Heart of Leoth: [HAITUS]

Part V ~ Fara

She sipped at the honeyed wine, letting the syrupy sweetness rest on her tongue a moment before swallowing.

How many cups had she drunk today? Not enough, she decided as the Dheta ran the fine-tipped brush along her lash line as she closed her eyes. The pigment was warm against her eyelid, the movement, soothing.

Another Dheta took her free hand and smoothed the fragranced oil gently into her palm, then her wrist, before turning her hand over to coat the top then between each finger. As it soaked into the skin leaving her flesh tingling and alive, she felt the rings slide onto her fingers, felt the fastening of the thick band of gold around her wrist. 

They moved to her neck and settled the vast jewelled necklace around her throat, laying the finely spun net of gold over her shoulders. She blinked open her eyes to see its effect. It was as though a spider had spun its web about her neck, across her throat. It was heavy but not unpleasant. When the Dheta stood back from her and bowed her head, Fara looked at herself in the polished surface of the mirror.

The person staring back at her was not Cassi's Fara or Galyn's Fara. Not even Theodan's Fara. This was Valdr's Fara. She wore what he'd instructed them she was to wear.  She was polished how he'd instructed her to be polished. She was his ornament. His trinket. She felt powerless to stop it now that she was here. How quickly she had returned to who she was before. How easily he took control of her all over again.

Except now the escape was not sorcery and deceit. It was war. Theodan would come for her, with an army at his back and a sword in his hand. All she need do was endure it.

She lifted the cup and drained the contents.

The Dheta behind her did not lift her head nor meet her eye. They held their small tools in their hands and stared at the floor awaiting her instruction.

"You may go," she said finally. The Dheta gave a short bow and both left the chamber.

As soon as the chamber door closed behind them, she opened the small drawer of the jewellery chest and pulled out one of the small vials of powder she'd procured from the Apothist.  She tipped half its contents into the empty cup and slid the container into the pocket of her gown and stood from the dressing table. At a trestle table near the balcony, she refilled her cup with honeyed wine and swirled it a few times to dissolve the powder.

The sourness of the Dresyth sparked across her tongue  but was soon overpowered by the cloying sweetness of the wine. Dresyth. Used to calm the most agitated of minds, the most excruciating pain, and in smaller doses, to elevate one's soul to a gentler place.  She wondered which of the three she suffered most.

It did not take long. The warmth spread like warm milk through her veins and hummed lulled across her mind. Her tense body eased and softened, a low humming settling in her stomach. 

She could do this. Would do this until he came for her. She would be whatever she needed to be to survive. She could not save Calate now, but she would survive. For herself. For the babe in her womb. For Theodan. His sacrifices would not be in vain.

A breeze drifted in through the drapes to whisper over her cheek and dance over her heated skin. She took another sip and gazed out at the familiar view. More vivid than it had been in her memory, more beautiful than it had been in her nightmares. Prissia's glass peaks glimmered under the moonlight, starlight dancing across its roof as it would the surface of an iced lake. It shone sharp and cold where the Golden Palace had always glowed with the warmth of the sun above.

"They are waiting for us." Valdr's voice rarely surprised her. She expected him. Always. She'd learned this long ago, and it was not hard to fall back into those old ways again. She did not tense as he came to stand behind her, his hands settling on her shoulders as his lips pressed hot against the column of her neck. His skin smelled of darkberry and wood, his flesh as drunk from it as hers was of Roselily and Dava.