Make Her, page 7
So I would do it now.
I slowed my breathing, concentrating on sending the magic in my belly evenly to either hand, ready to send out a wave of power strong enough to knock all of them flat, so that there could be no doubt as to who had used magic and why.
If there was any justice in the world, doing so would earn me my mage-mark at once, and I would be branded here in front of them, Ascended, and able to portal.
But even if the world were as unfair as I feared, I would still make myself unweddable, and perhaps if no Ker wanted me, I would finally be free.
I inhaled deeply, and several of the nearest mages looked over at me in confusion, feeling the change in me, before everyone with magic in the room felt someone else’s magic entirely from a portal opening, right outside.
Each of the mages present moved to protect their wards, and Castillion grabbed hold of Helkin’s arm and stepped him up to the stage beside me.
And then I heard a roar from outside, followed by another, and another, and I knew that Rhaim had come.
I stood up at once, and it took everything in me not to run to his side.
11
Lisane
Castillion unsheathed a metal spike the length of his arm from his hand, while other mages raised up flames and acrid clouds of poison, readying to protect themselves from whatever onslaught Rhaim was about to bring, as the flaps of the tent at the front of the room parted to let him in.
“All-Beast!” Castillion called in warning, as the bear Rhaim was riding pushed through, with Rhaim briefly ducking down. It was a massive creature, its shoulders just as high as the shoulder of the piebald workhorse Rhaim had ridden in town, and each of its paws was bigger than the dinner plates that were still atop the tables. A phalanx of other creatures followed him, the lions I’d heard roaring, snakes as round as his biceps and as long as the tent, and a flutter of ravens and vultures, which took up spots in the corners, tilting their heads back and forth, so they could see everything with unfriendly eyes.
“Castillion,” Rhaim said, dismounting from the bear with ease, landing casually with a bounce.
He’d spoken to the mage, but his gaze was just for me. I swallowed and stepped back beneath the weight of it, the throne catching me behind my knees, remembering what it felt like to have all his attention on me, as he thrust himself deep inside.
“I want a place at your table tonight, Jaegar,” he announced.
One of the Kers laughed, several sputtered, and I could feel the anger radiating off my father. “I should have you killed on sight!” he growled.
“Why?” Rhaim asked, as cocky as ever. “For doing as I was asked? And not taking advantage of her, no less,” he said, rolling his eyes up and down my body. Helkin moved to shield me from his eyes.
“You bit her!” my brother shouted.
Rhaim shrugged. “You knew I was savage when you sent her to me, and you sent her nonetheless. ”
Castillion stepped up. “I should pierce you where you stand, for ever having touched her. ”
But my father held him back. “Why on earth would I give her to you, All-Beast? You have no country to claim, and you’ve made no offers of courtship—not that I would’ve accepted them besides. ”
Rhaim bowed his head in acknowledgment of that fact. “You will give her to me because within a month, I will have solved the problem of the Deathless for you. ”
My jaw dropped. Was such a thing possible?
Did I dare have hope?
My father put a surprised hand to his chest, covering the green stone there with his palm. “How?” he demanded.
Rhaim licked his lips. “I cannot tell you yet,” he said. “But it is a thing that will happen, I swear it, if you give me a month of your time. ”
My father stepped forward and off the stage, heading for him. “You forget, I don’t trust you. ”
“I didn’t expect you would,” Rhaim said, coolly. “Which is why I bought this. ” He tossed a circlet of dull black metal out into the middle of the table.
None of the Kers knew what it was, that was clear, and none of the mages either, which was more curious. But I caught them looking to one another—they knew it must be an object of some power—and the boldest of them went to touch it.
He cursed, dropping it immediately, and gave Rhaim such a look.
“It is yllibrium,” Rhaim confirmed with a nod. This sent a commotion through the mages in the room that the rest of us didn’t quite understand. “If you leave me to my own devices to perform my research, I will let you collar me in trade. It will hamper my magic, but not my mind. ”
One by one, throne-sworn mages leaned in to whisper furiously at their Kers, and Castillion was no exception, hopping down to my father’s side.
“I won’t be able to portal,” Rhaim continued. “And I will need some aid—I’ll need access to the Deathless to study them. Research materials—and whatever else I require. ” He swung his head around to include everyone in the room. “All I ask for is a month of your time. ”
“And just what happens if you solve this problem for us?” Zesh asked.
Rhaim’s eyes focused on me again. “I get the girl. ”
“And what happens if you do not?” Vorsha asked imperiously.
Rhaim produced a key from somewhere upon his person. “The collar has a lock. ” He tossed it out onto the table as well. “If I cannot solve the Deathless, I will become your loyal servant, until the end of my time. ”
I was suddenly in danger of fainting. The bodice that bound me was too tight, and my blood was thundering in my ears. Rhaim had just as much as admitted he didn’t have an answer yet, and the price he would pay for failure was too great for me to bear.
I knew what it was like to be trapped in a cage.
I would never, ever, send anybody else—much less the man I loved—into one.
“Father, you cannot agree to his terms,” I told him. But my father was surveying the other Kers present, weighing his options with them, without a second thought for me. I rose up on my tiptoes, leaning over Helkin’s shoulder to shout, “I still hate you, beast!” willing Rhaim to change his mind.
Rhaim gave me a wicked smile, and spoke in the growl that bypassed my ears and went straight to my cunt. “As well you should, princess. And know, too, that if I am given you, I will never show you kindness again. The things I will do to you will make the unicorns weep. ”
I rocked back, panting, knowing he would make good on his promise.
And knowing that I wanted that.
Utterly.
“I say give the mage a chance,” said the betting Ker. “Not because I think he can manage it, but because I’d like to see him try. ”
“I’ll take that bet,” Zesh of Streon said. “This time though, for five thousand dramiers, and twenty casks of wine. ”
“I need an heir—and I don’t want to wait,” Vorsha stated, looking directly at my father.
My father swept forward, picked up the key, and considered things, giving the impatient Ker a cold look. “Then perhaps you should’ve been more polite, earlier,” he said, then tapped the key against the gemstone on his chest, before looking to Rhaim again. “You get two weeks, All-Beast. ” I watched Rhaim’s nostrils flare slightly, but he gave nothing else away. “And after that,” he said, raising the key up as if to toast the other Kers present, “you will become part of my daughter’s dowry. ”
“Father,” I hissed. “No—”
“Done,” Rhaim accepted with finality. He glanced to me a final time, but I couldn’t offer him any public kindness for what he’d done. Then he turned on his heel, and he and his animals surged through the door.
Castillion lunged forward to pick the collar up the second he was gone. He cursed the moment his fingers touched it and then contrived to lift it up on one of his spikes, but he couldn’t do that, either; any time his magic tried to enter the interior of its ring, it disappeared. In the end, he wound up carrying it outside suspended on two mundane forks with their tines speared together.
“What have you done?” I whispered, falling back against the unicorn throne.
“What Drelleth requires,” my father answered me, not realizing I’d been speaking to myself.
My veil was replaced, and I was bundled up into my carriage after that, but not even the distance or the doors could block out Rhaim’s subsequent roars.
12
Rhaim
Physical pain meant nothing to me.
I had been trampled before, tusked, and gored. I knew what it felt like to have almost every bone in my body broken, some of them simultaneously, like the time a falling bull had crushed my leg, and I did not even scream once then, just told the bull it needed to fucking move off of me, and cursed myself for thinking racing it was a good idea.
I let my creatures turn back to dust once they were outside with me, so that I stood alone.
“Get down on your knees, All-Beast,” Castillion demanded, handing the dangling collar aside. I did as I was told, knowing if I fought, they would doubt my intentions.
I didn’t know most of the mages who circled around me—they were throne-sworn, and had not participated in the war effort. They passed the collar from man to man, each of them unable to believe that it existed, until it had hurt them, too, eliciting yelps of fear and surprise.
“Where did you get this from?” one of the mages demanded. He’d been standing behind Vorsha of the Seven.
“Many, many years ago,” I said calmly.
“I asked where, not when,” he growled.
I gave him a toothy grin. “Your mother gave it to me when I was done fucking her. Said I was the best she’d ever had. ”
He took the metal ring, howled in pain, and hit me upside the head with it before dropping it with more curses, and I laughed.
Another reached for it, picking it up carefully from the outside, with the fabric of his skirt. “If you break him, he cannot stop the Deathless,” this one complained.
“Like he could manage it besides,” the one who hit me snarled.
“I might,” I said, running the back of one hand against the swelling bruise beneath my jaw. “So collar me already. My hourglass sand is pouring. ”
It was so much better that all of them were out here, with me, and better yet when I felt the horses that drew my moth’s carriage trot away.
Because I knew Lisane’s body like I knew the lines of my hand, and when I entered the tent I could read her like my own writing.
My little moth had been about to do magic on them.
I had only barely saved her.
Had Filigro lied and not warned her about the possibility of a true death by fire?
Or, more likely, had his warning gone unheeded?
I didn’t know—but she was safe now, for half a month, at least.
Castillion regained the circle, now that his king was safely away, and came to stand in front of me.
The look he gave me then was of deep disgust before inhaling roughly and spitting on my cheek. “That is for ever touching her,” the Spiked One hissed.
I waited for a long moment before wiping his spit away and answering him. “When I am done here, when the matter of the Deathless is solved, and when I am finished painting my cock with her virgin blood—my beast will come for you, Castillion. ”
Castillion’s jaw ground, and he put his hand out. Another of the mages present carefully handed the collar over to him, and he gritted his teeth through the pain of holding the thing, unlocking it with the key Jaegar had given him, leveraging it open so that it was ready.
“No, All-Beast. You will never be free again. Offer your neck. ”
I reached up to pull my hair forward, and bowed my head down, feeling the agony begin as he let go of either side of the collar and it slammed shut.
Grooved foot met grooved foot, I heard the mechanism locking, and the yllibrium engulfed me.
I knew the pain meant nothing long-term. . . but that didn’t mean that the experience wasn’t excruciating in the now.
The absence of magic flowed through me like a poison, burning every piece of me it came across, like it was sucking out my soul. My beast rose up in me, fighting for his life, making me slam my fists on the ground and repeatedly bellow, until the yllibrium had ground him down, too, and only what was pathetic and human in me was left, with a dull and echoing ache.
But I knew what to do with that.
Having already had my heart ripped out—losing my magic hurt nowhere near as badly.
And the only thing worse than what I was suffering currently would be losing my Lisane.
I stayed hunched over on the ground, breathing until I could manage movement, and stumbled to stand. Most of the mages around me took a step back then, eyeing me wildly. “I was promised help,” I told them, my voice torn from roars, “and access to subjects for testing. ”
Sibyi came running up, his jaw dropping in feigned horror. “Rhaim? What happened?” I had already made an extra key for my collar and given it to him, on the chance that the Kers decided to waste my sacrifice entirely.
“What happened is your friend’s a fool,” Castillion informed him, without looking away from me.
“I will solve the Deathless, or die trying,” I told him.
“Well,” he said, offering me his staff for me to lean on. “Hopefully only one of those is true. ”
Lisane
Rhaim had come for me and inadvertently ruined everything.
I rode back to my tent in a state of shock, the gemstones I’d hidden in the pockets of my skirts grinding against my thighs with each bump the carriage wheels took.
He’d come for me.
He’d risked everything for me.
Right down to his very life.
I didn’t realize tears were seeping from my eyes until their cool drops fell from my chin and landed on my chest.
I loved him, I loved him, I loved him, I thought, with each fresh jolt, and all I wanted to do was unleash enough power to shatter this entire carriage around me—maybe even all the tents and people surrounding me too—and race back to his side.
But I could not—not as long as he was chained, and someone else held his key.
And to think that his servitude might be part of my dowry—I leaned forward, clutching my hands to my stomach, and I would’ve thrown up, only there was nothing inside me. Just a rush of acidic bile that wouldn’t leave.
The carriage shuddered to a stop and I didn’t wait for any of my minders—I ripped my veil off and ran back into my tent, not caring who might see.
Rhaim
Sibyi did the things that I could not, magically hampered as I was. He created a bivouac for us, at the base of nearby mountains, far enough away that anyone who wanted to see what we were doing would have to portal in.
Which meant that we were also too far for me to be tempted by Lisane, seeing as I could no longer create a portal with the collar around my throat. He kept hopping back and forth to the war camp, making plans, accruing supplies, and securing help all night, while I was left guarding the cage, and praying to gods that I did not believe in, that my absurd plan would somehow work.
And the first mage he came back with was Wyrval the Green, who quickly took me in. Wyrval was as lean and tall as the trees he controlled, his eyes were the color of willow leaves hit from behind by the sun, and his beard and hair had a mossy tinge to them. “You do not look healthy, Rhaim,” he said, in a sonorous voice.
“I do not feel healthy, either,” I agreed, with a snort. I’d done my best to stay awake and begin setting up the things that Sibyi brought, but the entire time it’d felt like the collar was tugging me to the ground.
Wyrval frowned at me, then crossed his arms, considering the cage. Prior to me offering myself over, I’d flown my castle nearby, and shoved the cage out the hole that was conveniently still in my library’s wall, before hiding my castle back where only Sibyi could find it. “No good can come of that,” he intoned.
“I know. It’s why we brought you first. ” Wyrval cocked a brow at me in query. “There are very few mages who can help protect it like you can—and also who might want to. ”
“Indeed. ”
Because it didn’t take much to imagine the Kers, who were already argumentative, figuring out a way to use the bounty of yllibrium the cage represented on each other’s mages rather than the Deathless. Humans could touch yllibrium perfectly safely, which meant they could take the bars I’d created and reforge them into chains, or maybe powder them into a fine dust they could blow into an enemy mage’s lungs, where the element could never be escaped.
And I read as much in Wyrval’s eyes when he again looked to me. “I hope you are not making a vast mistake here, All-Beast. ”
“I hope that as well,” I said, sincerely. “Will you help?” Rather than answer me, I heard a sound like kindling catching fire—and saw cracks appearing in the dirt and rocks in an equidistant circle around the cage’s base. Thick green vines looped up from these and began growing all around the cage like a set of hands erupting from the earth, holding it without touching it. “Thank you,” I said quickly, with deep relief.
Wyrval jerked his chin at me. “Fuck the throne-sworn. With the exception of Castillion, they don’t know what it’s like to have been fighting these things. And, I must admit, I’m exceedingly curious about how all this will turn out. ” He watched his vines until they bowed over the cage’s top and twisted shut against one another, trapping the cage itself inside his magic, where it would be protected. “Although I must ask, is one woman really worth this much hassle?”
I put the fingers of one hand through the collar I now wore and held on. It couldn’t hurt me anymore than it already had. “Yes,” I answered, without reservation.
13
Rhaim
