by Andrea Ring
I am.
What is our purpose here, Tanaya? I know you wish for us to carry men on our backs, and to respond to your commands, but why? Need or want?
Need, I think. We have lost much of our magic, and those with strong gifts wish to take over the kingdom. We need help.
No one has asked us for help, he thinks bitterly. You wish to bend us to your will, and a dragon bends for no one.
I understand.
Rorek stares at me, and then he swivels his head towards the sky. The sun is setting, and the ice will come tonight. If you wish, I will allow you to speak to me when the sun rises.
I would like that, I say.
I bow low.
Then I return to my tent.
***
Lekh trails twenty paces behind me through camp and then follows me straight into my tent.
“You wasted half the afternoon dallying with those creatures!” he shrieks at me. “That’s valuable training time lost!”
“You have no idea what I was doing,” I say. “They need to trust me. I cannot just order them about.”
“You make them do your bidding,” he says. “You use your talents, and you bloody make them. We are running out of time.”
I sit on my stool and look up at him. “They are stronger than all of us put together. We’ve underestimated them. The only way they will help us is if they align their will with ours. Force will not work.”
“Perhaps you’re just not as good as you thought you were,” he says. “Perhaps you do not have the talents for this mission.”
“I have two weeks. Until then, you can shut up and take your anger elsewhere. I don’t have the energy for it.”
“I am in charge of this camp, and I am in charge of you. If you fail, then I fail, and I will not let that happen.”
I stand and get in his face. “You have no power over me. You have no power over the dragons. I have the king’s ear. Do you?”
He curls his lip. “You’re a woman, and a poor excuse for one at that. If I report your insubordination, the king will listen. He will have no choice.”
“So report me,” I say. “Try finding another in the kingdom who can communicate with the dragons as I do. Remember how well you were doing before I arrived? Four men burned to death, two bled out from claw punctures, and how many deserted? Six, wasn’t it?”
Lekh’s cheeks turn red.
“We’ve lost no one since I arrived. We’ve saddled the two females and relieved their suffering with their milk. You’re a disgrace. I think I should be the one reporting you.”
His hands clench into fists. I bend my knees a bit and dig my feet into the ground in case he tries to strike me.
But he thinks better of it. He turns around and stalks off.
I blow out a loud breath and fall in a heap on my cot.
XXVII. AALIYAH
This journey shouldn’t be long — three days at most. I’ve prepared as best as I can, with warm clothing, plenty of provisions, and a guide more knowledgeable about the mountains than a goat. If something goes wrong, it won’t be from lack of planning.
A day in the saddle, though, quickly reveals my ignorance.
I ride a horse almost every day. I travel through the province, sometimes for half a day at a time. I’m comfortable on a horse.
Paved roads and tamped-down dirt lanes are incomparable to the rugged terrain of the Fangs.
I didn’t account for that.
When Manu finally agrees to camp for our first night, my ass and thighs are so cramped I cannot even lift my leg to dismount. Reminds me of my first week as a whore. After my sixth client, I just laid there like a lump for my next twenty tricks until my muscles figured out how to keep up. I didn’t make a single tip.
Manu slips off his horse easily and begins to unload his pack.
I can’t move.
He chuckles to himself and moves to my horse. “May I assist, my lady?”
“The only thing I can do is lean to the side,” I say. “If you catch me, I’ll pay you extra.”
He smiles and lifts me from the saddle. My poor legs are limp and my left drags across the saddle ungracefully.
Manu puts a strong arm under my legs and cradles me to his chest. “Do you think you can stand?”
“I can try.”
He sets me on my feet and I crumple to the ground with a sigh. He moves to catch me again, but I wave him off.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I needed to bend a bit. I just need a few minutes.”
“I’ll get the fire going,” he says.
He gathers wood and dry leaves, and sets them in a circle of rocks. He moves with precision and efficiency.
“You said you grew up in the Fangs?” I ask.
“I did. Born and bred.”
“Does your family still live here?”
“I have no family.”
“It’s an epidemic,” I say. “People abandoning one another through either death or carelessness. I see it every day in my work.”
Manu doesn’t reply. He strikes flint to a hunting knife, and the dry leaves catch a spark. He leans forward and blows gently on the burgeoning flame.
I finally stand, bending over to stretch out my muscles. “I’m going to walk a bit. I won’t be long.”
“Not without me,” he says. “Let me get the fire going, and I’ll accompany you.”
“There’s no need,” I say. “I won’t go far.”
“There are dangers, my lady,” he says. “Wolves. Holes in the ground. You could walk right off a cliff.”
“I’ll take a torch, if that makes you feel better,” I say.
“It will make me feel better if you wait for me.”
I narrow my eyes at him, though he hasn’t taken his off the fire. “I am the one paying you, or have you forgotten?”
Manu finally stands, dusting off his hands. “You are paying me to escort you safely through the mountains. I will not allow you to do something foolish.”
“You’re calling me a fool?”
Then he laughs. “My lady, I am only doing my job. But I have no wish to argue. If you want to go for a walk, go. But take these.” He conjures a torch and a short dagger and holds them out to me.
“You can do magic?” I ask. “Why on earth did you just light the fire?”
He shrugs. “It calms me. Now take these and go. I’ve already set a shield of sorts around our camp to keep creatures out. Just keep in sight and you shall be safe.”
“You set a shield…and yet you insisted on accompanying me? You’re the one who wants to argue!”
“I simply wanted a walk with a beautiful lady,” he says. “But you reminded me yet again why they call you a harpy. Have a nice walk.”
***
I stalk off away from him, anger heating my cheeks.
He actually called me a harpy to my face. And he wasn’t repeating something he’d heard — he actually believed it.
Well, a fish is a fish, isn’t it? I am what I am. No sense being angry about it.
He wanted a walk with me. And I ruined it.
But that is the very last thing I want, a walk with a handsome, charming man. No good can come from that.
Except that as I walk, keeping the fire in sight as he told me, I actually feel…lonely.
I want a walk with him.
Suddenly my foot catches the edge of a rock, and my ankle rolls. I stay upright, but my foot throbs.
Serves me right for refusing the torch.
I hobble back to the fire. Manu has set up a small tent, and I wonder why he didn’t set up mine as well.
“Have you a tent?” he asks.
“Of course,” I say. “My lady Danna packed everything painstakingly.”
“I didn’t look,” he says. “I didn’t think it would be proper to go through your things.”
“That was thoughtful,” I say. “Thank you.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, and I give him a small smile.
“I apologize,” I say. “I can ad
mit when I’m wrong. And I was wrong.”
“You’re quite lovely when you’re contrite,” he says. “I should like to see more of this side of you.”
“I’m not often wrong,” I say, flipping my hair over one shoulder. “Savor it, because I doubt you’ll see this side of me again.”
He laughs, low and beguiling. He moves to my horse and removes my pack and bedroll.
“There’s no tent here, my lady.”
I frown. “There must be. I know it was on the list.”
Manu shakes his head.
Damn that Danna. How could she?
“I will pay extra to use your tent,” I say. “I will give up one of my blankets so you can be warm in the open.”
He looks at the sky. “It’s going to snow in a few hours. And a smart man doesn’t give up his shelter.”
I gape at him. “So you expect me to sleep in the open?”
He looks back at me. “We will share.”
XXVIII. MAJA
It was easy enough to get rid of Aaliyah’s tent when she went for her walk, but convincing her to share my tent will be a trick.
Harpy is too kind of a word for her. She’s a bitch. And that’s not a word I’ve used even once in my long life.
But she’s a bitch I need to get close to if I have any hope of stopping the rebellion.
“You’re suggesting we share your one small tent? I may own a brothel, sir, but I am not your whore.”
“I am not suggesting anything,” I say. “We are sharing the tent, period, or one of us will freeze. You, on the other hand, just suggested that I want to bed you, which couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Aaliyah stares daggers at me.
“What?” I say. “You’re insulted that I might want to bed you, and then you are insulted that I don’t? You cannot have it both ways.”
Then she laughs. “I haven’t been this entertained by a man in a very long time.”
“I still won’t bed you.”
“And I wouldn’t let you.”
I rub my fingers over my lips. “I could probably convince you.”
She smiles. “I know I could convince you.”
I laugh. “Enough. We will sleep together, and only sleep, in the name of comfort and survival. Are you hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Lady’s choice.”
“Let’s see what Danna packed,” she says, moving to her provisions.
“No need. What do you feel like eating?”
She stops and looks at me. “Even I cannot conjure food.”
“You say that like you’re the most powerful wielder in the province,” I say. “Surely many people can conjure a meal.”
“No,” she says, “they cannot. Transformation of food is…it’s rare.”
“Aren’t you glad you hired me, then?” I say.
She shakes her head. “Shrimp swimming in butter. Curried pork stew, but not too spicy. Kaafii from the jungle isles across the western sea.”
“Kaafii? Not tea?”
“I’ve only had it twice,” she says. “A foreigner who fell in love with me and wanted to please. He did.”
I conjure enough for two and set it between us beside the fire.
“Do you subsist on the land, or do you have a profession?” she asks as we dine. “I’d imagine if you can transform, you don’t have much need of coin.”
“I raise goats,” I say. “I sell the meat a few times a year. I can conjure food and other small things, but I still need coin to live comfortably.”
“You’re a butcher?”
I nod.
“And therefore an untouchable.”
“As are you,” I say softly.
“Born to it, or by choice?” she asks.
“Choice,” I say, “but does it really matter? We are shunned no matter what.”
“I’m the wealthiest woman in Bhutan,” she says. “I have more power than most. Politicians and nobles and even priests pay me for my services, and yet, I cannot worship at a temple, cannot own land, cannot get married officially in the eyes of the priesthood.”
I nod. I down my last bit of curry and point to the sizzling pan of shrimp. “You take the last, my lady.”
“I cannot eat another bite,” she says. “That was the best meal I’ve had in ages.”
I lift my cup of kaafii and sip. “Do you think things will change for all of us with this wedding? I’m a religious man. I want nothing more than my marriage to be recognized by the gods.”
“You’re married?” she asks.
“No, but someday…when I meet the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with…it is important to me.”
She sips her own kaafii and sighs. “Things are changing, Manu. You can’t see it because you don’t spend much time in the cities, but there’s already a movement to change things. And that has nothing to do with the wedding.”
“But how?” I say. “We have no power. Unless the nobles side with us, there’s no hope. This wedding is exactly the thing that is giving us hope.”
Aaliyah leans toward me. “The wedding is most likely a sham. We have great power. Look at what you can do, and imagine, all of us have a bit of this power. The nobles have none. They refuse to acknowledge the beauty of our gifts. And it will be their undoing.”
”You’re suggesting, what? That we take up our magic against them? I do not condone violence.”
“No one likes violence,” she says, “but the alternative is to be denied our rights. I think we have an obligation to change things.”
“It sounds like you have a plan,” I say.
She sips her kaafii. “It’s more like a dream.”
***
My tent is big enough for one. And I am a large man.
Aaliyah feels no awkwardness, I can tell. She snuggles up with her rear firmly against my groin, and I have to stifle a shout.
I cannot betray anything. I cannot be awkward or shy. This is only sleeping, and I am supposed to be worldly and wise when it comes to women.
I throw a careless arm over her and settle my hips against her. I breathe in her hair, slightly smoky from the fire.
Aaliyah nods off quickly. The journey exhausted her.
I do not need to sleep, not physically. But as I lie here, all I can think about is Nili. My sweet Nili. I wish she were the one I was wrapped around.
But she’s not.
So I force myself to sleep. It is the only way to erase Nilaruna from my mind.
XXIX. NILARUNA
I wake in the early evening, the weak light of the sun filtering through my window. I stand up and stretch, feeling refreshed.
There is no assassin any more. At least not within the palace walls. Mita’s servants were the only possibilities left, and they are most likely dead. Murdered. Could the would-be murderer now be the murdered? The whole thing makes my head ache to puzzle on it.
I bathe and dress, and then go to find Kai, but he is not in his rooms.
So I head to Faaris.
He is gone, as well.
I head to Manoj’s rooms. The three of them are huddled on the floor, sharing a flagon of wine.
Six flagons lie discarded.
“Am I interrupting?” I ask, sitting beside them.
“Never,” Manoj says, waving his cup around. “Nilaruna Nandal is one of us.”
I giggle. “Thank you, Manoj. Had a bit to drink, have you?”
He grins. “We have a palace full of loyal subjects. The assassin is dead, or perhaps is Shiva himself, in which case we have no defense and there’s no point worrying about it. Kai is not a father, and I cannot tell you the relief I feel, for I did not want anything upsetting his relationship with you. You are going to be princess. Soon you will be queen. To Nilaruna!” He raises his cup high. Faaris and Kai join him, and they all drink.
I laugh. “I guess that sums it up.”
“And I am once again a free man,” Faaris says. “I have decided to marry an ugly girl. The ugliest girl in the kingdo
m. She will always be grateful and will therefore never leave me. An excellent plan!” He raises his cup.
“You don’t have to pick the ugliest,” Manoj says thoughtfully. “Just not the most beautiful. Choose one who has never had a suitor. Then she’ll have no one to compare you to.”
“I say physical beauty is important,” Kai says. “You must be attracted to your wife. Do you want to bed someone who repels you?”
I’m growing uncomfortable with the conversation, but it’s rather interesting hearing them talk without the normal social filters.
“You can’t just reject someone based on their looks, though,” Faaris says. “When you get to know them, they may be wonderful. Look at you and Nili.”
It’s a backhanded compliment. I say nothing.
Kai plows on, though. “Nili doesn’t apply in this case,” he says. “She is beautiful. Her hair, her eyes, those full, plump lips…and I’ve seen her behind, guys.” Their eyes widen. “When I stitched her, you idiots! Made my mouth water.”
My eyes sting. I can’t help it.
“The trick is to listen to your own heart,” Kai says. “If you look at a woman, and something, anything, attracts you, you need to listen to that. Damn what anyone else thinks. Find what’s beautiful to you and hold on to it.”
“Well said.” Manoj raises his cup and then drinks before anyone else can join him. “I’m going to do that.”
“You’ve never done that,” Faaris says. “You’ve courted one person in your lifetime, and she was completely wrong for you.”
Manoj shrugs. “I’m difficult to please, I admit. And she wasn’t wrong for me, she was just different from me. That can be a good thing, you know. Find someone who balances you out.”
Kai suddenly looks at me. “You don’t have a drink.”
“Oh, I don’t need one.”
“You damn well do need one after the night you had.”
He bounds up to the table and fetches an empty cup. He fills it to the rim, and then tops everyone else off.
“Drink up. You’re behind us by six or seven cups.”
I take a small sip. It’s delicious, and I force myself to relax. We finally have an opportunity to just enjoy each other. I tip my cup back and swallow half of it in one gulp.
“Go, Nili,” Faaris says with awe.