She fell to her knees in front of Valan. ‘Forgive me, honoured, forgive me. I didn’t want … but he insisted and I, I was afraid. My husband is so angry, but …’ She let the tears come, tears from weeks of fear and responsibility and grief. ‘I told Bern that I belong to you now.’ She whispered the last, casting a guilty glance in Vaunt’s direction, and then dared to look Valan in the eye. ‘Although my heart forever belongs with Tomaz. Please don’t hurt him for my error, lord.’
Valan hauled her to her feet, not unkindly. ‘The error was not yours. The error was Bern’s, who failed to realise that a slave collar means a woman is fucking claimed by another.’ He roared the last in Bern’s face and all of them flinched.
Bern fought his way to his feet. ‘Just checking that fucking Ranker hadn’t had a go at her,’ he whined. ‘Didn’t want you raising no bastard of a Rilporian.’
‘Touch her again and I’ll cut your cock off, roast it and make you eat it – do you understand?’
Bern spat blood. ‘Aye, Second,’ he said, tone sullen and eyes defiant. ‘I understand.’
‘Get out.’ Bern and the other guard sidled through the barracks entrance and Valan glared at the men chained closest. They turned away. He put a finger beneath Tara’s chin and raised her head. ‘Did he hurt you?’
She looked into his face and let a hint of fire show through. ‘Yes. But that is the lot of a slave, isn’t it? To be hurt.’
Valan’s mouth twitched, as though he appreciated her answer even as he didn’t deny its truth. ‘Bern won’t bother you again, but if he does, tell me. Work hard, do as you’re told, and you can visit your husband again.’
‘Yes, honoured,’ Tara said and followed him from the barracks, absurdly grateful for his intervention. Vaunt’s kiss was still on her mouth, but it was Valan who’d kept her safe.
Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
Red Gods’ temple, temple district, First Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands
‘Sire, how may I serve?’
If Corvus resented having to trek through the city to the temple in order for her to ‘serve’ him, it didn’t show on his face. Nothing showed on Corvus’s face but what he wanted people to see.
She padded out of the shadows of the temple and watched him drink in the sight of her, the godblood adorning her skin, the marks and the wisdom they imparted painting her in truth and promise and hope. The blood of the Dark Lady, stained forever in swirls and sigils on Lanta’s body, tingling and whispering like the breath of a lover.
She curtseyed and he offered a stiff nod in return, declined wine or water or food. Annoyed, then, and straight to business. Lanta suppressed a sigh.
‘We have thousands of slaves and not enough food to feed them all,’ Corvus said. Lanta blinked. What did she care about stinking Rilporians? ‘You said we would offer a mass sacrifice to bring back the Bloody Mother, and yet there is still no date set for the ritual. May I know the reason for the delay, Blessed One?’
‘You think hungry slaves determine when a work as great as this will be carried out?’ she asked. ‘This is why you come to me, interrupt our devotions, our ritual-crafting?’ She stood in a swirl of skirts. ‘I don’t have time for this.’
‘Hungry slaves are rebellious slaves,’ Corvus said doggedly, staying her with his voice. ‘I have sent Fost to bring home the women and children from the mountains; soon the city will have even more mouths to feed. You told me to spare as many lives as possible for your great rite and there are two prison barracks bursting with angry, hungry soldiers and I cannot keep them alive indefinitely. Would you have me take bread from our young to give to them?’
‘I would have you do your job as king and sort out such matters. Do you need me to wipe your arse for you as well?’ She was tired and frustrated – the ritual they needed didn’t exist and she and high priest Gull had no previous lore to draw upon – but still, she shouldn’t have said it. The temperature in the room plummeted, chilled by the ice in Corvus’s expression.
Lanta inhaled through flared nostrils. ‘Sire, forgive my hasty words. I am very tired. I thought I had made myself clear – the slaves will be needed in the great rite that restores the Dark Lady to us in the body of your sister’s child.’
Corvus thumped the arm of his chair. ‘You want me to keep them alive until – when, Yule? Another half-year? Impossible!’
‘This is the richest country in Gilgoras, Sire. Are you telling me you cannot find enough grain to feed slaves a starvation diet? I need their bodies and blood and fear, not sleek muscles and healthy minds. They can be raving skeletons for all I care, just keep them alive.’
‘We trampled through most of the Wheat Lands during the siege. We have ruined half the crop.’ Corvus was standing too now, anger gleaming just below the frustration.
‘Then it is a good thing we only need to feed the half of the population that walks the Dark Path,’ Lanta snapped. ‘Sire, please. I don’t have time to come up with all the answers for you. Back in Eagle Height you made it clear that I should confine myself to spiritual matters while you dealt with the rest, and now you come here expecting me to magic bread out of the air and take control of those very matters you have excluded me from. I cannot. I will not.’
‘We will have a rebellion on our hands, Blessed One. Slaves and Mireces will die in that rebellion.’
Lanta gritted her teeth. ‘You swore that everything you did was for the glory of the gods. They need more than glory now; They need an act of faith so enormous that it returns the Dark Lady to us. All other considerations are as nothing in the face of that. What we are attempting has never been done and I will not have you jeopardise it. I will not, so I don’t care where you get it from, just find the food and keep my sacrifices alive until I need them.’
Corvus’s hand was squeezing the hilt of his dagger, but not in threat, she thought. ‘You ask too much.’
‘The gods always ask too much, Sire,’ she said softly. ‘And we always provide Them with what They demand. We are Mireces; sacrifice is in our blood.’
He had no answer to that, of course, as she’d known he wouldn’t. It furthered his frustration and added another crack in the bond that had united king and Blessed One thus far in their great conquest. Corvus stalked from the temple without another word, and when he was gone Gull detached himself from the shadows and joined her.
‘You are concerned?’ he asked.
‘He was the perfect king to lead us to victory – even a victory such as this, that cost us our Bloody Mother. But is he the king to rule Rilpor in the gods’ names? Is he the king who will do all that is necessary to see Them ascendant?’
‘You doubt his loyalty?’ Gull was surprised.
‘Never,’ Lanta responded instantly, and was a little surprised to find it was the truth. ‘I doubt his … ability. Corvus is a killer and a leader of men, but is he a governor? Can he provide for his people and keep the slaves in their places? When he killed King Liris, he took over an established and stable world. This one he is building from scratch and I don’t think he knows how. I don’t think he really wants to.’
‘He wants to go to war.’
Lanta rocked her head from side to side. ‘He knows