Steelflower

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I reached up, drew my dotanii from its sheath. Stepped back a little, just out of range. Anger tinted the air, the rage of a s’tarei, kept carefully reined but still sensed, a heatless incense under the salt and rain. “Your temper does not frighten me at all, princeling. Did the palace teach you any fighting, or did they only teach you pretty words?”

  His jaw set, and his black eyes lit with anger.

  Good.

  He drew a dotanii, his stance shifting into one I recognized, the first of the three battle-poses. “I may not be gentle.”

  I nodded, slowly, taking him in from head to foot. Taller than me, he would have weight and reach. I was certain I had speed on my side. “Save your gentleness for an adai.” I held his gaze with my own, knowing my eyes often disconcerted opponents. “If there is anything left of you to find her after I finish rolling you in this sand.”

  “You are my adai,” he said, softly, in G’mai. Intimately.

  It only fueled my anger.

  We circled. I saw his hand move a little, countered it with shifting my weight. Silence spread over the crowd.

  I answered in commontongue, another deliberate insult. “Your flawed Seeker found a flawed G’mai. There is still time for you to leave with your pride intact, prince.”

  “My pride is too deep for you to injure it, Anjalismir.” Brittle, courteous and infuriating.

  I swallowed rage, set my jaw.

  He moved in, fast and light, a flurry of strokes. Metal clashed, slithered, sang, and the familiar fierce enjoyment of a duel began to beat behind my heart.

  I heard the gasp of wonder from the crowd, ignored it. Nothing mattered now but the bright metal and the dance.

  He moved forward, testing, a flurry of strikes. I parried them all—barely. He was well-trained, and fast, faster than any opponent I had encountered outside of my native land. It was a joy to see him react, to see the purity of his form, to feel another G’mai fight.

  Sweat trickled down my back. A few passes of real combat wear worse than a whole day's worth of training. Darik only looked patient, cautious, his black hair beginning to dampen against his forehead. He moved in again, and I gave ground, slashing and feinting.

  I attacked.

  I do not think he expected it, and I do not think he expected me to strike to kill. I attacked with all my speed, and the crowd cheered—Kaia! Kaia! Kaia!

  He retreated, pushing my strikes aside. It felt good to use all my strength and speed, felt good to use myself, forgetting everything but the man in front of me and the blade’s sharp length.

  He struck, I warded the blow aside with the knife laid along my forearm. It would bruise—my arm gave an amazing flare of pain and went almost numb.

  My blade snaked through his defenses. The star-strike—I had first blood, a ribbon of red up his sword arm. The danger was, I felt it. There was a gasp from the assembled crowd. My arm hurt, but I shoved that aside. I dripped with sweat now. So did he. A salt different than the ocean stung my eyes. We closed, and his strength would have told had I not used the knife-hilt to punch him in the face.

  My head snapped back, I almost saw the bright pinpoints of light from a stunning blow. I retreated, saw the ribbon of blood threading down from his mouth. His cheek would bruise, and his right eye almost immediately began to puff closed. Phantom blood slid down my own chin, I fought the urge to wipe it away.

  We circled. Step by step, each locked into the other’s rhythm now, no retreat possible.

  No quarter asked. None given.

  Darik’s face was set, a muscle along his jaw flicking. He reached up and drew his second dotanii, his hand closing lovingly around the fluid hilt.

  I bared my teeth. So I had managed to anger him. He smiled as well, and my heart leapt into my throat to hammer there before I forced it down. In that one moment, I felt as if the man I faced understood me completely. A rare gift, to be understood, comprehended fully, to have your enemy reach into your heart so that it is not fighting but dancing, and not even that. It is a heart, each chamber echoing the other’s beat; the two halves of the lungs working in concert, salt in the water that carries it.

  For just that moment, it was thus. And if he understood me, if I felt so completely known, could I not also say I comprehended him?

  Someone yelled in G’mai. Probably the adai. I ignored it.

  Darik moved in, and I saw again his speed and strength. He was better-trained, and stronger. Yet I stayed one measure ahead, just out of reach.

  Ah, Kaia. You have seen him. Now you must out-dance him.

  He closed in, I had all I could do to keep his steel from me. Finally, he did not hold back. I led him a merry dance around the circle. Sand flew. Now that he pursued, my speed gave me some breathing room.

  Stop this, I imagined him saying. While you still can, Kaia’li. His voice caressed me, and I shook it aside. I could no more stop now than he could. Desperation demanded I fight him with everything I had. There was no room for anything other than the truth.

  When he leaves, it will kill me. It will tear the heart from me to give up G’maihallan again. I cannot.

  I chose my spot with care—in the east quarter of the circle, between two support posts. Then I turned on him with all the anger I still possessed, the spell of comprehension still lingering between us, both caught in the pattern of what would be.

  Sparks flew. Metal rang and sang as it had on the anvil that made it. The silence enfolding us—a prince and a flawed G’mai woman—was absolute. None spoke. None cheered.

  I closed with him, my knife flicking out to scrape across his knuckles. He did not drop his sword, but the echo of his pain in my own body told hard on me. I would not have the strength much longer.

  Now, my fightbrain shrieked.

  I dropped my blades and leapt.

  Twas a spin-kick, and a beautifully done spin-kick at that. The chiming of my blades hitting the ground caused him a split second of hesitation—it was not enough, his right-hand dotanii flicked across my arm and scraped down my ribs before my boot connected. The kick sent him flying back—I had gauged it just under rib-snapping force. He flew out of the dueling-circle between the two support posts, boots skidding against the stone.

  Forfeit. The crowd gasped, turned into one being for that brief moment. Melded into an instrument I had just played, a tide I had just directed.

  Darik regained his balance and stopped, gazed uncomprehending at me. The crowd stilled.

  Blood trickled down my left side, down my left arm. I picked up my dotanii and my knife, slowly. Then I turned to the crowd and lifted my blades, pain tearing into my side through a screen of numbness.

  An instant of silence, then Redfist bellowed. The sound made several people start, and the swell of the crowd filling the courtyard cheered.

  I had won. Once he left the circle, Darik was in forfeit. I had won without killing either of us.

  I had won.

  Now leave me be, let me alone. Leave me to suffer in peace.

  The crowd filling the courtyard chanted my name. I was pummeled on my shoulder—the unwounded one—and my hair was touched, people converging on the dueling-ground to pick up handfuls of sand. Twas scuffed and cast about, and lucky to boot. A duel to remember. Kesa would make a sundog or two from the thirsty afterwards.

  He had not killed me, and I had not wanted to kill him, but I had indisputably won. I was free. We were quits, the prince of the G’mai and me. There was a duel finished between us, and all debts were canceled. All promises set at naught.

  I began to believe I was still alive. I drew a ragged breath into living lungs. He was still alive, and I was free. Cheated my way out of Death’s bony grasp, once again.

  Not for long, a deep voice warned me. I knew that, as well.

  Redfist bellowed, hoisted me up out of the crush of the crowd. I had re-sheathed my blades and now smiled, nodding to the crowd, my right hand up, when the tension and blood loss suddenly combined to turn the world gray. Redfist’s hands
clamped around my knees—he had set me on his massive shoulder like a Kshanti acrobat. He carried me through the crowd's loud chanting of my name. Rain kissed my hair, my face. I swayed, kept myself upright, smiling. Someone wept aloud of the odds. Another yelled of the fight—like wingwyrms circling!

  I grinned. It had been a beautiful duel, I wished I had seen it instead of participated.

  Redfist carried me back into the Swallows Moon. As soon as we reached the door he hefted me off his shoulder like a sack of meatroot. “Can ye walk, lass?”

  “I cannot tell.” My teeth locked together, the words difficult. “I will walk. I merely cannot dance.” My boots touched the ground. “Did you bet?”

  “Aye, lass. On you. Made a pretty sundog too. As soon as the crowd saw him, the odds became five-two, his favor.” The barbarian laughed. It was the sound of a bear chuckling.

  “Fickle crowd.” My voice sounded watery. The commonroom—Kesa’s commonroom—spun underneath me, deserted.

  “Oh, aye. Lass, yer pale.”

  My face was on fire, and my right arm ached. My left arm bled, and my shirt was sopping, stuck to my ribs. My breath came fast and shallow.

  I lifted my left arm a little, showed him what lay under. The leather vest and linen shirt were both cut, and the sword had bit around the front of my ribs and torn down. I was lucky to miss a cut bowel. He had struck me cleanly. “Collect your winnings soon.” I pushed Redfist’s hand away—had he thought to steady me? “I will walk.”

  The barbarian grunted. “Aye, certainly. But me knees are weak, lass. Ye’ve to help me. I thought it sure he had killed ye.”

  If you only knew. Maybe he did. “He may well have.” The world spun away under me, returned.

  I pushed away from him, made it halfway across the commonroom before blood loss and relief conspired to knock me to the floor. Redfist caught me, and bellowed something loud enough to make the entire inn shake.

  Chapter 24

  Twinsick

  I opened my eyes to see a beautiful face, black G’mai eyes and a lush mouth, the shorter braids I remembered dimly. The adai who had spoken to me before the duel peered down at me from her great height as a flame of scalding coolness washed through me, the agony of cut flesh melting in a wash of something prickling and alien.

  “What?” I croaked. My throat was dry.

  “I have offered you healing.” Her lips shaped each word, gave it beauty, set it free. Even commontongue would sound beautiful coming from her. “You sorely need it, sister.”

  A flare of sharp, lifesaving irritation boiled through me. “Keep your healing to yourself.” Cold, so cold my teeth chattered, I was so cold. “Leave me be. Kesa?”

  “Here.” Kesamine’s blue eyes, her hair pulled sharply back, filled my eyes. I blinked. Why did she look so fuzzy? “Kaia, you are delirious. Let her help. You’ve a fever—the rain, and the wound.”

  “No.” I closed my eyes. “Leave me alone. Better. Kesa…” I could not speak to tell her what I needed to tell her. “How…long?”

  “A full day since the duel. Sunup to sundown.” She answered me far too gently.

  Sunup to sundown. He was safe now. I had survived a full day. No bloodguilt would attach to him. He could go back to G’maihallan with a clear conscience, and be free of all flawed things.

  “What does she say?” A familiar voice, accented with G’mai. I closed my eyes.

  “Since tis been a full day, sunup to sundown, you are free of bloodguilt. She won the duel, but you are free should she die.” Kesa sounded grim. “If you’ve aught to say to her, say it quickly.”

  There was a moment of crackling silence. I heard a fire burning, and the breathing of five people, my own harsh gasping for air.

  My skin flushed with fire. That was a bad sign. Cold, then hot—I had traveled in the rain and was now wounded, caught a fever.

  But G’mai never caught woundfever. A gift of the gods, our antiseptic blood, proofing us against some accidents of fate and disease.

  What could this be? Not jai fever, I had caught jai once and survived, one did not catch it twice. Being G’mai had meant I caught only the lesser of the two fevers, not the greater jai from which precious few returned.

  Still, I had been prey to strange fevers all my life. I had always recovered, before.

  “Get out.” Darik’s voice, an iron-cold fury to it. I would not have disobeyed that tone. I heard shifting, people’s boots resounding, the crackle of the fire.

  “I would finish the healing—” the adai began, pleading.

  “Get out.” Darik did not need to raise his voice.

  More shifting sounds. The door, closing, latching shut.

  The lock on the door, shot home.

  Had he left me in here to die in peace? Good. I would perhaps thrash with the fever, grow delirious, lose control of my tongue. Say what I should not, and have it pass unheard.

  He sighed, nearby. I sought to open my eyes again. Could not. The darkness was too heavy.

  His fingers touched my forehead, smoothed stray tendrils of my hair back against slick feverish skin. The touch was cool and dry, and helped calm the spinning weakness.

  “Kaialitaa,” he said, and though I knew it was the same voice it was difficult to believe. No harshness, no fury, just the sound of a weary man.

  I sighed, fretfully. Tried to turn my head away. Could not move. His touch simply felt too good against my skin. Comforting. I had not felt comfort in so long, I had forgotten it.

  “I hunted the length of G’maihallan for you,” he said quietly. “I learned long ago not to surrender too easily. But even my own adai will not have me. Tis enough to make a man question living.”

  He stroked my cheek, traced my dry lips with a finger. I sought to move my head away.

  Softness against my forehead, against my cheek. His lips. “Tis jada’adai,” he whispered, his mouth moving against my skin. “Twinsickness. Too long spent fighting me.” He sighed, and rose to his feet. I heard him moving about.

  I gathered the little strength I had and tried to speak.

  “You are…free.” My voice cracked. “Go home. Occupy your Throne and leave me be.”

  “The queen did not want me before, she may have the gift of my absence now.” His tone was sharp. “Cease this idiocy.”

  The bed creaked as he slid into it. I was too weak to roll away. My stomach roiled, settled as he slid his arms around me. He pulled me close against him, and the feeling spilling over me—a kind of stillness, almost peaceful—was so new and unexpected I sighed. I had not felt peace in so long I had forgotten what it was.

  “Shh,” he said in G’mai. Still using the personal inflection, too, the inflection he would use with his adai. His voice was gentle. Not at all the furiously cold tone he had used on everyone else in the room. “Tis done. Whatever game you were playing is over. We shall start again.”

  My voice slurred, the ramble of a dreamer. “Take ship for Shaituh or Antai. Be rid of you.”

  “You would die of jada’adai before a moonturn, and condemn me to death as well. It was too late the first night you spent in my company, Kaia.” He shook his head, his hair sliding against the pillow. “I am not so bad. Perhaps you will grow accustomed to me.”

  My left arm and my side were a furnace of pain. I tried to struggle, tried to move.

  No use. The dauq’adai was a lump of scorching against my skin. They had not stripped me—I could still feel my trousers against slick linen sheets. A rough bandage lay against my ribs. That sparked another thought.

  “Your face,” I whispered.

  “I took a healing from Atyarik’s adai. She is gifted with such things, and has closed the worst of your wound as well.” He rested his chin atop my head, my forehead against his throat. I felt his pulse and let out a sigh. My own heartbeat might start to mimic his. “Next time, I will ask you for the care of a wound.”

  “I cannot heal.” Twinsickness. Caused by the dauq’adai, or could it be that I was an adai, how
ever flawed?

  You cannot afford to believe so, Kaia. It will hurt you.

  “Once she trains you, you will. You have Power, Kaia. Tis why you suffer so. Think on it. Now that you have a s’tarei, your Power is awake and far more active, and brought on the twinsickness. Janaire swears you have far more than she does, and you are a danger to yourself and others until you learn to use it.”

  “No.” Yet I rested my forehead in the hollow between his throat and his shoulder. Comfort, curious feeling that it was, wrapped around me.

  “I begin to think you need careful handling. Perhaps the queen did me a service in teaching me discretion.”

  I would have replied with a curse, but I was too weak. I shut my eyes and wished for darkness to take me. I did not have to wait long.

  Chapter 25

  Détente

  “Tis a song in the taverns.” Kesa stroked my cheek. Her fingers were cool and dry. “About the Iron Flower and the Dragon Prince. Rumor is thicker than a Rijiin’s rouge.”

  “Oh, Mother’s tits.” I blinked. “How did that happen?”

  I was still weak and shaky. Twas not woundfever. Darik said jada’adai.

  What would he know? The symptoms—cold sweats and fevers, pain, weakness—made sense. My left side burned, healing. My left arm too—marked in a duel. I would bear scars from this. More scars to add to the collection.

  At least I healed quickly, there was enough G’mai in me for that. I would not blame or praise the young adai for my recovery.

  “Well.” Kesa shrugged. “Tis a minstrel—a lanky Pesh boy, once a bondslave unless I miss my guess—rolled into town early enough to see the duel. He seems transported by your skill.”

  I groaned, propped up on pillows in a western room of the Swallows Moon. Kesa had given this room to Darik, and apparently I was expected to stay here too. Redfist had slept in Kesa’s chambers for the past two nights.

  Slept, or otherwise occupied his time. Kesa certainly had dark circles under her eyes and an unwonted smile.

  Darik stood by the window, looking out on Hamarh Street