The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (22 page)

“V—Vorisipor.” I hated the stammer in my voice, but this man unnerved me.

“Vhimsantyr? Far afield for a household servant. What sent you there?”

I hesitated, but he moved me into the desk’s chair with ease. “I was kidnapped by pirates,” I blurted as I sat. “They took me to Vorisipor.”

“You’ve been reading sensation novels, I see.” Tiercel laughed. “You don’t expect me to believe you were truly kidnapped by pirates? I’d expect Xander Ricknagel’s spy to do better than that.”

“But it’s true! I was taken on my way to Amphicylix from Queenstown and kept there for years and years!”

A crease of distress marred his forehead. He changed the subject in a manner so similar to Onatos that again I checked his features.

“Do you have a name, my lady?” His tone was openly flirtatious, and it made me pause. I had fallen into unexpected intimacy with Tiercel because he reminded me so much of Onatos. I needed to remember he was Malvyna Entila’s man.

Sterling had picked a name for me that had no relation to Gante or any of my past lives. And yet long-oppressed pride made me reach for the kerchief hiding my hair. I tore it away and let my hair settle over my shoulders, flickering like fire in his lamplight. “I have no name. I am the Cedna of Gante.”

Tiercel tangled his fingers in my unbound hair, and I couldn’t breathe. Bloodlight burned through my chest.

“So bright,” he said, winding strands of my hair around his finger. “Beautiful.”

No one had ever called me beautiful except for Onatos.

His hand latched onto the back of my skull and pulled me close. A thousand reservations crashed through me as he brought his mouth over mine.

Many nights in Vorisipor, I had closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and imagined Onatos used my body instead of the governor. A dangerous habit, but those memories of true pleasure gave me a strength other concubines lacked. I had seen enough women taken to the governor afraid or unwilling. I saw what they became: their dead expressions, the claw marks they left on their skin when they could not sleep for fear that the next night would be their turn. They returned from the duty on shivering legs, silent and terrified. One girl hanged herself with her own bed sheets; another stole poison from the governor’s potioner to put her to sleep forever.

I had not suffered like these delicate girls; I had my memories of Onatos. I held him in the center of my body, a bright white diamond that lit the darkness of those years in Vorisipor. When the governor had plunged himself into me, when he had pinned me down or forced my face into the mattress so I could barely breathe, I remembered Onatos.

Only Onatos had saved my mind in that black place.

Tiercel’s mouth came over mine, and it was easy to imagine that he was Onatos. So easy, in fact, that my hands pulled at the man’s collar as if I were eager to touch him, as if I wanted this.

But I never wanted kisses from anyone but Onatos.

His lips moved down my neck. Half my dress soon hung from my waist. We moved from his chair to his bed in a fluid choreography of shifts and slides, anticipating each other’s moves as though familiar lovers.

I stroked his black hair. My imagining and my reality fused.

“Onatos.”

Tiercel didn’t pull away when I called him another man’s name. He did not strike me, as the governor would have. Instead, he simply continued kissing between my breasts, over my navel, down my thighs. I fell back into the bed, trying to breathe, trying to remember who he was, who I was. But it did not matter. Bright bloodlight spilled between us, as though we were already bound. I could not see it, but I could feel it.

“Relax,” he whispered as he slipped his hands beneath my hips.

I
lay
with him on the narrow, cramped bed and peered at the dim shape beside me. Only his face was wrong, and that only by degrees. He was Onatos’s image reflected in water, features blurred just enough to confuse. I leaned to look closer.

His eyes blinked open and stared up into mine. My poor lungs refused to accept air. I’d never forget those indigo eyes in a hundred lifetimes.

“Onatos,” I said. “You—”

He stopped me with a kiss, but that was confession enough. I could never forget such a kiss, either.

“Beautiful,” he said as we pulled apart. He smoothed down my wild hair. Morning sunlight flickered through his window. Why wouldn’t he declare himself? Why wouldn’t he explain? What had happened to his face?

I loved this man, and every drop of my blood knew it. He had to be Onatos!

And I hated him, how I hated him! I had carried that hatred inside me for years, a torch lighting my path. If imagined lovemaking to Onatos had gotten me through my nights in Vorisipor, my hatred for him had weathered me through my long days.

Skeleton Woman had once told me that nothing existed by itself, and this was the truth of tunixajiq.

All things require their own balance.

You cannot know joy if suffering has carved no space in you to fill. You do not live but at the expense of some other spark of life extinguished. Every light must shine in a darkness. No magic is free. If we take power, we must pay for it in blood, no gifts without sacrifice. I could not truly love except by knowing hate. That is tunixajiq. A Lethemian translates the word as
sacrifice
, a Gantean as
balance
.

It did not take me more than a breath to pull my dress over my body and tear away from the mews in horror. I could not look upon him. I did not trust myself in either direction—I might throw myself back into his arms; I might grab the knife resting on his desk and sink it hilt-deep into his heart.

I slammed the door to my room, sucking air. Perhaps the years of taking night queen in Vorisipor had finally caught up with me. Was I no longer unable to distinguish dream from reality? The gasp of my breath and the answering spasms in my chest told me what had just happened was real.

It was real. It was all too real.

S
terling
knocked
on my door shortly after I had calmed myself. “Serafina, I’m so excited!” Sterling had picked out my new name and used it whenever she could. “Lord Culan invited me to go out with him this morning.” Her smile changed her whole face.

“I thought you didn’t like him.”

She ignored my words. “I need a chaperone. Can you come with me?”

I stuck the final pins into my hair and arranged a fabric to cover every last red strand. I followed Sterling as she hurried through the halls, though I did not want to traipse all over the house lest I run into Khayan the mage, or worse, Malvyna.

I regretted agreeing to the outing even more when Sterling took the path across the rolling meadow towards the mews. I stopped. “Sterling, what are you doing?”

She turned. “Culan wants to show me his falcon.” She danced from one foot to the other. “Come on, I’m going to be late.”

Sterling continued the uphill climb, but my feet had grown roots.

“Serafina! Come on!” Sterling called.

I sighed and trudged up the hill. My legs were soupy by the time I reached the mews—not from the climb, rather from anxiety. Sterling already chattered away to a young man who faced away from me—he must be Malvyna’s boy. I saw only his mop of curly brown hair.

“There you are!” Sterling faced me. “Lord Culan, this is my companion, Serafina. She is to be our chaperone today.”

He turned. No, not a boy. He was a young man, and he had Ronin Entila’s eyes.

“The austringer should come out soon,” Culan said to Sterling. “We hardly have need of a chaperone.”

I frowned. I did not like the way he looked at her, with a nasty blend of scorn and disgust.

He handed her a leather glove. “When Tiercel arrives, he’ll bring you a bird,” Culan said. “I have to get my furnishings.”

He left the mews’ main room. Sterling dashed to my side. “Do you think he is handsome? His eyes are so green.”

I snorted. “Green eyes are not so unusual.”

“Yes, but—”

Approaching voices interrupted her. “Do you enjoy falconry, Lady Stesichore?”

Sterling’s smile faltered, and she darted to the door. “What are they doing here?” she whispered, pointing at Stesichore and the young Entila daughter, Ghilene, a girl of about fifteen winters who looked so much like her mother that I could hardly bear to set my eyes on her.

Stesichore glided through the door. “Sterling!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Culan said I could see his bird.”

“Oh, is he here?” Stesichore appeared pleased.

“Lady Stesichore.” Culan emerged from the back room with a bird on his gauntlet. He beamed.

Stesichore moved to his side. “What a lovely bird.” She laced her arm around his free one. “I’d love to see you fly it.” She fluttered her lashes, and Culan swept her outdoors, leaving Sterling forgotten.

Ghilene smirked openly at Sterling. “You aren’t his type,” she said as she headed deeper into the mews.

Sterling removed the birding gauntlet and bit her lower lip.

I took the glove and set it on the counter. “He is only one young man, Sterling, and not a nice one. Perhaps at the Brokering in Galantia—”

“Even Papa knows I won’t be a success in Galantia! That’s why we’re here with the Entilas in the first place!”

“Believe me, Lady Sterling, you don’t want anything to do with Culan Entila,” a low voice said behind us. I panicked and turned so awkwardly that I knocked the gauntlet onto the ground.

Onatos picked up the leather glove and smoothed his hand over it. “Culan has no kind bone in his body.”

“Who are you?” Sterling demanded. She had calmed herself when he joined us.

“I’m Tiercel, the austringer. Would you like to see my birds?”

Sterling nodded, so we followed him through the mews, peering at his menagerie. He had created a wonder in the mews—so many birds, each of them unique and trained to his touch. The entire place was spotlessly clean and well kept.

He avoided meeting my gaze until the end of his tour. He bowed over Sterling and kissed her hand. I scowled when he bent over my hand, too. He held my palm softly until Sterling had walked on a few steps.

“Tonight,” he whispered. “Come to me.”

I
paced my chamber
, stopped, stared into the looking glass, and then returned to my pacing. He was Onatos. But why was Onatos here, pretending to be a falconer? Onatos, Lord Amar! Why would he leave his title behind when he had been fighting so hard to claim it? A brief flash of Onatos’s body wrapped around Malvyna’s crossed my mind. I swallowed my sickness.

Should I go to him? What would it mean if I did?

That night I brought my pacing outside. From the meadow before the mews, I saw the glimmer of his candle. What a naive girl I still was, even now, well past thirty winters old. Love makes fools of us all.

I walked towards his light.

“You came.” Onatos turned in his seat.

“Onatos—”

“Hush,” he cut me off. “You cannot use that name here.”

“But—”

He had already risen, taking me in his arms, kissing me as though my lips were air and he’d been suffocating. I disentangled myself as soon as I could.

“You have to explain,” I said. “What happened to you? What are you doing here, living in Malvyna’s household like a servant?”

A pained look twisted his face. “I cannot explain.”

“Onatos! You must.”

He held out his graceful hands in appeal. “Love, I cannot. And you must not call me that name. It will alert them—”

“Alert whom?”

He sighed. “I cannot explain.”

“Stop saying that!”

“But it is the truth, my love.” He sat down heavily in his chair. “I cannot explain. It isn’t that I do not want to tell you. I am trapped.”

“Trapped? Trapped how?” Gears turned in my head. Only one thing could truly trap a man so he could not speak freely. “You mean—magic?”

“Please, Beautiful, come here. Touch me. I have so little pleasure these days.” His expression was as deep and dark as twilight. “Please.”

“Who did this to you?” I demanded, not moving. Yes, this was Onatos. If I’d doubted before, I wouldn’t now. Only Onatos would rather drown himself in immediate pleasures than deal with his obvious and enormous troubles.

He shook his head. “You must leave off. There is nothing we can do about it,” he said. I’d heard that resignation in his voice before.

“Onatos, you never knew me very well if you think I will kiss you quietly while you languish trapped in that bitch’s magic.” He winced when I said his name. I surmised by his lack of response that I had guessed correctly. Malvyna had ordered the magic that trapped him here.

Why?

The look he gave me was so hopeless and forlorn that I could not stand to stay with him another moment. I had no patience for wallowing. I flew from his room with my mind churning. I’d learn what had happened to him if I had to hunt down Malvyna herself and strangle the answer from her.

Then I would fix whatever had been done so Onatos could be free again.