A Hand Weaving Chaos (Book 2 of The Fallen Gods Trilogy)

CHAPTER SIX

"And what is this little parade I've meandered across?" Rayna asked, standing before them with hands on hips. She wore flaming red leather that clung to her body and actually seemed to cast its own luminescence. Her black hair was tightly bound at the base of her neck then allowed to flow loose down her back. A whip coiled at her side. Her dark eyes went from Callista to Jill to Gunnar and she slowly licked her lips. "Consorting with a traitor and a murderer, Princess?"

Callista stood mutely, jaw dropped wide in surprise.

"I see guilt has stolen your tongue," Rayna chided. Each step forward ricocheted in the tunnel. And Jill found she'd been right about the shoes—stilettos. Very thin and very high. "I had no idea you had fallen so low. What would your husband say if he knew? Or, your brother? You disappoint me, Callista." She smiled. "You realize of course that you will be punished."

"H-how did you—"

"How did I what? Find you?"

Clearly, Rayna terrified Callista. Jill sympathized. Of the three, Rayna was the most unstable. Jill could sense it in the way the threads warped around her. With Tamas, threads clung in a sheen of seductive cleverness. Nikolos had simply radiated greed and ambition. But with Rayna, threads chocked on their own violence, rotting like tangled undergrowth that had never seen sunlight. Nikolos may have been the butcher and Tamas the seducer, but Rayna was the sadomasochist.

She looked for, and could not find, that same otherness she's seen in Tamas. One less thing I need to worry about, she decided.

Then, Rayna's dark eyes swung back to her and Jill wasn't so sure anymore.

"Ask her, Kitten," Rayna suggested. "Ask the Princess if she knows how I found you."

Callista closed her mouth and went still. Behind her, Gunnar hadn't moved either.

"Tell them what drew me," she goaded Jill, beaming.

If she hadn't been in such miserable pain, she might have had the presence of mind to be scared. Instead, the gnawing anger Tamas woke with his violating hands rose to the surface again.

"I did," Jill answered, her voice low. "I used magic against Tamas. You sensed it and came to investigate."

"Oh more than that Kitten!" Rayna barked in pleasure. "I've come to finish what Tamas started. I'm here to discover what you really are. I'm here to break you!"

There was a change in the air, a gathering of power. Jill felt it like the striking of a match. Around Rayna, she could see black threads twisting and writhing like snakes. No blue or red threads remained. Only black. They thickened and bloated in a way she'd never seen threads behave—as they might burst open from the sheer power they contained. Whatever Rayna had access to, she planned to hold nothing back.

"And you Callista, a pity you've fallen to this after all we've meant to each other," Rayna continued. "It's a rare person indeed who can claim to have enjoyed all three of the children of Treyosh. That you're an obstacle in my way...well, I suppose that can't be helped. A disappointment, but, you've always been disappointing me."

Callista's chin lifted a notch. Pride or defiance kept her rigid. "Whatever you've had of me was taken against my wishes. Cast any taunts you like, but we both they're meaningless. You've seduced Rydorel but I have always seen you for what you truly are. You bring new meaning to the word 'whore'."

"Bravely said Callista," Rayna murmured. "I thank you for the compliment. Now allow me to offer you advice for your own self-improvement. In my world, I have known many women like you. Chattel—little more than property of the Crown. You know what you are; I won't beat you senseless with details. You call me a whore, but you've offered yourself more completely than I ever could. Worse, you pawn yourself off like a hard-won trophy and no one even cares. As an inept Shey'na'shen, you wield the magic little better than a fumbling child. If you could have mastered that, at least you might possess some value.