I had felt washed clean in Aeginea—the gards a sign of renewed purpose, a hint of a joy that I had not believed existed in this life. No more of that! I had proved myself an animal, a damnable, brutish thug who had so pompously called judgment on men who corrupted children. What had come over me?
Someone new arrived, cursing under his breath, his malevolence hammering at me.
“Get her up,” the priestess commanded. “Carefully, Jakome! Do not drop her on the stair. Stay abed and still until I come to you, child.”
Feet shuffled and scrambled. “Kasiya Gehoum, mistress. Sanguiera, orongia, vazte, kevrana.” Bleed, suffer, die, purify. Malena’s cheerful invocation of blood and suffering only worsened my confusion. Your chosen mate…not chosen by Arrosa, but by Sila Diaglou. They had used the girl—a willing girl. And used my cursed weakness for pleasuring, for wine…
“Did I not tell you that his appetites would be his leash?” said the monk, as if in echo of my self-condemnation. The syllables grated on my ear like steel on glass. “A little wine, a fair young body…and so much easier than reasoning with him or putting him to the question. He will be everything you wish. Pliable. Controllable. One taste of decadent pain and pleasure, and he is yours.”
How did the priestess bear his patronizing manner? How had I ever mistaken it for brotherly mentoring and friendship?
A finger began tracing the patterns on my back. The priestess’s, I knew, from the heat. At least her touch did not sap my wits this time, as I had so little remaining. Her exploration, though not purposefully brutal, did not avoid the lacerations that dribbled warm blood down my flanks. That I flinched each time she encountered one did not deter her. The blade had been no lust-fueled imagining. They must have hidden it beneath the palliasse.
“What does it mean that he displays Danae markings, Gildas? You said he did not know what he was.”
“It would appear he’s found out. We can ask him, as soon as he recovers enough to speak, but I would not count any report he gives as reliable. Not yet. He has no fond feelings for either of us, and you’ve heard his history of lies.”
Recovers… Like a sleeping lion, mortal dread raised its head and set me screaming inside. Wake up, fool. Wake up. But I had smelled the wine, sampled a drop before drinking. And porridge could not mask poison.
“We must ask the old one what the marks signify and what powers they give him.”
Unnamed panic threatened logic. How was it possible they knew of my mixed birth? And what old one could they ask? Not Stearc or Osriel. The image of Picus flew through my head, but he had no intercourse with Navronne. Why could I not lift my head and ask them?
This leaden indolence, this sodden paralysis that left me near incapable of reason…I had not felt the like since the morning Luviar died, the last time Gildas and I had spoken, when I yet believed him my friend…
And then as words and events settled like a silken shroud, giving shape to those things beneath, the simple truth came clear. Fear robbed me of breath. Pain and pleasure…Gildas knew all my vices.
Of course, I’d not smelled nivat in the wine. The heat of enchantment burned away the scent of blood-spelled nivat. They had laced the wine with doulon paste. Never had that possibility crossed my mind. Gildas was no sorcerer; he would need my blood. And now, too late, I remembered Jakome’s knife and his smirk as he had slashed my hand. I had been lost the moment the first droplet of tainted wine had touched my tongue. Saverian had warned me. A fool should know what his stupidity has cost him.
Sila Diaglou knelt on the floor beside me. Her breath smelled of anise, and her hand stroked my hair and the back of my neck as if I were a favored hound. I would have given an arm not to shiver at her touch. I would have given both legs to believe they had not infected me with my old sin.
The woman gently blotted the blood dribbling down my back, and in a flutter of panic, I wondered if she licked it from her fingers. “They truly find pleasure in the wounding…during the carnal act? I’d never heard that. It seems depraved.”
“Dear Sila, in these few matters…especially in regard to the male response…how could you know…how could even the old one know? The journals of Picus recount the Danae male’s need for pain during copulation.”
For one brief instant, the world grew quiet, as if I had closed off my senses to heed a stone’s cry. Gildas lied. Saverian had told me the journals did not speak of nivat. And in this lie did I sound a gulf between the monk and the priestess. Great Iero, mighty Kemen, give me strength and wit to fill that gap with liquid fire and shatter their unholy collaboration!
“Your plan is sound, mistress. The pureblood stranglehold will be broken. The long-lived will infuse your people with strength and endurance beyond human understanding. Navronne will be brought to its knees, groveling before the Gehoum for generation upon generation.” His passion sounded convincing…except to one who had heard this same passion for the lighthouse and its learning, for friendship and holy brotherhood.
“I must see to Malena,” said the priestess, rising from my side. “That we could have a catch at first mating is presumptuous, but failure shall not be accounted to any lack of diligence on my part.”
Infuse your people…a catch? They wanted me to breed a child on the girl…Harrowers and Danae and Aurellian sorcery. My spinning head came near flying off.
Gildas chuckled. “I yield to the students of Arrosa’s temple. We were not taught of such women’s matters at Gillarine. I’ll put this one to bed. I doubt my old friend will be lucid before morning. To get him drunk loosed his true nature.”
“Bring him to me as soon as he wakes tomorrow. As yet we’ve had no response from Prince Osriel on our offer to trade these useless prisoners for the monk. The Bastard is the last obstacle on our road. If Magnus can unlock his plots and mysteries, our war is won.”
“As you command, priestess. A peaceful night to you.”
“And you, Gildas. Well done.”
Osriel the Bastard…the King of Navronne. The lord’s secretary who lay ill in their dungeon. They didn’t know! This reminder of my purpose gave me an anchor. They must not find out.
The door opened and closed. Someone set the lock. The wind howled and swirled, rattling the loose bars. In the lulls, I heard Gildas’s breathing as he waited, and I smelled the taint of nivat on him. Had I thought it would do any good, I would have stuck a finger down my throat to purge the poison I had downed so blithely. Naught could purge the evil if I had planted a part-Danae child in Sila Diaglou’s hands this night.
“So, friend Valen, do you appreciate your lovely open chamber? What captive in all Navronne has a cell so suited to his nature? You can thank me for that. I’ll confess I did not at all expect to see you marked, but then, Stearc and his tidy Gram were always parsimonious with details from old Picus’s journals. Did the Bastard whip these sigils out of you, or is it something like a boy’s night spew that comes upon one like you at the proper time and season? And you ran away from Osriel—no surprise that—but to your family? That is perhaps the most difficult of all these manifold mysteries to comprehend.” Gildas’s questions were like a sea creature’s tentacles, touching me lightly on every side, exploring, distracting, any one of them capable of stinging me to death.
“So am I to be kept here like a stallion until I breed true?” I said, summoning control enough to lift my head. Gildas sat across the chamber, his feet propped on the clothes chest. The faint azure glow from my gards, our only illumination, kept him a dark outline.
“I suspected you were more wakeful than you showed,” he said, white teeth gleaming. “It saves me a deal of explaining. And the answer is yes, at least until the balance of power shifts on the winter solstice. The lady thinks to create a new world, where the boundaries between purebloods, ordinaries, Ardran, Moriangi, and even your dancing kinsmen are erased. You are to be—excuse the crude expression—the seed and root of that new world. Half pureblood sorcerer, half Danae. My reports of you had already intrigued her, but when I informed her of your unique bloodlines she came near rapture. We have no evidence of another Danae–pureblood mating in the history of the world.”