A/N Thanks to all my readers who reviewed. I'm sorry it's taking awhile for me to update. Some pretty harsh things have been going on in my life and it's been hard to find time to just sit and write. But, I'm doing as best I can and know that I have no plans at all to drop this story. In fact, I can't wait to get farther ahead because I already have so much planned. Before I get into all my really long thank yous, do any of you actually read them? Or my a/n's? Anyways, thanks to:
...: Thanks for reading. And you're right, it's not her.
cloverluck11: okay... I will. lol. Have you read my other stories?
Malady Euthanasia : Well, you're welcome. Thank you for reading and your very kind words.
cylobaby: Yes, he is a trouble-maker. lol. Thanks for reading.
Irish Violinist: I'm so glad you like it. Have you read my other stories?
Tortalli: I'm so glad you like it. You should check out my other stories, see if you like them also.
seabiscuit0810: I'm so glad you like it. Do you like my other stories as well?
demented-dreamer: I see what you mean about them not adding up. But there's an explination to that. When I first started writing this story, it was on a disc. I was several chapters in when my disc completely crashed and I lost the story. I had to start all over and I made some minor changes, such as her wig color and the way that Robert died. So, for all purposes, Robert was throat was slit and Tori wears a blond wig. Also, what I meant by not a very good fighter, was 1.) she isn't very good with anything but swords, and she's fractionally good with staffs. and 2.) she has very low self confidence when it comes to her fighting skills. As for Robert's teacher, that is to remain secret until later. Thanks for reading and pointing that out to me.
warrior of tortall: I'm very very glad you love my story. Please keep writing.
Chapter Eight:
Tori sighed as she sank lower into the tub, her drying hair caught on the outside edge slinking a little bit farther into the tub with the pull. The water was nearly to her chin now, and losing the warmth that had first scalded her nearly an hour before. But she didn't care. She didn't have the motive or energy to leave the soothing presence of the water. It was almost as if the water had seeped into her soul and cleansed her.
The knock on the door didn't register her steam-clouded mind and neither did her murmured command to enter. It was the sound of the turn of the knob being caught on the lock that had her gasping into awareness.
"It's locked boy. Open it up," Derek. Water flew as she scrambled from the tub, flinging several feet into the air and across the room. She stood paralyzed in the middle of the room, naked and shivering with the cold of the air, uncertain of what she should do.
"Open up, or I'm sending Jon for a key. We need to talk, boy. Now," she heard Jon's grumbled protest and sprung into action, scrambling for her special corset and clothes. She had managed to struggle her soaking wet legs into her breeches when she heard Jon scurry away. She judged she had two minutes.
She tugged the corset over her head, over her arms and settled it at her midsection, covering her breasts. The corset was made special with soft lining on the front and laces that did up the front also so she could pull them closed by herself. She had found the corset for sale on one of the back streets of the market in Corus, at an inn called The Dog House. It had been filled to the brim with rowdy looking crowd of men that she suspected weren't exactly on the right side of the law. But the sale that had taken place had had many useful items.
She grabbed the string on the right with her left hand and the string on the left with her right hand and pulled. The sound of the strings pulling the fabric closed rustled across the room and into Derek's perked ears.
Tori's hands trembled with nerves as she tied the strings tight together and shimmed her tunic over the corset. Next came the wig. With the skill only a woman could possess, she twisted her hair into a tight knot at the back of her head and began jabbing in pins from her desk into the knot, making sure that all would be in place. As she was settling the blond wig over her head, she heard Jon return to the door.
Her knees trembled as she tightly secured the wig in place, barely finishing before it was to late. "We're coming in!" Derek called, and Tori could have sworn she heard the slightest bit of panic in his voice. The knob turned and the door swung open to reveal Derek standing in the doorway, gazing at her. He gave her a once over, nodded and asked for the report.
Slightly puzzled, she quickly relayed what had happened, hoping to get through the details as fast as possible to allow herself as little pain as possible. By the end she was exhausted and sniveling. Her hair was damp under the wig and it was cold in her room. She had forgotten to cover her feet.
"Did you really kill them all with one hit?" Jon demanded of her and she took notice of him for the first time. She looked down at him and saw the awe and respect lighting his eyes. And she couldn't help but want it to stick around. All her life she had always had someone who had known her and enjoyed her company, someone she had to take care of. Why couldn't she have that now? With Jon? He needed someone to take care of him. And she needed someone to take care of in order to keep hold of some part of herself. Everything else had been swept away in the current that had taken her through the Own.
"Yes, Jon. I really did. And if you behave, I just might show you how I did it one day," she gave him a tiny smile before looking up at Derek to find him watching her. For the first time in years that she could remember, she fought not to blush underneath a man's scrutiny.
But what was she thinking? To Derek, she was a little boy. He didn't see her as anything other then a soldier in his squad. And if he did, she would have many reasons to worry. She cleared her throat nervously.
"Dinner should be ready in the mess hall. Lets head out," He nodded his head to the door and started out, Jon close on his heels. She vaguely heard him asking if Derek knew the move Tori had used and if he would show it to him. With a chuckle she checked her face in the mirror and noticed a single lock of dark chestnut hair sticking out over her ear.
By the end of dinner, Tori was sneezing as often as she dodged glares from Jon's father. She still wasn't certain what his name was. Jon had sat beside her, pestering her with questions about battle. When he had discovered that had been her first, he was at the same time awed that she had succeeded so well and disappointed that she didn't have stories to tell. He turned to Harlow and allowed her to sniffle in solitude. Her wet hair and bare feet had given her a cold.
Merely a half hour after the dinner had started, she was finished, having eaten a few bites and managed to swallow a few sips of water, the cold had sucked nearly all her energy from her.
She sneezed once and felt her eyelids close over her dreary, bloodshot eyes. She hated being sick, and when she became sick, she often took it hard and for long periods of time. The only cure she ever knew of, besides seeing a Healer, was rest and lots of fluids.
Her fogged mind didn't take note that her energy was being drained faster and harder then any cold had power to take. But she didn't take note and instead, sneezed once more and shivered. Derek, seated next to her, must have felt the shiver, for he turned towards her with a frown. She gave a huge sniffle and crossed her arms over her chest, trying to conserve warmth. She was still cold, even after her hair had dried some and her feet had been covered.
"Are you alright?" Derek asked quietly. She nodded absently and shivered again, this time from the feel of eyes one her back. With a muffled curse she turned in her seat and glared right back at Jon's father, something that startled Derek into a laugh. Kel, hearing her sons laugh, so loud when often so silent, looked at him and the little boy beside him. The little boy that had just killed eight men.
Tori, once again sitting properly in her chair and facing her uneaten plate of food, sneezed again. Derek placed his hand on her forehead and felt the fever building there.
"Boy, you have a fever. You sure you're alright?" His voice was gruff, his commander's voice. Tori's mind knew that voice and she automatically responded to it without thinking. When he used that voice he was talking to a soldier. And soldier's were never weak, couldn't afford to be.
"Fine sir," her voice was slurred with her weariness, but she was willing to look over look that. Had to overlook it. She had to be strong, soldiers were strong. "Only a little tired from the fight is all."
He frowned at her before returning to his meal. It was several minutes before he felt her whole body trembling. He turned to her.
Tori couldn't make it stop. Her whole body was trembling, from the tips of her toes to the tips of her hair. She was almost certain her hair trembled with in the wig. But it was the ring that scared her. It was quivering against her flesh and the quivering was growing stronger. It was going to do something and she had to be alone when it happened.
With mounting haste, she stood, banging her knees on the table. But that didn't stop her. Tori's feet pounded into the ground as she ran from the mess hall, digging into her shirt and reaching for the ring, trying to get it from around her neck. She feared it would do something terrible to her.
Her seeking fingers went to the clasp at the back of her neck, thinking to unhook the thing and get it off, but it was jammed. Her breath was hitching as she slid through the open doors and out into the night in the camp. Darkness surrounded her as she fumbled. The quivering had moved to shuddering so strongly that it was leaving marks along her chest. She could feel the ring digging in.
She had reached to just yank it off but it stopped suddenly. Tori felt a presence behind her and she turned and saw—
—a woman with her back facing her, blond hair cascading down her slim back, reaching nearly to her curved hips. Loathing reached deep into her gut and twisted it, made it seethe and fester with hate and disgust. She hated this woman, with everything that in her. Hated her, hated her even though she called her mother.
An urge rose deep in her gut to grab hold of that soft, golden light hair and yank it out, make the woman who was so oblivious to her own daughter hurt, but she settled for clenching her hands into fists.
She stood behind her mother, a dark scowl on her face, one her soldiers had come to fear. The war council, the one that she had called into action stared at her as the woman continued to talk and to instruct. How dare her mother think she had the power to do this? To instruct the war council?
The pain that began to stab through her heart made tears prick at the back of her eyes, but she could never allow them to show, could never afford to. If she were to achieve what she wanted she had to be as strong as possible. The people on the war council would never respect her if she broke down and allowed her emotions to take control.
She cleared her throat and saw her mother's shoulder's straighten fractionally. But instead of acknowledging her daughter, she continued with her instructions. Like they would listen to her.
"You're dismissed," her voice slithered from her throat, causing her mother's shoulder's to stiffen more. "For the moment you will forget all plans relayed to you. There's been breaking news. I will direct the next council. You will come at my call and mine alone. Understood?"
There was a murmured agreement and she nodded. As her council drifted from the room, she turned away from her mother and stared out the window, out across the palace walls and into the capital, Thermalie. Saw her people in the streets, her soldiers parading around the grounds on guard duty. Hers.
Her mother may have married the bastard that had given her power, but she held none of it. The old rules, which she planned to banish most when she established her kingdom, said that the wife had no power. After the husband's death, all power and assets went to the children, the son's foremost. If there were no sons, it went to the daughter until she married. Her mother was over stepping her bounds by trying to head the war council.
"As the reigning authority, I could have you thrown into jail for you actions, Mother," the title hissed between her lips like a curse. Her spine snapped straight as she heard the woman behind her laugh, such a light, tinkling laugh. How she hated it.
"Honey, you would never do that to me. I'm your mother," the endearment slipped from her lips as easy as any word would have. It meant nothing to her, she knew. It was her name that her mother couldn't say, never said.
"Are you?" She wanted to turn, wanted her mother to see the fire of hatred burning in her emerald eyes, but she didn't dare. To look at her now would be to break her long held silence. She had worked so hard to conceal her true feelings.
Tears suddenly threatened and she viciously shoved her hand into her pocket, seeking and finding the small stone. She gripped it in her hand as the tears lined her eyes, making them glassy.
"Don't over step your place, Mother," she warned before she whispered "Sheshmaru" and disappeared from the room.
She blinked once and found herself standing in a cave on the beach, hundreds of miles away from where she had been seconds ago. She sucked air deep into her lungs, breathing in the smell of the ocean and let it out with a sigh. It was so easy for her to escape to this place, to take a few minutes out of her hectic day to be alone.
With a girlish giggle, she kicked off her shoes and took of sprinting from the cave and out onto the beach, down to the edge of the water's edge. Her laughter was chased away by the wind as she allowed herself to simply be what she was, an eighteen-year-old girl.
The wind whipped the hair across her face as she laughed and laughed and laughed, until the laughter bubbled and change into hysterical sobs of pain and loss. Without consciously thinking of doing it, she crumpled to the ground and pulled her knees up to her chest to bury her face in.
Her heart bleed red tears as her eyes poured out clear ones. No matter how old she got, how independent, how distant, she would always be hurt by her mother. Always. There was no way she could escape it.
For as long as she could remember, she had never had her mother's love or even her mother's attention. Never. Her mother was so kind to everyone, so sweet and caring. At least, she was like that to everyone but her own flesh and blood. She had even been nice to the murderous raping bastard that had been her husband. To her own daughter, she couldn't even bother to smile at. It would have been so much easier if her mother had hated her, loathed her, shown some emotion. But she showed nothing. In her daughter, the woman had no interest at all. To her mother, she was but a shadow on the wall, a flicker in a candle's light. She was beneath her notice and her affections. She was beneath everything.
As a child, she had soon learned that she would never amount to anything in her mother's eyes, and she had learned to accept it. But it didn't stop it from hurting every time she looked into her mother's eyes and saw nothing.
She gave a lone sniffle and brushed away her tears. It wasn't often that she allowed her mother's behavior to upset her so much that she cried, but every once in a while, she needed an escape. She sighed and stood, brushing the sand from her pants and calmly closed all emotions from her thoughts. Quite simply, she froze it over, turning her mind into ice until her thoughts were once again cold and calculated. It was the easiest way for her to rule and to think.
She stretched her arms up over her head and looked out at sea, noticing for the first time clouds low to the horizon. Her face puzzled into a frown as she looked at the clouds, they were perfectly white and close to the horizon line. To white…a cloud that close to the horizon would have been touched by the setting sun, turning it another color, marring it. But not these.
Because they weren't clouds. They were sails.
The Tortallan's had finally joined the battle. They were coming to attack. With a mixture of pleasure and panic, she grabbed from her pocket a velvet sack and held it tightly in her hand and headed back to the cave for her shoes.
Tori's eyes blinked open as she awakened fractionally. She moaned and rolled to the side, or tried to. But something was holding her down. Her groggy mind registered only the restraint and she began to struggle to get lose, wanting away from whatever was bogging her down.
She was panting for breath by the time she managed to struggle herself out from under the restraints and onto the floor. The jolt of falling cleared away all fog and she realized it was blankets.
Reaching with her hand she searched to rub at the nagging headache, but her hand stopped mid way there. There was something in her hand. Something soft and hard. And big.
Curious, she folded her legs under her as she returned her hand to her lap. She bent her head closer to see in the dim light, for it was dark in the… well, wherever she was.
Slowly, she allowed her fingers to open. In her palm she found a velvet bag, the one that she had dreamed of. She already knew what was inside, she didn't have to look. It would be stones, lots of them, each with a different purpose. What the purpose was, she did not yet know.
Unexpectedly she sneezed. The sound seemed to break the silence that had surrounded her. Two feet thunked to the ground and from her vantage point of nearly under the bed, she looked across the other side of it and saw the two feet that she had heard hit. The large feet, for they were quite big, shifted as the man stood. They shifted even more as he placed both hands on the bed and looked over to see her on the ground.
"You're finally awake, little Tori."
A/N Who could that be? Standing over her bed and using a her nickname when almost everyone calls her kid or boy? Guess you'll have to wait and find out.
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Nubia