Anathema - The Song of Eloh Saga, Book 2 (16 page)

“Are you ready?” Mark whispered, not looking
at me. I knew he had to pretend I was nothing more than a slave. It
hurt to be so close and not be able to reach out to him. My chest
heaved as my breaths grew shallower. I forced myself to breathe in
deeply, now was not the time for cowardice.

“Yes.” Whether I actually felt ready was a
different question. I’d come this far. I had to follow through.
Before ringing the bell at the front gate, Mark roughly grabbed my
bound wrists. I felt him gently hold my fingers, his thumb rubbing
mine before he pushed me in front of him. There was one good thing
about my nervousness, anyone who saw me wouldn’t think my fear was
an act.

“Announce your arrival,” he yelled,
thrusting me into the thick rope attached to a huge bell. My face
scraped against its rough strands and burned my cheek.

Reaching up with my bound hands, I grabbed
the rope. With great effort I pulled down. The bell loosed a deep,
thundering tone, one I was very familiar with. My ears rang with
the sonorous clanging. I’d never had any idea it was so loud having
only heard its muffled echoes within the castle walls.

A barred window in the huge doorway slid
open to reveal an armed guard’s gnarly face, partially hidden by a
helmet.

“It better be important. The king’s wedding
is today and no one is supposed to be allowed in yet.”

His eyes left Mark’s face and glared at me.
Taking me in, from head to toe I saw his eyes widen as he nodded
his head.

“You,” he snarled in the back of his throat.
“You filthy, stinking escaped slave. You remember me?”

I squinted at him through the bright
unfiltered sunlight. Behind his helmet I could make out a tightly
slitted pair of dark eyes. The same eyes that had glared at me
through my cell bars the day of my branding. Tod.

“Come back for the wedding today?” he
mocked.

“I’ve brought her back as our master bade
me. Using our last prisoner as leverage,” Mark said, jerking me to
the side out of the guard’s line of sight. “His family thinks that
by turning her in, he’ll be released.”

“You actually going to ask him to release
that man?”

“Might,” Mark smiled. “Depends on the
master’s mood.”

I was surprised at how easily he could talk
with this man about Roc, as if he cared nothing for our friend.
Mark had spent one year training with the military, living and
working with men just like this. It was a side of him I’d never
seen.

The guard chuckled. “Smart man.”

He disappeared from the window. I looked at
Mark but his eyes gave nothing away. There wasn’t a hint of the man
I knew hiding in there. My hands begin to shake. I knew I shouldn’t
be afraid of Mark, that all of this was just an act, but one I
thought he was a little too good at.

A door to the side slid open and the guard
motioned us in. Mark pushed me through the open doorway, but I
didn’t know it was coming. I tripped over my feet and I fell to the
ground landing hard on my elbow, unable to catch myself with my
bound hands. Tears sprung to my eyes and burned my cheeks. I rubbed
them away with the back of my hands, determined not to let either
of them see me cry.

I lay on the ground, hands bound and unable
to get up gracefully. I wasn’t sure what to do. I looked to Mark,
but he only turned away with disgust.

“Get up, you stupid slave,” the guard
yelled, kicking me with his foot.

I used my hands to push myself to my knees,
even though I had considerable pain in my elbow, and I managed to
get back up on my own. I hid my face from the men as another tear
fell down my cheek. I didn’t want either of them to see any
weakness.

“I’ll send word ahead of you.” He gestured
to a young slave sitting on a stool in the corner. “Run now. Let
them know the master’s missing slave has returned.”

The bald little boy looked up at me, his
eyes wide. I didn’t recognize him and I wondered if he was new. “Is
she the one?” he asked.

Before he could finish the guard smacked the
boy across the mouth. His hand flew to this mouth, just catching
the blood from his newly split lip.

“Did I give you permission to talk?” Tod
growled.

The little boy shook his head.

“Go!” the guard yelled. He turned back to
Mark with a smile on his face. “Slaves. Got to teach ‘em to listen
early. You remember which way to go?”

“I do,” Mark answered, clapping the guard on
the shoulder. “Thank you for your help.”

“Anytime. Maybe the master will be happier
now that he has this slave back. He’s been a real tyrant since she
escaped.”

“Yet he managed to fall in love?” Mark
asked.

The guard laughed, his belly shaking under
his light mail armor.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” he
said. “His bride’s gorgeous, but they never seem to get along. He
ignores her and she yells at him. No one knows where she came from
or why he’s even taking her on. Must have been some sort of
arrangement with another overlord.”

“Interesting,” Mark said. Their conversation
shook me out of my self-pity and forced me to focus. I might be
able to use any information I could glean when negotiating with
Kandek for release of the prisoners. Maybe an appeal to his new
bride? If she was unhappy maybe a generous gesture on his part
would make her happier, causing the level of tension in the castle
to fall.

“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.”