by David Hair
Elena. A mutilated scar-ravaged Elena.
‘Don’t do that,’ he rasped. His belly churned.
‘I could be her for you,’ she said earnestly.
Every time he visited, Yvette offered a little more of herself, and it hadn’t taken him long to realise that no one had ever paid her this much attention, not since childhood – and perhaps not even then. Yvette was becoming his – but she wanted something in return, and he was not willing to give that, especially not while she looked like a failed necromancy experiment.
‘Not Elena, not ever.’ He backed away a step.
‘Don’t go!’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sorry, I only meant to tease you.’
He stopped and said kindly, ‘Yvette, I have told you: you don’t have to be anyone else with me.’
‘But how will anyone like me if I’m not someone else?’ she asked sadly. She sounded like she genuinely didn’t understand.
‘You are a person in your own right, Yvette,’ he said, wondering if the shapeshifter was capable of accepting what he was saying.
She didn’t answer for a long while, and when she did, it was to change the subject. ‘I want to go outside. I’m bored here. It’s not healthy, to be locked away from the sun.’
‘Not until you’re fully recovered.’
‘Please, let me out.’ Her Elena-face melted away, revealing the plain, weak-chinned face she’d been born with. Tufty ginger hair sprouted from her scalp, and her new eyes had turned her own pale blue. She looked revolting, with the stolen skin of the orphaned Jhafi child weeping pus and blood where it had been stitched together.
‘Not when you’re like this, Yvette.’
When she bared her teeth the insane child inside her was plain to see. Then she sagged morosely. ‘When?’ she asked, her tone somewhere between slyness and desperation, and he could feel the question beneath the question, the one that had been building between them for the long hours they’d spent together as he’d cleaned her, fed her and given her what she needed to heal herself, listening to her tale and giving her sympathy. All her life she’d been adrift, seen as repugnant by all who knew what she was.
She wants to be loved, or at least what she thinks love is, in all her naïve, innocent immaturity, and in return, she will give her very soul.
Playing with souls was part of the game. Though unreasoning devotion, whether to a king or a god or another human being, repelled him, it was ironic that he could engender such devotion so easily in so many.
He had fooled wiser women than her. He reached down and squeezed her fingers gently, knowing that in her imagination that simple gesture meant so much more. And all the while he thought about Cera Nesti, with her clever, seasoned mind and her virginal body.
*
‘Should we steal the knives?’ Portia whispered, making Cera suppress a giggle. They were seated alone at the noblewomen’s table as usual; thankfully, Octa and Olivia generally ate in their rooms, except for important occasions.
The normal commotions of the high table went on around them. Cera stole a glance at Gyle, seated on the other side of the room. He noticed, raised his glass faintly, and she forced herself to return the gesture before looking away.
‘He’s fascinated by you,’ Portia said softly into her own glass. They hardly looked at each other, except for the occasional disdainful glances to maintain the fiction that they hated each other. ‘But there is another on his mind. He is torn.’
‘Is he? How do you tell?’
‘His eyes stray to you often and linger, trying to meet your eyes, but when they do, he looks away, and he becomes unfocused. He wants you, but another has a claim on him.’
‘Elena?’
‘Maybe.’ Portia slurped her wine. Another night in Francis Dorobon’s bed loomed and she wanted to go there drunk.
Cera’s belly churned at the thought of her father’s murderer forcing himself on her. ‘I don’t want him.’
Portia ate some rice. ‘I know. You don’t like looking at him. The pupils of your eyes grow smaller when you glance in his direction. Believe me, I know what desire looks like, and the opposite also. Gyle is screwing Olivia Dorobon, by the way.’
‘Her? She’s—’
‘Ugly as a cow’s arse? Si! Nevertheless, she is not whom he is thinking of; she is just part of the game he plays. Some men have complicated lives.’ Portia flicked back a stray strand of gleaming red hair. Her porcelain face was immaculate. She was wearing an emerald-coloured velvet dress that accentuated her colouring. Every man in the room had gazed longingly at her at some point that evening: every man, except Gurvon Gyle.
‘You are so beautiful,’ Cera blurted, then blushed.
Portia licked her lips sourly. ‘Beauty is a curse. It draws the biggest bullies. They crowd about you, squabbling over you like dogs over a bone.’ Her eyes went to Francis Dorobon, laughing raucously with his friends.
‘Whose attention do you want?’ Cera asked, intrigued. She looked about the room, almost entirely full of handsome young men.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘None of them. I lost my virginity at thirteen and I’m sick and tired of it all. I get no peace.’
Cera took a sip of the full-bodied red wine. ‘Portia, come to the bowri tonight. There is something you need to know.’
‘I will come after I leave the Pig’s room. It would be good to wash again before I sleep. Wait for me at midnight, if you can.’
They exchanged one swift glance, then by tacit agreement did not look at each other again.
*
Cera sat beside the water, half-dozing as she waited for Portia. A single torch lit the cavern, its flickering light glinting on the rippling surface of the water.
Then the grill-door creaked open and slippered feet glided down the corridor outside. Portia emerged from the darkness, once again clad only in a bathrobe. Cera got to her feet, the excitement of conspiracy making her flush. She went to hug her, then stopped. Portia did not look like she would welcome being touched.
‘Cera, amica,’ Portia replied dourly, pushing past. She pulled off the robe and attacked herself with the soap, like that first morning when they’d met here.
Cera swallowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, undressing and sliding into the waters. She sat on the stairs, just out of arm’s reach.
Eventually Portia ceased her frenzied cleansing and dived beneath the surface before finally settling beside Cera on the steps, half-immersed. ‘There, we can talk now.’ She looked calmer, as if she had rinsed away her self-loathing.
Cera bit her lip, suddenly not so sure this conversation was a good idea. But she must have the courage of her convictions. After a few moments she pressed on regardless. ‘Portia, do you know what happened to your brother?’
Portia opened her mouth, then closed it again. ‘I know what I’ve been told,’ she answered eventually. ‘Your sister killed him.’ Her eyes darkened a little, then she said firmly, ‘I do not blame you for this.’
‘It wasn’t Solinde who killed him.’
Portia put a hand to her mouth. Her voice was tremulous. ‘You are sure?’
‘I found out the truth, before Fishil Wadi,’ Cera whispered. ‘Elena and I learned that it was a shapeshifter in the pay of Gurvon Gyle.’
‘Sol et Lune!’ Portia hissed. Her eyes went wide as saucers and she whispered, incredulous, ‘You know this?’
‘Sol’s Truth,’ Cera replied. ‘I saw the shapeshifter. Elena unmasked it, but that night an enemy attacked us and I never saw it again. I don’t know what happened to it.’
‘Perhaps it is still at court,’ Portia whispered. ‘Perhaps it will take the place of someone we trust.’ Her eyes went wider. ‘Perhaps it will take the place of one of us.’
Cera shook her head. ‘We would know.’ An idea occurred to her: ‘Perhaps it took Elena’s place, because her behaviour changed so much. Maybe she was not poss
essed, but entirely replaced!’
Portia shrugged. ‘I do not know about these things.’ She tilted her head and looked at Cera. ‘If I were a shapeshifter I would choose to be ugly, so that men would not look at me.’
Cera laughed uneasily. ‘I would choose to be you.’ You’re so beautiful it hurts.
‘So you could be dragged to the Pig’s bed every night? I don’t think so.’ Portia scowled. ‘Thank you for telling me this. I believe you. And it is a relief that your sister did not kill my brother. That had been causing me a lot of distress.’ She smiled timidly.
Cera seized Portia’s hand. ‘We teased Solinde for fancying your brother. But had we known him better, I’m sure we would have loved him.’
Portia blinked. ‘You are kind,’ she whispered huskily. ‘It is good that we are friends, for their sakes. But Cera-amica, what are we going to do?’
Cera leaned in and breathed in her ear, ‘I have a plan starting to come together in my head. Did you know there are secret passageways all through the palace?’
Portia’s eyebrows went up. ‘Really? Mater Luna!’
‘I tell you, a spy can see into every room in the three upper storeys.’
Portia looked outraged. ‘That is horrible! And that woman we saw in your room has been spying on us?’
Cera nodded. ‘Gyle, too.’
Portia bared her teeth. ‘Can we get into them? Can we use them to get out of here?’ Her eyes blazed with intensity.
Cera was almost overwhelmed by the other girl’s excitement. She is so lovely when she looks like that. ‘Maybe – but I expect Gyle will have sealed the passages leading outside.’
‘Then one night we will go from room to room with our knives.’ Portia’s eyes glittered savagely. She pushed away from the steps and waded to the step below Cera’s and knelt there, facing her directly. ‘We cut their throats!’ She made a violent gesture across Cera’s neck, making her flinch. ‘Then we run away!’
Cera swallowed. ‘Yes.’
Portia’s face was a bloodthirsty snarl, then, slowly, her expression changed to one that was very serious. Cera stared back at her, and it was as if gravity had let her go, as if she could float away. Every sense was overloaded: her nostrils filled with Portia’s clove-breath and rosewater scent and her tongue tingled. Her eyes filled with Portia’s mouth, her red lips and pink tongue. The constantly running water was a ripple of sound like a glissade of harp music. Her skin felt porous and the warm water caressed her whole body as Portia gently pushed her knees apart and knelt between them, pressed herself, breasts to breasts, belly to belly beneath the water, and kissed her tentatively.
O Mother Luna, she groaned, and revulsion for the sin she’d feared most of all warred with desire, but the war was brief and defeat was overwhelming. Her lips parted as her arms slid around Portia’s shoulders and pulled her in. Their lips crushed softly against each other, and then Portia’s tongue slid into her mouth and entwined hers, on and on in a perfect eternity …
‘Please,’ she moaned, pulling away to breathe, ‘I’m not a safian—’
‘Of course you are,’ Portia whispered. ‘I told you, I know what desire looks like, even if you don’t.’
‘But—’
‘Shhh.’ Portia’s hands caressed her shoulders and back as her mouth sealed over Cera’s again. The second kiss went on even longer while her terror and need grew in equal measure: Someone will come … someone is watching …
Portia gripped her around the waist and pulled her in, making her back arch, and took her left nipple in her mouth just above the water’s surface and suckled on it while her auburn hair spread behind her, swaying like water-weed in the current. Cera gasped, clutched at the back of Portia’s head and held her there while inside her, she felt heat and wetness go rushing to her loins. She opened her own mouth to protest, and instead found herself nuzzling Portia’s crown.
‘Come,’ Portia whispered. She rose like a naiad, water streaming from her skin, and took Cera’s hands. Cera let herself be pulled upright, and kissed again. They floated to the top of the stairs, and Portia seized her bathrobe and spread it on the tiles. Then she lowered Cera onto the fabric.
That this could be happening seemed impossible, but Cera desperately didn’t want it to stop, sin or no. The part of her that might have resisted was lost. She sank to the ground and rolled onto her back, her heart hammering, flesh trembling.
‘Do not be ashamed,’ Portia whispered. ‘We are as the Sun and Moon made us.’
Slim fingers stroked Cera’s thighs and then entered the cleft between, sliding easily into her wet passage, and Cera lost her breath and never seemed to catch it again as Portia deftly stroked her, touching her right where she had not known she so badly needed to be touched. Her porcelain face shone in the torchlight, a look of amused concentration on her face as if she were studying Cera’s every reaction.
I’m her puzzle-box, Cera groaned as the tempo and intensity rose, and she’s almost … figured … me out … ohhh—
She orgasmed in a gush of fire and heat, the pleasure so intense it was almost painful, her hips bucking as she groaned and tried to push Portia’s hand away, not recognising the giggling sound coming from her own lips …
Portia grinned slyly down at her. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing.’ Cera’s eyes stung, and she suddenly realised the burden of fear that had weighed her down for so long had lifted – maybe not forever; she could feel it waiting to settle back on her. But here, right here, everything was possible, and hope – cruel hope – now had her in her grasp, and she wanted to cry, and laugh. ‘Everything.’
This changes everything …
Portia kissed her again. ‘There,’ she whispered, ‘that wasn’t so bad, was it?’
Cera stared up at her, still not quite believing. I’m not beautiful enough for you, even though you make me feel like I am. ‘Solinde used to call me a safian because I wasn’t interested in gossiping with her about boys,’ she whispered. ‘It was the one insult I could not face, so naturally, it was the one she used when she most wanted to hurt me.’
‘Sisters can be cruel,’ Portia said, kissing her throat.
‘Are you – uh … also—?’
Portia looked at her a little helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I have not done this before. I’m so tired of men demanding my body, but this – this is different … And you need me, Cera-amica – not want, but need, and that is different. I am here for you, to help you through.’ She touched the tip of Cera’s nose. ‘I will see you through.’
‘I can’t believe we … That what happened—’
‘It did. And it will happen again, I promise.’
Cera reached out, tentatively stroked Portia’s perfect breast, reached down …
Portia caught her hand. ‘Not tonight – it is too soon after the Pig. I am still sore, down there. But another time.’ She guided Cera’s hand back to her breast. ‘Just hold me. All I want is to be held.’
*
The night bells chimed in the city below as Cera lay wide awake in her bed. After a parting that felt like being ripped in two, Portia was back in her own room.
Cera stared out of the window at the vast moon; the face of Luna, Goddess of Madness and Desire, lit the cityscape, basting it in silver, shining like Portia’s skin, and it made Cera tremble to think of her so near … But the risks were so high: if the world even suspected they would be stoned, at the very least, and that would mean the end of all her ambitions. It was the stupidest of all stupidities, to surrender to a need she’d barely realised existed.
Liar: you’ve always known, and you’ve always run from it …
An old minstrel’s song sprang to her mind, and she whispered it softly into the room:
‘Sweet Luna, watch over we lovers of your light,
Sweet Queen, hear my entreaty,
For I am mad with desire,
And I so desire your madness.’
21
De
eper Understanding
Religion: Zainism
Zainists claim that all Gods (except Kore) are the same divine being. Their whole faith is built on such compromises. Do they not know that compromise has no place in religion? The imagination of men can be captured only by absolutes.
RASHID MUBARAK, EMIR OF HALLI’KUT, 901
Mount Tigrat, Javon, Antiopia
Shawwal (Octen) 928
4th month of the Moontide
‘You don’t understand. I don’t want to do this.’ Kazim couldn’t meet Elena’s eyes. ‘We don’t need to do this.’ He stared across the sunlight gardens from the balcony where she’d chosen to confront him.
They’d been having this running argument for days. Elena had thought he’d be grateful to her for removing her block on his gnosis, but he wasn’t. For almost two months he’d been pretending to have forgotten these terrible powers, and the dreadful way in which he’d gained them, by swallowing the life of another man – and not just any old man, but Antonin Meiros, the man who’d stolen Ramita. All he had been, all his deeds and memories, hopes and dreams, his personality and emotions, all gone, turned to roiling energy inside him. Some of that power had now been bled away, drained by the fight against Gyle’s people, but now that he could reach it again he knew there was still enough to frighten him.
And the only way to replenish it is to take another life. Another Wimla.
And there was the other part of his dilemma: since Elena had removed the Chain-rune, he’d been beset by a hunger he couldn’t assuage. It was manageable, for now, but he’d come to realise that the more he drained himself, the more that craving would grow.
Elena didn’t understand, obviously. She’d said that his aura was ‘odd’, whatever that meant, but she clearly hadn’t ever seen a Souldrinker before. Of course he couldn’t explain that ‘oddness’ to her, not without her turning on him, so instead he fell back on the flashpoint of their many disputes: religious dogma.
‘The power of the magi comes from Shaitan and I refuse to learn it,’ he said self-righteously.
