Petronus smiled, and it was grim there in the morning light. “It is indeed within our purview. The venue of our choice is our own nation, the free state of Windwir.”
Now there was noise in the room. Now came the indrawn breaths and the uncomfortable shifting upon those wooden chairs. A dark cloud passed over Erlund’s face. “Windwir is no more, Petronus. There is no nation there.”
“Regardless,” Petronus said, glancing to Esarov and taking in his broad smile, “it is the venue we choose. We petition for it as such and petition as well that the Ninefold Forest Houses be contacted for the arrangements of council as named protector of Windwir.”
The room became silent, and all eyes went to Erlund. Finally, he sighed. “Let the record state that Council of Kin-Clave will be held as petitioned,” he finally said, bringing the gavel down.
Petronus wasn’t sure what he’d expected next, but it happened quickly enough. The guards returned for him. He and Esarov stood, inclining their heads to the council and its Overseer, and prepared to go their separate ways. As Esarov shook his hand, he pressed a message into Petronus’s wrist. Well done. I will come soon to prepare for the council.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Esarov offered a grim smile. “Thank you, Petronus.”
As he crossed the room, Petronus glanced once more to Erlund and saw the anger on his face again. He’d not expected this turn, and he resented the loss of control, both over his Council of Governors and over his trial. His apparent frustration did not rankle Petronus in the least. Erlund might not have fully anticipated Petronus’s strategy, but Petronus had certainly expected the Overseer’s anger over it.
But when his eyes next found the face of Erlund’s spymaster and prosecutor, he saw something there that he did not expect. It was brief and it was meant for Petronus alone, of that he had no doubt.
There, in that moment as Petronus passed by the bench, Ignatio offered him a slight and secret smile.
And above that smile, something satisfied and smug danced behind the man’s eyes.
It was the satisfied gaze of a hunter happening upon a sprung snare. The smug look of a fisherman hauling in his overflowing net.
Petronus shuddered and forced himself forward, but even late into that night, that smile and those eyes stayed with him and promised something soon coming that he could not quite place.
Vlad Li Tam
Vlad Li Tam hung limp in the cutting rack and stared down at the empty tables. The days and nights were a blur to him now, and more and more, he found there were vast patches of blank white in his sense of things.
But for now, they were finished with his children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren. They’d hauled the last of the bodies away at some point, and from that moment, Ria had simply continued her work without them. Even now, as he hung there, her hands moved lovingly over his naked flesh, her fingers tracing messages into his back that he could not cipher as her other hand worked the salted knife.
He’d screamed himself hoarse at first, but now he simply breathed and lay still, watching the drool puddle on the floor beneath him. He felt the hot bite of the blade moving over his left buttock, slow and in a widening spiral that then moved up and into the small of his back. Exhaling, he forced the pain into the cave he had dug for it deep inside of himself. He forced it there and then stood guard over it.
I will grow my pain into an army. He would feed it; he would water it; he would keep it in the dark and secret places where pain can grow fastest and strongest. He would-
Chimes sounded-these louder than the one that summoned him from his makeshift nest of blankets in the corner of his suite. He felt the blade lift and focused on the warm blood that trickled down his side to be caught in the gutters and fed into whatever twisted repository they used for their dark purposes.
In saner, clearer moments he’d pondered their use of it. He’d not studied the resurgences that had gone before, but he’d known one truth-none of them had brought back the Old Ways with such elaborate care and attention to detail. These were not men and women hidden in the forests offering their glossolalia to dead Wizard Kings and cutting themselves to mingle blood over a campfire.
These Y’Zirites were different. Something darker, more sinister, more compelling than any resurgence he’d ever heard tell of. From their elaborate rituals right down to the genuine love and affection Ria held in her voice when she spoke tenderly to him about the kin-healing she now performed.
“We are saving you with agony,” she had said once, “and your agony, in turn, will save us all.”
As if summoned by memory, he felt her breath close upon his ear and smelled the cool apple scent of her mouth. “They’re here, Vlad,” she said. Her voice was heavy with something akin to ecstasy. “Your grandson has brought them home to you.”
He could not prevent the sob; it shook him, and as it did, fire spread across his back as pain raced along the intricate network of carefully carved words and symbols she’d written into him with her knives.
I will grow my pain into an army.
But some part of him knew it wasn’t true. There would be no army. He would watch his family die one by one beneath these brutal blades, and then, when all were gone and all of the youngest had taken their marks and boarded their ship for gods knew where, he would take his own mark and offer his throat for one final cut.
And some other part of him begged for that day to come sooner rather than not.
He heard soft footfalls behind him, and Ria kissed his cheek before turning away. “Are they landing, then?”
“Yes, Lady.”
“Tell Mal that I would dine with him in my chambers once he has refreshed himself.”
“Shall I summon the Physician and prepare a batch for the tables?”
Vlad Li Tam felt the spasm and knew he’d sobbed again. He held his breath, fighting back the tears as he waited for her to speak.
“No,” she said. “I think we can give our honored guest time to meditate and prepare his heart for this last of our work together.” He heard the footfalls again, and once more she leaned over him. Now, she leaned before him and he forced his eyes away from the breasts that hung ripe and firm from within her open robe. He went to her eyes, but the love within those wide, brown windows confounded him and stirred something he could not let himself lay hold of.
I am growing to love her in some dark and poisonous way.
Of course, he’d heard of such things. He’d even used similar tactics with others, though it had grieved him. Pain was a powerful hallucinogen in the hands of a skilled manipulator.
He gritted his teeth and forced down his body’s unbidden response to the hand she laid upon his cheek. She brought her eyes close to his. “We are nearly finished here, Vlad. I wish that I could continue our work together, but I fear I will be called away soon to attend other matters.” She put her lips upon his and pressed her tongue against teeth he closed firmly against her. When she pulled back, she smiled. “But I have cherished our time together; healing your kinship with House Y’Zir has been the greatest honor I could know. at least until I see the Child of Promise with my own eyes.”
Vlad said nothing. Instead, he forced that part of him that ached for her also into that deep cave full of pain. It was not love, no matter how it felt or what he thought. It was something more fierce and terrifying than that and it also would grow his army very well.
He felt the hands upon him now. He felt them working the buckles and straps, lifting him again as they had so many times before. And he felt his eyes rolling and his tongue lolling about in his mouth, felt the deep and salted fire roiling over his body, over the thousand cuts that made and unmade him.