Lightfall, p.20
Lightfall, page 20
She knew all these sensations at once, knew them far too well.
She was someone’s prisoner again; she hadn’t even had the opportunity to fight back this time.
Mind strafing in memories of carts and deserts and catacombs, she heaved up on one elbow and squinted at the world: a canopy of shedding branches above her head, rust-colored leaves scattered around her in the rich blue tones of twilight, the chill on her skin not only from lack of food but also the dampness of Talheimic autumn.
Outdoors. Unsheltered.
Light kindled near her feet, a gentle cluster of silver-blue threads in a jar carried by a man who held a wineskin in his other hand. “Ah, there you are.” His voice was low and musical, richly accented with rolling syllables. Mahasari. “You’ve been asleep for a while. Welcome back.”
He set down the jar, shifting the tacky hair from her brow. She slammed her face into his hand—the closest she could come to biting him—and he snatched it away, grinning. He was beautiful even by that strange light, tan, sunken-eyed, and smirking, bearded with a thatch of dark hair; lovely and cruel like a serpent. “You must be famished. If I remove that gag, care to join me for a drink?”
What she wanted was to spit whatever he offered into his face, kick his legs out from under him, and wriggle to freedom. But she wasn’t certain she had the strength for half those things; they’d starved her too well, bound her too tightly. She’d never get far.
Frustration and despair burned her throat. She couldn’t do this again, be a prisoner forced to perform for her captors. She would rather die. How long had she been gone, and Cyril not found her yet?
Tormented with the thoughts all stabbing into her aching head at once, she panted into the gag and made no sound. There was something strange about her captor’s smile, small and charming but utterly void when he removed that gag and yanked his fingers away from her dull, desperate snap. “Talheimic gratitude. Predictable.”
“Which bit am I expected to be grateful about?” she croaked. “You dragged me from my room, you’ve kept me tied up here for gods-know how long—”
“Four days.” He offered the waterskin. “Drink?”
Her mouth foamed, but she clung to the last fibers of her dignity until he gripped her by the collar, hauled her up, and forced the waterskin to her lips. She seized the opportunity while she gulped to also take in her surroundings: trees, stones, and broad slopes painted against one another, their edges a soft emerald-and-onyx. Distantly, the silver light of a river glinted under the full moon.
She was in the Calaluns.
She swallowed more greedily, relief coursing through her tingling limbs. She wasn’t so lost after all; she could find her way back to Middleton from here. If she was too weak, too injured to crawl once the shock wore off and she could feel her limbs again, Maleck would find her. He’d seen the signal fires, he knew where to search for Jad’s treachery—
But Maleck was four days gone. He didn’t even know she was taken. And they never told anyone else about the fires.
As that first ringing note of despair found its mark in her chest, something crashed into place behind it: numbness. Resignation.
Middleton was a speckle in the distance, glowing at the heart of the valley. Four days, and no one had found her this close to the city.
The man took his waterskin back, hanging his wrists from his knees. “Better?”
That wasn’t the word for it. The water’s sweet taste was almost mildewed but not unpleasant, burning deliciously through her body and coaxing life back into her limbs—and best of all, quieting the ache in her chest, the memory of Siralek, the despair that this time not even Maleck searched for her. She’d finally severed that tenuous thread between them, pushed him so far he’d never look back again.
She couldn’t remember why that mattered. Why it hurt so badly when she watched him ride from Middleton. There was a word for it, not in the common tongue, but it evaded her.
The man followed her gaze to the distant city. “They’re not looking for you. Not one patrol, not one scouting mission, nothing. They don’t care what happens to you.” Of course not. Why expend the resources for a disgraced Warden, a murderer of grandmothers and nannies, a traitor and a disgrace to kingdom and King and Princess? “I’m the only friend you have. So why don’t you tell me your name?”
“Asheila Kovar.” Her voice scraped over the arch of her tongue.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Asheila. I’m Kashar az-Kyrian. I have some food here for you, but first, I thought we might discuss your allies down in the valley.”
Clamminess skittered through Ashe’s arms and legs, driving out that moment of comfortable warmth after the drink. Slowly, she shook her head.
Kashar held up the skin. “More water?”
Ashe drank greedily this time. A delicious hum filled her head, almost like spirits but so much better.
“That’s it. Now, what of this so-called treaty between Valgard and Talheim? Is there any truth to that rumor?”
Despite the comfortable warmth that settled over her like a blanket, a small, needling stab of dread found its way inside her chest this time. The sweetness on her tongue turned saccharine. She wrenched her lips from the bottle, glaring at Kashar. There was something here, he was doing something…
His eyes narrowed. “You really want to tell me the truth about this treaty.”
She did, and yet… “The treaty is real.”
Bent forward over his knees, so close the smell of boiled meat and sweet dates wafted against her face, Kashar growled, “Is it?”
“The treaty is real.” She wanted desperately to tell him the truth—that it was a sham she failed like everything else—but that dread in her heart refused to let the confession through. “The treaty is real, it’s real, it—”
Kashar fisted his hand in her hair and wrenched her head back, forcing the wineskin to her mouth. “Tell me the truth, hasac!”
She choked and sputtered, fighting to seal her lips against whatever was in the water that made her want to believe everything he said, to let him persuade her that he was her friend and she should tell him everything, tell him the treaty was a lie—
But it wasn’t. Not all of it. Even after she struck out with all her might in fear, even after Maleck left her, there was still a thread between their kingdoms. A bond between augur and Warden, unshakeable, unbreaking, because of what he was to her and she to him. What some part of her knew ever since that night he stepped between her and Rion outside Stornhaz; on the bridge, looking at the Citadel, hearing him tell the story of people formed of stardust, all their pieces aching for each other across land and fate; when they stood on that rain-soaked slope in the mountains, when he kissed her beside the fire.
The reason she forced him out of Middleton, out of her heart.
With the drink soaking her tongue, she couldn’t fight it anymore. It cracked through every defense, breaking down the walls she threw up to keep it out all this time.
Selvenar.
The word was a note strummed into the dimness of her mind, that void raging at the edges with poisoned sweetness.
Selvenar.
It joined them together. It blended her heart to his.
Selvenar.
She screamed the word into herself, raised it high like shield and sword, and pushed back the bludgeoning might of Kashar az-Kyrian and the doubt and despair he forced into her. She held her ground against the tide of whatever strange Mahasari concoction coursed in her veins, planting her feet in that one truth he couldn’t take from her.
“The treaty is true!” she shouted. “It’s true, the peace is true and the treaty is real!”
Because it was. For her and Maleck, it always would be.
The wineskin emptied all over her face, and she retched and gagged as Kashar flung her and the empty skin aside. He lurched to his feet, any hint of kindness gone. Only darkness remained, and he looked so much like Jad it snapped Ashe back to the truth of this moment.
Captor. Enemy. Danger. He was not her friend, never her friend.
“I hope you like the feeling of drowning,” he seethed. “It will be your entire miserable life from now until your end. We will do this every day until you yield or stop breathing.”
He stalked away, and Ashe sagged, sucking in her breath, fighting to quiet the panic raging in her body.
Selvenar. The word echoed through her, softer and yet stronger than any drug. Selvenar.
She’d chased Maleck off, set them both free; but there was no escaping that tether, the truth that would keep her from ruining Cistine’s secret and damning her kingdom.
So Ashe clung to it, clung to him like a lifeline in a raging sea. And held on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DAYLIGHT POURED THROUGH the courtroom windows, but Cistine still struggled to stay awake. The walls pulsed slightly under the strain of her aching vision, and she jumped when a gentle elbow dug into her side. “Long night?”
She offered Tatiana a tired smile. “Long year, really.”
“Fair.” Her friend pushed a mug of warm tea into her hands. “Is that why you look like Faer kept you up squawking in your ear all night?”
“I was at the library until late, actually. And I couldn’t stop worrying about today.”
“You could’ve joined Quill and me for cards. We didn’t sleep much, either.” Tatiana leaned into the wall, jaws stretching around a yawn.
“No luck with that thief?”
“None. And Pippet was out late, too, we heard her come in two minutes before midnight. I thought Quill was going to have a nosebleed. There’s no sharing a bed with him when he gets like that.”
Cistine frowned. “Has Pippet’s behavior seemed…odd to you lately?”
“No more than you’d expect from a girl her age who’s gone through what she has. Why?”
Before Cistine could answer, the courtroom doors opened and the cabal entered—Thorne leading, Quill behind him, Ariadne and Saychelle side-by-side, and Iri and Aden bringing up the rear. Thorne opened the gate to the dais, taking Saychelle’s elbow and murmuring something in her ear when she passed him. She nodded, and with a fleeting smile, he let her go.
The time had finally come for her to take the witness’s seat and give the testimony that, gods willing, would bring their enemy to his knees.
The prospect knotted Cistine’s core with anticipation—and dread.
Salvotor swaggered in behind them between his guards, relaxed like he was the free man and Saychelle the prisoner on trial. She seemed to feel it too, shrinking back slightly in her chair while the guards clipped Salvotor’s long chain to the table.
Bravis brought the room to order with a wave. “Eskil, you may begin.”
While the Tribune took Saychelle’s oath of honesty, Cistine watched Thorne’s grim, unhappy face and wondered how he must feel, seeing the woman he once loved standing witness against the man whose cruelty tore them apart. She couldn’t imagine if she and Julian were forced into a separation only to see one another in these kinds of straits ten years later.
But there would be no ten years later for them. There was no future at all with Julian in it because of the man smirking at Saychelle like a famished predator, hands folded on the table.
Cistine’s own hands became fists. Quill squeezed her shoulder.
“Visnpresta Saychelle,” Eskil’s voice drew her back to focus, “please make your testimony.”
“That night,” Saychelle paused, clearing her throat. “Forgive me. That night, when my sister was…when she was attacked. I was…there.”
“In the Chancellor’s apartment?” Eskil asked. Saychelle nodded. “Was anyone aware you were present?”
“Thorne—” Saychelle flushed, “I’m sorry. The High Tribune, Salvotor’s son, he was aware, yes.”
“And was he also in the apartment?”
“No, he slipped out first. I…” Saychelle linked her fingers tightly in her lap, gaze flicking from Eskil to Salvotor and back again. “I was meant to leave through the window.”
“But you didn’t?”
Saychelle shook her head. “As I was gathering my things, I heard a…a commotion from the main parlor. Shouting. Things breaking. I thought perhaps the Chancellor and his wife were having an argument—”
“Objection,” Salvotor interrupted. “Speculation without relevance.”
“I’ll be the decider of that,” Bravis said.
Saychelle drew her augment-shocked hair behind her head, draping it across her opposite shoulder. Her skin glowed with sweat. “It was a moment before I recognized my own sister’s voice. She was…begging the Chancellor not to touch her. She called him by name several times.”
“Did you see what happened?” Eskil pressed.
Saychelle bit her lips together and took deep breaths through trembling nostrils. Her brow crumbled and her gaze averted when she nodded. “I opened the door to see if I was truly hearing what I thought I was. And I saw him…what he was doing to her…”
“Did you intervene?” Again, Saychelle shook her head. “Why not?”
“I was terrified!” Her voice cracked. “He was defiling my sister! I had no means to defend myself and no strength help her.”
“Did you run?”
“I hid in the bedroom closet until it was quiet. When I came out to find her, there was…there was nothing, only blood and her robes left behind. I escaped through the window.”
Eskil consulted his papers. “What happened after the incident?”
“My sister left Stornhaz. I stayed behind to help my parents at their shop whenever I could leave my bed.”
“You were unwell?”
“I felt responsible for not intervening. I tried to bring attention to her suffering by telling anyone, everyone who would listen, but it only…”
Salvotor stretched, long and leisurely, folding his arms behind his head. Saychelle’s gaze turned swiftly to him, then dropped toward the floor.
“I only brought suffering on myself,” she murmured.
Thorne tipped his head. Ariadne frowned.
“Would you describe this suffering?” Eskil said.
“I was attacked. My parents lost their shop. We were threatened, stalked, made to suffer every day until I finally fled to save all our lives. I escaped to Keltei Temple, where Ariadne’s mentor lived. She’d written to me many times, offering support and council.” She flicked a shy, genuine smile toward Iri, standing on Thorne’s right. “I’ve served as a visnpresta ever since.”
Eskil nodded. “And is the perpetrator of your family’s suffering in this courtroom today?”
Saychelle didn’t look across the table. “It was Chancellor Salvotor.”
Eskil had barely bowed and stepped aside when Salvotor rose. “You say my son knew you were in our apartment that day. Why was he so knowledgeable of your whereabouts?”
Saychelle glanced at Thorne. “We had considered swearing the valenar oath. We were discussing it that day.”
“And yet you were also in training to become a visnpresta at the time. I see you hoped to have the best of both lives.”
“I planned to leave the Order back then.”
“Your dedication to your vows is inspirational, truly. So, you and Thorne were little older than children at the time…impulsive, and with every intention of forging the valenar bond.” A generous, thoughtful pause. “Tell me, are we to believe you are yourself celibate?”
A hot flush warmed Cistine’s cheeks. Color rose in Thorne’s neck and ears, too.
“The High Tribune and I never joined,” Saychelle muttered.
“Of course you would say that. To claim otherwise would make him fit to stand trial himself, and disqualify you from the Order that has sheltered and cared for you for ten years…ever since, as you say, you failed to save your sister.”
“Objection!” Eskil snarled. “Badgering!”
“I’m merely using the visnpresta’s own words.” Salvotor rounded the table to lean on its far edge, inclining toward Saychelle with almost friendly ease. “I don’t believe you hid out of terror that day, Saychelle. I believe you chose to hide because of your guilt. You and the High Tribune were engaged in illicit activities in my apartment, and you feared you would lose your place in the Order if you were found there.”
Saychelle’s gaze darted to Iri, imploring. “That’s not—I told you, we weren’t—”
“Let’s consider your account.” Salvotor lurched back upright. “If this was in fact the truth and not some aggrandized slaughtering of my reputation, it would mean you chose to hide rather than be caught joining with my son. You sacrificed your own sister to keep your selfish secrets.”
Saychelle shook her head wildly. “I didn’t mean to abandon her!”
“But if what you say is true, then abandon her you did!”
Cistine flinched. Thorne’s head snapped around, his eyes boring into hers, and she gazed back at him, helpless, horrified. That tone—that inflection—
She pressed her thumb into Kristoff’s pendant. Streets of silver and gold, snow falling, scents of cider, spruce, and linen, the vendors filling Astoria’s market during Darlaska…
“These accusations of stalking and attacks against your family are already proven false.” Salvotor’s voice twisted with nasty pleasure as he lifted a stack of papers from the table. “I present, for the review of the Tribunal, the true cause for your family’s loss of business as reported upon their return to the town of Skiodalar in Kroaken territory.” Eskil brought the papers to the High Tribunes as Salvotor went on: “Decreased revenues and the rising cost of goods…which no single Chancellor can be held responsible for. As for any attacks you suffered, those are the unfortunate risks of living in a city this size. Unsavory characters abound.”
His voice echoed through the courtroom like dark stone walls. Thorne gripped Cistine’s hand and squeezed. You are not alone here.
