Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) (19 page)

She couldn’t wait to see the look on the face
of the person who would dare oppose her when she showed them what
they were up against. They could never know what was coming when
she made it up about them. She smiled to herself. Some of the
documents seemed to prove some rather disturbing secrets
about…
well, whoever it is I want them to be about
.

She raised her hand to her neck and scratched
at the itch that had been forming there. The other day she had
caught a glance of the mark on her neck in the mirror, and while
she vaguely remembered being aware that she had it before, it
remained one of the memories that still stubbornly refused to rise
to the surface of her consciousness. Devon had told her that it was
a simple symbol of her status of one of the worthy who the Sleeping
God had seen fit to mark as one of his own.

With this information, she had told Devon
proudly that she had attended every week’s evening service to try
and impress upon him why the Sleeping God might have so marked her,
but he had just given her a strange look. Perhaps he was more aware
of her schedule than she realized. She’d have to be more careful as
to what she said around him until she completely retained her wits.
Not that it matters anyway,
she reminded herself,
he
works for me so he’ll think what I tell him to think.

The afternoon rolled around eventually and
Jezebel made her way to the council’s chambers. Those of the
council that she had been introduced to nodded to her as she
entered, and she graced them with a thin smile as she took her
seat. Her gaze swept across the room and came to rest on a man and
woman who were seated opposite her on the other side of the
room.

Her eyes narrowed and she felt a familiar
twinge in the back of her mind. She knew these people, but she
didn’t know how. It was making her stomach hurt to look at the
girl. She was quite a pretty little thing, but Jezebel curled her
lip at the girl’s sad attempt at style. Obviously she wasn’t high
born. The man was handsome as well, in fact, they made a rather
attractive couple.

Something tugged at her memories again. She
felt a strange connection with the man, but once again her emotions
were without the accompanying memories to explain them. The girl
made eye contact with her and Jezebel could see the sharp intake of
breath and the girl’s captivating blue eyes widened in recognition.
Jezebel wished she would recognize the girl as well. But at least
she saw that the reaction she caused was fear. That was good.

The girl whispered something to the man and
his deep brown eyes swung around to look at her as well. She
continued to stare at them both, heedless of the rudeness of her
action. His eyes narrowed as they saw her and his features hardened
into a stern look of disapproval.

Jezebel involuntarily flinched and tore her
gaze from the two of them. She looked next to her and saw that
Devon was watching her with interest.

“What?” she asked him irritably.

He just shook his head, glancing in the
direction of the two strangers - but not strangers - and back at
her. If he knew why she knew these two, he was keeping it to
himself. Perhaps that was for the best. The pain in her gut was
increasing, and the more she looked at the two of them the worse it
got.

One of the Triumvirate stood, and silence
fell over the room.

“Thank you for joining us. We are here today
to hear the accusations by Lord Gryffon and Ms. Layna against
Emissary Jezebel and Gelendan. We apologize, Lady Jezebel, for the
inconvenience and hope that you can provide adequate explanation
for their claims against you and your country. Lord Gryffon, we
will now hear your testimony.”

The man stood and cleared his throat. “I
spent the last year under cover in Gelendan for the purpose of
observation. During this time, I witnessed first-hand disturbing
evidence that the secret society called the Order is indeed still
functioning and has maneuvered to take control of the country.
Furthermore, upon information and belief, it was the intention of
Gelendan to attack Treymayne, a plan which most likely was only
forestalled due to the fall of the barrier and consequent
aftermath. There were also many disturbing reports of blood-magic
returning and I personally can attest to the fact that the Lady
Jezebel herself had a pack of hellhounds.”

Jezebel’s head began to pound as well, and
the echoing sound of distant howling filled her ears. She lifted a
hand to rub her eyes.

“We ask the Emissary of Gelendan to answer to
these claims, and explain herself regarding the intention towards
war and the use of the forbidden arts. Can she do this?”

Jezebel had retained control of her senses
and she showed her teeth in an insincere smile aimed at the man.
“Of course. We never had any intentions of going to war with you,
our only hope was to open communications between us. It would
benefit both our countries to be allies once more instead of remain
isolated from one another. Now that we are finally here after
centuries of estrangement, I hope that we can move past these silly
claims quickly and get on to more important matters of unification.
As to your claim of blood-magic, I take great offense that you
would accuse me of such a thing, and would never do anything of the
sort.” It took a lot for her to add the next part, but she knew it
was necessary to lend credit to her words. “Besides, I have no
talent to speak of, look,” she held out her hands in a gesture of
prostration and felt several probes run over her.

Several eyebrows rose, and many of the
council looked at Gryffon skeptically. With her talent burned out,
there was no way she would have been able to create a pack of
hellhounds. She would have to ask Devon about that later though. If
she did have hellhounds running around somewhere, she wanted to
know about it.

“And what of the posters all over the place
spreading propaganda that Treymayne is looking to increase its
borders?”

“We can’t control everything that the people
think and do,” she said easily, “they have a right to express their
feelings, don’t you think?”

She didn’t think so at all, but by the uneasy
look on his face and on many of the other council members’ faces
around her, she knew that she had gauged their outlook well. Far
too much stock was put into the commoners here. They didn’t even
have a proper royal family. This thought in mind, she made the
extra effort to smile over at a group of the council that she had
learned were commoners themselves. She always forgot they were
there.

The speaker of the Triumvirate rose again and
spoke. “We will discuss this amongst ourselves and let you know
what our decision is shortly.” Jezebel was surprised at the
swiftness of the meeting; she hadn’t even gotten a chance to use
the fake documents. “Thank you once again for taking the time to
share your concerns Lord Gryffon, and you Lady Jezebel for being so
patient as to answer them.”

Jezebel shot another look at the two across
the way, and a feeling of intense hatred suddenly overtook her as
the girl’s eyes met hers again.

She wanted these two dead.

She watched them as people filed out of the
room and as she did so, she observed a rather enjoyable little
exchange. While a pretty blond woman near her gave Gryffon a
sympathetic look and they shared a smile, she watched as the girl
noticed the exchange as well. The pained look on the girl’s face
was priceless. Jezebel felt her headache ease and she took special
note of the woman near her. She could turn out to be very useful
indeed.

*

Katya sat motionless for a long time after
Gerald and Evelyn drew their last breaths.

Finally, she pulled herself to her feet and
strode over to the assassin, kicking him over with her boot. She
knelt down in surprise as something caught her eye. There, in the
middle of his back, was a dagger. She reached down and retrieved it
from his corpse and wiped it on his tunic before examining it. It
bore the insignia of the army on one side, and a symbol she didn’t
recognize on the other.

Katya’s brow furrowed in confusion. Why in
the blazes would someone in the army try and stop the assassin? And
what did Evelyn mean that they had been waiting for this day? Had
they known she would come and bring their doom? And Gerald’s last
words stuck with her, ‘she deserves to know who she is
too
.’
Did they somehow know why she had been there? Had they had
information about her past after all?

Frustration over the lack of answers and the
futility of her attempts to save them burned in her mind and she
felt anger building up.

She had come to realize that the collar had
been dulling her emotions as well as her thoughts, so now that it
was gone she had been feeling her emotions stronger than she should
have from lack of practice dealing with them.

Logically she knew this, emotionally she was
still just angry. Anger turned to rage and the rage boiled over
until she screamed her aggravation into the sky and burned the
house down around her, sending a gigantic fireball into the
air.

When the smoldering ashes were starting to
lose their steam, Katya’s anger finally ebbed. She had passed
evidence of a large force moving just northeast of here. Perhaps it
was a section of army. Tucking the package that had been entrusted
to her into the pockets sewn into her clothing, she set off in
search of some answers.

Several hours later, Katya was winding around
the soldier’s encampment with ease. She wasn’t worried about being
detected. Her silent steps brought her around a side of a barrel
and she paused to observe several men gathered around the fire some
twenty feet away. She crouched and listened.

“Half rations again,” a husky old man was
grumbling, hunched over a mug in front of the fire.

“Aye, but at least we’re still on full ale
rations,” said another much more heartily though slightly slurred,
raising his own mug.

“But why? I heard that the grain stores were
spared in the fire and most of the farmers weren’t hit as hard as
the capital was. So why aren’t they feeding us?”

“Ah quit yer whinin’,” rebuked a third,
walking up from behind the older man. “A little less food would do
you good. You don’t want yer belly gettin’ in the way of yer sword
now do ya?”

The old man just grunted.

Then suddenly and simultaneously, the two men
at the fire stood, and the third stopped his motion.

Katya tensed, wondering if it was possible
that they had discovered her.

But a moment later they resumed their motion
- collectively - as they made their way towards the tents. In
unison, they entered several of the tents there and were joined by
other soldiers, as if all drawn by the silent call. Within minutes,
the camp had emptied of the milling about of bored men and almost
too quickly the sounds of snoring could be heard.

Moments later, several men emerged from the
end tents and marched to the sentry posts, relieving those on watch
who immediately made their way to their own tents.

A chill ran down Katya’s back. This wasn’t
normal behavior. She watched the last man closely and felt a
horrified pang as his shirt fell back from his wrist as he opened
the tent flap.

He had a bracer around his wrist which looked
all too familiar to Katya. It was a smaller version of her collar.
She hesitantly probed the man with her talent, and her fears were
confirmed. She sent tendrils out to touch the other men, and found
the same foul stench on all of them. She felt Marak shiver on her
arm, and she mirrored his motion.

An
army of slaves then. Just what
is their fine new King up to?
She contemplated attempting to
break the spells on the soldiers, but there were simply too many of
them.
And besides, it’s not my problem
. She had to find this
Layna girl, she was the last link to Gerald and Evelyn and her only
hope of finding out why they were in her memory. She knew from the
name and the clue that she had been in the service of one of the
councilors that it was the maid that Jezebel had been having
problems with and had been searching for before her mysterious
absence.

Unfortunately, she was currently a fugitive
but Katya decided that since she was traveling with Gryffon who had
been found to be a spy it was likely that the two of them were on
their way to, if not already in, Treymayne.

She rose out of her squatting position, and
slunk through the now-empty camp, keeping a close eye on the
sentries as she passed. They made no motion or noise as she passed,
and she slipped unnoticed into the woods.

Once out of range, she broke into a jog,
making as much headway as was possible during the night. She had
hoped to hear rumors about the assassination that had been
thwarted, perhaps someone bragging about the deed, but if it had
been someone from this camp, they weren’t saying. And since they
were all controlled by their bracers…someone higher up must have
told them to do it anyway. It was unlikely she was going to find
anything more so she may as well set out to find Layna.

The forests still held remnants of recent
dangers, Katya had seen signs of several bloodbeasts running free.
It appeared that they had been rounded up, however, since the
regular beasts seemed to have resumed their prowling.

The army had corrals of the bloodbeasts, and
their mage-keepers were the only ones in the camp that Katya felt
she needed to worry about.

The fact that none of the soldiers seemed the
least bit concerned about their camp-mates was disturbing, but
perhaps this was another aspect of their bracers. Katya knew all
too well how it could influence one’s thinking.

When dawn neared, Katya slowed her pace and
searched for a place to settle in for daylight. In short order, she
was nestled up in a tree, and she fingered the package that Gerald
had entrusted her with. She felt a strange bond to the girl she was
to deliver it to; both of them apparently had a past they didn’t
know about. She also couldn’t shake the guilt that she felt over
her parent’s deaths and felt that she owed it to her, no matter
what Evelyn had said.