Beyond The Shadows (34 page)

Within a month of their first secret meeting with Vi, the Chattel had dreamt up two dozen new spells. A gap-toothed farmwife
with tobacco-stained teeth knew a spell that made food more filling. An Alitaeran widow had developed a weave to keep food
fresh for months. Others added their knowledge and soon, they’d created biscuits half the size of a man’s hand that would
give him energy for the whole day, made him feel satisfied, and came in a dozen flavors. A village blacksmith’s wife had crafted
a spell that kept plows sharp, and it was easily applied to swords, but it had to be reapplied every day. Almost all the women
had some experience as Healers, so they crafted bandages that stayed cleaner longer, packable spider webs to help blood clot
instantly, potent salves for burns, poultices that could suck poison out of wounds. One could bond a simple repelling spell
to fabric, making light tents or tunics stay dry even in a storm. A cowherd taught them a spell to firm treacherous, muddy
roads. It would dissipate almost instantly, but if the magae spaced themselves along a column, an entire army could march
safely through a bog.

Few of them could throw a fireball, but when a soft-spoken woman told Vi that she had crafted a spell-containing spell, they
had something better. One woman would cast a spell-container, another would cast a simple fire spell, and a third would bind
it to an arrow. The spell was smaller than a woman’s fist, but the arrows wouldn’t fly well until someone figured out how
to smooth the spell over the entire length of the shaft. Then, the arrow flew true, struck the practice dummy’s shield, and
the spell-container burst, splashing fire over the shield and the dummy. The dummy was engulfed in fire in seconds. Magae
around the yard stopped what they were doing and turned to watch.

Several of the herders knew spells that would temporarily sharpen sight, hearing, or smell. Working together, they made one
spell that was more efficient than any of the three alone that would last the duration of a watch. It could be applied to
sentries or scouts.

Then they took to reversing their spells. An enemy’s food could be spoiled in a day. Making roads muddy was harder than making
them dry, however, as a maja had to soften many layers of earth, rather than harden a few. Likewise, dulling the enemies’
weapons during a battle was deemed impossible. Magically locating hundreds or thousands of moving swords and differentiating
friends’ from foes’ was too difficult. They could make wounds fester and suppurate and attract flies, but most of the women
were too sickened for such work. Those who had trained as Healers, who would have been best suited to it, said their vows
precluded it.

The two fronts where they made no progress at all were the signal sticks and magically representing a battle. Garoth Ursuul
had been able to see a battlefield and communicate instantly with his generals or men across his kingdom. In war, signal banners
could be missed or captured or out of the line of sight. Trumpets’ calls could be lost in the cacophony, and with either of
those, the messages passed were both necessarily simple—withdraw, advance, come now—and public. Developing signal sticks would
mean giving commanders the ability to hear scouts report from behind enemy lines, rather than hoping that they could cross
back over and report hours or days later. It would mean ordering cavalry to reinforce a wavering line and having them move
instantly, rather than minutes later. It would mean a general could split his armies and still coordinate their movements,
or change their strategy as the situation changed, rather than being committed to meet on a specified day at a certain area
and hope nothing kept the other half of your army from getting there.

The failure put Vi in an evil mood, which wasn’t helped when Sister Ariel laughed at her. “Vi,” she said, joining her on the
field, “don’t you see what you’ve accomplished?”

Vi grunted. “I’ve made war easier.”

“Well, yes, you have, but you’ve done something more remarkable. Remarkable for any maja, but perhaps doubly so for you.”

“What’s that?” Vi asked, suspicious of any praise from Sister Ariel.

“You’re teaching these women to wage war without trying to be men. The simple fact is, most women aren’t really good at throwing
fire or calling down lightning. If you’d insisted on these women becoming war magae as the Chantry thought of war magae, they’d
have made little progress before spring. Instead, you’ve let them be who they are.”

“It’s common sense.”

“By the Seraph’s tits, Vi, a magus’s fireball isn’t any good if he can’t cross a bog to get to the battle; his lightning bolt
can’t hurt anyone if he starves. We were right about you. It might be common sense, but the weaves you’ve encouraged these
women to develop would never have been encouraged by anyone else. You want to know why? Because we all have blind spots, Vi,
even you. The good thing is that yours are different from ours. Your commonsense answer violates one of our institutional
creeds in place since the Third Alitaeran Accord, which is that the Sisterhood is complete. By abandoning certain areas of
study, many would say you imply that men are better at those types of magic. That statement would be enough to paralyze most
Sisters from doing the work you’re doing. Even if they agreed it was true, they would spend a lot of energy trying to conceal
the fact that they weren’t studying fire and lightning and earthquakes.”

“I’m not making any statements,” Vi said. “I bet I can throw a better fireball than most magi, and I haven’t even worked on
it. I’m just trying to save our asses.”

“Oh, just because a crisis threatens to wipe us out, you think we should stop infighting?”

Vi scrunched her eyebrows together. “Is that a real question?”

Sister Ariel laughed. “How are things, ahem, on the conjugal front?”

“What?” Right when Vi thought Sister Ariel was being kind, the woman had to pull out her big words to make Vi feel stupid.

“How are things with your husband?” Sister Ariel asked, after making sure no one was close enough to overhear.

At even the mention of him, Vi felt Kylar, only fifty paces away, training in the basement of their manse with Durzo. He seemed
happy despite his many bruises. Vi Healed them secretly from time to time when Kylar was asleep in the mornings.

The last month had been awkward, but not nearly as bad as Vi had feared. Vi had expected to feel malice leaking through the
bond at all times, and if Kylar had hated her, there was no way she could be anything but miserable. Mostly, though, he didn’t
think about her. She was training and studying as many hours a day as her body could stand and so was he. When she got home,
she went to bed immediately.

Meanwhile, Kylar and Elene had found a patr to marry them in secret. Durzo, Uly, Sister Ariel, and Vi were the only witnesses.
Kylar had moved into Elene’s room, though consummating their marriage was impossible, and any time cuddling even flirted with
the erotic, Kylar began to get sick. Oddly, they still had that newlywed glow. Maybe it was all intensified because they knew
Elene didn’t have much time left, so they touched whenever they could—though carefully—and spent hours talking.

Vi knew Kylar felt the absence of sex acutely. Some nights she’d lie awake on the opposite side of the wall from where he
lay awake, Elene snuggled into his chest. She could feel the ache of desire, but as soon as he entertained the desire, his
thoughts veered to Vi and with an iron self-control, he stopped those thoughts and began admiring everything he loved about
Elene. Sometimes, Vi knew, that iron self-control was rusted all the way through, but still he closed the door.

They’d met twice in their dreams.

“You don’t hate me,” Vi said in the first dream. She marveled at it.

“I hate the price we have to pay.”

“Can you ever forgive me?” she asked.

“I’m trying. You did what had to be done. You’re not a bad woman, Vi. I know that you’ve been giving me and Elene space and
time, and I know it’s hard for you, too. Thank you.” He glanced down at her night dress; this one actually fit, and his gaze
was admiring, but deliberately brief. “I just wish you weren’t so damn beautiful. Good night.”

The second dream had been harder. It had been one of those nights where Kylar lay on the opposite side of the wall so tormented
he thought he would burst. In the dream, Kylar stood at the foot of Vi’s bed, naked. His eyes were closed and Vi drank in
the sight of him, his hard lean limbs, flat stomach etched with hard muscles. She was wearing one of Master Piccun’s nightdresses,
which she’d left behind in Cenaria. It was white silk and short with sheer panels, but more pretty than provocative: a make-love-to-me,
not a fuck-me. It was one of the first things she’d ever bought from Master Piccun, and in four years she’d never worn it.
Men made love to their wives or girlfriends. Vi got fucked. Her hair was unbound and combed out glossy.

Vi had a revelation at the very moment Kylar opened his eyes. Kylar had never seen this dress. This wasn’t his dream. It was
hers. She froze, feeling more exposed than she had when she’d stood naked in front of the Godking. Garoth Ursuul had judged
her not knowing her. Kylar had far more power. He was here because she desired him. Vi had long been the object of desire,
and she’d mocked men for it.

Now, the numbness that had sat between her legs since the first time one of her mother’s lovers raped her was thawing. The
ache there was so foreign that Vi hadn’t been able to name it. For all the fucking she’d done, Vi had not once taken a man
to bed for pleasure, much less love. The receding numbness, though, not only allowed her to feel desire for the first time,
it also threatened her. Through the ice, Vi could see the outlines of a mystery: she could imagine bringing her desire—of
which fucking was a part, but not the center—to Kylar and experiencing union, wholeness in a fragmented world. She’d made
fucking a simple physical exertion, as monotonous but as necessary to her work as exercising. If she ever wanted to experience
what was beneath the ice, she’d have to feel the pain and violation frozen inside it. If Kylar were to speak while they had
sex, she’d remember all the bastards who couldn’t shut up. If he were to remain silent, she’d remember the brutes who fucked
silently. If Kylar were to twine his fingers through her hair, she’d remember all the assholes who pawed her hair like she
was an animal. If Kylar ripped her clothes off in his passion, she would remember when Hu Gibbet did it and spat on her face.
If Vi were ever to enjoy Kylar’s desire and allow herself to reciprocate, she’d have to trust him with her brokenness, and
she’d have to wade through all the hells her numbness had spared her.

She understood all of that in the very moment Kylar’s opening eyes met hers. She tensed and immediately her hair was back
up in its ponytail, tight enough to hurt. Two waves of feeling raced through Kylar, the second chasing the first, and even
with her emotional stupidity or however Sister Ariel had said it, Vi could name his feelings through the very air. The first
was desire, and though it was physical, it wasn’t only physical. A month of cuddling the woman he loved had been a month of
foreplay. But right after that, he withdrew.

“Vi,” Kylar choked out. “I can’t even be here.” He ignored his own nudity, and her near-nudity, looking into her eyes and
letting her read his.

Her rapists had shattered the bond between sex and intimacy, leaving her only with fucking. In ring raping Kylar, she’d left
him with only intimacy. The difference was, the only person who could damage Kylar as she had been damaged long ago was Kylar
himself. The integrity between what Kylar’s body did and what his heart felt was still intact. He was sorely tempted, but
so far unbroken. If he cheated on Elene, he would be a cheater in his own eyes—for the rest of a very long life.

He’d turned and walked out of her dream.

Vi cleared her throat and met Sister Ariel’s gaze. “Things with Kylar are fine.”

Dorian knew he was in trouble as soon as the dancing girl entered the throne room. He’d been meeting with the Graavar chieftain,
a hulking highlander whose raven hair hung in great mats to his waist. The Graavar were a powerful highland tribe, and Grakaat
Kruhn was highly regarded by all the tribes. He had come to test Dorian. It was a harmless bit of highlander play, mostly—the
highlanders hadn’t made a serious attempt at independence for more than a century—and Grakaat had found Dorian satisfactory
in all ways. Until this.

“Your Holiness,” Grakaat Kruhn said, his half-lidded eyes too self-satisfied by far, “I would like to present you with a gift
to seal our treaty.” He gestured and two girls came forward. The dancer was about sixteen, the other, who held a highland
flute, was perhaps thirteen, and though they were both pretty, Dorian had no doubt they were the chieftain’s daughters.

As the dancer began a sensuous rondaa, most of Dorian’s guards and all of his courtiers averted their eyes. The highland version of the dance was different from
what Dorian had seen as a youth. The girl wore a wide garment with exaggerated wide shoulders from which were suspended strips
of cloth. Around the hips, the cloth had bells sown in. As her sister played, each gyration of the dancer’s hips made the
bells tinkle and revealed glimpses of her nakedness beneath. As in the lowland dance, the girl appeared to float, chest and
head immobile while her body tantalized, but the lowland dance was more focused on the stomach, which this girl had fully
covered. Nonetheless, in moments Dorian was drawn in. The chieftain’s daughter was talented.

The rondaa gave way to a beraa, and removed the last doubts from Dorian’s mind about what that chieftain intended. The beraa was faster, more erotic. The girl clapped her hands in time over her head, exposing the sides of her breasts, her hips snapping
side to side, but now also undulating front to back in a motion that would torment any man with a pulse.

Dorian was trapped. He wasn’t sure if he was glad that Jenine was sequestered for her moon blood or if he wished she were
here. Perhaps her presence would have changed things. Grakaat Kruhn wouldn’t have his daughter dance a beraa for the Godking unless he planned to give her to him. A marriage to seal a treaty had far less weight in the north than it
did in the southron realms, but the smile that had been on the chieftain’s face told Dorian something else.

Dorian thought that taking many wives would have quelled the rumors he’d begun by entering the castle as a eunuch, but if
anyone found out that he wasn’t using his harem, the Halfman jokes would begin again. A highland warrior like Grakaat Kruhn
achieved his place through the force of his virtu, which meant not only virtue, but also strength and manliness. To the highlanders, the three concepts were one. What manliness
could a eunuch have? How could a war chief submit to half a man?

Dorian made a small gesture and the throne room cleared quietly of everyone except his guards and several Vürdmeisters. Grakaat
Kruhn looked disturbed, but his daughter didn’t miss a step, and Dorian kept his attention full on her, not giving the chieftain
any clues. Inside, Dorian’s stomach roiled. God, give me strength for what I’m about to do. But he’d rejected the One God, and the thought of what the God would think of this cooled whatever arousal Dorian still had
left. Would Jenine understand?

Maybe. If she didn’t have to see it.

Damn the highlander. Dorian’s Hands had given him news that Moburu was making a bid to take over the barbarian tribes of the
Freeze. Moburu was calling himself the prophesied High King, and the hell of it was that he had been born on the right day—or
missed it by three, depending on which scholar’s calendar you believed. But even if Moburu died before spring and especially
if he didn’t, Dorian needed this highlander to bring all the other highlanders to him to face Neph Dada and his Vürdmeisters.

If Dorian faltered now, the story would get out instantly: the new Godking was either impotent or a eunuch. A southron, then.
No true Godking at all. Grakaat Kruhn would have killed him with a teenage girl. If I’m to be Godking, I’ve got to rule like a Godking.

The dancer finished with an exuberance and intensity in her smoky eyes that surprised Dorian. Had she convinced herself to
love him, a stranger? Or was there fear somewhere beneath, a terror she concealed, taking only its energy to fuel her dance?

Dorian wrapped his knuckles on his throne appreciatively, the Khalidoran equivalent of applause. He smiled and stood. “By
Khali, Grakaat, they’re amazing. They’re stunning. Gorgeous. The younger one dances too?”

Grakaat looked confused. “I—yes, Your Holiness, but I meant—”

“I accept them. I’ve never had a more handsome gift. Child, what’s your name?” he asked, turning to the flutist.

Her sudden fear confirmed what Dorian expected. Grakaat had intended to bait him with the dancer. The last thing he’d expected
was that a eunuch would want both of his daughters. Between the young girl’s fear and the older girl’s incredulity, Dorian
wanted to say, “I didn’t want this. Your father used you as pawns against a god. A god can’t let him win.” But he said nothing.

“I’m Eesa,” the girl said. She was barely flowered, pretty in an awkward girlish way. Dorian’s stomach threatened to rebel.
Khali, give me strength.

He remembered a spell to ease the girl’s fright and accomplish his purposes. He’d used it often as a lecherous young man.
“The Graavar seal marriage pacts publicly, don’t they?” Dorian asked.

Fear shot through the chieftain’s eyes and Dorian knew that the younger daughter was Grakaat’s favorite. “It’s a tradition
we’ve not practiced in many—”

“A good tradition,” Dorian said, “especially when there are . . .  doubts about the groom’s virtu.” Khali, give me strength.

“I, I . . .  Your Holiness.” Grakaat was turning green. His men-at-arms averted their eyes.

Eesa still didn’t know what they were talking about. Before she could figure it out, Dorian laid a tracery of vir on her.
She visibly relaxed. Her pupils dilated, and she couldn’t seem to look anywhere but Dorian’s face. He continued the spell,
delicately coaxing her body into deceiving her mind. Whatever he did to her now, she would enjoy. Later, if she were as horrified
as she ought to be, they would tell her that he was a god, that there was no shaming in serving him however he desired, that
she should feel honored to have attracted his attention.

“I don’t know all the intricacies of your quaint barbarian customs, so a few pillows on the floor will have to do. That is,
unless you object?” Dorian stood and shrugged out of his ermine over-robe. With the vir, he devoured the rest of his clothing
with tongues of black flame. Naked, his flesh writhing with layer on layer of vir, thorns of it clawing out of his skin, a
black crown of it springing through the skin of his head, Dorian glowered at the chieftain. The huge man trembled. He tried
to turn his head, and found it locked in place. He tried to close his eyes, and found he couldn’t blink.

The vir swept Dorian’s courtiers’ pillows into a pile three paces from Grakaat’s feet.

Dorian let his glory fade and turned to the girl. He smiled at her. “Come, love.” Khali, give me strength, Dorian prayed, and found he had it. God forgive him, his strength didn’t flag for an instant.

Afterward, Dorian stood, his body gleaming with sweat. Eesa lay panting, oblivious, obscene. For the first time, Graakat Kruhn
was staring at Wanhope with the fear a Godking deserved. The Godking said, “I’ll be expecting you come spring. If your warhost
numbers seven thousand, I will put you over the Quarl, Churaq, Hraagl, and Iktana clans. On spring’s first new moon, we march
to Black Barrow. The girls stay with me.”