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

by Leona Wisoker

  “Why?” Eredion asked at last, the word curt and rough.

  “Because without it, humans said no.”

  Eredion sucked in a noisy breath. “The Split.”

  “Yes. The ha’reye only consented to forgive humanity when humanity agreed to the—” He thought about saying binding, then decided it was too late for polite euphemism. “—the collar. That’s part of what should be in the desert lord training, but it’s been...left out, more and more, over the years.”

  “Because no sane human would knowingly put themselves on a damn leash,” Eredion snapped. Some recent grief shimmered through his voice. Deiq didn’t press after it.

  “I know,” Deiq said quietly. “I’m sorry, Eredion.”

  Another long silence. Then: “Can it be removed?”

  Deiq shut his eyes, repressing a shiver. “Don’t,” he said, barely audible. “Please don’t ask me that, Eredion.”

  “Which means yes,” Eredion said, voice as bleak as Deiq had ever heard it. “And you can. And you won’t.”

  “You should have been told,” Deiq said, not opening his eyes. “Before the trials. But so many people refused to continue in the training, when they heard about that part....” He let the sentence trail off.

  “It’s one thing,” Eredion said, “to think that you’ve shared of yourself with a ha’rethe, and that you’re linked in a way that makes you hypersensitive to the needs and desires of ha’ra’hain and ha’reye. I’ve come to terms with being a—a—” His voice broke again. It took a moment for him to continue. “A servant, a kathain. Humiliating, but livable. It’s entirely another to see myself as a....” His voice died out, apparently unable to find the right words.

  “As a puppet,” Deiq said. “Yes. I know.” He drew in a deep breath. “But without it, any ha’ra’ha or ha’rethe who realizes you’re unbound will kill you, Eredion. Without hesitation. And then they’ll dig in, find out who removed the collar, and come to kill that person.”

  Which is what I ought to be doing right now: killing Alyea and going to find the one who was insane enough to risk everything.

  And I won’t. Gods help me, I won’t. Which is as good as having done it myself.

  He swallowed hard and opened his eyes; met a bleak hatred in Eredion’s stare. Surprisingly, that sent another hot ache through his chest for a moment. Hells, he thought, and gave in.

  “Hold still, then,” he said tersely.

  Eredion blinked, emotions shifting into something like surprise.

  “Don’t say anything,” Deiq said. “Just be quiet and hold still. I’ve never done this before. I might kill you.”

  Eredion shut his eyes, his mouth thinning with the effort of not saying what was clearly on his mind to say. A thread of recent memory escaped him: Wian’s voice.

  The only thing he can do now is to kill me and my child. I’m not afraid of dying....

  It didn’t take much wit to guess at the remaining conversation, given the emotional undertones Deiq saw in that one fragment. So Wian had finally slipped her own collar and gone off to fight her own battles; mildly admirable, mostly worrisome, given her well-established weaknesses. Fortunately, that wasn’t in any way Deiq’s concern, especially just at the moment.

  I’m not afraid to die, Eredion said flatly, bringing the focus back to the issue at hand.

  “I don’t expect you are,” Deiq murmured.

  “Do it, ha’inn,” Eredion rasped.

  “Yes....” Deiq covered the tiny scar at the base of Eredion’s throat with his palm, cupping it to avoid physical contact. Eredion’s breath roughened, muscles rippling along his jaw and throat, then steadied, relaxing into a calm that had to come from an aqeyva trance. Deiq let out a breath, relieved that Eredion’s control was—so far—holding. He shifted to other vision to look at the collar.

  The binding-lines were a darker color than he’d expected, and heavily shadowed along an inside track. No—not shadowed. Scarred, from where the binding had been jerked cruelly tight multiple times.

  Deiq found himself astonished that Eredion had survived the abuse with his sanity intact. Then again, it might be perfectly normal for a desert lord of any real experience to have such soul-markings. Deiq generally avoided looking at the collars. They always made him feel vaguely nauseated. He didn’t even think about them if he could help it.

  So this might be normal, but he didn’t think so. Not given Eredion’s history.

  Deiq drew in and let out another breath, keeping his hand steady. “This is probably going to hurt,” he said curtly. “You have to stay relaxed and trust me. If you fight me, I’ll kill you out of sheer reflex.” No questioning that boundary, not with Eredion.

  Eredion shivered all over, not opening his eyes; then he drew a deep breath and dropped into a deeper stillness yet, a full aqyeva trance.

  Without hesitation, without moving a muscle, Deiq reached through skin and bone to untwist and untie every binding thread he could find. He eased them out like drawing a worm from its hole. While the main binding collected around the brain, groin, and throat, there were trailing threads, like a jellyfish’s tentacles, wound into other critical spots: heart, stomach, lungs—every major organ in the human body. He unwound them all, little by little, with infinite patience.

  Eredion stayed still, breathing evenly, perfectly calm and more than likely unaware of what was happening. He’d gone deep into a trance, thank the gods.

  A slick, greasy mass began collecting against Deiq’s palm, clinging to his skin like mud. He pulled his hand away slowly, drawing the last of the binding out and away, gathering the writhing mass into his cupped hands. Human eyes couldn’t see the hypnotically dancing colors in this thick tangle of ethereal threads. Deiq himself had never seen a binding gathered all together like this, outside its host; there was something dreadfully beautiful about it.

  He brought his hands up to his face and breathed on the coiling strands. They dissolved into a million fluttering pieces, like chromatic ash, and dissipated completely a moment later.

  Eredion made an odd choking sound and went to his knees, both hands clutching his throat. Deiq took another moment to whip-stitch a colorful simulacrum of the binding through the relevant points; it would pass a casual inspection, but had none of the tiny barbs that had kept Eredion jumping to do anything asked of him. That done, Deiq leaned back against the nearby wall, dry-washing his hands.

  Eredion, on his knees, gagged and coughed as though trying to turn his insides to the outside.

  Deiq stayed clear. There was nothing further he could do at this point, except to clean up the body if Eredion didn’t have the will to fight through this moment. It might feel, he speculated idly, rather like a drug addict going through withdrawal. The binding had been driving Eredion for a long time.

  Eredion gasped, rocking back on his heels, and fixed his watering gaze on Deiq. “You fucking bastard,” he rasped; shut his eyes again, shuddering all over.

  Deiq waited, breathing evenly.

  Eredion gasped again, a horrible, sobbing sound; then drove himself to his feet and stood swaying like a drunk.

  “Bastard,” he said again, more clearly.

  There still seemed no point in answering that, so he didn’t.

  Eredion’s eyes opened, focused, fixed. He took a single step forward and swung hard without any warning at all. The floor came up under Deiq a moment later, tumbling past with surprising speed.

  Deiq rolled to his feet and turned to face Eredion, astonished by how badly the blow had hurt—more surprised that he hadn’t been able to stop it in time. He’d expected the punch. Violence was a natural human way of testing boundaries. He hadn’t expected Eredion to actually knock him over.

  Eredion hadn’t moved forward in pursuit. He was shaking his hand and grimacing. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he said. “May have broken a knuckle, but damn was that worth it.”

  “No doubt,” Deiq said dryly, staying where he was. “Feel better now?”
/>   “Much. Seeing as I’m still alive.”

  “For the moment.” Deiq touched his jaw lightly, wincing. His own lack of anger served as confirmation of a guess: his own reflexes were slaved to that damn collar. He’d been just as trapped as the desert lords.

  Not smart to tell Eredion that, though. Especially now.

  Something else needed to be tested before he let Eredion leave the room.

  “Welcome to freedom,” Deiq said. “But you’re still a desert lord. You still have your oaths to uphold. You’re just not going to be forced into upholding them any longer.”

  Eredion stood very still, dark eyes tracking Deiq’s every twitch. At last he said, “I’ll hold to my promises, ha’inn. For you.” He spread his hands. They trembled noticeably. “Take what you need.”

  Deiq drew in a long breath and moved forward the few steps to stand within arm’s reach, more shaken by that for you than he’d expected. “Even if I hurt you?”

  Eredion’s eyes slid half-shut. “Yes,” he said. The tremors steadied. “Go ahead.”

  Deiq put a hand to Eredion’s chest, remembering, for just a moment, the blazing blue hand-print still on his own body.

  He feathered a light draw. Eredion’s breath hissed, his eyes opening in clear surprise. Increasing the draw brought Eredion’s eyes wider and his hands up to rest on Deiq’s hips.

  “Gods,” the desert lord said around a gasp, “that isn’t what I expected!”

  Deiq trailed a fingertip down Eredion’s chest, with just enough pressure to push thin shirt fabric against the flesh beneath. Eredion shuddered, but not in protest; arousal flared from him, hot and musky. Deiq reluctantly took his hand away and allowed his grin to surface instead. Eredion matched it a moment later, understanding replacing astonishment.

  “Good to know,” Deiq murmured, and let the draw fade away. He didn’t need the energy; the point had been proven; and Eredion wouldn’t welcome further attention, whatever his body’s reaction said.

  Eredion backed up a long step. “Is that all it was?” he said, voice unsteady. “The damn collar?”

  “Apparently,” Deiq said dryly, “humans really don’t appreciate being forced to serve. True willing is another matter.”

  “Why the hells would anyone refuse this sort of—” Eredion glanced down at a visible bulge. His face darkened with embarrassment.

  “I don’t know,” Deiq said, and shrugged at Eredion’s skeptical look. “Even a ha’ra’ha forgets, over time, and this was hundreds of years ago.”

  “I can guess,” Eredion said after a moment. “Just from what I’ve seen in my own lifetime. Seeing a child you used to spank for misbehaving turned into someone who can order you around like a puppet, or throw fire, or move chairs without touching them, or read your mind—it’s frightening.”

  “That sounds about right,” Deiq admitted. “And in the beginning there was much less consistency in the training. Some teachers no doubt abused their power. Some supplicants never should have been allowed into the training.”

  “Mistakes were made,” Eredion said, desert-dry. The last of his arousal faded from the air around them. Deiq drew in a deep breath, found himself relieved, and grinned.

  “You could say that, yes. And one flashy mistake is all it would have taken to start a misunderstanding that the trials created monsters.”

  “Not something parents want for their children,” Eredion observed.

  “No. And it never has taken long for humans as a whole to change direction when they’re afraid of something.”

  “And fear translates to resistance,” Eredion said. He shut his eyes, his shoulders sagging. “Which makes you grab harder, because you expect absolute compliance; which hurts the target and confirms the rumors. Gods. It must have cascaded into a waterfall of panic within a few years.”

  Deiq said, thoughtfully, “That does sound accurate. I don’t think anyone ever really understood what was happening. I never saw it clearly, until just now.”

  Eredion shook his head. “Someone must have figured it out.”

  “If they did,” Deiq said, “their voice was smothered before it came clear. It wasn’t a particularly tolerant time, and a lot of knowledge was lost along the way.”

  “But something so simple...for so many years! It should have been seen before now.”

  “It’s easy to call something that you already understand simple, Eredion.”

  “Yes...you’re right.” Eredion stood looking at nothing in particular for a while, his breathing even. “What now?”

  “Now you stay out of the range of any ha’rethe or ha’ra’ha,” Deiq said promptly. “I gave you a fake that will pass casual inspection, but don’t test it too hard.”

  “I’ve been recalled to Sessin Fortress. Lord Fimre’s already here. Refusing that order...I’ll be blacked out of the Sessin Family Book of Blood, at best.”

  “Better exile than death,” Deiq pointed out. “I’ll put you under my protection, if you like. That should shield you from some problems.”

  “And raise a host of others. There’s already talk I’m your kathain.”

  Deiq laughed, unable to help himself. Eredion shot him a sour glare, then broke into a reluctant grin.

  “Yes,” Eredion said, “a bit late for that to sting, isn’t it? Still, it puts more power into your hands. Two desert lords following your orders? You’ll be accused of building up your own Family, outside of normal boundaries. Of taking control of a northern Family to create your own power base. You’ll set the south into a frenzy.”

  “I doubt Alyea would follow my orders if her life depended on it,” Deiq said wryly. “Nor you, for that matter. And they’re already going to be in a froth.” He touched the corner of one of his eyebrows lightly, rubbing a fingertip over the tiny scar there. “I married her.”

  Eredion’s mouth opened and stayed that way for a few moments, all color draining from his face. At last he shut his mouth and said, with precise care, “I would ask You did what and Are you insane, but I’m assuming you’ve already said that to yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “Last I knew,” Eredion said, very steadily, “you were captured by some unknown enemy and Alyea had run off to hunt after you. Do you mind if I ask just how in—” He paused, swallowed hard, and went on with commendable calm. “How all that wound up with you getting married?”

  “It’s a very long story,” Deiq said, smiling. “And you have a few questions to answer, yourself. I have a feeling this is going to be a long night’s talk, so I’d very much like a bath and a meal, and a mug or ten of good wine, along the way. Let’s go back to Peysimun Mansion. You did a nice job there, by the way; and that bill is one of the things I want to talk to you about.”

  Eredion shook his head. “Already paid,” he said, voice muted by some distress. “Odd story in itself. We’ll talk on that later. But Peysimun holds no debt over the repairs.”

  “Good to know,” Deiq said, one worry easing. “Let’s go find some of that wine I suspect you stocked in Peysimun cellars.”

  Eredion grinned.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Alyea walked through the familiar halls and rooms of Peysimun Mansion, haunted by a persistent sense of never having really seen them before. Rill walked a step behind her, obdurate in the face of Alyea’s attempts to wave her off; and after a short while, Alyea found the company reassuring. She didn’t ask Rill any questions, mainly because she wasn’t at all sure she was ready to hear the answers.

  None of the servants Alyea passed seemed familiar. They glanced at her without recognition, then at Rill for a prompt; then bowed respectfully. On impulse, Alyea turned her steps towards the kitchens.

  “Lord Peysimun,” Rill said quietly. “I suggest not disrupting the kitchen staff at the moment. They’re hard at work on the evening meal.”

  Alyea stopped and turned to look at her head housekeeper. “My presence won’t be a disruption.”

  “Yes, my lord, it will be. I’m sorry. We can
have a full review of the estate tomorrow morning, if you like, but for tonight it’s best not to go poking your head in unexpectedly. It makes servants nervous to have the head of a household wandering into their territory without warning.”

  Alyea stared, disbelieving. “I’ve never worried over that before!”

  “You’ve never been head of household before,” Rill pointed out. “And you’re a desert lord, my lord. That’s bound to make more than a few people nervous all on its own. Please trust me, Lord Peysimun. I do know my business. You need to do a proper tour in the morning, as head of Peysimun.”

  Alyea bit her lip. “I just...wanted to know if Nem is still there,” she said in an absurdly small voice that wouldn’t rise despite her best efforts.

  “He is,” Rill said promptly. “He’s looking forward to seeing you again, I believe. In the morning.”

  Alyea sighed. At least Nem was in his proper place. The world hadn’t gone utterly off its axles just yet. “May I...see my former rooms, then?”

  Rill’s face went very still. “They’re—being cleaned, my lord. I’d suggest not, just yet.”

  “I saw them before they were cleaned,” Alyea said bluntly. “I doubt the sight will bother me now.”

  Rill pursed her lips, clearly unhappy.

  “Look,” Alyea said, trying to sound reasonable, “I’m too restless to sit quietly and bathe and dress and behave like a proper noble lady. It’s been a very strange few days, s’a, and I want to walk around and look at my home. My—estate. I’m not so easily upset by blood.”

  A smile ghosted across Rill’s face. “Lord Eredion warned me you’d be a handful,” she murmured. “Very well, Lord Peysimun. I understand. But if you’ll excuse me—I don’t care to walk into those rooms, myself.” Her nose flared, her lips thinning in distaste. “The workers have left for the day, so you won’t be disturbing anyone. I’ll tend to some other matters, and meet you back at your proper suite of rooms in a short while.”