He would not put her on this horse alone!
She struggled against him and the horse danced sideways. The warrior dropped her to her feet once more, though he did not release his grip on her waist. He said something quickly to her, but Kira could not understand him. She shook her head desperately, unable to think beyond her terror of being on the horse.
His voice dropped when he spoke again and she fancied he spoke more slowly. Despite that, Kira looked stubbornly at the ground, unwilling to aid him in any way with whatever foul plans he had for her. The warrior muttered something and gripped her chin, relentlessly forcing her to meet his eyes. Once again she was startled by their silvery tone, that momentary surprise long enough for him to snare her attention.
“Tiflis,” he said slowly, his accent making it difficult for Kira to immediately understand his meaning. “Tiflis,” he repeated.
She nodded quickly. Tiflis. What about Tiflis?
He pointed to her and the horse, turning to gesture toward the horizon past the Mongol camp. “Tiflis,” he said again, and Kira understood.
He was sending her home.
Her heart fluttered but she did not dare to hope until she knew the fullness of his plan. This was too good to be true so there must be a catch. Kira pointed tentatively to the warrior, not daring to touch him with her fingertip.
“Tiflis?” she asked. She was uncertain whether he meant to accompany her, but he shook his head firmly.
He repeated his assertion and Kira nodded once more.
She was going home alone. Was it possible that she had misunderstood him? One glance to the resolute gleam in the warrior’s eyes destroyed that illusion. Relief flooded through her and she dared not think too much about the matter. She had no understanding of his reasoning, but she would grasp the unexpected gift with both hands and flee directly home.
But she had to ride this horse to get there. She turned a wary eye on the horse, knowing full well that the creature was her only possible means of transport. Perhaps to go home, she could conquer this fear.
When the warrior lifted her once more, Kira did not struggle and the horse did not stir as her weight was settled on its back. The warrior flicked an imperious finger at Kira’s knee and she obediently lifted it over the horse’s back, her color rising with the awareness that the warrior was seeing far more of her chalwar than was truly appropriate.
But he had made it clear that he was not tempted by her, she reminded herself fiercely, accepting the reins from him as her uncertainty rose.
Could she truly ride this creature all the way home?
The warrior stayed her with one hand and she watched as he unlashed the sheath on the inside of his left forearm. It obviously held a dagger and Kira’s fear ignited once again. What did he intend to do? Was this all a ruse to raise her hopes before he killed her? Did he mean to retrieve the pearl once and for all in this secluded spot where no one might help her?
Kira recoiled when he reached for her arm. He frowned impatiently, the fact that he seemed puzzled by her response dissipating some of Kira’s doubts. He tucked her hand firmly under his arm and pressed it against his side, leaving the soft flesh of her forearm turned up. Kira shivered, but he simply laid the sheath over her arm and lashed it there with his characteristic efficiency of movement.
When he released her arm and handed her the reins, Kira understood that he was giving her a means of protecting herself. When had anyone last given her anything? When had anyone last done anything for her at all? Kira looked to him in amazement, but he merely propped his hands on his hips and jerked his head in the direction she was to ride.
“Tiflis,” he repeated yet again, sparing a pointed glance to the sinking sun. Kira touched the hilt of the knife tentatively, struggling to accept what he was doing for her. He had granted her a gift that could save her life.
Impulsively she reached into her pocket and retrieved the pearl she had passed. She thrust her hand out between them and held the gem out to him at arm’s length. ’Twas only fair, after all, that she give him the pearl.
He frowned as he held out his hand, then understanding dawned in his eyes as he realized what she offered. His gaze rose slowly to lock with hers and Kira fought the tremor that danced over her flesh when he deliberately took the gem from her fingers.
“Thank you,” Kira said. She willed him to understand what she meant, touching the knife once more and laying a hand on the horse’s neck.
The warrior’s eyes gleamed and he rolled the lustrous pearl between his rough thumb and forefinger as he silently held her gaze. Something changed in his expression, though Kira could not have named that tentative softening in his eyes. She had precious little chance to do so, for he half turned away and scowled when she did not urge the horse onward.
“Tiflis,” he insisted.
When Kira did not yet move, uncertain what kept her from doing so, the warrior raised a hand and gave the creature’s rump a resounding smack. Kira yelped in surprise and desperately tried to grip the beast’s round belly with her knees as it ran at breakneck speed toward home.
When she had gained her balance, she risked one glance over her shoulder to find the warrior far behind her, his hands propped on his hips as he watched her flight. The grasses waved about him but he stood completely motionless, silhouetted against the distant hills, the other three horses grazing nonchalantly about him.
He had released her, unscathed. Kira’s heart thundered with gratitude, then she turned toward Tiflis and rode for home.
Thierry found the yurt unnaturally quiet when he returned. He prowled around its interior restlessly, annoyed that nothing had appeared to change, when in fact so much had.
The shaman had moved openly against Thierry for the first time. He had made no idle threat this time, for in taking the woman, the shaman had challenged Thierry’s prior claim. No doubt all within the camp already knew the tale. This could not bode well for Thierry’s future.
Vulnerability was what he had feared, and vulnerability was what she had brought. He had never been challenged like this; no man had ever dared. Although the woman was gone, Thierry wondered what fruit this incident would bear. Would his authority be questioned? His command over the tümen revoked? He could not be sure and he disliked the uncertainty.
’Twas clear that Abaqa was losing patience with him, though whether the two incidents were linked, Thierry could not say. Abaqa’s threats had been made openly this day and ’twas clear Thierry had gained no credit on the field. Berke’s death and the retreat of his men had stolen Thierry’s opportunity to redeem himself.
Would Abaqa cast him out?
Or would he suffer the same fate as Chinkai?
Thierry scuffed at the carpets and scowled across the shadows of his yurt, startled to find his vision of the sleeping woman sprawled across his cushions as clear as if she were still there.
He turned away from the haunting image, dismayed to find his anger rising. She was gone. Headed home to her family where he should have left her. Thierry forced himself to face the truth of it. She was destined to spend her life sorting pearls. Perhaps she would wed one of those soft urban men, then bear him robust sons and delicate daughters.
Thierry strode out into the growing darkness, biting down on the bile that rose in his throat. She had not been his to touch. Though he tried to forget its presence, the pearl he had shoved into his pocket seemed to burn a mark in his thigh. He understood very well that it was the pearl he had demanded. He resolutely ignored the press of the gem as he decided to seek out some qumis.
He would not reflect upon the irony that she was gone just when he had nothing left to lose.
Qumis offered no solution and Thierry knew it, but he would dismiss the woman from his thoughts this night one way or the other. And the qumis might dispel some of the anger still simmering within him.
His fury was with himself, for he had been careless. She could easily have been hurt because of his choice. He had been a fool to take her
from Tiflis for the sake of a pearl.
Yet Thierry knew, in the same circumstance, he would make the same choice again. His fingers clenched in recollection of the incredible softness of her hair.
Mercifully, the shaman had sought the pearl first.
And the witch had tricked them both. Thierry bit down his urge to smile once again. How she had managed to conceal the pearl from the shaman, he did not know. Perhaps her sorcery was stronger than his.
The means mattered less than the result. Thierry’s gaze lifted over the tents as if he might see the distant town of Tiflis, despite the obstacles and the darkness, as if he might glimpse her safely in her family home again. She would be welcomed and pampered, as she deserved.
Stubborn witch, he thought with a smile and shook his head in memory of her defiance.
She was safer in Tiflis.
Why then was it harder than it should have been to turn his footsteps toward the khan’s yurt and the promise of qumis?
’Twas dark when Kira first spotted the protective white walls of Tiflis and she smiled in relief. She had thought only of reaching her birthplace, but the sight filled her with new doubts.
How could she go home?
How could she tell her father that she had abandoned his shop?
How could she not tell him, when all the neighbors were certain to share the tale?
What had happened to the shop in her absence? She had been gone a day and a night and nothing had been secured. What if some of the gems had been stolen in her absence? What if everything had been stolen? How would she ever explain?
How could she ever repay the loss?
Kira halted the horse by tugging on its mane and the reins. If her father’s affluence had been lost, then she was an ungrateful wretch of a daughter, just as he so often told her.
But it had not been her fault.
Kira was shocked by the audacity of her own conviction. She knew the charges her father would make, but for the first time in her life, she was not willing to immediately accept that she was responsible. How could she make him understand that she had been powerless against the warrior’s will? He had been her superior in strength and size, and there had been two of them.
It had not been her fault.
How dangerous a notion it was to think with such defiance, even in her father’s absense. Kira was as horrified by her thought as she was convinced it was right.
And the fact was that even if it was true that the blame lay elsewhere, Kira’s explanation would fall on deaf ears. Her tale would be called an excuse and the fault would be laid fully at her feet.
It would be worse if her father’s shop had sustained damage or theft.
Kira could not imagine that the jeweler’s premises could have remained untended all this time without consequence. She knew she would taste the lash again on her father’s return.
Impudent. Good-for-nothing. Lazy ingrate.
Kira called herself a string of her father’s favorite insults to no effect. Though she had been left responsible for the shop, she knew she could not have changed events. The warrior had carried her away, despite her protests, and her neighbors had not come to her aid.
She knew her father would argue that a dutiful daughter would have contrived somehow to stay and protect the shop. The very expectation angered Kira. She winced in anticipation of the new wounds she would sport for her own supposed unreliability and glanced back where she knew the Mongol camp to be.
Without warning, she recalled the weight of a man’s fingertip on the reddened chafe mark on her wrist. A gentle and warm fingertip. She remembered how his eyes had narrowed with anger that she had been so injured. She recalled his roar when he had retrieved her from the man in white, and his cold fury.
But he had not injured her. He had not blamed her.
He had sheltered her.
Kira shivered in the chill of the evening air.
Would any soul in Tiflis believe that she had survived a night in the Mongol camp unscathed? Still more unlikely, would they believe that she had retained her maidenhead?
She could almost hear her father’s accusations, even as that seed of rebellion grew within her heart. A faithful daughter would never have permitted herself to be in such circumstances. A worthy daughter would not cast her chastity into doubt. A loyal daughter would not selfishly jeopardize her father’s hopes for a secure future.
The charges rang false to Kira. Was she being unfair to her father? He was wise and always right. Kira had the scars to testify to his belief of that.
But she did not have to go home.
The mutinous thought excited and terrified her. Did she dare? Did she want to dare? Could she meekly return to the shop and await her father’s return, that he might beat her for an incident she had been powerless to avert?
’Twas more than an unearned beating at stake, though. Kira knew that her future prospects had been sacrificed. No honorable man would offer for her, not with such a taint as having spent a night within the Mongol camp. Suspicions would fester in whatever remained of Tiflis despite her claims of innocence, and her sire’s dream of buying his leisure with Kira’s hand would fade to nothing.
She did not need long to see where that path led. Her life would become less than it had been, for there would no longer be any promise of reward in her father’s future—and she would cease to be an asset of any kind. She would have no dream of escape to carry her through the most trying days and nights. She would be trapped.
It was confusing to compare her treatment by a barbarian warrior with that of her own father. It made no sense that a barbarian would show her greater kindness than her own father. Kira knew that her father loved her, for he had told her as much, but her frown deepened as she struggled to make sense of it all.
Perhaps love was an overrated commodity.
Perhaps her father was best without an ungrateful daughter such as herself who had no value as a bride. Perhaps her absence would satisfy him, given the alternative.
Kira took a breath and decided. She would not shame her father by coming home.
But if she did not return to Tiflis, where could she go? She glanced again over her shoulder to the horizon. War fodder, whores and claimed women. Was there a place for her in that? Perhaps a quick death was the better choice than a life of being shamed and shunned.
Kira inexpertly urged the horse to turn around before she had time to question her choice.
The moon was setting when the horse approached the Mongol camp. Kira felt at peace as seldom she had. The wind and the stars above, the grasses all around her, Tiflis in the distance behind her, all combined to give her a serenity that was welcome. She had made her choice, and whatever would be, would be.
Kira rested her cheek against the horse’s sleek coat as it closed the last increment of distance to the camp, liking the way the creature’s warmth penetrated her skin when she closed her eyes. Its pace had slowed, but Kira did not urge it to go faster, for she knew it must be tired, as well. She felt weakened with hunger and wondered when the beast had last eaten. She let the scent of the horse’s fur fill her nostrils and felt its heartbeat beneath her hands.
Indeed, riding was not such an ordeal as she had once believed.
Who would have guessed that a creature she so feared could have become her ally?
The horse nickered and Kira reluctantly sat up as the camp drew near. Fires were burning despite the fullness of the night, their golden light flickering between the tents, much to Kira’s surprise. She had thought all would have retired but laughter carried to her ears, along with a tempting scent of roasted meat.
The Mongols were awake.
Her warrior might still be here. Incredible ’twas that such a thought could send relief flooding through her, and Kira wondered for a moment what had happened to her once-clear thinking. The warrior was the only man who had ever shown her any consideration. Kira looked to the blade lashed to her arm and not for the first time marveled at his deed.
Perhaps he had simply not had time to take his hand to her.
But nay. That was unfair—had she not slept in his tent unescorted? Kira remained unable to understand the warrior, still less her rising anticipation at the possibility of seeing him once more.
What did it say of her life that a Mongol warrior had shown her the greatest kindness she had known?
That was a traitorous thought and Kira would not indulge it further. Had her father not fed her all these years? Kept a roof over her head? Clothed her, after a fashion? Surely she was the most ungrateful child ever born to man, as he had been so fond of reminding her, if she could not value such luxuries that many others did not know.
She forced herself to consider practicalities. What was she going to do now that she had reached the camp? How would she locate her warrior? The tents looked much the same and continued in endless rows, one after the other. She could not ask after him, for she spoke no Mongol.
Kira hesitated, her uncertainty growing. The warrior might not welcome her return. He had sent her away, and his disinterest in her feminine charms—the sole assets she possessed, such as they were—had been most clear.
Surely it was not her fate to be war fodder.
The laughter of women startled Kira. Her first instinct was to hide, but the cursed horse whinnied just as the women came out of the shelter of the clustered tents. Their voices stilled and Kira froze. Her mouth went dry and her heart ceased to beat as the women eyed her silently.
She could not even ask them for assistance.
Given their hard expressions, language was the least of the barriers to that.
Finally, one of the women stepped out of the group and held a flickering lantern high. Kira recognized the nosy Persian woman from the stream.
“You seek Black Wind,” the woman said with a measure of amusement.
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