Treacherous Witch

—and holds it in her lap, a quiet comfort.

After some time, Valerie speaks in a croak. "We've lost, haven't we? It's over."

"It may feel that way," Shikra replies. "But—"

*

Valerie awoke in a windowless room. For a moment, the dark and the damp swept her into the memory of a dungeon, her hand reaching out to Markus, his face turning blue as she squeezed the life out of him… Fear made her sit up too fast, her injured back shooting pain up her spine, and then she remembered.

The Patriarch. The wyvern. The ball.

They'd taken her.

All right, she thought, breathe. It's not your first time.

Escape started with an escape route. First, she took stock of her surroundings. Judging by the circular stone walls, she was in a tower. She had been stripped of her clothes and clad in a formless white shift. Her feet were bare. The wooden frame of the bed she was sitting on creaked whenever she moved, and the scratchy woollen blanket provided little warmth. On the floor nearby, a rusty old pan imitated a chamber pot. The light from the oil lamp was dim and sparse.

That was it. Nowhere to wash, nowhere to sit but the mattress, nothing. She yelled for help and rattled the metal door knocker, not expecting any response. The door, of course, was locked. She tested all the floorboards. None were loose. Finally, she slammed her fists on the wall, which she immediately regretted. She was not in good shape: her head ached, the inside of her left thigh had bloomed into a giant bruise, and she could feel but not see deep welts on her back where the wyvern's talons had pierced.

It didn't take long to exhaust all her options. Trembling, she collapsed on the mattress and thought about what would happen next. She had been caught by the Patriarch, so she guessed that she was still in his palace. She was alive, which meant he wanted her for something. What had happened at the ball? Was the Duke of Hennich dead? Had Titus been accused of murder? What did the Patriarch plan to do with her?

She wondered about all of those things, but most of all she wondered about Avon. Would he come charging in to save her? He had to know that she was missing by now. Had his father told him about the deal he'd made—that he had authorised the swapping of her contract with Lady Melody? He has to save me. He wouldn't abandon me here.

But then, she thought with a pang of dismay, perhaps that was why the Patriarch had taken her. Perhaps he wanted to goad Avon into rescuing her, to convince the Senate that Avon was bewitched or mad or a lovesick fool. Perhaps she didn't matter at all. No matter what she did, how she twisted and turned, she could not escape this role she had been given, that of the political pawn.

The thought soured her mood even further, and she pulled the blanket over her face, ignoring the slightly sickly smell. To think that hours ago she had flown in shining and splendid on the back of a wyvern. But that power was a facade. She hungered for true power, the kind that came not from beauty but from authority. It blazed in her stronger than the hunger and thirst in her body, her belly rumbling its displeasure.

Time slipped by without the telltale arc of the sun to illuminate its passing. When the door to the tower unlocked, Valerie had dozed off again. She had slept badly, plagued by nightmares of fleeing the Patriarch, almost but never quite escaping him, and the dull aches and pains in her body.

A guard entered, accompanied by two maids. He dragged her up, blinking and half-asleep, and she barely protested as she was taken down the spiral stairs. At least she was going somewhere different.

That somewhere different turned out to be a wash room, and here the torture really began. One of the servants, an older hard-faced woman, stuck a metal bucket in front of her and told her to purge. When Valerie gave her a blank-faced look, the woman forced two fingers down her throat until she heaved and threw up what little remained in her stomach. Then she was made to drink a foul-tasting tea that nearly made her retch again.

"Piss," said the woman, indicating the bucket.

"I don't need to…"

"You will."

She wasn't wrong. While Valerie squatted over the bucket and emptied what felt like the rest of her insides, the woman barked questions at her.

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"When did you last eat?"

"I don't know, last night? Was it last night?"

"Are you with child?"

"No."

"When did you last bleed?"

"A week ago."

"When did you last lie with a man?"

She flushed. "Longer than a week ago. I'm not pregnant. We can control it. Maskamery priestesses—I mean, witches—don't have children unless we mean to."

The woman whispered to the other maid, who was filling a bathtub with steaming hot water. The guard watched from the door. She now understood what was happening: the Drakonians called this a cleansing, their preparation ritual for new courtesans. The last time she had suffered this, she'd had Dinah, the palace matron, to talk her through it. At least she'd been treated like a human.

Not this time. They stripped her naked, washed her hair, bathed and scrubbed her. Then they dried her and made her stand in the middle of the floor while they inspected her. The woman sighed at the bruise on her thigh as if offended that it hadn't come off during the bath.

"Ugly," she said.

"I was shot!" Valerie protested.

"The back too," said the younger maid, lifting her hair. "Deep scratches. Shall I fetch the ointments?"

The ointment on her back at least soothed the lacerations. But the closed wound on her thigh was so sore that she winced at the slightest touch. The older woman pursed her lips, then to Valerie's horror fetched a razor blade and had the other maid and the guard hold her down while she cut the shrapnel out. The wound quickly opened up, blood flowing down her leg, and she felt as if she had been stabbed with a thousand shards of glass. Her cries were ignored. The woman stitched the wound and bandaged it with practised detachment.

After that, she slumped against the bathtub, dizzy and out of breath. She thought it was over. She'd forgotten the waxing treatment, and the older woman was none too gentle about ripping the hair away. By the time they'd finished, her eyes were stinging as much as her flesh and her lips were cracked. She begged for a drink of water.

They let her have one sip. The guard kept staring at her, and she found the energy to call him a disgusting pig. He laughed.

When they put some clothes on her, she didn't care that it was the stuffiest and most restrictive of Drakonian fashion with its long sleeves, tight corset and high collar. She was just glad to be clothed.

And when they finally handed her over to the guard, she was light-headed and already close to fainting. She felt empty. She felt like a vessel ready to be filled, and that thought sickened her. The Duke had implied that she would be given to him before she had stabbed him in the gut. Now both of the Patriarch's sons were gone because of her. Was this to be her punishment?

She probably should have been afraid, and she was, somewhere in her body—she couldn't stop trembling—but she couldn't hang on to the feeling, couldn't make it acute. Her brain was too fogged. The guard led her out of the tower and through the palace. Through the drapes hanging from the tall windows, she saw the sun beginning to set. A full day had almost passed, and Avon had not come to rescue her.

She entered a dining room, the guard shadowing her. A long polished table stretched out between a fireplace at one end and a hanging banner depicting an oak tree at the other. Velvet curtains had been shut over the windows, so the only light came from the fire. Silhouetted in the high chair sat the Patriarch, a feast of roast turkey, venison, pheasant and various pastries and root vegetables set out before him. It smelled glorious. She practically salivated at the sight.

Her appetite was ruined, however, by the other man sitting on the Patriarch's right hand side. Grey hair combed back, eyes dark with amusement, the Duke of Hennich waved her over.

"Here she is! Come and join us."

I must be hallucinating, she thought. She'd impaled him with a bayonet. He should be dead. But the seconds ticked past as Valerie stared, and then the guard shoved her forward and closed the door behind her, and the Duke did not vanish.

"Lady Valerie," said the Patriarch in his whispery voice. "Please, do sit down."

Her hands felt clammy. Not knowing what to do, Valerie seated herself at the other end of the table, as far from the two men as she could get. No place had been set for her. No food or drink. She could really have done with some wine.

"You…" She cleared her throat. "You were bleeding out." She addressed the Patriarch. "Did you heal him?"

"A Divine miracle," said the Patriarch, and she snorted.

"I know you're a sorcerer," she said. "You both know it, you hypocrites."

The Duke's face darkened, a scowl deepening the wrinkles in his cheeks. The Patriarch chewed his venison as if they were talking about the weather.

"Would you like to eat?"

He indicated the spread before him. Valerie couldn't help licking her lips; she hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day.

The Patriarch wiped his mouth with a napkin, then leaned back in his chair. "Help yourself."

Slowly, reluctantly, she approached them, keeping to the opposite side of the table from the Duke. She picked up a clean plate and filled it with leftovers. Then a wine glass, but the bottle stood by the Patriarch's hand…

Valerie stepped closer, and the mercurite ring on the Patriarch's finger caught the firelight. Her magical senses flared into life, and she almost quailed at the aura of power blazing around him. He knew it too, she thought, as she met his eyes and the Patriarch's lips stretched into a cold smile. She reached for the wine bottle; he picked it up before she got to it.

Well, if he was going to play games, she would at least take the opportunity to heal herself. She focused on the lacerations on her back first, willing them to fade, the skin to knit itself together…

"My son is eager to entertain you," murmured the Patriarch. "But first you should understand the terms of our arrangement."

Her concentration faltered. He uncorked the bottle and poured her glass, and Valerie's power dissolved into a creeping disgust. The flickering firelight, the smirk on the Duke's face, the way the Patriarch's hand tilted the bottle, the slow trickle of the wine, red as blood—all of it filled her with dread.

"Will you tell me what happened?" she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady. "Lord Avon wouldn't have… I can't imagine that he would accept any arrangement."

"Of course," said the Patriarch soothingly. "There's no need to fret. I'll tell you everything."