Burning Up

will lie with Raniero, and you will persuade him to cooperate. Or your sister will pay the price.”
    “I fear you overestimate my skills. Lord Raniero is famous for his incorruptibility.”
    “True. It’s said he’s refused some very impressive bribes.” The Orb’s light flooded Korban’s face in crimson, like a mask of gore. “But none of those bribes included the attentions of a Blood Rose.”
    “I am not your whore, Korban.”
    “You are whatever we tell you to be, Amaris!” her father snarled.
    “Ama’is!” Marin whimpered.
    “We frighten the child,” Korban said, his voice gently cruel. “But there is no need. All you must do is spend a little time with Lord Raniero. Look at him.” He turned with a sweeping gesture, directing her attention toward the vampire. Raniero’s profile looked as pure as a deity’s in the light of the torches, his black hair spilling around bare, muscled shoulders. “Such a handsome man. What’s a few nights in his arms? And then I’ll free you, let you take Marin and go. I swear it by the Red God’s blade.”
    “Ama’is,” Marin whispered, staring at Korban like a bird gazing at a snake. “He’s gonna feed me to his ball if you don’t.”
    She was right. Korban was projecting the image of it into their minds, sharp and vivid as reality:
    A knife flashed in the red light of the Orb, and the fantasy Marin screamed. The smell of blood filled the air, and the Orb brightened into a blinding crimson blaze.
    The real child quivered against her and began to cry.
    “Stop it, curse you!” Amaris spat. “I’ll seduce your vampire for you. Just leave my sister out of your sickening plots.”
    Korban smiled, faint and satisfied. “I knew you’d see reason.”
     
    P leased with his victory, Korban allowed Amaris to put her sister to bed. Usually, he permitted her only brief visits with the child, at the end of which Amaris had to surrender Marin to the nursemaid warden he’d assigned.
    Even so, a pair of grim and wary guards followed her up the tower stairs to the small chamber where Marin was kept a hostage. Amaris’s thoughts churned in anguished circles as she climbed, her sister sniffling fitfully in her arms. Though sweaty and tearstained, Marin smelled clean and sweet in the way of little girls. At least that wretched nurse was taking proper care of her.
    For the moment.
    Korban’s promise to release them was, of course, a blatant lie. No matter what he mouthed, his plans for Marin were obvious. It would take a blood sacrifice of her innocence and magical potential to give the Blood Orb enough power to blow a hole in the kingdom’s mystical barrier.
    And Korban was determined to see the Varil invade, the Red God alone knew why.
    I should have known Korban would break his promise to free us , Amaris thought as she carried the child up the narrow, winding staircase. But I thought there was a faint possibility he’d keep his word. Now I will have to find some other way to escape.
    Fortunately, generations of wizards had spent centuries building and strengthening the Great Barrier, and a spell to unravel it was no easy thing to cast. Korban had yet to puzzle out how to do it, though ’twould seem he was close to his goal. Enough so that he thought he needed to allay Ferran’s suspicions for but a few weeks more.
    They reached the top of the stairway, and Amaris paused to let her guards unlock Marin’s door. She carried the child inside.
    The nurse looked up from her sewing. At first glance, one might mistake Hetram for a motherly woman in her cheery blue gown, given her ample lap and round, rosy cheeks. But her watery gray eyes were as chilly as a frozen lake, and the line of her mouth was thin and humorless. She had power, too, a sullen snake of magic Amaris could see in her heart, enough that Korban trusted her to control Marin’s burgeoning talent.
    It was probably no real challenge. In happier days, Marin had tested their mother’s patience with her mischievous magic. She’d had particular talent with an invisibility spell; she’d loved nothing better than popping out and startling her unsuspecting mother and sister. Now the child’s misery made it hard for her to concentrate enough to work even the simplest magic.
    “I’ll take her.” Hetram stood and reached for Marin.
    “Nay, I’ll do it.” Amaris shouldered past her toward the little girl’s narrow cot. She undressed her sister, taking pleasure in the homey task of pulling off