Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (24 page)

Eredion stood in darkness, listening to the thick breathing of a young man who’d had far too much to drink with dinner, and found himself unexpectedly doubtful.

Alyea would be tremendously annoyed if Eredion killed her cousin. She still thought too much by northern standards, and would want the dangerous young fool brought before the king for proper sentencing. Eredion knew that would be a waste. Kam hadn’t done anything provable, under northern law, beyond being seen with companions of ill-repute. He could snake out of any charges easily, and be off and running to cause more problems within hours.

With Kam drunk and asleep, it won’t even be a challenge; and I could slip out of the mansion with nobody the wiser. Nobody would know it for anything but a natural death. There are so many ways....

He couldn’t understand why he was hesitating. It would just be one more death for a larger cause.

Just one more, among so very, very many.

Most of Ninnic’s followers had been safest to take in their sleep; rarely, he’d employed poison, and twice had used misdirection to set another hand fatally against his real target.

Listening to the heavy breathing of Alyea’s cousin, Eredion finally realized he was
tired.
He’d grown weary of being a self-appointed judge, justice, and protector against human cruelties and madness. His calluses had grown soft, and the notion of killing Kam in his sleep, even though hard experience told him it ought to be done, revolted him.

He couldn’t do it again. One more was one too many.

Eredion had done enough, paid enough for his mistakes and sins. It had to end somewhere. Why not here? Let the king handle Lady Peysimun and Kameniar. Let Alyea see the uselessness of a northern trial in cases like this. Let her develop her own emotional calluses.

Time to stop protecting her. Past time.

Eredion left the sour air of that room behind without any regret at all.

Eredion closed the door to his suite behind him with a sense of deep relief. Maybe he would actually get some sleep tonight, after all. He stood in the dark, letting his eyes adjust and listening to Wian’s soft breathing from the other room. She was awake, by the sound, and the dark weave of muddled emotion in the air told him she was feeling restless about something.

“Gods,” he murmured, careful to keep his voice too low for her to hear the words,
“please
not another crisis tonight.”

If there had been anywhere else to go, he’d have turned and left on the spot. With a half-suppressed sigh, he moved forward, threading his way unerringly across the outer room into the bedroom. She sat up as he neared, and moved the covers aside for him. He stripped, dropping clothes on the spot, and almost fell onto the low bed beside her.

Without a word, she curled up against him, rubbing his near shoulder with one hand. He made himself stay alert for a few more moments, just in case she intended to speak. As the silence lengthened and turned comfortable, he relaxed towards sleep.

“My lord,” she said then, in a barely audible voice.

He let out an annoyed grunt and hauled himself back to half-consciousness. “What?”

“Lord Alyea...the way she went after Deiq. I wondered....”

He rolled and propped himself up on an elbow, knowing she wanted some proof that he was actually listening.

“What about it?” he said, knowing that his irritation was emerging in his tone and unable to stop it.

“If something...if Kippin found me, and took me...would you? Come after me, just for my sake?”

Too tired to lie, and too annoyed to be gentle, he said, “Just for your sake? No. To get my hands on Kippin? Yes.”

He thought, dimly, about explaining that Alyea wasn’t going after Deiq in the name of love, as Wian seemed to think: that there was a very hard political reality driving the entire situation. Before he could shape those words, Wian stirred, rolling onto her back.

“Because Kippin’s done things to another desert lord,” Wian said in a stifled voice. “What he did to
me
doesn’t matter, does it?”

Slightly more awake by now, he said, “Of course it does. That’s a part of it. Look, can’t this wait for morning? I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone make sense of what you’re asking me.” He stroked a hand down her stomach and hip, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “It’s been a damn long day, Wian. Let me get some sleep and I’ll explain in the morning, I promise.”

“Of course, my lord,” she said in the same muted voice.

He pulled her close against him, reassured by her warm pliancy; fell asleep moments later, with the musk of her hair tangling against his nose.

The wide wooden benches of the dining-hall were the same, the table arrangement identical, the servants behaved with the same cool politeness; but Alyea sat much further up the main table than she had on her first trip through, and couldn’t help remembering Deiq’s steady, dark stare. It all felt surreal, and she stared at the food on her plate without really seeing it; ate without really tasting it; listened to the chatter around her without really hearing it.

I should have gone with him down the side trail,
she thought ruefully.

“My lady,” someone to her left said, pulling her out of her brooding.

She blinked back to alertness and offered a cool smile to the speaker. “Lord,” she said without emphasis. “Lord Alyea Peysimun.”

Silence filtered rapidly down the entire table, and all eyes turned sharply to her: curious, startled, questioning. The man who’d addressed Alyea blinked, looking taken aback, then inclined his head gravely and corrected himself.

“Lord Peysimun,” he said. “My apologies.”

“Accepted.”

“You’re not wearing any rank indicators,” he commented, his dark eyes tracking along her arms and neck in a very nearly offensive fashion.

She gave him an emotionless stare. “Do you doubt me,
s’e?”

His gaze came up to meet hers, and he visibly flinched. “No,” he said. “Again, I seem to be overstepping myself.” He looked away, raising a hand to summon a servant, and murmured, “Water, please. The wine here is proving stronger than I expected.”

Alyea’s eyes narrowed.
Everything is important, here, and everyone could be,
she remembered Chac saying. This man had just used a line almost identical to something Deiq had said during her initial trip through the Horn. It raised her suspicions instantly.

“And your name,
s’e?”
she said a little sharply as the servant retreated, taking away the man’s wine cup as he went.

He smiled at her easily and said, “Jin will do, Lord Peysimun.”

She said nothing, studying him more closely. He had a long, narrow face and large dark eyes, dark hair with reddish highlights clipped unusually short, and a gangly build. His large hands sported overlarge knuckles and wrist-bones, giving them a knobbly, deformed look. His jewelry was deceptively simple: the bracelets alternated between thin metal and chunky, rough-looking beads linked by thin strips of braided leather. A closer look revealed the metal to be intricate braids of silver and gold, the beads to be rough-tumbled emeralds and sapphires. He wore no earrings, but looped around his left ear was an arc of surprisingly thin silver wire, from which dangled a tiny silver feather at one end and a tiny silver star at the other.

He sat quietly, his expression mild and amused, as she looked him over, then resumed eating without comment on her appraisal. She allowed silence to settle and finished off her own meal before speaking. As the servants cleared the dishes away, she said, “Would you care to go for a walk,
s’e
Jin?”

He stood, a faint smile quirking across his mouth. “There’s not much of a walking path here, I’m afraid, and the night air is chill and unpleasant this time of year. I’ll have to regretfully decline, Lord Peysimun; but do enjoy your stroll.”

He bowed, then turned and strode away before she could find words to hold him back.

“Damnit,”
she muttered, wondering if she’d just missed something important.

“Er, Lord Peysimun?” someone said tentatively. She turned to find a group of merchants standing not far away, their expressions ranging from hopeful to hungry.

Oh, no,
she thought, understanding at once; they wanted to sell her their wares, or gain Peysimun Family as a sponsor. It was her own fault, for declaring herself a desert lord. Their sharp ears had picked up that information, and their sharp wits had calculated the situation with merchant swiftness.

Well, she
did
need to make some alliances for her newly designated Family, and merchants were a part of that. She held back a sigh and said, “Please, have a seat,
s’ieas....”

Two hours later, Peysimun Family had acquired a southern supplier for exotic spices and another for finely crafted stoneware such as she’d seen at the teyanain fortress; and Alyea had acquired a throbbing headache from keeping her face politely attentive. When the disappointed rejects and the ecstatic successful had all left the dining hall, she let herself slump forward onto her folded arms and moan.

“Lord Peysimun,” a dining-hall servant said softly from behind her, “do you need assistance returning to your room?”

Alyea sat up, rubbing at her eyes. “No. Thank you, no.” She swung around on the bench and stood, weariness dragging at her.

The servant retreated a few steps. Alyea blinked around the empty hall, realizing that several other servants stood around the room, cleaning supplies in hand. They watched her with expressionless faces that still managed to convey a hint of impatience.

“Oh,” she said blankly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“Good night, Lord Peysimun,” the nearby servant interrupted.

“...Yes. Good night.” She turned and left the dining hall, trying not to hurry.

Outside, stars glinted in cold splendor against a black sky mottled with quick-moving clouds. At ground level, the wind gusted in chill swirls, ruffling Alyea’s hair. She shivered, wishing she’d worn a thicker wrap to dinner. At least it wasn’t raining at the moment. She picked her way over the unevenly lit path to the long, low hostel.

As she reached the plain wooden door, an owl soared by overhead, issuing a long, mournful call. Alyea felt the chill bumps on her arms solidify with sudden, superstitious horror: owls were bad luck in every folktale and story her various nurses had told her, an omen of death and loss.

She swallowed hard, looking up to see if she could spot the bird, but it had gone: a shadow among darker shadows, hunting some smaller prey scurrying about, hapless, on the ground. Something about that image froze Alyea where she stood, a deep unease coiling through her stomach. Her certainty that she was on the right track, the right purpose, wavered as she recalled, again, the bloody horror her family home had become.

Owls are cleaner,
she thought muzzily, then shook her head, annoyed with herself.

“Maybe
I
ought to stick to water in the future,” she muttered to herself, and went into the hostel without looking back.

Just inside the main doorway, following southern custom, she slipped off her shoes and padded, barefoot, down the flagstone hallway. Outside, another night-bird hooted, but not an owl this time. Rock slithered and rattled as from the passing of some small animal. Stillness returned, and she found herself listening for any sounds as she made her way towards her room. Faint snores, coughs, and grunts—even one resonant fart—reassured her that there were people behind the doors she passed, and eased her odd feeling of wafting through the dark utterly alone.

Reaching the door to her room, she stopped, squinting; it hung ever so slightly ajar, a strip of flickering light visible from the hallway.

Letting out a long, shallow breath, she pushed the door open with an outstretched hand, remaining in the hallway. The unsteady light of several candles revealed a thin, knobbly-wristed man sitting cross-legged and perfectly calm on her bed.

“S’e
Jin,” Alyea said, mildly surprised at how calm she felt, and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming you’re not here to seduce me.”