Manathan acts in the best interests of the Kiriath mission, said Angfal, like pulling teeth. Always. He would not have sent you otherwise.
And you?
Flicker went the optics, yellow to green and back. Grashgal instructed me to watch over you, Archeth Indamaninarmal. As you well know. To aid you to the best of my ability.
Even if it conflicts with the much-vaunted Kiriath mission?
That has not ever been the case. It was not expected that it ever could be.
And is it now?
That remains to be seen. The instructions we were left are necessarily ambiguous. Nothing can be solved; conflicting guesses are required. However, my instructions regarding your safety are clear. Grashgal set me the task in no uncertain terms.
Archeth brooded. Groped at the unseen shapes in the maze-walk patterns of the Helmsman s speech, there like carved stonework under her fingers in the dark. She could not make out the detail, knew only that it was there.
Are you warning me away from An-Kirilnar? she asked.
No. Reluctantly. You will be as safe there as you would be here in Yhelteth.
She looked up, startled. Is that supposed to make me feel better?
It is supposed to help you make a decision.
A memory snicked into place, like a blade going back in its sheath. She picked at it warily. Turned it over like some half-familiar artifact retrieved from the ashes of the Kiriath waste.
Anasharal says She cleared her throat. That something dark is on its way.
Yes, agreed the Helmsman. Or is perhaps already here.
Later, she lay propped up on pillows in her bed with no krinzanz in her blood and the day s cares laid across her like a sated lover s body. The lamp at her bedside cast wavering shadows around the chamber, just like the ones she d watched in the study while Angfal talked it was as if she d brought the shadows themselves to bed with her. She stared emptily at their motion, but lacked the strength to put out the light and sleep.
No resolution from the Helmsman. Angfal would not commend the An-Kirilnar expedition to her, would not advise her against it, either. She chased it around, listened for hints, tried to work out the shape of the constraints the Helmsman claimed to be under. Pointless. She left the study no wiser than she d entered, just more churned up. And now add to the mix this vague new sense of exposure, of protective forces withdrawing, of a shield she d always taken for granted, no longer there.
It felt a little like the day Ringil brought her the news of her father s death.
Meantime, Egar was in jail, wounded and defamed, under threat of execution. Ringil was out there in the darkness, pitted, if the Dragonbane was to be believed, against the same flickering blue-fire enemies they d faced at Beksanara.
She was here, snug in bed.
It was so wrong she didn t know where to begin.
But Jhiral had forbidden her to accompany Ringil.
You re not an assassin, Archeth, he told her gently, despite your recent best attempts to the contrary. I need you here, for less blunt purposes.
She turned her head onto a cooler patch of pillow. Stupid, anyway . Her skin and eyes would have marked her out before she got within a mile of the Citadel s walls. She d have had to go wrapped like a Demlarashan wife into the arena, and what the fuck use was that? And while she d taken the field against the Scaled Folk like everyone else among the Kiriath, while she d learned to be a warrior from childhood as all her people had, while she d murdered an invigilator in the bright, cold light of fury last year still, she wasn t at all sure she had what she saw burning in Ringil s eyes. She didn t think she could cut a sleeping man s throat.
Someone knocked at the door.
Yeah, she croaked, throat seized up with lying there quiet. She made a lip-service gesture at rising, gave it up.
I m awake, Kef. Come on in.
The door hinged inward. It wasn t Kefanin.
Ishgrim stood there, plain cream cotton shift to mid-thigh and slim, bare legs exposed. Long hair combed out and a candle to match the color, held up in one slim-fingered hand. Light from the flame made her face a half-and-half mask of shadow and light. Light spilled down the shift
Archeth pushed herself upright off the pillows. nipples showing dark through the cotton, drawing Archeth s eyes to the large, unspoiled breasts pressing out under the material. She d reddened her lips with something, she
Ishgrim. She heard how she said it, like a request, like thirst. She swallowed hard. Ishgrim, I thought we agreed that
The Helmsman sent me, the girl said hurriedly.
The Helmsman said you needed me.
Archeth frowned. Angfal said that?
No, my lady. The other one, the new one. It spoke to me out of the air.
Fucking Anasharal. If I don t take a wrecking bar to you before the week s out
Ishgrim moved into the room, closer to the bed. Archeth sat up.
Ishgrim, listen, I She was about to get out of bed, remembered she was naked and stopped with her hand still lifting the edge of the sheet. The girl the slave girl, Archidi stopped four feet away from the bed. The cotton shift moved on her, the hem swayed, brushed at her thighs. Archeth caught the scent of bathing and spice, and under that
The lamplight glossed the dark triangle at the base of her belly, shrouded behind the cotton, but
Memory flared up, forge-bright and warm the first time she saw Ishgrim, in the Chamber of Confidences last year, naked from the neck down, only a formal harem veil to cover her face and hair. The scent of her on Jhiral s fingers.
She s new. What do you think? Would you like me to send her to your bedchamber when I m finished with her?
It had all been there on display, another of Jhiral s carefully thought-out proofs of power, and now she found she still had every curve and declivity by heart.
She remembered finding Ishgrim tucked into her bed a few days later. Jhiral, as good as his imperial word, handing on his possession.
I was told to please you, my lady. In any way you see fit.
Her own dumb, gritted will as she stood and stared down at all that pale-skinned beauty offered up. And said, drily:
I will no doubt be able to find work for you in my household but for now I can think of nothing obvious.
Krinzanz strength. She knew it now for what it was, because, look, here she no longer had it. Here she was, melting down, like the candle in Ishgrim s fingers.
She is a slave, Archeth.
Nine months of krinzanz strength and stubborn will. Three seasons of buried need and Ishgrim about the place the whole fucking time, slowly healing from the diffident, cowed girl she d been, blossoming into someone who could be heard to laugh from time to time, to toss her hair back from her face, to glance across at Archeth and
She was out of the bed before she fully realized what she was going to do. One trembling hand up flat, inches off the girl s face. Her voice creaked.
Ishgrim
The girl tilted her face up to her. Yes, my lady.
And Archeth s hand went to the candle instead, crushed out the flame between callused finger and thumb. The right side of the girl s face fell into shadow to match the left. She smiled, and the final pitted, rusting locks fell off Archeth s control. She took Ishgrim by both shoulders and swung her about, pressed her down onto the bed and straddled her. She leaned in to kiss her, parted her lips and found her tongue, sucked on it gently, while the pounding built in her chest and her hand groped for one of the promised breasts.
