Patricia Briggs: Steal the Dragon

Taking a deep breath, she exited the wine cellar, locked it, and walked with outward calm to the slave quarters. If one of the slaves noticed that she’d been crying, they wouldn’t comment upon it—such was a slave’s lot. Quietly she let herself into the large room.

A few scattered torches lit the large room, allowing Rialla to see that only twenty of the bunks were occupied. That meant the rest of the slaves were either working, or sleeping in their owner’s rooms. There was no one awake, so Rialla strode quietly to a pair of unoccupied bunks away from the door.

She climbed to the top bunk and stretched out on it: only a new slave would take the vulnerable bottom bunk. Among slaves, status was very important. Occasionally fights broke out in the quarters when one slave tried to establish dominance. The top bunk offered some protection against unwanted aggression.

Rialla had started to close her eyes when she heard a slight noise from the bottom bunk next to her. She leaned over the edge of her bed and looked at the girl lying there.

As a Trader, and later as a horse trainer in Sianim, she’d seen every color that a person could come in—from her own pale ivory to the deep bronze of the Ynstrah people—but this slave’s skin was closer to black. Fine dark hair that might be brown or red in daylight cloaked her shoulders in waves of curls. Her face was buried in the thin mattress and her body shook as she cried.

Rialla reached a hand to the girl, but caught herself in time. She was doing the best that she could to end slavery in Darran, but she couldn’t do anything for this other slave now.

Rialla dreamed that night of a foreign land inhabited by people who looked like the strange slave girl. They spoke a language that she had never heard before, but understood in a way that her empathic abilities had once allowed her. It was a nightmarish dream with feverlike images that randomly appeared and disappeared without warning.

She awoke in a cold sweat with a screaming pain in her chest. Leaping quickly off the bunk, she took a step toward the strange girl’s bed, but it was too late.

From somewhere the other slave had found an eating knife that she’d used to stab herself in the chest. Rialla gasped harshly with the pain of the slave’s wound, feeling as if something had torn through the barrier that had blocked her abilities for more than a decade. The dull knife’s work had been made even more painful because the girl didn’t know where to stab herself. Still, her amateurish attempt worked after a fashion. Even as Rialla watched, the girl took a last breath and smiled.

Rialla looked at the body of the girl that she now knew almost as intimately as she knew herself. The young slave had been an empath strong enough to project her fears past Rialla’s mental scars and into her dreams.

Rialla knew the slave’s name and that she was fifteen summers old. She knew that somewhere in a foreign land the girl’s family thought that she was serving the gods—a position of highest honor. They had let her go with sadness, but she had gone gladly as the servant of Altis had requested.

Rialla could feel the echoes of the girl’s horror and disgust when she found out what her duties were going to be. She could tell without looking that the girl’s back would be covered with fresh whip marks and that the inside of her thighs were bruised badly enough that it would show even on her dark skin.

Rialla tightened her jaw and carefully stepped around the blood that was pooling on the floor. A slave avoided attracting unpleasant attention. By the time the body was discovered, there would be no slave left in the quarters and none would admit sleeping there last night—but only the knowledge that the slave trainer would probably be sleeping allowed Rialla to start up the stairs that led to the main part of the keep.

She entered Laeth’s sleeping chamber quietly, without waking him. She sat on the hard-sprung sofa near the bed and stared into the darkness, waiting for the dawn.

“I thought that you were going to sleep in the slaves’ quarters last night.” Laeth spoke softly, but Rialla jumped anyway.

She hadn’t been thinking, just staring into the shadows in the corner of the room; Laeth’s voice, like the early morning light streaming through the windows, took her by surprise. She must have been sitting there for longer than she realized.

Laeth managed to sit up, but he closed his eyes again as he rubbed his face to bring himself awake. He was not at his best in the morning.

Rialla felt her lips quirk in an involuntary smile at the familiar sight. Answering his question rid her of the smile soon enough. “I did sleep in the quarters, at least part of the night.”

He cast her a sharp look that belied his sluggishness and asked, “What happened?”

“There was a new slave in the compound last night: an Easterner. This morning she killed herself with an eating knife. I thought that it would be better if I weren’t there when her body is discovered—no sense in attracting attention.” Rialla fingered the now-familiar needlepoint pattern on the back of the sofa.

She could feel Laeth’s steady gaze, as he waited patiently for her to continue. She kept her gaze on her hands and added briefly, “Especially as her owner is the man who owned me before I ran.”

Laeth drew in a breath of surprise. “The slave trainer? You’re certain?”

Rialla nodded, without looking up. “I didn’t see him, but I heard his voice. It’s not something I am likely to mistake, but I checked her tattoo. She too bore his mark.”

“Well, then,” said Laeth with satisfaction, “I suppose I need to think of several obnoxious ways of refusing to return his slave.”

Rialla looked at him then, and shot him a grin. “I wasn’t worried that you were going to turn me over to him.”

“No?” he said, his tone serious. “Then what are you worrying about?”

Rialla shrugged. “I’m not.” At his snort she smiled faintly. “I suppose I am. I wasn’t prepared to meet him again… and the girl’s death was particularly unpleasant. An eating knife is not the way that I would choose.” Rialla looked down again and swallowed. At least the Easterner had found the courage to make the choice.

Rialla remembered staring at a sharp little dagger that someone had left carelessly sitting on an eating bench. It wouldn’t have made much of a weapon, but she remembered considering using it to take her own life—she’d been too much of a coward. The only other time she’d come close to suicide was just after she’d escaped, when she discovered she feared freedom more than slavery.

“Rialla.” Laeth’s tone was gentle, and she knew that it wasn’t the first time that he’d called her name. “What was your owner’s name?”

“Isslic, but I don’t know his family name—slave trainers don’t often use their full names.”

Laeth nodded. “Especially if he’s well enough born to receive an invitation here. Isslic’s a common name; I can think of three or four men who answer to it.”

“If it is his real name at all,” added Rialla with a shrug. “I did notice something that might be worth mentioning to Ren, although it’s mostly speculation.”

“What is it?”

“My former owner liked to travel to find the slaves he trained. He preferred to take them himself rather than wait until an untrained slave came to auction. He contended that most of them had already acquired too many bad habits by that time.” Rialla could feel her face relaxing until there was no more emotion in it than in her voice. “So if he had, say, a slave from Southwood, he probably went to Southwood to get her.”

“Turn around, so I can get out of bed,” ordered Laeth briskly.