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

by Leona Wisoker

  Grateful at least that the exercise had dried away the unpleasantly dank feel of the patio, he gathered up his clothes again. They were almost dry; he passed his hands over them, seeing them fresh from a drying-line under full sun, and felt moisture evaporating under his fingers. He dressed, enjoying the warmth he’d put into them as it settled into his own skin, then sat down in the chair they’d been draped over, wishing for something to do.

  He was patient; but gods, he got bored easily in situations like this. The obvious solution was to sleep until roused to action, but then Evkit might win one aspect of this stupid waiting game, and Deiq had no intentions of ceding any points he could keep for himself. That was how one had to think with the teyanain: everything was a game, all part of a complex array of political and personal contests too oblique and bizarre for any normal human or ha’ra’ha to understand.

  And now the teyanain were splitting—had split, from what Evkit said—and Evkit wanted Deiq’s help with—what? Securing Evkit’s power base? Killing the rebels? Just his presence here in the teyanain fortress, under Evkit’s hand, was likely to be seen as a serious status achievement.

  Things were going on in the fortress behind him that he’d never see the first tenth of, but would ultimately decide if the next person through that door would be armed with a deadly drug-tipped weapon or carrying a basket of simple food.

  “I hate dealing with the bloody damned teyanain,” he muttered under his breath. “They’re almost as bad as the Aerthraim.” He considered that for a moment, then shook his head. “They’re worse than the Aerthraim.”

  He leaned back in the chair, stared out at the clearing sky, and tried not to drum his fingers on his legs.

  At last the door behind him opened. He kept himself in a leisurely pose to hide the tension fizzing through his body and blinked into other perceptions for just a moment to check who was approaching. The answer had him up out of the chair and turning before he could stop the reaction.

  He caught himself there, held still and waited. From the doorway, Lord Evkit smirked. Four steps closer, Alyea stood staring at him as though—

  —oh, gods, he knew that look.

  He blinked at her, breathing evenly, then lifted his gaze past her to Evkit. The teyanin lord nodded as though a question had been answered, and retreated silently. The door swung shut again.

  Deiq stood still, a barbed ache twisting through his gut.

  “So you saw,” he said, his voice flat. “The...mess. I’d meant to....” He caught himself on the verge of saying clean it up; that sounded as if he’d spilled a mug of beer.

  Alyea blinked as though caught out of a daze and shook her head sharply. “Yes. But I don’t....” Her voice faded away; she blinked again. “You’re different,” she said at last. “You look...strange.”

  Deiq glanced down at himself in sudden alarm and discovered his arms were laced with a barely visible trace of silver lines. He started to manufacture an explanation about mist and optical illusions, to weave his voice under her awareness and turn her attention away; but stopped.

  “Yes,” he said. “Strong emotions bring that patterning out sometimes.”

  Her mouth twisted in a faint wryness. “Eredion said once,” she said, her voice barely audible even to his hearing, “that ha’reye and ha’ra’hain are the most passionately emotional creatures I’d probably ever meet.” She paused. “He also said you were terrified of me,” she added.

  Deiq sucked in a startled breath. He hadn’t expected Eredion to tell her that—then found himself relaxing in a great rush. It just didn’t matter.

  “You saw what I did at your mansion,” he said, tilting it into an almost-question. She nodded, her expression going predictably dark.

  “And heard your warning,” she said, shocking him all over again.

  “Warning?”

  Don’t follow me this time, I’ll hurt you—His anguished cry, sent out in a descending stibik-haze, wracked through his mind. He shuddered all over and took a step back, hands up defensively at the sheer volume she’d used; then, remembering the precipice a few steps away, came forward four measured steps.

  Just within arm’s reach now, he stared at her.

  “I didn’t know that would linger,” he said. “And didn’t think you’d hear it even then. So you can hear mind-speech now?”

  “Eredion gave me something—estiqi?”

  His eyes narrowed, almost of themselves. He knew the usual side effects of estiqi. “Did he—” Even as he spoke, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching, from looking, to see what had happened.

  —red hair, not black, clutched in her fingers, and a blue stare, drunk-hazed with the moment—

  Deiq went back a step again, his eyes fiercely shut, and then to his knees, slamming a shield against overlapping thoughts between them. He heard Alyea gasp as though slapped, but had nothing to spare to reassure her. He splayed his hands on the cold stone underfoot and breathed in great, racking gasps until the rage subsided.

  Eredion wouldn’t have been a problem; he wasn’t a threat. But Tank—was an entirely different situation, and dangerous on several levels.

  He breathed hard, slowly realizing that the anger wasn’t actually a killing rage: instead, it was something comparatively manageable, drawn entirely from his human side, rather than a ha’reye’s possessive, deadly MINE!

  Rather surprised at how quickly he mastered what he’d expected to be an ugly struggle, he sat back on his heels at last and looked up at her. Not for the first time, her expression held more understanding than he’d expected.

  “Eredion had about the same reaction when he came in,” she said without any particular emotion. She turned away and sat down on the long couch. Her lips thinned as she stared at him, her hands fisted against her thighs.

  “I expect he did,” Deiq said. He rose with deliberate care and returned to the chair he’d been sitting in, turning it to face Alyea before sitting down. “He knew what my reaction would be.” And why, no doubt.

  She didn’t flinch. Her stare remained steady as she said, “I’m not yours, Deiq.”

  He drew in a long breath, seeing the remaining chasm of her ignorance in that statement, then found himself laughing. It started out without any humor and turned into a howling tumble of mirth that pushed him deep into his chair, head back and chest heaving, tears leaking from his eyes.

  When he wound down, he found her watching him with an expression of bewildered alarm, as though she was thinking he’d just lost his mind. Not entirely sure he hadn’t, he wiped his face clear and thought about how to explain.

  “Never mind,” he said at last, giving up for now, and stood up.

  She tracked his movements warily, clearly ready to defend herself against attack. He shook his head and moved, deliberately slow, to kneel before her. She let him wind his fingers though hers, but the caution stayed in her eyes, a distance that caught another barb through his gut. He sighed and dropped his forehead to rest on her knees, letting himself be still for a moment.

  “Am I a monster, Alyea?” he said at last, without moving. He read the sudden tension in her hands as though he’d looked at her face. “Is that how you see me now?”

  After a long time, her hands relaxed, and he sat back on his heels to meet her gaze. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “I can’t see you as a monster,” she said, her voice low, “without naming myself the same way. I’ve killed....”

  “To save yourself,” he interrupted as her voice faltered. “For survival.”

  “Pieas—”

  “Blood trial,” he reminded her, tightening his grip on her hands. “Alyea, you can’t look at the killing you’ve done under the rules for what a northern noblewoman’s allowed to do. You’re a desert lord. It’s different for you. You don’t have anyone protecting your family, your honor, or your life except you.”

  Her gaze held no relief. “Kippin said he’d have let me kill Tevin if you hadn’t rescued me, to break me the rest of the way
to his will,” she said. “I would have done it. I would have been—”

  She shuddered, closing her eyes. He could feel the violent wave of rage and bloodlust swamp through her. It very nearly set him off into a defensive frenzy himself. His vision hazed white around the edges for a long, dangerous moment until he managed to yank his hands free of hers and lean back, panting hard.

  “Don’t—do that,” he husked, digging his fingers into the rock underneath his knees; felt it creak and crumble under the pressure. He drew two fast, hard breaths and forced himself to lift his hands to his knees before he tore out handfuls of solid rock and scared her even further.

  “Don’t do what?” Her fury abruptly shifted into alarmed confusion again, which was far easier to deal with.

  “Anger,” he said thinly. He closed his eyes, opened them again, not at all sure whether they were still entirely human-normal. But Alyea showed no reaction as he looked at her, so he dared to hope he’d maintained that, at least. “It hurts.”

  “Me being angry hurts you?” she said, incredulous, then sucked in a hard breath of her own. “Oh, gods,” she breathed, eyes wide. He could almost see information clicking together in her head. “That’s how Tank—”

  “Stop,” he said harshly, and grabbed one of her knees in a hard grip, locking his finger pressure just shy of the damage point. “Stop, Alyea. Please. I’m not...feeling well right now. It’s too easy for me to hurt you, if you talk about—some things. Please. Don’t.”

  He shut his eyes, knowing that they were starting to slide out of human-normal this time and unable to reverse the change.

  She breathed through her teeth for a while without speaking. Slowly, his pulse stopped thundering in his ears and his eyes went back to something that wouldn’t terrify her to see.

  “You’re hurt,” she said at last.

  No point pretending. She’d see the lie. “Yes.”

  “And you need to—feed.”

  An infinitesimal hesitation, but he’d been listening for it. Despair wracked through him again. He released her knee and leaned his forehead there instead. “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll manage.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” she said, her voice regaining its strength and tartness at last.

  He couldn’t resist. “You’re not mine, remember?” he returned, and sat up, leaning away from her. “I’m not relying on you—”

  Her hand shot out and cracked him across the face, a movement that shocked both of them into a moment of frozen-eyed goggling at one another. He couldn’t believe he’d allowed her to do that; she clearly couldn’t believe she’d actually hit him.

  As the moment stretched out, Deiq realized he was waiting for reflex to drive him forward, expecting the killing rage to crest and throw everything out of control. The utter stillness inside him threw him, instead, off balance as though he’d leaned into a stiff wind and found nothing but a gentle breeze.

  I have a choice, he thought, hazed, disbelieving; and promptly burst into tears at the realization.

  Alyea stared, eyes round and shocked, clearly assuming he was reacting to her piddly little slap. He rolled sideways and stretched out on the cold stone, gasping for breath and letting the weight of centuries lift from his mind.

  I have a choice. A choice! Oh, gods....

  At last, his breathing calmed and his throat worked again. He said, “Alyea.”

  She shifted but didn’t move from where she sat, and made a worried, inquiring noise in the back of her throat.

  “Come here. Please.” He left his arms splayed out, palms open and up, and his eyes closed.

  She approached, steps hesitant, and stood near his feet. He could feel her readiness to bolt, to defend herself, still sizzling through her, and marveled at his own lack of reaction to that aggravation.

  Not opening his eyes, he moved a hand to pat his stomach lightly. “Please. Sit?”

  After a taut moment, she settled her weight gingerly on his midsection. He scooted his knees up to give her something to lean against, and put his hands behind his head. Eyes still shut, he stayed quiet for a time, thinking.

  “The teyanain,” he said at last, “are more manipulative than you can possibly imagine.”

  He opened his eyes then, and regarded her soberly. Her posture and expression spoke volumes about her nervous discomfort with the situation.

  “Everyone I’ve spoken to,” she said in return, “claims you are the best liar in the world. That you don’t even know when you’re lying, sometimes, because you’ve done it so long. That everything you say is, in some way, a lie.”

  “Mmph. I do lie a lot. That’s true.” He resisted a bubble of laughter that rose into his throat, turned it into a cough. She probably wouldn’t understand the logistical irony of the statement. “So do the teyanain. Especially Lord Evkit. What’s he told you?”

  She tilted her head and looked away.

  “A lot of lies,” she said thinly. “So have you.”

  “Welcome to being a desert lord,” he returned, and set his hands gently on her calves.

  “Isn’t someone going to tell me the truth?” she demanded, glaring down at him. “This is impossible!”

  “Truth depends on where you’re standing,” he told her. “The Northern Church—you hate the priests, right? You thought that tower was the embodiment of evil, and you wanted it ripped down. And that is true. A lot of evil went on within those walls. But it was evil by a few who rose to power, and a very damn few at that; what’s the bigger evil, Alyea: that they tortured people to death for their own pleasure, or that they were allowed to do it for so long? The king knew about it. His advisors knew about it. Nobody stopped it.”

  Which was, in itself, another lie; the southlands had tried repeatedly to take Rosin Weatherweaver out, and had failed—until Tanavin. But that side of the story would only complicate the point he was trying to make.

  “Pieas Sessin,” he went on, switching to a slightly safer topic. “He was a wastrel, and a fool, and he committed a number of serious crimes before you killed him. And yet, he was allowed. Eredion knew what he was doing. Sessin Family knew what he was doing. Nobody stopped him.”

  He watched the tiny shifts in her face as she thought that over.

  “It happens throughout humanity,” he said, keeping his voice mild. “I’ve seen it more times than stars exist in the sky, Alyea. The only time a man points a finger at another and cries liar or beast is when that man is inconvenienced by that lie or that action.”

  Her eyes held the intent, distant look of pieces connecting in her head once more, and she nodded slowly.

  “I’ve been called a master of lies for more years than you can imagine,” Deiq said, pacing his words with care. “But truth shifts like quicksand, Alyea, and what’s true in one generation is false in another. And what matters over a thousand years isn’t truth. It’s making something that lasts, something that endures, whatever lies have to build it. I could care less about truth, if a lie will save five thousand lives where the truth would destroy ten thousand. And for one ordinary human—even one desert lord—” He stopped, letting her work it out from there.

  Slowly, her gaze came back down to meet his. He saw her finally register the deliberately vulnerable position he’d put himself into, and realize the lack of tension in his body. She blinked and leaned back hard against his knees.

  “Why did you cry?” she said abruptly, her gaze locking on his.

  He answered obliquely: “Because I didn’t have to.”

  She frowned.

  “I’m not human,” he went on before she could say anything, and wrapped his hands around her ankles, rubbing his thumbs lightly over the bone-bulges. She shivered, and he felt heat race through her, saw her eyes dilate; his own pulse skipped up into a higher rhythm.

  Reluctantly, he took his hands away and put them behind his head again, to avoid distracting them. This was important, strange and unlikely a place and circumstance as it seemed; whether Evkit had understood this would
happen or not Deiq didn’t know for sure. Quite possibly he’d expected Deiq to rip Alyea apart in reflexive blood-rage over her “infidelity”, or over some other matter. There was no tracking the plans of a teyanin, and Evkit least of all.

  “I’m not human,” he said again, bringing his attention back to Alyea. “Have you ever put your hand to a candle-flame and jerked back before you knew you were moving? That’s reflex. It’s instinct. It’s what your body does before your mind cuts in to stop it. Humans can train themselves past that. Aqeyva masters could hold their hand still in that flame and not get burned—maybe.”

  He paused, watching her absorb what he’d said like a towel soaking up water, then went on.

  “An asp-jacau has no hope in any of the hells of holding still if someone puts a flame to its paw. It wouldn’t understand that there might even be a reason to try. Some things, for ha’reye, for ha’ra’hain, are as instinctive as pulling a paw away from a flame. Especially when desert lords are involved. Eredion told you—desert lords were created to serve us.”

  He paused again, waiting until the wrinkles around her eyes eased.

  “When you slapped me,” he said, “I should have killed you.”

  Her whole body jerked, her weight lifting away as though to bolt.

  He stayed still, his hands clenched against each other behind his head to stop himself from grabbing after her.

  “And there’s your reflex,” he said in the fractional hesitation between startle and action.

  She stared at him, wild-eyed, her rump resting against his knees.

  He listened to her heartbeat thudding high and panicked in his ears, and shut his eyes to avoid seeing her naked fear, which should have been triggering his predator instinct at such an intimate distance—and wasn’t.

  Slowly, she slid back down, settling on his stomach again.

  “For some reason,” he said, not opening his eyes, “you don’t trigger the reflexes in me that you ought to. And I don’t trigger the reflexes in you that a desert lord ought to have after the blood trials.”

  She let out a harsh bark of laughter, with soggy edges. He opened his eyes and found hers damp. She shook her head to his inquiring eyebrow-tilt, and he let it go.