Battles of Salt and Sighs by Val Saintcrowe

CHAPTER TEN

OCCASIONALLY, ONIVIA NOTICEDthat Akiel would not be at one of the dinners, and she understood that this was because he was holding some sort of private dinner in his quarters. One of the other officers would usually be invited and he would not be there either. Of course, this meant that Loretia was not there either, nor was the girl of whatever officer it was, assuming the officer had a girl.

Not all of them kept someone regular. Some seemed to prefer to pick and choose daily from the pool of women—the ones who’d been in the tent that first day, who were now housed in the lower levels of the house in a cot-lined room. She and Marta often spent afternoons there with the women.

So, when Larent received a summons for one of these dinners, she supposed she wasn’t surprised.

He didn’t seem pleased. He told the militus who’d been sent with the summons that of course he would comply, but then he shut the door, expression contorting, and stood there, glaring at the floor, unmoving for several long minutes.

She watched him, clutching her book.

They had not been speaking as of late. It was back to business as usual between them, though she had inquired about Cassus on one occasion, and he’d said he was still thinking it through.

He raised his gaze to hers. “Did you hear what’s just happened?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am not deaf.”

“Well, it’s unfortunate,” he said. “I had hoped that we wouldn’t have to… but it seems we do.”

“We?” She slowly closed her book, marking it with a bookmark she’d found on one of the shelves. “I didn’t hear myself being included in those summons.”

“Of course he wants you there. What do you think those dinners are?”

She had noticed that the girls weren’t there, but she assumed it was only that they were not needed for serving, not that they were at Akiel’s dinners. “I don’t know what they are. I suppose you’re going to tell me.”

“Akiel enjoys… watching,” said Larent. “Some of the men don’t seem to mind being watched, but I…” He rubbed his forehead. “Ancestors protect me, how am I even going to manage this?”

“You can’t,” she said. She got up from the couch where she’d been sitting. “I told you that I won’t submit to that again. If you attempt to take me in that way, I will fight you with everything I have.” Her heart was starting to beat very fast.

“Akiel will love that,” he muttered. “It will excite him. Unfortunately, it won’t excite me, and he’ll see that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This is a disaster.”

She stood there, heart pounding, panic pumping through her. “No,” was all she could say. “No.”

He started to pace. “I thought if he saw the two of us together at the dinners, it would be enough to silence him, but we must not have convinced him.”

“We’ve convinced Marta,” she said. “He must be convinced. No, he simply hates you, Larent. He will relish observing your discomfort, and he knows it will cause you that.”

“That obvious, is it? His hatred?”

“Everyone observes the way he is with the half-bloods,” she said. “You are the only half-blood centurion, after all. I suppose he resents you for it.” She furrowed her brow. “Does he force all of the half-bloods into your centuria?”

“Yes, which is why it’s not a hundred men but three hundred,” said Larent. “You’re very observant, domina.” He gave her a dark look.

“I have nothing to do but observe,” she said.

“So, then,” he said, “if it’s because of hatred, there’s nothing I can do to dissuade him from what he does to me. He’ll do it regardless.”

“You can’t see this about him? You seem to be good at reading people. Not Akiel?”

“Perhaps I hoped that I was wrong. I don’t seem to be as good at understanding how people see me, just how they see other people, other situations. Your opinion of me, for instance? I don’t know what that is.”

“I hate you.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She squared her shoulders. “And I won’t allow you to… to…”

“To fuck you,” he said. “Say it. Why not say it?”

She felt off balance. She sat back down on the couch instead. “Why do you endure him? You are twice the soldier he is. I had heard of you before all this. The celebrated and brilliant fae strategist Larent. It is your centuria who wins the battles for him. I have never heard of Akiel, and you don’t need him.”

“Is this your attempt to sow discord in the fae ranks?” He gave her a wan smile. “Not bad, domina, but know I hold the cause in too high regard to rise up against my princep.”

“I didn’t mean for you—”

“We’ll say you’re ill,” he said. “Or that you’re having your bleeding—” He turned on her. “You’ve bled since we… haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. She had, once. “You didn’t finish, or had you forgotten? You seem frightened, but you have no cause.”

“I don’t know, I’ve heard of it happening rarely, even if…” He shook himself. “It’s good, though, very good.”

Her upper lip twisted and she glared at him in disgust.

“I owe my own existence to violence done to my mother, domina,” he said softly. “You can’t imagine I would wish to get a child myself in that manner. It would…” His look of disgust mirrored her own.

Her face fell, and she was filled with shame, and she didn’t know why. It was not her fault, what had happened to his mother, how he was made. But she felt a sudden, strange kinship with those female fae slaves out on the outskirts of the villa, used by their dominem, and she wondered at it, because she never thought of it quite that way before, never as if the fae women were like her, her equals.

This experience had worn her down, changed her from the inside out, destroyed her.

She would never be whatever she had once been, and no matter how she guarded herself, guarded her body against his invasion, it didn’t truly matter, because she was full of cracks now, and she could not be mended.

“At any rate, it should work. He will be disappointed, but it will put him off. This time, anyway. Not forever, though.” He sighed. “I need to come up with some other plan.”

“Can you?”

“It’s said I’m clever, domina,” he said. “I’ll think of something.”

She gave him a nod. “Good. Please do.”

They fell into silence then, as they usually did. They did not speak of it again.

Days passed, and the night of the dinner came.

Larent spent time in front of the mirror, carefully shaving his chin. He did not have a thick beard, not like a human man might, but there was enough that it was visible. She’d never seen him shave, however, not once, so it didn’t seem to grow very thick or long on its own. She supposed the sight of it—so human—offended Akiel, and this was why he removed it.

Larent had to get dressed for dinner, and he donned a suit with a cravat and vest. He had two different cravats, though, and he kept taking one off and putting the other on and tying it, while looking in the mirror.

He was nervous.

She found herself taking pity on him. “Wear the green. It brings out your eyes. Your eyes are very fae.”

He looked at her, sucking in a breath. “Is that a good thing, do you think? Won’t he know I’m posturing, attempting to make him think I am more fae than I am?”

“You are fae,” she said softly. “Who cares what he thinks?” She wasn’t sure why she was reassuring him. This seemed dangerous in some way she couldn’t quite explain, more dangerous than letting him wrap his hand around her thigh, maybe, more intimate.

He turned back to the mirror. “I don’t have magic. Not a drop. Nothing.”

“So?”

“So… I don’t… all my life, I have been challenged by other fae, fae who hated whatever humanness they could see in me, and I’m used to it. Perhaps I should simply face it, not try to pretend otherwise.”

“You’re not pretending. You’ve devoted yourself to the fae cause, and you bear whatever it is that Akiel does to you. You are loyal, and he is the one who denies his own kind when he denies you.”

His jaw twitched. He turned away from the mirror and looked at her. He lifted a hand, pressed his palm against her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You have no reason to be kind to me, domina.”

She jerked away, ashamed of herself.

He flinched, as if this hurt him in some way.

She turned away, wrapping her hands around her waist as if she was trying to hold herself together.

He sighed audibly.

They didn’t speak after that.

Soon after, he left, and she was alone in the room.

The first thing she did was to try the door, because she knew that it was dinner hour and that the guards would be more sparse, and that she was usually moving about the house at this hour, so maybe she could…

Well, she didn’t really think she could escape, but…

It was locked, anyway.

She picked up her book again. She read for a short time, but she was startled out of it when Larent was back, too soon.

He shut the door behind him very deliberately, very carefully.

Then he pressed his forehead into it and began to utter a string of inaudible oaths to the fae ancestors.

“What happened?” she said.

“He wants you to be there, and he says we’ll reschedule when your bleeding is over. He mocked me for being squeamish about blood and said it was of no bother to him.” He said this to the door.

“No,” she said. “No, I can’t.”

“You have to.” He turned around. “We have to.”

She got up from where she sat, shaking her head, shaking her entire body. Her heart had leapt into her throat. “No, you said you would think of something.”

“Well, I haven’t.”

“But you said you were clever.”

“I…” He squared his shoulders and he came for her.

She backed away, backed around the couch, but then there was nowhere to go, and she was simply backing into the book shelves built into the wall. “Please.”

He stopped, a foot away. His voice was quiet. “I know I hurt you, domina, but it was only because it was the first time, and I can be… gentler, and I can take more care to arouse you, and it doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”

She shook her head more insistently, mouth gaping, heart going wildly out of rhythm. She could not even speak, so great was her horror.

He considered this. “Well, not physically unpleasant, anyway. I don’t know that there’s any way to make Akiel’s eager gaze less horrible, but… we just do it and it’s done. He’s not asked any of the other men for repeat performances.”

She gaped at him.

He was gazing at her, questions in his eyes.

“No,” she said finally. “No, never. No.”

“You understand it is going to happen, even if I have to drag you there and wrestle you down and force you. That will be quite awful for both of us, and if you—”

“You don’t have to do what Akiel wants.”

“I do,” he said. “I wish I didn’t, but…” He sighed.

“You’re a coward,” she decided, her voice shrill. “You’re frightened of him.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps, it is a choice between the fae army and… a human woman, and you mean nothing to me, but I am ruled by this, because I am frightened of violating you, of truly doing it, of what it would make me. It seems wrong to me, very wrong, but perhaps I am only cowardly because of my own past, my own history, seeing my mother in you…” He backed away, and he sank both of his hands into his hair. He gazed at the space in front of her feet for several long moments.

Then, shaking himself, he went into his bedchamber and shut the door, but this time, he slammed it, and it made her jump and shudder.

She crumpled onto the couch and began to sob.

MAGDALIA AWAKENED ANDthere was something heavy on her chest.

Startled, she opened her eyes and pushed it off.

It was Duranth’s arm.

She was back in her bed—well, the csaerina’s old bed—and Duranth was sleeping next to her.

She lifted the covers to look and was gratified to see that she was clothed, completely clothed. Duranth, however, was naked from the waist up, and she could see clusters of scars on his shoulders. Lashes. She knew he’d been beaten more than once.

The arm she’d pushed off herself was the one that didn’t have a hand attached anymore. He stirred, using the stump to push himself up a bit and survey her, blinking sleepily. He yawned.

“What are you doing in here?”

He arched an eyebrow, and she thought to herself that he was handsome, and she didn’t think she’d ever let herself articulate that thought, not exactly. Of course, he wasn’t unpleasant to look at, but a dominissa did not find fae handsome. One could… could desire them, she supposed, because that happened. It was far more likely for human men to go and take their pleasure with fae women, but it happened the other way sometimes, too, for dominae to dally with fae as well.

Duranth was speaking. “You don’t remember?” His voice was amused and deep and it had a just-awakened quality that sent a ripple of sensation through her.

What was happening to her?

She should be demanding he get away from her, insisting on propriety, setting right the state of affairs between the two of them. He must not get the idea that he was allowed to sleep in a bed with her.

She didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she tried to remember, and slowly, bits and pieces came back. The last clear memory she had was kissing him in the field of corn.

But then, vaguely, she remembered him carrying her back to the carriage, her arms hooked around his neck, her head resting against his firm chest, but she had been half asleep at that point. She had been so exhausted after expelling that much magic.

He’d been tired too.

She remembered the jolt of the carriage waking her, hearing him snore, still being in his arms, both of them sprawled out across one of the seats.

But the bed… “I remember falling asleep in the carriage.”

“Mmm,” he said. “We both did. I got you up here, but I didn’t have the energy to make it elsewhere.” He yawned again and then rolled onto his back, stretching his arms above his head.

She watched the muscles in his arms ripple, speechless. “You managed to have the energy to take off half your clothes!” It was an accusation.

He laughed softly. “Sleeping in a shirt makes my scars itch.”

The mention of that, so casual, sent an unpleasant feeling through her, and she didn’t want to feel it, so she busied herself with sitting up, pushing herself up to lean against the headboard.

He sat up also, turning to the side table next to the bed to retrieve his artificial hand, and when he did, he gave her his back.

She was forced to gaze at the thatched mess of raised scar tissue on his back. She shuddered. She wanted to cry. She’d cried when she’d watched it done—although that had only been the one time. He’d been whipped on more than one occasion and she hadn’t seen them all.

He noticed her staring, and he raised his eyebrows.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop it.”

“You tried,” he said.

“I made it worse.” She looked away.

“It’s over now.”

“Yes, you killed him, after all,” she said, and her voice twisted.

He busied himself securing his artificial hand, pulling leather straps snug on his forearm, buckling them. “I didn’t think you’d miss your father much.”

“He was my father, Duranth.” This was a pained whisper.

“You hated him.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.” Duranth didn’t have a father. Well, he did, but he didn’t know him. He’d been purchased as part of a lot of slaves and he’d been a child alone, no mother or father. She realized she’d never asked him about that, and she didn’t intend to do it now. It was likely that his mother had simply been bought by someone else at the auction that day when he’d been purchased. Or maybe his mother was dead.

Anyway, Magdalia was certainly not going to bring that up now. Especially because she was realizing that it wasn’t a very good argument, to say that he didn’t understand what it was like to lose his family when he very well might know, and would have experienced the loss when he was quite young, like those little fae children playing with sticks and pebbles.

Tears spilled out of her eyes now, and she pulled the covers up over her head to hide them.

“Well, I’m sure he’d find your tears gratifying,” said Duranth dryly.

She wasn’t about to tell him that she was crying for him, not her father. What was he doing to her?

Fortune’s favor, she had kissed him!

Well, he kissed me first.

But he’d only kissed her skin. She’d turned and joined their mouths. She was never going to pull these covers away from her face.

“This isn’t the way I’d hoped things would be between us in the morning,” he said in a regretful voice.

“I suppose you were hoping there’d be more kissing.”

“I was, in fact.”

“Never,” she said softly. “I only did that because I was weak and tired and not in my right mind.”

“Ah,” he said. He got up off the bed.

She felt it rather than saw it because she still had the blankets up over her face.

“I’ll give you a bit of time to adjust to the new reality, Magdalia,” he said. “Perhaps I’ve been too impatient with you. I forget you’re unlearning an entire lifetime of indoctrination, and that all of it was thrust into your head by people you loved.”

“Indoctrination?” She threw down the blankets, angry now, all embarrassment forgotten. “If anything, you’re the one who is indoctrinating me now. You’re trying to turn me into a fae sympathizer.”

“I want you to do more than sympathize,” he said, giving her a smile. “You already have, in fact. I had my tongue in your mouth, and you liked it.”

Of course he would throw that in her face. She huffed, glaring at him. “I was… exhausted.”

“Yes, yes, not in your right mind.” He smirked. “But you felt it when our magic came together, all that power, all that…” He trailed off, overcome by the memory.

She sat up straight, swallowing.

“You’re the one who believes in fate,” he said. “You humans worship Fortune. If anything is decreed by the whims of Fortune, it’s this, Magda, you and me. It feels right because it is right.”

She did remember how it had felt, and she could hardly form words, because the memory seemed to overcome her as well. It had felt good, exquisite even.

“But take your time to adjust. We do not need to be in a rush about it.” His shirt was hanging over the back of a chair, and he shrugged into it, buttoning it deftly from the bottom up, even with his artificial hand. She was amazed at how good he was at it. His artificial hand pressed the button down, holding it in place as his good hand did all the work.

She watched as his smooth, muscled chest disappeared. He was handsome. Oh, Fortune deliver her, she was in awful danger here.

She was so very confused.

He had bewitched her with his words. He was too good at that, at weaving an argument that was unassailable.

But she remembered a discussion at a dinner once in the capital. Albus had been there, laughing about how he was happy that he would never be a senator, and that he was happy to leave the job to his elder brother, who was similarly happy to leave warfare to him. Technically speaking, every senator was also the legatus of the legion that served his province and could also be out there fighting with the men. But most senators did not take to the fields themselves, but employed a proxy to work in their stead. Albus’s brother had chosen him to do it.

Argument is a science, or perhaps a form of sorcery, Albus had said, eyes dancing. I prefer to convince men with pistols.

Onivia had argued with him. Her eyes had danced as well. Magdalia recalled how her sister had looked at that man. But that is only bullying, not convincing at all.

Well, the empire seems quite happy to use force to achieve its aims,he’d said.

The point was that Albus had said his brother had gone to school to learn the art of argument, and that senators employed it on the floor of the senate to argue for or against some law or other. They were so skilled at putting together such arguments that they were capable of convincing anyone of anything, that was what Albus had said.

It was an exaggeration, she knew, but she also knew that Duranth had access to books that he should never have had access to, that he had studied the art of argument as well, and that he was likely as skilled as a senator.

It was dangerous, such skill in the mouth of an evil death fae.

And I am attracted to him. He is getting to me. I kissed him.

“Would you do it again?” asked Duranth, folding his cloak over his arm.

“Do what again?”

“Crops,” he said. “People are in desperate need of food.”

“Because your armies have put a blight on the land with your magic,” she said. “I know well how the fae fight this war, using their magic to make the land refuse to feed the enemy. But I suppose it is having an affect on them as well. Foolish tactic, I suppose. Was it your idea?”

“Can you undo magic?” he said, eyebrows raised. He mused. “Can we undo magic? Interesting. Something to try, I suppose.”

“I’m not helping you, Duranth.”

“You did yesterday.”

“No, I helped the children and the pregnant women, and I did it because humans are good, and we do not wish for destruction, and because we are meant to be the stewards of your kind, because you fae cannot contain your own evil tendencies.”

He made a pained expression. “Still clinging to this? Did nothing I said to you yesterday make any impact on you?”

“You are tricking me with your words, and you shouldn’t even be so good at it at all, at crafting argument. If you hadn’t been so cunning to contrive to be educated—”

“Cunning? Contrive?” He glared at her. “I had no control of anything that happened to me on the villa. I was plucked out to do tricks for your father like a court jester, and then you took a shine to me, so I was sent to amuse you. There was no cunning.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Making confusing arguments, twisting things up with your words.”

“I’m presenting facts, Magda,” he said. “You simply don’t want me to say anything that disrupts the way you already view the world. You can’t bear the idea of upsetting the foundation of your thinking. Believe me, I do understand somewhat. It was difficult for me as well. When you’re brought up being taught you’re evil, you do tend to think it’s true.”

“You are evil.”

“You kissed evil.”

“I know.” She wrung out her hands.

“Well, that makes you a sympathizer of evil,” he said.

“It doesn’t.”

“A kisser of evil.” He grinned at her. “I suppose I tricked you into that through evil means.”

“You did.”

“Well, then, if it’s all my fault, I think I’ll steal another kiss.” His grin widened and he bounded back onto the bed.

She backed into the headboard, eyes wide. “No, you will not.”

“Why not? It’s already against your will, isn’t it? You didn’t want to kiss me last night, so now, this, no reason not to indulge.” He crawled toward her on hands and knees.

Once again, she was stunned at how easily he made use of his artificial hand. She was so distracted by that, she didn’t seem to register how close he was until he was on top of her.

He straddled her, face looming close, still smiling that awful self-satisfied smile.

She tried to melt into the headboard, but it didn’t work. “Duranth…”

He brushed a lock of her hair off her forehead. “I like the way you look in the morning, with your hair down. I like how it’s in disarray from sleep. I like how the color rises to your cheeks when you get excited.”

“I’m not excited. I’m horrified.”

“Yes, this is definitely your horrified face.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

She shut her eyes, and a little shudder went through her.

He kissed her forehead. Both of her cheeks. Her chin.

She sighed.

Then his mouth against hers, soft, a hint of pressure from his lips, and she opened her mouth to him instantly.

Now, his hand came up to cup her face as the kiss deepened, and it swirled into her, dark and pleasant, warm and deep, dark red.

The kiss went on and on, their tongues dancing, and she was utterly participating in it. She was kissing him back, curse him.

When he finally pulled away, he gave her a half-lidded look of desire that made her entire body clench.

Groaning, he climbed off the bed. “Unfortunately, I’m very busy today. I have to leave you and go see to running… everything. Do you want to dine together this evening, however?”

“No,” she said, but her voice wasn’t strong.

“Right, then,” he said. “I’ll send for you later to join me in the dining room.”