Bound (27 page)

Keari stepped closer to it, crouched a little and sniffed before retreating. "I've heard of water from deep in some mines and other substances that can melt things, but they all have an acrid smell to them and this doesn't. I think we should keep looking around, but don't touch anything. Something isn't right here."

Faylanna, hurry, you're almost there, almost with me, where you belong. Hurry.
Marcius' voice filling her head almost made her gasp in surprise. She let her senses return to normal, then joined the others in the hallway and led them down to the kitchen. His satisfaction grew with every step she took down the hall. Here, the door was intact but hung slightly ajar. She put a hand gingerly on the door and swung it open.

The sight and smell that greeted her robbed her of any ability to make a sound. She gagged and tried to breathe as little as possible while staring around the room she had once loved for its smell and warmth as a child. Even the sense of Marcius lurking around her mind disappeared. The walls, the floor and even the ceiling were covered in a mixture of blood and twists of what she thought might be flesh. It was as if someone, a person, had exploded in this room. From the pattern she saw, she realized that it might have been more than one.

As horrible as that was, it was the intact body on the floor that tore her heart. She recognized him, though she couldn't see his face. Neoro, the man who had run her father's household all of her life and taught her to ride, lay in the center of a large, dry brownish-red pool, a knife buried so deeply in his back that only the handle was visible. It looked to her as if he had been there for a while. Though she had hidden from him in Voleno, she still loved him and believed he had cared for her beyond his duties to Iondis. Had this happened because of his failure to bring her back? She recoiled from the idea and felt the room darken around her as she swayed.

Arms scooped her up before she could even begin to fall and she was carried back through the doorway, cradled to Tavis' chest. She heard a soft sob behind them from Lydia, and the door of the kitchen was closed, hiding the horror from her, though not the smell. When she heard the latch click, she breathed a internal sigh of relief and clutched at Tavis' neck for comfort. In her mind, Marcius announced his return to her by letting out a shocking snarl, filled with frustration and anger. It forced her eyes open and her mind to clear.

"You can put me down, Tavis." He looked down at her, still concerned, then gently set her on her feet. His arm remained curled around her shoulder, as if waiting for another swoon. "I'm- I'll be all right. I just wasn't expecting-" She fought to keep the tears now filling her eyes from spilling over. "I've known Neoro my whole life. He was our steward, he ran the whole estate for Father. He would take care of me when Father had to go away sometimes, before I went to the academy. I- If it's my fault, if it's because I ran in Voleno-"

"It is not your fault," Keari said, grim determination in his voice. "Leave the blame with those who commit such acts, Faylanna. On them will fall the full weight of the Emperor's justice. I swear to you, it will."

Her eyes were still on Tavis, who added, "Remember the living person, the life he led. Remember the good things about him, not this ending."

Lydia stroked a hand down Fay's hair, though she looked nearly ill from the sight herself, and tried to smile encouragingly. Fay nodded and turned to the stairs next to them. She climbed to the upper floor of the house.

They moved through the first two rooms, guest bedrooms, quickly. The furniture here, like in the sitting room, had been covered with sheets, and the dust lay thick everywhere with no tracks in it save their own. There was no damage in these rooms either, and Fay was beginning to think that most of what she had seen downstairs had only happened recently.

The third door was locked and Tavis immediately put his shoulder to it, though it didn't budge. Keari placed his hand on the younger man's back. "If we do it together, it might-"

"It's been locked for fifteen years, so I doubt that there's anything in there," Fay said. Everyone turned to stare at her, so she explained. "It was my mother's room. When she died, Father locked it. I don't think he's even opened the door at all since that day. I asked to go in once, but he refused. It's the only time I remember him refusing me anything in the years before I went to the academy."

Tavis looked embarrassed but said nothing as they continued on to the next room. That door had been completely removed, with no debris and no sign of where it had gone. That seemed odd to Fay, but before she could comment, she saw the room itself and everything else was driven from her mind. She tried to decide if this scene was worse than the kitchen or only felt that way because it was in front of her now, then that thought also slid from her mind.

"What happened in here?" she distantly heard Tavis ask at her shoulder. As she looked around, she didn't know how to answer, even if she had been capable of speaking.

In one corner, she saw the broken remnants of chairs, shattered and heaped against the wall as if they had been thrown there in a rage and shoved to the side. The floor was covered with a litter of debris and splattered with drips and runs of blood. She didn't need to check if the blood belonged to a Magicia after she looked at the bed. The coverlet and sheet were thrown back over the foot of the bed, dusty enough to have been there for a long time. The sheet that covered the mattress also looked like it had been there for a while, but in a different way. It was covered with layers of stains, sweat and blood and filth, all in the shape of a person her father's size lying with arms out held across the bed's width. Her eyes went to the layers of dried, rusty stains on the floor beside the bed and she choked on her cry. In the center of that stain, she saw a large loop, tied like a noose, at the end of a rope that snaked back into the shadows under the bed. She felt sure it was tied to something underneath, and that there would be one just like it on the other side exactly the same if she checked.

"They held him here," Fay gasped when she finally found her voice. She turned to Keari, who stood at her side. "What have they done to my father? What were they doing to him? How long has this been going on and no one saw it?"

She felt Tavis slip an arm around her again from her other side. Even as she took comfort from this gesture, her eyes continued to search the room. Scraps of cloth littered the floor and, from the colors and patterns, she recognized the remains of her father's clothes. She looked over at the only piece of furniture other than the bed that hadn't been destroyed entirely. She stared at it uncomprehendingly for several moments before realizing it had been her father's dresser. It was only when Keari stepped past her with a growl that she put the pieces together.

The drawers had been ripped out of the dresser, tossed aside carelessly under the window, and the top had been cleared of all the objects it had once held. Blood had dripped down the sides in long runners from the top. Fay flinched when she realized that there was one line that had not faded to the rusted brown of old blood. A long, dark object had been placed in the precise center of the top. It was shaped like a knife, but shone dully in a shaft of light that leaked through a rip in the drape over the window. The prince was staring at it intently, his eyes wide. Fay made herself walk a few steps closer, though her stomach rebelled at the idea of being any nearer to either the bed or dresser. Tavis went with her, his hand still resting in the small of her back.

Keari didn't look up at her approach. She could tell he was examining the object for every useful detail it might provide. She saw that the handle had been wrapped in a leather thong and that the blade curved oddly, as if it had not been shaped at all, and was merely used as it had broken. Keari said, "Obsidian. They have a ritual obsidian blade."

The words made no sense to her, though his tone sent a chill through her that suggested they should. For a moment, she thought that she was refusing to let it make sense to her. Clearly it made no sense to Tavis either, who asked uneasily, "What's going on here? What are you talking about?"

Keari finally turned away from the knife. His face was grave when he looked at Tavis. "There are special properties to the blood of people like us, those who can use magic. You can use your own to find someone connected to you by blood, as Lydia did with you in the Gardensia Exotica, or it can be used in certain kinds of spellwork. In that case, it is used outside the body to enable more complex workings or," his eyes flicked briefly to Fay then back to Tavis, "to affect someone else who is bound to the victim by blood."

"They've been trying to-" Tavis began before Lydia cut him off.

"We don't know what they've been trying to do. That's part of what we're here for."

Keari turned back to Fay now, "Are there any other rooms?"

She nodded slowly and said in a shaking voice, "My room. It's the only one we haven't checked yet."

Leading them out of the her father's room gratefully as she tried not to cry, she turned in the direction of her own. It took her a moment to get moving, and her mind's eye saw a vision of her things torn apart by some wild beast, the vygazza perhaps, and her father's blood everywhere there also. When she reached the door and swung it open, she stared in confusion around the room, not quite able to take in what she saw.

Her bedroom was almost exactly as she had left it. Her childhood toys were still lined up under the large window that let the sunlight stream in, dolls in back against the wall, magical puzzles lined up in front. A child-sized bookshelf stood on one side of the window, her favorite books sitting next to school books she had brought home over the years in Rianza. A dresser full of clothes she knew no longer fit her sat on the other side. The opposite wall held a desk that was now too low for her comfort, the chair tucked in and a neat stack of papers, quills and an ink pot set out on the surface. For a moment, she thought the room now contained two mirrors, the one difference from the last time she'd visited. Looking again, she saw that her old, short mirror was still in its corner. She frowned at the object at the end of her narrow child's bed and realized it couldn't be a mirror. The image didn't move when she did. She took a step closer, and saw brush strokes. It was a unframed canvas, a life-sized portrait of herself, only she didn't remember ever sitting for one, and certainly not since she had started wearing her hair loose and long. She also found it strange that it was set out to face the door, as if it had been waiting for her.

Keari let out a hiss behind her. He dragged her from the room and down the hall by one arm as she stared at him. His face had gone pale and his eyes were constantly scanning around as if he were trying to see everything at once. She turned to Lydia, hoping for an explanation of her partner's behavior, but saw the same expression on her face. They were at the top of the stairs again, Tavis trailing behind them when she was finally able to wrench her arm from the prince's grip. She planted her feet as he turned around and began to reach for her again.

"What is going on? I'm not taking another step until you tell me."

His eyes snapped with impatience and worry, but he spoke clearly when he answered. "That was a memory canvas. I've only seen them a few times in my life. They're rare."

"What's that?" Tavis asked.

"It's a magical painting. When the canvas is made, it's linked to someone's memory. Their most recent memory of the subject of the painting will always be shown on the canvas, though it will look painted. The reason I'm worried is because that one showed exactly what she's wearing at the moment. Her hair was exactly the same, everything identical. They could have been anywhere, and are likely still around. We need to leave, now."

Fay tried to look back down the hall to confirm this, but Tavis blocked her view. "How can that be possible? I only put this on this morning. The tunic is new. It's the first time I've ever worn it."

"Exactly. Whoever is linked to that canvas has seen you, Faylanna. Today. They are here at Iondis now. Even the stain on the bottom hem of your skirt was there." He took a deep breath and went on, more in control of himself. "We will come back. We will find out what they've done with Calder and what's going on, but we must leave now, for your safety."

She was looking down to see what stain he was talking about when she suddenly heard her father's voice calling her. Her head snapped up. The thought that he was there, outside, waiting for her, blazed through her mind. He was close enough that she could save him now. She listened and it came again, behind the house. His voice was so frail, full of pain. She had to get to him.

The others were reacting to her change of demeanor, asking questions but she didn't listen. Fay spun in place and raced down the stairs before anyone else could move. She blew the door to the kitchen inward with such force that it shattered. The pieces destroyed the one leading out to the back of the manor. She ran through without seeing and then stopped as she entered the yard. The light blinded her after the dimness in the house, though the sky was darkening as clouds gathered overhead, blotting out the sun.

Chapter 17

When Fay's eyes adjusted to the glare, she looked around. The land behind the manor was dominated by the kitchen gardens on her right and the stables on her left. The scene shocked her into stillness for a moment, despite the urgent need to find her father, as she tried to digest the evidence of her senses. The kitchen gardens were as dead as the fields had been on their approach to Iondis, covered in heaps and mats of dead plants and rotting vegetables. The rows of short, miniature greenhouses her father had built along the side nearest the house had all been smashed, shards of glass strewn everywhere. Not one of them had survived whatever rampage had gone on in her home, and a part of her heart cried out at their destruction. They had been made for her mother, who had come from the southern edges of the empire and had missed the familiar foods of those lands. In the middle of all the dead gardens, she saw a bloated, rotting corpse. Though she was too far to be sure, she thought it was their cook, from the shreds of white cloth that fluttered in the growing breeze, almost like an apron. She tore her eyes from the scene before she began crying again.