The Invisible Ring (5 page)

Sighing wearily, aching in ways that hurt deeper than physical wounds ever could, Jared pulled on the coarsely woven trousers and slipped his feet into the poorly made leather sandals. He picked up the scratchy shirt but couldn’t bring himself to pull it over his head. Taking a careful breath, he turned toward the full-length mirror attached to the room’s back wall. In the building where pleasure slaves changed hands, the entire back wall was a mirror. He understood the reason for that. He didn’t want to think about why they’d put a mirror here, where it didn’t matter if a slave looked well-groomed when he emerged.

His fingers shook as he lightly brushed the buttons on the trousers’ fly.

Psychic sense, physical sense ... he just couldn’t feel the Invisible Ring. There was no way to tell how fine-tuned it might be, no way to know where the shifting boundary was between what was permissible basic Craft and what would bring agonizing punishment.

“Balls and sass,” Jared muttered. Hard to judge the risks when there were no reference points. But he just couldn’t pull that shirt over his head without doing something to protect the wounds. He’d listened to men scream when a shirt that had stuck to lash wounds was pulled off their backs, tearing off the fresh scabs with it. He’d seen what those men had looked like when the wounds finally healed.

Basic healing Craft. A thimbleful of power. That’s all he needed to create a tight protective shield around his back and belly that would keep the shirt away from his skin.

Taking another careful breath, Jared created the shield and waited.

Nothing. No surge from the Ring, no angry footsteps in the hall.

Swallowing hard to push his heart back down his throat, Jared pulled on the shirt and studied the man in the mirror.

He wasn’t dressed for an aristo outing, but even so he was a good-looking man, tall and well built, with that golden Shalador skin—not brown like the long-lived Hayllians or fair like other races, but sun-kissed, gold-dusted. A pleasing shade when combined with the dark-brown hair and brown eyes of the Shalador people.

Except his eyes were the rare Shalador green—eyes that could be traced back through the bloodlines to Shal, the great Queen who had united the tribes into one people.

Reyna’s eyes.

He was the only one of the three boys who had her eyes.

He had been willing to destroy himself, but now that he was still alive, he wanted to survive. Sweet Darkness, he
had
to find some way to survive long enough to get home, long enough to talk to Reyna and take those words back.

Balls and sass. It was the only weapon he could safely use. He was wringing himself dry, squeezing what was left of his physical endurance, but he had to last until they reached the slave compartment in the Coach, had to make Grizelle believe he was still a male to be reckoned with. For a little while longer, he had to hide the fact that he was nothing more than a hollow man.

Raising his trembling hands, Jared ran his fingers through his hair. It was a bit shaggy now, but with a little Craft, shaggy could be altered to bedroom disheveled. The Gray Lady was an old woman, but he was a bed-trained slave who had a few sweets he could offer that might entice her, might distract her, might help tip the scales to his advantage while he tried to figure out how much control this damned Invisible Ring had over him.

His stomach churned at the idea of encouraging the Gray Lady to enjoy him. But if it made her lower her guard, it might be possible to slip away and ride the Winds to Shalador.

Without warning, the escort opened the door and stopped short, unable to hide his surprise at the transformation of the naked slave he’d left into the Warlord who turned away from the mirror and smiled at him.

Pleased that he’d managed to unsettle the man, Jared walked toward him and held out his hands as if bestowing a favor. “If you’re going to chain me, get on with it. The Gray Lady’s waiting to dance.” He hoped the escort would mistake the exhaustion in his voice for boredom.

“She didn’t specify chains,” the man said grudgingly.

“No, I didn’t think she would. She strikes me as a discreet Lady, and chains tend to call attention to themselves, especially when the sound they’re making becomes rhythmic. Don’t you think?”

The escort’s lip curled in a sneer. “I’ve never worn chains.”

“I wasn’t implying that
you
had worn them.” Jared waited for the insult to sink in and then shrugged. “Or that you needed them. I just thought that since you earned a living restraining people, you might know a few interesting positions that aren’t considered common in the courts. But perhaps not. Things like that are a bit like mounting a woman dog-style. It isn’t to every man’s taste.”

Fury blazed in the escort’s eyes. “You know what I can do to you?”

“Not a damn thing.” Jared bared his teeth and added softly, “Come on. Try it. Let’s see if this Ring really can hold the Red.”

“Is there a problem?” Grizelle’s voice settled over both men like a cold rain.

The escort reluctantly stepped into the hallway. “No, Lady.”

“Then what’s the delay?”

Jared gave the escort a smug smile, knowing it would infuriate the man because there wasn’t any way he could respond to it.

Time to play the last act.

Mother Night, don’t let my body fail yet.

Jared stepped forward, forcing the escort out of the way. He bowed to Grizelle, making sure the bow was exactly what Protocol dictated as proper for a Red-Jeweled Warlord to make to a Gray-Jeweled Queen.

If the Warlord wasn’t a slave, that is.

The escort growled in anger.

Grizelle stared at him, but Jared thought he caught a flicker of amusement in the hard gray eyes.

So she liked balls and sass. Thank the Darkness.

Draining the little psychic strength he could summon in order to project the feel of a sensual man eager to please, Jared offered his right hand, palm down.

Grizelle hesitated a moment before lightly placing her left hand over his and allowing him to escort her out of the building.

Jared bit back a grin. The escort was now trailing behind them like a resentful, forgotten puppy.

It was full dark by the time they hired a pony cart and headed out of the auction grounds. Instead of going directly to the official landing place, they took a side road that circled around the low, flat-topped hill until they reached the ticket station, and the Coaches and drivers that could ride the Winds.

“Wait with the others,” Grizelle said, as Jared helped her from the cart.

She didn’t bother to look at either of them as she walked toward the ticket station.

Jared held on to the cart, hoping the escort didn’t notice how much he needed to lean on that support to stay on his feet. He wasn’t sure his legs would get him to the Coach before they buckled.

“I don’t know where the others are,” he finally pointed out.

“This way,” the escort growled.

As they walked toward the man’s partner, who had been guarding the other slaves, Jared glanced over his shoulder and saw a messenger boy hand a slip of paper to Grizelle just before she reached the ticket station. The boy ran off immediately, not even waiting for the usual coin.

Feeling a warning prickle between his shoulder blades, Jared stopped and watched her read the message.

So still. So silent. So gray. Nothing about her seemed different, so he didn’t understand why he instinctively opened his first inner barrier and sent out a delicate Red psychic tendril. Even if her inner barriers hadn’t been stronger than his, the tendril was too delicate to probe even surface thoughts, which meant there was less chance of it being noticed. But it would be able take a sip of her emotions and give him some warning about her temper.

He wasn’t prepared for the blast of fear that raced back through the tendril and crashed into him.

Something had happened. Something had changed.

The fear hadn’t been there during the ride here. He was sure of that. Hell’s fire, he’d touched her, sat beside her. Even she couldn’t have hidden feelings that strong while there had been physical contact between them.

The message, then. The mes . . .

As he watched Grizelle tuck her hands into the sleeves of her robe and walk into the ticket station, his waning endurance finally gave out. The world became fuzzy and slow.

So hard to walk, despite the hand on his arm leading him. Words began smearing again, mashing together and stretching out until they became a language of nightmarish shapes. Bodies appeared in front of him, out of nowhere. Someone tugged on his arm. He stopped walking. The smells of blood-bright fear and sickly brown sweat oozed around the word shapes.

Water.

Why did that have to be the one word that still made sense?

“She’ll be taking . . . west-going Coaches?”

He thought that was one of the guards speaking, but couldn’t be sure since the voice kept fading in and out.

“Bound to ... Territory’s west . . . Tamanara Mountains.”

“That’s what . . . figured . . . brought the rest . . . here.”

Except they were walking again, endlessly walking, while the escorts swore under their breath and their blade-sharp anger cut into him.

Where were his inner barriers? Where . . .

Someone pulled at his arms.

“Ssiiitt.”

His legs folded under him.

A gray voice. The word “water.”

A cup at his mouth. Water trickling past his lips. He held it for a moment, savoring the wetness, before he swallowed. Then he tried to grab the cup and gulp, but hands pulled it away from him.

“Sslloowlly.”

He obeyed. It was so important to obey, so important that this female voice that wasn’t gray didn’t take away the water.

Finally enough.

Ballsansass. That was important, too, although he couldn’t remember why.

He slid sideways. The water had melted his bones. He hadn’t known water could do that. Whiskey could, if you drank enough of it, but water? Who would have guessed?

Then he was melting and sliding, melting and sliding, sliding, sliding away into the safety of the night, into the sweet Darkness.

“She took the bait,” the Fifth Circle guard reported with barely restrained eagerness.

Krelis leaned back in his chair, dropping his hands below the desk to hide the trembling he couldn’t control. Dorothea’s compulsion spell must have worked, which made him feel easier about the other spells she’d woven for him—not that he doubted the High Priestess’s ability.

“While she was in Raej, did the bitch buy anyone who might be of value to us?” Krelis asked, watching the young man who reminded him of himself not that many centuries ago.

The blank look on the guard’s face only lasted a moment. Then he stiffened and focused his eyes on the back wall of the Master’s office. “My apologies, Lord Krelis. I didn’t think to obtain a list of the slaves she bought.”

“Nor did Lord Maryk think to include it in your instructions,”‘ Krelis said smoothly.

The guard squirmed a little, recognizing the trap within the words.

Krelis understood being torn between loyalty and survival. As a boy, he had loved Olvan, who had been a gentle but firm parent as well as a respected teacher and scholar. As a youth, he’d felt desperate to get away from the taint surrounding the frightened, withered man his father had become after that day at the tree. No one had needed to tell him that the longer a connection remained between father and son, the more distrustful the influential Queens would be when the time came to serve in their courts.

Forced to choose between loyalty and survival, he had chosen survival.

Loyalty, he discovered, could be bought easily enough.

So he waited to see which the guard would choose— loyalty to Maryk, who was not only an aristo but an experienced second-in-command, or survival by giving full allegiance to the new Master of the Guard.

Finally, the guard said in a low voice, “No, sir, Lord Maryk did not include obtaining the list in his instructions.”

“No matter,” Krelis said with a dismissive gesture. “Lord Maryk had more pressing duties to consider.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I return to Raej and obtain the list?”

“Yes. By the time you return, Lord Maryk will be here with the slaves.

We’ll keep any that may be of interest to the High Priestess and send the others back to Raej to sell on the last auction day.”

The guard saluted smartly and left.

Krelis rubbed his hands over his face. Maryk should be back by nightfall, the task completed. Then, perhaps, he could get some sleep.

His stomach growled and threatened to chew his backbone.

Jared ignored it.

His muscles ached and begged to be stretched.

He ignored them, too.

The fierce need to piss had him swinging his legs over the side of the narrow bed. He pushed himself into a sitting position and fuzzily tried to remember what came next.

Rubbing sleep-crusted eyes, Jared looked blearily at the dark-eyed, dark-haired boy sitting cross-legged beside the bed.

“Davin?” Jared said hoarsely, knowing it
couldn’t
be even before the boy’s expression turned wary. His youngest brother would be nineteen now, not the ten-year-old he’d cheerfully said good-bye to before he’d torn his life apart.

“I’m Tomas,” the boy said. “There’s no Davin here.”

Thank the Darkness for that.

There was something peculiar and faint about the boy’s psychic scent, but Jared was too preoccupied to figure it out. “Where—”

“We’re in the guest servants’ quarters.”

Jared shook his head and tried again. “Where—”

“Don’t know what Territory—”

“Where’s the damn chamber pot?”

“Oh.” Tomas pointed at a door in the wall. “Over there.”

Despite the urgency, Jared hesitated, finally awake enough to realize he was naked and only had a wadded sheet covering his groin.

Tomas grinned. “They’re all outside, and Ladies don’t care if you show your dangle to other males.” He scratched his head. “Other males don’t care either.”

“Sometimes they do,” Jared muttered, remembering confrontations between pleasure slaves that had turned bloody because desperation had pushed someone over the edge. “Sometimes they care very much.”