Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (17 page)

She drew in a deep breath, staring at the ornately worked doors before her. After a moment, she let out breath in a self-deprecating snort and went inside.

Inside, the air hung thick and rank with the smell of blood and feces. She put a hand over her mouth, tears starting to her eyes. It would take a cleaning crew days to get this smell out completely, and she didn’t have time to search out a trustworthy set of servants for the job.

She set the lantern on a small table, then retraced her steps to the gate, leaving the doors open in a hopeless attempt to air out the stench. One of the inside guards turned, expression politely attentive; she said, “One of you, in the morning, please go find Lord Sessin and tell him I need a cleaning crew in—”

His expression stopped her.

“He already arranged for that?”

“Said they’d be arriving by tomorrow morning.”

“Ah. Good,” she said a little blankly, and retreated to the front hallway again, where she stood blinking in the bright lantern-light and trying to breathe as shallowly as possible.

She could already see that a number of small, valuable items had gone missing; gold candlesticks and an ornate bowl from the front hall table, a few walking canes from the collection by the door. Apparently the kidnappers—or, more likely, their own lesser ranks—hadn’t been above lining their pockets. Another distraction. Another task, to track down the missing treasures.

It was a minor irritation to Alyea at the moment, although she knew her mother would be incensed at the loss of the bowl; it had been made by a master craftsman, and had been given to Lady Peysimun personally as a present by someone important at some significant time in the past. Alyea could never remember the details, even though her mother preened and launched into the story whenever a new visitor remarked on the bowl.

The mansion was so very, very quiet. So very empty. So very
dark.
Nervous goosebumps shivered up Alyea’s arms and spine. Her footsteps echoed as she moved, lantern in hand, through the lifeless mansion, checking through dining room, kitchen, storage rooms, and cellars.

The signs of outsider occupation were surprisingly minimal; the only valuables missing appeared to be items that had been in plain sight, like the candlesticks. The pantry seemed only lightly picked over. Dishes had been left in great buckets of water to soak, and the detritus of preparing and consuming meals had been swept up and heaped in another large bucket.

Increasingly puzzled, Alyea went to examine her mother’s suite of rooms, and found there much more chaos: fragile items smashed and broken, blood splatters on walls and furniture, fragments of rope as though someone had been tied and cut loose again. But as Eredion had said, no dead bodies: no identifying marks at all.

Reluctantly, she headed for her own suite.

The buzzing in the back of her head began the moment she stepped into the hallway leading to her rooms. She stopped, staring at the scene in horrified dismay.

Every piece of furniture from her suite—and from the looks of it, the other rooms in this part of the Mansion—had been shoved into great heaps and barricades, in some cases stacked atop each other with complete disregard for value or fragility. Alyea’s favorite chair, a slender, elaborately worked construction of ash-wood far too delicate to actually sit upon, lay in shattered fragments beneath a much heavier blackwood occasional table. The tapestries on the walls hung in tatters, as though shredded by a rampaging wild animal, and cold air blew in through numerous shattered windows. A large hall-mirror had been shattered into millions of sparkling fragments; the heavy frame leaned against a wall, wrenched and splintered.

A fine film of white powder coated everything. The floor was a muddled mess of blood, splinters, glass, shredded cloth, feathers—looking closer, Alyea identified the cloth as once having formed a large feather duvet—scraps of rope, and broken bits of a sturdy net.

The insistent, vibrating pressure against the inside of her skull brought tears to her eyes. She shook her head hard and started forward, trying not to gag on the stench. As she picked her way around the shattered furniture and broken barricades, every step seemed to increase the jagged feeling. By the time she reached what had been the door to her room—the door, and most of the frame, were now comprehensively reduced to a pile of large splinters—tears streamed down her face, and her teeth were clenched together hard enough to hurt.

She took one look through the broken doorway and spun away just before she lost control of her stomach. Dropping into a half-kneeling crouch, she vomited until she had only drool left to spit out. Her entire body trembled as though with the chill of a high fever, and the tears running down her face no longer had anything to do with the buzzing in her head.

After a while, she slowly climbed to her feet and made herself turn around and face the sight once more.

Blood—along with other bodily fluids, bits of flesh, innards and brains—covered the walls, floor, and ceiling of her entire suite in thick, still-drying gobs. Alyea’s nose simply shut down against the overwhelming odor. She breathed through her mouth, one hand over the lower half of her face as though that would help.

Deiq did this.

She had no doubt. Human cruelty couldn’t possibly produce this vast of a horror. She could almost
see
what had happened: he would have simply appeared in the center of the room, which would have been filled with armed men. She could hear his bellow of rage, see the fear on the faces of the men turning to face him, and then—

She shut her eyes and turned away, unable to stand it another moment.

Deiq did this.

As she left the ruined hallway, the buzzing faded almost instantly. She paused, conflicted; finally retraced her steps just to the point where the buzzing began, then stood still, eyes shut, trying to figure out where that odd sensation came from. Not a physical vibration, exactly, although a tickling sensation ran erratically along her back teeth. It had more variation than she’d noticed at first. It had...a
rhythm.
Like a song, or
...speech.

She squinted her eyes shut even harder and tried to
listen,
focusing on picking out the tiniest details of that rhythm. After a while, something felt as though it shifted in her hindbrain, as though some delicate internal glass bubble had shattered; she hissed in pain, then in triumph as words came clear:

Come...after...I’ll hurt...gods...hear me—
and then a soul-wrenching, despairing scream that staggered her back several steps. Even as she put out a hand in blind, useless protest, the entire sentence clarified:
Alyea, don’t come after me—I’ll hurt you! Oh, gods, she can’t hear me—

Alyea leaned against a wall, panting as though she’d just run a race. The echoes of Deiq’s desperation racked through her entire body. He’d been in agony himself, unable to escape a well-laid trap; but he’d been trying to reach
her,
to warn her to stay away so that he wouldn’t—

She thought of the abattoir that had once been her rooms and shuddered.

It does seem very likely that he’s getting his due for some damage he’s caused in the past,
Oruen had said. And Eredion hadn’t protested that remark; had, later, when describing the damage at Peysimun Mansion, said, unemotionally:
signs of a fight,
and left it at that.

Alyea stared down the battered hallway and said aloud,
“Why
the hells am I rescuing him? He’s—”

She stopped, hearing in her voice an echo of her mother:
He’s a monster! You don’t need him—You have the king interested in you; how could you possibly want something like him?

Against that came Eredion’s cold advice:
Deiq is the most powerful ally your Family has at the moment.
Following that came more sharp memories: Deiq sprawled asleep, limp and vulnerable, on a couch in her palace suite; on his knees in front of her, hands out to push her away, begging her to leave. The astonished expression on his face when he’d woken to find her unhurt.

Don’t call it love,
Eredion had warned.
Don’t ever call it love. But he
cares....

Alyea drew a deep, shaky breath. “I’m being a fucking idiot,” she muttered, then let out a sharp bark of laughter, recognizing Tank’s sour influence in that statement.

The moment cleared her mind: she had a responsibility, as a desert lord, that her mother would never understand. Whatever sort of monster Deiq was at core, still he was ha’ra’hain, and her mentor. He’d rescued her; she would rescue him.

Afterwards...could be thought about when the time came. Right now wasn’t the time for thinking, but for acting: for
moving.

She broke into a jog as she headed for the storerooms to pick up supplies.

After what could have been eternity or five human minutes, the red-laced darkness began to lift, and Deiq startled back to the now, feeling dangerously muddled and hazed, defenseless and limp, just as his first Shared had been.

Monster...murderer...damned creature...Humans had called him so many things over the years...They didn’t deserve his support, didn’t deserve his mercy, didn’t deserve his compassion...They would kill him, given the chance...He had to kill them first...It was self-preservation, self-defense, perfectly justified....

Someone made an odd shushing sound, and water drenched over him, icy cold, bucket after bucket. He screamed, every nerve ending in his entire body writhing in agony, instinct demanding that he attack the source of the freezing bath, but discovered he couldn’t move at all. He stood upright, his body supported on what felt like a metal frame, his arms stretched out behind him and pinned motionless by a force his already-exhausted muscles couldn’t overcome. His legs felt bound at thigh and ankle, his head held still by a metal band across his forehead.

That shushing noise came again, and the water assault ceased.

“Ha’ra’ha,” someone said nearby. “Ha’ra’ha, you listen.”

Deiq blinked water-filled eyes and spat in the direction of the voice. Someone laughed from a distance.

“He’s still himself,” someone remarked.

“Good. I want him sane.”

Deiq knew that voice. He blinked again, harder; felt a soft cloth wipe his face dry, and opened his eyes to find Lord Evkit staring him in the face from considerably less than arm’s reach.

Deiq’s whole body went into a spontaneous convulsion of rage. The frame rocked a little, drawing cries of alarm from several teyanain around the room. Lord Evkit didn’t move.

“You stop, ha’ra’ha,” he said severely. “I save your life. You stop now.”

Deiq threw everything he had into wrenching free. The frame shook; he thought it might be giving way. He swore, loudly, as he fought: “You godsdamned
ta-karne,
you little rotworm, you
sessii ta-karne, I shha,
you—”

Evkit climbed down from his stool and retreated a few steps, grimacing. More icy water drenched Deiq from head to foot.

“You
stop,”
Evkit shouted between each bucketful, repeating it with inflexible determination. “You stop, ha’ra’ha!”

At last, chilled and trembling, Deiq slumped against the restraints. He felt his eyes roll back in his head, and darkness swamped over him as a welcome relief.

As always when he left the company of important people, Tank had a strong desire for a bath; this time it was more justified than usual. He took a side street to one of the safer public houses, handed over a gold half-round for a private bathing room with as much hot water, soap, and time as he liked, and spent over an hour soaking and scrubbing.

Dasin had a
sensitive
nose for scent, and Tank really wasn’t in the mood for a fight.

The hot water eased his tension along with his muscles. The privacy of the room—more precious to him than ten gold rounds—gave him room to think about what had just happened, and to sort through likely consequences as his raw emotions settled.

He descended slowly into a clear internal stillness, a sensation of peace and calm that he rarely attained. Bizarre as the entire day so far had been, he’d emerged feeling more whole, as though a small part of him had healed, a small part of his perpetual, carefully hidden rage soothed to silence.

If that’s what taking a desert lord to bed does to me, Allonin would tell me that I ought to run back there and beg to stay...
But he didn’t really want that. He wasn’t ready to give up his mountain of anger. And the notion of begging
anyone
for anything, ever again, made his teeth grind and his stomach swirl.

I’ll be fine. As long as I can stay clear of their damned games, I’ll be fine.

Tank remembered a girl, not so very long ago, telling him:
Desert families tend to use their people. Use them all up and spit them out when they’ve got nothing left.
He hadn’t understood at the time, hadn’t agreed; but since then the statement had proved true.

He wondered if he’d ever get the chance to thank Balby. That warning had been part of what opened his eyes to the truth behind Aerthraim Family’s `kindness’ in rescuing him. And Balby’s own, much truer kindness had taken away the first chunk of his deep rage, allowing him to see his situation much more clearly, and gave him the strength to walk away.

She was one of many things he couldn’t—wouldn’t—talk to Dasin about. Dasin hadn’t treated Balby well at all, and would definitely be outraged to know that she’d turned her favor on Tank, however briefly. Allonin didn’t even know about Tank’s encounter with Balby, and hopefully never would.

Tank leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, brooding. As always when his thoughts turned to his former mentor, he felt a powerful mixture of irritation and pain. He’d
believed.
He’d
trusted.
And been, inevitably, betrayed for the sake of a larger picture.

He’d walked away in one piece at the end: reluctantly, he admitted to himself that Allonin had
allowed
him to walk away, almost certainly against the mahadrae’s orders. Was Allonin paying the price for disobedience even now? Had he been banished from Aerthraim Fortress to wait out the mahadrae’s displeasure? Tank didn’t think Allonin would mind that much, somehow: which meant that the mahadrae, no fool, probably hadn’t gone that route.