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

by Leona Wisoker

  Ha’ra’hain vision gave Deiq a clear picture of the scene; plenty clear enough to see when Kippin’s eyes opened. The human rolled his head, wincing; licked torn lips, winced again. Let out a rattling cough. Blinked swollen eyes and looked around.

  His gaze fastened on what could only seem, to him, a tall outline against a darker swatch of night. He croaked something, but his voice was too ruined; Deiq didn’t understand the words.

  It might have been a plea.

  Deiq moved forward the ten steps to stand beside Kippin’s platform-prison. The human blinked, squinted: then his whole body abruptly went rigid.

  “Nhhhhhh....” A long, despairing moan, and two rasping but understandable words: “She promised.”

  “Never promise what you can’t deliver,” Deiq said, very softly. “Open your mouth, Kippin.”

  “Nhhh.”

  Open your mouth, Kippin, Deiq said into the man’s mind, delicately tickling the right connections.

  A heavy shiver worked through the human’s body. Even as his mouth opened, he made a faint gagging sound. Deiq lifted a long teyanain dagger into Kippin’s field of view, watching the already white-rimmed eyes widen further.

  Deiq drew in a shallow breath and made a subtle adjustment to his own biology. His blood heated instantly, swelling veins into sharp relief all over his body. Blinking against the nagging pain of that, he brought the blade and his opposite hand together over Kippin’s open mouth, slit a neat line along the pad of his forefinger, and let a drop of blood fall.

  “Keep your eyes open. I’ll force it again, if I have to.”

  Kippin twitched and whimpered; he had no urine left to spill. He kept his eyes open wide.

  He screamed, as the first drop landed in his right eye. The sound warbled into an entirely new pitch of agony with the left eye. Both clouded over with a thick white glaze almost immediately.

  “Quiet,” Deiq said without emotion. “Turn your head.”

  Kippin’s whole body writhed and strained against the chains; his head jerked over after a moment. The held scream gurgled in his throat.

  A drop in that ear. “Turn the other way.” A drop in the other.

  A drop over his heart. A drop over his genitals. One to the top of his head. One to each palm. One to the great toe of each foot.

  The wound on Deiq’s finger closed over completely as the last drop fell, and he reversed the tiny change he’d made with intense relief. He could feel internal fluids cooling, veins shrinking; a few minor branches burst under the strain, sending his heart into erratic, hammering bursts of activity. It healed as rapidly as it had failed, creating a wave of dizziness that staggered him a half-step sideways.

  He blinked hard, rubbing his hands together, and breathed evenly until his body had returned to balance. Then he took the two steps needed to stand looking down into Kippin’s face.

  “These are the last living words you’ll ever hear,” Deiq said dispassionately. “From now until eternity, Kippin. You won’t die from hunger or thirst. The birds picking you apart, little by little—you’ll heal such nibbly little damages as that. The acid burn you’re feeling right now, everywhere I dropped my blood: that won’t fade. And you’re going to live a very long time, Kippin. Bound. Blind. Deaf, very soon now. Mute. Neutered. Helpless. In agony. Alone.”

  Kippin breathed in great rasping gasps. “Nhrrrrr.” Not a word: a tongue-frozen moan.

  Deiq didn’t answer. He slid a tendril of thought into the maze of an already fracturing human consciousness, found the lens of awareness, and turned it back in on itself with a deft flick.

  Kippin’s own mind would do the rest of the work.

  “You may scream now,” he said. “If you like.”

  He sealed the stairway entrance behind him as he descended. After the first hundred feet of newly solid rock, he couldn’t hear Kippin’s wordless howls any more.

  Lord Evkit waited at the bottom of the stairs, expressionless. He said nothing as the doorway slowly filled itself in, becoming a smooth stone wall; showed no surprise at all.

  “The chains,” he said, “will rust. One day. And break.”

  “I know.”

  “Will he survive the drop?”

  Deiq just raised an eyebrow.

  Evkit blinked, lizardlike; then he smiled. “I take you Lord Alyea now.”

  “I’d appreciate a bath first.”

  “Of course, ha’inn.”

  The creamy silk of a fine robe slid against his skin. He rolled his shoulders a bit, just to feel the deep red fabric slipping around, and grinned. The male teyanain servant who had bathed, dried, and robed him bowed low, face expressionless; then straightened, backed an unhurried step, and said, “I am directed now take you Lord Alyea.”

  “Yes,” Deiq said, sliding a hand across the silk covering his stomach. His eyes drooped half-shut, and he couldn’t make himself stop grinning. “If you would.”

  The servant bowed again.

  “Err—” Deiq added, glancing down belatedly. “We’re not—going through public hallways, are we?”

  The servant followed his gaze. “You wish kathain?”

  “No. I can wait.” Deiq tugged a fold of robe over a little further, vaguely embarrassed. Damn his reactions to silky fabrics, coupled with thoughts of Alyea.

  “No public,” the servant assured him, and pointed. “White tapestry there—hallway. Lord Alyea room door end of hallway. Very much private.”

  Deiq let out a breath of relief. “Thank you. I’ll find my own way.”

  The servant bowed again and retreated from the area, vanishing behind one of the pale-blue tapestries that covered the walls of the bathing room. Only the one the servant had indicated was white.

  Deiq reached to gather his loose hair back into a braid. He stopped, considering, then left it as it was: loose, still damp, newly brushed out. Vulnerable. Alyea needed to feel a sense of her own power, after all the recent shocks. He could afford the small loss of dignity for the long-term gain it would net him.

  The tapestry brushed aside like a veil of thin feathers fluttering against his hand. The door lay only a few steps beyond.

  You’ll live a long time....

  He’d given years to Kippin in the name of vengeance. He could do that for Alyea, with kinder motives. Already a desert lord, she’d extend that gift...considerably longer than Kippin.

  Be very sure, a warning echoed across the years. Be very sure when you do this. It is not to be undone.

  He’d never felt remotely tempted to do so before, and here he was contemplating it twice in one day.

  The light wood of the door rasped under his bath-softened fingertips. He stood still, just listening to the sound of his own breath for a few moments and thinking about the difference between the texture of silk and wood; between that of iron and rock, air and water—between blood and sand.

  Eventually he pushed gently and stepped into the room.

  Alyea sat on a wide, high bed platform, reclined against a nest of white and ruby pillows. Her black hair had been brushed out long and loose; a white robe wrapped around her slender body. Deiq grinned, taking in the way those two colors subtly repeated all around the room. They’d dressed her in white and him in garnet on purpose; he had no doubt of that. And there was no need to ask after the teyanain sense of humor or symbolism, either. He knew the message Evkit was sending.

  He doubted Alyea did. She might understand white as feminine and red as masculine, but seeing beyond that would take a knowledge of teyanain history she’d never have.

  She watched him, eyes half-shut, a small smile on her own face, then lifted a hand and gestured to their surroundings. “The teyanain are gracious hosts,” she said dryly.

  “I seem to recall you made a remark about graciousness at one point. The most gracious people are looking to use you, or something along those lines, wasn’t it?”

  He’d intended it as a joke, but her answer held no humor: “Yes.”

  Deiq stood still, interest
perking up: so they’d asked something of her, while he’d been busy. Devious. Of course. These are the teyanain, and this is Evkit. Never one plot at a time. That would be boring. He grinned again, wolfishly; her own smile widened in response.

  He decided not to ask about her deal. He didn’t intend to discuss his own, after all, and it hardly seemed fair to press for a one-sided revelation.

  Her gaze meandered over him, head to foot and back up again. “You look—surprisingly damn good in that color,” she said, low in her throat.

  He let out a sharp breath, interest of another sort entirely returning to prominence, and took two steps forward. She slid from the bed and met him halfway.

  Some time later, when he had his breath back and they had nearly emptied the pitcher of cool water down their dry throats, he said, “I was...afraid...you’d still be angry with me.”

  She looked at him sideways, not turning her head. “Afraid?”

  “Not quite the right word.”

  “No, it’s not.” Her gaze moved to the ceiling. “Is Kippin dead?”

  He didn’t say anything for a while. Finally: “He won’t ever hurt anyone again.”

  “Not quite what I asked.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  She turned her head and stared at him. After a moment, she rolled to her side and propped her head on her hand. “Would I be satisfied, if I knew the details?”

  “Very probably,” he said dryly, watching her eyes move as she searched his face.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll take that as good enough. Thank you.”

  Out of old habit, he almost said: I didn’t do it for you; stopped himself just in time. “You’re welcome,” he told her instead.

  “What now?” she said. “I came to rescue you, but apparently it wasn’t necessary after all. I need to go back to Bright Bay and take care of family matters. What are you going to do?”

  Which answered the question he’d never gotten around to asking: how the hells she’d wound up back in the Horn to begin with. She had come to rescue him. A desert lord—a human—had tried to save a First Born ha’ra’ha. After seeing what he’d done to her ancestral home. Knowing that he could kill her as easily, at any time. No doubt Eredion had warned her of the risk. And she’d walked straight into the arms of the teyanain to do it, knowing the danger of that just as clearly. The admission staggered him.

  Nobody had ever tried to rescue him from anything before—unless one counted Meer, who’d tried to save Deiq’s soul.

  He lay still and looked at the lines of her face with care. “That depends. I somehow don’t think you need my guidance any longer.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think I do, either. But you still need me.”

  “Not quite the right word,” he said dryly, smiling.

  “I suppose not.” She shut her eyes, then pushed herself up to a full sit, legs curled sideways, and looked down at him, expression pensive. “Will you marry me?”

  Breath fled him. He stared, utterly speechless: his mouth open without producing any sound.

  She blinked solemnly and waited for an answer.

  At last he managed, “That’s a very dangerous notion, politically. The southern Families....” Words left him. He shook his head, bemused out of speech, unable to believe she’d just asked that particular question.

  “If you hang about,” she said reasonably, “the northern politics will be ugly. You’re a merchanting power, not a noble, to northerners. I’m a northern noblewoman, close to the king, and a desert lord now on top of that. A rich merchant isn’t the kind of casual company I ought to have in my bed.”

  “And the southern Families, the ones who know otherwise, will be twice as agitated. Yes.” He shut his eyes, making himself think it over in purely practical terms. She had a point, and one he hadn’t even been considering. Tangling himself up in a long-term relationship with a noble wasn’t something he’d contemplated in more years than she’d been alive, and the politics had been

  ...different, back then. Very different.

  “Marrying won’t solve any of that, Alyea.”

  “Better a bonfire than a smolder,” she remarked cheerfully.

  He blinked and stared at her, startled all over again. She grinned.

  “You’re going to be hanging about,” she said. “You did say so, if you recall. You want to figure out why you can feed from me without causing pain, and until you can figure out how to duplicate that, you want to be able to rely on using me when you need to feed.”

  He heard no bitterness in her tone, merely a statement of fact.

  She continued, her expression as calm as her voice, “As I have obligations in Bright Bay, ones you yourself told me I need to stay and tend to, that leaves limited options, doesn’t it? I’m not interested in sneaking about and hiding things; it never works for long, and turns ugly when it fails. In for a feather, in for a goose. Might as well have a proper mouthful for people to fuss over.”

  He opened his mouth; shut it again. Shut his eyes. Breathed steadily for a while. The entire notion was lunacy. Beyond lunacy. He couldn’t believe she’d even considered it, much less voiced it aloud.

  But...she had a point.

  Finally, unable to think of any real objections, he said, “What sort of marriage vows and boundaries do you have in mind?”

  “Whatever restrictions you place on me,” she said promptly, “I’ll expect you to abide by yourself.”

  He sat up, arranged himself comfortably cross-legged, and regarded her soberly. “That sounds a very—equal arrangement.”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” she said, watching his eyes. “A partner, not a servant. That’s what you were trying to tell me earlier.”

  He blinked hard against an unexpected dampness, and found his throat too thick for speech.

  “When I became a desert lord,” Alyea said, without particular emotion, “I agreed to a partnership with the ha’reye and the ha’ra’hain. The fact that I didn’t completely understand what I was walking into doesn’t really matter. I paid the price, I walked through the door, and I was given the gifts. I can’t give those gifts back. I can’t turn around and walk out. I can’t unpay the price. I’m here.”

  “Do you know,” he said, wondering, “I don’t believe a single human in—I honestly don’t know how long—has talked to me this way. Not a single desert lord.”

  He’d never expected Alyea to come so far so quickly in her own understanding of the situation, either.

  “Then there have been a lot of damn fools,” she retorted.

  “Granted,” he admitted. “But they were mainly just afraid, Alyea. Terrified of the pain.”

  “Pain,” she said, “doesn’t last. Promises should.”

  He thought of Kippin, writhing and screaming to an indifferent sky, far above them. Pain could last much longer than she thought.

  “Promises rarely outlast real pain,” he said. “Otherwise torture wouldn’t hold much value.”

  “You promised not to hurt me,” she said, stare dark and direct. “That’s outlasted a fair amount of pain so far.”

  “Everything has limits.”

  “So you will hurt me? You lied when you made that promise?”

  He frowned at her, annoyance beginning to stir. “Alyea, this isn’t a direction you want to take with me. Not right now. Not ever.”

  “Does it hurt you when I challenge you,” she said, “or does it scare you?”

  His breath hissed between his teeth.

  “Stop this,” he said. “Stop.”

  “I’m told that you’ll probably lose your temper and kill me one day,” she said, not moving. “Go ahead and get it over with, then, if you’re going to do it. I hate waiting.”

  “You’re a fool.”

  “Would it help if I slapped you again?”

  Her hand moved. He caught it before it made contact with his face, his fingers tight around her wrist. “Alyea. What the hells are you trying to do?”

&
nbsp; “Prove a point.” She jerked her hand clear of his with startling strength. “I’m offering you a partnership. If that’s what you actually want, fine: but partners can challenge each other without escalating it into violence. Partners can tell each other no. If you’re going to say I can’t push you, or refuse you something you want, then what you’re really after is a slave. And I won’t be a slave to anyone, Deiq. Not for any reason. So kill me now and get it over with for both our sakes, then go find some other damn fool desert lord to torture.”

  He stared, astounded. “You have no damn idea what you’re dealing with,” he said. “This is instinct, Alyea!”

  “It’s habit,” she returned. “It’s what you’ve always been told you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to react, and you’ve never tried to change it. Now you’re changing, and it hurts, and it scares you, and you’re running away and hiding behind the excuse of instinct.”

  Deiq opened his mouth, then shut it again, bewildered at his lack of temper. “Where the hells is all this coming from?” he demanded.

  She shrugged. “Not everyone knows everything,” she said obliquely. “Some surprising people turn out to know an awful damn lot about some surprising things, though.”

  He glanced at the walls reflexively, drawing in a sharp breath. “I see.”

  Yes, the teyanain would know more about ha’ra’hain psychology than most humans dared guess at. And they’d had quite a while to talk to her alone. Devious, indeed. Damn you, Evkit.

  “Whose idea was this marriage proposal?”

  “Mine,” she said. “I didn’t tell them I was going to do this.” He looked at the serenity in her face and believed her. “You haven’t said yes or no yet, by the way.”

  Words failed him again. He put out both hands and dragged her into his lap. She offered no resistance, curling up with her head pressed against his shoulder. Stared at him, dark eyes barely a handspan from his own: unafraid, waiting.

  “You’re going to be seen as insane on all sides,” he said.