Blood of the Underworld

26

Zusa had no measure of time, nothing to go on but when they fed her. Twice a small boy adorned in gray robes arrived and gently spooned gruel into her mouth. As for drink, a young girl came bearing water every few hours or so. Every time it was a different girl, and Zusa looked upon them with pity. How many might soon hide their beautiful faces beneath rags and wrappings? She felt herself weakening, felt her muscles tightening and her back ache constantly. So far Vrashka had not returned, Daverik’s promise appearing true. But her time was almost up.

The door creaked open, and she stirred from her daydreams of life and freedom at the Gemcroft mansion. As if to confirm her fears, Daverik stepped inside, and he looked vaguely worried.

“Are you well?” he asked her, crossing the room.

“A cruel question to ask a woman in chains,” Zusa said.

“Perhaps. I have stretched my influence to its limits, Zusa. I can protect you no longer. What is your answer? Will you return to Karak’s bosom? Will you embrace the faith once more?”

Zusa shook her head.

“You know I won’t. What is there for me, Daverik?”

In answer, he knelt before her and brushed her face with his hand.

“There’s me,” he said. “There’s a life free of imprisonment and torture. Can that not mean something?”

“The temple’s laws will keep you from me.”

“Temple laws can be changed.”

Zusa laughed.

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

He shifted closer, leaning so close that she felt his breath on her neck. His hands brushed her arms, her sides, her breasts. His cheek pressed against hers as he whispered.

“It doesn’t matter. Come back to me, Katherine…”

She knew what he was trying to do. His lips pressed against her neck as he cupped her face. He was trying to reignite a distant flame, a flame that, perhaps for him, had never died. And while she felt it, too, it was nothing compared to the sudden flare of shame and disgust that overwhelmed her. It was one thing for him to touch her in a distant alley, a secret meeting between long lost lovers…but here? While manacles held her wrists to a wall? While her whole body ached from the imprisonment, and she sat in her own piss and shit?

“Katherine’s dead,” she said, pulling away from him best she could. “You killed her when you betrayed her to the priests, remember?”

He stood, and she saw the haunting memory in his eyes.

“I know,” he said. “I guess I’m a fool to still believe otherwise.”

Daverik walked toward the door, stopping just beside the strange flow of water falling from ceiling to floor.

“I learned this enchantment while in Mordeina, when I knew I might have to imprison you, or even one of my new Faceless,” he said, observing its flow. “It’s a marvelous thing, channeling all the powers of Karak into its water and away from its surroundings. Yet even the slightest disruption will momentarily break it. So powerful, yet so weak. Is that not how we all are, Zusa?”

He left without waiting for an answer. Zusa finally allowed herself to relax, and with his departure she damned him for hurting her so, damned him for the tears that started to flow. Hardly a minute later, the door reopened.

She expected her elderly torturer, but instead one of the Faceless entered. From what she could tell, it was not Ezra, but the other. The woman said nothing, only stepped around the stream of water falling from ceiling to floor so she might stand before Zusa with her arms crossed. She tilted her head to one side, staring, analyzing her like she might a strange animal.

“Like what you see?” Zusa asked, grinning despite her exhaustion.

The other woman slapped her, then knelt down so they might see eye to eye. Carefully she removed the thin cloth over her eyes, then pulled back the wrappings of her face, revealing her blonde hair and beautiful face. Her blue eyes stared into Zusa’s, and they held a frightening intensity.

“Who are you?” Zusa asked when her visitor still said nothing.

“Deborah,” she said.

“And who were you before you were Deborah?”

The woman shook her head.

“That name, that person, is lost and gone. I will not speak it to you.”

Zusa shrugged her shoulders best she could given the chains about her.

“If you insist.”

Deborah shifted, their faces so close to one another. She continued to study Zusa, looking over her dark eyes, skin, and hair.

“Why did you reveal your face?” Deborah finally asked. “Why did you turn against our god?”

Zusa smirked at her visitor.

“Are you having trouble with your faith, Deborah?”

Deborah grabbed her neck, shoved her against the wall, and held her there.

“You know nothing of me, Zusa, so do not insult me.”

“I know you wouldn’t ask if it were not so,” Zusa said with what little breath she could manage.

The hand about her throat released, and Deborah shifted a step backward.

“Do not question my devotion. I merely wish to know what it is that broke you, so I might better protect my own faith. Why…what made you decide to turn away?”

At this Zusa laughed, laughed until she could hardly breathe. Deborah struck her twice, but it did nothing to remove her dark humor.

“You want to know why I left?” she asked. “Why I abandoned Karak? I followed the orders given to me, to find and protect Alyssa Gemcroft years ago. But then Pelorak decided we were an insult to his temple. A wealthy member of this city decided we were a risk needing to be eliminated. A dark paladin decided we were blasphemous to his god, unworthy of forgiveness. I did nothing, Deborah. None of us did. We simply turned one day to find Karak’s followers arrayed against us Faceless. I never decided. My beloved friends died, until I was alone and lost. I never abandoned Karak. Karak and his temple abandoned me. The same will happen to you, Deborah. You’ll spend your life told you are shameful and weak, until one day you pull the cloth from your face, look into a mirror, and wonder what is so sinful about that beautiful blonde hair, so terrible about those icy blue eyes…”

Deborah struck her with a trembling hand.

“They warned me to not listen,” she said, unable to hide the fury in her voice. “I should have paid heed to those warnings. You are beyond redemption. Beyond reason. Never could I have guessed how foul a snake you are.”

“I can see it in your eyes,” Zusa, straining against her chains so she was mere inches from Deborah. “Deep down, you believe every single word I’ve said. Every. Single. Word.”

Deborah struck her with her fists, again and again. Zusa’s face swelled, and blood welled on her tongue. She kept her jaw clenched tight and let Deborah burn out her fury. When her grin never faltered, Deborah finally reached for her dagger and pressed it against her throat.

“I will cut the blasphemous tongue from your mouth,” she said. “I’ll burn it on Karak’s altar while I sing psalms of praise. You are a sick, broken thing, and it shames me to think you were once of my order. Open your mouth.”

Zusa shook her head. In response, Deborah struck her with the hilt of her dagger. The metal rattled her teeth, and she tasted more blood as a single tooth jarred loose. Zusa bit down hard, tearing the tooth free with a crack.

“I said open your mouth,” Deborah said, the tip of her dagger once more poking against her neck.

After slowly filling her lungs with air, Zusa spat the combination of tooth, blood, and saliva. It arced over Deborah’s head, through the air, and then broke the stream of water Daverik had created. Deborah had only the briefest moment to realize it before Zusa flung herself back while summoning the power that was hers. The entire room was awash with shadows, and this time when Zusa fell through the wall, nothing stole her away, nothing pulled her into the swirling depths of the Abyss. She emerged on the other side of the room, free of the manacles.

Deborah’s back was still to her, and she turned far too late. Zusa rolled once, then leapt, her heel slamming the other woman’s head forward. It hit the wall with a loud crack. Blood dripped down as her body collapsed to the hard stone. Zusa knelt for a moment, catching her breath, and then checked Deborah’s pulse. Still there, however faint. Despite the danger, Zusa kept her calm. Slowly she removed Deborah’s wrappings, then used them to replace her own. Feeling far cleaner, far more human, she took Deborah’s daggers, then spat a glob of blood onto Deborah’s pale, naked breasts.

“I’ll let you live,” she said. “Because one day, you will see just how right I was.”

The stream of water had resumed, and standing close to it made Zusa felt strangely empty. Glancing about, she found her tooth, then jammed it into the hole in the ceiling. Water continued to trickle down, but it was different somehow, lacking the proper hue. Zusa felt immediately better, though still physically weak. Her food and water had been rare, her movement limited. Holding the daggers made her fingers ache after the torture they’d taken, so that she had to grip them tighter for fear of losing control. It’d take a few days before she felt like her old self…

The door cracked open, without knock or warning given.

“How is my little doll?” Vrashka asked as he stepped inside. He froze at the macabre sight before him, and Zusa gave him no time to recover. She grabbed him while simultaneously kicking the door shut. With ease she flung him against the wall, a hand against his mouth to muffle his frightened scream.

“This little doll is leaving,” Zusa whispered into his ear as she pressed a dagger against his belly. “I suggest you stay calm, and answer me quietly and truthfully if you want to live. You understand?”

Vrashka nodded. If he was frightened, he didn’t show it. Zusa couldn’t help but be begrudgingly impressed.

“How many guards are outside the door?” she asked, then slowly pulled back her hand.

“None,” he said.

She sliced a gash across his forehead, the shallow cut bleeding profusely. That done, she pressed her hand once more against his mouth.

“Every lie you tell me, I cut lower,” she whispered. “Soon it will be your eyes, then your nose. Don’t make me reach your neck. How many guards?”

“None at the door,” Vrashka said, eyes closed against the blood that ran down into them. “There’s only one exit from the prison, up the hall. That’s where the guards are. I did not lie, little doll, I swear.”

“My name is Zusa, not doll,” she said, cutting across his eyebrows. “How many guards at the exit?”

It took a moment for the old man to gather his breath.

“Five,” he said. “There are always five.”

“Is it night or day?”

“The sun has just set. The temple is settling down for bed, my…Zusa.”

Zusa clasped a hand over his mouth, tried to think. If it were night, then her escape would be far easier. Her prison was deep underground, she knew, with no other exit besides the one with the guards. Five armored men would be difficult, especially with how weak she felt, but perhaps she might catch them off guard…

But escape was not the only thing on her mind.

“Where is Daverik?” she asked. “Is he in his room?”

The old man shook his head.

“I passed him on my way down. He said he felt unwell, and needed fresh air. He was hiding something, I could sense it. Looked troubled. Did you say something to him, little doll? Did you make him doubt himself?”

She tried to cut across both his eyes, but her dagger caught on the bridge of his nose so only one was split in half. When she pulled it free, Vrashka screamed, and her hand did little to muffle the noise. Knowing time was short, Zusa hoped that the scream, if heard, would be mistaken as hers instead of his. Blood was pouring from his face now, and Vrashka’s strength drained with it. Despite all the pain he must have felt, he bore a smile on his face.

“You…you make me sad,” he said when she flung him to the floor. “You could have withstood so much. Breaking you would have been my greatest accomplishment. Even the gentle touchers would be proud.”

He stared up at her with his lone eye, and she could tell he expected her to take his life. She almost obliged, but something about the sick satisfaction on his face turned her stomach. It was as if he viewed dying to her as a privilege.

“You’d never have broken me,” she said, grabbing the handle of her cell door. “But I broke you in seconds.”

“You’ll be back,” Vrashka said, laughing as she left. “You’ll still be mine, little…”

She flung a dagger through the air, straight through his remaining eye. Walking over to it, she yanked it out and shook off the eyeball.

“Stupid bastard,” she said. “You could have lived.”

With the door open, there was no way her escape had gone unnoticed. Taking a deep breath, she ran out the cell, hooked a right, and then charged straight down the corridor. There were only four total cells, with each door on her left. She’d been put in the furthest from the stairs, from what she could tell. At the far edge of the stone corridor was the exit Vrashka had spoken of. Five men stood guard, all with a lion painted across the front of their armor. They wielded a combination of short spears and swords, and four scrambled at the sight of her to form a defensive line. A fifth rushed up the stairs, no doubt to signal an alarm. Zusa sprinted faster, her breaths blasting in and out of her lungs.

“Halt!” one screamed.

Laughing at his cluelessness, she launched into the air, her body twisting like a dancer. Spears and swords pierced through the gaps in her arms and legs, catching nothing. Zusa jammed one dagger through a neck, and the other she rammed into the stomach of the man she slammed into. Together they fell, a heap of arms and legs. She rolled free in a heartbeat, spinning so that the nearest guard’s downward stab hit stone instead of flesh. Her heel caught his jaw, her left arm parried a desperate thrust, and then she was running up the stairs after the fifth, leaving the confused rest behind.

Him in his heavy armor, her in her wrappings, there was no chance, not for him. Her daggers pierced his back before he could finish opening the thick door at the top. Pushing the body behind her, she let it roll and tumble as an obstacle to the others chasing after. The door was not locked, and she flew through it. Beside the door was a heavy bar, and she wedged it into the nailed handles on either side of the entrance. The dungeon sealed, she had time now, perhaps enough to escape.

For a moment she forced her exhausted mind to think of the layout, to piece together where she was. The dungeon was located near the back of the temple. She stood in a short hallway, one way leading toward storage for various supplies and dried foods. The other was toward the barracks. Fists pounded on the opposite side of the door behind her, but she laughed at their helplessness. The temple was dark, quiet. Getting in might have proved difficult, especially with a trap laid for her. But getting out?

She ran, nothing but a shadow. She slipped through the barracks, with only a single young priest walking the halls. He never saw her coming. Her dagger cut his throat, and her hand muffled his dying gasp. On she ran, until reaching the grand worship hall. Peeking out from a door, she saw three men kneeling in prayer at the statue of Karak, his enormous presence bathed in purple fire. Zusa thought to kill them, but escape was her priority now, not vengeance. Crawling along the floor, she slipped through the pews, careful to make not a sound.

Two guards watched the door, spears in hand. When she reached the final pew, she sprinted out, deriving sick pleasure at the stunned look on the guards’ faces at her sudden appearance. In such close quarters, the spears were useless against her daggers. She cut them down, kicked open the door, and then rolled to avoid the bolts of shadow that leapt from the hands of the three priests who had been in prayer.

Now in open air, nothing would stop her. She ran across the courtyard, vaulted over the gates, and then left the temple far behind.

Zusa wanted to return to Alyssa, ached to be in a place she could call home, but did not. Vrashka had said Daverik felt unwell, and sought fresh air. Zusa knew there was more to it than that. With her balance teetering, she ran, her path weaving side to side through the street as if she were intoxicated. Her stomach ached, her tongue thirst for water, but on she went, until at last she reached the secluded gap by the wall where they’d first met.

Just as she thought, Daverik was there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Instead of his robes, he wore the plain clothes he’d had when first meeting her.

“I hope you didn’t kill too many,” he said, smiling at her arrival.

“Why?” she asked. “Why tell me how to escape?”

Daverik shook his head.

“It saddens me you have to ask. Do you think I lie to you, Zusa? That my feelings are false? I traveled across the entire continent to see you once again. I have slept with nightmares of our last moments together for ten long years. To see you beaten, humiliated, tortured into submission…”

He sighed.

“You know I can’t do that. No matter the blasphemy you might speak. No matter how hardened your heart is against me. And you were right, Zusa. Even if you came back, they’d have killed you. I can’t accept that. I won’t. They’re wrong about that, wrong about you, and I will stop them.”

Zusa bit back her retort, unwilling to spit in the face of the man who had helped her escape.

“What is going on?” she asked. “What role does the temple play in all this?”

“That I cannot say, for I do not know.”

“Then what do you know?”

“That you have a choice, one I’m not sure you’ll be willing to make.”

Something about the sudden shift of his tone made her throat clench.

“What do you mean?”

Daverik crossed his arms, and he looked to the sky so he might stare at the stars when he spoke.

“I know the man who has been playing puppeteer here in Veldaren. His name is Laerek, a priest from Mordeina. He was to meet with me tonight, very soon, but I have no intention of going. I have no desire to maintain this position I am in, to be taskmaster over the Faceless.”

Zusa clutched her daggers tight, and had to fight back her excitement at finally having a name, a person to hunt.

“You said there was a choice.”

“Indeed,” he said, pulling his gaze back down from the stars to her. “If you come with me, we can flee the city tonight, hide where not even the temple can find us. I’ll leave all gods and kings behind. I only came back here for you, Zusa, just for you. No one will know, no one will have reason to think you didn’t vanish into hiding back at Alyssa’s.”

He took a step toward her, reaching out a hand.

“We can be together,” he said. “I know I erred revealing our love to the priests. I know I was a fool to feel guilt and shame. Please, this is all I know to do to make up for it.”

“Is that all you have to offer me?” Zusa asked. She tried to ignore his words, his apologies. She thought of herself in her filth, him kissing her neck. Thought of how oblivious he’d been to her situation. She was just a memory to him, a perfect memory…

“I’m not sure I can,” she said. “You’re a stranger to me, Daverik.”

“Now perhaps, but not before. We were our firsts, Katherine. Surely no flame has burned brighter for you than I.”

Anger, she thought. Keep the anger fresh. Keep the betrayal fresh.

“I can’t,” she said at last. “I can’t leave Alyssa.”

Daverik sighed, but despite his obvious disappointment, he let out a bitter laugh.

“I know. I’d hoped otherwise, but I know. I’m sorry, Katherine. If you’d only said yes, I’d have never told you. I’d have spared you the heartache.”

Zusa felt her heart begin to race as her mind immediately went to the most dire of assumptions.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Daverik shook his head.

“I am not the only one to meet with Laerek tonight. The Widow was to meet him as well, but only after.”

Her racing heart stopped. Her stomach clenched.

“After what?” she asked.

“After killing Alyssa Gemcroft.”

Zusa flung herself at him, grabbing his neck so she might slam him against the wall.

“Why?” she screamed. “What have we done to deserve this?”

“I am not the one you should be angry with,” Daverik said, clutching her wrist. “I didn’t set this in motion. Alyssa represents something that is an affront to Karak, something that must be brought low to make way for his return.”

“Return? Whose return?”

Daverik shook his head.

“No time, Zusa. The Widow is just a puppet, a minor player in all this. Even Laerek is but a mouthpiece for the real force working behind everything. Alyssa is already dead. I’ll tell you where to find Laerek, but you must hurry. Take vengeance on him, before he leaves Veldaren forever.”

Zusa’s grip tightened, and she almost strangled the life from her former lover.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said in a raspy voice, fighting to breathe through her grasp. “Kill the one responsible, then come with me. We’ll leave this all behind. You’ll never feel pain again, not like this. Don’t go back. You don’t want to see it.”

“No,” she said, letting him go. “You’ve never understood me, Daverik, and you never will.”

With every last bit of strength she ran toward the Connington mansion, daggers at the ready, long cloak billowing.

Daverik watched her go, and his heart ached at the sight. He loved her, so much he loved her, but time and trials had changed her, warped her into something he only vaguely recognized.

“Such a shame,” he whispered.

He heard Ezra land behind him, quiet as a cat landing on padded feet.

“She still will not accept you, will she?” she asked.

Daverik shook his head.

“Zusa is too far gone, and whatever love she has for me is not enough to bring her back.”

He looked over his shoulder, saw her drawing her daggers. Daverik once more thought of the softness of Zusa’s skin, the way his lips had brushed her neck, and then cast aside the sinful memories so he might give his Faceless her order.

“She’ll interfere if she can. Kill her, and if the Widow cannot fulfill his task, then kill Alyssa as well.”

Ezra stepped closer, rubbing her wrapped face against his shoulder while leering up at him.

“You risked much for an old love,” she said. “Deborah just barely lives, and others of the temple are not so lucky.”

“The dead go to Karak, their souls claimed and protected,” Daverik snapped. “Zusa is greater than any of them, yet she will burn, only burn. I had to try.”

Ezra smirked as she stepped away to give chase.

“Tell me,” she said. “Would you have risked for my soul as you have for hers?”

He could not answer, and he felt his neck flush with the shame.

“I thought not,” Ezra said. “Dangerous games, Daverik. You play such dangerous games…”

She ran, to murder the only woman Daverik had ever loved. The act was just, of course, a necessary fate for a woman who had blasphemed against Karak. But he would find no comfort in it, no solace.

“Forgive me, Zusa,” he told the night. “Perhaps, after an eternity, I might one day hold your body against mine. But I’ve given you enough chances. I wash my hands of this. Your fault, not mine, dear Katherine…”