Bound by Sin (11 page)

“She may well have,” Wizol, the city fortunary said, “but he was not sleeping alone last night…an unexpected occurrence.” Wizol had been ejected from his place in the vaults of Kriza, his ledgers and the city's gold commandeered by the barbarian men. Now he was forced to watch as they pawed through his figures and fondled the coinage he had been responsible for, the greedy pigs that they were. No doubt they would strip the coffers bare.

The truth was, no one was really certain what the invaders were going to do next. Surprisingly, there had been no raping of the women, no mass destruction or pillaging. They had taken the city in an organized, if violent, manner but had kept their kills limited to those who had taken up arms against them, leaving the innocent alone. There was something to be said for that. At least the barbarian leaders had some control over their men. But that control had been Kriza's downfall. That and the fact that Krizans were used to fighting their battles on the sea. They had been so busy looking for enemies approaching from the ocean that they had turned their backs to the real danger.

“What I should have done was pack my armada full and abandon the city. Why did I not think of that? But at least some of our ships were able to escape.”

“They will hunt them down, mistress. Their plans to do so were overheard earlier today.”

“Tell me something of the whore the barbarian leader took to his bed last night,” Braxia mused to the fortunary. “Perhaps we can enlist her to kill him. Given enough coin she might kill him while in the vulnerable throes of rutting.”

“What gold? They have taken it all.”

“Besides, she is not a whore. She is
prava
!” the finia's maid Bela said shyly.

“A
prava
sleeps in my bed?” Braxia demanded shrilly.

“Yes, oh glorious mistress,” the Bela said, bowing deferentially to the finia. The finia liked it when people bowed to her. She never grew tired of it. It was well known that the best way to mollify her when her temper was up was to bow deferentially in front of her and to stay that way until she gave you leave to rise.

“Yes, yes,” Braxia said impatiently, gesturing the maid out of the bow. “They truly are barbarians,” she whispered in awe of the levels the invaders would sink to. “The
prava
are animals, beasts even lower than these barbarians!”

“That they should consort with one only shows the measure of their depravity!” Wizol said. He was incredibly nervous. If he were caught there conspiring with his ruler, no doubt he would be slaughtered on the spot. So far the invaders had not killed any of the servants or advisors they had come across, merely relieved them of their duties. But that would very likely not be the case if those advisors were found conspiring to kill them. As it was, the guards knew he was there and would likely report his visit to the barbarians.

“Look, it is clear what must be done,” Braxia said. “There are three brothers in charge of this army. Kill the brothers and the army dies with them. Without leaders they will fall into chaos. We must do this before they have a chance to gain a true foothold. Then we can get messages to the ships in our fleet that managed to get away and have them attack from the ocean!”

“Attack our own city? But we've escaped with so little damage thus far,” Wizol said.

“They will not be expecting this. It is our only choice. But we must kill these brothers. What about poisoning?” Braxia asked.

“They have their own army of cooks preparing their food. Like everything else, they have taken over the kitchens. Perhaps we could manage something, but a Krizan servant now stands out amongst all these ugly alien invaders,” Wizol informed her.

“Then we must use assassins. Surely the brothers can be caught alone in some shadow, the perfect time to slip a dagger between their ribs!”

“Perhaps…perhaps the
prava
could be bought after all?” Wizol suggested. “We don't know what motivates them, really. Only that—”

“They cannot be trusted,” Braxia said fiercely. “They are dangerous and deadly. Come to think of it, perhaps we should just bide our time. The
prava
has no doubt affixed herself to the barbarian leader. It is only a matter of time before she lures him to his death. It is what they do. They cannot help themselves.”

“Yes. A sound plan,” Wizol said. “But it might be better for us to take direct action. Now, how shall we go about it?” The fortunary was anxious about being caught conspiring, but he was more anxious about being left to the whims of the barbarian brothers.

“Find a way! Get ahold of some poison, perhaps, something harsh and violent, and seek an opportunity to get it into their food. If you can do that, then all of our troubles will be over. They all eat together, the entire table full of advisors and generals and the brothers as well. Yes?”

“Yes, great and beauteous mistress,” the maid said with a bow. “The
prava
as well.”

Pleased, Braxia smiled. “Good. This is our plan. We will wait for the opportunity to present itself!”

“Yes, magnificent mistress,” Wizol said with a low bow. “It will be done.”

Braxia turned a glaring eye on her room; the small bed and the little desk and chair were the only furnishings within it. If all went well, she would be back in her luxurious apartment within only a few days. And to her mind, it wouldn't be soon enough. She had to succeed at this. She simply could not bear the idea of living a life of obscurity, a life of peasantry. She was finia, the grandest being in all of Kriza, ruler of all and commander of its great armada. These barbarians would be made to recognize that if it was the last thing she ever did.

Of course she was grateful to the gods that they had not killed her thus far. It was a good sign in the greater scheme of things. But she would not tolerate this disrespect, being made to live in such squalid conditions, to not even be given the courtesy of dining in the great hall with them.

No. It was very appropriate that all the barbarians should choke and die on their food. At least she could be assured of her own safety, that their rudeness would in the end protect her from sharing the same fate she planned for them.

Still, it would have been a great pleasure to sit at that table and watch them die one by one in front of her very eyes.

Yes. She would have liked that very much.

The full moon made it very easy to see their way back up the beach to the city. The city wall extended all the way across the beach and into the water, and there was a beach gate in both the north and south ends of the wall. Jaykun and Jileana approached the city via the south gate. The wall and its gates were now manned and guarded by Jaykun's men. The gates—what remained of them and the wall after Jaykun's offensive on the city—were closed after dusk to all comers. The only exception to that order was Jaykun.

Once they were past the wall, they walked along the beach to the docks and then walked the wooden planks to the nearest ship. Krizan ships were massive monsters, made for carrying a great force of men. They were not built for speed, so it was possible to outrun a Krizan ship if the winds were in one's favor, but it would take a skilled captain to do so. But once a Krizan ship latched on to its target, the large raiding party was brutal. Krizans were not known for their mercy on the high seas. Quite the opposite.

“They look so beastly,” Jileana remarked.

“They are. But that is exactly what I need. A fleet of beasts that can carry a great force of men over the waters.”

“These ships don't seem as though they could carry your entire army,” Jileana said doubtfully.

“That is because a third of the ships have gone missing. But we will get them back. We will crew these remaining ships and spend the winter chasing down what rogue ships we can find. Once spring comes, we will be ready to move on.”

“Are you certain you can find them?”

“It is hard to miss a ship that looks like this,” he remarked. Jileana thought he had a point. If not by the size of the thing, it would be known by its brightly painted colors. Each ship was festooned with all kinds of colors on its carved railings and the spires of its masts. On some of the ships, the decks were painted; on others, the sides were decorated. Each had a style all its own. The ships were unafraid of being seen and it showed.

“You are right,” she said with a chuckle.

“Odds are, the ships were poorly crewed and poorly supplied. That means we will find most of them in ports either in Moroun or at some other nearby harbor. Perhaps even your island.”

“Oh no. Not my island. You can't get there by ship.”

“Every island can be gotten to by ship,” Jaykun said with a laugh.

“Not my island. I promise you that.”

“Why not your island?”

“Remember the storms that kept you from seeing it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they are always there. They are violent and dangerous, and no ship can make it through them.”

“That's…I've never heard of such a thing before. Surely the storms aren't there all the time. They must let up every so often.”

“They are there all the time,” she assured him.

He didn't believe her. If that were the case, how would she have gotten off the island and onto these shores? He found himself bothered by the fib. Then he rethought the feeling. He could understand her wanting to discourage the idea of traveling to her island. He was, after all, an invader in command of a great army…one that now included an armada. She was trying to protect her home from him. For some reason that disturbed him. Why should it bother him? It was his job as an invader to seize cities in Weysa's name and he gave no quarter when it came to that. He should be planning to get to her island after he attacked Moroun. He would of course try peaceful methods first; he wasn't a barbarian, after all. Just like he would with Moroun, he would send an envoy to the rulers of her island, requesting that temples be raised in Weysa's name. The only condition was that on the island there had to be more temples to Weysa than there were to any one of the other gods. If they refused…well…that was when war broke out. From what he had gathered from Jileana, her people worshipped Diathus. It sounded as though Diathus was worshipped to the exclusion of all other gods. Since Diathus was in the faction that warred against Weysa's faction of gods, to take worshippers away from Diathus and gain them for Weysa helped their cause twofold.

But he wasn't focused on anything other than Moroun at the moment. He could send envoys to Serenity at the same time perhaps and then decide in which direction to go. But the idea sat ill with him for some reason. He found himself not wishing to upset her by planning to attack her people. Perhaps he was being selfish too, because he didn't want to disrupt the rest of their time together, or perhaps he truly didn't want to hurt her in any way. The thoughts sat uncomfortably in him. He was a calculating man, a man who was forced to make cold decisions in the name of his cause. It disturbed him to think he was losing that ability just because of a pretty woman.

Two more days, he reminded himself. She would only be influencing him for two more days. Then he would return to his clear-cut way of thinking and decide what to do as far as her island home was concerned. Until then, he would put it out of his mind and not let it come between them.

“Well,” he said at last, “I will take your word for it for now.”

“Come,” she said, taking up his hand. “Come to bed with me,” she invited, walking backward, away from him and toward the castle, pulling him along with her. The invitation gave him a fierce thrill of pleasure and excitement. He followed her all too willingly. By the eight hells, she could have been leading him to his death and he didn't think he would care. His vision narrowed completely at the idea of frolicking in bed with her for the next few hours. By all rights he should be getting some sleep and preparing for the big day ahead of him, preparing to face the mountain of work that needed to be done before his brothers could safely leave him. But all he could think of was that he would gladly face a day with no sleep if it meant a night of being ensconced within her.

He followed her to his fate. Once he was in his bedroom with her, she sat him on the bed and moved a short distance away from him. Slowly she undid the laces of her dress and then wriggled out of it, baring inch after inch of luscious skin to his eyes. Soon she was standing naked before him, her dress in a neglected pile on the floor. He was glad of it. He should never have dressed her in the first place. She was too beautiful in her natural state and such beauty should never be hidden away. And yet he knew that if she remained naked as he had found her, he would never get anything done. He simply would keep her in this room, locked away where no one else could see her and covet her beauty for themselves, and where he could make thorough use of her, satiating the rampant passions she so easily inspired within him.

As he watched her approach him, he marveled at her and his reactions to her. Had he ever been so hot for a woman before?

Yes.

He closed the answer off before it could disrupt what he was feeling right then. He didn't want to taint the moment.

And yet…he had to be wary. He had to be cautious or he might find himself—

No, he told himself. This was different. This time he was not blindly in love with the object of his lust. She did not and would not have the power over him that Casiria had had.

“Now it's your turn. Don't you simply suffocate in all those clothes?”

He chuckled awkwardly. He wanted to focus solely on her, but these other things kept intruding, these thoughts of Casiria. Why he should think of her at a time like this was beyond him.

Or is it?
an insidious voice within him asked.

He shoved all of that aside with a hard mental push and forced himself to focus on the woman approaching him. In the end, it wasn't that hard to do. He had never seen anything so lovely in his entire life. Not even Casiria could compare. And anyway, Casiria was long dead and this woman was very much vital and alive. But on the surface of it, he was glad Jileana was leaving him in two days. It might be dangerous for her to linger any longer than that.