Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (31 page)

* * *

Fitch paled, but he masked his fear with a shrug.
“What’s got her tail in a twist?”

Lance resisted the urge to black his eyes. “Cats are
possessive. They don’t like to share. Stop petting her. It means something
different to her than it does to you.”

Fitch sidestepped the issue. “I’m glad to see you, priest.
You’ve saved me a trip. I need a favour and you owe me for taking in your
strays.”

Lance had no desire to grant Fitch any favours. The world did
enough of that.
Remember
your
goal
.
Kandrith
needs
an
independent
Gotia
to
challenge
the
Republic
. He gritted his teeth. “What?”

“There’s a woman staying in the temple. Jazor says she’s the
high priest of Nir’s slave.” Fitch’s eyes glittered with excitement.

Lance hung onto his patience. “What’s the favour?”

“The woman’s delirious with fever. Jazor says she may die. If
you heal her, she might divulge something of Nir’s plans, in gratitude.” Fitch
waggled his eyebrows.

Lance clenched his fists. Time pressed on him. He needed to
find Sara. But Rhiain had run off, heartbroken, and probably wouldn’t return for
hours. And if someone was dying, his duty was clear. “I’ll heal her,” he said,
grudgingly, “but I’ll not badger the poor woman with questions about her
owner.”

If this was the same high priest that Sara had spoken about
with such loathing, then the slave would doubtless be too terrified to talk.

Fitch nodded, unfazed. “It would probably be best if I
questioned her anyway. You don’t know what to ask.” Turning, he addressed his
companion. “Breslin, wait for me here.”

Breslin didn’t reply, slumped either asleep or passed out, on a
bench by the pool.

“Is he your newest recruit? He looks like a great warrior, much
better than my ‘strays.’” Lance couldn’t resist poking at Fitch.

Fitch’s lips tightened. He headed back to the temple.

Once through the mother-of-pearl doors, he tossed off a command
for Lance to wait while he spoke to Jazor.

Lance paced the marble floors instead. If Rhiain couldn’t pick
up Sara’s scent, what was he going to do? Ask after her in the market and wine
temples? Both options seemed fruitless. His stomach knotted with worry.

The door Fitch had gone through opened again, and a statuesque
redhead with a regal carriage glided toward him, a practiced smile on her lips.
“Welcome, kind sir. You look weary. May I offer you a bath?” She placed a
perfumed hand on his shoulder.

Lance resisted the beautiful redhead’s tug on his arm. “I don’t
need a bath.” Well, that was a lie. He smelled of sweat, and road dust coated
him. “I don’t want a bath now,” he amended. He especially didn’t want the
green-eyed beauty to wash his back, which he suspected she’d insist on. “I’m
waiting for someone.”

She giggled. “I know. Fitch sent me here to keep you company.
Jazor was naked and well...” A sigh of envy. “They’re honouring the
Goddess.”

Again? Hadn’t Fitch just lain with a woman? “How long is he
likely to take?” he asked bluntly.

The redhead fanned herself. “It’s hard to tear those two
apart.”

Lance frowned. “Are they in love, then?” He wouldn’t have
guessed Fitch capable of such tender feelings.

The redhead tinkled a laugh. “Don’t be silly! But the air
almost combusts with passion whenever they’re in the same room. It’s because
Fitch is favoured by Nir, of course.”

His expression must have shown his incomprehension because she
smiled seductively and brushed her breast against his arm. “Surely you’ve heard
the story? Only the Goddess of Beauty and Desire can tame the heart of the God
of War.”

“Jazor is the name of both your high priestess and your
Goddess?” He’d forgotten that Republican custom. It had always seemed odd,
verging on blasphemous, to Lance, as if implying that the priestess was equal to
that of a Goddess.

The redhead looked puzzled. She drew in a deep breath,
inflating her already abundant cleavage. “Of course!”

“But Fitch isn’t high priest of Nir.” Or even a priest.

“Not yet,” the redhead said smugly. “But his attraction to
Jazor means the God of War favours him strongly. Much more so than—” she broke
off, suddenly looking frightened.

More so than the current high priest. Which reminded Lance.
“Since Fitch is occupied, perhaps you could take me to the woman in need of
healing. I am a priest of Loma.”

Her long-lashed eyes widened. “I thought the Goddess had only
priestesses.”

Another bizarre custom. “Not always.” Lance waited.

She bit her lip, somehow managing to make even a nervous
mannerism look erotic. “Very well. This way.”

Lance followed her swaying backside deeper into the temple,
right past the altar at the center. Vellum-thin screens had been placed around
it, and lamps blazed inside, turning the man and woman on the altar into a giant
shadow play.

The shadow woman arched and moaned as the shadow man licked her
upthrust breasts and—Well. Lance turned quickly away, his cheeks heating.

The redhead paused to watch the shadow lovemaking, her breasts
heaving again.

“Where’s the hurt woman?” Lance asked. Spying another door, he
headed in that direction.

“Why will you not watch?” the redhead asked as she hurried to
catch up. “It is a thing of beauty, a most holy ritual—”

“Is that what they tell you when they feed you jazoria and make
you bed down with any stranger who has the coin?” Lance asked. “That it’s
beautiful and holy?”

Her eyes widened with outrage. “Ignorant barbarian! They’re
reenacting the union of the Goddess of Beauty with the God of War.”

“At its best that—” he pointed to the screens “—is lust, not
love. At its worst, it’s degrading.”

It reminded him of Madam Lust. Of how his father had been
forced to pleasure their slave owner to save Wenda.

Her lips pressed together in offended silence, and she whisked
faster down the back halls.

From behind some of the doors came shouts of merriment or
groans of passion. In one place, the crack of a whip. Lance slowed, but then he
saw the guards stationed at various points in the hall, listening for signs of
distress. So Jazor did take some precautions to ensure her acolytes’ safety. And
was it really his place to lecture anyone? Perhaps the stories helped the
redhead tolerate the unthinkable. “My apologies—” he started.

She turned on him, eyes flashing. “Other temples may be places
without beauty, places where women submit to men or are so hazed with jazoria
they’d bed an animal. But
this
temple is blessed in
its priestess. Here, cruel men are refused, and no act is without desire on both
sides.”

Without waiting for him to reply, she flung open the door to a
storeroom full of odds and ends: a rolled up Qiph carpet, a carved wooden screen
with peepholes, a chest bulging with brightly coloured dresses, and a huge
four-poster bed that took up most of the room. Wigs decorated the bottom
bedposts and chains dangled from the other two. Heavy red curtains swathed the
window. A dim figure on the bed shifted restlessly under the linen sheet.

Lance sat down on the bed and gently took the slave’s hand. He
tensed as the Goddess of Mercy entered him. Since finding out about the baby’s
soul, he’d healed only twice and those small ills. He tried to suppress his
sense of betrayal, but it sat in his gut like a rock. He could not bring himself
to pray.

Loma laid Her infinitely compassionate hands over his without a
word of rebuke.

As Lance took in the extent of the woman’s injuries, anger
uncurled inside him. The brand was the worst he’d seen, scorched through layers
of skin and crusted with pus, but that wasn’t all. Bruises ringed her throat,
her torso and legs were similarly dotted, and she’d been raped.

Bastard. Lance wished he could be alone with Nir and beat him
to a pulp.

Lance reined back his anger and kept his touch light as the
Goddess soothed the slave’s fever and poured healing into her weakened body. He
let the brand heal over, regretting that he dared not remove it. If she went
back to her master, she’d only suffer the wound twice.

And Fitch wanted her to risk her life spying for the rebels?
They should be rescuing the poor woman, not trying to use her for their own
ends.

The slave woman stirred. “Lance?” She spoke his name—in Sara’s
voice.

* * *

Sara sat up and swung her legs over the side of the high
bed. She was wearing a clean, loose nightshift, and she felt much, much better,
thanks to Lance. “How did you find me?” She tilted her head, studying the
hodge-podge storeroom. “Where am I?”

Lance wrested open the red curtains, and bright sunlight
flooded the room. White showed all the way around his irises. He ignored her
questions. “Where have you been? That’s a slave brand on your neck. Fitch said
you’re Nir’s personal slave.”

That was an accusation not a question, but she answered anyway.
“Yes, I am.”

Lance yanked at his hair and tried to pace in the room’s
cramped confines. “You told me once that Nir was obsessed with you. What
happened? Did he kidnap you off the street? You were supposed to be
safe
.”

“Nir didn’t kidnap me. I sold myself into slavery.” Sara
reconsidered her words when Lance’s jaw dropped open. “Or rather, Blorius and
Esam sold me.”

“Esam did?” Lance swore creatively, ending with, “I’ll strangle
him.”

Sara frowned in disapproval. “It doesn’t seem fair to kill Esam
when he sold me at my request.”

Lance’s eyes narrowed. “At your request? Why?” He jabbed a
finger at her. “Start at the beginning and tell me
everything
, Sara. Why did you leave the Temple of Mercy?”

So Sara laid out her reasoning. How it had occurred to her that
the Qiph Way might provide Loma with the seed of magic needed to create a new
soul, and how she had chosen the path of Slave because of the limited time until
the baby’s birth. “Esam yelled at me, too, but he finally agreed to help me
rather than let me sell myself to the first Republican that walked along.”

“Instead, you’re Nir’s slave. How, exactly, is that better?”
More hair tearing.

“Because of the contract Esam wrote. I go free when my
pregnancy ends, and Nir pays damages to the Temple of Justice if I’m permanently
harmed,” Sara explained.

“You can’t tell me Nir’s honouring your contract. I just healed
your body. You’ve been brutally raped, half-strangled, beaten and branded.” His
voice grew louder.

“But I’m still pregnant. Besides, most of that happened before
Nir read the contract,” Sara said. And the severity of the branding was her
fault. She hadn’t realized how ill the burn would make her; she must have
pressed it too deep.

“I don’t care.” Lance sat on the bed and took her hands. “Sara,
I’m...awed by the lengths you’re willing to go to get the baby a new soul. I
know you were trying to help, but your solution is too terrible. I love
you
. I’m sorry if I made it seem as if you were less
important than the baby.” Moisture shone in his eyes.

Sara frowned. “But you do want the baby to have a soul and
live?”

“Yes, of course.” He stood up again, agitated. “But I’m not
willing to risk your life to gain it. You can’t go back to Nir. I’ll help you
escape. I think Jazor will turn a blind eye, if Fitch asks it of her—”

“If I do what?” Fitch asked. He leaned against the door frame,
one eyebrow quirked. “Where’s the slave? What’s your woman doing here?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll be leaving now.” Lance’s hand clamped
around Sara’s wrist.

Fitch blocked the doorway, eyes narrowed. “Why is there a brand
on her neck?”

“I’m a slave,” Sara told him.

“Is that why I haven’t seen you around camp?” Fitch stared at
Lance. “I never would’ve guessed you ruthless enough to send your own woman to
spy on the enemy.”

“Spy?” Sara repeated.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lance growled.

Fitch ignored him. “So—Sara, isn’t it?—tell me where Nir’s
Legion is. What does he plan to do about the rebellion?”

Sara thought back to overheard snippets of conversation. “He
plans to crush it.”

Fitch rolled his eyes. “Yes, but how?”

“He’s baiting a trap.” Sara repeated what Nir had said
word-for-word. When she finished, Fitch’s mouth parted, showing his teeth. Was
he happy or hungry?

“Well, then, I think I’ll arrange a little surprise for Nir,”
he said. “My deepest thanks, Sara. You’ve shown great courage in obtaining this
information.”

Lance stepped forward until he was nose to nose with Fitch.
“She paid a terrible price for that information, and she’s not going back.”

Fitch smiled. “Isn’t that her choice? Sara, if you go back, you
could be invaluable to the rebellion. You’ll be a heroine.”

“That’ll be a great comfort when she’s
dead
,” Lance said, his face red.

Fitch’s praise meant nothing to Sara. She turned to Lance. “I
don’t understand why you want me to stop. You want the rebels to win and the
baby to live. My enslavement gives both things their best chance for
success.”

Lance glared at her. “Nir is a sadistic monster who beat and
branded you. You and the babe would be in danger.”

“Nir wants to subjugate me, not kill me,” Sara disagreed. “And
you know the pain he inflicts doesn’t matter to me as I am.”

Lance stared. “That’s it, isn’t it? You claim you’re doing this
for me and the baby’s soul, but the truth is, it gives you an excuse to
experience more pain, the pain you find so very ‘interesting.’ Especially since
I can no longer give you pleasure.”

Fitch’s eyebrows shot up, and he crowed a laugh. “Oh, ho!
Having trouble stiffening your rod, are you? No wonder you’re so ill-tempered.
Sara, say the word, and I’ll be delighted to pleasure you.” His eyelids drooped
to half mast.