Cursed by Fire (10 page)

Wait
, he thought suddenly. Weysa was the goddess of conflict. Here was a conflict. Perhaps not the mightiest of battles but a conflict just the same. And if he and the
people of Hexis could defeat these barbarians, they could do so in Weysa’s name. It could be the start he was in need of. If nothing else, it would gain him gold. Gold he would need in order to gather an army. There was no guarantee that after all this time his cache would still be there. So much time had passed; so many things had changed. He would then have traveled across the desert for no reason. Here there was an assurance of victory and gold. In the desert … there was a big question and insecurity.

No, he realized. It was better to stay. Better to work the king and his daughter to his advantage. He could see it would be fraught with troubles and would not be smooth going, but what battle ever was?

With that thought, his body suddenly seared hot. The shock of it, the pain of it, brought him to his knees. Before, he had been chained to the ground, so he had not been upright for the burning; it had never occurred to him to lower himself to the ground in preparation. But he was on the ground now, hands and feet against the stone, his skin rippling and blistering wherever it was exposed.

Suddenly he realized his clothing might burn as well. He would come from this and find himself naked again. He forced himself to rip at the clothing he wore, trying to get it free of his body. But it was too late. Flame slammed through him, rupturing out of his palms first, then the sensitive flesh of his groin, the flames licking along his cock like an acidic lover’s tongue. That was what made screams break out of him. He felt his hair burning, his skin melting and crisping. The fire raced over every inch of him, and he went from hands and knees down to the floor on his face. Fire melted his eyes in his head, and he thought it was worse this time. After having known tranquillity and a life without the fire, coming back to it was worse than when it had been ever
present. He breathed in flame, scorching his lungs. On and on it went until his flesh was a melted puddle around him and he was just burning bones.

And so it would be. Until the juquil’s hour. And somehow knowing there would be an end; knowing there would be a reprieve; knowing there would be teal eyes and a soft, delicious scent, and rich dark hair, made it a little more bearable. There was a snake, the krunada snake, a black furred creature of such sleekness, glistening and sinuous, beautiful in its own way—nothing in the world could compare to it … save the hair of a grandina.

He quieted the strength of his thoughts. Clung to them but savored them quietly, lest they become known to the gods and the gods sought to take them away from him or punish him further. He couldn’t imagine what would be worse than this, but if this torment had taught him anything, it was that the gods were creative in their punishments.

He had to keep focused on his goals. For as much as getting an army and defeating cities were his goals in Weysa’s name, there was another goal—one closer to his heart—that drove him. He would win wars for Weysa, give her the power to defeat her enemies, and then he would ask for … would beg a reward from her. And it would not be that she permanently remove his curse. This was nothing. This suffering could be borne. No. He would ask for something else entirely.

He would ask for his brothers.

The grandina of Hexis had sent all but her closest pagette to bed. She was sitting in the window well, amongst the cushions and pillows that had long ago been placed there for her comfort, staring through the glass. The view from the window was twofold. Its height allowed her to see over the entire city, all the way to the massive wall that surrounded them in a curving arch, each end of the wall built into the impenetrable stone of the mountains at the back of the city. Sheer rock shot up all around the city, with no known passes through for miles, although the nomads had tried time and again to find a way to sneak in from behind. But the mountains were too steep and too wild, and Xaxis, the god of the eight hells, protected them, if in no other way than by deterring those who feared the opening to the eight hells. She had her doubts that Xaxis actually paid attention to Hexis at all. He certainly had never shown himself to the city, not even in the most ancient of lore. That was probably why worship for him had fallen by the wayside over the years. There was habit but no strength behind the city’s respect for the gods. The second benefit to her window was that it directly overlooked the bailey of the fortress, allowing her to see
every coming and going through the gates. There was no other entrance to the high-walled fortress, so she knew he would be coming that way.

She didn’t know what she would do once she saw him return. Perhaps she would just take comfort in the knowledge, then go to bed and wait for the morrow to speak with him. However, the more compelling idea was that she would wait for his return and sneak down through the castle to confront him before he retired for the night. She needed to beg him once more to stay and help them. She also needed to make it clear the danger he would be facing if in fact he did stay. She did not want to do this. She was afraid it would put him off the idea of becoming involved in the political machinations of their court, and it would be highly understandable if it did. But she would beg him to her last breath, if necessary, to change his mind. She didn’t even know him, but he was strong and unafraid of Grannish, and she desperately needed someone like that. Someone her father might one day come to respect above Grannish. Someone who might listen to her when she explained the things Grannish did to her.

She had no guarantees that Dethan would be that someone, but it was better than doing nothing at all. And she believed with the last shred of her heart that could potentially trust another that he was worth supporting. That he would speak favorably about her.

Foolish girl
, she whispered fiercely into her own mind.
A man makes you feel pretty for two seconds of time and you parlay that into a reason to trust?
But as small as the hope was, it was her last hope. She had to exploit the opportunity. It was the only choice left to her.

And so she remained fully dressed, looking fixedly out the window, staring so hard her eyes dried out and then burned when she blinked.

“Memsa,” her accented, soft-voiced pagette said, addressing
her with the affectionate term her people used to express love and respect. Hanit was from the foreign city of Siccoro, a city far beyond the Syken Desert outside the Hexis walls. She was a sturdy woman in the beginnings of her third decade, at Selinda’s guess. Selinda had never asked her pagette how old she was. Hanit was strangely blond—a sort of silvery blond, the coloring of her people—with grey eyes to complement. She was no great beauty, but she was pretty in her own unique way. “Memsa, if you will not come away from the window, may this one bring you something to eat or drink? This one needs to see to memsa’s comfort.”

“Very well,” Selinda relented. “Something to drink, then, Hanit. But you must not let anyone see you. You must make certain no one knows I am still awake.” She would have denied her pagette entirely, but she knew that to deny her too long would make the pagette highly agitated and stressed. The woman lived to serve her, to see to her every last whim or need, and when she was thwarted from that it seemed to almost physically pain her. They had grown close very quickly in the full turning since Selinda’s former pagette had died. Now Selinda could not imagine her life without her trusted servant.

But Hanit’s agitation was rubbing her own nerves raw. She was anxious enough as it was, going back and forth in her mind about what she must do next. She must somehow convince Dethan to stay in spite of the danger it would present to him.

Oh, but why would he? she thought with dismay. Why would he want to willingly entangle himself in a mess she prayed daily to be delivered from? Many thought she was so fortunate, so lucky to be the grandina, living in comfort and wealth in a big fortress at the very hub of the city, able to look down upon them all in safety and security.

Or so they thought. But they did not have to live every day knowing they were promised to Grannish, a man who clearly despised her. Since she could not think of any slights or arguments prior to their engagement that she might have perpetrated against him, she could only assume it was because he did not want to marry her. Or so she had thought at first. Until one day, before she had truly understood who and what he was, she had pulled him aside into the privacy of the grand’s council chamber.

“My lord Grannish, I wish to speak with you,” she had said hastily, her hands nervously twisting the ends of a long red silken scarf she had been wearing to protect her throat from the chill of the first flush of fall.

“What is it?” he had asked her impatiently once he had checked to make certain none could see or hear them.

“I wanted to make an offer to you that should make you very happy. You see, it is very obvious that you do not like me and that you do not wish to marry me. My father must be pressing you into doing this and I can see how unhappy it has made you. I truly do not wish for you to be unhappy. I am certain you are loath to wake up to this every morning.” She reached a shaking hand to touch her veil where it lay over her scar. “I thought that if we went to him together, as a joined force, and convinced him that we would be much happier otherwise, he would have no choice but to release us from the commitment and find other solutions if indeed he seeks to reward us.”

“Really? Is that what you think we should do?” he asked archly, one thin brow lifting in abject curiosity. Then his hand came out like a shot, grabbing her around her arm and jerking her forward, against his body. “Yes,” he hissed into her shocked face, “it is true I have no desire to wake up to the horrifying visage you bear
every morning. In truth the very idea disgusts me to my soul. But as repulsive as you are in the flesh, you are three times more contemptible in your sniveling weakness and your sheer idiocy. You think I want to give up the chance to be grand?” He laughed then, a rolling, overloud sound that echoed off the high ceilings of the chamber. “I have wanted to be grand all my life and now it is here in my grasp.” He looked down at his hands, where they were locked around her, and gave her a shake. “I have known all along what it would take, that it meant I would have to marry in order to achieve it. I have worked and slaved, catered to your
father
”—the way he said “father” was an utter sneer—“putting up with his moods and maneuvering him away from his ridiculous ideas, all the while keeping other vipers in their place. Truly, it is an exhausting job.” He sighed, as if under the strain of a mighty weight. “And you think I am going to throw it all away because
you
don’t want to marry
me
?” He laughed again, this one even more derisive than the first. “As if you have so many options! Even with the opportunity to become grand, your hideousness has put off anyone of decent noble blood. There have been no suitors—not a single one has applied to your father because yes, as you say, they are loath to wake up to your mangled face every morning. I am all you have. So you will shut up and you will be a dutiful wife. I will piss my seed into you and get you with my progeny and try to forgive them for the inferiority of their mother. I will build a dynasty on you and you will take them to breast and see they grow up strong, then I will take them from you before you can warp idiocy into their impressionable little brains. And all the while you will smile and wave to the crowds”—he grabbed her hand at the wrist and waved it, the limp appendage flopping about—“and you will shut up. Maybe if you perform your duties sufficiently I will not
kill you once your monthly woman’s blood stops and you can no longer bear me children. And if you think,” he said, his hands tightening on her until she cried out and almost sank to the ground in her pain, “that you will run and cry to your father and tell him all that I have told you, I will deny everything and I will remind him what a flighty, fanciful thing you are, that you merely mistook something I said. And you know what? He will not even care. Oh, he loves you, that much is true, but he does not respect you any more than I do.”

He shoved her away and she went stumbling back, stepping on her long skirt and tumbling to the hard stone floor, skinning both of the palms she put out just in time to protect her face from hitting the stone.

“If I hear one word from your father about this, I promise you, you will not enjoy the consequences. So do yourself a favor and do not even try it.”

She had not heeded him then. She had known in her heart that her father did love her, that he would never marry her to such a cruel and odious man if only he could see the truth of it. She had run and told all.

He had laughed.

“Darling girl,” he had said, patting her fondly on her cheek. “Surely you are mistaking the matter. I know Grannish well and he is an honest and honorable man. I think that you are afraid of your upcoming nuptials and are beginning to make things up in your mind. Grannish is as polite and even tempered a man as I know.”