The cat spun about growling and roaring at the surrounding peons. They reeked of the geistlord, and they held sticks and polearms. Every one of them was pale and blank-eyed, but there could be no mistaking their intentions.
“Welcome, mighty Rossin.” A voice high in the vaulted ceiling caused the cat to jerk his head up; the female creature his host’s sister had been talking to. She was beyond even his reaching, leaning out to talk to him from a balcony of stone, decorated with lapis lazuli.
“Thank you so much for visiting.” The peons below bent like wheat in the wind at her voice, responding to the whims of the Wrayth.
The Rossin crouched, and even though he knew the pointlessness of it, sprang among them. He bit and raked his claws through their flesh. He broke bones and tore muscle, and even while he did, they did not scream. It was like cutting grass or biting water, and just as fulfilling.
Even though their blood flooded his mouth, it offered him nothing. Humanity should not be like this, and every part of the Rossin was disgusted by it. No strength came to him; the Wrayth’s power slipped out of the peons before he could absorb it. Finally, he stood shaking bits of rent peons from his jaws, blood splattered on his patterned fur, and a growl emanating from his mouth.
“Are you done?” the Wrayth above asked, her voice stained with amusement. “As always you are limited, and as you can see, we are not.”
The peons that were still capable formed up another circle. Some were dragging broken limbs, or their own eviscerated bowels, but they still moved to the controls of the geistlord in their bodies. At the same time, fresh peons from the rear came forward. They were carrying polearms, and on the end gleamed weirstones.
It was always this way; geistlord competing to devour geistlord. The Wrayth would have him and all the power that remained from Hatipai. However when the woman spoke, the words she let loose were not the ones that he expected.
“You will make an excellent experiment. Once you return to your host, we will find out what new lines he can form with our female peons. What interesting creatures might be made with your power and ours.”
She turned, and his host’s sister appeared on the balcony as well. She looked down on the snarling cat with such hatred that even the Rossin felt it.
He would not change. He would not surrender himself to that. He would breed nothing for the Wrayth. Then the peons were on him, pushing him with the weirstones, and where they touched, they burned. In this way they drove the Rossin out of the main hall and down into the hive.
Though he battered at them, charging, snarling, ripping an odd one or two down, they kept coming in a relentless fashion that he could not match. Eventually they pushed him, just by sheer numbers and determination, into a cell, much like the one their female prisoners occupied.
It was a tiny space for the massive feline, and he could barely turn around. The door was slammed shut behind him, and the Rossin let out a roar that shook the vile nest of the Wrayth. Yet, he would not release the form. If he did, then his host would become like the women, used for their breeding.
“How long can you wait?” a peon spoke. His face was slack, his eyes unfocused but the voice that came out was high-pitched and unnatural. “How long can you burn before you have to give us what we want?”
The Rossin snarled and crashed against the bars, but they were built strong—stronger than anything a human would make.
“Eventually you will give us what we want,” the peon intoned, and then stepped back away from the bars.
Soon all of them departed and the Rossin was left to the sound of weeping and screaming women. His roars of outrage merged with theirs of despair.
Zofiya drew in her first conscious breath, and felt her body react with violent disagreement to this event. If her stomach had contained anything she would have thrown it up immediately. She twisted about, spitting and choking on her dry mouth. It was then she realized that she was tied, tightly and effectively, in place.
“Yes, unfortunately the phase effect on simple folk is rather unnerving.” A voice to her right gave her reason to open her eyes. “However in your case I think it is something else as well.” It was a voice she recognized, and her stomach clenched. Lying on a simple iron-framed bed her bones ached, her mouth was parched, and she knew she was in great peril. It was not the peril she was used to: a blade in the night, a conspiracy of minor nobles or an angry servant.
Del Rue, or whatever his name was, smiled at her. He was crouched down, hands on his knees, grinning at her as she lay bound more tightly than a spring roast. “Very interesting. Something about you is more…open shall we say…than your average plain stupid human. I wonder how that happened.” He sounded genuinely curious.
She ran her tongue around her mouth to loosen it, since it was as dry as a pile of Orinthal sand. “Keep wondering,” she replied as tartly as she could, “and while you wonder, I shall enjoy, as my brother executes you in front of the whole Court.”
“Now, why would my good friend do that?” The older man spread his hands as if in great shock. “It was those pesky Deacons of the Order of the Eye and the Fist that kidnapped you. Why one of them was even in your bed.” He waved a finger at her. “You naughty girl, I hadn’t expected that, but it nicely took care of that Merrick Chambers. It was very helpful of you.”
Zofiya swallowed hard, her eyes darting around the dark chamber. It looked like a cellar somewhere, perhaps in the Edge section of Vermillion—the damp smell clogging her nostrils suggested that. Surely they couldn’t be farther away than that. She was certainly grateful that she’d not been conscious for the portion of the journey that involved phasing through walls. She was no coward, but her experiences in Orinthal had made her leery of anything that involved runes or undead powers. It seemed that she was going to have to deal with them now.
The man crouched down next to her oozed a terrible charm. From what Merrick had told her, del Rue was quite willing to sacrifice anyone to get what he wanted. He’d wanted to murder Japhne del Torne and her unborn child—and she was sure that was not the end to his foul deeds. The idea that her brother had been locked in his privy chamber for months with this man left her raging beyond sensible thought. Yet, she had to be sensible and calm as well.
“I am not prone to kindness,” she replied conversationally, “and I suspect neither are you. Since you have my brother wound around your finger, you don’t need me. Therefore you can dispense with the formalities altogether and get to the killing.”
Del Rue smoothed his mustache, and stared at her before letting out a little laugh. “My dear Grand Duchess, if I wanted to murder you I would simply have left you embedded in the walls of the palace.”
Despite her inner strength, Zofiya shivered at that. The idea of becoming part of Vermillion forever was not a pretty one. She’d seen strange creatures and bones trapped in rock, and despite her outrage, she would have not wanted to end up like that.
“I won’t help you destroy my brother,” she blurted out as bravely as she could.
“Oh,” he replied mildly, “we don’t need your help at all since we have him quite in hand. Your brother is not as strong willed as you.” He wagged his finger at her, as if it were Zofiya’s fault somehow.
Then something moved just out of her line of sight, and she flinched, straining. Hooded figures slid out from the shadows of the room, bearing a device she could not quite make out.
Del Rue touched her hair. “So many uses for a little royal like you. Blood, breeding or leverage. You didn’t imagine you could be so useful did you, Grand Duchess? All that time trying to guard your brother and you never really thought about yourself.”
His gloating was cut short by one of those figures throwing back his hood. “Are we getting on with it?”
Del Rue glanced up, a flicker of annoyance passing over his face. Zofiya saw at once that he was a man that both enjoyed his moments of power and did not like to be interrupted while having them. “Yes Master Vashill,” he hissed, “I believe we are.”
The other hooded figures stepped back once more into the shadows. Del Rue pushed himself up from the floor and made way as the machine was rolled forward. The Grand Duchess ran her eye over it. Immediately apparent was the gleam of a weirstone seated within the gears and cogs of its inner workings. It sat there with blue and white light flickering over its surface. The Grand Duchess had been privy to many curious and wonderful devices brought into the Court for her brother to admire, but she had never seen anything like this.
The man called Vashill let his fingers trace the device, and pride shined from his face. “My mother said that it
