and touched her cheek. She leaned in to his touch and frowned. She looked sadas if she might even crythen she smiled.
The coach pulled to a stop, the horses clomping to the side of the street.
Willem looked around. He knew the neighborhoodnot well, but he knew it. They hadn’t come to the Cascade of Coins.
“Master Rymiit’s house?” he asked, recognizing the large manor home with its walled grounds.
Phyrea nodded, making no move at first to exit the coach, and said, “He wants people to call it the ‘Thayan Enclave’ now. I don’t know why. Maybe he thinks he’s some kind of ambassador now.”
“He is, I suppose,” Willem replied, “an ambassador of sorts.”
Phyrea sighed, and the coachman opened the door and stepped aside. She stepped out onto the street not quite as if she were being marched to the gallows, but close. Willem shared that feeling when his boots touched the cobblestones.
Marek Rymiit appeared at the gate, a huge grin plastered on his round face. The tattoos on his head looked even stranger, uglier than normal with the rain spattering off them. He waved them both toward the gate, and Phyrea hesitated for just a fraction of a heartbeat, so Willem did too. Marek only grinned wider.
Willem followed Phyrea through the gate. He avoided looking the Thayan in the eye. Marek looked at him with undisguised lust that made Willem squirm. He wanted to reach out and hold Phyrea’s hand, but he didn’t. He wondered, though, as they walked across the rain-drenched grounds to the main house, what he would have done if he had taken her hand. Would he have pulled her back into the coach, away from there and whatever was going to happen? Or would he just have felt better knowing she was pulling him toward that unknown, unavoidable fate?
“Ah,” Marek said from behind him, “young love…”
They went into the house and paused, dripping wet. Marek stepped in front of them, and still smiling ear to ear, said, “Ah, what a wonderful afternoon this is. Welcome to the Thayan Enclave, and let me say how pleased I am that you have chosen our”
“Please, Master Rymiit,” Phyrea interrupted. “Can we get on with it?”
Marek seemed disappointed, but didn’t argue, he bowed and motioned to a velvet curtain the color or rich red wine. Without hesitating, Phyrea stepped through the curtain. Willem looked at Marek, who leered at him. If for no other reason than to get away from the Thayan, he followed her through the curtain, and what he saw in there stopped him cold.
A freezing cold sweat broke out on the back of Willem’s neck, and he stopped breathing. He looked around at what was once a comfortable, ordinary sitting room. But it had been transformed into what could only be described as a temple. Candles burned on virtually every surface. The walls were draped in black velvet. An apothecary’s cabinet had been made into an altar, and the floors were covered by canvas tarps. Behind the altar stood a man Willem recognized, but in his current state, he couldn’t recall the man’s name. He was as rotund as Marek, but softer, more feminine somehow, clad in a hooded black robe of some homespun, rough fabric.
Phyrea took his hand, and Willem jumped. Marek giggled from behind them.
“Step forward,” the man in the robe said.
Phyrea did as she was told, dragging Willem forward by the hand.
“Good afternoon, Wenefir,” Phyrea said with a coy smile that didn’t suffice to cover the dread that quivered in her eyes.
Willem remembered: Pristoleph’s man. “In the name of the Dark Sun, I bless this union,” Wenefir said. “For the glory of the Prince of Lies, I bind you.” Cyric, Willem thought. Cyric?
“Willem Korvan,” said Wenefir, “you must state your intentions.”
“My in-?”
“Say you want to marry the girl,” Marek explained.
“I want to marry her,” he said before he could think it through, then he closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to see the rest of it. He heard Phyrea tell Wenefir that she wanted to join her life to his. When Wenefir gave him a metal cup he drank from it and tried to pretend that it wasn’t blood he was drinking. When the Cyricist tied his wrist to Phyrea’s with a length of silk cord Willem didn’t pull away. When he was told to repeat one bit of disconnected madness after another, he repeated it. He did all of it, said all of it, with his eyes closed.
Finally, Wenefir cut their wrists loose and stepped very close, so close that Willem could smell his sour breath. Still, Willem didn’t open his eyes.
“You are man and wife, now,” Wenefir said. “Seal it with a kiss, or not, as you wish.”
Willem heard footsteps and opened his eyes. Wenefir and Marek left the room. He looked down at Phyrea. Her whole body shook. He’d never seen her so pale. She seemed on the verge of bursting, or shaking apart. She turned on him and looked at him with the wild eyes of a panicked animal.
“Phyrea,” he said, and reached out for her.
“No,” she shrieked, her voice loud and out of control.
Willem didn’t know what to say. She glanced at him one more time, then ran from the room. He followed her, but only saw her disappear through the door. Marek stepped up next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Willem tried to pull away, but the Thayan held on tight.
“Might not be a proper wedding night tonight, my boy,” Marek said with a toothy grin, “but she’ll be back.”
Willem blinked, fighting back the tears that came to his eyes. He looked down at Marek, who grinned at him as if he knew something Willem didn’t.
But then that was always the case with Marek Rymiit. He always knew more than anyone else, and Willem always knew less. All Willem knew at that moment was that he had betrayed Halina, betrayed his own spirit, perhaps, in taking part in a ceremonial vow to the mad god Cyric. And his only prize was Phyrea, who had done what he should have done the second she’d appeared in his bedchamber: run.
He pushed away from the laughing Thayan and walked out of the house, and he had no idea where to go.
48
11 Alturiak, the Yearofthe Shield (1367DR) Third Quarter, Innarlith
Phyrea ran up the stairs to her flat, making for the door as though she were being chased. And in a way, she was.
Don’t go in there, the man with the scar on his face insisted. She could feel his anger building. He’ll destroy you.
She stumbled and had to stop to keep from falling. She leaned against the wall and did her best to dry her eyes with the palm of her hand.
Please, please listen to us, Phyrea, the woman with the quiver in her voice begged. I don’t understand what you’re doing. Why would you go to this man, who hates you? He will kill you, and if he killsyou here in this stinking hovel, you’ll be destroyed. He really will destroy you. Don’t lose yourself. Don’t make me lose you. J can’t lose you, Phyrea. Not you too.
“Shut up,” she said. “Just shut up.”
Take us back, and stay with us, the little girl moaned. want to go home. p›
Phyrea climbed the last few stairs and all but fell through the door into her dismal flat.
Run! the little boy screamed into her mind so loudly she couldn’t help but clasp her hands over her ears.
“What’s wrong?” Devorast asked.
She took her hands away from her ears and closed the door behind her.
We’re trying to help you, the man with the scar said. Phyrea could feel his searing disappointment.
“Phyrea?”
She leaned against the wall and tried to wipe the tears away again, but couldn’t. She blinked at Devorast, who stood on the other side of the room. Knowing she wasn’t going to need it, that at least for a short time she
