Page 19 of Her Cruel Redemption (The Dark Reflection #3)

Chapter Nineteen

A storm was rolling in over the ocean, tossing the ships in the harbor from side to side. I watched them as Khatar listed their names and condition, his hand occasionally entering my peripherals as he pointed out a wave skimmer with its flexible, fin-like sails that could propel it through the water so fast it could glide across the crest of a wave, then a reef guardship, its hull painted in camouflage against the surrounding sea. A fleet of Morwarian ships was usually an interesting spectacle, but this one in particular failed to impress.

‘Where are the rest?’ I asked when he had finished talking. When he didn’t answer immediately, I turned away from the window to survey him. His rough-hewn, weathered face was tight, his thin mouth drawn in a frown.

‘There’s thirty-seven ships out there,’ he said, his accent rendering the words slanted and gravelly. As he spoke, one of my commanders appeared at the door. I nodded permission for him to interrupt.

‘The scout has arrived, Your Majesty. We’ve left him in that shipmaster’s office down the hall.’

My interest peaked. As did my impatience to be done with Khatar. ‘Thank you, Fenric.’ He withdrew. I returned to the matter of the harbour and its ships. ‘I asked for more.’

‘I’m not drawing ships from the coastal patrols,’ Khatar said, bristling. ‘If they all go down, I’ll have nothing left to protect the Bire Isles.’

I raised my brows as I waited for him to continue.

‘And what would the risk be for? All these months of border skirmishes, and now you want to strike right at the heart of the country?’ he resumed after a moment. ‘It’s senseless! I’ll not lose my entire fleet to it.’

‘You seem to be under the impression this is a negotiation,’ I responded, my voice steady. Cold. ‘It isn’t.’

He drew himself taller, puffing up like a blowfish, hands curling into fists at his sides. He was used to barking orders, not taking them. ‘You’ll not treat me like some lackey whose purpose is to do your bidding. None have done as I have done! I have united the Morwar Toth and won dominion over the sea! I do not bend to the likes of you .’

‘What’s your alternative?’ I drew closer to him, already stroking at the magic that slept quietly beneath my skin. It shivered to life, eager and hungry. ‘Would you like to leave the alliance, Khatar? You’re welcome to do so. Return to your rocky exile and give up your claim on the mainland. I wonder how long you’ll hold onto that dominion once your chieftains watch a final victory slip from your grip.’

‘Or I’ll lead the alliance,’ he spat. ‘And we’ll fight this war with honour instead of mind-grubbing and—’

‘Enough,’ I interrupted, tone sharp enough to cut across his sentence. ‘You’re skating dangerously close to offending me. You don’t want that, do you?’

I could see the instant the thought to strike me crossed his mind, the way his hand brushed at the scabbard on his hip. I could read it even without magic, could see it in the flicker of his eyes, in the slight shift of his feet, widening his stance. We moved at almost the same moment. He yanked his blade free, as though he thought acting fast would make the difference when I was already wrapping fingers of magic around his mind.

Overriding automatic bodily functions like breathing was always challenging. It meant both compelling my opponent to consciously stop inhaling and exhaling, but also supressing the body’s natural panic response just enough to keep the wrestling match of wills manageable. Panic was difficult to work with. But I also needed him to panic if I wanted to make my point.

Khatar dropped his scimitar. It clattered to the stone floor. His face started to turn red, eyes bulging as he fought against me, trying to wrestle back the ability to breathe as I held it locked tight. Pain lanced behind my eyes as his resolve fought mine. He was always a tough bastard to compel, stone headed and strong willed. But I tried to keep that from showing on my face. He didn’t need to know how much of a struggle it was. He made a strangled sound and his hand went to his throat. Submit, hissed a voice in my head. Ours to command. The voice of magic slipping past my mental wards and into my head. The temptation to bend Khatar’s will grew stronger, a dry ache in my throat, a buzzing in my fingers. I released him. He sucked in a wheezing gasp, staggering as oxygen flooded back into his lungs while I turned my focus to my mental wards, quickly visualising the mirrored cage I’d trapped the voice inside, strengthening the places it had corroded. I was careful to mask my expression as I stared impassively down at Khatar.

‘I thought you might learn to control your temper after last time we did this,’ I said blandly. ‘I’m growing tired of having to repeat myself.’

He coughed, hand on his chest as it expanded and retracted, as though he was checking the movement to make sure he was still able to make it.

‘When this is over, you’ll have what generations of your people have been fighting for: the lands that were taken from you by human occupation. You’ll be able to leave those craggy islands and bring your families home to the shores of Oceatold and Brimordia. If you don’t think that’s worth the risk of your fleet, then so be it. But then I want you out of my lands.’

He straightened, his expression a mixture of fear and resentment now. Which was irritating. If the resentment remained, then we’d be having this tussle again in the future. I briefly considered whether it was time to dispose of him and elevate someone else into his position. But that option didn’t come without its problems; the Morwarian chieftains followed him because he’d proven himself against them all. Swapping him out for someone else held the likely probability of a number of them splintering off. I didn’t want to lose any ships to that if we ever hoped to take Oceatold.

‘I’ll call in more ships,’ he muttered. He shuddered as I brushed against his mind, catching the end of a thought he quickly turned away from, one he didn’t want me reading.

‘Good,’ I said after a moment, deciding to take him at face value for now. It would get me what I needed quicker. ‘If we succeed in this, you can do as you like. I’ll release you from our arrangement. You’ll have the lands you were promised and the freedom to govern yourselves. But fail to bring me those ships, and you’ll make yourself a dangerous enemy. You have two days, then we make for Port Howl.’

He bent to pick up his scimitar.

‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘Penance for drawing it against me.’

For a tense moment, it seemed like he might refuse, which would make up my mind on what to do with him. But perhaps he realised I was testing him, because finally he nodded curtly, before lumbering towards the door, stiff-necked and nursing his smarting pride. I picked up the scimitar and turned back to the window as he left the room, examining its curved blade of layered steel, worked with a technique known only to the Morwarian bladesmiths that tied magic to the metal in a way I assumed wasn’t dissimilar to the methods human druthi used to bind magic into objects. A Morwarian scimitar could turn the path of water when it cut through the surface. A temporary but useful trick when out at sea. Khatar wouldn’t like me having it.

He had always resented our alliance. It was a means to an end, but my means rubbed against the grain of everything he valued. Not that the ability to manipulate minds had made me a popular house guest anywhere, but the Morwarians in particular despised subterfuge and any form of resistance that wasn’t a direct act of violence and aggression. They were my allies only until we ceased being useful to each other, or until one of my clashes with Khatar came to a different conclusion. His shame at his inability to throw off my magic was all that held the balance between us. If I lost the advantage, I’d lose my authority over him.

Lightning flashed across the stormy horizon, drawing my thoughts away from that room, away from the coastal port, all the way over the nearby border to Oceatold. I ran my thumb against the edge of the blade, playing with the edge between pressure and pain. The truth was that no one liked this sudden move into Oceatold, not just Khatar. I knew that. But it couldn’t be helped. Not now that Rhiandra had made it to Sarmiers. Not now that she had veins laced with lightning. A detail whose reason for being kept from me I was about to uncover.

The scout had arrived on the back of my summons just as my conversation with Khatar was about to begin, which might have contributed a little to my impatience with him. I’d been itching to talk to this particular scout myself ever since I’d watched my wife bolt through that marketplace on the back of a horse, barely clinging on as her strength gave way, sick with magic poisoning. Magic poisoning. A cold, thick feeling seemed to compress my chest at the thought of it. Along with the sense of that I was suddenly in a race against time.

The scout had been left in an office that usually belonged to the shipmaster who ran this warehouse. When I reached it, I pushed through the door without hesitation, catching him by surprise. He jumped, dropping the paperweight he’d been examining, and it landed on the desk with a loud thud before rolling onto the lush carpet.

‘Orrin Voss, I assume,’ I said as he scrambled to pick up the paperweight and replace it on the heavy desk.

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ he said, convulsing in a nervous bow. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, I didn’t mean—’

‘If you’re about to beg clemency for dropping a paperweight, I wouldn’t bother. Don’t waste my mercy. I think you might need it for your other offences.’ Crossing the room, I sat in the chair opposite him, crossing an ankle over my knee. ‘You sold some information to one of my officers,’ I said.

‘Yes, sir, I’m a recruit in Garlein and myself and a few of my unit heard rumours we took it upon ourselves to investigate.’ He straightened as he said this, puffing out his chest, like he thought he’d done something right.

‘Which was your first mistake.’

At these words, he sagged, like I’d poked a hole in an air pocket. ‘But sir, your orders—’

‘—were to collect the information, not to engage them. Your involvement only pushed them into running.’ Resting a hand on the desk, I began to tap a slow rhythm against the wood. ‘What do you think your second mistake was?’

He was turning pale and pasty with nerves. ‘I was caught,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘Try again.’

‘We shot at the queen?’

I stilled, tense with the flare of rage. ‘That I didn’t know.’ My tone was dangerous now. ‘You’re racking up quite the tally of stupid decisions.’

He was sweating, beads of it glistening on his forehead. ‘I don’t know what else, sir.’

‘You can’t think of something you might have forgotten to mention in your report to my officer? Perhaps something about fucking lightning ?’ The last part came out a low snarl.

He cringed, seeming to retreat into his beard, beady eyes wide. ‘We didn’t think it was real! She couldn’t have been… creating it. We thought if we said anything about it, I’d sound like our story was just rubbish and we’d never be paid for it.’

A pause. ‘You were worried you’d never be paid for it?’

He seemed to realise he’d said the wrong thing. He raised his hands, shaking them like he was trying to swipe away his words. ‘No! No, it wasn’t about the money, I swear! I didn’t want to pass on false—’

I held up a finger, and he immediately fell silent. ‘Do you know what I learned growing up in Yaakandale, Voss?’

‘In… in Yaakandale?’

‘The rumours have spread pretty far by this point. I assume you’ve heard a bit about me by now.’

‘Just… just bits and pieces, sir.’

‘Then you know I grew up in the dead king’s glittering palace, surrounded by all the gems dug out of the mountains. The funny thing about money is how little it matters when it comes down to a matter of life and death. Which, for you, it just has. So what do you think, Voss? How much money is your life worth?’

The sweat was trickling down his face now. I watched it drip off his nose as he began to beg for his life. This was what she should have done. By the river, while she was still on her knees after I’d pulled her from the water. Begged. After all, I’d caught her. And the last time I’d seen her, she’d betrayed me and run a dagger through me. I owed her for that, for turning on me, for running, for thinking there was any version of the world where we made sense apart. I’d thought—hoped—the anticipation of my rage would be enough to humble her. I’d hoped she’d be a little scared of what I might do to her when I caught her. But even if she’d been on her knees, everything about the way she’d looked up and met my eyes had said I dare you . The part of me that was predator had stirred, hackles raised at the challenge, baring fangs and flexing claws. Ready to give chase. And I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some satisfaction in seeing her run from me and hunting her down. She could tolerate a little fear. I had every intention of exacting penance for what she’d done to me, just as I was sure she would in return for what I’d done to her. The problem was that I craved her surrender on a level that wasn’t rational, and she would never give it to me.

But the magic had changed everything.

‘Voss,’ I finally snapped when I grew tired of his babbling. It just wasn’t the same when it was so easily won. ‘Sit the fuck down and tell me everything that happened at Garlein. And this time, leave nothing out.’

Twenty minutes later, he’d confirmed some of my worst assumptions. That Rhiandra had over-extended herself. That she’d wound up unconscious. That she’d thrown magic around like there was no price for using it. The fact that she’d done the same when she’d faced me wasn’t just because I’d provoked her to lose control of her rage. If I’d known before I’d seen her, could I have reasoned with her? Could the fear quickening my pulse have settled my anger enough to be reasonable?

Unfortunately for Orrin Voss, it was too late to find out now.