"Certain aspects of the past are quite important to me. I'd like to know how someone like yourself became a slave to a low-born creature unfit to kneel at your feet."
Stunned by her bluntness, Rashed paced for a moment, his face filled with puzzlement.
"I was fighting near the west of il'Mauy Meyauh, a kingdom of the Suman Empire across the sea. My people were at war with a group of the free tribes of the desert. I don't know where Corische came from, only that his own master died by accident in a fire. I did not understand at the time, but now wonder how one of our kind could ever fall to an accident. Once free, Corische wanted to secure himself by creating his own pack of servants. He was careful, and only chose men easy to control like Ratboy… and Parko, my brother.
"Parko disappeared from our camp one night. I followed his trail and found Corische. We fought. Even as just a mortal, I made him earn his victory. In the end, he pierced my heart. As I bled to death, he made me an offer. At that moment, all I could think of was that Parko would never get along without me. Strange, foolish thought. When I awoke, I was Corische's servant. He took my inheritance and forced us all to travel north. We crossed the sea into Belaski. In Stravina, he found patronage under a powerful mortal lord. The master and I distinguished ourselves in battle for him. In five short years, we were appointed here, to Gäestev Keep. After the warmth of the south, this place was a frozen prison until…"
"Until I came and made it beautiful?" Teesha finished, almost impishly.
He nodded silently.
Teesha could see him slipping into the relief he'd gained since she'd started making changes in the keep, but this time she wasn't going to allow him that release.
"This isn't our home," she hissed, and Rashed back-stepped once in surprise at her sudden change of tone. "No matter what I've done to it, it's his. We merely exist here. And that's all we'll ever have!"
Rashed stared at her for a time longer than any silence Teesha could remember between two people. His eyes were no longer filled with suspicion. He was confused, and Teesha's long careful nurturing of his desires began to take hold.
"What would you have us do?" he finally asked.
"Leave," go southwest to the coast, make our own home."
"You know we can't," he said gently. "He will always be our master."
"Not if he's dead… finally dead."
Now it was Rashed who changed his demeanor, voice cold, hushed, and almost vicious.
"Don't say such things." He dropped to sit on the bench, glaring at her, but his eyes shifted about as if he was looking for Corische to suddenly enter the room.
"Why not? It's true," Teesha retorted. "You serve him, but I see the anger under that cold mask you wear. You bought his rise in power with your family's money and your own skills. Yet he treats you—all of us—like property, nothing more, and we will never escape until he is gone." She slid off the bench and knelt, touching his leg, her voice low to match his. "If I stay with him much longer, I'll find a way to end my existence."
Rashed pulled back but continued to stare down at her. "If he were gone, would you leave this place with me?"
"Yes, and we'd take Ratboy and Parko. We could make our own home."
Rashed finally stepped completely away and walked toward the heavy front door. He stopped and half turned, but he did not look at her. His jaw clenched.
"No, it's not possible." He jerked the door open with both hands. "Don't speak of this again."
But the seeds were properly planted. Alternately kind and cruel to Corische, Teesha easily managed to keep him home more often. Sometimes she flattered him, and he drank and fed upon her words. Sometimes, out of Rashed's presence, she would quietly insult Corische, making cutting guesses about his low birth. Behaving more and more like a fool of desire, he restrained himself from lashing out, shrank back, and sought some new way to solicit her approval. He never gave her verbal orders. She became the master and he the slave, and she despised him all the more for it.
Corische may not have let his anger out at Teesha, but it still burned inside him. In a fit of rage and frustration one night, he broke the