Gilliad’s arm snaked around Jeren’s waist, pulling her closer. She winced as he squeezed against her barely healed gash, and bit down on her lip to keep from crying. He pressed his face against her neck, inhaling deeply, smelling her skin. His grip moved to the swell of her left breast. Her heart pounded, her whole body trembling, revolted by his intimate touch.
“I’ll never let you go, little sister. You’re mine. You always will be.”
She didn’t dare speak for fear of what she’d drive him to. His breath brushed hot on her neck, and her skin spasmed at the touch of his lips.
“In Westerland,” he continued, “the emperors ensured the purity of their bloodline by marrying their sisters, Jeren. Their blood is our blood. We could think of it as an age-old family tradition.”
Gilliad squeezed her breast through the heavy brocade of her bodice. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She fought to stay silent and still, but she couldn’t keep the sob inside her. She tasted blood in her mouth as her teeth dug into the inside of her lip. He didn’t intend to give her to Maldrine, but this—this was so much worse.
He released her, his mood changing like a spring breeze.
“What is it, Jeren? What’s wrong?” His brown eyes filled with questions, eyes she had known all her life, eyes which now belonged to a stranger. She could guess what had happened, but she didn’t want it to be true.
Somewhere she found her voice. It sounded like an out-of-tune pipe. “Gilliad? You’ve been using the magic, haven’t you? Since Father died? Since I…since I left…”
He grinned then, his face at once boyish and manic. Every emotion seized his features completely. “I can’t describe it, Jeren. I remember him talking about it like a burden, but he was wrong.”
Jeren struggled to control her tears. She had to keep him talking.
“But you’ve been using Felan’s sword too, haven’t you? To control it? The sword the Fair Ones made…”
Malevolence stained his eyes. And she knew in that instant. She knew he hadn’t used the sword to control his powers. Couldn’t have. He had never bothered to learn how, not with their father, not even when he had been sent to the Shistra-Phail. All the True Blood were born with magic to some extent. In the ruling member of her bloodline, it went beyond reason. Without the sword, the magic inherent in every ruling Scion of Jern would swiftly consume him, draining his remaining sanity away like water in a sieve. It was their curse.
“It’s a trick, Jeren. A lie. The Feyna sword is just a way for them to control us. Father may have fallen under their sway, but I know the truth of it. The Fair Ones have brought us nothing but pain and suffering. Don’t let Shan deceive you. They think humans are beneath them. As for you and I…we are born with magic in our blood, Jeren, and they hate us for it. They would hunt us all down if they could, wipe us out. Had he known who you were, he would have killed you—for what you are, and for his sister. He would have damned you to the Dark One’s embrace.”
She remembered Shan’s face after she had healed him, the way he was loath to touch her—and his words. Most of all his words.
You’re serpent-born. You’re a magic user.
She wilted back against the balcony, her will to fight lost.
“What did you do to his sister, Gilliad?”
But her brother didn’t answer. He took her hand, leading her back inside. “I have a gift for you. Look.”
A cloak lay across the bed, a silver-grey fur edged with River Holt blue. Jeren’s eyes grew wide and her stomach twisted in on itself. She knew that soft fur, the silken texture. It was Anala’s pelt.
“I read one of those dry histories you’re so fond of,” he went on, ignoring her petrified form. “It contained an account of Biran’s reign. He found out a favourite concubine loved a Citadel guard. Do you remember what he did, Jeren?”
He lifted the fur reverently and brought it to her, draping it around her shoulders like a bridal cloak.
“Tell me what he did.” His hands closed on her shoulders, as if to press the dead wolf’s pelt into her flesh, or squeeze the answer from her. Despite the warmth of the garment, an icy wind flowed around her, coiling around her trembling body.
She had to answer him. To be silent would only make him worse. She had to force the words out.
“He—he gave her a gift, a box tied up with pretty—a pretty ribbons and bows. When she—op—opened it—in—inside—she found her lover’s head…”
Gilliad kissed her cheek, leaning over her shoulder. His lips brushed her earlobe as he pulled back.
“Do you want another gift from me, Jeren?” he asked. “No, maybe not. Not yet. Come to dinner in the Great Hall tomorrow night. Wear your new cloak. It becomes you.”
Jeren waited until she was sure Gilliad had gone, the tower falling silent as the grave behind him. Still she waited, waited for feeling to return to her limbs, waited for her heart to burst apart.
Shan was a prisoner in River Holt.
She ripped the cloak from her shoulders and rushed for the balcony, vomiting until her stomach and ribs ached. Still she retched, her whole body heaving with nothing to bring up. Finally, exhausted and sobbing, she sank to the floor, Anala’s pelt pressed against her face. The breeze encircled her again, drawing out the goosebumps on her arms. And on the breeze she heard a growl.
Chapter Nine
In the icy cell the walls and floor were damp with the all-pervasive water of the river, not the dry cold of the north Shan was used to, the kind that made the blood sing beneath the skin and turned breath to mist. This chill ate into his body like a cancer, gnawing at his heart and bones. No natural light entered here, no way of telling day from night. His attunement to the world had been severed and he felt it like a bereavement, like he felt the loss of Anala and the absence of Jeren. His only companion now was the roar of the waterfall. It sang of his shame.
Chains held his feet to the floor and manacles gripped his hands behind his back. A further chain ran from irons and hoisted him almost to the ceiling. He bent over, his arms out behind him like a diver frozen on the edge of a cliff, as if in an instant he would swing his hands forwards and arch to freedom.
He could hardly move. Even to breathe created agony. His chest and shoulders burned. The skin had closed around the arrow wounds, his natural healing powers already allowing him recovery, even here in this pit of torment. But every moment he feared the newly knit skin would rip apart. The legendary recuperative powers of the Feyna needed time, and Gilliad had seen fit to give him that time. He saw no need to give him comfort as well.
Jeren could have closed the wounds in an instant. Shan sighed as the thought of her rose to torment him once more. He could have helped her. If he had but known.
Why had Jeren not told him who she really was? He would never have allowed her anywhere near a River Holt town if he had known the truth. He could have taken her to Sheninglas, keeping her safe from her brother and his madness. If she had only trusted him enough…
But she hadn’t trusted him. Not really. She had used him, played him for a fool.
He remembered the things he’d said about Gilliad, about her world and her magic. No wonder she hadn’t trusted him.
When he saw the light seeping under the door, he closed his eyes. He could tell himself he needed to preserve his vision, but, in truth, he didn’t want to see who came in, didn’t want to see their triumph.
There was no mistaking the newcomer. Gilliad smelled of soap and freshly laundered clothes, yet beneath that Shan detected something a human would never smell. But an animal would. Anala had recognised it at once. Animals could pick out a threat by instinct alone, and to a pack there was no greater threat than a rogue.