Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (62 page)

Eredion breathed through his nose and counseled himself to patience. Thinking about trivial matters, like adventuring beyond the bounds he’d tamely lived within for his entire life, would only distract him from the moment’s necessities.

It didn’t do to be distracted around any king, much less Oruen. The man was getting sharper by the day.

The hidden door—one of them; Eredion had long ago picked out two entrances on each wall, only one of which was a “proper” door—opened, and Oruen came in. The king looked tired, as always. His dark hair, even tied back and brushed neatly, hung limp, and there were bruised areas under his eyes. Most telling of all, he moved as though every step, even every blink, took tremendous effort. Eredion felt a pang of sympathy for the man.

“I’m sorry to keep you from your much-needed rest, Lord Oruen,” Eredion said, standing and offering a deeply respectful bow.

Oruen snorted. “Nothing to do with you. I haven’t slept more than two hours at a time for three months now. Always something wakes me up, and then I stare at the ceiling, thinking of what I should have done better, what I can do tomorrow...Sit down, Lord Eredion. What is it this time?” He lowered himself into his chair, wincing a little.

Eredion sat as slowly, frowning. “I wasn’t aware you were having that much trouble sleeping.”

“Oh, I exaggerate. Never mind me. What are you here for, Eredion?”

Eredion looked at the too-rigid posture and too-dark eyes and seriously doubted the king had exaggerated. “Lord Oruen, your health is more important. If you’ll allow me, I can—”

“Witch me asleep? No. Thank you, Eredion, but that would set up a howl in the court that I don’t want to deal with. I’m fine. Get on with your business.”

“I was actually only going to suggest some herbal teas,” Eredion said. “Very safe, and more effective than your northern ones would be. There’s an herb similar to your northern lavender, called ravann. If you’ll permit, I think a cup before bedtime would ease your dreams considerably.”

“If agreeing will shut you up, fine,” Oruen said testily; but Eredion saw relief flicker in the king’s eyes for a moment. “Will you tell me your business now, or would you like to talk about the different grades of salt that pass through my kingdom?”

Eredion repressed a smile. “I thought you might have some questions for me, actually, Lord Oruen,” he said. “About Kam.”

Oruen rubbed both hands over his face. “That’s the young man who so conveniently turned himself over and begged to be put into prison this afternoon, and has been spilling everything he knows about a number of illegal, border-crossing activities ever since? What in the world would I want to ask you about on that subject, Lord Eredion? It was a marvelous attack of conscience on his part. No doubt the gods intervened.”

Eredion grinned, just long enough for the king to see it, then carefully schooled his face to sobriety again. “Absolutely, Lord Oruen.”

Oruen sat with his eyes shut for a moment, then sighed and gave Eredion a weary stare. “I understand Alyea is back in town. Excuse me. Lord Alyea. Lord Peysimun, even.” He rubbed a hand over his face again. “And ha’inn Deiq, of course.”

“They came in this afternoon,” Eredion said blandly. “I believe Alyea plans to present herself to you tomorrow, when they’ve rested.”

“I could have wished for Deiq to stay gone until we had Lord Fimre sorted out,” Oruen muttered, just audible. “Did you take him on a tour today?”

“No. He’s not willing to venture out into damp, cold weather, and by the time today’s drizzle cleared I’d already given up and left him to amuse himself. I advised him against exploring on his own, but he’s got his own mind, that one.”

Oruen squinted. “Aggressive, young, and ignorant. I know how to handle that with northern nobles, but with Fimre—What the hells do I do with him? No—never mind. We’re both too tired for that discussion.”

“It’s not actually difficult,” Eredion said. “Fimre’s entourage won’t stay here for long. It was a show, not a household he brought along. Some of them will slip off into the city—There’s no stopping that,” he added as the king glared. “Most of the others will quietly take ship back south. By the time I hand official liaison duties over to Fimre, he’ll be able to take over my palace apartments without any fuss at all. And you treat him as you’d handle any arrogant young northern noble; when he pushes, push back harder. Finding him kathain will be the most challenging situation, but again, I imagine we can easily find a few properly trained—”

“Child-whores?” Oruen interrupted, his expression thunderous.

“No,” Eredion said patiently. “I’ve gone over this with you, Lord Oruen. True kathain are nothing like the children in those wretched katha villages. Please, reserve judgment until you’ve met a few. That’s all I ask. It’s not in any way a form of slavery or whoring.”

Oruen shook his head, still frowning, but let the subject drop. “Is that all, then?”

“I had thought,” Eredion said cautiously, “to inquire on the matter of Lady Peysimun.”

“No,” Oruen said. “Now that Lord Alyea has returned, your responsibilities to Peysimun Family are ended, as is your right to hear anything on their internal matters.”

Eredion nodded, not at all surprised; even pleased. It had been exactly the right response. Oruen was going to be just fine on his own. “Then—good night, Lord Oruen. Gods hold you lightly.”

“May they ease your path, in turn,” Oruen returned, already yawning.

Eredion slipped from the room and started back to his suite. On impulse, he changed direction halfway there and went to the kitchens instead.

“The head cook?” he asked of servants as he neared the area. Following their directions led him to a large room off the ovens room, the doorway of which was covered with a thick drape to shut out light. Inside were a dozen beds, all collapsible cots. Eredion made out the bulk of tables folded away neatly against the walls.

He grinned, impressed at the organization. On high feast days, when every bit of prep room was needed, this sleeping area would quickly turn into an additional work area.

He pushed the curtain aside just enough to see his way into the room, then eased over to the cot closest to the doorway. Before he even came within arm’s-reach, the occupant sat up.

“What’s that, then?” she demanded in a low, harsh voice. “Another problem with the damned left-side oven?”

“No,” Eredion said, squatting by the side of the cot. “Just a question,
s’a,
if you would.”

Just enough light filtered in through the opening he’d left for him to see her head tilt with recognition of a noble speech pattern. “My lord,” she began.

“Shh, no,” he said hastily. “Nothing to be formal over,
s’a,
please. Let’s not wake your people. I only have a question, and I’ll leave you be. There’s a young woman been training here, a servant girl of promise with pastries and seasonings. She came last night to stay with your staff. Which cot is she on? Her name—”

The woman was already shaking her head. “Every one of my staff has been working with me for five years and more,” she said. “I have nobody new here, my lord, and certainly nobody who came in last night.”

“You’re sure? Dark hair, northern build, worked as a housekeeper for me briefly.”

“None such here,” the woman said, positively. “I’ve been running these kitchens ten years now, my lord. I know every servant as comes down here to snag a tray for their lord or lady, and I don’t let them into my kitchen to train. It never works out. Housekeeping staff don’t belong in the kitchens, my lord, any more than a good cook ought to be folding sheets.”

“I see,” Eredion murmured. “Thank you,
s’a.
I’m grateful.” He withdrew quietly, dropping the curtain back into place.

By the time he left the kitchen area, he was grinning; by the time he reached his suite, whistling.

Early morning sunlight cast pale strips of color along the wall, muted by white curtains and stippled by interrupting plant leaves. Deiq watched the light shifting both tone and location, as he’d been doing to various degrees all night. Beside him, Alyea snored quietly, with a bubbling, whistling sound that was far more amusing than annoying.

The snores faded to silence; a moment later she groaned and stretched into wakefulness.

“Uh,” she muttered, raking her hands through her hair to get it out of her face, then sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Mruh... ?” She glanced over at Deiq as though his presence surprised her, but managed a creditably clear, “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

He never had understood why humans felt the need to mark day and evening with such nonsense terms. It was one of the small mechanisms that made dealing with them easier, nothing more; he found himself mildly resenting the thought that he would now be saying the pointless phrase daily.

Her face was still pale and rumpled from sleep. A crease in the pillow had left a line on her face. She rubbed her eyes again and stared at him as though waiting for something. “Did you sleep at all?” she said abruptly.

“I normally don’t.”

“I woke up a few times,” she said. “I could tell you weren’t asleep, but I couldn’t stay awake long enough to say anything.”

“You were tired, and there wasn’t anything to say.”

She leaned back onto her elbows and tilted her head, studying him from a sideways angle. “I had a strange dream,” she said. “Something about the two of us, swimming in warm water, and I didn’t need to breathe air because you were with me. And you...weren’t you. Not like you are now. I can’t remember clearly, but you looked...like you belonged in the water, if that makes sense.”

His breath caught and staggered in his chest. He could only stare at her with a growing sense of dread.

“There was this other girl, younger than me, just barely past puberty I think. You pulled her close and....” Alyea cleared her throat. “She was—enthusiastic, to say the least. But then something changed, and she started screaming, these horrible, gut-wrenching screams, and there was blood everywhere in the water, and then she disappeared. And you said to me,
That went well...
and I woke up.”

Each shallow breath strained his entire rib cage. Alyea’s gaze felt like needles digging into his skin.

“It didn’t feel like an ordinary dream,” she said quietly. “And the way you’re reacting—did I see one of your memories while I was asleep?”

Impossible. He hadn’t slept, himself; hadn’t opened his mind to her sleeping consciousness at any point. She certainly hadn’t tried to intrude. He would have felt that, and she was genuinely puzzled.

He shut his eyes and tried to relax his breathing. After a few moments, he felt strain easing enough to allow speech.

“Yes,” he said. “It sounds as though you did. That would have been a very long time ago, though, before I...left home in order to learn about humans. The tribal structure still existed, back then, to give you an idea. No permanent cities to speak of. Humans were almost wholly nomadic.”

“Did the girl die?”

“No. What you dreamed about was an early form of the blood trials. Later on, they were separated out across three trials, but back then it was just one. That part you saw, you—you went through the same—almost the same thing. At the Qisani.”

He drew a breath and made himself explain aloud, for the first time in hundreds of years, something that always made him feel seriously ill just to think about. He could feel his face acquiring the feverish heat of a painfully deep embarrassment.

“That particular part is much less painful for men, because they’re giving seed, not receiving it, so there’s less—direct contact—required. But in true-ha’rethe form, which is the only way for ha’reye to—to give—children to a human woman, it’s not a, a good match, physically. We always...we....” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Damage,” Alyea said softly. “You cause damage.”

He swallowed and shut his eyes to avoid watching the color leaching out of her face. “Yes.”

She didn’t say anything else. After a short pause, he went on, throwing words out just to fill the silence now. “They—we—learned, since that time you dreamed about, how to craft better illusions to mask what’s happening. But there still aren’t many healers who can repair the damage before the child, and usually the mother, is lost; all that effort and agony wasted. You were gods-touched lucky, Alyea, that Teilo came when I called for help.”

He managed—just—not to admit aloud that her trial had been much, much worse than he’d expected. The Qisani could have healed the aftermath of a normal blood trial, but what had been done to Alyea went beyond anyone’s expectations.

They’d wanted her to die. Absolutely no question there. And he couldn’t ever tell her that, or the reasons behind it.

“And in your human form?” she said, barely audible. “Do you—cause that sort of damage if you want to get a human woman pregnant?”

“No,” he said. “Thankfully, no. In this form, it’s—Well, you already know everything’s arranged as you’d expect.” He tried for a smile; it fell flat, so he went on. “But giving a child is much more difficult to manage this way. It’s never a casual accident. And—I won’t try to do that for you, because you....” He swallowed hard, locking away all thought of the why before he finished the sentence. “I don’t think you can safely have more children, for me or anyone else. I’m sorry.”

“What if—”

He sighed and pushed himself up to lean back on his elbows. “Alyea, I really don’t want to talk about this.”

Coward,
he accused himself, and had no argument with that self-judgment.

“All right,” she said, and was quiet for a few moments before she went on: “Then I want you to think about something that kind of floated through my head, in the drowsy bit just before I completely woke up. You’re a First Born ha’ra’ha. You’re what, a thousand years old? You’re so powerful it’s terrifying to anyone with sense. You can literally do anything you want. You don’t even have to bother with humans. You could probably walk out into the ocean and go to the deepest part and just look at pretty fish and seaweed and sunken ships for a hundred years without needing to come up for air or food.”