Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (14 page)

The seer shrugged, his expression turning distinctly cool.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, it helps if you walk around the entire thing.” He scooped the chips into his pouch and stood, looking down at Deiq for a moment. “It also helps if you have the right bones to work with.”

A chill ran through Deiq’s entire body. “You have—”

An insouciant grin flickered across the seer’s broad face; then he took two steps and was lost to sight in the crowded street beside which they’d crouched for the reading.

Deiq stayed still, staring blankly at the humans as they swarmed by, going about their lives without a glance towards him. Skin prickled down his back. He found himself too afraid to chase the seer down for an answer, but the question rang insistently in his head:

Do you have
ha’ra’ha
bones in that pouch, seer?

Light shivered into his eyes as someone pried an eyelid open, then the other. Liquid dazzle filled his vision. He screamed in agony as water sluiced across his face, rinsing the stibik powder from his eyes and nose. He caught an off-smell and writhed, madly trying to get loose: then a strong hand pried his mouth open and a spoonful of bitter esthit crystals scattered across his tongue.

Someone kept his mouth forced open as the crystals dissolved on his tongue. His perceptions bent: colors turned into bizarre sounds that no human had ever heard; sounds became tastes; touch sparkled into a fan of bright colors.

Alyea,
he tried to project, well aware his wits were veering irretrievably towards the edge of real insanity.
Gods, don’t come after me, not this time, I’ll
hurt
you...
Then he remembered he’d never broken through that particular barrier with her: she couldn’t hear him.

Despair pulled another scream from his throat as everything turned black again.

Tank walked stiffly through the palace halls, uncomfortably aware of the sharp sound his boots made on the polished stone floors. Servants shot curious, mistrustful glances his way, and once a minor functionary with more arrogance than sense stepped into Tank’s path.

“Your business,
s’e?”
he said, a thick-lipped sneer showing his doubt that Tank had legitimate business within these walls.

“Lord Eredion Sessin,” Tank said, allowing himself to be halted, and regarded the man with sour amusement. The flunky was dressed in silks and feathers, his hair swirled into an elaborate style that made him look like a molting duck. He wouldn’t survive a day on the trail—or two breaths in the face of a desert lord’s glare.

The man’s face creased in deeper suspicion. He looked Tank over as though examining a nasty bug.

“What does Lord Sessin need from—” He paused, clearly unsure how to complete the sentence. His gaze snagged and held on the unbound sword strapped, southern-style, across Tank’s back.

“Not your business,
s’e,”
Tank said. “I suggest you move aside. He’s not the type to be patient with tardiness.” He raised his hand, displaying the bracelet Eredion had given him; the flunky’s eyes narrowed into a hard squint. For a moment Tank thought the man was about to accuse him of stealing it, but good sense visibly kicked in just in time.

“Lord Sessin has just gone by to see the king,” the flunky said, recovering, and pointed past Tank.
“That
way. And that sword ought to be—”

“I’m Bright Bay Guild. That rule is for outsiders,” Tank lied; then, before the man could argue, added, “And I’m going
this
way, to wait for him in his suite, as he directed.”

Privately, he wondered what
just gone by
meant. Surely Eredion had had more than enough time since Tank’s earlier departure to have gone and come back again? Unless something had intervened, delaying the audience, in which case it could be a while before the desert lord returned.

He considered turning away and waiting somewhere else. The idea of sitting around in a desert lord’s rooms didn’t particularly appeal to him. But the flunky was sneering at him again, and it was beginning to rouse Tank’s volatile temper.

“You expect me to believe that Lord Sessin would tell
you
to wait in his rooms? Alone?” The flunky glanced at the bracelet, his suspicions obviously returning.

Tank shifted his weight to stand more solidly and directed his best rendition of a desert lord’s blackest glare at the obstructive man. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Ah....” The fop backed up a step, his face turning several shades lighter. “I...I...I was just....”

“Admirable,” Tank said dryly, and moved around the stammering man before he gathered enough wit to protest.

Growing up in Aerthraim Fortress—and before that, in even starker surroundings—had left Tank with little patience for decoration and display. He barely glanced at the gilt-framed paintings, great showy sprays of flowers in waist-high vases, intricately designed floors, rugs, and tapestries as he went by. He saw the faces of the servants, going about their work with at least a modicum of contentment, more clearly than the suspicious stares of the flunkies and court officials he passed by.

The servants spared briefly curious glances, then went back to their work. The court officials and fops stared at Tank’s trail-worn clothing and dusty boots with their lips drawing back in supercilious sneers; only the long sword strapped to his back stopped more interference.

He was surprised the guards hadn’t asked him to bind the weapon, more surprised they’d even allowed him through the gates with it, let alone through the halls. But all he had received was a narrow-eyed stare and a frown, and no comments...as though word had been passed to let him be.

Or worse, his own stubborn disinclination to bind the sword was influencing them.

Tank didn’t like that idea at all. He put his stare on the floor and hurried his step, wishing, suddenly, that he’d left the damn thing with Dasin.

Thoroughly rattled, he went through the door to Eredion’s quarters without knocking, as he might have done into Allonin’s office, sure of his welcome. Two steps in, the door shutting behind him, he stopped, an apology forming on his lips as he realized his mistake.

But Eredion wasn’t present; the unlocked door had been from southern custom, not an indication that the desert lord had returned. The suite wasn’t entirely empty, though
—someone
was in the other room, and that presence dragged at him, weirdly compelling. Not liking that feeling any more than the strange silence of the guards, he slowly unbuckled his sword and laid it, harness and all, across the largest table.

He
hated
these weird flashes of knowledge, especially when they came with so little detail:
someonesomeone someone hurtfearpain need need need goseegosee go see...
It echoed in his head, like the whispers of the mad creature he’d been tricked into fighting; like the ghost-whispers of the dead filling the tunnels under the city. It only lacked the sly overtones of a true ha’rethe communication, or he’d have turned and left, and the hells with all Eredion’s plans and problems.

But something about this tone sounded
...familiar.
He couldn’t walk away from the pained, need-filled call any more than he could abandon Dasin to his own insecurities.

Giving in, he moved to the bedroom door, which already stood open a hand-span, and pushed through gingerly.

Ghost-chill rippled up his back as he saw the dark-haired woman sprawled sleeping on the bed. Something else rattled against his senses, as though an invisible presence stood nearby, watching. He blinked hard and glared around, trying to pick out the source of that uneasy feeling.

A moment later the
smell
of the room flooded his nose, distracting him. He put a hand over the lower half of his face, tears starting.

Good gods, Eredion’s been busy...How can he stand this? He needs to open a damn window once in a while....

Tank began to back up, very aware that he was reacting to the scent at a childhood level, simultaneously repelled and aroused. Time to get out of the room, clear his head, maybe step out into one of the gardens and breathe some clean air—

Alyea stirred, rolled over, and opened her eyes; and as had happened once before, her gaze fastened on his and all Tank’s muscles locked into complete immobility.

At least she’s not naked this time,
he thought in despair, knowing his body wasn’t noticing those details. His treacherous memory presented him with vivid images of how close they’d been, not just in body but in—something more intangible, something a priest might call
spirit—
and he still remembered just what she liked from that melding of memory: just what touch would
—Stop it, stop it, stop it!—
Deiq had stepped in to stop anything from happening, last time, but Deiq wasn’t
here...
and Eredion wouldn’t be returning terribly soon...She was in Eredion’s bed, which meant he’d taken her for a lover himself...There was something dreadfully appealing about the notion of intruding on Eredion’s
territory—

Oh, gods,
stop it
, stop it, stop!
he told himself, and shut his eyes, the only movement he could still control.

“I know you,” Alyea said then, her voice thin and taut. He heard fabric scrape and her weight shift, her feet landing on the floor with a hard thud as she sat up. “I
know
you. Where do I know you from?
Tell me!”

The words cut through his willpower like a studded whip. Words came out, as though jerked from his throat: “When you were hurt. By Kippin and Tevin. I—”

“You
listened,”
she said. He heard her stand up and take a step forward. “You heard me. I remember! You...you understood.” The excitement faded from her voice, replaced by a deep pain. She took another step towards him, then two more. “You
understood.
Gods....”

A breath later, her fingers traced an old, barely visible scar on his face, then moved down, unerringly, to one just above his right elbow. The feather-touch burned like fire; he shivered, swallowing hard against conflicting impulses. If he knew what would please her, she would inevitably know the same about
him—
all it would take was a half step forward—

“Oh, gods,” she whispered. “I can see it....”

He forced himself to open his eyes. She stood just within reach, her eyes closed, her fingertips resting on the old scar. A shudder worked through her body, and she opened her eyes, meeting his gaze without hesitation, revulsion, or tears.

Her voice was a bare breath of sound: “And you saw...what happened to me?”

Unable to resist, he reached out and traced a finger down her left arm, where a dreadful series of bruises had mottled shoulder to elbow last time he’d seen her.

A large-fingered hand gripping her arm in a crushing grip, holding her down although the drugs left her too weak to move...another hand twisting, pinching, creating more bruises...she bit her lip so hard it drew blood, trying not to provide the satisfaction of a scream...and lost in the end...over and over, lost...lost.

He knew what that felt like. His memory of her memory raised his own memories, and his head swam with doubled-over pain for a heartbeat, then cleared as he shoved it all away, returning to the
now.

“Yeah,” he said, voice hoarse. “You showed me—everything.”

She shut her eyes again, a heavy shudder racking her thin body. Without really thinking about it he pulled her into his arms, as he often did for Dasin when the worst memories hit. She moaned and pressed against him, breath hitching—pain fading from her mind/memory as an entirely different heat flared through her.

Her hands slid down his lower back, her back arching as she lifted her face to his, eyes dilated. The ferocious need—from her? from him? roared through his defenses like a sandstorm. He tried to pull back, step back, back away; then her eyes cleared and locked onto his.

Wide, black, fierce eyes, with no doubt or haze in them at all. He sucked in a breath, another, and managed a stifled, inarticulate sound that mingled protest and desire. She stepped back a pace, bringing her hands around to trace across his stomach, her gaze never leaving his; then spread her arms and retreated another half-pace.

Time hung, stretched—snapped, with a long stride forward and his hands buried in her hair, bringing her against him with little in the way of grace or dignity.

Her breath and her laughter warmed his ear in equal measure; not mocking, not joyous—a jagged laughter that managed to contain as much honest sunshine as lighting-laced rain, a laughter that vibrated along bones and ripped aside all pretense.

He returned that deep amusement with his own, and let go of all sense and sanity and logic until exhaustion sent them both, still wound around one another in a way that had nothing to do with simple muscle and flesh, into the silent, peaceful,
dreamless
black of sleep.

Exhausted from entirely too many trips across the palace and city in one day, Eredion opened the door to his suite and walked into near-darkness; nobody had lit any of the lamps, and the fading sunlight barely limned the windows.

Another step brought him into a chaotic tangle of energies that almost drove him back a step. He could feel the trail of Wian’s passage, thick and dark with anger and pain: she’d come through, not long ago, and left again in a serious huff. Underlying that, he sensed the much fainter silvery thread of Teilo’s earlier presence, like a persistent mist; but those served as a mild accent note compared to the complex weave of emotions almost shimmering in the air.

“What the—” he said aloud, closing the door behind him. Reflexively, he flicked a hand; lamps flared to life throughout the suite, and a sharp ache whipstitched through his entire body. He grimaced, rubbing his left shoulder, where the ache tended to linger longest.

“Stupid,” he muttered in the back of his throat. “Stupid, stupid—”

His gaze fell on the longsword and harness left on the dining table. Words escaped him for a moment as realization dawned: his gaze moved inexorably to the bedroom door, which stood ajar.