A Wilderness of Glass Read online

  Zigana avoided his gaze. “A favor for Brida. She’s come to Banat to speak with you. I brought her so she wouldn’t have to walk.”

  Undercurrents heavy enough to drown in flowed between his lordship and the woman who was his wife’s bastard sister. Any other time Brida might have squirmed inwardly at the moment’s awkwardness and made her excuses to find something else to do. However, she hadn’t come to Castle Banat on a whim, and she needed Lord Frantisek’s attention.

  “My lord,” she said, interrupting the silent exchange between the two. His eyes shifted from their heavy regard of Zigana to focus on her. Zigana snatched up Gitta’s reins and led her to the farthest hay rack, out of earshot.

  “Mistress Gazi, how may I be of service?”

  Brida’s eyebrows lifted. He did remember her name, and his courtly manner toward her eased her fretfulness a little. “My lord, I know Syr Ospodine is still your guest. I must speak with him about an important matter as soon as possible.”

  She tried very hard not to reveal her distaste for the man in front of his host, but she needn’t have worried. Judging by the lift of Lord Frantisek’s upper lip, he shared the sentiment.

  “He is indeed, Mistress Gazi. It has been long and long, and I count the hours until he tires of my hospitality. But he isn’t here at the moment. You may find him walking along Madigan’s Teeth. There’s a path that winds down the bluff where the slope isn’t so steep. You can reach it from the east side of the demesne. I can have one of my guards show you the way.” He motioned one of the soldiers over, a man Brida recognized as the son of Ancilar’s miller.

  Brida glanced down at her shoes and inwardly sighed. She wasn’t wearing the right footwear to go hiking along Madigan’s Teeth, especially as it grew dark. The jagged landscape on that side of the bluff was a favored place for catching crabs and harvesting a type of mollusk that clung to the rock with holdfasts stronger than ship rigging. They also made the rock face slimy. Going barefoot was a fool’s choice that guaranteed feet sliced to bloody ribbons by the sharp edges of the mollusk shells.

  There was nothing for it. She’d pray they’d meet on the path as he returned, and if they didn’t, then she’d have to be extra careful navigating the Teeth and dealing with Ospodine.

  The miller’s son, a lad named Endel, saluted his lordship then offered Brida a smile. “Welcome to the castle, Mistress Gazi.”

  “Escort the mistress to the Madigan path.” Lord Frantisek eyed Brida. “He can go with you if you wish.” A brief scowl flickered across his face. “It might be wise I think.”

  She almost refused, afraid too many might learn of the merfolk’s existence in the waters or see Ahtin swimming in the waves. She discarded the idea. There were risks in everything, and after her last encounter alone on the beach with Ospodine, she welcomed the presence of a companion for this one. Besides, many a trick of the moonlight played on the Gray, and people imagined seeing things that weren’t there.

  She accepted the offer, then thanked Zigana for the ride, assuring her she need not wait for Brida’s return.

  “Brida.” Zigana touched her arm. A shadow of memory passed across her face. “Gitta killed one obluda. Only one. Be careful.”

  Brida patted the other woman’s hand to reassure her. If Zigana only knew how often of late Brida had visited the shore at night… Fortunately, the only sounds arising from the Gray had been those she heard all her life or Ahtin whistling her name in welcome.

  With the darkness fast descending, Endel handed Brida a lamp and carried one himself to light their way down the path. The dirt road snaked down the slope between scrubby bushes that shivered in the wind. Madigan’s Teeth lay ahead, rising sharply from the base of the bluff like fangs in a dragon’s mouth, spaced with narrow gullies hollowed out by the eternal tide. Shallow stair treads of more stone jutted into the water, their surfaces adorned with clusters of mussels.

  The Gray heaved toward the shore here, hurling breakers against the rocks with battering force as if protesting their intrusion into the water. Foamy remnants left by the dying flow of waves burst and bubbled in the spaces between the mussel shells or oozed back toward their source in a serpentine wash. The sea didn’t just sing, it thundered.

  A black silhouette stood just out of reach of the surf’s swash, its long tunic flapping in the wind like a gull’s wings. Brida recognized the narrow profile and slim frame. Ospodine.

  “Stay here, keep watch” Brida instructed Endel. She didn’t need him overhearing this conversation.

  “But mistress.” Endel tugged on her sleeve. “His lordship said—”

  “For you to accompany me, and you have.” She held her lamp higher so that he could see her smile. “You can see me quite clearly from here, and you’re close enough to come to my aid should I need it.”

  He eyed her, then the place where Ospodine stood. “If you’re sure,” he conceded reluctantly.

  She admired his commitment and his bravery. “I’m sure.”

  Ospodine turned his head a fraction and dipped his chin even less in acknowledgement of her presence. “I wondered if you might join me.”

  “Don’t be coy, syr. You knew I would.” She set the lamp down. “I’ll not play this game of yours. You know I’ve some knowledge of the merfolk and their language, and I know you’ve been spying on me. Why?”

  His smug demeanor took on a more contemptuous quality. Brida was reminded of their confrontation on the beach when he’d touched her elbow before yanking his hand back as if discovering she had fleas. “I think your knowledge of the sea people goes beyond understanding a few clicks and whistles, wouldn’t you say?”

  She refused to respond to his baiting. The idea that he might have observed her making love with Ahtin in the cave sent a surge of bile into her throat. She held it back by virtue of silent outrage. “Why?” she repeated.

  Disappointed by her flat response, he gave up baiting her. “Because you’re a means to an end.” He pointed to her skirt pocket. “You brought the flute you used at the castle this time, didn’t you?”

  How had he known she carried it with her?

  As he seemed in the mood to answer her questions, she pulled the flute from her pocket to show him. In the darkness, it seemed to glow softly in her palm, bleached ivory with a touch of magic humming through its striations. “How did you know?”

  Ospodine didn’t try to snatch the flute from her as he had at Castle Banat, content to stare at it with the same avid expression he’d worn then. “The flute’s value to you is that your father made it, yes?” He continued when she simply stared at him. “It’s far more than the clumsy desecration from a land dweller’s carving knife.”

  Brida clenched her jaw to stop herself from sniping at him in return.

  He turned back to survey of the Gray. “The bone he found came from the sleeping deep, off the remains of a being so ancient the oldest of the Elder races were infants, when humans themselves weren’t even the lickspittle of a lesser god’s afterthought. It’s the remnant of an ancestor from where all sea people came. The mer, the yastri, the kyzyn.” His sneering glance raked her from head to foot. “And somehow you, a filthy land dweller, ended up with it. The gods laugh.”

  Stunned by the revelation that there were other kinds of merfolk, Brida hid her surprise and returned his contempt with a once-over stare of her own. “Are you not a man with legs?” He spoke as if he were somehow separate from—and better than—those with whom he shared ground.

  “Not always.” He waved a hand down his front. “Before I became this abomination, I was like your lover. A merman of the Gray.”

  Brida lost the battle to remain impassive and gaped at Ospodine. She struggled to find words, shocked to her soul by his disclosure. Fluke or feet, this snide, arrogant creature was nothing like Ahtin.

  Once her initial shock faded, she adopted a more stoic expression, one that no longer fooled the smirking Ospodine. “You still haven’t truly answered my first question.” She was a means to
an end. What end?

  “I need you to play the last two notes of that four-note tune. This flute will play them, and they will spread across the waters so that all the herds hear and know you call.”

  While Brida had no intention of offering up the flute to him, she was curious. “Why can’t you play it?”

  A bitter smile twisted his mouth. “Because I rejected the sea to walk the land. The flute recognizes this and rejects me in turn. No music, no notes will come from it if I tried to play.”

  His forthrightness carried a hidden edge to it. Brida sensed there was more to this than a merman abandoning his heritage to walk among men and later regretting it. Something much darker. Something terrible enough that the long dead remains of an origin ancestor refuted him.

  “The merman won’t come,” she said, refusing to speak Ahtin’s name. Ospodine had already helped himself to enough of her privacy. She pretended continued ignorance of the four-note tune’s meaning. His request for her to play only the last two made her glad she’d warned Edonin of his interest. Those notes were her name.

  He shrugged. “I don’t care about your lover. It’s his ap I want.”

  Never before had Brida wished her instincts had been wrong. But they weren’t. This wasn’t some trophy hunter looking for a mythical creature to hunt and kill for profit or fame. Ospodine hunted with a more personal purpose. A more singular one, and it centered not on Ahtin but on Edonin. She shuddered inwardly, so very glad she had followed her gut and warned the matriarch about him.

  Certain Edonin would ignore the summons, no matter how far or deep the flute’s voice carried across the Gray or how many merfolk heard it, Brida didn’t resist. “If she answers, will you then leave me be?”

  “Yes.”

  Again his reply carried the knife’s edge of a lie, an unspoken “Unless…” Brida glanced back to where Endel waited for her. She didn’t think he’d be much help in a physical altercation with Ospodine. He was younger than the nobleman, bigger, but she knew without a doubt who was the more dangerous of the two. Still, she felt better having the guard there.

  She took her time wiping the salt spray off the flute before playing a short lullaby to warm up the instrument. Ospodine shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, but stayed quiet. A glimmer of moonlight reflected in his eyes, revealing a hint of eye-shine at their edges. He might have forsworn all of his heritage. Not all of it had forsworn him.

  The flute throbbed under her fingers at her first exhalation of the two notes, as if welcoming a long-lost loved one. Unlike previous times when Brida had played the entire four notes of Edonin’s message to her, the flute released the notes of the ap’s name in an undulation of sound that swept across the rocks and out to the Gray.

  Waves caved in on each other as if to capture the name and embrace it. Brida played Edonin’s name several times until the very air around her hummed with the summons. Far in the liquid glass wilderness, something answered in a voice not of sound but of vibration that made the rock beneath her feet shiver.

  Still, the ap didn’t appear.

  Ospodine’s rapturous expression soured, then blackened. Brida stepped back. “Summon your lover,” he practically snarled at her.

  Brida glared at him. He was mad if he thought she’d use the flute to bring Ahtin here. Did Ospodine think her so stupid that she didn’t readily see his objective? If he couldn’t entice Edonin to answer him, he’d lure her. “No. I’ve done as you wanted, played the two notes. Whatever I’m calling chooses not to answer.”

  “Summon him!” His bellow might have pinned her ears back if the wind hadn’t torn it to shreds.

  “No!” Terrified now, she bolted for the path, calling her escort’s name.

  Agony exploded across her scalp as she suddenly went airborne before slamming into the ground on her back. Every scrap of air in her lungs rushed out of her mouth in a hard gust. She fought to draw in a breath, even as she was hauled to her feet and suspended just above a cluster of mussel shells by Ospodine’s merciless grip on her plait.

  Tears streamed down her face, and she could do nothing more than wheeze in pain when he shook her like a dog held by its ruff

  Ospodine pointed to Endel who hadn’t moved. His empty gaze stared beyond them to the rolling Gray. “He can’t hear you.” Mockery oozed from every word, and he shook her again for good measure. “Ensorceled by your own playing. Now you know what true siren song can do.”

  He dragged her back across the rocks. Brida clawed at his hand on her braid, trying to keep him from scalping her even as mussel shells broke under her weight and shredded the back of her skirt. She’d lost the flute somewhere in the struggle and prayed it had fallen into the water.

  Ospodine finally stopped, dropping her like a sack of refuse. Brida just missed smacking her skull on the hard surface. Wet heat tickled the back of her neck, and she touched the spot, following the line of its source into her scalp. Blood, dark under the moon’s light, stained her fingers.

  Her ordeal wasn’t over. She’d hardly regained her breath and rolled to her hands and knees to stand, when Ospodine snatched her up by her blouse, his grip preternaturally strong and unyielding. He spun her to face him. She twisted in his grasp, desperate to free herself. He held her with little effort, the grin he wore one of pure malice.

  “Lost the flute, didn’t you?” His eyes shone almost yellow, reminding her of a wolf’s gaze. He shrugged at her silence. “No matter. You can whistle his name. I’ve heard you.” That shark’s grin widened. “Ahtin, isn’t it?” He laughed when Brida struggled even harder. “Sounds like Edonin finally got the fast swimmer she always wanted.”

  When Brida still refused to summon Ahtin, even by whistling, Ospodine gave an unconcerned shrug. “No matter,” he said. “We can do it the hard way.”

  He overpowered her struggles, dodging the punches she tried to land on him, and bound her hands and feet. She screamed for help to no avail. Endel, still imprisoned by siren song, stared unseeing at the sea, unaware. Those in the castle were too far away to hear her, especially with the roar of the breakers as they hurled themselves against the rocks.

  The bindings Ospodine used were neither rope, nor cord, nor silk, but threads of lightning bolts woven into sorcerous shackles. Vibrations traveled up her body, forcing her muscles to involuntarily contort and contract in places. More of the woven lightning coiled around her waist, spooling out to a silvery tether that ended in Ospodine’s grip. The shark smile flitted across his face before he shoved her off the rock’s flange.

  Brida plunged into the surf and sank like a stone. The churning water shoved her one way and then the other amid a froth of bubbles and sand whipped into underwater whirlwinds. She held her breath, lungs on fire, and kicked her bound feet for the surface. Her chest felt close to bursting, her body’s natural instincts screaming that she find air and breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

  A tremendous force smashed her stomach into her backbone as she was yanked upward, clearing the surface in a cascade of seawater to fall on cold rock with a jarring thump. Brida opened her mouth to suck in a gulp of precious air. Her manacles sizzled against the skin of her wrists, and among the scents of sea and salt, she smelled scorched flesh.

  Ospodine’s sneering features filled her field of vision as he bent down to stare at her. “Do you think you’re valuable enough to your lover to save from drowning?” He nudged her body with his foot. “What say you, land walker whore? Another dip in the Gray?”

  Inwardly, Brida screamed. Outwardly, she inhaled until her ribs felt pressed to her shoulders. Once more, Ospodine tossed her into the water. Once more the churning spume flung her about in a blinding whirl.

  She refused to give up, refused to give in to the drag of her skirts and the blackness closing around her as the air faded in her struggling lungs. She fought to reach the surface, each effort more feeble than the last.

  A flash of something dark within the foaming water shot past her. The hint of a dorsal fin that pivoted
and aimed straight for her. A betraying bubble escaped her mouth, and she gulped in seawater, surrendering her last gasp of air to the Gray.

  The delirium of drowning mixed with her body’s panicked struggle to survive weighted her down, and Brida felt herself sinking, sinking.

  Hands gripped her hips, and a long, muscular body flexed against hers. The lightning bonds loosened, freeing her waist, hands, and feet, as her rescuer lunged to the surface, taking her as well. For a second time she hit unforgiving ground and promptly vomited sea water from her mouth and nose.

  She lay on her side, but not alone this time, and the realization made her sob in defeat. Ahtin lay beside her, clutching her close as she gasped against him. Fingers caressed her head.

  “Brida,” he whispered softly. “I’m here.”

  “And the fish finally takes the bait.” Ospodine’s voice rang with gloating triumph. “I wondered how many times I’d have to dunk her before you decided to appear and play the hero.”

  It was a monumental effort, but Brida raised her head enough to see that the sorcerous tethers Ospodine had used to bind her had transformed and now bound both her and Ahtin together in a filigree net delicate as spider web, unbreakable as steel.

  He used the most basic fishing wisdom. Bait the hook until you caught the fish you wanted.

  Brida stroked Ahtin’s cheek, still too starved for air to waste it on talking. Or whistling. She told him with her gaze what she couldn’t yet say with words. “Why did you come? You shouldn’t have come.”

  As if he read her thoughts, the merman spoke into her hair. “Because you are here. Where else would I be?” He chased the tear sliding down her cheek, kissing it away.

  A new voice traveled across the waves, strident, commanding. “Release them!”

  Brida tried to rise for a better look at Edonin, but the net entrapping her and Ahtin only allowed her enough movement to peek past Ahtin’s shoulder and see the ap swimming toward them. Another movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she jerked in Ahtin’s embrace.