Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (53 page)

Chain clinked below. A flare of pain swept through his body, then faded; he could feel his body working to stop the bleeding from the various punctures, scabs forming and slowly melting into new, tender patches of skin. Within the hour the piercings would feel unremarkable to him.

I did it. I
can
control the anger. She was right! It was habit, not instinct, all along.

He had a lot of rethinking to do.

He drew in an easier breath and grinned, with more tooth than humor, at Alyea’s anxious expression.

“You’re right,” he said. “Not so bad.” She let out a breath in a near-sob and shut her eyes, her face draining of all color. He shook her gently, mindful of the links between them. “Hey. No fainting. Not right now. Save it until they unhook us, if you don’t mind.”

She swallowed and steadied, her eyes opening; dilated, hazed. She wasn’t far from losing her own fight, he judged, and patted one of her shoulders reassuringly. The castrates had left the circle, taking the ceremonial chest with them. Thank the gods they weren’t going to try for any further links. There weren’t many viable symbolic places
left.

“Almost done,” he said.
“Right,
Lord Evkit?” He didn’t look away from Alyea, not wanting to lose the visual contact. It wouldn’t take much for her to buckle and collapse right now.

“Almost,” the teyanain lord said. “We finish now.”

The drums took on a regular, surging rhythm, a powerful tempo. The athain chant changed along with it, becoming louder and more distinct—more
commanding.

The heavy vibrations rattled the chains between them. Rattled the hoops the chains were linked to. Which light tugging set off certain inevitable reactions for Deiq.

Alyea yipped again, going up onto her toes, awkwardly bending in an effort not to strain the other chains.

Evkit yipped—laughter, from him, and it was quickly echoed around the room. Deiq’s face burned with fresh humiliation, and the anger surged again—how
dare
these damned tharr subject him to this idiocy?

The thought faded away without taking hold, as did the anger. He drew in a long breath and shut his eyes. Another. Another. Aqeyva: think of the breath. Nothing else. Nothing else. Nothing....

Alyea let out a whimpering breath of relief and settled square again.

“Gods,” she muttered, voice shaky.

“Good,” Evkit said. “Good. You can restrain, for the sake of your partner. It is enough.”

The athain broke into a warbling howl. Deiq felt every hair on his body stand straight out in response, a shivering prickle that made him wonder, for a moment, if he had just wet himself.

Then every piercing flared into bright, intense agony, as though someone had just yanked on them all at once. Alyea’s howl mingled with his bellow. The drums ran over each other in a frantic tumble, then stopped dead. At the same moment, the athain wail ended.

Along with the pain. All of it.

He gasped for breath, gathering Alyea against him without thinking what he did, and felt her arms wrap around him with similar desperation.

It took a moment to realize what was missing: the chains. The piercings. Not a single clink or rattle sounded. He put a hand up, tentatively, to explore his face, and found a slight bump, a tiny scar, where each ring had been.

“The bonds are inside you now,” Evkit said soberly. “This is the
yin:
no removal. Some things never leave you. Some bonds do not break.”

Alyea sagged against him, trembling violently. His own legs felt hardly any steadier.

“Ta-karne,” Deiq said. His hands shook as he stroked Alyea’s hair with what reassurance he had left to give. “You’re a damn ta-karne, Evkit.
Sessii ta-karne, i shha.”
But his voice lacked any heat; he could only summon an exhausted dullness.

“You go rest now,” Evkit said, voice surprisingly gentle. “You have earned it.”

“Damn gracious of you,” Deiq muttered, or thought he did.

A moment later, the world around him went hazed, then black in a very
solid
sort of way.

Deiq woke, utterly clear-minded, to a precise knowledge of betrayal.

Bound.

He lay still, staring up at the rocky ceiling, breathing evenly, working it out little by little.

Equals.
Not possible, unless they were closely matched in strength: and that left two options. He knew which one he’d been pushed into.

Beside him, Alyea stirred, then propped herself up on an elbow. Her sleepy smile faded at the expression on his face.

“What?” she said, with enough honest puzzlement that she—probably—didn’t yet understand the full scope of what she’d just done to him.

Not the place or time to discuss it. Losing his temper here would only see him stibik-hazed and penned in a prison. He’d ask the hard questions later. Away from the Horn.

“Nothing,” he said to her increasing distress, and offered a wholly false smile. “Good morning.”

She studied his face with a more perceptive stare than he’d expected to ever see from her, then said, “Are you all right?”

He shut his eyes, reaching a hand to touch—yes, the scars on his face were still there. As were hers. He sighed and let his hand fall from her face.

“No,” he said with unintended honesty. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“You made a choice,” she said, voice muted. He opened his eyes and gave her a hard stare that brought a faint flush to her cheeks. So she had
some
idea, after all; he read the lines of vague guilt clearly.

“Did I?” He resisted the impulse to reach for her mind, to see just how much she knew. He wouldn’t stop, if he began that search. She wouldn’t survive it; and in a fortress filled with tenuous allies, neither would he.

“Deiq,” she said, the flush fading into a cold to match the feeling in his own gut. “I didn’t twist your arm. You made a choice. Several choices. All on your own.”

“And how much of that came from words the teyanain gave you to twist me around?”

“Holy gods, you
are
a horse’s ass at times.” She rolled clear of him and stood, grabbing a grey robe hanging nearby.

“It’s a reasonable question—”

“No,” she said, “it’s not.” She turned to glare at him as she yanked the belt of the robe tight around her slender waist. “The teyanain had no knowledge I was going to ask you to marry me. Gods, you saw Lord Evkit’s reaction! Do you think that was fake?”

It might well have been, on consideration, but her outrage was real enough.

“All right,” he said. “I’m sorry. This is—a big step for me.”

Bound.
Oh, yes, he had questions for her, once they left the Horn. Until then—play it calm, quiet, reasonable. Sane.

“And not for me?” she retorted. “I’m well aware we just upset half the world with this arrangement. I just put a great big hunting target on my back, Deiq, for your sake. I’m now one of the most desirable targets in the world for kidnap. Assassination. Blackmail. So is my Family. Want to talk about big steps? You just married into an extensive family that is
not
going to like you at all. A family that is going to rake me over the
coals
for this decision. Including Oruen.”

“Oruen?” he said, startled out of his previous thoughts.

“Bright Bay nobles are all related to the royal line. That’s what
makes
us noble, Deiq. Oruen’s my cousin. Third removed, I think.”

He just stared, witless over that
—I’m related through marriage to
Oruen
now?
Then he dismissed the information as largely irrelevant. “You’re one of the most
dangerous
targets in the world right now,” he pointed out. “Nobody’s going to be stupid enough to touch you.”

“Unless they want to get at you,” she said.

“There’s very few with the balls to try for that,” he said, amused, “and we’re sitting in the middle of the main nest at the moment. I’d say it’s something of a moot point, Alyea. Whoever might be willing to try for one of us
—won’t
be brave enough to get the teyanain involved as well. And I just sealed an alliance with the teyanain that makes them honor-bound to guard my back.”

Allies, but not
friends.
He’d made a near-fatal mistake by forgetting that distinction.

“And you guard theirs.”

“In a sense. Yes.” He’d find a way to serve the teyanain
interests
the way Evkit had just served him: count on Evkit watching for that, count on it taking years to get a chance to deliver his own revenge. He’d wait. He had time.

“So I’m also allied with the teyanain, by marrying you.”

“Yes.”

She let out a long, troubled breath. Her gaze flickered around the room.

“Good to know,” she said, plainly not any more inclined to discuss sensitive matters here than he was.

He held out a hand. She came back to him, let him pull her in close. He ran a hand over her face, over the tiny nubs of the scars, the betrayal she didn’t even understand she’d delivered him into. She held still, watching his face with a wary alertness. He moved his hand to her throat, feeling for the nearly invisible bump at the base, in the notch of the sternum: the scar every desert lord carried from the blood trial of Ishrai, when they were themselves bound into service.

It was there—of course it was there. As was the shimmering energy line, when he looked for it: the binding every desert lord carried. Had he expected otherwise? But he wondered why the teyanain hadn’t put the symbolic line around her throat for the ceremony, as marker that she already carried a commitment to serve the ha’reye and ha’ra’hain.

Skin moved under his hand as she swallowed. He took his hand away and sighed. Who knew why the teyanain did
anything.
Perhaps they’d seen it as redundant symbolism, given what they were about to do.

Bound.
He’d explain it to her one day—maybe. If she hadn’t known, it would tear her apart with guilt; and if she had known what she was doing—he didn’t actually want that answer confirmed. Because there was a good chance, if she had done this intentionally, that he would tear her apart himself. He couldn’t afford to look for the truth. Couldn’t afford to ask. Couldn’t afford to know.

He smiled at her, bleak hatred—at himself? at her?—swirling through his veins for just a moment.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” he said, “and then I’d
really
like to get out of here.”

Her wariness lightened into a simple human happiness he envied. “That sounds
wonderful,”
she said, and went after clothes without the least hesitation or doubt.

The Black Horse Tavern proved to be a popular gathering spot when rain was thundering down outside. Tank stood just inside the doorway, a puddle rapidly forming around his feet, and looked in vain for Deea. Just as he was about to back out into the rain and try somewhere else—perhaps even the desperate last resort of asking Yuer for a pipe and a bag of aesa—she appeared at his elbow, clucking.

“You’ll have someone slip in that mess,” she snapped at him, “and then we’ll have a fight. Tempers always get cranky in this weather.” She shoved a thick, coarse towel at him, and threw another, mud-colored one at his feet. “Step on that. Don’t you own a rain cloak? Good gods, you’re not half a loon.”

He grinned at that, and she paused in her scolding to study his face.

“I remember you now,” she said. “You’re the one travels with Dasin. He on his way in?” She cast a harried glance over the crowded taproom and shook her head. “Don’t have time for him tonight.”

“No,
s’a,”
Tank said, mopping his face dry. “He sent me today.”

She aimed a fierce stare at him. “Don’t have time for you, neither.”

He felt color flush into his face. “Not that. I don’t mean that.”

Deea squinted at him, obviously puzzled; then her expression cleared.

“Oh,” she said. “He’s out again? All right.” She surveyed the room again. “Safe enough,” she muttered. “Go back of the curtain there, and up the stairs. First door on the left. Shut it behind you and don’t sit on my good chair in those wet clothes. Floor’s good enough, sit on the towel. Stay quiet, don’t poke about, and wait for me, long as it takes. May be a while before I can break free.”

He nodded. She headed for a table whose already-inebriated occupants were holding their mugs up for refills, dodged a swat on the rump as she collected the mugs, then wove through the crowd toward the bar faster than Tank had thought anyone could move through such a packed room.

Most of the male gazes followed her, appreciative. Tank took the opportunity to slide round the edge of the room towards the curtain she’d pointed out.

Halfway there, the occupants of one table turned to look at him as he passed within arm’s reach: Raffin and Delt.

Of course,
he thought in the moment before Raffin rose to his feet, scowling.

“Don’t be an idiot, Raff,” Delt hissed. “It’s done; let it be already.”

Raffin loomed over Tank, his glare hot and unfortunately all too sober.

“You,” he said, in a low rumble, “witched me.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tank said. He stood his ground; no benefit to dodging or backing up with someone like Raffin.