The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [19]
The hard lip of a bottle was pressed against her lips, and something wet poured into her mouth. She spit it out, confused, recognizing how she felt, remembering that something had happened but not sure what. There had been a woman, a terrible woman, a demon, and she had fled her, just as she had before…
“Swallow it,” the man snarled.
That was when Anne realized she was drunk.
She had been drunk a few times before with Austra. Mostly it had been pleasant, but on a few occasions she had been very sick.
How much had they made her drink while she was asleep?
Enough. Horribly, she almost giggled.
The man held her nose and poured more of the stuff down her throat. It was like wine but oceans harsher and stronger. It went down this time, fire snaking through her throat and arriving in a belly already warmed to burning. She felt a sudden nausea, but then that cleared away. Her head was pulsing pleasantly, and things around her seemed to be happening much too quickly.
The man stepped to where she could see him. He wasn’t very old, maybe a few years older than she. He had curly brown hair, lighter at the ends, and hazel eyes. He wasn’t handsome, but he wasn’t ugly, either.
“There,” he said. “Look, there’s no reason for you to make this hard.”
Anne felt her eyes bug, and tears suddenly stung them. “Going to kill me,” she said, her words slurring. She wanted to say something much more complicated, but it wouldn’t come out.
“No, I’m not,” he said.
“Yes, you are.”
He frowned at her without speaking for a few moments.
“Why—why am I drunk?” she asked.
“So you don’t try to escape. I know you’re a shinecrafter. They say brandy makes it harder for you to use your arts.”
“I’m not a shinecrafter,” she snapped. Then, all restraint gone, she began shouting. “What do you want with me?”
“Me? Nothing. I’m just waiting for the rest. How did you get away, anyway? What were you doing alone?”
“My friends are coming,” she said. “Believe me. And when they get here, you’ll be sorry.”
“I’m already sorry,” the man said. “They left me here just in case, but I never thought I would have to deal with you.”
“Well, I—” But as soon as she started the thought, she lost it.
It was getting harder to think at all, in fact, and her earlier fear that she was losing her mind resurfaced as something of a private joke. Her lips felt huge and rubbery, and her tongue the size of her head.
“You gave me a lot to shr—drink.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When I fall asleep, you’re going to kill me.” She felt a tear collect in the corner of her eye and start down her cheek.
“No, that’s stupid. I would have killed you already, wouldn’t I? No, you’re wanted alive.”
“Why?”
“How should I know? I just work for my reytoirs. The others—”
“Aren’t coming back,” Anne said.
“What?”
“They’re all dead. Don’t you see that? All of your friends are dead.” She laughed, not quite sure why.
“You saw them?” he asked uneasily.
Anne nodded the lie. It felt as is if she were wiggling a huge kettle at the top of a narrow pole. “She killed them,” she said.
“She who?”
“The one you see in your nightmares,” she said tauntingly. “The one who creeps on you in the dark. She’s coming for me. You’ll be here when she finds me, and you’ll be sorry.”
The light was dimming. The candles were still lit but seemed to have faded somehow. The darkness wrapped around her like a comforter. Everything was spinning, and it seemed far too much trouble to talk.
“Coming…” she murmured, trying to keep a sense of urgency.
She didn’t fall asleep exactly, but her eyes closed, and her head seemed full of strange trumpets and unnatural lights.
She drifted in and out of scenes. She was in z’Espino, dressed like a maid, scrubbing laundry, and two women with large heads were making fun of her in a language she didn’t recognize.
She was on her own horse, Faster, riding so hard that she felt like vomiting.
She was in the house of her dead ancestors, the house of marble in Eslen-of-Shadows with Roderick, and he was kissing her on the bare flesh of her knee, moving