Parasite Soul (6 page)

As he was gathering his wits, attempting to orient himself for what
promised to be an exhausting swim, Niu broke the surface a few feet in front of
him. Discovering that Simon had been unable to match her speed, she’d
doubled back. Pulling clinging strands of wet hair from her dark eyes,
she pointed out across the lake at a blur Simon couldn’t distinguish.

“Follow me,” she said, and ducked back under the water.

With very few options, Simon took one last longing look at the shore
and followed her.

In the wake of its forceful contact with the wall, the unfortunate
plate exploded into fragments and rained down on the carpet.

From the start, Princess Tiera Minus had been opposed to her
father’s idea of marrying her off to whomever managed to slay the beast the
town criers had dubbed The Cannevish Wyrm. She was no one’s property, to
be bartered for services rendered. If the King followed through with his
plan, she’d promised herself, her groom wouldn’t survive the wedding
night. She’d smirked whenever the dragon had devoured another would-be
suitor, making no secret of her mocking relief.

Then farmer-boy had showed up at court. Tiera had found
herself unaccountably attracted to the lad. He was incredibly common, of
course; coarse in his manner, scruffy and slovenly; his hair looked as though
he’d sawed it off with a blunt rock. For all that, he was well-built,
even strapping, and if his eyes showed no great depths of intelligence, at
least they were an attractive shade of sky blue. Undoubtedly she’d want
to have him put down eventually, of course, but she’d enjoyed the idea of toying
with him a bit first.

Who could have imagined, with his having been offered the
opportunity to wed a
princess,
that this presumptuous rustic would have
the temerity to ask for the hand of that lowborn whore Niu! A mere
servant, a
gift
! How even a
peasant
could be so
short-sighted, so unambitious, baffled and infuriated Tiera. Would he
have stooped even lower, had he the choice? Perhaps he would have
preferred a
milkmaid
?

Panting, she glared at the shattered plate without really seeing
it. Nor did she notice the scurrying blur of her remaining handmaiden,
Farrow, as the girl - brush and dustpan in hand – made haste to tidy up the
mess. Instead, she stared at some blank middle space at an unreal world,
where - for all the allure of her beauty and power - she couldn’t command the
heart of a simple peasant.

Her father had agreed that the insolent wretch needed to be
punished. That, he said, was his domain, to be left in his hands.
Tiera had argued, but her father had remained firm. Eventually, she’d
resentfully agreed to this stipulation, on the understanding that she was free
to do as she saw fit with Niu. If Tiera couldn’t ruin Simon personally,
she’d decided, then she would damn well vent her frustrations on the bitch
who’d bewitched him. Fifty lashes would be enough to break her spirit,
after which the real punishment would begin.

As events unfolded, the wily handmaiden had foreseen her fate and
disappeared in the night. Tiera had placed the girl’s chambers under
surveillance; Niu’s only possible escape route had been the hair-raising
descent from her chamber window to the courtyard a hundred feet below.
This astonishing display of skill and courage only heightened Tiera’s
antipathy. When she finally laid her hands on the witch, she would have
her flayed alive. Or perhaps hanged? No; too quick. Possibly
burned at the stake. How unfortunate that Tiera knew of no method of
resurrection through which the handmaiden might be subjected to all three
fates.

Satisfied that her father’s men were in hot pursuit of the insolent
peasant and the infuriatingly capable handmaiden, Tiera had contented herself
with ordering the men responsible for monitoring Niu’s chambers executed.
In vain they’d protested that, stationed in an interior palace hallway as they
were, it would have been impossible for them to have observed Niu’s escape;
Tiera wanted
someone
hurt, a salve for her wounded pride.

No one
, she thought fiercely, gown
rustling along the rug as she swept back and forth, no one
rejects Princess
Tiera of the House of Minus
.

Casting her gaze around her magnificent bedchamber, her eyes
lingered on the luxurious four-poster bed, carved from rarest western
grettwood, that she might have shared with the strapping young peasant.
With his sun-weathered skin and calloused hands, what a change from soft,
powdered nobility he might have made, even if she had to burn the sheets
afterward! Who knew what delightfully crude techniques such a raw
specimen might have used to entertain her? At least one of her more
experimental noble peers told giggling tales of peasant men being hung like
oxen, if only one could overlook their ill manners and the grime beneath their
ragged fingernails.

If that’s the case, perhaps I’ll mount his manhood on my wall,
Tiera thought sourly.
Right next to Niu’s head.

A single, anxious rap upon her chamber door jolted her out of her
vengeful reverie. The palace servants knew better than to interrupt her
when her mood was so vicious. A guardsman, then, no doubt about her
father’s business. She waved a perfectly manicured hand irritably.
Farrow hurried across to the door and edged it open.

“Message for the princess,” a mustachioed soldier said through the
crack in the door. “If she would kindly join the king in court.”

“Tell him I’m busy.” Tiera folded her arms and glided across to the
open window, staring out over a city which she currently wanted to set alight.

“The princess should be advised that the matter concerns her.” The
guard said nervously, still addressing Farrow. “A report is to be
presented as to the status of the… refugees.”

Tiera’s eyes widened. “Do we have them?”

The soldier studied the floor and answered cautiously. “The
princess would needs attend to learn the outcome of the search.”

“No, then,” Tiera snapped. She flicked her wrist
dismissively. “You may inform father that I will be in attendance
presently.”

“M’lady.” The man inclined his head and disappeared from
view. Farrow closed the door and stood awaiting instruction, her hands
folded in front of her. Her doleful expression infuriated Tiera.
What did the girl have to be so downcast about? Was not serving the
princess about the greatest honor a commoner could aspire to? Could her
own perceived misfortunes possibly equal Tiera’s own? She wanted to slap
the glumness off the wretched girl’s face.

Restraining herself, she swung back to the window and glowered at
the rooftops below, toying with her shimmering diamond necklace. Quell
diamonds, the finest in the known world. She had the deepest fondness for
these coldly beautiful drops of crystalline ice, as hard and pale as her
soul. She would wear no stones which had not been mined by their tiny
southern neighbor; they were of the highest quality and the craftspeople of Quell
were unparalleled.

It wouldn’t do to arrive in court too promptly, she decided, or her
father – who had taken significant liberties with her freedoms over this whole
affair to begin with – might come to think that she was entirely under his
control. If she waited too long, however, he would receive the report
without her, and she hated being out of the loop, however temporarily,
especially when the news was intimate concern to her and she might otherwise
have been able to influence any decisions her father made.

Relying upon instinct to guide her timing, she watched the ants
scurrying about below as though their lives were of any importance to the
kingdom. If only she could reach down and grind them into the
cobblestones; that would go a long way to assuaging her anger.

If only my brother was here
.

But Merequio’s presence wasn’t an option. The hunting accident
had stolen him from her. Whirling eddies of snow seemed to obscure
Tiera’s vision as she was transported back to the time and place which had irrevocably
changed her life.

There is nothing to be done for him.
Those hateful words, spoken by one of her father’s huntsmen as she’d thrown
herself upon her brother’s corpse, snaked through her brain as though hissed
directly into her ear. Try as she might to concentrate upon the cityscape
below, the pattern of Merequio’s blood, staining the snow, superimposed itself
over her vision. His ruined face came to her unbidden, his jaw hanging
horribly slack, his head twisted at an unnatural angle. She remembered
flying to her father for comfort, but he’d held her only stiffly, his eyes
already in the process of hardening to a glassy blackness; an abyss from which
they’d never fully returned.

And nor have I,
Tiera thought.
Damn
you, brother. You should be here today.
Her deceptively
delicate hands bunched into iron fists.
I hate you
.

Abruptly, she swung toward Farrow, whose anxious eyes immediately
dropped toward the floor.

“The door, girl! Get the door!”

Farrow sprang into action. Her startled-deer movements and
awkward mannerisms were as frustrating as her lifeless eyes. Niu -
the
bitch
– had, at least, a spark of life and grace about her. Farrow,
whom Tiera’s men had purchased from a peasant family at a very young age, had
all the spirit of an abandoned, broken doll. Perhaps it was coming time
to replace her.

Sweeping out of her chambers, Tiera entered a short hallway.
Tapestries decorated walls which were ancient and eroding. Tiera promised
herself that when she eventually inherited the kingdom - either as ruler or
through control of whatever fool she was forced to marry - she would tear down
this irrelevant monument to the past and have a magnificent new palace
constructed. This she swore, if it broke the back of every laborer in
Cannevish.

A descending flight of stairs, worn smooth, brought her to another,
longer hall. This was the palace’s central nerve, connecting the banquet
hall, the throne room, and the king’s royal suite. At the end of this
passage, sealed off, her brother’s old chambers were collecting dust. To
the best of her knowledge, his personal possessions had never been moved.
She longed to order his rooms unsealed. She thought she might be able to
let her brother go if she could just say farewell to his echoes one final time,
but she knew her father would punish her if she tried. Seemingly
determined to bury Merequio’s memory, he’d forbidden her - or anyone else -
access to his sanctum.

An enormous guard was posted outside the door to enforce this
decree, with instructions that nobody, not even Tiera, was to pass
inside. Warrington was his name, she thought, or Warringsworth, something
similar. It didn’t matter. He was an irritating reminder that her
authority had limits. Much as she’d bullied and threatened this man, he
remained an immovable force. He was replaced at night by a shorter but
more sinister man who frankly made Tiera’s skin crawl.

Tiera didn’t respond well to having anything forbidden her, but if
there was one person in Cannevish she held in healthy respect, it was her
father. She didn’t fear him, exactly; she had no difficulty speaking her
mind in his presence, yet she found herself aggravatingly obedient to his
wishes. Hard, never outwardly affectionate, Minus was a difficult man to
love, even for a daughter. Still, as far as family went, he was all she
had, and as little as she liked to admit it to herself, she clung to that.

She shuddered as she passed the boarded up suite, brushed, as ever,
by Merequio’s ghost. Would he ever leave her completely? Part of
her desired nothing more, resenting his hold upon her mind; part of her knew
she would never be able to cope with the aching hole in her soul.

Favoring Warring-whatever with a smile so poisonous it might have
felled a weaker man, she turned left into the short passage which led to the
throne room. Trailed by her colorless servant, she made a measured
entrance. Few courtiers were in attendance, which suited Tiera just fine;
more often than not she wanted to suffocate these mewling sycophants with their
powdered wigs. Her father adorned his throne as though he’d been sculpted
into it. Facing him, one hand raised in salute, stood General Gharletto,
a towering, square block of a man, his beard as wildly unkempt as that of the
lowliest beggar.

King Minus turned a blind eye to Gharletto’s appearance; he was
widely known as the only man whom the monarch respected. The General
wasn’t even required to kneel in the presence of royalty. His stalwart defense
of the kingdom during invasions he’d historically repelled before Tiera’s birth
had earned him the reputation of a fearless, almost godlike warrior in
Cannevish. His fleeing adversaries had often described him as completely
mad; how else could they explain a man willing to charge an enemy line without
soldiers at his back, roaring like a thousand dragons? Legend had it that
Gharletto had returned from his last campaign so utterly drenched in gore that
his own men could no longer recognize him.

Advanced now in years, Gharletto’s legendary battlefield prowess had
faded, yet he’d never lost the esteem of his soldiers, the people, or his
liege. He’d been the first man in the kingdom to publicly offer his
services to eliminate the Cannevish Wyrm, but King Minus had declared him too
valuable to the kingdom. The truth, as Tiera saw it, was that her father
couldn’t allow one of the nation’s greatest legends to be seen to fail.
He’d therefore put the general on the ‘vital’ duty of border defense, while his
agents spread rumors of potential invasion. In that way, the uncritical
of Cannevish didn’t question why their legendary hero hadn’t yet dealt with the
greatest threat to their way of life in decades.