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

by Leona Wisoker

  Wian’s face wentwhite and murderous. Eredion lunged up out of his chair and intercepted Wian before she reached Fimre; scooped her up and retreated several fast steps.

  “He doesn’t know!” he shouted into her face, but wasn’t sure she heard him through her string of loud cursing. “Wian! He didn’t know. Stop!”

  “Didn’t know what?” Fimre said, bewildered.

  Eredion ignored him, all his attention on not dropping Wian as she writhed in his arms. “Wian, stop,” he said again; finally gave up and called on command: “Stop.”

  She quieted immediately, eyes brimming with tears, and tucked her head up against his shoulder, shuddering all over.

  Eredion looked up at Fimre’s honestly astonished expression and said, “Let me get her settled, please. I’ll be back in a few moments.”

  In the bedroom, he eased her down onto the bed, murmuring reassurance.

  “You’re going to give me to him, aren’t you?” she whispered as he drew blankets over her. “That’s what this is about.” Her fingers tightened around his hand, like a child begging for reassurance. “Just like Rosin.”

  “No,” he said. “No, Wian, you’re not a slave to give away. He had to understand, that’s all, and I had no other way to get through to him. I’m sorry it humiliated you. I’m sorry.” He stroked her hair and face gently with his free hand. “You’re not a whore. You’re not a slave. Not now. Rosin’s dead, and that time is all over, Wian. I won’t hurt you like that. I promise. Easy...easy. Shhh.”

  Her breathing evened under his carefully cadenced words, her tight grip on his hand easing. “Not...whore,” she murmured.

  “Go to sleep,” Eredion said, sliding his words under the level of her conscious hearing. “Shhh. Sleep. Everything’s fine. Go to sleep.”

  Not long after that, he drew the bedroom door softly shut behind him, then went to the sideboard to pour himself a shot of desert lightning. Without turning, he said, “That was too close to Rosin’s favorite phrase during a torture session. This can stop anytime you like, sweet, just do what I want. Anything you want comes after that, sweet, just let me know.” He lifted the small cup and downed the shot, his own skin prickling with delayed reaction; poured another and tossed it back as fast. “She heard it a lot. I heard it more.”

  “Did he dare—” The words held sharply rising anger.

  “No. Rosin never laid a hand on me. He just made me watch it all.”

  In the following silence, Eredion took another cup from the tray and filled it, then pushed it aside and flicked his fingers over his shoulder to indicate this one was for Fimre. He gave himself one more refill and stood staring at it, waiting.

  Fimre moved to stand beside him. Picked up the cup, set it down again. “Lord Eredion—”

  “You couldn’t have known. Drink, damnit.”

  A moment later, the empty cup clicked on the sideboard. Eredion refilled it.

  “She’s one of the unlucky ones,” Eredion said as Fimre slugged down the second shot. “She lived. I’ve done what I can, but there’s no healing what she went through, not totally. Not when you’ve seen your mother raped to death, your father’s guts looped around his neck, your ten-year-old sister violated in every possible way; not when you’ve gone through those violations yourself, for years on end, too stubborn to give in and die. And then Rosin used Ninnic’s child to twist her, so that now she acts the whore at the slightest mental nudge....”

  Fimre didn’t say anything, his face very nearly white.

  “I stood by,” Eredion said, staring at the wall, “and watched all those things happen to hundreds of people. I healed some of them, because Rosin would do worse things to more innocents if I didn’t. Every time I snuck a prisoner out of their cell, every time I sent a family Rosin was about to go after out of the city to safety, I paid for it by watching something horrible happen to someone else. So that’s what sort of wonderful, generous person I am, Fimre: I saved one person knowing it meant the torture and death of five more, every time.”

  Fimre held out his empty cup. Eredion splashed some more liquor into it.

  “Leave Wian alone,” he said. “Fimre, leave her alone. Please. She’s been through enough.”

  “Yes,” Fimre said, a single, subdued word.

  Eredion picked up his cup and tossed back the final shot of rotgut, then let out a long breath as it burned its way down and through his whole body in a flush of warmth.

  “Sit down,” he said. “We’ve some more talking to do before I send you off to your quarters for the night.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Rain thundered down as though dumped from a gigantic bucket. Tank and Dasin slogged through ankle-deep and rising water towards the inn, Delt having headed in another direction entirely after leaving Yuer’s.

  “Hope he shows up in the morning,” Dasin groused, head bent against the deluge; his hair storm-slicked into dark brown rat-tails.

  “We aren’t going anywhere in the morning,” Tank observed. He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes. “This storm’s moved in for a day or two at the least. Not enough wind to move it past sooner than that.”

  His stomach roiled as he heard the echo of his own words in his head: Two days, he thought then. We’ll be stuck here two days. Then the storm will move due north.

  His feet began to trade their frozen chill for a dangerously numb feeling. For the first time ever, he missed the overpowering dry heat of Yuer’s home. He put out a hand and nudged Dasin’s shoulder with his knuckles.

  “Move faster,” he said. “This water’s getting deeper by the breath. And colder.” Then, belatedly, he reversed the nudge into a hard grip on the thin shoulder. “You did good back there, Dasin. Damn good.”

  Bones moved in a shrug. “Did what I had to, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah,” Tank said. He released his grip. “Come on, let’s get warm.”

  A few steps later, Dasin said, chin tucking down even further and the words barely audible against the roar of rain in Tank’s ears: “Don’t—take the commons room tonight. Don’t.” He hesitated. Tank gripped Dasin’s shoulder again, cutting off the next word; knowing what it would be, not wanting it voiced.

  Not wanting to make Dasin beg: as he would, having gone this far towards admitting his vulnerability.

  Dasin’s head came up. He turned a quick glance towards Tank, his thin face stark in the dim storm-light, and said, “I know I’m not—”

  “Shut up,” Tank said, and shoved lightly at Dasin’s shoulder, not letting go.

  Dasin stopped walking and turned to face him. “Why?” he said, the single word filled with bewildered anguish; no telling which version of why he meant. Why do you care about me, why did I have to go through that childhood, why did Raffin go after me—there were dozens of possibilities, but Dasin wasn’t overly given to introspection, which narrowed the range considerably.

  Tank shook his head, not sure what to say. “Some things just are,” he said at last, which answered most versions he could think of offhand. He glanced down at the water swirling around his ankles. “Let’s go get dry before you get swept away like a twig.”

  Dasin stood still another moment, face oddly emotionless under the streaks of water running down his cheeks, staring at Tank as though he’d never seen him before.

  “He said you thought you were too good for me,” he said abruptly. “That you’d gone off with the high-borns and wouldn’t ever come back.”

  Tank set his teeth in his tongue for a careful count of five, then said, “Dasin.”

  “And then once I left with him, he said you’d never look at me again because of what I’d done, what he’d proven me to be—” Dasin stopped and squeezed his eyes shut.

  The sky flared white; a few seconds later a thunderclap shook the ground. Tank grabbed Dasin’s arm and swung him roughly into motion. “Tell me about it inside.”

  Dasin stumbled along without protest. Tank fought back his towering irritation as he propelled the blond merchant tow
ards the inn; he had a why of his own: Why the hells can’t Dasin quit poking at this?

  No point asking questions he already knew the answer to.

  He released Dasin’s arm as they entered the inn, trusting that sense would keep Dasin moving towards the room; that trust, at least, was upheld. Once in the room, Tank secured the door—if a simple bar and latch combination could be called secure. Dasin just stood there, still fully clothed, dripping wet and shivering, eyes fixed on something invisible—probably a past memory.

  Tank snorted and resisted the impulse to slap Dasin’s shoulder; that would only set off another fight. Instead, he edged around Dasin to where they’d left the packs and rummaged through Dasin’s.

  “Where’s your aesa?” he said after a few moments. “Dasin. Snap out of it. Where’s your pipe?”

  “Raffin took it,” Dasin said vaguely. “All of it.”

  “Fucking nit,” Tank muttered, and shoved the packs back under the bed, then sat back on his heels. “Dasin. Get out of those wet clothes and dry off; you’ll get sick.”

  “So what?” Dasin retorted, turning to look at Tank, his eyes clear now. “Means I’ll get some rest.”

  “Dasin,” Tank said sharply. “Do you even know where you are?”

  Dasin scowled at him. “Sitting in an inn with a goddamn loon, is what,” he said. “I didn’t figure you’d understand.” He turned his back and began to strip off the sodden clothing, letting it drop to the floor in a careless heap.

  Tank shook his head and hauled himself upright, the clammy chill of his own clothes reminding him that he was just as soaked as Dasin. Somehow he couldn’t make himself strip down as casually as Dasin was doing; he stood still, watching without moving.

  Dasin turned around, completely unselfconscious, and grabbed one of the coarse towels from the washstand. Scrubbing the damp from his skin, he said, “I’ll manage. I’ve managed without before. I’ll just be cranky.”

  “More than usual? I didn’t think that was possible,” Tank said before his brain could cut in.

  Dasin shot him a sour glare. “Yeah,” he said. “Much more than usual.” He turned his back on Tank.

  Tank shrugged his shirt off and draped it over the back of a chair.

  “What do you usually do when you run out of aesa?” he asked, idly curious; wondering if the chich sticks in his pack would help Dasin’s mood. He doubted it; those were more specifically for dasta fits than for simple anxieties.

  “Get laid,” Dasin said without turning. “But I’m not going back out through that storm to find a safe fuck, and I doubt you want to touch me right now, do you? So I’ll manage.”

  Tank stood still. After a moment, he said, “No. I don’t.” He waited a beat, watching Dasin’s shoulders stiffen back into an aggrieved pose, then said, “Dasin. Look at me.”

  Dasin’s hands fisted in the towel, and his head jerked to one side in a brief twitch. Slowly, he wrapped the towel around his waist—he had to secure it with one hand—and turned around, his movements deliberate and his stare filled with challenge.

  “It’s a long road ahead,” Tank said. “Are you going to run off to someone like Raffin every time you get mad at me?”

  “I wasn’t angry at you,” Dasin said levelly. “I was scared. You walked off and left me, wouldn’t tell me anything except that there was trouble you had to handle and you wanted me to sit put and wait for you to come back. You think I’m your whore, to treat me that way?”

  Tank bit his lip. “Didn’t think of it like that,” he admitted. “Sorry, Dasin. Things were a little—strange at the time.”

  “And you still won’t tell me anything.”

  Tank hesitated, then said, “No. I won’t. It’s better you don’t know.”

  “Long road,” Dasin threw back at him. “How long are you going to refuse to talk about this?”

  “I won’t talk about this with you, Dasin. Ever. If that’s a problem, I’ll find another contract.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Not the best way to get laid,” Tank observed, unable to repress a grin. “Insults don’t turn me on.”

  “Like I ever had a chance,” Dasin said bitterly. He began to shove past Tank, clearly aiming for the packs and dry clothing; Tank put out one arm and dragged him close. Dasin yelped protest as Tank’s cold, wet pants slapped against his own legs, and tried to recoil. Tank held him still.

  “Dasin,” he said. “Stop a moment. Just stop.”

  “You’re all over wet and cold—”

  “I know. Shut up.”

  Dasin finally went quiet and leaned his forehead against Tank’s. They stood without speaking, their breathing evening out and matching; Dasin’s jagged pulse slowed, his equally fractured emotions easing into something more stable. Tank stayed still, not saying anything, not really thinking, just focusing on feelings of calm, of quiet, of restful. At last, Dasin drew in a deep, shuddering breath and let it out in a long hiss.

  “All right,” he said, the brittle tension gone from his voice. “All right. Thank you.”

  Tank let his arm drop. “I’ll go hunt down some aesa,” he said without any real emotion, still half-hazed in the serene calm he’d somehow layered over Dasin. Dimly, the thought arose that he’d finally found something useful he could do; something that didn’t leave a sick feeling of shame in its wake.

  Dasin sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed, but all he said aloud, as Tank pulled on his still-dripping shirt, was: “Go see Deea. She’ll have some aesa and a spare pipe. And—take your time. I don’t mind.”

  Tank paused, half-turned, looking back over his shoulder at Dasin’s thin, exhausted face; then, shaking his head, let himself out of the room without answering.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Lord Evkit’s eyes narrowed to slits, and the room had gone absolutely silent.

  “Marry,” Lord Evkit said.

  “Yes,” Deiq said, restraining himself to absolute blandness.

  “You ask me. To marry you.”

  “Yes.”

  “As an equal partnership,” Alyea said. Deiq wished she’d stayed silent. The incredulous expression that crossed Evkit’s face was not a promising reaction to that statement.

  Silence hung for a long moment.

  “Partnership,” Evkit said eventually. “Equal. Ha’inn, you agree to this?”

  Damnit, I wish she’d kept her mouth shut. “Yes.”

  “Equals.”

  “Yes.”

  Evkit blinked, then slitted his eyes again. Blinked. Stared at Alyea. Stared at Deiq. Turned his head to the side and whistled sharply.

  A door in the rear of the room opened; a teyanain woman in a robe of blue and white came through. Deiq promptly looked at the floor, tucking his chin to his chest, and folded his hands together behind his back. The teyanain never let outsider males see their women, not even ha’ra’hain.

  Evkit said something too fast and dialect-heavy for Deiq to follow. The woman answered as rapidly. It sounded as if Evkit wasn’t pleased by the situation; the overall tone was suspiciously accusatory. What the hells did you tell her? and What the hells did you tell him?

  Deiq pursed his lips against a smile and kept very, very still.

  The argument stopped. The door shut. Silence returned.

  “I do,” Evkit said, perfectly calm again. “My conditions. You take hanaa-aerst-yin ceremony, you really want this equal.”

  Deiq looked up with a deliberately mild expression. “Binding of Feathers?” he translated aloud for Alyea’s benefit. “I believe I recall that one. That’s acceptable.” Although yin—unbreakable—seemed an odd word to add into a feather ceremony, which were typically arrangements of convenience and easily broken. Still, that was a relatively minor matter, probably a teyanain custom he’d forgotten or never learned about. He didn’t give it much thought.

  As he remembered it, the feather-joining ceremony mainly involved a ludicrous amount of body painting and chanting. Humans apparently tended to find it spiri
tually powerful. He suspected he’d find it enormously boring.

  Alyea nodded. Her throat worked in a convulsive swallow, and her face didn’t have its normal color. So she was nervous now. Good. He’d have been worried if she wasn’t.

  Bloody damn lunatic notion, this whole thing. But he’d done stupider. Probably.

  “You go bathe,” Evkit said, tone and expression as chill as the midnight air in the high spots of the Horn. Not happy. Not in the least bit happy. This situation probably strained the bonds of their recent alliance, in fact. Marriage would have been one thing, but equals—He should have warned her to let him do all the talking.

  What the hells am I thinking? I should have convinced her to wait until we went north again. This isn’t safe, this isn’t sane.

  Too late now.

  “You go bathe, ceremony prepare,” Evkit repeated, and waved a hand. Teyanain guards came to escort them out, and Deiq went without argument.

  He spent most of the next few hours trying to figure out whether he was amused by the situation—or petrified.

  You never really tried, Idisio had accused once, speaking of a prior attempt at following human marriage customs; and Alyea’s challenge still rang in his mind: You’re changing, and it hurts, and it scares you.

  I should have killed her a hundred times over already, the way she’s insulting me and pushing at me. Why haven’t I? Why don’t I react to her aggravating me? It doesn’t make any damn sense at all.

  In a thousand years, nobody had talked to him the way she did and survived a moment longer.

  He swore in a language forgotten by men hundreds of years before, and let the silent teyanain servants prepare him for a wedding he wasn’t at all sure he wanted.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  The daimaina came into the room as Alyea stepped into the large bathing tub. The young woman assisting Alyea into the water glanced up, blanched, and retreated as soon as she could; Alyea let herself focus on the heat and the steam, shutting her eyes to the ominous expression she’d already seen on the daimaina’s face.