She couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t the first time a young Qirsi man had been taken with her. “Thank you. Still, I think it’s time we were going.”
“I guess I should as well.” He flashed another grin. “I have to get my sleep at night.” He started back toward the ill man’s chamber, then stopped himself. “If you see any others heading this way, tell them about the pox. I don’t want anyone walking the corridor who doesn’t have to be here.”
“I will.”
He nodded before turning again and walking back to the sick man’s chamber.
It wasn’t until after Nurle had left her that Cresenne realized she was trembling, her heart pounding. She tried to laugh at her foolishness, but abruptly found that tears were coursing down her cheeks.
“Damn him!” Not Nurle, of course, but the Weaver. There had been a time when Cresenne thought herself fearless, when she had been content to wander the land on her own as a member of the festivals. In the wake of the Weaver’s attack, she feared for her life every day, though she never ventured beyond the walls of the strongest fortress in the northern Forelands. Even now, knowing that she had been wrong to distrust the healer, she could not resist the urge to hurry back to her chamber. She tried to tell herself that she did so to feed Bryntelle in privacy, but she knew better, having nursed the child in the courtyards, as well as in empty galleries and corridors. Still, only when she had reached her bedchamber, closed the door, and pushed the bolt home did she feel herself beginning to grow calm again. Soon, she was sitting by the lone, narrow window in her chamber, listening to the rain as Bryntelle suckled at her breast. But just remembering that instant when she first saw Nurle in the corridor was enough to send a shudder through her body.
“I miss your father, little one,” she said, her eyes misting.
She passed the rest of the night singing to her daughter within the confines of the tiny room. Only when the sky finally began to brighten to a pale silver grey, did she venture out once more, descending the nearest of the tower stairways to the kitchen, where she ate a small supper. Then she returned to the chamber, locked the door again, and sang Bryntelle to sleep. Reluctantly, Cresenne lay down beside the child, knowing she needed to sleep, but fearing even this. After only a few moments, she rose once more to check the bolt on her door. Satisfied that it was secure she crossed back to her bed and eventually fell asleep.
She found herself on a sunlit plain, grasses dancing in a soft wind that carried a hint of brine.
Grinsa! she had time to think, turning to look for him.
At first she didn’t recognize the man who loomed before her so suddenly, wrapping a powerful hand around her throat and lifting her off the ground. Bright golden eyes, hair like a lion’s mane, a square, chiseled face. But as soon as he spoke, she knew, hearing her doom in the powerful voice.
“You thought you could escape me!” His eyes were wide, his lips pulled back in a feral grin. “You thought that I wouldn’t find you if you slept away the last of your days. You’re a fool, and so is Grinsa.”
She clawed at his hand, fighting for breath. But his fingers were like steel. In a distant corner of her mind, she marveled that he would let her see his face and this plain. He has nothing to fear from you anymore. He has no reason to hide himself.
“I want you to beg me for your life.”
She merely stared at him, unable to speak, and unwilling.
He balled his free hand into a fist and hammered it into her cheek. “Beg me!”
Her vision swam, tears stinging her eyes as the pain reached her.
“You think you’re brave. You’re not. I smell your fear; you stink of it.”
He hit her again, and a third time. Pain exploded in her mind, white and hot and merciless. She felt blood on her cheek, but couldn’t bring herself to reach up a hand. Her lungs burned for air and her throat ached.
Oh, Grinsa. .
“He can’t help you. He’s leagues away, riding to a war he can’t win.” He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you find that strange? He claims to love you and that child of yours. Certainly he’s the only one who can protect you. Yet when you need him most, he’s off with his Eandi friends. How very sad.”
She was kicking her feet, her eyes feeling as if they might burst from her skull at any moment. Consciousness began to slip away, and Cresenne welcomed the darkness as she would rest after an overlong journey.
“No,” the Weaver said, the word seeming to come from a great distance. “I won’t let you die yet. Your love can’t stop me-I can do with you what I like.”
He released her, allowing her to tumble to the ground. Cresenne curled herself into a ball, sobbing and gasping for breath. What was it Grinsa and Keziah had told her?
“I once thought to make you my queen.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Now look at you, the whore of another Qirsi, mother of his bastard child.”
“She’s not a bastard,” Cresenne said, her chest still heaving for lack of air, her words coming out as no more than a whisper. “And I’m no whore.”
“Aren’t you? You took to his bed because I paid you gold to do so. And then you betrayed me-you betrayed this movement-just to save yourself and your child. If you’re not a whore, then I don’t know who is.”
The Weaver was standing over her, and now he reached down, grabbed her shift, and tore it with one violent motion, so that she lay naked beneath him. He dropped down on top of her, grabbing her breasts viciously and squeezing them until she cried out in pain. Then he forced his knee between her legs. Panic took hold of her and she fought him as best she could, slapping and clawing at his face, clenching her thighs together. He struck her twice, even harder than he had before, leaving her addled and weeping. He forced her legs wide and though she tried to resist, there was nothing she could do. An instant later he plunged into her, tearing her flesh, ripping a scream from her lips.
Again she fought him, but he had a hand on her throat again, and with the other grabbed a handful of her hair. She tried to summon her magic, but she couldn’t. It almost seemed that she had lost all her power. She closed her eyes tight and turned her face away, choking back a sob, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing her cry. She tried to send her mind away, to think of Bryntelle, of Grinsa, of anything but what he was doing to her. But she couldn’t escape the pain, or his hot breath on her neck, or his animal grunts as he drove into her again and again.
After an eternity, marked by the awful rhythm of his movements and the sharp repetition of agony, he finally climaxed with one last racking thrust. He rested for a moment, his full weight bearing down on her, his breath heavy.
“There,” he whispered, as if a lover. “Now you’re my whore as well.”
She turned at that, looking up at his face. And she spat.
The Weaver recoiled, pulling out of her roughly, spittle dripping down his cheek. Seeing him back away emboldened her. Eager now to hurt him, she tried once more to reach for her fire magic. But almost before she could form the thought, he was on her once more, one hand around her neck yet again, and the other, alive with white flame, searing the flesh on her face.
“You’ll pay dearly for that!”
Cresenne howled, trying to pull away. But even as she did, a thought came to her, a memory. He uses your magic against you. That’s what Grinsa had told her, so long ago it might have been another lifetime. Is that what the Weaver had just done? She had thought to summon fire magic, but he did it instead. Then another thought. He let himself be seen, he brought sunlight to this plain not because he knew he had nothing to fear, but because he didn ‘t want me to know right off that it was him. He was afraid I would resist.
The Weaver held the flaming hand to her face again. But rather than fight to break free of him, she reached for her power. Her power. And this time she found it. The flame sputtered suddenly, then went out.