Shadow Queen - By Deborah Kalin Page 0,37
make sure Mathis and Gunther were still well out of earshot. ‘If the circumstances of our binding don’t trouble you,’ I continued, turning back to Shadi, ‘the truth of that night may.’
Shadi grinned.
I flushed, embarrassed by her assumption, and ashamed, too, at having been so easily duped by Dieter in the first place. I summoned the words, practised them first in my head: He hexed me. He branded me to remind me of it, and he holds my life in thrall to his whim; but when I opened my mouth to speak them, no sound emerged.
‘Well?’ Roshi demanded.
He bound me with shadows, and holds my life hostage, I tried to say, but the words which emerged were, ‘He didn’t touch me. He left me alone.’
Shadi reached over to pat my hand, but I snatched it away, cutting short her pity.
He can kill me whenever he wants simply by erasing a single symbol branded on my forehead, I wanted to say, but, ‘We haven’t spent the night together since,’ came out instead.
I snapped my teeth shut on my damning words. It seemed Dieter’s hex not only held sway over the pulse of my life, but also controlled my tongue and blocked my words like a weir across a river.
Perhaps if I unbound my veil, I thought desperately, but my hands gripped each other until the knuckles seemed fused and I couldn’t pry them apart. I wanted to scream with the frustration of it, but my throat was still locked. The extent of Dieter’s trap threatened to overwhelm me.
How could I ever unlock the hex if I couldn’t find a way to speak of it?
FIFTEEN
I SPENT OUR remaining days with the Skythes in a haze of misery and frustration. Each anxious night huddled in Dieter’s tent robbed me of rest, and each day I walked by his side as we went among the Skythe tribe, building the foundations of an alliance. Here Dieter’s weapons were diplomacy and words, and he wielded them with skill, charming my mother’s people, forging friendships and shaping relations.
He had taken the Turholm and my throne through force and bloodshed, but he took my mother’s people with geniality and assurances. First he reinstated the agreement my father had made, ceding them the right to winter in Sueben lands in exchange for protection from the raiding of other Skythe tribes.
Then he went further. He promised them access to trade among the Turasi. He pledged military aid, and bolts of silk from the Ilthean empire, and steel spearheads from Turasi forges. In return he won the alliance he needed, the promise of Nilofen aid should he call.
And all the while I must hold silent. For no matter how hard I tried, the words which would damn Dieter and dissolve the alliance turned, like chameleons, into secrets I would never willingly speak aloud.
‘I wish for a life of anonymity,’ I confessed to Roshi when she fetched me one morning. ‘I want to be inconsequential. That’s true freedom.’
‘Pretend you’re a goatherder while you eat buapi’s eggs, then,’ she said, screwing her face up.
Our final day with the Nilofen drew on to a calm blue evening. To mark the alliance and bid us fair speed, they prepared us a feast. A great fire built midway between the two camps sent showers of sparks leaping for the stars before drifting downwind. Haunches of goat, marinated in a honey and nut glaze and stuffed with goat’s cheese, were wrapped in great mats of woven grass and buried over a bed of coals. The rich, tender scent released on opening the buried ovens was intoxicating.
Dieter presided over the feast with an easy grace, firelight casting a rosy flush on his cheeks. Frightened of what might slip from my mouth, I kept silent.
There were gifts, of course. Dieter presented the Nilofen with three pairs of magnificent foals from my stables. ‘They’re of Skythe stock, primarily,’ he glibly repeated what he’d learnt from me en route. ‘But we’ve bred a little of the Trakkan line into them, to increase their stamina.’
Briefly, I dared hope it would offend them. But the man led a charmed life, the Skythes’ deep bows indicating appreciation of such a kingly gift.
As well as gifting me my newfound cousin, Roshi, as a companion, the Skythes presented me with a half-dozen men to serve as my honour guard. They all wore a new symbol sewn to the lapels of their goatskin tunics: a spear-headed swan. Shadi must have copied the design from my necklace.
Hope flared