Rebel's Cage (Book 4) (24 page)

‘Chiel.’ The voice was confident and yes, perhaps a little arrogant. It echoed in hollow fashion along the length of the gallery. ‘What do I call you? Carlan?’

Nash waved his hand again; ultimately, names did not matter. ‘If you wish – though if you pledge yourself to work for me, you will call me Master, like the others.’

The young man couldn’t stop the crease of a frown marring his unscarred forehead. ‘But those that call you Master are … Bonded to you, are they not?’

‘Indeed they are.’

‘Then I’ll have none of that.’ Chiel almost puffed out his chest with pride. ‘I’ve no wish to be losing control of my own mind to you. I’ll work for you, yes, but my soul’s my own.’

‘Your soul?’ Nash let out a light laugh, enough to scrape a fraction of the tension from the Malachi’s shoulders. ‘And why would I be interested in your soul? What I want is obedience.
Obedience and trust. If I cannot trust you, how can I have you work for me?’

Chiel tilted his head at that, eyes on the floor, thinking it through. Nash turned, giving him time, and gestured towards Taymar waiting at the other end of the gallery, just returned from Marsay. His faithful servant came forward with a tray between his hands and the scent of hot food drifted towards him, bringing alive the air in the overheated gallery. Crystals of dust floated in the thin sunshine that almost reached the floor from windows spread along the length of the room. Nash kept his back to them, using the bleak winter sun to his best advantage.

As Taymar placed the tray on one side of the desk, Chiel spoke. ‘I would not have come here if I wasn’t ready to offer you my obedience. I can be trusted as well as any man.’

Nash barely glanced at him. ‘And any man can be induced to betray a trust. A man can even betray himself, with the right … persuasion.’

He looked up to find Chiel watching him with some element of fear combined with an interesting thread of determination. The young man took a deep breath, ‘Why Bond me? You have fifty and more Malachi working for you who do so without such—’

‘Nobody,’ Nash returned his attention to his meal of fish and vegetables, ‘works closely for me any more unless they
are
Bonded.’

‘Those Malachi … they’re Bonded to you? Even De-Massey?’

‘No, not him. He keeps his own men. I have mine and yes, they are Bonded.’ The spices in this dish had been brought all the way from the southern continent, from Budlandi, a gift from a Prince eager to gain his attention. The scent reminded him of so many things, going back more than a century, and he breathed them deeply, closing his eyes to all else for a moment, merely to savour a time before plans and schemes and Enemies and Allies had not driven his life, when his body had still been his own. A time when he had not needed men such as Chiel, who were willing to betray oaths made to their own people in
favour of finding a short and glorious path to success. Not one of them understood the overwhelming value of true patience.

Why was every Malachi so determined to wrest the Key from the Salti? And what, in the name of Broleoch, were they intending to do with it afterwards? Put it on a dais in the domed hall at Karakham so they could look at it?

It mattered not. Though he would admit it to no one, Nash had no intention of ever letting a Malachi get his hands on the Key – but it paid to make them believe he would.

Matters of faith were always so easy to manipulate, given the right perspective.

Promise to give them what they want. If necessary, give them little pieces of it, to make it look more and more like the whole, all to the end of keeping control of them. This basic principle had worked wonderfully so far. No reason not to continue. Nash swallowed a mouthful of fish, allowing his tastebuds to wallow in decadence while he formed his reply for the Malachi standing before him. Swallowing, he collected the wine Taymar had poured, then leaned back in his seat and looked up once more.

‘You have a reputation for disobedience.’ A faint flicker in the young man’s eyes encouraged Nash to continue. ‘Did you not expect me to enquire about you before I allowed you this close to me? You are Darriet D’Azzir, specially trained in combat, with years of discipline behind you, following the dictates of the Baron Luc DeMassey – and yet, I understand he despairs of you ever mastering what he has tried to teach you. You are impatient, antagonistic, making more enemies than friends, and you question every order he gives you to the point of insolence. As a D’Azzir, that, above all else, is rigidly frowned upon.’ Nash paused long enough to sip his wine, then continued, ‘And your support for my plans to seize the Key from the Salti is well-known. Whether you like it or not, you have already alienated yourself from your own people. Where else can you turn but to me? What price have you already paid to keep your own soul, as you put it?’

Chiel’s gaze narrowed. He sniffed in a breath and pointed sharply at Taymar. ‘I won’t go around looking like that, with
that dull colour in my eyes. I won’t go on living without a say in what I think.’

Nash allowed himself a small smile. ‘I have … improved upon the Bonding process since Taymar joined me. Nobody will ever know you are Bonded.’

‘And how do I know that? If you Bond me, what do I do if I find out the truth afterwards? I cannot go back on it, can I?’

‘No. A Bond is for life, I will grant you that. But you overestimate my abilities.’ Nash swiftly took another sip of wine to hide the incipient laughter. ‘Taymar and his like have no talents as you do. Therefore, my control over them is total. With you, as a Malachi, I cannot, by definition, exert anywhere near such control.’

Again, Chiel made a gesture of impatience. ‘How am I to know that? How am I to trust
you?’

For the first time, Nash allowed a thread of hardness to emerge in his tone. ‘If you can not trust me, why are you here? I can do nothing without your consent.’ Nash uttered this bitter truth without rancour. Though he had worked hard to develop and strengthen his perversion of the ancient and sacred ritual of Bonding, there was no way to guarantee it lasting more than a few minutes without the element of consent. It was unfortunate, but of course, there were ways to
get
consent, and he’d learned over the decades more than a few of them.

Including the one he employed now.

Nash grabbed his walking stick and carefully came to his feet. He leaned as heavily on it as he could, keeping the illusion of frailty to him as the shield it was. One step after another brought him around the desk. Chiel resisted the temptation to move away as Nash approached, suppressed the desire to shudder at Nash’s appearance, made more unholy by his increasing proximity.

‘You have come to me,’ Nash began, stripping his voice of all pretence, ‘because you desire something that I can get for you. You do not understand the nature of desire, do you? How it hounds you, breathes into your blood, makes you alive and
dying at the same time. But though you have no words for it, still you feel it, do you not?’

Chiel stared at him, his mouth open. Nash reached to where his own desire dwelt, peeling back the layers to use as he needed. ‘Your world is not what it once was. Aamin is old and no longer the strong leader Karakham needs. You have only men like DeMassey and Gilbert Dusan to follow – and still they don’t speak to the fire in your heart, do they? They don’t see the need you feel to push and push hard, to take in the centuries of shame the Malachi have worn and use it to burn all who would stand in your way. Your family, your friends, they don’t know either. They tell you to calm down, to trust your leaders, that what you want can be achieved if you would only learn to exercise patience but—’

The young man’s breathing was shallow, his face pale, but his eyes glittered.

‘You don’t want to wait, do you? You want it
now.’

Chiel nodded once.

Nash sensed Taymar come to stand beside him, ready through years of familiarity. It was nice to know there was always somebody around who didn’t doubt his abilities. There was such perfection in this kind of obedience. It was a thing of beauty.

‘You cannot lose your soul,’ Nash whispered, watching, feeling the thudding heart in the man before him, the conflict between desire and sense, the need, so dreadful, so desperate, to have something so terrible, to give up something more treasured than anything else. But it was there, in amber eyes fixed on his, there in the faint pulse at the temple and throat. Yearning, wanting to give it up and yet, still terribly afraid of that one single desire. ‘You cannot lose your soul,’ Nash repeated. ‘It already belongs to me.’

Chiel didn’t move as Nash held his hand out for Taymar to place an ancient dagger in his palm, the blade fresh and sharp. The young man’s gaze drifted down slowly, fascinated, horrified and yet drawn to it, as though it was something he craved even as it repelled him. And there, in that space between, this Malachi, like so many before him, offered up his permission.

Hunger flooded through Nash, burning in his gut, bellowing in his ears with a lust he could barely temper.

He grabbed Chiel’s wrist, held it palm up between fingers that shook with contained rage, a love and a hatred that so frequently threatened to consume him. He placed the tip of the blade at the root of the thumb, ready, waiting for that whispered word, that permission – and the waiting filled him, drew out each moment with exquisite pain and impossible joy.

More a slave now than he would ever be later, Chiel’s entranced gaze rose slowly, as if anticipation alone now drove his actions, as if he shared that lust, as if his entire existence had whittled down to this one moment. ‘Yes.’

The breath had barely left his body when Nash slashed the blade across the palm, drawing blood instantly. The young man hissed and stiffened. Heart pounding, Nash held his ring to the blood, catching one drop, then another. Every muscle in his body vibrated with the power as it surged across the connection, making the red stone in his ring hiss and smoke, grow darker until the blood was absorbed completely. He covered the wound with his own hand, setting it, making it forever, and still his reality flew with the moment, soared so far beyond anything else he’d ever known.

Bonding a sorcerer was the ultimate perfection, the ultimate slavery. Absolute perfection. The ultimate triumph.

One day, he would Bond with
her,
the Ally, Jennifer Ross. When he did, he would be invincible.

A wall of dizzying exhaustion smacked into him and he staggered back, dropping Chiel’s hand. It didn’t matter now. It was done. The boy was his.

Taymar caught him, steering him back to his chair with smooth efficiency. A cup was put to his lips and he swallowed, gathering himself, holding the tiredness off long enough to give Chiel his instructions. He would have time to recuperate later.

He opened his eyes to find Chiel swaying on the spot for a moment, a frown clear on his brow. His eyes opened then and absently he brushed one palm against the other, as though
removing a little dust. There was now no mark of the blade, no remnant of blood. The man who watched him now did so with a patience he would never have understood an hour ago.

‘Chiel,’ Nash began, emptying his wine, ‘how do you feel?’

‘Well, Master.’

‘Are you ready to begin work for me?’

‘Of course, Master.’

‘Do you have any concerns you wish to voice?’

‘No, Master. What concerns could I have?’

Nash allowed his body to sink back into the welcoming arms of his chair. ‘Who owns your soul, Chiel?’

‘You, Master.’ There was not a hint of worry in that young voice now, no suggestion of anything other than content.

Another perfect conquest.

‘Very well. You will go with Taymar now. He will show you a room where you can rest. After that, you will behave in every way as you have done to date whenever anybody else is around. No one outside this room will know that you are now Bonded to me unless I ask for your obedience.’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘I will give you full instructions later. You may go and rest now.’

‘Thank you, Master.’

*

The sun had come out again by the time Kenrick called a halt by the edge of an iced stream where the land dropped sharply into a bowl populated by a village. One of his men jumped down and kicked a hole to allow the horses to drink. They stood by bare trees, black with damp, white ground surrounding them, a washed grey sky above.

No colour anywhere he looked.

He could see people emerging from their houses, looking up the hill, watching with trepidation, ready to run and hide if they needed to. But such an easy target was beyond him – and besides, he was too close to Ransem Castle, and Nash would hear of it.

How was he to get what he wanted without throwing it all away in the same moment? How far did Nash trust him?

Always the same questions, the same problems. How could he move forward when the consequences were so terrible?

Of course he was afraid of Nash – how could he not be? But fear kept him healthy, alive, ready to fight the next battle.

Even so, he couldn’t wait any longer.

With a grunt, he pulled his horse away from the stream and kicked it into motion. His men followed behind and once more they resumed their journey towards Ransem Castle.

*

Rest had done Nash little good. Bonding always stretched his energies thin, but in his current condition, it took so much longer to recover. Taymar had let him sleep a little, then wakened him, helping him to ready for Kenrick’s imminent arrival. Then there had been another meal and while he ate it, Taymar reported on his own recent trip to Marsay, an odd combination of good and bad news that had little effect on his appetite.

‘And you have found no other evidence? No proof of what DeMassey is up to?’ Nash asked between mouthfuls.

‘No, Master. He is skilled at evasion. I have tried to follow him when he leaves Marsay, but I lose him after half a league. He goes in a different direction each time and I don’t have your abilities to …’

‘No.’ Nash sniffed and tore a piece of bread in half, almost wishing it were DeMassey’s neck. ‘Anything else?’