15
Braithe knew the moment the fae took her arm that it was not Morgana.
She cursed herself for having been deceived.
She should have known, when the image of Morgana smiled so broadly.
Morgana rarely smiled, and she would not have done so as she looked into the council chamber.
Braithe had been so eager to tell her what she had learned that she was not thinking.
Umer had taken her charm, so she had not seen through the glamour.
She tried to free herself from the fae’s hand, but her muscles would not obey.
The creature had bound her, just as Vivyan had done to Idhri, and rendered her helpless.
She could walk, but she could not break away.
She could not resist. She had to go where the hard hand pulled her, as if she were a dog on a lead.
It seemed best to pretend she was still convinced by the glamour.
She walked beside the tall form, trying to keep track of where they went straight and where they turned.
She told herself that despite her clothes and her shorn hair, her lack of agency in this terrifying moment, she was still a Temple maiden.
She was Priestess Morgana’s handmaid. This creature—male or female, she didn’t yet know—had no real power over her.
Unless they did. That thought made her steps falter.
It was unnerving to walk beside someone who appeared to be Morgana but so obviously was not.
Braithe longed to tear herself free. She imagined pulling away from the fae’s hand, running toward the boulevard, finding her way back to the Council Hall.
She tried to do it. She was willing to take the chance on whatever might happen.
She ordered her body to obey her, but it was no use.
She was helpless. She couldn’t even stop, throw herself to the ground, curl into a ball on her knees.
Her own will didn’t matter. Her legs kept moving in the direction not-Morgana wanted them to go, and it made no difference how her mind screamed at her to flee.
She tried sensing the fae’s feelings and even made a weak attempt to listen to their thoughts, but without success. This person’s emotions were as blank and cold as a granite wall, and that frightened her even more.
They left the boulevard, turning into a curving lane that ran up a short hill.
At the top was a large house, made of pale stone like the others in the city.
A high wall of the same stone encircled the house, reaching above Braithe’s head.
The fae spoke a cantrip to open the gate and led Braithe through a garden with several beds of shrubs and dwarf trees, all meticulously tended, everything planted in the straight lines that characterized every garden or park Braithe had seen.
The fae didn’t pause but drew Braithe up a single step to a tall door painted such a dark gray it was nearly black. The same cantrip opened that:
Skin and bone and belly and blood
Belly and blood and skin and bone
Master spell is now undone.
Braithe had heard it twice now, and she would remember, although it would do her no good. Cantrips required magic. Real, strong magic, like Priestess Morgana’s.
She hated the sound of the closing of the door behind her, cutting off her last chance at freedom. The fae’s hand lifted from her arm, and she felt a rush of relief as control of her muscles returned to her, but she was imprisoned, and she knew it.
She turned to the fae and spoke in the harshest voice she could muster. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”
The facade of Morgana shimmered and dissolved, revealing the fae’s true appearance.
Faolin. She had identified him as one of the enemy, but he had seen through her disguise.
He must have remembered her from that first day, when she stood on the dais and spoke as if she had the right.
Only this man had made the connection, with his odd bristling hair and mind full of obscenities.
“Sero Faolin,” she said.
“Very good,” he answered, with a mirthless smile.
His face was all angles: a long sharp nose, a receding chin, gold-flecked eyes that tipped sharply up at the corners.
That feature was beautiful on Morgana, catlike on Skye.
On Faolin it was exaggerated, even grotesque.
Faolin’s voice had an edge to it like that of a freshly honed knife, and it made her want to put her hands over her ears.
“You are called Braithe, I believe. Braithe of the Temple. Why were you pretending to be a servant?”
Braithe pressed her lips together without answering.
She turned from him to look at the house.
Her first impression had been correct. It was a prison, or at least it would be if that was Faolin’s intent.
It was beautiful, with smooth white walls, a tiled floor, a number of closed doors, and niches here and there.
They held tiny art pieces, similar to those in the Council Hall.
Fleetingly, she wondered if the art was old as it seemed.
She suspected she knew the answer to that.
Faolin said, “I have been alive far longer than you, Braithe of the Temple. I am difficult to deceive.”
She responded without looking at him. “Perhaps if you answer my question I will answer yours.”
He smirked. “Perhaps? I can force you, you know.”
“Is that what gives you pleasure? Forcing people?”
“Oh, yes,” he said smoothly. “It does. It does indeed. All other pleasures faded for me long ago, but for that one.”
A chill of horror crept over Braithe’s body.
She tried to hide it by walking a little way down the hall to examine one of the art pieces.
It was a tiny sculpture of wood, or perhaps bone.
It depicted a female figure bending backward, twisted into a position of agony.
It was exquisitely rendered, and utterly repulsive. Braithe had to look away.
“You do not like my work,” Faolin said. He had come up behind her on soundless feet.
“Is it your own?”
“It is.”
“It offends me.”
“That is its purpose,” he said easily. “Look at my other pieces, Braithe. You will be even more offended, and I will take satisfaction in that, too.”
She had no wish to look at other such sculptures, but it gave her an excuse to move away from him.
More than anything, she didn’t want him to touch her again.
She took a few steps along the hall, stopping at another niche.
The sculpture it held was also very small.
It consisted of two nude figures locked together, but it was not romantic. It was brutal.
She spun away from it, not caring that her revulsion would please him. “I want to leave,” she said. “Your house could be beautiful, but it’s full of ugliness.”
“You haven’t seen anything but this hallway, Braithe.”
“I do not care to see anything more, Sero. Kindly open the front door for me.”
“Oh, I am not going to do that. I intend to enjoy having you as my guest for a little while longer. Or a very long while longer. I haven’t yet decided.”
She had expected nothing less. “I am not your guest, then,” she said, taking care to steady her voice. “I am your prisoner.”
“Ah. So quick to understand.” He turned to one of the closed doors in the hall. When he murmured the cantrip, the same one as before, the door swung open. “Come out now,” he called. “We have company.”
When Braithe saw the woman emerge from the chamber, her sense of horror intensified. For a moment the world seemed to tilt, throwing her off-balance. She had to brace herself on the nearest wall as she stared at the woman. The fully human, very familiar woman.
“This,” Faolin said, with a negligent gesture at the woman, “is Gwen. Gwen has been my—guest—for quite some time.”
“Gwen?” Braithe whispered. And in a voice fainter still, a mere thread of sound, “Gwenvere?”
Faolin’s smile of appreciation was more wolflike than ever. “You are indeed a worthy opponent, Braithe of the Temple. It is no wonder the priestess pretender keeps you with her.”
Braithe was too stunned to even comment on the “priestess pretender” remark.
Shocked into silence, she stared at the woman before her.
The two of them had not actually met, but Braithe knew the woman’s narrow face and slender body, because the changeling queen had worn them.
The hair that had been a pale gold was now a yellowish gray.
The green eyes, flashing up for a single glance and then away, were dim, as if the light had gone out of them.
The body was thinner, and the features somehow worn, from age or illness or perhaps simply misery, but Braithe knew exactly who this was.
She had been forced to care for the changeling in ways she preferred not to recall but which came rushing back to her now.
The great difference between this woman, Gwen, and the version of her Braithe had known was shame. Braithe felt it, and saw it in the lines of her face, the bruised look of her eyes, the attitude of defeat in her body. She kept her eyes down, her head ducked.
In a voice of pure contempt, Faolin said, “Gwen, this is Braithe. Show her where things are, privy and so forth. Put her in the chamber next to mine.” He added, with the smile that was not a smile, “That will be convenient.”
Faolin disappeared into one of the other chambers, his own, Braithe supposed. Gwen beckoned to her and led her down the hallway where she pointed, without speaking, to the privy. Braithe shook her head. “Thank you, but I will not be staying here.”
At that, Gwen threw a frightened glance down the hall, evidently to be certain Faolin had not heard. She lifted her head a little and spoke in a thin, hopeless voice. “He will keep you. He always does.”
“So he is holding you against your will?” Braithe remembered the conversation about servants being slaves. This poor woman was the perfect example.