Darkness Risen (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 4) by Ako Emanuel Page B

There were others, but they were not near,”
Gavaron made Varo lie.
    “Were they her escort?” the other voice asked, with
an overt intensity that was not usually displayed by Queens. “Why did you not
lead them to her?”
    “Majesty, she was hurt, in the wilds. They may have
been hunting her, as I have been hunted. I - I just wanted to help.”
    He waited for another question. When none were
forthcoming, he dared to venture one of his own.
    “Is she all right?” he murmured.
    The first crest of pain sang down the chain and he
steeled himself - but nothing more followed, as if the wave of punishment had
been aborted.
    “You are - concerned for her?” The stranger voice
became silkier, like the warning rattle of a viper. Varo’s nerves prickled with
that warning. “You - cared for her?”
    Gavaron shuddered again, wondering if he had made a
mistake, letting Varo ask that.
    Varo shrugged as much as he could in the restraints,
shaking his head slowly. “She was in my care, Majesty,” he replied, “and very
ill. I am concerned for all whom I treat.” Varo’s voice was beautifully steady
where Gavaron’s would have quaked with suppressed emotion.
    “We are also quite concerned with her state of
health. We fear - that she is dead.”
    Varo might have been fooled, but Gavaron was not,
not for a gran. He had felt Jenikia die – he would know if Jeliya had gone to
the hand of the Beloved. They were just trying to elicit a reaction from him.
Besides, the only ways that the stranger Queen - he had no doubt that she was a
Queen and not just a high ranking noble - could know about him and Jeliya
entering the Cribeau’Lons was if her warru or the warru of an ally had been
there, hunting them. They had to know she got away. Either way, she was lying
about Jeliya.
    “We see that our stable mistress has quite a bit of
work to do with you, yet, Varo. You and she had best be about it.” That was
clearly a dismissal.
    His legs were freed, and Fekniri and the handlers
led him away, directing his steps. His hoof-falls were muffled by carpet, then
rang with clear, dark silver on polished stone, and finally clopped on rough
ground. He was stopped and the blindfold was suddenly whipped off, leaving him
blinking in the bright light. Fekniri was right in front of him, and she yanked
viciously on the choke chain, garroting him and forcing his head down.
    “I am going to make you pay for embarrassing
me,” she hissed, her violet eyes full of rage. “In ways you’ve never dreamed!”
    Varo gagged for breath. He would have shivered if he
were not choking. He knew that she would be true to her word.
    She was.
     
    the darkness
turned...
     
    Gavaron fumed as Varo cried softly at the
depredations he had suffered at the hands of Fekniri. But Gavaron’s wrath was
directed at himself. He had to get the memories under his control!
    I
have to get them to come when I want, and in the sequence that I want, he
chided himself.
    He was still pondering the dilemma when the slight
squeak of the bolt to his stall made both him and Varo freeze. Chained as he
was, Varo could not see who it was, but he did not need to. Only one person
would dare. He felt the riding crop against his flank and he wanted to vomit,
but knew he would smother on the bit.
    Fekniri rendered him unable to move with a rite,
then drew his arms behind his back and chained them there. She released his
choke chain, nullified the rite, and urged him to his hoofs with the crop. Varo
went reluctantly, tears still leaking shamefully from his eyes.
    Fekniri’s face was unreadable in pale light, like
shear veils in mist. She looked into his eyes for a long, searching moment,
then gestured for him to back out of his stall.
    They moved silently through the grounds, to the
Train’Marm’s secret place for them. It was thankfully empty, the pallet covered
in satin unoccupied. The Train’Marm secured his bonds to the loops anchored in
the stone walls, then turned to him and stroked his