Codex Alera Book 1 - Chapter 28

Kord forced Isana to watch what they did to Odiana.

He had brought in a stool with him, and he sat behind her, within the ring of coals. He made her sit on the floor in front of him, so that they could both see, as though it was some sort of theater event.

"She's a tough one," Kord said, after a long and sickening time. "Knows what she's doing. Survivor."

Isana suppressed the sickness in her stomach, long enough to say, "Why do you say that?" Anything to take her mind from what was happening.

"She's calculated. There, see how she fights? Just enough to get a man worked up. Then goes all liquid and helpless once he's on her. She knows every man wants to think he's got that kind of power over a woman. She makes them think what she wants to-and she's barely been roughed up at all."

Isana shuddered and said nothing.

"It's tough to break someone like that. Hardened."

"She's a woman, Kord. A person. She's not an animal to be broken."

His voice carried something in it of an ugly smile. "Has she been a slave before?"

"I don't know," Isana said. "I barely know her."

"She saved your life, you know," Kord said. "When we found you by the river. I made her do it."

Isana looked back at him and tried to keep the venom from her voice. "Why, Kord?"

"Don't get me wrong, Isana. It isn't that I don't enjoy the thought of you dead. I could be happy with that." His eyes didn't waver from the scene before them, glittering with something dark, angry, alien. "But my son is dead because of you. And that mandates something more substantial."

"Dead?" Isana said. She blinked slowly. "Kord. You have got to understand. This isn't about you. It isn't about the hearing or Warner's daughter-"

"The crows it isn't," Kord said. "Because of you we had to go to Bernardholt. Because of you, we had to run out into the storm. Because of you, we had to watch and make sure no one went running to Gram for help-and sure enough, that little freak of yours did. Because of you, Bittan died." He looked down at her, showing his teeth. "Well now I'm the strong one. Now I'm the one making the rules. And I'm going to show you, Isana, how low a woman can be brought. Before I finish what the river started."

Isana turned to him. "Kord, don't you understand? We could all be in danger. Bernard saw-"

He struck her with a closed fist. The blow drove her back and to the floor, her body helplessly loose and unresponsive. After a disorienting moment, the pain started, rippling up from her mouth, her cheek. She tasted blood on her tongue, where she'd cut herself on her own teeth.

Kord leaned down and seized her hair, jerking her face up to his. "Don't speak to me like you're some kind of person. You aren't any more. You're just meat now." He gave her head a vicious little shake. "You understand that?"

"I understand," Isana grated, "that you're a little man, Kord." She dragged in a breath, enough to make the words cut. "You can't look past yourself. Not even when something is coming to crush you. You're small. No matter what you do to me, you'll still be small. A coward who hurts slaves because he's afraid to challenge anyone stronger." She met his eyes and whispered, "You've got me because you found me helpless. You'd never be able to do anything to me if you hadn't. Because you're nothing."

Kord's eyes flashed. He snarled, a mindlessly animal sound, and hit her again, harder. Stars flew across her vision, and the dusty floor rose up to meet her.

She wasn't sure how long she lay there, pain and thirst blinding her, making her unaware of anything else. But when she came to her senses again and sat up, only Kord and his son, Aric, remained. Odiana lay in a heap on the

floor, not far away, curled onto her side, her legs drawn up, her hair hiding her face.

Kord tossed a flask down beside Isana. It made a soft, slight gurgling sound, as though it held only a tiny bit of water. "Go ahead," he told her. "Nothing in that one. I want you to see what happens."

Isana took up the flask, throat burning. She didn't believe that Kord had told her the truth, but she felt faint, weak, and her throat felt as though it had been coated with salt. She pulled the cap from it and drank, almost before she realized what she was doing. Water, warm, but untainted, flowed into her mouth. Half a cup, perhaps-certainly no more. It was gone before it had done much to help her thirst, but at least it had eased the maddening ache of it. She lowered the flask, looking up at Kord.

"Aric," Kord said. "Bring me the box."

Aric turned toward the door, but hesitated. "Pa. Maybe she's right. I mean, with what Tavi said at the river and all-"

"Boy," Kord snarled, cutting him off. "You bring me that box. And keep your mouth shut. You hear?"

Aric went pale and swallowed. "Yes, Pa." He turned and vanished from the smokehouse.

Kord turned back to her. "The thing about all of this, Isana, is that you're too naive to be as afraid as you should be. I want to help you with that. I want you to know what's going to happen."

"This is useless, Kord," Isana said. "You might as well kill me."

"When I'm ready." Kord walked over to Odiana, then reached down and seized her casually by the hair. The woman whimpered and twisted her shoulders, struggling feebly to get away from him. Kord gathered her hair up, lock by lock, until he held the length of it in his fist. "See, this one here. She's a hard case. Knows what she's doing. Knows the game. How to survive it." He shook her hair, eliciting a whimper. "All the right sounds to make. Right, girl?"

With Odiana's face bowed, facing away from Kord, Isana could see her expression now. The water witch's eyes were hard, her expression cold, distant. But she kept her voice weak, shaking. "P-please," Odiana whispered. "Master. Don't hurt me. Please. I'll do anything you want."

"That's right," Kord rumbled, smiling down at the woman. "You will."

Aric opened the door and entered, carrying a long, flat box of smooth, polished wood.

"Open it," Kord told him. "Let her see."

Aric swallowed. Then he paced around, in front of where Kord held Odiana by the hair, and opened the box.

Isana saw the contents: a strip of metal, a band perhaps an inch wide, lay on the cloth within the box, dully throwing back the light of the fires.

Odiana's expression changed. The hardness vanished from her eyes, and her mouth dropped open in an expression of something close to horror. She recoiled from the box, but was brought up short by Kord's grip on her. Isana heard her let out a whimper of pain and, unmistakably, of fear. "No," she said, at once, her voice suddenly harsher, high, panicky. "No, I don't need that. You won't need it. No, don't, I promise, you won't need it, just tell me what you want."

"It's called a discipline collar," Kord said to Isana, in a conversational voice. "Furycrafted. They're uncommon this far north. But useful, sometimes. She knows what it is, I think."

"You don't need it," Odiana said, her voice high and desperate. "Please, oh furies, please, master, you don't need that, I don't need it, no, no, no, no-"

"Aric, put it on her." Kord jerked Odiana up, holding her weight up off the floor by her hair, forcing her chin up, the slender strength of her throat to be exposed.

Odiana's eyes, still fastened on the collar, widened, white surrounding them. She screamed. It was a horrible sound, one that welled deep in her throat and rose up through her mouth without regard for meaning, for shape, horrible and feral. She turned and struggled, even as she screamed, her hands reaching toward Kord's face with desperate speed. Her nails left b.l.o.o.d.y weals down one of his cheeks, and even as she got her feet underneath her, she kicked one bare foot at the inside of his knee.

Still holding her hair in one hand, Kord dragged her to one side, off of her feet, and with the other clutched her throat. Then, with a casual surge of power, doubtless drawn from his fury, he lifted her clear of the ground by her throat, so that her feet dangled and kicked below her torn skirts.

She fought him, even so, struggling wildly against him. She raked at his arm with her nails when she couldn't reach his face, but he held her, expression never changing. She kicked at his thigh, his ribs, but without any leverage the blows did nothing to deter the big Steadholder. She struggled, grunting, gasping, making low, animal sounds of fear.

Then her eyes rolled back in her skull and she went slowly limp.

Kord held her suspended for a moment more, before he lowered her to the floor again, and once more held her by the hair, baring her throat. "Aric."

The young man swallowed. He flicked a glance at Isana, his expression strained, difficult to read. Then he stepped forward and slipped the metal band about Odiana's throat. It settled into place with a quiet, sharp click.

She took a ragged breath and let out a little groan, a desperate sound, even as Kord released her hair with a contemptuous jerk. She fell onto her side, her eyes clutched closed, and lifted her fingers to her throat. She began pawing and jerking at the collar, desperate and clumsy.

Kord drew a knife from his belt and p.r.i.c.ked his thumb with it, then grabbed Odiana's wrist in his huge hands and did the same to hers. Her eyes opened and saw him, and once again she went wild, letting out a little shriek and struggling against him with a confused and disoriented determination.

Kord smirked. With casual strength, he forced her bloodied thumb to the collar-and then pressed his own down beside it, scarlet marking the metal.

Odiana whimpered, "No," frustration warping the word, tears making her eyes shine. Then she shuddered. Her lips moved again, but nothing intelligible came from them. She shuddered again, and her eyes lost focus. Her body relaxed, the straining against Kord's hands easing slowly away. Once more, her body shook, this time accompanying it was a low gasp.

"Bonding," Kord said, looking up at Isana. His eyes glittered. His hands roved over the woman on the ground now, casually intimate, possessive. "This will take a few minutes to set in."

Odiana gasped, arching into Kord's touch, her eyes empty, lips parted, her body moving in a slow, languid roll, all hips and back and bared throat. The collar gleamed against her skin. Kord sat over her, petting the woman like an overexcited animal. In a few moments, she was making soft, cooing sounds, curling toward him like a sleepy kitten.

"There." He stood up and said, casually, "That's a good girl."

Odiana's eyes flew open wide, then fluttered slowly closed again. She gasped, clutching her arms to her chest as though to hold something in, and for perhaps half a minute she writhed that way, letting out soft moans of unmistakable pleasure.

Kord smiled. He looked at Isana and said, quietly, "Stupid little wh.o.r.e."

Odiana's body convulsed, back abruptly arching into a bow. She let out

another scream-this one thin, high, somehow sickened-and flung herself onto her side. She retched, violently, though there was little enough content in her stomach to come up onto the dusty floor. Her legs and arms jerked in frantic spasm, and she lifted huge, desperate eyes to Isana, her expression agonized, pleading. She reached toward the collar at her throat and spasmed again, more violently, thrashing and flailing and rolling dangerously close to the circle of coals.

Isana stared at the woman in horrified confusion for a breath, before she lurched forward, unsteady herself, and caught Odiana before she could convulse into the ring of coals. "Stop it," Isana cried. She looked back at Kord, knew that her face was pale and desperately afraid-and saw the glitter of satisfaction in his expression when she turned to him. "Stop it! You're killing her!"

"Might be kinder," Kord said. "She's been broken before." But to Odiana he said, voice smug, "Good girl. Stay here and you'll be a good girl. Do what you're told."

The frantic spasms eased out of the woman, very slowly. Isana drew her back away from the coals and kept her arms around her, her body between Odiana and Kord. The woman's eyes had lost focus again, and she shuddered in slow waves in Isana's arms.

"What did you do to her?" Isana asked quietly.

Kord turned and walked toward the door. "What you need to learn is that slaves are just animals. You train an animal by providing rewards and punishments. Rewarding good behavior. Punishing bad. That's how you turn a wild horse into an obedient mount. How you train a wolf into a hunting hound." He opened the door and said, casually, "Same with slaves. You're just more animals. To be used for labor, breeding, whatever. You just have to be trained." Kord left the smokehouse, but his words drifted back to them. "Aric. Build up the fire. Isana. You'll wear one tomorrow. Think about that."

Isana said nothing, stunned by what she had seen, by Odiana's reaction to the sight of the collar, to her condition now. Isana looked down at her and brushed some of the dark, tangled hair from her eyes. "Are you all right?"

The woman looked up at her, eyes heavy and languid, and shivered. "It's good now. It's good. I'm good now."

Isana swallowed. "He hurt you, before. When he called you..." She didn't say the words.

"Hurts," Odiana whispered. "Yes. Oh crows and furies, so much hurt. I'd forgotten. Forgotten how bad it was." She shivered again. "H-how good it

was." She opened her eyes, and again they were wet with tears. "They can change you. You can fight and fight, but they change you. Make you happy to be what they want. Make it hurt when you try to resist. You change, holdgirl. He can do it to you. He can make you beg him to take you. To touch you. Make you." She turned her face away, though her body was still wracked with the long, shivering shudders of pleasure, and turned her face from Isana. "Please. Please kill me before he comes back. I can't be that again. I can't go back."

"Shhhh," Isana said, rocking the woman gently. "Shhhh. Rest. You should sleep."

"Please," she whispered, but her face had already gone slack, her body begun to sag. "Please." She shuddered once more and then went completely limp, her head falling to one side.

Isana laid the woman down as gently as she could. She knelt over her, testing her pulse, putting a hand to her forehead. Her heart still beat too quickly, and her skin felt fevered, dry.

Isana looked up, to where Aric stood next to a hod for coal, watching her. When she looked up at him, he ducked his head, turning to the hod, and began to dump coals into a bucket beside it.

"She needs water," Isana said, quietly. "After all of that. She needs water, or she'll die in this heat."

Aric looked at her again. He picked up the bucket and, without speaking, walked to one side of the ring and started shaking fresh coals out of it and into the fire.

Isana ground her teeth with frustration. If she was only able to Listen, she might be able to gain important insight. The boy seemed reluctant to follow his father's commands. He might be convinced to help them, if only she could find the right words to say. She felt blind, crippled.

"Aric, listen to me," Isana said. "You can't possibly think he's going to get away with this. You can't possibly think that he will escape justice for what happened tonight?"

He finished dumping out the bucket. He walked back to the hod, his voice toneless. "He's escaped it for years. What do you think happens to every slave who comes through here?"

Isana stared at him for a moment, sickened. "Crows," she whispered. "Aric, please. At least help me get this collar off." She reached down to Odiana's throat, turning the collar about and trying to find the clasp.

"Don't," Aric said, his voice quick, harsh. "Don't, you'll kill her." Isana's fingers froze. She looked up at him.

Aric chewed on his lip. Then said, "Pa's blood is on it. He's the only one can take it off her."

"How can I help her?"

"You can't," Aric said, his voice frustrated. He turned and threw the bucket at the wall of the smokehouse. It clattered against it and fell to the floor. He leaned his hands against the wall and bowed his head. "You can't help her. The way he's left her, anyone can tell her anything and she'll keep feeling good as long as she does it. She tries to resist and she'll... and it will hurt her."

"That's inhuman," Isana said. "Great furies, Aric. How can you let this happen?"

"Shut up," he said. "Just you shut up." Motions stiff, angry, he pushed off the wall and recovered the bucket and started filling it with coal again.

"You were right, you know," Isana said, keeping her voice quiet. "I was telling the truth. So was Tavi, if he told you that the Valley was in danger. That the Marat may be coming again. It could happen soon. It could have begun already. Aric, please, listen to me."

He dumped more coal out onto the fires and returned to gather up more.

"You have to get word out. For your own sake, if not for ours. If the Marat come they'll kill everyone of Kordholt, too."

"You're lying," he told her, not looking at her. "You're just lying. Trying to save your hide."

"I'm not," Isana said. "Aric, you've known me your whole life. When that tree fell on you that Winterfair, I helped you. I helped everyone in the Valley who needed it, and I never asked for anything in return."

Aric added more coal to the fire.

"How can you be a part of this?" she demanded. "You aren't stupid, Aric. How can you do this to other Alerans?"

"How can I not?" Aric said, voice cold. "This is all I have. I don't have a happy steadholt where people take care of each other. I have this. Men who no one else would take live here. Women who no one would want to be. He's my blood. Bittan-" He broke off and swallowed. "He was my blood, too. As stupid and mean as he could be, he was my brother."

"I'm sorry," Isana said, and found that she felt it. "I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I hope you know that."

"I know," Aric said. "You heard what happened to Heddy and you wanted what was right to happen. To keep her safe, and girls like her. Crows know they need it, with Pa around like some-" He shook his head.

Isana fell silent for a long moment, staring at the young man, an understanding dawning on her. Then she said, quietly, "It wasn't Bittan that was with Heddy. It was you, Aric."

He didn't look at her. He didn't speak.

"It was you. That's why she was trying to draw her father back from juris macto with yours. She wasn't raped."

Aric rubbed at the back of his neck. "We... we liked each other. Got together when there was a Meet or a Fair. Her little brother found us. Too young to know what he saw. I got out before he seen who I was. But he went running to her father, and how could she tell him she'd been making time with one of Kord's sons." He spat the words with disgust. "She didn't say much, I guess, and her old man made up his own mind what happened."

"Oh, furies," Isana said, sadly. "Aric, why didn't you say anything?"

"Say what?" Aric said, flicking a hard glance at her. "Tell my father that I loved a girl and wanted to marry her. Bring her here?" He gestured around the smokehouse with one hand. "Or maybe I should have been all honorable and went to her father. Do you think he would have listened to me? Do you think for a second Warner wouldn't have strangled me where I stood?"

Isana rubbed a shaking hand at her eyes. "I'm sorry. Aric, I'm sorry. We've all... known that your father was... that he'd gone too far. But we didn't do anything. We didn't know things were this bad at his steadholt."

"Too late for all of that now." Aric dropped the bucket and headed for the door.

"It's not," Isana said. "Wait. Just listen to me, Aric. Please."

He stopped, his back still to her.

"You know him," she said. "He'll kill us. But if you help us get out, I'll help you, I swear by all the furies. I'll help you get away if you want to. I'll help you settle things with Warner. If you do love the girl, you might be able to be with her if you do the right thing."

"Help both of you? That woman was trying to kill you last night." He looked back at her. "Why would you help her?"

"I wouldn't leave any woman here, Aric," Isana said, voice quiet, calm. "I wouldn't leave anyone to him. Not anymore. I won't let him keep doing this."

"You can't stop him." Aric's voice was tired. "You can't. Not here. He's a Citizen."

"That's right. And so is my brother. Bernard will call him to juris macto. And he'll win, too. We both know that." She stood up, facing Aric, and lifted her chin. "Break the circle. Bring me water. Help us escape."

There was silence for a long moment.

"He'd kill me," Aric said then, his voice numb. "He's said so before. I believe him. Bittan was his favorite. He'd kill me, and he'd get the whole story, and he'd get Heddy, too."

"Not if we stop him. Aric, it doesn't have to be this way. Help me. Let me help you."

"I can't," he said. He looked back at her and said, quietly, "Isana, I can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for you and for that girl. But he's my only blood. He's a monster. But he's all I have." The young man turned and left, shutting the door to the smokehouse behind him. Isana heard several heavy bolts sliding shut on the outside. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance, a growling, sleepy leftover of the previous night's tempest.

Inside the smokehouse, the coals popped and simmered.

Odiana breathed slowly, quietly.

Isana bowed her head, staring at the woman, at the collar about her throat. She remembered Odiana's frantic pleas to kill her.

Isana lifted her hand to her own throat and shivered.

Then she sank back to the ground, her head bowed.