A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

from other poor wretches chained in those murky depths whose cries came ringing through her head, waking her from her half-consciousness. And then silence. . . silence for so long that she wondered if those screams, too, were of her own mind’s making.

Drip, drip, drip. . .

And still no one came.

She told herself that they could not leave her there to rot for no reason. Not for ever. And yet, her fears answered, when they do come. . . That thought filled her with an even greater dread.

The iron clank of the door and the grind of rust-bound hinges was the first she knew of it. The flare of torches blinding her for a second. She screwed her eyes closed. When she opened them again, she saw for the first time the cell they were keeping her in – a gloomy cube of black stones with a smear of green mould across their surface – and the men who held her.

Four of them – two tall sentinels, their white tunics and green cloaks absurdly clean in this filthy place. Then two other men, shorter, stockier, with close-cropped hair and dirty tunics that fell to their knees, and grimy, hairy feet in slime-fouled sandals. One carried a large bucket of water, the other a small bench. No one said a word. Hanging grimly from her chain, she watched the sentinels take up position either side of the little doorway. And then the fifth man entered.

Lord Katāros.

It was odd seeing him. She had not once thought of the eunuch in all the time they had held her here, and yet. . . something in her recognized him. Recognized that all that while, this was his domain.

He was dressed differently. In place of his brilliant white robes, he wore a long dark cloak with its hood thrown back. His long sweep of hair was pulled into a single tail, bound to its tip with gold rings that caught the light of the flickering torches.

‘Far from home, are we not?’ the eunuch said in Norse.

‘Why are you keeping me here?’ she replied in Greek, her voice a croak.

‘Has no one told you?’ he asked, switching to her choice of tongue.

‘No.’

‘A terrible oversight.’ Yet he offered no further explanation. His painted lips smiled. ‘Perhaps they were waiting for you to tell them.’

‘Tell who?’

‘Tell anyone. Tell me. Tell God.’ A sliver of chuckle escaped his pale throat. ‘Confession.’ Slowly he circled around the back of her, passing so close she felt a ripple of dead air in his wake. ‘Confess your sin, my lady. The priests say it is very cleansing. Unburden the shame on your heart. We are listening.’

‘What shame?’ she croaked. ‘What sin?’

‘The All-Seeing God sees the heart. He sees the truth of a person. There is no hiding. Come now – of what are you guilty?’

A chill ran through Lilla’s blood. What was this game he wanted to play? Hide-and-seek? Yet was she the one hiding or seeking? And if seeking, what was she supposed to find? ‘I may be guilty of many things. But nothing deserving of this treatment.’

‘No? Deserving of what then? Do the guilty choose their own punishment? Does the wrongdoer set the wergeld?’ he said in Norse. ‘The priests say the wages of sin is death. What sin then do you cherish in the depths of that. . . shapely bosom?’

‘Name my crime. If I have offended His Majesty – or done some wrong against him, or any person in his realm – tell me. Tell me now!’

‘It is not for me to feed you words. A confession must be a pure act. An act of truth. I give you this chance now. Speak freely. Or else –’ he shook his head regretfully, making the little gold rings in his hair jingle softly – ‘we must help you reach the truth by other means.’

She gazed down at his face. An expressionless mask of beauty, devoid of life, empty of joy or sadness. A blankness, like a slab of granite cut from a mountain quarry, its smooth surface unchangeable by time if left unworked by the stonecutter’s chisel. Yet strangely something in it reminded her of Erlan. There was something unknowable in him, too. Some secret locked away. . .

Was she guilty? Was she guilty of hate, of lusting for vengeance, of violent thoughts and wounded pride, and boiling anger? Aye. All of those and more. Of deceit and crooked motives. Of untamed passion. Of a yearning for something she could not name, of a dissatisfaction with the world as she found it. Ingratitude. A maddening, unslakable thirst. It was not enough. What she had was not enough. If she had the whole world, it could not satisfy her. But why? Why? She wished she knew. Wished she could mine the answers that lay hidden in her heart and bring them to the light.

But she said nothing.

‘No?’ The eunuch’s mouth flickered in a sad smile. ‘Oh, dear.’ He turned to the pair of smaller men and nodded. At once they moved in and set about unfastening her and lowering her to the ground. She made no effort to resist, not knowing what they intended. In any case, their grip was too strong, their short, hairy fingers digging hard into her arms and shoulders. They forced her to sit upon the bench and then stretched her out on it on her back, rebinding her arms tight beneath it and her ankles to its legs.

‘You should recognize this.’ Katāros was standing behind her now. There was something deeply unnerving about seeing his painted mouth upside down. He was holding something out, something blue and gold. He let it fall over her face. Soft as silk. ‘Proceed,’ he said in Greek.

The next moment the material was stretched taut over her face and gripped behind her head. At once she struggled to breathe, sucking hard to force the stagnant air of the dungeon through the material. The silk smelled familiar, a scent of cinnamon