But no—just one spark, a promise, and hope had come crawling back to sniff at his heart. Hari felt a moment of resentment as his mistress scurried into the adjoining room, her gaze averted, pale skin and long clean lines flashing in his vision. The thudding door clipped her bare heels.
How dare she make him remember hope!
Hari took a deep, shuddering breath, and rolled off the bed. The walls shackled his body—everywhere, a cage—and he forced himself to breathe deep of the stale air; dust-coated, with the hint of metal and mold. The room had not felt so small with the woman present, but in her absence he could find no respite.
He went to the window, desperate for some sight of the world beyond, some temporary escape from the illusory cage. During his argument with the woman, he had glimpsed something beyond the glass, a strange vision that was surely fancy—
No. Hari steadied himself against the wall, trembling. His legs felt weak.
It was like seeing Rome for the first time—gleaming white-hot, boiling with people. The city, rising on its haunches like some barbed, beautiful nightmare. Nothing in Hari’s life had prepared him for Rome. Nothing since had prepared him for what he now saw.
An immense city sprawled before him, a conflagration of towering monoliths, sheathed in steel and glass, searing his vision. Far—Hari looked far—and the sight did not change. Everywhere, buildings of impossible height. Cold, hard, remote. Below, he saw colored objects move on choked paths; he saw people milling, the strange dance of foot travel, viewed from a God’s height.
A tower in the clouds. A marvel. And then, I am afraid.
There was very little left that could frighten Hari. After two thousand years, his innocence was long dead. There was no cruelty, no word or sight, that could surprise him. Nothing.
So he had thought, until the woman.
So he had thought, until this city. This endless, steel-clad city.
The world always changed between summons—that was the way of it. Hari was a man outside time. Yet he realized all those differences had still been familiar, and now the familiar dead were truly gone. All to dust.
No, he corrected himself. No. For two thousand years I have been summoned to a world of death, disease, and cruelty. I cannot believe it has changed so much. Perhaps the surface is different, but beneath, hearts will still be drunk on venom.
It was an odd comfort, shallow and bitter.
Hari tore himself away from the window and padded across the room to the door opposite him. The odd cloth-covered floor swallowed the sound of his passage. He listened to the woman move behind the other closed door. Water splashed.
Hari’s senses were acute; even without his skin, he retained the powers of the tiger. He smelled the woman everywhere, on his body. Jasmine, lavender; sweet, soothing scents, completely at odds with the fire in her eyes.
Hari permitted himself a small smile. It was a millennia since he had encountered a woman who possessed such an unflinching stare, so raw a tongue. Defiance, courage—she had stood up to his rage, matched it with her own; and she had done it all without realizing her power over him. She said she could not read the inscription on the box or his chest, and he believed her; she did not smell like lies.
Remarkable, a stunning revelation. Warlords and kings, knowledgeable in box lore, had never dared so much as this woman—not without a command on their lips, an immediate assertion of power. As though to do less would reveal some intolerable weakness Hari might exploit.
He wanted to laugh. Exploitation was the last thing on his mind. His only concern was to survive a summons with spirit intact, to live day by day as an unbroken man.
Hari listened at the woman’s door for a moment longer, then glanced at the other door. The exit to this bedchamber? He fumbled with the latches, the knobs, and finally managed to open it. He thought there might be guards, some sign of life, but he found himself looking down an interminably long hallway lined with yet more doors, one after another. It was an empty, eerie sight, and it made him uncomfortable.
The woman emerged. Her hair was still damp, pulled into a thick braid framing one side of her moonstone face. She dressed in unfamiliar attire: dark blue pants that revealed everything of her lean form, as well as a tight white shirt that did the same.
She should have continued wearing that scrap of cloth, Hari thought ruefully. This was almost more distracting.
Her lips quirked. “You thinking of making a run for it?”
Hari frowned and closed the door. “That is impossible.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t want to try.”
“And if I did? What would you do?”
The woman moved past him. “Probably cheer you on.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?”
Something sharp fell on Hari’s tongue, but he swallowed it when he saw the odd light in the woman’s eyes. She was baiting him! How … astonishing.
“You are fearless,” Hari said, that odd fleeting hope whispering against his heart. He shoved it down, ruthless, angry for feeling even a bit of respect for this woman.
But his respect was a stubborn thing. He had given her the keys to his slavery and she had repudiated them with blood. He had shown her his scars and instead of disgust …
She had touched them. So soft, her hands and eyes full of the very compassion for which he had long ago given up the search. Men and women feared him, coveted his strength, his legend. They did not feel for him. The woman’s eyes had been as shocking as frozen steel in a desert, marvelous and terrible. For just one moment, Hari had felt the need of a man on fire searching for water. Need for compassion. For sweet respect.
No, he warned himself, afraid of his need. She may have sworn a blood oath, but in time she will be like the others. The temptation to use me will be too great.
To allow himself hope, only to be betrayed—such pain would be unbearable. A heart-death, with him trapped in his tiny coffin, reliving the nightmare in his dreams.
Never again, he thought, a prayer and a promise. Never again.
“What do I need to fear?” asked the woman, trailing her fingers along the stiff wood back of a chair, the only one in the room. She no longer smiled, but her voice was easy, calm. He noticed she did not place the chair between them.
“Nothing,” he said. “I cannot harm you.”
She made a small sound, her eyes far too sharp. “Do you want to harm me?”
“Why do you ask me these questions?” Anger pulsed in his throat. He did not want to answer her. “Why do you push me with your words?”
The woman blinked. “I’m not trying to push you. I just want to know you. How am I supposed to do that if I don’t ask questions?”
How, indeed? Hari turned away, suppressing a growl. “You do not need to know me,” he said, fighting against hope, the compulsion to dream.
He looked for her reaction and found her mouth tight, her eyes flashing with a righteous fire that was almost becoming familiar. Hari steeled himself for her anger, dimly aware that a part of him looked forward to it.
“You don’t have the right to tell me what I can or cannot do,” she said. “You poof into this room, scaring the shit out of me, and then unload a bunch of crap about us being stuck together until the day I die—and you have the nerve to tell me I don’t need to know you?” She took a step toward him, fists on her hips, cheeks flushed. Hari had to remind himself not to back up.
“Well, let me tell you something, mister. Don’t you dare get pissed off at me. I’m not the one who enslaved you. I’m not the one who treated you like shit for the past two thousand years. I don’t even want you. I’ve all but cut off my right hand and beat my head against the floor trying to convince you of that, but hey—what does my word mean to you? Apparently nothing.”
It was the longest speech anyone had made to Hari in a thousand years, and he took a moment to savor, somewhat guiltily, the sens
ation of being talked to, rather than at.
I do not even know her name, Hari realized, surprised to find himself still capable of curiosity. He had stopped asking for names long ago. One master was like any other; some better, some worse, but the same in the end. Man or woman, they all wanted power. A prize. Someone to fight their battles, to do that which they had no stomach for. The things Hari had been forced to do over the long years did not bear remembering.
But he did remember. Nightmares plagued him, appalling reenactments of murders, soldiers shredded to bone—horrifying abuses. Such horrors were the reason Hari always arrived at a summons full of rage, defiance. A promise of resistance.
I am not broken. You will never break me.
This time had been no different. The long sleep, caught in obsidian amber, bursting from it with a fury—
“What is your name?” he asked quietly, swallowing his anger.
The woman stared, clearly suspicious. “Delilah. But everyone calls me Dela.”
“Delilah.” He rolled her name on his tongue, tasting the long lines of its sound.
She frowned. “You going to yell if I start talking again?”
Hari raised an eyebrow. “I do not believe I have been the one yelling. I also do not believe you would stop talking even if I did raise my voice.”
Dela opened her mouth, stopped, and sighed. She stepped close, and Hari was acutely aware of her strong, feminine lines. Her heady scent was disconcerting. He did not move away.
“You don’t trust me. That’s fine. I don’t really trust you. I have no idea how we’re going to make this work, but you’re here, and I’m here, and that’s the way things are. We’ll figure this out. Unless … unless you want to return to the box.” Her mouth twisted with distaste.
Hari glanced at the box sitting so small on the bed. Darkness waited for him there, the long sleep. She had already asked him this question once, and he had been unable to answer her. Would this new life be worse than the nightmares?
“No,” he said. “I do not wish to return to the box.”
“Then we’re stuck with each other.” Dela looked unhappy. “You should know, I like my solitude.”
“As do I,” he said. The company of others had come to mean only pain.
But I am tired of being alone. A slip of a thought, unbidden, quickly suppressed.
“Fine. Good.” Dela rubbed the back of her neck, as though she shared his astonishment at the words slipping from her mouth. But he sensed her determination, the power of a decision made. Dela turned the full force of her gaze upon him. Her eyes were the blue of sky, bright as dawn. “I don’t trust people very easily,” she said, blunt. “Please don’t betray me.”
Please don’t betray me.
They were powerful, simple words, said with such dignity only a fool would have called it begging. Her words resonated through his bones, whispering a silent song in the shape of her voice. Her eyes left him speechless for one long moment.
“I also do not easily trust others,” he said, when he could rely on his voice not to expose his new weakness. “For good reason. Will you betray me?”
She flushed, but not from anger. “You are not a slave. You are a man. I will always treat you as a man, with as much respect and compassion as you show me.”
“Then I will do the same for you,” he said.
“That’s all I want to hear,” she said.
He nodded, unable to tell her that it was more than he had ever been offered—more than he himself had promised since the curse. He held out his hand, and for a second time they touched palms, wrapping fingers warm and tight around each other’s smooth flesh. A strange tingling rippled up his arm, lifting the hairs on his neck. Her hand was small and warm, her grip firm. Hari found it difficult to let go.
They stared at each other and the silence was awkward. Silence had never before been uncomfortable. Of course, until now, no one had ever expected him to talk.
“Are you hungry?” Dela hooked her hands into the tiny pockets of her pants. “Do you need to sleep or bathe?”
With the edge of anger fading from her face, she looked smaller, more vulnerable. Shy, even. It made Hari feel strange—protective, perhaps, though the emotion was so foreign he could barely name it. Heat filled his chest. His former masters had never asked such questions. His needs had never occurred to them.
“Yes,” he said. “I would like to eat and … wash.” Despite Dela’s assurances, the offer might not come again. He would be a fool to refuse. If nothing else, it set a standard. If she was as good as her oaths, she might not treat him as a slave, but with his inability to wander far from her side, he would be dependent on her goodwill to keep him fed and sheltered.
This unnatural reliance had always rankled, but now it seemed especially wrong. He did not know what he wanted from this woman, but it was not charity. He wanted her to see him as more than a liability. More than a slave.
Your pride has returned. Be careful it does not ruin you.
Dela walked to the nearby table where she picked up a slim book. She flipped open the pages, began to hand them to him, and hesitated. “You can speak my language,” she said carefully. “Can you read it as well?”
Hari glanced at the book in her hands, the strange clubbed script. He shook his head. “Spoken language was part of the spell, so I might always understand my masters, no matter their tongue. Very few people read, so it was not a concern. Except …”
“Except?”
“You should have been able to read the inscription on the box,” Hari insisted. “Even the illiterate have been able to discern its meaning, and you are clearly educated.”
“It just looks like a series of lines to me. Incomprehensible lines.”
“That is very strange.”
Dela made a low sound. “All of this is very strange, Hari. At least to me. Let’s worry about one thing at a time, okay? Food, first of all. I don’t think I can handle anything more complicated.”
Her consideration made him uncomfortable, but he told Dela what he desired: meat, fruit, wine. Hunger overwhelmed him, sent shackling pain through his gut. His mouth tasted dry and bitter.
Dela picked up a curious object made of some dark shell and spoke into it. He watched her with care, bitterly aware this new summons had released him into a much different world than he was accustomed. He had so much to learn.
Why should you bother? No matter this woman’s oaths, you are still hers—bound and leashed. Knowledge is wasted on you. You will never be able to use what you learn, never be allowed to stray from her side.
“They said twenty or thirty minutes.” Dela looked at him, and Hari wondered if she sensed the coiled wariness in his body, the sudden tension singing through his muscles. “That should be enough time for you to bathe.”
The “bath room” was excruciatingly small, the fixtures unusual but not incomprehensible. Dela showed Hari how to use the strange latrine, as well as the basin with its remarkable hot running water.
He wondered if he could ask, and decided now was as good a time as any to test her true willingness to accept him as a sound mind, and not just a body.
“Will you tell me how this functions? I have never encountered such a thing.” He adjusted the knobs, feeling the water instantly change temperature. A marvel.
She smiled. “I don’t know much about plumbing, but I’ll try.” And she did; he was pleased. When she finished telling him about pipes and heaters and electricity, he began to remove his weapons and clothing. Dela stumbled from the room, blushing. “Enjoy,” she said in a rush of breath, firmly closing the door behind her.
Hari stared, wondering at her reaction, the feel of her body so close to his own. He wondered, and when the emotions became too much, tried to focus on his first bath in ages.
Dela stumbled to the bed, inhaling deeply. She smelled Hari in the air, on her covers, the same scents that had filled the room when she opened the box: a coalescence of leaves and wood. Wild and resonant, a refle
ction of the man.
God help her, she was actually beginning to like him.
She sank to the mattress and hugged her shoulders. A fine tremor ran through her body; her heart thudded dully, loud and coarse.
I just obligated myself to help this man for the rest of my life.
The enormity of that decision slammed into her brain, and she lay down, staring blindly at the ceiling.
What have I done? and then: What was the alternative?
The alternative was unthinkable. Dela had no intention of sending Hari back into the riddle box, could never live with herself for returning him to a prison where he didn’t belong.
He could be lying. Maybe he was put there for a good reason.
Dela closed her eyes, recalling the sensations wrought from her connection to his weapons. After a moment, she shook herself free and rubbed her eyes. No, he was not lying.
Two thousand years as a slave, an unimaginable expanse of time. Dela turned on her side, fighting the choking sensation that crept into her throat. So much pain—and somehow, through some incredible strength of will, he had kept his sanity, an element of grace. Dela wondered if she would be as strong.
She heard water splash; an oddly cheerful sound, innocent and ordinary.
Don’t go soft, she told herself. You shouldn’t trust him. Not completely. He’ll eat you up if you do, and you’re just another way to keep out of the box. Men use women for less.
True enough, although Dela’s friends—with one exception—were all men whom society considered unsafe, untrustworthy, and notoriously foul; and yet they were the complete opposites of such virulent labels. There was something about Hari that reminded her of them, a bright kindness beneath the razor shell. Dela had caught a glimpse of light beyond the shadows in his soul. She could not forget the comfort of its stunning warmth.
Dela blew out her breath. Something strange had come into her life, and as Grandma liked to say, “That’s that.” Of course, Grandma had always embraced the uncommon, even more so than Dela’s brother, Max, who had a great deal more talent than his younger sister when it came to the “unnatural and strange.”
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