They lowered his body into the cold earth and Leithen wrapped his hands around the sword hilt. The Shistra-Phail brought flowers to scatter around him and Jeren could only watch as his still form was laid to rest. The Ariah led them in prayer and song, and gradually everyone drifted away until only his family, Jeren and Shan were left.
No, not all. Two figures waited at the edge of the burial ground. Jeren bowed her respects to Devyn, Shan echoing her actions. Doria tried to smile for her, but failed. And then they stepped away, leaving the family to their grief.
Vertigern and Elayne stood close together, as if leaning on one another for support. Grief scarred them, more than the grief of Devyn’s loss. There was more. Jeren frowned, pulling away from Shan as she approached. Her former betrothed looked pale, worn with concern and grief. It couldn’t be good news.
“He’s taken my sister. Word is she carries his child.” His hand shook and Elayne’s tightened around it.
Jeren looked to her instead. The bodyguard didn’t look much better than her lord and lover. “Word came to us a week ago,” said Elayne. “We tried to catch up with them but it was already too late. He snatched her from some sort of banquet held in Grey Holt to discuss peace. Took her, wed her in some manner—legal enough or so they say—and raped her until she was bound to be with child. Then sent the joyous news home. The family is sick with worry. They hardly dared tell Vertigern for fear of what he’d do.”
Jeren nodded, mainly because she didn’t know what else to do. Vertigern looked desolate, and she recalled Shan talking about his sister, about how Falinar’s death had devastated him. The same thing wasn’t true of her. Gilliad had changed so utterly from the brother of her childhood that there was no comparing the two. She recalled his face, the hollow cheeks, the gleam in his eye and shuddered involuntarily. He barely seemed human anymore.
“Jeren... she’s little more than a child herself,” Vertigern said at last. “Our parents wouldn’t have allowed her to marry for several years. She’s...”
Jeren closed her hand on his shoulder, like squeezing stone. “I know. I’ll... I’ll figure something out. I promise.”
A flush of shame rushed through her. Mina Roh had always cautioned her against making promises she couldn’t keep. But Mina was dead. Dead like all the others.
“Go and get some rest,” she told them and heard in her voice the echo of a command. Vertigern bowed his head and left her standing there. Shan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and for a moment, just a moment, even that didn’t work. But his patience won out. Gradually she felt herself melt in against him.
“That’s what he meant, isn’t it?” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Gilliad. He said he didn’t need me anymore. He’s got a wife and he’s going to have an heir. So... he doesn’t need me. You’d think that would make me glad, right?”
“Perhaps. But it doesn’t.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to stop him now, is there? He can do...” Anything. Hurt anyone. He would have a True Blood heir. Not by her, but his wanting her was the one protection she could rely upon. Now that was gone. And that poor girl...
“I didn’t even ask her name.”
“It’s Alyssa.” She glanced at him sharply, but Shan was looking into the distance. He’d known? How had he known? Then she remembered, Indarin arriving with news. Was it really only that same morning? “She’s younger than you were when we met.”
“You knew?” He nodded. “Why didn’t you say something to warn me? Shan?”
“I wasn’t sure Vertigern would ask for help. In truth, he hasn’t. He simply told you.”
Part of her wanted to hit him. But the Feyna worked by different rules, a different system of honour, than the Holters. She never got used to it. Which didn’t make it any easier.
Silence made him edgy. “It was Vertigern’s right to deal with this himself.”
“I know that. But he wants help. Don’t you see that?”
“I see a warrior. One who knows his mind. He wants your support, but I do not think you can wholly trust him, Jeren. He still wants a figurehead for his cause.” Not to mention the strength she could give his cause if she was his wife as originally intended. Meeting Shan had changed all that. When he pulled her out of the wreckage of the coach, when he’d helped her, taught her... when she’d fallen in love with him instead of bowing graciously to the duty of marriage her father had intended. The shadow of that duty still persisted. The vision granted her at the pools of Aran’Mor had seen her wed to Vertigern, ruling as lord and lady of River Holt. One of her visions, anyway. The other had promised a life with Shan. How could both be true? “He hates your brother. Now more than ever.”
“So do you.” His grip on her tightened momentarily, then released. Yes, and she hated Gilliad. Now more than ever. And she pitied him too. “The Enchassa was with him, Shan. Helping him. Guiding him. She’s using him to get to us.”
He sighed then, a deep and desperate sound wrenched from his soul. “Of course she is.”
For a long moment, Jeren didn’t know what to say. He sounded resigned, as if he had expected it. But up until she saw the Fellna with Gilliad in that dreadful vision, she had hoped the Enchassa had gone forever. She’d believed them to be free of her.
But not Shan, it seemed.
She tried not to let the concern show, tried not to let him see that his behaviour worried her as much as the events unfolding.
“I should check on Indarin,” she said, to break the silence. “See how he is.”
“Of course.” He said it almost eagerly and Jeren tightened her mouth to hide the bitter scowl she felt beginning to form there.
Shan left her by Indarin’s side. His brother would live. Jeren was safe. That was all that mattered right now.
Maybe he should have told her Vertigern’s news, but how could he? It was the Holter’s news to break to her. Alyssa was lost. Even if they could rescue her, even if she managed to survive marriage to an animal like Gilliad, Scion of Jern, or whatever form of torment he deemed a marriage. Bleak though the thought was, Vertigern’s sister was just another lost to Gilliad’s madness. Like the other girl tortured and slain to send his message to Jeren. Like her grandfather. Like Devyn.
So many lost.
He sat down on the rock outcrop and sighed. Each one lost left a scar on his beloved’s soul. He could see it in her eyes, the pain, the anger and helplessness. And each time her resolve weakened a little more.
“It will wear her down, you know. It is inevitable.”
The Enchassa’s voice dragged barbs through his mind and Shan jolted alert, every nerve tingling with alarm. Whether it was real or a memory taken root deep inside him, he couldn’t tell. But they had been joined, while he was her prisoner, mind to mind, enthralled, and some things could not be broken. That she still had a part in this was no surprise. She might be with Gilliad, she might be anywhere, but she was always—always—with Shan. Since the morning after he had thought all was well once more, that they were free. She had laughed from inside his mind and he had realised that nothing in life was simple. Magic or madness, whatever caused it, the Enchassa was his personal ghost, tormenting him when he least expected it. He never knew when her voice might appear to taunt him, just that eventually it would.
“You have no place here,” he whispered. No one was close enough to hear, but what would they think if they came upon him talking to his enemy, or himself, in this way? That he’d lost his mind, presumably. That all the stress had finally pushed him over the edge.