“I’m asking because the only way to send such a message is through me, Lady.”
I paused then, unpleasantly surprised. But it made sense as I considered it. I had no idea how messaging crystals worked in detail, but like any sigil-based magic their function simply mimicked what any competent scrivener could do.
But I did not like Viraine, for reasons I could not fully understand myself. I had seen the bitterness in his eyes, heard the contempt in his voice on those occasions that he spoke of Dekarta or the other highbloods. Like the Enefadeh, he was a weapon and probably just as much a slave. Yet there was something about him that simply made me uneasy. I suspected it was that he seemed to have no loyalties; he was on no one’s side except his own. That meant he could be relied upon to keep my secrets, if I made it worth his while. But what if there was more benefit for him in divulging my secrets to Dekarta? Or worse—Relad and Scimina? Men who served anyone could be trusted by no one.
He smirked as he watched me consider. “Of course, you could always ask Sieh to send the message for you. Or Nahadoth. I’m sure he’d do it, if sufficiently motivated.”
“I’m sure he would,” I replied coolly…
The Darren language has a word for the attraction one feels to danger: esui. It is esui that makes warriors charge into hopeless battles and die laughing. Esui is also what draws women to lovers who are bad for them—men who would make poor fathers, women of the enemy. The Senmite word that comes closest is “lust,” if one includes the variations “bloodlust” and “lust for life,” though these do not adequately capture the layered nature of esui. It is glory, it is folly. It is everything not sensible, not rational, not safe at all—but without esui, there is no point in living.
It is esui, I think, that draws me to Nahadoth. Perhaps it is also what draws him to me.
But I digress.
“… but then it would be a simple matter for some other highblood to command my message out of him.”
“Do you honestly think I would bother getting involved with your schemes? After living between Relad and Scimina for two decades?” Viraine rolled his eyes. “I don’t care which of you ends up succeeding Dekarta.”
“The next family head could make your life easier. Or harder.” I said it in a neutral tone; let him hear promises or threats as he pleased. “I would think the whole world cares who ends up on that stone seat.”
“Even Dekarta answers to a higher power,” Viraine said. While I wondered what in the gods’ names that meant in the context of our discussion, he gazed into the hole beyond the metal grate, his eyes reflecting the pale light. Then his expression changed to something that immediately made me wary. “Come,” he said. He gestured at the grate. “Look.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“I’m curious about something.”
“What?”
He said nothing, waiting. Finally I sighed and went to the grate’s edge.
At first I saw nothing. Then there was another of those hollow groans, and someone shuffled into view, and it took everything I had not to run away and throw up.
Take a human being. Twist and stretch his limbs like clay. Add new limbs, designed for gods know what purpose. Bring some of his innards out of his body, yet leave them working. Seal up his mouth and—Skyfather. God of all gods.
And the worst was this: I could still see intelligence and awareness in the distorted eyes. They had not even allowed him the escape of insanity.
I could not conceal my reaction entirely. There was a fine sheen of sweat on my brow and upper lip when I looked up to meet Viraine’s intent gaze.
“Well?” I asked. I had to swallow before I could speak. “Is your curiosity satisfied?”
The way he was looking at me would have disturbed me even if we hadn’t stood above the tortured, mutilated evidence of his power. There was a kind of lust in his eyes that had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with—what? I could not guess, but it reminded me, unpleasantly, of the human form Nahadoth. He made my fingers itch for a knife the same way.
“Yes,” he said softly. There was no smile on his face, but I could see a high, triumphant gleam in his eyes. “I wanted to know whether you had any chance, any at all, before I assisted you.”
“And your verdict is…?” But I knew already.
He gestured into the pit. “Kinneth could have looked at that thing without batting an eyelash. She could have done the deed herself and enjoyed it—”
“You lie!”
“—or pretended to enjoy it well enough that the difference wouldn’t have mattered. She had what it took to defeat Dekarta. You don’t.”
“Maybe not,” I snapped. “But at least I still have a soul. What did you trade yours for?”
To my surprise, Viraine’s glee seemed to fade. He looked down into the pit, the gray light making his eyes seem colorless and older than Dekarta’s.
“Not enough,” he said, and walked away. He moved past me into the corridor, heading for the lift.
I did not follow. Instead I went to the far wall of the chamber, sat down against it, and waited. After what seemed an eternity of gray silence—broken only by the faint, occasional suffering sounds of the poor soul in the pit—I felt a familiar shudder ripple through the palace’s substance. I waited awhile, counting the minutes until I judged that sunset’s light had faded enough from the evening sky. Then I got up and went to the corridor, my back to the oubliette. The gray light painted my shadow along the floor in a thin, attenuated line. I made certain my face was in that shadow before I spoke. “Nahadoth.”
The walls dimmed before I turned. Yet the room was brighter than it should have been, because of the light from the oubliette. For some reason, his darkness had no effect on it.
He watched me, inscrutable, his face even more inhumanly perfect in the colorless light.
“Here,” I said, and moved past him to the oubliette. The prisoner within was looking up at me, perhaps sensing my intent. It did not bother me to look at him this time as I pointed into the pit.
“Heal him,” I said.
I expected a furious response. Or amusement, or triumph; there really was no way to predict the Nightlord’s reaction to my first command. What I did not expect, however, was what he said.
“I can’t.”
I frowned at him; he gazed into the oubliette dispassionately. “What do you mean?”
“Dekarta gave the command that caused this.”
And because of his master sigil, I could countermand no orders that Dekarta gave. I closed my eyes and sent a brief prayer for forgiveness to—well. Whichever god cared to listen.
“Very well, then,” I said, and my voice sounded very small in the open chamber. I took a deep breath. “Kill him.”
“I can’t do that, either.”
That jolted me, badly. “Why in the Maelstrom not?”
Nahadoth smiled. There was something strange about the smile, something that unnerved me even more than usual, but I could not allow myself to dwell on it. “The succession will take place in four days,” he said. “Someone must send the Stone of Earth to the chamber where this ritual takes place. This is tradition.”
“What? I don’t—”
Nahadoth pointed into the pit. Not at the shuffling, whimpering creature there, but slightly away from it. I followed his finger and saw what I had not before. The floor of the oubliette glowed with that strange gray light, so different from that of the palace’s walls. The spot where Nahadoth pointed seemed to be where the light was concentrated, not so much brighter as simply more gray. I stared at it and thought that I saw a darker shadow embedded in the translucent palacestuff. Something small.