Oddly, I felt no jealousy, no hot hatred for Van as a despised rival for Iyumi’s affections. For a moment, just one swift moment, I felt the urge to save them. I had the arms, the men, and the dark power on my side. One word would set arrows winging into Cian’s men, killing them instantly. My lads were armed, ready. His were armed, yet held only prisoners in their hands. Another could swamp Cian under a tidal wave of horror and crush him beneath my boot without my lifting a finger.
I resisted that urge with an effort. The pair may love one another, but unless I had Iyumi and the brat in my hands, Fainche, Sofia and my mother would die. If I were to set the life of Van against theirs, Van could only lose. As much as I wanted to like, no, liked the bastard, I’d no choice. He showed me kindness, and offered healing to his enemy, his nation’s enemy. These men intended for him to die, but hard. That was painfully obvious. Yet, I’d never risk the lives of my sister, mother and wife for him. I met his angry, desperate eyes. I’m sorry, Van, I can’t.
Perhaps one day Iyumi might turn those beautiful blue eyes on me with the same love and passion she so freely offered Van. I would save her, keep her alive and protect her all the days of her long life. She’d bear my children, not Vanyar’s. I’m sorry, Van, old son. I win. You don’t.
“Princess?”
Cian’s offensive voice brought a swift close to my reverie. Unbelievably, his tone offered her humor and scant respect. You-may-be-my-bettor-but-I-have-your-number his offhand tone said. For that attitude alone, I wanted to sink my sword into his neck and feed Dra’agor his liver.
“You will die, Cian,” Iyumi said, her blue eyes colder than the snow on the high peaks above. “Continue with this blasphemy and I promise you, the gods will be neither forgiving nor merciful. Stop now while there is still hope.”
“Hope for me, Princess?”
Cian laughed, a sharp bark. “The gods turned their backs on me when she burned. I care nothing for them, nor you, nor your cause. I lost hope long ago.”
“Don’t, Cian,” Van groaned, trying to straighten. “Don’t give her to him. I’ll do what you want, just don’t give her to Flynn. Don’t. Please. Don’t.”
“Oh, I promise you, boyo,” Cian replied cheerfully. “I promise you, you’ll do what I want. And it appears I can give her to whomever I please. Fortunately for His Highness, I choose to give Iyumi to him.”
“Please,” Van begged. “Don’t do it.”
“Why ever not? You’ll treat her well, Your Highness?”
I bowed over my saddlebow. “Of course. She will rule as queen over both our nations. I always treat my wives with love and respect.”
“Lieutenant Cian,” Iyumi went on as though I hadn’t spoken, like I wasn’t even there. “Your soul is in jeopardy here. Continue now, and there will be no going back, no turning from the path you walk. Stop while you still can.”
“Your boyfriend took my soul when he killed my Zeani,” Cian replied coldly. “I’ve lived only for this vengeance since. Lady, you can’t frighten me.”
Iyumi glared around at Cian’s soldiers. “What of you, Atani? Do I frighten you? You’ve committed treason. You’ve broken your oaths. Do you not fear the gods’ wrath?”
One of the grizzled men holding Van paced one step from him, lowered his face, and spat into the dust at Iyumi’s feet.
She didn’t flinch, yet merely nodded as though she’d expected as much. “Die then,” she murmured, eyeing each of them in their turn with that stone cold gaze. “You have each been marked. Upon your deaths, your souls will survive ten thousand lifetimes of torment and wretchedness. You have chosen this, and the gods’ will shall never be undone.”
“Witch,” one of the burly men muttered.
Oddly, Iyumi smiled. With eyes as cold as river ice, she turned that beatific smile upon him and he blanched. Just like that. Turned as white as a freshly washed bed sheet, and cut his dark eyes away from hers. Drawing away from her as well as he could without making it obvious, he made the sign against strong evil with his fingers.
Cian never noticed. He shrugged, his unconcern obvious. “Might you take her soon, m’lord?” he asked me, squinting slightly. “Her blabber is annoying my men and I have urgent business with my kinsman, you see.”
I glanced from the dark marks on Cian’s cheeks, to those on Vanyar’s. Clansmen. Shifters. Blood-kin.
“Just what did he do to deserve this?” I asked, my tone pleasant. “Murder someone you love?”
Cian’s expression shut down, instantly. “In all but name,” he spat. “Take this insufferable bitch and go, Raithin prince.”
My indolent shrug matched his. “Might you have a horse for the royal lady?” I asked. I waved my hand around at my mounted band. “I have no extra, you see, and Her Highness should ride to her betrothal on her own mount, not on a rump.”
Cian smiled thinly. “Yestin, Drust. Hand the bitch to Flynn now, then fetch the mule. Divide the packs among us.”
The men so ordered dragged a resisting Iyumi toward me, her silver locks hiding her face as she bowed her head over the infant in her arms. Sliding down from Bayonne’s saddle, I gripped her arm lightly, hoping she’d glance up into my face to see my pleasant smile. She didn’t. Instead, she stood as one prepared for death, as her former guards turned away to walk around the bushes, out of sight.
“Cian,” Van groaned, spitting blood, shaking loose from his captors. “I swear, I will kill you for this –”
“Shut your damn trap!”
Cian snatched his sword from its sheath, and I half-imagined he’d cut Van’s throat with it. Instead, he crashed the hilt into Van’s temple. Van fell to the rocks, as limp as a boned fish, on his back, out cold. Blood coursed its slow way down his brow, across his eyes and slid down his scarred cheek.
You can help him, that inner voice told me, its tone strident.
“No, I can’t.”
You can. He doesn’t have to be a rival. He can help you save Fainche. Save him, and you can save her.
“Go blow it out your –”
Cian’s men returned leading a large, greyish-brown mule by its bridle. It had no saddle, but after seeing Iyumi ride I’d no doubt she’d travel bare-back just fine. I jerked my head to Boden and Lyall. They backed their horses to flank me, their swords at the ready. As I lifted Princess Yummy by her waist and seated her, babe and all, onto the mule’s broad back, Buck-Eye and Torass also returned to my side. Arrows still nocked, they kept the razor-sharp barbs trained on Cian’s little band.
Yummy lifted her face slightly. She didn’t look at me. No tears tracked down her face. No fear bloomed in her eyes. As still as a marble statue, as pale and as emotionless, she stared at Van as Cian bent at the waist to clasp a chain to the dark collar around his neck. Nor did she glance around as I vaulted into my saddle, turning the mule about to flank Bayonne.
As we walked our horses downhill, she rested her chin on her shoulder to keep him in sight for as long as possible. Only when the high altitude hill behind us stood between her and him did she face forward once more. My hand on the mule’s leading rein kept him in position whereby I could watch her face. But she yielded me nothing. No submission, no anger, no fear. As though I escorted a life-like doll to Castle Salagh and our wedding.
I won her body, I thought. I will never win her love.
Not ever.
“You can’t do it,” Yummy said tiredly, for the fourth time.
Ignoring her, I tried a fifth, or was it sixth? breaking spell, one that could shatter weighted steel into splinters. Or should, according to the power and arcane knowledge within my head. I breathed deeply, exerting my will as the spell specified. Magic surged upward, power pouring from me in a river of strength –
I blinked, prepared to witness the bands falling asunder into Iyumi’s lap.
Nothing happened. The dark manacles remained on her wrists, holding her fast in their smooth grip. Is this for real? I thought. My magic came from the blood sacrifice. Nothing can stop such power.
Nothing on this earth.
Scowling, I tried a spell of un-binding, one that surely would melt those bastards into mere dust.
The same result yet again. Zilch.
As though owning a wicked mind, the bracelets gleamed in the red-orange illumination of our evening campfire as though laughing at me. I hated being laughed at. Thus, I hated these stubborn, cold cuffs with more power than mine. I cursed under my breath and, like a toddler with a tantrum, wished them gone.
“What are they?” I muttered, raising her hands to peer at them in the dancing firelight.
She turned her cheek away from me, her hands limp, lifeless, within mine. Obviously, she found the ground at her feet more interesting to look at than my face. “A magic so old the gods were young when their secrets weren’t so secret. The ages come and go, civilizations rise and fall, as time moves on in its relentless path. Magical knowledge and powerful relics from the old days are gone, hidden.”
“And?”
“This pewter metal is from those old days gone by. Its dark magic can still any magician, any Shifter, and prevent him from using his or her gods-given powers. No magic, no earthly influence can break them. Only those who know its deep secrets, and know how to summon its strength, can undo them, or cut them off.”
“Where do they come from?”
She refused to look and me, and I knew she lied. “I don’t know.”
“But Cian does.”
Her blue glance flicked across me then cut to her right. “Old spells of dark magic were forbidden. No one caught practicing the black evils were permitted to survive. Witches ever sought more and more power, seizing it from the blood of the innocent. How many died on their stone altars as they sold their souls to the evil ones?”
I strongly suspected I was now considered a witch by those who made the rules, or the male variation of the same. For did I not receive my great magic from the sacrifice of a small child, an innocent? Was I now as evil as they? I shut my eyes against the deep anger that tried to rise and seize control of my soul. Why did I do it? Why wasn’t my own magic enough to satisfy me? With my birth magic, I felt happy. Now, I felt sick. Couldn’t I protect Fainche and my mother with what the gods gave me without stealing more?
Upon opening my eyes, I found Iyumi watching me. Instantly, she found the infant in her lap far more interesting to look at. I released my pent up breath and fury, and offered her a small smile. At being caught, I suspected she silently vowed to keep her eyes to herself from then on. For all her attention remained on the babe and refused to lift.
“Like your scrying crystal, they were taken away and guarded for the sake of all,” her small voice continued as though never interrupted.
Without thought, my hand seized the amber gem under my shirt. “You know about that?”
She didn’t rise to my bait. “Certain adepts can feel the watcher’s using the crystals. Far too many couldn’t. Those that could lived, survived. We both know what happens to folks who can’t feel the evil eyes on their backs.”
“It’s hardly evil,” I protested.
“These days,” she continued as though reciting a dull report, raising her bound wrists, “only a few powerful magicians know how to forge them, or unlock them. I reckon Cian discovered the knowledge to not just use their dark arts, but also escape from them.”
“He escaped? From where? Who?”
She glanced over the manacles but still refused to catch my eyes. “Cian was arrested and charged with treason and attempted murder. No one knew he’d learned the secret of the metal, until he escaped them. Otherwise, he’d still be rotting in my father’s dungeon, chained like the animal he is.”
I whistled. “Then you can’t –”
She grinned, a nasty sort of feral expression I might see on a cat just before the alley fight. The first show of spirit I’d seen since we left Van in Cian’s hands. “Had I my powers, you’d be one blonde pile of ash and shit right now.”
“I reckon I can’t blame you,” I said, squeezing her cold hands. “I’m not your enemy, Iyumi.”
“Then what are you?”
“I want to be your friend.”
Snorting, she swung away from me to pick up the baby. It mewled and fussed, waving chubby brown fists from amidst the rags. “What was it you said? You ‘always treat your wives with love and respect’?”
I flushed. “Yes. I’m married.”
Though she didn’t look up from the wriggling baby resting on her forearms, her wrists still locked together, I caught the gleam of teeth as she grimaced. “Faithless monster. You’d break her heart to marry me, wouldn’t you?”
She had me there. “Yes.”
At length she sighed and glanced up. “Honest for once,” she said, her tone heavy. “You might one day achieve what you most desire if you keep that up.”
“And just what do I most desire?”
“Redemption.”
I poked the fire with a stick, glancing around at my men, sitting near the other fire. Torass turned a wild piglet on a spit, killed by Buck-Eye’s quick arrow at sunset. The roasting pork smelled delicious, but, oddly, I had no appetite. I stroked my hand down Dra’agor’s head to his neck, over and over, as he lay next to me. He stared into the flickering flames, mesmerized, his tail curled over his paws.
Iyumi tickled the infant’s lips with her fingers, bringing forth a tiny shriek of delight. “You should set him free.”
“Who?”
Now Dra’agor raised his muzzle and watched Iyumi from across my lap. He licked his lips and whined, low, in his throat.
“The wolf. He doesn’t belong to you. He belongs to himself, and the pack. His kind shouldn’t be slaves.”
“Dra’agor isn’t a slave,” I protested. “He can leave me anytime he wishes.”
Iyumi’s head snapped up and she glared at me. “Can you really be that stupid? What wolf would choose to be paired with a human? He’s been bound by black magic, the cor’cor’etala.”
“The blood binding,” I whispered, staring down at Dra’agor.
He glanced up at me, his tail lifting in a half-wag before drooping to lay still across his paws. Resting his muzzle on my knee, he shut his amber-brown eyes as though asleep. I knew he didn’t sleep, however. I continued my absent minded strokes, thinking terrible thoughts. I’d heard the legends, of course. Of how certain spells bound one’s will to that of the magician invoking the spell. That the blood of the victim was burned on a desecrated altar while the practitioner chanted prayers.
But to whom did they pray?
I heard my mother’s voice: ‘He serves me.’
This can’t be right, I thought. My mother doesn’t know how to bind a person’s, or a wolf’s, will to her own. Her magic isn’t powerful enough. It’s the work of someone else, obviously. Someone else, a person wise in the dark arts and evil knowledge, no doubt bound Dra’agor’s blood to his own. Then offered the wolf to my mother as a gift. While she didn’t exactly say as much, I know she felt affection for the beast when she rested her hand on his head. The same warmth and love she freely offered Fainche and me – and my father.
Blaez had magic, I reasoned quickly. As did Enya and I. Perhaps my nasty sire did as well. Of course, Enya would accept the wolf as a protector if Finian told her to. That explained everything. King Finian the Necromancer. Who’d have thunk it?
“So you’re familiar with the Old Tongue,” she said, subsiding. ‘Dra’agor’. Noble friend.”
“How do I free him?” I asked.
“The baby needs nourishment,” she said, as though I hadn’t spoken. She bowed her shoulders protectively over the nasty ragged bundle of squirming divine messenger. “Send one of your men to kill something.”
“Er,” I said, sounding as dumb as she thought I was. “Kill what? Don’t you want, er, milk?”
“Trolls have no need for milk.”
My guts recoiled. “That’s a troll?”
Her blue eyes burned me where I sat. “Another word and I’l
l kick your balls so hard you’ll wear them for earrings. Tell your men to kill something. Now.”
Dumping Dra’agor in the dirt, I hastily rose, backing away from the hellspawn she cuddled in her arms. She’s a witch, I thought, my mind frantic with panic. Only witches nurtured or loved the demon-hatched mountain trolls. Ever had they romped through my nightmares, hiding under my bed to await my deepest snores. Once I slept, they would creep under the linens and blankets with me, to feast on the blood that poured from my opened neck. Thus the legends and tales were told and retold over countless hearth-fires and still more mugs of amber ale. As a consequence, I had a great deal of difficulty sleeping.
Never taking my eyes off the evil creature of my worst nightmares, I backed into the warmth and light of the other campfire. Dare I to sleep this night, no doubt the wretched thing would crawl into my blankets and feast on my blood long before I could waken and escape. Stolen power or no, I knew that thing would cast me into my worm-ridden grave this night.
“Who’s on watch?” I asked Buck-Eye, never turning my back on the devil-child or her nurse. Had I taken a glance around, or remembered who I’d posted as first watch, I’d have known Boden sat several rods away, hidden from sight with his night vision unimpeded by the fires.
“M’lord?” Buck-Eye asked, sensing my distress and rising to stand beside me. “What’s wrong?”
I made a vague gesture, my spit dried to dust in my mouth. “Where’s your bow? Oh. Grab it. Go kill something.”
“Uh, we already killed a pig –”
I shoved his shoulder, hard, forcing him into the darkness and shadows. “I need fresh blood. Get a mouse, er, no, a rabbit, yes a rabbit or an owl. Anything. Go on. Don’t skin it, just bring it.”
Buck-Eye stumbled away, confused, muttering under his breath. Torass stood, forgetting his spit as Lyall nocked an arrow in his bow, ready for trouble. “M’lord? What is it?”
“What? Oh, nothing.” I swept my hand through my hair, gesturing helplessly toward Iyumi and her infant horror. I didn’t care that Lyall noticed my hand shaking. “The, er, child, the t-troll, needs fresh blood, to survive. Of course.”
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