Ishgrim made a soft, maddening noise.
She is a sl
Archeth pulled back, trembling. Stared down into the girl s face, breathing hard. Could feel the pulsing through her groin as it pressed hard up against the girl s belly.
Tell me, she said.
I, my lady?
Tell me you don t want this. Tell me. Now, while you still can. Tell me, and I ll stop.
Ishgrim reached up hesitantly and placed a hand on her cheek.
You have been my salvation, my lady. I can refuse you nothing. I would not refuse you anything.
Archeth gritted her teeth. That s not
Ishgrim put up her other hand. Cupped Archeth s face between her palms. It flipped her from girlhood to something else. Her lips parted. Archeth felt the girl s legs shift apart, felt one long Trelayne thigh press up and rub against her body from the back.
Then yes, she said, Trelayne-accented voice suddenly vehement. Yes, yes. Fuck me. Fuck me.
She thrust herself up off the bed, so fast she narrowly missed clipping Archeth on the nose with her forehead. Archeth blinked backward. The girl had her arms up, struggling to work them free of the shift. Archeth scooted back to help her, lifted the thin cotton up over her head and tugged. Ishgrim wriggled impatiently, got the cloth out from where she was sitting on it. The garment came off, jellied weight of breasts caught up and lifting momentarily, then swinging back down, and the breath caught in Archeth s throat at the sight. Then Ishgrim s face came clear, pink with effort, hair tousled up. One arm of the shift caught at her wrist and they both laughed as they realized she was still gripping the candle, had forgotten to let it go.
She let go, tugged her wrist and hand free. She grabbed Archeth s face again with both hands, pressed a kiss to her mouth, and lay back on her elbows.
Yes, she said again, breathing hard now. Yes. Do what you want with me. Show me what you want.
Archeth fell on her, like a burning wooden fa ade coming down.
Flesh to flesh, and the heat of that feeling after so very long without, and pulling, sucking kisses down all that pale flesh, working it, filling her hands with it, owning it, and then, finally, her fingers working at the juncture of Ishgrim s thighs while she gathered the girl in with her other arm and looked down into her eyes from inches away. Holding back her own need, hanging dizzily from it, feeding it with the girl s parted lips and half-closed eyes and moaning melting to panting as she began to slide, the desperate tensing grip of her hand on Archeth s wrist, dragging her fingers deeper, tugging more urgently, crying out as she twisted about and stiffened and, sobbing, came.
Archeth levered herself up, pulled her cradling arm free and straddled Ishgrim s soft curves at the chest. Ishgrim, grinning up at her, still breathing hard, Ishgrim nodding, Ishgrim putting her long-fingered hands on Archeth s spread thighs.
Archeth felt herself melting apart with the need.
Now me, she was saying it urgently, over and over. Now me.
And she lowered herself forward onto the girl s eager mouth and tongue.
Afterward, after they d lain tangled up together in sweat and musky sheets, murmuring into each other s ears, endearments and descriptions of how it felt, after she d taken the candle and shown Ishgrim how to use it on her, after Ishgrim had asked, shyly, for the same, after all this, Archeth lay with the girl cuddled sated and asleep in the crook of her arm, and stared across the chamber at the vibrating shadows of the lamp.
Sweat trickled in the roots of her hair. Sleep would not take her. She looked down at the girl s sleeping face and saw, suddenly, that now she had something new to lose. That she could not afford any more mistakes, could not now afford to lose her edge.
Unease stirred, prowled in her head. Any fleeting escape she d wrapped herself up in blew away, drowned out in memories of her conversation with Angfal.
Anasharal says that something dark is on its way.
Yes. Or is perhaps already here.
CHAPTER 42
It took him an hour and three deaths to reach Menkarak s apartments. The first death was sheer bad luck. Scuttling along a narrow corridor somewhere under the south wall, he came around a corner and ran straight into a hurrying young invigilator. They collided, bounced apart, and neither of them quite fell down. The other man gaped for a fatal second in the dim light, then opened his mouth to yell.
Ringil was already on him.
Dragon-tooth dagger rising in his hand, cloak flaring out like ragged wings. He slammed his free hand over the man s open mouth, muffled the yell, and bore him to the ground, dagger upraised. The invigilator thrashed, eyes wide, head-shaking desperate denial and muffled blurting against Gil s palm. Ringil hooked his thumb under the man s chin, jerked his head sideways and up, cut his throat. He whipped his knife-hand clear to avoid the upwelling blood, watched intently as the invigilator s face went slack.
Drew a deep breath and got himself upright. Shit, fuck.
He stared down at his handiwork. The invigilator s blood spread out across the stone flagging, black in the gloomy light. The man s eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Ringil scanned the corridor in both directions, peeked around the corner. No one else around, but neither was there anywhere obvious to hide the body. He summoned the Citadel map to memory, placed himself on it. There was an ornamental orchard planted out in a small courtyard a level above him and back the way he d come. Though the amount of blood he was going to get on himself carrying the body that far
Getting a bit prissy in our old age, aren t we, Gil?
He stooped and gathered the soggy weight of the dead man under the arms, dragged it to the corridor wall. Then he hauled the body up and over his right shoulder, straightened up with an effort well fucking fed, these invigilators and tottered off in search of the stairs. He d left broad swipings of blood on the stone-flagged floor, but there wasn t much to be done about that. There were no torches in this stretch of the corridor, and he had hopes anyone walking there would miss the stains in the dark. With luck no one else would even come down this way until the new day dawned.
With luck, yeah. Leaning a bit hard on your luck lately.
He grimaced in the dark, under the deadweight of his burden.
Come on, Dakovash. I take it all back. I ll be your dog.
Kwelgrish. You saved me from the plague for something, right? Talk to the Lady Firfirdar, will you. Get the bitch to blow me a little bit of black assassin s luck.
What are gods for, after all?
He got to the orchard without meeting anyone else, with or without the Dark Court s help, hard to say. Went through the apple-scented air and dumped the invigilator s body unceremoniously behind a tree near the back wall. He settled the corpse upright against the trunk on the far side from the courtyard s main entrance. Leaned for a moment against the trunk over the dead man s head, getting some breath back. He wiped the sweat off his brow with a sleeve, checked his cloak for blood there was a lot and rolled his eyes. Great and we re not even into the senior invigilators wing yet. He drew a deep breath, tapped a saluting finger to his temple at the dead man, and left.
On his way out, he saw an owl watching him from a branch in one of the other trees. It didn t say anything, or flap heavily away into the sky with his good luck in its talons or anything. In fact, it barely did anything at all beyond blink cryptically down at him and plump up its feathers.
That s because it s just a fucking owl, Gil. Not an omen, or a psycho-pomp, or a demon familiar from beyond the band.
Now get a fucking grip, will you, and let s get this done.
He slipped out of the orchard yard, and away down the darkened corridors again.
Somewhere along the way, the Ikinri Ska woke up.
