“I lost my sight six sojourns ago.”
Uriel’s tension transformed into something unusual and unexpected: awe. He was genuinely radiating admiration.
“Six? So long? But surely you have had help all this time. Someone to rely on?”
She shook her head, growing weary of this man’s mind games and unwilling to play any more. He sighed when she chose not to elaborate on her answer.
“Very well, you wish to keep your secrets, and you shall be allowed to, for now. They mean nothing to me. Show me the item. Slowly.” With that, the Emperor set his feet and she could smell his demeanor change to one of dangerous potential. His scent was unlike anything she had experienced before, but she couldn’t place exactly why it was so unique.
Catelyn slowly removed her pack from her shoulder, and reached a hand inside. The Emperor tensed, anticipating some kind of trap, but Catelyn simply drew out the small weapon case. She held it briefly, then extended her hands and passed it to the Emperor.
He grabbed the case with one hand, and with the other reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. Catelyn was shocked to discover exactly how fast and how strong he was as she winced in pain from his sudden and forceful grip.
“You will tell me everything about how you acquired such a thing, and you will tell me how you survived for so long before I string your guts from the top of my tower. You have...secrets. I can see them written upon your face. Soon, they will be mine.”
The Emperor let go of her wrist, and turned on his heel with the case in hand. Catelyn reached down to rub her wrist, when suddenly she heard the Emperor stop, turn back and stride back toward her until he stood a hand’s width from her. He arched his head forward, and Catelyn got the sense that he was smelling her, and she heard him inhale deeply through his nose. She felt her heart thumping loudly beneath her breast, and she could hear his breath quicken as he sniffed two more times.
Catelyn felt his rage spring up from nowhere, and then she was doubled over in pain as he smashed his fist into her stomach, sending shooting pain through her middle. She felt radiating waves of pain from the blow, and she heard Silena audibly yelp from nearby, but Catelyn willed her to remain quiet, to stay hidden in plain sight for the sake of everyone gathered in the square, and she did. She felt the Emperor’s hands reach out and grab her head scarf, and he yanked it free, revealing her dirty hair, and the winding scars across her face.
Shocked cries could be heard from all around her as the citizens saw her for who she really was. They saw her ruined face and eyes, they saw her red hair, a clear defiance of the man standing before her. She could imagine his face contorting with rage as he spat venomous words at her.
“I knew it. I could smell your filthy hair through those foul rags. What...what were...you...thinking?” Another powerful blow landed in her midsection and she collapsed as the wind was expelled from her and she again felt herself get light headed from the shock and the pain. She felt his hand on the side of her face, and he pulled her chin up to face him, and that’s when she heard the Emperor gasp in surprise.
His free hand moved to her face, and traced the flowing scars across her face and over her eyes. She shied away from his touch, wishing that he would just kill her and be done with it rather than continue to draw this out even further but he gripped her shirt with his other hand holding her in place for his inspection. His touch was shockingly intimate, and made Catelyn’s skin crawl in discomfort.
“We are full of surprises, aren’t we?” he asked breathily, but only loud enough for her to hear.
Uriel took his hand away and waved it to signal one of his men over, and then there were three breaths of awkward silence, as Catelyn waited for the end, anticipating her imminent death. The soldier that had been called over stopped just behind her, and snapped to attention.
“See that she is taken to my chambers immediately. She is to be restrained there until I command otherwise.”
Catelyn felt a wave of panic at the prospect of what the Emperor had planned for her, and she reached out with her bubble, but he revealed nothing of his plans to her senses as he turned and walked away. She sensed him store the case in a saddle bag before mounting his horse. The soldier he had commanded grabbed her arm and was leading her away, and she turned to find Silena with her bubble. The older woman was watching her being led away by the Imperials, trying to remain calm but Catelyn could sense that she was completely
overwhelmed by fear. Catelyn wasn’t sure what else to do, but she silently mouthed “Thank you”, and then she was obscured as the Imperial soldier shoved her along, his rough hands clamped on her upper arm, shoving her toward the Imperial Citadel.
Catelyn turned her head toward the east, to the massive fortress where she knew the Emperor made his home, and tried not to imagine the pain and torment that was surely going to be in her future, for the rest of her very short life.
Chapter 17
Ortis watched as the thief, as Catelyn, was led away by one of his former soldiers, and then was joined and flanked by the remaining men of his unit, until the girl was surrounded by an entire fist of men. Ortis would not be able to get her away from them without instigating a full blown massacre. These were his own men, and at least half of them he had hand-picked for their ferocity and skill in battle. He was confident that he could prevail in a conflict with these men, but not without significant collateral damage.
As so often happened when it came to his thief, despite the girl’s command and for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he hadn’t done as she had commanded. He felt a twinge of shame at having lied to her, but some larger purpose moved in him now, and he had remained in the marketplace and had most definitely not forgotten about her forever.
He found himself processing the events of their brief meeting. Ortis didn’t know what had overtaken him, to have prostrated himself before her, begging her to command him. Ortis hadn’t even been that deferential when he had first met Uriel many sojourns ago. Oh, he had given of himself and his men completely, but at that time, it had been awe which had prompted him to make such an offer. This time, with the girl, it was as though some invisible hand had moved him from within. He hadn’t known what had so moved him, but he didn’t doubt that it was the right thing for him to do.
And then she had sent him away. The older woman, the one named Silena, had known him and had revealed his crimes to Catelyn, complicating everything. The sense of shame he felt, having been so exposed before her like that, was nearly overpowering, and yet he knew that if she hadn’t revealed it, he would have. He be unable to lie to Catelyn, though he couldn’t understand why she was so different to her.
He had initially obeyed her command, taking step after step away from the marketplace, a part of him fully intending to walk away and never think of her again, and then something changed. Ortis felt a greater pull within him and stopped. It felt as though something had been lifted from him, some invisible hand which had guided him to fall to his knees before Catelyn and her friend and which no longer pressed upon his heart. It was as if, having fulfilled this part of his purpose, he could think clearly again.
With the clouding of his mind gone, he made a decision and raced back toward the market, blending into the crowd as they watched the proceedings, and so he witnessed the Emperor’s encounter with the girl. He felt an overwhelming desire to cut his way through the Imperial soldiers and kill the man for his crimes, to run in and grab the girl’s hand and take her far away from all of these evils.
But Ortis was not a fool, and he knew that such an attempt would result in many innocent lives put at risk or lost outright, and Catelyn would never have approved. Indeed, her very sacrifice, however foolish Ortis thought it was, had been done for the express purpose of ensuring no further suffering. But that still left Catelyn in grave peril, and he was compelled to act. He hoped that the Emperor was intrigued enough by the girl that he would bring her to the Citadel first, and that would give him an opportunity to do something about her ca
ptivity.
But regardless, her choice had led him to the first clear conclusion he had come to in spans. He would not abandon the girl. He could not, despite her demand that he do just that. Not because it was what she wanted, or because he felt a pull inside to do so. But because her life was in danger, and she needed help, and he felt the empowering freedom of being able to choose to help, or not. And so he chose to offer his, whether she wanted it or not.
After she was led away, the Imperial soldiers dispersed the rest of the crowd, and Ortis blended in with them, but made a point of watching for the older woman Silena. The Emperor had not seen the two of them together, and so had not identified the connection between the two women. Ortis knew that Silena would never speak to him under normal circumstances; there was so much bad blood between them. But for Catelyn, he would do what needed to be done, and so as the crowd dispersed and the marketplace returned to normal, he watched over Silena until she got to safety, and then he acted.
Although he knew the Imperial Citadel as well as his own hands, getting Catelyn out could prove to be an almost impossible task, but he had to try. If it meant his own death, so be it. He would gladly give it for even the chance of ensuring Catelyn’s freedom.
Since he had first spotted Catelyn climbing out of the Dane’s estate as it burned down before him, his life had seemed as though it had been spinning out of his own control. He had alternated between feelings of such clarity of purpose, and then swinging wildly towards feeling like a puppet on strings, being pulled by forces he could not see or understand.
And now, all of that had changed. Watching Catelyn being led away, it was as though the fog in his mind had lifted fully, and he knew with certainty what his purpose, his choice, was. Ortis moved freely towards it, the cloud within him no longer obscuring his view and steering him away from what he knew he must do.
Catelyn was roughly pulled through the streets of the Seat, the twelve soldiers forming a wedge around her and shoving their way through the crowds of onlookers, and she heard shocked gasping as the people they passed by saw her eyes, her scarred face, her matted red hair. She could only imagine what they must be thinking, as she ranged her bubble back and forth, trying desperately to find some way that she could escape, but it was useless. Her escort was comprised entirely of the Emperor’s most highly trained men. She could tell by the way they breathed, the way they themselves scanned the crowd, and the way they carried themselves. These men would never drop their guard long enough for her to escape.
She sensed the towering Citadel blocks before they arrived, like a massive wall of numbness from which all the city’s suffering flowed. She had probably seen it once before of course, as all newborn children were required to be brought to the Citadel to be branded with the mark of citizenship, but she would have been a babe in her mother’s arms.
Catelyn did her best to scan her bubble and memorize the path into the Citadel, just in case, by some miracle, she managed to find herself in a position to escape. She was not optimistic that she would ever see the world outside this fortress again, and that her death was mere breaths away, but something in her refused to accept that fate without some amount of defiance. This part of her filed away every detail she could about her surroundings, and frantically tried to formulate her exit strategy should an opportunity make itself known.
Once inside the Citadel’s bailey, the fist of soldiers split up and six of them remained behind while the others continued taking her across a vast, open courtyard and into the main building, a massive structure that literally towered over everything else around it. Catelyn had never experienced anything so tall before, and scanning her bubble all the way to the top made her stomach turn over with dizziness.
The men, one at each shoulder, two in front and two behind, marched her directly into the well of a spiral staircase, where the sounds of their heavy footsteps echoed off the walls as they ascended, drowning out all other sound. Within the stairwell, with the way that sound bounced in circles, all of her senses grew confused and she was forced to let her bubble fade as they carried her roughly up the stairs.
After what felt to Catelyn like countless turning, the men finally stepped out of the stairwell and down a long hall, their boots clicking on tiles that felt cold and smooth to her feet, like some kind of highly polished stone she had never experienced before. The sensation would have been pleasant under other circumstances.
She heard the men open two massive wooden doors, their bottom rails scraping on the smooth stone floor, and then she was inside a room. It was sparse, and immense inside. Sound echoed off of the walls a number of paces away, and one side of the room had large windows through which she could hear the distant sounds of the city and the wind outside. She could make out a massive bed in the center of the south wall, and just a few other pieces of furniture.
They halted her at a spot in the middle of the room, and she heard chains being grabbed and moved both above and below her. She felt rough hands spread her legs apart and slap leather restraints around her ankles. She panicked and tried to pull away, but the men were so much stronger than her, and they simply held her in place with barely a grunt of effort, and they spoke not a word to her. She idly wondered if the men were mute, or if they had simply been ordered to remain so.
Once they had her ankles secured, they grabbed her wrists and this time she chose not to fight them as they secured her with the restraints, as it would be futile and she would be better served to save her strength. She imagined that she was going to need all of it, and soon.
Once her wrists were bound, she felt the heavy weight of the chains that were attached to her manacles, and she let her arms droop, but this didn’t last long. The men stepped away, most of them leaving the room, and two remaining behind. One took up a position at the corner of the room, while the other walked to the wall, and could be heard fiddling with more chains along the wall. And then Catelyn’s hands were tugged, and Catelyn knew that the soldier at the wall was threading the other end of her chains through a pulley, and he yanked until her hands were pulled high above her head, the manacles biting into her so tightly that they were cutting off some of the circulation in her hands.
She cried out, but the two men ignored her pain. Once she was cinched with her bound wrists pulled high above her, the man at the wall looped the chain around something and both remaining men walked away, and out of the room. She listened as their footsteps echoed down the hall and into the stairwell, and then finally were gone.
Catelyn was left alone. She waited for some time. Breaths seemed like whispers, whispers seemed like prayers. As she waited, she contemplated the choice she’d made and how it was certainly the beginning of the end of her life. The only remaining questions were when, and how painful her death would be. She didn’t fool herself into thinking that she would be granted a swift, painless death. Sure enough, she quickly began to discover the answer to that last question.
The pain in her body built slowly, but when it began, she knew that before the end it would become excruciating. She tried to stand on her tiptoes, to take some of the pressure off of her wrists and even out her weight, but she couldn’t flex her ankles very much with the heavy leather cuffs, and within a few breaths she felt her legs and feet begin to tremble, and then they gave in.
And every time they did, she felt the burning in her torso, so intense that it took her breath away and she began to feel as though she were suffocating.
Through the pain and the isolation, Catelyn had no basis for knowing how much time had passed, so she counted how many times she tried to take the pressure and the weight off of her upper body. By the fourteenth try, she was alternately sobbing and screaming in agonizing pain.
But this only worsened the pain, which in turn made it even more difficult to breathe. She was trapped in a looping cycle of pain and panic.
She was unable to form her bubble, and all of her other senses were gone, obliterated by the pain of being forced into this torturous position.
Her only companions were the echoing sobs and screams of her own torture.
Therefore she did not hear when the Emperor entered the room. Her only indication of another presence in the room was when she heard the chains on the wall being fiddled with, and then she collapsed onto the ground oblivious to anything outside of the excruciating burning feeling she felt throughout her entire body.
She curled herself into a ball, trying to control the pain, trying to catch her breath. Even trying to make herself die, to put an end to all of the pain.
Eventually, she could hear the Emperor’s slippered feet moving about the room, and then she heard him scraping a metal chair across the floor, the legs squealing so loudly that she was forced to bring her hands to her head and cover her ears, stopping it just a pace away from her. She felt his strong arms pick her up like she was a child, and place her into the chair, the chains from her restraints rattling against the legs and arms.
He put one hand under her nose and mouth, snapped something in them, and Catelyn inhaled a strong, sharp odor which made her instantly more awake, and even more acutely aware of the pain her body was in.
“Horrible sensation, isn’t it?” the Emperor noted casually. She heard him move around her until he was standing right in front of her.
“I’ve read that in ancient times, even from before the Before, men used this technique to slowly torture and kill those who defied the will of their rulers. They reportedly affixed them to beams of wood with nails, and let their bodies hang in the sun until they finally expired, usually from suffocation or infection.”
Catelyn was lost in her own pain, only barely
understanding or caring what he was saying.
“It’s rather amazing to me how certain things transcend their time and place, and become ubiquitous, don’t you think?”
Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) Page 32