A Thread in the Tangle (62 page)

“It wasn’t your fault, Isiilde.”

“I can still feel His hands,” she choked on her words.
 
“I do not like how my skin feels.
 
What did He do to me?
 
Why can I feel His pain inside of me?”

“You were raped.
 
Stievin took your Bond,” he explained, calmly.

“I didn’t want Him to touch me, so I stabbed Him, but He got very angry and—”
 
She trailed off into silence, shuddering with violent memory.
 
Marsais tightened his arms protectively around her.

“You did the right thing,” he murmured, brushing her forehead with his lips.

“Why did He hurt me?”

Because you’re a nymph
, he thought, but bit back the words.
 
He could not bring himself to make any excuses for Stievin, instead, he forced a cheerful note to his tone, and said, “Do you remember this last summer, nearly four months back?
 
I believe the sun was particularly bright.
 
The ocean was in a rare mood—calm and docile as a lake.”

“No.”

“Well, it was and you were there, laying on the beach, soaking up the heat.”

“Oen yelled at me to get some clothes on.”

“I hoped that you might remember.”
 
He smiled and stroked her hair, painting a picture with words, whispering gently in her ear, leading her thoughts far away from the present and the hours that came before.
 
“Remember the sun beating on your skin and the lull of the tide.
 
The coarse sand against your body and a whisper of a breeze brushing your hair.
 
Do you remember the way it made you feel and how happy you were that day?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever feel like that again.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Always,” she breathed.

“Then believe me when I say you will.”

Thirty-eight

O
ENGHUS
ARRIVED
BEFORE
dawn, soaked to the bone and grim as his name.
 
For a man who was nearly eight feet tall, the Nuthaanian could move with frightening stealth when he wished.
 
Oenghus slipped into the room, eyeing the lean silhouette slouched in the chair and the delicate outline wrapped in his arms.
 
He laid a massive hand on the Archlord’s bony shoulder, shaking him roughly awake.

Marsais’ eyes snapped open; alarm giving way to confusion, and then understanding when he felt a warm weight snuggled against his chest.
 
He remembered the when and where, but never the why.

The crag at Marsais’ side brushed back his daughter’s hair with a shaking hand, surveying the Bond that had collared her neck.

“What happened?” Oenghus asked through clenched teeth.

“Is anyone still working in the infirmary?” Marsais asked, shifting uncomfortably in the hard chair, trying to relieve the kink that twisted his neck.

“A few—most are asleep.
 
Some guards are standing outside.
 
I know them,” Oenghus added, sensing Marsais’ next question.

“I want to get her somewhere safer, but didn’t want to risk moving her until you arrived.”
 
Oenghus needed no further explanation, he understood his old master’s intent perfectly well.
 
In the seven hundred and some odd years that the two had known each other, trust had hardened into an unbreakable bond.
 
At times like these, they did not question the other.

Oenghus relieved Marsais of Isiilde, gently lifting her in his arms.
 
With the slight weight of her head resting against his chest, came a sense of relief.
 
His daughter was alive and the rest would sort itself out in due time.

They kept to the less traveled avenues, using the teleportation runes whenever possible, encountering few, save heavy-lidded guards struggling against sleep in the long stretch of darkness before light.
 
Oenghus followed Marsais to the safest place on the Isle: the Archlord’s study and personal chambers, where none but the trusted were allowed.

Marsais’ private chambers were a study in disordered plunder, brimming with powerful trinkets, an assortment of potions both lethal and life saving, weapons of fame and priceless gems used as mere paper weights to flatten brittle scrolls containing forbidden words.
 
The sole oasis of pristine order in the middle of the treasure trove was a massive canopy bed, which was rarely slept in for any length of reasonable time.
 
It was here, on the crisp linens and plush feathers that Oenghus placed Isiilde.

Logs stood stacked and waiting in the hearth.
 
Marsais went immediately over, removing a pinch of copper colored dust from a small pot on top of the mantle before sprinkling the powder over the wood.
 
With a whisper and a swift weave, the tinder flared to life, chasing back the chill with a cheerful crackle.

“What happened?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” Marsais asked, settling into a plush chair.

“Tell me everything,” Oenghus grunted, gripping the mantle with white-knuckled fists as if he were bracing himself for a flogging.

Long after Marsais had finished relating the details of her attack, Oenghus remained still, head bowed, dark hair obscuring his face, hiding his eyes, but not his shaking shoulders.
 
Marsais stood to shed his bloodied robes, giving his friend time to collect himself.

“Where’s the bastard?” the barbarian rasped.

Marsais’ fingers faltered on the laces of his trousers.
 
Here it comes, a crossroad, a divergence.
 
Would Oenghus go right, or would he go left?

“He’s where I left him,” Marsais replied, carefully.
 
“Pinned to the washroom wall.”
 
Oenghus straightened with a growl and made to leave.

“You can’t kill Stievin,” Marsais called, cinching the ties with a sharp tug.

“And why not?” Oenghus’ sapphire eyes glittered with wild rage.

“You know as well as I.
 
Her spirit is tied to Stievin.”

“I’m not going to leave her bound to him!” Oenghus’s muted roar echoed in the room.
 
He cringed with sudden realization, glancing at his daughter, before continuing in a quieter tone, “You don’t know what it’s like, Marsais.
 
You’ve never been bonded with a nymph.
 
Their thoughts and desires are in your soul.
 
Your flesh is their flesh and theirs is yours, but when you rip a bond from them, when a nymph is taken by force—that man owns them like a pair of boots.
 
If he tells her to sit; she will sit.
 
If he tells her to come; she’ll obey like a broken dog.
 
I won’t let it continue.”

“But if there was another way—a way that would leave her spirit whole?”

“There is another way,” Oenghus snapped, stepping towards him.
 
“If another man takes her.
 
And I won’t let another man near her.
 
If I hadn’t listened to your sack of bones, we’d be off this Isle and she’d never be in this position.”

“So you kill him!
 
Fine, go ahead, satisfy your revenge, and then what?
 
The paladins hang you for murdering a helpless man over property, because that is exactly how they will see it.
 
Isiilde will still be sold to Xaio.”

“Those sniveling cans of tin couldn’t get near enough to put a rope ‘round my neck.”

“Perhaps not, but you are still one man in a realm of powerful men.
 
Do not think yourself invincible, because your daughter will not benefit from your death.”

Oenghus growled dangerously.
 
Marsais pressed on undaunted, “Listen to me.
 
Your daughter has a fierce will.
 
She fought back—a
nymph
fought!
 
This is no vision of mine, no foreseen path, she has forged her own way and turned Fate upside down.
 
Do not get mad at this, but this may very well be a blessing in disguise.”

The Berserker’s fists clenched.
 
Marsais took a hasty step back from the looming giant, holding his hands up in peace.
 
“
Think,
Oenghus.
 
By the Blessed Order’s own laws, Stievin stole her from Kambe and he must answer for it.
 
Your daughter no longer belongs to Soataen, she is no longer backed by the might of Kambe, but belongs to Stievin.”

“My granddaughter could kill that louse.
 
Besides, what you’re getting at is a loophole in the Law.
 
It might not hold with this Chapterhouse.
 
The blasted Captain took my Brimgrog and forbid me to drink in public.”
 
Marsais’ attempt to hide the grin spreading over his face failed miserably.

“Keep your mouth shut, Scarecrow.”

“Just give me a few more hours.
 
That’s all I ask.
 
I wish to consult with a friend who may know of another way.”
 
Marsais stepped forward, gripping Oenghus’s arm.
 
“Stay with your daughter and count yourself lucky that you can give her comfort.
 
I know what it’s like to be denied that, Oenghus.
 
I would have given anything to have that chance.”
 
An old pain, a sharp ache, another scar on his torn heart.
 
Reluctantly, the Nuthaanian nodded.

Marsais snatched a wadded up shirt from the floor and slipped it over his head before hurrying down the hallway.
 
His mind was currently as chaotic as his study, and he desperately needed to consult another ancient who was not only an expert on the law, but possessed a clearer head than his own.

The grey outside the crystal window was lightening, heralding a new day of bitter rain and chasing back the shadows around the cluttered room.
 
Marsais swept the scattered books on the floor aside with a recklessness that would induce scribes to murder.
 
He rolled up the snowy pelt, exposing the naked stone beneath, and began muttering the Lore, linking himself to the powerful currents of energy that pulsed with the essence of All.
 
Weaving thought to action, stirring the waters as his fingers traced a complicated pattern over the floor, coaxing runes of glowing ice to life with a delicate touch.

One could not hope to master such a power, rather, he gave himself over like a bird caught in a current of wind, skillfully maneuvering, soaring, and drifting, but never seeking to control the Gift—no more than a bird controlled the skies.

When his masterpiece was complete, he stepped back to appreciate the pulsing beauty of his art: a circle of flowing runes and flawless lines that held no error.
 
A heartbeat later, he stepped inside the circle.

Marsais had spent a lifetime in perpetual disorientation.
 
While most found the sensation unsettling, he did not blink an eye as his mind left his body as easily as one might set off for an afternoon stroll.
 
He always liked where he ended up, which was nowhere, neither dark nor light, up or down, it simply was, and he waited.