“You have… words for me… satyr?”
He silently produced a leather wrap and tossed it to her. Óraithe opened it and found a hunk of lean meat inside.
“You need more from today. Must take what you need. No more will trouble you now.”
She sat looking at the meat, trying not to laugh.
“A… a game? Or… a test?” She coughed and let the leather wrap fall to her side.
He snorted sharply. “Neither. Both.”
Óraithe watched a pair of guards enter the court with tired eyes. They walked purposefully toward the corpse she’d left for them and she chuckled weakly.
“Why then? Why did you save me?”
The satyr raised his head, looking at the wall with open eyes.
“Hm.” He considered his words for a time. “The way the wind blew.”
A whim, she thought.
“And this morning? Why did you not help me?”
“There was none for you to need. Nor will you need it again.”
“Why?”
“The color of the morning sky.”
She’d have struck him if she had the strength for it. Fanciful garbage and philosophical tripe wrapped in metaphor. Games, always.
The cold of the dirt had pressed through the roughspun and chilled her thighs. It felt good. Óraithe looked up at the walls around her.
This game, at least, she could use. This game could help her win another.
R
Rianaire
Rianaire had decided that carriages must be a special sort of punishment that had been handed down disguised as a luxury by someone bitter and angry. The beginnings of the ride had been pleasant enough, when they were all amorous and Rianaire, at least, had been drunk. There was even a certain comedy to attempting to put her mouth to Inney’s crotch on a bumpy dirt road. Those joys had long since faded into the same silence that made Rianaire want to chew off her own arm simply for something to do.
Daingean was only minutes away. Slow minutes full of arrhythmic swaying, but at least the throbbing in her head had subsided in the hours before. And in truth the roads had become smoother at the outskirts of the city.
Síocháin sat silently, looking out the carriage at the passing landscape. Inney had her arms crossed and her eyes closed. A part of their silent struggle to drive Rianaire mad. Perhaps Síocháin was attempting a sort of very round about coup. It all made sense. Síocháin had fallen madly in love with Inney and they meant to take Spéirbaile for themselves. They would be as utterly boring as they could manage until Rianaire threw herself under the wheels of the carriage and died in the mud, the driver not even having noticed for the pitiable condition of the roads.
Rianaire slammed her hand against the wall. “I ought to have the both of you flogged.”
Inney’s eyes shot open and looked to Rianaire. Síocháin did the same, though more slowly, and spoke.
“And what is our crime?”
Rianaire sighed. “It hardly matters. I intend to scold both of you when we have privacy.”
Silence fell again over the cabin and it remained unbroken until the driver’s assistant called that Daingean was in sight. Rianaire grumbled a relieved complaint and adjusted herself. The carriage stopped briefly as the driver asked after Méid. They had made the outskirts more quickly than Rianaire had expected. When she looked from the window, she saw why. The city had begun to sprawl. Small houses had cropped up along the roadside and trees had been cleared away nearly as far as she could see. There were small farms and shops billowing smoke. Méid’s reputation had grown in the season since the ugliness with Spárálaí had been settled. If anything, the Regent seemed unable to keep the city from growing.
Rianaire kept her eyes on the streets as they passed by. Méid’s house came and went without so much as a pause. Was the woman finally out of her humble lodgings? Perhaps she’d finally grown into a Regent.
The carriage came to a stop at the edge of a lawn, one which spread toward a large stone building that Rianaire had almost forgotten. Daingean had never had a keep or anything so much as resembling one. What it had, she remembered, was a shrine to Spéir built some five generations past. It saw little use, save the occasional prayers from locals who had need of consolation. It looked nothing like it had just a season ago. Where before there had been rotted doors and tumbled stone, there was now a beautiful, simple building. Twenty feet of pure stone with polished redwood doors.
Guards stood to either side of the entrance. A marked change from how things had been on her previous visit.
Rianaire could hardly contain herself when the driver opened the door to the carriage. She practically leapt down onto the dry brown lawn and sucked in a breath of air. She let out the breath and turned to Síocháin who was exiting the carriage.
“She’s made a city of this place, hasn’t she?”
Síocháin considered the structure. “She has. Though I doubt she would recognize her own worth in it.”
“Likely not. But then that is why I exist. To see the value in others so that I might raise them up.” Rianaire laughed.
“That you might sleep until lunch.”
She nodded. “That too. What good is a talent wasted, my darling Síocháin?”
Inney joined them in the middle of the conversation and saw her way to Rianaire’s side. The driver stood waiting near the door.
“We will make our own way to the inn. Have our things there.”
She turned without waiting for a reply and headed for the polished doors. Inney
