Tainted (Lisen of Solsta Book 2)

by D. Hart St. Martin

  “Let’s go,” he said and added silently to himself, Let’s be done with this.

  They headed down the tunnel, and within a few yards, they reached a circular stairway and stopped there.

  “Why are you stopping?” she asked.

  “I can’t let you do this.”

  She sighed. “Damn it, Korin, make a choice and stick with it.”

  He sighed. He’d held out hope that he could train her, give her sufficient tools so she could succeed without using magic, but he’d known better. Ariel was no sword fighter, but he had years on her. “It’s your decision, my Liege, not mine.”

  “Look,” she began, “I tried to do it the holder’s way, and all I got for it was nearly killed. You know I can’t win a duel. Let me use the weapon I know best, the weapon I can win with.”

  “As you will, my Liege.”

  She nodded, accepting his sad surrender though he didn’t know what she thought beyond that, nor did he wish to.

  “Then, let’s go,” she said, and he set out up the stairs, her chill following him up from the dungeon.

  At the desk in the small room off the Empir’s office, Opseth sat and smiled to herself. This necropath was stronger than she’d ever suspected, and something beyond vengeance drove her. What, Opseth couldn’t tell although she had tried to find it, but the girl had overcome the drug just as she had Opseth’s multiple attempts at intrusion over the months. And now she headed towards an act of power, its details hidden from Opseth, but it was an act she’d contemplated for some time.

  “I was right to encourage her,” Opseth whispered to herself, her heart beating fast in anticipation of what was to come. Only a few moments until the necropath reached the fulfillment of her plan, and Opseth felt the rush as though it were her own. She breathed deeply. “And I will be there to applaud her,” she said and felt the grin spread wide across her face.

  What a stupid fool I’ve been, Lorain thought as she paced back and forth in Ariel’s bedchamber, eight steps from the balcony doors to the innermost wall and then back again, counting her steps each and every time. What a foolish little fool. At each of Ariel’s revelations, she had smiled and nodded, encouraged caution in the future, and then had walked away, pretending to herself that all would be well as long as she held his reins in check. And the worst of it was that she had believed that she was holding his reins, that she actually had some control over his actions. What a damn fool! she thought, then laughed.

  She hadn’t yet managed to control him when the needs at the core of his torment surfaced as they had in his grab for his mother’s throne. What made her think she could do so at any point in the future? She understood his lust for power; she lusted, too. But she had never allowed it to interfere with her survival, while Ariel had always put the entire essence of his being into his desires, leaving consequences unconsidered, lacking any inhibition.

  The babe moved in her pouch, and she paused in her worry-worn travels from one end of the room to the other. She hadn’t planned on giving him an Heir right away, but she had discovered over the last couple of months that it was easy to give herself over to the demands of the pouching. Perhaps that was why she had missed so many of the clues. She wasn’t herself and hence had failed to pick up on the finer points of her Empir’s multifaceted manipulation of events.

  She stepped to the door to the antechamber, stopped there and pounded once on the wall. Damn! She’d failed him. She’d failed herself. Which was worse? She didn’t know, but there had to be a way to salvage things now. That would, of course, require his cooperation, and she wondered if she had ever had that. Arms crossed over her chest, her jaw jutting out, an expression that she knew heralded a renewal of determination, she began tapping her foot. If she could just keep him from doing anything further tonight….

  The door burst open behind her, nearly banging into her hip. She turned, dropping her arms to her sides, and watched the subject of her uneasy musings enter and slam the door shut behind him.

  “Lorain?” he called out, his back to her.

  “I’m here,” she said sweetly, and he turned. “What is it?” she asked, sharpening her voice ever so slightly to keep him from sensing her condescension.

  “Oh, I thought you’d be asleep already.” He pulled off the beautiful tunic he’d worn to the dinner to celebrate his triumph, now soured by that damn hermit, and he dropped it carelessly on the floor, then grabbed a robe from the wardrobe.

  “No,” she replied and watched him as he stepped around to the far side of the bed, his side of the bed, the one farthest from the door. “I’m worried.”

  He plopped down on the bed and sat back against its fine headboard. “You can relax, my love,” he cooed. “It’s all taken care of.”

  “What have you done?” The words were out before she could stop them. Truth was, she didn’t want to know what he’d done. “I asked you to wait, to do nothing.” She resumed her pacing.

  “You also said that the Council wasn’t on my side.” He stared up at her, his brown eyes morose in the candlelight, his baby mouth in a palatial pout.

  “Even if the Council decides you played a role in the murder of your mother, it won’t matter if you just allow this to play out. I can muster up a majority to vote in your favor, and that’s all it will take to end Nalin’s grab for the throne. But only if you haven’t already done something to the necropath.”

  “What if it looks like natural causes?”

  She halted in front of the wardrobe. “Oh, Creators, you have done something, haven’t you.”

  Lisen had expected Korin to balk, but he hadn’t. Yet, as she followed him up that final stairway, his silent broadcast of reluctance unnerved her. As she battled both the aftereffects of the drugs and the urge to bolt and abandon her plan with every step upward, she hated the feeling that she’d lost him. No big thing, she thought, trying to console herself, knowing why he couldn’t stand with her in this. The fact that he remained with her at this point would have to suffice. Still, she questioned everything, and the full force of his strength, inner and outer, would have been a comfort. No big thing, she tried once again, but it was a “big thing.”

  She reminded herself that there was only one strength she could rely on now—herself and her ability to force her way into the mind of another. She had come to this plan with hesitation, had bargained with the Creators, God, the Force—whatever deity she could imagine—and had ultimately faced the truth. This must have been the path down which Eloise had intended to lead her when she’d brought her to Solsta. Why else choose a life—however brief—in the haven for her? Certainly not to teach her about deprivation and denial; those disciplines would never again figure into her life. She had yet to determine the purpose of her sojourn to Earth, and Eloise would likely never give that truth up. But at least part of her wanderings over her eighteen-odd years made some sense now.

  This was the way, the only way, just as she had told Korin, and with or without his support, she would not falter now. Not now. Not now when all those who had given their lives depended on her to give their sacrifice meaning. She’d hoped Korin would understand. He’d given his eye in her service, a loss which could have ended his career in the Guard. He’d spoken of love in the desert; didn’t he remember? His lack of support now left her feeling empty, but she refused to allow his fear of her power to curb her resolve.

  In silence they ascended the spiral stairway until he stopped one step above her and turned around. He put a finger to his lips, mouthed, “This is it,” and pointed his right forefinger to the left of him. She turned and saw a small door and would have moved forward, but a wave of dizziness hit her. She reached out to the wall to steady herself and took a deep breath. He leaned in to her.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do. And I’ll be fine,” she replied, her determination irrevocable no matter what he said. She breathed deeply again. “Let’s go.”

  He nodded a
nd stepped back, making way for her. Whatever reservations he might have about this, he was her captain, and she knew he would serve until he was no longer able.

  She went to the door and pulled the latch up slowly, quietly. Her stomach knotted up, urging her to run, but she referred its relentless insistence on escape to that portion of her mind which managed minor inconveniences. She pulled the door open deliberately, cautiously, and another dark, though small space greeted them, filling her nose with mustiness.

  “Wardrobe,” Korin whispered in her ear.

  “Great,” she whispered back.

  He set the candle down on the stair on which he stood and stepped past her to sort his way through the riches of fabrics. Finally he turned back to her. She waited for him to say something, anything, but he didn’t.

  “What?” she mouthed.

  “Shh.” He put a finger to his lips and nodded to his left. “Listen,” he whispered. She stepped in to join him, relegating the pounding of her heart, its beating at her temples, to a muffled place. She filtered out the insignificance of the flickering candle just outside the wardrobe, the intrusion of the smothering smell of the garments closing in around her, and focused all her senses on the realm of sound. The first voice she heard was female.

  “…and that’s all it will take to end Nalin’s grab for the throne. But only if you haven’t already done something to the necropath.”

  “What if it looks like natural causes?” That was her brother’s voice; she’d heard enough of it in the last few hours to know it well now.

  “Oh, Creators, you have done something, haven’t you.” The female voice seemed to come from just outside the wardrobe.

  “Now,” Korin whispered.

  She stood at a threshold, at a door awaiting only opening. She dredged deep down into her soul for courage, for the willingness to take that last step and give herself over to evil for the sake of all those lost and near to losing. With a deep breath, feeling a little like Aragorn at the end of The Fellowship preparing to meet the hordes of Uruk-hai after letting Frodo go, she drew her sword as quietly as she could.

  “Ready,” she whispered in the dark. She heard Korin lift the latch—the soft scrape of metal on metal—and then light penetrated the depths of the cabinet in which she stood. Korin darted out before her pupils had even begun to narrow to the point where she could see, and she struggled for a second or two as she stepped into the room. The first thing she heard was a gasp, and the second thing was Korin’s voice.

  “Don’t cry out, either of you,” he ordered, and Lisen turned to see him, taking shape out of the misty brightness, his left arm around Holder Zanlot’s neck, his right hand stilling the flailing of the holder’s arm, “or she’ll pay the price.”

  Lisen looked from the tableau of her captain and the holder to the figure on the bed. He leaned back against a wooden headboard that rose nearly to the ceiling, a headboard carved with what looked like battle scenes. It seemed ill-suited to a good night’s sleep to her. Ariel looked up at her, then at the sword she brandished at her side.

  “What are you doing here?” Ariel’s voice seethed with rage and confusion, and his eyes darted about, looking for something. Her moment approached, the moment for which she had prepared all her life.

  “You had your chance to kill me, Brother, but you failed. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Creators,” she heard Holder Zanlot mutter.

  “Get her out of here,” Lisen ordered. With a nod, Korin started to drag the woman from the room, but before he opened the door, Lisen said, “I am so sorry.”

  With a shake of his head and a look in his eye that Lisen could only read as disappointment, Korin pushed the door open and pulled the holder through, but not before Lisen heard the holder ask, “What did that mean?” The door slammed shut on any possibility of a response, and Lisen stood alone against madness.

  “All I have to do is call out,” the Empir said, “and every guard in the Keep will be up here within seconds.” But nothing he did now could save him.

  “They’re already gathering as we speak, but once they’ve heard the entire story, the story of an assassination and your part in it—”

  “A baseless accusation.” He inched his way towards the edge of the bed, and his eyes continued shifting about the room. Lisen knew what he sought—a way to escape fate—while he moved closer to the weapon he hoped would make that possible. Let him have it. It would only add credence to her story. She began to pace, turning her head each time she reversed direction so she never relinquished sight of him.

  “I always wished I’d had a brother, but you weren’t quite what I had in mind,” she mused in English.

  “What was that?” Ariel asked, confused, suspicious.

  “Nothing.” She returned to Garlan to tell her tale. “You hired a watcher, years ago likely. The servant, our mother’s servant, was seduced slowly. It’s the only way.”

  “You certainly have an imagination.”

  She could feel his mounting anticipation as he neared his weapon. “And when the opportunity arose, when Flandari told you she was leaving Avaret on retreat, you knew your time had come.”

  “This only grows more preposterous, but do go on. It’s quite amusing.”

  She stopped in front of him, the foot of the bed between them. “So you made sure this Rasendir person volunteered to go along, and you and your watcher began your final preparations.” His hand slipped down beside the bed. “Go ahead. Get your weapon.”

  He jerked his hand back up. “What…what are you talking about?”

  “You’re hoping to find the knife you keep there beside you, and you’re trying to figure out how to strike before I realize what you’re doing. Unfortunately, you’ve already failed at that. But go ahead. Get your weapon.”

  She sheathed her own sword—she didn’t need it now—breathed deeply and reached out to him with a thought while she continued to speak. “Your watcher groomed the woman over time. I said it was the only way, but that’s not quite true. It’s the only way if you don’t want the one meant to be pushed to recognize the pushing until the deed is done. But pushing’s easy. Now, get your weapon.” And she watched as, against his will, he reached down to below his bed, pulled out a knife and held it up to show her. “Good boy. Yes, pushing’s easy.”

  Oddly, pushing was easy. She hadn’t realized until now how she’d devoted nearly every waking hour in the last week or so to the consideration of this plan, to the possibility she might fail, but now she knew. She also realized she had never imagined it quite like this. Yet, here was proof that necropaths came closest of all to the dark place. She guided her brother’s thoughts with no difficulty at all, and it would take just the slightest increase in effort to force him to commit his final act.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  FIRST BLOOD

  Opseth sat straight up in her chair. Soon. Very soon.

  Lisen’s body tingled in anticipation. Here she stood, finally, within feet of her homicidal brother, and the act of pushing him sent chills everywhere. What a rush. She felt warm and content, more right with herself than she had ever felt before, and this frightened her. Just do it and be done with it, she told herself.

  “What are you…?” Ariel’s voice faded away as he looked into her eyes and recognized her resolve reflected there.

  She had known it would be like this, that once committed to the act, she would be one with it. She had known it would consume her, alter her like nothing else in her robustly wide-ranging life ever had. But only now did she realize that she’d accepted the price in favor of duty and fate. She would taste the fruits of the forbidden and never be little Lisen or Leese or Lisen Holt anymore.

  She breathed deeply, reached out with her thoughts, grabbed his mind with her own, and began to truly push. She watched from without and guided from within as he transferred the knife to his right hand and placed its tip between pouch and ribs, pointing upwards. He looked at her, eyes wide in terror.

  “
Please. No,” he begged, his voice small. “I’ll cry out.”

  If there were ever a moment to hesitate, this was it. She studied him, ached for what could never be, then finally moved on in earnest. “I think not.” And she silenced him with a slight squeeze to the power of speech. Then she resumed manipulating him slowly.

  She hesitates. Opseth rose from the desk and followed her instincts up the grand staircase, and just as she reached the top, the full force of the struggle a wall’s depth away assailed her. She paused to catch her breath. No, she will act. What divine strength!

  Lisen looked into her brother’s eyes. She owed him that much. She could have looked away, avoided direct confrontation with the horror as he contemplated his end, but that was a coward’s way. The taking of a life should forever be etched upon the memory, inescapable. He looked down at his bare chest, and she followed his eyes to see the tip of the knife had now broken the skin.

  She could have continued doing this slowly, but she was incapable of such cruelty. Instead, she set out to spare him the agony. She summoned all that she had, and with one great mental thrust, she forced his hand up and in and into his heart.

  He gasped yet continued to stare at her. His right hand fell from the knife’s handle, and still he stared at her, his face going white, his eyes dark with awe. Every breath pained him, but he continued to breathe. Why? Had she missed his heart?

  She stepped around the bed to stand beside him, his eyes following her, the only part of him that moved. She studied him briefly then put her hand on the hilt of the knife. Perhaps the knife itself was delaying the end. She mouthed “I really am sorry” to the brother inside him she’d never know, then gave the knife a good yank, dropping it to the floor once she’d freed it. She pulled back a step and watched as Ariel’s eyes lost their light and his body fell back on the bed, the blood pulsing out of his chest like a damn fountain.