Imperius Ch. 06

He drew in a fresh breath carefully, as he had to remember to do it. "I was worried for her. I found her guard unconscious—The trees were the only place I could imagine her fleeing."

There was a pause. Every one of them gazed at him, considering.

"Ewe-shit," said Callow, enunciating fiercely into the silence.

Lilah didn't disagree. Something felt wrong.

She looked at him, at gentle Saphir, who had been kind to her; consoled her, and something wary flickered in her chest, a flare of caution. She had brought Magnus into her camp once, when she had found him dying on the battlefield, and she had appealed to let him heal as a captive before he had escaped and killed several of her people in the process.

One voice in her head reminded her that Saphir was not Magnus, while another pointed out that he was still inextricably linked to him.

"Commander," she said, "Sir, I think we should leave him."

Saphir's brow drew together as though she had hurt him. Foolish—she was trying to spare him the role of a captive. But perhaps he knew that, and it was the implication of distrust that compelled such a reaction.

"Like hell," said Maeve fiercely, "He's the only card we have. He might be our only chance to trade for some of our people."

"You're mad," said Elspeth, her voice grating in the quiet tension, "We can't deal trades with the Imperius, they'll just take us all. We should kill him."

Lilah turned her head to her with the deliberate slowness of disbelief, "We can't possibly entertain the idea of harming slaves—Victims."

"If it's them or us?" The redhead retorted, glaring from Lilah to Saphir. "Better dead than living as one of their pets, and we're the ones who still have a war we can win."

"She's right," growled Callow.

Lilah looked to the commander, hoping to see a sign of the mystified disgust that filled her reflected in his face.

He met her eyes, but stoically. He was assessing them now, but Lilah couldn't tell if he was gauging reactions to determine his own decision or to determine the means of implementing it, stowing away these aspects of their characters for later use.

"Lilah," Eris' voice was alarmingly gentle, quiet. "They're right."

Lilah turned to her, sick in her heart, but something in her friend's dark and intent eyes gave her pause.

"It'd be better to die a hundred times over," said Eris. "--than be doomed to Imperial mercy."

Lilah met her gaze, an impossible melding of feeling smoldering in her. Eris, above all of them, knew what slave-hood can mean at its worst.

From Eris' perspective, it was Lilah's recommendation that was inhumane.

But still. "That isn't a choice we should make for others," she said quietly, grateful when Eris didn't look away, grateful she looked understanding rather than disgusted.

"I'll come with you," Saphir said, into the quiet that followed. His beautiful face was turned up to them, humble and gentle and with the voice that carried calm like a wave. "For whatever it may be worth, I want to."

"It's not up to you," Callow said, but some of the growling cruelty had faded from his voice, and he didn't press the gun against his head as roughly as he had before. Saphir's steady voice had that effect.

"I can help you," Saphir said, and again the group listened. His eyes were earnest, the deepest of blue. "I can remove the other tracker in Lilah, and I can insure that it's deactivated."

"You see?" said Maeve, her voice almost startled in the wave of Saphir's soothing tones. "We can't kill him."

"Some of us are capable of looking past their own interest, even if you aren't," said Callow, his eyes narrowed.

"Retrieving our people is not 'my own interest'," Maeve spat back at him. She said more, but Lilah didn't hear it, not over the flood of terrible sensation that tore into her core in that moment.

She gasped, freezing as her body flared to a state of impossible intensity, vibrations consuming her senses all at once, from between her thighs, outward. The contraption had come to life with none of the teasing playfulness she'd felt from the thing thus far. The world swayed, tilted and before she knew it, she was on the forest floor, the scent of fallen leaves and damp earth all around her, her body electrified, with arousal and pain in equal measure.

People were talking all around her, urgency and alarm in their voices.

And then her clothing was being ripped away from her, and she resisted, startled—but Eris' voice penetrated her cloud of panic, growling and angry and infinitely comforting to Lilah. She stopped resisting, trusting Eris to know what to do.

There was a lithe hand moving through her folds, probing for the device and sending freshly intense surges of arousal..and agony. This was too much for anyone to bear. The trees above her glinted with silver shapes, the gleam of misty sunlight through the leaves. She drew in a sharp breath, and her spine arched, her head moving against the damp earth beneath her.

At last the sensation stopped, all at once, leaving her shaking and weak, and desperately relieved.

Eris was above her, her face as hard as flint, the thing in her hand. It took Lilah half a moment to realize that she wasn't just holding it, but squeezing. Another half moment, and she heard it crunch in the other woman's grip.

"He did it," Lilah felt herself whisper, still looking up at Eris, and then away from the anger in her friend's eyes. "From all this way,"

From the corner of her eye, Lilah could see Eris drop the fragments of the device to the ground beside her. Some fell hard, like metal, and some flaked and floated like ash.

She was naked.

The soldiers were all looking away from her, giving her the only illusion of privacy available to them. Her face was hot with shame and a terrible pain—too violent to be called arousal, but enough like it, that just the sense of it increased her shame threefold.

Of all people, Elspeth's eyes were the ones she found, and an understanding passed between them. The shared sense of two people adrift, alone together in a crowd, surrounded and yet isolated.

"Oh, fuck it all," said Elspeth, interrupting their silent commune, and Lilah was only half surprised when she began ripping off her own slave uniform before she had even finished the malediction. Her body was thin and hard, the sinews of every muscle compact.

Silently, Eris rose, and moved to a pack on one of the soldiers backs, drawing out clothing.

Uniforms. Real Illythian uniforms.

Lilah accepted one and dressed with a quiet kind of solemn appreciation. The fabric was reassuringly rough, like strong linen. It was nothing like the satinesque textures Magnus had dressed her in during her few days as a slave, and she had never felt so grateful for a lack of luxury in her life.

Beside her, Elspeth changed as well, and both refrained from glancing directly at the other. It was a tense accord between them. They had both been stared at enough for one lifetime.

When she was finished, she glanced down at the remains of the crushed device Eris had drawn from her, and took a moment to grind one of the larger shards of it with her heel.

There was a brief pleasure in doing so. When that momentary rush faded, she felt very small.

A throat cleared from the edge of the group, and Lilah looked up to see a man with deep set, shadowed eyes and a noble profile, the haggard shadow of what must have once been an exceptionally handsome countenance. His coloring was similar to Eris', denoting Dracian descent.

"Pardon me," he asked, refinement lacing his enunciation, "Who is 'he'?" he asked. There was an understated mildness to the question that put Lilah instinctually on guard. The keenness of his expression denoted some horrible suspicion, and Lilah in turn suspected his fear was founded on experience.

"Praetor Magnus Valerianus," she said, her tone steady. She glanced at Commander MacCrannach before adding, "I was claimed as his slave two weeks into my capture."

There was a silently sarcastic edge to the Dracian man's nodding acceptance of this answer. His expression seemed to say both that he should have known to expect this and furious amazement that it should be. He turned deliberately toward MacCrannach.

"Sir, I strongly recommend leaving them both, if you want to make it through the night alive and unchained." He glanced back at Elspeth before adding, "I recommend leaving them all, in fact."

"Fuck you," Elspeth said, glaring daggers at him. "Who even are you, Dracian?"

He turned to her. "I am Recruit Decimus Moraei," he said, spitting the word "recruit" as though it were a deeply loathed thing. "I am a volunteer, helping your little military operation on the singular condition that your commander keep me far, far out of reach of Praetor Magnus Valerianus."

He whirled back to face the commander. "The singular condition sir. You do not want Magnus Valerianus on our tail."

Elspeth was still glaring at the Dracian, even as he ignored her. "Don't think just because your people put me in blue that I won't kill you. If you betray us, I'll rip your face off." She glanced at Lilah. "Tell him."

Lilah looked at MacCrannach, who still looked dire and thoughtful. She wanted to laugh, and perhaps eventually, cry. The idea of being left behind after escaping was so fiercely un-amusing that it circled somehow back to being incredibly, bleakly funny.

So she simply straightened her shoulders and made her tone accommodating. "It's true," she said mildly, "She's ferociously violent."

Elspeth nodded emphatically and widened her eyes at Decimus for emphasis, as though Lilah's grim humor was entirely as helpful as she had wished it to be.

"As for that one," said Decimus, ignoring them and pointing at Saphir's kneeling form, "There are assuredly several 'Saphirs' among the imperial slaves, but if that is the one who serves Valerianus, then he is loyal to him. There are a great many stories of the Praetor placing absolute trust in him."

"What kind of stories?" asked MacCrannach.

Lilah could almost hear Decimus' teeth grinding, though the defector managed to keep his expression respectful. "Stories you Illythians don't like to hear about," he said. "He's been served up on a platter for the pleasure of both friends and rivals more than once."

Several of the regimental officers glanced at Saphir, quiet dismay behind their eyes. Lilah forced herself not to follow suit, but she could see that Saphir kept his head down and his face calm out of the corner of her eye.

"He's useful to Valerianus, and I can give you no greater advice than to stay far away from anything that man wants."

Chills invaded the back of Lilah's neck, and she glanced behind them, into the trees.

"That's enough," interrupted MacCrannach, raising a hand calmly but firmly. "We're not leaving anyone if we can help it. Check them over for trackers. All of them."

~*~

When Eris mentioned their hiding camp was in a cave, Lilah thought she had misheard. She hadn't.

The cave laid at the mountain's base. Two Illythian soldiers stood guard near the entrance. "Commander," said a young recruit with a boyish face as they approached. His light green eyes brightened in recognition when they fell on Lilah.

"Thank god, you did it," he breathed, sounding awed and quietly elated.

Lilah paused at the idea that the return of their small numbered group could be perceived as a victory, but she smiled back at him as warmly as she could. The expression seemed a weak thing when she felt it on her face, but he reacted as though watching the sun rise on a day he didn't expect to see.

"Boyne," said MacCrannach, the words functioning efficiently as greeting, introduction, and a call for professionalism all at once. The young man's eyes cleared of their reverie, and he shifted and turned his respectful gaze on the commander.

"Was there anyone else, sir?" he asked.

MacCrannach shook his head, and Lilah felt like a stone had settled in her throat. She couldn't imagine what it must feel for a father to hope to rescue his son from the enemy and then find the chance has slipped through his hands.

Boyne absorbed this, the muscles in his throat working. He shifted quickly to focus again on Lilah, "Hilde will be glad to see you, Lieutenant."

Lilah's eyes widened, "Hilde is here?" she asked, the hope in her voice palpable.

"She is," confirmed the other guard in a gruff voice. He moved closer, and Lilah took in a face twice the age of Boyne's and infinitely more grizzled. There was kindness in his eyes. "I'm Sergeant Marley, Lieutenant. I'm the guard for the medics in this outfit. It'll be my honor to serve as your protector," he added, his tone so honest and fervent Lilah might have flushed were she not so exhausted, nor so increasingly accustomed to undue attention.

Elspeth snorted beside her.

Lilah ignored her, and thanked both men before she moved past them into the cave.

It was dimly lit and grim within, the far distance of the cave as deep and impenetrable as pitch. In the forefront, the lamps burned low and cast strange shadows around them.

They had arrayed a pair of tents here, in the center of the space. Lilah caught herself thinking of it as an entrance hall, when for a surety, nature was scarcely so accommodating of human comforts.

Indeed, Lilah had to drop down several feet into the space, and doing so gave her heart a sudden jolt of anxiety and claustrophobia. It may not have been a small space, but some deep, primal part of her mind rebelled at sensing the weight of the mountain around her, and yearned to turn around and scale the ascending stone back into the sunlight and the fresh, clean air.

That jolt of foreboding was numbed by the haunting beauty of the cave itself. The stone walls glistened with moisture, the limestone stalactites nearly dripping, or at least appeared ready to do so.

The little Illythian tents looked forlorn and minuscule in the dark vastness of the cave.

Hilde was there, as Marley had said, staring into flames so meager Lilah doubted they gave her much warmth.

When she saw Lilah enter the space, she stood slowly, revealing a figure that was at once, petite and firmly built. Her face was warm, rounded and motherly, especially framed as it was by greying golden brown hair, the thin strands curling delicately.

She hesitated only a moment, as though she suspected Lilah were a mirage or a dream that might dissipate in that instant.

When she moved, she moved swiftly, without a word to pull Lilah into an embrace. The two women clung to one another, and it was Lilah who spoke first.

"They still have Mairi."

With a wordless murmur, Hilde held her closer still, and Lilah buried her face in the older woman's shoulder. "She was so frightened, Hilde."

Hilde drew back to look Lilah in the eyes. "There's still hope," she said, in a thick, lilting accent that denoted a midland heritage. Hilde was from the pastoral center of Illythiel, and her temperament was appropriately practical and dauntless—she didn't indulge in long discussions of misfortune. Her eyes tracked Saphir's escort into the cave, and watched the soldiers bind him to a post. "I take it we have a potential trade."

Lilah shook her head, "I'm not sure," she said. "He was a slave, like me."

She looked down, still considering. "I don't have any insight into whether the one they would call our Master would want him back."

Hilde looked at her slantwise and seemed like she might ask questions, but MacCrannach's second in command approached, and spoke in a low voice before she could, "Lieutenant Claremont, may I borrow you for a moment?"

Lilah turned, and nodded. "Yes, sir," she said.

She felt Hilde's eyes on her as she followed him to the entrance of the cave. The commander and Elspeth were already there. There was the sense of tension in the air, and it made Lilah feel an unexpected but compelling urge to kick something. The taste of relief and hope in the woods had been tenuous and tainted by fear, but the thought of even one more conversation stilted by hostility made Lilah want to collapse.

Marley, the burly soldier, still stood silent and watchful at the cave entrance. Boyne had returned to the inner cave and now stood guard beside Saphir.

MacCrannach looked over at Lilah, his eyes noticeably taking in the weariness in her face.

"Thank you, Elspeth," he said, not looking at the red-haired woman directly, "You may go in and rest."

After she left, MacCrannach and Raighan's posture adjusted to something slightly more relaxed. The adjustment seemed to be involuntary, but Lilah noticed that they didn't lose all of their caution.

They both looked at Lilah carefully, and she was tempted to beg that they stop—that they trust her. Especially when MacCrannach gently suggested she find a seated position against the rock-side. She repressed the urge and did as he advised.

"Elspeth had a short story to tell us," said MacCrannach. "But she indicated that yours might be longer."

Lilah took a very deep breath, and began.

It did take longer—longer, even, than she had anticipated. Raighan asked her several questions throughout, while MacCrannach looked pensive and Marley still stood guard, pretending not to hear. When she'd finished a summary, MacCrannach joined in the queries. They asked her about everything, it seemed, though they were inclined to spare her the duty of recounting the most humiliating moments in detail, for which she was grateful.

"And he carried you from the arena himself?" MacCrannach asked, looking at her thoughtfully.

"Yes, sir," she replied, shifting. She had been aware this line of questioning would make her feel uncomfortable, but if she had made it through the experience, she could make it through describing it as well.

"An unusually protective display for one of his authority."

A tiny crease formed in Lilah's brow, "Perhaps, Commander..."

MacCrannach was still studying her, "Speak plainly, Claremont," he said, not ungently.

"Sir, I believe he may be fixated on me," she said, refusing to let her flush make her feel more awkward than she already did.

The sky had at last begun to fulfill its promise of rain, though it was still only barely more than a mist.

Lilah lifted her head to feel the droplets on her skin, glad beyond words at the sense of freedom, of autonomy she felt in that moment, even while she was ordered to lay herself bare before the authority of her superior.

"I remember moments, interactions that seemed tailored to test me," she said.

"For example?" asked MacCrannach.

She searched her memory, struggling to find specifics. "I remember hearing the Praetor and one of his captains discuss an assault. On Islamuir," she said. "But...I fear it may have been staged to gauge my own reaction. I think he suspected it's my home."

MacCrannach's answering look was sharp, his eyes assessing her. She kept her gaze steady. She knew what it sounded like, that the Praetor's interest in her was infatuated, even obsessive. Well, so be it. If it made her a liability to them, he needed to know it—and if it gave her value as bait, he needed to know that too.

And finally, if it made her home more vulnerable...

Please, by all that is just, let it not make her home more vulnerable.

The commander nodded, his shoulders straightening in the infinitesimal variation between the general at ease and the general at attention.

"I've assigned Marley to guard the medical team. At this point, that's just you, Elspeth, and Hilde. We can't afford any losses. No risks," he said, pinning her with his hard eyes, "And no heroics. If we are confronted with enemy engagement, he's been ordered to surrender and so are you."

She nodded slowly. When he reached out to touch her shoulder comfortingly, she was surprised by her own instinct to flinch. She thought she'd hidden it, but MacCrannach seemed to notice regardless and stopped himself. "In the meanwhile," he said, "—get some rest. I can't guarantee how long we'll be here."