64. Harper
64
HARPER
S aradon frowned and motioned for the goblins to bring Brand and Erika forward, even as he froze Harper.
“Sit!”
His command forced her to sink onto the throne once more. Brand and Erika’s attention snapped to her at his command. She shuddered against his will, her limbs locking, but it was no use. Their eyes widened when they saw Harper seated next to Saradon. She knew they would be wondering at her presence—and her place beside their captor.
Harper tried to surge forward, but Saradon’s bond held her in place. Slowly, despite her strangled screams of anger, her body subsided onto her chair once more. Saradon’s magic forced her to sit, back straight, even raising her chin so she glared imperiously at her friends below her. Furious tears streamed down her cheeks, and she raged against the magic that held her there, to no avail. Her companions were almost unrecognisable—beaten, bruised, and dirty. Erika’s furs were crusted with dirt and blood, and Brand’s wings were tattered and covered in gore.
The goblins did not dare get too close, it seemed, for they kept Brand and Erika in their centre and at bay with the pointed ends of the various weapons they held. Brand and Erika had nothing but the clothes on their backs, but it did not stop them from standing back-to-back, as though they could protect each other from their captors. Her friends’ wary attention darted between the goblins. They looked like prey. They bore hunted looks in the dark hollows under their eyes and the hopeless set of their mouths. As much as Brand swung at any goblin who came too close and Erika ducked and wove between their feinting attacks, Harper knew they could not succeed. They were too weakened and vulnerable—and vastly outnumbered.
The cruel scenario reminded her of the caged bears that had visited her local town, Glymouth, with the travelling shows that occasionally came to her home county. She recalled how the animals had been much the same—doggedly tired, malnourished, and battered, yet still dangerous enough to kill… and provide good entertainment. She hated the spectacle before her now as much as she had hated that. Brand’s and Erika’s bodies were peppered with small cuts and nicks that were meant to draw out suffering, rather than kill. How could anyone bear to watch or enjoy such cruel sport?
Her friends lashed out at the goblins who harried them, though they were in no fit state to defend themselves. Their chests rose and fell raggedly with each uneven breath, and their lowered stances and delayed reflexes only allowed the goblins further successes, until they shrieked with glee at their torment of the Aerian and the nomad. The cacophony drilled into Harper’s already tired mind until her head pounded, but she fought through it, determined to throw off Saradon’s control upon her body so she could help them.
“Please, stop this,” she implored, but Saradon only waved his hand, sealing her mouth so she could not defy him further. Before her, Dimitri watched the spectacle before him with hard eyes. She knew he could not help, for it would damn them all.
It seemed Brand and Erika had resigned themselves to their fate, and though they would not give up, their defences grew slower and more laboured. Eventually, one goblin got too close. Brand lunged forward to grab the goblin from amidst his cohort with his giant arms. They bulged as he crushed the goblin into his chest—snarling and teeth bared, he looked as feral as they. The goblin stilled, and as Brand released it, the goblin’s patched armour was dented and crumpled, and its body twisted out of proportion.
Brand lifted the goblin by its neck and ankles. With an almighty roar, he flung it toward the goblins surrounding them. The unexpected assault wiped out half a dozen and scattered the rest. Brand lunged forward to try his luck again, managing to stamp on the helmed head of another goblin, who did not rise, before he and Erika were once more hemmed in by the now vengeful horde that bristled with even more blades than before.
They were repaid tenfold for their rebellion. The goblins set upon Brand and Erika like wild beasts, hacking and slashing with cruel serrated blades, teeth, and claws. Brand crushed Erika close to his body and hunched over, closing his wings around them both and bowing before the onslaught. Slashes marred his wings, and he bellowed in pain, but did not yield as the goblins’ blades bit deep and rivulets of blood ran down him to pool onto the floor.
Harper refused to shut her eyes, refused to let Saradon win, but tears streamed down her cheeks at her friends’ plight. Her strength ran thin against Saradon’s endless reserves. She could not help, no matter how much she wanted to. Saradon seemed to sense her submission, for the shackles upon her loosened—though not enough for her to move or use her magic. But now she had enough room to twitch and to breathe fully, though she did not want to take in the air from the tainted hall.
She flung herself from her chair with all her might, the most she could manage with hardly any control over her limbs. She crashed onto the stone before Saradon, on her belly and at his mercy.
“Please! I beg you, stop this!” She looked up at him from the wide step of the dais, her cheeks wet and eyes brimming with fresh, angry tears, willing for some ounce of compassion in him, but as she searched his cold, hard gaze, she found none. “I’ll do anything to make it stop. Please!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”
“Yes. Please, make them stop!”
“It will be so.” With a sharp slash of his hand and a crack of magic, the goblins fell back, shrieking, though they still cavorted around their prisoners, albeit now at a distance—as though they wished to continue their sport rather than obey their master’s command. Saradon rose from his throne, slowly and with relish. Harper scrambled to her hands and knees, caught in the folds of the dress, and her heart palpitated with relief at the sight of Brand and Erika, now unharried by their tormentors. The cold stone seeped into her hands and knees, numbing them, but Harper did not miss the unmistakeable twist of magic writhing around her.
“You offered me anything, so I shall take what I will of you, daughter. I choose your obedience . I bind you once. I bind you twice. I bind you thrice. You shall follow me in all I command, until you learn that my way is the righteous one and follow me of your own will. It is for your own good. Your wilfulness has no place in my court.”
Harper felt the magic bite sharply into her as he bound her to his will. Her own was suppressed, forced down within her until she felt like she was trapped helplessly at the bottom of a well, yet she could do nothing to defy him. Horror filled her. She knew she was entirely under his thrall, and she had delivered herself there without even securing her friends’ releases. What had she done?
True to Saradon’s word, he called the goblins off, banishing them from the hall and sending them away with a touch of his own malign cruelty so they shrieked in pain for his pleasure. “Detestable creatures.” His lips curled as he turned away to reposition himself on his grand throne.
Harper rose by his will, and dipped into a graceful curtsey, which she would never have been able to execute without him, her puppeteer, then slipped into her own seat beside him. Dimitri refused to catch her eye, but his clenched fists were not lost on her. Her friends still huddled upon the floor, beaten and broken, but their will was not so entirely sapped that they were defeated. Brand still hunched over Erika, though now they half-lay upon the stone. His eyes caught Harper’s. She tried to fill her gaze with urgency and hope, but he stared at her impassively.
I tried to help . Please believe the best of me , she begged, knowing her message would not reach him. Even if, in the end, she had accomplished little but prolonging their torture. Her stomach churned with nausea at the thought of all their suffering and her uselessness.
“Who are your dear friends, daughter?” Saradon’s fingers, steepled under his chin, rubbed together as he contemplated the sorry prisoners before him.
She could not deny him. “Brand of the Aerians and Erika of the Indis.”
“Ah, the Indis . Of course. I have just returned from your lands,” he said to Erika, who glared at him through the crack in Brand’s wings, as though wishing she could rip him limb from limb. Erika bared her teeth and spat at him. The bloody globule fell far short of the dais, splattering upon the already sullied stone. Saradon without magic would have been no match for a fit and healthy Erika. A pang of anger rippled through Harper. One day, she will get her vengeance upon him. Somehow, I will see it so.
His lip curled. “Your kin were far more welcoming and respectful. You will be most pleased to know that they once more join my banners.” Worry chased through Harper at his crowing admission. “I shall give you the chance, of course, to stand with your kin under my rule.”
Erika spat at him again.
Using his magic, he pressed her to the floor, crushing her face against it as he made her bow in submission. “Foolish,” he snarled. “You shall not receive a second offer. Die in the darkness with your defender instead.” Saradon sneered at Brand, who had collapsed beside Erika, slowly weakening as his lifeblood left him through the great gashes in his wings. “Be the sport of the goblins for the rest of your miserable lives. I care not.” Saradon summoned the goblins once more, and Brand and Erika were hauled away, leaving trails of scuffed dirt and blood in their wake—and then nothing but silence.
“The Indis agreed to ally with you, Lord?” Dimitri’s quiet voice broke through the deafening silence.
“They did indeed, without any real need for coercion. Their hate runs deep, as I knew it would.” Saradon sounded confident. “When the time comes, they will join me. Already, they travel west over the tundra and the mountains to join us upon the low plains.”
“Excellent,” said Dimitri, but Harper could hear how devoid of emotion his voice was. She wondered if he felt as scared as her.
“More than excellent. The Indis were some of the strongest fighters under my banners. If they are any remnant of their former selves, they will serve us well, though their numbers have dwindled. With the fury of the Indis, the disarray of the goblins, and the righteousness of the common peoples of Pelenor, all united against the crumbling court that dies from within, our victory shall be swift and certain.” Saradon turned to Harper with a half-smile. “I have already seen it, like your own visions. Come. Look.” He waved his hand, palm down, before him, and a great, flat mirror coalesced and hovered by his hips.
Harper rose and padded over to join him, though her whole body wanted to shy away from being so close to his presence. She gasped as she beheld the scene within the mirror.
“The old and much forgotten Eldarkind gift of scrying, daughter, of my own foresight. Behold what will come to pass.”
It was disturbingly similar to her visions from Erendriel. Saradon smiled, and she wondered whether he knew what she likened it to. Eyes wide and mouth clamped shut, she advanced, resting the tips of her fingers upon the edge of the mirror, as though she could reach into the vision underneath the smooth, silvered glass. A blasted earth passed beneath her, as though from a bird’s view. Burning and charred piles were partly obscured by still rising pillars of smoke that twisted in the winds to cover almost all. The dead were a flood upon the earth.
“What is this?” she breathed. Beside her, Dimitri also stood, watching silently. As he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the smooth fabric of his sleeve touched her bare arm. A minor reassurance. She was not alone.
“Victory,” Saradon hissed. “Victory at last. Five hundred years have I been denied, but no more. The wheel shall be riven, and I shall build a new Pelenor from the ashes. Pelenor will fall, with Valtivar soon to follow. Slowly but surely, my dominion will spread as far as the land passes east and west and north and south, until it can go no farther. All will fall under my banners and obey my rule. No more will there be war and strife. All will serve.”
“The land is barren,” said Dimitri, his voice hollow.
“War has a cost, Lord Ellarian, as you well know.” Saradon glanced at him sharply. “The land will recover, as always. The peoples, as well.”
Gripped by his will, Harper felt a giddy swoop of excitement that was not her own pass through her, though she was horrified by his intent, despairing by the second that there was any hope. His excitement mixed with the nauseating fear that would not leave her belly, making it all worse.
“I could not be more pleased with how all progresses,” Saradon said, drawing up with a satisfied smile. “It will not be long now before the sword will strike and I will be king of all.” Saradon turned to Harper, smiling with a cruel glint in his eyes. “And you, daughter, shall be first by my side in all things.”
Harper had no choice as his will forced her to curtsy before him deeply and remain low, with her head bowed and her gaze on the floor. “I will serve,” she intoned, fighting every word he made her speak.