Harshini Read online

  “I still do,” the slave told her. “But I’ve decided the demon child is right about one thing. I think he really cares about you, Adrina. That rather improves my opinion of him.”

  Adrina closed her eyes again. The humidity and the strain of the past few weeks caught up with her in a wave of fatigue. “Do you think he’ll be happy when he learns I’m with child?”

  “He’d better be,” Tam replied sternly.

  “You’re going to make a wonderful nurse, Tam.”

  “Rest, Your Highness.”

  Adrina didn’t answer. By the time Tamylan had gently closed the door behind her, she had let the torpor overtake her and drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER 23

  When Adrina woke, it was dark. She experienced a sharp pang of bitter disappointment when she realised Damin had not come back. Well, what did you expect? she asked herself grumpily. It’s not as if he actually wants to spend time in your company. Tam had not lit the candles yet and the room was full of dancing shadows. Moonlight reflecting off the still waters of the harbour painted flickering patterns on the ceiling. She lay still for a moment, wondering what had woken her, then heard the noise again in the corridor outside her room.

  Curiously, Adrina climbed to her feet and crossed to the door, placing her ear against the warm wood. The noise grew louder, the unmistakable sound of shouting and the clang of metal on metal. She stepped away from the door in puzzlement. It sounded like a fight. Was the palace under attack?

  The door burst open and the light from the passage outside momentarily blinded her. She screamed as the room filled with armed men. Arms grabbed at her and a mailed hand was clamped over her mouth, stifling her cries. She struggled against the man who held her then relaxed as she remembered the child she carried. If she struggled too hard she might cause it harm.

  “Are you sure that’s her?” one of them asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Then let’s get out of here. Make certain they’re all dead out there,” he added, jerking his head towards the corridor.

  A Raider slipped through the door, his sword drawn. Adrina cringed as a high-pitched and unmistakably female scream followed a few seconds later. She twisted her head around and caught sight of a blue skirt puddled on the tiles near the door, the familiar slippers stained with the blood that pooled around them.

  Tamylan!

  “Get her to the balcony,” the man in charge ordered. “The boat is waiting.”

  Adrina struggled as they dragged her across the room, her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst through her chest. She turned her head, trying to keep Tam in her line of sight, willing the feet to move, to give some indication that she was still alive. The man sent out to finish off the guards slipped back into the room and closed the door behind him, cutting off her view. Adrina sobbed into the mailed hand still covering her mouth.

  Tamylan!

  They dragged her through the open door and out onto the balcony. A Raider was lowering a rope over the edge, down to the dark waters of the harbour below. His leather breastplate was embossed with a soaring eagle. The Raider who seemed to be giving the orders checked the rope was secure then turned to Adrina.

  “Sorry about this, Your Highness.”

  The man holding her suddenly released his hand from her mouth, but before she could scream a mailed fist hit her in the jaw. The pain blinded her for a moment and she struggled to stay upright.

  The second blow was more effective. By the time she realised she had been struck again she was unconscious.

  The next thing Adrina knew, she was tied hand and foot, lying in a puddle of icy water in the bottom of a small boat. The sea churned beneath them, and the motion of the boat made her ill, but she was determined not to vomit. She held down the contents of her heaving stomach by sheer force of will. Spitting out a mouthful of sour blood and stale salty water, she lifted her head to see where she was. In the darkness she could make out little but the bare feet of the sailors who pulled on the oars, and the booted feet of the Raiders who had kidnapped her.

  One of them looked down and noticed she was conscious. He bent over and pulled her into a sitting position, squinting at her in the moonlight.

  “Awake, then, are you?”

  “You have a gift for stating the blindingly obvious, my man.”

  “I ain’t your man, missy,” the Raider replied. “I’m one of Lord Eaglespike’s men.”

  “Again, you state the obvious,” she remarked, glancing at his breastplate, proudly embossed with the soaring eagle of Dregian Province. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “That’s a rather relative term under the circumstances. Untie me at once!”

  “Can’t do that, Your Highness.”

  “Why not? Are you afraid I’ll escape? With all these big, nasty sailors surrounding me? I’m flattered.”

  “Lord Eaglespike said…”

  “Ah! Lord Eaglespike! Did he give orders that I was to be treated like some galley slave you snatched for a bit of sport? Untie me this instant!”

  Her tone almost had him convinced. He was reaching for the ropes when another man stopped him, looking down at her with contempt.

  “Leave her be, Avrid,” the other man ordered. “Don’t let her trick you.”

  Avrid lowered his hands, almost apologetically. Adrina glared at the Raider with all the regal scorn she could muster while sitting in such an inelegant position.

  “I promise I will personally see to it that you all die a very slow and painful death. I will supervise your torture and execution myself. I enjoy watching my enemies suffer long, excruciating punishments. I’m Fardohnyan, you know. We have ways of making a man live in agony for weeks without killing him.”

  “Shut up!” the Raider ordered, noticing the looks on the faces of the men who could hear her.

  Adrina smiled coldly. “Then, there’s always a chance I won’t get to do a thing to you myself. Once the demon child hears of this, your days left in this world will be so few even you could count them. Did I mention that the demon child is a friend of mine?”

  “I told you to shut up!” The Raider’s voice had an edge of panic to it. “Don’t say another word!”

  “Am I scaring you?” she asked cheerfully.

  The Raider punched her in the face rather than answer her question.

  Just before dawn, they reached their destination, a small stone jetty that jutted out into a small churning bay in the shadow of a massive white tower that seemed to grow out of the cliff-face. Adrina was hauled from the boat by another pair of Dregian Raiders and dragged along the slimy dock to a narrow staircase that wound upwards towards a square of yellow light. Shivering in her damp clothes, she shook off the man who was holding her and climbed the steps without assistance, despite the effort it cost her. She was cold and stiff and aching in places she didn’t know existed until now. Her head ached, her stomach was queasy and her face felt as if it had swollen to three times its normal size.

  At the top of the stairs was a small guardroom where more Raiders waited for her with another man dressed in gold-chased armour. He studied Adrina with concern then turned to the Raider who had hit her in the boat.

  “Lord Eaglespike said not to harm her, you fool!”

  “She’s not hurt bad,” the man replied defensively. “Nothing’s broken. But she’s got a mouth on her.”

  The young lord turned to Adrina apologetically. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. You were not meant to be injured.”

  “That’s a fairly hollow apology, don’t you think?”

  “We’ve brought you here for…political reasons,” the young man explained uncomfortably.

  “Is that what you call it? Where I come from, we don’t usually start our political negotiations with criminal acts.”

  “If you’d stayed where you belong and Damin Wolfblade had heeded our warnings, we wouldn’t need to commit criminal acts, Your Highness,” he shrugged. “I am Serrin Eaglespike,
Lord Cyrus’ brother.”

  “Bully for you,” Adrina replied, unimpressed.

  “Lord Eaglespike will be here later. He may wish to speak with you then, or he may wait until Wolfblade has met his demands. In the meantime, you may consider yourself…our guest.”

  He stood back as Adrina was pushed forward from the small guardroom to a long, narrow corridor. The walls were made of rusted iron bars, each one revealing a damp cell beyond. Most of them were empty, and the occupants of the few that weren’t looked up disinterestedly as she passed.

  About halfway up the corridor, her escort stopped and unlocked the cell on her left. They pushed her through the door with little ceremony and locked it behind her.

  Serrin followed the guards and stood outside the bars, watching her as she took in the small high window, the damp, salt-pitted floor and the mouldy straw that served as a bed. A guard untied the ropes that bound her wrists and she rubbed at the raw skin absently as she looked around.

  “Not exactly what you’re used to, I imagine?”

  “If you want to use your imagination for something fruitful,” she suggested frostily, “use it to imagine what I’m going to do to you when I get out of here. Have you any idea how long we Fardohnyans can hold a grudge? Do you have any concept of the lengths we are prepared to go to for revenge? Perhaps you’ve heard of the ancient Fardohnyan tradition of mort’eda?”

  Rather than looking fearful, Serrin actually smiled. “You don’t think the threats of a woman frighten me, do you?”

  “Then what does frighten you, my Lord? You’ll go to war over this, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Know it? We’re counting on it! Damin Wolfblade will gather up the thousand men he has in Greenharbour and come storming over our border as soon as he hears you are missing.”

  “Then why aren’t you out there getting ready to face him?”

  “We are ready to face him, Your Highness. We have ten thousand men waiting. He’ll fly right into our trap like a fox on the scent of fresh chicken blood. If there’s one thing you can always count on, it’s Damin Wolfblade’s reaction to anything that he perceives as a threat to something he loves. He’d rather fight than eat.”

  Adrina burst out laughing, despite how much it hurt her split lip. “This is your grand plan? There’s a fatal flaw in your logic, I’m afraid.”

  “What flaw?”

  “You’re assuming Damin loves me.”

  “Well, doesn’t he?” Serrin asked, a little confused.

  “I hate to disappoint you, Serrin,” she said, holding her sides against the bitter laughter that shook her. “But you’ve not provoked Damin, you’ve played right into his hands. He won’t care if you send me back to him in little pieces. You’ve kidnapped the one thing he wants to be rid of!”

  Serrin glared at her in disbelief. “You’re just saying that.”

  Adrina’s laughter had almost reached the point of hysteria. She could not believe they had actually kidnapped her for such a mistaken reason.

  “You poor, misguided fools!” she cried, sobbing with mirth. “Love me? Dear gods, he despises me!”

  Serrin turned away and left her alone, his footsteps echoing angrily along the passage. Still crying with laughter, Adrina sank down onto the floor of her cell and hugged her knees. Her mirth abated slowly but the tears didn’t as the harsh truth of her predicament hit her with full force.

  Damin wouldn’t risk a civil war for her. She knew that. Even if he wanted to, Marla would prevent him from taking action, or worse, she would convince him to go to war, but not until after her despised daughter-in-law had been conveniently disposed of. There was a chance that R’shiel might come to her rescue, but with everything else that was going on, saving Adrina was probably far down on her list of priorities and the demon child could be as ruthless as Marla when the mood took her.

  The worst of her predicament was the dreadful realisation that at that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be warm and dry and safe in Damin’s arms somewhere far from this place.

  And Tamylan—dear, sweet, loyal Tamylan—had died for her.

  She cried anew for her slave, realising now, when it was too late to do anything about it, that Tam had been her one true friend. The loneliness that settled on her seemed worse than her small cell, worse than her bruised and battered face, worse even than the bitter knowledge that she had fallen for Damin Wolfblade and she would probably never get the chance to tell him.

  Damin wouldn’t come for her. She was certain of that.

  He didn’t even know that she carried his child.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Seeing Stone in the Temple of the Gods loomed over R’shiel, a solid lump of crystal as tall as a man, mounted on a black marble base. Candles set in solid silver sconces lit the altar, reflecting off the Stone with flickering rainbow light. She studied it for some time, hoping to learn its secret.

  “It concerns me that the demon child knows so little of the ways of the Harshini.”

  R’shiel turned. Kalan was striding towards her down the centre of the echoing temple. Kalan had ordered it cleared whenever R’shiel wished to use it—apparently she thought the demon child needed solitude during her worship.

  R’shiel didn’t correct the High Arrion’s assumptions. It was convenient that the Sorcerers’ Collective thought of her as Harshini. It wouldn’t do at all to remind them she was a Medalonian half-breed raised to despise the gods and everything they represented.

  “Concerns you? It scares the hell out of me.”

  Kalan frowned. “I wish you were joking.”

  “So do I.”

  The High Arrion climbed the steps to the altar and stopped beside her, studying the crystal for a moment. “You sent for me?”

  “I need to contact Sanctuary.”

  “And you want to know how to use the Stone?”

  R’shiel nodded. “Glenanaran and the others are still unconscious. I’m not sure how to help.”

  “We owe them a great deal,” Kalan agreed.

  “So, what’s the trick with this thing?”

  Kalan shook her head in despair. “This thing? Divine One, you have a bad habit of blaspheming every time you open your mouth. I hope the gods are forgiving.”

  “I’d settle for them just minding their own business.”

  Kalan sighed eloquently but made no further comment. She stepped up to the Stone and laid her hand on it, as if she drew strength from its solid presence, then turned to R’shiel.

  “In the old days, before the Sisterhood conquered Medalon, the Seeing Stone was our main link with the Harshini. In those days we had scores of Harshini roaming through Hythria and Fardohnya. Medalon was their home but their teachers were spread out even as far as Karien, before the Overlord came to power. There were five Seeing Stones back then.”

  “Five? What happened to them? Where are they now?”

  “The Stone in Yarnarrow was taken to the Isle of Slarn, when Xaphista came to power in Karien. The Sisterhood somehow disposed of the Stone at the Citadel. The Stone in Talabar is gone too, but nobody is certain where.”

  “And the fifth Stone is in Sanctuary.”

  Kalan nodded. “This Stone was silent for almost two hundred years, after the Harshini left us. Then Korandellan appeared about three years ago, seeking Lord Brakandaran.”

  “He sent him to look for me.”

  “And now here you are, seeking to use the Stone to speak with Korandellan. Strange how things turn out.”

  R’shiel wasn’t sure how to answer that. Kalan had been in a strange mood since they arrived in Greenharbour. Perhaps it was because of the attack on the Collective.

  “Can you use the Stone?”

  Kalan shook her head. “I cannot use the stone as you can. All you need do is place your hands upon it, draw on your power and think of whoever you wish to contact. I cannot use the Stone as you can. All you need do is place your hands upon it, draw on your power and think of whoever you wish to contact.”


  “That’s all?”

  “So I’m led to believe.”

  “But you don’t know for certain?”

  “I am not Harshini, Divine One. I do not have access to the power that you control.”

  Control might be a bit optimistic, R’shiel thought irreverently, although she didn’t voice her uncertainty. It was better that the High Arrion thought her omnipotent. She stepped closer to the Stone.

  “The staffs that Xaphista’s priests use. They have crystals in them too. Are they like the Seeing Stones?”

  Kalan looked thoughtful. “I don’t really know. The Overlord uses them to link with the priests, so I suppose they work on the same principle. I’ve never seen one up close.” She smiled faintly. “As you can imagine, there is little communication between the Collective and the Overlord’s minions.”

  “The shaft is black,” R’shiel told her, her voice hardening in remembrance, “and made of metal. The head of the staff is gold, shaped like a five-pointed star, intersected by a lightning bolt crafted of silver. Each point of the star is set with crystal and in the centre of the star, is a larger gem of the same stone.”

  “You speak as if you’ve seen one.”

  “I’ve had the dubious pleasure of being on the receiving end,” she explained.

  “That raises some interesting possibilities,” Kalan said thoughtfully.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wonder if the crystals you describe are pieces of the missing Stones? I don’t know how they could be, but it’s possible, I suppose.”

  “If they are, could I use them too?”

  The High Arrion shrugged, but she didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. “For what?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. I’m just curious, I guess.”

  “Even if the crystals really are pieces of Seeing Stone, you couldn’t really do anything with a staff unless you could get past the pain.”

  “Yes, well that does present something of a problem,” she agreed, pushing away the painful memory of Xaphista and the pain his staff could inflict. She had beaten the collar though, and that had been worse than the staff. Perhaps, if she had to, she could do it again. But not easily; and certainly not by choice.