One of the Beladine grabbed his arm and shoved the dirty sleeve past his elbow, revealing a patterned marking tattooed in blue and green ink on his arm. “Clansman out of the Serpent’s Teeth,” the soldier said.
Serovek crouched before his prisoner. His voice was mild, almost friendly. All the hairs on Ildiko’s nape rose in warning. “You’ve traveled a long way to butcher farmers for their grain and a few sheep. How many of you are hiding in the caves?”
The man’s eyes slid away. “I don’t know about any caves. We was just stealing because we was hungry.”
“So the four of you made off with an entire herd of sheep and a full wagon of grain? You have big stomachs.”
“Why do you care?” The raider thrust his shoulders back and his chin forward. His bloodshot eyes glittered. “They’s just farmers.”
Serovek’s mild tone didn’t change. “Because they were farmers under my protection, and now they’re dead. I’ll ask again. How many of you rats are hiding in those caves?”
The man clamped his lips together and refused to say anything more. He fell back on his haunches with a gasp when Anhuset lunged at him, claws curled.
“He’ll talk for me,” she snarled in bast-Kai.
Serovek checked her advance with one arm. “Patience,” he said in the same tongue. “Here, I am the law, and he’s broken it by murdering and stealing within my territory.”
He turned to the captured raider and switched back to Common tongue. “You’re far from home, and I know there are no Kai from where you hail, so let me enlighten you.” The circle of Kai and Beladine tightened around them. Ildiko was unable to dredge up a drop of sympathy for the suddenly pale prisoner. Serovek cold smile would have frozen a candle flame. “A long time ago the Kai hunted humans for food. If you refuse to talk, I’m going to feed you to them. From what I know, they aren’t concerned whether or not their meal is alive or dead when they start eating.”
Were Ildiko not used to the toothy Kai after months of living amongst them, she would have fled in terror at the sight of so many fanged grins that flashed at the raider after Serovek’s threat.
The man whimpered and promptly lost control of his bladder. The pungent odor of urine saturated the air. Words tumbled out of his mouth, so fast and stuttering that Serovek had to make him repeat himself several times over. By the time the interrogation ended, they all knew the number of enemies hiding in the caves, how many magefinders remained and which cave held Brishen.
Serovek stood and motioned with one hand. The raider was jerked to his feet. Ildiko gasped as the Beladine lord moved with breathtaking speed. A flash of hands, the brittle snap of bone and the dead raider dropped in a heap to the floor. In the time it took for Ildiko to inhale a breath, Serovek had broken the man’s neck with one swift, practiced motion. She swayed and clutched Anhuset’s arm, overtaken by dizziness and a distinct buzzing in her ears.
The Kai woman pressed a supporting hand to her back and leaned to whisper in her ear. “Strength, Hercegesé. Brishen needs you.”
The words worked a magic no sorcerer could mimic. The dizziness evaporated, and Ildiko’s back stiffened. She refused to look at the still body crumpled at Serovek’s feet, but she no longer wanted to faint.
The charming, jocular man she’d first met at High Salure and danced with at Saggara was gone. The ruthless Beladine marcher lord stood in his place, judge and executioner of any who committed crimes within his borders. He nudged the dead man with his foot. “Take him back to the holt and hang him in the trees with the others. If they haven’t soiled their clothes too badly, strip them. We need their garb.”
Ildiko trusted whatever plan he had in mind, but the thought of wearing a dead man’s clothes made her skin crawl. “What will we do now?”
The wolfish smile he gave her made her glad they were on the same side of this particular conflict. “Play raider,” he said. “And you don’t even need to ride a horse.”
*****
“Are the knots too tight?” Anhuset tugged on the strips of cloth that bound Ildiko’s hands together.
Ildiko shook her head. “No. I can twist out of them quickly if necessary.”
They stood within the concealment of heavy underbrush and the overcast shadow of rocky outcropping. Within the shelter of the forest, Kai and Beladine waited together as Ildiko prepared to act as the bait Serovek needed.
Her clothes were ripped and filthy, her hair a wild mat of tangles, her face smudged with dirt and streaks of dried blood. Anhuset strengthened the look by shredding random spots of Ildiko’s tunic. “I still don’t think this is the best idea.”
Ildiko shrugged. “I think Lord Pangion is right. If we want to be sure of entering the right cave, I’m the best thing to draw them out.”
“Brishen will never forgive me if you die during my watch.” Anhuset tied one of her daggers to the sash encircling Ildiko’s waist.
The Kai woman’s skin was clammy under Ildiko’s fingertips, hints of fever in the darkened flush on her cheekbones. “I think he would forgive you anything, sha-Anhuset,” she said softly. “Besides, I have no intention of dying today.”
The other woman stared at her in silence for several moments. “I once thought you weak. I was wrong.” She finished strapping the dagger in place. “Are you afraid?”
Ildiko nodded. “Terrified.”
“Good. You’ll stay alert that way.”
Serovek joined them, accompanied by one of his men dressed in the clothes of one of the dead mercenaries. “Ready?”
Ildiko exhaled a shaky breath. “As much as I can be.”
Their plan was simple. They’d ascertain the captive raider hadn’t lied about his information by luring some of his compatriots out of the caves. Serovek’s man, acting as one of them, would lead her before them in full view, the captive Gauri woman they so eagerly sought. That was all they needed from her. Every Beladine soldier would pair up with a Kai—one to fight in the light, one in the dark, neither helpless as long as the other covered their backs. They’d rush the caves, fight their way in and back out again, hopefully with a living Brishen in tow.
Twilight engulfed the sky by the time a stumbling, weeping Ildiko followed her false captor as he jerked her by a lead rope across the clearing toward the caves. Her stomach did somersaults under her ribs, and she peered through the screen of her ragged hair at the cave openings that seemed to watch them from eyeless sockets.
She stubbed her toe against a jut of rocks hidden within ankle-high wisps of yellow grass and fell to her knees. The soldier leading her slackened the line. “Highness?” he whispered.
“Pull the rope,” she whispered back. “Call me names.” If they heard his earlier question, the masquerade was finished.
The soldier yanked hard on the rope, dragging her across the ground. She yelped as gravel abraded the exposed skin of her side and the rope welted her wrists. “Get up, bitch,” he snapped at her. “I don’t have all night.”
She stumbled to her feet, weaving drunkenly at the end of her tether. A flutter of movement caught her eye. Two figures emerged from one of the smaller cave openings, cautious in their approach, until her “captor” waved and raised the rope. “I caught her,” he called out in a triumphant voice. Exultant whoops answered, and the two figures became a pair of bedraggled raiders who raced toward him.
Their celebration was short-lived. The ambush they’d earlier set upon the Kai was turned on them. Beladine and Kai warriors swarmed from the forest and rushed the cave opening. Ildiko caught only glimpses of Serovek and Anhuset as they plunged into the cave’s darkness before a Kai warrior lifted her off her feet and fled with her into the forest.
This time she didn’t struggle as she had with Anhuset. She waited, free of her bonds, amidst a circle of tense, heavily armed guards and watched the cave with eyes that watered because she was too afraid to blink.
Light flashes illuminated the darkness in brief bursts. The ring of metal on metal mingled with shouts and cries of pai
n. Her heart paused in its thunderous beating when the noise died, and all she heard were the soft hoots of howls and the rustle of rodents hiding in the leaves.
It was full dark, and the moon planished the landscape in silver armor. Ildiko laced her fingers together and prayed to gods she hoped would be merciful this night. Her prayer was answered when Serovek’s and Anhuset’s warriors spilled out of the cave. She cried out, feet flying across the brittle grass toward the war party.
Anhuset emerged from their midst to catch Ildiko about the waist and spin her around. “We have him, Hercegesé,” she said in a tight voice.
Ildiko gripped the other woman’s arms. “Where is he?”
“Ildiko, he’s been tortured.”
Her knees gave, and she sagged in Anhuset’s arms. Shock quickly gave way to rage. “I want to see him. Now,” she said.
Anhuset nodded and guided her through the flow of soldiers until they reached a small knot gathered near the cave entrance. Serovek stood when he caught sight of her. He blocked her path and her view.
“Do you have a strong stomach?” he asked. He looked even more severe than when he’d snapped the raider’s neck. Blood dripped off the sword he held, and his dark eyes glittered hard as diamonds in the moonlight.
“Get out of my way, Lord Pangion,” she snapped. He stepped aside, and she brushed past him to fall to her knees beside the prone figure in the grass.
Brishen lay before her, quiet and still. At least she thought it was him. A scream swelled in her chest, roiled into her throat, and seeped through her clenched teeth, an inhuman cry of anguish.
Anhuset hadn’t lied, but she hadn’t expounded either. Brishen’s face, elegant, regal, and sublime by Kai standards, was swollen beyond recognition, mottled with bruises and cuts and washed in blood. It streaked his cheeks in cracked black ribbons that ran from his hairline to his chin. His mouth had been split multiple times, and the high bridge of his nose was crooked and swelled to twice its width. His right eye had swollen shut, and where his left eye should have been; only a sunken eyelid over an empty socket remained.
She clapped a hand over her mouth but refused to close her eyes. Bruises covered every part of his body she could see, and her gaze froze on his hands. They hadn’t stopped with his eye. Ildiko traced a delicate line over the back of his left hand. The lethal claws that could split a man from gullet to navel yet tease her skin with the lightest touch, were ripped out, leaving behind only bloody, mangled nail beds. His right hand matched his left.
Ildiko stroked the air just above his head with a trembling hand, afraid to touch him, afraid his beaten, brutalized body would disintegrate before her eyes. She didn’t know what she wanted to do more—scream her anguish or shriek her rage. “My poor love,” she whispered. “Why?”
Serovek spoke behind her. “We think the leader got away. We slaughtered all but a half dozen who say they can tell us who hired them in exchange for mercy. What do you wish to do, Highness?”
Ildiko stared at Brishen, at the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed gurgling breaths. He stank of blood and agony. The wind lifted a strand of his hair, and she caught it between two fingers. It stuck to her skin, matted with gore. She didn’t care who hired animals to unleash their savagery.
“Kill them,” she said in a flat voice. “Kill them all.”
*****
When they returned to Saggara, she sequestered herself in Brishen’s chamber and didn’t leave for four days. She bathed there, ate there, and dressed there. Except for brief dozing spells, she didn’t sleep there.
The small troop of healers who tended her husband came and went, each time assuring her that time, rest, and regular doses of marseret tisane would see him through his ordeal. Ildiko found it ironic that the poison sap used to bring Anhuset low served a more merciful purpose in staving off Brishen’s pain.
He slept peacefully, his bandaged hands resting across his stomach. More bandages covered the arrow wounds in his shoulder and legs. Ildiko sat for hours in a chair next to the bed, content to watch him. The swelling had slowly receded, and the blood and dirt were gone. His right eyelid twitched as he slept. The left she couldn’t see. White cloth swathed that side of his face, hiding the deep cut that ran from below his lower lashes to the top curve of his cheekbone, testament to the brutality used when his captors cut out his eye.
Delirium didn’t plague him, and he drank the tisanes the healers coaxed on him without waking. Ildiko read to him sometimes and ventured a song or two before her voice warbled too much to continue. Anhuset often visited, updating him on the fortress’s daily activities as if he sat before her, awake and demanding a status.
She didn’t stay long. Ildiko always knew when Anhuset was about to bolt from the chamber. Her hands flexed on her sword pommel as if she wanted nothing more than to kill Brishen’s torturers a second time. Ildiko knew exactly how she felt.
“You’ll send for me as soon as he wakes?” The same question each time before Anhuset escaped.
“Of course,” Ildiko promised each time she asked.
No longer afraid to touch him, she caressed the unbandaged side of Brishen’s face. Ildiko had once admired him, naked and glorious on his bed within a corona of golden sunlight, and thought him invulnerable. How terribly wrong she had been.
“This should never have happened, Brishen.” The inevitable, annoying tears threatened, and she blinked hard to force them back. “We were unimportant, you and I. We weren’t supposed to mean anything to anyone.”
A slow, deep sigh escaped his lips, and his right eyelid opened, revealing a glowing, lamplight gaze. Brishen’s voice was hoarse from disuse but still clear. “Woman of day,” he said slowly. “You mean everything to me.”
No amount of blinking this time held back Ildiko’s tears. They streamed down her cheeks to drip off her chin and onto Brishen’s shoulder. “Prince of night,” she said in a watery voice that echoed another moment when she’d greeted him with the same words. “You’ve come back to me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Brishen was a man who chose to see the good that came of any situation. He had yet to find it with the loss of his eye, but he had discovered it with the loss of his claws. While his recollection of his torture remained murky, his fingers still throbbed sometimes, as if the memory of a terrible pain had imbedded itself in his flesh. The nailbeds had healed over the months, the claws slowly growing across the exposed skin. They were still short—well below the quick—but lengthening and hardening every day. He’d have a full set of scythes on both hands within a year.
For now though, he took advantage of his disadvantage by drawing invisible murals across his wife’s naked back and buttocks with his sensitive fingertips.
She lay on her stomach in his bed—their bed now—her head resting on her folded arms, her face partially shielded from his gaze by locks of red hair. He lay recumbent beside her, sketching looping designs along the graceful indention of her spine, down to the pair of dimples that decorated her lower back. Her skin pebbled under his touch, and a patch of muscle contracted involuntarily as his fingers glided over her body.
It was a sensual pleasure to touch her this way, a fine thing that sprang unexpectedly from brutality. She was in no danger of being scratched or lacerated, and Brishen had discovered that fingers with short nails could do things that ones with claws could not. Things that made Ildiko writhe in his arms and leave claw marks of her own on his shoulders. If he didn’t depend on the martial edge his claws gave him, Brishen would keep his short for that reason alone.
Ildiko pushed her hair away to look at him.
“What?” he asked. He’d stopped searching for revulsion in her gaze weeks ago. There was none to be found. Except for the sympathetic kisses she placed on his eyebrow and the flattened lid over his empty eye socket, she remained untroubled by his mutilated visage.
She watched him now with an expression softened by post-coital languor. “I think I fell in love with you during
our wedding.”
Her statement sent a rush of euphoria through Brishen that left him lightheaded. His hand flattened on her back before sliding up between her shoulder blades to bury itself in her hair. Her every action, every laugh, every caress spoke of her great affection for him, but this was the first time she said she loved him. An upbringing in the Kai court had taught him to control his emotions. A good thing too or he would snatch his wife into a hard embrace and accidently break every bone in her body.
He settled for hooking an arm under her side and dragging her closer to him. “It took you that long?” he teased. “You are difficult to win. I tried very hard during our first meeting in the gardens.”
Ildiko sputtered. Her leg slid between his knees, riding higher to rest against his thigh. “Calling me a hag is not the best courtship gesture.”
“As I recall, you threatened to bash my skull in because of my appearance. And that was when I was magnificent to behold.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
His smile faded when she didn’t return it. She traced the bony ridge of his cheekbone, fissured by scars inflicted by a knife. “They took your eye, Brishen,” she said. “Not your character. You’re still magnificent.”
His control only went so far. Brishen groaned and rolled to his back, taking Ildiko with him. It was a long hour later before he peeled himself out of his wife’s embrace and kicked the blankets away from them both.
Ildiko grabbed for the closest sheet. “What are you doing?” Her skin glowed, washed a shade of pink similar to the bitter mollusk. Brishen curled his clawless hands into fists to keep from caressing her and losing yet another hour.
He sat up and swung his legs to the floor. “My mother will be here soon.”
Ildiko flopped back onto her pillow with a groan. “Don’t remind me. I’ve already warned Sinhue to check the bedding and clothes chests in both rooms once she’s gone.”