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

by Leona Wisoker

  “You have not lost your courage,” Evkit said finally.

  “It’s not courage. You’re the one being brave right now, standing between a First Born and his blood-right claim.”

  Evkit shook his head. The iron faded from his expression, leaving an odd sort of sadness. “Not,” he said, and motioned to the chairs. “Please, ha’inn. We really do need to talk first.”

  Deiq almost refused again, icy anger simmering through his veins. Sitting down to talk was such a damned human thing to do, and he didn’t care for the proprieties just at the moment. He looked again at Evkit’s small, serious face, and sighed; and sat.

  Evkit took the chair across from him. “Kippin made many big mistakes. One of which was not being able to tell teyanain factions apart.” He paused. “He is a very bad person, ha’inn. I make no argument against that. He deserves to face justice. Here, south, north; he’s offended a number of powerful people. And made alliance with others.”

  Deiq waited, not speaking; seeing nothing worthy of responding to yet. Teyanain justice had no regard for alliances or prior claims.

  “He plays a number of games very well,” Evkit went on. “He was taught by Roise F’Heing, after all. There are protections he’s put into place over the years that make it unwise to simply kill him.”

  “Such as.”

  “He has leverage on a direct leadership-line daughter or son of every desert Family.”

  Deiq raised his eyebrows, honestly startled at that. “Impressive.”

  “The youngest daughter of Lord F’Heing was under Roise’s hand,” Evkit said, soberly. “His half-sister. Roise was not kind to her. Kippin took her, after Roise tired of her, and held her until she escaped in the chaos of your—advance—on Lady Arnil’s mansion. She’s grateful to be alive. Her father—not so much.”

  A F’Heing woman, raped and tortured by her own half-brother—no. Lord F’Heing would have her quietly killed. But that wasn’t Deiq’s concern, nor a teyanain problem.

  “The youngest son of Lord Darden,” Evkit went on. “Same. Younger than the F’Heing girl, and Roise twisted him with great care; then set him on the F’Heing girl.”

  Deiq blinked slowly. “I’m not hearing a reason for you to refuse me Kippin yet,” he said. “And I’m getting impatient, Lord Evkit.”

  “Patience, ha’inn. Again, Kippin kept the thread here as well, and kept the two together. The Darden boy believes Kippin is his friend, and is greatly distressed at your attack. The F’Heing girl now bears the Darden boy’s child. The pregnancy is too far advanced to safely kill. The girl wishes to keep the child and see its father dead. The Darden boy currently believes he loves the girl, and that she loves him.” Evkit paused, studying Deiq’s face. “I tell you all this not for your sympathy, ha’inn—I know you have none. I wish only to show you a hint of the complexity. Every one of the leverages I spoke of are tangled together in some way: very much a rat’s nest. Roise was very good at that. Kippin has picked up the threads and tied his own knots. Even the teyanain do not know all of what Roise arranged, and even less of how Kippin has changed those arrangements. But Kippin—he knows it all. He knows everything, every action, every agreement, every name, ha’inn. All of it.”

  “You’ve had plenty of time to break it out of him,” Deiq said. “My turn to play.”

  Evkit shook his head. “Kippin sustained injuries in his capture; there were—complications along the way. After that, I was occupied with trying to bring you back to health and sanity, ha’inn. The faction against me put Kippin out with Alyea while I was distracted, perhaps hoping she would kill him before I could question him. Perhaps hoping he would kill her. Sometimes, the actions of my enemies truly make no sense to me, ha’inn. I have had little real time to speak with Kippin, and that time has not been productive. Roise taught him well.”

  Deiq drew in a long breath, let it out. “Lord Evkit,” he said, measuring his words out like drops of water in a desert, “I understand what you’re saying. I just don’t fucking care.”

  Evkit sat very still, his gaze dark, for a long few moments of silence. At last, he said: “I did not think you would care, ha’inn. But the world is much more complicated than even a First Born ha’ra’ha can understand, and this matter too wide-spread and delicate for even your blood-right claim to interfere with. You will have Kippin, ha’inn. I promise you that. I understand your claim. But not now. Not yet.”

  They locked stares, cold on cold; neither backing down.

  “You are yourself in delicate standing,” Lord Evkit said. “The Jungles are angry, ha’inn. The southern Families are angry. The northern king is angry. Soon, all of these will make moves to resolve that anger. You need allies right now. You need security. Even you cannot always stand alone.”

  “And the teyanain are good allies, are they?”

  “The best,” Evkit said without a flicker of humor. “The very best, ha’inn. And the most secure ever. We do not turn away from our sworn agreements.”

  Deiq didn’t say anything immediately, thinking that over. “When you say sworn agreements,” he said eventually.

  “Sayek-teth.”

  Deiq blinked, twice, very slowly. Blood oath. That put the matter far beyond what he’d ever expected. Kin-rights. “Just for my letting you have Kippin a while longer.”

  Evkit’s lips twitched a little. “No.”

  “Ah. I didn’t think so. What else are you after, then?”

  “Allow me to send for some tea,” Evkit said urbanely. “All this talking is thirsty work.”

  Deiq breathed out through his nose and didn’t protest this time.

  When they both had their third cup of tea in hand and the formalities had been observed—including the standard exchange of inconsequential remarks about the tea’s taste, brewing method, and origins—Evkit finally returned to the conversation.

  “As I tell you,” he said, then paused and took a deliberate sip of tea. “Excuse me. As I was telling you, ha’inn, Kippin and Roise made matters very complicated. There is a wide-ranging network that supported the passage of illegal items through my lands by carriers such as Pieas of Sessin.”

  Deiq raised an eyebrow, sipped tea, and said nothing.

  “Yes. I know—now—who the carriers were. They are not being permitted through the Horn these days. But that only puts the known ones to traveling on ships, yes? And sends new faces, unknown to us, through the Horn in their place.” Evkit paused again and sipped tea, his expression very serious, and tilted his head a little as indication that Deiq might ask a question if desired.

  “Why not just take ship in the first place? Why did they risk going through the Horn?”

  “Ah,” Evkit said, and studied his tea cup without speaking for a few moments. “So many strings. The docks to the west are F’Heing and Darden; the docks to the east, Sessin and...ah.” He tilted his head again, smiling a little. A peculiar facet of teyanain courtesy forbade directly pointing out a guest’s wealth. “The Sessin docks were risky for the few Sessin carriers, who desired to avoid their home area, for fear of being caught out at their activities by those who knew them well. Those Sessin carriers could not well appear in F’Heing or Darden ports, for fear of being recognized and...treated poorly.”

  “And the same in reverse,” Deiq said, frowning. He smoothed his expression out with an effort; the teyanain set value on blandness during important discussions. “A Darden could hardly operate freely in a Sessin port, and less so in a F’Heing.”

  “Unless they abandoned their visible heritage markers,” Evkit agreed, “which those of rank are always far too proud to consider, whatever the reason.” One finger gently brushed the array of rings set along the curve of his left ear.

  “They could have used people of no rank,” Deiq pointed out.

  “Even humans do not trust their own tharr,” Evkit answered serenely. “And servants do not have the status to handle delicate transactions.”

  Deiq let out a breath, thinking that through. If
the Fortresses weren’t directly involved, there was only one place the main trade could have been going on.

  “Water’s End,” he said.

  “One of two central pits,” Evkit agreed. “We will sweep that one out; it lies within our jurisdiction. The other does not.”

  Deiq blinked slowly, understanding. “I’ll need names.”

  “You will be given what you need to know,” Evkit said, then sipped tea, his eyes politely downcast. “You will send them to me if they are of use, and remove what threat they present if they are not of use. Any information they give you, you will send to me.”

  “It will take the time it takes,” Deiq said, testing limits.

  Evkit showed no reaction. “Of course. I trust your discretion as to timing and method.”

  Too easy. What am I missing? “Alyea,” he said, not quite a question.

  “You do not tell her of this. Her nature is still too much northern; she would not understand.”

  Deiq nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with that reasoning.

  “And should there be difficulty along your path,” Evkit said, his eyes half-lidded now, “you do not mention our agreement.”

  Ah. There’s the snag. I’m on my own.

  “You are ha’ra’ha,” Evkit said, dipping his chin slightly towards his chest, his eyes little more than thin, shiny black lines against weathered bronze skin. “You do not need allies. Yes? This agreement of ours would not be believed by the people of the north, and would be seen as far too dangerous by the people of the south.”

  Deiq sipped tea and thought about the wording Evkit had used. Agreement. It had to be a deliberate choice, a reminder, a statement as to the gravity of this situation and the consequences of breaking it.

  “And if I say no to this agreement?” he asked, keeping his own gaze carefully on his teacup and his voice as bland as Evkit at his best.

  “We find someone else,” Evkit said as if the matter were of no consequence.

  But I won’t ever lay a hand on Kippin. It didn’t need to be said aloud. Deiq breathed evenly, weighing the value of vengeance and pride against what Evkit was asking of him.

  Remembering what Kippin had done to him; remembering what, but for Kippin’s fatal misunderstanding of teyanain politics, Deiq himself would have done to hundreds of innocents.

  Remembering what Kippin had done to Alyea.

  He looked down to find a single sip left in his cup: the honorable mouthful, the one that sealed agreements if drank and signaled refusal if poured out onto the table. Looked up to find Evkit watching him, face impassive, eyes very nearly blank: waiting.

  Deiq lifted his cup to his lips. As the now-cold liquid slid down his throat, he saw Evkit’s mouth curve into a tiny, satisfied smile.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Tall flowering stalks of desert ginger, wide-mouthed tiger plants, and hard crimson cacti blooms drew a cloud of flying and crawling insects. The air hummed; the plants shook under their attentions. Eredion sat quietly on a stone bench, watching an essential and untouchable part of life proceed. Nothing he did, nothing anyone did, would affect these insects in their daily routines.

  He found it amusing that this garden flourished as it did. Sessin Fortress had nothing so grand in its garden areas. Deiq had built this area to grow over centuries, but humans tended to rip out one generation’s efforts and put in a new version.

  Gardens and politics had rather a lot in common.

  Eredion sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face. Gods, what a mess. And Lord Fimre would be here any day. At least now Oruen was expecting the new Sessin liaison, and understood the changeover was inevitable and unchangeable; that much good had come out of their last talk. The matter of Lady Peysimun had been—well, put into the king’s hands, if not entirely settled. Oruen had opted to defer final judgment until Alyea’s return, but it was unlikely he’d allow the fool woman to reign in luxury during the wait.

  Eredion hadn’t asked after the king’s plans on that matter. It wasn’t his business.

  He also hadn’t mentioned Kam’s presence in the mansion. The king had his Hidden, as he’d so ungently reminded Eredion: let him figure that part out for himself as well. Eredion needed to start rolling up his end of various business items here in Bright Bay: ending some, transferring others to Lord Fimre’s hopefully capable hands.

  And now there was Wian to handle: pregnant with, more likely than not, Kippin’s child. As though he needed more complications in his life at the moment. Hopefully she’d do one thing he asked and stay within his suite, where she was reasonably safe, while he figured out how to handle this new wrinkle.

  A black bee buzzed threateningly nearby. Eredion ignored it: for all their aggression, black bees carried no stings. They were all noisy bluff.

  The aggrieved insect eventually gave up and droned away.

  Send her south? Or take her, himself, when he left; bring her back to Sessin Fortress as servant or kathain. He ran that path through his head and grimaced at where it led. Lord Antouin wouldn’t let that notion get far at all.

  Leave her to serve Lord Fimre? She wouldn’t. She flatly wouldn’t; and Fimre wouldn’t handle her properly either. Eredion didn’t need to meet the man to be sure of that much. Southern, and Sessin: notions about women like Wian would turn that arrangement to disaster in short order, and that would rebound on Eredion as badly as the first idea.

  Abort the child? That was the best notion of all, after which point she would be—without any real value to anyone, and he could leave her behind without much remorse. But like killing Kameniar in his sleep, that stuck in his throat. If she’d intended to rid herself of the child, she would have done it already. For whatever bizarre reason, she planned to keep the child of a rapist and murderer. Probably she saw it as political leverage, which—gods! It was that, for sure.

  He ought to feed her the necessary drug, and be quick about it.

  He couldn’t make himself do it.

  Time for me to get out of this place, he thought sourly. I’ve lost the edge I need to do this job. Time for Lord Fimre to take over.

  He could push the whole mess off onto Fimre. Let Fimre handle the necessary lies and deceptions. Fimre would slip the drug into Wian’s drink with one hand while seducing her with the other. Lord Antouin wouldn’t send someone incapable of that to be permanent liaison to a king.

  She trusts me. I can’t do that to her.

  Gods.

  The black bee returned, vibrating violently right in front of his face. He shot out a hand and grabbed it, crushing the frantic insect, then flicked the burst corpse from his hand, wiping its guts against the edge of the stone bench with a grimace of distaste.

  Wishing he could still be that ruthless with people.

  I’ve lost my own sting. Time to retire, before his own bluff was called. Past time.

  “Lord Eredion.”

  Eredion sighed at the reminder that while in the Palace, he never had any real privacy; that he never stood entirely unobserved. Between the alertness of servants and the watchfulness of the king’s Hidden, if something important came up they always found him in astonishingly short order.

  This time, as he turned, he found not the expected servant, but a lean man clad in a simple black and grey blouse and trousers. The direct stare put the man’s rank at far above servant; the lack of question in his voice, plain outfit, and lack of jewelry narrowed possibility further. More than likely this was one of the rarely-seen King’s Hidden.

  Eredion’s pulse tripped into a higher beat.

  “There’s a ship been sighted,” the man said. “Flying a Sessin diplomatic flag over merchant colors. Looks to make dock within the hour. We thought you should know.”

  “That would be Lord Fimre,” Eredion said. “My thanks. Please inform the—never mind.” Stupid; of course the Hidden would have told the king before coming to seek Eredion out.

  The man cocked his head to one side slightly, as though debating with himself, then said, “There
was a man in your quarters the other day. We don’t know who he was. He ran before anyone could lay hands on him, but threw a double handful of papers at the guards on his way out as a distraction.”

  Eredion opened his mouth, shut it again, and finally just nodded. The papers had to be the Scratha letters; and surely the Hidden was going a step beyond his bounds to reveal that much to Eredion. Asking questions wouldn’t do any good; the Hidden had clearly said all he was willing to say.

  The Hidden nodded back, then bowed soberly and departed.

  Eredion turned to look out over the garden again, gathering the serenity to himself like a cloak. Whatever happened next, this garden would more than likely endure; the insects certainly would, here or elsewhere.

  “Great,” he muttered, “now I’m seeing insects as more resilient than I am.”

  He left the garden without looking back, and let irritation with himself pace his steps to a near-trot.

  A strong breeze riffled against Eredion’s face; fluttering his long sleeves, which were slit to the elbow to display his bracelets, into silken banners. He breathed evenly against the stink of cobblestones soaked with years of spilled fish guts and refuse.

  Large buckets of sand mixed with coarse salt lined the procession route, all the way to the Palace. The Gold Gate stood open for the first time in Eredion’s memory. Scouts and sweepers stood ready to run ahead with the formal warning of a noble’s approach. Guards stood ready to enforce the clearing of the road. Off to one side, musicians tuned their instruments, the cacophony blurred by the wind puffing into Eredion’s ears.

  Sweepers—four young men, visibly quivering with excitement and anticipation as they watched the approaching ship—wore fine grey silk, likely the best clothing they’d ever had on their skinny bodies. The guards—older, and more cynical—wore deep red linen trousers and knee-length green tunics, caught at the waist with belts of silvery rings. More than one brushed a hand irritably over a stubbled scalp as they waited, and on occasion shot sour glares at Eredion. He ignored them. Uniformity mattered more than pride; their hair would grow back.