Season of the Dragon, page 23
Caz drew her hand back. Luz stood a few paces inside the door with a lamp.
“Luz and Hem, come with me. We will take this new servant to the lower holding cells. Caz, wake Timming. Tell him to bring his butcher’s blade.”
Quen shuddered at the mention of the butcher’s blade. Her palms were wet, and her mind raced as she tried to figure a way out of her predicament.
“You have friends in the capital,” Aldewin had said. Rhoji, where are you?
Luz led the way, and Pelagia followed with Nivi at her heels. Quen didn’t follow. I won’t voluntarily enter a life of mutilation and servitude.
Hem shoved her in the back, and Pelagia rounded on her. Pelagia’s pale-grey eyes were wide and shot through with red. “Must I force your obedience? You had but the slightest taste of my prod. Do you hunger for more?”
The gold cuffs warmed, and a jolt of sky-fire pulsed through Quen. It recalled the torture Pelagia inflicted on her at the Palace.
The swirling spasms of pain reminded her of the mage the Exalted had given to Pelagia earlier that night. Imbica. If they brought Imbica here, maybe…. Imbica was the last person Quen wished to help, but if Aldewin and Rhoji didn’t assist her soon, working with Imbica might be her only hope.
Now on her knees, her breathing labored, Quen croaked, “I will obey.” The words were rancid in her mouth.
Hem yanked her up by the hair.
Reluctantly, Quen followed Pelagia. At Quen’s heels, Nivi panted loudly. The big cat likely wanted to take a bite out of Pelagia. But the same magical device that forced Quen’s obeisance also subjected Nivi to Pelagia’s control.
Pelagia led them through the servant’s quarters, an infirmary, and a kitchen. Unseen from the doorway, at the back of the room, a narrow staircase wound downward.
As they descended, the air grew chilly and moist and smelled of mold, wet fur, urine, and rot. At the bottom, they entered a large dungeon. Haphazardly placed lanterns did little to chase away the dark. Iron-barred stone cells lined the jail’s walls, while a smith’s fire and bellows glowed red in the middle, casting an eerie glow.
Pelagia snatched Luz’s lantern. “Did you know that the Menagerie used to be a palace for the Kovan Dynasty?”
Quen shook her head, wary of voicing her thoughts on the subject. I don’t care about the history of a power-hungry family.
“The castle’s original dungeon is all that remains.” She swung the lantern, illuminating empty prison cells as she stepped into the dungeon. “These cells held the Dynasty’s political enemies. Important people, even if ultimately deemed traitors.” She swung the lantern back toward Quen. “And now you will spend the night among the ghosts of greatness.”
Perhaps Pelagia meant to impress her. What do I care about Qülla’s political squabbles?
“Why am I here, Pelagia? You know I did nothing wrong. My only crime was being born with strange eyes.”
The large stone in Pelagia’s ring took a chunk of Quen’s skin as she smashed Quen’s jaw. Blood gushed from her chin, ruining the thin slip of a dress.
The shock was greater than the pain. What have I done to anger her to violence against me? Nothing makes sense anymore.
“Why—?” Quen tried to ask.
Pelagia walloped her again, landing a solid punch to her side. “You disobeyed me—dishonored me—in front of the Exalted and the entire Conclave.”
Quen turned to run back up the stairs, but Hem blocked her path with his wide body. He shoved her roughly toward Pelagia. Two guards, previously hidden in the shadows, stepped forward, flanking Pelagia.
The Mistress swung at her again, but Quen blocked it with her forearm this time. “This punishment is unjust, and you know it.” She kept her arms up, ready to defend herself from another attack. Quen was losing hope she’d see beyond the dungeon again, but she wasn’t about to kneel and simper like a cornered pup.
Pelagia threw her head back and let out a low, throaty laugh. “There you go again, talking of justice. Your crime? You stole the Exalted’s moment of glory. People have died for less. Consider yourself fortunate to live still.” Pelagia’s pupils were dark and dilated with rage. Sweat beaded on her brow as a jolt pierced Quen’s chest. “Of course, you are no longer an honored Doj’Anira.”
A metallic taste filled Quen’s mouth. The agony made Quen’s legs buckle, and she sank to her knees.
Pelagia’s nostrils flared. “Servants die all the time.”
Tendrils of fiery pain radiated from Quen’s core to her toes and fingertips. Quen tried to scream, but her voice was thin and hoarse. She writhed on the floor and moaned. Sweat and blood soaked her now-muddy dress.
Pelagia loomed over Quen, her headpiece askew. Pelagia flung it off, the delicate bones shattering on the floor. Kneeling, she cupped Quen’s chin, stuck two fingers in her mouth, and found her tongue. “It is a waste to take away your ability to pleasure me.”
The fiery tendrils of sky-fire energy eased. Quen panted as she tried to fill her burning lungs with air.
Pelagia trailed the same fingers down Quen’s neck and across her breast. “The Exalted said I could do with you as I pleased.”
Quen coughed. “I would—” She sucked in a breath. “Rather lose my tongue than be forced to lie with you.”
Pelagia kicked Quen in the ribs. Quen curled into the smallest ball she could make of herself.
Nivi roared and leaped between Quen and Pelagia. He was about to swipe at Pelagia with his mighty claws, but she activated the gold cuffs on his ears. Nivi yowled and pressed his nose to the dusty floor in forced obeisance.
“The damned cat has taken a liking to you.”
Nivi cried out again and slapped a paw at his ear until it was bloody.
“You ruined my faithful kitty.” Pelagia kicked Quen again before pulling her by the hair, dragging her across the hard-packed dirt floor of the dungeon. “Sulmére trash.”
Quen screamed in agony, her scalp pulling like it would soon peel from her skull. Will Hem or the guards help me? Surely they won’t let her do this to me. But none tried to intervene. They stoically watched as if they, too, feared what Pelagia might do to them. Luz watched as well, her eyes rimmed in red from crying.
Pelagia twisted Quen’s hair in one hand. She pulled a set of keys from a peg on the wall. The cell was utterly dark inside.
“Luz!” she called. “Bring the lantern.”
There was no answer, but soon Luz arrived at their side, and a warm glow illuminated the dank cell.
Pelagia dragged Quen into the cell and delivered a kick to her back. “When next we meet, you will be a speechless mewling quim, competing with the other servants for my favor.”
“Never,” Quen croaked.
Pelagia spat on her then delivered a kick to her head. Quen tried to deflect the blow, but Pelagia landed a solid shot, and blood trickled onto Quen’s upper lip.
Pelagia’s breath was ragged from her exertion. Luz whimpered.
Quen called out, “Help me!”
“Cry all you want. Scream and gnash, but no one will come for you because you are nothing. You are nothing because the Exalted commanded it so.”
“You’re wrong.” Rhoji cares. Aldewin cares. Even if they didn’t find her in time to save her from a prisoner’s fate, they’d risked their lives coming to the capital to help her.
Pelagia was about to deliver another kick, but a commotion at the dungeon entrance stopped her. Men grunted as steel clashed against steel. And a man with a pronounced lisp was swearing.
“Suda, but he’s wide as a thukna’s arse,” Druvna said.
“Duck!” Mishny hollered. There was a loud thwack and an ‘oof.’
Quen’s heart skipped a beat. The pod is here.
“What in the name of Hiyadi—?” Pelagia stepped out of the cell. At first, annoyance knitted her brows, but Pelagia turned to Quen and laughed. “How sweet, dune blossom. Druvna the Dishonored has brought his little band of rogues to attempt a rescue.” She turned her gaze on Quen, her lips pulled back in a sneer. “Too bad they’ll all die here tonight. Better yet—” She returned to the cell and grabbed Quen’s hair again, dragging her to the ring of red-hot coals in the room’s center.
Pelagia twisted Quen’s hair in one hand while she gripped a poker with the other. Furiously stoking the fire, she yelled, “Stand down, Druvna, or your young Jagaru gets a poker in her pretty blue eye.”
The fighting ceased.
Quen’s vision was sideways and bleary from sweat and strands of hair plastered across her face. She couldn’t tell if Aldewin, Rhoji, Eira, and Shel were with Mishny and Druvna.
“Bring them to me,” Pelagia said.
Pelagia’s damned chunky ring dug into Quen’s scalp. Quen kicked and twisted, which only made Pelagia twist her hair more tightly.
Hem and the two guards held Druvna, Mishny, and Aldewin at sword-point. Caz and Luz stood behind and held each other, tears streaming down their cheeks. A slash of crimson crisscrossed Hem’s broad chest, and his left eye was smeared in blood from a cut in his brow, but his wounds didn’t hamper him. The two guards and Druvna’s Jagaru were unscathed.
But where is Rhoji? And what of Eira and Shel? That something terrible had happened to her brother and friends brought hot tears, and her neck ridge pulsed.
“I was going to save this work for Timming, but I will wait for him no more,” Pelagia said. She dragged Quen to a vise-like device with metal clamps.
“He weren’t comin’ anyway,” Druvna said. He threw what looked like a raw, bloody piece of meat to the ground at Pelagia’s feet.
“Killed my butcher? That’ll cost you.” Her hand squeezed Quen’s throat, holding her down as she used the other hand to screw a clamp to hold Quen’s head in place.
Quen clutched at Pelagia’s hand, trying to pry it from her throat. Pelagia’s wild eyes met Quen’s, and her grip remained firm. Pelagia’s graceful, pale beauty had vanished. Her red face dripped sweat. Her mouth twisted into a grimace, her neck veins bulging. Quen’s throat was afire, her breaths ragged.
The sounds of clashing steel filled the air. A man yowled, and Mishny growled. No, it wasn’t Mishny. Nivi roared, and a man screeched, then there was the sound of blood gushing from a neck wound.
Pelagia turned toward the commotion, her hand still squeezing Quen’s neck. “You may be a court favorite, but I’ll tolerate your disobedience no longer.” Her voice was strained and thin.
Nivi yowled, a cry so full of pain it was unbearable. A staff made a loud thwack. Aldewin must have found a replacement stick. Druvna grunted, and Mishny taunted Hem. “Come at me, puffed-up cock-waddle.”
Quen blinked, trying to see Nivi. He lay on the ground, his legs twitching, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.
She’s killing him. Quen’s breaths were shallow and rapid. Nivi was more of a kindred spirit to Quen than anyone she’d ever met. He’s rare and beautiful and has the right to live as much as anyone. Knowing he would soon die if she did nothing, Quen stopped trying to suppress the Nixan. Damn me to Vay’Nada’s frigid eternity, if you must, Lumine. But I must protect Nivi.
Quen released any lingering Still Waters remaining within her. Instead of her usual prayers to the Sister, she called on Hiyadi. He was the god of war. Bless me, Brother, and fill me with Vatra. Burnish and hone me into a weapon of your design. Quen didn’t still her turbulent thoughts. Instead, she allowed fear, sadness, and anger to fill her like steam from a boiling kettle. She had lost plenty, and the repressed emotional toll fueled her. For the first time, Quen invited the Nixan’s power to surface.
White heat seared her neck ridge, and chills rang the length of her spine. Hot tears poured. Threads of pain wrapped around her sides. A scream formed deep in her belly, rose, and she released a primordial yell. Her eyes were hot, her vision bleary. It felt like something had pushed through the skin along her spine.
Agony gave way to the thrill of an unfamiliar power coursing through her. Hiyadi’s strength filled her. Quen wrested Pelagia’s fingers from her throat, the woman’s finger bones snapping like twigs breaking.
Pelagia’s expression changed from sadistic joy to utter shock. She held one hand in the other. “You broke my fingers.” Her voice was an awed whisper as she staggered back from Quen. “What in the name of the Three?”
Pressing upward with all her strength, Quen broke free of the clamps Pelagia hadn’t finished pressing into her scalp. She swiped at Pelagia with her fingers outstretched, using her nails like claws. Bloody scratches bloomed on Pelagia’s chest, but it was only a flesh wound.
Aldewin broke free of his battle with Hem and swung his body toward Pelagia, his staff twirling. It looked like he’d land a solid shot across Pelagia’s back, but she thrust up an arm, and the staff flew from his hands. Her broken hand did nothing to hinder her magical abilities.
Aldewin was only momentarily off-kilter. He pulled the broadsword from his back and fended off a blow from Hem at his backside.
Mishny stood on a guardsman’s chest, thrust her curved blade into his gut, and ripped upward. The smell of urine and offal filled the air. Mishny wiped blood spatter from her face as she rushed toward Hem, while Aldewin defended himself from Hem’s blade. Mishny fileted the large man’s back, distracting him enough that Aldewin found a landing for his broadsword. Aldewin lunged forward, piercing Hem’s well-muscled torso and plunging his sword into the man’s gut. Aldewin twisted the blade as he pulled it from the dying man’s belly.
The Jagaru fought against Hem and the guards, but Nivi still writhed. He’d been furiously panting, but now his breaths were shallow.
Storm energy crackled in the air. A shock of sky-fire exploded in Quen, searing her from crown to toes. Before she could cry out, her chest tightened. Pelagia’s attack sucked life-sustaining air from her lungs.
While she still had breath left, Quen called out, “Gold ear cuffs, Aldewin. She controls—us.” She hoped he had the magical knowledge to determine how to remove the gold control devices from both Quen and Nivi.
Quen writhed on the cold stone floor like an eel with a severed head. Drool spilled from the corner of her mouth, her head jerked, and her legs twitched. Pelagia’s magical control device siphoned off whatever power Quen’s inner beast had lent her.
Aldewin chanted in a strange language, yet different from the one Imbica had used. “A-zhi ni-wa hō-na kai.” He repeated the phrase several times.
Quen hoped the words were a spell to remove the cuffs from her ears and thus interrupt Pelagia’s power over her. But the cuffs remained dug into her flesh, hot and sending searing sky-fire through her.
Pelagia laughed. “Old Tinoxian magic. Smart, mageling, but not smart enough.”
Aldewin thrust his greatsword toward her, but Pelagia sprang backward like an acrobat in a traveling show, flipping herself out of harm’s way.
While Aldewin’s blade didn’t land a blow, his attempts momentarily distracted Pelagia. She lost enough concentration that the fiery tendrils of torture coursing through Quen eased a bit.
Aldewin was near enough that Quen could touch him. Quen moved slowly, not wanting to attract Pelagia’s attention. Aldewin always had a dagger strapped to each of his boots. Quen hoped they were still there. Her hands shook as she lifted Aldewin’s pants leg and pulled the blade from its scabbard.
The steel was reassuring in her hand. Forgive me, Pahpi, for the scar I’m about to sear into my heart. The soul scar was necessary to free Nivi from Pelagia’s control.
Pahpi’s advice to her while hunting came to her now. “Aim for your quarry’s heart, Quen, and never take your eyes from it.”
Armed solely with a dagger, Quen was no match for Pelagia. Quen spoke internally to her Nixan soul. You’ve been trying to poke out of the shell for months and push me aside. Well, come then. Show me your power.
A wave of heat and something else. Something raw rolled from toes to head in a spiral. She pulled energy directly from the soil beneath and the air around and filled herself with it. The ground trembled, and the air crackled.
Spindles of fiery pain threaded from the base of her spine. Her skin was tight, as if it was someone else’s she’d borrowed.
Pelagia blinked, and it was like a crash of falling stone. Nivi’s breath was like a tiny fly’s wings fluttering at her face. Movement around her slowed as if all were caught in amber.
It was as it had been when she’d first faced Vahgrin. As though time itself paused for her.
I don’t know how long this power will last. She advanced on Pelagia swiftly, never taking her eyes from the Mistress of the Menagerie’s chest. Pelagia’s heartbeat was like the thundering roar of a herd’s hooves, rattling Quen’s teeth and thrumming within her. She could nearly see Pelagia’s heart beneath her skin, barely more than a thin membrane of water covering brittle bone. So easy to crush.
Quen leaped and plunged the dagger into Pelagia’s chest. Her aim was true, her arm strong. She pushed with all her strength, forcing the blade up to the hilt. Quen let go of the dagger handle.
Pelagia, still moving as though in air made of honey, fell to the ground. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open in astonishment. Blood gurgled out of her open mouth like a fish stranded on land. She flung her arm toward Quen and uttered her last words, “Doj’Anira….” Gasping for breath, the haughty Mistress of the Menagerie died in the dungeon where she’d meted out pain and punishment at her whim.
Quen had assumed she’d feel remorse, but she felt only satisfaction. That horrible woman will never torture a beast or person again. Quen turned her attention to Nivi, wasting no more thought on Pelagia.
Kneeling at Nivi’s side, her hands on his chest, Quen felt for the beat of his giant tiger heart. She nestled her face against his downy white fur, listening for breath. Her mind was a rope pulled in a single direction, focusing only on whether she’d succeeded in time to save him.
His chest was still, his lungs quiet. Quen pushed on his massive chest with all her strength. Again. And again. She didn’t understand what called her to do it. To pound on the dead was surely taboo, but she couldn’t stop herself.
