Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4)

by Leona Wisoker

  Alyea frowned at the king, puzzled by the sudden change, then felt her temper began to climb. “You’re not going to help find him?” she demanded.

  Oruen regarded her blandly, one knuckle resting against his chin. “If there’s no threat to the city or to me, why should I?”

  “She could be wrong,” Eredion began to protest, thin dark eyebrows scrunching into a scowl.

  “No, no, I think she has it right,” Oruen interrupted. “It does seem very likely that he’s getting his due for some damage he’s caused in the past.” His smile was dry and humorless.

  Alyea said, “But—”

  “You didn’t come to ask my help, Lord Alyea. You came to warn me, and now it seems that warning is unlikely to turn out necessary. I thank you for your consideration in keeping me informed, and of course I will be wary for signs of trouble in case your first fears were correct; but if this is a personal matter, then I certainly see no reason to interfere.”

  He kept his gaze just to one side of her face and his tone crisp. As Alyea opened her mouth again, Eredion reached out and gripped her arm hard. She wavered, then obeyed the silent warning and dropped her furious glare to the floor.

  “We thank you for your time, Lord Oruen,” Eredion said cooly.

  “Do keep me informed, Lord Sessin.”

  “Of course.” Eredion bowed, his hand still on Alyea’s arm, yanking her down as well; then, without pause, pulled her round and propelled her from the room.

  His fingers didn’t loosen until they had returned to his suite of rooms. Then, thin-lipped, he pointed her to a chair and signaled her to remain silent. He disappeared into another room without explanation. After what seemed eternity, he came back, carrying two small glasses and a bottle of a deep red-orange liqueur.

  She opened her mouth. He caught her eye and shook his head sternly, then set glasses and bottle on a table and poured them each a shot.

  “Drink,” he said then, pushing a glass into her hand. When she began to shake her head he pointed at her with a ferocious scowl and repeated the command more emphatically.

  Alyea thought about saying: Unlike you, Lord Eredion Sessin, I don’t see getting drunk as a way to solve my problems, but something in the man’s set expression stopped her. She grimaced and tossed back the liqueur.

  It tasted like desert sunshine and noon-hot sand and great windblown slabs of rock and boiling water, mixed with the searing chill of a raw cactus pepper. She gasped, tears streaming from her eyes as though she’d just rubbed a cut onion across them, and shuddered all over.

  There, Eredion said, setting his own empty glass down on the table. Now we can talk.

  Alyea clenched her hands around the contoured wooden arms of her chair; the tiny scratches and wear marks felt like the chasms and plateaus of a mountain range. She pulled her hands away and rubbed them together. Her palm and finger lines scraped with a raspy feeling and painful shissing noise.

  Disorientation swept over her, a hot flush followed by shivery chill; she blinked watering eyes and stared dumbly at Eredion.

  Give it a moment, Eredion said. You’ll feel better soon. He collected the two glasses and the bottle of liqueur and left the room, moving cat-quiet; but even the soft padding of his bare, broad feet on the carpets thudded into Alyea’s ears, and the tiny clinking of the glasses and bottle felt like shards of glass spiking into her skull.

  She shut her eyes and fought back a moan. It occurred to her, remembering a time, long ago, when she’d looked through into this same room and seen Eredion arguing with Pieas, that Eredion had to know about the many spy holes and when he was being watched. And yet he’d made no attempt to block any. She wondered why.

  Because Ninnic, and Rosin, would have had me eviscerated for it, Eredion said, returning to the room with two glasses of plain water. He handed her one, then settled back into his chair.

  She remembered whips tearing open the skin of her back, and the glitter in Rosin Weatherweaver’s eyes as he taunted her in front of the gathered crowd, and agreed with that assessment.

  I got used to having no privacy, Eredion went on. Desert lords never really do have any. His black eyes studied her intently. How are you feeling?

  The eerie hypersensitivity had begun to fade. She swallowed hard and blinked several times, then tentatively focused her thoughts. Better? A little?

  Eredion nodded. Good, he said. Loud, but that’s normal at first. I’ve heard worse. Headache? Queasy?

  No.

  Good. Try to speak a little softer. Think as though you’re having a normal conversation, one you don’t want nearby people to overhear.

  Uhm...like this? I’m not sure what to say—

  That’s fine, he cut in. Be careful of uncertainty when you communicate this way. It opens you up to having people see inner thoughts. You need to practice being very clear on what you want to say before you say it, and being very definite about what you do say when you say it.

  She shut her eyes and thought about that, trying to keep it quiet, and realized that he wasn’t actually phrasing entire sentences, but flashes of ideas and imagery along with the occasional word or two. Her own mind translated it all into coherent language.

  Yes, Eredion agreed. That’s why uncertainty is dangerous. Even without trying, I can still pick up that you’re worried about Deiq, that you want to drop Wian off a Horn cliff, that you’re angry at me for having her in my rooms, and several other things.

  She sat up straight, staring at him in appalled realization. Has everyone been able to read all that? she demanded. This whole time?

  Not entirely, he said, smiling, but a dark grey undercurrent of irritation ran through his next words. You weren’t ‘open’—you weren’t projecting or receiving. Only your surface thoughts came through, and only when someone was looking for them. Usually desert lords open during the last blood trial—Ishrai’s—and are taught how to handle this, but for whatever reason, you didn’t. It does happen. Deiq wanted to wait it out, but I can’t afford to wait any longer, after that debacle in front of Oruen just now—You have got to learn to shut up around the man! He paused, visibly gathering his temper under control, then went on, You don’t seem to be opening on your own, and Deiq obviously wasn’t willing to do it; so I used a shortcut method to force it: estiqi, esthit liqueur. It’s a touch painful in the beginning, and you’ll feel sick and need to rest soon, but it’s the best option I have at the moment.

  I thought esthit dulled the senses.

  It does. But when it’s distilled just right it lowers boundaries and opens someone “stuck”. All the Families keep a supply on hand. Eredion paused and took a sip of water, his gaze wandering idly around the room.

  Won’t the watchers wonder—

  They can hardly stop us, can they?

  She took a sip of water and thought about that a moment. Then she said, very carefully, Can Callen do this? I remember something about Acana....

  He sat still and blinked at his hands, and his response, when it came, was barely a murmur: Acana of the Qisani is...an unusual situation. You probably realized she’s ha’ra’hain herself?

  Yes. Are you lying to me?

  He leaned back in his chair and laughed out loud. The water in his glass splashed up over his hand.

  Good catch, he said, shifting the glass to his other hand and wiping the damp one against his trouser leg. No. Not entirely. But that is how it sounds when someone doesn’t quite want you to hear everything they’re thinking on a topic. It’s rude to press for answers at that point.

  Can you lie to someone when speaking this way?

  He wrapped both hands around the glass and studied it with great care.

  No, he said very quietly, then laughed again, sobriety dissolving. It takes a lot of practice and a stronger willpower than the person you’re speaking to. I wouldn’t advise you trying it at the moment.

  So Deiq, for instance. He could lie this way?

  Deiq, Eredion said, his humor evaporating instantly, takes to lie
s like a fish to water. He mastered every aspect of that trick before my great-grandfather was born, and I come from a line of desert lords. He shook his head and flicked a hand as though to say: Don’t pursue this topic.

  Alyea withdrew into herself and rested for a few breaths, her eyes closed. It surprised her how exhausted she was becoming, and a faint headache had begun to creep around her temples.

  Time for you to get some sleep, Eredion said immediately, and stood, beckoning her to rise as well. “You’re going to have a whanger of a headache in a few moments. Let’s get you to bed.”

  She swayed as she stood. He grabbed her elbow and steered her into the other room. “Not your—” she protested feebly, revolted at the notion; then revulsion turned into acute nausea and she almost went to her knees, gagging.

  Eredion scooped her up without hesitation and in a few long strides deposited her on his wide bed. The musky smell and emotional echo of frequent sex was fully as bad as she’d feared, and she gagged again, leaning over the side of the bed; but not even drool emerged. Her mouth felt dry as a walk through the Horn, and she trembled as though under a high fever but felt no body flush to accompany it. Vaguely, she wondered where Wian had gone. Hadn’t Eredion told the girl to stay here? Not surprising that she’d disobeyed; it seemed her intrinsic nature.

  “Don’t worry about her right now,” Eredion said, crouching by the edge of the bed. “Roll to the center. You won’t actually throw up. I’m more worried about you pitching off the side.”

  She forced her aching body to turn over towards the center of the bed, where a deep depression in the mattress caught and held her in place. Too exhausted to move, she let her eyes slide closed.

  Eredion draped a thin blanket over her shivering body. “Sleep, Alyea,” he said softly. “I’ll wake you if there’s a need.”

  Unable to come up with a coherent response, she faded into blackness without protest.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tank could feel someone following him as he hurried back toward the lower edge of town. It began as a vague discomfort, quickly hardening into a certainty; he battled with himself over whether to turn and look, as it wouldn’t do his reputation any good to be seen as jumpy.

  But it didn’t feel like a street-thief kind of watching. It felt...more personal, somehow; and he didn’t like that he even made that distinction. I’m just a mercenary, damnit.

  A quarter mile past the Seventeen Gates, he gave in, stopped in his tracks and spun around with a ferocious glare.

  An old woman stood in plain sight. Her hair, arranged in dozens of thin braids which hung almost to her waist, was the same ghostly white as her eyes. The milky cast to her eyes gave a misleading impression of complete blindness, but he knew her. She could see perfectly well; and Tank suspected that he was only seeing her because she wanted him to.

  Her name was Teilo: once she’d been his teacher, now he considered her something less than a friend. She’d trained him and betrayed him at the same time, as Allonin had done. He’d hoped to never see her again.

  Just a mercenary. Just a mercenary. He held on to the thought like a shield.

  The bitter perfume of ravann writhed through the back of his throat, smoky with old memory.

  “Godsdamnit,” he muttered. “Just when I was thinking this day couldn’t get any worse.”

  The old woman stood quiet, head bowed, for a few moments, then straightened and came toward him without hurry. He stood still, his hands and lips tight, wishing she’d turned to walk away instead.

  “Tanavin,” she said, pausing just over arm’s length away from him, and tilted her head to look up into his glare. The gauzy blankness of her stare unnerved him, as it always had; it made her expression largely unreadable. “Still so angry.”

  “Tank,” he said tautly. “What do you want, Teilo?”

  She blinked and kept all her movements slow. “What did Eredion want from you, Tanavin?”

  “Now you’re following me around?”

  “I crossed your path by chance,” she said.

  He snorted to show how much trust he put in that statement.

  “What did Eredion want from you?”

  “To play me,” Tank snapped. “To use me as bait and sacrifice all at once. Just like you did. Just like Allo did.”

  She showed no reaction—which was as good as agreeing, to his way of thinking. “And did you step into his game?”

  He wished he dared let loose and hit her. She flinched, just a little, and he grinned with a savage satisfaction.

  “Why are you asking?” he countered. “Why do you care? I did your damn job. I even survived it. Why can’t you bastards leave me alone?”

  She blinked again and said, “I’m hardly throwing you in chains, Tanavin. Your life is your own at the moment. But I’ll take that response as a Yes.”

  He shivered, suddenly feeling caught in a chill breeze, and gave in.

  “Yes,” he said, barely audible. “I had to. It’s Deiq—He’s been taken captive, and they’re afraid he’ll be driven mad and set loose on the city. I know what that means. I can’t—not.”

  Teilo’s eyes widened. So she knew that name: which served as confirmation, to Tank, that she was much more involved with human and ha’reye politics than she’d ever admitted to him. He’d figured out long ago that she had to be more powerful than anyone had ever let on; not an unexpected omission, considering the austere Aerthraim attitude toward desert lords and ha’reye, not to mention all the lies he’d been told along the way.

  “Yeah,” Tank said, watching her narrowly. The faintest hint of color showed in spots through the white: was it black or dark gold? It disappeared behind a thickening of white before he could be entirely sure. “Eredion tricked me into helping, I figure, knowing that by the time I realized the truth I wouldn’t be able to walk out. I shouldn’t be surprised. None of you ever tell a thing straight, not if the world relies on the truth. So now what do you want, Teilo? Tell me your own lies, why don’t you?”

  She shut her eyes and stood still for a moment. “I have no lies to offer, Tanavin,” she said softly, then opened her milky eyes again. “Do you have any idea where Deiq is?”

  “No. They’re off to warn the king and I’m off to tell Dasin he’ll have to wait on me before we make our first run to Sandsplit. Not sure who’s going to be more pissed about the situation.”

  “Probably Dasin,” she murmured.

  “Probably.” Tank felt his nostrils flare. “May I go now? Or do you want to drag me in yet another direction? You’re better off harassing Eredion for that; he seems to like your damned games.”

  “You’re being childish, Tanavin,” Teilo said softly, closing her opaque eyes again.

  “How can I be childish when I never had a damn childhood?” he demanded, then spun on his heel and strode away without waiting for a response.

  All the same, he heard her words as though she’d put them into his ear:

  You’re certainly making up for lost time.

  “Hells with you,” he muttered, knowing she heard him, and broke into a trot.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eredion hoped, as he returned to the outer sitting room, that it would take Alyea a long time to realize that he hadn’t actually answered most of her questions. He filled a thick mug with water and slouched into his favorite chair, feet up on the stool; let his head rest against the cushions, weariness weighing him down.

  He’d have to talk to the king again, and try to repair the damage Alyea had done by talking so damn freely about her ideas; she hadn’t yet learned the essential lesson of don’t tell all you know. More than likely he’d have to arrange some sort of breach in trust between the two of them, to slow down the king’s ready acceptance of Alyea’s tendency to spill whatever she knew—or thought she knew—into his ear. In her own way, she was as reckless and dangerous as Scratha.

  Right now, he was too tired to concentrate on anything but a strong desire to doze for an hour or two while Alyea reco
vered from the effects of the estiqi. Desert lords didn’t need rest the way ordinary humans did; “everyone knew that”. But in this case, as so many others, common wisdom was misinformed.

  Deiq had explained, one day, rather more than most desert lords ever learned about the ha’reye; and Eredion had figured out even more during his time with Rosin and Ninnic’s child. Almost all the abilities a desert lord held rested on the simple fact of the geographically close presence of a full ha’rethe or ha’ra’ha. Ha’ra’hain had to be First Born or first generation, and bonded to the area, to offer any support at all. Second generation could be called on for help on a case by case basis but couldn’t do nearly as much as a first generation, even less compared to a First Born, and held a fraction of a ha’rethe’s strength.

  Eredion didn’t regret his involvement in killing Ninnic and Rosin. But he had done it with the expectation that he’d then return home. That he could then lean on his home ha’rethe, and recover from the strain of the past few years in peace.

  But Oruen needed balanced guidance, and Eredion had seen more clearly every day that Chacerly was a Darden pet, steering Oruen in a dangerous direction. Clearing the lair under the city, Eredion’s self-imposed penance for his failure to stop Rosin and Ninnic from taking the city so far into madness, had taken more time than he’d expected. And ever since Alyea had returned to Bright Bay, the complications just seemed to be getting worse by the day....

  If Eredion asked, he was sure, his Family would send a replacement. But a new liaison wouldn’t—couldn’t—really understand what had happened here, and how delicate the situation remained; and a stranger could so very easily destroy all that Eredion had worked to stitch together.

  He couldn’t leave.

  Eredion lifted the mug of water to his lips slowly, wishing it were good, hard liquor; but he’d decided to stop that habit, since Wian was available now to take the edge off his perpetual tension. And where, exactly, had she gone? He’d told her to wait here, and she’d disobeyed. Not that she was his slave, but it was irritating that one of the rare times he gave her a direct order she’d chosen to ignore it. Gods knew he tried not to treat her like a whore, or a slave, but she made it damn difficult sometimes....