15 Vhalar 722
Evening
After events here.
Fuck.
Maxine ran her hands down her face. The morning was a blur. Groggy, she woke up to the opened door of Sabrina's closet. The bedroom was empty but the space itself was in disarray. The bed was stripped of its comforter and sheets. Wax of burned out candles slopped over the furniture in lumpy sloughs. When she parted her lips she found an ache in her jaw but how it came to be was hazy. She rubbed at the spot, and when she finally roused herself out of her Panorium Powder coma, Sabrina was no where to be found.
There was no sign of Tristane either.
The Rusalka knew her sin. She used the dancer and all her alluring charisma to bait the Dorrick patriarch into a place of vulnerability. She'd asked the woman to place herself in harm's way, creatively digging for information and prying into a business that could get her killed. Sabrina agreed to play the role of the whore instead of just a dancer, to allow herself to be bought to get him into the bedroom, all under the promise Max would make herself known and end the encounter before things went too far.
Instead Max was more unconscious than not where she hid in that closet. She sniffed more narcotic than she judged. The conversation was had in the audience of ears that could not retain what it heard. The door never opened despite multiple cues for help. Sabrina was forced to be the whore again. To break character was to bring on her own death. She could not beat Tristane. No one was going to save her.
The junkie spent the better part of that trial drinking and using, marinating in familiar self hatred and self destruction. She'd sown her own failure and let Tristane slip from her fingers, and with him any hope of uncovering the orchestrator of the plot against the Etzori politicians. Given the chance to rectify a similar task so long ago she fell short in a pit of addiction and selfishness. When her Ambrosia joint burned out she resigned to return to the brothel to face the dancer's wrath.
It was eerily quiet when she arrived. No bard practiced his song for the show later that evening. No dancers rehearsed on the stage, no bouncers sat at the bar loosening up with a drink or a smoke before shift. Only the candles burned like ghosts lighting her way. Max frowned as she made her way down the hall. All the dancers' doors were shut. It was as though not a soul was there at all. She paused at Sabrina's door with her hand on the handle. She glanced back toward the main lounge, toward the door back to a craven exit. After a resignated sigh she opened the door and stepped inside anyways.
"Ah, there you are," a familiar voice growled from the dark bedroom. "Glad you could finally join us."
Max wavered in place, pausing her advance in the doorway. Tristane grinned at her from the other end of Sabrina's bedroom. He stood tall, a hulking man whose shadow loomed over the Rusalka before him. His golden hair shined brightly in the flickering candlelight. Below him, with a knife to her throat, Sabrina grimaced on her knees. A pair of soldiers from the night before flanked him with hard expressions.
"So, this is her?" Tristane asked, giving Sabrina's hair a yank and pressing the edge of his blade against her throat.
"Yes!" the dancer gasped. "Yes, that's her."
"Well, well..." Tristane tilted his head as he roved the newcomer. "You are not what I expected."
"Your mistake," Maxine answered with a shrug. Her eyes dipped down to Sabrina's wide-eyed face and she fought the thousand inflammatory comments that came to her tongue. "I'm flattered you waited around for me. Now that I'm here, why don't you let her go, hm?"
"No," Tristane chuckled. "No, I don't think I will. She's a pretty thing. A real wildcat in the sheets too, but you know that. Don't you?" Maxine's expression darkened. Tristane's smug grin widened. "I very much like her company. I think she should stay. Don't you think you should stay, whore?"
"I'm not your--" Sabrina's rebuttal was sharply ended when Tristane moved his blade edge to rake it across her chest.
The moment Maxine saw the blood from the opened wound she moved with a ferocity that all three intruders were slow to react to. She already had a knife in her hand when she closed the small distance between them.
"Stop!" Tristane commanded.
Maxine's feet planted right where they were, her knife suspended in its arc for his face. The Rusalka resisted her curse, her mind violently smashing against the walls of obedience that would not crumble to her will. Her body remained frozen in place. Tristane watched her eyes and guffawed his satisfaction.
"Well I'll be damned!" the Dorrick man hollered with a venomous grin. "Sweetheart, you weren't lyin'!" He mussed Sabrina's hair and removed the knife from her throat. The dancer leaned forward, a hand coming up to cradle the superficial cut she'd been reprimanded with. Blood leaked down her clothes and between the fingers of the hand stemming the flow. When Sabrina looked up toward Maxine she found the fire in the Rusalka's eyes smothered and expression softened away from that of an unrepentant fighter.
"You two bitches tried to work a fast one over me before," Tristane reminded himself. "Let's see something..." He snapped his fingers and his eyes lit up. "Lorry, make her say something."
"I got one," the soldier named Lorry spoke up and jutted his chin toward the statuesque Rusalka. "Say 'I'm the biggest slut in Idalos.'"
"I'm the biggest slut in Idalos," Max parroted.
"Hah! Okay, another one. Say 'I'm a Dorrick slave and Tristane has my vote.'"
"I'm a Dorrick slave and Tristane has my vote."
"Morty cursed little cunt, are you?" Tristane mocked with a click of his tongue. He gestured toward his friends. "Let's do this proper then, yeah? Get this junkie a seat." A chair was placed behind Maxine at the same time the knife was wrenched from her fingers. Tristane pointed to the seat with his knife. "Sit the fuck down."
Max obeyed and followed similar commands by Lorry and the other soldier with him. In short order her hands and ankles were bound where she sat. Tristane shoved Sabrina to the side and Lorry stood watch over her where she landed. The Dorrick man thundered before the chair and crouched before Maxine, taking a closer look at her now.
"Let me ask you something," he mused darkly. "Tell it true: if I ordered you to suck my dick would you be bound to do it?"
"Yes," Max whispered between grit teeth.
"What about if I told you to kill yourself?" When Max said nothing he rolled his eyes. "Answer me."
"I'd have to kill myself."
"Most interesting..." Tristane's blue eyes were alight with cruelty. "Lucky for you that would be too easy. I don't want you to die. Yet." He rose to a stand. "This will make the business between you and I much easier though. For me." He turned back and stopped beside the dancer. He reached down and turned her face up to look at him, caressing her cheek. "You've been most helpful."
Sabrina stared at Maxine. The Rusalka broke her gaze from the woman in favor of the ceiling. Then she hung her head to stare toward the floor. She'd never told Sabrina about the curse. Even when it forced her to harm the dancer, Max had sooner owned the character of the monster than let this chink in her armor be discovered. No one but Kasoria knew of this vulnerability. So she thought.
Sabrina had figured it out anyways. With that knowledge she never commanded her...but now she'd elected to give it up to this villain's business Maxine had saved her from.
Sabrina was the catalyst for this entire vendetta Maxine waged against The Dorricks. For what they'd done to her.
Now she would be her very undoing.
"Speaking of betrayals," Tristane cleared his throat. "How about last night? That's a fine place to start. Refresh my memory of what you confessed earlier." He squeezed Sabrina's cheeks in his hand. "Verbatim."
"Max asked me to lure you here with my contacts," Sabrina gave it up easily. "I was supposed to target you, get you to buy my time so I could get you alone. I was supposed to get you to talk about whoever has been helping you from the shadows. She told me that, whoever they are, they were targeting the Council and had to be stopped along with you. Before it became more than...talking...she was supposed to come out of hiding."
"To do what?"
"Kill you I hope."
"Huh. Would you look at that. Looks like you failed both your little tasks, Max." Tristane ran his thumb along Sabrina's plump bottom lip and smiled a wicked smile toward Maxine. "Thanks for not interrupting. It was the most satisfying trap I've ever had sprung on me."
"Fuck you," Max spat from her chair.
"She might again. What are you going to do? Stop me?"
He released his grip on Sabrina while Maxine seethed from her bindings. Lorry remained at Tristane's side while the other soldier wandered toward the door. He cracked it open and exited, presumably to do a quick check of the premises to ensure they would remain undisturbed.
"So who the fuck are you?" Tristane crossed his arms. "How do you know about the Council? About people 'in the shadows', as you called it. What the fuck do the likes of you have with any interest in my business?" Max spat at his feet. He glowered. "Give me an answer to all of that."
"I'm Max, dipshit." the cursed woman began as she was commanded frigidly. "I heard the rumors about your family and what you've been up to. The lies, robberies, blackmailing, and all that. I've been in your house listening while you talk about it, learning from your enemies, meddling in your affairs, and following the blood trail until it led me to your little Guardians. I've been very busy finding creative ways to fuck you over."
"Amusing. Tell me. You think killing some faceless guards, burning down a leisure hunting cabin, and accidentally letting me fuck your little girlfriend is your idea of fucking me over?"
"Not quite. Murdering your sister, exploiting your brother's gambling problem, manipulating your business partner until he killed your brother, collapsing the mine, and raiding your caravans might be. Not even she knew about all of that. Like I said. I've been...busy."
Tristane's smugness evaporated. His fingers clenched around his blade. Even in the dim candlelight his face was growing evidently red, veins in his temples bulging while his ferocious sights set themselves on his bound prisoner.
"What's the matter?" Max poked the bear. "Feeling...fucked with?"
"You're lying," Tristane snarled. "Covering for your little friends, whoever and wherever they may be. Tell the truth."
"Secret's out. I'm cursed, asshole. As satisfying as the look on your dumb face is, I'm not in a very good position to be showing all my cards, am I?" She gave a worthless tug at her bindings. "I work alone."
"Quinnley died doing drugs with Perry Green."
"Quinnley was doing drugs. I gave her the Panorium Powder she wanted to put her down quietly. Then I put a needle of bad Katomise I saved in her arm. I could've helped her. Instead I sat there and watched her die. I set Perry up."
"Why…?” Tristane asked in hollow disbelief. "She had nothing to do with my business or my campaign. Why kill her?”
"Because you loved her.”
Blood spit from Maxine's lips when Tristane's knuckles crackled against her cheek. Seated in a chair, there was no moving to soften the blow. It was solid and her head swam shortly upon the impact. She groaned a bit and adjusted her jaw while the Dorrick's chest heaved. His friends steamed beside him, hands on their weapons. Sabrina stared at the Rusalka with wide eyes.
"What of Benjamin?" Tristane finally moved on, smoothing his hair back with a calming hand. "My family and Jimmy's have been in business for two generations. The foundation of our mutual benefit in maintaining wealth was unshakeable."
"Until I stole the ledger and gave it to him," Max corrected while she righted herself. "You pricks treated him like dog shit. I just showed him how you stomped on him while he was down, and made him a desperate man. It was easy. I didn't expect him to kill Benjamin, but after he found Jarl in the rubble of his collapsed mine entrance, I guess he blamed you for finally finishing him off."
"He was hanged the next morning. They say his widow and his child won't survive a cycle."
"Oops."
"No remorse, hm? Not even for them?"
"I know we're just getting to know each other, Tristane, but I'm the bigger monster. Even bigger than you."
"I will not be derailed and ruined by the likes of you!"
"A little too late for that, don't you think?"
Tristane’s ire visibly boiled on his surface while Maxine’s feral, albeit wounded, stare locked unshakably from his face. Sabrina’s jaw was agape, head tilted while she too marinated on what exactly the Rusalka had been responsible for this entire time on her behalf.
"Come on, Dorrick,” the other soldier urged Tristane through clenched teeth. "Just kill her. She deserves to die.”
"Yes she does,” Tristane agreed coldly. "I cannot afford to be guided only on emotion, Oliver. I need to clean my house. To do that I need more answers.” He tapped his knife against the outside of his thigh. "Answer me this in truth: who butchered my caravan and where the fuck is my coin?”
"I don’t know where your earnings went,” Max responded, her words technically true. "And I did your caravan.”
"Bullshit. Not alone.”
"We already established I can’t lie if you command it. I did all that blood spilling. No one else.”
"Fuck this, I won’t say it every time. Tell the truth whenever I ask a question. The Council and my dealings. What do you know about it?”
"I know The Guardians were paying someone to take out whoever holds the Merchant seat to put you there. I also know that’s not happening anymore.”
"What makes you say that?”
"I killed the man arranging it.”
Not the familial killing, but the murder of his chances at real power finally convinced Tristane to lunge for her with his knife in hand. Just before he reached her, her knees moved to her chest and bound legs snapped out to drive heels into his groin. The Dorrick fell backward onto the ground, heaving and holding himself. His compatriots blinked. Max moved her legs back up to her chest and worked the hastily tied knot loose. Sabrina backed into the corner out from between the parties.
"Sto--" Lorry's command was cut off before he could get the words out. A miniature twister had erupted inside the small room, encompassing the man and tearing about him with such fervor the wind disrupted the comfort of his breathing. He coughed once, fear starting to consume him while he warred against the elements that held him there.
"Don't move!" Oliver howled.
Max had a knife back in her hand and finished sawing mostly through her hand bindings. The moment the order was spoken she froze. Papers, makeup, sheets, anything that was light was whipped about the room by the unrest of air until it dissipated. Tristane found his feet and Lorry gasped his relief.
"Mage," Tristane growled. "Things are starting to make a little more sense." Maxine silently watched him with her eyes. Her solid limbs refused to loosen. Tristane approached the chair where she sat. "Powerful little thing, are you?" He grasped the back of her chair to lean over her. His icy gaze flickered to the unmoving knife in her hand. He smiled. "Cursed, and a curse in and of yourself, hm? You, the source of my recent unraveling. Just you." Venom dripped from his words. "All of that would end if I killed you, wouldn't it?"
Man and woman stared darkly at one another, tension so thick it choked the room. Lorry and Oliver leered. Sabrina, just as frozen, held her wound while she enjoyed the moments out of the golden lion's attention. It didn't last long.
"Bring her to me," Tristane commanded with a snap of his fingers. Lorry and Oliver each moved toward the dancer, who let out a scream before resisting their advance. Neither arms swung or legs kicked warded them away. In short order she was recaptured and dragged before the Dorrick, forced to her knees at Maxine's feet.
Tristane rested a hand on the dancer's head. His palm moved along its top, following the dark, smooth hair down until he twisted tendrils of it in his fingers. He crouched beside the woman. His eyes moved from Maxine to his plaything, inhaling the scent of the woman when his face moved to the back of her neck. Sabrina's shoulders rose in recoil and she flinched. He twisted a handful of hair on her head into his fist and tugged her head back, exposing her vulnerable throat. Sabrina winced and grit her teeth. Maxine only stared.
"You like this one, don't you?" Tristane murmured absently. "So much tough talk. Killing my sister. My brother. Sowing the deaths of a sick mother and child. How thick you must want me to believe your armor of apathy is..."
The knife appeared again, and Tristane used it to trace the thrumming arteries of the Naerikk's neck with the edge.
"She was my whore once. She can be again...and why not? She was already a little junkie whore my men used before. That's what started all this between you and I, Max, isn't it?"
His hand paused and he tilted the weapon so its tip pressed against the base of Sabrina's throat. The dancer's breath caught. He watched the nervous flush of blood beneath her skin.
"You heard whatever nasty rumors about me you heard, but let's not pretend you really care about any of that. You heard what a bad, bad man I was and you didn't care. Not until what happened with her and my men in that cabin in the woods. Then you fashioned yourself my reckoning. Because you made it personal."
He sighed.
"It was never personal between you and I, Max. Just business. And politics. Both nasty endeavors. Ms. Sabrina just got in the middle of it and there was a price to pay. You should've come to me. Instead look where we are. All the lives, lost and ruined. For what? To punish only me?"
He tapped the knife against Sabrina's neck and let the tip explore her collar bones, wandering between her breasts.
"No, I don't buy it. There are chinks in your armor just like everyone else. You already exploited some of mine. It's time for me to return the favor."
"Please, Tristane," Sabrina implored, breathless. "Don't!"
"Shhhh, relax," he soothed her. "I told you you were fun and I meant that, honey. I'm not gonna kill ya. Not outright right here. At least not before I have my use for you again. No, no. How long you live depends on the fruits of this conversation right here."
"Tristane!"
"Shut the fuck up!" He snarled so ferociously in her ear that she silenced and shook against his blade. Her submission calmed him and his demeanor eerily soothed, eyes back squarely on Max. "Like I was saying, I mean to barter. For both your lives. Let me explain."
Oliver and Lorry exchanged glances. Tristane smoothed his mane and grinned.
"This thing between you and I? Folly. Even if somehow you escaped that chair to kill me, you think she'll be safe? That you'll be safe? The Guardians will move from their shadows to strike at the things that threaten their interests. You think you've found the root of my evil, but you've barely begun to tug at the weeds. The real powers that be are unknown even to me. I'm but a pawn in their game, but that's their mistake. I will not be expendable."
He eased the knife from Sabrina's flesh.
"You've done a lot of damage from the shadows. When you've come into the light, to slaughter my men when raiding my caravan and burning down my cabin, you've proven yourself a force of nature. Bury this axe. Have a seat at my table. If you help protect my interests, help put me on that seat that is rightfully mine on that Council, we'll let all of this become...water under the bridge." Maxine's jaw tightened. Tristane tilted his head. "You will remain still, but you will speak. What do you think?"
"I think you're out of your fucking mind," the words tumbled out of Maxine's mouth the moment she was given the liberty.
"I see why you might say that. Let me remind you: you've assisted me into a bit of a...bind, we'll say. People are losing confidence in me. I'm sure that's all by your design. The shadows are drawing closer and they're armed to the teeth. You're a high risk, but I don't have much choice beyond putting all my chips on the table if I want to climb out of this hole you dug."
"Why would I ever agree to help you."
"You said it yourself. You're not in a position of much advantage now, are you?"
"If my answer is 'go fuck yourself?'"
"Well that one's obvious, isn't it?" Tristane tapped his blade to Sabrina's cheek.
"So that's your plan to keep me in check, huh?" Max scoffed. "Holding a knife to some traitor, bitch prostitute you already tired out?"
"See, there's that tough talk and I just don't buy it, Max."
"Go on. Kill her then." The Rusalka laughed darkly. "Look at me!" She still clutched her own blade tightly in her hands, the bindings hardly keeping her hands imprisoned. "She ran her mouth. The fuck you think I'm going to do to once I finish handling you? Save me the time if you want to."
Tristane looked to Maxine, peered at the bewildered dancer, checked over his shoulder at Oliver and Lorry, and shrugged.
"Okay then," Tristane agreed and rapidly moved the knife to the far side of Sabrina's throat. The dancer began to shout her protest as the blade pressed into her skin, the Dorrick veteran's muscles tightening to tear the weapon across her neck and silence her.
"Stop!" Max shouted, color and superiority drained from her face.
The knife paused. Sabrina gasped against the pressure of the blade, and Tristane raised a mocking brow.
"Stop!" Max repeated her wish. "Just fucking...stop it. Just wait."
"You feel that?" Tristane asked with a darkness cast upon his expression. "That feeling inside, just now? The panic? Vulnerability? The knowing that someone else, on a whim, can kill what you care for and you are utterly useless to stop them? That in a single moment, out of your control, someone else can elect to destroy your world as you know it right now? Look at me. Look. At. Me."
Max begrudgingly stared at the man. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, body tight and still where it was commanded to sit all the same. Sabrina didn't even dare swallow. Tristane's lip curled.
"This is what real power is. Not the flitting about in the shadows, leaving your target curious and fist-shaking at fate. You see me. I hold the knife, and I force you to feel that feeling you want to squirm away from so desperately. We both want something from each other right now, Max. You're both alive because I'm a politician and nothing more. I will kill her. Do not call a bluff with me again. Understand? I asked you a fucking question. Understand?"
"Yes," Max hissed. "I fucking get it."
"Since you're dense I'll explain your options more plainly. You're doing my bidding now and it's not so bad, is it? You agree to work for me and do it some more, and I merely hold onto her for safekeeping until our contract is satisfied. If you betray me she dies. Keep your word, I let her go. That's option one."
"Option two?"
"Option two, I will mount her until both our legs give out and then I'll kill her in a big, bloody climax, all right here in front of you. Then I'll wash my hands of you. So the choice is yours! What'll it be?"
"Fine."
"Be concise. Do we have a deal?"
"We have a fucking deal."
"Repeat the terms so there's no misunderstanding."
"I work for you now. If I betray you, she dies. I do everything you need me to do to put you back on your little pedestal, we're square. Then you let us go."
"Very good!"
Lorry and Oliver frowned deeply behind him. Tristane promptly tossed the knife in his hand onto Sabrina's nearby dresser. He clapped his hands together as if brushing off the filthiness of it all.
"See?" He mocked the Rusalka. "That wasn't so bad, was it? I'm so glad we could finally meet properly and come to an agreement."
"Yeah," Max rolled her eyed. "What a fucking pleasure it's been..."
"I suppose that concludes our business then. Very, very good. I'm so glad we could get to understanding one another." Tristane unbuttoned the cuffs of his jacket. "Speaking of pleasure, we are in a brothel and I did come all this way..." He rolled his head on his shoulders and then snapped at Oliver and Lorry. "You two can wait for me outside. My new mutt will heel."
Without a word the two soldiers took their leave and closed the door behind them. Maxine's brow furrowed but Sabrina's head hung. Tristane took a deep breath and exhaled a relaxed sigh. He seemed to beam differently the moment the other men left. Like his golden hair shined brighter, his stood just a bit taller, and his eyes glowed something sinister. He shrugged the jacket off his shoulders, folded it carefully, and set it on Sabrina's chair she sat in to do her makeup before a dance.
"Come on, what now?" Max griped, shoulders slumped. "I gave my word. You have what you want."
"Not everything I want," Tristane corrected her matter-of-factly. He reached his hand into his pocket, making a fist around something inside. "Off for safekeeping, remember? I imagine you might miss what I'll now have. I'm a very considerate man, so I've got a gift for you before we go: a front row seat for one last performance you'll never forget."
He pulled his fist from his pocket. When he opened his fingers, a generous collection of coins rained down over the dancer. A metallic jangle rang out as he worked loose his belt.
"You'll sit right there, Max. And you will watch."
Then he seized the whore he paid for.
No matter how her eyes or her chest burned, Maxine's curse ensured she was not permitted to look away until it was over.
When it did end she was left alone there, in that room, sitting in that chair. Her sights glazed over the image of her hands wrapped in a loose, sawed through binding and that blade clutched in her white-knuckle grip. Silence and stillness tortured her further. There was no escape here from her own mind as she grappled with the events that had just transpired, and the road that laid ahead.
Then Famula's curse released her from stillness and the commands to remain in that chair.
By then it was far too late.
