Silvershade

145, Age of Falling, Early Spring

"Until your enemy is dead, never think that you have won."

-Curalli Proverb.

All right, Kalliana admitted to herself. So I'm buying him because I like the look in his eyes. Does that mean that I'm not allowed to like the look in another Elwen's eyes?

She nodded to the trader- it had to be to him- though her gaze remained on the curalli man. If she could make him understand, then this would be easier. "I'll take him. Do you have the keys to his collar?"

For the first time in their bargaining session, the trader hesitated. He was silent for so long that Kalliana looked at him, arching her brows. He bowed his head under her intense gaze. "My lady, I can think of no rational reason why you would want to release his magic. I have the keys, but I am reluctant to surrender them to anyone else. It could be a disaster if he got out."

Kalliana smiled, liking the thrill that ran through her at the thought of the danger. "Yes, it could be," she murmured.

"Then you understand and agree, my lady, and you will permit me to keep the keys?"

Ah, so it was going to be one of those difficult bargaining sessions. Kalliana gave him her coolest smile and shook her head. "No. If I own him, then I own all of him. Give me the keys, and him." She held up a large pouch and shook a spray of silver across her palm when it seemed as though the trader would continue to hesitate. "Rowanian silver," she said. "Still good, through everything."

The trader again paused, but this time his eyes were narrowed and gleaming. "Why do you want him so badly?" he asked.

Kalliana sighed and did up the pouch again. "Of course, if you are so determined not to sell him to me-"

"No! No." The look on the trader's face was almost pathetic as he scrambled over to scoop up the coins, which Kalliana had shaken from her hand into the mud. "No, if you have given me the price- and I see that you have- then you can have him. And all of him." He added the jangling keys to the small pile of equipment on the ground, and nudged the whole bundle over to Kalliana with his foot. "Good riddance," he added, gaze lingering on the man's face for a moment before he turned away.

Kalliana turned to look at her purchase.

He looked back at her, dark eyes wide and calm and utterly unfathomable. He wasn't remarkable-looking, even for one of his kind- the same dark silver skin and black eyes and hair that they all had- except in one respect. He did not look like a slave. Even the toughest shadowed Elwens wore down sooner or later, and began to look as if they belonged in chains. This one didn't. And yet, he had been on a long journey across Cytheria that should have taught him his place.

Kalliana had seen that look before, and loved it. Once she had broken them of it, then these curalli made the best servants.

"Come along," she said, and reached for the chain that hung from his silver collar. The collar kept him from doing any magic as long as it was locked around his neck. Kalliana did intend to unlock it, when he was truly hers, but that would not be for some time yet.

"Fair warning."

He spoke in a smooth, deep voice, and Kalliana felt a thrill race up her spine that had nothing to do with the thought of taming and breaking another servant. Music was in that voice, wild music, and his eyes flashed at her from beneath a sudden fall of midnight hair as he tilted his head.

"Yes?" she asked.

"It would be better if you were to kill me," he said softly. "Enslave me as the trader has done, and I will make you suffer as you have never dreamed."

Kalliana laughed. "Threats are nothing new. You will learn to love me in time, as my own folk do." She tugged at his leash and turned homeward.

"They have never meant their threats as I mean mine."

Kalliana glanced at him uneasily for a moment, then shrugged lightly to herself. In truth, the thought of danger only deepened the sweetness. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Casjom Silvershade."

"I will call you Casjom, then-"

"I prefer Silvershade."

Kalliana hid her annoyance. A slave presuming to give an order to a master was ridiculous. But then, there was that pride in his face that said he had never fully accepted his new status, and still thought of himself as free. It was what she wanted, after all.

"Silvershade," she acceded with a smile, and rattled the chain, certain that she would be calling him Casjom in a dance. "Come with me, now."

*****

"What is it, my lady?"

Kalliana turned around, with a sigh. Part of her didn't want to; part of her wanted to remain watching Casjom out the window. But she did owe her attention to someone as devoted to her as Staeliante was. Besides, she wanted to answer the question.

"He is," she answered, sipping from the cup of iced wine that Staeliante had brought her. "He does not know the right way to act. Two dances already, and he has not learned his proper place." She found herself turning back, away from the concerned look in Staeliante's eyes, to where Casjom worked. The sun beat down on him, burning his dark silver skin. Shadowed Elwens were meant for the shadows, and the deep cold of eternal winter. But Casjom never stopped weeding- thought it was hard work at any time- never paused, never complained. He just kept working, until he fell over and had to be given water to replace his sweat and food to fill his stomach.

That had happened three times in the last twenty days.

Kalliana sipped the wine again and frowned at his back. Perhaps it was time to do something different with Casjom, and she thought she had an idea.

"It's your turn tonight, isn't it, Staeliante?"

"Yes, my lady." Anticipation colored the servant's voice, and Kalliana turned to her with a gentle smile, feeling the same emotion brush against her senses. She ran her hand up Staeliante's cheek, and the taller woman inclined her head and rubbed against the touch. That was only expected, after all, since she was a torkan, a leopard Elwen.

"I will ask you to give up your turn tonight," said Kalliana.

"My lady!"

"I think Casjom needs it more."

Staeliante glanced out the window at the laboring curalli, then nodded reluctantly. "Two dances," she murmured. "I gave in in three days, and I thought I was stubborn."

"You have love in your soul, Staeliante," said Kalliana. "It was easy for you to see the truth. Casjom is- harder. It may have something to do with him being curalli. Curalli don't take kindly to the truth about anything, unless for some reason they want to. And Casjom does not will it so."

"I will leave you to him tonight, my lady," said Staeliante, reluctantly.

Smiling, Kalliana turned and kissed her, her golden hair mingling with the other woman's dark one and their tongues touching for a long, needle-sharp moment. Then Kalliana turned away, and Staeliante glided from the room, looking as though she fought to hold her feet.

You could have that as well, were you not so stubborn, thought Kalliana as she went back to watching Casjom. I don't understand why you resist me. What could you possibly gain from it?

*****

"Come in, Silvershade." It was hard to keep herself from speaking the name Casjom, the way that she always thought of him, but the first thing she needed to do in this room was capture his trust. And the only way to do that was to make sure that he understood she respected his wishes.

She had the desire to bring his true wishes to the surface, and show him that the foremost one was obeying her, but that would be done slowly, and first she had to make him see that she obeyed his superficial requests.

Casjom stepped through the door and stopped. Kalliana could just make out the expression in his eyes in the flickering candlelight. He looked wary.

Kalliana rose to her knees in the middle of the bed. This was where all the wish-learning began, where she had broken through the barriers of so many of her servants. The bed spread out in a large almost-square, carved here and there with gentle curves like bays. In fact, it mimicked a map of the continent, down to tiny sharp bumps for the mountains. But the main color was not green but gold. Kalliana knew well how it looked in the candlelight, and how it showed off her tanned skin and golden hair.

"Come to me, Casjom," she whispered.

At once his face shuttered, and he walked towards the bed with the light, balanced step of a warrior on his guard, not the half-dancing stride she was used to. Most of her servants came to her reluctantly, caught in spite of themselves, swept up in the yielding to her wishes that was the first step on the road to their true selves. But Casjom gave her none of that. His body obeyed her; his mind and spirit and heart were conclusively elsewhere.

Kalliana stared at him in frustration and aching longing as he halted a foot away from the bed. Everything she had seen before with other curalli was true of him, but multiplied. His muscles moved as sleekly as snakes, flowing and arching under his smooth skin. Nothing about him was wasted or out of place. His face gleamed with metallic, untouchable beauty.

Untouchable.

And, damn it, she had brought him here to be touched.

"Strip," she said abruptly, certain that he would refuse. In all the time that he had been here, he had not allowed her to see him with all his clothes off. He had consented to remove his tunic when he worked in the fields, but that was all. Modesty was an extraordinary trait in a shadowed Elwen. Her Casjom seemed to have it.

He looked up at her. Kalliana for a moment found herself wanting to scream, and not in pleasure. Moving in his eyes was a rage and hatred colder and blacker than any she had ever seen. He wanted her dead, and more than dead. He wanted her soul destroyed. He wanted her heart beating its last beats in his hands. He wanted-

And then she blinked, and the vision was gone as Casjom gracefully pulled his tunic over his head. He shook his head, and his black hair tumbled down to gleam like night on a field of tarnished stars. Kalliana found herself staring again, entranced, as he removed his boots, trousers, and undergarments, and let them fall to the floor.

"Come here," she said.

He crawled across the bed to her.

Kalliana reached out, trembling, and for the first time laid her hand on his bare shoulder.

She had barely a moment to enjoy the pleasure of the sensation before it was replaced by pain. She yelped and drew back her hand, staring. Her hand bore the marks of teeth, and it dripped blood.

She glanced at Casjom. He was still, staring at her. Kalliana had looked at him for perhaps three seconds when he pulled back his lips.

Her blood shone silver on his dark teeth.

He had moved so quickly that she had never even seen or felt him move.

Kalliana backed up, breathing quickly, and bound one of the scraps of cloth she had prepared around her wound. Now this- this was the kind of game she understood. He did like pain, after all. She had only to teach him to bear the pain, instead of inflict it.

"Lie down on the bed," she said.

Casjom lay down.

Kalliana moved towards one of the bonds and picked it up, fingering it gently as she looked at him. "If you can move that quickly," she said softly, "then you should have no trouble escaping. Most of my servants wear slippers. They could not run after you."

Casjom answered her. It was only the second time she had heard him speak, and again the wild music of his voice entranced her. "You treat your servants as you would treat slaves."

"They are not slaves," said Kalliana. "They have come to know their true selves in my service, and now they desire nothing more than to serve me. Besides, you didn't answer the question. Why don't you escape?"

"That's not what I want."

Kalliana smiled. She knew she had not been mistaken in him. "You want the same things I want," she said. "You have a taste for this play."

"No."

Kalliana let her smile widen and grow tolerant. "So many of mine say the same thing, when I first find them," she said. "They have been taught that they should not acknowledge such desires, that they should need nothing. And this is most definitely a need, or perhaps I should call it a compulsion. It is all right, Casjom. It is all right to acknowledge that you need to be bound to a bed and understand the necessities of pain." She bent her head towards his throat.

"You are only making it worse for yourself."

Kalliana laughed and nipped at his throat. Small pinpricks of white blood appeared. "Worse in what way? I give others what they want. I assure you that you shall not have your turn binding me to the bed. I don't need that."

"My ultimate revenge shall pay you back in kind," said Casjom. His eyes shone now, but not with any passion, as he watched her. "Make me helpless and cause me pain, and you shall be repaid in kind."

"I don't get excited by such things, and neither would you be," said Kalliana. "You need to be the victim. I know. I have seen your kind before. So strong and coiled in your chains, but really you want to wear the chains."

"I am complete in myself," said Casjom, "and if not for this collar, then they would never have captured me. Beware, my lady. I am giving you this chance to back out, since so far you have earned only a lesser revenge. Back out now, and it's possible that you might live. Maimed, of course, but you might live."

Kalliana shivered as if at the touch of cold wind, then shook her head. No. She had never been mistaken. She wasn't mistaken now.

She picked up a length of silk and bound his right wrist to the bed.

"Tano tanopoer," said Casjom.

"What?" asked Kalliana. She had always meant to learn Melli, the language of the shadowed Elwens, but somehow she had never had the time. Of course, leading other Elwens to their true selves didn't leave her time for much else.

"Death and worse than death."

Kalliana laughed at him, and bound his other wrist to the bed. "I shall teach you so much of your own desires that you will wonder how you could ever have doubted me," she whispered, and bound his feet. "Shall we begin?"

She bit him again, and then began the long play, the play that had never failed to free a cowering Elwen from the bonds she had placed on herself, the torment that he had endured for so long because he did need others and could not admit it.

Casjom watched her.

*****

Kalliana collapsed beside him, sweating from their long play, and reached across the bed for the keys. She had always meant to free him after their first session. He hadn't said anything to her after it, just gone straight to sleep, but she knew that she had broken through his barriers. After all, she had never failed.

She leaned across the bed and unlocked the silver collar, sliding it from his neck, then yawned and collapsed across his body. She would have a long day tomorrow. This night, she had to make things up to Staeliante. A smile curved Kalliana's lips as she considered. Perhaps she would bring both Staeliante and Casjom into the bed at the same time, and then-

"That, my lady, was a foolish thing to do."

Kalliana opened her eyes to meet Casjom's just as he held up a hand.

A black wall of nothingness sprang up between her and him. Kalliana blinked and rolled backward, and then stopped, choking on the scream in her throat. Though she had felt nothing- there was no blood, no pain- her left arm was gone, severed at the elbow by that deathwall.

Casjom laughed.

Kalliana did scream then. If she had ever heard him laugh, she would never have bought him. She would have run from the trader as fast as she could, and let some other fool take Casjom. She turned now and scrambled towards the end of the bed.

Another deathwall. This one severed the last half of the bed, and both her legs. Kalliana rolled back onto the bed, still trying to move her limbs, the shock of her helplessness still roiling across her mind. She knew somewhere that something horrible had happened, but she couldn't quite comprehend it all yet.

Another deathwall, and then her other arm was gone as well. Kalliana stared at the stump in disbelief. The wound might have been healed for years.

"I told you it would be worse than death."

Kalliana raised her head and locked her eyes with Casjom's. Things might still not be impossible. There were healers- "Why would you do this?" she asked. "I took you into my service, gave you what you wanted-"

Casjom's laughter rolled out again, and Kalliana raised the stumps of her arms and jammed them into her ears. "Did you really think that I wanted that?" asked Casjom. "Did you think that anyone Elwen and whole would want such a thing? I need no one to tame me, and I do not desire pain. I need no master. You thought I did. That was your mistake."

"This is not worse than death-"

"It gets worse."

Casjom came into view again, dismissing the deathwalls, and he had not dressed. He didn't need to, Kalliana thought, staring at him. He could command the room, now that he was free of the collar, and he could do it naked or clothed or wrapped in a few feathers. His smile blazed across his face with deadly power; his eyes laughed and raged. Kalliana wondered if this was how the slavers who had captured Casjom had seen him, and shuddered. How had they found the courage to face him?

Casjom stood there, watching her, for a moment. Then he lunged forward. His teeth flashed and ripped, and he tore a chunk from her left hip. Kalliana cried out again, and Casjom ate it, then came back for another. She tried to kick out at him, but it didn't work, probably because she had no legs.

Casjom ate from one hip, then another, then stood back and admired his handiwork while Kalliana writhed and whimpered. Blood, so much blood. She thought she should pass out soon, but for some reason she remained conscious.

"Now," said Casjom.

He picked up one of the knives she had used to cut him, and he drove it into her gut.

Kalliana let out a low moan. She had seen people die from gut wounds. She had seen how long it took. She had watched a former disloyal servant of hers die, and it had been this way, and she had watched him writhe in pain and enjoyed every moment of it.

"Farewell," said Casjom, and then turned and walked to the door.

Kalliana called after him. "Wait. Aren't you going to wait and watch me die?"

Casjom turned and eyed her with utter indifference. "Why would I? You bought me, and you raped me, and you have paid. That is all I wanted. Staying to watch an enemy die is something you would do."

He stepped through the door and shut it after him, then locked it.

It took Kalliana a long time to die.