Treason Keep

Dear Cratyn —”

“Cretin,” she corrected. “I always called him Cretin. The Kariens thought it was my accent.”

“Very subtle... Dear Cretin, sorry I can’t be here to meet you dear, but I’ve run off to Hythria with a dashing warlord —”

“Dashing?”

“Handsome sounded a bit arrogant, I thought... Anyway, where was I? I’ve run off to Hythria with a dashing warlord with whom I’ve been making wild, passionate love every night for... how long has it been?”

“One week and two days...”

“Are you counting?”

“Only out of curiosity.” She turned to face him, her expression suddenly serious. “We shouldn’t joke about this, Damin. He’ll kill us both.”

Damin kissed her forehead. “It will take more than – what did you call him? Prince Cretin the Cringing – to kill me. And I swear I’ll kill you myself before I hand you back to him.”

“Well, that makes me feel so much better.”

Mikel shrank down as they walked past his stall exchanging that odd mixture of intimate secrets and insulting banter that seemed to characterise their conversations, tears of bitter disappointment sliding down his cheeks.

The truth burned in his stomach like a bad meal. He waited in the darkness surrounded by the moist smell of the horses for a long, long time after they were gone. His heart was breaking; his childish illusions well and truly shattered.

By the time he forced himself to move, his fingers were numb with cold. But he had made a decision. When the Karien army crossed the border, Mikel would find a way to gain an audience with the prince.

He was going to have to explain to Cratyn that his beautiful, noble princess was nothing more than a traitorous slut.

Part 4 CONSEQUENCES

Chapter 54

The walls of the Citadel defined Brak’s prison. He had discovered this annoying detail quite by accident as he had tried to follow Lord Terbolt to a meeting with another Karien agent in the small village of Kordale, west of the city. He had met an invisible wall as solid and impenetrable as the wall that cut him off from his power. Brak had tested its limits right around the Citadel, but could find no weak point. He wondered if it was entirely Zegarnald’s doing or if the Citadel itself was aiding the War God, although he could think of no reason why the Citadel would ever cooperate with Zegarnald.

He spent his days watching and worrying over R’shiel. His frustration was a palpable thing and his worry enough to make him physically sick. He had watched Loclon tormenting her and the demon, helpless to intervene. He had watched him punish her then cut off her hair, tearing uselessly at the invisible barrier that separated him from the ordinary world. But worse, he watched as every day R’shiel sank a little lower into despair; a little closer to giving in; a little closer to the day he might have to kill her.

Brak had an odd relationship with R’shiel. Part guardian, part teacher, he had been sent to find the demon child and bring her home to Sanctuary. His first impressions of her had not been good – she was spoilt, manipulative and rebellious. She bore long grudges and tended to be rather single-minded when it came to getting even. Brak had not liked her much in the beginning. It had taken a long time for him to discover how much of R’shiel’s behaviour was a result of her upbringing as much as her true nature. She carried a lot of hurt inside and those who hurt her would suffer for it. He was also cynical enough to realise that the very qualities that made him distrust her were just the sort of characteristics one needed if one was destined to destroy a god.

When he had first set out to find the demon child, he had vague visions of a noble young man with a pure heart, who would take on his appointed task with a solemn vow and then... well, he’d never really got to that bit. He had not expected R’shiel; not expected to find a complicated, troubled young woman, who had been raised by the most ruthless and unloving mother that the Sisterhood had ever spawned.

It wasn’t until he learnt how much of her suffering had been sanctioned by the gods, that he truly began to sympathise with her. Zegarnald’s “tempering” had been a cruel and rocky road for R’shiel and she was a long way from the end.

If he stood back from it, he understood the logic. Xaphista was a master of seduction, in his own way. He had seduced millions of Kariens into believing him. One half-breed Harshini would hardly be a threat, unless that half-breed was inured to his enticements. R’shiel had to be so determined to destroy him that nothing would stop her. She had to be ruthless enough to stand back and watch everything and everyone she held dear threatened with extinction, and not waver from her purpose. She had survived being raised by Joyhinia, raped by Loclon, imprisoned by the Sisterhood, a near-fatal wound, and the discovery that she was a member of a race that she had been raised to despise. The experience had left her battered and bruised, but it had not even come close to breaking her. Brak was beginning to wonder if her current situation would succeed where everything else had failed.

When she regained consciousness after Loclon left her room, it had taken her a little while to get her bearings. Her face was a mess – her forehead puffy and bruised and covered in dried blood. She lay for a time, staring at the canopy over the bed, as if trying to recall how she came to be there. Then she sat up and ran her fingers through her hair. She stiffened with shock, then looked behind her at the carefully laid-out halo of dark red hair that was left behind on the pillow.

For a moment she did nothing but stare at it in bewilderment, then she leapt off the bed and ran to the mirror hanging over the dresser. Brak winced as she looked at her reflection. Vanity was not a quality he associated with R’shiel – she had always seemed rather unconscious of her beauty – but even the plainest woman would have gasped at the reflection staring back at her. Loclon had hacked off her hair with little care. It stood up in clumps in places; elsewhere it had been cut so close to the scalp that the skin showed through. Her eyes were blackening, the cut on her forehead a red slash across a purple landscape of bruises. Her long neck was livid; white blisters already visible above and below the thin silver collar. Several had burst when she began to move, leaving weeping patches of raw flesh to rub against the metal.

R’shiel stared at her reflection for a long, long time, then she sank down onto the floor and sobbed like a brokenhearted child.

Brak could feel her anguish but could do nothing to relieve it.

He could not imagine what it must be like for her to cope with Loclon in Joyhinia’s body. Added to that, she had failed in her attempt to coerce the Sisterhood. Mahina was imprisoned. Affiana and Lord Draco were both dead. Garet Warner had changed sides and the Kariens effectively had control of the Citadel. If that wasn’t enough, when the order to surrender arrived at the border, Tarja’s life would be forfeit. He had no way of knowing, but Brak suspected R’shiel’s tears were as much from failure, as they were from pain.

But while her reactions up to that point had been typical, since that day R’shiel seemed sunk so far in misery, that she no longer cared what happened.

Terbolt had been quite appalled at the state she was in when he returned from his prayers and livid over the loss of the demon. He had chastised Loclon severely, but the Karien still needed a cooperative Joyhinia, so he had done little more than make his displeasure known. He had ordered the priests to treat her wounds and Garanus, in a rare show of compassion, trimmed her hair until it was, if not quite styled, then at least tidy. Once the bruises faded, she wouldn’t look too bad, Brak thought. She had that sort of bone structure.