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Dominic was in pain, but the pain had changed in character sometime during his last conversation with Gwyn. He felt utterly miserable in ways he hadn’t imagined were still possible for him, and despite the bitter ache in his chest when he thought of her mockery (we should look up a priestess, he fumed, as if she would ever be bound to me willingly! ), it took all of his strength to stay where he was as he watched her walk off between the trees.
He struggled with himself, clutching her cloak so hard that he felt his fingers starting to go numb. He held the cloth to his face and breathed deeply once she had disappeared from sight, telling himself sternly that it was only his wretched body that wanted to pursue the infuriating woman, but the admonition had all the hollowness of a lie, and his anxiety did not ease.
For he was anxious, and it transcended the frustrating and conflicted drive to touch her. What would she do if she ran into Raiders in town, if they recognized her by the third Raider’s description? She was really very pretty, and with her light hair and amber eyes, he thought she would surely stand out from the other women. She should have taken the cloak and worn it, they should have thought of another way.
But following her would be impossible for him in broad daylight, not without attracting notice and possibly bringing down on her the very attention he feared she would receive on her own, so he tried to focus instead on his exhaustion. He never would have admitted it to her, but she was right: he needed to sleep. I’ll feel more like myself if I get some rest. The stupid things she said before won’t bother me then, he thought, trying to rally as he did what he would never would have done in front of her: he put the haversack over his arm by its strap and climbed one of the nearby trees.
Once high enough up to be hidden from view of the ground below, he stretched out carefully on one of the stouter branches and, draping her cloak over himself in hopes of calming his shivering, he eventually drifted into sleep.
If he dreamed this time, he blissfully forgot all the moment his eyes opened, and he realized it was dark.
Dusk had fallen, but he did not hear Gwyn. He was sure if she had come back, it would have awakened him. He was aware of her now like he had never been aware of anything else in his life.
He scrambled down from the tree, his eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness, but he saw nothing and heard nothing except the usual sounds of nocturnal life in the forest, crickets and cicadas and the occasional warbler singing out to its mate.
His heart began to pound as he searched the area for her, but he could see no sign that she’d ever returned.
She said it wasn’t a social visit, he thought bitterly. She said it wouldn’t take long.
But the anger he expected didn’t come. I have her haversack, I have the knife. She has nothing except magic that would immediately condemn her if she was caught using it. He remembered how absorbed she had been in the Raider at the cottage when she had killed him. She had seemed shocked when she’d finally noticed Dominic. She couldn’t kill more than one at a time that way, could she? What would she do if there were more than one? What would they do to her?
There was no question of what he had to do now. He had to go after her. He could not have forced himself to stay. He strapped on the haversack and put the cloak on. It was too short in length for him, but he really just needed the hood to help conceal his face; in the darkness, the hope was that no one would notice him at all, much less notice a cloak that didn’t fit right.
Dominic headed the way he had seen her go but was forced to stop in his tracks when he stepped out of the woods and saw the bustling town of Mariph spiraling down before him. Even from a distance, he could see light blazing from the windows and from torches hung alongside what appeared to be the main roads, and even though it was after dark, he could still hear people and wagons and—to his keen discomfort—the occasional barking dog.
How am I going to find her in this mess? I don’t even know what direction she went from here, he thought, struggling to stay calm. He was no hunting hound; as much as her scent appealed to him, he doubted he’d be able to pick it out amid the usual town stench of unwashed bodies, waste, cooking or rotting food, wood-smoke and horseflesh.
But he slipped into the shadows and began to hunt, his eyes raking over the people still lingering on the streets, the buildings. Taking in the town’s shape and having no idea of where this lorekeeper might have been living—or even if Gwyn had had any such idea—he decided to work methodically. He would explore the outer “ring” first, and then work his way down to the town’s center.
What would a lorekeeper’s dwelling even look like? Is this woman a mage like Gwyn? Would she even identify herself as a mage if she were one? Do mages usually live openly in Lyntara? I don’t recall Carys saying anything about that.
Dominic was suddenly exasperated with himself for not asking more questions of Gwyn before she’d left. He’d dismissed her idea immediately as being a waste of time and had not given it any serious consideration, and now he had barely anything to go on. He remembered Gwyn saying the lorekeeper’s name was Meg, but that was about it.
Dominic had made it about halfway through the ring, successfully moving unnoticed through the shadows, when he came to a cottage sitting apart from the rest. The blue post identified it as a midwife’s cottage, but the windows were completely dark. No doubt the occupant was out on call.
It would not have attracted his attention at all except for the dark splatter across the bottom of the front door. Even that, he almost didn’t see, only just catching it from the corner of his eye. He circled back to take another glance at it in an effort to pay attention to anything out of the ordinary. He risked the open path to give it a closer look and clearly saw it was blood.
And clearly saw a torn piece of dark green cloth flutter in a slight breeze, caught on a thorn on the rose-covered trellis next to the cottage.
His heart stopped, and he stared at it, momentarily forgetting he was out in the open now. He approached it feeling like he was in a dream, not awake at all; his mind was blank, his movements slow.
He freed it gingerly from the roses, but he didn’t have to bring it to his face. He recognized it by sight before he even registered her scent on it, and he bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood to stop himself from crying out with the fear that was welling up inside of him.
Then Dominic felt himself go cold, his pulse slowing, his breath steadying. Despite the cold inside him now, he no longer felt chilled. His shivering ceased, and the ache in his body retreated the farthest-most fringes of his mind. All at once, he felt like himself again, calm and clear-headed and unemotional, as if once again, he had never even heard of “mating” as the creatures from the forests defined it; as if once again, he had never before felt desire.
Suddenly he knew exactly what he needed to do, where he needed to go. His purpose was crystalline, his focus as precise as his knife-work. Somehow, in fact, his knife had made it into his hand before he was even aware of drawing it from its sheath, and then he was slipping silently around the cottage, looking for an alternate, less obvious, means of entry in case its resident was still at home. He quickly saw that, like Gwyn’s entrance, there was no other door, but there was a sizable window on the cottage’s back wall with wooden shutters and no glass.
Dominic easily dislodged the latch on the shutters’ interior with the blade of his knife and gently eased them open. A moment later he was inside, and though all was dark, it was not too dark for him to make out a simply furnished one-room cottage, a dark-haired woman sleeping alone in the bed.
He crept around the cottage’s perimeter, pausing by the front door, but he saw no blood there.
He did, however, smell soap.
Dominic was next to the sleeping woman’s bed before the thought could even coalesce in his mind. He studied her in the dark, and though even his eyes could not discern her very clearly in the darkness, she looked much younger than he would have expected a friend of Gwyn’s father to look.
He considered her. This may not be Meg. Gwyn might have stopped here looking for her and never made it any further. Then again, it could be Meg, and she could be like Gwyn: a necromancer. Didn’t she tell me herself that necromancers could use their magic to attempt immortality?
He was behind her with her hair in one hand and his knife at her throat before her eyes even opened. The second they did, she opened her mouth, and he said quickly, “Allow me to clarify something for you. This knife goes into your windpipe if I feel so much as a tingle. I know what you are, and if you take me out, I’m taking you with me. If you think you’re faster than my knife, think again. ”
She snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide, and he felt a grim sense of satisfaction. Good bluff, Dominic. Maybe there’s something left to be salvaged in your skull after all.
“I know Gwyn was here. Where is she now? ” He pressed the knife in just a trifle harder.
“The resistance,” she choked out.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean the fake Raiders? ”
“Y-yes. ”
“Did they kill her? ” He was surprised at how steady his voice was, nearly matching his knife hand.
“No. Took her. ”
He waited with a patience he didn’t feel.
“There’s a c-camp...north of town,” she said finally, starting to squirm. “In the woods. I don’t know anymore! ”
“Pardon my skepticism. Why did they take her there? ” He eased up on the blade a little.
“You know what she is. They need mages. They want mages like her...like me. But they don’t know what I am. ”
“They know what she is, though. ”
“Yes. They caught her...one of them saw her. She was sloppy. ”
Dominic’s hand slipped slightly and she gasped.
“And how did they find her here, I wonder? ” he growled. “How did you know she’d come to you? ”
“I didn’t. ” The woman went still again, desperation in her voice. “But I knew helping the resistance would keep them off my back, so when I heard they were looking for a necromancer...I knew from their description it had to be her. Not many people walking around with yellow eyes, and her sister’s hair is dark. It had to be her. They’ve had people in every town around here waiting for her, it was just...just luck that she came here, that I’m the one who r-r-recognized her. ”
Dominic scowled. “She said you were a friend of her father’s. She wanted your help. ”
“No one is a friend of Silas, not really. Not unless you’re willing to fall in with his ideas of what anima magic should be used for. And I didn’t see why I should. Anyway, it was nothing personal, I told you. I just hoped if they had a necromancer, they’d stop nosing around looking for one. They came to me for lore about them, but it was only a matter of time-”
His hand tightened in her hair, and she went silent. “What kind of lore do you know about elves? ”
The woman was quiet a moment. “So you are the strange man they saw with her. You sounded like an elf from what they said...only clothed. ”
Dominic realized she probably couldn’t make out his “strangeness” in the dark. He humphed.
“Never mind me. Do you know anything about them? About their mating habits? ” He had to force the words out between gritted teeth.
“Their mating...oh. ” To his surprise, the woman on the bed smiled suddenly, white teeth flashing even in the dark. “Is that why you’re with her? ”
“I believe I’m the one asking the questions. ” He was reluctant to actually cut her yet, but his fingers tingled with the desire. Some people lashed out more in panic than they did when just afraid, and he only had this one chance with her.
“Well, you must already know how it works then. ” She was practically purring now, relaxing beneath his blade, and he furrowed his brows, perplexed at the abrupt change in attitude.
Nevertheless, he knew he had to continue. He didn’t have much time, and this was the whole reason Gwyn was in this mess. “Is there a way to separate a...a mated pair? ”
She actually shrugged one shoulder. “They mate for life. You’d have to kill one of them, and the lore I’ve heard says that will kill the other. ”
“That’s what I heard, too,” Dominic told her. “But Gwyn is in trouble because of you, so I thought I’d ask. ”
“Well, if she’s the one who wants to know and she wants to know because of you, you should tell her she’s stuck with you. ” The woman’s smile broadened. “And you should know that bringing harm to an old friend of her father’s won’t be likely to go over very well. ”
“Even after you betrayed her? ” Dominic was incredulous.
“I had no choice,” she said calmly. “She’ll realize that sooner or later. ”
“And you think she’ll be all right with whatever you had to do to stay this...spry? ”
She really didn’t look any older than Gwyn herself.
Meg laughed. “Out of all of Silas’ happy little family, Gwyneth would be the one most likely to understand, or at least to look the other way. She never was all perfect and saintly like her parents or her sister. It’s not all mending boo-boos and sunshine and rainbows with her. It’s the shadow side of anima that comes naturally to that one. But I suspect you know that, don’t you? ”
“What I know is that whatever she is, she’s nothing like you,” Dominic answered firmly, but he said it while moving his knife.
Her face went still, an approximation of a smile still lingering on her lips as blood blossomed around her neck. He cleaned his knife on her blanket and checked the cottage for supplies to add to the haversack. He felt ghoulish for doing it, but Dominic was nothing if not pragmatic.
He found the ache in his bones returning at full force as he slipped back out the rear window of the cottage, his anxiety heightening as he hoped his last words to the necromancer in the bed had been right, and she and Gwyn truly did have nothing in common with each other.
Such as being dead.
––––––––
I knew it was too easy.
That was the thought that kept returning to Gwyn over and over again from the moment she saw the Raiders in Meg’s cottage. She kept going over in her mind again and again every step she’d taken from the time she’d left Dominic, but she didn’t see how she could have been any more careful in her search for Meg. She wondered now whether the old man had been in on it, too. And though she sifted through every memory of the lorekeeper she could summon forth, she remembered nothing that would have suggested Meg would betray her.
Then again, she’d last seen the woman as a child. Who could say what her child-self may have forgotten or simply failed to notice?
How did she even know I would come to her? I didn’t even know until we were nearly there, Gwyn fumed.
But all her pondering made no difference, and her inability to pinpoint where she’d gone wrong was cold comfort when Dominic was surely still waiting for her in the woods outside Mariph. He would have no idea what had happened to her, and she was afraid of what would happen to him when she didn’t return.
And she wouldn’t. She had resigned herself to that fact the moment she’d seen the Raiders. The little cottage had been packed with them, still more coming up behind her on the path as if springing from nowhere. She supposed they must have been waiting in the neighboring buildings until they’d seen her go up the path to the cottage, which further hinted that they’d known where she was going all along.
The more she contemplated it all, the less sense it made. But all of that paled in comparison to the thought of Dominic. If he needs my scent...eventually the cloak won’t help anymore and he’ll be in pain again. How will he survive that agony when I never come back?
Gwyn didn’t need to see the future to know hers. She’d been caught practicing necromancy, and her denial would never be accepted over the word of a Raider. If they had come for her just to avenge their fallen brothers, they would have done whatever they wanted to her right there in front of anyone who cared to watch. No, they must have decided to take the official route. She would be turned over to the Council of Mages for a “trial,” and there was only one verdict and one sentence for necromancers: “guilty” and “execution. ”
She couldn’t understand why they would have sent Raiders to collect her—perhaps it was because a Raider was her accuser, or perhaps the Raiders themselves had chosen to take her to the Council without informing them first—but it hardly mattered. There were certainly enough of them to contain her. She could never hope to take them all out with her magic, and they must have known that.
This knowledge hadn’t stopped them from cutting her arms anyway, no doubt in an effort to weaken her and slow her down if she chose to try to use her magic against them. Her anima would be diverted by the wounds, and the bloodier, the better.
Her eyes had gone to Meg while they’d dragged the knives across her flesh. Something inside her was certain that the “lorekeeper” had been the one to tell the Raiders about that little trick. She clenched her teeth against the pain, refusing to cry out, holding her head high and staring the unnaturally youthful woman down.
“Silas’ baby girl, all grown up,” Meg had muttered, her gaze never leaving Gwyn’s, but the smile she’d been wearing from the moment she’d opened the door had vanished.
“Do they know how you knew my father, I wonder? ” Gwyn asked coldly as the Raiders grasped her bleeding arms and urged her back down the path. “Or how old you were then? ”
She caught a glimpse of the woman blanching before she was forced to look away.
Gwyn had felt her anger rising as she was marched off towards an awaiting horse, her grip on her anima shield faltering, but she’d managed to stay in control, largely because of the horror dawning on her as her mind finally overtook her emotions. Oh, Dominic. I was only trying to help you. Why didn’t I leave you alone in that forest? At least you could have died in something like peace compared to what’s coming.
She’d barely paid attention as they’d hauled her up onto one of the horses and rode off with her, her anger chilled by her remorse as she went over it all again in her mind.
I knew it was too easy.
Even in her upheaval, she noticed they were heading back into the woods, but on horseback, the going was slow as there apparently wasn’t much of a path to their destination, another oddity that niggled at the back of her mind.
After some time they arrived at what appeared to be some kind of settlement in the woods. There were tents and even a few small structures that looked like all that was left of what had once been a village. These looked like cottages made of stone and wood, but the wood parts looked suspiciously charred around the edges, as though the cottages had only just been saved from flame. Lit torches were all around, the moon nowhere to be seen, and everywhere, there were men in black Raider garb. It looked like they had been waiting for her.
She was unceremoniously dumped off the horse and barely caught before she hit the ground by another Raider, who dropped her onto her feet and then tugged her by one wounded arm into one of the charred stone dwellings.
Gwyn followed unresisting, all too aware of the many eyes watching her. The cottage smelled like smoke and sweat inside, its narrow windows, devoid of both glass and shutters, still managing to not admit nearly enough of the breeze outside to dispel either. It was bare inside but for a straw pallet on the floor and a bucket in one corner, and on the pallet lay a woman.
“We know what you are, necromancer,” the Raider holding Gwyn hissed into her ear. “You may yet last the night if you use your dark powers to heal this woman. ” He pushed her toward the pallet. “Don’t think you can escape. You’re surrounded, and you’ll stay that way until either we’re done with you or you’re dead. You can’t hope to drain all of us. ”
Gwyn barely heard the Raider leave. She couldn’t seem to look away from the woman on the pallet. Even drawn and sweating, she was easily the most beautiful woman Gwyn had ever seen in her life. Her features were exquisite in a way that defied all artifice, her skin as smooth and luminous as a rich brown silk, her hair the deep, perfect black of a fine ink and possessing almost the same liquid quality in the way it pooled around her on the pallet.
The woman half-opened her eyes, eyes that were dark like Dominic’s but far more human, and murmured weakly, “So they have brought one of the deathsworn to me. ”
Gwyn frowned. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that word, madam. I don’t call myself that. ” She went to the pallet and knelt down beside it. “They told me to help you, and I will if I can. ”
“I heard. ” The woman smiled sadly. “You won’t be able to help me, daughter. It is my captivity that weakens me. ”
“I don’t understand. Are they not feeding you? ” Gwyn felt oddly reluctant to touch the woman, much as she would have felt reluctant about touching a fine tapestry or a delicate painting, but she forced her hand to brush the woman’s damp forehead.
She was burning even hotter than Dominic had at his worst. Gwyn’s frown deepened.
“It’s the captivity itself, not their treatment of me while in it. I must be free. I must live the story. If I perish, Lyntara perishes with me,” the woman continued, her voice just above a whisper now.
She must be delirious from the fever, poor woman, Gwyn thought uneasily, but something the woman had said had caught Gwyn’s attention. The story. That sounds awfully familiar, like I’ve heard something like this before, but where?
The woman reached out suddenly and took Gwyn’s hand before she could react, squeezing her fingers with a strength Gwyn was surprised she had. “Do you remember the story, daughter? It is the key to the Emperor’s power. The deceivers seek to overthrow him. They do not believe they are bringing about our destruction. They think it is a myth, that I have deluded the Emperor somehow, but I am of no use to them dead. When you cannot help me, they will kill you. They won’t believe, and they won’t let me go. ”
Gwyn stared at her. The story...lord, why can’t I-
And then she did. “Do you mean Lord Orwyn’s story? How he walked the plains of Lyntara and watered them with his tears and so on? ”
The woman’s face lit up as she smiled, and the sight nearly took Gwyn’s breath away. “Yes. You remember. I am Orwyn. ”
Gwyn swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat, feeling her stomach drop. Poor woman, she thought.
“Are you injured in any way? ” she asked gently. “Did they hurt you? ”
The woman released Gwyn’s hand as suddenly as she’d taken it, her smile fading. “No. ”
“I’m going to check you over with my magic,” Gwyn said carefully. “But I don’t want you to be alarmed. I promise I won’t hurt you. Anima magic can be used to hurt, it’s true, but-”
“It also can bring about life,” the woman finished. “I know, daughter. Do as you must, but it will not help. ” She closed her eyes and laid still.
Gwyn focused on her magic and carefully lowered her shield, but she sensed nothing in the way of drives or needs from the woman on the pallet. No hunger, no thirst, no pain...nothing. For all practical purposes, she had the same urges as the pallet she was lying on.
But Gwyn did sense magic; the woman was practically teeming with it. It felt hot and bright against the more tepid touch of Gwyn’s own anima as she let it wash over the woman, seeking out weakness or disturbances in the other’s anima.
If there was any such damage, Gwyn’s magic could not find it, but it was like trying to stare into the sun; she felt as though the other woman’s magic was drowning out everything else in its glare. Could this be the problem? Could it be she has too much magic inside her and it’s poisoning her? Gwyn had heard of such things happening before. It had happened to her own mother before she’d been taught about her magic.
She withdrew her magic and restored her habitual shield, taking a moment to steady herself before she spoke again. “Madam, you have a lot of magic. Have you completed your training? ”
The woman opened her eyes. “I am not a mage, daughter. ”
“That’s not what your anima says,” Gwyn said bluntly. “Your magic might be what’s making you sick. You have too much. You need to release some of it. There are safe ways-”
“It will not work,” the woman said firmly, some strength returning to her voice. Her dark eyes flashed. “My life’s magic will only diminish with my death or Lyntara’s. And one will lead to the other. We are bonded...much like you and the half-elf. That is why the heat only grows...Lyntara languishes in fever alongside me. ”
Gwyn went cold, her mouth going dry.
“How do you know about that? Did you hear the Raiders outside talking? How did they know? They only saw us together that one time, they couldn’t possibly know about...about the rest. ”
“They’re deceivers,” the woman whispered. “Not Raiders. ”
“Please tell me what you heard. ” Gwyn tried to keep her voice gentle, but she was struggling, her alarm growing with every moment. She felt sick and pressed a hand to her stomach. Oh Dominic, what have I done? Are they going after you right now? Did they separate us just to kill you? But no, they brought me to this woman...maybe your death is just a perk from their point of view!
“It is not what I’ve heard, but what I’ve seen. ” Gwyn saw pity in the woman’s eyes, in the downturn of her lips. “He is bound in blood to you, daughter. If you were to fully accept him, you would be bound to him in return. Your anima would yoke you to him, the way his blood draws him to you. You are each the piece that the other is missing. You are his humanity, and he is your heart. ”
Gwyn tried to laugh, but she felt as though the words had torn the scab from a wound she had forgotten she was carrying. It burned inside of her now.
Emily had been the last person to call her heartless, right before she left and never came back.
“I’m sorry, madam, but there’s no possible way you could know that. ” She spoke through gritted teeth. “And you’ve clearly never met the man you’re referring to. He’s no one’s heart. ”
She felt an immediate twinge of guilt for saying it out loud, but even with all the heat of his desire, there was a certain coldness to Dominic that couldn’t be denied. The efficient way he’d disposed of the Raiders’ bodies, the way he handled that wicked-looking knife of his, the casual way he’d spoken about her killing people...none of it was anything Gwyn wanted to think about, but she knew in her bones that Dominic was not the kind of man to lose his heart to a woman. He would have had nothing to do with her if he hadn’t been forced into it, and even the small shows of kindness she had seen from him could have been as much about his own self-preservation as anything else.
She didn’t fault him for that. How could she? She was uncomfortably aware of her own deficiencies in that area. But she also couldn’t ignore the fact that the woman’s words were ridiculous in light of it.
Yet the pity did not leave the dark eyes that watched her, as if they saw inside her to the painful hunger that was erupting in the wake of those earlier words.
“You don’t truly know him,” the woman said finally. “Or yourself. ”
“You don’t know us, either,” Gwyn countered. “If I have no heart, why didn’t I leave him to die? How can you just say these things about us? ”
“It’s not that you have no heart at all. ” The dark eyes turned thoughtful. “But it has grown cold and hard. There is no real love without risk, but you take no risks that aren’t forced on you. He would give that back to you. ”
“I helped him in the first place, didn’t I? That was a risk. I could have kept on walking. You don’t know what you’re talking about. ” Gwyn almost felt relieved at the realization.
“A risk? You didn’t believe he would live. ” The woman stated it as matter-of-factly as if she were making an observation about the weather, but the words struck Gwyn like a slap.
Because the moment she heard them, she knew they were true. Deep down, she’d expected Dominic to die. Then when he woke and could not be separated from her, she felt responsible for him, and it was a feeling that was no more voluntary than the attraction that bound him to her. She hadn’t confided anything to him before she absolutely had to, including what she was. It had seemed like the safest course.
And it’s the same one Dominic took, Gwyn realized. I still don’t know why he wants to cross the border. In fact I know very little about him...and offended him somehow the one time he volunteered something about himself, which is more than I’ve managed to do since we met.
The woman was right, but even that muddied the waters even more.
“How do you know all this? ” Gwyn asked slowly. “Are you using your magic somehow? ” She couldn’t explain it, but she suddenly felt afraid.
The woman looked away with a sigh, and Gwyn had the strange feeling that a decision had just been reached. “I’ve already told you, but you don’t believe. It doesn’t matter. You cannot help me, and the one who can will not come. ”
“Who is it you think can help you? ” Gwyn tried to keep her voice calm, when inside she felt an inexplicable need to scream. “Maybe I could speak to the Raiders...or deceivers, if you prefer. They seem to want you to be helped, or they would have taken me straight to the Council. ”
“I need the one they call the High Lord. But they will not send for him, and even if they did, he would not come. ”
Gwyn was on her feet in an instant, backing away from the pallet, anger making the pain inside her recede once more. She’s mad. She must be. Why am I letting a madwoman’s ravings get to me this way? I shouldn’t be listening to her at all!
“What you say makes no sense,” Gwyn insisted aloud. Something in the back of her mind whispered that being so blunt with a woman who was so ill—both mentally and physically—probably wasn’t the best idea, but her temper urged her on, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “You call yourself Orwyn, you talk like you’re sympathetic to the Emperor, but the High Lord is the Emperor’s enemy and a known heretic! ”
“Every story has a villain, and so does mine. Remember the story, and you will understand. ” The woman was perfectly sedate.
“Orwyn defeated his enemy! ” Gwyn cried, frustrated. “Do you think you could defeat the High Lord in a fight even if he came here? You speak too lucidly to be that out of it! ”
“He is as bound to Almryn as I am to Lyntara. He would know what to do. ” The woman fell silent and turned her face to the wall, obviously finished with the conversation.
Gwyn wanted to shake her. “I’ve never heard of this, people being bound to land! ”
The woman remained silent. Gwyn heard a sudden noise behind her and she whirled around to see a Raider in the doorway. This one wore no mask, and he was decidedly larger than the one who had brought her in.
“Have you helped her, necromancer? Is she well again? ” he asked, his eyes flickering to the woman on the pallet.
“No,” Gwyn said in a low voice. “I can’t help her, because I can’t find anything wrong with her, apart from the small fact that her mind is gone. She thinks she’s a god. ”
The Raider glared at her. “There must be something else wrong. She is fevered and refuses to eat. When we force her, it comes back up. She wastes away before our eyes, but you can’t find anything wrong? ” His hand darted out, seizing Gwyn painfully by the neck. Her hands shot up, scrabbling ineffectually at his fist. His grip was just tight enough to cause her pain and make it hard to breathe, but it wasn’t tight enough to block off her airway altogether.
He knows what he’s doing, she thought dimly. He’s done this before.
He also hadn’t stopped ranting. “How stupid do you think we are? What do you think is going to happen now? Do you think we’ll just swallow something so ridiculous and let you go on your way? ”
She tried futilely to shake her head, unable to speak.
“Clearly you need some inspiration. ” He released her throat with one hand as he clamped the other around her arm. She winced. The slashes on her arms were already scabbed over, but the injuries were still very much present. “Come with me, and don’t even think of trying anything. You’ll never make it out of here alive. ”
Gwyn nodded quickly, trying to remember how to swallow as he marched her from the cottage. He took her through the settlement to another of the charred buildings on its outskirts, black-garbed men scattering like sheep as they strode past.
There were already two Raiders there, and they drew blades the moment they saw her, their eyes bright with suspicion.
“She says she can’t find anything wrong,” the one holding her said.
Then he shoved her toward a table in the middle of the room while one of the others cleared its surface with one arm, knocking the bits of food and pottery onto the floor. She felt something jab her back, likely a knife of some kind, and she took another reluctant step forward. One of the men gestured toward the cleared table.
“Lie down, my girl, and let’s have a chat,” he said. He showed teeth, and she supposed he was smiling.
Gwyn considered the table, the size of the men, her odds of escaping the room, then her odds of escaping the settlement even if she used her magic efficiently enough to make it out of the room.
She laid down on the table.
“A shame you couldn’t be this helpful a few minutes ago,” the Raider who had escorted her said, clucking his tongue.
One of them bound her hands with rope, lashing them to the table legs. She laid unresisting, sweat trickling down her neck, her heart pounding. A sudden surge of terror made her want to lash out blindly with her anima and the gatekeeper take the consequences, but she tamped it back down, trying desperately to remember how to breathe.
She stared at the ceiling as they started cutting, clenching her teeth in an effort not to cry out. She cast about desperately for something else to think about, for somewhere else for her mind to go, but somehow she could only think of Dominic, still in the woods outside Mariph.
He was probably wondering where she was by now, and he was probably scared, even though she was sure he would not let it show. She thought of what the woman on the pallet had said about him and wondered if it were true, in spite of the woman’s obvious illness. Even after all I’ve done, could I have a heart again, that I could give to someone else? I don’t know. I don’t know that he’d take it even if it were true. It’s not my heart he wants.
But gods, he was beautiful. She found herself thinking of the shape of his eyes, the fullness of his lips. Before she could think better of it, she was remembering his mouth against her neck and the cold shivers it had sent through her, chased by heat. She’d checked her shield, certain that it must have dropped a moment, but it hadn’t.
Those had been her feelings.
She pushed that thought away only for the awareness of pain to come flooding back in its place, and that, too, called him to mind. Is this as bad as what he feels? Is what he feels worse than this? Will he die like this, like me, in pain? All I wanted to do was free him to do what he wanted, to be with who he wanted, if anyone. Was that heartless? Was it selfish? Was I just afraid of it being me? I am afraid...I’ve always been afraid.
The ceiling blurred. She became vaguely aware of voices speaking urgently, the Raiders expressing their confusion over her minimal response to their efforts, their efforts pausing. Was it because she was a necromancer, they wondered? Was she somehow immune to pain, to injury? What could they do to compel her to do what they wanted? She really was very pretty, even with all the blood...maybe something else would suit them all much better...
Then one of them started screaming.
