Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (52 page)

Partnership.
Insane. Ha’ra’hain didn’t
partner
with tharr, not even with desert lords.

The harsh liquor hit the back of his throat like a wash of acid and burned its way down as gently.

What the hells do I say?
He should have been thinking about this. He
had
been thinking about this, during the bathing and body-painting and the too-long walk here. What had he decided on? Teyanain liquor ran like liquid lightning through his veins, muddling his head for a moment; damn, they’d pulled out the heavy stuff this time, if it affected even him.

“I intend....”
Damnit, damnit, what was I going to say?
He blinked hard, and finally had it. “I intend to hold you as one of my own kin—”
Insane,
something said darkly,
insane, insane, insane.
He heard a soft, chuffing sound from Evkit’s direction: probably surprise at the extent of that rash promise. “—to support you as I would expect of an equal, take your pain as you take mine, advance your interests as you advance mine, and ease your path as you ease mine, as far and as long as that path together may last.”

His head cleared. And it was said, the strange and dangerous oath he’d decided on, in a roomful of teyanain witnesses. No going back from this.

Alyea coughed in the wake of the liquor, eyes watering.

Each castrate lifted a small, tightly sealed pot from the box; broke the seal, removed the lid, checked the contents. Nodded to each other, to Lord Evkit.

“This paint,” Lord Evkit said, “is
telle:
holy. Same as is on your body. Now it is brushed on your left hand, and you press against each other’s chest—so.” He splayed a hand on his own chest, demonstrating. “You lift hand away, very careful—leave good, clear print, is good sign, good omen, good marriage. Blurry is bad, is dangerous. Marriage must be a very clear thing. Your thoughts and intentions in this ceremony must be very
definite.
Do you understand? No doubts. No fears. All clear, all solid.”

Deiq drew in a breath, feeling air hiss past his teeth. “Yes.”

“Yes,” Alyea said.

The castrates produced small, thick-bristled brushes. Deiq held out his left hand, palm-up. Alyea did the same.

“You both move in a small step, please,” Evkit said. “Must reach comfortably. Good.”

The bright blue paint felt cold and slick against Deiq’s palm and fingers.
This is going to get us all killed. Gods,
help
me.
He looked down into Alyea’s face. She smiled, no fear evident at all. Which had to be the liquor, at this point. Hopefully it would hold out long enough.

He drew a deep, deep breath, and as he let it out, pressed his hand between her breasts. She copied the motion. They stared at each other for an endless, flickering moment. Her heartbeat jarred against his hand, less serene than her face; his thudded in rapid staccato. He could see the fine lines of tension in her expression now.

We’re both terrified. This isn’t going to work.

He couldn’t feel her emotions, found only a grey haze where her mind should be. That alarmed him, a sharp, fierce spike of panic; then he realized that drugging her silent was the safest thing the teyanain could have done for this ceremony. Knowing she was afraid, compared to feeling her fear—two very different situations.

She drew a deep breath, breastbone shifting against his palm, and carefully peeled her hand from his chest. Trying not to overthink it, he pulled his own hand away.

Leaving a clean, sharp hand-print. He exhaled hard and caught a similar relief in her expression. So hers had been clean as well. He grinned, bizarrely encouraged by that small success. She returned a smile of her own, her face lighting up as tension eased for just a moment.

“Good,” Evkit said. “You have good, strong heart connection already. This is very good sign. Next comes the head.”

Metal
tink
ed and chittered as the castrates drew lengths of chain and a handful of small, silvery rings from the chest.

“You must see each other clearly, speak to each other clearly, hear each other clearly,” Evkit said. “This requires a commitment, not to turn away from each other, to work together always. One may only withdraw from a true marriage so far before bonds tear and snap. You learn, now, the limit of what binds you, and the price for testing it.”

Deiq swallowed and resisted the urge to close his eyes. It wouldn’t help.

Am I really going to allow a tharr to lay hands on me? Cause me pain? Set me up to be chained, however temporarily, to a human?
He shoved the thought away, watching Alyea’s minutely shifting eyes instead. Nice dark eyes, ferocious and strong to match her face.

The first hoops went in through the outer edge of each eyebrow. He blinked hard but made no sound, and neither did Alyea. The next set went along the upper arc of the ears; that stung considerably worse than the eyebrows had, and the posts were thicker than he’d expected. It felt like a damn
chunk
had been taken out, not a small hole made. Tearing these free would
hurt.
Which was the point, of course.

He set his teeth, then had to relax jaw and lip alike for the next hoop, which centered on the lower lip and made the ears seem tame. Alyea’s eyes watered continually now, but she stayed silent.

“You put hands on each other’s shoulders,” Evkit said. “That is range you have.”

Her hands trembled, then gripped harder to still the shakes. He felt a sudden, wrenching compassion. She was so
young.
She had no idea, not really, how bad things could get. He should never have agreed to her insane notion in the first place. This was all his fault; and now his responsibility to get her through this. Somehow. If he could.

He had to try, at least. Honestly try.

He laid his hands on her shoulders and squeezed lightly, reassuring. Her white-rimmed eyes sought his, and he smiled, projecting what confidence he could summon. She let out a hard breath, drew in a much smoother one, and slowly relaxed under his hands.

The castrates began clipping the chains onto the rings, carefully measuring the length of the chain: just enough slack for limited head movement. Deiq breathed evenly, smiled into Alyea’s eyes, and stayed calm. This was the worst part. If he could just allow himself to be restrained like this for a short while—

It wasn’t all that bad, actually. She stayed still. He stayed still. The drums were picking up tempo and volume, increasing his sense of nervous strain, but they weren’t actually aggressive. Hypnotic, really, if he listened with the right mindset. It wasn’t an attack-beat. It was
...soothing.

I can do this. Gods, I’m
doing
this.
Incredulous triumph flushed through him.

Then a hand tugged at the loincloth knot, and triumph turned to stark horror.

“Oh, no,” he said aloud. “No, that’s too damn
much,
you can’t ask that—”

“You be calm, ha’inn,” Evkit said. “You be still.”

Alyea’s fingers dug into his shoulders. His loincloth slithered to the ground. So did hers.

No. No, no, no, no....

The drums picked up another notch, the collective rhythm moving slowly towards a more jagged, chaotic pattern.

He fought to control his breathing, his frantic heartbeat. His vision began to blur. Alyea’s fingers tightened again. She gave a tiny whimper, almost inaudible. He forced himself to focus on her face.

“You stay very still, ha’inn,” Evkit said from somewhere far away. “She need to move a little bit. Lean in, Lord Alyea, not far, from waist. Good. Move leg; servants support.”

Her breath hissed in steady waves through her teeth. Her eyes stayed wide and fixed on his own, her skin ash-pale.

“I didn’t know they’d do this,” he told her softly. “I’m sorry.” Chains jingled and clicked.

She swallowed hard and shut her eyes.

“You stay very still, Lord Alyea,” Evkit said. “Very still. We know this is difficult. Ha’inn, you need to help, that is why you hold each other. We wait until you are ready. You say.”

“Look at me, Alyea,” Deiq said thickly.
“Look
at me.”

She stared at him, eyes swimming with tears of panic and pain. He rubbed his thumbs along her collarbone without lifting his hands.

“This—” she said. “Deiq,
this—”

“I know,” he said. “I know.” A stranger’s hands prying, a piercing within the most emotionally vulnerable area she had—insane to ask this of her. Utterly insane. But it would be worse for him. “Just breathe. Think aqeyva. Easy. Hold steady.” If she jerked back in pain—ripping out the rings set throughout his face—everything would, comprehensively, end.

She sucked in breath, gulping air; shivered, chains clinking.

“Alyea,” he said. “I need—” He stopped, swallowed hard, and abandoned dignity. “I’m going to need your help. This—I need you to steady
me,
next.” Make her think she had a chance of that. Give her something to hang on to. Something else to concentrate on.

Delay the inevitable.

He made himself smile at her, but it held no strength.

Deiq suspected they might actually have made it, if Evkit hadn’t thrown this into the mix. Or even if he’d waited to hook the chains on until after all the hoops were in place; he might have endured that. But already restrained, already fighting a rising aggression—with enemies all around—no. Evkit, clearly, had never intended this to work after all.

So much for
allies.
But then, he’d
asked
for the marriage. Agreed to this particular ceremony. He had only himself to blame.

Alyea blinked, panic fading into a bleak, understanding horror. She drew in a short breath, blinked again; the tautness eased from her shoulders and hands.

“It’s no worse an invasion,” she said, with abrupt, chilling practicality, “than the others. Do it.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulders hard and sharp a moment later. She yipped, a smothered sound that never quite made it out of her tightly shut mouth. Her eyes watered, streams of tears streaking down her cheeks. Chest heaved with stifled breath for a few moments, then eased.

She blinked her vision clear and drew a steadying breath.

“Not so bad,” she said, baring her teeth. “You can handle it.”

Gods. You have no idea.
He didn’t say anything aloud, his lips thinning.

“Humiliation,” she said, “is temporary. Pain is temporary.”

The drums picked up another notch and an ominous rattling entered the tempo.

She watched his face, sober now, her hands trembling a little. “This isn’t a life threatening situation, just a damn embarrassing one. And the people around us aren’t enemies. If they were, we’d both be dead by now.”

He blinked at her, startled.

“They’re just doing everything they can to rattle us. Gods only know why that has to be part of this ceremony, but it is. It’s not
real,
though. It’s all mind games.”

I want to believe she’s right. But the teyanain are so damn
complicated....

“Is trust,” Evkit said from what felt like a great distance. “Is complete trust in each other, this intimacy. Is trust in working together against outside strain, in great stress. If you endure this together—nothing else break bonds, ever.”

“You have a choice, Deiq,” Alyea said softly, her stare unwavering. “You
do
have a choice. Remember? You don’t
have
to lose your temper.”

“You’re staking your life on that,” he reminded her.

“I already have, more than once,” she said. “And you made the right choice. You’ll do it again.”

He opened his mouth to say:
You’re an idiot,
sucked in a deep breath instead. He locked his gaze onto hers with a nearly manic intensity—no use reaching for aqeyva calm, not with his vision already hazing—then said, “Go.”

His vision went completely black before the pain even registered.

The drums stopped.

Breath went away.

Everything went away. He stood in black silence, not breathing, not thinking, just existing— dimly aware that a wave of searing rage, long held back, too long restrained, was just a moment away, and feeling—vaguely sad. It would be nice not to be murderously angry. It would be—nice.

I’ve just allowed a tharr to lay hands on me to inflict pain. I’ve allowed myself to be intimately humiliated in the face of two dozen deadly dangerous teyanain, including Lord Evkit. I’ve allowed a human to seduce me out of my dignity and sense. I will leave no witnesses to this. Humans have forgotten too much. They must relearn their place.

He knew what that would look like. He’d walked through the ruins of a city long forgotten by men. He remembered its fall.

I am their master, not their slave. I do not submit.

A vision of Alyea, torn and bleeding, near death as he scooped her from a blood and urine-soaked bed—her life in his hands then, and again not long after that, as he knelt, desperately warding her away, and her refusal to listen—She hadn’t been too proud to serve.

It is her
place
to serve. To kneel. Not mine. Not ever.

Partner,
Alyea’s voice said in his memory.
You want a partner, don’t you?

How can I possibly partner with something so insignificant? This is ludicrous.

Not one desert lord in a thousand years showed this much bravery. I know ha’ra’hain with less courage than she has displayed.

She will hardly live long enough to be worth it. Sixty years at best. More if I extend her life and her own kind doesn’t kill her along the way. Still nothing, weighed against a thousand and more years. This is pointless.

Idisio’s voice came to him now: “No. It’s sixty years of something
honest.
You can at least try.”

It won’t be my fault if I fail.

It
will
be my fault if I fail because I didn’t
try
.

Silence: a long, eternal flicker of black on black on black—

—he sucked in a great, gasping breath and blinked streaming eyes. Alyea’s hands were tight on his shoulders, and he could feel her collarbones creaking under his own fingers. He flexed his fingers, settled his hands back into place more gently.