As before, we appeared a short distance from the house, the nullification spell preventing us from teleporting directly into it. Asking me to wait a minute, Avani went to speak with the guard, and a moment later, he shouted into the house. A second guard appeared after a few minutes, and after another consultation, both men left and Avani called out for me to come on in.

Once inside, she barred the door, saying, “I want to be certain we’re not interrupted. This… this isn’t going to be easy. Just being in the house at all makes me feel like running fast and far away, even though he’s dead.” I looked at her in surprise, and she blushed and looked away. “I know…. But I wasn’t always as strong as I am now. And being in this place… it brings out my weakness.”

“It’s all right, My Lady,” I replied gently. “I’m here with you.”

She nodded, and took a deep breath as she looked around the entry. “I need to see what is in the house and decide what I want to leave with the house, what I want to give away… and there will be some things that I simply want destroyed, of that I’m certain.” With that, she began to work her way through the house, examining contents of cupboards and closets, making piles of things she wanted to take away.

The house was of a medium size—neither grand nor humble. The entry contained a few pieces of art on the walls, a bench, and a wide, shallow cabinet that held an assortment of boots and shoes. She pulled the footwear out of the cabinet and moved on to the next room, a large sitting room.

This room was furnished with heavy, old furniture, darkened with age, and upholstered with red and gold fabric. Thick red rugs covered the tiled floor, and red and gold cushions were heaped on the benches and sofas as well as strewn about a low table in the center of the room. The walls and shelves were adorned with paintings and decorative weaponry, and a few hideous statues glowered from dark corners. There appeared to be a common theme, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, exactly. When I inquired, Avani grimaced and said that many of them were depictions of Adon, the Destroyer, and his draconic will, Fiersome. That struck me as peculiar, since the tribe purported to serve Ventu, his adversary, but I had to admit—it suited Bhima’s personality. 

All these depictions of Adon and Fiersome she pulled down and threw into a heap, but she otherwise left the room as it was. She did the same with the dining room, then moved on to the kitchen. She gathered all the perishable goods together, tossing out anything that was no longer wholesome, and heaped the food into baskets to take to the needier members of the tribe. Everything else she left, with the exception of some childishly embroidered linens she pulled from the back of a deep drawer. She sighed in relief as she uncovered them, then looked at me sheepishly. “I’m so glad these are still here. I was afraid Bhima or his mother would have worn them out or gotten rid of them.”

“What are they?” I asked, holding my hand out for them to take a closer look. She handed me a set of four tea towels, made from linen and crudely embroidered with stylized fruits and vegetables and flowers.

“That was Chanda’s wedding gift to me. She made them herself, even though she barely knew how to sew, let alone embroider. I know—they’re not much to look at. But of all the gifts given to me, this probably had the most love put into it, and so I treasured them for that reason alone.” She took them from me and folded them carefully, setting them on the counter and smoothing them with a smile before moving to the next room.

Bhima’s study was the next room she tackled, and she sighed and frowned as she looked around. “I suppose many of these books and scrolls would be useful to others. But I still need to inspect the drawers and cabinets. The ledgers, for example, probably would be of no use or interest to anyone else. I’ll need to go over them, to be sure that he owes nothing to anyone.” And with that she dragged the large leather chair away and pulled one of the wooden benches over.

I raised my eyebrow at her as she sat and started sorting through the cabinets along the back wall. “Why don’t you sit in the chair? Surely you’d be more comfortable in it?”

She shivered as she glanced back at the chair. “I… no, I just can’t. Bhima reupholstered that chair himself… and the leather came from my favorite cow.”

I felt sickened by the cruelty of that gesture—although I’d heard many stories, and faced him in armed combat myself, it seemed as if at every turn, I learned of new depths of cruelty and depravity, and I wondered how far he’d sunk—and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

The only other rooms downstairs were the small, efficient bathing room, the adjacent water closet, and a small storeroom. She quickly went through these, throwing out most of the soaps and creams and cosmetics and tossing the rest into a cloth sack. From the storeroom, she collected a few items—a small casket, a chest, and a few books. Stacking them separately, she looked at me and said, “I’m surprised that Bhima didn’t get rid of my things when I disappeared. I can’t imagine why he just stored it instead.” She shrugged, then walked to the stairway that led to the second floor. Taking a deep breath, she slowly began to ascend the steps.

Upstairs was a short hallway with three doors. She went first to the room nearest to the stairs—a bedroom that looked as though it was intended for children. Along the walls were four alcoves, each containing a narrow bed. Cupboards, shelves, and drawers were built into the walls under and around the beds and windows, and in the middle of the floor was a table with four large cushions around it. She gave this room only a cursory inspection; the only objects it held besides furnishings were a few well-worn picture books and some small, colorful paintings of animals.

Once she finished going through that room, she went to the adjacent room. Opening it, we stepped inside to a vividly colorful room. The walls were painted a lurid cerise with bright orange trim. The linens and textiles in the room were in so many shades of red, pink, and orange, I thought my eyes would bleed. Avani glanced at me as I raised a hand to partially cover my eyes, and said, sympathetically, “You can wait outside, if you would like. This was Kokila’s room. I just need to pack her things to send to her.”

“No wonder she was crazy. It was probably the color scheme,” I groaned as I hastily left, closing the door as Avani laughed. I leaned against the wall outside the room and examined the pictures and mementos on the walls and shelves as I waited.

After several minutes, she emerged, piles of clothing and other goods in her arms. I grabbed part of her load and we took them downstairs to place in cloth sacks. Then we returned upstairs, and Avani went to the third and final door. She stood for a long moment, her hand on the door handle. I put a hand on her shoulder, and I could feel her trembling. Then she steeled herself and opened the door.

The room was almost restful to my eyes after the visual assault of the previous room. It was dimly lit; the sole window looked to the east. The walls were covered in carved wood panels from the floor to the ceiling. It was not a small room, but the large, high bed dominated it nonetheless. As with most of the furniture in the house, it was crafted of wood that was nearly black with age. The headboard, footboard, posts, and canopy arches were all heavily carved with great skill—almost lace-like in its intricacy. Sheer embroidered curtains hung from rails along either side of the canopy, and a brightly colored, embroidered coverlet was spread across the bed—the only really colorful item in the entire room. The only other furniture was a small table on either side of the bed and a bench at the foot.

Quickly turning her back to the bed, Avani went to one of the wooden panels. Pressing against a piece of the carven trim, the panel popped open to reveal a cupboard, from which she removed a casket. Opening it, she held up a slender golden chain, then dropped it back in. She held the box out to me to take a look, knowing my curiosity, and I glanced at the contents—jewelry and other accessories, made of gold and assorted gems.

She shrugged as I looked up at her. “It’s mostly either jewelry that passed down from his family to me when we married, or wedding gifts. I don’t care about them at all—I’ll give them away or something.”

Next she opened a high cabinet, the door of which was made of several panels. Inside were several colorful items of clothing as well as many articles of solid, unadorned black. As she began to sort through the clothing, I looked around the room, trying to imagine Bhima living in a place like this. Then I remembered—I’d wanted to ask her something, but recent events had driven my question out of my mind, until now. I sat down on the bench and watched her for a minute, then said, “Tell me, what was it that you showed those two women last night that had them so… unnerved?”

She froze, her back stiffening. Then she dropped the blouse in her hand to the floor and slowly turned to me, her face pale. “The truth,” she said in a soft voice. I looked at her curiously, and she walked over to yet another panel and opened it. She lifted out a handful of items, then dropped them onto the foot of the bed for me to see before walking to another cupboard. Looking down, I saw ropes, chains, and shackles of varying sizes—some of which were speckled with dark reddish-brown stains. As I was still trying to come to grips with the display before me, she returned with a small chest in her hands.

Made of heavily carved black wood, it was fastened closed with a bronze clasp. She handed the chest to me, then returned the ropes and chains to their place before sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to me. I opened the chest, and as I looked over the contents, I felt my skin crawl.

The first thing that caught my eye was a small knife of watered steel, the blade tucked into a hardened leather sheath. The handle looked just small enough to fit comfortably in a large man’s hand, and when I unsheathed it, I saw that the blade was small—a little shorter than the length of my thumb—and wedge shaped. It looked sickeningly sharp, and then I noticed that the leather-wrapped handle was spattered with more red-brown stains. I quickly sheathed the blade and dropped it back into the box.

Hearing the knife drop, Avani quickly rose and peered into the box. Lifting out a small, stoppered phial, she sighed in relief. “Be careful not to break this. It’s… it’s a powerful acid. It’s dangerous.” Then she set it carefully back in the box, her face expressionless, and resumed her seat. I watched as she sat there, her back still to me, and I could see the tension in every line of her body.

“My Lady… would you rather I not look further?” I asked, closing the lid partway.

She started, then shook her head, still facing away from me. “It’s all right. You… you said you wanted to know all about me. So unless you’ve changed your mind, and you’d rather not know….”

I looked down at the lid of the box, thinking that the pretty, delicate carvings of fruit and flowers were ridiculously at odds with its contents. Much like Bhima himself, I supposed, who admittedly had been very striking in appearance, yet despite his outward beauty, he was far and away the most evil man I’d ever met. Then I opened the lid once again.

The next thing that caught my attention was a small brass box with a candleholder set in the lid. Opening it, I found it was a tinder box; several candles and stubs were scattered throughout the contents of the chest. There was a small glass jar with a cork stopper, full of some brilliant yellow powder, and another filled with some thick paste. A few strips of bamboo, some of which were stained yellow, a tiny mortar and pestle, and several loops of some kind of cord. Most of these were just a light tan color, but one had been dyed a poisonous green. I held it up and asked what it was, and why only one was colored.

Turning to look, Avani swallowed visibly, her face looking even whiter than before. “It… those are catgut. He used them as… as restraints.”

“Catgut?” I said, dropping them quickly back into the chest, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

She nodded. “I don’t know why it’s called that—it’s made from… from larger animals. Cows and sheep and such. Not cats. But it is made from….” her voice trailed off as she turned away, pressing a hand to her mouth.

“I see…. And the one was dyed green because…?” I asked, despite my misgivings.

“It was a… special cord. He made it himself. From my pet cow—the same one whose hide he upholstered his chair with,” she replied, faintly.

I could see why those women had looked so ill. I was no stranger to death and carnage, yet I still felt more than a little queasy. As I was about to shut the lid, I noticed a few bits of some sort of hide—little fragments, and a few larger pieces that had curled into rolls as they dried. I was loathe to touch them, though, given the circumstances. So I asked if she would explain the contents to me—if she could bear to do so, that is.

After a little hesitation, she rose and walked over, sitting next to me on the bench. She took the chest from me, her hands trembling, and looked in. She first lifted out the phial of acid, saying, “He would use this to… to burn my skin. He’d let drops fall on me, and allow it to eat into my skin. It was incredibly painful—but not the worst thing he did.” Next she picked up the two jars, the mortar and pestle, and the bamboo scrapers. “The yellow powder is sulfur. He’d mix it with the tallow, then he’d paint lines of it onto me with the bamboo strips. After that, he’d light a candle and hold the flame to the sulfur mixture until it… until it caught fire. And then the flame would spread, burning all the sulfur and tallow and leaving his designs burned into my skin. That… that was worse than just the acid, mostly because it took so long—all that preparation, while I lay bound and helpless, knowing what was coming….” She shuddered and dropped it all back into the chest, and I put my arm around her, at a loss for words but wanting to comfort her as best I could.

“I already told you that he used the catgut for restraints,” she said after a few minutes of silence. “I think that, of all the things he did, this was… the worst,” she continued, picking up one of the pieces of hide between delicate fingertips.

“What is it?” I asked, fearfully.

Before answering, she reached in and pulled out the knife. “He… he would skin me, with this. Not entirely, of course—even with his healing skills, I don’t think I could have survived that. He’d just slice off a strip here and there. But you can’t imagine…. And then sometimes, when he was especially angry, he’d drip acid onto the raw spots.”

I sat there, shaken to the core by her disclosures. I unequivocally agreed with Dylas—a thousand deaths weren’t enough for Bhima. Before I could think of something to say, she rose, closed and fastened the lid, and returned the chest to the cupboard. Then she reached in and pulled out a large, heavy cloth of some sort—canvas, perhaps, or some similar material. She tossed it down on the bed and looked over at me. “This was the last thing that I showed them,” she said, and she spread out the cloth.

The cloth itself was not quite white in color. But the center of it was darkly stained with layer upon layer of different shades of deep red-brown, so thick in some places that it was cracking and flaking away. I stared at it, and she said, “This was the cloth he used to spread out under me, to prevent damaging the  mattress and bedding. He would wash it now and then, though it seems as if he never washed it after its last use, the night before my departure.” Then she folded it up again and returned it to the cupboard with the chest, fastening the door closed afterward.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling lightheaded. I could hardly believe it—it seemed so unreal, that anyone could be so barbaric, so… so sickeningly vicious, and to one as kind-hearted as Avani. It defied all reason—yet I had seen the evidence with my own eyes. Not that I had ever doubted her—but somehow seeing it made it all so much more… profound. Now I wished more than ever that I had been the one to kill him—and that I’d known just how slowly and agonizingly he needed to die. But then, I couldn’t blame Avani for wanting to claim him for herself, not after all he’d done to her.

I looked up at her as she stood trembling before the closed cupboard, and my heart ached for her as I realized that she was shaking not with fear, but with soundless tears. I went to her and embraced her, and she turned and wrapped her arms around me, burying her face into my chest as she finally broke down into heartrending sobs. I lifted her up and carried her over to the bed, where I sat down with her on my lap, holding her close and letting her cry herself out

As her tears finally began to subside, I tilted her chin up to me and kissed her. To my surprise, she responded needily, clinging to me tightly as she returned my kiss with increasing urgency. I pulled back a little, searching her eyes. “Perhaps this isn’t the best place for a romantic interlude, My Lady. Would you like to return to our room at your brother’s house?”

She buried her face into my neck, shaking her head vigorously. She whispered, “No, Leo. For once—just once—I want something good to happen to me here, in this room. Then maybe… maybe I won’t feel so haunted by the memories anymore. Please?” She caressed my cheek and nuzzled my neck as she waited, tensely, for my reply.

After a brief hesitation, I leaned down to murmur into her ear, “Well, I never was one to deny your requests, my beloved wife.”

She stood and slipped out of her dress, letting it fall to the floor at her feet, then pulling me to my feet, she flipped the covers of the bed back to reveal smooth linen sheets, softened with use and age. Tugging at my clothing, she stood on tiptoe to reach me, kissing me eagerly as she slipped my vest off and slowly ran her hand down my stomach to my belt. She fumbled for a moment with the buckle in her haste, then loosened it and slid my trousers, belt and all, down past my hips, letting them drop to the floor next to her dress.

I slid my hands down her sides, then, grasping her hips, I pulled her firmly to me. As I pressed against her, my erection grew in both length and hardness, and she reached down to caress me through my boxers. She pushed me down onto the bed so that I was sitting, leaning back against the pillows. Then she climbed on and straddled my lap, leaning over to kiss my neck and face as she ran her fingers through my hair and caressed my chest and stomach, rubbing herself back and forth along my length. I reached around to her back and unfastened her bra, slipping it off her. Her breasts had been perfectly proportioned before, neither too large nor too small, but now they were very generous, round and full beneath my hands. I rolled the firm tips of her nipples between my fingertips as she moaned into my neck, nipping and sucking gently at my skin as she began to squirm eagerly against me.

Kissing down her neck to her breasts, I teased her nipples with my tongue, flicking it over and swirling it around each tip as her moans increased in urgency. Reaching down beneath the swell of her belly, I found that her panties were already damp from her anticipation, which only served to intensify my own. I pushed her off my lap and slipped off the bed, then pulled her to the edge of the bed. Tossing the pillows down behind her, I eased her back against them before kneeling in front of her. I slid her panties off, then gently probed her with the tips of my fingers, exploring her wetness before moving to her firm but sensitive nub. Little cries of pleasure escaped her lips as I began to gently trace circles around the crux of her arousal, then after a few moments, I leaned forward and tasted her piquant juices, caressing her with my tongue as she writhed and moaned, twining her fingers through my hair as she wrapped her legs around my shoulders. In what seemed like no time at all, she was arching her back, chanting my name as she reached her climax, shuddering as she pressed herself to me.

I continued caressing her gently as her tremors subsided, then I stood and leaned over her, kissing her mouth and face and neck. I slid my boxers off and slipped between her thighs, then I paused to look down into her half-lidded eyes. “Are you sure you want this, My Lady, here in this place? It’s not too late to change your mind.”

In answer, she reached up and grasped my hips, pulling me against her. The bed was high enough that I didn’t need to kneel, nor to raise her hips—she was at the perfect height for me. I leaned over her, planting my hands on either side of her waist, and as she wrapped her legs around my waist, I thrust into her.

She winced, as if in pain, and I immediately stopped, worried. “My Lady? Is something wrong? Am I hurting you?”

Shaking her head and squeezing her eyes tightly closed for a moment, she replied haltingly, “No, I’m just… still a little… a little sore… from… from Bhima. But please don’t stop, Leo—it only hurts a little, really.”

I still hesitated, unwilling to cause her any pain, but she tightened her grip on me with her legs, drawing me in closer and closer until I thought I would go mad with the urge to possess her, to both fill and fulfill her completely, and I again slid out and thrust back in, slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed as I watched her, writhing with the pleasure that our union brought her, bringing me closer and closer to the edge with each thrust into her slippery embrace. As I drew closer to the peak, I grabbed her hips and thrust more firmly into her, and she gripped my arms tightly as she began to moan, biting her lip in concentration as she again approached her climax. She arched her back, pulling me tightly to her and digging her fingers into my forearms as she cried out in ecstasy, quivering with each thrust. Reaching the peak of my own climax, I groaned and called out her name, waves of pleasure crashing over me as I emptied myself into her depths, and then I collapsed forward and next to her, shaky from the intensity of my release.

I barely noticed her tugging at me after a few minutes, coaxing me to lie alongside her on the bed, nor did I notice her drawing the covers over us as I nuzzled her neck, falling asleep almost instantly as we lay in each other’s arms. We both slept soundly and without dreaming while the daylight dwindled and shadows deepened into evening.