This Dark Mirror

by Tricia Owens

  "What do you think you’re doing?" Caled hissed into his ear. The mercenary yanked Hadrian’s right arm up between his shoulder blades and gave a twist for good measure. Hadrian gasped at the pain that shot up to his shoulder. "Once a murderer always a murder, Hades? I can’t believe you! How could I have trusted you for a second?"

  Hadrian strained to keep his bare cheek above the soil. "You don’t know him like I do!"

  "Apparently I don’t know you, either. Sorcerers," he spat. "Thank you for reminding me to never turn my back on one. Who you were you planning to murder after Jessyd, hmm? Maybe Manix since he’s the next obvious threat? Then me? The thieves?"

  "Please don’t hurt him, Caled."

  The mercenary stilled. "Stay out of this, Jessyd."

  "It’s not his fault. He’s under stress because we’re nearing his father. I don’t blame him. I’m rattled, too. Hadrian wouldn’t have hurt me. He lost control of his magick, Caled. Truly, that’s all that happened. He wasn’t attacking me."

  "You’re a fool if you believe that. Hades is nothing but a killer."

  Hadrian slumped, his strength bled from him at the words. He didn’t care what Caled did with him. Death might be a blessing after all.

  Jessyd knelt beside them. Hadrian jerked when the other sorcerer’s hand fell upon the back of his head, gently stroking his hair. "Hadrian is frightened. Don’t blame him for his fear. Gavedon was not kind to his son. The stories I have shared of my suffering are nothing compared to what Hadrian has suffered."

  "Don’t!" Hadrian struggled anew, his fury burning in his veins.

  "Shh," Jessyd soothed, continuing to pet him. "I won’t tell them just yet. Perhaps eventually you’ll feel strong enough to tell them yourself. You need to, Hadrian, to find yourself peace. I’ve pitied you for so long. Mayhap now I may help you to heal."

  Tears burned Hadrian’s eyes. He was dizzy with rage. "I don’t want your pity!"

  "Let me ease him into sleep," he heard Jessyd murmur to Caled. "He needs it badly. The strain is too much for him, I’m afraid."

  "No, leave me alone! Don’t you—" Jessyd’s fingers touched his temple as the sorcerer murmured soft words of magecraft. Hadrian continued to struggle but a haze was falling over his senses and his limbs soon grew too heavy to move. "Don’t," he whispered. "Don’t."

  "Your pity may be misplaced," he heard Caled say as if from very far away. "Hadrian is dangerous."

  "No, Hadrian is just a boy despite his years. He is full of fear and insecurity." Jessyd’s voice followed him into darkness. "He needs to accept his weaknesses before he can overcome them. Perhaps I will make that my mission from now on. I will take Hadrian back to those darkest places inside him and help him find the strength to fill them with light."

  "He tried to kill you and yet you wish to help him. That’s rather generous of you, Jessyd."

  "Not at all. It is the least I can do. For a friend."

  Chapter Four

  Hadrian dreamed he was in his bed chambers in the castle. Ropes lashed him to the chair he sat upon. Snakes coiled about his head. He opened his mouth to scream—

  And ended up opening his eyes. The snakes were gone, but the ropes remained.

  Panicking, he tugged at his wrists, but they, like his ankles, were spread to four corners and tied to stakes thrust into the ground. The sun was low, the sky only pink. Trees canopied him. He heard the gurgle of a stream or river nearby. His cloak was spread beneath him, shielding him from the cool soil. He lifted his head. Manix sat cross-legged before him, watching him with a somber expression on his ageless face.

  "Manix," he whispered, relieved to see the Elder and not his father sitting there. "What happened? Why am I bound like this?"

  "I wish to know whether you present a danger to my apprentice and to this mission. Please speak truthfully or I shall use my knowledge of magecraft to loosen your tongue."

  Hadrian was so stunned he couldn’t breathe for a moment. "I’m no—I’m no danger to Syellen. Nor to the mission. What makes you think such a thing?"

  "You attempted to use your magick on Jessyd last night."

  Hadrian slumped atop his cloak. Then that hadn’t been part of the nightmare. He truly had lost control in the worst way he could have. He wouldn’t have killed the other sorcerer—not even hurt him. But he’d wanted to frighten Jessyd. He’d wanted to show him that Hadrian was not the boy who’d been molested on the grass that afternoon. He was stronger.

  He started to speak carefully, "What occurred with Jessyd was—"

  "Extremely disturbing," Manix cut in. The Elder’s expression darkened. "You would have killed him had Caled not intervened."

  "No, I—"

  "Do not lie to me or to yourself!"

  Hadrian stilled in shock.

  "You possess the power to slaughter us all, and last night you showed your willingness to do murder Jessyd."

  Though his cloak lay between him and the ground, he felt the soil and it was hard—as hard as the stones of the castle on Shard’s Point. The dream which had been pushed to the edges of his consciousness upon waking now crept forward again. In his mind he walked a long hallway and no longer did Manix stand at the end of it, encouraging him to brave the darkness. The hallway was empty. Ahead lay a blackness that never ended.

  Of everything he could have expected, Manix turning against him was not one of them. The Elder had become important to him. He was a man Hadrian felt safe with, the one man he hoped to one day entrust with all of his confessions. He was the only one Hadrian believed genuinely cared what happened to him, since Caled currently hated him.

  But just as his father had warned him, Manix did not return the sentiments. Manix didn’t believe in him. The Elder thought he was a danger.

  Inside of Hadrian, a nugget of ice began to expand, freezing his blood from within.

  "Were you intending to kill him?" Manix went on. "Were you going to use your magick just as you had in Rhiad?" The Elder looked sad and horrified, as if he’d come upon a bloody and mangled corpse and was afraid to guess what manner of beast had put it in that state. Manix believed he was that beast. He believed Hadrian was the thing capable of the unthinkable.

  And bitterly, Hadrian told himself Manix was right. He was every foul thing they believed of him. His father had known it, and now Manix had learned it, too. So be it, he thought bitterly. He would give Manix what he expected, what they all expected of him, because what was the point trying to be a better man when they wouldn’t believe him?

  "I would have killed him," he said in a hoarse, glacial voice that slicked his tongue with ice. The ice built rapidly, crusting over his consciousness. He felt nothing. Not even Manix’s flinch of fear could hurt his feelings. "I don’t care for your laws. I’m not with you because I share your need for justice—I’m here because I have no other choice. If you force me to meet my father I will burn the two of us and the world around us until there is nothing left but ash upon the air." Hadrian felt dead as he whispered, "I am a monster who should not be trusted. Turn your back on me to your peril. If you’re as wise as you claim to be, you’ll kill me now."

  Manix moved forward suddenly. Hadrian flinched back, but the Elder only laid his palm across his forehead.

  "I know what you are doing," the Elder stated with sudden anger. "Pushing us away protects yourself but only temporarily. We are not your enemies, Hadrian! We are not aligned against you so do not act as though we are." His fingers pressed against Hadrian’s forehead. "You need peace, not this defensive posturing."

  "I’m not postur—"

  "I am not a fool!" Manix yanked his hand away. Hadrian tensed, waiting to be hit. He flushed with shame when Manix’s expression turned regretful. "You are a child." The pity in his voice stung like a lash, making Hadrian want to scream at him. And then weep.

  Manix’s dark eyes sought to penetrate him. "You are an adult in years, but not in experience. You know nothing of the world but what your father taught you and that was tainted by self
ishness and a dark agenda. I have seen young apprentices behave as you do. They are children of abuse and neglect. I know what you are doing. You must cease at once, Hadrian. You need allies far more than you need another enemy. Relying upon my trust and assistance will not make you weaker or more open to hurt. It will make you stronger."

  "You believe me a killer, why argue the point? You accuse me of hurting Syellen—why should I trust you when you don’t trust me?" Hadrian turned his face away, wishing he could disappear forever. Bitterness swelled up around him like an engulfing shadow. "Perhaps you’re right. You shouldn’t trust me if I can’t trust myself. Who’s to say Rhiad won’t be repeated? I can’t promise it won’t. I can’t say that if I’m driven to it I won’t commit the same horrors again." A tear burned its way from the corner of his eye. "I’m weak. I’m a coward. It doesn’t take much to coerce me into the unthinkable. One day it will happen again."

  Manix fell silent. Hadrian stared at the trees, imagining walking into the forest and never returning. He would walk all the way to the sea, and there, he would drown himself.

  "Let me go," he choked out as another tear joined the first. "Release me from the lifebond and I promise you I will remove my stain from the land. You needn’t fear my destruction ever again if you let me go. I swear to you: I’ll end it properly."

  He heard a rustle in the trees. The wind seemed to gasp.

  Manix shifted nearer. "But what of Caled?" His softly voiced question made Hadrian shrivel in on himself. "Would you leave him behind to face certain death at your father’s hands? I thought you loved him, Hadrian. Are you that cruel? "

  Hadrian slowly turned his head and gazed up at the Elder through tear-blurred eyes. He whispered, "No. The only man here who is cruel is you, for forcing me to go on."

  Manix eventually released him. But he did not let Hadrian go.

  ~~~~~

  Caled stood in the trees and watched Jessyd strip off his tunic. The sorcerer’s build was stockier than Hadrian’s and his skin naturally several shades darker. A small tuft of hair grew in the center of his chest and a trail of it descended from his navel. Not all sorcerers were nearly hairless like Hadrian then, Caled noted with some interest. Hadrian, he was beginning to believe, was unlike any man he would ever encounter.

  Before him, Jessyd squatted and splashed river water over his face and upper chest. Caled watched the rivulets of water trickle down the other man’s torso.

  "Content just to watch?" Caled looked up to meet the other man’s amused brown gaze. "Unlike Hadrian, I’m not shy with my favors. I wouldn’t say no to you."

  Caled’s lips curled. "That would be fortunate if I cared, but I don’t." He crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against a tree. "Your behavior last night with Hadrian has left many questions in my mind. I want answers."

  Jessyd slowly splashed more water over his chest. "What are your questions?"

  "Hadrian intended to kill you, but you were first to offer up an excuse for him. Why?"

  The sorcerer rubbed his hands over his shoulders. "You forget that I, too, know magick. Hadrian wouldn’t have killed me. I can defend myself."

  "You must not have seen Rhiad," Caled drawled. "If he’d wanted you dead, we would be burying you right now. Assuming there was anything left to bury."

  Something dark flashed across Jessyd’s face. "Perhaps. He’s very powerful, isn’t he? But he can’t control his magick. All he can do is call it."

  "That’s all that’s needed to destroy."

  Jessyd sat back on his heels, his forearms extended over his knees. Water dripped from his fingertips into the river. "Whether he can kill me with his magick is a moot point. I’m convinced he only intended to frighten me. A warning, if you will."

  "Warn you from what?"

  Jessyd kept his eyes on the water. "It can’t have escaped your notice how insecure he is."

  Caled thinned his lips. "Insecurity doesn’t incite violence. In Hadrian, it makes him a lamb."

  Jessyd raised his eyes. His lashes were clumped together by river water, making them look like the dark petals of a flower. "Lambs are shy, but they know how to kick. Especially when they feel threatened." He stood. Water dripped down his abdomen and wetted the top of his breeches. "I represent Hadrian’s upbringing on Shard’s Point. I bring back unkind memories and remind him of what he was before he became the Scourge of Rhiad." Jessyd’s sneer revealed what he thought of the moniker. "He’s not always been a man bearing a victim’s cloak. He was once very different. A man of duplicity, as you learned to your regret. I believe he’s still that man, and that’s why he wishes me gone."

  "Here again you claim an intimacy of knowledge which he says you don’t possess." Caled lowered his lashes, unimpressed. "Which one of you is lying, and why?"

  "Which one of us tried to murder the other? Therein lies your answer." Jessyd dropped a hand to waist of his breeches where a small sack hung. "I alone pose a possible threat to his plans, and so he sought to be rid of me."

  "What plans?"

  A sly smile crawled across Jessyd’s face. "You don’t truly believe he intends to play the Council’s pet forever, do you? Hadrian is a ni Leyanon. He’s the Son of the One. He has nearly as many followers as Gavedon does."

  Memories of the Dimorada made Caled frown. They had worshipped Hadrian, and apparently did so without encouragement from the sorcerer. Caled hadn’t considered the possibility that there could be others—those who still possessed their wits—who would follow Hadrian the same way many followed his father.

  "It would be a simple task to create his own Order," Jessyd went on. "He would finally have revenge upon the Elders who are now using him."

  Yes, it was possible, but though Caled tried to picture such a scenario occurring he failed spectacularly. Hadrian was a leader of no man. The day he ruled over an Order of sorcerers was the day Caled grew breasts. "That’s nothing more than a fantasy. It will never happen."

  Jessy shrugged, clearly disbelieving. "Think what you like. I know him better than you do. I know him so well, in fact, he demanded that I leave. He even gave me all of his coin to ensure I wouldn’t refuse."

  Caled glanced at the sack on the other man’s belt. "Is that it?" When Jessyd grinned mischievously, Caled impatiently held out his hand. "Hand it over."

  "Wouldn’t you rather come get it?"

  The sorcerer’s flirting only served to annoy Caled. "Give it to me or I’ll pick it off your dead body."

  The other man’s face darkened before he untied the coin purse from his belt and tossed it across the stream to Caled.

  "Are you being protective of him or do you intend to keep that for yourself?" the sorcerer asked him.

  Caled sent him a dry look as he tied the purse to his belt. "If Hadrian lacks for coin, I must be the one to pay for him. I’d rather he care for himself."

  "And why are you his keeper?"

  Caled had no intention of telling the other man about the lifebond, so he said only, "Hadrian’s life was forfeited to me after he murdered my friends. What happens to him is by my choosing, not anyone else’s."

  Jessyd’s lips parted in surprise. "You are possessive of him."

  Caled sent the other man a glare. "Only of the method of death, which as I said, will be of my choosing." Weary of the conversation, he turned to leave.

  "I envy you, you know. You were able to pry from him what I couldn’t."

  Caled hesitated in turning. "And what is that?"

  "His virginity."

  A cold fury burned in Caled, its intensity a surprise to him. "Indeed," he said quietly as he faced the other man again. "I was unaware of your interest."

  Yet he was also suddenly, deeply relieved. Hadrian had been a virgin at Rhiad. Though Caled’s experience told him so, doubts had continued to flagellate him over whether the sorcerer had deceived him as part of Gavedon’s mission.

  But no, Hadrian had been pure. He had given himself to Caled to be his first. The question was why?

&nbs
p; "Does it bother you that I lusted after him, too?" Jessyd asked. "That I was mere moments from feeling that precious blood on my cock, but I let him slip away?" When Caled took a step toward him, Jessyd raised his hands, palms out. "I don’t tell you to make you angry. I tell you to show you that I know. I know that there is something about him which makes a man do foolish things. Something which makes a man wish to be with him, to make choices he didn’t think he would make. I felt it back when we were boys. I still feel it. Hadrian is special. We must protect him."

  "He’s a murderer," Caled pointed out, his anger becoming a swirling, confused thing in his body. He wasn’t certain why one moment he felt the need to defend Hadrian and the next to call him out for the killer he was, but every word out of Jessyd’s mouth kept him off-balance. "You’d protect a murderer because he has a comely face?"

  Jessyd hesitated. His eyes lost their focus for a moment, as if he were debating something in his mind. "Was Rhiad that awful?" he asked at last. "I never saw it. I only heard rumors once we reached the mainland and they were so fanciful they couldn’t be believed." He searched Caled’s face. "Did the buildings remain intact at least? Was there something to rebuild?"

  Caled’s chest began to tighten. He imagined it was hotter, the air thicker as if clogged with invisible smoke. "He and his father razed it to the ground. There is nothing to be saved. It’s nothing but a cold pyre."

  Jessyd winced. "What of survivors? Surely Hadrian allowed the women and children to flee?"

  For a wild moment Caled wanted to scream at Jessyd for being ignorant of the horrible truth. Why make Caled relive it? Why make him remember the smells, the sounds?

  "Hadrian hunted down every man, woman, and child who breathed that night and he burned them alive." Caled’s nails gouged into his palms. "He and Gavedon hunted them like animals.”

  Jessyd covered his mouth, his eyes wide. "I didn’t know. Did you know many of them? Of those Hadrian burned alive, I mean?"

  Caled had to turn away at that. He faced the forest as his eyes burned with tears he refused to shed. "They were all my friends," he said gruffly. "In one way or another, I knew them. I helped to bring them there. For Hadrian to murder."