She flinched and clamped her jaw shut. She'd come to know Mages well enough to have learned that obedience, instant and unquestioning, was the best tool of survival.

"Sulimage Manza will not be returning. I am Primage Nour, the new holder of your leash. Now get on your knees and show me the proper respect."

The pillow fell from her hands. She dropped to her knees and bent forward, touching her forehead to the floor near his feet. Her br**sts swung free, the rouged tips rubbing the carpet, but she didn't dare move to tuck them back into the confines of her corset.

The hard leather sole of the Mage's boot pressed against the back of her neck, driving her face into the carpet until she could hardly breathe. Fighting the instinctive urge to stiffen her spine and push back against the pressure, she forced her body to go limp.

The submission seemed to please her new master. After a moment, the foot on her neck lifted.

She stayed where she was, not daring to do more than take short, shallow breaths. He had not told her to move.

For nearly a chime she stayed there, prone and silent, waiting. Then, at last, the cold command: "You may rise."

She pushed herself up on her palms and rose to her feet, keeping her arms at her sides, her eyes downcast.

"Raise your eyes, umagi."

She lifted her lashes, fixing her gaze straight ahead as Vale had taught her four years ago, when she was an ambitious seventeen-year-old girl willfully making her Dark bargain. She'd not realized the true price, but he'd taught her. For six months, he'd led her farther into the shadows of his service, each week claiming a little more than she'd originally thought to give, coaxing her into surrendering the next bit of her soul. Slowly, methodically, he'd seduced her, broken her, subjugated her to his will. He'd trained her to obey him without question and serve him in any capacity he desired. And she'd come to do so willingly, even eagerly at times.

Now he was gone, but the invisible collar of enslavement he'd settled around her neck remained firmly clasped in place. She had a feeling its weight under Nour's hand would not be half so light as it had been under Master Manza's.

Master Nour lifted her chin and inspected her face with cold eyes. She was careful not to let her eyes meet his. Master Manza had allowed her certain liberties, but Master Nour did not seem so accommodating. From the corner of her eye, she saw the barrel-chested man staring at her exposed br**sts. Master Nour didn't even glance at them.

The Primage's expression gave no hint of his thoughts, and when he concluded his inspection all he said was, "Manza always did have an eye for the pretty ones."

Master Nour turned away, and Jiarine allowed herself one deep breath. The movement made the stocky man lick his thick lips. She knew right then, he was no Mage. He could not possess the rigorous discipline Master Manza had told her was required for Magecraft yet still be so easily distracted by a pair of plump tits. An umagi, then, like her. She flashed him a glare and knew she'd guessed right when all he did was curl up the corner of his mouth in a leering grin.

"Manza claimed you were quite useful to him," Master Nour said, and both Jiarine and the stocky umagi snapped back into expressionless statues. "I hope I will find you so. Your first task is to arrange an entrée for me into the queen's court. I will be Lord Geris Bolor, from a small estate near Sebourne's lands in the north."

Jiarine took a breath. "Master, may I speak?"

"What is it, umagi?"

"Great Lord Sebourne is a regular at court. Your identity will be too easily discredited." The words came in a rush. She wasn't certain how this new Mage would react to an umagi daring to give him advice, but if she didn't speak and his plans failed, he would blame her. She would rather take the punishment for impertinence than the punishment for failure. "A landless Ser or bastard son of a nobleman would be a better choice, less likely to be questioned by the members of the court."

"But I will not be a Ser, umagi. Manza went that route and it did not serve him nearly well enough. Lords have opportunities and influences mere Sers do not. Beside, though the news has not yet had time to reach the court, the real Lord Bolor has just met an untimely end, and I am his long-lost son and heir from a secret elopement. I have brought the marriage certificate and birth records and, if necessary, can produce the witnessing priest to prove it."

The current diBolor was a lord whom Jiarine had met before. He had a wife and two small children. If all that happened to him was disinheritance and reclassification in the Book of Lords as a bastard rather than a legitimate son of title, both he and his young family would be lucky. Somehow, she doubted that would be the case. Most obstacles in a Mage's path had a way of ending up dead or vanished. She dismissed the innocent man and his family's fate without a qualm. Better them than her.

"As you will, my Lord Bolor. But if I may be so bold, while you may pass for a lord of title, your umagi here will not." She cast a haughty glance at the stocky man. "He does not have the look of nobility about him. The wharf seems more likely."

The shorter man's brows drew together in a scowl. Master Nour just glanced back at him and then, surprisingly, laughed. "The wharf, eh? I suppose he does look a bit of the roustabout."

"I suggest you garb him as your servant. But keep him close by. The lords will assume he is your bully boy, and those fists are large enough that they might think twice before challenging your presence."

Nour's lips pursed, and he eyed her with new interest. "Perhaps you are more than just another of Manza's pretty faces after all, Jiarine."