The Eye of God (The Fall of Erelith) (30 page)

“For now, little. Later? Much. Unsuitable attire I have, yes.” Aria’s grip tightened on his arm, and Terin resisted the urge to yank out of her grasp.

“Do as you can, Aria.”

“Yes, yes. Stand. Arms out,” the woman ordered.

Terin stood in a gap among the dolls. Pulling out a ribbon from a hidden pocket in her skirts, Aria prowled around him. Baffled and uncertain whether or not she meant him harm, he obeyed. With quick, precise motions, she pressed the ribbon to his skin, making disapproving noises in her throat.

“Too thin. Few now, later more, after feeding. Too many cuts. Bruises. Better care take, yes?” Aria said with her thick and strange accent.

The laughter from the other room both surprised and embarrassed Terin. He had to admit the woman was right. Someone had changed his bandages, and he almost didn’t need clothes, considering how wrapped up he was. Unable to decide which question to ask first, he remained silent.

He knew he was injured beneath the linens, but he couldn’t feel any pain from them.

“Mind not Lord Gabriel. Mood funny. Hit head, maybe? Some clothes fit, yes. Follow. Not perfect, but fit. Come,” Aria said, gesturing for him to follow. When Terin didn’t move, she clucked her tongue at him. “Come now.”

Once again, he was led through a maze of the life-sized dolls. Not even Emeric’s attire surpassed the garments worn by faceless figures. Pearls and jewels fringed tasseled cuffs, and silk gleamed in the radiance of Speech-wrought light. Halting at a doll dressed in black, the woman went to work stripping it. The woman threw the coat at him, and he fumbled to catch it. The rest of the garb followed until his arms were laden in soft material.

“Hmm. Match hair, yes? Don’t stand there. Change!” she ordered. Her glare kept him silent, and he hurried to obey to avoid her wrath.

Terin reached up to touch his hair. When he’d seen her the first time, it’d been pale. Why hadn’t she noticed, or cared, that it was now as black as the clothes he was to wear? He couldn’t find the courage to ask. First he donned the straight-legged trousers before slipping on the black silk shirt. The material caught on his rough skin and linens. Aria intervened when he started to pull on the doublet, once again making disapproving noises as she adjusted the buttons to her liking. “Not perfect.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Not you. Clothes. Come,” she replied, waving at him to follow. “Respectful, yes?”

Terin felt his brows furrow as he tried to understand what she meant. Confused but unwilling to anger the woman, he nodded to answer her expectant expression. Trailing behind her, he swallowed. Apprehension tightened his chest.

They drew close to the room where Lord Gabriel waited. The man didn’t sound like either Zurach or Emeric. How had he escaped from the brothers? He considered escaping from the woman, but until he knew who Lord Gabriel was, he didn’t dare leave. If he had to run, Terin needed to know who to avoid.

And, he didn’t know what Aria and Lord Gabriel meant to do with the girl. Aria paused at the door and glanced at him. Terin sighed, and at her commanding gesture, he stepped within the room.

Like the bedroom, the chamber was small. It was barely large enough for three people to fit in. A table covered in fabric, shears, threads, ribbons, and jewels took up most of the space. A man clad in red leaned against the wall laden with bolts of dark fabrics.

“Good morning, Terin,” the pale-haired man greeted. The man’s bright blue eyes left him and focused on the shopkeeper. “Aria, I’ll take charge of him. I’m sorry for disturbing your rest.”

“The girl?”

“Let her sleep. It looks like she needs it. I’ll wake you in an hour.”

Aria dipped into a curtsy. “Yes.”

Lord Gabriel smiled. When Aria was gone, the man pushed away from the wall and closed the distance between them in two long strides. A shiver ran down Terin’s spine to his toes.

“You look well enough for someone who avoided a very unpleasant death not long ago, Terin.”

Terin swallowed and shivered again. The first question to rattle around in his head spilled out before he could stop it. “How do you know that name?”

“I know your name because I do. I don’t believe in calling people by a number. It’s a repulsive practice, don’t you think? My name is Blaise.” The man thrust his hand out. Terin stared, uncertain of what to do. When he didn’t move, Lord Gabriel took hold of his hand, lifted it, and gave it a firm shake. Lord Gabriel’s hand was cold. “I expect you to call me Blaise. Lord Gabriel, if you must. No sirs, no masters, no Citizens, or any other title like that. Understood?”

“Yes, si—”

A glare silenced Terin, and he cleared his throat. “Yes, Lord Gabriel,” he replied, watching the man circle around him.

Blue eyes met his, fringed by untamed locks of sun-gold hair. Like Aria, Lord Gabriel was gentle but firm when adjusting the high collar of his doublet. “I’m going to give you a choice, Terin. Several choices. I’ll admit, this is crude. I haven’t had time to plan anything. While I could force you to cooperate, I won’t.” The man’s hand touched the golden collar around Terin’s throat. “I don’t want to do that. Will you at least listen to what I have to say?”

Zurach hadn’t given him that choice. While he couldn’t force away his wariness, Terin nodded his agreement.

“Good. Sit. I’ll talk. Listen. When you’ve made your decision, tell me. If you have a question, ask.” Lord Gabriel stepped away from him to return to where he’d been leaning against the wall. “Choice one: I return you to General Horthoe. You become his problem. You never see me, Aria, or that slave girl in the other room again.”

Terin eased his way to one of the stools and perched on it. When he said nothing, Lord Gabriel nodded.

“Choice two: I remove your collar, and I take you as far out of Erelith as I can get you. You’ll be on your own, free to do whatever it is you want to do.”

There was another pause. Terin fidgeted on the stool, but he said nothing. Disbelief warred with hope, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to take the man seriously.

It had to be a lie.

“Choice three: I take off your collar and send you to a monastery, where you live as a monk in service to the Church until the day you die.”

As he listened, he felt his mouth drop open. It wasn’t an ultimatum being offered to him, not like Zurach and Emeric had done. Once again, before he could stop himself, he said, “The collar can’t be removed.”

It wasn’t just a statement; it was an accusation of the lie in the man’s words. He was being baited, trapped—there couldn’t be truth to what Lord Gabriel told him.

Why else would a Citizen offer him any choice at all?

“I’m not finished. Choice four: I kill you here and now. Of all of the options I’ve given so far, that might be the safest one of the lot.”

Terin’s eyes widened. It was the lone solution to his enslavement he had ever fully embraced, but when Lord Gabriel offered it in a calm and neutral tone, all he felt was fear.

The man chuckled. “Judging from your expression, you don’t seem all too pleased with that choice. Fine. Choice five: I change your papers and you become my slave.” Lord Gabriel’s expression twisted, as if the man had swallowed something sour. “Choice six: I remove your collar and you become the scion of my house. The slave girl in the other room becomes yours. Keep her, free her, do what you want with her—she’ll be your problem, not mine. You’ll appear in the records, she’ll disappear and have new records put in, and through me, you’ll have the wealth and power needed to make some difference for other slaves. You’ll be my son in all things except blood, and the only people who’ll know that isn’t the case is you, me, Aria, and that girl in the other room. So, what will it be, Terin?”

Terin struggled to find words, but he couldn’t voice any of the questions stampeding through his head. Six choices and he couldn’t think about any of them. All of his attention focused on the man who watched him and waited for an answer.

“Maybe this will help you decide,” Lord Gabriel murmured, once again striding to his side. Terin tensed at the feel of the man’s hands around his throat. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

A song was whispered in Terin’s ears and the melody eased the tension in his muscles. A hand slipped down to rest against his back.

Without its support, he would’ve fallen.

“Easy,” Lord Gabriel murmured in his ear. The power of the word lulled him with the same irresistible force of a Spoken order to sleep. Terin couldn’t form the scripture to counter it. The words slipped away from him before he could Speak them.

A loud pop and rattle of metal against metal drew him from his stupor. The pressure of the collar around his throat was gone. Gentle fingers placed three curved pieces of golden metal in his hand.

“Proof I can keep my word,” Lord Gabriel said. The man fell silent for a long moment. “Now you can decide without fear of rebuke, without pain, and without worry. What is your choice?”

Terin stared down at the broken collar and trembled.

~*~

Blaise kept still, one hand pressed to the boy’s back while his back, knees, and ankles throbbed from the effort of maintaining his position. Wings he no longer had ached along his shoulders and his spine hurt where the phantom pains of his tail stabbed at him.

Without daring to reveal how much he hurt, he waited. He wanted to return to his favored spot, where he could feign indifference while the wall held him upright. When the boy’s trembling intensified, he ground his teeth. He remained motionless.

Had he given Terin too many choices? Most of them weren’t good choices, but he didn’t know what else to offer without sounding insincere. The choice he wanted the boy to make bothered him almost as much as the one he expected would be made.

Thousands of years hadn’t changed mortals much. They either longed for familiarity or desired the definitive escape of death.

Neither one of those choices pleased Blaise. Both of them led to the same conclusion. With the Hand of God in the possession of those who wanted it used, he didn’t dare let the boy go.

If Terin chose to return to General Horthoe, Blaise wouldn’t have a choice. In order to save everyone—and himself—he would have to sacrifice an innocent cursed with the Daughter’s green eyes. He’d have to do it while Aria watched and bore silent, sad witness to the one unfortunate enough to have touched the Hand of God. The boy had made only one mistake. The boy had survived.

If Blaise lost Terin, he’d lose his chance to find Mikael.

The unfairness of it all made Blaise’s heart ache.

While praying was futile, Blaise did it anyway, hoping the boy would choose any other option than death or returning to General Horthoe. Any other option wouldn’t stain his hands with the blood of someone he didn’t want to hunt, someone who didn’t rouse his hunger despite the stench of fear and old blood in the air.

For Terin, if the boy made that decision, Blaise would do it as his true self, not disguised as he was in a human’s form.

The temptation to deny the boy both of those choices rose from his chest and choked off his breath. It forced him to remain silent when all he wanted to do was convince Terin to do what Blaise thought was best.

“Why?” Terin whispered.

At first Blaise thought he imagined the whispered question, but the pair of eyes focused on him convinced him otherwise. The faint rings of blue and red tainting the green eyes faded away even as he met the inquisitive gaze.

“Why do I need a reason to help someone?” he answered.

It was the only thing Blaise could say without revealing the truth. Later, he could teach the boy the terrors of being Lucin’s host, and being the only person alive with any real hope of finding the Eye of God.

It made him no better than the two men who possessed the Hand. It made him no better than the Emperor who held the Heart.

That, too, Blaise would explain to Terin—in time. If they got that time.

“No one’s that nice,” the boy whispered.

“You’re right. I don’t know anyone like that—never have. Probably never will. I have things I want to accomplish. Having your help would make it a lot easier. I don’t want to see you put back in the Emperor’s hands. He’ll use you, and a lot of people will die because of it. I don’t want that, even if some of them deserve it,” Blaise said, rocking back on his heels, but careful to keep his supporting hand in place. The boy still trembled, and he wasn’t sure if he could let go without risking him falling. “I don’t want to force you.”

“What if I choose to die?”

The emotionless tone tore at Blaise’s heart. It was a question he couldn’t understand. What was it like to worry or hope for death?

Was it a little like a human’s ability to love unconditionally because they didn’t live long enough to truly weary of the objects of their affection?

Few things survived the true test of time, and an individual often didn’t. People changed in their short lives.

“Then I’ll give you the sweetest death possible, and send you to His garden resplendent in glory,” Blaise whispered, and hated himself for speaking the truth, and for giving his word.

Blaise didn’t change, and his word was never broken. Once given, he couldn’t take it back. All he could do was regret it for eternity.

“You’re telling the truth.”

“I am.”

“Blaise doesn’t lie,” Aria said from the doorway, in the old tongue. “But I’d ask of you to consider any option but that one.”

Terin’s baffled expression saved Blaise from his anguish. It held back the turbulent emotions within him. He forced a smile. “She wants you to reconsider that choice.”

“I wasn’t considering it.”

Blaise’s hand dropped from the boy’s back and he couldn’t manage to hide his scowl. Aria’s laughter was one of relief.

“Cheeky,” she said, still in the ancient language of her birth. The woman met his eyes, and he hesitated at her sad expression.

“I’m relieved to hear that,” he admitted. “What do you want to do?”

“What will happen to the girl?” Terin asked, twisting around to stare through the dolls in the shop in the direction of the dark bedroom.