Tarja let her go. “Founders, I was glad to see you! I don’t think I could have stood being surrounded by those vipers for a moment longer.”
“I can’t believe you had the nerve to show up here tonight. Mother looks ready to burst something,” she laughed. R’shiel was rather pleased at the disturbance his appearance had caused. Although it hadn’t occurred to her when she’d asked Jenga to recall him, she realized now that with Tarja back, Joyhinia would have another focus for her disapproval. She stepped back and looked him up and down, thinking that his time on the border had obviously taught him some restraint. A few years ago, he would have started fighting with Joyhinia the moment he laid eyes on her. “When did you get back?”
“Yesterday. You know, I almost didn’t recognize you. You’re all grown up.”
R’shiel pulled a face. “Hardly. I’m not even a Probate yet.”
“Being a Probate is not what I would use as a benchmark for maturity,” he laughed. “I suppose this means Joyhinia is still trying to mold you into the perfect little Sister of the Blade?”
R’shiel sighed. “I think she’s starting to wonder if it’s a lost cause. Somehow I get the feeling I’m not turning out quite the way she intended.”
“I don’t think either of us have turned out quite what Joyhinia intended.”
R’shiel had always been close to her half-brother, despite the fact that he was ten years older than her and already a Cadet in the Defenders when she arrived at the Citadel as a baby. Joyhinia forbade her to socialize with him, but it had been a futile effort on her mother’s part. As a child she had been spanked, on more than one occasion, for hanging around Tarja and the Cadets.
“Why do I get the feeling things are going to get rather interesting now that you’re back?”
“Because he’s a troublemaker,” a voice joked from behind. Startled, R’shiel spun around and found Georj Drake, Tarja’s best friend and her recent knife-throwing instructor, standing behind her. The young captain’s hazel eyes were full of laughter. “You should banish him again before he can do any damage.”
“Now there’s a tempting thought,” she mused. “Where shall we send him, Georj? Back to the southern border? Or maybe the Grimfield?”
“You are a cruel woman, R’shiel.” She liked Georj. He was almost as much a brother to her as Tarja. “Maybe you should order him to the Arena.”
“Georj!” Tarja warned. “I’ve already told you no.”
R’shiel looked from Georj to Tarja and back to Georj again. “What?”
Georj took R’shiel’s arm conspiratorially. “Well, you might be too young to remember, but back in the good old days, before Tarja publicly called Trayla a fatuous bitch, he was the undisputed champion of the Arena.”
“I remember,” she said, before turning to Tarja, wide-eyed. “Is that what you did? You called Trayla a fatuous bitch?”
Tarja glared at them but did not deign to answer. Georj tugged her arm to get her attention back. “Well now that he’s back, he has a duty to regain the title. Ever since we heard he’d been recalled, Loclon has been bragging about how he can beat Tarja. He’s issued a formal challenge, and your uncaring brother has refused it. The honor of every captain is at stake here.”
R’shiel knew of Loclon, a slender young lieutenant with lightning-quick reflexes. He had been the talk of the Citadel all summer.
“I said no, Georj!” Tarja snapped. “Cajoling R’shiel isn’t going to make me change my mind, either.”
“Why not? Are you afraid he’ll beat you?”
“No! I’m not afraid he’ll beat me. I’m afraid I’ll
“Why don’t you just take the challenge and lose, if that’s what you’re worried about?” she asked with somewhat contrived innocence, knowing full well the reaction such a suggestion would provoke. “Just let him beat you.”
Georj looked horrified. “Lose? How could you suggest such a thing, girl?”
Before she had a chance to answer, the Probate who had served the drinks earlier appeared at the doorway. She glanced coyly at Tarja and Georj before turning her attention to R’shiel.
“Sister Joyhinia wants you to come inside, R’shiel,” the Probate said pleasantly, although her smile was meant for the Defenders. R’shiel was surprised she had been allowed to spend even this small amount of time with Tarja.
She glanced at the officers and shrugged. “I have to go.”
“Poor little Novice,” Tarja sympathized. “Can’t ignore an order from mother now, can we?”
“Do you think if I called Mahina a fatuous bitch, I could get myself banished from the Citadel, too?” she asked under her breath.
The Envoy had moved away from the circle of women surrounding the First Sister and her mother, and was standing, half-hidden by a column on the other side of the room, fondling a rather startled-looking Probate.
R’shiel suspected her mother pandered to Lord Pieter’s appetites for her own reasons. Morality and sin were hallmarks of religion and the Sisters of the Blade never practiced anything that smacked of religion. The hidden artwork throughout the Citadel was concealed because it offended the Sisters to see the gods depicted, not because they cared what carnal activities the heathens were engaged in. Good government was based on law and common sense, not some heathen notion of morality. In R’shiel’s opinion, Lord Pieter had crossed even that generous line, and it was simply a sign of Medalon’s fear of offending Karien that no one remarked on the man’s outrageous behavior.
R’shiel, with Tarja and Georj close behind her, approached her mother. She was listening with interest as Sister Harith complained about the growing number of heathens.
“It is time for another Purge,” Harith was suggesting loudly.
“I agree they are getting out of hand again,” Joyhinia remarked, which made Jacomina nod enthusiastically in support. Joyhinia could suggest running naked through the Citadel, and Jacomina would probably nod enthusiastically in support, R’shiel decided. “The rumors of a demon child have flared up again, too. But a Purge?”
Mahina glanced at the Sisters and shrugged, unconcerned. “The demon child rumor has been around for two centuries, Sisters. We should pay it as much attention now as we have in the past.”
“But this time it seems to be really taking hold,” Harith remarked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it reached all the way to the southern border.” She glanced past R’shiel at Tarja. “You’ve just come from there, Captain. Have you heard anything?”
“I heard a crazy man ranting about it. But nobody took him seriously.”
“There! You see?” Harith announced, her point proved.
R’shiel wondered what rumor they were talking about. The goings-on among the few miserable heathens left in Medalon were not something that reached the ears of a mere Novice, even one as privileged as R’shiel. She leaned toward Georj and whispered, “What’s a demon child?”
Mahina heard her and answered her question. “According to heathen legend, R’shiel, Lorandranek, the last king of the Harshini, sired a half-human child. They call him the demon child. He is supposed to have a great capacity for destruction.”
“All the more reason to hunt him down and kill him,” Harith added.
Mahina chuckled. “Hunt him down and kill him, Harith? This child was supposed to have been sired by a man who was last seen two hundred years ago!”
“But we don’t believe in the gods; therefore logically, such a child cannot exist.”
Mahina nodded in agreement. “Well said, R’shiel! And we are not going waste valuable resources sending the Defenders out to hunt down this nonexistent child. The rumor will die down as it always has.”
“But you cannot deny that the number of heathens seems to be on the rise,” Joyhinia pointed out. R’shiel recognized that feral gleam in her mother’s eye as Joyhinia neatly maneuvered the First Sister into making a public blunder.
“I don’t deny it, Sister. It is a matter of great concern to me. But I have to ask myself, what have we done to make these people turn from the Sisterhood? Does the fault lie with our administration? We should clean up our
