The Song of Eloh Saga (20 page)

“I guess. Don’t really care for any of the drama. We’re all just hoping things calm down once they’re married.”

“Jitters?” Mark asked. I pretended to nurse my injured elbow as they continued their conversation.

“Hopefully,” he said. “Now get on with you. They’ll be wondering what’s taking so long.”

Mark pushed me, a little more gently this time, towards a door that led into the castle. He opened it and allowed me to walk through on my own. Once I stepped in, I recognized the hallway well enough. My home, the one place I never wanted to return to.

“We’re heading to the room where Kandek takes his smaller audiences,” Mark said. “You know where to go, I assume?”

His tone was still gruff but I knew we could be overhead at any moment. Slaves learned to become invisible to guests, but their ears were always open. Ivy and I would joke about the ridiculous things said in front of us, as if we were statues and couldn’t hear what was being said. Mark was obviously aware of that too as he kept up his role, a role he was much too good at playing.

“Reychel!” a woman yelled from the direction of the kitchen.

I turned to the right and Luci was standing with her apron tied around her waist, just like always. I looked at her, tears forming in my eyes again. I wished there was a way to stop them before they started.

“It’s me,” I said, holding up my bound wrists.

“I never thought I’d see you again and here you are. Come on the master’s wedding day just like he ordered.”

“She’s not here to socialize,” Mark said, pushing my hands down. “She’s a prisoner, my prisoner, until I decide whether or not to turn her over to Kandek.”

“Well, aren’t you cheeky for such a young soldier?” Luci asked, a grimace on her face. “Did your mother teach you anything about being a gentleman? Obviously not if you’d take a poor girl into custody like this. Brute!”

Poor girl? When I lived here, Luci lived to torture me. At least it seemed that way. So much I had believed had been wrong. Could I have been wrong about Luci too?

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. While I knew Mark probably felt the same about his actions, I couldn’t laugh and force his hand. He’d either have to punish me or laugh with me and neither was a great solution.

“Slaves,” he muttered under his breath. “On with you.”

I walked once again toward my master’s quarters. Even though I’d been gone for a couple months, I felt as though I’d never left. The same tapestries hung in the right places. A scene depicting the great mountains to the south of our island, a mysterious land few had ever visited hung to my right. On the left was a portrait of Kandek his fiery hair dominating his features. Nothing seemed to have changed here, but I knew I had changed. I just hoped I’d changed enough.

As we entered Kandek’s quarters, I was stunned to see Roc sitting in a chair, slumped over. His face was bruised and his lip swollen. I gasped, running over to him. Mark stood by the door, acting as if he wasn’t interested. I knew it must be killing him to stand by and do nothing.

I grabbed one of Roc’s large hands with my small, bound ones.

“Roc, are you okay?” I whispered, tilting his chin up to look at me. I knelt down when I realized he couldn’t look up at me.

“Reychel, my girl,” he said. “They know. Somehow they know. Get out, protect yourself.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Mark, his face still made out of stone. He glared at the interior doorway behind me. I turned, my eyes following his to the entrance that led to Kandek’s private quarters. Kandek stood in the doorway, a smile on his face.

“Reychel,” he said, his arms open. “Come to me. I’ve missed you.”

I stayed by Roc’s side, unsure what to do. Mark gave no indication, though I saw his eyes narrow. I looked to Kandek, looking so like his sigil, the fox. I remembered how he’d never harmed me until the morning of my birthday, but I also reminded myself he’d been using my gift and keeping me prisoner my whole life.

“No.” I held tight to Roc’s hand.

“And you,” Kandek said his eyes burning with a spark of anger as he turned to Mark. “So young, so foolish. You really thought you could deceive me?”

“I don’t know what you mean, my lord. I brought you the slave you asked me to find,” Mark said. He bowed deeply, sweeping his arm out at me. Even as he righted himself, his gaze never left Kandek.

“And it was that simple? I told you to find her after my best soldiers have spent the last couple of months searching. It only took you, a soldier fresh off his training, two days? Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”

“His family,” Mark said pointing to Roc, “was hiding her. It was a simple matter of explaining to them the tortures he would suffer if they didn’t turn her in. Within two hours she was in my custody. It’s obvious they know each other.”

I wrenched my eyes from the arguing men as I heard a smattering of applause from behind the door. A slippered foot stepped through the doorway followed by a woman in an elegant dress. I turned away in disgust, assuming she was Kandek’s bride.

A gasp from Mark forced my eyes back to the woman. But it was no woman. It was a young girl my age. Ivy.

“Didn’t I tell you he’d come back with her?” Ivy asked. “They’re such fools, aren’t they?”

Ivy placed her hand on Kandek’s arm and the anger faded out of his eyes. He turned to her with a blank expression on his face, the fire in his eyes extinguished and replaced with blind submission.

“Why don’t you go sit in the other room for a few minutes while I talk to them?” Ivy suggested.

“Of course, my dear,” Kandek said. He turned to me, “I

believe you know my bride.”

Chapter Twenty

“How did you do that?” Mark demanded when the door closed behind Kandek. His hands balled up at his sides.

Ivy laughed at him as if he were only a silly child. She flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder, stalked over to me, and rubbed my short hair. I smacked her hand away, hard enough to sting the back of my hand. She jumped back but quickly composed herself.

“Still refusing to wear a wig, I see,” she said.

“What are you doing? Doesn’t everyone here recognize you?” I asked, stunned to see my former friend set higher than any slave could ever hope. In fact, her new status was illegal. Serenians and Malborn commoners were not allowed to marry, and the nobles could only marry other nobles. It was a law punishable by death. Was her gift really so strong she could overcome all of Kandek’s senses?

“No one knows who I am except Kandek and he’s not telling anyone,” she paused. “He can’t. I won’t let him.”

A laugh escaped her throat. The sound was throaty and deep, nothing like the muffled giggles we’d shared as girls. Had anything about Ivy been real all those years? My heart broke into a million pieces. I had to separate my best friend from the woman standing before me. Trying to reconcile them as the same person was tearing me in two.

“You’re a soother,” I said. “You make people feel better about themselves. How have you done this?”

“You’d be amazed what else can be done with that gift, my old friend,” Ivy said. She swept the voluminous sides of her skirt up in her hands and sat gracefully in another chair. After draping the fabric over the arms, Ivy crossed her tiny feet on the floor. “Not only can I calm people down, but after enough time I can also reduce their will to disagree with me at all. Kandek proved to be an easier target than I imagined. Within a few days I had him eating out of my hand.”

“But the guard out front said the two of you fight constantly,” Mark countered.

Ivy laughed again, her voice echoing off the stone walls.

“Once in a while, I lay off the soothing and he becomes agitated, as I’m sure you can imagine. He kept me prisoner as a slave for all those years. Now he knows how it feels,” she said.

“You’re cruel,” I said. Roc’s hands shook in mine as Ivy laughed again. Had she soothed him beyond all reasoning too? Why had I let him come here? It wasn’t worth the cost.

“Me? Cruel? After spending your life as a slave to this man you call me cruel? Reychel, you never did get it did you? There’s so much you don’t know.”

Ivy stalked across the room to Roc. She put her hand under his chin and lifted his head. She looked into his eyes. “Now you have repaid me.”

Roc turned his head to look at me for the first time, tears welling up in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Reychel, I’m so sorry,” he said. He shook his head back and forth, grabbing at his hair. With wild eyes he glared at Ivy.

“I don’t understand,” I looked from Roc to Ivy to Mark. Mark’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Roc, his right hand grabbing the hilt of his sword.

“You betrayed us,” he snarled at Roc. I ran to his side and with my bound hands, pushed his hand away from the sword. He was focusing on the wrong enemy.

“I couldn’t help it,” Roc pleaded. He pointed at Ivy. “She came to me in my cell. When she touched my arm, my worries about leaving Bree and the kids dissipated. She talked to me with such kindness and I confided in her.

“She found out I was part of The Sons. I told her you and I had met.” Roc turned away from Mark’s accusing eyes. “She knew you were coming here. I told her our plan.”

“And she found a way to use you to get back at Reychel,” Mark said.

Roc nodded his head. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, look at me. Despite everything he said, I wanted to reach out and hug him. This hulking man, a warrior in a secret band of rogues, had been bested by Ivy’s gifted manipulations. He sat beaten as if he lost an entire army on the battlefield.

“Did you ever find out what your gift is?” Ivy asked me, apparently done humiliating Roc.

I stared at the girl who had once been my best friend and I couldn’t find one familiar thing about her. The kindness in her eyes, gone. The sparkle of her personality that drew everyone to her, gone. Nothing remained but darkness and anger.

“I did,” I said, holding my bounds hands out to Mark.

“Reychel, don’t,” Mark unsheathed his sword and cut my bindings loose. “Don’t tell her.”

I tossed the ropes on the floor, kicked them to the side and rubbed my wrists. The skin wasn’t rubbed raw, but it was red and tender.

“Does everyone know?” she asked, surveying the three of us.

“Aren’t you a little concerned about your own safety right now?” Mark asked her, raising his sword until the point was touching the hollow of her throat.

“There are plenty of soldiers outside the door in the hallway. If I so much as sniffle, they’ll break down the door and kill you all. I don’t think that’s how you want this to end,” she said. Mark held his sword steady, pushing slightly on her neck. Ivy gasped quietly but didn’t back away.

“Put it down, Mark,” I said. “She’s right. We don’t have the advantage here.”

He lowered his sword to his side, but did not sheathe it. A small drop of blood dripped from Ivy’s neck. She wiped it away as if it were only a harmless drop of water, leaving a faint pink mark.

“Now, about your amazing gift,” Ivy said, turning back to me. “Tell me, my friend. Just like when we were little girls giggling under the blanket at night.”

“My gift is deception,” I said, staring into Ivy’s eyes. “The spark in my eyes glows brighter than everyone because I want it to appear that way. My storytelling was all about lying and so were my feelings for Mark.”

“Deception?” Ivy asked, one eyebrow raised. “Interesting, but I’m not sure I believe you.”

“I don’t really care what you believe,” I said. We stared at each other a moment longer, neither of us willing to back down.

“What are you going to do with us?” Mark asked.

“For now I’m going to put you all in the dungeon. After all, I have a wedding to attend,” she laughed. “Once Kandek’s castle is mine, I can begin my ascent to power.”

Ivy snapped her fingers and the door burst open, six guards spilled in the room. I counted two for each of us. No one could accuse Ivy of not being prepared.

One of the guards snatched Mark’s sword before he could fight back as the others bound his hands. I struggled with the two assigned to me, but fighting back was useless. They were bigger, stronger, and more heavily armed. Roc stood with no resistance, merely following his guards out the door.

“Oh, and Reychel,” Ivy said. My guards stopped and forced me to turn around and look at her. “Don’t even think about your good friend Tania coming to rescue you. I’ve already got her stashed away in a cell and her special cloak is safe in my room.”

The guards pushed me out the door and I could still hear Ivy’s laughter echoing as we were forced down the hallway. Tania captured, Mark and I captured. My pounding heart sank into my chest.

“What do we do now?” I whispered to Mark, who was only a few steps ahead of me.

“Quiet, slave,” the guard said, knocking me on the back of the head. I glanced around, woozy from the impact, unable to focus. The guards grabbed my arms, dragging me along behind Mark.

As my vision refocused I looked down the hallway. It was the same walk I’d taken after angering Kandek the morning of my birthday. Kandek, I remembered suddenly, knew my secret, my gift. He knew my gift and yet he hadn’t shared it with Ivy if she was asking me about it. Obviously her skills weren’t as powerful as she thought.