Oathbreakers' Guild (The Rose Shield Book 2) Read online

  “Don’t come back unless you aim for me to fix the woad around your eye.”

  “It’s not a woad,” she insisted for the twentieth time. “And I wouldn’t dare.”

  He inspected her back and slapped her behind. “Then put your clothes on, eat something, and scram.” He shuffled toward the door and flapped a gnarled hand at a basket of apples. “I got a new recruit coming in for a bit of green.”

  “Pleasure is a nice way to begin,” she said.

  “I have to carve them up first, Catling.” He stopped at the door. “Next time, we’ll do the eye.”

  “Yes, Markim-Ava.” She pulled her robe over her shoulders, veiling her nakedness. His warm smile touched her heart as he shambled from the room, not bothering to glance back.

  Chapter Seven

  The formal session yet to commence, Kadan stood by the lesson hall window. Clouds purled like spilled milk across the Summertide sky. He waited for Dalcoran’s instructions, the doyen impatient with him and his paucity of information. He’d reported all he knew about the strengths and limitations of Catling’s skills. The shield, both potent and flawed, came with rules that left vulnerabilities in every application despite Vianne’s persistent attempts to mold and stretch it.

  Two seasons of training had passed, and Catling’s influence was weak and inconsistent. She assailed him as instructed and then seemed unable to maintain the intensity. He had no idea whether her poor skills were a side effect of her shield. A wave of sympathy for her predicament trickled into his consciousness and evaporated as quickly. Why the guild’s challenges with her complicated his life fired his blood.

  Dalcoran paced behind him. Piergren slouched in a chair, legs extended and ankles crossed. His dark hair hung loosely over his shoulders, narrow-eyed amusement twitching his lips.

  “Has she used her shield that you’re aware of?” Dalcoran asked.

  “Only under Vianne’s instructions,” Kadan replied. “I haven’t given her reason to.” In the following silence, he could almost hear the unspoken order to disobey guild strictures. He couldn’t risk it. Even if Dalcoran spared his life, he wouldn’t survive the torment. The effects of pain and fear were supposed to be temporary, and though they faded, his nightmares hadn’t disappeared.

  “We need to push her to the limit of her tolerance,” Piergren said. “It serves the realm to know where her vulnerability lies. I’m confident I can press her into using her shield.”

  The muscles in Kadan’s neck constricted, the prospect of another bout of agony more than he could bear. Dalcoran drove him hard, but as his mentor, the doyen possessed intelligible reasons and limits to his cruelty. Piergren had never proved himself a man of restraint. Even after his whipping as an oathbreaker, the doyen taught with a heavy hand.

  “Vianne will object.” Dalcoran turned for another pass.

  “Vianne plays her own cards.” Piergren eyed Kadan. “Our motives aren’t flawed, and I promise not to kill the girl.”

  “Reassuring.” A pensive crease lined Dalcoran’s brow. “As you wish, doyen. I trust you will take care.”

  “You desire your answer.” Piergren straightened in his chair. “I’ll do what’s necessary to break her.”

  A knock announced Catling’s arrival. Kadan let her in and nodded a greeting. Her eyes darted to Piergren, and the man leered like a predator that had cornered his prey. Dalcoran approached her, and she bowed as he paused on his way out. “My respects, Dalcoran-Elan.” She swiveled to the seated doyen. “My respects, Piergren-Rho.”

  “Shut the door,” Piergren said. “You’re late.”

  Catling obeyed. “My apologies.”

  Piergren rose and poured himself a goblet of water. He leaned on the edge of the room’s desk, a picture of control. “Today I will stretch your limits.”

  “Dalcoran was teaching us to layer subtlety,” she said.

  “Subtlety?” Piergren grunted. “My specialty isn’t subtlety. Face each other.”

  Kadan assumed his position on the open floor, dread climbing his spine. Catling did the same, and he wondered if the fear in her eyes matched his own.

  “I needn’t remind you,” Piergren said, “nothing we will do here is permanent. This is for training purposes alone. When you are ready, Catling, you will apply a modest amount of pain to Kadan’s joints.”

  Kadan waited, the anticipation unbearable. Catling closed her eyes and inhaled. A tiny twinge of discomfort eased into his joints.

  “You will only prolong this with your timidity,” Piergren said, studying Kadan’s face.

  The stress in Kadan’s knees increased, and he winced.

  “Catling,” Piergren barked. “Increase until I tell you to stop.”

  “Vianne says subtlety is more effective.” Catling flinched as Piergren thrust a hand in her direction. The turmoil in Kadan’s body leapt. He let out a breath and staggered to a seat.

  “I’m not teaching subtlety,” Piergren reminded her. “Today we stretch. Continue.”

  Kadan groaned as the pain slid into agony. He twisted on the chair, clawing at the arms, and his fingers began to curl.

  “Higher,” Piergren ordered, the intensity beading on his ruddy face.

  Kadan’s bones twisted, cartilage ripping. He needed to escape her, stop her, kill her before she took him too far. “Stop! Arrgh, stop!” He lunged from the seat, landing on the floor and twisting as his back bent. Catling cried as he begged her, and suddenly the pain vanished, his body swept with a flood of warm ease.

  “That’s quite enough,” Catling said, her voice trembling beneath her resolve. “If I’m ever required to coerce someone, that will be sufficient. I won’t hurt him further. You have tested me enough.”

  Kadan looked up at the defiant set of her jaw, her eyes challenging the doyen. His pain had evaporated, yet he hated her, hated both of them. Dalcoran was no better, abandoning him to this nightmare.

  Piergren laughed. “Obey me.”

  “No,” Catling growled. Her body buckled, and she crumpled to the floor, screaming. Kadan gaped and crabbed backward away from her, banging into the chair behind him. She writhed on the floor, her face contorted, screaming with her back arched, legs flexed into rigid sticks. Piergren loomed over her, forcing her to relent and use her shield. She screamed, refusing.

  The door to the room slid aside. Vianne strode through the portal, her face livid, the white of her jacket belying the fiendish fire radiating from her skin. Minessa stood slightly behind her, slanted eyes round with horror.

  Catling unfolded and whimpered on the floor, the influence withdrawn. Piergren retreated to the window without explanation, hands behind his back, clearly waiting for Vianne’s venom.

  Wanting none of it, Kadan scrambled to his feet and fled, shoving by Minessa into the hallway. He ran for the door to the promenade, breaking into the cool breeze and panting for air, his stomach on the verge of heaving.

  “What happened in there?” Minessa demanded behind him. “What were you doing to her?”

  Kadan spun and shouted, “It wasn’t me. I wouldn’t do that. I never did… to anyone. She did that to me!”

  “She tortured you?” Minessa blinked her disbelief. “Like that?”

  “Piergren told her to do it, and she did.” Kadan blew out a breath. He glanced at her and scrubbed his head. “I wish they’d kill her, Nessa, and be done with it. That’s their plan; force her to make a mistake and kill her. But they won’t, they wouldn’t dare. So what’s the point? I’m tortured for no reason. It’s a cruel game, and I’m stuck.”

  “She can’t help who she is,” Nessa said, tucking her hair behind an ear. “She’s far more a victim in this than you.”

  He shivered despite the balmy heat and blew out a breath. “A part of me knows you’re right. I understand that she’s trapped. But, I can’t cope with the pain, Nessa, not since… not since they strapped me up to the gibbet and flayed me.”

  He looked at her askance, desiring her sympathy and afraid he’d only e
arned her contempt. She was his age, lovely with her alabaster hair, high cheekbones, and exotic eyes. Her Farlander blood meant nothing to him except shame for his uncle’s violence. “I could use a little healing,”

  “You’re not injured,” she said gently.

  “Not all injuries bleed,” he replied with a smile.

  Nessa’s hand slid to his shoulder, and a soothing warmth flowed through him from her fingertips. “Why was Piergren so brutal to her? His offense is usually unwanted groping.”

  Kadan shrugged. “Anger? Resolve? He ordered her to escalate my pain, and she defied him. She refused.”

  “Ah. So, she refused to harm you, endured Piergren’s wrath for her defiance, and you wish her dead.” Minessa sighed and dropped her hand. “Your heart is misplaced, Kadan. She’s your ally, not your enemy. Remember, you aren’t your uncle, and not everyone is a threat.”

  Chapter Eight

  Catling blinked and shook off the fatigue clogging her head. Vianne’s lessons in subtlety, the doyen’s specialty, left her brain feeling plugged with pudding. Her command of forceful influences floundered, average at best, not nearly as powerful as Kadan’s. In her experience, he wielded influence like a club, completely incapable of restraint. The art of subtlety lay within her grasp, and it appealed to her, a skill she endeavored to perfect.

  “Influence that crushes like a vise is effective.” Vianne stood before the gathering of senior aspirants, her hair coiled and strung with pearls. “All of you experienced the power of influence to coerce, and it is far from pleasant. Yet, we can’t bludgeon the tier wards and guilds into a wiser course at every turn. Of far greater use is our ability to finesse. You will find, in most cases, subtlety is more effective than strength. Or, let’s agree, it’s a different version of strength, quite capable of moving an entire nation. Think of influence as a hook tapping into genuine feelings. If augmenting authentic feelings, influence is more effective, less suspicious. The emotions appear logical, and the subject is far more likely to cooperate.”

  The perspective made heads bob, Catling’s among them. Even with her rose eye, she was apt to miss the strands of refined influence.

  “You must think of influence as multi-dimensional,” Vianne began. “Most of you will excel as sensorists on the pleasure-pain continuum or as emotives working the gamut between love and fear. Those of you electing not to pursue the herbal and surgical skills of a mercy will still heal and kill though with less effectiveness.”

  “When do our trials with Doyen Tunvise begin?” Vincen asked, his eyes bugging.

  “Soon,” Vianne replied and continued unabated. “The sensorist and emotive scales possess immense variability. Layer subtle pleasure over a woman in love and your result will differ from layering pleasure over one who is furious. Love and pleasure with a dash of fear create excitement.”

  She paused, giving them time to mull over the differences. “Consider the possibilities at your disposal. Loathing with fear and a dose of pleasure incite senseless brutality. Combine those qualities with pain and you create helplessness. High amounts of love combined with low levels of fear and pain can generate jealousy. Decrease the level of love and you move into suspicion. Do you see my point?” Vianne waited for an answer.

  “The person’s natural baseline is the first layer of influence,” Kadan said.

  Vianne smiled. “It is not our imposed influence, yet it holds sway over our subjects. If you don’t understand your target’s natural disposition, you will struggle with the art of layering.”

  “What if you don’t know someone well?” Catling asked.

  Vianne’s eye twitched at the novice question. “Catling, how well do you know Kadan?”

  “A little.” Catling drew in a breath. Since their encounter with Piergren, they’d hardly spoken unless forced to. His natural emotions seemed as changeable as the time of day.

  “Well enough for your next assignment.” Vianne threw open a window, beckoning in the Summertide breeze with all its ripening glory and fetid swampy stink. She swept by a table and plucked up a clasp of inked cards, a name delicately scrolled on each. “Do not open them until I explain.”

  Catling eyed the folded card Vianne placed in her hand.

  “Now,” Vianne said, “you are all capable, to differing degrees, of combining influences for effect. You are all advancing in your practice of subtlety. For the rest of your morning, you are free to experiment on your partner. The card in your hand indicates the feeling you are to evoke without bashing your partner over the head. They should not be aware of it. You alone will judge whether you’ve been successful by observing their behavior. Find something respectable to do together. You are dismissed.”

  A flurry of activity resulted as each aspirant opened their cards. Catling inhaled, and a blush surged into her face. In her beautiful cursive, Vianne had written Love across the card and in smaller letters below. You may not attempt to visualize Kadan’s influence. She looked up at Kadan to find him staring at her with a befuddled quirk on his face.

  “Come with me,” she said, applying a dusting of happiness mingled with pleasure. She added a minuscule hint of unease to increase the suspense. Her heart fluttered with excitement. At least it would be an enjoyable day… she hoped.

  He slid his mystery card into a pocket. “Where are we going?”

  “Fishing from the docks.”

  He smiled. “I’ve never tried fishing.”

  “Well, now’s the time to learn.” Her levels of influence remained static, the art of subtlety captured by one word—patience. She wondered when Kadan would begin, his influence so blatant she would certainly feel it.

  ***

  Kadan sat on the dock beside Catling, bare feet hanging over the edge above the gleaming water. Fishing—something he’d observed a hundred times but never attempted—kindled a sense of play. She radiated a childlike excitement, a feeling he scarcely recalled from his youth.

  The cork bobbed. He tugged just enough to set the hook, another catch on the line. “Another one!” He chuckled at his pride and the silliness of his excitement. He hauled in a yellow pippet the size of his hand, and she laughed when he fumbled with the slippery fish. Too bony to keep, he tossed it back.

  A creel of gasping fish rested on the pier behind him. They’d spent far more than the assigned morning on the wide dock girding the city, and the sky faded to the violet and green shades of twilight. He’d forgotten that Summertide rolled into Balance, one of two days per season when all three moons shone in perfect quarters in the night sky. They paraded in a gentle arc above the Slipsilver’s flowing luminescence.

  The word on his card read Love. He’d played along at first, tickling her with refined ripples of excitement and pleasure blended with joy and ease. He relaxed her, slipping traces of love in whenever she laughed. She smiled and chatted most of the day, and he didn’t mind that she sat so close.

  His impression of her had changed, his perspective taking on a more nuanced view. Was her word sympathy or guilt? Those feelings crossed his mind and felt completely genuine. If so, she was a master of the art. He liked her, his affection growing throughout the day the more time he spent with her. A new appreciation for her predicament evoked a desire to know her and to make amends. It could hardly be easy for her to spend time with him, her tormentor for so long. Somehow, he would let her know he’d changed, that he cared.

  “Let’s get tippled up,” he said, a grin creasing his face.

  She squinted at him. “Why?”

  “So neither of us can influence. You can use your shield. I don’t mind.”

  “I don’t need my eye to know when you’re influencing, Kadan. Your influence bashes like a hammer. I understand why you didn’t bother with the lesson today.”

  Her words raised a smile; he’d been plying her all day. Of course, she would think him a brute. “I have a lot to learn,” he admitted.

  “My shield doesn’t work when I’m tippled,” she said. “Vianne tried it. My head
thumped like a drum for two days.”

  He rose to his feet and stretched his back. Her admission was something he might have reported to Dalcoran, but he’d stomached enough of the doyen’s games. He tired of being a puppet in their play for power and didn’t care for who he’d become. “I enjoyed my day, Catling. I’d rather it didn’t end.”

  She gazed up at him, studying him with her rose eye. He could almost see the wheels spinning in her head. A smile split her face, and she reached toward him for a hand up. “Let’s get tippled.”

  ***

  They gave away their fish and toted their poles and bucket to the first tier. The traders’ markets bustled with Summertide’s first Balance celebration, and the tipple houses overflowed with rowdiness. Kadan grasped her hand and towed her along the outer promenade to the Bottled Sage where they found a table with a glimpse of the rising moons.

  Catling relaxed in her chair, leaning against the Founder-made wall, watching the fog roll toward them from the swamp’s shadowy hummocks. In the distance, the frogs chirped a chorus between the mossy caliph trees. Kadan ordered a pitcher of tipple, and they talked of influencing, the doyen, and Minessa. Future plans drifted outside the conversation, Kadan’s prospects unsettled and Catling vowed to secrecy, an obligation she tired of. A full pitcher replaced the empty one with hardly a second thought.

  As blue Misanda joined her sisters in the night sky, Catling poured the last drops of drink down her throat. She felt no pain, and in fact, her lips and fingertips tingled, verging on numb. The stupid grin on her face hurt her cheeks. A handful of cups ahead of her, Kadan stretched his arms, oblivious, glassy-eyed, and grinning like a fool. He’d started wearing his hair in a short tail, and at some point in the evening, it had strayed to his shoulders.

  “Tell me something about you that I don’t know,” he said.

  Catling’s lips twisted as she tilted her head. What could she tell him that didn’t sound odd or sad? “I didn’t talk until I turned six.”