The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (16 page)

“Fine,” he snapped. “Fine. I’ll help you escape. But you have to do it my way. And you have to return my magestone before you go.”

I did not trust him. “All right. But I will not hand it over until I am safe.”

I followed him through the mansion.

“It will have to be tonight, late,” Khayan said, opening the door to his own room. He was housed in a different wing than where I had been kept, in a much more sumptuous chamber, replete with sofas and chairs and pillows. “The household is expecting an important visitor, and I must be present for the welcoming and the meal. If I am not present, Malvyna will grow suspicious.” He spoke grudgingly.

“I’ll hold onto your stone while you see to those duties. If you speak one word of this to anyone, you’ll never get it back. I’ll need a knife. And jhass.”

He ran his hand through his short brown curls. “I’m lienbound! I haven’t got piles of money just sitting around. Malvyna is a jealous mistress; she doesn’t let me take commissions from others to earn spare coin.”

I shrugged. ‘That is no concern of mine. If you want your stone back, I’ll need a knife and jhass.”

He sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.” He sent me a poisonous glare, though as soon as he met my eyes, he cast his own gaze down.

“What?” I asked, my curiosity aroused. “Do you fear me?”

“Your eyes,” he muttered. “They are the same color as Malvyna’s. So bright and pure a green.”

I made no reply to that.

K
hayan made
good on my demand and retrieved a small dagger, complete with holster, and a sack of jhasstones, before heading to the welcoming party for Malvyna’s guest. He had told me I was to remain in his rooms, silent and hidden.

Sweat collected on his brow, though the evening was cool. He wore a white garment that should not have made him overly warm, so I could only assume he was anxious.

“Who is the guest?” I asked, perplexed by his taut expression as I strapped the knife around my forearm in the manner Onatos had once shown me. Onatos had told me never to accept a blade from another man, but I was in no position to hold to that promise. I sighed. Out on the sea, I had been so sure I was being pulled by to this place by that phantom connection to Onatos. What had gone wrong?

“Lord Onatos Amar,” Khayan said tightly.

I dropped the bag of jhass and several coins spilled onto the deep carpet.

“What? Who?” I squeezed out, breathless and confused. Had the mage read my mind?

Khayan gave me a curious look. “Malvyna’s guest is Lord Onatos Amar. Do you know of him?”

I could not speak; my throat had closed. Her guest! He was here! I had not imagined his bloodlight thread drawing me to him.

Khayan picked up the jhasstones, dropping them back into the bag and handing it back to me. “The gods only know why he’s here. Malvyna certainly did not invite him. She has rebuffed him any number of times. He’s been in love with her for years, but she will not have him.”

“I must see him,” I said, pulling myself together. “You must take me to him.”

Khayan lifted a brow. “Do you mean Onatos Amar? So you do know him?”

That phantasm of bloodlight pulled on my heart, as though the ung-aneraq that had bound me to Onatos still connected us. We had both been drawn to meet here.

“I have your stone, mage. If you want it back, you’ll take me to him.” I wanted to fall into Onatos’s arms, to let him shield me from a world that grew more hostile at every turn.

“I make no promises,” Khayan said at last, his voice bitter with resentment. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

I
washed
in the stone tub in Khayan’s bathing chamber while I waited. I wanted to be clean for Onatos. I wished I had a better dress. He always looked so well-groomed, and though he had seen me before in Gantean skins, I preferred to present myself according to his definition of beauty.

I found a comb on the ledge above the tub and worked out the tangles in my hair, wishing I could so easily smooth the snarls in my heart. Once dressed again, I returned to Khayan’s bedchamber.

I tied my hair back with piece of black velvet ribbon I found on Khayan’s dresser.

Though I waited and waited, still Khayan did not come. I peered out the window hoping to see any other part of the mansion, to no avail. The window overlooked a dark, rolling landscape lit only by the moon sliver hanging low in the sky.

He’s been in love with her for years
. Only now did Khayan’s words sink in. He meant Onatos.
My Onatos.
He meant that Onatos loved Malvyna, the sister who had dared to set a mage on me to brand my flesh as though she owned me. Who had dared to claim my position as her own.

The coiled emotions that had been stirring sleepily in my stomach came roaring awake.

He could not love her.
He could not.
He was mine, and I was his, no matter that I had cut the ung-aneraq that bound us. Not even an ulio’s edge could sever the feeling that bound me to Onatos.

He came here for me, because our bloodlights still called to one another. I tried not to think of Leila, our child, lost to us forever.

My hands trembled on the windowsill.

Onatos had always had everything exactly as he wanted, his women and his wife, his children from his many lovers. No one had ever forced him to choose. If he wanted me back, he’d have to learn: there would be no one else. Only me.

I would suffer no rivals.

Still Khayan did not come.

I crossed the bedchamber in a daze, my sealskin boots, the only footwear I had, padding softly on the deep carpet. I opened the door. The hall’s black floor was shiny and slick. Blackstone, an unfathomable luxury
.
My fury grew. Ronin Entila had two daughters, and one had so much, while the other had so little. So much injustice ruled the world.

If Khayan would not bring me to Onatos, I would find him myself. It had to be past midnight. Surely the welcome dinner would be winding down.

I placed one foot before the other with absolute deliberation, stepping across that hall that shimmered like a dark mirror. I turned a corner.

An airy giggle echoed from a partially open door at the corridor’s end, drawing me like a lure into a trap. A deep laugh followed, a laugh I knew too well. I chased the sounds, iron drawn to lodestone, while dread and jealousy slithered like intertwined serpents from my gut through my heart to my throat.

Skeleton Woman had told me so clearly that day, long ago, when I had been made Cedna:
You will learn to see the flavor of hate and smell the color of blackness.

Skeleton Woman does not lie, and she does not foretell in half-measures. If she said I would know the flavor of hate, she meant I would taste every nuance, every possibility. It wasn’t enough to hate Ikselian for the wrongs she did to my mother and me. It wasn’t enough to feel hate past the brink of murder. I had done so, and still, my trials were not over. It wasn’t enough to hate Mydon Galatien for denying me my title and my pride. It wasn’t enough to hate the old woman who stole away my daughter, my only daughter, and severed the sacred bond between us. So many hatreds I had tasted already.

But it was not enough. I would eat every last bite of hatred’s banquet.

That giggle abraded me, so light, so easy. What kind of woman could make such a sound? My hands clenched. I stood outside a cracked door.

And froze, wishing I could unsee the image before me.

A large bed, the covers twisted everywhere. Purple silk tumbled from white shoulders. A head bent over a bared chest. I’d know that silken hair anywhere; I could feel the touch-memory of it running through my fingers.

But Malvyna’s dark hair fell over them both, a cloak that concealed nothing. It did not hide her pale legs or the way her dress hiked around her waist, high enough to leave her open to him. It did not hide that Onatos’s trousers had been shoved down his hips, low enough to free him. They mated half-dressed, as though they had been so desperate to touch, to have each other, they could not wait.

I couldn’t miss his motion, an unmistakable rhythm, moving in and out of her. They joined in a dance that should have been ours.

The taste of hatred is bitter, as bitter as pujoanuki, as bitter as ritual.

Let one who has known all of hatred’s many flavors tell you this: the hatred of betrayed love is the hardest to swallow.

A
Gantean could hold
her silence under any circumstance. I did not make a sound as the last fragment of a broken heart shattered inside my chest.

She laughed again, that grating giggle of a woman who had never tasted the bitter parts of life. Her green eyes glittered in the candlelight. She never knew how she taunted me as she looked up and met my gaze.

“The chamber pot is under the bed, slave,” she said.

Onatos raised his head from her breasts. He saw me. His mouth fell open.

I forced myself to action, slamming the door on them and running blindly down the hall. I was blackstone, hungry for the shadows. I was the Cedna, born to pay. Nameless girl and her star-crossed love had always been fantasies.

I had to leave. What else could I do? No strings held me in place, no moorings. I had a knife and a bag of jhass, and that would be enough to take me away from here.

I found myself outdoors, on manicured grounds. I strode along a winding carriage lane that followed bluffs above the sea. Soon the city of Queenstown spread before me.

I gazed over the sprawl. Where would I go? I would never be happy again. Love and softness were not for me. I was a blackstone woman; I would slice everything I touched.

“Cedna!” A faint call rang out, shrouded by the increasing thunder of hooves.

I could not avoid him. He’d catch me if I ran, mounted as he was. I faced him, holding my body like the curve of an ulio, edge out. Sharp.

“Cedna! Cedna! Love, Beautiful, love.” He arrived, breathless, his horse lathered despite the cool night air. “Where are you going?” He slid from his beast’s back and held the reins as he approached me. “I—I came to Queenstown to look for you, though I never imagined I’d find you at Malvyna’s. I planned to find passage to Gante.”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. The idea of Onatos Amar in Gante, especially in winter, verged on the ridiculous. He’d be like a mussel without its shell, soft and squashable.

His smile could have crushed glass. He drew useless hope from my laughter, holding out a hand gloved in supple leather. “Come back to Orioneport with me, love. Gods, I’ve missed you.”

I stopped laughing abruptly. “I will not.”

“But—”

“I will not, Onatos.”

“I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry you had to see that! I never meant for it to happen. I don’t know what came over me. It was almost like—”

“Go back. Go back to her, Onatos.” Why did that ung-aneraq persist? I recalled slicing it. It had disappeared; I’d seen it in Yaqi. Why did it continue to pull on my chest when he looked at me like that?

“Laith said—”

“How is Laith?” I interrupted, not wanting to hear that Laith had revealed my secret. I could not explain about Leila.

“He’s fine. He said you were—”

“Even in your absence? He always said Daria threw him out of the Alcazar when you went away. Your wife was cruel to him. She had him whipped and boxed his ears. That can ruin a boy. It can make him tell lies as he tries to imagine himself a more satisfying world. You ought to look after him better.”

“Laith’s fine!” Onatos snapped. “Laith said you were pregnant with a girl when you left me. He sees the Aethers, you know. He wouldn’t lie about that. She’d be nearly half a year old by now. Where is she?”

I shook my head.

“Damned Amatos, she’s my daughter, too! No matter how angry you are with me, she’s mine. Where is she?”

“I have no daughter.” That tie had been severed, violently and completely.

“It was a boy? But Laith would not have been mistaken. He knew Jaasir was a boy before anyone could even tell that Daria was pregnant.”

“Laith was not mistaken.” I turned towards the Queenstown port.

“Did she die?” A rising panic lit his voice. He followed me, leading his horse.

“Onatos,” I said as gently as I could. He would not take this well. I imagined the slender edge of an ulio pressing against the firm flesh of his chest, sinking in deep. “She is dead to you, and she is dead to me. They took her from me and severed us in the way of Ganteans. If you go there you will not find her, and they will kill you. Everything has been a mistake. Go away. Forget about me. Forget about her. We do not exist anymore.”

“I want you back. I want her. She’s mine!
You’re mine.
What you saw was a mistake; I didn’t mean for it to happen! With Malvyna, I mean. You must believe me. I would never hurt you, Beautiful.” He pressed a fist to his chest. “I still feel the way we are bound, here. Nothing can change that.”

He had never known the sorrows that came with being cursed, and he only knew them now because his life had intersected with mine. I shook my head. “That bind is severed, Onatos. I cut it myself.”

“It is the aetherlumo di fieri. It cannot be broken,” he replied stubbornly.

He followed me all the way to the port. I did not listen to his pleaded excuses, that he had been magicked into dallying with Malvyna, that he had not known what he was doing. I did not care where I went, so I booked passage with the first captain I came across on the docks, handing over my entire sack of jhass for the trip.

Onatos huffed beside me. “You can’t be serious. That’s robbery.”

The captain scowled at him. Onatos grabbed the sack from the man’s hands and pulled out three green jhass.

“Here,” he said, pressing the jhass into the captain’s hand. “You and I both know that’s a fair price for transport to Amphicylix. But she won’t be using the berth.”

I latched onto the rope ladder that led up the vessel’s gunwale and climbed while the two men bickered.

“Love, you can’t mean to leave me.” Onatos still clutched the moneybag in his hands.

I pulled myself up onto the ship’s deck.

“Are you coming too, sir?” the captain asked Onatos, looking back and forth between us.

“No! And she isn’t going, either.”

I leaned over the back of the ship as the captain mounted the ladder. “You cannot stop me,” I said down to Onatos. “You have no claim on me. I sliced what bound us with my blackstone blade, and blackstone cuts everything. Goodbye, Onatos.”

The captain called to his crew to ready to depart.

Onatos stood below me on the pier, looking lost as the moneybag fell from his fingers and dumped jhasstones all over the wooden planks. Raw disbelief marred his beautiful face.