Fever Dream

The flies were the worst. Rot and midden fouled Vic’s nose. Wet heat cloyed her lungs. Her head ached as badly as ever, and fiery spasms shattered any attempt to move her left arm. A metal hinge—Shrine, metal!—bit into her right wrist, chaining it to the wall above. But the flies buzzed into her ears, licked the rims of her eyes, dug at the corners of her mouth. Whenever she roused herself to shake them off, the motion wrung her stomach.

Slithering footsteps pried her eyes open. Passing through shafts of green-tinged light, a filthy woman descended a rough stone ramp. Using the Woern, she nudged Vic away from the wall and examined her ravaged shoulder.

“Where am I?” Vic asked, blowing at a fly.

The woman cringed, and wide eyes shot to a cane grate overhead. “I’m sorry they hurt you, sister.”

No breeze stirred the air, but the woman’s hair writhed like red snakes over bare breasts. The throbbing in Vic’s temples shifted in time with the twisting hair. Shutting her eyes to the seething, sickening motion, she could still sense it. “Where am I?” she asked again.

“The People brought you to me, as a gift.”

Recognition squeezed through the flies and pain and stench. She had dreamed of this place years ago in Fembrosh, and the Kragnashians had told her she was the One—the savior who had freed them from Meylnara the Oppressor. But Meylnara had lived a thousand years in the past. Incredulity wedged past pain. How could she have traveled through time?

“Eat,” the woman said, motioning to a Kragnashian bearing a bowl of blue gel. It tipped the rim against Vic’s lips. A few sips drained the pain from her head, but her roiling stomach balked and she turned away. Gently pushing her forward, the creature nipped one of its filamentous legs and slathered her shoulder in grass-scented blood, easing the burning agony. Meylnara urged her to rest, and they left.

Savoring the respite, Vic took deep, slow breaths. The People brought you to me as a gift. She had been Lornk’s treasured slave. She would not be Meylnara’s. She reached for the Woern, and a fiery bolt stabbed behind her eye. Bile, acid, and blue gel erupted, splattering skin and stone. Whimpering, she hung from the manacled arm. Ashel’s smile flashed in her mind like a beacon, and a lump closed her throat. She’d finally turned toward love and life, and now the Kragnashians had spun her about and shoved her back down a path toward hate and death.

Hours dragged through noxious agony and mourning. Night melted into the dungeon, and Meylnara returned, a faintly luminous ball floating behind her, casting more shadows than light. Vic gathered her legs under her, enduring the breath-splitting tendrils shooting from her shoulder. “Why don’t you kill me?”

“You are a vessel for my future.”

“What does that mean?”

“You are a vessel, to bear the child I cannot. The Council denies me. They denied my mother. I defy them!” The glowing ball bounced, jerking shadows as Meylnara mixed human words with grunts and clicks. Without mindspeech, Vic wouldn’t have understood her. “I will have a wizard’s child,” Meylnara continued, “but I will not soil myself with a drudge.”

“You should have kidnapped a wizard with a cock if you want help with that.”

The woman inched closer. Flinching, she pressed her palm to Vic’s belly. “Don’t you feel it?”

Vic’s heart lurched as she recalled the soft, fragile warmth of Maynon and Silla’s child. “Feel what?”

“My mother took refuge with the People so I would be safe. But she went back to them. They’ll kill you like they killed her, unless you stay.”

“Feel what?” Vic repeated. There had been that jolt through her womb the night she and Ashel married.

“Save your child as my mother saved me. I will love it as my own.”

Energy flooded her nerves, and the manacle snapped open. Pain lanced her brain and shoulder, but fury overrode it. Meylnara shrank away. Vic chased her to the opposite wall. “Is the Council in Direiellene?”

Eyes wide, Meylnara nodded.

“Send me home. I won’t hurt you if you send me home.”

“But they’ll kill your child!” Meylnara’s back struck the opposite wall.

“I have no child!” Vic seized the other woman’s throat, and fire surged through her hands and up her arms.

“It’s mine!” Meylnara cried as Vic fell back, her fingers cramped into claws, a sizzle clinging to her bones. Above, the grating slapped back. Heavy shadows swarmed down. Shaking the sting out of her hands, she shot upward, but a blue rope of energy lassoed her waist and hauled her back. Kragnashian legs wrapped round her neck and face. Her teeth tore into spiked filaments, and slick green blood oozed into her mouth, choking her with springtime sweetness.

* * *

Sprawled atop a fibrous mound, she blinked awake. It was utterly dark. Sweat crawled through her hair. Shit and piss jabbed her nostrils; the fetid air swept over a parched throat. Groaning, she tried to rise. The nest material swallowed her elbows; pain scorched her shoulder and hammered her head, and she flopped back to her belly, limp as a ragdoll. She had felt like a clockwork doll when she had been in Lornk’s thrall—a thing wholly his, whose very breath and heartbeat he controlled. In a pique of irony, he had called her Kara, naming his powerless slave after history’s most powerful wizard. A bitter chortle slipped out. She was Meylnara’s doll now, and just as powerless.

A swish brought a spill of light and a Kragnashian. Working with mandibles and multitudes of prehensile legs, the creature rapidly stripped off her garments and washed her, dressed her wound, and placed her on a clean nest that molded round her. Supporting her head, the Kragnashian inserted a tube between her teeth. Gelatin slid past her protests, easing her thirst, and she gulped hungrily. Pain melted into darkness, and she dreamed.

* * *

Rosen blossoms fold into the scent of his ardor. She clutches his shoulders, her hair sweeping his chest as he draws her hips toward his. Her ears strain for footsteps, but he hums, the sound passing from his throat into hers.

Spent, he settles her next to him. The grass yields to them, prickly and soft.

“We should go,” he mumbles into her hair.

She nuzzles his throat. “Audience is soon. We should go.”

Ashel squeezes her shoulder, his right hand so strong, the calluses on his fingertips rough against her skin. Kissing her hair, he pulls his shirt over his head.

Sighing, Kara tucks sheer silk under the metal belt soldered round her waist. The belt used to pinch, but she’s used to it after so many years.

Stamping his feet into his boots, he smiles at her. “You’ve got grass in your hair.”

Blushing, she runs her fingers through it. “You look perfect.”

His smile deepens. “Ever my aim.”

* * *

Kara kneels at the edge of the dais as supplicants stream into the throne room: merchants, miners, minstrels, and weavers. Tradespeople and tinkers. A crew of Caleisbahnin, greedy eyes assessing everything. One smirks at her, stroking his mustaches.

The inner doors bang open, and the king and queen enter. Head bowed, Elekia walks stiffly, her hands clasped, her eyes hateful as they fall on Kara. Lornk flops onto his throne. Kara’s muscles clench round her spine—she knows that tight smile all too well. Her breath catches, and she blinks fast to dam welling tears.

The crown prince saunters in and levies a smirk at the minstrels. His humor melts Kara’s worries. If his father knew of their affair, Ashel wouldn’t be so jovial.

“Citizens.” Lornk nods to the courtiers who take their seats at the back of the room. “Guilders, seamen, before we hear your pleas, we must attend to some household business. Kara.”

Her name is a hot poker between her shoulder blades. The courtiers stare, eyes wide. Ashel’s beautiful smile twists into a sneer.

Holding her face still, she kneels at Lornk’s feet. His hand rests gently on her hair. A silent moan clogs her throat as she struggles to keep her breathing even.

“You have stolen from me.”

She was Lornk’s distraction, his plaything, a possession to be displayed but never used by anyone else. It would do no good to lie. “Yes, my lord.”

“And given to my son.” Quiet rage soils the air.

She nods. “Yes, my lord.”

His fingers tighten like a vise on her skull. A whimper escapes her throat. She waits for Ashel to stand and claim her, but she hears nothing but murmurs from the Audience. Behind the throne, two giant forms shimmer into being. Gasping, courtiers fall back, but Lornk drags her in front of the creatures. “Master, I ask of you a great favor.” He bows, remaining bent until the antennae touch him on the shoulder.

* * *

Spray whispers past her face, drawing her skin into little bumps. Waves crash, a steady white sound with lumps of darker colors. Behind her, forest rises toward the sky, but the shade never reaches her. The sun melts into the sand, and she shivers as the breeze scrapes across skin burnt red as coal. Her wrists and ankles glued to stakes, her fingers and toes are numb. Her throat is dry as this bed of sand.

Ashel will come for her. Her eyes ache for sight of him. He’ll come with cool hands that will wash away pain. He’ll come.

She waits. The sun burns red through closed eyelids. He’ll come.

Others lie staked to the beach to dry. Flesh for the masters. She shuts her eyes against the horror. She believes she’s the only one still alive. He must come.

Sea spray stings her blisters. Sand grinds into her sores. Her ears hurt, listening for his footfalls. She dozes, wakes, dozes again, hope shrinking. Her tongue laps dry lips. Iron dribbles down her throat. He must come.

Burning pain shivers down her spine. Worse is the waiting.