“Some of you shirked at these exercises.” Eloquin's eyes, spearing a suddenly chilled Jess in place. She could feel her grimace stretch in apology, even as she lowered her head. “For all that mastery of these skills might one day prove vital to the Crown.” Jess gulped, feeling even worse. “Very well. A new chapter in our training, and one that I expect you all to master.”
Jess had looked up again, curious despite herself, for all that Eloquin's hawklike gaze seemed to cut right into her, his cold smile for her alone. "Piercing your enemy's psyche, laying his darkest secrets bare, is a skill I expect you all to master. Each of you shall be paired with another. Each of you will peer deep into the eyes of the other, smile, and say the cruelest, nastiest things you can think of. Your goal? Insight the other into a killing rage of humiliated fury. Of course, you shall all unbuckle your weapon belts as of this moment while remaining fully armored, and pair off."
Feeling strangely numb and out of sorts, Jess had found herself following her mentor's instructions to the letter, soon finding herself facing off against Bobbison, a fellow aficionado of the longsword, and one whose circles she had rarely moved within, save on the training grounds. He gave her a casual nod, neither overly impressed with her reputation nor scornful of her rumored quirks or excesses. "Bobby."
“Jess.”
Of about her size and build, he possessed sandy hair and blemish free features. Though otherwise of average appearance, his strong physique, confident smile, and gentle demeanor had garnered him no shortage of admirers and lovers during his time at Highrock. They shared an awkward smile.
Bobby began, his gentle brown eyes gazing intently into her own.
“Your mother's not a noble at all. She was a northern whore for sale at the docks that your father fancied, taking his pleasure with her every night, and when his own wife turned out to be a barren shrew, he cut her throat and married your mother in her place. It explains your fine features, Jess, your mother being a northern harlot and all, and I hear that's how you all managed to hold onto the largest barony in the kingdom. Her tight netherlips have teased many an angry lord's most cogent points, all of them eventually falling lax and slipping right free of their declarations, but only after spraying your dutiful mother with the rich nectar of their arguments, she smiling and lapping up every one."
Jess shuddered as a blinding bolt of fury washed over her.
Damn bastard struck closer than he could possibly have imagined, for all that certain dark truths had been kept secret from all.
A cold chill washed over her.
No. She must give away no hint, not even now. And Bobby's gentle, calculating gaze was reading every flicker of barely concealed rage, the clenching of her fist, the gritting of her teeth.
He was reading her like a book, and she was a damned fool.
This was a game. Sparring against each other, they did but learn the way of yet another weapon at their mentor's orders.
And there had never been a blade she couldn't master, a weapon she couldn't compel to serve her own dark needs.
She smiled, dipping her head towards Bobby.
“Point, bobby. You have thrust me clean and true. Insulting my mother? Cuts past all my armor, leaves me hot and humiliated. Kudos to you, Bobby.”
Her classmate smiled, dipping his head, not quite mocking, but triumphant.
Jess grinned, locking her gaze with his own.
“Now it's my turn. Hmm... let me see.”
He blinked. Suddenly afraid.
Perhaps whispers of her odd knacks had slipped out just a bit, after all. And who knew what a girl as eccentric as Jess could really do? Maybe she wasn't just an odd girl who talked to plants and invisible cats. Perhaps there was more to it than that. Much more.
Jess's smile grew wide. It was almost as if she had caught a flash, a taste, of his fear.
Compelled on wings of humiliated fury, she peered deep into Bobby's trembling gaze.
Ripping past the illusion of mundanity,
Staring into his frightened little soul.
Her voice, when she spoke, was lilting, an oddly discordant song.
For all that she knew they weren't supposed to move, she no longer cared, slowly circling Bobby, not even feeling the hot sting of her wrist, the coppery tang of blood, dripping to the ground.
"You were six when it all began, Bobby. Sleeping safe and content in your bed. You heard the grunt and thrust of what you first thought animals at the barn nearby, or perhaps your parents, for all that their rooms were on the other side of the great big house your father had built with his grandfather before him, long before you were born.
"Grunt and thrust. The creak of a rocking bed. Soft cries, but not your mother's. Do you remember, Bobby? I see by your eyes that you do."
She had laughed then, Bobby paling, stepping back even as Jess slowly circled him, their classmates abruptly breaking off their own sparring, turning to face them as one, gazing at the tableau with the cold silence of hunters, eyes locked upon predator and prey.
She cared nothing for that. It was the sudden rank smell of Bobby's fear that enticed her. Goading her on.
"It was not the first time. Was it, Bobby? But on that night, on that particular night, you needed to know. For all that you were breathless with fear. It was like a dream. One compelling you inexorably forward as you stumbled free of your bed, lurching to your door on shaking feet, your fingers slick with fear-sweat. And how you wished forever after that you hadn't quite managed to open that door."
“Stop.” Bobby's voice. A breathless whisper.
Jess's smile grew wider. "You opened it, Bobby. First a crack, then wider. The rank stench of it hit your nose, then. The stink of shit, and fear."
Crunch and step. Crunch and step. The inexorable pace of doom, Jess winding herself about her prey, the truth slowly revealed.
"You heard your brother's choking sobs. The awful gurgles. You knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong."
Bobby was shaking then, hands curled into fists. "Stop it, Jess. Stop it!"
“You couldn't keep your small feet from treading down the wood slatted corridor to your brother's rooms. The sounds grew louder. You heard it then, in all its horrid detail.
"Your brother's sobs. The hard angry grunts of an angry boar. But it wasn't a boar, was it, Bobby? Because that's when the noise abruptly stopped. Your brother's gasps becoming awful moans before hard thuds of fist to flesh silenced it, and all was deathly still.
“Soft footsteps treading up to your brother's door.
“And there you stood. Petrified with fear.
“The door opened. First a crack, then wider. A vast rift of darkness, the shredding of all innocence, the true nightmare about to begin.”
A scream, Jess blinking herself out of trance, dodging back even as Bobby roared and charged her, checking her with a hard fist to her gut, a snapping left hook just barely dodged, Jess hooking his leg and slamming him to the ground. Bobby's face mottled with horror and fury, screaming and struggling, Jess taking blow after blow, refusing to hit back, only locking his fiercely struggling arms back when she managed to grab them, even as he continued to buck and kick, bruising Jess further.
“Stop it, Bobbison, that's an order!”
Eloquin's sharp bark cutting across the field. He glared at the shaking, sobbing boy. "If you keep twisting, she'll snap your elbow, and then what use will you be to me? You will still yourself, now!"
Glaring, he turned to the utterly silent crowd. “Bobbison lost. And do you know what his shame was?”
Even as he had said those words, Bobby shook and struggled against Jess. Limbs weak with bruises and the horror of what she had done, Jess let him go. Bobby stumbled to his feet, locking gazes with her, eyes seething with darkest hate.
“His shame was that he lost control. That he let Jess crawl under his skin.”
Eloquin paused a moment, glaring at all of them. "You all have secrets, whelps, and I'll bet all the silver in the kingdom that half
of you were buggered by someone close."
Breathless gasps, the class entire stepping back, horrified gazes on so many faces. Raw and vulnerable. So many of Jess's peers.
Eloquin shrugged. "The best fighters are of northern stock. All of your ancestors were raiders and killers. As were mine, mixed as my heritage is. Ugly little secrets linger in all of your families. And few noble clans indeed have members who didn't tread ugly paths, daughters who don't tremble late at night with horror, brothers quietly swearing to their fathers never to drink at home again."
He paced then, gazing at one pair of shame-faced eyes, then another. "And how many of you little hellions, so quick to anger, reveling so fiercely in the killing skills I teach, weren't all but exiled here by a father ashamed of you for deflowering your own sister, your own cousin, or perhaps unable to face the horror of what he himself had done to you. His son. His daughter."
Malek gasped. Somehow Jess could sense his horror, even from here.
She could smell it then, the fear stench of the class entire.
Fists trembling, Jess kept her head down, afraid to look up, afraid to see more pain and horror in the eyes of her friends than she could bear.
"Now get your heads out of the sand, and listen up!" Cold ice blue eyes locking upon all their humiliated faces. Never once judging, never once condemning.
Jess had understood then, and never had she been more grateful to her mentor.
“It doesn't matter.”
Utter silence.
“It doesn't matter a damn what horrors forged you into the weapons you are today. All that matters, the only thing the king and I care about, is that you are the sharpest, most lethal killing instruments Erovering has ever had fighting for her cause.
"So look amongst you! Meet the gazes of your brothers and sisters of blade and battlefield. They are your kin, and you have but two duties: Protect and defend Erovering, and guard your brothers' backs, no matter what the circumstances.”
His lips curved into a cold smile. "Class is dismissed! But there is one other thing. We are repeating this exercise tomorrow. And I expect you all to make up the most loathsome, vile taunts you can imagine. To mock each other with it, to throw it in each other's faces, to look in your brother's eyes, measure his fists, see all the tells, see all the darkness and humiliation that burns within each of your green little souls.
“And I want you to smile coldly back and laugh. Because all your petty shame means nothing. It doesn't matter a damn. All that matters is that you stand ready to kill for king and country. Am I understood?”
He shouted the last, the class entire saluting, fist to heart. “Yes, general!”
He smiled coldly. "You will learn these lessons well, and revel in the hot shame you will feel, smiling as if it were nothing, just as you revel in the ache of thews after a hard day's training. And when you one day face true foes, bitter men and women, enemy agents, seeking to cow your heart and maim your resolve, you will smile coldly, lock gazes with them, and throw their darkest secrets right back at them!"
The class entire cheered at that, ragged as their cry was, and never had Jess felt so humiliated in her life as she had that week. For all that her father and brother had been nothing but noble and honorable to her, she knew all too painfully well her sister's origins, and more than a few of her peers were resourceful enough to pick and taunt, for all that it was but part of their training. The Council entire, after all, had known that the king had raped her mother, even then.
As for herself, she alone was a disappointment to Eloquin, willing to bear any taunt, no matter how cruel, but unable to attack in turn.
Unable to face the dark glee she had felt, riding the fiery wings of her own fury, compelled to peer into poor Bobby's soul and plunder the darkest, most wretched secrets of his mind.
So much had changed in the three years since she had last forced herself to use those skills in the training grounds, to remember those ugly little lessons. Yet gazing at the trembling fists of the inquisitor before her, it was as if Eloquin in all his brilliance had somehow glimpsed the future, making sure Jess understood the weapon that would best lay her enemy low.
23
Heart racing with a mixture of dread and excitement, Jess probed her enemy for weakness, judging just where to strike. "So, you are calling me a traitor then, little worm? I sense how deeply you despise lords of all stripes, Captain Vardelos. I am sure I can understand why, having to warm so many noble beds to crawl above the muck you came from." Jess smiled then, taking delight in his look of furious disbelief. "Though how a man who spent so many nights pleasing his betters ever got enough sleep to actually do his job is a running gag I'm sure your betters have always laughed about behind your back. Or perhaps, right to your face?"
A measuring volley. Ugly and outrageous. Yet it was a secret all too many courtiers and administrators held close to their breast. Gold or sexual favors being the currency most prized by jaded lords and bureaucrats alike.
Jess felt a fierce, delightful shiver. She read his tells. Saw the way his eyes widened, thrown completely off his stride. He was trembling, in fact. Staring at her in speechless outrage.
She had hit the mark, after all.
Smiling coldly, she continued her assault without mercy. "You know it's true, don't you, Vardelos? The mocking contempt your masters have for the ragged little urchin they plucked from the streets to be their pleasure toy, so anxious to fill his belly and please his betters that he was willing to whore himself in and out of any bedchamber that would take his well-ridden rump, all so that he could play at being a captain. Isn't that right, Vardelos?
Jess gazed into eyes speechless with shock and loathing, allowing her lips to curve into a mocking grin. "In your heart of hearts, you know you are nothing more than a farce. That you have no real place in the halls of power, save serving your betters on your hands and knees. Am I right, dear Vardelos? Is that why you hate nobles so much, you incompetent wretch? You're the bastard get of some poor, unfortunate slattern who had warmed some lord's bed before being shoved out the door with a handful of tarnished copper!"
Jess laughed with contempt as the captain’s face became a mottled mask, trembling with fury.
Jess's grin turned all the more vicious. Glaring at her with unbridled loathing, Jess could sense the absolute chilling depth of Vardelos's madness, the seething unquenchable hate she felt blistering from his twisted, vile little soul.
It was time for the grand finale.
“What’s wrong, Vardelos?” Jess taunted mockingly. “Do you dislike my words? Then why don’t you challenge me to a duel, worm?” Jess’s smirk was filled with contemptuous disdain, deliberately ripping up the writ he had slammed down upon the table, flicking the pieces of parchment in his seething face.
“That is what is what I think of your trumped up buffoonery, Vardelos. If the king seriously wanted to arrest me, he wouldn't allow his youngest son to accompany you without informing him of the charges to be brought to bear, and he most certainly wouldn't be using a ragged former catamite to deliver his message. Face it, Vardelos. You are naught but a sad little farce everyone can laugh at for base enjoyment, while you run around with tin foil hat and sword and call yourself a soldier!"
Jess snapped her fingers. “That must be it, you are to serve as our entertainment for the evening! The jester, the buffoon, so that dear Lord Echobart, Prince Joshua and I can laugh and drink to your antics as you put on a farce of a play, just like a well-trained jackass.”
She folded her arms and shook her head in derisive contempt, every inch the arrogant noble. "Well, get about on your hind legs and bray and dance about, Jackass! Do not bore us with your slack-jawed stupidity. Entertain us, you damned fool, or leave these chambers. We have neither the time nor interest to deal with broken little whores who know not their place before their betters!" Jess then made a show of stretching and yawning at utter ease even as the captain spluttered, gurgling with unspeakable fury.
Twilight
flashed a toothy grin from the table, enjoying the show. “I do believe our dear Vardelos isn't quite up to an agent's taunts. How sad.”
Jess winked at her familiar, utterly ignoring the shaking Vardelos, turning her focus completely upon the dean who was favoring her with a most curious smile even as he released a carefully constructed ward, and Jess sensed the protective magics contained therein.
"So, dear Echobart! How fares things of import in the college these days? I hear the king has sent us some much-needed reinforcements? We have seen the deluded jackanapes prancing about for our amusement, but he is a sad excuse, even for a jester. I do hope their actual captain is someone worthy of our attention, at least. I have had enough of comedic fools for one day."
“You little whore!”
Jess, of course, had already dived off her chair even as the captain's blade hissed out of its sheath, slashing down at her seat with frightful speed, the chair bursting to kindling, his fearsome skill instantly apparent.
Jess already had her own blade snatched up and ready, having unsheathed it even as she dove out of her chair.
Discordant laughter echoed strangely through the chamber, Jess's brain suddenly ablaze, taking in every twist and movement of the enemy before her as time seemed to stretch, her battlesenses taking hold even as Vardelos charged her, his howling saber arcing forth in a vicious series of cross-cuts delivered with inhuman speed.
Jess backpedaled, instantly on the defensive, her own blade lashing out to counter-parry his furious barrage with a deceptively quick Scheitelhau strike for the split second Vardelos left himself exposed, shifting his angle of attack.
Gods of Shadow and Flame Page 21