When he had first set out to find the demon child, he had vague visions of a noble young man with a pure heart, who would take on his appointed task with a solemn vow and then... well, he’d never really got to that bit. He had not expected R’shiel; not expected to find a complicated, troubled young woman, who had been raised by the most ruthless and unloving mother that the Sisterhood had ever spawned.
It wasn’t until he learnt how much of her suffering had been sanctioned by the gods, that he truly began to sympathise with her. Zegarnald’s “tempering” had been a cruel and rocky road for R’shiel and she was a long way from the end.
If he stood back from it, he understood the logic. Xaphista was a master of seduction, in his own way. He had seduced millions of Kariens into believing him. One half-breed Harshini would hardly be a threat, unless that half-breed was inured to his enticements. R’shiel had to be so determined to destroy him that nothing would stop her. She had to be ruthless enough to stand back and watch everything and everyone she held dear threatened with extinction, and not waver from her purpose. She had survived being raised by Joyhinia, raped by Loclon, imprisoned by the Sisterhood, a near-fatal wound, and the discovery that she was a member of a race that she had been raised to despise. The experience had left her battered and bruised, but it had not even come close to breaking her. Brak was beginning to wonder if her current situation would succeed where everything else had failed.
When she regained consciousness after Loclon left her room, it had taken her a little while to get her bearings. Her face was a mess – her forehead puffy and bruised and covered in dried blood. She lay for a time, staring at the canopy over the bed, as if trying to recall how she came to be there. Then she sat up and ran her fingers through her hair. She stiffened with shock, then looked behind her at the carefully laid-out halo of dark red hair that was left behind on the pillow.
For a moment she did nothing but stare at it in bewilderment, then she leapt off the bed and ran to the mirror hanging over the dresser. Brak winced as she looked at her reflection. Vanity was not a quality he associated with R’shiel – she had always seemed rather unconscious of her beauty – but even the plainest woman would have gasped at the reflection staring back at her. Loclon had hacked off her hair with little care. It stood up in clumps in places; elsewhere it had been cut so close to the scalp that the skin showed through. Her eyes were blackening, the cut on her forehead a red slash across a purple landscape of bruises. Her long neck was livid; white blisters already visible above and below the thin silver collar. Several had burst when she began to move, leaving weeping patches of raw flesh to rub against the metal.
R’shiel stared at her reflection for a long, long time, then she sank down onto the floor and sobbed like a brokenhearted child.
Brak could feel her anguish but could do nothing to relieve it.
He could not imagine what it must be like for her to cope with Loclon in Joyhinia’s body. Added to that, she had failed in her attempt to coerce the Sisterhood. Mahina was imprisoned. Affiana and Lord Draco were both dead. Garet Warner had changed sides and the Kariens effectively had control of the Citadel. If that wasn’t enough, when the order to surrender arrived at the border, Tarja’s life would be forfeit. He had no way of knowing, but Brak suspected R’shiel’s tears were as much from failure, as they were from pain.
But while her reactions up to that point had been typical, since that day R’shiel seemed sunk so far in misery, that she no longer cared what happened.
Terbolt had been quite appalled at the state she was in when he returned from his prayers and livid over the loss of the demon. He had chastised Loclon severely, but the Karien still needed a cooperative Joyhinia, so he had done little more than make his displeasure known. He had ordered the priests to treat her wounds and Garanus, in a rare show of compassion, trimmed her hair until it was, if not quite styled, then at least tidy. Once the bruises faded, she wouldn’t look too bad, Brak thought. She had that sort of bone structure.
But R’shiel cared no more for how she looked than she did about anything else, at present. She ate only if the priests stood over her, and then it was mechanically, as if she didn’t taste a bite. She said nothing unless directly addressed and then answered in a monotone. She washed when they told her, ate when they ordered her, and when she was alone she simply sat where they left her, staring blindly into the distance.
Two days after Loclon’s attack some of the blisters under the collar began to fester. She did not even flinch when the priests held back her head, lanced the sores and poured saltwater onto the open cuts. They did not remove the collar, simply worked around it, but even that rough handling got no reaction from her. He remembered how vague she had been after he rescued her from the Grimfield, the night she had tried to kill Loclon. She had been animated then, compared to her present state.
And there was not a damned thing he could do about it.
Two weeks after R’shiel’s capture at the Gathering, Lord Terbolt finally announced his intention to leave the Citadel and return to Karien. Brak had been certain he was waiting for something, but could not work out what it was. The arrival of a tall, dour-looking Karien who introduced himself as Squire Mathen was apparently what the duke had been expecting. The two of them remained closeted for hours. When they emerged, Terbolt announced his plans to leave.
Loclon had been fairly panting in anticipation for that moment, and his chance at unfettered power as First Sister. Brak had wondered if Terbolt would be so foolish as to leave Loclon in charge. The Karien Duke was not stupid and Loclon’s loss of the demon and his attack on R’shiel had done nothing to foster any trust between them. Brak thought it would be better for everyone if he simply slit the throat of Loclon’s senseless body and let his soul wither and die.
They kept Loclon’s body in a room in the First Sister’s apartments. The priests tended it with businesslike efficiency. Transferring the mind of one person into the body of another was not such a difficult feat to arrange, by Harshini standards. It was just one of those things that was only done if there was a good reason for it – and that was rare. Had they thought about it, they could have done the same to Joyhinia themselves, although considering the way things had turned out, it probably would not have made a difference, given that Zegarnald actually wanted to push R’shiel to breaking point.
There were risks, though. If the host body died, then the mind automatically returned to its own body with little more than a nasty shock. But if the vacant body died, the soul had nowhere to go. It would survive a day or two, no longer, before joining its physical counterpart in death. Loclon’s transfer was nothing like the subtle removal of wit that Dacendaran had performed on Joyhinia. This was the working of a clutch of Karien priests who lacked the finesse of a god. They had simply taken Loclon’s mind – lock, stock and barrel – and dumped it into Joyhinia’s unresisting body.
Squire Mathen would remain behind to “assist” the First Sister. Loclon was furious, and could do nothing but agree. Two priests would remain behind also, Terbolt declared, then made a great show of handing Mathen the key to the room where Loclon’s body lay. The message was clear, even to Loclon.
Terbolt’s announcement of their imminent departure drew no visible reaction from R’shiel. She barely even glanced at him. Loclon waited outside the door, fidgeting with Joyhinia’s long skirts. As soon as Terbolt emerged, he began demanding to know exactly who Squire Mathen was. Brak made to follow them, until he spied Garet Warner entering the apartment. He said something to guards on R’shiel’s door that Brak didn’t catch then went inside. On impulse, Brak followed Garet.