Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (52 page)

 
          
"Are
they? Are you?" He knew he did not care. Not in that moment. She was the
most striking woman he had ever seen. She burned with a flame so bright he
could feel it in his own flesh, creeping through to bones.

 
          
She
lifted both hands and threaded fingers into hair, pulling it up from shoulders,
from neck, from face. It cascaded through slender fingers, defining the shape
of her face and the elegant line of her spine. "Do you want me, my
lord?"

 
          
Aidan
wanted to laugh, but could not. She was blatant in her actions, but he found he
did not care. "If I lay with you, lady, it would mean what the castle folk
say is true."

 
          
More
hair slipped through her fingers. "Do you care?"

 
          
No.
No and no. "What payment, lady?"

 
          
Black
eyes narrowed. As she took her hands away, hair curtained the sides of her
face. "You could not pay it, my lord. And you might be grateful for
it."

 
          
Her
thought not. He also thought she lied. A glance at the narrow bed, too narrow
for two people, confirmed it. He did not know what she played at, or why, but
he was tired of it. "I came in because I was hungry. I hoped to bargain
for food… but I will leave, if you prefer it."

 
          
It
was the hardest thing he had done, when he wanted to stay so badly.

 
          
She
laughed. "No. I prefer no such thing. Your cloak, my lord… and I will give
you food."

 
          
He
slipped it and gave it to her. Her eyes, marking
lir
-bands, widened briefly. Something else came into her eyes as he
saw the links threaded through his belt. Something akin to avarice, and
comprehension. Uneasily, Aidan began to wonder if she were a whore after all,
and counting her price in advance.

 
          
She
fed him on barley bread and eggs, and when he asked where were her chickens she
smiled and said she required none. He drank milk but forbore to ask about the
cow, because he feared she might say she had none. She seemed to have very
little, and yet gave it all to him.

 
          
When
he was done she took his hand and let him to the narrow stair behind the door,
and took him up to her bedroom.

 
          
No
narrow cot was shoved against the curving wall. In the center of the chamber
stood a wide bed draped with fine linens and lush pelts. There was nothing else
in the room. Slanted light from a single wide casement illuminated the bed.

 
          
He
looked at her. He could not call her whore. Something in her eyes kept him from
it, though he understood her now. She needed no cow, no chickens, no stock. She
needed nothing but the continued attentions of any man who could pay her price.

 
          
Surely
he
could. He would be Mujhar of
Homana.

 
          
"Can
you banish dreams?" he asked. Then, more intensely, "No—can you
banish nightmares?"

 
          
The
woman's smile gave him his answer. He put out his hand, and she took it.

 
          
He
awoke to the chime of gold. It rang repeatedly, as if someone counted coin; as
he listened more closely he realized it was not coin at all, but links. And he
sat upright in the bed.

 
          
She
was wrapped in his cloak. Bare feet and ankles showed at the hem; the rest was
flung carelessly around the slender, magnificent body he had so thoroughly
enjoyed. Her hair flowed to the pelt coverlets and pooled, blue-black on
indigo.

 
          
"Where
is your fir?" she asked.

 
          
He
stared at her. Then her eyes moved from the chain to his face. Very softly, she
repeated her question.

 
          
"In
Erinn," he said at last. "Does it matter?"

 
          
Her
lips parted in a glorious smile. "I think it might." She dangled the
chain from one hand. It glowed in slanting sunlight. "How did you come by
this
?"

 
          
He
did not care for her manner. He altered his own to match it, hoping the answer
might startle away her arrogance. "A gift," he said, "from the
gods."

 
          
"Ah."
She nodded musingly. "I thought so," Once again the chain flowed back
and forth from hand to hand, chiming. "Indeed, I thought so."

 
          
Frowning,
he asked her the question he was beginning to think he should have asked at the
very beginning. "Who are you?"

 
          
Something
moved in her eyes. Something dark and dangerous and infinitely
amused
. "Lillith," she told
him gently. "Lillith of the Ihlini."

 
          
He
felt his belly cramp, and something much deeper. Fear. Denial. Disgust. And
comprehension. A terrible comprehension.

 
          
Lillith's
black eyes glinted. "I could not believe it would be so
easy
. I thought surely you must know me.
I thought it was why you had come, to vanquish the sorceress…" She smiled.
"Corin banished me, of course, and for a while I went… but Valgaard grows
tedious without my brother, and Lochiel saw fit to go to Solinde to try his own
workings…" She shrugged an elegant shoulder. The cloak slipped, baring
satiny flesh. "So I came back here, to Atvia. For a while. To see, from
afar, how Corin dealt with Gisella." Lillith smiled. "Poor, addled
Gisella—has she begun to plague
you
,
yet?"

 
          
He
could manage one sentence. "Gisella is dying."

 
          
"Is
she?" Lillith considered it. "Ah, well, it is the price of remaining
entirely human… I, of course, serve Asar-Suti, and have an advantage." Her
eloquent eyes assessed him. "Do you know how old I am?"

 
          
Aidan
drew in a tight breath. "Old enough to know better."

 
          
Lillith
laughed. The sound was free, unconfined, and it frightened him.
"Aye," she agreed. "But how old am I
really
?"

 
          
He
had heard stories, of course. Lillith was Tynstar's daughter. Tynstar had been
dead nearly a hundred years, and had sired Lillith hundreds of years before his
death. And yet, looking at her, Aidan knew very well he could not believe the
stories. She was young, beautiful, and infinitely deadly.

 
          
He
ignored the question, and asked one of his own. "What do you want from
me?"

 
          
Lillith
thought about it. "Oh, a child, I think."

 
          
Aidan
recoiled.

 
          
She
nodded. "A child, such as the one I bore Ian. Rhiannon. To be used for
Ihlini purposes." She looked at him consideringly. "Your prophecy
rushes you toward reestablishment of the Firstborn. The Cheysuli may even
succeed in accomplishing it…" Frowning slightly, she tapped a
silver-tipped nail against one link. "We have, heretofore, failed to stop
you. Perhaps it might be best if we
aided
you—only with a twist." Lillith's smile widened as she made a fluid
gesture of explanation. "If we control the Firstborn, we control
everything. One way to control them is to make our own." The faint smile
dropped away. Her eyes bored into his. "You, my lord, are very important
to me, and to all of us.
You
, my
lord, have the proper blood. You are everything: Cheysuli, Homanan, Solindish,
Atvian, Erinnish. All you lack is the required
Ihlini
blood." Tilting her head, she made another graceful
gesture. "Do you see? A child conceived between Aidan of Homana and
Lillith of the Ihlini would
be
a
Firstborn. The prophecy would be complete… only it would be
on Ihlini terms
."

 
          
For
a long moment all he could do was stare. Her explanation was so clear, so
precise. With unsettling matter-of-factness, she spelled out the doom of his
race.

 
          
Worst
of all, for him, was the knowledge she could do it. In part, it
had
been done; first Ian, by siring
Rhiannon; then Brennan, by siring gods knew what on Rhiannon.

 
          
And
what might
he
sire?

 
          
A
shudder wracked Aidan's body. "You make me vomit," he declared,
knowing he as much as she was to blame for this situation.

 
          
Lillith
smiled. She put out a hand, drew a rune, and a chamber pot appeared on the
floor beside the bed. "There, my lord. You need not soil the covers."

 
          
The
hollowness in his belly began to knot painfully. He knew very well she could do
whatever she threatened. But he would not admit it to her. "Will you
resort to rape?"

 
          
Lillith
laughed. "Rape, my lord? You only recently proved yourself more than
capable of responding to me… and as for repeating the act, need I remind you
your
lir
is in Erinn? You are, as Ian
was,
lirless
and therefore powerless.
You will do or say whatever I require." She shifted forward onto her
knees, moving close to him. The cloak slipped, pooling across her heels.
"You are quite helpless, Aidan—need I prove it?"

 
          
She
said the last against his mouth. He tried to pull away, to strip her arms from
his body, but something kept him from it. She was pulling him down onto the
bed, rousing him, taking away his control and sanity.

 
          
She
made him respond, taking him to the edge but no farther, even as he hated it,
and then withdrew, laughing as he cursed himself, and her. She lifted the chain
before his face, letting it drip from both hands. "
Lirless
man," she taunted. "Child of the gods, are you?
More like child of the earth, of
me
—"

 
          
His
eyes fixed on the chain. Heavy links gleamed as she cradled it. He thought of
the Hunter, the Weaver, the Cripple. He thought of himself, on his knees before
the Lion, sobbing aloud as he put out his hands for a nonexistent chain. And yet
here it was before him, whole, unbroken, untarnished, joined by his own hands
in the ceremony presided over by Siglyn, witnessed by Tye and Ashra.

 
          
Ashra,
who had warned him a man might lose control of himself if a woman's arms proved
too beguiling.

 
          
I am a child of the gods…

 
          
"No,"
he said aloud.

 
          
Lillith
laughed. "Ian said the same thing, many times. But that spell is weak. The
binding always fails."

 
          
"I
said NO—"

 
          
The
chain moved in her hands. Aidan, transfixed, watched it coil upon itself. Lillith
uttered a single cry of shock and tried to throw down the chain, but it clung
to her arms like shackles.

 
          
Godfire
leaped from the tips of her fingers, then sputtered out. The chain wound itself
around her right arm and began to work its way toward her shoulder.

 
          
"Stop
it!" Lillith hissed. "
Stop
it!"

 
          
Aidan
lunged from the bed and stumbled against the wall, feeling cold stone scrape
against bare buttocks.

 
          
"Aidan!"
she cried. "Make it
stop
—"

 
          
The
chain crawled beyond her elbow. In the light from the casement, it glowed.

 
          
"Aidan.'"

 
          
The
chain burrowed through hair and wrapped itself around her throat.