David Dalglish - A Dance of Cloaks

“Remember, Aaron,” she heard him say. “Things will never go as you plan. Prepare for anything, and be willing to sacrifice everything, even beauty.”

Veliana saw the boy standing next to Thren. He stared back with beautiful blue eyes, eyes that sparkled with tears. Then the emotion died as he turned to look at his father, and the disgust she had thought she’d seen became nothing but a lie.

“Yes father,” she heard the boy say.

If Gileas didn’t take her life, Veliana swore revenge. Not on Thren, not directly. She’d only fail. But the boy, the groomed heir, him she could kill. Him she could make suffer.

Aaron took one torch, Will the other. They walked away from the forest, toward the western gate. The torches faded away and then died. In the starlight, she watched them pass a hobbled form approaching the other way. Her way. She didn’t want to imagine what they might do to James now that she wouldn’t give them an easy way to control the Ash Guild.

Veliana struggled against the chains. The original purpose had been to execute criminals outside the city by leaving them for wolves and coyotes to come and eat. While the punishment was gruesome, the spectacle was rarely witnessed and too random in its length. Fifty years ago, the Vaelor line had instituted beheadings before the castle steps instead. Quicker, bloodier, and a much better spectacle. With how old the chains were, surely they would be rusted and ready to break.

They weren’t. From the corner of her eye she could see one of the manacles on her wrist. Black steel, clean and polished. Thren had brought his own chains. Of course he had. He wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake as letting her escape because of some rusted buckles.

Gileas was getting closer. He was a fat shadow sliding across the wall, worse than any monster in her childhood stories.

“Please gods,” she whispered. “Any god. Get me out. I’ll do anything, but get me out of here.”

She pulled so hard on her bindings that her wrists bled. A fleck of purple fire swarmed around her hands. The few spells she knew were meager, still unrefined. She thought maybe the fire would loosen them, melt them, anything. Instead the heated metal burned her skin. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“Hello, girl,” Gileas whispered into her ear. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

“Fuck you,” she whispered back.

He laughed, not at all bothered. She was shackled and helpless. He had all night.

“Nothing personal,” Gileas said as he pressed the tip of his dagger against her right eyebrow. “I’ll milk Gerand and the crown for all the gold I can, then take just as much from Thren and his ilk. I’ll turn the rats on each other, and grow so very wealthy from it.”

He pressed the dagger into her flesh. Blood trickled around her eye. She blinked against its sting.

“All night,” he said as he slowly dragged the dagger downward. “I have all night.”

He cut her eyebrow, her eyelid, and then her eye. She screamed.

Gileas rammed his mouth over hers, drinking in her scream like it was a fine wine. He bit her tongue. She vomited into his mouth. He drank that, too.

He pulled back, smiled at her, and then flew to the side from a brutal kick to his head. He rolled along the hard ground, stopping only when he struck the wall.

A woman wrapped in black and purple stood before Veliana, a serrated dagger in hand. She put her free hand against the vicious wound on Veliana’s face, her fingers touching the flesh so gently. Blood pooled across the cloth but refused to absorb. Veliana looked into the white cloth over her face, seeing only the faintest hint of vibrant green eyes.

“You made an offer,” the woman said to her. “Will you honor it? Swear to Karak your life, and I will take his.”

Veliana could just barely see Gileas out of the corner of her eye. He was retching on the ground, one arm leaning against the wall to prop himself up. Blood continued pouring down her face, her neck, and her slender body. The eye was useless, completely useless. What did it matter if she swore her life to a non-existent god? She wanted vengeance. She wanted to live.

“I swear it,” she said.

“Good,” the faceless woman said. Her hands were a blur about her body. One by one, the locks clicked open. Veliana collapsed into the woman’s arms, unable to stand.

“Your name?” she asked as she clutched the woman’s shoulders, one eye crying tears, the other blood.

“Eliora,” she replied.

Gently, she put Veliana to her knees on the ground and then turned toward Gileas. The Worm had stood and put his back to the wall. He still had his dagger. Clutching her sides gently, she knelt and watched.

“Uncalled for,” she heard the Worm say as the faceless woman approached. “She was given to me. Given…”

He spun, his dagger lunging for Eliora’s chest. It never came close. Eliora slapped it away with an open palm, kicked him in the groin, and then slammed an elbow into his forehead. Gileas collapsed, grunting in pain. When Eliora grabbed his hair to yank his head back, he only laughed.

“Can’t stab a worm,” he said. “We just keep wiggling.”

She stabbed anyway. It punctured only air. Gileas’s clothes were an empty pile on the grass. Eliora kicked them away but saw nothing. She looked as startled as Veliana felt.

“A worm,” Veliana said. “He can’t possibly be…”

But there was nothing there. He was gone.

“Come,” Eliora said, taking Veliana’s hand. “Follow me to my camp. You must meet my sisters.”

T he fire in the center of the camp had dwindled to nothing. Eliora tossed on some branches while Veliana huddled against a tree, cold and naked. Winter was approaching, and the night air bit her skin. Eliora drew out two small red bricks and clapped them together above the fire. Sparks rained down upon the wood, instantly bursting restarting the fire.

Veliana knelt beside it, eager for its warmth.

“Where are your sisters?” she asked as shivers ran through her body. Her revulsion at Gileas’s touch remained strong, though it felt like the fire was slowly purifying her body of it.

“They will return in the morning,” Eliora said. “I remained here to keep an eye on another charge of ours. I expected his idiocy to get him and his woman killed, but instead I found you tied and tortured against the wall.”

“I was as surprised as you were,” Veliana said. She turned and put her back to the fire, her arms crossed over her breasts.

“I’m not sure I have clothes appropriate for you,” the faceless woman said. “Perhaps I could go and retrieve the strange man’s…”

“No,” Veliana said, suppressing another shudder. “I’d rather be naked.”

Eliora tilted her head to the side. Veliana swore she could see green eyes studying her through the white mask across her face. Suddenly Eliora lifted the cloth and untwisted the wrappings about her head.

Veliana startled at the woman revealed beneath the wrappings. She was gorgeous by anyone’s standards. Full lips, sharp cheekbones, and vibrant eyes. Their color reminded her of pine needles. She ran a hand through her short hair, pulling out tangles, no easy task with how tight it had been restricted and how covered with sweat it was.

“You’re…” Veliana started to say, then realized how ridiculous it sounded.

“I know,” Eliora said. “Trust me…I know.”

She handed the wrappings to Veliana.

“They’re not much, but you should be able to hide your nakedness.”

Veliana started wrapping the black and purple cloth across her chest, pulling it tight to get as much coverage as she could from the cloth. As she did, Eliora removed more and more of her wrappings from her chest and waist. Beneath she wore a dark shift, the color so thick she needed little of the extra cloth to keep her modesty. Veliana accepted the extra wrappings and continued looping them about her body. She managed to cover all her womanhood, though if she walked through the streets in broad daylight she’d earn herself many a scandalous looks.