The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

and, yes, frightened to be tactful. “State your business and let’s be done.”

Scimina lifted an eyebrow, amused by my rudeness. She smiled over at Nahadoth—no, Naha, I decided. The god’s name did not fit this creature. He went to stand beside her, his back to me. She grazed the knuckles of one hand along his nearer arm and smiled. “Made your heart race a bit, did he? Our Naha can have that effect on the inexperienced. You’re welcome to borrow him, by the way. As you’ve seen, he’s nothing if not exciting.”

I ignored this—but I did not miss the way Naha looked at her, beyond her line of sight. She was a fool to take that thing into her bed.

And I was a fool to keep standing there. “Good day, Scimina.”

“I thought you might be interested in a rumor I heard,” Scimina said to my back. “It concerns your homeland.”

I paused, Ras Onchi’s warning suddenly ringing in my mind.

“Your promotion has won your land new enemies, Cousin. Some of Darr’s neighbors find you more threatening than even Relad or I. I suppose that’s understandable—we were born to this, and have no antiquated ethnic loyalties.”

I turned back, slowly. “You are Amn.”

“But Amn superiority is accepted the world over; there is nothing surprising about us. You, however, are from a race that has never been more than savages, no matter how prettily we dress you.”

I could not ask her outright about the war petition. But perhaps—“What are you saying? That someone may attack Darr simply because I’ve been claimed by the Arameri?”

“No. I’m saying someone may attack Darr because you still think like a Darren, though you now have access to Arameri power.”

My order to my assigned nations, I realized. So that was the excuse she meant to use. I had forced them to resume trade with Darr. Of course it would be seen as favoritism—and those who saw it as such would be completely right. How could I not help my people with my new power and wealth? What kind of woman would I be if I thought only of myself?

An Arameri woman, whispered a little, ugly voice in the back of my mind.

Naha had moved to embrace Scimina from behind, the picture of an amorous lover. Scimina absently stroked his arms while he gazed murder at the back of her head.

“Don’t feel bad, Cousin,” Scimina said. “It wouldn’t have mattered what you did, really. Some people would’ve always hated you, simply because you don’t fit their image of a ruler. It’s a shame you didn’t take anything after Kinneth, other than those eyes of yours.” She closed her eyes, leaning back against Naha’s body, the picture of contentment. “Of course the fact that you are Darre doesn’t help. You went through their warrior initiation, yes? Since your mother wasn’t Darre, who sponsored you?”

“My grandmother,” I answered quietly. It did not surprise me that Scimina knew that much of the Darre’s customs. Anyone could learn that by opening a book.

Scimina sighed and glanced back at Naha. To my surprise, he did not change his expression, and to my greater surprise, she smiled at the pure hate in his eyes.

“Do you know what happens in the Darre ceremony?” she asked him conversationally. “They were quite the warriors once, and matriarchal. We forced them to stop conquering their neighbors and treating their men like chattel, but like most of these darkling races, they cling to their little traditions in secret.”

“I know what they once did,” Naha said. “Capture a youth of an enemy tribe, circumcise him, nurse him back to health, then use him for pleasure.”

I had schooled my face to blankness. Scimina laughed at this, lifting a lock of Naha’s hair to her lips while she watched me.

“Things have changed,” she said. “Now the Darre aren’t permitted to kidnap and mutilate their boys. Now a girl just survives alone in the forest for a month, and then comes home to be deflowered by some man her sponsor has chosen. Still barbaric, and something we stop whenever we hear about it, but it happens, especially among the women of their upper class. And the part they think they’ve hidden from us is this: the girl must either defeat him in public combat and therefore control the encounter, or be defeated—and learn how it feels to submit to an enemy.”

“I would like that,” Naha whispered. Scimina laughed again, slapping his arm playfully.

“How predictable. Be silent now.” Her eyes slid to me, sidelong. “The ritual seems the same in principle, does it not? But so much has changed. Now Darre men no longer fear women—or respect them.”

It was a statement, not a question; I knew better than to answer.

“Really, when you consider it, the earlier ritual was the more civilized. That ritual taught a young warrior not only how to survive but also how to respect an enemy, how to nurture. Many girls later married their captives, didn’t they? So they even learned to love. The ritual now… well, what does it teach you? I cannot help but wonder.”

* * *

It taught me to do whatever was necessary to get what I wanted, you evil bitch.

* * *

I did not answer, and after a moment Scimina sighed.

“So,” she said, “there are new alliances being formed on Darr’s borders, meant to counter Darr’s perceived new strength. Since Darr in fact has no new strength, that means the entire region is becoming unstable. Hard to say what will happen under circumstances like that.”

My fingers itched for a sharpened stone. “Is that a threat?”

“Please, Cousin. I’m merely passing the information along. We Arameri must look out for one another.”

“I appreciate your concern.” I turned to leave, before my temper slipped any further. But this time it was Naha’s voice that stopped me.

“Did you win?” he asked. “At your warrior initiation? Did you beat your opponent, or did he rape you in front of a crowd of spectators?”

I knew better than to answer. I really did. But I answered anyway.

“I won,” I said, “after a fashion.”

“Oh?”

If I closed my eyes, I would see it. Six years had passed since that night, but the smell of the fire, of old furs and blood, of my own reek after a month living rough, was still vivid in my mind.

“Most sponsors choose a man who is a poor warrior,” I said softly. “Easy for a girl barely out of childhood to defeat. But I was to be ennu, and there were doubts about me because I was half Amn. Half Arameri. So my grandmother chose the strongest of our male warriors instead.”

I had not been expected to win. Endurance would have been sufficient to be marked as a warrior; as Scimina had guessed, many things had changed for us. But endurance was not sufficient to be ennu. No one would follow me if I let some man use me in public and then crow about it all over town. I needed to win.

“He defeated you,” Naha said. He breathed the words, hungry for my pain.

I looked at him, and he blinked. I wonder what he saw in my eyes in that moment.

“I put on a good show,” I said. “Enough to satisfy the requirements of the ritual. Then I stabbed him in the head with a stone knife I had hidden in my sleeve.”

The council had been upset about that, especially once it became clear I had not conceived. Bad enough I had killed a man, but to also lose his seed and the strength it might have given future Darre daughters? For a while victory had made things worse for me. She is no true Darre, went the whispers. There is too much death in her.

I had not meant to kill him, truly. But in the end, we were warriors, and those who valued my Arameri murderousness had outnumbered my doubters. They made me ennu two years later.