A Thread in the Tangle (58 page)

Without glancing at her uneasy shadow, Isiilde hurried back down the stairs.
 
She couldn’t bring herself to take the shorter route through the gardens.
 
It evoked too many memories of Marsais.
 
Instead, she stalked down the maze of halls with barely a thought, ignoring the curious glances, whispered comments, and blatant leers that followed her path.

Let them look, she thought, she had nothing else to lose.
 
Her heart raced beneath her breast and her ears were consumed with the rush of blood, drowning out all else.
 
Rage urged her onwards at a reckless pace.
 
Legs and arms quivered with tension, her vision blurred, narrowing to a long, dark tunnel of sight that threatened to consume her.
 
A part of her embraced the rage, another, timid voice cowered from the heat in her veins, and in her desperation to reach Morigan, she took a shortcut through one of the sprawling libraries.

A group of apprentices and novices were gathered in the main hall, talking excitedly amongst themselves when they noticed the nymph enter.
 
Isiilde instantly spotted Zianna in the group.
 
She quickened her pace, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the exit.

“Why there she is now.
 
Come over and join us, Isiilde,” Zianna invited with a flash of eyes.
 
Isiilde kept walking, but the buxom apprentice intercepted her.

“Won’t you stop to talk with us?
 
You are quite famous now.”

“Leave me alone,” she warned through clenched teeth.

“What’s the matter, dear?” Zianna purred.
 
For a moment, the older woman almost sounded kind.
 
“You should be flattered.”

“Why?” Isiilde snapped, side-stepping the apprentice.
 
But Zianna kept pace.

“Haven’t you heard?”
 
Everyone in the library had stopped to stare at the two women.
 
“One of my friends is a Whisperer.
 
He told me that the bidding for you is up to four hundred thousand crowns.
 
You will be the most expensive whore ever sold.”

“I am not a whore,” she seethed.

“What are you then—a high priced animal?”
 
The words cut deep, like a length of cold steel twisting in her insides, and the last shreds of her self-control caught like brittle tinder.

“I am not an
animal
!”
 
The fury in her voice was answered by fire.
 
It surged, breaking free from warded lanterns with an explosion of searing glass, heat and burning shards.
 
Screams pierced the peace of the library as flames sped along the carpet, racing up the shelves with the ravenous hunger of a wild beast.
 
A fiery shard leapt onto Zianna’s skirt, swirling up her legs, dancing along her flawless flesh and nipping at her lips with glee.

History was burning, the past was being consumed, and the knowledge of the ages curled into blackened ash as apprentices fled in panic.
 
Fire rolled up the beams in hypnotic waves and rafters glowed with luminous heat.
 
Zianna was thrashing, screaming frantically on the floor.

Amidst the carnage of heat, Isiilde stood in rapture.
 
The fire’s dance was unbearable, enticingly so.
 
She balanced on a razor’s edge, tottering towards absolute abandon, quivering with desire.
 
Heat licked her skin, her lips parted, and on the verge of release, she moaned.
 
However, the ached for moment never came.

Ice took root in her bones.
 
She found herself in a cold, remorseless world being consumed by a blizzard.
 
The flames were snuffed out in an instant.
 
The blizzard dissipated as fast as it came, blanketing the ruin in a shroud of white.

The Mistress of Novices stood wide-eyed and trembling with rage.
 
Feathers of scorched parchment fluttered around her head while Zianna twisted in agony at her feet.

“You,” Thira snapped at Isiilde’s stunned guard.
 
“Get this woman to the infirmary, now!”
 
The soldier hurried to obey, issuing orders to nearby apprentices.
 
They rushed forward, picking up Zianna’s charred body.
 
Her agonized screams intensified.

Isiilde tried to flee, but Thira was faster.
 
She spat out a harsh word, gesturing sharply.
 
A Weave of Silence slammed into the nymph, pushing past her lips, seizing her tongue in a vice like grip.
 
Isiilde collapsed, clawing at her throat in panic; trying to scream, to beg for mercy in the face of the merciless Vulture, but nary a whimper emerged.

“You—” Thira seethed, wrenching her up by the ear.
 
“Don’t think your master will save you now.
 
I will deal with you myself.”

Fearful faces looked on as Thira dragged the nymph from the ruins, past guards, Wise Ones, and servants who were racing to aid the wounded and fighting to salvage their treasured books.

An apprentice being dragged through the corridors by the Mistress of Novices was a common enough sight, so no one paid them any mind.
 
The kitchen staff barely glanced from their duties as Thira brought another errant novice in for punishment.
 
In fact, the servants benefited from the punishment, because it saved them the trouble of scrubbing the pots.

“Got another one, I see.
 
She’ll be in there for days,” the Ogre chuckled before returning to his pie crusts.
 
Thira ignored the cook, propelling the nymph into the washroom, chasing out the scullery maids who happily obeyed.

The washroom was a dark, moldy place that smelt of mildew.
 
A dingy fountain sputtered in the center.
 
Cauldrons and pots were piled one atop the other, full of grime and grease that had no end.

“You will not rest until you have washed everything.
 
I will come and get you when you have finished and not before.
 
And believe me when I say that I will have thought of a more fitting punishment by then.”
 
Thira yanked Isiilde closer, so she was forced to stand on her toes lest her ear be yanked from her head.
 
“You can ponder what your life will be like in Xaio while you’re slaving away in here, nymph,” Thira hissed before slamming the heavy door shut.

Isiilde collapsed onto the slick stones.
 
Tears swelled in her eyes and she choked on the sob that never emerged from her sealed lips.
 
She struggled to calm herself, realizing that if she cried then her nose—her only source of air—would be impossible to breathe through.
 
The weave was a cruel, torturous bit of work that made her throat burn and her tongue swell.

She lay on the floor for some minutes, struggling against her rising panic lest she suffocate.
 
The ordeal was made all the worse by the permeating stench of rotten meat.
 
Her stomach rolled with queasy agitation, but she fought the sensation down, focusing on the single window set high in the ceiling.

The faint outline of the moon behind a cloak of grey calmed her, lessening her fear.
 
She staggered to her feet, leaning against the wall, letting the cool, fresh air soothe her senses.
 
Slowly, her stomach settled.

When the nymph began shivering, she decided she better get busy.
 
The sooner she started on the pile of dishes, the sooner she’d be able to leave.
 
Isiilde pushed herself off the muck covered wall, rearranged her skirts, and reached for an abandoned scrub brush.

The door behind opened.
 
Relief shuddered through her body.
 
She thought it must be Oenghus or Marsais come to fetch her at last.
 
But relief was replaced by a cold trickle of ice as the door closed with a whisper of air.
 
She whirled around to see a figure looming in front of her, his back pressed against the heavy door.
 
His perfect teeth gleamed in the dark.

“I’ve missed you,” Stievin said, softly, slick as the stones beneath her feet.
 
The cold trickle turned into a torrent of ice, spreading down her spine, her legs, and along her arms.
 
“Don’t worry, Isiilde, I’ll help you get all this cleaned up.”
 
He turned to the side, gripped a large cauldron, and effortlessly rolled it in front of the door, wedging it beneath the handle.

Isiilde stiffened like a startled deer.
 
She thought he said more, his lips were moving as he approached, but all she could hear was the thunder of her own fluttering heart.

Suddenly, she realized that she had a lot to lose.

Thirty-five

C
LAWS
CURLED
AROUND
the edge of the door, cracking it open.
 
A bulbous eye appeared in the length of shadow, watching.
 
The Sylph’s moon glowed faintly behind a haze of clouds, and the crystal window gathered its beams like a mother embracing its child to bathe the study in a shroud of silver.

A crimson robed figure was picking his way carefully over a maze of books spread haphazardly on the floor.
 
The tall man darted from page to page, muttering under his breath, searching for a pattern amidst chaos.
 
Sensing the Imp, the Archlord whipped his head towards the door, eyes narrowing on the fearful spy.

“Luccub, come here,” Marsais commanded in the harsh Abyssal tongue.
 
The Imp could not ignore a command from he who held its name, so it flapped over and landed clumsily atop a pile of tomes, folding its leather wings around its body.
 
Its landing dislodged a book from the pile, causing it to tumble to the floor.
 
“Did you see it?”

The Imp chattered back, palming a glittering object from the desk with a sideways glance towards its current master.
 
The man did not seem to notice.

“Draw it for me, here.”
 
Marsais unfurled a roll of parchment, handed the Imp a stub of charcoal, and it set to work, chattering on while it added a few personal touches to its sketch.

Marsais returned to the circle of books on the floor, bending at the waist, squinting at the swirl of words.
 
Sometimes, a loftier view was needed to reveal what was hidden.
 
And as he searched, he asked himself the single question that persisted to plague him: How did Tharios know what was hidden beneath the Spine, and what did he intend to do with that knowledge?

Silence answered the Seer.
 
He ran his fingers roughly through his hair, clutching his scalp in frustration.
 
By the gods, he could not think straight.
 
Currently, his visions were colliding too swiftly to decipher.
 
The Sea of Time was churning beneath his eyes, a great whirlpool of threads gathering around the Isle—to a single pinpoint shrouded in chaos.
 
Perhaps he was in error, and in his distraction, had charted the wrong path from one point to the next.
 
But impossible, his visions had been clear.
 
Beyond a doubt, Tharios had knowledge of Portal Magic, but before or after?
 
And what was more important, after what?