by Jane Kindred
“Box?” Nesre feigned ignorance, stroking himself idly, the gold robe that distinguished him from his solicitors only modestly open to reveal his partial erection. One of the reasons Ume hadn’t balked at playing this part—and in truth, the only reason she had ever tolerated his patronage during her days in the Garden—was that his particular fetish rarely involved touching anything other than his own genitals. What he wanted most of the time was to watch Ume pleasure herself while he masturbated.
Ume let her own erection rub teasingly beneath the robe without revealing it. “The glass box in Alya’s private dining room.”
“An animal,” said Nesre, his cock growing harder in his fist.
Ume’s brows rose. “An animal? What kind of animal?”
“Bring yourself to satisfaction without using your hands, and if your efforts do the same for me, perhaps I’ll show you my pet.”
It had always been a favorite of Nesre’s, watching her from a bench while Ume brought herself to climax through frottage against the foot of his bed. Nesre reclining on the bed, however, posed a bit of a challenge. Ume knelt on the mattress facing the gilded corner post of the high canopy and raised the back of the robe to bare herself, tucking the fabric into the large bow. Nesre let out a sigh of pleased anticipation as she rose onto her knees and wrapped her arms around the post, one arm stretched high above her head, and ground her hips slowly into the red silk where it was pressed against the bedpost. She let her cock rub over the carved spirals, moaning sensuously as she thrust upward and then back a bit, down on her knees, wiggling her ass toward Nesre before she rose and thrust again.
She could tell he was getting closer by the rapid slap of his hand into his lap and his grunts of concentration. But he wanted her to come first. It was part of the pleasure he derived from the act, seeing her unmistakable climax, produced on command, before he had his own. Ume gripped the post high and pulled herself up, lifting her feet off the mattress crossed at her ankles and hugging her thighs to the gilded wood to keep herself in place, letting her cock grind roughly up and down the side.
Her moans grew louder without effort, the friction inside the twisting silk just this side of painful as she rode the post hard, like she was fucking Cree. The thought of Cree naked before her, Ume’s cock buried deep inside her tight, slick heat as they tangled together—instead of Nesre watching her fuck a bedpost—pushed her over the edge and brought her to a jolting release, and Ume cried out as she ejaculated into the warm silk that felt surprisingly similar to the texture of Cree.
As she slid down the post with a deep moan of satisfaction, Nesre let out his signature gasping grunt and the slapping sound ceased. She knew without looking that he was pulling hard on himself, shaking and red-faced as he came, silent until he ended on a low, satisfied groan and relaxed. He was entirely predictable.
“Impressive as always, Maiden Sky,” he said as she turned and pulled her robe together. He eyed the damp silk sticking to her softening cock. “We’ll send that to the laundress later.” He cleaned himself off with the towel on the nightstand and let his robe fall closed. “Come. Let me show you my pet.”
The hour was late and the tiles of the temple were chilly against Ume’s bare feet as she followed him to the former dining alcove and waited for him to draw the curtains aside.
“Take a look.” Nesre raised the lamp he held, his voice smug with satisfaction. “My prized pearl.”
The glass of the tall, octagonal box was murky, like a poorly silvered mirror, and Ume peered closer beside the glowing orb Nesre held aloft. Her reflection stared back at her. “I don’t see anything.”
“That is because you haven’t the eye,” said Nesre.
She gave him a quizzical look, and he lifted a pair of silver chains he wore around his neck from within the yoke of his robe. On one was a curious-looking key that must belong to the cage. And on the other, which he lifted over his head and held out to her, was a spherical crystalline object similar to the glass ball that held the glowing gas of the lamp but was the size of an egg yolk. And inside it, in a thin layer of clear liquid, floated a human eye. Or a Meeric eye, she realized with a surge of bile into the back of her throat that she managed to choke down. The preserved iris was the pale azure of MeerAlya’s.
Nesre slipped it over her head with a dark smile. “Suspended in the Meer’s own aqueous humor. I let nothing of use go to waste.” She tried to remain stoic, but shocked tears spilled over her cheeks as he turned her toward the glass. “Look again.”
Ume tried to ignore the unnerving weight of the crystal sphere against her chest and looked. The glass was now smoky but translucent, and inside, as the Hidden Folk had told them, knelt a child at its center on a pallet of straw. Ume pressed her hands to the glass as she leaned in, trying to see more clearly. The child’s back was to them, and she couldn’t tell its sex, or even whether it was awake, but a long, unkempt braid of silvery-pale hair stretched down its back.
“It’s his,” she breathed. “It’s Alya’s.”
“It’s mine,” Nesre corrected. “As I said, I let nothing of use go to waste.”
Twenty-One: Stasis
Soft-petaled light sifted through the glass in the dome above the opulent bed in which Ra had woken on a hundred thousand mornings. She thought for a moment she might still be dreaming, conjuring a memory that belonged to the long dead MeerRa, but she was here in Ludtaht Ra, awake—awake, and alive. She’d meant to rest, finally, letting sorrow and memory dissolve into the numbing water of the Anamnesis as it embraced her. She’d meant to set Ahr free at last. But Ahr’s night-sky eyes had looked down into hers once more, deeper and darker than the blessed river itself, as the elements of life rushed into her against her will and held her here. Ahr had insisted that Ra live.
She sat up, blinking away the image of those merciless eyes. Someone had undressed her, but a robe in the peacock-silk-embroidered threads of the House of Ra draped the ebony post at the foot of the bed. She wrapped herself in it and stepped down through the open arch onto the stairs to the passageway. Merit lay curled at the foot of them, his drawn sword crossed in his arms at his chest. He’d guarded her through the night, as though a lifetime hadn’t passed since he’d last served his Meer.
Merit woke instantly, astute to the presence of another even in sleep, and stood in salute, fist to his heart. “My liege.”
Ra descended to him and pressed her hand over his fist in a greeting of equals. “None of that between us, Merit. You needn’t have slept at the foot of my stairs like a slave, though I’m grateful for your protection.”
Merit lowered his eyes. “I’m afraid it wasn’t entirely for your protection, my liege. It was also for everyone else’s.”
Ra let her hand slip away from his fist, trying not to show her disappointment. “I see. You think I pose a threat to the people of Rhyman.”
“At least to those who’ve wronged you, meneut. While I cannot blame you for taking your revenge on Vithius, neither can I allow you to harm anyone else.” He glanced up. “There are many who wronged you.”
Ra regarded his troubled expression. “Merit. Surely you don’t count yourself as one of them.”
“Not by intent, no. But I was sworn to uphold you until my death. And I did not.”
“And was it your will that you did not?”
Merit looked pained. “Of course not, meneut. It was the treachery of the templars that kept me from my post. But I ought to have been vigilant against treachery.”
She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and he clutched her arm as if to keep himself steady. “Your loyalty to me surpassed even my death. I could not have chosen a better companion.” She squeezed his shoulder and moved to step past him, but Merit’s grip on her arm tightened. Ra glanced up at him in surprise.
“I’m afraid I must ask you not to leave your chambers, my liege. I’m sorry. At least until we’ve ascertained wha
t the climate is in Rhyman in the wake of Vithius’s…departure, we must keep your presence here a secret.”
Ra nodded slowly, searching his eyes. He’d pledged his loyalty to her a thousand times over, had been more true to her than anyone in the nearly four hundred years of her existence. But the set of Merit’s jaw made it clear: symbolic though it might be, she was his prisoner.
Breakfast in the dining nook off the atrium was an awkward affair. Geffn was quiet and hollow-eyed like a survivor of war, and there was no mistaking how Ahr had come by the swelling and bruising on his face. He’d said nothing when he’d delivered Ra into Jak’s arms the night before—a goddess who had sundered a man’s entire being with a word, yet weighing no more than a child—but the defeated look in his eyes said everything, as if Ra had killed him after all.
The great hall visible beyond the arch bore no signs of the night’s violence, sparkling and glinting in the serene citrine light, as though what had happened in it could simply be forgotten. But Ra’s word still seemed to echo in it.
When she didn’t come down for breakfast, Jak summoned the courage to take it up to her. At the bottom of the stairs leading to the room where Ra slept, an officer of the Temple Guard stood blocking the way.
Jak stepped back, perplexed, when he barred access to the stairs with the flat of his sword. “What’s going on?” The words, of course, were gibberish to the guard.
Behind Jak, Ahr was heading to the opposite staircase that led to their rooms, and Jak was grateful when he paused to interpret, questioning the guard and then translating, though the words were slightly muffled by the swelling Jak was trying hard not to stare at.
“He says Merit has instructed that ‘the lady’ is not to leave her room.”
Jak raised an eyebrow. “And Merit thought he could stop her? Did he say no one could go up?”
Ahr posed the question to the guard, who shrugged and answered, “Nai.”
This Jak understood, and waited expectantly until the guard stepped aside. When Jak turned to thank Ahr before mounting the steps, he’d already gone.
Upstairs, Ra sat on the edge of the window seat, gazing out at the Anamnesis. A hemisphere of turquoise mosaic tiles formed the top of the window’s arch, and a slice of it was interjected with a band of pure indigo tourmaline to match the stone, casting the illusion of water over the curved seat below it. Absorbed in color, Ra’s face brightened as she turned her head, but the dark scores on her cheeks seemed even more garish beside her smile.
Jak held out the tray. “I brought you something to eat.”
Ra made no move to take it. “That’s very sweet of you.”
“Ra, you have to eat something. When was the last time you ate?”
She turned her head back to the window, the mane of black hiding the marks on her face as well as her expression. Geffn hadn’t spoken of finding her. She might have endured anything, and certainly something dreadful had happened.
“Ra—”
“You want to know.” Ra touched her cheek with the back of her hand without turning, as if she’d sensed Jak’s thoughts. “It was my reward for an unprovoked attack.”
Jak’s eyes widened. “Another Meer?”
“Yes. Another Meer.” Ra paused. “My mother.”
“Your mother?”
“MeerShiva,” said Ra. MeerShiva…it sounded familiar—she was the Meer Ahr had petitioned to change his sex. Ra turned toward Jak once more. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Afraid of you? No.”
“Then why do you not come close to me?
Jak set the tray on the bed and crossed to the window to sit beside Ra with a nervous swallow. What were they to each other now? Did Jak even know this woman? “Well…maybe a little afraid.”
Ra lifted her hand and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Jak’s ear, making Jak shiver. “I am the same Ra you have known these months.” She wasn’t, but Jak was drawn to her just the same. Ra’s hand lingered, and her intent coal gaze held Jak’s as surely as a hawk’s might hold a hare’s. She leaned closer, ruby lips slightly parted.
Angry voices echoing from the hall below stopped her short. “Ai, Merit,” she sighed. “He must defend his rule so soon.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“The Court of Rhyman has assembled.”
Ahr stood behind Merit before the raised stalls while the solicitors eyed him with mistrust. As acting prelate, Merit had appointed Ahr as his steward, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Of the dozen solicitors who sat on the Court of Rhyman, only half had come to challenge Merit. The others, presumably, had fled the soth in fear of their lives.
“We have yet to hear a satisfactory answer as to what befell Prelate Vithius. On your watch.” The solicitor who spoke thumbed his beard with a sneer of disrespect.
“Surely, Solicitor Khalus, you aren’t entertaining the notion that these absurd stories circulating through the soth are true. I’ve explained to you that some madness seemed to come over the prelate. He was ranting and raving about seeing a ghost. His hysteria was infectious, and several of my Guard, as well as the two solicitors with the prelate, were taken up in his delusion before he fled into the night.”
“Then where is he now? Why has no one in Rhyman seen him?”
“I can’t account for what happened once he left the grounds. As I said, there was mass hysteria in the temple. I had a devil of a time calming those who remained at their posts.”
“And how convenient for you that he is unable to be found,” said another solicitor. “As the highest ranking military official, his disappearance leaves you in command of the Court.”
“I call it inconvenient, Solicitor Hurion. This is a headache I didn’t need.”
Solicitor Khalus thumped the frame of his stall. “And yet here you stand with a ready steward who was lately a prisoner of Prelate Vithius.”
“He was detained for being unable to prove his citizenship. When I saw him on my weekly inspection, I recognized him at once as a loyal citizen who left Rhyman to hunt Meer after the Expurgation. He’d lost his certificate on his travels and no longer had any family living to vouch for him. I, however, will vouch for him absolutely.”
“And the falend pervert he brought with him?”
“Is merely a member of a religious farming collective near Munt Zelfaal whose tenets of modesty in such a hostile climate require all its member to dress in a manner that seems shocking to Deltans, but is no more a perversion than the tradition of the veil.”
Another solicitor who’d been quiet until now spoke up from where his seat in the outer tier of stalls marked him as the most junior member of the Court. “How do you explain the account by dozens of your own Guard that a Meeric haunt was witnessed in the temple?”
Merit let out an incredulous laugh. “That MeerRa was secretly buried and has risen from the grave to exact his revenge? As the most superstitious nonsense I’ve ever heard in my life. Whether it was a contagious hysteria brought on by the prelate’s breakdown, or something in the food last night, or a bad batch of ale, I assure you that any ghoul seen by those in the temple was a figment of their imagination.” He looked around the semicircle of stalls. “Are we now suddenly believing that not only do haunts and ghouls exist, but that the Meer were actually magical beings after all who could destroy a man with a word? I thought more highly of the solicitors of the Court of Rhyman.” Merit extended his arms and turned about, indicating the tiled walls. “Do you honestly believe this room was covered in the blood and bits of Prelate Vithius not twelve hours ago?”
Ahr had to hand it to him. He’d used the fear of a walking-dead Meer to impel the temple servants to spend the entire night eradicating any evidence of supernatural violence, and now used shame against the solicitors for believing in the same phenomenon. Neither uneducated servants nor shrewd solicitors had even entertained the possibility of re
incarnation. Renaissance was unheard of; to them, Ra could only be a specter.
Hurion stood, and as though it were a signal, the rest stood with him. “It is the opinion of this Court that you are harboring a revenant Meer.” They hadn’t even held a vote. This action had been a foregone conclusion. “You will turn this abomination over to the Court that justice may be served, and you will step down as acting prelate.”
“The order of succession in a time of crisis is clear,” Merit countered. “You have no authority to dismiss me.”
Hurion curled his lip. “And yet we have.”
“Then I find you in violation of the Civil Peace, an act of treason against Soth Rhyman.”
The solicitor stared him down. “Are you declaring this a coup?”
“Do I need to?”
“How many of the Guard do you suppose remain loyal to you?” Khalus scoffed.
“Enough,” said Merit calmly. He glanced at his men stationed at the four entrances to the great hall, none showing any sign of hesitation or intent to relinquish their posts. These were men he trusted. “The Temple Guard have never been fond of taking orders from bureaucrats.”
Hurion’s jaw tightened. “You will regret the stand you have taken here today.”
“I regret many things,” said Merit. “Today isn’t one of them.”
Ra frowned as Merit related the news to her. She’d heard most of it. A Meer’s hearing was far more acute than that of ordinary men. “You have to turn me over to them.”
“I would sooner cut out my own heart.”