Galba Torix
It was splendorous in the room – yet terrifying. A bed chamber of a king. Of The king. It was enough to make your spine crawl, your skin itch. It might as well be a chamber of torture and blaspheme and pain.
I wasn't alone – it was the only consolation. At least half a dozen of us, I was too scared to be specific, stood in the vast expanse of the floor in shambles of lines. I tried not to dart my eyes around, but it proved impossible. The King wasn't here yet, and my eyes were disobeying my brain's signals. Our bodies, every one of us, remained stuck in the same position, facing what we were forbidden to look at. It was, if anything, tempting fate.
Information was being processed slowly and painfully. My heart clamoured for attention – a crashing that rang in my ears and made concentrating hard. Ash grey granite floors, riddled with puckered lips of gold and copper and jade, which we stood gingerly on with our bare feet. Lavish rugs of predatory hunters extinct to the land of Alagaësia softened the sharpness here and there, but we had to suffer the cold stone. Some parts of the expansive walls with covered with tapestries, others with mosaic. A huge desk of black stone ruled the corner closest to us. Next to it, three tall archways opened onto a marble terraced balcony. It was bare and uninviting, although sunshine streamed starkly through the satin-curtain borders.
There was one item that my eyes kept straying towards but I forced them away. Minutes ticked by, and my toes went numb. Tens of minutes, and my fingers twitched from the force of keeping them limp by my sides. My back twinged from my straight posture. The muscles in my eyes ached from keeping them trained away from… that. Two hours? More? It had to be more. The light was becoming dusky through the archways, riddling the ash floor with illuminative light from the inset ore. Again my eyes flickered, but I forced them away.
Half an hour crept by. I kept telling myself it was wrong, it was what he was waiting for. But it couldn't hurt. I glanced at it. The bed.
The bed.
It could hold the girth of a small dragon. Ripples of black silken sheets behind the smoky red curtains which bowed from the dark mahogany posts which lined it. Except this bed was not for a dragon, no. It was for a king.
"We finally had a taker."
It was as if an iron brand had been pressed deep within each and every one of us, for we all stiffened. The voice was soft as an assassin at midnight. It lilted through the words as though they were an art form, instead of the gruffness of the native human speech.
"Would you like to come out?"
The voice this time was filled with dark amusement – so much so that it pooled at our feet like murky waves. The girl on my left actually let out a shrill cry before she stifled it by sinking her teeth into her lip. Blood dribbled down her chin.
"I could ferret you out, one by one, making you cave as your friends fall… in pleasure, of course."
It was sinful. It was pure sin and temptation rolled into letters. I could almost see the tongue touch the roof of the mouth like it was rimming the gateway to Heaven, flicker over the pearl teeth, touch on the gold-inlaid one that I had seen flashing in his mouth at the meals I served him.
For we were all serving girls: favourite serving girls. We served the King's private meals; we served his favourite lords and his preferred concubines, until his Mighty Highness, his Lordship Exalted… Galbatorix, sought another 'lover' for his bed. The bed that I had mistakenly looked right at.
"Or you could come out and confess. Which of you was fantasising of being taken in that bed?"
The teeth of the girl behind were chattering. The words slithered between us, enticing and arousing us, dampening us. That had to be magic. Perhaps not a spell, but the rumours around the castle were that if Galbatorix wanted you, all he had to do was breathe a few chosen words in the Ancient Language, and then he could make you beg for his touch with only his voice.
A boot clicked behind the formation of serving girls, and it was such a purposeful move that my entire spine turned into ice. The other step scuffed a little; dragged it out. He was playing with us so hard – I wasn't surprised. I had heard that Galbatorix liked to toy with his prey.
Oh, had you?
My eyelids popped. Shit.
Yes, little one.
Shit, shit.
There was no noise from the girls around me. Myrtle, whose bloody chin had dried to a crust, was darting her eyes around in terror. But her skittishness would have been pushed over the edge if she were experiencing what I were.
That's right, little one. Only you can hear me.
Oh shit.
My bones were so rigid, the tension made them feel like they were about to snap.
Everyone looked at the bed, little one. In fact, you were the last.
I had never been taught in thought-channelling. It was a privilege reserved for just that: the privileged. I was better off than most of my ken, for my uncle Tornac had taught me to read human runes, and some Ancient La-
Interesting.
Shit!
A servant girl who knows of the Ancient Language. But that's not the only reason you're special, is it?
Unable to hone my thoughts directly, I tried to push an innocently confused thought in the direction of my mind were the voice formed.
"Nice try."
Compared to the rich potency of the voice in my head, the real life one almost seemed pale in comparison. Almost.
"Leave."
The command cracked like a whip against our flayed flesh. The girls scrambled for the door, eyes wide and staring. But I couldn't move. My limbs remained iron stiff, holding me where I stood as the rest of the girls – some my friends – darted around my immobilised body. No one looked back. I was alone. What could I have hoped for, really? Myrtle to tackle the Great King to the ground so I could escape? Not likely.
Silence. Your thoughts are wandering. It is tiring me.
Immediately, I tried to put a clamp on my thoughts, tackling loose threads of mental speech to the ground and pinning them there as I felt a presence move closer behind me. Soon it morphed into a source of warmth that slowly heated my back. It made the king seem more real: a body of blood like the rest of us, unlike the cool, unseen figure of ice that he had been for my whole life.
"Ignasia," the voice said in a kindly chiding voice that I did not, for one second, believe was genuine. Another claw of ice took hold of me, this time more deep and long lasting than the last. It seized my core and held me, making my bones ache in fear.
He knew my name. My real name.
But not your true name. Won't you tell me, Ignasia?
"I don't know it," I replied hoarsely, through cracked and dried lips. Instantly, I felt an intense pressure on my neck that, although didn't completely choke me, made oxygen an impossibility for a few seconds.
"I did not tell you to speak."
Shit. I filled my mind with apologetic images and the pressure eased.
"Your true name Ignasia. Tell me. Speak."
I mustered up all the eloquence and politeness and submissiveness I had struggled to master over the long years.
"Master, I apologise. My name is Sil, and I am only-"
The blow around the back of my skull sent me crumpling to the floor like a broken marionette. When the King spoke again, his silken voice was pleasant, but it was cold. "Ignasia. I am not in the mood for games."
Swear words in the hundreds filled my mind, clogging my thoughts. I forced them to the back and gave it one more stab.
"Your Highness, I must most sincerely apologise, but my name really is-"
A boot found my head and slammed it against the floor.
"I preferred 'Master'," said Galbatorix conversationally, and then the boot was gone, and I felt a force like invisible hands lifting me from the cold marble and placing me on my feet. My temples throbbed.
"Let us try again. Ignasia."
I was completely cowed. "Yes, my Perpetual Lord."
"Master will do, thank you Ignasia." The words wrapped around me like satin and steel; cold and soft and painful.
"Of course Master."
There was enough of a pause for me to realise that Galbatorix was displeased with my speaking up. "To the bed, Ignasia."
Shit.
And Ignasia, de-filth your tongue. It's appalling me.
The words rang in my head like a purr, but they sounded different somehow. The mental voice in my head gave me words to say: 'I will no longer think or speak of dirt".
As the words began to pour from my mouth, I realised why they sounded odd.
"Eka norngr oic huginr de arbitr cora thirnga" – shit, I kept thinking shi-, sh-. "Br'oko kera art'minka dea for", I added quickly: 'unless I want to think them'.
I was not prepared to feel Galbatorix's wrath so early in my 18th year of living. I had purposefully thwarted his oath. I prepared for the worst: to feel his mental mind tearing my own, young one to shreds. I had images of Shruikan dropping through the ceiling and savagely impaling me with one black talon.
"Ignasia."
Shit.
The tone was like a gust of frigid wind on a glacier of pain. More terrifying – his voice was in complete control. The tone was smooth even; slick as a polished blade.
"Get out your wings."
The last part of my willpower crumpled like a paper love letter in the force of an inferno.
"What?" I croaked.
I felt pressure on my head, but from one point only. Galbatorix's index finger pushed against my temple. "Ignasia," he murmured softly, and the barely exhaled word danced over my flesh.
"Master?" I repeated fearfully.
"Now."
The word was no louder, but it held such unquestionable authority that my years of training, my years of planning and holding my ground – my entire life of deception and hiding and waiting all shrivelled and burnt into a wisp of insubstantial smoke before my very eyes.
"Yes, Master," I whispered, and I unfurled my wings.
Immediately, I felt horribly exposed. I hadn't put my wings out behind me without a ward of invisibility, or at least a veil, for the best part of three years. And here they were, spread in the caramel and desert-red glory, before the man who was soon to destroy me for them.
"Thank you, Ignasia, that wasn't so hard now, was it?"
A shiver coursed through me. The king was angry. No, not angry, no – livid. I realised he was expecting a reply. "No, Master."
"May I?"
I didn't trust speaking again, so I settled for slightly inclining my head. I left it bent forward, my body physically straining to lean away from the incoming touch on my wings. I could feel the King's hand lowering; the shorter, new feathers stuck up like raised hackles at the approaching touch. Unperturbed, Galbatorix closed his fist on the curve of my left wing and ran his thumb firmly in a swipe across the feathers. The warmth pealed through my muscles, and then the sensations shot like flaming electricity through my veins and plunged into the lips between my legs. My knees buckled.
I swung, suspended by the hand holding my wing.
"Ignasia," came the same pleasant tone. "The bed, please." Ice shards littered the voice. They cut into me mentally, bruising and maiming my self-control. Here was the King. And I was a mutant servant girl bound into service at birth before I knew the extent of my magical deformity.
Deformity? No. It's beautiful.
The sarcasm was thickly laid on, like rich butter of the kind slathered on the white grain bread of the nobles. My mind tried to retreat from the words. It was all a lie.
The bed, Ignasia.
It was steadily approaching as Galbatorix steered me towards it. A few steps, and then my hips were level with the mattress, and then, with strength that should belong to no humanoid, the King had folded my wings like they were thin sheets rather than limbs heavy with muscle and cartilage and feathers and dropped me on my back. I bounced into the softness of the mattress, and for a moment, my eyes rolled back into my head. It was by far the most gorgeously soft thing I had ever laid on. For a brief half second I forgot the king stood above me. I forgot the unnatural winged attachments protruding from my shoulder blades, I forgot my adopted uncle, Tornac and adopted brother, Murtagh – both gone, gone away. I focussed on the softness for one, glorious moment of a dream.
Then it was shattered.
"Ignasia."
My eyes snapped open. Galbatorix stood over me. I realised I had flared my wings as I burrowed back into the mattress, and they had rucked up in the sheets; causing the black silk to spill over the gold and orange feathers like opaque water. Above me, the Dragon King's face was cast in shadow. All I could pick out were the black sparkle of onyx irises set back in his face. Broad shoulders were covered with a hide armour of mottled crimson red. Distinctly, they looked like scales. A cape of lurid, translucent material was slung over his neck, but the King unstrung it and let it fall like a cascade of water to the floor. Ebony hair hung low over his forehead and overlapped his collar bone. But I still couldn't see his face and that frustrated me.
"Roll."
The command took me by surprise. "What?" I frowned. The blow caught the side of my cheek. The ear under it rung a shrill, high alarm. I quickly did as I was told. Cold steel at my back made my body stiffen again, but it never penetrated: instead sliced the length of my servants tunic. Hands slid it over my back.
Galbatorix's fingers felt long and slender as he explored the skin where the wings seamlessly melded with flesh. They were slightly cool to the touch.
"Ignasia. You know of the Gedwëy Ignasia, child?"
I bristled at the insult to my youth, but nodded hesitantly, unsure of how much I should let on. In retrospect, the King probably knew everything, I thought.
You would be right.
I shivered.
The man carried on as if nothing had happened. "The mark a newborn dragon bestows upon its rider. A powerful name, don't you think?"
"I suppose so." I managed a rolling shrug.
"Palm, the second half of the title, 'Shining Palm'. You were named after anatomy of the human form."
The man gave a dry chuckle with no humour in it, although I could see how it could be mistaken to. I knew better. I hesitated, before I decided to attempt explaining.
"The name was…written on my palm when I was delivered to the city," I said tentatively.
"I know."
I fell silent. The fingers moved away from the base of my wings and began to explore my back – trailing up and down like they were feathers themselves. It soothed and relaxed me, and despite myself, I found myself sinking into a sleepy stupor.
As if he were amused by my dozing, the King's voice seemed slightly warmer. "Do you know why you are here, Without-the-Shining-Palm?"
I was struggling to stay awake. I did know the answer to this, but… Sleep was covering me in a sticky, compressing cover, and it escaped my fuddled brain.
"I… I'm not…"
"I'm bored, Ignasia," he whispered in my ear. His breath was cool. "I'm bored, and you will satisfy me."
There was something so inherently wrong about that statement, but before I could object, there was a decrease in the mattress next to me, and the fingers changed angle. Galbatorix had sat down. And he was crooning to me; lilting, musical words in the ancient language that spun dark threads over my eyes and made my lids heavy. I drifted – despite knowing that it was the most dangerous thing I could do, I drifted. And I remembered no more.
I woke sluggishly, but with a force and momentum that made me realise that my unconscious had slapped me awake. It was still dark outside – the light poured in from archways in the wall. A breeze drifted though as well and
I was in Galbatorix's bed.
A thrill surged through me, but it wasn't a nice one. Jerkily, like a stiff bolt, I twisted, but the massive black thing was empty. The sheets were rumpled but only slightly, so I had no idea if he had spent the night with me. I definitely knew I didn't want him to.
In my sleep, for comfort, I had flared my wings their entire length so as to avoid lying on them. Someone, possibly the King, but then possibly a servant, had moved me to the centre of the mattress. Carefully, conscious that someone was listening, I slid off the bed.
Shit, the floor was freezing! I danced across it, the pads of my feet slapping more than I'd've liked. But I reached the balcony without incident. It was still barren and empty, overlooking the city of Urû'baen. I recalled yesterday: reliving my way around Galbatorix's oath. The words had come easily then, as sometimes were I felt in danger, they would; as if something had pushed them on me.
I tried now.
""Eka eddyr… aí rauthr."
I am a misfortune. It was the closest I could come to 'monster'. I had to get away from this place. I took a step forward and scanned the entire city. Patrols everywhere. Sentries littered the turrets and towers. Guards stationed near on every door of importance. No sneak and subtlety was getting me out tonight.
I felt an immediate thrill. I was leaving this city, tonight! I had to cause a distraction, but I was not strong enough to make it large, or it would sap all of my strength to fly. I needed a domino effect. I searched for a few minutes, and then I spotted it. A house that Shruikan had landed on a few weeks previously – terrifying everyone in the city, was in the process of being rebuilt. Scaffolding held it up.
I focused on the spots, and then held out my palm. "Thrysta," I muttered, and repeated it three times. The drain of magic was a pull on me, but as I loosened the fourth leg with the push spell, the scaffolding began to creak.
I had to get ready, fast. Scrambling with my hands and spreading my wings for balance against the wind, I was perched on the balcony, and then as the structure fell, I took off.
The magic had taken more out of me than I'd thought. I had to labour for a few too many wingbeats to get in the air. Once I had, I began to rise as swiftly as I could. The rhythm of my beats filled my ears, and my being with a cool sense of calm. My muscles pulled and flexed and released as I gathered speed. I hadn't flown – properly flown – in many months. I just hoped I could keep it up now. Once I was high enough, I eased up and began to gather speed as I shot west out of the city.
Some ponce screamed. Screamed very loudly – high and hot and irritatingly about me. Alarms sounded. My teeth gritted; I pushed on.
The wall was underneath me. My wingbeats came faster, faster still. My muscles screamed, but the wall was 10 metres behind me, twenty.
I dipped low to the ground, but my muscles had to work harder in the lack of air. Fuck. I had to rise or I would never make any headway. It was too risky to do it in one upward, climbing sweep, I would have to do it gradually, as I flew. Which would be exhausting. I lifted off the ground only slightly. I could see the silver expanse of the huge river Urû'baen rested near, and over the jagged tops of the far off mountains, morning was beginning to dawn. I sped through the darkness, lifting higher until I was on par with the levels of the walls which were shrinking behind me. Flaming arrows trailed to the ground behind me, out of range.
Higher still. I passed over the river. It was dark and grey where the morning light, which was still barely over the tops of the horizon, didn't touch it.
Unease startled to prickle through me. This was too easy. The out of range arrows, the lack of spells, and the lack of him himself. The King. Where was he?
Behind you.
My wings actually failed, and I plummeted a few feet before I regained control. I was too scared to look back, and I couldn't anyway, for the manoeuvre would surely see me falling from the air like a bird with a broken wing. I beat harder.
It's no use.
The voice was dangerous in my air. Still soft as dulcimers, but I could feel sharp teeth hurting my insides as it rippled around my head.
I have been kind to you, Ignasia.
How would I block him, how could I?! I hummed scraps of tunes from my childhood, but my mind was erratic, and every time Galbatorix probed further, I lost my thread of thought. He sifted through my thoughts with a sense of amusement. My most precious memories peeled apart and scorned at. It made me feel violated.
This has gone on long enough.
I froze. Not stiffened, but literally froze on the spot. My wings stopped beating, and I couldn't move them. But at the same time, I hovered at the same point in the air. This man was so powerful it made my skin burn.
Slowly, and then with gathering speed, I lifted into the air as though a force had grabbed my wings and were pulling them up by them. Wind whistled through me, tugged at my palomino hair. It felt like the golden tan was being flayed off my cheeks in the wind. The sensation only continued for a little while longer, and then it slowed as I came level with a monstrous black dragon. Its side, as I flew past it, was as vast as a face of a single peak of the Beor mountains. I couldn't see much – I was still moving too fast – but I did look deep into the white-blue eye as large as a sightless moon, which stared at me with such intense hate that I tried to recoil within myself to escape it. And there, standing on top of the monstrous dragon's head, whose wingbeats scudded in the air with soundwaves that broke the membranes of my ear drums, stood King Galbatorix. And he did not look happy.
Slowly, as though I were a feather on a summer breeze instead of a young adult girl being carried by someone's mental power, I landed on my back at his feet just as the touches of dawn broke from over the mountains.
They lit his face for the first time. I could only remember his features wreathed in shadows. Broad, strong jaw, wide cheekbones that looked almost elven. But there was smooth ruggedness to his features that betrayed his human heritage. Dark eyes which burned with an intelligence more than human were rimmed with thick, long lashes. His brows were dark and furrowed in displeasure. A few lines creased the copper tan of his forehead. His nose was sharp, and his nostrils were flared; his anger was so imminent. Dark, ebony locks flopped over the masculine face as he looked down on me lying so close to him, I was practically on his boot.
"Home, Shruikan."
The dragon turned slowly, and we flew back to the castle far more quickly than I had left it. Shruikan extended his head and Galbatorix walked down the spikes, pulling me with him. I hit the edge of stone balcony with my hip, and yelped. The King ignored me.
He dragged me through the middle archway, back into the room I had left not twenty minutes ago.
"Ignasia."
The voice was so carefully controlled, that he made it sound reproachful. I got the idea perfectly. I was never to do that again.
All of a sudden, his presence was in my mind, bringing with it flurries of images – images of women. They were beautiful: curvaceous and voluptuous, slim and sleek or supple as a willow. Their heads were thick with hair of crimson and midnight black and earthy reds and browns. They were draped in poses that made my cheeks hot – hotter still when I recognised the room they were in. Some were spread eagle-limbed on the floor, brows damp with sweat. One lay on her stomach, half on the huge black desk, her rear raw and red. At her feet on the floor lay a whip made out of the tail of a Nark'rg-erk – tall, beast-like dogs with thin, leathery tales that they used for asphyxiating their prey. Local, ignorant townsfolk called them hell hounds.
And then, of course, there was the bed.
Littered with damp, spent bodies, in the midst of it all lay Galbatorix, propped up on a pile or red and black pillows with a lazy smile twisting his handsome face. There were at least ten women with him, all in the throes of pleasure. Across his lap, a caramel-haired woman lay with her arse – red and spanked held slightly in the air. The King wore nothing, but the draped bodies concealed him. His fingers were thrust deep within a curvaceous woman with dewy, milky skin, and the other hand flickered across the soft mounds of buttocks, caressing and playing and toying.
All the while, the King was looking directly at me, and smiling that dominant, predatory smile as if he knew exactly what I were thinking.
Then he retracted from my mind in a sudden snap, and I would have crumpled if he hadn't been holding me.
"Do you see now, little one?" He said calmly. Beneath the words, a turbulent storm roiled. "I could have anyone. You should feel privileged."
"I'm not."
It was a stubborn and reckless statement. I expected to be reprimanded with a hit, but he surprised me, and flung me bodily through the air and onto the bed. I bounced, but the impact knocked the air from me. I buried my face into the cover and tried to breathe slowly. The steps approached behind me, slow and casual. A soft thump – a piece of clothing had fallen. A hand appeared on my head and pushed my face into the soft folds of the black silk. I screamed, but it was louder in my inner ears that the gag allowed. I tried to breathe but couldn't inhale any oxygen.
Galbatorix rolled me onto my back, pinning my wings underneath me, and straddled my hips. He wasn't even looking at me; pulling off his thick, hide gauntlets as he looked at somewhere in the distance with a blank, bored expression. I was almost offended, but the thought flickered through my head, and his coal dark eyes turned on me and I knew he'd heard.
I like the thrill of the chase as much as any other, little one.
It was strange hearing that rich, deep, mellifluous voice echoing in my head while the man's lips remained set in an impassive line.
But your escape attempt did not amuse me.
"I'm sorry, Master," I whispered, cowed.
"Rosna un moi lethr."
The rest of my clothing fell to shreds on my body and I gasped before I could rein it in. The wind was cold on my exposed flesh.
"I might have taken my time with you, little one," the King said, and his tone had turned menacing. "But the night is wasted."
True enough, the papery stains of early dawn were lightening the sky outside. The morning was lilac; tranquil. A contrast to what I felt.
The leather slid off my body as Galbatorix grasped my leg and pushed them open. He leaned down, till his lips touched the curve of my cheekbone. "You will stay here all day, chained to my bed and when I see fit to see you, I shall come, and I shall take you. Do you understand, little one?"
The urge to squeak and quake was pressing against my chest, but I swallowed despite the bone dryness of my tongue and said in a voice that only wavered a little. "Yes, Master."
Galbatorix's other hand helped spread my legs, and then he slipped it under the base of my spine and lifted it slightly.
Feel free to scream, little one.
I could taste the smile in his voice. Then he plunged in, deep, deeper than anything had ever been before, my wings snapped open in their own protest, and the world spiralled into darkness.
The End.
(Or is it?)