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

by Leona Wisoker

  Well, it could wait. He had other matters to occupy himself with, in the meanwhile.

  He inhaled the ghost-trace of Alyea’s scent and smiled contentedly to himself.

  Chapter Sixty-two

  The patio, striped with the sunlight that poured through the east-facing arches, was warm, quiet, and smelled of rosemary. Oruen sat at his chabi board alone, studying a game in progress with apparently deep concentration, although a servant had gone ahead to announce Alyea’s arrival.

  She stood still at the edge of the patio, watching bees bumbling through the air, and wondered idly what significance bees had in southern symbolism. She’d have to remember to ask Deiq or Eredion at some point.

  Oruen continued to study his chabi board, not looking up.

  Alyea smiled, recognizing the double game going on, and waited with steady patience. At last Oruen grimaced and sat back, directing a look just short of a scowl toward her.

  “Lord Peysimun,” he said. After another, ostentatious pause, he stood and bowed, just barely.

  “Lord Oruen,” she returned. He gestured to the bench across from him; she shook her head. “I’m not here to play chabi today, Lord Oruen. I’m here to ask after Hama of Peysimun.”

  He matched her bluntness with his own. “She’s in custody for crimes against king and kingdom and city.”

  “What crimes are she accused of, Lord Oruen?”

  “She gave a fugitive shelter. She aided another fugitive in fleeing the city. She illegally took possession of an already seized property. She is directly responsible for the injury of a guard captain and a lesser guard.” He paused, watching her face, then added, deliberately, “She damn near got you killed, Alyea. More than once.”

  “I know,” Alyea said. “Does she have a defender, Lord Oruen?”

  Oruen snorted. “There’s a nobleman by the name of Lennimorn who’s been screeching at me about false imprisonment and trying to rouse the other nobles to protest, but outside of that, nobody’s stood up for her, no.”

  “She’s a member of Peysimun Family,” Alyea said.

  “Not by blood.”

  Alyea drew in a sharp breath, surprised that he knew, then let it out in a sigh.

  “Yes,” she said, “I know. But it’s my prerogative to claim her as kin, and I’m doing so, Lord Oruen. She’s still Peysimun.”

  “Her listed crimes fall under kingdom law. You can’t put her under immunity if she’s not blood family.” He looked particularly smug about that.

  “I’m not claiming immunity, Lord Oruen. I’m asking, between us, that you let me take care of this situation, instead of putting her through a northern trial.”

  “And if I say no?”

  She kept her expression blank. “That’s your prerogative, Lord Oruen.”

  His eyes narrowed sharply. He stared at her for a long moment, then said, abruptly, “Sit. Play a game of chabi with me.”

  Alyea didn’t protest this time, knowing the game wouldn’t be about winning, but a more subtle conversation. They rearranged the pieces to their starting positions in silence; Oruen claimed black and first move.

  Chabi, when played in a political style, allowed for a number of strategies; Alyea chose wait and see, keeping her movements largely neutral and fending off the probing attacks the king sent out. Oruen seemed content with an exploring style, testing her alertness and ability to see several moves ahead.

  After a while, the game stalled out. Oruen sighed and sat back to look directly at Alyea. “You did say you’d grown up,” he noted. “I’d have to agree with that. As much as I dislike him, Deiq’s been good for you.”

  She picked up her furun and turned it over in her fingers, studying it, and waited without speaking. This didn’t quite feel like the right time to mention the marriage.

  He sighed again, more deeply, and said, “Why do you want to back her, Alyea? She nearly got you killed.”

  “I’m not backing her,” Alyea said, glancing up. “I’m fully aware of everything she’s done at this point, thanks to a long discussion with my cousin.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “That would be the same cousin of yours who all but crawled into my cellars and begged to stay?”

  She nodded and went back to studying the furun. “Hama is still Peysimun at the end of the day, and my mother in all but blood. She kept me alive all these years, which had to be hard for her. Without me, she’d have the estate all to herself, with no worries about me setting her aside if I ever found out the truth. And in the chaos of the Purge, finding a way to get rid of me would have been easy. So....” She paused, then restrained a grin, knowing Oruen wouldn’t understand the humor. “I won’t call it love, but she cares.”

  “She won’t thank you for interfering,” Oruen said after a moment.

  “I know.”

  He remained quiet for a while, then said, “There have to be some consequence, Alyea. She stepped over too many lines, kingdom and southern. I can’t allow you to have complete jurisdiction on this one.”

  “What punishment did you have in mind, if I hadn’t stepped in?”

  “Imprisonment until she told me what I wanted to know, and decide from there,” Oruen said, desert-dry. “So far she hasn’t been talkative on useful matters.”

  Alyea breathed steadily, listening to the bees humming nearby, inhaling the scent of fresh rosemary. Oruen wouldn’t have tried torture; he loathed that approach as much as she did, and for the same reasons. But imprisonment would be a form of torture for Hama, just from the sheer embarrassment and indignity of it all, no matter how kindly she was treated.

  “If I could get you the answers you want,” she said, “would you release her to me?”

  He considered, tugging at his lower lip, then nodded once.

  She set the furun back on the board with precise care, symbol side up, then said, very quietly, “Please take me to her, then, Lord Oruen.”

  Squares of cloth, neatly cut and sorted, sat in stacks on the wooden table. Hama Peysimun sat in a plain chair beside the table, patiently sewing the squares together. She glanced up as Alyea entered, and her eyes narrowed; then she went back to stitching, her lips thin.

  Alyea stood still, as patient as she had been with Oruen, looking around the small room. The simple furniture was made of expensive woods and well-crafted; a bed, a writing desk, a table and chair for meals. A wide skylight overhead allowed in light while being far too high for escape, and it had a thin weave of bars across that actually managed to look decorative.

  She returned her attention to the woman she had called mother for most of her life, knowing Hama wouldn’t be able to ignore her for long. After the fourth crooked stitch had to be picked out, Hama shoved the fabric into an untidy heap on the table and glared at Alyea.

  Alyea returned the glare with a serene expression.

  “This is all your fault,” Hama said coldly.

  Alyea raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad to see that you’re still alive. I actually thought someone had kidnapped you and might hurt you.”

  “You didn’t exactly make much effort to find out, did you?” Hama snapped.

  “You weren’t exactly kidnapped, were you?” Alyea returned.

  “With all your supposed new wonderful desert lord powers you couldn’t tell where I was? You should have been able to track me down within an hour.”

  Alyea stared, astonished. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said, then paused, wondering if she’d missed the easy solution after all. No—because certainly Eredion would have mentioned that as an option, or tried it himself.

  “Of course not,” Hama said. “That’s so convenient.”

  Alyea opened her mouth to argue, to explain, then stopped herself. It didn’t really matter anymore. She studied the worn lines on Hama’s face with a detached interest, watching how the woman flinched away from direct eye contact, how her hands trembled now and again, the amount of grey that had crept into her pale hair.

  “You have a choice to make,” Alyea said fi
nally, repressing a sigh. “The king has questions for you. Answer those willingly, and you’ll be sent to the Stone Islands to live in comfort.”

  Hama’s face set into bitter lines of refusal. Before she could voice that aloud, Alyea went on.

  “Refuse to answer them, and I’ll make you answer, at which point you’ll still be sent to the Stone Islands, to live in somewhat less comfort. But if I have to compel you, I will probably hurt you, and I might really harm you. I’m not very good with the fine touch just yet.”

  “I don’t believe you can do any such thing,” Hama said.

  “Stand up and touch your toes.”

  Hama probably hadn’t done so in years. The attempt was nearly painful to watch.

  “Enough,” Alyea said after a few moments of Hama huffing and groaning.

  Hama straightened. Her pale eyes ran with tears and she breathed in gasping sobs, shivering all over as she glared wetly at Alyea.

  “Do you believe me now?”

  Hama nodded once, expression fixed into a sort of sullen panic, then sank back into her seat.

  “Please,” Alyea said, “don’t make me force you to answer the questions. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Traitor,” Hama rasped. “You ought to be defending me!”

  “I am,” Alyea said. “You’re only being banished.”

  Hama’s face went white with fury. “Only,” she said. “Only.” She shook her head, apparently at a loss for coherent words.

  “Would you rather be executed for conspiring with a murderer, rapist, and smuggler?”

  Hama’s expression went back to sullen panic. “It’s all....” She stopped and looked down at her trembling hands, swallowing hard.

  “You know it’s not lies,” Alyea guessed, seeing the lines of resistance in Hama’s face crumbling. “Someone finally convinced you. Who? Kam?” That seemed the only person who might have gotten through to her.

  Hama’s head dipped in a bare nod. “They told me Kam was in the prisons

  ...below...and I insisted on seeing him. He wouldn’t even let me ask for him to be moved into better quarters...said he deserved...He told me...what they did.” Hama covered her eyes with one hand and shivered all over. “I trusted them.”

  Alyea’s eyes went damp at the amount of misery held in those last three words, but she kept her tone unemotional. “Now you know. Will you answer the questions willingly?”

  Hama dropped her hands into her lap. After a long moment of silence, she shook her head slowly. “I’ve been told you hate me,” she said, her gaze on the floor near Alyea’s feet. “I believe you always have. I believe you’ve always known, somehow, that you’re not mine.”

  “Not until recently,” Alyea said, her throat tightening. “I trusted you.”

  Hama put a hand over her mouth, then dropped it and said, “I wish I believed that. I wanted you to trust me, in the beginning. I tried so hard—and your father—that southern whore of his was all he cared about. Left you with me as though I was some nursemaid—” She shook her head. “I really think you knew from birth. You never showed me any respect. You never trusted me. You never wanted to listen. You never would think of anyone but yourself. You nearly got us all killed because you had to learn to fight like a man. You put us in debt every time you turn around, and bring shame to our name with your actions. You act the slut, traveling with men and without a ladies’ maid, but in spite of that the king still bids for your favor, and you reject him and turn to the company of a dangerous rake and a host of southern barbarians. You allow your own kin to be sent to prison like a commoner. You run around the city with no escort, dressed like a man, all as you please with no thought to responsibilities or reputation. You’re the ruin of this family, Alyea. Whatever mistakes I might have made go to your feet. I was trying to save Peysimun Family from you.”

  “I learned to fight in order to protect myself from being raped a second time! What else should I have done?”

  “If you hadn’t been running about unescorted it wouldn’t have happened,” Hama snapped. “You were told to keep a servant with you at all times. You were told not to go out of the house by yourself. You never listened. You never respected that I might just be saying something worth the hearing. And once the mistake was made, you should have learned to stay quiet and indoors until the city settled down; instead you just brought more danger and shame on Peysimun.”

  Alyea shook her head, blinking hard, and wondered if Rill would have agreed with what Hama was saying. It seemed uncomfortably likely.

  “You’d have me curled up in a corner, afraid to breathe in case it offended someone,” she said, and winced at the embarrassing, childish whine in her own words.

  “I’ve tried to teach you some sense,” Hama said. “You’re just like your father, always charging into situations you can’t handle, which got him killed in the end. It will get you killed, too, and then where is the family? You have no siblings, the only other legitimate heir is in prison, and you can’t have children yourself, I’m told. You have no concept of how little money we’ve been running on ever since your whipping, and how many servants have simply left because they were afraid of being associated with a failing house—because of you. You’re ruining everything I’ve worked to build!”

  There was no questioning her honest passion. Alyea felt vaguely ill as she considered the matter from Hama’s point of view. While northern custom had always felt horribly restrictive and false to her, still it was custom, and Hama had been doing her best to follow it.

  Alyea tried again, hoping to find a way to bridge the chasm between them. “You don’t understand,” she said. “The teyanain gifts, the alliances I’ve made—they’re invaluable. The house won’t have to worry about money for years, and an alliance with Deiq of Stass nails that into a certainty.”

  Not having mentioned her marriage to the king, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Hama. It wouldn’t go over well, in any case.

  “Alliance with barbarians and heretics?” Hama sniffed. “All that does is turn public opinion towards you becoming a barbarian whore. You’ve sold your reputation, Alyea. Soon, the only court you’ll find favor in will be a southern one. You might be right by southern custom, but you’ve certainly ruined yourself in northern view, and the family goes down with you.”

  “And you’ve done so much better,” Alyea said bitterly. “Alliance with a man who raped and tortured me, who would have seen me broken into a smuggling slave. What would that have done to the house?”

  “I believed a masterful liar,” Hama said, glaring up at Alyea. “That was a mistake. I thought I was doing what was best for the family, given what seemed insanity on your part. I made a mistake. Can you admit your part in that, or are you still too arrogant and selfish for that?”

  Alyea shook her head. “That mistake, I had no part in making. You chose that path all on your own. I tried to tell you. Lord Eredion tried to tell you. The king tried to tell you. You’re the one that was being arrogant and selfish this time, and you’re the one who damn near destroyed the house.”

  “We won’t agree on this,” Hama said, lips stretching into a thin grimace. “So have me executed, if that suits your need for vengeance, or send me away. I won’t argue it either way.”

  Alyea worked her jaw for a moment, restraining her temper. Then, “Will you answer the king’s questions willingly?”

  “What does that matter to you?” Hama demanded. “You’ve claimed to be exempt from his laws. You’ve put Peysimun Family among the barbarians. Why do you care if I obey the king? He’s not your lord any longer, and you’ll never be mine.”

  Alyea chewed on her tongue, blinking hard; that had been anger and fear speaking, not rational thought. In confirmation, Hama dropped her gaze to the floor again, her shoulders rounding and her hands clenching in her lap. Alyea stayed quiet, waiting. At last Hama rolled one shoulder in a weary shrug.

  “Send in their damned questioners,” she said without looking up. “I’ll a
nswer as best I can.”

  Alyea let out a long breath. “Thank you,” she said, and backed up a step.

  “Do me the favor,” Hama said, still staring at her hands, “of not coming to see me off when they send me to the Stone Islands.” She paused, then added, “I should have had you drowned when I heard of your birth.”

  Alyea’s breath caught hard in her chest. She blinked, made herself inhale and exhale twice, then backed out of the room.

  The pale-eyed Hidden standing in the corridor nodded to her, his expression curiously blank. “Thank you,” he said. “Well done.” He went into the room, shutting the door softly behind him.

  Alyea stepped back and back until her shoulders rested against the far wall; stood there trembling and wholly unable to move. Warmth washed across her face. A heartbeat later Deiq stepped from nothing to stand before her. His face and arms laced with silver, his eyes a shimmering silvery-black, he stared at her for a moment, as though trying to understand; then stepped forward and wrapped her in a tight embrace.

  Everything shifted. They stood in sunlight, in the tower, the dusty warm air sharp in her nose; Alyea hitched in a breath, then burst into tears. Deiq made a strange, stifled sound, his fingers digging into her back. Lost in an immense swell of pain, she barely noticed.

  “Arr...yar. Arrl. Arl. Awl. Ahl. Al.”

  She sucked in a shuddering breath, another, and began to calm.

  “Yar. Yaer. Yae. Yarrah. Yae. Yee. Yee. Ahh.”

  Her breath steadied; the sounds he was making began to register. She blinked and lifted her head from his shoulder to look at him, then gasped: his skin had turned a sickly white and his eyes were a dark, solid grey.

  “Aryah,” he choked, eyes wide and unblinking, staring right through her. “Stah. Stah.”

  Abruptly, Alyea remembered something Eredion had said once: You have to learn to think about even the worst things quietly. Otherwise every sensitive within ten miles will hear you, and Deiq will—