Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (66 page)

“If you hadn’t been running about unescorted it wouldn’t have
happened,”
Hama snapped. “You were
told
to keep a servant with you at all times. You were
told
not to go out of the house by yourself. You never
listened.
You never respected that I
might
just be saying something worth the hearing. And once the mistake was made, you should have learned to stay
quiet
and indoors until the city settled down; instead you just brought more danger and shame on Peysimun.”

Alyea shook her head, blinking hard, and wondered if Rill would have agreed with what Hama was saying. It seemed uncomfortably likely.

“You’d have me curled up in a corner, afraid to breathe in case it offended someone,” she said, and winced at the embarrassing, childish whine in her own words.

“I’ve tried to teach you some
sense,”
Hama said. “You’re just like your father, always charging into situations you can’t handle, which got him killed in the end. It will get you killed, too, and then where is the family? You have no siblings, the only other legitimate heir is in prison, and you can’t have children yourself, I’m told. You have no concept of how little money we’ve been running on ever since your whipping, and how many servants have simply
left
because they were afraid of being associated with a failing house—because of
you.
You’re
ruining
everything I’ve worked to build!”

There was no questioning her honest passion. Alyea felt vaguely ill as she considered the matter from Hama’s point of view. While northern custom had always felt horribly restrictive and false to her, still it was custom, and Hama had been doing her best to follow it.

Alyea tried again, hoping to find a way to bridge the chasm between them. “You don’t understand,” she said. “The teyanain gifts, the alliances I’ve made—they’re invaluable. The house won’t have to worry about money for
years,
and an alliance with Deiq of Stass nails that into a certainty.”

Not having mentioned her marriage to the king, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Hama. It wouldn’t go over well, in any case.

“Alliance with barbarians and heretics?” Hama sniffed. “All that does is turn public opinion towards you becoming a barbarian whore. You’ve sold your reputation, Alyea. Soon, the only court you’ll find favor in will be a southern one. You might be right by southern custom, but you’ve certainly ruined yourself in northern view, and the family goes down with you.”

“And you’ve done so much better,” Alyea said bitterly. “Alliance with a man who raped and tortured me, who would have seen me broken into a smuggling slave. What would
that
have done to the house?”

“I believed a masterful liar,” Hama said, glaring up at Alyea. “That was a mistake. I thought I was doing what was best for the family, given what seemed insanity on your part. I made a mistake. Can you admit your part in that, or are you still too arrogant and selfish for that?”

Alyea shook her head. “That mistake, I had no part in making. You chose that path all on your own. I tried to tell you. Lord Eredion tried to tell you. The king tried to tell you. You’re the one that was being arrogant and selfish this time, and you’re the one who damn near destroyed the house.”

“We won’t agree on this,” Hama said, lips stretching into a thin grimace. “So have me executed, if that suits your need for vengeance, or send me away. I won’t argue it either way.”

Alyea worked her jaw for a moment, restraining her temper. Then, “Will you answer the king’s questions willingly?”

“What does that matter to you?” Hama demanded. “You’ve claimed to be exempt from his laws. You’ve put Peysimun Family among the barbarians. Why do you care if I obey the king? He’s not your lord any longer, and you’ll never be mine.”

Alyea chewed on her tongue, blinking hard; that had been anger and fear speaking, not rational thought. In confirmation, Hama dropped her gaze to the floor again, her shoulders rounding and her hands clenching in her lap. Alyea stayed quiet, waiting. At last Hama rolled one shoulder in a weary shrug.

“Send in their damned questioners,” she said without looking up. “I’ll answer as best I can.”

Alyea let out a long breath. “Thank you,” she said, and backed up a step.

“Do me the favor,” Hama said, still staring at her hands, “of not coming to see me off when they send me to the Stone Islands.” She paused, then added, “I should have had you drowned when I heard of your birth.”

Alyea’s breath caught hard in her chest. She blinked, made herself inhale and exhale twice, then backed out of the room.

The pale-eyed Hidden standing in the corridor nodded to her, his expression curiously blank. “Thank you,” he said. “Well done.” He went into the room, shutting the door softly behind him.

Alyea stepped back and back until her shoulders rested against the far wall; stood there trembling and wholly unable to move. Warmth washed across her face. A heartbeat later Deiq stepped from nothing to stand before her. His face and arms laced with silver, his eyes a shimmering silvery-black, he stared at her for a moment, as though trying to understand; then stepped forward and wrapped her in a tight embrace.

Everything shifted. They stood in sunlight, in the tower, the dusty warm air sharp in her nose; Alyea hitched in a breath, then burst into tears. Deiq made a strange, stifled sound, his fingers digging into her back. Lost in an immense swell of pain, she barely noticed.

“Arr...yar. Arrl. Arl. Awl. Ahl. Al.”

She sucked in a shuddering breath, another, and began to calm.

“Yar. Yaer. Yae. Yarrah. Yae. Yee. Yee. Ahh.”

Her breath steadied; the sounds he was making began to register. She blinked and lifted her head from his shoulder to look at him, then gasped: his skin had turned a sickly white and his eyes were a dark, solid grey.

“Aryah,” he choked, eyes wide and unblinking, staring right through her. “Stah. Stah.”

Abruptly, Alyea remembered something Eredion had said once:
You have to learn to think about even the worst things quietly. Otherwise every sensitive within ten miles will hear you, and Deiq will—

He’d never finished explaining what Deiq would do. Staring at the clammy white face and flat grey eyes a handspan from her own, Alyea suddenly didn’t want to find out. She caught control of her pain, shoving it all behind a thick shield, as fast as she could.

Deiq’s skin flushed towards crimson, then faded back into his normal bronze tone. His eyes darkened to a whiteless black, laced with silver; he focused a sharp glare on Alyea.

“Tharr,”
he growled, deep in his throat. His hands tightened, fingers digging painfully into her back. Violence thrummed through his muscles.

Alyea let go of fear and focused on
apology
and
servant,
completely submerging herself in submission; abandoning all pride, all ego, anything that might aggravate Deiq further.

Deiq’s hands slowly, so slowly, relaxed. The silver faded from his eyes, and his breathing steadied. “Tharr,” he said again, then blinked and shook his head, the white edge slowly returning to his eyes. “Alyea.”

She stayed in a near-trance of unimportance, afraid to risk responding.

Deiq sighed and ran his hands lightly over her back as though to soothe the forming bruises, then stroked the side of her face with one hand.

“Alyea,” he said again. “All right. All right. I’m all right now. Gods, that was close.”

He shivered a little. His hand cupped the back of her head, tilting it to press her forehead against his own. His breath felt warm on her face and smelled of sour ashes.

“Good trick,” he murmured. “I assume the teyanain taught you that one. Good. That’s good. Gods.”

He shivered again. Alyea drew a shorter breath and risked allowing herself to be aware of her
self;
a different tremor ran through Deiq’s whole body, and his grip tightened.

“Damnit,” he muttered. “Damnit, damnit—stop. Just—wait.”

She promptly retreated into the haze of not-being.

“Damn bonds,” Deiq said after a while, and sighed, his grip loosening. “All right. I think I have it this time.”

She drew herself together once more and backed up a step, pulling away from him. He took a step forward, letting her free of his grasp but staying right up against her—close as they had been when the teyanain chained them together. She stood still, understanding finally, and put a hand on his chest.

He let out a great breath and set his own hand on her chest.

“Alyea,” he said, voice ragged. “How in all the hells did you not
kill
her for that?”

Alyea sensed, in the fine tremor still working through his muscles, just how close he had been to killing Hama; not through malice, but through sheer reflex of wanting the pain to stop.

“She didn’t really mean it,” Alyea said, immensely careful to keep all emotion out of her voice and thoughts. “She was scared and trying to hurt me so I wouldn’t see her fear.”

“But it
did
hurt.” He seemed baffled by her calm.

She tilted her head slightly, watching his face with quick sideways glances to avoid setting off his defensive instinct again; one of several potentially lifesaving tips Evkit’s daimaina had offered. “You don’t really understand human emotion, do you?”

His dark brows dipped into a slight frown. “I don’t understand how any creature can endure that level of pain and not kill what caused it,” he said. “Humans seem to consider it perfectly sane to do nothing in retaliation for an attack, and so you go on hurting one another because there’s no consequence for it. That makes no sense to me. Hama will turn and bite you again and again, because you’ve done nothing to stop her from doing so. Chacerly will show up again one day with a dagger aimed for your back, because you made the mistake of forgiving his betrayal. If you’d just killed him, you’d have one less enemy in the world to worry over in the future.”

She stared at him, a faint chill working down her arms. “Don’t ha’ra’hain understand mercy and forgiveness?”

A faint wince tightened his eyes. He shook his head. “Eredion would be telling you the same thing: you should have killed Chacerly, and you shouldn’t be letting Hama walk away unscathed. But mercy and forgiveness? No. There is no such thing for ha’reye, and there is no such thing for ha’ra’hain. I’ve been trying to tell you: my human blood doesn’t
matter.”

“The murals,” she said, glancing at the nearby wall, which showed a field of sunflowers in full bloom. “How could you have done these if you didn’t have any understanding of what you were painting?”

“I was
trying
to understand it,” he said, his frown deepening. “I never did entirely succeed.”

Alyea tried again. “Hama and Chac made mistakes; that doesn’t mean they deserve to die. They did good along with the bad in their lives, and I’m not setting myself up as a judge over them.”

Deiq sighed. “Now you’re starting to sound like a Callen of Comos. Never mind. We’re not going to agree on this.” He dropped his hand from her chest and rubbed both hands over his face. “I need to rest. It’s been a long day already, and there’s more ahead.”

“I need to go back to Peysimun Mansion to greet Lord Fimre,” Alyea said, then hesitated. “I still haven’t told anyone...It just hasn’t seemed the right time. Dealing with Hama seemed more important.”

Deiq nodded. “It can wait,” he said around a yawn. “Go on. It’s best if I avoid Fimre right now, so I’ll stay here. I’ll come back to the Mansion later tonight, when he’s gone.”

Alyea opened her mouth to ask why Deiq wanted to avoid the new Sessin lord, and how he could be tired so early in the day, then let it go. If Deiq wanted her to know, he would have explained already; and he hadn’t slept the night before, so he probably needed a nap. For all his protests that he didn’t sleep often, she’d seen him do so as often as any human.

The lines of his face deepened with a faint smile. “Thank you,” he said, then pulled her close again for a gentle hug and an awkward, quick peck of a kiss.

Both the gratitude and the kiss felt strained. She returned, “You’re welcome,” without other comment, and left him to his solitude with a slightly shamed sense of relief to be out of his presence.

Fimre had dressed in blue and dark grey silks, the slashes lined with green; his bracelets and jewelry carried unmistakable messages of their own. Eredion looked at the overall effect and sighed. A firetail bird in full mating plumage would have been subtler.

Was I ever that single-minded?
Eredion wondered, and admitted the answer was probably an emphatic
Yes.
Thankfully, few of the northerns they encountered would have the faintest idea what the display indicated—including Alyea.

“I hadn’t planned to go straight to Peysimun Mansion,” he said mildly. “There are a few other people and places to visit first.”

Fimre delivered a florid bow. “I follow your lead, Lord Eredion.”

Eredion shook his head, dourly amused, and waved Fimre out the door ahead of him.

Fimre behaved himself impeccably over the next few hours. For all his cynicism, he understood the potential of
exotically charming
and used it brilliantly. Without ruffling a single feather, he managed to maneuver himself into position to seduce a double handful of men and women if that ever became useful. Without a single open request, he laid a foundation for political alliance with as many of Bright Bay’s wealthy, some of them diametrically opposed.