“Bonding,” Kord said, looking up at Isana. His eyes glittered. His hands roved over the woman on the ground now, casually intimate, possessive. “This will take a few minutes to set in.”
Odiana gasped, arching into Kord’s touch, her eyes empty, lips parted, her body moving in a slow, languid roll, all hips and back and bared throat. The collar gleamed against her skin. Kord sat over her, petting the woman like an overexcited animal. In a few moments, she was making soft, cooing sounds, curling toward him like a sleepy kitten.
“There.” He stood up and said, casually, “That’s a good girl.”
Odiana’s eyes flew open wide, then fluttered slowly closed again. She gasped, clutching her arms to her chest as though to hold something in, and for perhaps half a minute she writhed that way, letting out soft moans of unmistakable pleasure.
Kord smiled. He looked at Isana and said, quietly, “Stupid little whore.”
Odiana’s body convulsed, back abruptly arching into a bow. She let out another scream—this one thin, high, somehow sickened—and flung herself onto her side. She retched, violently, though there was little enough content in her stomach to come up onto the dusty floor. Her legs and arms jerked in frantic spasm, and she lifted huge, desperate eyes to Isana, her expression agonized, pleading. She reached toward the collar at her throat and spasmed again, more violently, thrashing and flailing and rolling dangerously close to the circle of coals.
Isana stared at the woman in horrified confusion for a breath, before she lurched forward, unsteady herself, and caught Odiana before she could convulse into the ring of coals. “Stop it,” Isana cried. She looked back at Kord, knew that her face was pale and desperately afraid—and saw the glitter of satisfaction in his expression when she turned to him. “Stop it! You’re killing her!”
“Might be kinder,” Kord said. “She’s been broken before.” But to Odiana he said, voice smug, “Good girl. Stay here and you’ll be a good girl. Do what you’re told.”
The frantic spasms eased out of the woman, very slowly. Isana drew her back away from the coals and kept her arms around her, her body between Odiana and Kord. The woman’s eyes had lost focus again, and she shuddered in slow waves in Isana’s arms.
“What did you do to her?” Isana asked quietly.
Kord turned and walked toward the door. “What you need to learn is that slaves are just animals. You train an animal by providing rewards and punishments. Rewarding good behavior. Punishing bad. That’s how you turn a wild horse into an obedient mount. How you train a wolf into a hunting hound.” He opened the door and said, casually, “Same with slaves. You’re just more animals. To be used for labor, breeding, whatever. You just have to be trained.” Kord left the smokehouse, but his words drifted back to them. “Aric. Build up the fire. Isana. You’ll wear one tomorrow, Think about that.”
Isana said nothing, stunned by what she had seen, by Odiana’s reaction to the sight of the collar, to her condition now. Isana looked down at her and brushed some of the dark, tangled hair from her eyes. “Are you all right?”
The woman looked up at her, eyes heavy and languid, and shivered. “It’s good now. It’s good. I’m good now.”
Isana swallowed. “He hurt you, before. When he called you . . .” She didn’t say the words.
“Hurts,” Odiana whispered. “Yes. Oh crows and furies, so much hurt. I’d forgotten. Forgotten how bad it was.” She shivered again. “H-how good it was.” She opened her eyes, and again they were wet with tears. “They can change you. You can fight and fight, but they change you. Make you happy to be what they want. Make it hurt when you try to resist. You change, holdgirl. He can do it to you. He can make you beg him to take you. To touch you. Make you.” She turned her face away, though her body was still wracked with the long, shivering shudders of pleasure, and turned her face from Isana. “Please. Please kill me before he comes back. I can’t be that again. I can’t go back.”
“Shhhh,” Isana said, rocking the woman gently. “Shhhh. Rest. You should sleep.”
“Please,” she whispered, but her face had already gone slack, her body begun to sag. “Please.” She shuddered once more and then went completely limp, her head falling to one side.
Isana laid the woman down as gently as she could. She knelt over her, testing her pulse, putting a hand to her forehead. Her heart still beat too quickly, and her skin felt fevered, dry.
Isana looked up, to where Aric stood next to a hod for coal, watching her. When she looked up at him, he ducked his head, turning to the hod, and began to dump coals into a bucket beside it.
“She needs water,” Isana said, quietly. “After all of that. She needs water, or she’ll die in this heat.”
Aric looked at her again. He picked up the bucket and, without speaking, walked to one side of the ring and started shaking fresh coals out of it and into the fire.
Isana ground her teeth with frustration. If she was only able to Listen, she might be able to gain important insight. The boy seemed reluctant to follow his father’s commands. He might be convinced to help them, if only she could find the right words to say. She felt blind, crippled.
“Aric, listen to me,” Isana said. “You can’t possibly think he’s going to get away with this. You can’t possibly think that he will escape justice for what happened tonight?”
He finished dumping out the bucket. He walked back to the hod, his voice toneless. “He’s escaped it for years. What do you think happens to every slave who comes through here?”
Isana stared at him for a moment, sickened. “Crows,” she whispered. “Aric, please. At least help me get this collar off.” She reached down to Odiana’s throat, turning the collar about and trying to find the clasp.
“Don’t,” Aric said, his voice quick, harsh. “Don’t, you’ll kill her.”
Isana’s fingers froze. She looked up at him.
Aric chewed on his lip. Then said, “Pa’s blood is on it. He’s the only one can take it off her.”
“How can I help her?”
“You can’t,” Aric said, his voice frustrated. He turned and threw the bucket at the wall of the smokehouse. It clattered against it and fell to the floor. He leaned his hands against the wall and bowed his head. “You can’t help her. The way he’s left her, anyone can tell her anything and she’ll keep feeling good as long as she does it. She tries to resist and she’ll . . . and it will hurt her.”
“That’s inhuman,” Isana said. “Great furies, Aric. How can you let this happen?”
“Shut up,” he said. “Just you shut up.” Motions stiff, angry, he pushed off the wall and recovered the bucket and started filling it with coal again.
“You were right, you know,” Isana said, keeping her voice quiet. “I was telling the truth. So was Tavi, if he told you that the Valley was in danger. That the Marat may be coming again. It could happen soon. It could have begun already. Aric, please, listen to me.”
He dumped more coal out onto the fires and returned to gather up more.