Page 41 of Her Cruel Redemption

Khatar dropped his scimitar. It clattered to the stone floor. His face started to turn red, eyes bulging as he fought against me, trying to wrestle back the ability to breathe as I held it locked tight. Pain lanced behind my eyes as his resolve fought mine. He was always a tough bastard to compel, stone headed and strong willed. But I tried to keep that from showing on my face. He didn’t need to know how much of a struggle it was. He made a strangled sound and his hand went to his throat.Submit,hissed a voice in my head.Ours to command.The voice of magic slipping past my mental wards and into my head. The temptation to bend Khatar’s will grew stronger, a dry ache in my throat, a buzzing in my fingers.I released him. He sucked in a wheezing gasp, staggering as oxygen flooded back into his lungs while I turned my focus to my mental wards, quickly visualising the mirrored cage I’d trapped the voice inside, strengthening the places it had corroded. I was careful to mask my expression as I stared impassively down at Khatar.

‘I thought you might learn to control your temper after last time we did this,’ I said blandly. ‘I’m growing tired of having to repeat myself.’

He coughed, hand on his chest as it expanded and retracted, as though he was checking the movement to make sure he was still able to make it.

‘When this is over, you’ll have what generations of your people have been fighting for: the lands that were taken from you by human occupation. You’ll be able to leave those craggy islands and bring your families home to the shores of Oceatold and Brimordia. If you don’t think that’s worth the risk of your fleet, then so be it. But then I want you out of my lands.’

He straightened, his expression a mixture of fear and resentment now. Which was irritating. If the resentment remained, then we’d be having this tussle again in the future. I briefly considered whether it was time to dispose of him and elevate someone else into his position. But that option didn’t come without its problems; the Morwarian chieftains followed him because he’d proven himself against them all. Swapping him out for someone else held the likely probability of a number of them splintering off. I didn’t want to lose any ships to that if we ever hoped to take Oceatold.

‘I’ll call in more ships,’ he muttered. He shuddered as I brushed against his mind, catching the end of a thought he quickly turned away from, one he didn’t want me reading.

‘Good,’ I said after a moment, deciding to take him at face value for now. It would get me what I needed quicker. ‘If we succeed in this, you can do as you like. I’ll release you from our arrangement. You’ll have the lands you were promised and the freedom to govern yourselves. But fail to bring me those ships, and you’ll make yourself a dangerous enemy. You have two days, then we make for Port Howl.’

He bent to pick up his scimitar.

‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘Penance for drawing it against me.’

For a tense moment, it seemed like he might refuse, which would make up my mind on what to do with him. But perhaps he realised I was testing him, because finally he nodded curtly, before lumbering towards the door, stiff-necked and nursing his smarting pride. I picked up the scimitar and turned back to the window as he left the room, examining its curved blade of layered steel, worked with a technique known only to the Morwarian bladesmiths that tied magic to the metal in a way I assumed wasn’t dissimilar to the methods human druthi used to bind magic into objects. A Morwarian scimitar could turn the path of water when it cut through the surface. A temporary but useful trick when out at sea. Khatar wouldn’t like me having it.

He had always resented our alliance. It was a means to an end, but my means rubbed against the grain of everything he valued. Not that the ability to manipulate minds had made me a popular house guest anywhere, but the Morwarians in particular despised subterfuge and any form of resistance that wasn’t a direct act of violence and aggression. They were my allies only until we ceased being useful to each other, or until one of my clashes with Khatar came to a different conclusion. His shame at his inability to throw off my magic was all that held the balance between us. If I lost the advantage, I’d lose my authority over him.

Lightning flashed across the stormy horizon, drawing my thoughts away from that room, away from the coastal port, all the way over the nearby border to Oceatold. I ran my thumb against the edge of the blade, playing with the edge between pressure and pain. The truth was that no one liked this sudden move into Oceatold, not just Khatar. I knew that. But it couldn’t be helped. Not now that Rhiandra had made it to Sarmiers. Not now that she had veins laced with lightning. A detail whose reason for being kept from me I was about to uncover.

The scout had arrived on the back of my summons just as my conversation with Khatar was about to begin, which might have contributed a little to my impatience with him. I’d been itching to talk to this particular scout myself ever since I’d watched my wife bolt through that marketplace on the back of a horse, barely clinging on as her strength gave way, sick with magic poisoning.Magic poisoning.A cold, thick feeling seemed to compress my chest at the thought of it. Along with the sense of that I was suddenly in a race against time.

The scout had been left in an office that usually belonged to the shipmaster who ran this warehouse. When I reached it, I pushed through the door without hesitation, catching him by surprise. He jumped, dropping the paperweight he’d been examining, and it landed on the desk with a loud thud before rolling onto the lush carpet.

‘Orrin Voss, I assume,’ I said as he scrambled to pick up the paperweight and replace it on the heavy desk.

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ he said, convulsing in a nervous bow. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, I didn’t mean—’

‘If you’re about to beg clemency for dropping a paperweight, I wouldn’t bother. Don’t waste my mercy. I think you might need it for your other offences.’ Crossing the room, I sat in the chair opposite him, crossing an ankle over my knee. ‘You sold some information to one of my officers,’ I said.

‘Yes, sir, I’m a recruit in Garlein and myself and a few of my unit heard rumours we took it upon ourselves to investigate.’ He straightened as he said this, puffing out his chest, like he thought he’d done something right.

‘Which was your first mistake.’

At these words, he sagged, like I’d poked a hole in an air pocket. ‘But sir, your orders—’

‘—were to collect the information, not to engage them. Your involvement only pushed them into running.’ Resting a hand on the desk, I began to tap a slow rhythm against the wood. ‘What do you think your second mistake was?’

He was turning pale and pasty with nerves. ‘I was caught,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘Try again.’

‘We shot at the queen?’

I stilled, tense with the flare of rage. ‘That I didn’t know.’ My tone was dangerous now. ‘You’re racking up quite the tally of stupid decisions.’

He was sweating, beads of it glistening on his forehead. ‘I don’t know what else, sir.’

‘You can’t think of something you might have forgotten to mention in your report to my officer? Perhaps something aboutfucking lightning?’ The last part came out a low snarl.

He cringed, seeming to retreat into his beard, beady eyes wide. ‘We didn’t think it was real! She couldn’t have been… creating it. We thought if we said anything about it, I’d sound like our story was just rubbish and we’d never be paid for it.’

A pause. ‘You were worried you’d never bepaidfor it?’

He seemed to realise he’d said the wrong thing. He raised his hands, shaking them like he was trying to swipe away his words. ‘No! No, it wasn’t about the money, I swear! I didn’t want to pass on false—’

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