by Victor Poole
"Go away," she rasped.
"Let me see," Delmar said, tugging at her arms, which she had folded down tightly beneath her body.
"No!" Ajalia said through the blanket. "You're ridiculous. Look what you did the first time."
"I'll make it better now," Delmar said.
"You can't make it better," Ajalia said.
"Magic," Delmar reminded her.
She turned her head, and cracked open an eye at him. He had a look of tender solicitation on his face. Ajalia laughed, and put her face back into the darkness of the coarse blanket. Delmar tried to ease her arm out from under her, but she clamped her forearms against her chest.
"Jay," Delmar coaxed.
"Don't call me that," Ajalia said, her voice muffled. "No one calls me that. And you ruined my arms last time."
"They're getting better," Delmar said.
"Are not," Ajalia said angrily. She sat up so suddenly that the room swirled around her; she put her head down between her knees. Delmar was sitting next to her on the bed. She wanted to tell him to go away, but the words stuck in her throat.
"It doesn't hurt to touch them anymore," Delmar said reasonably.
"Look at it!" Ajalia snapped, holding out her left wrist. Delmar snatched at her hand, and laid his mouth against her skin. Ajalia's chest throbbed unpleasantly.
"Don't," she said, but Delmar had put his tongue against her scars, and a strange twisting warmth was funneling through her whole body.
Ajalia watched Delmar with a mixture of fascination and disgust as he licked over her arm. His tongue was rimmed with the golden light she had seen before.
"What are you doing?" she whispered. He looked up at her, his mouth pressing against her skin, his tongue rubbing up and down the place where the scars clustered the thickest. He nuzzled his face against her elbow, and let go of her.
Ajalia's arm buzzed with a soft glow; the bruising was lightened, and the scars were no longer dangerously red.
"What did you do?" she demanded, putting her arms next to each other, and comparing the colors of her skin.
"Magic," Delmar said, and kissed her.
Ajalia was not prepared for kissing. She had decided, on some level, to pretend that Delmar never had kissed her, and to proceed under the assumption that he would not try to kiss her again. Ever since his face had changed, and become more stupid and vague when they had reentered Slavithe, she had hardened her heart against him. She wiped out the part of her life where she had begun to wonder about him, and about his potential as a person she liked, and had relegated him to the position of obnoxious lackey. Now he was kissing her again, and her body was revolting from her earlier determination.
Delmar was not pressing, the way Philas had been. He didn't push her down, or pull her close. He just kissed her, his lips caressing gently over her mouth, his tongue rubbing over her lips. When he had kissed her for a long time, Ajalia pulled away and curled into a ball next to Delmar's thigh. She made an inarticulate groaning noise, and he stroked her hair.
"You have to stop kissing me," she whispered. Feelings of fluttery liking were spinning around her ribs; she chewed on the inside of her cheek.
"Okay," Delmar said. He untangled Ajalia's other arm out from under her and examined the the marks.
"No licking," Ajalia said, trying not to smile.
"Okay," Delmar repeated. He put her arm against his cheek and closed his eyes. Ajalia stared sleepily up at him.
"I have to get back to work," she said.
"Mm," he said.
"You should go away soon," she said.
Delmar lifted her wrist, and pushed his tongue against the scars.
"Stop," Ajalia whispered. He did not reply. Ajalia sighed, and closed her eyes. She buried her face into the darkness between the blanket and Delmar's leg; his mouth was wet, and made dangerous emotions swirl around in her body. She could feel the tip of his tongue moving in the grooves of the scars.
Ajalia tried to sit up, but her body did not want to move. She did not think she had ever felt so tired. She felt as though she were under a massive muffling ocean of cloth. The air in the room closed in around her mouth and nose; she couldn't breathe.
"There," Delmar said rubbing at the skin inside her arm. "It will be better tomorrow."
"You're going away, aren't you?" Ajalia asked. Delmar bent over her, and laid his cheek against her forehead.
"If you want," he said. She sighed.
"I'm not supposed to like people," Ajalia told him. "It makes me less useful."
"You can be useless," Delmar told her.
"Useless people are usually dead," Ajalia told him.
"Everyone I know is useless," Delmar informed her. "And all of them are alive."
"Not like me," Ajalia said. "I'm different."
"Different how?" he asked.
"Just different," she said. "Not the same. Can't get along."
"I love you," Delmar murmured.
"Stop loving me," she commanded.
"Never," he said, kissing her ear. She giggled.
"Philas said something like that," she said. Delmar pulled away from her.
"What did he want?" he asked.
Ajalia shrugged. "Go away," she said. "You'd have to ask him."
"He was just jealous, probably," Delmar said.
"Keep telling yourself that," Ajalia told him.
Delmar looked at her with offended silence.
"That wasn't very nice," he said.
"I'm not nice," she said firmly.
"You're perfect," he said angrily.
"You're stupid for thinking so," she told him.
"Am not," he retorted.
"Are so," she said. "And blind, too."
"Blind about what?" he demanded. She rolled onto her back, and turned towards the wall.
"I don't know," she said. "Just blind."
Delmar examined her through narrowed eyes.
"You're trying to start a fight with me," he said suddenly, "like you said down in the kitchen." Ajalia looked around at him.
"Why would I do that?" she asked innocently.
"Well, it isn't going to work," Delmar said firmly. He scooped her up into his arms, and kissed the side of her mouth. "I'm putting you to bed," he announced. "And then I'm going to go find something interesting to do."
"Like what?" she asked, nestling against his arms. Delmar pushed back the blanket, and dropped Ajalia into the bed. He tucked her in with business-like verve, and kissed her perfunctorily on the mouth.
"Goodbye," he said decisively. He took the lantern, and went out, and shut the door behind him. Ajalia could hear his footsteps as they went down the stairs. She waited until she couldn't hear him any longer, and then put her face into the rough mattress and tried to cry. No tears came out. She stretched out, and tried to breathe. Finally, she realized that she had not slept in a bed for so long that she felt out of sorts, and she rolled onto the floor, dragging the blanket behind her. The objects Delmar had placed on the corner of the bed spilled over the floor, making a scattered clatter of noise.
Ajalia moved on her elbows to the closed door, and curled up with her back pressed to the door. She pulled the blanket into a rough pillow beneath her cheek, and closed her eyes with a sigh. She had, at any rate, she reflected, achieved the first step towards her goal. Tomorrow, she would begin on the organization of the new household. She had her eye on a house she had not gotten from Gevad, but which she thought she could trade for, or buy. The rents from the many houses Gevad had owned formed a sizeable body of money; Ajalia had plenty of resources to work with. She had given the man from the quarries, Card, the role of steward, and he had proved faithful and sure. She had set him to work rebuilding and extending the tiny box houses in the quarries, and he arranged for the collection of her rents in the city. She counted herself fortunate to have found such a faithful man so quickly in Slavithe; she would not have reached this far in her plan already if she had had to manage the rents and the buildings herself. She t
urned her back into the hard stone floor, so that the door and the ground pressed hard into the muscles of her back, and began to count over the properties she owned.
One, she counted, the little house in the road to the market street; two, the row house at the edge of the stables. As she enumerated the long list of white stone homes, her mind drifted away into sleep.
Ajalia dreamt that a great black bird was perched over her head, the shadow of its wicked curved beak drawing down over her face. She waved her arms at the bird, but it clapped its beak around her wrist, and shook her until she cried out.
Ajalia woke in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. It was dark; she breathed hard as she tried to place herself. She could not remember where she was. The remnants of the dream lingered over the edges of her vision; she shook herself. When Ajalia stood up, she sat back down at once. She had been dizzy before she fell asleep, but now she felt as if her entire body was filled with wet earth. Her arms and legs did not move on her command; she sat against the wall in the dark night, and tried to think of a trick that would bring her back into action. Usually she could get herself to stand up no matter what, but now the ease of the ground, and the way the stone walls pressed into her back, made her care less about the world than she usually did.
She thought about Philas, and wondered what the house was like that he had taken. She thought for the first time that she could abandon the project of Slavithe, and escape to the city of Talbos. There would be no Thief Lord, no strange tall woman with cold eyes to watch her there behind the shadow of her powerful husband. The Thief Lord's wife frightened Ajalia more than the Thief Lord did. Ajalia could see that the Thief Lord was a rotten man, and a terrible human being, but she did not fear him. The Thief Lord's wife, with her statuesque form, and calculating mask of a face, made shivers tingle on Ajalia's spine.
Ajalia pushed her back against the wall, and tried to inch her way upwards. At the midway point to standing, her knees wiggled and collapsed. Ajalia began to laugh. She thought that it was absurd that she could have been through what she had so far in her life, to be rendered weak and helpless by Delmar's strange golden magic.
She put her arm in front of her face, and tried to see through the dark. This room had no window; the air was close and hot. She could see nothing. She imagined tendrils of long gold thread moving up through her skin, pushing aside the scars, and making room for clean, unblemished skin.
Ajalia sighed and rolled onto her knees. She put her open palms against the door, and planted her feet solidly on the ground. She wanted to cry again; when she stood, her legs were wobbling with the weakness of a newborn thing. Gripping the door, she opened the latch, and slipped into the hallway. A tickle at the bottom of her brain told her that one of the boys would steal her things, if she left them unguarded in her room. She rocked her head back against the stone wall, and felt sorry for herself. Then she went back into the room, sat down in the darkness, and began to feel around on the floor for her dropped coins and baubles.
When she had felt in every corner of the room, and put all the items into the skirt of the orange gown, she told herself that she should have taken the dress off. She wished for a moment that she were at home in the East, where she had a trunk of clothes, and where she changed what she wore regularly enough to feel fresh and clean.
Ajalia sighed again, and threw the coarse blanket back over the wooden bed. Holding a corner of her skirt to keep the things from falling down, she let herself out of the room, and shut the door behind her.
Ajalia looked up and down the stairs; she was drawn to the little attic. It felt like a nest to her, safe and quiet and alone. No one but Philas and Delmar had ever bothered to follow her there. She went up and opened the door to the attic.
Delmar was inside the little room. Ajalia made a face.
"What are you doing in here?" she asked in whisper.
"Sleeping," Delmar said, without opening his eyes.
"Well, move," she said. He was stretched over the floor, and his legs were blocking the door. He shifted agreeably, and she came in, leaving the door open.
"What are you doing?" he asked, turning on his side to watch her. The moonlight was streaming through the open window, and the night air was fresh and cool. Ajalia sighed in the breeze that hit her face, and went to the narrow corner where the floor was loose.
"Is that a hiding space?" Delmar asked.
"It's a pathetic hiding space," Ajalia told him. She sat against the wall, and pulled the long-sleeved shift from the tangle of things in her lap. With another sigh, she threaded a slim needle, and began to hide her things in the fabric. For a moment, she thought Delmar had gone back to sleep, but after a long time, he spoke again.
"I think you do like Philas," he said moodily.
"Does it matter?" she asked.
"It matters," he said decidedly.
"Well, he's gone," she told him.
"He'll come back," Delmar said. "And then you'll do something stupid."
Ajalia looked up at him. She couldn't see his face.
"Your confidence in me is inspiring," she said.
"I like you more than he does," Delmar said. "He doesn't really care about anyone but himself."
"He doesn't think so," Ajalia said. "But you're probably right." She dropped a pair of coins in a secret seam, and sewed it closed. "You're probably right about the other thing, too," she said.
"About what?" he asked.
"Me doing something stupid," she said. "You know," she added thoughtfully, "I wouldn't, if you didn't bother me so much."
"I don't bother you," Delmar said.
"You do," she told him. "Why don't you go somewhere else?"
"I was here first," Delmar said.
"Was not," she reminded him.
"I was in the city first," he said.
"That's sad," she said.
He was quiet for a long time, staring out the window. He had rolled onto his back, and she could see the curve of his chin.
"How old are you?" she asked. He didn't answer.
"You first," he said.
"No," she said. Delmar sat up. Ajalia felt better immediately; Delmar's body was too powerful, too smooth, and too much of a comfortable looking-pillow for her to breathe properly when he was reclining.
"Why are you so secretive?" he demanded.
"I'm not trading secrets with you," Ajalia said harshly. "I did that with Philas, and then he turned into a worm."
"What secrets did Philas tell you?" Delmar asked, his face brightening with interest.
"Nothing," Ajalia said.
"Probably something that sounded true but isn't," Delmar said.
"It's probably true," Ajalia admitted.
"What?" he asked again.
"Nothing," Ajalia said, thinking of the two heavy pieces of paper with foreign writing she had found in Lim's secret box. She could recognize much of the writing from around Leopath, and she had never known much about Saroyan. Something in her gut said that Philas was telling the truth about himself, and she thought those papers were a fragment of proof. Lim could have stolen them from Philas, or from their master, years and years ago. Ajalia didn't think that Lim would ever confess, and she had not decided if she wanted to show the papers to Philas. She was sure that Philas would lie about the writing on the papers, if he recognized the words.
"I wish I was a slave from somewhere that isn't here," Delmar said dreamily. Ajalia's head snapped up; she stared at him. He looked around at her. "I do," he said. "It would be easier."
Ajalia did not know how to respond; she said nothing.
"I think," Delmar said, staring out the window at the stars, "if I was a slave, I would be able to think about my mother, and pretend that she was a nice woman."
"No," Ajalia said. Her voice tore a little along the bottom of her throat. "Being a slave doesn't help with that," she said.
Delmar turned his body to face her.
"Is your mother awful?" he asked. She looked down at her sewing.
"Not like yours," she said, and she could not have said if she was lying.
"That's nice," he said.
"No, it's not," she said.
"You know," Delmar said, "I can't exactly agree with you if you never say anything about your family. I want to run away with you," he added suddenly. Ajalia blinked a few times.
"What?" she laughed, but her heart was sinking rapidly. She took the last pieces of stone and wrapped them into the double folded hem. Without waiting for him to reply, she cleared her throat.
"My family was not kind," she said. "Now I have told you all about my family. And now we will never speak of it again."
"Do you know what I think?" Delmar asked, his eyes boring into her shrewdly. The light from the moon was pale and white, and made Ajalia's face a little blue.
"I don't," Ajalia said shortly.
"I think you don't even think five minutes ahead about me," Delmar said. Ajalia looked up at him, interested.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well," Delmar said, "I think about you. I think about what I'm going to do to get you to talk to me, or how I'm going to make you like me."
"Hm," Ajalia said, but she was pleased.
"I don't think you ever think about me," Delmar said. He rolled back down on the floor, and stared upside down at the window.
"I try not to," Ajalia admitted. She watched the curve of Delmar's throat, and the way his cheekbones caught the moonlight.
"It would be nice," Delmar said, putting his hands at the back of his head, and settling himself on the floor. "If you thought about me," he added.
"Yes," Ajalia said. "Wouldn't it?"
"I think it would," Delmar said. Ajalia no longer felt overwhelmed or tired. She felt cold now, and angry. She wanted to change her clothes. The mottled bruising on her arms was uneven; the skin had lightened, but the scars were still hideous, and rapidly becoming black; she wanted to hide her arms beneath her long sleeves again. She glared at Delmar. She thought about telling him to get out. She thought about changing in front of him. She tried to decide how she felt about Delmar in general, and about Delmar in this specific moment. The edges of her mind curled around the the idea of Delmar. She stopped breathing again.
