A/N: I dedicate this to Penmora Zenith for continuing to read. Love to Leroux and Kay. Thank you to my new beta, Chatastic! This chapter will conclude the 'Interlude' section. Next chapter is all Erik; all the time. Please read & review!

Erik 1853: Interlude III

I had grown bored. Restless. Dangerous.

My nights of watching Nājia turned into circular motion. She crept away to her pallet and would not appear again until sunrise. I believed someone had let slip that I watched her, but I knew that, if I let out enough rope, the bitch would lead me directly to her pups. There I would crush them all beneath my slipper-covered foot while she helplessly watched.

Night after night went by with nothing more noteworthy than the fact that Nājia talked in her sleep. Believing them to be her deepest desires, I listened intently for hours. Nothing more interesting than: 'The Good Book says …' and she would ramble some infidel's code of conduct, or 'It's the beauty of a violin. The violin. His violin!' Other nights she would toss violently beneath her thin sheet and curse in languages I didn't understand. What was my son letting her read to him? Did he understand more than he let on?

Then there were the scraps of paper I found crumpled and abandoned throughout her quarters. Some had vague ink strokes and others had full words. My interest was peaked, and I tried for several hours to piece together a full sheet of paper from the tatters that remained. After hours of excruciating work, I was finally able to read:

She is someone who can entertain;

It is well known that she dances well;

I am one of those who look on her;

It is indeed a great wonder — she dances nude.

Nājia favouring girls? If there was some other hidden meaning, I couldn't decipher her code. Then it struck me —she fancied me! No, no, that was too preposterous. What then? What did this silly poem mean? I'd have to sleep on it and see what dreams might reveal.

As for the daroga, he presented me with copious amounts of detailed notes as to Nājia's day-to-day activities. She awoke with the girls her age and rank, and then joined the rest of us to dine in the great room. He noted that she rarely ate the food placed before her or drank from her glass. On two occasions he had followed her into one of the gardens that bore the choicest produce. There she would spend hours reading from a tattered book and nibbling at this or that piece of ripened fruit. Later, she might choose the fabrics for her next outfit. It went on and on, and it bored me to the point of mortal peril. Not my own, of course. How he came by this information is not for me to guess; I learned by observation that he wasn't feeding me lies.

The Punjab lasso had become one of my rare delights in the obsidian hours of Mazanderan. I practised my technique against women in the harem, then moved on to the eunuchs who denied me the one thing I craved, but recently it was the royal cats who suffered my — what did Erik call it? — ennui.

It might have seemed a heartless amusement, for what does a cat have to defend itself? Ah, but it has its clever walk, its long sharp claws, and don't underestimate the importance of graceful manners. Over the course of a month, I had discovered that I could throw a cat from the third or fourth story balconies, and it would sustain little or no damage. I envied them the instinct of usually landing on their feet, and thus set out to destroy the weakest among my household — lasso in hand. What I had learned by enduring countless mistakes to come away the victor, the finest cats of my household would have bred out of them by their mistress — me.

To this task I had set my sights, when the man I had been waiting for came to call at my humble door. A dark and beguiling Indian man stood with a devious grin and an eye for a bargain. He dealt in both the curative and the deadly, but it was only his poisons I was after, and he was willing to trade one vice for another. He was the first apothecary I had ever beckoned to my inner chamber because inside his large satchel were tucked the means of my revenge on Nājia.

We spent the better part of two days haggling. He wanted another taste of my mouth in exchange for a vial of monkshood. I desired a bottle of hemlock for allowing him to trace the lines of my inner thighs. Ever the consummate businessman, he gave me a fair price on most of the powders I wanted. In the end, he pleased me and I poisoned him. Why buy the toxins when you can take them for free? Besides, I had to ensure that what he sold was more than pretty ground flowers labelled as exotic wares.

The other drugs were tested on women too old to be of use to my son, or too terrified, or too ugly, or too stupid. Some died painfully over days; others expired instantly. They all knew I was the one behind the murders, but like well-trained monkeys they never said a word against me. Nājia became less and less a fixture at my table.

I sent for her.

She did not come.

I sent for her with a gentle reminder in the form of a large and unswervingly loyal subject.

Not only did she refuse my request, but she sent the man away with gifts of gemstones. He brought them to me immediately. I recognised them as the ones I had given her to plant on Erik's person. What madness was she playing at? She knew full well, if not better than I, that she would be caught and most likely killed for this cheek. Did she defy me because she didn't believe my gaze could be turned in her direction? Did she think she was too valuable or irreplaceable?

Anger, my ever-faithful companion, and I stormed towards her modest room. The door was nearly torn from its hinges. Something coursed through my veins that turned my anger into a physical rage. And I loved it. I wanted her to lash out and fuel its growth. There she sat, her face blank as a slate, while I screamed, broke vases, crushed flowers, tore her clothing to shreds, and threatened to do her bodily harm.

'What can you possibly do to me,' she said without blinking, 'that I haven't already wanted to do to myself?'

'You serve me no longer, then?'

'I only ever did what you asked me to do' she spoke, while still motionless. Motionless but smug. I had turned her into this abomination, hadn't I? I always had to repent for my mistakes … always. 'And now you accuse me of being remiss in my duties to you.'

That same feeling of invincibility was now gone. I was an ageing woman sitting in a room with a, once lively, younger woman. Revenge would have to wait. Now was the time for soothing words laced in treachery.

I smoothed back her hair. 'I forgive you for your insolence, Nājia. Don't make me regret this. Clean up your mess and come to dine with the rest of your sisters.'

Well into the second course, she arrived at her place and sat down into the cushions. Carefully, I watched her pick at her food but eat nothing. I lifted my goblet and went to sit beside her.

'My daughter, let us start anew,' I said and then drank from the chalice, as a sign of trust, and offered her the remaining wine. She hesitated as the other girls watched, but then took it in both hands and drained the contents. Yes, she could still be moulded one last time. One last time to prove her worth and be rewarded with her death.

o . O . o

Little time was left for my plan to play out. Erik would be arrested in only seven days. Arrested in the morning and destroyed in the evening. A perfect day awaited me, but I had so many things to do between now and then.

Indulging in Nājia's every need seemed to bring her from her melancholic state to rest in the palm of my warm and loving hand. For I did love the child. Loved her for what she could have been, if she hadn't trusted a man like Erik over me.

Could there be another man like Erik in all the world? I would gladly like to meet another. Younger. More malleable. And certainly less sure of himself.

Before dinner, I had slipped a stoppered bottle of flour in my right sleeve. In the left, a separate vial of liquid death. Even as I stood before my gilded mirror I didn't know how the tale should end. Kill the hero? Kill the girl? Kill them both? Kill neither and let my son employ his own sense of justice. I had seemed so sure the last time he and I spoke on the subject of Erik.

Put his eyes out, I'd rashly spat. Wait, my son, I have a far better plan, I said and left him with those words; he expected me to fulfil that plan with glorious action.

Knowing that I wanted to watch Erik die by Nājia's wicked hand, I left the bottle of flour and left for supper with the poison.

The wine flowed freely. Soon, the entire harem was giggling and falling into each other's laps. Only the best wine for the best plan. I had the most jewel-encrusted chalice in the kingdom brought to me full of rich red wine. Its heady scent was intoxicating to inhale. No poison would ever be detected in the richness of its colour or aroma.

Almost on tiptoes I stepped carefully to where Nājia sat. Her thick eyelashes were heavy with alcohol-induced sleep. The shah's palace was the only place left where such hedonism was both accepted and encouraged. I drained the cup and sat beside her.

'I have a matter I wish you to handle,' I clapped for more wine.

Nājia closed her eyes and nodded. Her body seemed to relax and in open view I allowed for her to see me pour something from a glass tube into the goblet. I swirled the liquid around and around inside the plated gold cup until not a trace of acrid odour remained. She watched and I couldn't see if she grew more or less tense.

'This is not for you, little one,' I winked. 'I wish for you to bring this gift to Erik as a sign of the peace between us. Peace, little one, requires fealty. Fealty cannot be earned from the likes of him. It must be taken. Go, take this to him with my blessing. Do this and you shall be free. I swear it.'

She stared at me. 'Free?'

I twinged with pain that she didn't know what freedom was. Had I not gone to several lengths on her behalf to ensure her comfort?

'Free to go as you please, and do as you like. Free to leave this land or to stay. It matters not to me. And if you prove yourself to be my true daughter,' I paused to let my words sink past the effects of wine, 'I will enable you to travel as far away from me as you wish. You will ride in style, comfort, and under my protective blessing.'

'Freedom,' she repeated. Perhaps she wished to let the word sit on her tongue. Then she would swallow it and it would grow inside her like ivy.

Her hands trembled, but she took the heavy chalice and stood with her head held high. Tonight, I would discover how far she would go to choose her freedom or whether she would rather die for the touch of a monster.