Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts) (47 page)
BOOK: Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts)
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At that moment he looked like a normal eight-year-old boy—solidly built, golden-haired, fair-skinned, with bright eyes and an engaging smile.
What he was doing to the vole wasn’t normal. And he’d only been born a few months earlier. And he could change the way he looked. When he was outside of their house, he chose to look like the Kargans—he could skinshift at will, assuming any form he liked. He had been Scarred by the magic that had coursed through his body before his birth, but the Scars had been advantageous. He already knew Karganese before he was born, and because he was outwardly a sweet-natured child, and because he could make himself appear to be Kargan, and because he spoke with the seeming innocence of childhood, yet offered the wisdom of adulthood, he drew the Kargans to him like bears to fish. They admired him, they listened to him, and when he offered them advice in that diffident, childlike voice, they took it. He knew their prophecies and their legends well enough from watching them before he took over the infant body to know how to make himself fit. To the Kargans, he seemed like the savior they’d hoped would come to take them back to the Rich Lands. That, he told Danya with a laugh, suited his plans perfectly.
The vole shrieked in agony, and Luercas chuckled.
“Stop it,” Danya said.
“Oh, please. It’s a pest. The Kargans kill them all the time, and I don’t see you racing out to protest.”
“They don’t torture them. They don’t sit there soaking in the poor thing’s pain.”
“They don’t garner any magic from the poor thing’s death, either, which is a complete waste. I’m doing two useful things when I kill the vole—I’m ridding the village of one more pest, and I’m giving myself a bit of energy that I don’t have to take from the villagers. Or you.”
He turned and smiled at her, his blue eyes as cold as the frozen river, and she hated him even more. She said nothing, and after he’d stared at her, he turned his back to her and returned to torturing the vole.
“We’ll be able to leave here soon,” he said.
“Leave?”
“Certainly. We’ll be returning to Calimekka before long.”
Danya snorted. “Going to walk across the frozen wastes again, are we?”
“Not at all. We’ll travel in good weather. And we’re going to go in style, you and me.” His shoulders rose and fell in a casual shrug. “And then you’ll have your revenge.” He chuckled. “You’ve certainly earned the right.”
Revenge. She thought of Crispin Sabir and Anwyn Sabir and Andrew Sabir lying in a pool of their own blood, screaming. She thought of hurting them the way they’d hurt her, of
destroying
them the way they’d destroyed her. She stared at the index and middle fingers of her right hand—at the talons, rather; dark and scaled and claw-tipped. Her reminder of her right to their lives. Everything that had happened to her and everything she did was their fault. And her Family’s; the Galweighs hadn’t rescued her. And Luercas’s.
destroying
them the way they’d destroyed her. She stared at the index and middle fingers of her right hand—at the talons, rather; dark and scaled and claw-tipped. Her reminder of her right to their lives. Everything that had happened to her and everything she did was their fault. And her Family’s; the Galweighs hadn’t rescued her. And Luercas’s.
Torture rape transformation pregnancy pain birth murder slavery.
That had become the mantra that fueled her rage, that kept her breathing from one day to the next. She was Luercas’s slave now because no one had helped her then. And they were going to pay for her suffering. All of them, somehow, would pay.
50
K
ait felt she and Ry were making progress. The first few days, they didn’t plant any of their talismans—they wanted to earn the trust of their clients and build up word of mouth within the Dragon enclave. And their strategy seemed to be working. Kait decorated hair, grateful that much of her diplomatic training had been based on the assumption that she might have to operate from time to time without servants, and would still have to represent the Family appropriately.
ait felt she and Ry were making progress. The first few days, they didn’t plant any of their talismans—they wanted to earn the trust of their clients and build up word of mouth within the Dragon enclave. And their strategy seemed to be working. Kait decorated hair, grateful that much of her diplomatic training had been based on the assumption that she might have to operate from time to time without servants, and would still have to represent the Family appropriately.
When she took them, she’d complained about the hairdressing classes as a complete waste of her time. She wondered if she’d ever have the opportunity to find the woman who had trained her, to apologize for her condescension and to admit that she’d been wrong.
“Whatever you do, do it well,” her mother had said to her, and her father had added, “No knowledge is ever wasted.”
She’d argued with them, too—cocksure certain that her station in life, her talent and her intelligence would keep her from ever needing to know a menial trade. She owed them an apology, too, and would never get to give it. Dùghall was certain both of them had died in the massacre.
Now she stood all day on a breezy veranda attached to one of the Dragons’ public baths, liming and hennaing and curling hair with curling irons or straightening it with flatirons; braiding in beads and gems and ribbons and adding her own touches that no one else had thought to duplicate—working a tiny little cage and a live songbird into one creation, a lovely ivory dancer into another. She shaped men’s beards and mustaches, too, and did her share of liming and hennaing and curling on her male clients, as well. Her business picked up steadily.
After the first week, she started touching her clients with the talismans.
She saw Ry for a moment in the morning when she arrived at the veranda, and sometimes at night when he left. They gave each other no more acknowledgment than any strangers who worked in the same building would. Ry went into the baths and massaged muscles and egos. Kait noted that he did a good business, too.
But it didn’t last, of course.
Kait arrived at the veranda one damp, gray morning, nodded politely to Ry as he went past her into the bathhouse, and started the fire in the little oven on which she heated her curling irons and flatirons. She laid out the pots of henna and lime, the towels and brushes and razors, and gave her fingertips a light coating of melted wax—that so the talismans didn’t embed themselves in her hands as she picked them up. Then she dumped a handful of the talismans into the waist pocket of her work apron and turned to watch a group of musicians setting up their instruments on the far corner, away from the bath’s fountain. Some of the Dragons were early risers; she’d learned to have everything ready as soon after dawn as she could.
Her first clients that morning were men. They were not as young-looking as most of the men she’d worked on before, but they had the same haughty attitude she’d come to associate with all the Dragons. They acted as if she were invisible except when telling her what they wanted. That treatment suited her perfectly, and she was as deferential as she knew how to be. She trimmed and shaped their beards, braided and ribboned one mustache and beaded another, and worked their long hair into the heavy coils that many of the men favored, hiding one growing bald spot as she did. Several women came out of the baths by the time she finished and were waiting on the benches by the fountain. They came toward her, laughing and murmuring secrets to each other, and the men rose as if to leave. But instead they merely backed to the edge of the veranda and waved the women forward.
Kait smelled something wrong about them—the scent of excitement she associated with hunters who have cornered their prey. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary about the situation—sometimes, after all, her clients had stayed to watch her work on their friends. But her gut warned her that something was about to happen. She tensed and moved closer to her stove and her irons, all the while bowing to the women and asking them to decide who would go first.
A handful of men walked out of the bathhouse door nearest the musicians and stood listening to them play.
Three more men came out of the bathhouse door beside the fountain and ambled slowly toward her, seemingly deep in conversation with each other.
A carriage rolled to a silent stop in front of the bathhouse, and a dozen soldiers in Sabir green and silver helped a veiled, misshapen figure to the ground and up the walk.
She was surrounded, her escape to the street cut off by the Sabir soldiers. But no one moved to attack. She smelled the readiness, but the charge that should follow such readiness didn’t come. One of the women, instead, seated herself in the chair in front of Kait and held out a decoration. “Work this into my hair,” she said. “The way you did the little bird in the cage for Alisol a few days ago.”
She handed Kait a delicate carved ebony sphere inlaid along each of its fragile ribs with silver and rubies. Each rib bore a rose and thorn . . . and suddenly Kait recognized it. It was a Galweigh trinket—something she’d seen on a pedestal in a cousin’s room or on an aunt’s desk. She couldn’t recall where. But the fair-haired woman in front of her was not a Galweigh by birth or by marriage. She had no right to the sphere.
Kait reached for it, wrapped her fingers around it. Felt something try to reach from the sphere to her, like a weight pressing against her shields. She looked into the woman’s eyes and saw interest, expectation—and then the delight of the hunter who sees the arrow strike true, and watches the prey fall.
She shivered, and her heart raced. The sphere had been a trap . . . and a test. By avoiding the trap—and had she not been well shielded, she knew, the spell that the sphere had triggered would have swallowed her—she had failed the test. She proved herself not a hapless servant but a dangerous infiltrator.
She had the chance for one move. She tucked the ball into her apron pocket—and in doing so caught the talismans in the pocket with the wax on her fingertips.
The woman rose. “So you’re the one after all,” she said. “I thought as much.” She smiled at Kait. “You can walk along with me quietly, or all of these men can drag you.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Kait said.
“You think not?”
The men surrounded Kait, weapons drawn. She couldn’t run, and she couldn’t Shift without giving away the one secret she might use to escape later.
“Give me back my ball,” the woman said, and held out her hand.
Kait pretended to hesitate, pulled it out of the pocket, and pressed it into the woman’s hand. As she did, she brushed her skin with a talisman. It absorbed instantly; the woman noticed nothing.
“So come with us now. You don’t want to die right here, and I promise you that’s what will happen if you fight us.”
Kait crossed her arms over her chest, keeping her fingertips hidden. Each had several talismans stuck to it; she was going to end up wasting them, but she didn’t have any choice. The men stepped in to get her, knives and swords pointed at her, and she nodded. “I’ll go.”
The woman’s face changed. She went pale, and stared around her with first amazement, then terror in her eyes. Then her face went blank again, but Kait knew what had happened. When she looked at Kait again, she was someone else. She was the person who belonged in the body.
Kait nodded; the woman blinked slowly. Back in the mountains, in the camp, her own people were only waiting for her to touch the men so that they could pull the Dragon souls from them. The true owners of the bodies would help her. She was going to survive this.
Behind her a familiar voice said, “That’s Kait. Ry is inside, Parata.”
She turned, stunned. Valard had come up behind her. He stood next to the twisted, veiled creature who had stepped out of the carriage. The creature lifted its veil, and Kait gasped. Its face had melted. Its eyes were completely gone, its nose was a gaping hole in the center of its face, its mouth was a jagged, lopsided scar twisted into a leer on one side, loose-lipped and drooling on the other. Ragged hair sprouted from a gray patch on one cheek, scales erupted from the forehead like jagged teeth, and tatters and blobs of skin dangled from the empty eye sockets, from the drooping chin, from the places where ears should have been.
Valard smiled at Kait, then at the creature beside him. “Let me introduce you,” he said. “Kait Galweigh, this is Imogene Sabir, a dear friend of mine. Parata Sabir, this is Kait Galweigh.” He chuckled. “Parata Sabir would be your future mother-in-law. That is, if you or Ry had a future.”
From inside the bathhouse, Kait heard sounds of struggle, and Ry’s voice shouting, “Kait, run!”
Then muffled, ominous silence.
Kait erupted into action. She darted under one knife, slapped the man who held it, twisted toward another and slapped him, brushed against a third, and broke free. She raced for the bathhouse, wishing she had a weapon, Shifting as she ran, hoping that she would be able to do something—anything—to save Ry.
“Let her go,” she heard one of them behind her say. “She won’t get away.”
She had Shifted too recently and for too long; her body embraced the hunter form only weakly. She bounded forward on four legs, teeth bared, clothes dragging the floor behind her, and even though she could feel the Karnee rage, the Karnee hunger, it was already slipping away.
Ry lay unmoving on the smooth white bathhouse floor, the center of a splash of shocking red. Blood matted his hair and the air reeked with the iron stink of it. She tasted the fear of the men who faced her as she charged forward. She leaped snarling into the air, intent on killing the nearest of them—intent on killing all of them.
But her unsheathed claws blunted in midair, growing soft and thin and weak. Her paws lengthened into hands; her muzzle rounded into a human jaw; her body lengthened and reformed, and when she hit her target, she was halfway between human and beast, and too awkward and misshapen to be as dangerous as either. The man clubbed her on the side of the head with the pommel of his sword, and redness bloomed behind her eyes.
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