Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (68 page)

Lord Eredion,
she added privately,
join us for dinner tonight, if you could. I think we need to talk.

Eredion bowed; Fimre bowed; Kalei rose quietly from her seat and ushered them from the pavilion.

“How much of that conversation was you feeding her what to say?” Fimre said in Sessin dialect as they walked towards the gates.

“None of it,” Eredion said. “She’s a damn quick study, is all.”

Fimre shot him a sour sideways glare, clearly not believing a word of it.

Eredion smiled enigmatically and let Fimre wonder.

The room beneath the Tower, once cleaned out, served as an excellent place to take those Deiq hunted; and as Alyea would never willingly cross that threshold again, it was safe from any intrusion.

Four names from the list had been dealt with before Alyea’s confrontation with Hama temporarily distracted him. After she returned to Peysimun Mansion, he managed to find three more. Two of the seven wound up as bodies, easily disposed of; two of the remaining fought hard enough to lose their wits. The others, Deiq carefully laced with compulsions and sent south for Lord Evkit to deal with.

Five left from the original list, and three new names to deal with.

Tomorrow,
Deiq decided. He studied the two witless men with cold calculation, then gathered them close and stepped to a place out of Eredion’s memory.

To avoid undue alarm, he chose the short corridor between inner and outer gates. The setting sun cast everything in long shadow. Deiq stood still, inhaling the scent of ivy and honeysuckle, soothing the occasional tremor of fear in the men he held.

A movement to his right, and a sharp inhalation. “Ha’inn,” someone said.

Deiq turned his head slowly, his muscles tensing.
“S’e,”
he said. “Deiq of Stass.”

“Oh—” A silence. “My apologies,
s’e.
Of course. How can we—”

“Two new guests for you,” Deiq said. “I found the poor witless fools wandering the streets.”

Another, longer silence.

“S’e,”
the voice said, “please stay there and let the two men come through on their own.”

Deiq nodded and released all hold on his prisoners. The gate ahead swung open, and they shambled through like placid sheep going for their dinner. The gate shut.

“Ha’inn,” the voice said then, deliberately. “Before you leave. A word.” A brief hesitation, as though the speaker were gathering his nerve. “I’m...I’m well aware we rely on your generosity for much of our funding, but you’re not buying
us
with your money.”

Deiq let his eyes slide nearly closed. “Never thought that. I’m honoring Meer’s memory by funding you,
sionno.
This matter is completely separate. But if you’re closed to more guests, I’ll find other harbors for them in future.”

“We work with guests damaged by the Purge,” the hidden priest said, voice steadier now. “For your private matters, ha’inn, we have no room.”

“I’ll remember that,” Deiq said, and stepped back to Peysimun Mansion.

Alyea’s scent hung heavy in the bedroom, but a moment’s concentration located her in the small dining room, along with Eredion’s solid presence. Still irritated by not only the priest’s attitude but the strain of compelling so much information from multiple humans in a short period of time, Deiq decided to enjoy the quiet of the bedroom for a few moments before joining them. He sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off his boots, stripped off stockings and shirt, then flopped back with a deep sigh.

Gods, what humans do to one another.
Not the first time he’d had that thought, but the men he’d questioned had all shown remarkably little remorse over the notion of destroying an entire fortress of innocents to get to their target. The two men he’d killed had been personally involved in luring him to Peysimun Mansion and the subsequent capture; one had poured esthit crystals over his tongue and laughed as he slid towards helpless insanity.

The other had stayed, well-concealed, to see who would come looking to rescue Deiq. After Eredion and Tank had searched the mansion, the man followed them back to the Palace. At the first safe opening, he’d searched Eredion’s rooms for useful information. Lucky enough to come across a drawer whose latch had just barely not caught all the way, he’d pulled out handfuls of private letters and sensitive documents.

In a moment of sheer idiocy at that point, when challenged by unusually alert guards as he left Eredion’s suite, he’d panicked, thrown most of the letters at them as a distraction, and fled. No doubt the guards had brought the pilfered missives to the king; Deiq made a mental note to talk to Eredion about that at some point. Hopefully the fool of a thief hadn’t done too much damage.

The two witless fools he’d turned over to the priests had planned to rape Alyea if they’d captured her before he arrived; in front of Deiq, if they could. Just because they found the concept exciting.

For your private matters, we have no room...
Next time, he would just kill those damaged by his questioning. Disposing of bodies was much simpler, and he’d only taken the easy ones today. The smarter ones were always harder to find and more challenging to deal with afterwards.

He inhaled Alyea’s scent, holding to that as a thread of sanity, and tried to forget what he’d seen and heard over the course of the last few hours.

Focusing on scent brought a host of other odors with it: dust, furniture polish, the lingering perfume Hama had favored. Deiq amused himself, for a time, by sorting out and naming each distinct aroma. Sweat, mouse droppings, leather, blue-star flowers...and something odd: an acrid, wavering smell that he couldn’t immediately identify. It sent a surge of nausea through him as he centered his attention on it: not a good sign.

He sat up, a slow tension building throughout his body, and focused on that smell with every sense he had.

Sitting down to dinner with Eredion, after a long day of inspecting servants and household, meeting with the king, facing off with her mother, the frightening conversation with Deiq, the meeting with Fimre, and then Rill walking her through even more household matters—after all that, sitting down to dinner felt like a blessing from every god in existence.

Eredion made good company. His own face lined with exhaustion, he offered no attempt at conversation beyond “Pass the bread” and “Damn good cook.”

At the latter comment, Alyea couldn’t help asking, “Did you know about Nem?”

Eredion’s sideways glance, eyebrow raised, answered the question without words.

Alyea shook her head. “I’m beginning to feel as though I don’t know the first thing about anything.”

“Good place to start,” Eredion said, then went back to eating, clearly disinclined to carry the talk further. Alyea left him alone and paid attention to her own meal, letting her chaotic thoughts fade into a simpler appreciation of Nem’s work.

After a while, she said, “Those boys Nem took in.”

Eredion grunted and sat back into his chair, wiping his chin with the cloth napkin, and leveled a thoughtful stare at her.
You’re really worried about them.

She picked up a piece of bread and began tearing it down to crumbs, not looking up at him. “Yes,” she said in a low voice.

Not your business,
he said.
Rill should have told you that already.
He sighed when she didn’t answer.
All right. Here’s what I know: Nem prefers his own, no question on that. But he won’t touch a child, willing or not. He allows others to think what they will because it makes it easier for him to get the children off the street, sometimes; and because it’s a useful way of being further discounted, like his deaf act. The more contempt people hold you in, the more likely they are to speak freely in your presence. He’s good enough to be a Hidden himself, never mistake that, Alyea. And he’s chosen to serve here, for far less pay than he ought. I tried to turn him at one point—

He grinned at the black look she shot him.

He flat won’t leave your service, for any inducement. In fact...
He hesitated, glancing aside, then said, with muted care,
He paid for most of the repairs and renovations, Alyea. I put in some funds, from my personal store; but the bulk came from Nem.

She gaped at him. “What?”

He smiled, a tired, dry expression.
He has more capital to draw on than I do, believe it or not. So treat him better than Hama did, don’t let a hint of his secret slip out, and you’ve secured a damn valuable asset in your kitchen.

Alyea nodded with a strangely hazed sense of relief.

The two house maids, one dumpy and the other thinner and greying, came in quietly and cleared the table.

“There’s a sweet bread with fruit,” the thinner one said, not quite looking at Alyea. “Nem says to tell you if you like, he’ll send that out with your coffee. If you don’t like, he’ll send it in the morning, as a breakfast pudding.”

Alyea glanced at Eredion; he shook his head slightly.

“I think breakfast would suit better,” she said. “I’d like the coffee, though, if you would.”

The servant aimed a questioning look at Eredion. This time he nodded.

“Just the one,” he said, “then I ought to head back to the palace. I’ve a desk overflowing with letters to answer.”

The servants withdrew, arms laden with plates.

“What don’t I know about them?” Alyea asked, half in jest.

Eredion’s eyes narrowed briefly, then relaxed. “I’ve done my best to give you a solid household staff, one worthy of a desert Family. Let’s leave it there.”

“Let’s not,” Fimre said from the doorway.

Eredion rose, scowling thunderously. Alyea sat still, too shocked to move.

“You dare,” Eredion said, his tone as close to a growl as the human throat could manage.

“You’re more involved here than you admitted to me,” Fimre said, “and far more involved than you ought to be.” He came forward a step, not taking his gaze from Eredion. “I’m beginning to seriously question your loyalties, Eredion. On more than one matter.”

“Lord Eredion is my
guest,”
Alyea said, finding her voice at last, and stood. “You were not given an invitation, Lord Fimre. Sneaking into my home is not a good way to win my alliance or my favor.”

“I doubt he’s only a guest,” Fimre said. “Not after what I just heard.” He advanced another step, his gaze settling on Alyea. “Why are you so concerned over her household staff, Lord Eredion? Why so protective of her interests, when they don’t match Sessin’s?” He glanced at Eredion sharply then, and shook his head.

Silence hung as the two men faced off, arguing without a sound. Alyea hesitated, unsure what to do; finally strode forward and stepped between them.

“Stop it,” she said. “I don’t know about southern custom, Fimre, but in my view it’s damn rude to have a conversation like this in front of your host. So talk it aloud or get out of my house; and in either case your return welcome’s turning damn short, and politics be damned.”

Fimre’s black glare focused on her. Abruptly, he took two long strides forward and caught her against him. She reacted even as his arms reached out; a hard jab to the lower stomach made it easy to twist out of his grasp.

“Damnit,
Fimre!” Eredion snapped. “What are you thinking?”

Breathing hard, one hand on his abdomen, Fimre straightened and glared at them. “What I’m thinking,” he said, “is that she ought to have been on her knees by now, not fighting me off. I’ve been handling the changes longer than she has, and I
still
have trouble at times. For her to refuse me, to show no interest at all—no. Something’s
wrong.
And you know about it, or you’d be showing surprise at her, not outrage at me.”

Eredion’s mouth tightened in a faint grimace. “She’s kept content by her partners. I already told you that.”

“Not unless she has a court of desert lords for lovers,” Fimre retorted.

Alyea drew breath to protest, then just shook her head, at a loss for what to say.

“She’s kept content,” Deiq said, “by
me.”

He stood in the doorway as Fimre had, his eyes entirely black and a tracing of silver all over his bronze-dark skin; barefoot, shirtless, and radiating menace. Alyea’s breath caught. She stepped backwards without thinking, then felt Eredion’s hand in the small of her back, stopping her.

Don’t retreat,
Eredion said urgently.
Don’t ever retreat when he’s like this. Breathe, damnit, breathe.

Fimre made a choking sound and backed up much faster than Alyea had done. Deiq’s eyes took on a feral glitter; Alyea felt a surge of heat run through her body. Fimre’s legs gave way, but he never made it to the floor: Deiq scooped him up like a sack of feathers, turned one burning glare on Alyea, and disappeared.

“Oh,
shit,”
Eredion breathed. His arms came around Alyea from behind, pulling her against him; he was trembling uncontrollably. Not from arousal: raw, horrified fear swamped through her from the contact.

Alyea stood still, shivering herself. “Is he going to kill...?”

Eredion sucked in a hard breath, then said, “No. Unfortunately.” His arms tightened, fear fading, and he exhaled loudly. “Gods.”

The warmth that had surged through Alyea’s body shifted to focus in distinct areas; dimly, in the back of her mind, she thought she could hear Fimre screaming. A desire based more in violence than sensuality thrummed through her, and her breath went ragged.

Kippin’s voice threaded into her consciousness:
You’re just as ugly on the inside as the rest of us, Lord Alyea.

Against her back, Eredion’s body heat climbed rapidly: no doubt as to his interest at the moment.

Something about the notion of being in Deiq’s hands had terrified Kippin past all reason.

What is he doing to Fimre?

Don’t ask,
Eredion said. His hands splayed across her stomach, and he shivered again.
Don’t. Just—please—Please.

The last wasn’t so much words as a gut-deep
want,
revealing a long-established interest. He’d never let a trace of it show on the surface, but now, pressed close, images ran through her mind: watching her face down his nephew in front of the king had been the beginning of it.