Petra and Zerai paced along the grassy embankment behind him.
Iyasu sighed.
Maybe after we capture the rogue Sophirim, I can convince Samira to come to Tagal and deal with Darius as well. Her people may not want to get involved in human affairs, but she’s proud. Very proud.
Would she go to Tagal to fight an entire army? To prove her skill, her superiority? To conquer a human king?
Maybe.
Probably not.
“She said you were holding a doll,” Petra was saying. “I was wondering what that meant. Something to do with children, maybe. Did you lose a child?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Zerai’s voice had a bit of laughter in it, but his good humor lay under a shadow. “It’s just… I want to have children. But at the moment, I’m not sure that I can. I think I can. I can certainly try well enough.”
They both laughed softly.
Iyasu rolled his eyes.
“But I, well, I am a little worried about the thought of never having children. I guess.” Zerai sighed.
“Well, there are so many reasons why couples have trouble,” Petra said gently. “The man, the woman, the heat, food, and just the timing of it.”
Zerai laughed again. “I’m pretty sure we’ve tried at just about every time there is.”
“I’m sure you have.” The djinn woman laughed with him right on cue. “But of course, if you’ve tried everything, then perhaps you need to try something else. Something new. Or maybe… someone new.”
Iyasu frowned.
So that’s what she wants. It didn’t take her long to tip her hand. Too bad for her. Zerai would never. He’s too loyal.
He squinted back at the couple walking up the bank.
“No, I don’t… I don’t think so,” the falconer said.
Iyasu frowned deeper.
That was a long pause.
The seer stood up and walked up behind them and spoke in his softest, youngest voice, “Zerai? Are Veneka and Samira all right in the woods here? I mean, have you seen any of the old demons around here before?”
“A few.” Zerai paused to study the forest above them. “I suppose I should keep an eye on them. If they’re busy looking at the trees, there’s always a chance something might creep up on them.”
The falconer slipped into the woods, his boots barely making any sound at all as he melted into the shadows.
Petra looked at Iyasu. “Spoil sport. I like talking to him. He’s different. He’s passionate.”
“He’s taken.” Iyasu gave her a tired look and returned to his spot by the river’s edge.
She followed him and sat beside him.
He massaged his forehead with one hand.
“I don’t suppose you ever think about having children,” she said. There were no forced smiles or false laughter now. “Not yet. Not with all your studies and your work.”
“No.”
Go away.
“Maybe someday?”
“Maybe.” He stared at the water. A small striped fish snatched a fly from the surface. “I could be wrong, but isn’t it impossible for a human and a djinn to conceive a child?”
“Actually no.” Petra shook her head slowly as she too stared at the water. “There have been many cases of conception, with both human and djinn mothers. But none of the pregnancies ever came to term.”
“I see.” Iyasu paused, waiting to see some change in the djinn woman’s face or body to betray her true thoughts and feelings, but she sat as still as a stone, unreadable. “And your interest is purely academic.”
No, it isn’t.
“Not at all.” She turned to face him. “Are you surprised to hear me admit that?”
“Only a little.”
“I’m not stupid. I’m not going to lie to an Arrahim. A seer can see more truth in a lie than in the truth itself, right?”
He smiled in spite of himself. “I haven’t heard anyone say that in a long while. My old master Gersem said it from time to time.”
“There, you see? I know a thing or two.”
He looked into her eyes, seeing the playfulness that he expected, but looking deeper, looking for more.
This is a djinn woman. A woman made of smokeless fire. What does life look like to her? What does it feel like? Do they feel regret? Shame?
“How old are you?” he asked.
“How old do you think I am?”
“I have no idea. Twenty? A thousand? I really don’t know anything about djinn.”
She laughed. “Obviously. I’m ninety-seven.”
He looked back at the water. “Only eighty more than me.”
“Does that shock you?”
“No.”
“But it does. It bothers you, I can see it.” She touched his arm and he looked down at her hand on his dirty white robe as though he had never seen a woman’s hand before. It was warm, and her fingers wrapped around his arm, hugging it in a strangely possessive way. He liked it. She said, “You’re disappointed.”
“Not exactly. I…” He lost his train of thought completely. “I guess I thought we were more alike. Young, I mean. Younger, at least.”
“I am young, by our reckoning, anyway.”
“Oh. So you age more slowly than we do?”
“Not exactly.” She took his hand in hers, holding them together to show the lines of their palms side by side. “We’re people of fire. We grow very quickly from conception to birth to adulthood, just like a flame. And then we stay the same for most of our lives, like a candle in the night. The candle may shrink, but the flame remains constant. But just like a candle, when we reach our end, we sputter and flicker, and then fade very quickly into death.”
Iyasu nodded. She had moved closer to him as she held his hand and he could feel the warmth of her whole body against his skin.
Her lips are so…
“Why try to seduce me?” he whispered. “That is what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. Just a little.” She smiled again, but this time there was a genuine light in her eyes as she did it. “Kiss me.”
Oh God yes…
“Why?” He gazed into her eyes. “To make love, to make a child?”
She shrugged. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? But I also just like sex, and I’m bored, and you’re handsome. And I like how hard you’re trying to convince yourself to say no to me. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I doubt that.” He tore his gaze from her face and stared back at the river, but all he could see was her eyes, her lips, her cheeks. “Is this why you came with your sister? To seduce men?”
“I could seduce men anywhere. You’re smarter than that. You know I’m not interested in men.”
“You’re interested in having a human child.”
“Half human. Half djinn.”
“Why?”
She brushed his ear with her lips. “Everyone needs a hobby.”
“We’re walking into a war, a bloodbath,” Iyasu said, his throat suddenly constricting and aching around his breath. “People are dying.”
“Yes. And unless my sister completes her task, they’ll go on dying, horribly, needlessly. Yes, I understand that.”
“It’s not some piece of theater,” he croaked. “It’s not a show to walk by. It’s death, it’s pools and streams of blood on the floor, in the mud. It’s faces staring up at you. One minute they’re alive and talking to you and thinking about tomorrow and feeling a hundred different things, and the next they’re all gone. Just… dead.”
She moved to sit up beside him, hip to hip, her hand resting lightly on his leg. “I heard the others talking before about you. Zerai and Veneka. They were saying that you were here in Rumaya years ago, during the demon plague.”
He nodded.
“Then you already know all about death. Pointless, horrible death.”
“I was a child then. I was scared. And the demons were just rabid dogs. Senseless, hungry. They were monsters, but they weren’t evil. They were a
force of nature, following their nature. They didn’t choose to kill. They couldn’t choose not to kill.”
“But now?”
“Darius, he…” Iyasu swallowed and shook his head. “He’s from a wealthy family. He was a commander before I made him king. Everyone loved him. He has everything a person could want in this world. Wealth and power. Respect. Love, I suppose. I just… I just don’t understand why…”
“Why someone who has so much would want even more?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know either. It’s never interested me.”
They sat and watched the Dusk Leyen flow by.
“And it’s not even the greed,” he blurted out. “So what if he wants more? He could want all the money and all the crowns in the world, for all I care. He could throw out every minister and bring in every friend he’s ever had. Fine, whatever. But killing? Killing those people, those… They were good people. They were my friends. They were all just—”
“Shhh.”
He felt her hands on his face, wiping the tears from his cheeks that he hadn’t even realized were falling from his eyes. He let her turn his face toward hers again.
Those eyes. Those lips.
She kissed him lightly, and he kissed her hard. He squeezed his eyes shut and he gently held her face against his, and then he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She glided easily against his body, pressing the curves of her breasts against his chest, slipping her hands around his neck and waist to cling all the tighter to him.
Together they leaned back into the soft grass and he felt the weight of her on top of his legs and hips, and his flesh stirred. Her hand snaked inside his robe to find his bare skin, and then slid down his belly past his navel.
“No.” He turned his face away from hers and gently pulled her hand away. Lying there on his back, he stared out across the surface of the river through burning eyes blurred by tears that couldn’t fall away.
She laid her head on his chest and he slowly put his hands on her back. It was a little harder to breathe with her there, but it was better with her there. Her weight, her warmth, her breath all felt very real and very far away from the red visions in his mind, and by small degrees those visions faded. The faces dimmed. The cries fell silent.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered.
Iyasu gasped as the tears streamed down all over again. His body shook, his throat ached, and this time he wasn’t even sure why. He wasn’t thinking about Darius, or Faris, or the dead, or the dying. He was just there, on a riverbank, holding Petra, and sobbing.
She said nothing. She just lay there, holding him tightly.
When he finally stopped, he was exhausted. His whole body was sore and he wanted to sleep for a year. But the pain felt smaller and farther away, and when he cleared his throat to speak, he found it didn’t ache anymore.
“It is my fault,” he said calmly. “I chose him. Faris wouldn’t have even considered him if not for me.”
“But you didn’t swing the sword or give the order, or any of that,” she said.
“But I made him king.”
“And Arrah made you a cleric.”
He frowned.
“And your parents gave you life.”
He said nothing.
“And God created the heavens and the earth.”
“Stop.”
“No.” She lifted her head to look him in the eyes. “You didn’t kill anyone. Whatever mistakes you made, you didn’t kill anyone. If you want to cast blame, at least cast it fairly.”
He kissed her. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to, so he did. She moved up so her eyes were level with his and eased her body off to the side so they could lie more comfortably with their arms around each other, kissing gently and briefly, again and again.
I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t. And I tried to stop it. I tried to save them. I’m trying to save them now. That’s all I can do. Try. She’s right.
He kissed her harder and her tongue flickered into his mouth. It was soft and warm, and he instantly wanted more. He explored her lips over and over, lingering on the top, then the bottom, then both together, and thrilling at the sensation of her lips and tongue and teeth caressing and teasing and attacking his own.
The kisses began to migrate from her lips to her cheeks and down her neck, making her scarves unravel to spill her long brown hair on the grass and on him. He brushed it away to kiss her more, venturing into new curves and corners of her neck and chest. She descended on him as well, biting and kissing his neck as her fingers gently clawed at the back of his head and down his spine.
Clothing slipped up and down as hands massaged and pawed and raked and pulled at warm, smooth skin.
When he slid inside her, the sensation made him stop and shudder. It felt so perfect, so natural, so wondrous, and yet so alien and bizarre.
My body is inside her body.
He looked at her as though for the first time admitting to himself what he was doing. She smiled and pulled him down on her to kiss him.
They began to move, at first with aching slowness as every moment was filled with new feelings, new reactions in his blood and fingers and brain and muscles. But he learned quickly. He saw the widening of her eyes, the flush of color in her lips and cheeks, the quickening of her breath. He saw the way her fingers stretched wide in his grasp as he held her hands down. He saw the way her breasts shook as her back arched.
It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
And then he felt the change as he grew even harder, as the sensations came faster and louder, roaring through his blood, making his hips pound against hers as a sweet desperation burned through his flesh.
His climax was half a minute of sweet white noise, shaking and thrusting and gasping, crushing himself against her to squeeze every last drop of ecstasy from his blood. And then it was over. He slumped down on her breasts, feeling the heat and sweat of her skin against his.
She separated herself from him, prompting another small shock of pleasure in his spine, and then let him roll off onto the grass to luxuriate in the cool breeze and the sight of the deep blue sky above the leaves.
As his skin and blood cooled, his thoughts swam back into focus and then promptly swam away again. He didn’t want to think. Thinking was too real, too dull. He wanted to sleep, content in that moment to believe that the world was a glorious place and that he had just fulfilled his entire life’s purpose.
But that feeling also passed.
Petra dressed quickly and quietly, standing up and walking a little ways away as she did so. Watching her, he became aware of his own nakedness and slowly pulled his trousers and robes and shoes on as well.
“Your first time?” She turned around.
He nodded. Almost on instinct he started to ask, “Was it…?”
She smiled. “You did fine.”
He smiled back, but all too briefly. The moment, in all its heat and wonder and hunger and revelation, was already fading with nothing but an impression in the grass to prove it had even happened. And now he was once again standing alone by the river with thoughts of death and regret pawing at the edges of his mind.
To keep them at bay, he asked, “Do you think you might conceive?”
“Not this time, I don’t think. As I said, djinn quicken like a flame. I think I would know by now.”
“After only a few minutes?” He managed to hide his surprise. “Well, I have to say that with all the madness in the world, with all the people who treat life so cheaply, it’s nice to meet someone who wants to create life so much. I hope you do become a mother one day.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A mother? Me? I guess those seer eyes of yours aren’t as sharp as I’d heard.”
“What?”
“I don’t care about being a mother. What do you think I am, some pathetic little girl desperate for the unconditional love of a mewling half-breed?”
Iyasu felt an icy splinter of fear and disgust slide
down into his belly. “What? But, why?”
“I want to create something that no one in all the world, in all of history, has ever created. Not even God himself has ever made a child of both clay and fire. I will be the first, because my vision is grander and bolder than his. I will reach farther and bring forth a new race upon the earth, a master race with the strength and ambition of humanity and the intelligence and longevity of the djinn.”
“A master race? Is that really… is that really why we just…?” He looked at the ground where the grass was already starting to spring up again.
“Of course. Why else?” she asked innocently. “Not that it wasn’t a pleasant diversion. As I said, just sitting here is boring.”
Iyasu turned away from her. His stomach lurched and the faint scent of bile wafted out through his nostrils.
…to defy God? To spite God? And I was helping her to…
As his eyes wandered up the riverbank he caught sight of the alchemist Bashir still sitting just a long stone’s throw away, staring out from the shadows at the rippling waves.
He heard us. He saw. He knows.
Iyasu sank down to his knees at the water’s edge and spat a trace of vomit from the back of his throat. The lingering wetness between his legs felt like a stain, melting into his flesh, branding him as a fool, a thing to be used, a pile of filth more concerned with his own momentary pleasure than the needs of the world, or of the divine.
“We found it!”
Iyasu turned his head woodenly to watch Zerai and Veneka dragging a log out of the forest. Samira walked beside them with her hand on the teak tree, and on the underside of the freshly felled timber Iyasu could see how the djinn cleric made the wood ripple and roll to help the humans haul its weight down to the river.
The teak tree, with most of its branches still attached, broke free of the confines of the forest and tumbled down into the water. Samira caught it by a small twig and took a long breath.
The beautiful tree melted into a long sweeping arc of pale gleaming wood, transforming swiftly from a thing of nature to a thing of engineering, a wide-bellied felucca with a narrow stern and a long sharp prow, and from the deck grew two tall, slender masts from which hung a pair of leafy green sails. There were thin cords lashed to the sails, and a pair of oars inside, and a rounded tiller reaching back to a long-tailed rudder.
War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) Page 6
