In turn, Sesto had felt safe sharing parts of himself he hadn’t even revealed to his dear Rhiain. And though Jesstin’s advice was often unhinged and irrational, it was to him Sesto confided in the most. Now, when he most needed to, he could not.
He found himself moving toward the garish sept, where the great evils of the dark land were born and reared. Why, he could not say. He hardly knew Daire, despite the kinship that had blossomed between them over the long evening, the craved connection with someone who understood the life of a social pariah. Did Daire possess the same need for mutuality? Would he offer sincere counsel or betray him to his wicked master? Was he about to do the stupidest thing he’d ever done by opening up to Ryquin’s consort?
Sesto had relied upon his instincts to keep him alive longer than fate had intended, and he would not ignore them now.
Daire had told him about the sloping hill on the east side of the dome, which spiraled into the lower bowels of the mammoth structure. It was where the necromancers lived, except Daire, but Daire would not be sleeping with his master that night. Ryquin had business, and whenever he was occupied, he ordered Daire to retire to the bowels of the sept.
The spiral path was longer than he’d envisioned, and he considered he’d taken a wrong turn into the netherworld until he saw the esguards. One slept against the frame of a large wooden door. The other tossed dice into the air and watched them settle on the ground.
“Pardon me.” Sesto straightened, an instinctual move to make himself seem taller. It was a habit he’d never been able to break despite knowing it did nothing but highlight the matter. “I’m here to visit one of the necromancers.”
The esguard didn’t even look up from his game. He nudged the sleeping one hard enough to knock him sideways, then gestured at the door.
My, what a warm welcome. Sesto didn’t wait for them to take a closer look and decide he warranted interrogation. He stepped inside and into the largest room he’d ever been in. All around were bedrolls and cots, separated by nothing except space. The ceilings stretched so high, he had to squint to make out the detail in the frescoes, which explained the lengthy spiral, but how far under the ground were they? If he stopped to count the candles burning along all the walls, dangling from the high ceiling, and set hazardously near beds, he’d be in Rivenholde for another fortnight, and that was a fortnight too long.
But there were so many people. He refused to call them necromancers, for the same reason he never thought of himself as a eunuch; they’d been segregated for what they were, and that had never been so starkly clear until Sesto, dumbfounded, saw them all crushed in like refugees.
No.
Slaves.
Ryquin might be the one with a necromancer fetish, but Estelar was pretor, and no matter what else was true, he couldn’t be unaware of what was happening in the bowels of his own sept.
Tears threatened, but Sesto hadn’t the time for them. If he was going to get Elloven out of Rivenholde, he first needed to ensure Jesstin wouldn’t martyr himself to make it happen.
A woman stumbled over to him. Her dreamy stare brushed him with a slow smile. “Are you one of the newborns?”
“Newborns?” Sesto couldn’t help but repeat her. He knew immediately he desired no answer though.
“Hm. Welcome.” Her hand brushed a lazy path over the air. “There are some free beds in the back. Or were... yesterday... or was it today? Could be. The atmosphere is different down here.”
Guardians deliver me. “Thank you, but I’m looking for someone. Perhaps you know him.”
“We don’t bother with names.” She lifted a sleeve, exposing her wrist. On the inside was permanent ink, and it read 763CS. The only other place Sesto knew of that did that was in the prison camps in the Wastelands, where men were said never to leave, regardless of their sentence.
Sesto sighed in slight defeat. He’d not noticed a tattoo on Daire, but they’d spent their entire acquaintance in the dark of night. “Daire, where might you be?”
He’d said it to himself, but her glossed eyes came alive. “You’re looking for the consort of the pretor’s son?”
Sesto’s hope brightened. “Yes. Do you know him?”
“Everyone knows him.” An ominous note edged into her sleepy tone. She pointed to her left, toward an arch, where two esguards stood sentry.
“He’s in there?” Sesto asked, frowning. Was he in trouble? Was it a cell?
“The pretor’s son insists he be kept away from the rest of us, so we don’t catch what he has.” She sauntered away with a bitter laugh.
Sesto’s stomach dropped. Isolation was a tactic of a bully, a subjugator. It was how Castien, Jesstin’s repugnant half brother, had gotten away with hurting so many young and vulnerable women. He turned them into pariahs to ensure they’d never feel safe telling another soul.
The only thing more maddening than the machinations of power-hungry men was how they always got away with it.
Was he so much better, soliciting Daire’s aid? Using was using.
He would ask for advice but wouldn’t press if Daire looked uncomfortable.
The esguards gave him no trouble at all. One sniffed, and the other laughed, but they didn’t stop him.
The space inside was roomy, even cozy, compared to the chaos of the main hall. There were cushions scattered around, and a modest bed behind a gauzy curtain. A fire burned in a hearth that had a hook and a cooking shelf, and Sesto marveled at the lack of chimney, wondering where it vented.
