Sadiablo Hall, Dhemlan, Kaeleer

[glacial_queen]

Lucivar stormed into Saetan's study at the Hall and slammed the door behind him, snarling something incoherent. Karla, alone in the study, just raised an eyebrow at him and set aside the papers she'd been reading, leaning back in Uncle Saetan's comfortable chair. "Yes?" she drawled

Comments

[glacial_queen]

"Rescuing a hearth witch."

Lucivar heard it then. It wasn't anger under Karla's calmly spoken words; it was rage. So he chained his temper, no longer sure if he was dealing with Karla, his annoying cousin, or Karla, the witch who belonged to several castes that made wise men fear her wrath.

"Marian's father is a Warlord serving as a Fifth Circle guard in a Queen's court," Karla said, her own voice still quiet--and still filled with suppressed rage. "From the information your father gathered, he doesn't have the brains, the backbone, or the balls to advance any higher." Lucivar winced. If she ever met the man, at least one of those lacks would move from the figurative to the literal. "But he delused himself by thinking it's his lack of proper social connections rather than his lack of abilities that keeps him from being First or Second Circle. He likes to rub elbows with the aristo males in the court, and he likes to gamble--and so they tolerate him because they find his expectations amusing and they like winning the quarterly pittance he earns whenever they consent to let him gamble with them. But they wouldn't let him play on credit because they'd quickly realized he had no way to pay them back."

[offers_choices]

Lucivar had a feeling he really wasn't going to like the rest of this story. Fucking Terreille. "Information my father gathered?"

[glacial_queen]

"The High Lord is very good at what he does." The use of Saetan's title was deliberate.

"Good. Go on."

"One night, a few weeks ago, these aristos let him play beyond the marks he'd brought to the table. They kept refilling his glass, and they let him play because he had something they wanted. He'd been bragging recently about his younger daughters and how he expected them to become prominent witches once they completed their training as a Healer and a Priestess. But the eldest daughter was an embarrassment to him. A witch whose skills would never provide the family with any status, a witch who did--"

[offers_choices]

"Nothing important," Lucivar murmured, remembering the defeated way Marian had held herself just this morning when she'd said those very same words.

[glacial_queen]

Karla nodded. "That's exactly what those aristo males wanted--a witch who did nothing important, a witch whose disappearance wouldn't draw the attention of anyone in the court. So they let the bastard gamble until he was so far in debt he would never be able to repay them. And when he sobered up enough to realize his standing in the court would be ruined if he didn't repay them, they offered him a trade--and the bastard took it."

Her hands curled around the edge of the blackwood desk and Lucivar heard the scratching of her nails against the grain. "He didn't even have the courage to take her to the meeting place so she would know why she was being sacrificed. He just sent her there. Five Warlords with knives and Eyrien warblades. One terrified hearthwitch, tethered so she could fly, since that made it more interesting, but couldn't escape." Karla's voice was rising, speeding up. Frost spread out onto the edge of the desk next to her hands. "Shallow slices to prolong the pain and fear. And when she couldn't fight anymore, they pulled her down, intending to rape her while she bled out under them."

[offers_choices]

Feeling sick, Lucivar closed his eyes. "So they raped her."

[glacial_queen]

"No. Jaenelle arrived before they began that part of their entertainment. That was why she was in Askavi Terreille, Lucivar. Because she'd had a Black Widow vision." Jaenelle had described it to Karla in the Coach on their way to Luthvian's. "She saw emptiness where something bright and joyful should have been. Happiness that withered like a plant that couldn't find the right soil to take root in. And she saw the terrace of the Keep where she sometimes stands at dawn--but it was empty. A warning that her presence, or absence, would make the difference in what would come."

[offers_choices]

Lucivar shuddered. There was nothing that turned Jaenelle lethal and merciless faster than rape. And even though he agreed with every fiber of his being that these Warlords had deserved whatever she'd done, he couldn't fight off the atavistic shudder at what she would have considered just punishment--even as he approved of whatever it might have been.

"She killed them," he said, wanting confirmation. "Though--if she intended to begin the Healing order to save Marian, it would have been a fast kill." Which meant that they hadn't suffered nearly enough to repay the debt of pain and terror they'd inflicted.

[glacial_queen]

"A fast kill," Karla agreed. "Although, considering the condition of the bodies, it was sufficient for the initial payment."

Lucivar said nothing, just waited for the rest.

"Jaenelle stabilized her and brought everyone here. She gave the Warlords to Saetan to extract the rest of the payment." And, again, the High Lord was very good at what he did. "They paid the debt in full. I healed Marian, save for the damage she did to her wings. Those, Jaenelle saw to personally."

[offers_choices]

There was no better Healer than Jaenelle. She had saved Lucivar's wings when they were little more than slimy rags over bone from his time in the salt mines of Pruul; whatever damage those whoring sons of bitches had done to Marian's wings would have been less than nothing compared to Jaenelle's skill. And the knowledge of what his father could do to one of the Blood after the physical death should have frightened him, but he took a grim satisfaction in knowing that every wound Marian had received, every moment of terror she'd experienced, had been accounted for. While Saetan ripped their minds about, piece by piece, he would have found out everything there was to know about why and how Marian had ended up being attacked by those men.

"What about her father?"

[glacial_queen]

"None of us have any authority in Askavi Terreille. Uncle Saetan can't touch her father."

Yet.

[offers_choices]

Yet.

The word hung unsaid between them, and Lucivar knew with an absolute certainty that it didn't matter how many more centuries Marian's father lived. The day would come when his body died and he would make the transition to to become one of the demon-dead. He would end up in the Dark Realm--and the High Lord would be waiting for him.

[glacial_queen]

"So you have a choice, Lucivar," Karla said softly, freeing her hands from the side of the desk. A layer of skin remained behind and he could feel the whisper of Craft she used to heal her palms. "I can't imagine what it means to have Marian's fear scraping against the instincts that bring out the best, and the deadliest, side of your nature. If you can't tolerate it, then you should dismiss her. Between Jaenelle and me, we should be able to find her another position, Or you can grit your teeth for awhile and endure it, giving her time to settle and regain her balance. Give you both time to find out if it's you she really fears."

[offers_choices]

Lucivar started pacing again. He couldn't dismiss her. Not just because of what he'd learned from Karla, but because it would confirm that she did nothing important, that her skills had no value. That she believed it, accepted it, chafed as much as anything else. But having her stay wasn't going to ease the other part of his frustration--especially now that he knew there were five--the bastards!--more reasons why she'd run from him.

[glacial_queen]

Karla watched him for awhile, then cocked her head. "Something else?"

[offers_choices]

He tried to think of a delicate way to say it, but in the end, he blurted it out. "She makes me hungry."