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The Immurite used to listen to Prince Rafus confess his sins. He committed many. From a young age he would be on the other side of her metal grill day after day. She would look forward to his visits above all. Of all the sinners who came to her for absolution, he had always been special.

He did things that the other petitioners did not do. He would ask about her in his low honeyed voice. The things he said made her feel less alone. One day he asked her what she looked like. And she told him she didn’t know.

It was against the will of Zai for her to ever show a single part of herself to anyone. She had told him that and Rafus had said he was concerned she was lonely, never showing any part of herself to another living man.

She had confessed that her attendant brought her food and dealt with ablutions, that there was a small hidden opening in her cell for such things. And that the attendant sometimes saw her hands.

Rafus begged to see her hands. Eventually she relented. She had opened the hidden panel for him.

Rafus had gasped at the sight and told her that her hands were beautiful. He had held them, her first contact with another being in years, and told her it was wrong that she should be imprisoned so. Rafus said again that he worried for her, again that he cared for her. No one had ever said that to her before.

But what she had done with Rafus was more wrong than imprisoning her in the cell.

She would never have done such a thing, committed such an act. But one night she was woken from sleep by a petitioner. Sometimes sinners did come at night. But on the other side of her grill that strange night was a creature she knew was not a mortal man. A creature who told her a strange tale of the writings of Batraous, of demons and the five fae princes of legends. He told her the princes would return to fight the last of the Bellator. That four of them had already been sired, and the fifth, the Scholar would be born of her own body. He had shown her lost writings by Batraous in visions, prophecy, that claimed such, that even used her old name. A name she thought she had long forgotten.

And he had given her a small magical token. A brass key that would open a door into her cell. The key would only work once. The door would only allow Rafus to enter the cell.

The next time Rafus came to her, she used the key to open the door and let him in. And she had done as that creature from another realm had bid.

And now Rafus is gone.

After his great sin of using magic to sire a child with her had been discovered by Doroth Zain, he had been punished with twenty years indenture and bound never to visit her again. Denied the rite of having his sins washed from him by her. He would be undead now. Trapped forever in his shame.

The son she had birthed had been taken away by Doroth Zain. He had sworn to keep him safe. And he had done so. That babe is now a man grown. He is the one she opens that panel for so he can pass her food and remove her waste.

He doesn’t even know she’s his mother.

39

LYR

THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, ISMAGAAR

Damon holds Lyr close as they step through fae ruins. They are surrounded by ice and snow. This is Ismagaar. Lyr has never seen a land that looks like this. He pulls the fur cloak he wears tight and presses to Damon’s body.

Damon’s body is so powerful and strong. He has oft thought his desire for Damon had begun with that. With the notion that a body so powerful could shelter him from anything. But he knows now that it cannot. It cannot shelter him from the terrors that haunt his own mind.

Softly Damon says, “Are you sure? You can go back.”

“I will not. Just promise me you will kill her.” Lyr is shaking. Not from the cold.

“I will slay her in front of you.”

They are high on a mountain, snow flurries all around them. Perl points to a small cavern entrance, only a short distance up a steep path. “There,” he says.

Lyr swallows. She is there. He did not expect it to be so close, so soon.

They follow the snowy path to the mouth of the cavern.

The entrance is dark and has a familiar scent of smoky incense. Lyr can see just a small chamber, with a second beyond it. Candlelight flickers in the cavern’s depths.

“No guards?” says Damon.

“She does not need them,” says Perl. “I can feel the power of her magic.”

“And we have none,” says Lyr. Dread rises up inside him. The sadistic woman who caused him so much suffering is here, in this cavern. He barely remembers his time with her. Most of his recollections of it are a blur of chanting and ritual and the pain of being burned or cut as Jareleezi used his body to receive messages from her Gods.

Over the last few moons, more vivid memories have been coming back to him, often in dreams he wakes from, screaming. The only thing that calms him from those dreams these days is a little sofi or some pearl tonic. He hasn’t let Damon know how often he has to use such things to calm his mind.