The Silence Within (The Young Ancients: Tiera) Read online

  That part of things was a little hard for Tiera to handle really. It wasn't that she was opposed to such things, and it was real enough. She'd been on the receiving end of one once herself at school even. The woman would almost certainly be knocked around. It was just the idea that it was her own family that would be doing it that was hard for her to understand.

  "Maybe I should beat her?" It was just an idea, and seemed to come out of the blue, but Trice stopped for a few seconds and then started to let her head bob.

  "I... think that might actually be wise. You don't care about it all, one way or the other, and are known to be strong and a good fighter, so no one will think that the punishment isn't fair. You can do it without weapons too and let her heal halfway through, so she won't die from it. I don't think that Collette will kill her, not for real, but I don't know she won't either. Bonita just might. She was hiding it well when this came out, but I heard she was really planning to challenge her step-mother to a duel to the death. She only held her hand because Tor begged for her life. Carol's, I mean."

  The idea of innocent and sweet Nita being driven to that end almost made Tiera want to go and start the punishments right then. She didn't, because it wasn't her problem to solve personally. They had a solution, and it would have to work, or be changed with input from the others.

  "Should we get everyone together for it, or do all the beatings separately?" She was joking of course, figuring that it would be more efficient to handle them at the same time, but Trice shrugged. It was a move that she'd probably learned from Tor, even if she didn't know it. Most people didn't do that at least.

  "My vote is separate, for each of the involved parties. This is big. What she did to Nita was huge and should have probably cost her life already. A few weeks of sucking cock isn't enough to teach her anything. Humbling that kind of person just makes them mad. Of course, learning fear doesn't make a person better either, just too afraid to act, but hopefully we can work something out." If she really meant the last bit, it was hard to tell. She just smoothed her pretty blue dress over her leg and stood up.

  That part was so that she could get out the clothing amulet.

  Then they had to wait for a decently long time for Carol to reappear. She looked fresher, and was totally dry, but had nothing on. It made her a little jealous, Tiera realized, since the woman had a much better bust line than she did. She was just, skinny. All over. Carol actually had curves, even as thin as she currently was.

  Lofting the silver amulet, Trice climbed to her feet and scurried across the rug covered stone of the floor. It looked to be a white marble with blue streaks in it, covered by soft and shaggy throw rugs. Holding the thing out, which was on a silver chain, she winked.

  "Keep this. It's a gift. Would you like me to help you, or have you used them before?"

  The look that Carol Coltress gave Trice wasn't very friendly. In fact, if she'd been wearing makeup it might well have peeled from her face under the intensity of it.

  "You little bitch! You think that you can rub your new found wealth in my face? Just because you've been sleeping with that wizard, you suddenly think that you're better than everyone else? I should-"

  "Shut up."

  Tiera stalked across the room, not feeling even a bit as angry as she sounded. That was a good thing, and a new one, but her old reflexes were still all there, and really she knew how to handle bossy people that attacked with words, didn't she? With violence. It was the time honored method and everything.

  Carol stopped at least and spun in place, just in time to catch a shielded fist to the middle. She doubled over and went most of the way to the floor, even though it was only a little blow, not one carrying her full force or weight even.

  "You'll apologize to Trice, take the damn amulet, and remember your manners from now on. I'm not going to warn you every two hours about how to behave. This is it. A person trying to give you a gift should be thanked. That's the only proper response. What I want to know is, why am I having to tell you this at all? I'm almost certain that you had classes on this kind of thing at some point, even if you can't get it from context at the moment."

  There was a pained sound and gasping for a long time, the woman standing there nude, her light brown skin darker than Tiera by several shades. Trice was about the same, or a little darker, herself. About normal, for both of them. She was the one that got looks, being so pale all the time.

  "Sorry... I forgot myself."

  It was a start. Not a perfect one and Tiera wondered how many times she was going to have to hit the woman before she snapped and just killed her. Her guess was between five and seven. That was one. She decided to actually keep track of it, just to see how it worked. She loved numbers after all, and knowing that kind of thing, how much she could take without killing an annoyance, just seemed like a good plan.

  The woman bowed. Not low enough, given what she'd been saying to Patricia in her own home, but again, it was a start.

  "Forgive me for... being a bitch, I guess. I do indeed know better and your gift is kind and most welcome. Things have been stressful for me over the last months and I..." She ran out of words, which was a thing that Tiera understood pretty well.

  It was part of noble society that she wasn't that wild about at all, all the begging and apologizing, with actual kneeling and scraping being involved. In Two Bends you had to say you were sorry if you wronged someone, but no one bowed or hit you when you did. It wasn't that one way was better than the other and she got the general idea, but it still made for a lot of awkward dinner parties. Really, most of these people would benefit from holding less of those. It seemed like you had to go to something like that at least once a week, if you were in the Capital.

  Even at school they were held at least once a month. More often if you had friends in the homemaking studies section. She sort of did too. Not close personal friends, but people she knew. And Sherri.

  Thinking of the girl made her want to blush. It wasn't that she didn't like her, but she'd been having sex with her regularly, starting about a week or two after Regina died. Everyone else probably thought that it was about her being fickle, or not really loving Reggie. That would be due to the fact that most people were morons. The reason she was doing things with Sherri was all about getting everyone else to leave her alone. Especially Tor. Timon wasn't that bad, though she had no illusion that he didn't get what was going on with her. Tor however, if he figured it all out, he'd try to stop her.

  Timon might eventually too, but not until after she'd had her revenge.

  "Good enough. We all have our moments, no need to draw this out." Trice said it with good humor, and didn't make the woman do more than she had. That was the polite way of handling things like that, but what were the odds that anyone else was going to follow suit that night?

  There was no clock in the room and Tiera didn't have a watch on her either. She actually owned one, but it was in her school dorm room. It had been a bit of an oversight, not taking it with her while she spied on her personal foes, because armies, even the decently new and expanded County Morris one, ran by the clock. It would have let her get a little more sleep for instance, on more than one occasion. She'd stayed up for three days straight at one point, trying not to miss anything.

  Without asking then, probably feeling put out by the woman, Trice dressed her. The outfit Carol ended up in was pretty. A white dress with several layers, with blue flowers on the sleeves and highly polished black leather shoes with white stockings. It was, perhaps, a little young for the woman, but not so much she couldn't carry it off at all. Tiera drove it into her memory, so that she could use it herself sometime. Maybe with pink flowers? It hung there, along with Carols face, behind Tiera's eyes.

  That was the sign that she had it, she knew. She wouldn't forget what it looked like. Probably ever.

  The problem, Trice assured them, with having a new home, was that you didn't have years of entertainments just lying about, waiting for guests.

  "All
I can really offer is conversation, and I need to save some of that for the meal. Oh, will the beatings begin before or after? I'm inclined to say before, but that might leave everyone too raw for the meal. Tiera, any thoughts?"

  She sighed.

  "Before. If it were my sister wronged like that, I'd probably explode, if I had to wait that long. Am I needed to help with the meal?" The instant the question was out, she winced. It was hard and real and her sister-in-law, if that was the fact, looked slightly put out by what she'd said. You weren't supposed to ask things like that, because it implied that the person being asked was too poor to have servants. She knew that wasn't the case, since Timon was actually doing pretty well. She just didn't know if they had anyone yet. That was all.

  "No, the staff can handle it." There was a dark look that went with that, but then she raised her eyebrows at Carol. "I hear that you might get a position with Gerent? That's a step up, I hear. Or several." She didn't have to add who she heard it from, and the Baroness colored, turning a deep crimson.

  "I did apologize already." The tightly clenched teeth made it a bit harder to hear, but those were the words.

  Trice... Bowed, if only a bit.

  "True, you did. Excuse me please? I should go and see how things are going. It's..." She had a watch, on a gold chain and everything. It was in a little pocket on her left side, and barely made a bulge. "Only about seven-thirty. Dinner is, naturally, at nine. Capital time." Then she left quickly, glancing back at Carol like she secretly wanted to beat the woman herself. That was probably a bad plan, but might be needed, at the rate things were going.

  Carol turned on her the instant the door closed and started to scream.

  "How dare you lay ha-" Then the gasping made it too hard for her to talk. It was another single blow, taking her in exactly the same spot as before.

  "That's two, and one more than I said I was giving you as a warning. I'm not certain you really understand what's going on here, and it might be a problem later if you don't. Right now you're about twenty seconds from being taken out and executed. I have no tolerance for this kind of thing at the best of times, and you hurt Bonita, who, in case you missed it, is going to be my grandmother in a few days. Right now I don't have a wedding present for her, but I'm considering making a wall decoration for her. Out of your head." She stopped, stomped her right foot hard while the other woman groaned a bit and held up her right hand to stop her from speaking. "Wait. That all sounds like I'm joking with you. Jesting... That isn't the case. I will kill you, if you don't fix yourself. I know it doesn't seem fair to you, but you see... I just don't care. You aren't family yet, and even if you were I wouldn't let you get away with what you've been pulling. Do you understand what I mean?"

  The other woman looked ready to fight by the time she was finished talking, and stood suddenly, her right fist clenched and moving upward. That only served to have her hit a half dozen times, each of them hard enough to require a healing amulet, if they were going to a polite meal at all. Baroness Coltress ended up on the floor, unconscious.

  That, unfortunately, didn't last, since she started to moan and cry piteously after she woke up, less than a half minute later. Rolling her eyes, Tiera moved closer to her. She accidently stood on the edge of her dress, pinning the larger woman in place.

  "Do you understand the process here yet? Before you start in on it, let me assure you that I don't care about what the King wants, how powerful your family is, or anything of that nature at all. The only thing I care about is you actually acting like a civilized human being. That, your own good behavior, is the only coin you have that will work with me. I don't need anything else you have. Just be polite." It sounded pretty good, until she glared and answered.

  "Oh, like you?" She sneered a bit, which got her clipped in the jaw by a shielded right hand, taking the woman all the way to the floor again.

  "Of course not. I expect you to behave like a real person, not someone like me. What kind of silly question is that?"

  The woman didn't answer, just dissolving into tears. Before she could speak, Tiera hushed her and then shook her head.

  "Remember, do what I tell you to. Later, when I'm beating you, you'll have a chance to fight back. Perhaps you'll want to work on a plan for that now? I tend to be a little weak on guarding my knees, since almost everyone I fight is much taller. They forget to attack there at all. That might be a place to start."

  Not that she was the end all of fighting or anything, but for once, in Carol Coltress, she was both stronger, faster, and had better fighting skills than her target. It was actually kind of refreshing. Most of the time, at practice, she had to go up against people that were many times better than she was still. Oh, she was gaining skill, that wasn't the problem. She just hadn't been at it for as long as all the others. It made a difference.

  When Carol could finally speak, she didn't curse or clench a fist at her. That meant she was able to learn, right? How long the lesson would last, she didn't know. Tiera guessed that it would be around an hour or two. Hopefully she wouldn't need another beating until later, after the meal. It would break things up, if she had to do it halfway through the meal, but not in a good way.

  They went down early, and were served drinks in the front sitting room, though Trice joined them. This was done mainly in silence, with an injured Carol sitting there, the bruises on her face turning darker by the minute. One of them was even a good likeness of Tiera's right fist, complete with all the knuckles that had made contact.

  Timon got there before the others, but only by a matter of feet it seemed, so there was no knocking at the door to inform them about what was going on, just a slight sound of wind from outside and then a door closing, moments later.

  "Trice? Gerent and Collette are here." There was only one voice, so Patricia called back.

  "Over here! We have guests too." She didn't say who exactly, which meant Tim was in for a decent surprise, since, Tiera thought, he actually liked his sister for some strange reason. Collette on the other hand might not be nearly as pleased for her part in things.

  That... actually didn't go in the direction she thought it would at all.

  Timon walked in, saw her and half ran over to her.

  "S'Tiera! How have you been? You missed my wedding. That was kind of sudden though. Real. I don't know if you got the story yet? We expect presents, but you can take a load of things to Austra for me tomorrow, and we'll call it even?" He grinned and then hugged her again, holding her close to whisper in her ear. "You get paid, but it's more important than it sounds like."

  When he pulled back, still holding her hands for some reason, as if she might escape, she just agreed to do it. After all, coin was coin, and she'd need more eventually. At least if she had to keep herself and Carol in squirrel meat sausage. Oddly, thinking about that made her stomach growl a bit. Not that she had a great love for that particular animal, food wise at least, but the growing she was doing was intense, and made her hungry all the time.

  Timon, for his part, hadn't really started to grow yet at all. Tor had explained that one to her. It was so he could start in the normal pattern for nobles. It would take longer, but not hurt as much. In the end they would all be over seven feet tall. Including her. That would probably ruin her looks a bit, since heavy features looked manly, and that couldn't be helped at those sizes, but she'd live. Tor seemed to think that it wouldn't be as bad as all that however. That meant he'd either done something already to fix it, or he just didn't want to be bothered with her vanity.

  Gerent was in front of Collette, who took one look at her mother and made a disapproving face.

  "Hello. I didn't expect to see you here. From the look of things, it seems you're up to your old tricks?" She pointed to the bruises and swelling, but everyone got the idea anyway. "In that case, perhaps you have room for a few more?"

  Then, quickly and efficiently, Collette moved in to beat her step-mother.

  Chapter two

  There was a smooth flow
to the action, a weapon coming out instantly, which seemed to be a large one that had several different sigils on it. The kind of thing that Tiera had seen before, with her brother Tor, but not really known were available. It had at least eight different kinds of effects right in the one package, which meant that it would probably cost nearly as much as the house they were in to purchase. That she had a thing like that was incredibly telling.

  Somebody thought very highly of her.

  "No!" The cry came, not from Carol, who was just glaring at her step-daughter, unwilling to back down it seemed, even if pain would be coming shortly, but from Gerent, who leaped in front of her holding his arms out. "Collette, no! You can't do that!"

  As angry as the women was, her fine features going into red already, she froze and held the thing in her hand up at the ceiling.

  "Move Gerent. You don't know what she did."

  He was a bit breathless, probably from fear, but didn't do what she asked, looking at the floor instead. It was kind of humble, but at the same time he shook his head, slowly.

  "You mean tormenting Bonita Coltress, and making her life so awful that she almost couldn't stand it? Being unloving to her own family and threatening to harm and kill people for simply seeing to what was right? Like Tor and Count Lairdgren?"

  "All right, so you do know what she's done. Now move out of the way and I'll finish this. It was a mistake to try and get her to repair herself. I shouldn't have let the others convince me it was a good idea."

  That... Tiera was suddenly torn, understanding that the whole situation was very similar to one that she'd been in herself. Tor had asked her not to take things with the Morris family too far, counting on them all to act in civil and responsible ways, after they had a bit of a fight. That ended with Regina being killed by Sandra. Maybe Collette had the right of it then? Was the only way out of this for the woman to die? If so, then the younger blonde didn't need to be the one to handle it, did she? Killing her parent, even one as evil and stupid as Carol seemed at times, would damage her.