Sadly, it seemed the blinding hadn’t taken, for she stared at me with intact globes of inky black, swirling with the oily dark fluid of Deyrr. There were scars, though—both eye orbits showed scarring from Zynda’s talons on the one side and the bisecting line of Jepp’s thrown dagger on the other. The High Priestess had lived through it somehow, and must’ve gotten the eyes themselves from …somewhere else. My stomach heaved at the possibilities.
“I do believe it’s a gryphon!” she proclaimed, with a certain glee, and using an old Dasnarian word I’d forgotten—and never connected with the Tala “gríobhth.” “I haven’t seen one of these for nearly a thousand years. And here you have one, Daughter. How clever of you.”
“I’m not your daughter,” I said, slowly and clearly in Dasnarian. I might’ve chosen to remain silent, but the tales all cautioned against allowing yourself to be claimed by Deyrr. Only those who refused their dark gifts, who fought to repudiate the God of Eternal Hunger could free themselves.
She smiled, radiantly beautiful, except for those pits of her gaze. “Silly duck. I already have my claws in you.” Putting a hand on my arm, directly over the barely healed injury, she squeezed—making me gasp with pain and reflexively shrink away. Uncannily strong, she held me in place, her smile so sweet and lovely. “Don’t be afraid, Daughter. I’ve been watching you and you’re one of mine—that’s a good thing. Especially as you’ve brought me such a gorgeous gift, such a unique pet. When you tell me everything you know of our enemy, I’ll love you even more. You can have power, more than you ever dreamed of, and eternal life. Don’t you want that?”
“No,” I said as firmly as I could. “And the gryphon is a man, not a pet.”
She laughed, the melodious tinkling of bells. “Do you think I don’t know a Tala beast when I see one? Or that I don’t know who you are, Karyn? Once the fourth highest ranked woman in Dasnaria, destined to be empress until that fool Kral threw it all away. Don’t you hate him for that?”
“Of course not,” I replied, but I didn’t sound as certain as I’d wanted to.
She knew it, too, giving me a sad, sympathetic smile and stroking my arm as if to soothe it. Miraculously, the pain vanished, even the deep ache that had persisted since I’d awakened from the fever. “There. All better. Girls like us have to stick together,” she said. “The men will run our lives if we don’t. Buying and selling us like property, dictating who we’ll marry, taking our children and locking us in jeweled cages and telling us it’s for our safety. Of course you hate them.” She’d lowered her voice conspiratorially. “We all hate them. And we’ll all rise up and take our revenge. You can be in the vanguard, my lieutenant. Second most powerful person in all Dasnaria. Doesn’t that sound attractive?”
“I don’t want that,” I said, but part of me did and she knew it, because she nodded knowingly.
“I can give you some time to decide.” She smiled as if we’d become best friends. “The last thing I want to do is push you into something you don’t want. Then I’d be just like the men, wouldn’t I? I have some ideas of some treats you might enjoy, however. I’ll give you the former Empress Hulda as a handmaiden—wouldn’t that be lovely?”
It would be lovely, having power over my former mother-in-law, the torment of so many.
“I have the power to do it.” The High Priestess lowered her gaze to Zyr, unconscious in my lap. “Or to heal this one. Would you like me to do that, as I healed your arm?”
My heart thudded with hope. If she healed Zyr, he could fly away, warn the others so they could attack the High Priestess and end all of this. He might even love me for it, for saving the people and land he held so dear. Most of all, he’d be alive. I owed him. More, I couldn’t bear for him to die.
The High Priestess knew she had me. “Yes to that?” She stroked Zyr’s head, an almost loving caress. “It would be the work of a moment and I’d be happy to do that favor for you. A shame, really, to let such a magnificent creature die. I wouldn’t hesitate too long, however. It seems it broke its neck in the terrible landing. Trying to protect you. The loyalty of a devoted pet should be rewarded, don’t you think?”
Then he had landed so badly to save me, not just out of exhaustion. I couldn’t let him die. What happened to me didn’t matter. I’d never been more than a bynd in these games of more important people. This, at least, I could do.
“Karyn,” the High Priestess coaxed, “don’t you agree that I should heal the gryphon and save his life?”
Fully aware that I opened my soul to the dark god, I nodded. “Yes, I agree.”
I woke in a beautiful bedchamber, more lavish than my mother’s back at home, or even the Imperial Seraglio. Blinking at the ceiling, painted to look like a summer sky, but with dragons detailed in gold leaf flying in flocks like birds, I tried to remember what had happened after I agreed to the High Priestess’s terms.
She’d smiled with such genuine pleasure, stroked a hand over my forehead, whispering a maternal endearment… and I’d awakened here.
Where was Zyr?
I sat bolt upright, looking wildly around—and startling a girl who’d clearly been set to watch for me to wake. She squeaked in momentary alarm, then laughed, patting a hand over her heart. With dark hair, golden skin and deep blue eyes, she looked Tala—though no Tala girl that I’d seen wore her hair in elaborate braids like that. Heavy, velvety curtains had been drawn back from glassed-in windows, revealing a view of high, snow-capped mountains. This couldn’t be Annfwn. Not any part I’d seen, anyway.
“Where am I?” I asked the girl, who’d gotten up to busy herself with a tray.
She brought it to me with a smile, setting it on my lap. Then she held up her hands and said something in a language I didn’t know, sounding apologetic. She couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen, with her dewy skin and slight body showing only the first signs of budding womanhood. Gesturing to the tray, she smiled encouragingly.
I wanted to say I wasn’t hungry, to demand to see Zyr, but in truth I felt weak to the point of dizziness from hunger and thirst. It wouldn’t do any good to charge out of this room—wearing nothing but a silk shift so sheer it was transparent, I noticed—only to faint in the hallway.
Besides, I’d made an agreement with the High Priestess, and she was treating me like a guest so far, instead of a prisoner. Maybe she’d healed Zyr and let him go. That would be everything.
The girl gestured again to the tray, asking a worried question. A traditional Dasnarian breakfast lay before me, including an enameled pot I might have seen at home with a warming candle. Pouring a little into a matching cup, I sniffed it, then tasted. Tea from the Hardie estates. I couldn’t mistake it.
Pouring more, I drank deeply, savoring the flavor of home, something I’d thought I’d never taste again. Biting into the pastries, I found them buttery, flaky and perfect, the fruit inside melting blissfully into a harmony of sweet with the hint of salt. I ate and drank it all, devouring everything on the tray. A true heroine—like the youngest princess in the tale I’d told on the beach forever ago—would’ve refused to eat and drink the food provided by Deyrr. But this wasn’t a tale, and real people needed to eat. Really, that princess could never have survived that journey, let alone turned around and walked home on bleeding feet through the snow.
The story was symbolic, of course. And probably the food and drink aspect cautioned against poison. That, however, is the weapon of a woman who dares not act openly.
The High Priestess of Deyrr, a sorceress who could recruit Emperor Hestar to her cause and promise the empress as a handmaiden, had no fear of acting openly.
Once I finished eating, my handmaiden rewarded me with a delighted smile, took the tray and helped me from the bed. Leading me into the next chamber, she showed me what she’d been busy doing in there. A tub of water steamed, mist rising from it in the cooler air, the scent of jasmine wafting to me. I’d always used jasmine-scented soaps and oils—at my mother’s insistence—because the imperial princes
ses did, and I should never be less than they, if I wanted to maintain my rank.
Though I sank into the water gratefully, more than willing to finally get clean, the heady jasmine brought back too much of home. Those daily baths, grooming myself to perfection, on the remote chance that my lord and husband might suddenly arrive for a visit. Even though he never did without due notice, and even when all in the empire knew him to be traveling the seas, or waging war as His Imperial Majesty’s general. Being constantly ready for the husband who never saw me had been my one responsibility. It had served me well when his sudden summons to the Imperial Palace arrived—though that memory, too, made me sick with regret.
The handmaiden soaped my hair with yet more jasmine, and I gritted my teeth against it, telling myself I’d at least be clean. I scrubbed myself with a rough cloth, glad to do it myself as I buffed my skin as hard as I could stand it, removing old skin and embedded dirt. The wound on my breast had disappeared, the skin as unflawed as before.
On my left arm, however, an inky mark wound all the way around in a circle, a menacing line of linked talons. I scrubbed at it, but it went more than skin deep. Very likely all the way to my soul. I belonged to Deyrr now, and the High Priestess had marked me with her design.
The handmaiden—who acted as if she didn’t understand when I asked her name—rinsed my hair repeatedly with jasmine-infused water, wrapped my hair in a cloth, and helped me out, then toweled me dry and oiled my skin. She helped me into a robe made of more of the sumptuous velvet material so prevalent everywhere, as soft inside as out. Seating me in a chair by a window where hot sunshine streamed in, she combed my hair with the skill of the servants in the Imperial Seraglio.
As it dried in the sun, she switched to a brush, patiently and deftly coaxing my hair into shimmering waves—while I fought my sizzling impatience. Finally satisfied with my hair, she applied cosmetics to my face with the same skill, then at last took my robe so I could dress.
I’d expected a klút, given everything else Dasnarian, but she instead helped me into slim silk trousers and a close-fitting halter that hugged my breasts comfortably but left my belly bare. A flowing shirt went over the top of those, as sheer as the sleeping shift I’d awakened in, and draping dramatically down my back, cut high in front. All in varying shades of gold. Indeed, I suspected the cloth had been woven with threads spun of pure gold, the way they glittered in the sun.
As a final touch, the maid laced golden slippers on my feet—surprisingly sturdy—again going against the Dasnarian tradition where women went barefoot. When she showed me my image in a full-length mirror, I first hesitated to look, afraid to see the blue of my eyes replaced with the death-black of Deyrr’s hold on me. So far I looked the same. A small relief. The gauzy shirt showed off the sinister black tracery around my upper arm, however, a mark I knew I’d bear the rest of my life.
I held my breath, long past done with the lengthy delay, ready to demand to see at least the High Priestess if my handmaiden fussed any longer. To my relief, she instead led me to the opulent doors of the room, opening them for me, and guiding me into a long hall. Guards in Dasnarian armor stood at attention outside my bedchamber and were posted at regular intervals along the hall.
I still didn’t recognize the place. Not that I’d traveled much through the Empire of Dasnaria and its many kingdoms, territories, and protectorates. Still, the architecture didn’t look like anything I’d seen. It reminded me of Annfwn, if I had to pick an influence, though the view out every window we passed showed more staggeringly high peaks and deep valleys all around. The palace must’ve been sitting on one of the highest peaks, to command such a view.
At least it would provide Zyr with an excellent take-off point. Or had already. Please let him be healed and gone, I prayed, maybe to Moranu, though I seriously doubted any god or goddess was listening—except perhaps Deyrr Himself. The thought made my stomach turn and I shuddered, but I managed a politely serene smile when my maid gave me a questioning look.
It took some time to wend our way through the great, sprawling palace—and the only other people I saw were the armored guards, all with helms lowered, who all stood at attention and never spoke, not even to throw out ribald remarks at my scantily clad form. Not at all normal behavior. Even if they regarded me as a woman of rank—doubtful, as the emperor had stripped me of rank along with my marital status and life expectancy—Dasnarian warriors saw no reason not to comment on a woman’s charms and speculate on the pleasure she might bring them in bed. That’s what a woman who left the protection of her father, brothers, and husband could expect.
I’d never thought I’d miss those uncomfortable catcalls, but their silence was eerie. They might be the undead people that my new friends had talked about having to dispatch at Ordnung. Once we descended a level, we passed others who weren’t guards. Men and women strolled past, alone or in small groups, all silent—and all scrutinizing me with the blank coal-dark eyes of sorcerers and sorceresses of Deyrr. I counted at least two dozen, none of them acknowledging me beyond their dead and somehow mocking stares.
By the time my escort gestured me into a large atrium filled with flowers and blooming trees, I almost welcomed the sight of the High Priestess. At least she seemed to be mostly alive. She lolled on a dark blue chaise in the sun wearing a gauzy gown like my overshirt, and nothing else. Her bone-straight blond hair fell over the contrasting velvet like a waterfall of sunlight, and a slim gold chain with a glowing topaz rested in the hollow of her throat. A very young man, who looked to be from the same people as my handmaiden, knelt on the floor beside the High Priestess, holding a cluster of grapes, one poised to pop in her mouth.
She smiled at me, looked utterly delighted to see me—the expression disconcerting with those lightless eyes. “Karyn, how lovely you look. I didn’t want to upset you before, but you were quite bedraggled when I found you. I knew you’d be so embarrassed for anyone to see you that way. And now you’re all cleaned up and fit for the emperor’s court.”
“His Imperial Majesty would not appreciate me entering his court in this outfit,” I replied, scanning the room for signs of Zyr. I don’t know why that was the point I argued, except that it was so clearly an outrageous lie, among the many sugared untruths she spewed.
She seemed unoffended, even laughing as if I’d made a fine joke. “So true, so true. I didn’t think you’d care to dress in a klút after all this time though, now that you’ve experienced freedom.” She waved a hand in disgust. “They dressed us in those things to hobble us—did you ever realize that? They provide no warmth, no protection, and one wrong move and the layers unravel, leaving you exposed. We could only mince gracefully, or pose and be ornamental. Horrid things. What you’re wearing is so much better.”
“Still, I’d prefer my own clothing.” I really wanted to ask what she’d done with the mapsticks, but I didn’t want to draw attention to them. They might seem only like sticks to her. “And my other possessions.”
“Soon enough. Come and sit with me. It’s been so long since I chatted with a sister countrywoman.”
“What part of the empire are you from?” I asked, full of curiosity. She spoke Dasnarian with a slight accent I couldn’t place—and she spoke with a blunt disgust for our customs I couldn’t imagine from any gently raised woman. And yet she seemed familiar with court etiquette and the manners of noble ladies. Then again, she’d made reference to being alive for centuries. She hardly looked to be more than twenty, but some tales said the sorceresses of Deyrr gained immortal youth in return for their service to the dark god.
She waved that hand again, still negligently dangling in the air from a swanlike arm draped over the back of the chaise. “It hardly matters. My past is firmly in the past and that’s where it shall stay. You and I, Karyn, we are sisters under the skin, both of us repudiating our families, the men who strove to contain us. We recreated ourselves to be who we choose to be.”
It sounded so like what Zyr and I had talked about—but
slid sideways of that heroic ideal, falling into a slime pit of evil. Yet I didn’t dare call her on it. So, I simply returned her smile. “Where is Zyr?” I asked. “Were you able to heal him?”
A look of irritation glanced over her face and vanished just as quickly. “Of course I was able to heal your pet. You must understand that such a minor act of healing is well within the powers of even a first-level sorceress, let alone myself. Deyrr is a benevolent master and His gifts lavishly bestowed. The god will love you because you’re still a virgin, and a pure vessel for his magic. You’ll see.”
“I look forward to it,” I replied with as much sincere enthusiasm as I could muster, resisting the urge to scratch at the crawling feel of the talon markings on my arm. My thrice-cursed virginity again. If only I’d gone to Zyr’s bed when he first asked, I might’ve avoided this. All of this. But no time or room for regret. I needed to find him, as the High Priestess didn’t speak as if she’d let him go—and set him free. If she killed me for it, that would be less of my life spent as her slave. “I’d love to see your work for myself.”
She pouted, thrusting out her lip like a surly adolescent. “Later. I want to chat with you, get to know each other. I haven’t had another woman to be my friend in so long.” She sat up, clapping her hands together with enthusiasm. “We could begin your first lesson—wouldn’t you like that?”
I had to agree that I would. I could hardly say otherwise. And yet, every time I agreed with her, the talons wound tighter, a feeling of chill running down to the fingers of my left hand, and up over my shoulder. If you’d gotten that poisonous crap that close to your heart, then you would’ve died. Zyr’s terse observation came back to me.
Dead—or more possessed by Deyrr. Those lessons might inform me about that process, which would be good to know, but first Zyr.
“I’m so fond of my pet gryphon,” I said, as if confessing reluctantly. “Now that you’ve cured him, I’d like to be certain he can’t run away. Those shapeshifters can be so naughty.”
The Arrows of the Heart Page 22