As the dark gates of Glothras slowly creaked wide at her approach, a chill of premonition slithered up Lysienthe’s spine. Her heart raced. Why am I here? she wondered. My husband resides not in the Land of the Dead. I have found him. We met on the Plain of Dreams. I saw him!
Can it be that I have crossed over?
The thought struck her with the force of a blow. Fear gave her pause. Far too much remained to be done among the living. Too much to live for—Wolthar, her children, her people…. She promised her husband she would wait. She had to be there for him upon his return.
Lysienthe resisted the urge to step forward, but despite her misgivings and hesitation, she moved ahead, as if with a will not her own.
The light—pale, slanting beams—illuminated the antechamber from high above, a murky, foreboding room, large with a ceiling so lofty it seemed to reach into the heavens. All around her, disembodied voices swirled in a chaos of babble. Newly arrived souls clinging in vain to a semblance of their former shapes, humanlike with edges vacillating, expanding and contracting. Some appeared to be waiting…for loved ones perhaps, or for Nirmanath to choose for them another body, another life. Amorphous shades hovered, glided, diaphanous shimmering in the ethereal light, passing through and becoming one with it. Sounds of wailing, buzzing, sobbing….
“Wake up!” A woman’s voice, no more than the trace of a sound, filtered through the confusion surrounding her. She felt the tickle of breath against her ear, rustling her hair, but she could not shake the illusion. For it was not an illusion.
She was dead.
“My queen, open your eyes!”
Inid.
“You must wake up now.” Her woman spoke from the material realm, her voice gaining in urgency. How did her voice penetrate the boundary between worlds?
She struggled to will herself back. Using what powers remained to her, she concentrated her efforts to reunite body with spirit.
With a feeble gasp, the queen opened her eyes and found herself in her bed, Inid seated in the chair by her side. Braziers cast an eerie glow over the room. Night. Night yet reigned. It was not yet morning. Where was the sixes? There was no sign of the candle.
“How long…?” She barely managed to force out the words. Her mouth was dry and foul tasting. Her head and body ached. The room spun when she attempted to raise her head.
“Hush, my lady.” Inid gently restrained her and eased her back onto the pillows. “There now. Lie still.” She sat back in her chair, a worried look darkening her face. “When you didn’t awake, I feared you were lost.”
Lysienthe glanced down the length of the covers, where her empty hands lay crossed over her abdomen. “The candle…?”
In the blush of glowing coals, Inid’s anxious bearing took on an air of agitation. “That was two nights ago.” The other woman bent once more over the bed and smoothed the blankets up to Lysienthe’s neck, her hand lingering on the queen’s cheek. The hand was cool against her fevered face. “You were gone longer than was good for you. The sixes burned out. There was hardly a sign of breath in you. Until this morning your color was of wax.”
Then it was no dream…or was it?
“I was frightened, my queen. I didn’t know what to do.” She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at the window, through which a blush of color had begun to ease the darkness in the sky.
“I saw him, Inid. He lives…. Wolthar—” She cut her words short as she followed Inid’s eyes with her gaze. Then she swallowed hard when a man rose from the window seat in the shadows and leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. He chuckled softly, as if to himself.
Wringing her hands, Inid moaned, her face twisted with distress.
Othreld stepped from the shadows and towered over Inid, who cringed in her seat at the bedside.
Lysienthe let out a gasp of horror and closed her eyes. Surely the effects of the dream had not released its hold on her. But upon gazing once again on her husband’s treacherous brother, the knowledge that he was real sent her stomach churning. With jaw clenched, she summoned her most commanding tone. “How dare you enter my room unbidden!”
Inid dropped from the chair to her knees. “Forgive me, my queen! I had no choice.”
“How much does he know? What did you tell him?”
Her hands to her face, Inid sobbed.
“Not nearly enough.” Othreld smiled his smug smile, the left side of his face twitching.
“I…I…told him only that—”
“Only that which confirmed my suspicions about you, my lady.”
“And what would that be?” Lysienthe propped herself against the bolsters, her head pounding with pain, heart racing.
“That you…” Othreld narrowed his dark, squinty eyes. “…and you…” He indicated Inid, who fixed on her queen’s face with a pleading, mortified expression, “…are both a danger to the throne…witches that need to be dealt with.”
Lysienthe threw back her head and laughed. She laughed so hard, it hurt, until she broke off coughing. “And you,” she managed through the tears running down her cheeks and the shortness of breath, “are a slimy, two-faced worm that needs to be put in your place.”
“I trust you would be the one to do it, too…with your tricks and illusions and your silly candles.” Othreld’s smile blossomed across his thin-lipped mouth, although his eyes smoldered with menace.
She swallowed hard and wiped away the tears before leveling on him a withering look. “Do not tempt me.”
“Far be it for me to entertain such ignoble thoughts…unless…” He strode to the door and called to the guard on the other side. The man appeared at once. “That one…” He pointed at Inid. “Take her away. Put her with the others.”
The tall blond Nortlunder bowed his head stiffly and strode across the room.
Instinctively, Lysienthe grasped Inid’s hand. “What are you going to do with her?”
“Get up and come with me,” the man said with a snarl.
“My lady…?” Inid sought the protection of Lysienthe’s arms.
The queen held tight, her pulses and her mind running at heightened speed, her head spinning, strength ebbing, as she glared fiercely at Othreld. “What do you want with her?”
“Come along!”
“My lady don’t let him—”
The guard wrenched Inid from Lysienthe’s embrace and dragged her to her feet. “Move, Lothrian bitch or I’ll—!”
“That won’t be necessary, Tharvild,” Othreld snapped. “She will go quietly. Won’t she?”
Twisting and trembling in the guard’s grasp, Inid groped for Lysienthe’s hands. “Please, my queen. Don’t let them—”
“Your queen has no say in this matter!”
Neither had she the strength to fight when Tharvild pushed the sobbing Inid toward the open door. “Where are you taking her? Leave her alone. She’s done nothing.”
Othreld ignored her pleas. He seemed to take delight in Tharvild propelling Inid out of the room before turning back to Lysienthe when the door clicked shut. He stroked his ruddy, neatly trimmed beard. Lysienthe felt the remaining strength within her begin to ebb as she settled farther down on the bolsters, her eyes locked with Othreld’s. He stepped closer. “Now it is just the two of us, Lysienthe…exactly as I imagined it would be.”
* * *
Lysienthe’s face burned with fever. She was ill, weak beyond imagining. During that last nar rhanthil, she stretched herself past her experience. As it had been at least twenty-five years since she last attempted the “candle wander”—let alone leave her body for the full six hours—she could never have imagined how debilitating such an undertaking would prove to be.
Now she regretted her actions—her selfish need. Yes, she had found Wolthar. She had been with her husband on the Plain of Dreams, if only for a few moments. She had gazed upon her love, even if they could not touch, even if she could not hold him to her, feel him close. He lived, and the knowledge of that was more than enough to satisfy her. She had reminded him of the charm she’d placed around his neck, the vial of potion concocted of precious herbs and her bitter-sweet tears. Now she chastised herself.
The power of the sixes would have been better served had she used it for a higher good. Only Nirmanath knew if she’d have the chance again.
The sound of the door closing behind Inid and Tharvild had yet to fade into the tenuous stillness before Othreld dropped into the chair at her bedside and leaned over her.
“I’m so sorry it had to be like this, Lysie.” His check twitched once. “But you were not very cooperative. You had your chances.”
She glared at him with all the rancor she could summon. “May Nirmanath…or whatever gods you pray to…strike you dead.” She spat at him.
With his fingertips, he mopped the spittle from his face with the self-control of a man without a conscience, then he dried his hand on the sleeve of his tunic. “That was most unbecoming of you, Lysienthe. I would have thought you to be a woman of more refinement.”
She turned away to the wall, her weakness depriving her of the desire to challenge him further.
“Oh come now!” He jostled her shoulder, and then settled his hand on her back. “We know each other by now, after all these years. You know all too well what compels me to carry out the Imperon’s wishes…against my better judgement…and I know what drives to you seek solace in your silly magic.”
Breath came to her in staggered measures as she willed her racing heart to be still.
“I apologize about your woman…what is her name? But I promise you will have a suitable attendant to replace her.”
“What have you done with my people?”
“Ah…I was wondering when you were going to get around to ask me about that.”
All were gone, mysteriously vanished one by one, replaced by Nortlunde supporters of the Imperon. They had come in ships, a few at a time in the days following Wolthar’s departure. Now they arrived in waves. First her captain of the Queen’s Guard was arrested, accused of treason, some said, followed by the seizure of the rest of her protectors. Without the crossing of a sword, without a voice raised in protest. All gone without a trace. Nightly, as she was forced to preside over Othreld’s elaborate suppers in her husband’s hall, she could not help noting the unfamiliar faces, the foreign-sounding voices, where only the previous day, inhabiting the selfsame seats, old friends and local merchants, high lords and their ladies had sat. Her own attendants—even young Ildrid, Elthwen’s servant—likewise, had disappeared. And now, her beloved Inid, her devoted companion, the friend from earliest childhood, was taken from her.
She was alone in her own house among strangers. With no one left in whom she could trust.
“What have you done with them?” She shrugged his hand from her back. If only she had the strength to probe his mind.
From the creaking of the chair, she sensed he had sat back. “Look at me, Lysienthe. I want to make certain you understand.”
With a moan, she forced herself to turn.
He gazed at her for a long moment, and then he sighed, his slender body slumping in the chair. “You are a most beautiful woman,” he said, his face easing into an undecipherable expression. “Such a pity it was my brother whose heart you beguiled.”
Even if she could have, she chose not to respond. The very sight of him repulsed her, raised the hairs along her arms and the back of her neck.
“I don’t believe you’ve been privy to the news.” He leaned forward, hands dangling between his knees. “So I will inform you of the latest developments.” His dark eyes narrow, he cocked his head. “I received word on this morning’s tide. It seems our Imperon has chosen to grace us with his presence.” His left cheek ticked three times in rapid succession. “I’m sure you can imagine the demands this dispatch has placed upon me.”
He bent farther forward, his face inches from hers. His breath had a sour smell, of wine and poorly digested food. Her head swam amid pounding pain and rising nausea.
“Not that his visit has been spurred by bad tidings…. On the contrary.” He sat up straight, his demeanor revitalized. “Oton is a very happy man. The thorn in his side has been removed. Wolthar is gone, dead or alive it no longer matters. The Imperon has what he wants. Your husband will never again rule over East Lothria…or Ishlonna, for that matter. In addition, Nortlunde’s supply of galoriron will soon be replenished. There will be no stopping Oton’s armies once they are equipped with weapons made of the ore. And he has agreed to favor me with a generous reward for my part in this undertaking.”
Othreld’s hooded eyes softened as he raked his gaze over her face. “Therein lies my dilemma.”
Shivering, she raised herself up on the bolsters. “Why should I care about your dilemma?”
A smile broke the tension on his face. “Ah, but you should, Lysie, for it is your dilemma, as well. You see, the Imperon is a lover of drama and spectacle, life and death depictions complete with all the requisite blood and gore.” He sat back and crossed his legs, hands entwined in his lap. “I do not share his preferences, I’m glad to say. My ideal entertainment is far less…” He waved a hand in the air. “…excessive. I’m a simple man with simple needs.”
Despite the queasiness rising inside her, she shot him a look of fire. “Get to the point, Othreld. You tire me with your words.”
“Ah yes, you’ve been feeling unwell since your witch’s journey.”
She started, muscles contracting, sending a cold shiver over her body.
“Your woman told me what I needed to know. What Oton has suspected all along. That you enchanted my brother, poisoned his mind against his sovereign and his Nortlunde heritage.” He grasped her chin, forcing her to face him. “The Imperon would have you eviscerated and roasted alive, Lysienthe…before a large crowd of his gaping, gawking lackeys, all intoxicated with blood lust. But only after you have witnessed your entire retinue put to death one by one in equally excruciating ways. It will be ugly, I can assure you. Your kind and lovely women, your champions and protectors, your fine and noble neighbors, torn apart limb from limb…all to satisfy his debauchery. Imagine the clamor of the spectators as your people writhe in pain. Imagine their screams of agony.”
He pulled her close and spoke slowly. “Imagine their entreating eyes on you as they suffer a tortured and protracted death.”
Chest heaving, she gasped for air, resisting his hold on her, fighting the trembling that threatened to seize her, and the sick rising inside.
“Only I can offer you safekeeping.” His voice was pleading. Perhaps he cared just a little…in his cold and treacherous heart. “I can stand between your death and Oton. As I have said, he owes me favors.”
She ceased her struggle and slapped his hand away. Then she stared long and hard into his eyes, composing herself with one deep breath. “Whatever you offer me, Othreld,” she said through her teeth, “I doubt I could accept it…and live with myself.”
With a smirk and a twitch, he returned her hardened stare. Then he rose. “Think on it, Lysie. I’m sure we have much to discuss. My door will be open. Just inform the guard.”
After he was gone and the door clicked closed behind him, the queen dragged herself on hands and knees from her bed and retched into the chamber pot. Weak and shaken, she lay on the floor until uneasy sleep took her.