Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera 5)

"Brencis! Can't you hear me?"

"I hear you, Flora," Brencis said. "I just don't care."

The young woman sobbed. "Please. Please, just let me go. We were betrothed, Brencis."

"It's funny, life's little twists and turns," Brencis said conversationally. He glanced up at the cage. "You always did like to play with aphrodin, Flora. You and your sister." His mouth twisted into a bitter sneer. "A pity there are no Antillans around to complete the evening for you."

The young woman started sobbing, a broken little sound. "But we were... we were..."

"That was in a different world, Flora," Brencis said. "That's done now. In a few more weeks, there won't be anything but Vord. You should be glad. You get to be a part of the winning side." He paused to run an idly admiring hand over the flank of the whispering young woman lying atop the dazed soldier behind him. "Even if you wind up with too little mind to do anything but help soothe the new recruits. The process does that to some of them, which is just as well. So we clean them up into little aphrodin dream boys and girls and let them whisper."

Flora wept harder.

"Don't worry, Flora." He directed a venomous gaze at the cage. "I'll make sure you have a pretty boy to keep you company when it's your turn. You'll enjoy the process. Most of them do. Volunteer to go through it again, usually." He looked at a pair of the collared guards nearby, and said, "What are you two standing around for? Get the next one."

Amara crept slowly back from the edge of the building and settled down next to Rook. Then she turned and descended to the relative safety of the building, which had been a prosperous tailor's residence, before the Vord came. Rook followed her.

Amara sat for a moment, simply absorbing the horrific, machinelike pace of the way the captured Alerans' very humanity was being destroyed.

"I know you aren't supposed to speak of it," Amara said quietly. "But I need you to try."

Rook swallowed. She lifted her fingers to the collar at her throat, her face pale, and nodded.

"How many have been taken?" Amara asked.

"Several h-" Rook began. She sucked in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut, and her face beaded with sweat. "Seven or eight hundred at least. Maybe a hundred who didn't need to be..." Her face twisted into a grimace. "... coerced. Of the rest, only a little more than half of them come out of it... functional. The rest get used to help recruit more or are given to the Vord."

"As slaves?" Amara asked.

"As food, Countess."

Amara shivered. "There were hundreds of people up there."

Rook nodded, her breath coming in steady, consciously regulated timing. "Yes. Any strongly gifted crafter captured by the Vord is brought here now."

"Where are the collars coming from?"

Rook let out a bitter, pained laugh, and withdrew what must have been half a dozen slender silver collars from a pouch on her belt, tossing them aside like refuse. "Dead slaves, Countess. They litter the ground in this place."

Amara bent over and picked up one of the collars and stared at it. It didn't feel like anything other than metal, slightly cool, and smooth underneath her fingertips. "How is it done?" she asked Rook. "The collars, the drug. It isn't enough to do that."

"You'd be surprised, Countess," Rook said, shuddering. "But there's more to it, as well. Brencis does something to each collar as he attaches-" She jerked in pain, and blood suddenly ran from one of her nostrils. "As he attaches it," she gasped. "His father knew how and taught him. He won't t-tell anyone how. It p-protects his life, as long as the V-Vord want more crafters to s-serve them."

She clenched her teeth over a scream and pressed one hand to her mouth to muffle the sound, the other to the center of her forehead, as she crumpled slowly to the floor.

Amara had to look away from the woman. "Enough," she said gently. "Enough, Rook."

Rook rocked back and forth on her knees, falling silent, her breath coming in gasps. She nodded once to Amara, and slurred, "Be 'llright. Minute."

Amara touched her shoulder gently, then rose to stare out the window at the courtyard without through a window that had been broken, its jagged edges stained with drying blood. The cages were packed. Amara began to count the number of prisoners, and shook her head. Hundreds of Alerans waited there to be taken into the service of the Vord.

Brencis had just put the collar around the throat of a woman in a fine, soaking-wet silk gown. She writhed on the platform while he stood over her, an expression of revulsion and hunger and something Amara could not put a name to on his beautiful face.

"You'd better report in," she said quietly. "Do your best not to give anything away."

Rook had recovered somewhat. She held a cloth to her face, cleaning the blood from her mouth and chin. "I'll die first, Countess," she whispered.

"Go."

Rook departed without a further word. Amara watched as she entered the courtyard a few moments later, walking briskly toward Brencis. Again, she beckoned, and Cirrus brought the sound to her.

Brencis looked up at Rook as she approached.

Rook's stance and bearing had changed completely. There was a liquid, sensual grace to her movements, her hips shifting with a noticeable, swaying rhythm as she walked.

"Rook," Brencis spat, his voice irritated. "What took you so long?"

"Incompetence," Rook replied in a throaty purr. She pressed her body full-length against Brencis's and kissed him.

The young slaver returned the kiss with ardor, and Amara's stomach twisted in revulsion.

"Where are the two I sent with you?" he growled.

"When they realized I was going to tell you what they'd done, they thought they'd leave my body somewhere dark and quiet. After they'd raped me." She kissed his throat. "I objected. I'm afraid they're the worse for wear. Should I go recover their collars, my lord?"

"Tell me?" Brencis said. The anger had faded from his voice, a different kind of heat replacing it. "Tell me what?"

"The fools questioned the Cursors too hard," Rook said. "I told you we should have recruited them."

"Couldn't take the chance that they'd... mmmm. That their minds would break down." He shook his head. "You're earthcrafting me, you little bitch. Mmmm. Stop it."

Rook let out a wicked little laugh. Her ripped shirt chose that moment to slip, exposing naked skin. "You love it, my lord. And I can't help it. I took them with my bare hands. It was close. That always leaves me in a mood." She pressed against him in a slow undulation of her body. "You could take me here if you wished it. Who could stop you, my lord? Right here, before everyone. There are no rules any longer, no laws. Shall I fight you? Would that please you, to force me?"