“I love you,” he told her as he began to thrust. “I love fucking you. I love
When they went outside, Lya and Dark kept their eyes averted, both of them hiding smiles.
Striker leered. “Made the tent shake,” he said.
“I know,” Kett replied smugly. She slipped her arm around Bael’s neck, kissed him softly and sighed. “Time to get to work.”
The Maharaja’s palace looked like a child’s drawing of a castle onto which someone had dumped a lot of cake decorations. Every wall, turret and curved roof glistened with colored tiles, jewels and gaudy adornments. In the shimmering heat and ever-present clouds of dust and sand, it looked like a mirage. Or perhaps a hallucination caused by eating moldy dodo meat.
“Tasteful,” Kett murmured, shielding her eyes against the gaudiness.
“Even Nuala’s not that bad,” Lya agreed.
Bael snorted. He was in Var’s body, a magnificent black stallion, his muscles bunching between Kett’s thighs as she rode him. Beside her sat Lya on a borrowed munta and Dark on Colonel Darson’s mount. Striker was nowhere to be seen-which in no way meant he wasn’t around.
Dark’s regal bearing, his kelfish slave and youthful courtesan were enough to convince the guards of the Maharaja’s palace that they should be admitted.
Inside, Var was taken to the stables, making Kett’s stomach constrict even though she knew he’d be fine, and the rest of the party was led through a series of small courtyards and piazzas, green with plants and trees, but never quite escaping the ever-present sand blowing on the breeze. Fountains tinkled. Somewhere, someone played music.
Eventually they were taken to a grand, high-ceilinged room where kelfs operated ceiling fans and a man lounged on a throne, watching a girl play the sitar terribly badly. He was the Maharaja, and she his beloved only daughter.
Kett winced. She didn’t want to kill the daughter. Hell, she didn’t really want to kill the Maharaja, but justice was justice, and he’d broken the terms of their friendship by betraying her to a man who wanted to kill her.
“Your Serene Highness, may I present the High Lord Talvean,” Lya said, her eyes cast deferentially low.
“
They exchanged pleasantries while Kett took note of as many details about the room as she could. The dozen or so kelfs. The tall doors, guarded not by kelfs but by men with curved swords. The high windows, letting in shafts of light in which dust motes danced. The handmaidens swarming around the princess.
She couldn’t see Albhar anywhere.
“And who is this charming young woman?” asked the Maharaja.
Kett kept her eyes averted as Dark drew her forward. In truth she wanted to laugh, because here was an immensely powerful, sexual, magnetic man with his arm around her bare waist, and his touch felt about as enjoyable as a pelvic exam.
“She is,” Dark paused for exactly the right length of time, “a very dear friend of mine.”
The Maharaja’s smile widened. “I
Every inch of the palace interior was as embellished as the outside. By the time they shut the door on the giant guest suite, Kett was starting to feel dizzy from the mad, bright patterns. The suite was just as heavily decorated, with large open windows and a monkey on a perch. It screeched when it saw them, and Kett frowned at it.
“That went well,” Lya said, giving Kett a look. “‘Very dear friend’.”
“Shut up. How the hell did Chance wear this stuff all the time when she was a courtesan?” Kett asked, hitching up the low bodice of her outfit.
“She didn’t wear it for long,” Dark said, in a tone that didn’t invite discussion. “Do you think you can track this Albhar?”
“Dunno, but I can,” said Bael, materializing behind them. The monkey scampered onto his shoulder and Kett realized it was Var. “He has plenty of pet monkeys. I can find Albhar, change into something bigger and fly him out.”
“No,” Kett said. “If it was that simple, we’d have flown in and wouldn’t have had to piss about with costumes.”
“I like your costume,” he said, with a look that reminded her how much he’d liked it earlier.
Kett felt her cheeks burn but went on, “He has guards on the roof. That’s why Lya is going with you-and taking this.” She pointed down.
They all looked at the carpet.
“To roll him up in and carry him out,” Kett explained. “Can Var be a donkey?”
“I’ve repeatedly been told so,” Bael said, straight-faced.
“Funny. We’ll meet you back at the-”
The doors to the suite suddenly flew open, and all four of them whirled around.
“My dear boy!” Albhar cried. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
His eyes said otherwise. As did the contingent of armed men behind him.
“Albhar,” Bael said, smiling just as easily as his former mentor. “Good to see you. That dragon dragged me away when it took the shapeshifter.”
“Did it?” Albhar asked, without quite enough sympathy on his face. “And where is the shapeshifter now?”
Kett realized she was still wearing her disguise. “A shapeshifter!” she squeaked. “How exciting!”
Albhar cast her an irritated look. “It’s very dangerous,” he said. “It killed-”
“No one,” Bael said softly, and Albhar’s attention whipped back to him.
“Ah. I know you don’t believe me, but-”
“That’s because it’s not true,” Bael said.
“Your father believed a kelf-”
“Didn’t kill her. She died in her own stupid ritual. The same stupid ritual you’ve been researching for so many years.”
There was a dreadful silence.
“First rule of lying, Albhar. You get your story straight.”
“Bael-” Albhar began, but then stopped.
“No, please.” Bael glanced at Kett before turning back to the old man. “Explain.”
Albhar looked at him, and then at Kett. He raised his hands and let them drop in a gesture of failure.
“What can I say?” he asked. “I wanted the power.”
“You knew it would kill me.”
“You stupid boy,” Albhar sneered. “Did you ever believe I cared for you?”
Var suddenly leapt from Bael’s shoulder, changing fluidly in mid-flight to a tiger, heavy and lethal. His weight shoved Albhar to the ground, snarling and clawing, his huge jaws ripping at the old man’s throat.
The half-dozen armed men with Albhar all turned to shoot at Var.
Lya threw herself on the tiger’s back.
Kett ripped her skirts open and snatched her knife from its sheath, wishing to hell she’d been able to carry a bigger weapon. With her other hand she grabbed her scryer from its hiding place under the skirt’s embellished layers, and while she lunged forward to stab one of the men who was even at that moment loosing an arrow at Var, she tried to focus her mind on calling Darson.
Bael let out a bellow and turned on the soldiers with a sword that had come out of nowhere. Kett slashed at the arm of the man nearest to her, making him falter in his aim. Another cut to the wrist made him drop his bow, and then she stabbed under his ribs, pushing the knife in as far as it would go.
Lya’s body covered as much of Var as it could, and her kelfish skin was impervious to the arrows raining on her from such a short distance. But she couldn’t cover all of the tiger and the soldiers were beginning to discard their bows for short swords, slashing and stabbing at Var through his thick fur.
“Kett?” shouted a voice from the scryer in her hand. She’d gotten through.
