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

by Leona Wisoker

  The man’s face turned an ashy grey. “You won’t—”

  “No,” Deiq said, cursing himself for a fool even as he said it. But losing Sessin Family would have dreadful repercussions across the whole of the human world, and destroy much of what Deiq had spent centuries fighting for. “I won’t tell them. As long as you swear to never try anything that stupid again.”

  He couldn’t go back to the Jungles or even to his kin beneath the Qisani now. They would read this day in his mind as though he’d shouted about it from the rooftops. No hiding secrets from that many full ha’reye and ha’rai’nin. It would be all he could do to block this memory from his own mind to avoid an accidental revelation in a casual encounter with another ha’ra’ha or ha’rethe. He would have to forget, completely, what he’d just discovered; a difficult but not impossible task.

  He didn’t want to go through another Jungle-dictated retaliation sweep. The chaos just before the Split had been bad enough. And then there was the question of just what had happened at Scratha Fortress....

  Lord Sessin’s protest broke into Deiq’s swirling thoughts. “I gave my own son—”

  “That doesn’t matter, Arit,” Deiq cut in. “You could have trained ten, fifty, a hundred desert lords this year. Trying to bypass the Agreement would still piss the Jungles off beyond all hope of redemption. That Jonnui is your son means nothing to them.”

  Lord Sessin sank slowly into a nearby chair and covered his face with both hands.

  Deiq sighed and turned to leave the room. At a sudden thought, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the shaken man. “Who gave you the idea in the first place?”

  Lord Sessin’s expression was shaded with caution as he lifted his head. “Nobody.”

  Deiq raised an eyebrow, turned all the way around, and waited, arms crossed.

  The two locked gazes for a few moments. At last, Lord Sessin dropped his head in defeat and said, in a near-whisper, “Kallaisin Aerthraim.”

  Deiq sighed, not at all surprised. “I would suggest, Lord Sessin,” he started, then paused and dropped into less formal speech, deciding familiarity might get through to the man more effectively. “Arit. Don’t trust the Aerthraim. They’d only benefit from your Family’s ruin.”

  “I thought of that,” Lord Sessin said, head in hands again. “But I couldn’t resist trying. It seemed so simple....”

  “The Aerthraim,” Deiq said dryly, “are very, very good at looking simple.”

  Deiq shook free of that memory with distaste, unwilling to think about it. He hadn’t been that genuinely angry in years, and Lord Sessin had been extremely lucky to walk out of that conversation alive. And even luckier that it had been Deiq discovering his secret plan, not one of the Jungle ha’reye.

  Is that who holds me? Am I being brought to the Jungles for my crimes, for my disobedience? Or even worse, to the Qisani, to face....

  Screams echoed in his memory, a horrific cacophony. He blocked it reflexively, curling deep within himself. No. I won’t think about that. It’s not right to use them that way, not when all they want to do is serve....

  But that is their service, a petulant voice said. Why must you always argue? This is what they are here for, little one. Why must you always argue? Why? Why?

  And that whine was joined by others, like a herd of stampeding mosquitoes. The sound layered and doubled and layered and doubled until all he heard was a great howling pressure to stop fighting their will, stop arguing, stop questioning....

  He screamed, and woke from that nightmare into a worse one: bound and trussed like a freshly killed deer, his hands, knees, and ankles closed tightly around a thick metal bar. His eyes watered: all he saw were blurs of color. Disorientation wrenched his stomach. He resisted, swallowing hard, well aware that in this position he might choke on his own vomit. After what felt like hours of struggle, he conquered the roiling and went limp, shuddering.

  Sound floated nearby. He blinked hard and reached for a focus, for a time-match that would allow him to hear the words. For just a moment he succeeded:

  “—awake. Don’t look him in the—”

  Then it blurred into incomprehension, the colors around him coalesced into complete blackness, and memory dragged him into the past once more.

  “It’s Blood Bay we’re calling it these days,” a burly young man with mud-colored skin, wiry pale hair, and dark blue eyes muttered. He tipped his wrist, scattering a number of small bone chips marked with colorful glyphs across the dusty ground, then studied the patterns they made. “Yes. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Much, much worse.”

  “I’d hoped for better news,” Deiq said, sitting back on his heels.

  “Nah.” The seer sat back as well and squinted at Deiq thoughtfully. “I ain’t goin’ back there any time soon, me. You’re mad to try, with your blood. He’ll enjoy finding a way to kill you, ha’inn.”

  Deiq nodded, unsurprised that the man knew what he was. Any competent seer would pick that up in moments. This had been the first seer in Water’s End not to flinch away from the meeting. He handed the young man an entire gold round.

  “Huh,” the seer said, with a dignified nod, then: “Wait, ha’inn. Toss ‘em yourself.”

  Startled at the generosity, Deiq hesitated, then took the handful of proffered chips with respectful care. Most seers wouldn’t allow other humans to touch their divination tools, let alone a ha’ra’ha.

  The bone chips felt oddly warm in his hand. He cast them with a smooth wrist-flick, and they rained down in a scattered semi-arc, puffs of dust clouding the air for a moment as they landed.

  “Ah, that’s the way,” the seer said, nodding in approval. “You’ve done this before.”

  “I’m not as good at reading them,” Deiq said, looking at the patterns. As always, he only saw darkness and death ahead, minor variations on a theme he’d been trying to escape all his life. Nothing he ever did seemed to change the results of a foretelling cast.

  “Nobody can ever read their own, ha’inn. Didn’t you know that? Ehh, ‘scuse

  me....”

  The seer edged around to crouch beside Deiq, staring intently. A moment later he moved again, working his way in a wide circle, studying the pattern from different angles. At last he sat back again and looked up at Deiq, his expression sober.

  “You’ve a hard road ahead,” he announced. “Lots of death walks with you. You’ve killed before, many deaths that call for an accounting in your heart and in your soul. On the road to redemption, you’ll kill at least one of your own kin and deny your elders a life they’ve claimed. I don’t see if you’ll reach the end to the left or the right side of your soul, but you’ve a long length of road before you get there, whatever efforts you make to shorten the walk.”

  Deiq stared in utter astonishment. No seer had ever dared give him such a blunt reading before. The words felt as though they seared into his soul—Soul? This seer saw him as having a soul? He held back a bitter laugh. No human, no matter how friendly, had ever accused him of that before.

  “That’s a hellacious reading.”

  The seer shrugged, his expression turning distinctly cool.

  “Yes,” he said. “Well, it helps if you walk around the entire thing.” He scooped the chips into his pouch and stood, looking down at Deiq for a moment. “It also helps if you have the right bones to work with.”

  A chill ran through Deiq’s entire body. “You have—”

  An insouciant grin flickered across the seer’s broad face; then he took two steps and was lost to sight in the crowded street beside which they’d crouched for the reading.

  Deiq stayed still, staring blankly at the humans as they swarmed by, going about their lives without a glance towards him. Skin prickled down his back. He found himself too afraid to chase the seer down for an answer, but the question rang insistently in his head:

  Do you have ha’ra’ha bones in that pouch, seer?

  Light shivered into his eyes as someone pried an ey
elid open, then the other. Liquid dazzle filled his vision. He screamed in agony as water sluiced across his face, rinsing the stibik powder from his eyes and nose. He caught an off-smell and writhed, madly trying to get loose: then a strong hand pried his mouth open and a spoonful of bitter esthit crystals scattered across his tongue.

  Someone kept his mouth forced open as the crystals dissolved on his tongue. His perceptions bent: colors turned into bizarre sounds that no human had ever heard; sounds became tastes; touch sparkled into a fan of bright colors.

  Alyea, he tried to project, well aware his wits were veering irretrievably towards the edge of real insanity. Gods, don’t come after me, not this time, I’ll hurt you... Then he remembered he’d never broken through that particular barrier with her: she couldn’t hear him.

  Despair pulled another scream from his throat as everything turned black again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tank walked stiffly through the palace halls, uncomfortably aware of the sharp sound his boots made on the polished stone floors. Servants shot curious, mistrustful glances his way, and once a minor functionary with more arrogance than sense stepped into Tank’s path.

  “Your business, s’e?” he said, a thick-lipped sneer showing his doubt that Tank had legitimate business within these walls.

  “Lord Eredion Sessin,” Tank said, allowing himself to be halted, and regarded the man with sour amusement. The flunky was dressed in silks and feathers, his hair swirled into an elaborate style that made him look like a molting duck. He wouldn’t survive a day on the trail—or two breaths in the face of a desert lord’s glare.

  The man’s face creased in deeper suspicion. He looked Tank over as though examining a nasty bug.

  “What does Lord Sessin need from—” He paused, clearly unsure how to complete the sentence. His gaze snagged and held on the unbound sword strapped, southern-style, across Tank’s back.

  “Not your business, s’e,” Tank said. “I suggest you move aside. He’s not the type to be patient with tardiness.” He raised his hand, displaying the bracelet Eredion had given him; the flunky’s eyes narrowed into a hard squint. For a moment Tank thought the man was about to accuse him of stealing it, but good sense visibly kicked in just in time.

  “Lord Sessin has just gone by to see the king,” the flunky said, recovering, and pointed past Tank. “That way. And that sword ought to be—”

  “I’m Bright Bay Guild. That rule is for outsiders,” Tank lied; then, before the man could argue, added, “And I’m going this way, to wait for him in his suite, as he directed.”

  Privately, he wondered what just gone by meant. Surely Eredion had had more than enough time since Tank’s earlier departure to have gone and come back again? Unless something had intervened, delaying the audience, in which case it could be a while before the desert lord returned.

  He considered turning away and waiting somewhere else. The idea of sitting around in a desert lord’s rooms didn’t particularly appeal to him. But the flunky was sneering at him again, and it was beginning to rouse Tank’s volatile temper.

  “You expect me to believe that Lord Sessin would tell you to wait in his rooms? Alone?” The flunky glanced at the bracelet, his suspicions obviously returning.

  Tank shifted his weight to stand more solidly and directed his best rendition of a desert lord’s blackest glare at the obstructive man. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Ah....” The fop backed up a step, his face turning several shades lighter. “I...I...I was just....”

  “Admirable,” Tank said dryly, and moved around the stammering man before he gathered enough wit to protest.

  Growing up in Aerthraim Fortress—and before that, in even starker surroundings—had left Tank with little patience for decoration and display. He barely glanced at the gilt-framed paintings, great showy sprays of flowers in waist-high vases, intricately designed floors, rugs, and tapestries as he went by. He saw the faces of the servants, going about their work with at least a modicum of contentment, more clearly than the suspicious stares of the flunkies and court officials he passed by.

  The servants spared briefly curious glances, then went back to their work. The court officials and fops stared at Tank’s trail-worn clothing and dusty boots with their lips drawing back in supercilious sneers; only the long sword strapped to his back stopped more interference.

  He was surprised the guards hadn’t asked him to bind the weapon, more surprised they’d even allowed him through the gates with it, let alone through the halls. But all he had received was a narrow-eyed stare and a frown, and no comments...as though word had been passed to let him be.

  Or worse, his own stubborn disinclination to bind the sword was influencing them.

  Tank didn’t like that idea at all. He put his stare on the floor and hurried his step, wishing, suddenly, that he’d left the damn thing with Dasin.

  Thoroughly rattled, he went through the door to Eredion’s quarters without knocking, as he might have done into Allonin’s office, sure of his welcome. Two steps in, the door shutting behind him, he stopped, an apology forming on his lips as he realized his mistake.

  But Eredion wasn’t present; the unlocked door had been from southern custom, not an indication that the desert lord had returned. The suite wasn’t entirely empty, though—someone was in the other room, and that presence dragged at him, weirdly compelling. Not liking that feeling any more than the strange silence of the guards, he slowly unbuckled his sword and laid it, harness and all, across the largest table.

  He hated these weird flashes of knowledge, especially when they came with so little detail: someonesomeone someone hurtfearpain need need need goseegosee go see... It echoed in his head, like the whispers of the mad creature he’d been tricked into fighting; like the ghost-whispers of the dead filling the tunnels under the city. It only lacked the sly overtones of a true ha’rethe communication, or he’d have turned and left, and the hells with all Eredion’s plans and problems.

  But something about this tone sounded...familiar. He couldn’t walk away from the pained, need-filled call any more than he could abandon Dasin to his own insecurities.

  Giving in, he moved to the bedroom door, which already stood open a hand-span, and pushed through gingerly.

  Ghost-chill rippled up his back as he saw the dark-haired woman sprawled sleeping on the bed. Something else rattled against his senses, as though an invisible presence stood nearby, watching. He blinked hard and glared around, trying to pick out the source of that uneasy feeling.

  A moment later the smell of the room flooded his nose, distracting him. He put a hand over the lower half of his face, tears starting.

  Good gods, Eredion’s been busy...How can he stand this? He needs to open a damn window once in a while....

  Tank began to back up, very aware that he was reacting to the scent at a childhood level, simultaneously repelled and aroused. Time to get out of the room, clear his head, maybe step out into one of the gardens and breathe some clean air—

  Alyea stirred, rolled over, and opened her eyes; and as had happened once before, her gaze fastened on his and all Tank’s muscles locked into complete immobility.

  At least she’s not naked this time, he thought in despair, knowing his body wasn’t noticing those details. His treacherous memory presented him with vivid images of how close they’d been, not just in body but in—something more intangible, something a priest might call spirit—and he still remembered just what she liked from that melding of memory: just what touch would—Stop it, stop it, stop it!—Deiq had stepped in to stop anything from happening, last time, but Deiq wasn’t here...and Eredion wouldn’t be returning terribly soon...She was in Eredion’s bed, which meant he’d taken her for a lover himself...There was something dreadfully appealing about the notion of intruding on Eredion’s territory—

  Oh, gods, stop it, stop it, stop! he told himself, and shut his eyes, the only movement he could still control.

  “I know you,” Alyea said then,
her voice thin and taut. He heard fabric scrape and her weight shift, her feet landing on the floor with a hard thud as she sat up. “I know you. Where do I know you from? Tell me!”

  The words cut through his willpower like a studded whip. Words came out, as though jerked from his throat: “When you were hurt. By Kippin and Tevin. I—”

  “You listened,” she said. He heard her stand up and take a step forward. “You heard me. I remember! You...you understood.” The excitement faded from her voice, replaced by a deep pain. She took another step towards him, then two more. “You understood. Gods....”

  A breath later, her fingers traced an old, barely visible scar on his face, then moved down, unerringly, to one just above his right elbow. The feather-touch burned like fire; he shivered, swallowing hard against conflicting impulses. If he knew what would please her, she would inevitably know the same about him—all it would take was a half step forward—

  “Oh, gods,” she whispered. “I can see it....”

  He forced himself to open his eyes. She stood just within reach, her eyes closed, her fingertips resting on the old scar. A shudder worked through her body, and she opened her eyes, meeting his gaze without hesitation, revulsion, or tears.

  Her voice was a bare breath of sound: “And you saw...what happened to me?”

  Unable to resist, he reached out and traced a finger down her left arm, where a dreadful series of bruises had mottled shoulder to elbow last time he’d seen her.

  A large-fingered hand gripping her arm in a crushing grip, holding her down although the drugs left her too weak to move...another hand twisting, pinching, creating more bruises...she bit her lip so hard it drew blood, trying not to provide the satisfaction of a scream...and lost in the end...over and over, lost...lost.

  He knew what that felt like. His memory of her memory raised his own memories, and his head swam with doubled-over pain for a heartbeat, then cleared as he shoved it all away, returning to the now.