The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [119]
“It’s all right,” Alis said. “I only want to touch your face.”
“I no longer have a face,” he replied, but nevertheless he let her hand go. Tentatively, she reached up until she felt the beard on his cheek, then traced higher, where she found a mass of scars.
So much pain. She reached for her knife again. A single motion into the bowl of his eye and he would forget what they had done to him, forget his lost love. She could hear in his voice and feel in his grip that he was broken. Despite his bravado and talk of revenge, there wasn’t much left of him.
But her duty wasn’t to him. It was to Muriele and her children—and in a way to poor dead William. She had loved him in her fashion; he had been a decent man in a position no decent man ought to hold.
Like this Safnian prince.
“Prince Cheiso,” she whispered.
“I was,” he replied.
“You are,” she insisted. “Listen to me. I will free you from your cage, and together we will find a way out of here.”
“And kill him,” Cheiso said. “Kill the king.”
With a faint prickling she realized he meant William.
“King William is already dead,” Alis said. “He is not your enemy. Your enemy is Robert. Do you understand? Prince Robert’s word put you here. Then he killed his brother, the king, and left you to rot. He probably doesn’t even remember that you exist. But you will remind him, won’t you?”
There was a long pause, and when Cheiso finally spoke again, it was in a surprisingly passionless and even voice.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will.”
Alis drew out her lock-picking tools and set to work.
ANNE TOOK a few deep breaths, closing her eyes against her tent and its spare furnishings. She’d sent Austra away, and the girl had gone with what had seemed to Anne a sense of relief.
Did the little tart just want to get away from her, or did she want to get to Cazio?
Hush, she told herself. Hush. You’re just getting angry with yourself. Small wonder Austra would rather spend time with someone else.
Anne settled into the darkness and then looked deeper, trying to find her way to the place of the Faiths so she could ask their counsel. In the past she had been wary of their advice, but she felt she needed something—some guidance from someone who knew more about the recondite world than she.
Faint light appeared, and she focused on it, trying to draw it nearer, but it slipped to the edge of her vision, tantalizingly out of reach.
She tried to relax, to coax it back, but the more she tried, the farther off the light drew, until in a sudden rage she reached out for it, yanking it toward her, and the darkness in turn squeezed, tightened until she couldn’t breathe.
Something rough seemed to press about her body, and her fingers and toes went numb with cold. The chill crept up her, stealing all sensation until only the pulse of her heart was left, beating dangerously hard. She couldn’t draw breath or utter a sound, but she heard laughter and felt lips against her ear, murmuring warm words that she couldn’t understand.
Light flared, and suddenly she saw the sea rolling out before her. On the broad waves rode ships by the dozens, flying the black-and-white swan banner of Liery. Her view shifted, and she saw that they were approaching Thornrath, the great seawall fortress that guarded the approach to Eslen. It loomed large enough to make even so vast a fleet seem tiny.
Then, suddenly, the light was gone and she was on her knees, with her hands pressed against stone, the smell of decay and earth in her nostrils. Gradually a faint light sifted down from above, and slowly, as if waking from a dream, she began to understand where she was.
She was in Eslen-of-Shadows, in the sacred grove behind the tombs of her ancestors, and her fingers were pressed against a stone sarcophagus. And she knew, was certain that she had always known, and she screamed in the most utter despair she had ever experienced.
Hush, child, a small voice said. Hush and listen.
The voice calmed her terror, if only a little.
“Who are you?” she asked.
I am your friend. And you are right;