“I want to show you that I can be useful to you.”
He didn’t reply, but turned his attention back to the men there. “I will consider it. What is next?”
Next, it seemed, were petitions from the representatives of the other rulers of Felldust.
“The Second Stone would like to know when your return to Felldust will be,” one representative said. “There are matters there that require the Five Stones to be together.”
“Fourth Stone Vexa requires more space for her contingent of ships.”
“Third Stone Kas sends his congratulations on our shared victory.”
Stephania ran through the names of the other Stones of Felldust. Cunning Ulren, Kas Forkbeard, Vexa, the only female Stone, Borion the fop. Secondary names compared to Irrien, yet theoretically all but his equals. Only the fact that they weren’t here gave Irrien so much power.
Along with names, Stephania’s memory supplied interests, weaknesses, desires. Ulren was growing old in Irrien’s shadow, and would have had the First Stone’s seat if the warlord hadn’t taken it. Kas was cautious, a lord of merchants who calculated every coin before he acted. Vexa kept a house beyond the city, where it was rumored her servants were all without tongues so that they could not speak of what they saw. Borion was the weakest, likely to lose his seat to the next challenger.
As she thought about the situation in Felldust, Stephania laid gentle fingers on Irrien’s arm. She moved delicately, the touch barely there. She had learned the skills of seduction a long time ago, then spent time perfecting them on a string of useful lovers. She had brought around Thanos, hadn’t she? How much more difficult could Irrien be?
She felt the moment when he tensed.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“You seem tense with all this talking,” Stephania said. “I thought I could help. Maybe I could help relax you in… other ways?”
The key was not to push too hard. To hint and to offer, but never to demand outright. Stephania arranged her most innocent look, stared up into Irrien’s eyes… then cried out as he slapped her casually.
Anger flared in her at that. Stephania’s pride told her that she would find a way to make Irrien pay for that blow, that she would have revenge on him.
“Ah, there’s the real Stephania,” Irrien said. “Do you think I’m fooled by your pretense that you’re a humble slave? Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe you can be broken with one beating?”
Fear flashed again in Stephania. She could still remember the whistle of the whip as Irrien had struck her with it. Her back still burned with the memory of the blows. There had been a time when she had enjoyed punishing those servants who deserved it. Now, the thought just brought back the pain.
Even so, she would use the pain if she had to.
“No, but I’m sure you plan more,” Stephania said. She didn’t even try for innocence this time. “You’re going to enjoy trying to break me as much as I’m going to enjoy playing with you while you do it. Isn’t that half the fun?”
Irrien hit her again. Stephania let him see her defiance then. It was obviously what he wanted. She would do whatever she had to in order to bind Irrien to her. Once she’d done it, it wouldn’t matter what she’d suffered to get there.
“You think that you are special, don’t you?” Irrien said. “You are just a slave.”
“A slave you keep chained to your throne,” Stephania pointed out in her most sultry voice. “A slave you obviously plan to have in your bed. A slave who could be so much more. A partner. I know Delos like no one else. Why not just admit it?”
Irrien stood then.
“You’re right. I have made a mistake.”
He reached down, taking her chains and unlocking them from the throne. Stephania had a moment in which to feel a sense of triumph as he lifted her. Even if he was cruel to her now, even if he just dragged her to his chambers and threw her down there to claim as his own, she was making progress.
That wasn’t where he threw her, though. He cast Stephania down on the cold marble, and she felt the hardness of it under her knees as she skidded to a halt in front of one of the figures there.
The shock of that hit her more than the pain. How could Irrien do that? Hadn’t she been everything he could want? Stephania looked up to see a man in dark robes looking at her with obvious contempt.
“I made the mistake of thinking you were worth my time,” Irrien said. “You want a sacrifice, priest? Take her. Cut the babe from her and offer it up to your gods in my name. I’ll not have some mewling brat alive with a claim to this throne. When you’re done, throw what’s left of her for whatever scavengers will eat her.”
Stephania stared up at the priest, then looked over at Irrien, barely able to form the words. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. She wouldn’t let it.
“Please,” she said. “This is foolish. I can do so much more for you than this!”
They didn’t seem to care though. Panic flashed through her, along with the shocked thought that this was actually happening. They were actually going to do this.
No. No, they couldn’t!
She screamed as the priest grabbed her arms. Another caught her legs, and they carried her, still struggling, between them. Irrien and the others followed in their wake, but right then, Stephania didn’t care about them. She only cared about one thing:
They were going to kill her baby.
CHAPTER TWO
Ceres still couldn’t believe that they’d escaped. She lay on the deck of the small boat she’d stolen, and it was impossible to think that she was actually there, rather than back in some fighting pit beneath the castle, waiting to die.
Not that they were safe yet. The flight of an arrow overhead made that much clear.
Ceres looked up over the boat’s railing, trying to work out if there was anything she could do. Archers fired from the shore, most of their shafts striking the water around the boat, a few thudding into the wood to tremble there as they spent their energy.
“We need to move faster,” Thanos said beside her. He rushed to one of the sails. “Help me get this up.”
“Not… yet,” a voice croaked from the other side of the deck.
Akila lay there, and to Ceres’s eyes he looked terrible. The First Stone’s sword had been sticking through him just minutes before, and now that Ceres had pulled it out, he was obviously losing blood. Even so, he managed to raise his head, looking at her with an urgency that was hard to ignore.
“Not yet,” he repeated. “The ships around the harbor have our wind, and a sail will just make us a target. Use the oars.”
Ceres nodded, pulling Thanos over to where the combatlords they’d rescued were rowing. It was hard to find space to fit in beside the heavily muscled men, but she squeezed into place and lent her little remaining strength to their efforts.
They pulled into the shadow of a moored
