The man in the cage went still. His head came up, nostrils flaring. His leaf-green eyes were drawn to the woman. Elongated pupils narrowed to slits, then opened wide like a hunting cat's. His eyes glowed for the briefest of moments, a predictable flare of power that made him gasp when the
sel'dor
manacles piercing his wrists and ankles twisted the power into agonizing pain.
Elfeya cried out and flinched even as he did.
The man launched himself at the barbed bars of his cage. His fingers wrapped around them, heedless of the sharp, jagged metal slicing into his flesh. He shook the bars violently in a grip that still retained incredible strength even after so many centuries of imprisonment. Even though the bars were made of barbed
sel'dor,
if the man's wrists and ankles had not been
sel'dor
pierced-and deeply-nothing could have held him in the cage.
He bared his teeth. He howled his rage. He howled his desire.
The woman trembled.
Vadim Maur laughed. Really, they were endlessly entertaining. And so easy to control, once you knew the trick of it.
"Come here, my pet." The Mage held out a hand, and although Elfeya's golden eyes blazed hatred-that had not dimmed in the last thousand years either-she came to him. She didn't flinch as he put the razor-sharp
sel'dor
blade to her throat. The black jewel in the pommel of the dagger began to glow with subtle red lights. It had tasted her blood before.
"Take him to the table," the Mage commanded, and the two servants he'd brought with him moved reluctantly to the
sel'dor
cage and the mad creature within.
As they unlocked the cage door, the prisoner sprang towards them, only to stop abruptly with a harsh cry.
The
sel'dor
blade had sliced into the woman's throat, just deep enough to cause pain. The High Mage smiled as he watched her golden eyes beg the manacled prisoner for death, laughed as the prisoner gave her a tortured look from eyes that now held despairing sanity. Subdued without a hand or a hint of magic laid on him, the prisoner allowed himself to be led to the table, and the servants strapped him down.
The Mage could have restrained the man with any number of weaves, but this way was so much more satisfying.
When the man was cuffed to the table, Vadim ran a finger over Elfeya's wound to close it. He touched the
sel'dor
rings that pierced her ears. Ten rings in each ear, set with tiny bells so she never forgot they were there or who had pierced her. Matching belled manacles lined with sharp spurs to dig into her flesh circled her ankles, and masterfully crafted
sel'dor
bands of surprising delicacy and beauty clasped her upper arms with hundreds of deeply piercing teeth.
She was the only woman in his care ever to need such extensive binding. Her power was that great. But the strongest, most unbreakable bond Vadim used to control her was the man lying on the table.
Three burly servants and a small, ragged girl entered the room carrying a large basin, several buckets of hot water, soap, and a cloth. The servants lowered the basin to the floor and filled it with the buckets of water. The girl stood there, holding the soap and the cloth, her eyes lowered. She was dark-haired, no older than ten or eleven. There was something familiar about her, though the High Mage couldn't have said what it was.
"What are you waiting for?" Vadim snapped at the child. "Bathe him.”
The girl raised her head and looked at him. Large, startling silver eyes surrounded by a fringe of black lashes stared at him from beneath slashing dark brows and unkempt hair. Cold eyes, ancient eyes-his eyes.
Then he realized who she was. The granddaughter of his great-grandson, or something like that. One of his numerous progeny. Vadim couldn't remember her name, but it didn't matter. She had been born utterly without magic. A worthless lump of flesh, good for nothing but serving her betters.
His hand shot out and smacked across the face with a sharp crack, enough force behind the blow to knock the child to her knees. "Insolence is not tolerated,
umagi.
Lift your eyes to me again and I'll pluck them from your head.”
Without a sound, the girl picked herself up off the floor. Eyes lowered with appropriate submissiveness, she stepped towards the chained Fey, dipped her cloth and soap in the basin, and began to bathe the years of grime off the prisoner's skin. The three burly servants who had accompanied the girl into the room unshackled one of the prisoner's wrists and feet at a time so the child could reach his back.
When she was finished, the servants lifted the basin of water and emptied it on the man strapped to the table. He gasped for air and shook his head to clear the water from his eyes. Water and grimy suds streamed off the table and ran in soapy rivulets towards the drain in the center of the room. The girl toweled most of the moisture from the man's body and the table; then she and her fellow servants gathered the buckets, bowed to Vadim Maur, and left.
The High Mage ran a hand through Elfeya's silky curls. Such bright, distinctive hair. She really was an incredibly beautiful woman. He'd not brought her to him for several years now because she'd been so fragile and had needed time to recover her physical and mental strength. She was stronger now-his visit to her earlier this week had proved that. His fingers stroked her neck. She didn't glance at him, didn't shiver, didn't even catch her breath. She merely stood there and endured, her eyes locked with the eyes of the man on the table.
"You may go to him now," the Mage told her, knowing that everything in her body, everything in her soul was drawing her to that man, even as her brain-educated by centuries of torment-screamed for her not to give in to her desires.
Torture was so much more excruciating when the memories of pleasure were fresh in one's mind. Fear was so much stronger when one remembered what, exactly, one stood to lose. If these two had robbed him of his greatest triumph all those years ago, as he suspected they had, their punishment would be worse than anything they had yet endured in his keeping. And they would have this time together, this small bit of happiness, to make the pain all the more exquisite.
"Touch him." The High Mage bent close to her ear and whispered, "I know you want to. How long has it been? Three years? Five?" And he knew she would know exactly how many years, months, days, bells, even instants had passed since last she'd touched this particular man. "Look at him. Look how his body begs you to touch him.” The man on the table was fully, helplessly aroused, no more able to fight his body's instincts than she was. "Go to him. Touch him. Mate with him as you are aching to do”
With a low cry, the sound of a soul in torment, Elfeya flung herself forward, racing across the room to the imprisoned man. She grabbed his face between hands that trembled. Tears rained down her face, falling upon his lean cheeks and merging with the answering tears that streamed from the corners of his eyes. Her flame-colored hair spilled across his chest like liquid fire. She kissed him with frantic, helpless need and sobbed into his mouth,
"Vet reisa ku'chae. Kem surah, shei'tan. Kern surah."
Lauriana went about her errands in a dazed fog, her body automatically carrying her from shop to shop while her mind kept playing and replaying those brief moments in the kitchen when she'd entered and seen.... what? She wasn't exactly sure what she'd seen. It had happened so fast, and she'd been tired after yet another night spent tossing and turning and waking from dreams she couldn't remember but which left her with an awful feeling of impending doom.
Had Ellie moved the flowers ... or had they moved themselves, as it had seemed at first glance? She didn't know. But she couldn't shake the feeling that it was magic. That Ellysetta, her sweet kitling, had been weaving evil, unnatural magic, just like the Fey she'd always been so enamored of.
Oh, gods, why had she ever let Ellie nurture her fascination with the Fey? She could have stamped it out years ago, but she hadn't. To see the way little Ellie's eyes shone when Sol told her Fey tales of princesses and magic Fey giftfathers and the heroic quests of legendary Fey warriors of old ... not even Lauriana's deep aversion to magic had been impetus enough to rob her daughter of those happy moments. What was the harm, she'd thought, in letting a child enjoy a few stories?
You reap what you sow, Lauriana, and just look what your indulgence has wrought. A daughter betrothed to the worst Fey of them all ... a daughter who is turning her back on everything you taught her and abandoning the Way of Light.
The thoughts preyed on Lauriana's mind, beating at her relentlessly.
In desperation, she headed to the small West End chapel where she and her family worshiped, hoping Father Celinor might be able to offer some sort of guidance.
She should have known better. The young priest was as enamored of the Fey as Ellysetta.
No sooner had she begun to explain her fears than he'd begun defending the Fey, extolling their virtues and cautioning her not to condemn them for the extraordinary graces the gods had granted them.
"We are all the gods' creatures, Madame Baristani," he said. "Magic exists in the world because the gods deemed it should be so. Would you despise a flower for its perfume? No? Then why would you despise the Fey for possessing the magic they were born to have?”
"You're from the south, aren't you, Father?”
He looked a bit surprised, but nodded. "Yes, from the Tivali Valley, near the Elvian border. I've spent more than a
few
years in and around the company of magical races, and on the whole I've always found them to be honorable and worthy folk.”
"Well, I'm from the north," she countered, "from Dolan near the Eld border. And I know for a fact that not all magics are good. Nor are all gods, for that matter.”
"I'll grant you that," he agreed. "The Shadow Lord is evil, as are his followers-but we're not talking about Shadowfolk. We're talking about the Fey, and they have always been noble creatures. Not perfect-no living creatures are-but they do strive to be good. They follow the Way of Light.”
"How do you know that, Father? No human has set foot in the Fading Lands in a thousand years. None of us know what goes on behind the Faering Mists.”
He rose to his feet and held out a hand to help her up as well. "I'm afraid I can't help you there, Madame Baristani. What I can do is offer you the use of the chapel's Solarus. It's not as grand as the one at the Cathedral, but I still find peace there when I am troubled.”
It wasn't the advice she'd hoped for, but it was apparently the best he had to offer. She followed him to the chapel's small Solarus and stepped inside. The door closed behind her, granting her privacy, and she moved to the altar at the center of the round room. Overhead, the mirrored ceiling and tiny dome set with numerous windows shone light down on the small statue of Adelis perched on the altar slab.
With a sigh, Lauriana knelt, bowed her head, and began to pray. For more than half a bell, she prayed. Sometimes kneeling, sometimes pacing, sometimes weeping, but the peace she sought was more elusive than smoke.
Father Celinor didn't understand. He'd never seen the ugly side of magic. Not even Sol, a northerner like herself, truly understood. He'd lived his early years in the sheltered town of Callowill while she'd grown up in Dolan, a small and unfortunately strategic logging hamlet nestled in the shadow of two great forests, Greatwood and the dark Verlaine.
Far too many fierce, magical battles of the Wars had been fought on Dolan's doorstep, and the terrible by-products of those clashes haunted Dolaners still. They knew firsthand the evils of magic. They suffered the attacks of lyrant, the vile, mutated descendants of long-tailed treecats corrupted by black Magery. They witnessed the horrors of children born with ungodly powers, and suffered the agony of giving them up for the good of the town because they knew a worse fate awaited them all if they did not.
Lauriana's own sister Bessinita, a normally laughing, sweet-natured child of two, had been abandoned in the dark shadows of the Verlaine after she'd thrown a fit of childish temper while playing with a neighbor's child. That fit had sparked a fire that burned down the neighbor's house, nearly killed the neighbor's wife, and left the neighbor's child badly scarred.
So when Lauriana had found Ellysetta sitting under that tree north of Norban so many years ago, she'd known exactly what it meant. She'd known she should just turn and walk away. But the child's cap of ringlets and big, solemn eyes had dredged up such tearful memories of sweet Bess that Lauriana couldn't bring herself to walk past.
She'd made a bargain with the Lord of Light. If He would keep the child's magic leashed, Lauriana would raise the little girl in the Way of Light and do everything in her power to ensure that the child never strayed from the Bright Path.
She'd asked Him for a sign, and a shaft of sunlight had broken through the canopy of trees and shone directly on the baby, illuminating her curls like a halo of gold and flame. That was when Lauriana knew she'd been meant to find this child, that she'd been meant to save her as she could not save her sister Bess.
She'd kept her side of the bargain. She'd raised Ellie in the church, loved her with all her heart, and taught her to fear and reject magic. And though it had been like driving knives into her own flesh, she'd even turned her precious child over to the exorcists when those evil childhood seizures seemed proof that darkness was winning its bid for Ellie's soul.