Defiance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 2 Page 11

  ‘Suspect what?’ I asked, but I had a nasty idea.

  ‘Suspect that I was the one who would kill her. Or you can kill her if you like, I’m not picky. I just want the job done; I don’t care whose hand is responsible. I just want her dead. And how about you? Do you want her dead too?’

  Hearing Rhiannon say it in her calm voice made it sound like what it was ‒ cold-blooded murder. I thought of the Empress, her dress covered in blood from where Aoife had stabbed her. I thought of Caradoc, paler than moonlight in death, after Aoife had killed him. I thought of Sparrow, crumpled and dead at Aoife’s feet in the White Queen’s chariot.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any ideas, do you?’

  We knelt beside one another for a long time, kneading bread, plotting to kill the Queen. Eventually other people started to rise and the cavern filled up with people living their everyday lives.

  The others got up presently, and by that time, Rhiannon and I had kneaded enough dough for forty people. No wonder she was so slender. I’d seen this woman when she was forty ‒ or more. I don’t know how she managed to stand upright. Work like this must have nearly broken her back over the years, kneeling over a breadboard for hours every morning, going from board to board, kneading so much dough that by the time she’d finished kneading the last loaf, the first loaf had finished rising.

  As we placed the bread in the oven, I noticed that Rhiannon was able to touch the hot surface of the oven without burning herself.

  ‘Isn’t that hot?’ I asked, knowing full well that it was. I could feel the radiant heat from where I stood behind her.

  Rhiannon showed me her hands. At first, they looked like any other hands, but as she turned them back and forth, I saw that the flesh was like scales.

  ‘Dragonscale,’ Rhiannon explained. ‘I’m a mage, too. When I have to put bread in the oven, I change my skin to dragonscale, so I don’t get burned.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘That sounds handy.’

  Rhiannon even cracked a grin, which was kind of her, because it wasn’t a very funny joke.

  Lynnevet came down to where I was helping. Plotting to kill the person I hated most ‒ or at least, second most ‒ in the world had put me in a good mood. Lynnevet came up and stood too close to me, threading her arm through mine and mumbling, ‘Morning, Hawk.’

  My flesh crawled a little bit, so I moved away enough so that we weren’t touching anymore. ‘Morning, Sparrow,’ I said, trying to soothe the hurt I saw in her eyes with a cheerful voice because I didn’t want to embrace her. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Mmumph.’

  I suppose that was as good as it was going to get. She left me alone and went up to Ronan, cuddling against him like she had to me. He put his arm around her. Must be nice not to be emotionally damaged.

  We were all so normal that day. Rhiannon never gave a single sign that she and I had shared a heart-to-heart that morning, so neither did I. Cuchulainn appeared not long after Ronan and Lynnevet did. We all managed to give such a masterful facade of normality that you’d never guess we were slaves, who slept in tombs, and I’d tried to kill myself last night.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was given work to do, but at least it wasn’t collecting garbage, so I shut my mouth and got on with it. Ronan and even Lynnevet were also given work to do. I only saw them in the late evenings when we went to sleep in our tomb.

  I was working in the kitchen one day when a manager walked past and pointed to me.

  ‘That one can work in the Refectory,’ she said.

  ‘Why me?’ I asked, up to my elbows in hot dishwater.

  The manager had already moved on, but one of the other scullery maids, an older woman, her fingers practically worn down to the bone, explained.

  ‘You’re young,’ she said. ‘The Dragon Riders like to see the young ones serving them in the Refectory. You’re still pretty. If you’re lucky, you might catch someone’s eye.’

  When I stopped throwing up, I presented myself, as ordered, to the Refectorian.

  I was set to serving tables. As soon as one Rider got up from the table, I hurried to clean their spot and set another place. I saw a familiar face, a familiar haughty smile, a familiar lock of dark hair falling enticingly into dark eyes. Kiaran. I acted on impulse, which is soooooo unusual for me.

  I passed right next to him and dropped a whole handful of forks. I bent over to pick them up, making sure he got a good look down my shirt. Coincidentally, to steady myself as I bent over, I placed a hand on his thigh. When I finally had the nerve to look up at him, he was grinning so broadly that he was practically laughing out loud. I felt offended that he was amused instead of aroused.

  ‘See anything funny?’ I asked, straightening up with a fist full of forks on my hip.

  The barely concealed laughter toned down until it was the lascivious simmer I was used to seeing on his face.

  ‘Funny’s not quite the word I’d use,’ he murmured.

  Trust Kiaran to murmur instead of just talking like a normal person. At the age of one hundred and more, he’d been a randy goat, ready to rut anything that could lie down. I’d taken a gamble that it wasn’t a trait he’d acquired with age.

  I was so crap at this. It’s hard to try and flirt when you want to throw up. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere and talk about that?’ I asked.

  He looked me up and down and I consoled myself by imagining sticking a fork into each of his eyeballs. ‘OK,’ he said.

  He’d barely started dinner, barely done more than move the food around on his plate, but he got up and pointed his elbow at me. I took his arm, feeling like Caradoc was rolling in his grave, and tried to keep my head high as he escorted me from the Refectory. The bastard, the bastard wasn’t even shy. If he had to walk across a stage and make an announcement of his intentions, he wouldn’t have hesitated.

  ‘So, where would you like to... talk?’ he asked once we were out of the Refectory.

  ‘We’d better do more than talk,’ I said, grinning at him for the first time because this double-entendre stuff was growing on me, now I was alone with him and had nothing to lose. I still had a fistful of forks and I’d spent the whole night under the moon. Aoife wasn’t going to harvest me until the next full moon and I planned to spend every bit of magic I had tonight.

  If Kiaran got any hotter he was going to combust. ‘I know a place,’ he said. ‘Nice and private.’

  Silly me, I thought I was going to walk there. I wasn’t ready for him to wrap his arms around me and sling me through a moment’s darkness to our destination. It terrified me out of my wits.

  I didn’t waste any energy trying to stab him with the forks. I was ready to kill him with my magic and my bare hands. I let Umbra give me her all. She wouldn’t be strong again until the next full moon, but I wanted her ready, although all the anger and fear roiling through me would have been enough to end the world. I aimed a blast of power at Kiaran and the wind that swept around us was like a gale. It flapped the cloak he had wrapped around himself ‒ or was it his own swift movement he made to evade the magic that moved his cloak so fast?

  While he was focussed on evading me, I brought my other hand around and blasted him again with my open palm, aiming a streak of lightning towards him so bright and concentrated that the whole clifftop lit up for one moment with unnatural brightness. It made him cry out in sudden pain. He staggered and fell across me.

  We struggled against one another and fell to the ground. We wrestled. He was shouting and I was screaming, but he was so much bigger than me. My magic was more powerful, but he was more trained and every move he made incapacitated me a little bit more, until I was pinned underneath him.

  He held me down with his body, pushing my arms wide and pinioning my wrists away from my body with his hands that were so much bigger than mine, throwing his legs over mine to hold me down. I was incoherent then. I bucked and screamed until I could have died with it, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I begged him to stop, to l
eave me alone.

  He didn’t move, though, didn’t do anything to me. He stayed where he was on top of me, but finally I heard him beyond the screaming in my mind. ‘It’s all right,’ he kept saying. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

  ‘It always hurts,’ I moaned and thrashed my head since that was the only part of my body I could move. I felt a jolt go through him. ‘I’ll never tell anyone, if you leave me alone,’ I said, turning back to look at him. ‘I promise, I promise, it’ll be our own secret and I’ll never tell anyone. I promise.’

  His face was pale in the moonlight that shone onto the hill. He let me go and rolled off me. I drew myself into a ball, pulling in my arms and legs until I was curled up small. He stood a few steps away, his back to me. Through my tears, I heard the sound of the ocean. The ground swelled towards the sky then dropped off suddenly at the cliff’s edge. If I’d had the energy to stand up, I would have thrown myself off it.

  Kiaran turned to face me and saw me there on the ground, still curled up small. I looked up and saw his face and I’ve never seen anyone look so shattered. He came towards me, slowly and carefully.

  ‘I swear,’ he said, ‘I swear to God that I was never going to hurt you. I didn’t know you were going to go crazy. I thought you were right with me.’ He raised his hands to tunnel his fingers through his hair, gripping the back of his head. ‘Then I just wanted to stop you fighting me. I swear I wasn’t going to rape you.’ Even his voice was shaking. ‘I swear to God the thought never crossed my mind that you might think… God!’ He turned and took a few steps away

  I sat up. The look on his face had done more to reassure me than any words. The creepyguardians had always had excuses for anything they did to me, but they had never looked so tortured. I drew in some deep breaths. You can’t just go from that kind of fear to feeling normal again, no matter what reassurance you receive. That’s what abuse does. It keeps on affecting you long after the act is over. You’re lucky if your hands ever stop shaking.

  I focussed on my breathing, as though that were all I had to worry about, breathing in and breathing out and eventually I felt strong enough to stand up. Kiaran turned.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ he said, his voice deep and rough, his eyes searching my face.

  ‘You were silly,’ I said, ‘to assume you could startle me like that and not have me freak out at least a little bit. And since I’m a mage, my freak outs are a little more… pyrotechnic than other girls.’ There was a bit of a tremor in my voice, but I felt like I was in control again.

  He seemed to find what he was looking for in my face. ‘It’s not just because you’re a mage, though, is it?’ he asked.

  I felt terribly brave when I met his gaze and said, ‘Maybe not, but that still doesn’t make it your business.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘Maybe not,’ he repeated. ‘If I can do anything for you, though, I’ll be around. After tonight, I think I owe you one.’

  ‘Yes, you damn well do.’

  He laughed but it was a strained sound. I looked around. We were on one of the lowest spires, where the towers of stone marched into the sea. The tide was out and the base of the spire was surrounded by sand and fallen boulders. There was a hut nearby, a little one room shack outlined against the sky.

  ‘What the hell did you think was going to happen?’ Kiaran snapped, sitting on one of the stones, silhouetted against the sky.

  ‘I had to get you alone!’ I snapped back. ‘It was the only way I could think of!’

  He muttered something that sounded extremely fruity and sat down on a standing stone, tossing his head to keep his hair out of his eyes. That gesture was pure Andras. ‘Well, what the hell did you want then? I don’t believe for one moment you’re here for scintillating conversation.’

  ‘Not just for talk, no,’ I said. ‘You don’t know me, but I know you. I’ve been to the... to the future. I meet you, a hundred years from now when you’re a Master Librarian in Cairnagorn.’

  ‘In the Library!’ All of a sudden, he was down off the stone and coming for me so fast I nearly flattened him again. He stopped, just short of me. ‘The Library!’ he repeated, a light in his eyes brighter than any lascivious gleam. ‘What do you know about the Library?’

  I was positively smug. ‘I know that I’m the only person left alive who can open those gates.’ I cocked my head to the side like an asshole. ‘Don’t tell me you’re ambitious, Kiaran?’

  It burned in him even hotter than the desire for sex.

  ‘I could get you into the Library. I could introduce you to all that is left of the Librarian Order. I could change the whole course of your life.’

  ‘If…’

  ‘If.’ I took a few steps away to peer over the edge of the spire to look down at the returning tide. ‘If you help me. My sister is a featherskin. My friends are slaves. I want them free. And I want Aoife dead.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Far be it from me to dismiss a proposition out of hand, but for someone who claims to have known me in the future, you’re sadly misinformed about my present.’

  ‘A dragon rider. A mage. A tool of the White Queen. Have I left anything out?’

  ‘Betrothed to Saraid, Bach Chwaer to the White Queen,’ he drawled, going back to sit on the stone again.

  I tried not to show shock. ‘The relationship must be very important to you,’ I said. ‘I can tell by the way you were so eager to screw me.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate your appeal.’ I got a slow appraisal from the tip of my toes to the place where Umbra lay hidden in my brow. ‘All the same, there’s a big difference between a pleasant evening together and killing a queen. You might be appealing, but you’re not that appealing.’

  ‘I can get you into the Library! How’s that for appeal?’

  ‘Not appealing enough.’ He looked around like he was in a shop inspecting the merchandise. ‘What are your plans for after the Queen is dead?’

  And right there, I knew I had him. It was just down to details now. ‘Got plans of your own now, have you, Kiaran?’

  ‘Do you feel you’re in a position to be judgemental? You’re the one who wants her dead. I’m just coping with the situation as it arises.’

  ‘I don’t care what happens when she dies. You can whip the crown off her head as it rolls across the floor, if you like. It’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t want to rule. I just want her dead and me and my friends to go free.’

  ‘How many friends are we talking about here?’

  ‘Taking a catalogue of your possessions already, Kiaran?’ I queried politely. ‘Not many. Me, Elisabeth, Ronan, Lynnevet, Cuchulainn, Rhiannon, Gwydion. Seven of us. You can spare seven slaves. And it will cost you nothing but your time.’

  ‘This is the point where we discuss the price, I suppose?’

  ‘Kiaran, you’re a damned genius. I’m a mage. You know that ‒ or do you? I have plenty of magic, but I’ve never been trained. I can’t go to the Librarians. I can’t get out of the citadel, anyway, thanks to this tether Aoife’s slapped on me. I can’t get back to the Library until the tether is broken.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know how to break the tethers.’ He held up his wrist, turning it this way and that until I saw the reflection of moonlight on the silver cord around his wrist. ‘I don’t have any travel plans for the time being, either. I can’t get to the Library for you.’

  ‘I don’t want you to. Even if you can get there you wouldn’t be able to get through the gates. No, I want you to teach me magic. I’m strong, but I know I don’t have your training. Teach me, that’s all I ask. We could –’ I looked around at the desolate spire, obscured from view, secluded and private. It was the perfect place. ‘We could practice here, under the moonlight at night.’

  We stayed out there for maybe an hour. He started off with small magics, the kind of things that I’d been doing for years. I don’t think he realised how much Sparrow and I had practised when we were on our own. We hadn't been to school; we hadn't been allowed to talk to peo
ple. There had been very little to do except to hone what skills we had managed to attain. Of the two of us, I was the more adventurous. I was always the one who had snuck out at midnight, I was the one who spoke to strangers. I'd busied myself with learning magic most of my life, because that was how I thought I was going to kill the Maldwyn when I was an adult.

  We progressed quickly to the larger magics, and I could tell that he was impressed by how good I was. He didn’t say much about it, but it was very little that he could criticise either.

  Dawn was just starting to stain the sky by the time he called a halt. ‘You have to get back to dormitory,’ he said.

  ‘How far away are we?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘Far enough away that you wouldn't want to have to walk it before your shift begins.’

  ‘How do I get back to the dormitory then?’

  He looked hesitant. ‘I'm going to have to touch you so that we can both be transported together,’ he said.

  I held out my hand. He took my hand and held it very tightly. ‘Maybe you’d like to meet me in the kitchens tonight ‒ at midnight?’ I nodded and in a heartbeat were back in the dormitory.

  ‘Good night,’ I whispered. My bed was only a few steps away. I wondered how long I'd be allowed to lie in it before I had to wake up.

  ‘Good night,’ he replied, and disappeared.

  I think I had about five minutes’ sleep before a bell rang to wake me up. I gathered my things together and went to the communal room at the end of the dormitory that was used for washing and the whole miserable cycle started again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Everything was normal. So normal that my body, which had never known normal before, finally started acting normally.

  We had to use a chamber pot, in the tombs. One night, when I’d come back from my extracurricular training with Kiaran, I used the chamber pot and glimpsed the… contents ‒ humans are disgustingly agricultural sometimes ‒ and blinked rapidly in shock to clear my eyes. I pulled down my underclothes and tried to check, but there is nothing located down there that is situated for easy viewing.