The first thing she noticed as she swam back into consciousness was the scent in her nostrils; earthy, floral, and heady somehow. The second thing she noticed was that her awareness of the world around her was limited; her other main sense had been neutralised.

There was, of course, no point in opening her eyes. Everybody knew Dewr Barrett was blind; everybody knew how she had worked to stop it mattering to her.

All the same, she could not sense her surroundings. She flexed an ankle, experimentally, and confirmed her foot did not touch and could not reach the ground.

None of her could, and that plus the ache in her lolling neck meant that she was suspended in the air somehow. The specific points of strain were none too sharp, and mostly she seemed to be lifted somewhere around her back.

It was a harness, then; a rope harness that bound her arms behind her back and suspended her, more or less comfortably. She had heard legends of a time, before the elven rule was broken, before Llon Lyrith was founded, when earth elementalists had been stymied in this way; tied as they were, they could not complete the gestures that went with their elemental affinity, and in any case earth elementalists were most tied to their element; contact was helpful for so much of what they did.

In Dewr’s case, it also removed her Earthsense; the rope suspending her wasn’t firm enough for her to read the echoes from her bonds.

Dewr growled softly to herself, partly from frustration, partly from anger. This wasn’t at all a situation she wanted to be in.

It wasn’t a situation, either, that she was entirely sure how she’d arrived in.

She cast her mind back, trying to remember.

*

It was, of course, Llon Uqlith. She tried not to spend much time in the city of her youth these days; it carried too many memories of frustration, even after her father had accepted that she didn’t need coddling.

And besides, the city no longer held the first-tier importance it had had in her childhood; Llon Llyrith, though still new, had already eclipsed it in political priority. Merchants still came to Llon Uqlith for the population; everyone else went to Llon Llyrith.

Dewr had her part to play in making the new city better, and she liked it more; it was no real surprise that she spent more time there. All the same, Llon Uqlith was where she had grown up, and it was…

Well, it was improving slowly. Now that the old regime had been deposed, that the Grand Secretariat wasn’t able to manipulate the king, things were recovering. Dewr was proud to have played her part in all that, uncovering the layers and layers of trickery used, exposing the lies and the misleads and the hypnotic conditioning.

She had been back in Llon Uqlith after receiving a letter from Susannah which had requested her presence. Something strange had been found beneath the city, and Dewr’s unique sensory grasp of the earth was needed to explore it.

Dewr had been irritated by the summons, but it was a problem she could solve more easily than anyone else. Not only that but it was a chance to see her friends again. So she had travelled back.

She had been met by Susannah and by Hyfryd Bradwr. They had been relaxed, comfortable; whatever was below concerned them but was not urgent. The three had taken tea together before threading their way through the city to investigate it later, eventually finding their way into one of the oldest, poorest parts of town.

Most of the buildings were abandoned now. The paths between them were too narrow to be considered roads, were alleyways at most. It was cramped and awkward, but this was where Susannah told her the few earth elementalists who had a good sense for below had started to pick up… well, whatever it was.

“Alright, then,” Dewr said. “Are we ready?”

But the voice she heard in answer belonged neither to Susannah nor to Hyfryd Bradwr. It was a man’s voice.

“The Feel my words draw you down deeply has invited you to Lake Laogai,” it said, and Dewr felt the posture of the two women with her change immediately; they stood straighter, their heels slid together with audible clicks, and it was enough disruption just in those fluid movements that Dewr could tell exactly what had happened.

She recognised the phrase as clearly as she recognised the voice. Brenhin Tywyll, the former Grand Secretariat, had had the phrase implanted into those he’d conditioned himself and those he’d had conditioned.

And now her friends, the women who had invited her back into the city, had responded to the phrase perfectly, after leading her to an out-of-the-way part of the city where he happened to be.

One didn’t have to have worked in law enforcement to see where these clues pointed. Dewr Barrett bit down on the curse that rose to her lips on the simple belief that Brenhin Tywyll didn’t deserve to know he’d rattled her so deeply.

“Secure her, ladies,” Brenhin Tywyll said.

“Yes, Great One,” they chorused. Dewr could hear the smile in their voices, even though she couldn’t see it on their lips.

She began to draw on the earth, planning to launch herself into the air atop a pillar, giving her speed and momentum to leave so she could alert the authorities.

She wasn’t sure in memory which of her entranced friends had acted first, but as she began her first movement she was struck from behind, just below the shoulder blade, and she knew they had found a pressure point.

Her left arm didn’t move as it should. The earthcasting power didn’t flow as it should. The pillar that should have erupted under her feet leaped up under only one of them, throwing her off balance.

Susannah moved in close, seizing Dewr’s other arm at the shoulder and the elbow. Hyfryd Bradwr scrabbled on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs. She could not move, and so she could not bend the earth.

Someone pressed a cloth against her mouth and Dewr breathed in, floral and musty and dizzying. Her earthsense swam in and out of focus, and for a moment it seemed to her that she could make out the eerie smiles on the lips of both other women.

And then she lost consciousness.

*

She heard a door open. Dewr didn’t think she’d been moved far from where she was ambushed and kidnapped; she had just been taken somewhere private, somewhere which Brenhin Tywyll would, if she knew him as well as she believed she did, already have set up for…

For…

…well, for whatever he planned. Dewr could only really rule out one option; she wasn’t going to be brainwashed. His method relied on candles, lights, all kinds of visual cues.

She was functionally immune to anything he might try on that score.

Footsteps entered the room. Dewr’s ears were sharp, her mind experienced since birth in extracting information from what she heard; she recognised three separate individuals. No difficulty, either, in guessing who they would be.

Two of the sets of footsteps were almost perfectly synchronised with each other; more unsettlingly, they were perfectly rhythmic, the people walking with an almost mechanical precision to their movements.

Dewr thought of Hyfryd Bradwr’s flowing agility, the ease with which the woman could reposition herself in a fight, thought of Susannah’s combat skills, her speed and dexterity enough that she could hold her own for a time even against seasoned elementalists, and the thought of that reduced to brainwashed automaton status stung like an ache in her heart.

“Good evening, Miss Barrett,” Brenhin Tywyll said. “Lady Barrett, I should say. Heir to the Barrett lands and title.”

Which, of course, was the other reason that Dewr had not fully cut ties with Llon Uqlith. One day, unless her parents gifted her with a brother, a portion of the lands just outside the city would belong to her, a stake in the affairs of the city would be hers.

She tried not to think about it. Didn’t like the idea of wishing her parents dead; liked the idea of being tied to her lands and her subjects even less. She would do her duty by them when the time came, but until then, she didn’t intend to let that knowledge stop her from living her life.

Brenhin Tywyll had corrected himself on her title, but Dewr knew him well enough to know he had never forgotten it. In turn, that meant he was drawing her attention to her title and, with it, her lands; to her noble status.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she answered, grinding the words out between her teeth.

“No?” He sounded amused. “A shame. Susannah, tell her she would be wise to speak with me.”

“Yes, Great One,” Susannah echoed. “Dewr, the wise thing to do would be to speak with the Great One.”

“Oh?” she retorted bitterly. “And why would that be, exactly?”

She had expected that Brenhin Tywyll would have to feed Susannah a response. When her friend continued the conversation it came as a shock. “The Great One has had a long time to plan for this, Dewr. He was always a skilled strategist. If he thinks it wise for the two of you to speak, you can be sure it will be less wise for you to try and ignore him.”

Dewr frowned. “He understands us,” Susannah continued. “As he understands you, Dewr. He recognises that we have power, both in our skills and in our reputation. And he knows that power can only be correctly used under his command.”

At that, Dewr snorted. “The Susannah I know would never believe that.”

Brenhin Tywyll’s chuckle cut through the air. “What about you, Hyfryd Bradwr?” he asked. “Do you believe that my direction is necessary to use your power correctly?”

“Yes, Great One,” she admitted, and like Susannah her voice was cheerful and perky enough to tell Dewr they were both smiling happily under his influence.

“You can tell your so-called ‘Great One’ that he won’t be getting any help from me,” Dewr answered, furious. “The ‘correct’ way for me to behave is going to be getting free, knocking him out, and then making sure he faces justice properly this time.”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “I will tell the Great One no such thing,” Hyfryd Bradwr said eventually, her voice prim and reserved. It hurt to be judged by her friend, even knowing her friend wasn’t in charge of that judgement.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Because the only way he’d get me ‘under his command’ as you put it would be if he brainwashed me, just like he has the both of you. And he can’t do that, because I’m blind so I can’t get sucked into the candle flame the way the pair of you obviously did.”

“Yes he can,” Hyfryd Bradwr returned, and in her voice there was no deceit; there was only the puzzlement of someone who discovers a friend doesn’t know something obvious.

“Bull,” she declared. “How?”

“Because he told me to design something that didn’t need eyes to help you see his wisdom,” she answered.

“And you did?”

“Oh yes.” If anything, Dewr was even more aware of her friend’s smile now it accompanied a confession of a wider and deeper betrayal. It hurt. “Anything the Great One requires,” Hyfryd Bradwr added. “Although I had to hide it from myself.”

“Yes,” Susannah chimed in. “Another example of the Great One’s wisdom is in his recognising that we would fight against him if we knew what we were doing. So he hid from us our true allegiance, to be awakened with the right words.”

Feel my words draw you down deeply.

A chill ran down Dewr’s spine at how easily the confession came. And yet there was still aspects of this that didn’t add up.

“How would you make something that could brainwash me?”

“Chi is an extension of the soul,” Hyfryd Bradwr told her. “It follows that if I can manipulate your chi, I can manipulate your soul. And if I can manipulate the soul, it’s possible to shape the soul.”

“It hadn’t even occurred to her,” Brenhin Tywyll said, his voice heavy with smug amusement. “Not in the slightest. But once she was set on the path, she spent her nights testing. There is a squad of local guards now who have identical souls and no will of their own.”

“And once I reported my success to the Great One,” Hyfryd Bradwr said, “he directed me to find a way to automate the process. This took longer.”

“It’s done with charged ores, I understand,” Brenhin Tywyll said, in a tone of voice that confirmed he didn’t understand anything more than that, and probably didn’t really understand that, either.

Without having the ability to take over Hyfryd Bradwr’s mind and direct her to solve the problem, he would never have got this far, that much was clear.

“So,” she said, “why me? I’m not here most of the time - you’ve obviously got away with most of this without me even dreaming you were around. You don’t need me. You could have ignored me.”

“So why didn’t I?” Brenhin Tywyll asked. He didn’t laugh, as she’d half expected; the sigh he gave vent to was surprisingly weary. “I expected you to see the answer ahead of time, but I don’t know why. For you, the problem has never existed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Who rules in Llon Uqlith?”

“The King, of course.”

“And, aside from myself, who advises the King?”

“The aristocracy.”

“Yes. Like yourself, Lady Barrett. Not,” he said heavily, “like me, or anyone like me.”

Dewr had never given much thought to Brenhin Tywyll’s ascent to the post of Grand Secretariat. Most of it had taken place while she had been too young to pay any attention to politics, after all. She was vaguely aware that he had risen from common stock, and perhaps from very common stock, given the reactions of the nobility around him at the height of his influence.

The power the King had, and the lesser power the Barrett family had, was hereditary. The King’s power could not be taken away except by revolution; the Barretts’ power only by the King.

But the Grand Secretariat had always been vulnerable. That was why Brenhin Tywyll had operated in shadow for so long, why secrecy had been his primary weapon; he could never wield the power for himself, it had to be done through somebody.

And as she thought about that, she saw clearly what his goal was. What did she have that Susannah and Hyfryd Bradwr didn’t?

Her first assumption had been that he sought her for her talent at earthcasting, or for the very perceptive abilities that had formed the lure her friends had used to bring her in. These were both beyond her friends, and of enough value that it would be simple to assume.

She shuddered in her bonds as she realised that she wasn’t going to be put under his control for her skill, for her talent, for anything that made her the person she was.

Brenhin Tywyll would claim that, of course. He’d never been one to overlook value in his conquests - having realised Hyfryd Bradwr could develop new options for him was a perfect exemplar of that - but what mattered most to him was that he have a noble to rule, one who he controlled. He would step into power that could not be turned away.

That much she was sure of.

“You’ll never get away with this,” she said, but what she had intended as defiance came out more weakly than she’d wanted. She felt defeated, not defiant, and it showed in her voice. She hated that.

“Well, perhaps not,” Brenhin Tywyll said. “And on the other hand, perhaps I will have your willing collusion in it.

“I won’t have to hide my control over you, after all. Not once you’re my bride.”

Dewr swallowed. “Never.”

“How disagreeable of you.” Brenhin Tywyll chuckled, and snapped his fingers. “Let us put you in more agreeable mood.”

“At once, Great One,” Hyfryd Bradwr assured him.

Dewr could hear Brenhin Tywyll and Susannah turn and walk away, while Hyfryd Bradwr remained. Hearing just one pair of feet moving with the monotonous rhythm of the deeply enthralled, she had a sudden flash of clarity that had been, previously, masked by the fact there were two sets of footprints moving almost identically; Susannah was barefoot as she walked.

Most likely Hyfryd Bradwr was as well. Dewr realised immediately afterward that if they were barefoot, they had been compelled to remove their shoes; if that had been done, they were very likely fully nude and had been throughout the conversation.

She shuddered again.

A hand, presumably Hyfryd Bradwr’s, plucked her headband from her hair and discarded it.

“Don’t do this,” she gritted out, and she was embarrassed for herself that she even bothered. It wasn’t going to change the other woman’s response.

“I must,” she said. “The Great One has commanded it.”

Something pressed down on her hair, and then around her scalp. Within it, a number of knobbly protrusions had come to rest against points on her head.

They seemed to tighten up as Hyfryd Bradwr made adjustments of some kind. Dewr tried to muster her power, to will the machine broken from the inside, but that required her to be able to move, to gesture with her hands, to describe circles or stamp with her feet, and she could do neither in the rope harness that supported her.

She struggled, straining her body against the rope, but it didn’t help. There was a sound, close to her ear, like two stones being struck together to create a spark, and a moment later it sounded again, but this time it seemed purer; closer to the tone of a stone beater striking against a heavy brass bowl; something that resonated and remained and vibrated through her, echoing into her, the sound coming now not through her ear but entering her awareness as vibrations through the skull itself.

It was almost musical, but a music made entirely out of percussion; each sound sustained, drawing itself out as an attenuating echo through her mind, and new sounds arrived a second or so faster than the old one took to vanish, so that in time it built and built until all that was in her head was pure sound, just a single unified note.

For a time it was resonating around Dewr, a sound that thrummed through her but emerged from outside her.

But to her startlement and horror, Dewr could already feel that changing. As each of these rolling clashes finally broke and silenced, it left her mind a different place to how it had been when it had arrived.

She found herself oddly reminded of the puzzle where a tower must be transported across three vertical rods, without there ever being a time when a larger piece rests on a smaller. There was that same sense, from the beginning, that she knew the end state, that same recurring, incremental shift.

And each increment made the next step more inevitable.

Dewr struggled…

…to begin with.

The sounds were no longer resonating around her. Now she resonated with them. They were not uncomfortable anymore; this was a natural state, was normal, or at least it felt normal. She began to find that some thoughts fitted in the moments between the reverberations.

I have a legacy to uphold.

She hadn’t noticed at first, because none of them were thoughts she would ever think.

I have a purpose to serve.

But the Dewr who existed now was not, in mind, the same as the Dewr who had existed before Hyfryd Bradwr fitted the headgear in place.

I have a cause to strive for.

And each of these thoughts, as they emerged, belonged to a Dewr who was closer to her ultimate self.

I have love in my heart.

Toward the solution of the puzzle of her own independence.

I have to do what’s right.

Dewr Barrett had never been meant to be independent.

I have to stand at his side.

Dewr Barrett had only ever been waiting for this to be proved to her, and for someone she could be proud to follow to come along.

I have to kneel at his feet.

Dewr Barrett worshipped Brenhin Tywyll, the only man who could find a true purpose she could properly devote herself to.

I have to worship at his cock.

Dewr Barrett would obey like the dutiful wife she was.

I have to make my husband happy.

Dewr Barrett was as much a slave to the Grand Secretariat as anybody she had freed, but the only people who knew or might suspect knew only when they were his to control.

I have to bear his children.