by Julia Knight
Strange that Josie had never mentioned this Holden before, that she’d never mentioned this last night. Or maybe not, maybe sparing his feelings, though he doubted that. Not her style. If she wasn’t hiding something, she’d have told him, would have mentioned that she was using their past relationship to gull this Holden. There’d been something she’d tried to say, but couldn’t, hadn’t there? This? Or something else?
Van Gast was torn between a fear that she’d found a lost love, one she loved as she never had him, and was trying to scam Van Gast, and fear that she was risking everything she had to scam her ex-lover. If so, Holden would betray her, of course he would, he was Remorian. Or maybe—and this thought made his balls shrivel—maybe she loved Holden and he’d betray both her and Van Gast, because nothing could beat the bond.
Once on, it had a stranglehold on you, would wring the life from you. Poor bastards that were born into it never knew anything else. They thought it was the right way to live, and if they bond-ganged you…Well, Brandick had told him once how he’d seen it happen, a long time ago. It was like the man’s brain had drained out of his ears, leaving him just a plaything of the mages who ran the Archipelago. That was how they liked it, complete and willing subservience. That thought was enough to curdle the brandy in his stomach.
Dillet standing at the door, a little huddle of crewmen behind him, made all those thoughts vanish.
“Where we going now, Van?” Dillet’s voice had a defiant edge to it, as though he was winding himself up to something. Time to tread carefully.
“To Ruisden, get repaired. Then we’re going to Tarana.”
The crewmen murmured behind Dillet but only the first mate spoke aloud. “Why we going there?”
“Because we’ve got a nice little deal going down.”
“You’re still bent on following her, aren’t you? I don’t know what you thought you was getting when you dove overboard last night, but it was something to do with her, wasn’t it? Well, I for one ain’t going. I don’t know what’s the matter with you lately, Van, but you been leading us into nothing but shit. First all that business in Estovan, then you been acting all odd, disappearing in Dorston. Had us haring up and down the coast for no reason we can see, making no money. Now you want to follow Josie and a Remorian on the off-chance you can screw some money out of her. Well, I know that bastard Holden from afore, and not just me. He’s Remorian, Van, and not just that he’s a fucking commander now. Not just any old sailor, he’s got ships and to spare at his command. If Josie’s stupid enough to get mixed up with him, that’s her lookout. We ain’t going to follow her down to the Deeps, and I can’t see one reason why you should.”
“I told you, we’ve got a deal going on at Tarana. I never said it had anything to do with Josie, did I?”
“Damn it, Van, I know you’re lying about something. I don’t mind as a rule, because you keep me in booze and women, but I ain’t going to get mixed up with no Remorians and that’s flat. You find somewhere else for us to go, or me and the lads will, and you can swim to Tarana.”
Van Gast leaped to his feet and dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. “Don’t make me beach you, Dillet. I’m the captain on this ship.”
Dillet snorted derisively. “I’d fucking jump myself rather than get caught up with the Remorians, or Josie. You may be captain, but you need a crew to run this ship, and there ain’t no racketeers who’d help you in this one. Not here, not in Ruisden, not anywhere. What’s your trouble bone saying lately, Van? Itching much?”
Van Gast didn’t say anything for a moment. Trouble was, he couldn’t blame Dillet or the rest. As far as they knew, Josie wasn’t to be trusted, she was to be feared, and Van Gast had the same misgivings about Holden as they did. He had to tell them something. “Priceless, that’s what this is about. There’s a twist to be had, what we’ll get from it is priceless, and it’s ours for the taking. Priceless.”
A few of the crew muttered in appreciation and their stance softened. Van Gast almost had them, pulling them along by their greed. Dillet was another matter.
“Van, you nearly got this ship sunk once already. You ain’t been acting right for weeks, and priceless ain’t no good when you’re dead, is it? I—”
Van Gast held up his hands. “All right, Dillet, all right. When we get to port, I’ll go see Quint. Find out everything I can. I can get Guld to do a bit of scrying, talk to the other mages. If it looks too dangerous, or if anything makes my trouble bone itch, we’ll find something else. I just don’t like turning down this kind of opportunity. Deal?”
A couple of the crewmen nudged at Dillet from behind and whispered in his ear. “Aye, Van, all right. Just don’t you go pushing on your luck with our lives. I don’t want to be bonded or deaded, none of us does.”
“You think I do?” Van Gast shuddered and turned to his desk. He unlocked a drawer and pulled out some of Haban’s golden sharks, kept against just such an emergency. “In the meantime, when we get to Ruisden, I’m sure you can all cheer yourselves up. The last share of the Sea Witch money until I can get to Haban again.”
Dillet laughed, took the pouch and hefted it. Fifty gold sharks was enough to get every man aboard drunk for a month and still have enough to try half the whores in Ruisden. “Aye, reckon that’ll do for now, Van.” Yet when he turned to go, his eyes were sly in a way that made Van Gast think he’d best start watching his back.
He slumped back down in his chair when they left. It would take more than money to mollify them if they found out what he was really up to. He looked up at Guld. “Any chance you can find her with that scrying spell of yours?”
Guld flinched. “With a Remorian mage around? I could end up with my head in ten different places. They know some pretty good blocking spells. I did try when they sailed, but all I got was noise.”
“I’ve got a hair now.” Van Gast delved into a pocket and dragged out the fake ruby, a half dozen fair hairs tied round it. “On the blanket this morning. Saw them and thought of you. That help?”
Guld took them from him and held them up to the light. “It might be. I can try, Van, but I can’t promise. Not against a mage of the power. I like my head where it is.”
“So try. If you find her, you’ll find him, and maybe we can find out what this is really about.” Van Gast leaned back in the chair and balanced it on its rear legs. Faking nonchalance out of habit. “So, why did you tell me this about Josie and Holden?” He had to work at keeping his voice level. Everything he’d been sure of had started to twist under his feet like quicksand and the itch was back, worse than he’d ever known it. He couldn’t tell if it was for him, or for her. It pervaded everything now, every thought, every possibility he could imagine.
“I just thought, um, that you’d like to know. It could change things, couldn’t it?”
Yes, it could, but that all depended on Josie. This was all part of the plan, it must be. It couldn’t be anything else, and her mind was too twisty for him to have a hope of knowing where she was going with this. She wouldn’t betray him, and not for a Remorian, wouldn’t fall for him. He’d just staked his ship on it. Not his Josie.
Would she?
“See if you can find them.”
Chapter Sixteen
The skin of Josie’s neck was salty under Holden’s tongue as they lay on the covers. Her hands ran over the muscles on his back, lighter than a feather, making little shivers run along his spine. One hand fluttered along his cheek, pulled his face to hers, and she kissed him again, hungry now, wanting, her hips pressed tight to his.
She shivered and pulled away, her storm-grey eyes searching his. “Holden, please. I always loved you because you weren’t like the rest. Your bond didn’t reach your heart. Let the boy go, let me go, out of your bond. Let Van Gast rot in Tarana and I’ll stay here with you.” She let a leg slide over his, tantalizing him with the dark gap between. “Forever, if you like. Just give up this foolishness. Let him go, and stay with me. I’ll choose to stay with you.”
He ran his hand down her neck, over a breast, a nipple that became sharply pointed at his touch, and he was tempted, had never been so tempted by anything in his life. If only it was possible. “Later,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Then it was as it always had been, though he had enough knowledge of himself to recognize this wasn’t love, this was memory. This was the thought of what could be, and Josie was the beacon that called to him and led him on, that would show him everything he’d been denied. She was warm and vital and so very alive against him, only now she knew the constraints that had bound him, that still bound him. It tempered her, made her hesitant, but he made sure not to use the bond against her, not to make her want it because he wanted it.
They tangled together and it was sweet sweat and warm breath and whispered, wanting words. Only when she arched against him, when of old she would have called his name, now she kept the words back, clenched her teeth against it. He couldn’t blame her. He was her master, as unwilling as she was, but she was his again.
The bang of the door hitting the wall as it burst open made Holden start awake, unsure where he was, or when. Forn’s Bells, he recognized the room, and Josie was in his bed. Was it then, or now?
Cattan stood in what was left of the doorway, a ragged excuse for a Remorian mage, but still with more power than any other outside their odd world. Holden’s heart felt like it stumbled to a stop, but he scrambled off the bed. Here was someone who could ruin him, ruin every dream he’d ever had and render his soul to dust by thinking about it. Even now, even with half his crystals melted away into the sea, Cattan could kill him with barely a word and would if he knew half of what had been going through Holden’s mind of late.
Cattan was weak physically from the loss of his magic, from muscles that had atrophied from lack of use, and he had to prop himself in the doorway to recover after his spell to blast it from its hinges. Only a moment though. By the time Holden stood, Cattan was across the threshold.
A word, that’s all it took. One word and Holden was plastered up against the wall, barely able to breathe for the pressure that crushed his chest, the bond throbbing and burning up his arm and over his ribs like a vise.
“I know what you’ve been thinking.” Cattan’s voice was weak and thin now, without enough of his stored magic to aid it. Nothing like the rich voice of one with the power. A small cluster of crystals tinkled as they hit the rug. “I know. I know why you’re using her. And I know why she’s using you, what she’s doing.”
Another word, another lance of pain. Cattan was taking his time, gloating, because of what Holden had said aboard ship. Thinking he had the upper hand, and he did. Holden had no refuge from sudden, wrenching death if a mage wished it. He was only the servant of their power, no more worthy of notice or mercy than a beast of burden. He lived to serve. It pulsed in his mind, in his arm and on through to every muscle. There was no fighting it, no escaping it, no matter his dreams. Not ever.
Cattan leaped for Holden, a surprise move that took him off his guard. He’d never expected an attack from Cattan to be physical—the man was a stick under his magic. Yet Holden couldn’t move, not even a finger, so what had a mage to lose? Cattan’s hand, cloaked in flame, closed around his throat. Flames seared him, sent black, spiraling bits of his skin into the air, and he couldn’t fight it. The Master’s will. He’d been a slave too long and now he’d die a slave. His eyes flicked to Josie, to where she slunk off the bed, her eyes hard and calculating.
Cattan’s pale, crystal-flecked face bored into his. His free hand made for Holden’s wrist, for the bond-scars there. Holden couldn’t move, could do nothing but try to gasp for a scorched breath as Cattan’s fingers sank through his skin in a burst of bright white agony. They scrabbled around, nails scratching on bone, and Holden didn’t even have the breath to scream. Cattan grinned in triumph as his fingers closed over the bond, tangled in it and pulled.
Something tightened in Holden, around his head, his heart, his soul, an iron band he’d forgotten was there squeezed everything in, threatened to crush it, crush him. He was bound, more than bound. Bond screwed so tight, he wasn’t sure he could ever move again. Only his eyes stirred, tracked Josie as she stepped up behind Cattan.
The mage watched him closely. “I will keep you both tight in your bonds, as the Master orders. Holden, stay here. See, and now you can’t move, even when I take the spell away. She can’t save you. She has nothing that can harm me.”
“Except this.” Josie stood behind him, stark naked, with a jug of bath water. She tipped it over Cattan with a smile.
Holden’s breath was thin bites of agony, his throat seared inside and out, his back a rod of fire where he was pinned to the wall, his limbs too heavy, his heart twisted too tight to move. Cattan writhed on the floor, magic washing away from his skin in rainbow rivers. It didn’t stop him, he was a mage, and he still owned the bond. Nothing would stop him but death.
Cattan glared up at Josie and spoke a word. Not much power behind it but enough. Josie clutched at her throat, trying to pull invisible hands away, trying to let in a gasp of air. Her face and lips began to purple and still Holden was pinned naked to the wall by his bond, by Cattan’s order.
Cattan shook the bathwater off, droplets spraying everywhere along with spent crystals of magic. Enough were left, enough for him to do what he’d come for and kill them. More of the crystals dissolved into vapor as he gathered his power. He dragged himself to his feet and stood over Josie, gloating as she sank to her knees, clutching at her throat and staring at Holden with desperate, bulging eyes.
He could hear her, almost. In his mind she was telling him to fight it, fight the magic that bonded him, but he couldn’t. Not now, not when it was so strong. To fight it was only more pain, to die, and he wanted to live. He sank back into it, into the bond, into the way his life had always been, the comfort of having no will, no thought of his own, and the pain faded, leaving his limbs weak and watery.
Cattan shoved at Josie and she fell to the tiles, her legs to one side. How had Holden not noticed the blackish-purple bruise around the bond he’d put on, the way little lines of it were working their way up her leg like a poison? Cattan’s fingers dove into her skin, moved around underneath like worms in the earth as he searched for the bond.
“I made this,” he said to Holden. “You may have put it on, but I made it, and I at least still serve our Master in my heart. As you must now, Holden. As she must.”
Cattan grinned as he found it, twisted and pulled it tight against Josie’s thrashing. When he pulled his hand out of her skin, he laid his fingers gently on her and took off his spell. Josie’s breath came in great harsh gasps as she tried to draw in air, but her face subsided to a more normal color. He stroked her cheek and she flinched away from him with a halfhearted snarl.
“See, now it doesn’t matter that my magic is weak,” Cattan said. “It doesn’t matter because I control your bonds, both of you, until the Master gets here. I need no magic. I merely need to speak what I wish. Holden, attend. Watch what the bond can do, what I can do. Josie, stop breathing.”
Josie’s face contorted again, but she didn’t scramble for her neck this time. No spell to throttle her. Her ribs just ceased to move, to draw in breath. She fought it, always she fought it, managed one strangled gasp, but the purple-black lines grew each time. Up to her knee now. The bond was killing her, as Holden had known it would in the end, and killing her faster now that it was tighter, that she had to fight harder. “Josie,” he whispered. “Josie, you have to let it, have to accept it. There’s no other way.”
She managed to lift her lips in a sneer and took in a scant breath.
Cattan patted her cheek. “You should listen to him. That’s good advice. Accept it, and the pain will go. Josie, breathe.”
Her ribs moved in jerky spasms and Josie managed to hiss a “Bastard!” through a hoarse throat. Cattan smiled down at her and stroked along her stomach with one crystal-free hand. S
he lifted a hand to smack him away, but got no further than trying before a spasm of pain ripped a scream from her throat and the lines crept farther up her leg.
“Shhh now, Josie, just stay still. Stay quiet.” Cattan’s voice was very soft, but Josie’s cry cut off in midscream. “Ah, now it’s most interesting to see in both your minds. Holden dreams of freedom, but he knows he’ll never get it, so he uses you to make himself believe it could happen. You though, Josie, you’re using him too, aren’t you? A way to distract him from what you’re really about. Of course you are. Josie, you may speak. Tell Holden, do you love him as he dreams you do?”
Josie struggled against it, but it was useless. “I always did love him.”
“Ah, trying to be clever, answer the question without answering the question. How about this then, Josie? Distraction is the essence of all your little tricks, your twists. You’re using Holden, I know, using him, the situation you find yourself in, for your own ends, whether you love him too or not. What are you distracting him from, using him for, tempting him and his dreams with your love for? Or rather who are you distracting him from and why?”
She clenched her teeth against it, her lips tight, but the words were dragged out by Cattan’s will.
“Andor.” The sound was hardly more than a whisper and her eyes were wild under the fan of braided hair. “Keep Andor free from you.”
Cattan ran his hand over her forehead, searching inside, his face twisted with the effort. The few crystals on his back evaporated in a little cloud of oily vapor, extending the last of his power. Josie stared at him, her face stubborn as she tried to resist.
“The boy, you want to keep the boy free of a bond,” Cattan said at last, his voice wavering and weak. “We know the little lad’s name now then, and how you’re trying to twist Holden. Maybe you’ll be as keen to persuade me, now Holden is indisposed. It won’t work, of course, but you can try. I would very much enjoy that.”