“I can sense her very deep regard,” she said, halting just beyond the reach allowed by Reva’s chains. She was taller than Reva by a few inches, her form toned and athletic. She appeared little more than twenty years in age but one glance at her eyes and Reva knew she was in the presence of something far older. Something, she knew with grim certainty, that possessed a gift Vaelin had lost at Alltor.
“But is it returned, I wonder?” The woman angled her head, eyes closed as if listening to something, her smile becoming faint, wistful. “Ah. So sorry Lieza dear, but her heart is taken by another. She does feel a flicker of lust for you though, if it’s any consolation. Love may claim our hearts but lust will always claim our bodies. It is the traitor that lurks in every soul.” She opened her eyes again, smile gone as she frowned in sudden confusion. “Did I say that? Or did I read it somewhere?”
She stood in apparent bafflement for some time, unmoving but for a spasming tension to her face, eyes shifting from side to side in rapid jerks, mouth moving in an unheard dialogue until, as abruptly as it had begun, the confusion faded.
“Embroidery,” she said, holding up the frame with its inexpert needlework, Reva noting the multiple brownish stains on the material and the dried blood on the Empress’s fingertips. “The wealthy women of Mirtesk were renowned for it. My father thought it the most productive use of time for a young lady of good birth.” The Empress looked at the fabric, sighing in frustration. “But not in my case. It was the first of Father’s many disappointments. Still I am improving, don’t you think?”
She held out the frame for Reva’s inspection. Amongst the bloodstains Reva made out some green and red thread tightly bunched into what might have been a rough approximation of a flower.
She said, “A blind ape could do better.”
The slave girl, Lieza, gave another involuntary gasp, eyelids blinking rapidly as she lowered her gaze, unwilling to witness what came next. “Oh stop mewling,” the Empress told her, rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry, the object of your fascination has many lively days ahead of her, I’m sure. Just how many is up to her of course.”
Her gaze swivelled back to Reva, a new focus lighting her eyes. “A few of my soldiers survived Alltor, did you know that? Suffering great travails and privation to make it to Varinshold before it fell. General Mirvek, always a punctilious fellow, was assiduous in compiling their accounts before having them executed. Such wild talk would only unnerve his men after all. You see, these men spoke of a witch at Alltor, a witch made invincible by the power of her god, wielding a sword that could cut through steel and a charmed bow that never missed. One even claimed to have met her and, half-mad though he was, he did provide a fulsome description.”
Reva recalled the prisoner they had hauled from the riverbank the morning after the first major assault was driven back, a twitching, wide-eyed wreck of a man. It was strange, but she found herself regretting his death. The Volarians had been monstrous, but that scared, wasted soul had no more threat to offer than a starved dog.
“Elverah,” the Empress went on. “They stole my name and gave it to you. I should be angry. You know its meaning?”
“Witch,” Reva said. “Or sorceress.”
“‘Sorceress’ is a silly word, meaningless really since sorcery is just fable. Incantations scribbled in ancient books, foul-smelling concoctions that do nothing but churn the stomach. No, I always preferred ‘witch,’ though the meaning changes a little in the dialect of the people who named me Elverah. You see, they afforded authority to those with the greatest power, regardless of its source. Be it skill in arms or what your people call the Dark. Power is power, so the name Elverah could also be translated as ‘queen.’” She gave a soft laugh. “When my soldiers called you a witch, they were also calling you a queen.”
“I have a queen.”
“No, dearest little sister, you had a queen. I expect to receive her head shortly, should my admiral recover her body from the sea.”
Reva fought to contain the upsurge of rage and uncertainty. Everything you feel tells her more, she admonished herself. Feel nothing. But it proved a hopeless cause, for thoughts of Queen Lyrna’s demise inevitably led to images of one who had not been with her.
“Ah.” The Empress said with a weary sigh. “And so he comes to plague us yet again.” She regarded Reva with a raised eyebrow, her mouth slightly twisted in faint annoyance. “I hear he marched an army the length of your Realm in less than a month just to save you. What will he do now, I wonder?”
Feel nothing! Reva filled her mind with calming images, joyfully coiling in the dark with Veliss . . . Ellese stumbling about the gardens with her wooden sword . . . But it all faded in the light cast by a single thought, bright with certainty: He will come here, free me and kill you.