by Queen, Nyna
Slowly, her surroundings cleared enough to make out schemes. A small room, all naked stone and concrete. Probably some sort of basement. No windows. It was completely dark, except for a spotlight trained on her that dunked the rest of the room into inky shadows.
That Alex hadn’t been able to move was due to the fact that she was shackled to a sturdy chair, with her hands cuffed behind the backrest and her ankles chained to its legs. Someone had stripped her down to her underwear, and she was soaked to the bone. Her head throbbed viciously from the blow she’d received—probably concussed—and the chattering of her teeth only added to the throbbing pain.
With a sick feeling, she noticed the white plastic wrap covering the floor beneath her chair—just like in a bad halfborn movie right before the bad guy shot one of his own employees in the head for his failure. Not good. Not good at all.
A tall, wiry man in a black leather apron over gray coveralls was just setting an empty bucket back to the ground where several more buckets, filled to the brim with water, waited in a neat row. The guy was at least fifty, rugged and sinewy. Not a bodyguard from the looks of it, but someone used to hard work all the same. He straightened up and nodded curtly at somebody else in the room.
Ignoring the shooting ache in her neck and shoulders, Alex forced her head to follow his gaze.
Senator Roukewood stood across from her chair inside the cone of the spotlight, holding a cigarette and watching her with his head tilted to the side.
He was meticulously dressed as always. His suit was that particular shade people called gunmetal-gray that worked equally well for business meetings and gala dinners and always screamed ‘rich as fuck’ at everybody. It was the last thing you’d expect someone to wear in a dark, filthy little cell such as the one they were in right now. It made Alex wonder if he’d come here directly from some kind of appointment without taking the time to change, or if he’d specifically dressed like this for the occasion, knowing that they were going to have a little ‘talk’.
Without access to an outside light source, even for a shaper like her it was hard to tell how much time had passed since she’d been knocked down in Roukewood’s secret vault. If her nagging hunger and the degree of pain her body was in from sitting in this chained position were any indication, it must have been several hours. Early afternoon of the next day, she’d guess. Alex’s stomach flipped. She would be missed by now.
Roukewood took a measured step toward her and seized up her half-naked body from top to bottom and back up. Despite the overwhelming urge to try and jump for his throat—something that would result in nothing but more pain for her—Alex simply glared back at him, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of showing any sign of fear.
Just like that one time when they had met on the balcony of the Royal Palace, the senator seemed in no great hurry to get started with whatever he was about to do to her. He took a drag on his cigarette, blew it out slowly, and watched her face through the haze of smoke. The smoke particles irritated the sensitive hairs inside Alex’s throat, and she couldn’t help coughing.
Roukewood smiled a small, private smile.
“Shapers,” he said in his low, cultured voice. “Such a tough lot but at the same time … a bit of water”—his gaze flickered toward the empty bucket—“a bit of smoke”—he stepped closer and blew the fumes directly into her face, watching her retch with an amused expression—“…so easy to subdue if one knows how.”
Alex furiously twisted her hands in the cuffs behind her back, but all she achieved was rubbing sore skin even sorer. She tried to summon the spider, but unfortunately, Roukewood had hit the nail square on the head—the water had chased it deeply into the den of her core, effectively cutting her off from the bulk of her shaper strength and proving him right with a fucking cherry on top. The bastard had incapacitated her most effective weapon. Smart move. He certainly knew his way around shapers, but after all they had learned about his vile organization that could be expected.
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” The words came out as a hoarse croak, but Alex still loaded as much disgust into them as she could. “You’ve tortured and killed enough of us to be an expert.”
Roukewood’s lips parted in a sharp grin. “Spirited as always.”
He leaned forward and pressed the smoldering tip of his cigarette against Alex’s shoulder, taking his time to grind it out on her naked skin. With great difficulty, Alex managed to swallow the scream that hurtled up her throat, but her entire body buckled in its restraints, uselessly trying to get away from the source of pain.
Roukewood carelessly flicked the butt past Alex’s cheek into the darkness, before bending so close that they were almost face to face, his hands clamping the chair’s armrests while he studied her the way she would have studied an exotic bug she’d stumbled across in her kitchen—somewhere between disgust and fascination, yet definitely not something she wanted in her home.
“Such a pretty face.” He reached out, running his finger along the line of her jaw without actually touching her skin. This time Alex didn’t restrain herself—she bit at the senator’s hand. The cuffs hit the back of the chair with a rattle, and a sharp jerk in her shoulders pulled her short so that she only caught air between her teeth. Roukewood laughed and backhanded her hard across the face, causing her head to painfully snap back. “Yet such a monstrosity inside.”
Blood dribbled from a chap on Alex’s upper lip. Completely unconcerned, Roukewood stepped back from her chair and shrugged out of his suit jacket, handed it to the other man, unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and carefully rolled them up on his forearms. When he was done, he pulled up a chair from the shadows outside the spotlight and sat on it the wrong way round, facing Alex and resting his arms on the chair’s back.
“Well, well, you really don’t cease to surprise me, Alexandre—although I suspect that isn’t your real name.” He tapped his index fingers together. “I’m not a man easily fooled, but I must say you deceived me fairly well, my dear.”
His tone was conversational, almost indulgent, like that of a teacher who’d found out that one of his favorite students had managed to hide the fact they hadn’t done their homework for an entire year and couldn’t help feeling a little impressed by their impudence.
Oh, how she wanted to wipe that indulgent expression of his face. With both fists and her claws extended, preferably.
“I almost expected Stephane to make a move against me,” Roukewood told her. “At the latest after we discovered that that Forfeit scum of a brother of his had been at the prison camp. Oh yes”—he acknowledged the involuntary jerk of her eyebrows—“we know it was him. He was careless enough to lose his precious sword…”
Alex willed her expression to remain blank despite the worry squirming through her. His sword? They had identified Darken by his sword? Of course it was a very special weapon, but it still was a detail that only someone close to him would recognize. The informant had spilled the beans on them again. But who the hell was it? It had to be someone from the most inner circle.
Please, Sweet Jester, don’t let it be Hector. Alex had come to like the gentle old man so much, she would be heartbroken if she found out that he’d been betraying the Dubois family all this time. But if it wasn't Hector, then who else could it be?
Roukewood kept on talking lightly. “I was sure Stephane would come at me one of these days, maybe even here, at my very own mansion, which is why I doubled down on my security measures. But truth be told, I thought he would send Darken. In fact, I would have put a lot of my money on that. However, I never suspected you.
“Oh, I was sure Stephane was using you as a source to get intel about me,” he added as if Alex had inquired in this respect. “Yet I never believed you were consciously involved. I did a background check on you, and the information I received seemed quite sound. Darken’s handiwork, I assume? Everything about you appeared so legit, so very … innocent.” He laughed softly. “You can probably imagine my surprise when I found out ab
out”—his hard eyes traveled once more over her exposed body, more repulsed than lustful—“this.”
Alex’s fingers curled into fists, but she didn’t deign to answer.
“Yes, you had me fooled pretty well,” Roukewood repeated with a slow shake of his head and his mouth curved in a small, self-deprecating smile. “I pegged you a country rose. How ironic that you should be the spider, spinning her web between its thorns.”
You have no idea, sugar! And just how she would love to give him a true spider’s kiss. She would make it very memorable, too.
When Alex still didn’t say anything, Roukewood got up from his chair and fetched her backpack from the floor beside the wall. He sat back down, unzipped it and turned out its contents, curiously studying each item.
From the way his mouth puckered when he popped open the box containing the fingerprint dummies, Alex could tell he was reluctantly impressed. She could see the gears behind his forehead working, piecing together how and when she had collected all the necessary tools. He didn’t like the answer to that. He didn’t like it at all.
“You certainly came prepared,” he said stiffly after a moment and snapped the box shut.
When he held up the binoculars, a slight frown creased his face. “Halfborn technology.” He said it dismissively, the way she would regard a piece of rock in a museum, used by ancient humans to cut meat.
“To avoid detection by the wards, I suppose?” Roukewood glanced up at her with his eyebrows slightly risen, dangling the item from his fingers. “How did you get past them, anyway, if I may ask? The wards, I mean. And the motorus tactilis. I honestly did not think it would be possible without detection.”
As if they were simply having a cultivated conversation over a five course dinner. The nerve!
“I ran,” Alex told him with sweetest venom. “Very quickly.”
Chew on that, asshole!
The senator blinked, clearly not sure if she was pulling his leg. After a moment, he shrugged it off as if it didn’t matter either way.
“Too bad for you then that you triggered the silent alarm in my strongroom when you opened it.”
Damn! So that was how she’d been napped. There had been so many different magical signatures, she must have missed one of the defenses.
Roukewood put the binoculars away and studied the camera instead. It took him a moment to figure out the buttons. By the change in his expression, Alex knew the moment when he saw the picture of himself, Shinner and Prime Gerald on the display screen.
His gaze returned to her, the frown deepening. “What was your plan?” he asked quietly. “To gather evidence against us? And then? Who would even deign to listen to such an outrageous—” He paused. His eyes bulged out from his ever so self-satisfied face—an expression that would have been sweet to watch if her situation hadn’t been quite so precarious.
“The arrest…? But no … no, he wouldn’t dare…”
Getting hot. Not that Alex had any intention of telling him more than he could gather by himself. Something on her face must have confirmed him, though, because his mouth curled incredulously. “I’ll be blowed, the arrest really was a calculated move, wasn’t it?”
He rose and slowly walked up and down in front of her chair, swallowing the implications.
“Provoking a public trial to get things out into the open? Damn it, Stephane has more gall than I ever gave him credit for.”
He stopped and glared at Alex. “It might actually have worked, you know.” He sounded surprised—and a little shocked—by that realization. “Any evidence presented in a murder trial would have to be at least considered by the judges…”
He rubbed his chin and shook his head before taking a small, affected bow in her direction. “Well played, my dear. Very well played.”
Then his smug expression gradually returned. “Unfortunately for you, this doesn’t seem to be one of those cases where fortune favors the bold. In fact, I’m afraid your plan has backfired.”
Roukewood made a sharp, waving gesture over her head. A few moments later, the man in the black apron reappeared, lugging a large, heavy box that contained the folders, Echeranion Spheres and memory chips Alex had glimpsed inside Roukewood’s vault. She tensed in the chair.
Roukewood followed the other guy over to a big fire bowl on a low iron stand, standing just outside of the light cone in a spot where no plastic wrap covered the floor. Magic flared like a massive candle as Roukewood activated the big sigil attached to the base of the bowl. Alex identified the arcane glyph incen, for fire, the moment hot, bright blue flames shot up from the bowl, dancing in a ragged circle.
Chimaeric fire. The magical fire burned hotter than normal fire and wouldn’t stop until the magic charge in the sigil was used up or if it was deactivated. You could burn entire cities down to the ground with chimaeric fire in a trice.
In front of Alex’s helpless eyes, Roukewood picked up her backpack, raised it to her in a silent salute, and dumped it into the center of the fire. Alex flinched as the flames greedily consumed the fabric and its contents—cutting the last physical thread to her childhood. And Rachel’s lucky knife! Not even the steel would withstand the heat of the chimaeric fire. Angry tears pricked at her eyes.
Next, Roukewood reached for the box. “I should have destroyed these ages ago,” he said casually as he started throwing folder after folder into the fire. “We have copies of all the relevant information at safer places, but I liked to keep a set at my own place. I believe it was a streak of sentimentality that made me do so. Thank you for correcting this oversight for me.”
Alex pressed her lips together as she watched all the evidence burn and glimmer until nothing remained but a film of smoldering, blue-tinted ashes.
Roukewood extinguished the fire with a casual flick of his fingers and returned to the center of the light, looking as smug as a tiger after a satisfying meal.
“I suppose, I must thank you, my dear,” he said. “In the end, your little scheme played right into our hands. Alistair Devilier will take a lot less incentive to be persuaded to back down from the election—if he doesn’t oust himself from the race before with his insufferable primness.” He chuckled softly. “Stephane, on the other hand, he was the real piece of work, the true opponent, and I must admit that he put up a very good fight. But now I have him in the bag—caught in his own trap. Oh, it’s just too good. Now there is no one left who will be able to stop me from becoming governor of the South this year.”
Alex couldn’t hold herself back any longer. “What? So that you and your bosom buddies Shinner and Gerald can play Lord and Master together? So you can finally be the ones calling the shots instead of following the orders of others? What are you, like five?” She made a rude noise. “I bet the three of you were also always the biggest bullies in the sandpit, the boys who took the shovels from the younger kids and beat them with it, right? The kind of boys who liked to torture and kill little animals for the fun of it. But you do realize you’re killing actual people now and no longer just ants and worms, don’t you?”
Alex pursed her lips. “Well, I guess the hundreds of dead shapers at the Maria Carvalis Prison Camp don’t rank much above ants and worms in your eyes, but what about the other people who had to die for your and Shinner’s advancement? Senator Kelephan. Senator Virges-Dessallam.” She threw a couple more names she remembered from Belaris’ list at him.
For a second, Roukewood actually looked taken aback.
Alex bared her teeth at him in a taunting grin. “Oh yes, sugar, we know everything. About the prison camp. About the tortured and murdered shapers whose shed skin you used to produce fake jewels, and how you sold them through the GemRock Consortium to finance your and Shinner’s stellar political careers. We also know about all the people who had to kick the bucket for your success, and we know the names of those you coerced to support your devious little organization. Like Governor Ferhus. Like poor Edward Debayne. I was there when he died, you know.” Alex vividly remembered the s
enator’s expression right before the life fled his eyes. She swallowed. “He was so afraid of your retaliation against his family, he rather killed himself than help us dismantle your crimes. Were you the ones who gave him that poison capsule? Was it shaper poison?” Alex leaned forward in her chair as far as her chains allowed. “I realize killing shapers doesn’t make you lose any sleep, but how can you live with the deaths of all those others?”
Roukewood didn’t bat an eye. “In war, there is always collateral damage.”
War, huh? Alex snorted. “Well, Rookie, in that case, I have news for you. The war is over. It’s been over for more than fifteen years.”
Roukewood shook his head in the mild, infuriating fashion adults might do to a child who insisted that the color of water is blue; an understandable mistake but still a clear sign of sheer ignorance.
“The war is never over, my dear. Even if no bloody battles are being fought and no corpses are piling up in mass burial sides, our enemies do not sleep.”
“Enemies? What enemies? Tharsis had been Arcadia’s only enemy in the last five hundred years, and we have a peace treaty with them.”
“People may call it a peace treaty, but in the end it amounts to nothing but a cease fire,” Roukewood said sneeringly. “Just as we’re speaking—as this country is falling prey to the lures of laziness and comfort—the Tharsians are building up their armies and waiting for a sign of weakness to strike again.”
Alex arched an eyebrow. “I might not be a Healer, but I think your condition is called paranoia.”
Roukewood’s lips flattened, and his face contorted. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand!” He calmed himself almost instantly and returned to his benign manner. “But what can you expect from an underbred half-blood mongrel? How could you possibly understand what even the vast majority of the trueborn society won’t comprehend either?”
He stopped before her chair. “Gerald, Arlington and I, we are soldiers in a war that most people aren’t even aware of. That is the very purpose of the military, its privilege and its sacred burden. To be the select few who face the ugly truth, so that the rest of the population, all the innocent civilians, can sleep peacefully in their beds at night and go about their daily business untroubled by the horrors of that reality.” Roukewood’s eyes glowed with professional pride when he said these words.