Mist & Whispers (26 page)

Anya conformed to this shift in behaviour and stood, waiting.

Dressed in a mantle smug enough to match his face, Eleazar strode into the Grand Hall, back straight and shoulders turned out. The King and his subjects. And how they loved him.

Not the women, of course, but every last man looked at Eleazar with such veneration; it was no wonder that none of these men tried to stop the wrong-doing here. They adored him, and a man adored is a man imitated.

Anya had spotted the way these men had been groping at the sorry women in their cages. There was no way in Damnare was she going to let him do that, or worse, to her. She was no one’s toy to be played with.

Eleazar sat beside her on his grim throne of hands, giving his cue for everyone in the room to be seated.

And then the food poured in.

Servants filtered into the hall, more ladies with red eyes and grey skin, and they spread like an army of ants, carrying trays of food that had Anya forgetting where she was.

She had been expecting mushrooms, considering they were the only thing that survived out there in the land of Virtfirth, but Eleazar and Morcades must have had some kind of special stores only they knew about, for there was more food here than Anya had seen in her life. Whole roasted boars, spit-roasted game birds, rounds of cheese and flutes of bread. Platters of plump, ripe fruits, bowls and bowls of nuts and seeds and sugar, all of varying colour. Dishes of vegetables, roots and greens and corn. There were pots of steaming stews, and pies and eggs. Not one mushroom in sight.

Her stomach growled and gurgled with anticipation. After a few weeks of eating nothing but mushroom or root broth, this was a problem-melting meal if ever she saw one.

She looked around, wondering why no one had tucked in yet. There seemed to be some etiquette to it, an irony that had Anya laughing inside.
All
this,
and you have manners when it comes to food?

Eleazar poured himself a glass of wine and swilled it around in his goblet a few times before taking a sip. His subjects watched keenly, as if awaiting his verdict. He appeared to deliberate for a while, though Anya got the feeling he was dangling them on a string rather than making his mind up about the wine.

‘It’s good,’ he finally announced, raising the goblet in the air and tilting it towards the people.

As soon as the goblet touched down on the table, the people came to life, filling their plates leisurely, as if this amount of food was a mindless habit they partook in whilst they relished the entertainment in the cages.

The first thing Anya made a beeline for was the boar, laid out directly in front of Eleazar, trimmed to the nines with potatoes and other roasted vegetables carved into flower shapes and glazed with what looked and smelt like honey.

Salivating was an understatement. Her mouth poured with hunger as she filled her plate. She was so frantic about it, she hadn’t even noticed Eleazar watching her with that debauched stare, hungry, though not for the food in front of them.

‘It’s good to see you with such an appetite,’ he said to her whilst her mouth was full of meat. Those few seconds she had been chewing the juicy cut of shoulder had her positively awash with wonderful feelings. It tasted so good, so incredible; she was actually smiling as she tore through it. As soon as Eleazar spoke, however, her stomach lurched and she might as well have been eating sand. The dizzying feeling of satisfaction turned and left her feeling a little bit sick instead.

Remember where you are
, she told herself.

She dropped the piece of meat she held in her fingers and sat back, trying to chew what was already in her mouth.

‘Don’t stop on my account. I don’t find it ill mannered. You’ve probably not eaten much since you arrived in Theone’s camp. Please, eat your fill. The Gods know, you’ll need the energy later.’

For a split second, his reference to his later plans with her made her shudder, until the rest of what he’d said caught up with her.

Theone’s camp.

How did he know about the camp, and even more pressingly so, how did he know she had been there? Was it the breast plate he found her in? Did he put two and two together and was now making an assumption, gauging a reaction for confirmation? Or was there more to it than that? Morcades was the God of the Damned – weren’t Gods all-knowing? Maybe he already knew what was happening?

She reached for a drink, feigning no notice of his remark, waiting for him to say something else, to give her exactly what he
did
know.

Clearly he was too smart for that game.

Her hand froze, an inch from her goblet. No one else seemed to notice her, suspended there, unable to move.

Across the hall, Evarain entered wearing a wicked smirk. She sat next to Steph, who was still staring through the food, not engaged in the goings on one bit.

‘You know, I can’t quite decide if you are incredibly smart, or ridiculously stupid.’ She felt her head move toward Eleazar as he posed his question, though she wasn’t in control of her own body. He held his hand out in front of him, his palm closed, holding something tight inside.

The sick feeling in her stomach increased, and her body became riddled with involuntary shakes. Something wasn’t right.

‘I have to admit,’ Eleazar continued, ‘when I first realised why you didn’t wilt like the others, I was impressed. I was afraid that perhaps, your strength was too much for the Dark Blood to affect you, and then it seemed it was your brains that beat its effects.’ He opened his hand, and there, laid out like it had been in hers only a short time ago, was the little dead leech.

Shit
.

By the jubilant way Evarain was watching this surreal, oddly calm battle of wits between her and Eleazar, there was no need to guess how the leech had come to be in his possession.

‘But, then I thought about it again, just now, and I must ask; did you know how poisonous these little creatures are?’

At that comment, Anya was glad of Eleazar’s magic holding her still. It was hindering her from making any sort of facial expression, and she feared that if she had, she might have given the game away. If he didn’t know the venom had been extracted from the creature, it meant he didn’t know everything. Though, now she would have to be careful with how she answered, if he ever released the hold he had over her.

‘Just like Morcades said,’ he went on. ‘All fluff.’ He let out a fake little laugh and took her hand, turning it from its reached-out position to look at the mark. Her heart pounded as he touched her, but not in the way a man would like to make a girl’s heart race. She was seething, full of revolt and contempt.

If he knew about the leech, did he know she had Theone’s abilities? Had he known that at all? She didn’t know if her countercharm had worked to bring down the protective enchantments, and she couldn’t know if he’d already replaced them before Theone and his men could get in.

Thinking about being trapped here with no hope of escape for her or Steph, now, Anya was scared.

‘Now, this...,’ he said, drawing over the shape in her palm. ‘This is quite something. I think it will be a wonderful addition to my throne. I only usually like right hands – a fool for superstition, I know – but I think I can make an exception for a hand so rare. The hand of the
Marked One
.’

Breath. Just breath
, she thought. Through all the confusion, it was hard to remember such a function. He’d called her the
Marked One
. He couldn’t have known about that unless someone had been watching them.

‘This is amusing; I can see your mind trying to understand how I came to know these things. Is it not obvious? I’ve had eyes and ears all over this Kingdom, watching, keeping me informed of any important happenings. I’ve kept a close watch of that little stick-camp ever since the
prophet
came.’ He laughed again, though this laugh was far more honest than the last. ‘I must remember to thank Lysippe for clearing up that
misinstruction
.’

It was like a punch in the gut. To think, she’d believed everything that animal-woman had said, about their fates, about her father – everything. A tear fell from her unblinking eyes. She’d been so stupid to trust her, and she was stupid to have trusted herself with all of this. She had failed. She had fallen right into his trap and failed all of those people who’d had faith in her. And what made it even worse was that it wasn’t just her trapped in the castle, about to be violated and enslaved. It was Steph too.

She tried to tell herself to stay strong, to not give up, but her inner light was dissipating.

‘You do know the prophecy isn’t real, don’t you? You were never really destined to
save the land
. As if you could have. Well, I’m sure the man that made it up will be kicking himself, now that you are mine. Though, I am curious as to why he wanted to lure you here so badly that he’d go to such lengths.’ He turned her hand around and kissed it, slowly enough to allow his breath to crawl over her skin. ‘I’m looking forward to finding out what exactly it is that makes you so special, so desired by this man.’

All around them, men ate and leered, women swayed and stared, and time ticked by. No one noticed her caught there, stuck in Eleazar’s invisible grasp. To onlookers, they were only talking. A casual, calm conversation. But inside, Anya was spiralling. She needed to hold it together, for Steph, for Theone, for everyone trapped out there in Virtfirth and for all the women trapped in here in the castle. She thought about all the times she’d been in trouble since she’d arrived. When Barlem threw her in the cell. The potentilla. The skeletal wolf-like creature in Toldess Pass. The Giants in Thule. Every time, someone had come to her rescue. Now, she was alone. She was her only hope and the harsh truth was that she simply wasn’t strong enough. Whatever it was everyone had seen in her, what the mageium had picked up on whilst she wore her vambrace, it wasn’t strength. Blind courage, maybe. But even that wasn’t enough to save her now.

‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ Eleazar began again. Anya wished she could move her arms. She wanted so badly to put her hands to her ears and to blot out his evil, twisted voice. ‘But too much conversation tires me. Let the men eat. We have a much more interesting night ahead of us, and what I love the most about the Kingdom now is that the sun never comes up, so the fun is never cut short.’

He took a phial from inside the jacket beneath his mantle, and removed the lid.

NO! Anything but that!

The phial was filled with that pure, luxurious looking white liquid that she knew would take her soul. He poured it into her empty goblet and smiled. ‘No more leeches Anya. It’s your turn to drink.’

She felt his hold drop as he thrust the goblet under her nose.

Her mind tried to scream no, but her body was already bewitched. She knew what it would do, but she still had to drink it. She raised the damning drink to her lips for a third time, the reddened-whites of Eleazar’s eyes wide, no doubt at the knowledge she would soon be his for the taking, devoid of all the fight she once had inside her.

An intense cinnamon satisfaction swept across her tongue, and as the drink went down her throat she was giddy with both the taste and the feeling it gave her.

Her mind rose above her body, and for a few breaths, Anya felt completely at peace. Then, the mist came.

Just as Theone had described the Darkness’s coming, a mist crept up her body and seeped into her skin, clouding her vision and bringing with it the whispers of damned souls. A vast sadness filled her, and she felt herself wilt under the power of damnation.

This was it. She was one of them now. A grey, shell of a girl with nothing but sadness in her heart. Even the fire that Lorcan’s blood seemed to have ignited was gone, or at least, she was numb to it. Numb to everything.

‘I must bid you good night, my dear subjects.’ She could sense Eleazar talking, she could hear the words even, but everything was hazy, and what they meant hadn’t quite sunk in. His hands cupped her arms and brushed her up off her seat. He must have felt that the Dark Blood had done its job, that it had suppressed her completely now, but the one thing she could distinguish from the rest of the haze was the feeling of it still coiling around her blood.

It felt like... like something someone had told her once. She tried to think past it, to the memory of that voice, but her memories were lost, hidden by a thick fog. She focused on the feeling in her blood, but the words wouldn’t come to her.

She could feel herself getting frustrated. What was it she was trying to picture? Why couldn’t she remember?

Her chest rose and fell in short, sharp bursts, the mist in her eyes turning from grey to orange, and quickly on to a deep red – an angry red to match the anger that was twisting inside her. Her lids came together, and all there was left was darkness.

A tangle of voices built up outside her fortress of dark thoughts but instead of penetrating her, all they did was ignite a new fire inside her heart. A fire that burned black with rage.

She became aware of the grip she had on the chair, a grip that started out of weakness, out of a need to steady herself, but now it had purpose. Her eyes opened, and through her now blazing perspective, she saw face after face, staring at her. And she could feel their fear. She even revelled in it.