didn’t even have enough to him to warm me up.”
“If that is true, why didn’t you dispose of him? It would have been so easy.”
Did he echo the kathraul’en, or did they echo him?
“Because you wanted it.” In for a copper, in for a gold.
Bairith uttered a single sound and, with a gesture, he flung Sherakai against the wall. He struck and collapsed. His head rang like a gecking bell. Still, he picked himself up slowly. Carefully.
Stalking after him, the jansu came to a stop inches away. “I have tried.” The mage enunciated each word as if it were a prize for Sherakai’s ears alone. “I have tried, boy, to be gentle with you, to coax you along the path to greatness. One day you’ll realize what a gift I have given you. Spite is a singularly unattractive quality and will only do you more harm than good.” He lifted a hand to forestall a retort. “Yes, you. Once vindictiveness is planted in your breast, it is a painful vine to remove.”
Sherakai pressed the back of his hand to his nose. It came away bloody. He held it out to Bairith. “Such tender devotion.”
The jansu inhaled, then slowly released the air. Scented with sweet cicely, it feathered across Sherakai’s skin. “Because of the love I have for you notwithstanding your current… attitude, I will offer you the chance to reflect on what you’re doing. I ask only two things: an apology and your cooperation in the future. Our future.”
Sherakai licked his lips and tasted blood on them. “I won’t waste your time. I’ve thought about it for years, and the answer is no. Never.” And if he couldn’t win this battle, he’d be dead, and that was winning, too, if it robbed Bairith of his most cherished dreams.
The jansu brushed a strand of hair from Sherakai’s brow, regret etching his fine features. “I imagined you would say as much. Still, consider it, my dragon.” He stepped back and gestured to the guards. “Show him to his room and see that he is not disturbed.”
Chapter 33
To commemorate his conquest of the eighteenth deck, Sherakai had been returned to the rooms in the tower. Such grand accommodations befitted a champion—or an assassin. The luxury and opulence oppressed him; he’d long ago moved much of the excess into the hall. Where it went after Bairith had confronted him and reluctantly surrendered to Sherakai’s “ascetic” choices he did not know or care. He’d kept only one wardrobe, and if new clothing gifts didn’t fit into it, he politely refused them. If that didn’t work, he left the clothes on a bench outside the door. The assortment of rugs were reduced to two: one by the bed and one by the bath. He’d stripped the silken drapes from the windows and carted out the extra tables, chairs, vases, carvings, and pictures. The plants remained; he liked them.
When Sergeant Tezi opened the door, he paused then swore. Beyond him, a crimson swath stained the pale tiles where a body had been dragged across them.
The familiar scent of blood stung Sherakai’s nostrils. Ice seeped through his veins. He knew without seeing them that Fesh and Teth were dead. Scores of battles had not prepared him for the jansu killing his own creations as part of his vengeance. The pair had been his guards, personal attendants, and companions for years. His hands curled into fists. His jaw inched out and then back, teeth clenched. “That will be all,” he managed, stiff as a rod.
Tezi shifted his grip on his staff. “I’ll just make sure it’s safe first.”
Sherakai caught his shoulder briefly. “That won’t be necessary. I expect there will be guards posted?”
He had the good grace to look sheepish. From his pocket, he pulled the familiar key. There was always a way to remind him he was owned. “Yes, sir. Your beasts—”
“I’m sure they’re inside.” How he said the words without his voice catching astonished him. “Best to follow your orders. The jansu knew what we would find here.”
Troubled, Tezi nodded. The others were just as uncomfortable with the situation. One of them stared at the stained floor with his mouth drawn down hard and a hand on the hilt of his sword. “We can help you with—with whatever’s in there…”
“Thank you, but I am not to be disturbed.”
He winced at the reminder. “But—”
“Please.” He needed them to be gone before he lost all sense of composure.
“As you will.” Respect and sympathy showed in his face and in his manner as he stepped back. “We’ll be here if you need anything.”
“This ain’t right,” a guard murmured beneath his breath as the door closed behind Sherakai.
He leaned against the wall, eyes on the ceiling, unable to bring himself to look at the destruction. He swallowed at least a dozen times. Thumped his head against the stone in frustration.
After a time, he slid to the floor, staring at his bare, dirty toes. He considered staying right there until the jansu finally decided he’d had enough. How long? Several days, if the usual punishments were anything to go by. Days drenched in the blood and stink of death. He gagged and shuddered, then put his crooked arm over his nose and mouth, eyes closed.
He could do better than this. Blood and death were hardly strangers. The smell hadn’t overwhelmed him when the door opened, so it was fresh. He could make a mask out of torn bedclothes or clothing, and he had water—presumably.
With the murmur of low voices outside to reassure him that decent people still inhabited the world, he lowered his arm and focused on his breathing. He only gagged twice more and called that a victory.
Fates, he needed to get his emotions under control. Bairith fed on them, used them to—Wait. His hand closed on the collar around his throat. His emotions were inaccessible to anyone as long as he wore the bleakstone.
Why?
Surely the jansu would want to revel in the depth of Sherakai’s grief.
Don’t cry. Don’t ever cry.
Why had Bairith deprived himself of this pleasure? Logic eluded him. He shoved himself upright to follow the bloody trail. In the bedchamber, of all places, Fesh and Teth lay on the floor in a reckless pile. Ichor pooled beneath them, glistening in the light coming through the bare windows. They didn’t even look real anymore but like pieces of meat.
His fault.
He closed his eyes. Swallowed yet again. It didn’t ease the painful tightness of his throat. Drawing a sleeve across his face, he made his way to the bodies and bent to drag Teth off his smaller brother. An ugly wound marred the creature’s mouth; he’d fought back.
He sat cross-legged and pulled their heads into his lap. He stroked the coarse, matted hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and didn’t say anything else for a long time after that. Try as he might, he could not remember the words to the prayer that would guide their spirits into the arms of the All Father. To forget it now seemed a failure to his faithful companions.
The key turning in the lock and the rattle of a tray eventually brought him to his feet. Dark had fallen without his notice. The lamps remained unlit, and by the time he hobbled out to the sitting room, the door had closed again. He debated going to it, calling to the guards outside and begging them for help.
They could do nothing.
He regarded the meal with distaste. The thought of food made his stomach turn, but long experience suggested he should fortify himself for whatever lay ahead.
He ate sitting on the corner of the bed.
Afterward, he washed his face and hands in the bowl provided for such things, then he bathed Fesh and Teth as best he could. He ruined several bath sheets in the effort. He arranged their poor bodies on a thick carpet, si
de by side.
Then he sat down to wait.
Now and then he heard faraway moans of torment. An echo of his own, or some other miserable wretch?
On the third day, he realized why Bairith had cut himself off from his champion’s suffering. With his companions dead and the link empty, Sherakai was utterly and completely alone…
Chapter 34
When the guards finally came for him, they escorted Sherakai to a bath on the lower levels near the practice ring. The point escaped him. His quarters boasted a huge, beautiful bathing room. The reason for their number also eluded him. Why four, when one would suffice? If he chose to kill them, a paltry four wouldn’t give him much trouble. Without ceremony, they stripped him of his reeking clothing. One of them apologized as he gestured Sherakai into a barrel of water. Silent, timorous servants scrubbed him from head to toe and shaved him. Afterward, they massaged oil of cloves and rosewater into skin and hair, then dressed him in a plain but serviceable tunic and breeches. No shoes.
Ah, the mysteries of the lunatic’s mind…
The guards conducted him to the jansu’s office where he stopped without a word at the edge of the rug.
“Well?” Bairith inquired after a lengthy silence. He sat behind the desk as he always did, elegantly garbed, entirely at ease.
Finally, Sherakai lifted his gaze. Dark shadows smudged his eyes and exhaustion made his cheeks gaunt. “Sir?” Unused, his voice grated in his throat.
With an elegant snort, the jansu rose to push the drapes open wider. Light flooded the room, bathing Sherakai in its warmth. It exposed every physical detail of his ordeal. Hands folded at his waist, Bairith approached Sherakai to inspect him minutely with both eyes and aro. “Have you learned anything, boy?”
Still angry.
“Yes.” He rested his hands loosely against his upper thighs.
Bairith lifted a brow. “And what was that?”
Such a beautiful face. Such a twisted soul… Sherakai tipped his head back, eyes closed, calm. He had waited for this for a long time. Bairith stood so close he could smell the sweetness of his breath. “I’ve learned patience.”
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