Lady Therien hated children. It was the singular thing she detested more than any of her other duties that she should have to attend to the palace nursery.
She might have a less negative view of this chore if the children she need supervise were noble born, or even elven, but Queen Meredith was not in the habit of keeping blooded children in the palace. The old Teacher’s Tower was long abandoned, a byproduct of a change in leadership when Meredith rose out of the slums and Queen Tania, her predecessor, died. She hadn’t liked the old crone much either, but at least she had been of high birth, a professional.
It was not lost on her that the current queen didn’t much care for her—and the feeling was mutual—but that did not give her justification to cast a high lady into the bowels of the palace in order that she ought to take care of dirty, snot nosed kids from so many corners of the world where culture was in short supply and those haunting, vacant-eyed stares were so damned common.
There was a logic in her decision, of course. There always was. Whatever their feelings for each other, she must acknowledge there were no others within the palace, at least not within the noble caste, who could do what she did. She might take that as a compliment if she was of a mind to, but then she would have to acknowledge that woman was right about something. That she may even be a competent ruler.
She traveled a hall close at hand to the dungeons, an expanse cast in those offensive, washed out shades the glow bulbs that spiteful bitch had insisted on installing everywhere the servants walked. The enchanting work had been done by a crew down from the Ring of Fire, all kitunes and all, to varying degrees, loyal to the Shadow of Lies. Better work could be found in the Eleventh Ward, and in particular within Aranor, where the Whiteheart family had dominated the market for generations, but to bring them here would have risked inviting rumors to spread across the ward, and into others along the borderlands where Shadovane and Mirrhvale alike were viewed as the product of a string of popular myths.
She stopped outside a door with a black triangle fired into a lone tile next to it at waist level, an unassuming sign which nonetheless demanded certain clearance be granted before one could enter. Shadow walking would be impossible here, which was another mild insult. She’d have liked to emerge just within the chamber she needed, and avoid those common beasts altogether. The enchanting work that prevented her doing so was far older, dating back at least to Queen Anastasia, as the rooms beyond this door had originally been her safe house, a necessary hideout during a time of great conflict, when even the shadows could not entirely be trusted.
She pushed the door inward, and whipped it shut behind her.
On either side of a narrow corridor were poured stone half walls fitted at their heights with glass pains that rose to the ceiling. Within those rooms, women doted on toddling vermin, or taught them lessons in reading, basic math, life skills they would need when they metriculated from this place into the Servant’s Tower and the palace halls, where they would take on responsibilities as servants….
Janitors, really. For a few years.
Chewing her lip, she breezed past those rooms, her gaze trained intently on the end of the passage, dodging as much of what transpired in those classrooms, sleeping chambers, the quaint dining room where the kids would be allowed a modest meal three times a day.
The hall broadened out into a final chamber, the windows clamping against poured stone walls that rose to ceiling height and blocked direct lines of sight from that last chamber into the classrooms. Those were newer than the viewing windows, were mostly unaffected by the cracks and fissures the older work contained. Bitter lessons had been learned early in this enterprise, lessons which necessitated their construction.
What lay here was not strictly legal, nor was it precisely wise. Purpose driven to a fault, the true task set against her was not in maintaining these children. Noblewomen of low birth who could keep their mouths shut would suffice for that task, but they could not be expected to deal with the mechanism which upheld this new system, this convention of the last twenty or so years.
Arrayed against the far wall were men and women who ran the gamut of races and ethnicities haling from the Thirteen Imperial Wards and the Free Lands. A kaleidoscopic array of individuals who had one thing in common. Every one of these people was born with a Gift of the Blood. All of them were Watchers, and as the only Shield in Shadovane, she was the only person in the city who could resist them.
She panned over the dozen figures arrayed across that wall. Shackles bound their wrists and ankles, and heavy chains connected those shackles to thick bolts staked into the wall. Enchanted cadmium was threaded into the cuffs, together with thicker bands of silver to boost its effect. The shackles were all that was needed to suppress access to magic, to mute the sounds of the Cosmic Orchestra, that driving force behind all sorcery.
It was enough to keep the other women safe, to keep these savages bound in place, and yet it could do nothing for that cursed gift, the one thing in all of the world her emperor feared. Mere eye contact with one of those creatures would rob any of those women of conscious control over themselves, would expose every memory they had ever put away and open the possibility that their histories, their perceptions of them, might be altered. False memories might be inserted, true memories might be purged. Their personalities may be restructured, or they might just become hosts for these Watchers for a time.
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She sneered, an ugly thing. Yet they can do no such thing to me. All because of a quirk in my soul.
When she had first discovered her gift, it had been by mistake. It had not been proximity to a Watcher but a Whisperer, one of those peculiar people who could make any lie they told ring more honest than the very truth they obfuscated. The Whisperer, sent to bargain with her late father over some trade dispute with a foreign lord from Ozos, had spoken his pack of lies, led her father by the nose into a duplicitous conspiracy which would have seen him handing over half the family estate in exchange for next to nothing over the following decade. She had picked up on his tone of voice, that snake oil salesman’s grin, the unchecked greed, the elation in the way he looked at her father, as if he’d won without having tried at all. She had felt the lie in her body, had known it for what it was, and had called him to task with a battery of questions which left her father first furious at her, and then at him.
Balance was for those chosen few who could call themselves of The Blood, who by some accident had come into such gifts. Balance in that each gift was countered by another, and all of them together might cause a great unraveling. She had known the liar for what he said. It had taken time for her to come around to the understanding he was so good at lying because of what he was.
By the time she rose to high lady of her house, she had not needed further explanation for her gift. It was a part of her, baked into her flesh, housed in her spirit, and she had grown accustomed to using it to great effect.
These Watchers could not touch her, would never violate her. But she could, with enough pressure, compel them to do her bidding…Queen Meredith’s bidding.
“You look ill.” She said to the one centered before her.
He was jua, dark-skinned and bald as an egg. His eyes glowed a violent shade of blue, like lightning, as he set his placid regard against her.
“You look just as well as you usually do, she witch.” He said.
Several of the others looked away from her. Those had been beaten down over the years, had learned it was in their best interests to be silent.
“What will it be today, woman?” he said. “How many children am I to infest with the latest narrative? What is the latest narrative?”
He waggled his wrist impatiently, the chain links tinkling together as the chain wavered to and fro.
“Bring them!” she barked. “Quickly now, I do not have all day!”
A woman rushed into the hall. A small cluster of children followed her like shadows. All of them were eleven or twelve, old enough to be let into the palace but only just. It would be some months before they were left to themselves, and in that time she would need return to this place periodically to ensure they were treated properly.
“Go now, kids. Go to Lady Therien.” The woman gestured them forward, not daring to step into their path.
Lady Therien marched forward. A deep shadow coalesced against the palm of her hand. She stood before a Watcher, one of those who had been thoroughly broken, and grasped his neck lightly, bringing his head up so that he looked directly into her eyes. A black eyed gaze peered out from the face of a kitune, and there was fear in that gaze. Fear and obedience both.
“Do it.” She said to the jua man.
“Again, what is this latest narrative? What are they to remember?”
“Just feed them the usual garbage. Start with their early memories. Work your way up from there.” She tensed her fingers against the kitune’s throat.
“If I play with their earliest memories, it will make for an unstable base on which to build this, if you’ll pardon the analogy, house.”
“Excuses, you old prick, are like assholes. Everyone has one. Now get to work.”
At the behest of the woman, the first child stepped forward. The jua man bored into his eyes, and the child’s head snapped up. He pitched forward onto his knees, and crashed to the ground.
The Watcher worked his jaw as the boy righted himself and stepped obediently down the hall to rejoin the woman.
“No funny business now. You’ll only earn this one’s death.”
“D-don’t kill me. Please d-don’t….”
“That is not up to me.” She cooed. Her gaze shifted to the jua man. “It is up to him. As long as he does the correct thing, you needn’t worry about the state of your life.”
“You are truly a disgusting creature.” The jua man said.
“And you are wasting my time. Get on with it.”
He mumbled something under his breath, a curse for her which she ignored. He complied, and one by one those children fell to their knees, slumped onto the ground and then returned to their handler.
When it was done, she released her hold on the kitune’s neck. By then, silent tears were running down the woman’s cheeks, and the lady wiped them against her dress. She marched away.
On her way past, the jua man spat. A thick glob of phlegm sailed across the intervening distance and struck the back of her head.
She spun on her heels, a brutish scowl on her face, her gaze hard and dangerous. “You foul piece of—“
“A parting gift, my lady.” A shallow bow, for it was all the chains would permit him.
“Just for that.”
She marched up the hall, took up a cleaning towel from the nearest classroom and returned with it. She tied it around his head, blocking his vision, and forced him onto his knees.
Should any of you seek to help, you will be next.” She warned them.
“WOMAN!” she bellowed.
The one who had taken the recent graduates from their class to be pacified emerged from the classroom.
“Bring me the hardest, most offending cane you have in this hovel.”
She hurried off and returned with a blunt instrument as thick around as her middle finger, and she set to the work of punishing him. Beat him over every inch of his body as the other Watchers shied away from her, refused to look at them as the damage was inflicted.
When she was done, she dropped the Cane on the floor and kicked it out of his reach. She marched away, leaving him a broken ruin against the poured stone.
“Half rations for him until the moon is full.”
“He’ll die.”
“He can be replaced.”
She stamped down the hall, swung the door open and slammed it behind her.
“Insolent bastard.” She mumbled to herself as she marched off. “What was so wrong about the old system…why do we even need this blue-eyed scum!”
Thank you for reading this chapter of Spirit of Shadow. Feel free to leave a your thoughts in the comments.
