Sapient Salvation 4: The Claiming (Sapient Salvation Series)

by Jayne Faith

  I turned at the sound of the doorknob. I’d hoped it would be Clarisse, but Hera stood there with her tablet in hand.

  “One more thing,” Bernice said, and I turned to find a bundle of silky, richly-colored fabric in her hands. “Your robe.”

  She inclined her head slightly as she passed the bundle to me. The look of it was vaguely familiar. Despite Hera’s impatient exhalation, I unfurled the fabric, holding the robe up by the collar. It was an intricate geometric pattern in half a dozen shades of green, and I remembered I’d seen the harem women wearing similar robes when I’d come with Clarisse.

  Hera turned crisply on her heel. “You’re going to be late for luncheon.”

  I cast a grateful smile at Bernice over my shoulder as I hurried after Hera, refolding my robe and tucking it under one arm as I went.

  There was something about the way Bernice had presented the robe to me that felt almost ceremonial. I glanced down at the garment under my arm, and even a quick look reinforced how exquisite the fabric was. It made me feel as if I’d officially arrived.

  Hera took me back to my room, and I couldn’t help a broad smile when I saw Clarisse waiting in the hallway.

  “Leave your robe, and Clarisse will escort you to luncheon,” Hera said. “Return her in—” she broke off to glance down at her tablet “—precisely forty minutes. Being early never hurts.”

  She swept away down the hall, and I let out a breath as I turned to Clarisse. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” I said.

  “She’s a real peach, isn’t she?” Clarisse poked her thumb over her shoulder at Hera’s retreating back.

  I snorted a laugh. “She’s certainly efficient.”

  Clarisse’s eyes flicked down to my robe. “Let’s leave that so we can get to the cafeteria.”

  I turned to my door but hesitated. I hadn’t been given a key, but there was no keyhole anyway. Was I supposed to knock in case Kalindi was within?

  “The door will only open for you, Kalindi, Hera, and the maids,” Clarisse said, seeing my uncertainty. “This is your room, Maya. No need to be shy about entering.”

  I nodded and grasped the handle, and the door opened under my touch. Relieved to see Kalindi wasn’t there, I beckoned Clarisse inside.

  She shook her head. “I’m not allowed unless your roommate is present and I have her permission to enter.” She made shooing motions. “Hurry and hang up your robe so we can go.”

  I did as she said and then rejoined her in the hallway.

  “So, are there lots of—” I stopped mid-sentence as we passed a group of four women, all of whom swiveled their heads to stare at us as we passed them. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Are there lots of rules?”

  Clarisse arched a brow at me. “Oh yes. You’ll get to study the book soon enough.”

  “The book?”

  “The rules of conduct for harem life.”

  My stomach soured at the thought of an entire book full of rules.

  The scent of food grew stronger, and my tension eased a little as I realized I was hungry. I wasn’t just anticipating the food, but also my first view of a typical daily event in harem quarters.

  The number of women we encountered increased as we neared the cafeteria. I leveled my chin and returned their looks, trying to appear friendly yet confident.

  The cafeteria was set up with linen-draped round tables that accommodated about five chairs each. A row of long buffet tables formed an L around the perimeter, and white-aproned Calistans bustled around them, replenishing what I guessed was soup in ceramic tureens and various other foods in rectangular metal food warmers. A variety of fruits and breads were attractively arranged at the far end.

  Clarisse led me to the table stacked with dishes and flatware. She passed me a thin white ceramic plate and held up a small crystal bowl. “Want stew?”

  “Sure.” I took the bowl from her and set it on my plate.

  I let my gaze sweep around the room as we moved to the food tables. There was a low din of conversation, and every few minutes a little burst of laughter or a voice that momentarily rose above the rest. At first glance, it was an inviting scene—warm, even. But I sensed undercurrents of something else, and my unease ratcheted up as I caught the stares directed my way.

  We filled our plates—I got stew, a roll, steamed vegetables, and a bit of smoked fish—and I let Clarisse select our table. She chose an empty one near the wall, and I wondered if we shouldn’t have tried to be more sociable by joining some of the others.

  I took in the room again, and my gaze kept bouncing back to a woman with luxurious dark gold hair and full ruby lips. There was something regal about her, and her smoky eyes projected confidence that bordered on arrogance.

  “Who’s that?” I lifted my spoon, subtly pointing at the woman.

  Clarisse’s mouth hardened into a line for a second. “Sytoria. Queen of the harem.”

  “There’s a queen of the harem?” I stared at her in disbelief.

  She let out a short laugh. “Not a real queen. But if there were a real queen, she’d be it.”

  “Why?”

  Her lips parted and she hesitated a split second before answering. “She’s Lord Toric’s favorite. Or she was, before you arrived.”

  My chest tightened as a chill twisted through me. His favorite? I looked at Sytoria, watching how her gestures seemed infused with a supple sensuality. She laughed in response to something a woman next to her had said, and the sound carried to me—a throaty, inviting laugh. I guessed Sytoria was about ten years older than me, and she was strikingly beautiful. Sexy. But there was something calculating about her demeanor, something haughty about the way she looked around with a lazy-lidded gaze that was somehow casual yet sharp at the same time.

  It wasn’t just my jealousy that made me wonder why she was Lord Toric’s favorite. I turned to Clarisse. “She doesn’t seem like the type he’d favor.”

  “He never loved her.” She said it as if it were stupidly obvious.

  “Then what is it?”

  “She fulfills his needs.”

  My face heated as I processed what she said. I looked at Sytoria again. “How did she know how? Did he teach her?”

  Clarisse snorted softly, and I glanced at her. “You’re too innocent for your own good. No, he didn’t teach her. She’s very skilled at wielding whips. She satisfies his need for pain with pleasure.”

  His need for pain.

  My eyebrows drew together as the phrase echoed in my mind. Lord Toric needed pain. He’d told me so, more or less, but hearing it so plainly somehow shocked me anew.

  I narrowed my eyes. “I must get her to teach me.”

  Clarisse laughed outright. “Good luck with that.” She laughed again, shaking her head as if I’d just told the punchline of a good joke.

  I shot her an annoyed look. “How else am I going to learn to give him what he needs? He doesn’t want to show me.”

  Her brows lifted. “He refused?”

  “He might as well have. I think he thinks I’m not capable of it.” I sighed, and then shrugged and looked down into my soup bowl.

  One of my deepest fears was that he might be right, but I wasn’t ready to give up before I’d even tried.

  “Well, now she knows you’re here.” There was a warning edge to Clarisse’s tone.

  My jaw froze mid-chew, and I inhaled sharply when my eyes met Sytoria’s. Her attention was trained on me with a singular intensity. I managed to swallow without choking, and I returned her gaze with a steady one of my own.

  She sat angled slightly toward me with her weight forward in her chair. One forearm leaned casually on the table, and her slim legs were crossed. At a glance she looked composed, almost at ease. But I wasn’t stupid. I understood the challenge in her eyes, the warning that she had rank in the harem.

  There was nothing warm about the way she looked at me, but I relaxed my face and smiled at her as if she were an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen in years. It seemed to
disarm her, and she averted her eyes.

  She still appeared relaxed, but I caught a brief glimpse of her other hand, the one in her lap, as it pinched and plucked at the fabric of her skirt in edgy little movements.

  “Have all the women visited Lord Toric’s bedchamber?” I asked Clarisse. I flicked a glance at her, but my gaze went back to Sytoria.

  “No, not by any stretch,” Clarisse said. “Many of them never have.”

  That caught my attention. “Really?” I searched her face for a moment. “Have you?”

  She shook her head. “No. And it’s fine by me. Some of the women seem to live for his attention. They act as if we’re still in the Tournament, as if his bed is the challenge. Others are like me. We don’t attract his attention, and we don’t particularly care to.”

  Relief eased through me like a summer breeze. The thought of Clarisse with Lord Toric had crossed my mind many times, but I’d always shoved it away out of self-preservation. There were so few people I could count on for anything or even simply talk to. I couldn’t afford to resent Clarisse.

  “Do you have any friends here?” I asked quietly.

  She pinched off a piece of roll and popped it in her mouth, chewing for a moment. “I’m not really the giggle with girlfriends type.”

  I snorted a laugh. “No, but still. This is your home, and these are, well, the only people you have.”

  “I’m acquaintances with most here. I’m friendly with a few of the retired harem women.”

  I glanced around, thinking of Iris though I knew she was still in prison. “Are any of them here?”

  “They live in a different wing, with single-occupancy rooms and their own cafeteria.” She twisted to look at the large gilded clock on the wall. “We should finish up. Hera will be here for you any second.”

  I leaned in, closing some of the distance between us. There was something else weighing on me. “Clarisse, I must see my sister again,” I whispered. “The passages?”

  “Later. For now you need to abide by the rules and not cause a stir,” she said. “It’s easy for me to sneak around because I don’t attract notice. I can’t say the same for you.”

  She went silent and flicked her gaze sideways. I turned to see what had caught her attention.

  As if sensing that we were about to leave, a Calistan woman was pushing a cart through a set of swinging double doors and angled over to our table. With her arrival, any further whispered conversations had to cease. She placed my empty soup bowl in a tub, and reached for Clarisse’s dishes.

  Hera swept into the cafeteria, and I nearly groaned. Clarisse and I still had five minutes, but the director of harem life obviously had decided not to wait until I returned to my room to come for me. I hurriedly ate my last bite of smoked fish and rose with Clarisse. She gave me a little wave and left me with the Calistan woman.

  Hera escorted me back to my room and gave me an oversized tablet that displayed the catalog Kalindi had mentioned. I had an hour to flip through it and select items ranging from hair shampoo to anklets. Each item was valued at a number of credits—the shampoo was worth five, and one of the perfume bottles I recognized on Kalindi’s vanity was priced at seventy-five. For this order, I was allowed to spend two hundred fifty credits.

  I selected several essentials—silk stockings, face cream, basic toiletries—and then flipped through the jewelry. I needed some barrettes so I could arrange my hair in ways that hid the lock that got singed when I fell into the flame. It had left a clump of hair at the crown of my head that was only about three inches long, and it stuck out at odd angles if I didn’t make an effort to disguise it.

  I kept going back to a jeweled hair clip. The colors of the jewels reminded me of the sunset I’d watched with Lord Toric. I didn’t have quite enough credit left over, so I removed two of the pairs of silk stockings from my selected items and then I had just enough.

  I finalized my order and sat back, surprised at how happy it made me to be able to pick out a trinket. Something frivolous but beautiful, chosen purely because it appealed to me. It seemed like it had been years since I’d had that tiny freedom.

  Hera soon returned, took the catalog tablet, and plunked a different one in front of me.

  “Rules of conduct,” she said. “Study it well. You will have to pass an exam before you’ll be allowed the privileges the other women have. Or any of the things you just picked out.”

  I held in a groan. An exam?

  I settled in to read and got so absorbed in the rules—everything from grooming and hygiene to proper etiquette during official functions in the throne room—I jumped almost clear off my stool when the door opened.

  Kalindi breezed into the room on a waft of floral scent. When she saw me sitting at my vanity, a brief frown wrinkled the bridge of her nose, gone so quickly I might have imagined it.

  “You’ve been summoned,” she said and went to her own vanity where she sat and began carefully brushing her light gold waves of hair.

  “Summoned?”

  “Lord Toric wants you tonight.” She tossed the words out casually, as if speaking about the evening’s dinner menu, but it was a bit too forced.

  “He wants me to . . . I mean, for . . .” I racked my memory, trying to recall whether I’d read the proper phrase in the rules.

  “He’s ordered you to appear in his bedchamber this evening.” Kalindi looked at me in her mirror, her eyes widened with exasperation.

  I sucked in a sharp breath through my nose as my heart thumped a bit harder than before.

  “If I were you, I’d skip dinner to bathe and ready myself.” She stood and turned toward me, regarding me for a moment with an uncharacteristic hard set to her full lips. “But then, I’m not you.”

  With an abrupt turn that sent her golden hair flying over her shoulder, she went to the door and left without another word.

  Unless I had completely misread the cues, Kalindi was one of the women in the group Clarisse had described—the harem women who wished for, and in their minds competed for, Lord Toric’s attention.

  I turned to my vanity and looked into my own eyes in the mirror. I couldn’t afford any worry over Kalindi’s jealousy.

  But how did I feel about being chosen as Lord Toric’s companion for the night, plucked from a menu of women available to him?

  Last time I was in Lord Toric’s bed, it was for the Tournament challenge. I’d enjoyed every minute of it, I didn’t deny that for a second, but I’d had a purpose. Then, my life was at risk.

  And I’d held back. I hadn’t given myself to him completely, but it wasn’t just that I’d restrained myself physically. I’d also held some part of myself—my emotional self—away from the experience.

  I had no illusions about Lord Toric’s needs. He’d never lied to me. I knew he needed a certain kind of release, and it was something I didn’t know how to give him. I’d known all along that in spite of his love for me, his need was still there. I remembered all too clearly the torment in his eyes when he’d spoken of his need.

  And so, even though I’d bared my body for the challenge, I’d held something of myself back.

  Part of me ached for him, longed to feel his closeness, his lips on my skin. But I was not sure I could enjoy being with him as I had during the challenge. Then, I was an Obligate fighting for my life. Now, I was a woman of the harem summoned to the bed of the alien Lord.

  I wasn’t sure if I was capable of giving him my body while withholding a piece of my heart. But giving him my whole heart would doom me to misery because no matter how much he loved me, I could not be his one and only. I could never be truly happy as just one of the women in his life. I had to be his only.

  I would go to his bed, and I would not deny myself the pleasure of being with him, but I had to convince Sytoria to teach me how to give him what he needed. If I could do that, I could at least eliminate the necessity for anyone else in his bedchamber.

  2

  Toric

  THE MEDIA BUZZED with the new
s of our military victories, and the nation’s heightened energy gave new purpose to even the most mundane events of my days. Each time the image of the battle map flashed on a monitor during a newscast, it gave me a renewed sense of wonder. Earthenfell was truly within reach.

  The progress in the war seemed to infuse all of Calisto with a heady fervor, inspiring vigils and prayer sessions throughout the nation. Citizens had taken to tying scraps of rough-woven royal blue fabric around their wrists. The color was from one of the royal seals, and the coarseness of the fabric was an imitation of the natural fibers grown and woven on Earthenfell but forbidden to all but the Lord on Calisto.

  Maya still appeared in the reports on a daily basis, and it seemed there was a small faction who doubted the miracle of her survival of the flame. High Priestess Lunaria had already warned me that there was suspicion in the Temple but promised she’d keep it contained enough that Maya would not be in any danger. Still, I was watching carefully for signs that the doubt about Maya was gaining any momentum. It seemed the Priestess had a handle on it. Thus far, anyway.

  My chest constantly stirred with heightened energy as I strove to engage fully in my duties. Immediately the announcement of the sweeping victories went public, and I spoke with the Priestess. We had a new sense of urgency about the procedure that we would—stars willing—follow for the Return and had decided to start meeting twice a day to pore over her notes and the sacred texts. Our first meeting was scheduled for early the next morning.

  I found I felt very little trepidation about my role in the Return. My faith fed my confidence. But other areas of my life fed my faint twinges of uncertainty. One was the prospect of the analysis of Jeric’s blood. I knew he’d given the Priestess a sample so she could find out whether we were carriers of Pirro DNA. I’d refused to comply, which was why the Priestess was testing my brother’s blood instead of mine. She likely already had the results, and I expected we would discuss it when we met. I was trying to prepare myself for the discovery that my captors, my torturers, were also my relatives, but my mind was reluctant to grasp it fully. Each time I thought of it, the idea of being part Pirro seemed to slither through me like an eel, darting out of sight to hide away in the deep shadowy places within me.