by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 35
Ilahe darted into the shadows of the next building. Her heart pounded, her ankle stabbed with every step, but she barely noticed. Men surrounded the inn. The eses had found her, somehow.
From the corner of the street, Ilahe watched. She needed the cam-adeh hidden in that room. If only she had taken them with her! It had seemed foolish, though, to take them all—what if something had gone wrong? What if they didn’t work together, or if one were pickpocketed?
Ilahe silenced the thoughts; it was not time for second-guessing herself. One of the men on patrol emerged from the side-street opposite her and marched north. Ilahe started with surprise.
He wore a thin, supple leather jacket, with chain over the shoulders and chest, a single stripe on the side of his trousers. An Istbyan. Ilahe shook her head in amazement. Blackness take her, somehow the Istbyan ambassador has found her already.
Ticar. The merchant might have betrayed her. Or the ambassador was just efficient. Frighteningly so.
As she watched the patrols, Ilahe realized, with a sinking in her stomach, that she had little hope of recovering her belongings that night. The Istbyans, fools that they were, made surprisingly diligent guards. Something to do with their devotion to the Thousand Suffering Breaths, most likely.
Anger and frustration warred with fatigue. Ilahe had no coin, no possessions aside from her swords, and on top of it all, she was injured. The splinters in her shoulder and arm burned, still untended from her flight, and her ankle felt hotter than the sun. After several long moments of deliberation, Ilahe turned and retraced her steps to the whorehouse. Room and board. She did not want to be there. It galled her to think she needed the whores’ help, true, but—even worse—it hurt to be reminded of a type of communication, of interaction, that she had lost forever. What had it been like, Ilahe tried to remember, when she could muffle her laughter into the sleeve of her sister’s dress, the silk cool and tickling against her lips? When candlelight raced across Ilahe’s dark hair like lightning, chased by an ivory brush?
Before she realized it, Ilahe stood at one of the rear doors to the whorehouse. It was locked, but after a few quiet knocks, it opened a few inches, and a suspicious eye stared out at Ilahe.
“Friend of Naja’s,” Ilahe said.
The door shut, then opened again, wider this time. Ilahe ducked inside, past the stout woman who stood just past the door. Without waiting to see if the woman would speak, Ilahe hurried toward Naja’s room. A blush rose to her cheeks as she heard moans and the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh from more than one room. That too-familiar smell of sweaty, pressing skin washed over her, but Ilahe tried to ignore it. She needed a place to rest, needed food, needed help. For now. And until she was gone, blackness take her, she would do her part as well; she would do what she could for these blind women.
It took her a few tries to find Naja’s room. A masculine voice met her ears as she opened the door.
“Not if they send you over to the bruisers’,” the man was saying.
“Let me worry about that,” Naja said.
Ilahe stepped inside and shut the door behind her. When she looked up, the breath left her lungs, as though she had been punched in the gut. A young man, slender, eyes as blue and warm as the waters of the Osh Bay, sat on Naja’s bed, legs stretched out in front of him. His blond hair fell to his jaw in thick, wild strands, but somehow it still looked perfect. Ilahe’s chest felt tight, as though a great weight pressed down on her, and the blood pounded thick and dark in her ears. She realized, with a start, that Naja sat on the bed as well. Ilahe had completely overlooked the other woman. She dragged her eyes away from the gorgeous man on the bed, forced herself to look at Naja. Not before she saw a smile curl the corner’s of the man’s lips—full and perfect for kissing.
With a grimace, Ilahe drove the thought from her head. His smile helped. He was smiling at her, of course. At how she looked—a freak. Shoulders too broad, stomach bulging with muscle, not lithe and slender like Naja—blindness, Ilahe’s hands could probably fit around the other woman’s waist. He smiled at her, mocking her appearance. Ilahe did not blame him, but she could not stop the flush of embarrassment—and, chasing it, anger—that ran through her. Anger was good. The tightness in her chest eased.
“Well?” Ilahe said. It was stupid; she cursed herself as soon as she said it. Her voice was low and flat. That, at least, was a blessing.
“This is Hash,” Naja said, a smile coming onto her oval face. “He’s the one who helped me pull you in.”
Hash gave a half-bow, still sitting, but that mocking smile never left his face. Mocking. It had to be mocking; why else would such a beautiful man smile at Ilahe? Ilahe glowered back at him, fanning her anger with what she knew he was thinking. She was a beast, a weapon. Not a woman. A whore, like the rest of the women here.
“I didn’t realize you had a, um, customer,” Ilahe said. “I’ll ask someone else to show me to my room.”
Hash laughed. The sound tickled Ilahe’s spine like the eager breath of a lover, but she made it feed her anger. He was laughing at her. She had made a fool of herself, somehow. Had she misspoken? Blackness take the Khacens and their blind language!
“I wish,” Hash said, “It would take me a few weeks to earn enough for a night with Naja here. She’s made quite a name for herself, and in such a short time.”
Naja swatted his arm, but she tucked her dark hair back, smiling at the compliment. “Hash is just being modest. You should see the women who come through here, begging for some time with him. He’s rather cruel to some of them. Why, his first day, one poor woman left in tears because he would not take her as a customer!”
Ilahe stared at them. It took a few moments for the words to register. “You mean—” She cut off. It seemed impossible. “He’s a . . .”
“Whore,” Hash said, that smirk still plastered on his face. He held up one perfect, toned arm. A tattoo in black ink ran from the inside of his wrist, up the inside of his forearm, halfway to the elbow. Hash grabbed Naja’s arm and turned it over. She bore a similar mark, although it barely covered her wrist. “Although, if you’re going to call me a whore,” Hash said, “I should at least know your name.”
“I didn’t call you that,” Ilahe said, cheeks hotter than all the solars combined.
“Well, it’s what I am,” Hash said. “And you were going to work your way up to it at some point. What’s her name?” The last he addressed to Naja.
“I don’t know,” Naja said. “I wasn’t even sure she was going to come back. I thought it’d be better if I didn’t know.”
Ilahe thought she might fall down. Somehow, Naja had suspected. No, more than suspected—she had been right. Ilahe would not have come back, if it had not been for the Istbyans and their foolish honor.
“What is your name?” Naja asked.
“Ilahe,” she said. She felt dazed. Unthinking, she stepped toward a chair, and bright pain, almost forgotten, started up from her stiff ankle. Ilahe stumbled and half-fell into the seat. Blindness, things couldn’t get any worse.
Hash was up from the bed in a flash, kneeling next to her. “Look at her arm,” he said.
“Tair protect us,” Naja said, coming over to look. “I didn’t notice that. Her skin hides it well.”
Hash’s hand, warm and softer than any woman’s, brushed the splinters and torn flesh of Ilahe’s upper arm. Ilahe gasped, but she held still. He touched her with only his fingertips, removing the pieces of wood, and every time his flesh touched hers, lightning ran through Ilahe. It was foolish; he looked nothing like a Cenarbasin man, nothing like the husband Ilahe had once loved. His skin was white as dawn; in spite of the definition to his arms and chest, visible through the light linen shirt he wore, he was not heavily-muscled, did not have a warrior’s build; and, worst of all, he was a whore. A man who had sold his honor. Ilahe had never heard of such a thing; she imagined such a man would be killed on sight in Cenarbasi.
His touch should have sent
disgust rippling through her. Instead, each brush of skin on skin, practical and business-like as he removed the splinters, drove slices of desire, red-hot and trembling, deeper into Ilahe. She leaned away from him as he worked, trying to distance herself from the scent of his hair, of his body, that rose to meet her nose, like summer sweat and something floral and tasting of spring. When he finished, he gently washed the wounds with warm water that Naja brought.
No sooner had he drawn the bloody cloth away than Ilahe stood up. The chair fell back and struck the ground with a crack, but Ilahe kept moving, backing away from him. She couldn’t stand to be near him; it was torture to have him so near. A frown crawled onto his features, then anger.
“What do you want from me?” Ilahe asked. The words were harsher than she had intended. “Why are you helping me?” She needed to be angry. He was mocking her, somehow. The feel of those too-soft hands on her savaged skin made her knees weak.
Naja stared at her, shock in her honey-colored eyes. “Tair protect us, Ilahe, what’s gotten into you?”
The anger on Hash’s face settled his full lips into a line. “I’ll leave you,” he said. He gave another mocking bow and then walked from the room, every step a testament to the perfect lines of his body.
“What’s going on?” Naja said. “He was helping you.”
“I know,” Ilahe said. “I want to know why. Why did you pull me in? Why get me a job here, when you didn’t even know my name?” She realized, with a start, that in her haste to escape, she had not asked herself these questions. Why would this woman help her so much? What did she want? No one did anything for free. Ilahe had learned that from her own kin.
“Father take me if I know,” Naja said. She sat on the bed, honey eyes fixed on Ilahe. “I saw you there, and there was something in your eyes. Familiar.”
Ilahe pressed her lips together. Perhaps Naja was not as blind as Ilahe had thought.
“You looked so helpless. And then I was trying to pull you in, and Hash helped. No one likes a street harvest, not unless they get drawn in by it. Then—well, then they like it too much.” Naja shook her head.
“And the other women? Why didn’t they say anything?”
“Same reason, I guess,” Naja said. “We tend to watch out for each other in the shrine, although Cu would have dumped you on the street, or called for the eses, if she had thought you were trouble.”
“So you got me the job,” Ilahe said. Shame heated her cheeks; once again, she had misjudged the whore. The woman. She forced herself to think of Naja that way. A woman, in spite of her mistakes.
“I figured you’d leave and not be back,” Naja said. “But you’re not the first surprise in the last few days.”
Ilahe righted the chair, but she remained standing. “I’m here.”
“So you are,” Naja said. “I suppose I should show you to a room. And I’ll need to find you some clothes. I thought you were going to get your belongings.”
“There was a problem,” Ilahe said. “Some men are holding them. I can’t get to them, not now.”
“I’ll go and get them in the morning,” Naja said. “Would that work?”
Ilahe shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Naja said. “Come on, let’s find you somewhere to sleep.”
Naja led her down the hallway. Most of the rooms were silent now, although a few still gave off the sounds of love-making. Naja checked a few of the doors, then finally ushered Ilahe into one. Ilahe found herself in a small room, with only a bed, a cracked bowl, and a pitcher.
Pausing at the door, Naja turned to look at Ilahe. “You should know, Hash was the one who told me to hide you,” Naja said. “The girls tell me he wasn’t always like this, but since I’ve met him, he’s been good to me. And he was the one who led away the mob. I don’t know why you acted the way you did tonight—maybe you have your reasons. I suspect you don’t. Just because he sells himself, it doesn’t make him a bad person.”
“Just a whore,” Ilahe said.
The pain in Naja’s face disappeared almost as quickly as it came, but it cut Ilahe to the heart. Whatever bridge existed between the two women, the shared communion of pain and loss, Ilahe felt it crumble in that moment. Naja looked at her, amber eyes flat. As Naja turned to leave, the pregnant girl—the one who had spoken up to Cu earlier that night—poked her head through the door.
“Heard she was staying,” the pregnant girl said. “Nice to have someone with big arms, to get rid of the guys that like to get heavy-handed.”
“Come on, Ly,” Naja said. “She needs to be alone.”
The door shut, and Ilahe fell onto the bed, still fully clothed. Her heart pounded so that she could barely breathe. Fool. She had hurt someone trying to help her. That was not what a weapon was supposed to do. Even through her shame and guilt, though, Ilahe couldn’t forget the feel of Hash’s fingers on her arm, the shape of his leg through his trousers, his warm, ocean-blue eyes. Her hand clutched at the scratchy wool blanket. A woman could have friends, could know desire, could love and be loved. Blindness, what was a weapon supposed to a feel?