Joyhinia glanced down at R’shiel. She was gloating. Her eyes were filled with vengeance waiting to be sated. The aura that surrounded her was black streaked and tantalisingly familiar. She held her arms wide again and addressed the Gathering.
“Behold, Sisters! Let me present the author of this treasonous plot. I give you the reason for the Purge. I give you the result of relaxing our vigilance. I give you a Harshini sorcerer! I give you the fabled demon child!”
Chapter 47
Consciousness returned slowly. It crept up on her like a thief in the night, so slowly that it took time for her to realise she was awake. It took even longer for her to realise where she was.
R’shiel lay on the floor, her head throbbing from the shallow cut she received when she had hit the marble steps leading to the dais. Cold morning light from the highset windows chequered the expensive rug where she lay. Her neck ached as if it had been burned; the icy collar that circled her throat a grim reminder of the foolishness of trying to reach for her power. Her mouth tasted like the floor of a pigsty. Her hands were tied behind her back, the ropes so tight that her fingers were numb. She was in a bedchamber, rather than a cell, but she could not recall how she got there. Her last clear memory was Joyhinia staring at her with savage, lucid eyes as she destroyed everything R’shiel had been working toward.
“You’re awake, I see.”
R’shiel turned her head in the direction of the voice. The man who spoke was a Karien.
“Can I have some water?” she croaked.
The Karien nodded and R’shiel felt other hands pulling her up into a sitting position. A cool tankard touched her lips and she swallowed the water gratefully. The man who held her head was Karien too, with the tonsured head and fanatical expression of a priest. Fear stabbed at her like a knife. She had been the victim of a Karien priest before. It was not an experience she wished to repeat.
“You failed in your attempt to subvert the Sisterhood. You realise that, don’t you?”
“Who are you?”
“I am Lord Terbolt, the Duke of Setenton, Personal Envoy of King Jasnoff III and the anointed representative of Xaphista the Overlord.”
“Is that supposed to impress me?” she said, pushing away the tankard. Too late now to wonder if it had been drugged.
The Karien frowned. “You would do well to show some respect, demon child. I can have you put to death with a word.”
R’shiel stared at him, trying to gather her wits. She ignored the pain with an effort. Now was not the time to give into something so distracting. “I’d be dead already if you were planning to kill me.”
Lord Setenton nodded slowly, as if reluctant to admit the truth of her statement. “You live because the Overlord wishes it, demon child. He is liable to change his mind quite rapidly, should you fail to do as you are told.”
“Then kill me now,” she suggested. “I’d rather die than do anything Xaphista demanded of me.”
The Karien frowned at her blasphemy. The priest actually gasped.
“No, Garanus!” Terbolt ordered. He was standing behind her, so R’shiel could not see what the priest intended.
“She blasphemes, my Lord!”
“She doesn’t know any better.”
“But, my Lord...”
“No Garanus, his Majesty was quite specific. She is not to be harmed. The Overlord has plans for the demon child.”
R’shiel struggled to sit up and glared at the Karien. “Look, I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m the demon child, but you’re gloating over the wrong catch. The Harshini are extinct. I am human.”
“You are a liar,” Garanus countered.
“Let her be, Garanus. Her denials are meaningless. Go find Gawn and see if there is any word on the half-breed.”
So they hadn’t caught Brak. The news gave her hope. The priest followed the Duke’s orders with some reluctance, closing the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, Lord Terbolt rose from his chair and crossed the room. He untied the ropes holding her then helped her to her feet. R’shiel winced as the blood returned to her numb fingers.
“Thank you.”
“I am not a vicious man, R’shiel. I have no wish to see you harmed. I have orders to deliver you to King Jasnoff in one piece. I would appreciate it if you gave Garanus and his ilk no reason to harm you.”
“You mean, if I cooperate, I’ll be safe until you hand me over to Xaphista so he can kill me himself? What a tempting offer.”
“As I understand it, the Overlord wants your cooperation, not your death, demon child. I believe he seeks an alliance, not your destruction.”
“An alliance? With me? Now I really have heard everything.”
Before Terbolt could answer, the door opened and R’shiel felt the room sway momentarily as Joyhinia stepped into the room. It was impossible, she knew, for Joyhinia to have regained her wits. Dacendaran had stolen them and Tarja had destroyed them. How could she be standing there? So sure of herself? So obviously aware?
“Did you want something, Captain?” the Duke asked, addressing the First Sister with ill-disguised impatience.
R’shiel stared at him in confusion. Captain?
“Garanus wishes to speak with you, my Lord. In private.” Joyhinia turned her frighteningly lucid eyes on R’shiel and smiled unpleasantly. “I’ll watch the prisoner for you.”
“She is not to be harmed,” the Duke warned.
“As you wish.”
Joyhinia closed the door behind the Duke then leaned against it, studying R’shiel with contempt.
“Your sorcerer’s tricks didn’t help you much this time, did they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yes you do! You may have fooled everyone else, but these Kariens know what you are. And I’ve seen your evil first hand. Only this time Tarja’s not around to save you, is he?”
It slowly dawned on R’shiel that this was not Joyhinia. The body was hers, certainly, but the words were not. She knew the aura surrounding Joyhinia, and this did not belong to her foster-mother. Neither did the memories. Joyhinia had never seen her use anything remotely resembling magic. Nobody in Medalon had, with the exception of her friends still on the northern border and the Fardohnyan crew of the Maera’s Daughter. The only other person was...
“Loclon!”
The name evoked a flood of memories she had thought long forgotten. Nightmares she hoped she would never revisit suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. R’shiel’s mouth went dry and she took an involuntary step backwards, wishing Korandellan had never removed the block on her emotions. For a brief, sickening moment the pain, the humiliation she had suffered in this man’s hands tried to swamp her. She fought a wave of nausea as bad as the one that had almost crippled her when she tried to coerce the Gathering.
“In the flesh,” Joyhinia agreed. “Well, in the First Sister’s flesh actually. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“How?” she managed to ask, her head reeling from the implications of such a dreadful combination.
Joyhinia shrugged. “I’m not sure how. The priests did it. They called on their Overlord, or something. I wasn’t too thrilled to begin with, until it occurred to me what I could do as First Sister. By the look on your face, I’d say it’s occurred to you, too.”
Actually, R’shiel was still struggling to come to grips with the dreadful spectre of the man she loathed and feared most in this world controlling the body of the woman she hated almost as much. Her mind had not had time to deal with the wider implications of all that sadistic megalomania trapped inside the woman who ruled Medalon.