Brent Weeks - Beyond the Shadows

“I don’t give a shit.”

Sister Ariel shook her head. “I have no moral qualm with your cursing, you fecal-mouthed cretin. When a guttershite curses, the world can’t even hear it, Vi. When a maja curses, the world trembles. So I’ve come up with some punishments. I expect that you will exhaust them before I exhaust your defiance. But we’re committed now. Your defiance makes only the path longer. Sa troca excepio dazii. ”

Though she’d briefly seen the aura of magic surround Sister Ariel, Vi felt nothing. “What have you done?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“That, my dear, is half the fun. With each new punishment, you get to guess. Now, you came because you had a particularly vivid dream, did you not?”

Vi stared into the bottom of her cup. Why was she suddenly squeamish to talk about sex? “It was him. He came to my bed. It was real.”

“And?”

Vi looked up. “What do you mean and?”

“You dreamed of bedding a man. So what? Are you afraid you’ll get pregnant?”

Vi’s eyes locked back on the ootai. “We didn’t, um, actually …you know.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Is it because of the earrings?”

“Your dream? Definitely. They allow husbands and wives who can’t be together to still communicate. Or conjugate. Only a few even of the oldest rings could do that, by the way. As I recall, not a few Sisters wasted decades studying it to find a way to pass messages instantly over great distances. It never worked. I can’t recall why. But after the Third Alitaeran Accord banning magae from marrying Talented men, no one’s studied it.”

“So what I dreamed, Kylar dreamed?” Vi paled.

Sister Ariel looked at her quizzically. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” It made Vi feel stupid all over again. “So it frightened you?”

“Not exactly,” Vi admitted.

“Sometimes talking with you is like trying to master the Vengarizian Weave.”

“Ah fuck this,” Vi said. Suddenly, her mouth seemed to be on fire. She jumped to her feet, but Sister Ariel spoke and something hit the backs of her knees and she fell into her chair. “What the fuck was—”

Her mouth filled with fire again, and seeing the not-quite-suppressed smirk on Sister Ariel’s face, Vi understood. After another five seconds, the pain stopped, leaving Vi gaping with pain and outrage. She touched her tongue, expecting it to be burned, but it felt normal.

“My mother used soap,” Sister Ariel said, “but I couldn’t figure out a weave for that. Now, you woke me for a reason. After you tell me what it was, you can go back to bed.”

After thirty seconds, Vi realized Sister Ariel was serious. “Have you ever even fu—had sex?” Vi asked.

Sister Ariel said, “Actually, I lost my maidenhead riding a horse.”

“I had no idea you were so coordinated.” Vi had tried that once. It hadn’t ended well.

Sister Ariel burst out laughing. “I didn’t know you had such a wit,” Ariel said. “I like you more and more, Vi.”

Oh, from riding a horse, not while riding a horse. Vi laughed. She couldn’t help it. She’d sooner die than squander even such a small bit of Ariel’s regard. It was also an artful dodge of Vi’s question. Hell, it was no use. Vi was tired and her stomach still felt as if she needed to shit. “I’ve—I’ve bedded dozens of men,” she said.

“Good job,” Sister Ariel said. “The correction, I mean, not the promiscuity.”

“I never felt anything, with any of them, not since I was a kid. But with Kylar …”

“I’m no authority, but I think it’s supposed to be different with someone you love.”

That word set Vi off. “Not ‘I didn’t feel anything for them’! I didn’t feel them! I’m totally numb down there. But tonight—” her mouth snapped shut. Since she was a child, fucking had been something Vi observed, something men did to her. Gradually her powerlessness had become her power. Men were slaves to their meat. Vi’s body was simply currency, with the advantage that she could spend it again and again.

When she’d first thought of fucking Kylar, it had only been to think that after what she’d done to him, she owed him. Tonight had been horribly different. Different even from her earlier dream of Kylar. She had wanted Kylar in more ways than she could have imagined. Her body ached for him. It was like something lying so deeply asleep in her that she’d thought it dead was waking. Fucking Kylar wouldn’t be a casual gift of the use of her body. It would be surrender.

“You have to get this earring off,” Vi said. She was shaking, cold sweat beaded on her forehead. “Please, before I go see Elene. She’s still here, isn’t she?”

“I’m sorry, child. Yes, she’s here. You’ll speak with her tomorrow.” Sister Ariel sighed. “Viridiana, I’ve read everything I could find on those rings. The bond is unbreakable. It seemed like a good idea when they made them, I suppose. First they were used to bond a magus and maja who knew what they were getting into. Then others began to use the rings in political marriages. Kings and queens alike began to demand that the ringsmiths exaggerate the compulsion properties toward one side or the other, like yours are exaggerated to give you control. I don’t know if we can understand the depth of human misery those magi wrought. But seeing what they had done, the Vy’sana, the Makers, took an oath to make such rings no more. They gathered those they could find and destroyed them and every text on their making. That ring in your ear is at least four hundred years old. That it survived to the present age is nothing less than a miracle.”

“A miracle? You call this a miracle?”

Sister Ariel spread her hands helplessly.

Her carriage was waiting for her, but when Momma K got in, she wasn’t alone. The dark blob in the opposite seat resolved itself into Scarred Wrable as soon as she sat. “Good evening, Momma K,” he said. “Headed to the coronation?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. You need a ride?”

“I don’t think so. It seems I’ve fallen out of favor with the queen.”

“It seems?”

“I wake up from a good long drunk and go to get some hair of the dog and I got five guys telling me stories about what I did to the queen. Somehow, it’s the wrong day. I was drunk, but I shouldn’t have slept for a day and a half!”

Durzo. Her stomach twisted.

Ben Wrable’s face was as pale as his scars. “It’s Durzo, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Durzo’s dead.”

“I know. I killed him, remember?” Oh, yes. Wrable had killed Kylar when Kylar had been disguised as Durzo. “He swore he wouldn’t haunt me, but now my best client wants me dead.”

“You still killed him. That had to be upsetting.”

“You’re not playing with me, are you? You didn’t send some other wetboy to talk with Queen Graesin?”

“I didn’t send anyone. I didn’t arrange for the ambassadors to be insulted. I haven’t moved against Terah Graesin.” Yet. “Get out of the city for a while, Ben. Durzo probably just wanted to make sure you didn’t take any more jobs for the woman who ordered his death.”

Ben Wrable nodded, unthinking, and that unthinking nod confirmed what Momma K had suspected: it was indeed Terah Graesin who’d ordered Durzo killed. The bitch. Well, she’d get hers. Soon.

The Great Hall was filled with the cream of the realm, though given the hardships of the last year, that cream was more like watered milk. Many of the lords and ladies of the realm wore garments they wouldn’t have had their servants wear a year ago. The number of nobles was also considerably reduced. Some had been killed in the coup or at Pavvil’s Grove. Others had sided early with the Godking and had since fled. The chamberlain had done his best to fill in the ranks and bedeck the Great Hall appropriately, but the pageantry seemed thin. For once, however, there was no criticism. It was too hard to critique the royal guards’ threadbare uniforms hastily patched with the colors of House Graesin while wearing a stained dress and borrowed jewels.