“Be on your way,” Latarie said finally, breaking the impasse.“Return when you have word of our friend’s fate.”
Chapter Twelve
In the Palace of Xy
Riven discovered that you can only be terrified for so long before it becomes weirdly normal.Also, learning to eat again and building back your strength was horribly boring.Dull.Stupefying.
Not to mention the whole “get your bowels working again” aspect.
He was very careful to obey all the Bondmaidens’ orders, doing what he was told to do: exercise, meals, sleep, all carefully measured out.But during the silences between activities, with nothing before him but four stone walls and the contemplation of his worthlessness, it was an effort to even breathe.He had to focus on something, lest the craving swell up and make him claw at his eyes to drive out the desperate need within.
When she was there, he focused on Nora.Beautiful, dangerous, caustic-tongued Nora.
Not that she was much for talking.She usually sat sharpening a blade as she kept an eye on him.He watched her in return, laying on his side, hugging a pillow, ribs aching from yet another bout of pain.
“How many of those do you have?”he managed to whisper at one point.
“Enough to kill you,” she said with a gleam in her eye.After a pause, she shrugged.“This is Avice’s.I offered to sharpen them for her while I clean up your messes.”
“You don’t seem like the type,” he stared at her fingers, long and elegant as she worked the blade with steady strokes.“For messes, I mean.”
“I am commanded,” she said.There was a dullness in the words, in her eyes, that struck him as odd.It roused his curiosity, like a scab that needed picking at.
He very carefully opened his mage sight and studied her.
The golden web of netting still danced on her skin, the gold-red cords pulsing off behind her.He focused a bit, holding his breath against the headache that was starting to form.
“How do you like your kavage?”he asked.
Nora rolled her eyes and sighed.“Are you feverish again?”She tucked the blade and whet stone in a pocket as she rose.
“Sweet?”he persisted.“Dark?”
“However it comes,” she shrugged, putting a hand on his forehead.“Doesn’t matter.”
But in those golden bonds, he saw a flicker of resistance?No…more like a choice, suppressed by the bond.Fascinating.
The headache hit then, and he leaned over the side of the bed to find her waiting with the bucket.
He’d learned thathis “guest room” was in fact a storage area, with a door to a large room where the Bondmaidens slept.The first few times he’d been escorted to a privy, the only thing he could think on was putting one foot in front of the other.Just being able to do that was a victory.
As he grew stronger, he took notice that the women’s simple beds weren’t much more elaborate than his own.It took him longer to realize what was really odd.There were no small personal things in their room.
No pretty ribbons, no dried flowers, not even a whiff of perfume.Just plain beds and bedding, all very tidy.While there were combs and brushes and clothing laid out, it was all neat, and all placed exactly the same.
The effects of their bond, he supposed.Did it remove all choices?All preferences?He itched to know more.
It had gotten easier to invoke mage senses.He’d finally enough focus and strength to experiment, to risk a look at his surroundings.
When he finally felt safe enough, he pretended to sleep one night, curled on his cot, and extended his sight.
It was clear that he was in the Palace, and he assumed he was in Edenrich.Mage sight didn’t give much conventional information, and as Riven expected, he got only vague impressions of structures and people.
But he could see magic.
Thick outer walls surrounded him, laced with old wards that pulsed with recent use.They were being maintained, that was certain.All very traditional, except one that seemed to keep a guard from falling asleep.Riven paused over that one, studying it for a bit before moving on.Useful, that.He wondered who had crafted it.
He let his sight drift, seeking magic in any form.The Bondmaidens, all four, clustered in one room.The golden cords with bits of red floated around and between them, anchored in…nothing.
