by Jackie Dana
After a few minutes to gloat over his latest accomplishments, Bedoric finally leaned back in his chair. “All right, I think perhaps this scene has become gruesome enough. My point has been made. Guards, take them away before they bleed any more on the carpeting.”
“Where, my lord Vosira?” one asked.
“Ah. Well, that one—” he pointed to Arric, “should be taken to the south tower just here,” he indicated a wall behind him, “where I can keep an eye on him until I decide his final punishment. The murderer, of course, shall go back to his cell.”
The Senvosra immediately grabbed both Arric and Nyvas and struggled to haul them out of the room. Kate turned her head, tears streaming down her face, and Arric shouted curses towards his brother and kicked his legs in a futile effort to get free.
Nyvas, despite his pain, actually smiled at her as they dragged him past her seat. “Don’t worry about us,” he whispered as he passed by. “Just stay safe.”
The Vosira wasn’t done, however. “As for her,” he said, referring to Kate, “it’s clear she’s as guilty as the men. Throw her in with the boy. I have no further interest in her.”
A soldier grabbed her by arm and yanked her from her chair, causing it to fall backwards. She screamed in pain as her hand was jostled in the process.
Immediately Rynar spoke up. “Nay, my lord Vosira, not her.” Pleading on her behalf, he requested, “release her to me. On my word, Kate is innocent of any involvement in this, and must be spared.”
“On your solemn word, Aldrish?” The Vosira twisted his head to face him. “That is quite a show of confidence for someone with such evidence of guilt. If you are wrong, are you prepared to share the same fate as the others?”
As she squirmed in the soldier’s grasp, half-crazy from the pain of the broken bones in her hand, she had a hard time following the conversation, but heard Rynar say, “Absolutely, my lord. I will take responsibility for her. I promise you that she will cause no further problems.”
“Very well, I will grant you that favor, under the condition that she remain under heavy guard unless she is in your company.”
Then the Vosira pointed to her. “Bhara?”
Kate lifted her head, her eyes burning with anger, and stared at him.
“If I hear so much as a rumor that you are working against me, you will share the boy’s fate. Is that absolutely clear?” He glared at her. She nodded. Then he looked at Rynar, who did the same.
Chapter 33
Bolts of lightning shot up her arm.
Dazed by everything that had happened, she dropped into the closest chair, cradling her injured hand in her lap. Her senses were numbed, and she could barely see or hear, and it took every ounce of her concentration to remain upright.
Moments earlier she had followed Aldrish Rynar to his quarters, needing his support to just make it down the hall without fainting. His room was warm, almost to the point of being stifling, as the shutters were closed and a fire blazed high in the hearth, and she started sweating profusely.
Yet she said nothing.
She didn’t know what to do. In the council chamber everything had had a surreal quality to it, as if she had been watching a movie. Never before had she experienced anything like it—never before had she witnessed someone so casually, and cruelly, inflicting pain on others, least of all people she cared about, or herself.
“My dear, may I help you?” Rynar asked, crouching down beside her.
His words triggered despair, and she doubled over in distress, sobbing, both out of pain and fear for her friends. “I’m not the one who needs help.”
“Do not waste your tears on them,” he gently admonished her, as he wiped her cheek with his fingers. “They deserved what happened to them.”
“No, it’s not right, they—” she began to argue, but she did so, she made a slight movement that shifted her hand. She gasped as the grating of the splintered bones in her fingers sent a new wave of fire up her arm, and she cried out. Her hand was limp and bloody, and her knuckles were swelling up quickly. Just a quick glance at her disfigured hand made her feel sick. Waves of dizziness made it hard to sit upright, and she could feel her perspiration slick and clammy on her face. Still, she tried to fight it. If Nyvas could bear what they had done to him, then she could bear this. She had to be strong, for their sakes.
Concerned, Rynar reached for the injured hand. “My dear, there is no reason for you to suffer so. Please, let me see what I can do.”
Instinctively, she turned, hunching over to shelter her hand, sticky with blood, and intensely painful. “Just leave me alone.” Contending with both physical and psychological pain, she pulled away from him. “You can’t do anything.” Her breathing was shallow, and despite her efforts she knew she was going to pass out. With her eyes tightly clenched, she added, more to herself than to him, “I should be with them.”
He pulled up a chair next to her. “Ah, my dear, the Vosira was wrong to force you to be witness any of that, much less cause you to be injured. If I had known his plans—”
“You should have stopped him,” she demanded, accusing him of complacency even she fought to remain conscious. “None of it’s true.”
“What is untrue? Everyone knows Stavan is guilty. I don’t know how he managed to survive all these years, but I’m afraid his luck has finally run out.”
“No.” Another wave of pain cascaded through her body and she winced.
“Kate, I have done my best to advocate for you, but I fear you are making my role all but impossible.”
She bowed her head, unwilling to look at him. The slight movement caused her to again jerk her hand, and she sucked in a breath. The pain made it difficult to focus on this conversation, but she stuck to it, hoping to convince him. “You just don’t understand what Arric was trying to do...” She stopped with that comment, and closed her eyes. The pain was interfering with her judgment, and she didn’t dare say anything further.
“My dear, for some reason you care about our Dosedra—though honestly, he’s utterly unworthy of your time. He is as conniving and cowardly as he was eight years ago, and I fear he will try to undermine our Vosira for the rest of his days. He’s just angry that he’s been found out.”
“No.” She continued to protest, more weakly, and never opened her eyes.
He placed a finger against her chin, turning her head to face him, and her eyelids fluttered open. “Once a man is named Vosira, and wears the torc around his neck, nothing short of his own death will change that. The Dosedra has never been able to accept that his brother became Vosira instead of him, and that stubbornness will be his undoing.” He clucked his tongue. “I’m so sorry. It’s always difficult to learn that friends are not what you believed them to be.” He reached out and smoothed her hair. “You haven’t known these people as long as I have, dear Kate. With time, you will see the truth in what I have said.”
As she sat there, it was becoming a little easier to breathe, and she no longer felt like she was on the verge of passing out. “No, I won’t.” Even though she chose her gut feelings over logical facts, she remained resolute in her loyalty to them. “What’s going to happen to them? Will the Vosira really execute them?”
Rynar licked his lips. “Let’s not talk about it now,” he said in a soothing voice, and continued to brush her hair with his fingers.
In a croaking whisper she pleaded, “tell me.” She wanted to demand it of him, but her voice was too weak to make much of an impression now.
He shrugged. “It is difficult to say about the Dosedra. I doubt that Vosira Bedoric will bring grave harm to his own brother, no matter what he’s done. As for Stavan, well, he should have died eight years ago, so Bedoric will have no problems ensuring that the sentence is carried out this time.” He bent down a little, so he could see into her eyes. “You can do nothing about it. It is the will of the Vosira.”
“You have to stop him.”
“My dear, it’s out of my control. You need to move forward
, and try to not let it bother you too much.” He reached out and put two fingers on her elbow. “Now, may I see your hand?”
She was still cradling her injured hand against her chest, and despite his request, she did not move.
“Please,” he beseeched her, holding out his own hand. “There are broken bones. You cannot ignore such an injury for long, or you’ll lose the use of your hand. Surely you would not wish for that to happen?”
“Just go,” she whimpered. “You can’t do anything about it anyway. Just leave me alone.”
“Hmm.” He was undeterred. “You might be surprised by what I can do.” He continued to hold out his hand. “May I? Really, dearest Kate, I insist. Let me do this for you.”
She shrugged. “Fine, whatever will make you go away.” She gently placed both of her hands on her lap, the uninjured hand cradling the other. “See?”
He gently uncurled her fingers, causing her to scream as white-hot fire gushed towards her elbow. “Shh, dearest,” he comforted her, and as he spoke the words, the pain seemed to diminish slightly. “Just as I thought. That idiot. This was totally unnecessary.”
He grasped her arm above the wrist, and very delicately placed the injured hand in his own. As she closed her eyes, there was a flash of warmth that seemed to emanate from the marrow of her bones; it started in her fingertips and slowly spread down to the knuckles, and into her palm, up her wrist, and traveled all the way up her arm.
She sat quietly for a moment, soaking in the warmth, and the pain seemed to dull ever so slightly. Her tense muscles relaxed, and she settled into the chair. Perhaps she dozed off for a little while, it was hard to say. When she opened her eyes again, Rynar was no longer in his chair, but instead was kneeling beside her, her hand still in his, and his head resting against her knee.
He must have sensed movement, for he raised his head. “Is it better, now?” he asked softly, blinking several times, as if he had fallen asleep himself.
Looking away, she wiggled one finger, then the other. Then she gently closed her hand as if to make a loose fist. “Yeah, I think maybe…” she began, but her words melted away. She turned to look at her hand, now. Although there were streaks of blood where the bones had broken through the skin, the pain and swelling were entirely gone, and everything was back in place, as if nothing had ever happened. It was like her blistered feet—she was entirely well again. “What did you do?” she whispered.
If it were possible, Rynar appeared a bit embarrassed. “It was a simple healing, that’s all.” He stretched out his own fingers in response, as if they had become stiff with the effort. “Broken bones are the easiest for me.”
“You’re a healer?” she whispered. “You can heal broken bones, just by touching me?”
“Aye, more or less.” He stood up quickly, and dusted imagined dirt from his knees. “Although I don’t make this fact publicly known.”
“But how—” she remembered what Lysander had said, and for a moment allowed herself to be amazed. Then she pictured her friends together, imagining how hard Sander must be taking the news of Nyvas’s capture, and this sparked fresh sobs.
“Oh, my dear, you need to rest. It has been an altogether trying evening for you.”
Chapter 34
Kate felt like a bird in a gilded cage.
For two weeks, she remained in Rynar’s care, unable to come and go as she pleased. Where he went, she was forced to follow, whether it was his sword practice in the exercise yard or a council meeting, supper in the great hall or long hours as he worked in his quarters. And throughout this time, there was no change in the status of her two imprisoned friends. Every day Rynar dodged her questions about their welfare, and refused to allow her to check on them, or contact them in any way.
Without fail, each evening she stared out the narrow window, noting the phase of the moon as it rose for the night. Nyvas had been captured just after the new moon, and was scheduled to die at the next full moon. The last three nights she had not been able to see anything but a fuzzy glow due to heavy cloud cover, and despite Rynar’s reassurances, she feared the full moon would come and go without her knowledge.
Tonight, as she leaned out, she gasped. The moon was large and bright, and nearly a complete disk in the sky.
“My dear, what is it?” He had decided to forego the evening’s dancing in the great hall, and instead pulled several parchments from his locked chest, none of which he would share with her. Now, in the light of a half-dozen candles, he labored over the documents. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“Hmm?” he replied absently, scarcely paying attention to her. “What is?”
She let the curtain drop over the window, and fell into a chair beside him. “You know what I meant,” she replied angrily. “Vosira Bedoric said Nyvas has to die at the full moon.”
Rynar lifted his head to look at her. His expression was solemn. “Aye, that’s tomorrow night.”
She stared at him, her eyes filled with anger. “You still haven’t done anything to stop it.”
He pushed the documents to the side, and folded his hands on the table. “My dear, we’ve discussed this matter—how many times now? I know how much it grieves you, but you must accept the Vosira’s decision. There’s nothing more to be done.”
“Well, I won’t accept it, and you know that.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t care how many times you tell me it’s a done deal. They’re my friends. I can’t believe you don’t understand that.”
“I do understand—better than you can imagine.”
“So then, why haven’t you told the Vosira not to go through with it? You haven’t even brought it up in the Council meetings. You could have advised him to do something different. He listens to you.”
He smiled. “Aye, my dear, he does—usually.” He tentatively stretched out a hand to her. His eyebrows went up in surprise as she grasped it. “Where his father’s murder is concerned, however, he listens to no one.”
Kate clung to his fingers, gripping hard with her left hand, the one he had healed. She hoped the significance of the gesture would not be lost on him. “Can I at least visit Nyvas one last time? Surely that isn’t so much to ask?”
Just as she precariously clung to this last hope, he knocked it away again, and her hand as well. “Nay, that is impossible. If I were to take you down to his cell, I might as well leave you there—and possibly be forced to stay, myself. Vosira Bedoric was very clear. The boy is not to see anyone, and anyone who defies that order will pay dearly. Even me.” Then he looked at her with a softer expression, apparently realizing how abruptly he had broken contact. He reached over to touch her cheek. “That fhaoli killed the Vosira’s father. Trust me on this. He will not change his mind. Do yourself a favor and forget about the boy.”
“How can I?” She remembered all too clearly how Nyvas had befriended her, convincing the others, particularly Arric, to trust her. “He saved my life.”
“Indeed? How so?”
She swallowed hard, not intending to divulge that information until it tumbled from her lips. “The others thought I was a spy. They were on the verge of abandoning me in the swamp until he convinced them otherwise. Rynar, don’t you understand? He trusted me when none of the others did, not even the Dosedra. I owe him.”
“Really? That boy?” He stood up and walked over to the window himself, and stared at the moon for a moment. Then he returned to the table, and picked up the quill again.
“That’s all you’re going to say?” It seemed for a split second that she had gained a foothold, and she didn’t want to give up now. “Look, I know how difficult it might be, but you have to find a way to let me see him. Just once. No one needs to know.”
“Nay, Kate, I cannot.” There was an air of finality in his voice. “It’s over. Do not ask it of me again.” With his fingertips, he dragged the documents close again. “Now, I beg of you—I must get to work. I must be prepared before the next Council
meeting.”
“Damn you!” Unable to hold back her frustration, she shoved herself back from the table, and angrily stepped into the inner chamber, alternately crossing and uncrossing her arms. “You’re as heartless as the Vosira himself.”
Hearing no response, she pushed the door shut, and spent some time sitting at the window, staring at the sky. There had to be something she could do, but trapped as she was, she had run out of options. All she could do was hope for a miracle. Did these gods grant this kind of wish, she wondered, and how might one ask for such a thing?
After what must have been hours of her softly pouring her heart out to any deity who might listen, both those of this world and her own, she decided to go to bed. There was nothing else to do. She climbed into his large bed like she did every night, as Rynar always made himself a pallet on the floor by the door. Tonight, she lay there with her eyes closed, but remaining wide awake. Her mind wandered, still trying to devise a plan, but finding no workable options.
She dozed off at one point, and had an odd dream.
In her dream, she found herself in a dark room without windows or light of any kind. She felt like she was swimming in the darkness, as if the darkness itself had form and could be touched.
“Kate? Is that you?”
“Nyvas!” She was overjoyed to hear his voice. “You’re here?”
“Aye. How do you fare?”
“I’m fine, but I’m worried about you.”
He dismissed her fears. “There is no need to worry.”
“Are you kidding me? It must be terrible for you. The soldiers hurt you so badly. How are you managing?”
“Bedoric cannot break me.”
She smiled. It was exactly what she expected from him. “I know. Still, I wish I could save you.”