Page 74 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
Aurienne’s sigh did little to capture the confusing enormity of the answer. “The results are promising. No—I’m being modest—the results are breathtaking. I’m almost too frightened to tell you, because none of it should be possible, and I can’t explain it through any of the science available to me. It’s distressing.”
“It oughtn’t distress you,” said Xanthe. “Research is a constant reminder that we know nothing. We’ve just triggered nephrogenesis in adult mice, which baffles me and goes against everything we currently know.”
“At least you’re in the lab, not spuddling about in lakes at the full moon.”
“It sounds lovely.”
“It’s a farce,” said Aurienne. “But the farce is working, which vexes me. I’ll tidy my notes and show you.”
(She did not mention that she and Onion Boy had had sex; it didn’t seem immediately relevant.)
Aurienne left Xanthe’s office. Xanthe assumed she meant to torture the information out of Tristane. And Aurienne, equipped with a Haelan’s expertise and mastery over seith, would be capable of some creative, traceless pain induction. Some small, sick part of her—the part that spent too much time with Mordaunt, probably—had thought through the possibilities. But she had once reviewed the research on the efficacy of torture in intelligence gathering and had found the results lacking.
She was better than that. She would not draw her methods from the Fyren playbook. She would find another way.
She went to her quarters, where Mordaunt’s books on the Dreor Order awaited. She was, at long last, able to crack them open, and get her eager hands on information. The books were of varying utility—the Dreor Order took up at best a brief chapter, at worst a few stanzas of a poem; some of the descriptions were little more than hearsay, very few included direct witness accounts—but it was more than Aurienne had managed to obtain from any of the libraries in the Tiendoms, and she was grateful for it.
She discovered the story of an Order whose name came from an ancient word for blood, whose maxim wasDeath devours all, and who worshipped Nidhogg, the corpse eater. The Dreor were the diametric opposites of the Wardens—instead of strategic defenders, they were aggressive berserkers.
An illustration in one of the more fanciful accounts depicted a Dreor as a ghastly sort of death-knight, equipped in black plate and horned helm and bearing a massive scythe—all, of course, dripping dramatically with gore. Aurienne couldn’t comment on the accuracy; all she had seen of the Dreor in the Færwundor were the tips of their scythes.
The Dreor tacn—a black death’s head—was lethal both upon contact and at range. On contact, the tacn mummified victims instantly. From a distance, Dreor were capable of haemokinesis, which allowed the manipulation of blood and thus of bodies. One particularly gory account described a single Dreor decimating a military encampment by having two hundred soldiers impale themselves upon the spiked palisade.
And yet, for all of these strengths, their numbers had decreased over the years, and today they were all but extinct. There were challenges involved in getting the Dreor tacn to take. The victims of the failed tacn lost their minds and became a sort of foot soldier with the barest of cognitive functions, called a wightling, controlled by haemokinesis by a Dreor. One source posited that there might be fewer than a hundred true Dreor left.
Aurienne was morbidly fascinated by it all. She jumped when Xanthe’s deofol tickled at her tacn: they had received Dinadan’s permission to visit the Warden headquarters at Tintagel Castle.
The next morning, Aurienne andXanthe were escorted to Tintagel Castle by Haven. Haven was Aurienne’s least favourite of the Wardens who rotated through Swanstone; she was brash and cared little for the Haelan hierarchy. However, she was being decidedly friendlier to Aurienne now that she had witnessed what Aurienne had done to Tristane in Ward 13.
From the Publish or Perish, they took the waystone to Merlin’s Last Drop, the pub in the village just outside of Tintagel’s walls.
Tintagel Castle stood, sheer and majestic, upon a seaside cliff in Dumnonia. It was protected not only by turret, tower, and wall, but by rock and rough surf. Erosion had divided the stronghold in two; upon the mainland sprawled its great hall, training grounds, and the Wardens’ quarters, while its prison tower stood upon a needlepoint of rock.
Apprentice Wardens were encouraged to practise their wards upon the castle; at night, the entire edifice—gates, ramparts, and portcullis—positively glowed.
The place was impossible to penetrate for nefarious purposes. Unless, of course, one happened to be Aurienne Fairhrim, in which case one was welcomed into Tintagel with open arms and respectful bows. She stepped through gigantic gateways amid the flying banners of the Warden Order, flanked on either side by statues of the god Woden.
Dinadan, the Head of the Warden Order, met Aurienne and Xanthe at the bridge that connected the castle to the prison tower. Here in her home territory, Dinadan did not wear her full Warden plate armour. She was in studded leathers and without her helmet. Wind whipped her short grey hair. Aurienne, who preferred bowing as a greeting, was dismayed to find herself clasped by her in a combination of backslap and crushing handshake.
Xanthe, subjected to the same treatment, with audible crackling, asked, “How is the prisoner?”
“Tristane hasn’t been stupid enough to make an escape attempt,” said Dinadan.
“I’m surprised. I thought there would’ve been at least one or two, given who she is,” said Aurienne.
“We’ve got her in arterial wards,” said Dinadan. “And besides—thanks to you, Haelan Fairhrim—she hasn’t any seith. She’s not going anywhere until her execution.”
“Arterial wards?” asked Aurienne.
“One of my specialties,” said Dinadan. “Anchored to stone wall on one end and arterial wall on the other. Prisoners typically only try to escape once.”
Xanthe raised her eyebrows. “Compliance by haemorrhage.”
“Exactly. Expensive, seith-wise, but worth it for someone like Tristane.” Dinadan showed Aurienne and Xanthe her arm, where dozens of venous ulcers swelled up and glistened with discharge. “I’ve been triggering my Cost every day casting them. Quite looking forward to having her gone.”
Dinadan gestured to the tower. “Shall we? I’m curious to observe your seith-blocking technique in action, Haelan Fairhrim. It made quite an impression on my Wardens.”
“You’ve accepted to hold one of the most dangerous people in the Tiendoms for us,” said Aurienne. “The least we can do is keep you safe from her.”
