He gestured to the chair opposite of him. Annoyed, Maynard sat down. Part of him knew he should calm himself. He was being hotheaded and rash, something he always dismissed in others. The priests had vexed him for years, however. If diplomacy and bribes did nothing for them, it was time to try threats and brute force.
“Look for a moment from my perspective,” Pelarak said. “Let’s assume I agree with you; the rogues need put in line, and this nonsensical war ended. But if I join now after you hold a sword over our heads, what prevents us from being puppets of the Trifect instead of servants to our god? We would kill kings for making the same threats you have made.”
Maynard felt a bit of his hotheadedness leave him. Something very dangerous was about to happen. Pelarak did not make threats lightly, and his assumption of safety seemed to be arrogance in hindsight. The priests could kill him with a wave of their hands. All his power and gold meant nothing if they felt Karak wanted his head.
“Rudely put, perhaps,” Maynard said, falling deeper into his political persona, “but you do speak a bit of truth. We need your aid, Pelarak. For if you are not with us, then I fear the actions of your women assassins places you against us.”
“I will deal with them in time,” Pelarak said. “I told you, they do not represent us. Karak is our lord, and I am his closest servant. He wishes this war over. How, though, is where you and I will disagree.”
“Presumptuous,” Maynard said. “How will we disagree?”
Pelarak stood, smoothing out his black robe as he did. A free hand rubbed his balding head. Maynard did not like this at all. The high priest was very rarely hesitant. This was bad. Very bad.
“We will aid you, but only under the condition that you give us someone into our safekeeping, someone to join our order. The next time you wave a sword over our necks, we will have someone to wave ours over as well.”
Maynard felt his heart sink.
“Who do you want?” he asked.
Pelarak might have smiled or gloated, but that was not the man he was.
“Two of the faceless sisters came to me last night to inform me of their actions. I did not reprimand them, not yet. They have your daughter, Alyssa. She must join our order.”
Maynard felt his world tear and twist in chaotic ways inside his mind. Alyssa, a priestess of Karak? She would be safe from the Kulls, perhaps, and certainly no threat to his estate. But would he ever see her again? Who would she become cloistered within the walls, battered daily with Karak’s rhetoric of order and darkness?
Then he saw the hidden threat. If the faceless women had Alyssa, then they could do to her whatever they wished. If he refused…
“I must accept,” he said.
“Good,” Pelarak said, a smile spreading across his face. “I am glad we could reach an agreement. We aid one another, as friends, not master and servant.”
“Of course. You speak most wisely,” Maynard said, the lie bitter on his lips.
When he turned to leave, Pelarak stopped him with a word.
“Oh, Maynard,” the high priest said. “Make sure she is still heir to your estate. If you render her worthless, we will do the same.”
A shard of ice grew inside his heart.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he said.
“Good,” said Pelarak. “Go with Karak’s blessing.”
He did, though if he could, he’d toss any blessing of Karak’s into the foulest open sewer and leave it to rot. If he could, he’d have Pelarak suffer the same fate.
“Forgive me, Alyssa,” he said as he left the temple, giving one last look to the priests and priestess bowed before the giant statue of Karak, their heartfelt wails reaching to the sky. He thought of Alyssa on her knees beside them, and the image twisted the ice in his heart all the harder.
A lyssa was already dressed and sitting beside the fire when Yoren awoke. It blazed healthily as the young woman tossed a few extra branches so she could watch them burn.
“Good morning, love,” Yoren said.
“Morning,” Alyssa replied, her voice dull. She might have been talking to a rock.
Feeling the call of nature, Yoren hopped up, stepped behind a tree, and began urinating. When he finished, he stepped back around and was looked surprised to see Alyssa staring at him intently.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, turning her gaze back to the fire. “Only nothing.”
He grunted but let her cryptic comments pass.
“Stay here, and keep that fire roaring,” he told her. He retrieved his small bow and bundle of arrows from his tent and slung them across his back. “I’ll see if I can nab us a rabbit or squirrel for breakfast. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”
He trudged deeper into the forest, but before he left, he turned back toward her.
“And if the faceless return, tell them to wait for me as well,” he said. Then he was gone.
She played the obedient girl, keeping the fire lively and even gathering up extra wood. When she was bored, she constructed a shoddy rendition of a spit over the flame. From her time back at the Pensley’s estate, she knew that Yoren could hunt as well as he boasted.
He returned in only twenty minutes, carrying a dead gray rabbit by its back legs. He dropped it on the dirt beside the fire. Alyssa took it without question, and he seemed surprised by that.
“I’ll need a knife to skin it,” she said.
Yoren paused, as if sensing for a trap, then shrugged and tossed her a slender dagger from his belt. She caught its hilt in the air, doing her best not to show irritation at the idiot for tossing it so carelessly toward her.
Any other time she might have felt squeamish about the blood and guts. She played the tomboy well enough when with her foster families, but it had been mostly an act. As much as they hated to admit it, the young men often treated her better when thinking she could wield a knife and not squeal at the sight of something dead. But pretending to handle blood and actually handling it were two different matters.
She pretended the rabbit was Yoren’s head. It did wonders for her stomach.
When the rabbit finished cooking, Yoren gave her the bulk of the meat. He was once more playing the dashing suitor, as if her time spent pressed against the tree had only been an illusion. She flashed her prettiest smile at his jokes. The lies came easier to her than she’d prefer.
“Come,” he said when their meal was done. “It looks like we’ll have to trust the faceless bitches to find us. Clean yourself up a little; you’ve got grease on your face.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as she wiped her chin and lips with the inside edge of her dress.
“To meet with my father.”
He looked her up and down, scowling. She was wearing the simple clothing she’d been given when thrown into her father’s underground cells. Although she’d brushed her hair as best she could with her fingers, it had done little to remove the dirt and damage. She looked much more like a haggard maid than an heiress to a mining empire.
“This will never do,” Yoren said. “You must look my queen, not my servant. Where are those blasted women? Surely they know a thing or two about primping.”
“Yes, because their beauty is seen so often,” Alyssa said. Her sarcasm was stronger than she expected, the cut of her comment deep enough to narrow Yoren’s eyes and make him doubt her docility.
“No doubt Maynard has every cutthroat he owns in the city searching for you,” he said. “Otherwise I’d take you to a bathhouse and make you look respectable. But it looks like I’ll have to bring you as you are to my father.”
He scattered the fire and then took her hand.
“Oh, and dear,” he said, smiling a cruel smile. “Hold your tongue, or instead of being my queen, I’ll drag you to my father as if you were my whore.”
Her mouth twitched but her eyes remained dead.
“Yes, milord,” she said.
He completely forgot about the dagger that should have been safely tucked inside his belt, the one that had disemboweled a rabbit.
