Sigquaya

  She had to do something. But she was frozen. Locked in place. Sobbing uncontrollably and frantically drying her already dry and raw legs. She stopped her drying and looked at her calves. There were scrapes and scratches everywhere. She’d drawn blood in a few faint streaks, and the sight of it was the last straw. She threw her tunic in the Waters; her hands were shaking violently and she threw her head back, banging it against the rock wall as she let out an anguished cry at the godsforsaken Waters that had swallowed up her closest loved ones.

  At the moment, it was all she could think to do.

  ≈≈≈≈≈≈

  Alone. In darkness. Standing on a thin shard of rock as waves lapped at his toes, Caden was losing his voice, screaming in anger at the rivers surrounding him. His friends were gone. Dead, for all he knew. He turned and reached down, about to put his foot in the river to begin his trek back to what he hoped was the direction of Cierra, when his hand grazed something wedged between him and the wall. He groped around in the pitch blackness until his hand found what felt like a handle or stick of some sort. He picked it up and felt it end to end with his other hand. Naturally, it was soaked from river water, but at one end he could feel what otherwise was once the ashen end of a torch. Despite the water dripping from it, charcoal flaked off his fingertips as he felt around.

  Great, he thought, a gods-damned torch! I have nothing to light it with, but I guess I can beat the water to death with it.

  He grimaced, gritting his teeth and holding aloft the spent torch, shaking it at the heavens as he screamed out another anguished cry of frustration.

  And the torch burst into flame in his hand.

  19

  Taken Away

  She thought it was cold and damp in the Gildrom.

  Bound at the wrists by heavy shackles, Rhiana was led into the Temple through a hallway in the back between the Cyneþrymm and the golden statue of Brynewielm, through a series of bolted and locked doors, and down more flights of stairs and twists and turns and dimly lit passages than she could ever hope to remember. Finally, through one last bolted gate that creaked ominously as it was swung open, she was pushed into a wide, low-ceilinged area lit by a single sconce just outside the gate. The floor was both slick and sticky. And it all smelled of stale hay, mold, and urine.

  Arteura was there, crouched and leaning against the stone wall at the far side of the dungeon, tears glistening on her face and her hair strewn and matted across her forehead and cheeks. Her tunic was torn at the shoulder and filthy. She flinched and cowered as the huge bolt of the gate was unlocked, looking as though she were trying to melt herself into the wall if she could. But at the sight of her mother, she gasped, stood, and ran toward her. She was halfway when the chains holding her shackles yanked her back. She yelped and dropped to a knee, sobbing. She tried once again to raise herself, stumbling, straining against the heavy chains, and leaning as far as she could, her arms shaking and wrists bruised and bloodied by the thick shackles, caught between herself and her mother.

  Rhiana cried out, shaking off the hands gripping her arms and running to her daughter. She reached high with her shackled arms, throwing them up and over, around Arteura, hugging her fiercely and whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay” over and over into her ear.

  The guards wrenched the two women apart, dragging Rhiana away and bolting her shackles to the side wall between the gate and the back where Arteura was chained. When the guards released her, she once more ran to her daughter. The chains wrenched her to her knees, stopping her within a few feet of where Arteura knelt, having reached the boundary of her own steel tether. Outstretched hands, still a little more than a few feet apart, were the closest they could come to contact. Rhiana tried to give her daughter a reassuring smile as she nodded and repeated her whispered chant, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

  Savagely, one of the guards yanked on Arteura’s chain, dragging her away from Rhiana as she screamed out in pain. The guard pulled a long, thick bolt from his waistcoat and rammed it between two links of the chain and behind the eye that held her to the far wall, shortening Arteura’s restraint to a few feet from her anchor.

  “Not so close, you two,” he sneered. He wrenched Arteura’s head back by a handful of hair and groped her with the other. “We wouldn’t want any undue bodily contact between prisoners now, would we?” He fixed his eyes fiercely on Rhiana as he leaned in, licking Arteura’s neck and cheek. Arteura whimpered, shaking and wild-eyed. When he finally released her, she crumpled to the floor in a heap, her body wracked with sobs and shame.

  As the gate creaked closed behind him, he gave out a wicked laugh, slapping the other guard on the arm and grinning, as if his abuse were a badge of masculine honor. Rhiana seethed but held her tongue. The bolt turned with a loud crack, and the two guards disappeared from view, their shadows lengthening and the lewd bravado fading as they walked away.

  When even their footsteps were gone, Rhiana turned to her daughter. “Are you all right, love?”

  Arteura didn’t look up, but nodded.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Long enough.”

  Tears streaked down Rhiana’s cheeks, and her chin dropped. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

  Arteura looked up, but the sobbing and shame were gone, like a switch had been flipped. Her hair was plastered to her face by tears, sweat, and saliva, but there was a savagery there, almost feral, as she growled, “I’m going to kill him, Mother.”

  Rhiana raised her eyes and shook her head. “Arteura,” she pleaded.

  Slowly, Arteura got to her knees then stood, straightening her shoulders and standing tall and proud. The girl was gone. The fighter remained, and Rhiana’s breath caught in her throat.

  Arteura’s chest heaved as her hooded eyes fixed on the locked gate. “I’m going to kill him,” she said again, hissing it through her clenched teeth.

  “Arteura, you can’t—”

  “I can.” She seethed. “And, I will. And if this is what Marcus has become, gods help him, too.”

  Rhiana gasped. “You can’t mean that, love. Not now. Not here. Look where we are. It’s hopeless. It’s over.”

  Arteura’s eyes swept to her mother. By the lone light of the single torch, there was nothing behind them but wild rage. And she was smiling, though there was no humor there. Slowly, she shook her head. “It’s not hopeless. And this is far from over.”

  She looked back to the gate. “Besides, he was paying too much attention to my chest,” she snarled in a strained whisper. “It was the only thing he touched. It was the only thing he was interested in.”

  Her smile grew, crazed, almost lecherous. “Fool!” she spat.

  Rhiana only looked at her daughter, helpless and lost.

  Arteura cocked her head in salacious defiance. “He should have gone lower.”

  Rhiana’s mouth dropped. “Oh gods, Arteura,” she whimpered. “What are you saying?”

  Arteura shook her head once again, slowly and mechanically. “Not that, Mother. Not there.” Her hands went to her sides, as much as they could with her shackled constraints.

  Arteura bared her teeth. “What I’m saying is that he never found my swords.”

  20

  About You . . .

  The Elder sat back in the chair of his study, breathing deeply. His eyes were closed and his head was sinking into the headrest. His hand idly drummed a tune next to the quill pen and ink of his narrow desk. He was waiting.

  It had been a long and eventful day. In its way, fruitful and final. And it was still only late morning. The final act was yet to unfold.

  There was a knock at his door, shaking him from his reverie.

  “Come,” he said.

  A Þrymm guard opened it slowly and poked his head in. “Lord Grayson wishes to speak to you, Elder. He is rather insistent.”

  “I have no doubt he is, Prefect,” the Elder sneered. “Have him wait another moment, and then send him in.”

  “
Yes, Elder.”

  The door closed, and the Elder could hear a muffled argument outside. He chuckled. Grayson was not one to be told to “wait,” stewing in his own juices, and it was that impatience the Elder was playing on.

  Soon enough the door was opened, and Lord Grayson stormed in.

  “You have me wait!” He fumed. “Under these circumstances?! With my family in—”

  “Sit down, Derrick!” the Elder growled. He himself remained seated, not even giving Grayson the courtesy of standing to greet him.

  Lord Grayson’s face grew even darker. He held his outburst, looking to one of the two chairs sitting opposite the Elder’s desk. He stepped behind the closest one, holding on to the chair back with a white-knuckled fury as his eyes pierced the Elder and his lip silently twitched.

  “Or stand, if you prefer.” The Elder shrugged, nonplussed. He steepled his hands in front of him and sat back once again. Then, he gestured to the man before him. “You wanted to see me?”

  “What do you want with my family?” Grayson seethed.

  “Your family?” the Elder asked in mocking curiosity. “Whatever do you mean?”

  The Elder could hear the wood crackling beneath the grip of Grayson’s hands on the back of the chair. His arms were shaking with rage.

  “First,” Grayson said, “the Rectors took my daughter all those years ago when I wouldn’t play along with the little political games between you and the Council. So I accepted that, under duress, and played my part. What choice did you leave me? But then, years later, you took my grandson. FOR NO REASON!”

  The Elder sighed, as if bored. “Calm yourself, Derrick,” he warned, “or I shall have you escorted out. I do not have to listen to these outbursts.”

  “Then,” Grayson went on, stabbing the air with a finger, “when the crops began to fail, you blamed my family—my daughter’s family—for the famine! Smearing our name. Rendering Remè, rendering me, even more impotent.”

  The Elder conceded the point with a wave of his hand, then gestured once again for Grayson to continue.

  “Now, you arrest my daughter AND granddaughter? Throwing them to the dungeons?! On what charges? What in all of hell are you after, Aoren?”

  It was the first time in decades the Elder had heard his true name instead of his revered title. He raised a brow at the boldness of the Councilman. He was about to address the slight when he thought better. “You will hear of the charges in due time, Derrick, as will the public, at the trial you have obviously heard about.”

  He paused, licking his lip and tapping his desktop with a thin finger. Then his features softened as he sat back. “But I have a better question for you, Derrick.” He smiled, and it was anything but friendly. “You think this is about you, don’t you?”

  Grayson’s brow wrinkled, but he remained mute.

  The Elder raised his tapping finger, drawing shapes in the air between the two of them as he continued. “You think this is all, and always has been, about you?”

  “Hasn’t it?” Grayson spat.

  The Elder frowned and shook his head. “No.”

  Grayson’s jaw dropped. He searched the air and shook his head, perplexed. “Then, what? What has this been about, Aoren? Again I ask, what are you after? And why are you holding my family?!”

  The Elder chuckled, which nearly sent Grayson over the edge.

  “Have you ever heard of Sigquaya, Derrick?”

  “Sig-kway what?”

  “Sigquaya,” the Elder answered patiently. “Have you ever heard of it?”

  “Of course not,” Grayson scoffed. “What does that have to do with—”

  “Ask your wife,” the Elder interrupted.

  “Ask my—”

  “Wife, yes,” the Elder said. “Or your daughter, for that matter. Or your granddaughter even.”

  Grayson could only stammer, completely lost with the direction his argument had taken.

  “Or, maybe,” the Elder continued, thoroughly enjoying the Councilman’s confusion, “ask them about Tamatulc. They should know about that as well.”

  “Tama . . .”

  “That is what this is about, Council. Your wife. Your children. Your grandchild. The charges. The sentencing. All of it. That is what this all—and always has been—about.”

  Grayson tried to regain some of his verbal footing. “Words I’ve never heard of? All of this is about words I’ve never heard of? You want me to ask my wife? My family? You expect me to believe—”

  “Yes,” the Elder answered simply. He steepled his hands again and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of his desk and assuming the role of teacher, especially to such a toothless, hapless student. “These words, as you call them, are literally fire and water. Well,” he corrected himself, knitting his fingers and rolling his eyes, “water and fire, but you get the point. Water and fire. Right and wrong. Good and evil. One must command, one must be eliminated. That is what this is about, Derrick. One must win.” He leaned forward. “And one must die.”

  Grayson was reduced to stammering again, but now the Elder’s patience was beginning to wear thin. He was tiring of the game. The cat must eventually eat the mouse.

  “Grayson,” he said, standing and leaning heavily on his desk, his jaw tight. “Your family, nearly every one of them, is Ma’wan. Sorceresses. With a magic called Sigquaya. Your granddaughter, in fact, attempted to use this magic to overcome the Þrymm guards who had her cornered just this morning.”

  Grayson shrunk back; his death grip on the chair loosened, and he now looked stricken and horrified.

  The Elder eyed him, both curiously and in utter satisfaction. “You had no idea, did you?”

  Grayson shook his head, once again lost. “I-I . . .”

  “But of course you wouldn’t,” the Elder continued. “Your wife would want to keep this hidden from you. Imagine how devastating it would be to your Council position if the Empire knew of your family’s true nature, Grayson.”

  “But you—you know . . .”

  “Oh, of course I know,” the Elder said. “I’ve known for some time. I know all of your family’s secrets, Derrick. Even the ones you apparently don’t know yourself. I suspected your wife long before the two of you even met, when she was married before. This was why her husband was sent to the front lines during the war of Hellsgate. I must say, she was very meek and pliable after that.” Then, the Elder sneered. “Until she met you.”

  Sweat glistened on Grayson’s forehead. He could only listen now, adrift and aghast.

  “You created quite a stir with that child she bore you. Skye, wasn’t it? Rumors were floating everywhere about that little one. Was she premature? Was she a bastard?”

  Grayson bristled at the word and the Elder smiled, shaking his head. “I can answer that for you if you’d like. I’m sure you’ve been told at least something, but I’m also sure you don’t know.”

  Grayson stood silent, his breath caught in his throat.

  “There was something about her,” the Elder said. “There was a spark of . . . specialness there. I knew she could grow to be truly remarkable if left unchecked. Historic, even. A thorn in the side of the Empire and Temple.” He leaned in. “And it certainly didn’t come from you.”

  It was as if a light snapped on behind Grayson’s eyes. He howled in rage and threw the chair between them aside. Lunging forward, hands outstretched, he stopped suddenly, feeling the cold edge of steel at his throat. The Elder held the knife as a slow trickle of blood seeped from Grayson’s neck. It was lightning quick. Grayson had never seen the Elder even move. And the man was smiling. “I wasn’t finished,” he hissed.

  They stood eye to eye for a moment, the Elder unblinking and Grayson afraid to move. When the Elder was satisfied he’d made his point, he sat back, removing the blade from Grayson’s throat but continuing to finger the knife loosely in his hand between them.

  “But then your eldest daughter, Rhiana,” he went on. “She was a stealthy one, I’ll give her that. She
hid her abilities within her herbal medicines, soothing and healing, even after her name had been dragged through the mud.”

  Grayson twitched and the Elder raised his brow, the knife rock solid in his hands.

  “And your granddaughter?” The Elder shook his head in awe a second time. “She is truly a marvel. Her power is fairly newly discovered. Otherwise, she would have easily overpowered the guards this morning. She would have been a wonder to behold.”

  Despite his terror, Grayson looked on, curiously. “Oh yes,” the Elder confirmed. “She is that good.” Then, he shrugged. “Or, at least she would have been. Not unlike your Skye, actually. It was surprising that I missed it. And yet this is why she, too, must die.”

  Grayson had heard enough. He lunged, batting away the knife with his left hand then slamming the Elder below the eye with his fist. The Elder grunted, dropping the knife.

  Grayson was on top of him now, the Elder leaning backward over his desk. Grayson grabbed him by the throat, rearing back and lifting him off the ground. The Elder choked and wheezed. His face reddened as his eyes flew wide; his feet pedaled, barely grazing the floor. He brought his hands around, shaking, but he was still able to raise them up and grasp either side of Grayson’s head. And he pressed.

  Instantly Grayson screamed and released his hold. The Elder held firm, grimacing. Grayson crumpled, dropping to one knee and writhing in agony, and still the Elder held.

  “Did you know,” the Elder snarled, “that the human body is made up mostly of water, Derrick?”

  Grayson groaned. He clawed at the man’s hands, but still the Elder held.

  “Neither did I,” hissed the Elder, straining with the effort. His head throbbed in rhythm with his heart. His hands burned and shook as his grip tightened. “Until I learned of Sigquaya.”