Her Gift, unhampered by her developing control, surged forth. The tell-tale amber light surrounded them, and he breathed it in. Her very spirit filled him. She was strength through endurance, resolve and compassion, all overlaid by a faint melancholy—and love for him. His climax struck him like a storm tide, coursing through him in a hot river until he arched and groaned, almost bucking Martise off him. She held on and followed after him, her softer cries fading with his as she collapsed on his chest.
His limbs shook beneath her, convulsive shudders accompanied by black spots that danced in his vision. He raised his hand, saw the corona of light shimmer around his fingers and pressed them to her back. His softly murmured spell was lost in her hair. She twitched and raised her head to stare at him.
“What did you do?”
He rubbed his thumb over the smooth skin where her abrasion had been. “I healed your back.”
She reached behind her, touched the spot he caressed. Her eyes widened and she gave him a beatific smile. “You’re amazing. Thank you.” Her eyes darkened for a moment. “I envy you, you know. Not so much for the power you possess, but that you can command it at will. I wish my Gift would do that.”
Silhara said nothing, only stroked her hair when she laid her head on his shoulder and fell asleep with him still inside her. He held her tightly.
He was exhausted. Even the force of her Gift couldn’t fully replenish the strength the storm and the hours of lovemaking had taken out of him. He needed to sleep. He needed to possess her again, and when she drained him enough to shave a decade off his lifespan, he’d go to the library to verify a terrible truth. His suspicion regarding the nature of her Gift had become a surety. He knew what she was. Martise’s Gift wasn’t a blessing; it was a curse.
A loud crack against one of the library windows snapped Silhara out of his musings. He looked in time to see a spiraling flutter of wings as a crow fell to earth. He shook his head. “Cael will enjoy that one.”
The book he’d taken from the high shelf, sat unopened on the table. Runes decorated the leather, mysterious symbols that stung Silhara’s fingers when he traced their outlines. Yellowed pages crackled as he opened the book and began to read. It didn’t take him long to find the passages he sought, and he read them in bitter triumph.
“Ah Cumbria, you have no idea what you’ve turned over to me, do you?”
Such information would devastate Martise. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
He found her working in a corner of the bailey with Gurn, hanging newly laundered clothes and linen on lines to dry. Partially concealed by the flap of damp blankets, she was unaware of his presence until he spoke.
“Apprentice, I need you in the hall.”
She straightened on a gasp. “You surprised me.” Her tentative smile faded at his somber expression. She nodded and dried her damp hands on her skirts.
Painted in pale light and dust motes, she faced him in the great hall, her features set as she waited for his commands. He read the grim resolve in her eyes. She expected some unpleasant lesson from him. Regret twisted his stomach into more knots. He’d practiced a calculated cruelty on her in this hall when she first arrived. His attempts at frightening her away had failed, but the fear he’d instilled in her remained, even beyond the intimacy they now shared.
He didn’t know how to reassure her, especially when his purpose in bringing her was to offer up a bleak truth.
“Summon your Gift, Martise.”
Her eyebrows rose, but she did as he asked. He could watch her call up her Gift a thousand times and still not grow tired of the spectacle. He’d never seen a Gift manifest in such a way—a shimmering radiance that encompassed her and lured him to her.
“And now?” Even her voice changed, resonating with the sensuality that sent heat licking down his spine.
“Now, I want you to break the glass in these windows.” He gestured to the tall panes of glass, frosted with years of dirt. “You know this spell. Conclave always teaches it to the beginners.
She frowned. “Are you sure?”
Her question spoke of her confusion.
“I’m sure.”
The spell was simple, a harmless exercise used to introduce very young novitiates to the art of control and manipulation and familiarize them with their own power. But even that proved beyond her ability to execute. She recited the spell twice without so much as single spider-crack appearing in a window pane. Her shoulders hunched in defeat.
“This is futile. It’s like before. The spells don’t work with my Gift.”
Silhara circled her, the click of his boot heels echoing in the room. “They work, just not in the way we thought.” He recited the same spell and the glass cracked in three windows. “A simple breakage spell. Good for creating mischief and not much else.”
He took her hand. Her Gift rushed through him, drawing down her essence so that it sang in his veins. He was swamped with power, by the force that made his own Gift hum in response. He dropped her hand before he fell to her allure and began to feed off her Gift and her soul.
“Watch.”
Silhara recited the spell once more. Martise covered her ears as a concussion wave twisted the air around them. An explosion of sound followed as every window in the hall shattered, blasting outward toward the courtyard in a shower of splintered shards. Broken rainbows caught on the jagged pieces of glass still attached to the window frames, and sunlight flooded the hall. Outside, Cael howled, and Silhara heard the door to the kitchen fly open. Martise stared at him as if he’d gone mad.
He clapped his hands twice and uttered one sharp word. Gurn raced into the hall just in time to see glass fly up, snap together and hold to the window frames. The windows looked untouched save for the dirt caked on their surface. The hall returned to its gloomy state.
“Gurn.”
The servant stood beside him, staring up at the repaired windows. He glanced at Silhara.
“Go back to the bailey. I have something to tell Martise. Alone.”
Gurn hesitated for a moment, glanced at Martise’s shocked expression, then bowed and left. Martise’s fingers were laced together, the knuckles white against her dark skirts. A blank look, at odds with those tense hands, settled over her features.
“This,” he waved a hand to encompass the windows, “shouldn’t have happened. At least not how you saw it.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. You’re very powerful. That didn’t seem beyond your reach.”
“It isn’t. But that particular shatter spell should have done nothing more than crack the glass. Its very nature limits the effects, no matter the power of the mage. The second spell was harder. Repairing is always more difficult than destroying. The spell should have made me bleed. I didn’t.” He raised his hands so she could see the shimmer of her Gift still on them. “The power of your Gift, channeled through me, transformed those spells.”
She blinked at him, raised her hands which no longer glowed as his did. “My Gift lent you power?”
Silhara gut turned at the rekindled hope in her eyes. “Your Gift is rare, Martise. The last recorded Gifted with your talent was born more than fourteen hundred years ago to a coastal woman. The Kurmans call such Gifted bide jiana. Life-givers. That life-giver met a bad end at the hands of his lover, a crow mage who once lived not far from here.”
Martise frowned. Silhara could almost hear her mentally searching the many archives she’d read and translated, the histories of Conclave and the varied talents born to the Gifted.
“I’ve never heard or read of a—what did you call it?—a bide jiana. The priests never taught us of them.”
“They’re legendary, so rare that many believe their existence only myth. Conclave has never had a life-giver join the priestly ranks.” He smirked. “And what Conclave doesn’t know or recognize is either fabrication or simply unimportant.”
He kept his voice even, revealing nothing of the growing turmoil inside him. “Your Gift is no blessing
, Martise. Not to you. The spells you’ve learned and memorized will never work for you.” Her shocked gasp punctuated his statement, but he continued, relentless with the truth and determined to protect her, no matter how much she might suffer from his honesty.
“You’re a vessel, nothing more. A source to be used by mages like me. Your power strengthens the magic of others.
Martise’s mouth thinned to a tight line, and her eyes darkened. “How did you learn this?” she whispered.
She aged before his eyes, made haggard by his words. “I searched the library. I have several tomes of the black arcana. Two tell of crow wizards who enslaved bide jiana and fed on their power like leeches on blood. One was the soul eater of Iwehvenn.”
Her face went white, and she swayed. Silhara reached out to steady her, but she jerked away from his touch.
Stiffer than a rake handle, she buried her hands in her skirt and breathed slowly. She stared at the floor and then at him. “I’m going to be sick,” she said flatly and rushed past him to the kitchen.
Standing alone in the great hall, he wondered why he didn’t feel like celebrating his triumph over Conclave and Cumbria in particular. His spy had witnessed nothing yet that would condemn him as a traitor or a heretic. And now it mattered little if she did. Corruption could drink tea with him in the kitchen and discuss how they intended to remake the world in their preference—starting with the slow torture and death of every Conclave priest. He now held the key to her silence. Whatever prize Cumbria dangled before her for turning Silhara over to them, he doubted it was worth the sacrifice of her soul.
Out in the bailey Gurn stood by his washtub and peered at a spot behind one corner of the house. The unmistakable sound of violent retching overrode the squawks, bleats and snorts of the livestock milling about the enclosure. Silhara came to stand next to Gurn and answered his frantically signed question.
“Leave her be, Gurn. She’s just learned a cruel truth.”
Both men waited until Martise reappeared around the corner. Her pallor gave her eyes a sunken appearance. She met Silhara’s gaze bleakly. “What will you tell the bishop?”
Silhara held her gaze. “Gurn, where’s that wine we bought at market?”
Gurn signed, and Silhara took Martise’s hand. Her fingers were cold in the summer heat. In the kitchen, Silhara opened the cold cellar and returned with a small jar.
“Wouldn’t the Fire be better?” She was calm, but her sensual voice carried a shrill note.
“It might.” He lifted the bottle of Peleta’s Fire from the cupboard shelf and handed it to her. “Use it to rinse your mouth, but don’t drink. I need you coherent and thinking. The wine will do well enough.”
He waited while she rinsed with a combination of water and Fire and spat in the slop bucket by the door. Just a taste of the strong drink brought a hint of color back to her cheeks, and she stood straighter. They climbed to his chamber. He motioned for her to sit on the bed while he poured wine into goblets and gave her one. She drained it in two gulps and held out the cup for more.
Eyebrows raised, he refilled the cup. He dragged the only chair across the room and sat across from her, holding his own goblet. Martise eyed him warily, much as she did when she first met him. They were adversaries again.
“There are many things I plan to tell Cumbria of Asher. None should be uttered in polite company.” She smiled faintly at that. “Enslaving and using another mage for the purpose of gaining power is one of the darkest arcana. By Conclave law, any mage caught performing such a practice is subject to death.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. The little color that had returned to her cheeks faded once more.
“A bondage like no other.”
“It is. And a compulsion for the mage who controls the jiana. A taste of it is more than tempting.” His eyes narrowed when she swallowed and looked away. “For a powerful mage, like me or Cumbria, your talent is worth more than a ship loaded to the waterline with gold.”
He chuckled dryly. “All this time serving his household, training with Conclave, and he never knew.”
“But you’ll tell him, or keep me for yourself.” Bitterness sharpened her words.
There were many reasons why he might like to keep Martise for himself. Her Gift wasn’t one of them. With Corruption’s star hanging in the sky outside his window and the god’s voice promising him a power that could bring kingdoms to their knees, her Gift held only a small temptation.
“While enticing, I don’t have need of such a Gift, but Cumbria would. With you empowering him, he could control Conclave. He wouldn’t have to wait for the Luminary to die or the Holy See to meet and elect the next Luminary. He’d simply usurp and rule. I doubt Conclave’s laws or any imaginary morality would stop him from leeching you.” His lip curled into a sneer. “The man who reviles crow mages would become the epitome of all such failed men.”
Martise rose and walked to the window. Framed in the curved arch and backlit by sunlight, her features were cast in shadow. “What now then?”
He frowned at the dull note in her voice, as if something more than the hope of her Gift had died within her.
“I have Conclave up my nose enough as it is, and that’s with a Luminary who is reasonable and doesn’t bear me ill will. I’ve no wish to help the bishop rise to greater prominence.” He drained his wine and rose. She didn’t back away when he approached her. “I can teach you to hide your Gift. Not just control it, but submerge it. Deep enough that the priests will never sense its presence. And I am a good liar. It won’t take much to convince Conclave that I failed in finding your talent.
Martise’s empty gaze raked him. “You can use me, and I can’t stop you.”
Her hair was soft as he stroked her braid. “How is this different from any other day?”
She closed her eyes. “I’m scared.”
He caressed her cheek. He hated her fear, but it would keep her alive. “You should be. The bide jiana enslaved had their Gifts taken from them by force. Sex, torture, whatever their masters found necessary to make that power manifest and use it to their advantage.”
Hollow laughter, edged with hysteria, escaped her. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she covered her mouth. The laughter turned to agonized groans. Silhara wrapped his arms around her, driven by an unfamiliar urge to hold and comfort. He rubbed her back and let her tears bleed on his chest. She felt good in his arms, even in her grief.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wept for anything, but he understood her tears. They were made of anger and broken dreams, frustration and powerlessness. He held her in silence until she hiccupped and straightened away from him.
She wiped away the remaining tears with shaking hands “Surely, the gods laugh.”
Gods were nothing more to him than a convenient means by which he cursed the daily annoyances of life. Only Corruption had risen above that philosophy, and Silhara loathed his seducer. “They don’t do much else, apprentice. None are worth a single genuflection from any of us.” Her bottom lip quivered under his thumb. “Let me give you the means to protect yourself, Martise.”
A gentle kiss on his thumb and she sighed. “Many would say I’d be a fool to trust you.”
“And many would be right. I lie well, and I lie often.”
Amusement lightened her somber face. “You’ve never lied to me.”
“Haven’t I?”
“Not in those things that count.”
Desire rose in him. Not fierce as before, but just as strong, just as deep. Save for Gurn and Cael, and his mother so long ago, he’d not been moved to care for anyone—until now.
He led her to the bed and made slow love to her, telling her with his hands what he was too frightened to recognize in the deepest part of his heart. Afterward, he spooned against her and nestled his face in her fragrant hair. Outside, the crows screeched and flapped in the trees, and Gurn hummed an off-key chant as he swept the back stoop. Silhara had wasted the day away in here with Martise and regret
ted none of it.
Their lessons would be in earnest now. He’d be damned if he saw her broken on the wheel of slavery, even more damned if he gave Cumbria the chance to rise to greater power. He’d hand his soul over to Corruption with a smile if necessary to stop the bishop.
The crows’ discordant songs faded, and he drifted on the edge of sleep, content to savor Martise’s warmth. She stirred, slid her foot along his calf. Her voice, cool and faintly challenging, brought him fully awake.
“What will protect me from you?”
He pulled her hard against him and nipped her shoulder. "Nothing."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Her time here had been a spectacular failure. Martise sat on a milking stool in the bailey, milking one of the new nanny goats and wondering what she would do now. Gurn sat nearby, repairing a section of Gnat’s bridle. Silhara had sequestered himself in the stillroom to bottle one of the many perfumes he made from orange flowers.
She had three more weeks at Neith with no true purpose other than continue her translations for Silhara, and that had always been a flimsy reason. Cumbria’s crow had never answered her call, and she’d sung in secret three more times. Not that any message meant much. All she had to report was their trip to Iwehvenn, which was neither a secret nor a crime. If Silhara worked to betray Conclave in any way, he’d kept his machinations well-hidden.
She paused in her milking. The Master of Crows had insured her silence with his knowledge of her Gift. She shuddered at the idea of her talent revealed to others. Her current bondage was nothing compared to its potential.
Silhara had offered her the means to effectively hide what she now thought of as her curse. Each morning, instead of coaxing her talent for spell work, they strove to suppress it, push it back to the deep recesses it occupied prior to the lich’s attack at Iwehvenn. Silhara’s altruism cloaked a more personal motivation. Conclave, under Cumbria’s rule, would turn on him without hesitation. The present Luminary was a fair man, an adherent to the rule of law who insisted on justice by proof and trial. He might suspect Silhara of nefarious activities, but he wouldn’t condemn him without evidence. Cumbria would not be bound by such strictures.