He paused. “And yes, I see you thinking, and it is true: we intervene for our eventual benefit. This instance serves both sides, Azaniari of the Darden. You are a piece without a place. You have no allies of worth or safety. You are without strength you both need and desire. We can provide all of those things.”

  She didn’t bother protesting that Cafad was a worthy and safe ally, let alone Deiq. He’d laugh at either claim. Instead, she said, “What benefit would that provide to the teyanain?”

  He studied her face for a while without answering, his expression pensive. “I do not think you are ready to believe the answer,” he said. “And I am not ready to offer you that answer, either.”

  “So you forfeit the question?” she said recklessly. To her surprise, he smiled and inclined his head. The motion swung his hair away from one ear long enough to reveal a line of five small blue studs.

  “You may claim two forfeits against me, Azaniari of the Darden,” he said. “If we meet again, you have a free turn. Think carefully how you will use that chance, if the future allows us to speak further. Without cost, I tell you something you already know, by way of parting: Scratha lands are not safe. Not for you; not for any. There is a long-delayed consequence coming, a cleansing of the old and a sprouting of the new. Be very careful, Azaniari of the Darden, or you will not get the chance to claim your forfeit turn.”

  “What—” She stopped, mouth hanging open. Tharr was gone; not simply hidden, as before, but completely gone. She wasn’t at all sure how she could tell the difference, but trusted her instincts on the matter. “Bloody hells,” she said aloud, slapping her hands flat on the floor in front of her to vent her frustration. “Godsdamned teyanin.”

  Only echoes and settling silence answered her as the pale ceiling light slowly faded back into complete darkness.

  Chapter 29

  Constellations speckled the night sky, bright and sharp in the cold desert air. Cafad felt as though if he reached up and stretched a little, he might be able to capture a glowing diamond and bring it back to earth. A moon hung, heavy, pregnant with promise: the Hope Moon, ushering in lucky days ahead.

  He’d need that luck to get through Open Conclave. And where the hells was Azni? She should have been back by now. Had something happened to her?

  He pushed worry aside, tucked his hands into his armpits, and looked at the stars, tracing patterns in his mind: the Owl, the Snake, the Blue Hawk. Each held its own story of heroes and gods, each with its own path through the night and seasonal skies. He’d loved listening to the stories, as a child, fascinated from the first by the differences in the west and east coast star stories. The time he’d spent among northerners provided an entire third set of Northern-Church influenced interpretations of old legends.

  He would have been happy studying such things for the rest of his life; had intended, in fact, to do just that after retiring in Bright Bay with Nissa. She’d loved the old stories, too, and he’d been well on his way to abandoning his entire heritage in pursuit of love and scholarship....

  Foolish, unimportant goals. He was the last of Scratha Family. He had responsibilities. There was no longer room in his life for trivialities like love and fireside stories.

  I have to do something about Nissa at some point. Sessin will expect some sort of formal apology or reparation. I can’t avoid that now that I’ve stepped up to lead the Fortress.

  Don’t think about that. Don’t think about her. Look at the stars. This is the Night of Rest. Don’t think of troubling things. Just—breathe, and look at the stars.

  The top of this tower, always one of his favorite spots in the Fortress, served as a perfect retreat, far enough up that unless he focused, he couldn’t feel anyone’s presence. He didn’t want to think about other people right now. Didn’t want to be around anyone. He was exhausted from the effort of hiding his thoughts, not asking questions, and trusting other people to handle so many details of his life. He felt scraped raw, flayed inside, and completely unable to hide that from the prying, prodding eyes of servants and kathain waiting below.

  An owl cooed as it coasted by below. Cafad squinted, searching for the creature, and caught the faintest glint of starlight on grey wings before it disappeared behind a stand of tall brush. A small creature screamed a moment later, then went silent. Cafad sighed, turning his ear to the small noises of air and earth: the skittering hum of insects, the shuffling rattle of small rodents and mice playing through the eternal cycle of predator and prey, the flittering and chirping of night birds.

  Astounding, how he could hear all that from so far above the ground. Astounding, as always, how much control he now exerted over his senses. He’d thought that he was powerful after his final trial, but that faded to noon shadows compared to this heady sense that he could do anything. As though he could step off the side of the tower and fall to earth without coming to any harm at all.

  He considered that, intrigued by the notion. The ha’rethe was tasked not to allow Cafad to come to harm. What would it do if he leapt from the top of the tower? Could it stop his fall? Would it stop him from jumping? Would it heal his broken body after he hit the ground?

  Do I want to find out?

  It was a surprisingly tempting idea. At worst, he’d die—and that would stop the anxious pressure inside his skull, the constant rattle of questions and more questions and more questions, none with any answer in sight.

  At best, he’d discover himself to be, in effect, immortal, which would be a fascinating discovery in itself. Especially as it would mean the revelation of yet another vital piece of information long withheld—information he should have been given during his training.

  Don’t think about that. Don’t get angry. He couldn’t afford to relax, even on the Night of Rest. If he let his discipline slip once he’d never get it back into place as tightly.

  He went back to looking at the stars. A fine sheen of sweat coated his forehead. He’d never expected being Head of Scratha Family to be so godsdamned hard. Being in charge, he could have handled. Giving orders, running things as he liked, being master of all he surveyed—that would have been simple. But this—this skulking about in his own head, this constant awareness that he must be calm... calm... and quiet—that chafed worse than sand in a delicate spot.

  He shook his head and scrubbed both hands over his face, fiercely focusing on the stars again. Gods! It was like trying not to think of a purple asp-jacau. He’d never been good at letting troubling matters go. He’d always brooded and paced and worried at things until they came to a resolution one way or another. This was rapidly becoming impossible.

  He found himself pressed up against the chest high stone wall, his hands gripping the edge. What would happen... what would happen? At best, peace from this endless strain. It seemed worth the risk of survival. His knees began to bend, muscles shifting to propel him into a fierce leap.

  “Lord,” someone said from behind him. “Please, lord.”

  He turned sharply, staggering as his leg muscles rebelled from the sudden change in their directions. “I asked to be left alone,” he growled.

  Lichni stepped from shadow into moonlight and walked to stand before him. She wore a traditional kathain dress, usually called a las: a loose-fitting, flowing garment with laces holding the shoulders together. A simple tug on each tie would drop the entire dress to the ground.

  It was what kathain wore when making it absolutely clear to their master that they were available that particular moment. She wouldn’t be wearing anything under it.

  “Lord—” Lichni said.

  “No,” he said, cutting her off. The sight of her in that dress felt as though it was wrenching his stomach inside out. “No. Not from you. I can’t stand it right now. Not you.”

  She regarded him with grave compassion, as though his rambling made sense. “Cafad,” she said quietly. “I won’t leave you again. If you hurdle that wall, I will follow behind.”

  His breath choked in his throat. He knelt before her, fighting back tears, astonished at his own reaction. How long since he’d last allowed himself to cry? How long since he’d lost dignity so far as to go to his knees? Years. He was the last of Scratha Family. He wouldn’t let himself break down—nobody would ever see him cry again, he’d decided that a long time ago. Crying was a weakness, he wouldn’t, wouldn’t—

  “Caffy.” She knelt with him. Her use of the old nickname stripped away his resolve. He was, in that moment, a child again—as open as he’d been before everything went so wrong, shorn of the barriers and shields and internal rules. He lurched forward into her arms, all thought dissolving into raw grief and frustration and pain.

  Lichni’s arms tightened around him, her hands smoothing across his back. The slight movement brought him back to tactile awareness: thin fabric over warm skin laden with soft curves, the feel of her hair against his cheek—

  Raw grief turned sideways into a more physical reaction. He pulled back, steadying himself with hands on her shoulders, and looked at her for a long moment. “Take the wig off,” he said. “Please.”

  She swept it aside and regarded him with a wide grin. “Better?”

  Her face seemed longer and younger without the false hair, her eyes huge and lambent in the moonlight. “Yes.”

  “Much better. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. It tends to itch. I’ll go without it completely if that would please you.”

  “Would that make you happy?”

  She splayed her hands along his cheeks. “Being by your side makes me happy, Cafad,” she said. “Bald or be-wigged, I don’t much care.”

  “I care,” he said. “Gods—Lichni—I thought you were dead. I still don’t know what to do with you as my kathain. It’s turning me upside down.”

  She regarded him soberly, eyes half-shut. At last she said, “I paid a high price to be released from my master at Eshan so that I could come here, Cafad. He didn’t want to let me out of his service. I had no idea if I’d even be allowed to see you, let alone serve you, but it was worth the chance. I had to try.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Cafad said in a fierce, choked whisper.

  “Not in the way you’re thinking,” Lichni said. “I left my daughter behind. I know he’ll take good care of her—he adores her—but it wasn’t an easy decision to make.”

  “I’ll negotiate to get her—” he began. She shook her head, cutting him off.

  “You can’t, Cafad. It was part of my contract with my previous master. She’s his daughter too. You’ve nothing to say on the matter, and it would be a disaster for you to try. Let it go. Please.”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “Why?” he whispered. “Why was I worth that?”

  “You’ve always been worth that, Caffy,” she told him. “That and more. I’ll bear your children, if you like—I’d be honored, truly.”

  He leaned back, pulling clear of her hold, lurched to his feet and turned away, throat suddenly too thick for speech. She rose and stood still, watching him, making no attempt to approach as he paced in looping circles.

  “I can’t,” he said at last, turning to face her. “Something happened during my blood trials—I can’t explain it. But I can’t produce children. I can’t give you a child.”

  She stared at him, her mouth forming a small ‘o’ of surprise. “Oh, Cafad, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Oh, gods, that’s—I had no idea. I’m so sorry to have raked that open.”

  He shrugged and turned his back on her, unable to stand looking at that horrified expression. “I’m still perfectly capable,” he said over his shoulder, rather bitterly. “Don’t think me a eunuch!”

  “Oh, I don’t,” she said, laughing now. Her hands slid around his waist as she pressed herself close against his back. “I know you’re entirely capable. Remember, the kathain room is right next to your bedroom, and you’ve taken Retiae more than once. I’m not sure why you won’t touch me, though. Am I that repulsive to you these days, because I’m older?”

  “No,” he said through his teeth, holding himself rigidly still. “Not that.”

  She let go and stepped away. “Because I’m kathain?” she said. “Because I’m not pure? Have you been in the north that long, Cafad, that you’ve taken in the Northern Church poison?”

  He turned to face her, caught between anger and shame, and froze. She poised one hand on each of her shoulders, fingers wrapped around the ties. As he watched, she pulled them free and let the dress fall to the ground.

  He studied her body, the patterns caught out by moonlight, the stretch marks, the heavy areas along thigh, stomach, and upper arms, the sag of her breasts—he allowed a moment’s regret that he’d missed the years in which everything on her body had been firm and unwrinkled, then let the sadness go. She was still an extraordinarily beautiful woman.

  “Your turn, Caffy,” she said, smiling mischievously. “Remember? Truth for truth, wasn’t it?”

  He grinned. “We did play that a lot, didn’t we?”

  “This is my truth now,” she said, holding his gaze steadily. “Show me yours, or forfeit.”

  He looked at her, studying her from head to toe, remembering earlier days, and how she’d laughed, and how she’d smelled. Remembering promises he’d thought long since laid in a cold grave, among them the unshakable belief that they would always be companions, no matter what.

  Abruptly, Nissa didn’t matter any longer. The burdens of being Head of Scratha Family fell aside, leaving nothing but moonlight, and the sound of desert crickets far away—and Lichni, standing just out of reach.

  He drew in a deep breath, amusement mixing with anxiety and desire in a dizzying rush, the stripped out of his clothes in a few swift motions and went to her.

  Chapter 30

  Azni stood a stone’s throw away from the border of Scratha lands, watching the wind kick sand into opposing whirlwinds, watching birds stutter sideways in the conflicting currents overhead, and watching large and small insects alike turn away and trundle in different directions when they neared that line. The boundary line should have been imperceptible to ordinary humans, but this—anyone with good vision and half a handful of sense could see something was wrong. It felt as though a barrier were slowly seeping into place, a division between Scratha lands and everywhere else. And there was a persistent smell of smoke in the air now—faint, but definite.

  She had to go back. Cafad would be waiting to hear about the wells. She breathed deeply, setting worry aside, layering and spinning her thoughts with delicate care into a complex mental armor:

  I am Azni of Darden Family. I am Darden. Darden Family. I went to the border with Sela, I walked along the boundary, I wandered through nearby unclaimed areas, I saw nobody, I spoke to nobody. I was alone after leaving Sela. Alone. I was alone....

  When she had everything firmly in place, she stepped across the boundary. The ha’rethe’s awareness brushed across her skin like invisible feathers: Welcome, Lord Azaniari of the Darden, came the soft murmur. The focus faded a moment later, dispersing through air and sand.

  She stood still, eyes wide. It had stretched its attention all the way to the border? According to Deiq, ha’reye never bothered to look much past their immediate area, except when they felt the presence of an external threat. Deiq had said that he’d talked the ha’rethe into slumbering for weeks yet, giving Cafad time to adjust, to learn his role. Deiq said that he’d convinced the ha’rethe not to react to Cafad’s inevitable temper flares and emotional stumbles.

  Those reassurances suddenly felt hollow—as reliable as climbing on a stairway made of smoke. Had he lied? Why would he have done so—other than simply being ha’ra’hain, and as prone to lying as breathing?

  This ha’rethe was not in any way slumbering. Had it sensed Tharr’s presence somehow? Are there other athain out there, watching Scratha lands? Immediately, she felt foolish. One visible teyanin meant there were ten more just out of view and thirty more in the shadows. One or more of them must have gotten too close to the border, alerting the ha’rethe to their presence. Deiq couldn’t have anticipated that.

  Could he?

  And more immediately important, what the hells did the teyanain want?

  Abruptly anxious to get back to the Fortress, Azni set a fast pace, just shy of running. She firmly blocked the uneasy suspicion that she was running headlong into danger, and should be bolting the other way.

  That feeling hadn’t entirely dissipated by the time she arrived at the gates, and the gathering evening gloom didn’t help her nerves. The tall torches painted wavering shadows along the multicolored stone blocks of the outer walls. The guards, in the fading light, loomed like menacing sentinel statues. Somewhere nearby, a wailer-owl screeched. Azni reflexively scooped up a bit of sand and cast it over her right shoulder. Realizing what she’d done—and that the guards had seen her indulge in a moment of superstitious foolishness—brought a hot flush to her face. She swore at herself under her breath.

  She straightened her back as she strode forward, her chin lifting. In that moment, she couldn’t help comparing herself to her mother, who’d always responded with similar tautness when embarrassed.

  “Welcome back, Lord Darden,” one of the guards said as she came in. “Good Hope Night to you.” He was a rumple-haired young man with a broad, common-born build and a gap-toothed smile.

  She paused. “Good Hope Night?”

  The guards regarded her with varying degrees of bewilderment. “Well, yes, Lord Darden,” the young man said. “And we’re glad you’re back safe. I’d imagine the Night of Rest is better within walls than out in the wilds—”

  “But that might not hold for desert lords,” one of his companions said sternly. “So shut it, boy! Not your place, is it, to talk to Lord Darden.”

  “I was on’y bein’ friendly,” the boy protested.

  “Well, don’t,” the other guard retorted, then offered a shallow bow to Azni. “Sorry, Lord Darden. He’s still learning his place.”

  “The Night of Rest?” she repeated, as bewildered as the guards a moment ago. “That’s not tonight!”

 

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