her face and forehead.
“I believe you, Ishbel. I believe you. Gods, I am sorry. It was such a shock, what you
said. Come away inside now, come, I have you. I am sorry, so sorry…”
He kicked the door closed behind him and bore her straight to the fire, not letting her go,
holding her as tight as he dared, saying he was sorry over and over and over.
“You have been through horror, sweetheart,” he murmured against her hair, “no wonder
you fought against the ring, why you will not wear it. It must truly have terrified you. Oh…” He
cuddled her close, kissing her face and neck over and over, relaxing only once he felt her relax.
“Are you warm enough now?”
“Yes.”
“Please don”t hate me for what I just said, Ishbel. Please.”
“I don”t hate you, Maximilian,” Ishbel said, meaning it. She had not felt this safe in years.
Twenty years, to be precise, since her mother had last held her, and told Ishbel how much she
loved her.
“It was what you told me what the whispers had said, about the Lord of Elcho Falling
rising—”
“You have heard of him?”
There was a slight hesitation. “There are legends in which he is mentioned.”
“Then I do not want to hear them,” she said. “I hate him. Over the years I”ve had visions
of him, and always I know that if ever he catches me, then he will wrap my life in unbearable
pain and sorrow, for pain and sorrow trail in the darkness at his shoulders like a miasma. I know
he will ruin my life. He will ruin the world.”
She stopped, leaning against him, finally allowing herself to feel comfortable, to feel
safe, and not understanding his shocked silence.
“It is all right,” she whispered, taking one of his hands and cradling it against her breast.
“I hate him as well.”
Maximilian did not speak for a long time. “What do you want, Ishbel? Really want?” he
said finally.
“To go home to Serpent”s Nest,” she said. “To go back home. To be safe from the Lord
of Elcho Falling. I will only feel safe from him there.”
Maximilian closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the top of her hair. All she
wanted was to go home and be safe from the Lord of Elcho Falling, whom she hated, and who
would wrap her life in unbearable pain and sorrow.
What a damnable, cursed time, Maximilian thought, to realize that he loved her. He
moved his hands over her body, feeling more hopeless than he had felt in—
More hopeless than he had felt in eight years, and as trapped and lost and desolate as he
had felt when trapped in the Veins.
She was responding to his touch now, turning her body against his, lifting her face to be
kissed.
If only you knew, Ishbel.
“Ishbel,” he said, lifting his mouth from hers. “Let us make a pact, you and I. I know you
did not wish to come to me, but only did as the Coil wanted. I know you do not truly want that
child you are carrying.”
“Maxel—”
“Let us make a pact—come home with me to Escator and stay a year. Give birth to our
child. Let us see how we do. If you still want to go home to Serpent”s Nest after that, then I will
let you.”
Give me a year, Ishbel. Please, just a year. Maybe at the end of that year you will not
fear the Lord of Elcho Falling so much. A year of sleeping in his bed, Ishbel, please…please…
“Really?” She sat up, looking at him. “You mean it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I can leave the child with you and go home to Serpent”s Nest after a year?”
She looked like a child herself, one who had been handed an unexpected treat, and
Maximilian”s heart turned to bleak despair that she could so easily smile at the thought of leaving
him and their child.
“You have no idea how much I want that child,” he said. “It means the world to me.”
You mean the world to me. “Whether or not you leave me after the year is your choice.” His
mouth quirked very slightly. “But if you wanted to stay, if you wanted to stay…”
“Thank you for understanding,” she said, and leaned her body against his, and kissed
him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Pelemere, the Central Kingdoms
Ishbel lay against Maximilian”s body in their bed, relaxed but not sleepy. They had
made love—a pleasure so intense Ishbel did not yet wish to slip into sleep and forget.
She was happy. Happier than she had been in months. Happy she”d told Maximilian
about the terrifying whispers that continued to torment her, happy he”d suggested that he would
allow her to go home after a year if she wished. A year with Maximilian would not be a trial, and
perhaps she might even stay a few months longer…just to watch Maximilian with the child…just
to see him smile.
Ishbel moved against Maximilian, running a hand softly down his side. He was deeply
asleep, and did not move, and so she allowed her fingers to linger over some of the scars on his
body.
Scars from his seventeen years spent in the Veins.
When they had first met, Maximilian had told Ishbel that if she asked him about that
time, then he would tell her. Ishbel had, on several occasions since, asked a question about the
Veins. Maximilian had answered, true to his word, but his answers had been brief and too
unemotional, and Ishbel knew that he hid a world of pain behind them.
Her palm slid over a particularly ridged scar on his hip. She had felt it when they”d made
love; now she allowed her fingers to travel up and down its length, wondering what had caused
it. What horror had befallen him in the Veins?
She lay thinking a long time.
Eventually Ishbel came to a decision. As archpriestess of the Coil she had many skills,
the very least of which was the slicing open of bellies to glimpse the future. She could use these
skills now, to retrieve the memory of how Maximilian had come by this scar.
It would give her an insight into Maximilian she was sure he would never share with her,
and Maximilian was fast asleep. He would never know.
Ishbel debated briefly whether or not to deepen his sleep with some of her power. She
often granted unconsciousness to the victims of Readings, those who were there through no fault
of their own—it was generally only the rapists and murderers she preferred to keep conscious
throughout the entire procedure. But in the end Ishbel decided Maximilian was fast enough
asleep anyway. Adding to that sleep magically could leave him groggy—and suspicious—in the
morning.
Ishbel took a deep breath, steeling herself, for she would experience this memory as if it
had happened to her, and allowed power to seep down her arm into the fingers lying over the
scar.
Unwind for me, she whispered to it. Show me the memory of your creation.
After a long moment, memory began to uncoil from the scar, and Ishbel found herself
transported to hell.
She had no name, and she had no identity, save that of her number: Lot No. 859. If she
had ever had a name, she did not know it.
There was nothing in her existence save the rhythmic raising of the pick above her
shoulder and the burying of it in the rock face before her, over and over, five swings over her left
shoulder and five over her right before swinging back to her left shoulder.
There was nothing but the black tarry gloam collecting around her naked feet, nothing
save the grunt of the anonymous man chained to her left ankle, and those of the seven other
anonymous men in the chained gang.
Raise the pick, swing it, bury it. Breathe. Raise the pick, swing it, bury it. Breathe.
This was the entire sum of existence, nothing else. Occasionally when someone in the
line of chained men died, and another brought in to fill his place, the new man would babble
about sun and wind and children and happiness beyond the hanging wall—the rock face hanging
over all their heads.
But Lot No. 859 knew there was nothing beyond the hanging wall, just a greater
blackness, extending into infinity. Sometimes she thought she dreamed of something—an
echoing memory, a glimpse of a rolling green sea, the scent of something called apple
blossom—but Lot No. 859 knew these were figments of her imagination. Lies created by
hopelessness to torment her.
She raised the pick, swung it, buried it in the rock face, feeling pain ripple throughout
her entire body, but ignoring it because it was such a constant companion that it had ceased to
have any meaning.
Something overhead groaned and then cracked.