by Sonia Lyris
She looked back. “Sometimes most paths lead to the same place.”
“What do you see now?”
She took another sip and another and put the cup on the table. The truth was that her dreams had been full of horrors. She picked one.
“We ride through a smoking town. On the ground someone’s been cut open from neck to groin, skin pulled back, still alive. Making a horrible sound. Then we pass a barn with smoke coming out of the windows. Soldiers in red and black stab anyone who tries to get out the door or windows, throwing them back inside. At the edge of town are heads on the point of the gate. So much screaming.”
She inhaled raggedly, looking down at the red liquid in her cup.
“A hard future you see, Ama,” Maris said softly.
Swallowing the rest of what was in her cup, she held it out for more.
“The wine does not interfere with your foresight?” he asked, pouring.
“Not enough.” She shook her head, which made her feel a little dizzy, but was also sort of pleasant, so she did it again.
“Empty,” Maris said dourly. “I’ll be back.” She took the carafe and left.
Amarta stared at him. He looked back. Her and the hunter. Together. Again.
“You’re not so frightening anymore,” she said, feeling oddly accustomed to this shadow man. Comfortable, even.
“A pleasant change, I would think.”
“Yes,” she said adamantly. “I know what you are, but now, just now anyway, you seem almost like . . . I don’t know. Not a nightmare creature. A person.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said.
“Or am I saying that because of the wine?”
He was watching her, but his only answer was an easy shrug, as if to say that it didn’t matter. He was right; it didn’t. Not anymore. Her path was set.
It would be nice to lie down and forget all that for a while. But the bed was all the way across the room. It seemed very far.
Surely not so far. She stood and was suddenly dizzy. Grabbing for the edge of the table to steady herself, she missed, knocking her cup into his full and untouched one. As one cup began to topple into the other, both heading for the edge of the table, he reached out both hands and took one in each, setting them back aright.
Not a drop had spilled.
“Oh,” she said. “That was clumsy of me. I—”
She stared at the cups he had set upright, imagined the red wine splashed across table and floor. He had caught them barely in time. She could never have done such a thing, not feeling as she did.
Or, really, ever. She was simply not that fast. Not that alert.
“Oh,” she said again, more slowly.
Why he hadn’t had any wine. What he really was.
The chill cut through the warmth of the wine, the warmth of the room, the comfort she had been feeling a moment ago. She remembered a frozen day on the banks of the Sennant on a raft. A hot afternoon in a thick, green canopy of forest.
He was no friend. He was not an ordinary person. She had let herself forget.
Slowly and with great care she walked over to the bed and sat. He was no longer watching her, but she was sure he knew exactly where she was and exactly what she was doing.
When Maris came back, Amarta did not drink any more wine.
“I leave tonight,” Maris said as she stepped into the inn room, setting her pack by the door. With a long look to Amarta, she said, “It is time.”
Amarta sat heavily on the bed, watching as Maris took Tayre by the shoulder and spoke softly and earnestly to him in Perripin.
The capital was less than a day away. Tomorrow Tayre would bring her to the man she had truly been fleeing all these years.
She hugged her legs, put her head down on her knees.
And then?
She saw things, certainly: high ceilings, endless questions, a room that locked from the outside. Flashes of color: red and white walls, the pink of slices of meat. The green of a shirt, the feel of fine linen.
Beyond that little was clear; there were too many crossroads and too many people who must yet decide to walk them.
This room in which she would sleep tonight—the last night she would be free, she realized—was as lavish as anything she had ever seen. Windows of clear glass showed a colorful, busy street below. A stone fireplace kept the room warm. Tapestries lined the walls with images of flowers and swords. The furniture was carved in similar patterns, the table decorated in red and black woods.
It was astonishing. Yet she would have traded it all for a packed dirt floor, a hungry belly, and windows and doors that leaked cold air, if it put Dirina and Pas by her side.
Until the moment Maris left—fast approaching—she could still change her mind.
Maris walked to her and drew her to her feet, taking her by the shoulders, looking into her eyes. “I ask you one last time, Amarta dua Seer: Are you set on this course? Innel will not treat you gently. You can still return with me to Perripur.”
It was so very, very tempting. She thought of Dirina and Pas.
No, nothing had changed. War was coming, a war so wretched and sweeping that it would threaten even her family, far away as they were. And even if she could do nothing to change it, they were safe only as long as she was not with them.
She looked at Tayre and wondered, without any real intention of finding out, what he would do if she left with Maris right now.
Follow, no doubt.
It didn’t matter; she knew her course.
“I must do this.”
“So be it.” Maris closed her eyes a moment then touched Amarta’s forehead with two fingers. Amarta felt something, then: a calming, a soothing. “Courage to you, Amarta, to go where your path takes you.”
Amarta nodded, blinking back tears.
Maris nodded at Tayre. “He has given me his word he’ll see you safely to the palace. It’s as much as I can ask of him, and as much as I could do for you myself.”
Amarta wondered what Tayre’s word was worth to someone who did not hold his contract, but saw no reason to ask.
Then, wrapping her in one last embrace, Maris spoke softly in her ear. “Innel is formidable and clever. But you, also, can be these things, Amarta.”
She nodded slowly, soberly. “Will you take care of them for me?” Dirina. Pas.
“I will.” Then Maris picked up her bags, spoke sharply to Tayre in Perripin one last time, and left.
Amarta exhaled slowly, softly, as she listened to the footsteps fade in the hall outside, letting fade the final imaginings of opening the door and calling after Maris that she had changed her mind and would go with her.
When it was silent at last, she turned to look at him. She should be afraid, perhaps. Or even just wary. But he’d done his work so very well. She cursed herself for letting his pretense fool her so completely that even though she knew what it was, what he was, she still felt at ease now with him.
He smiled a little.
“What did she say before she left?” Amarta asked.
“That my word was binding. She made a threat on my life, should I fail to deliver you whole.”
“To the Lord Commander, who may well kill me the moment I arrive?”
“You are of more use to him alive.”
“But you would say that, would you not, to keep me on course?”
He nodded to accept the point. “Nonetheless, it is so.”
“I can trust you one more day, then.”
“Yes.”
Once in the Lord Commander’s hands, she would no longer have any choices. But now, at least for tonight, she still did.
She wondered about the future. Not the far future, not even tomorrow, but now, these next few minutes. Wondered about it, but didn’t attempt to foresee. For this moment she needed her senses more than her vision. And courage.
Tayre watched her approach. Relaxed. Ready. Always ready.
Heart pounding, she stepped close to him. Close enough to smell him, to hear him breathe
. Deliberately, slowly, she put her hand flat on his chest, looked up into his eyes, tried to smile, faltered.
He blinked. Other than that, he might have been made from stone.
“What is this, Amarta?”
“I ask that you be my first time.”
He covered her hand on his chest with his own.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Your first time could mean a baby if you lack sufficient understanding.”
She felt her face go hot, pulled away. “I know that.”
“You didn’t,” he said, his voice betraying surprise.
Now she understood Dirina’s moon counts, why her sister would arrange pebbles in a row so carefully when she went with the village men. It was so obvious. How could she not have known?
“No one told you? Not your mother?”
“I was five when my mother died.” Who she had let die. She pushed the thought away.
“Dirina?”
Amarta shook her head. “She thought if I didn’t know, I wouldn’t make her mistake.”
“Many children are born to that particular misunderstanding.”
“Then teach me.”
“You should be taught by an anknapa. An older woman. Not me.”
“Don’t give me that,” she said, tension making her testy. “You know all this and more. You must.”
His brief smile faded to unreadability. “What has changed so that you would invite this hunting dog so very, very close, Amarta?”
Her face was still warm. “Tomorrow I give myself up to the Lord Commander, which I may not survive.”
“That is not reason enough to choose me.”
“I say it is.” Her voice sounded uncertain in her own ears. “I say it is,” she repeated more firmly.
For a long moment he watched her. She waited uneasily. He might say no. He couldn’t say no. She didn’t want him to say no.
“I could die tomorrow, Tayre.”
“This would change how you think of me, Seer.”
“I don’t care.”
“You might well care in the future.”
“So be it. I still ask. Please.”
He was silent again for a long moment. It was all she could do to keep her gaze steady on his.
Brown eyes. Hunter’s eyes. She swallowed, refusing to look away.
At last he nodded, stepped back, stripped off his shirt to bare skin.
“Men,” he said, “are different, in ways both obvious and subtle.” Standing on one foot he untied and removed a boot, making it look easy, then switched feet and took off the other. He pulled off his pants and the silk underneath and stood there without clothes, silently inviting her to look.
After a few moments he chuckled. “The woman who can look into the future has never before seen a naked man.”
“I’ve seen Pas.”
“Pas is a child.”
He gestured to her to come closer, held his hands out, and turned slowly, inviting her touch. She put her fingers on his stomach, his chest, feeling the skin and hair as he turned, giving her time to explore. When she stood back and nodded, he took her hand and wrapped it around his penis.
“Most of the visible difference is here. Like with animals, yes? Notice how this feels? Firm, but the skin smooth?”
“Yes.”
“Like a water skin,” he said. “It gets tight with blood, then shrinks when it empties. Firm to soft, throughout the day and night. Most men can’t control this, but some can. Sometimes it is a result of desire, but not always. You understand?”
She nodded again.
He guided her hand down to the looser part underneath. “These are like sacks, where the seed is kept, the seed that makes a woman pregnant. A man always has seed, so that doesn’t matter as much. More important is when the woman is fertile. If you bleed with the moon, you are unlikely to be fertile now, but it is still a costly gamble. I want you to look into the future and be certain: Is there a possibility that you are pregnant in these next months?”
Amarta looked along the line that was her own body’s future. A glimpse of darkness and agony and terror, but unrelated to this; she pushed it aside. Nowhere in the near future did a life grow inside her. “No.”
She bent a little to get a better look at the seed sacks. She took one of them between her fingers and pressed to see if she could feel any of the seeds inside. He grabbed her wrist, tightly, precisely, and her fingers loosened of their own accord.
“Don’t press like that unless you’re trying to hurt me, in which case you’ll need to know quite a bit more than you do. That’s an entirely different lesson.”
“Oh.”
He moved her hand up to his mouth, where he brushed her fingertips with his lips.
Her heart begin to speed. She tried to remind herself to be wary, but it was only words in her head. If she was afraid of anything, it was that he might stop.
Something occurred to her. Feeling her tense, he stopped, waited.
“Do you like me?” she asked.
“Does that matter?”
“Dirina said a first time should be with someone who likes me.” In the Nesmar forest, as Amarta limped along in pain, her sister had said this. As the three of them fled this very man. For a moment she felt dizzy.
“I think that quite sensible advice.”
“And do you?”
He stared at her a moment. “Yes.” Then he came close, bent down, and touched her lips with his own.
So much more gentle, this, and startlingly so, than Darad’s quick, brusque kisses in Kusan. Like the difference between the weak wine she’d had before and the rich, smoky drink Maris had brought them.
He slowly moved his lips down her face and to the side of her neck. Somehow it relaxed her. Half relaxed and half something else.
Suddenly she began to shake all over, unable to stop. He drew her down onto the bed and sat beside her. As she sobbed soundlessly, he pulled a blanket over her. When she could again breathe easily, she rolled over to face him, grabbed his hand, pulled him down next to her.
“Continue,” she said.
“Are you sure, Amarta?”
“Yes.” Eyes closed, she brought her face close to his, finding his lips again.
So this was a first time. It filled her with a kind of longing, a deliciousness. A hunger. She opened her eyes, looking into his.
The feel of forest floor under her back. Smells of rotting leaves. A knife pressed to her throat. Oblivion a moment away.
Again she curled away from him, trembling. He put a hand on her shoulder. A comforting touch.
How could she be taking reassurance from this creature, this monster?
And yet she did.
“This was bound to be difficult, Amarta,” he said. “There is no need to continue.”
She turned back to face him. “Yes, there is. I ask you to teach me.”
“A strange courage you have, Seer.”
“Practice for tomorrow,” she said with a half laugh, half sob, and pulled him close, their noses touching. This time she would keep her eyes open.
His slow and even breathing calmed her. Then he moved his lips on hers in a slow circle that made all other thought cease.
It was so unlike anything she had ever felt that images of the past and future finally quieted. He was, she realized, bringing her into the present, a place that she very much wanted to be.
When she awoke, a gray early morning cast a watery light through the panes. Outside, the wind gusted with the start of a spring storm. He lay on his side, watching her.
She reached out a hand to him. Something had changed between them, but something else had not. He reached back and wove his fingers through hers.
To look at him now was an intensity of fear and longing. He smiled a warm smile.
A smile on a face that didn’t smile.
Pretense or no, it worked. Her spirits lifted.
“Why did you say yes?” she asked him.
“It is in
my contract’s best interest to have you compliant.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your trust in me has grown, has it not? You want my touch. You care for me. You are less likely today to change your mind.”
“That was why? Not because you like me?”
“Can it not be both?”
“But, then—why would you tell me this? Wouldn’t that make me suspicious of you?”
“More than you already were?”
Were. In the past. But she could not deny it.
“Then—why tell me this at all?”
“Why indeed? Think on it. Are you in any pain?”
“Should I be?”
“I was careful. Still, tell me if you hurt.”
Did she? Only in spirit, at the thought of leaving this room. “I want to stay here forever and—”
“And?”
“And have a second time.”
He nodded, not agreeing or disagreeing. “We have time for that, if you wish, though not much. Best we arrive at the palace in daylight.”
His words swept away the sweetness of the night, replacing it with the hard clarity of what she was about to do.
And what she had just done. She had shared a bed and sex with her hunter. Had wanted to, had asked to. Wanted to again.
He was right: she trusted him in a way she had not before. But there was something more, something he did not know yet. She shut her eyes a moment, recalling the reasons she was here, that had forced her on this path to seek out the very man who had sent the hunter after her.
She sat up. “How many people have you killed?” she asked.
“I don’t keep a count,” he answered, sitting up next to her.
“Really?”
A tilt of his head. “I used to. When I was a child.”
A child? He had killed as a child?
But then, hadn’t she as well?
“Twenty? Thirty?”
“More than that.”
More than thirty lives ended, because that was his work. More by far, she would guess, from the tone of his answer.
“If . . .” She considered how best to say it. “If your contract said to kill me, right now, would you do so?”
“Yes.”
“Even after last night?”
“Yes.”
“Even if . . .” Her voice dropped. “Even if, I don’t know, even if you liked me a very great deal? Even if we had made a baby together? Even then?”