Heart Readers

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Into the inn. Into her room.

  To talk. All Stashie would do was talk. Dasis knew that. She had to trust her partner, to believe in her, and to love her no matter what.

  Dasis sank slowly on the rug and buried her face in her knees. She had pushed Stashie away. She had forced Stashie to do something so horrible that Stashie would never speak to her again.

  But Stashie had said she wanted to. She had had a change of mind. Dasis would have argued for the reading, but she wouldn’t have forced Stashie. Stashie had claimed she wanted to go on her own.

  She would wait for Stashie, and then when Stashie returned, they would talk. They would leave the city, if that was what Stashie wanted. They would even quit reading hearts if they had to. Only Dasis never wanted to face this kind of pain again. She didn’t want to ever sit through another afternoon and worry that her partner would never return.

  ***

  The sun had set before Dasis moved again. She had to wait until she felt Stashie’s hand on her shoulder, until her partner came and comforted her. At times, Dasis wasn’t sure why she needed comforting. She thought that Stashie had needed the comforting, had in fact received it. And then the pain would begin again, deep and rich and flowing.

  Finally, the crowd noises dimmed, and then the sounds of the other bazaar folk packing their belongings began. A few of the people passed by her and some stopped. She could hear their breathing, feel the warmth of their bodies beside hers. When she didn’t move, they went on, perhaps afraid of her stillness or perhaps they had seen Stashie’s betrayal. Either way, she didn’t want to talk with them, didn’t need their sympathy.

  She could tell the sun had disappeared when the ground radiated more heat than the air. She should have moved then—Stashie wouldn’t return to the bazaar, she would return to the inn—but Dasis couldn’t gather the strength. She shifted her position a little, eased the discomfort on her buttocks, and never raised her head.

  Stashie had arrived too thin, bruised, and starving at Dasis’s door. She never forgot the first time she saw Stashie: eyes wide and haunted in that cadaverous face, mobile mouth frozen in a position of pain. Dasis believed she could give Stashie what she needed, could help Stashie through whatever anguish had shredded her. That first night, though, Stashie said nothing, and as the weeks passed, she only dropped tidbits of information, as if the memories were so potent that just mentioning them would triple the pain. Finally Dasis had stopped asking, believing that Stashie would tell her when Stashie trusted her.

  All Stashie had ever said was that soldiers had murdered her family, and had tried to destroy her. No details, no descriptions, nothing to aid Dasis’s understanding of the trauma that had led Stashie to her.

  Stashie sharing Radekir’s touch bothered Dasis, but not as much as the thought of Stashie talking with Radekir, sharing information that Stashie had never tried to tell Dasis.

  Dasis sighed, then froze. Footsteps crunched along the dirt path. Heavy footsteps. Unfamiliar. The sound of booted feet. Not Stashie at all.

  Dasis didn’t look up, but tried to make herself as tiny as possible. She knew better than to be out at night, in the open like tavern women. She simply hadn’t thought, hadn’t realized what the implications of the growing dark were.

  The footsteps grew closer, then faded as the rug absorbed them. Dasis’s heart pounded. She half expected Stashie. When the hand clamped on her shoulder, she didn’t jump, but looked up slowly.

  She had expected to see one person. She saw seven. All soldiers, their faces hidden by the darkness.

  “Your name is Dasis?” one of them asked, and she thought she recognized his voice from the afternoon.

  “Yes.” The word scratched out of her throat, as if she had been sitting there for days instead of hours.

  “And you have a partner named Stashie?”

  The curious calm that Dasis had felt a moment before blossomed into something else, something that would overwhelm her if she let it. “Yes,” Dasis said, repressing all of the questions, the panic-filled thoughts: Is she all right? Have you hurt her? What have you done with her? Don’t you know she fears you?

  The soldier might have seen the expression on her face, for when he spoke, his voice sounded lighter than it had before. “You’re to come with us.”

  “Where are we going?” Dasis’s hands were shaking. As soon as she noticed it, the trembling spread through her arms and legs.

  “To the building you were at earlier today for the auditions.”

  “Stashie’s not here,” Dasis said.

  “We don’t need her.” Another soldier spoke. His voice had a harshness and an implied violence.

  “We read hearts. I can’t do that alone.” Dasis stretched out her legs, startled to discover that her feet had gone to sleep. She couldn’t run, not then. She would stumble across the dirt, fall, and make things worse.

  “You’re not coming to read,” the first soldier said.

  “Then why are you taking me?”

  “The King’s adviser would like to speak with you.” The other soldier, the one whose voice added panic to the already edgy feeling in Dasis’s stomach, took a step toward her. Dasis pushed herself backward, her hands touching the polished toe of a boot behind her. She looked up. Five more soldiers flanked her. She was completely surrounded.

  “He needs to speak to both me and Stashie.” Dasis’s voice cracked, and a flush filled her cheeks. She hadn’t wanted them to know she was frightened. That was the worst thing: To let them know how much they were terrifying her.

  “You’re coming with us,” the first soldier said. “It’s treason to say no to an adviser of the King.”

  “I don’t go anywhere without my partner.”

  “And yet your partner’s not here.”

  “She will be,” Dasis said softly. But the words sounded false, even to herself. She knew, deep down, that Stashie wouldn’t reappear. She might never appear again.

  The grip on her left arm lessened, then a fiery pain slashed through it as the blood began to flow again. “We’ll have you back,” the violent one said, “long before your partner even realizes that you’re gone.”

  The words made Dasis ache. They had no idea how likely that was.

  “Enough talk,” the kind one said. “We’re taking you with us. We’ll have you back soon.”

  Dasis looked around wildly, but saw no one. The streets were empty. Not even the tavern torches had been lit. People had seen the soldiers and stayed away. No one would help her. She wasn’t even sure she could help herself. If she wrenched her arms free, she could run, but what would seven soldiers do when they caught her? She had heard the stories, seen the scars that Stashie bore, even though Stashie never told how she’d gotten them.

  Dasis now felt the glimmerings of understanding what she had asked Stashie to do.

  They pulled her forward and she made her feet move. Their footsteps around her sounded like an entire army on the march. They smelled of sweat and polish. The grip on her arms remained tight, painful. The men walked with no regard to her shorter stride.

  The streets grew lighter and more populous as they walked. Torches hung from tavern doors. People laughed and joked, then stopped when they saw the soldiers. Dasis thought of yelling for help, thought of all the times she had seen the soldiers walking in a tight formation. She had never pitied the person they had dragged away, always assuming that the person had done something wrong. Stashie had known better. Stashie had stayed away from the soldiers, except when Dasis forced her.

  They passed the building where Dasis and Stashie had done their reading that afternoon. Dasis tried to stop, but the soldiers pulled her forward.

  “You said we were going here.” Her voice came out too soft, almost frightened.

  The violent one laughed. “We have another place to take you first.”

  They kept walking, toward the edge of the city, until she felt as if her feet would fall off. Finally they reached the city’s outskirts. The palac
e rose, a fortress against the moonlight. The desert was cold, and Dasis still wore her day clothes. She shivered despite the heat of the seven bodies crowding her.

  “You’re taking me to the King?” she asked.

  By now Stashie would have tried to return to her. Stashie would worry. She would rouse the inn, get Radekir (the thought sent a piercing pain through Dasis’s chest), and find help. When they discovered that soldiers had taken Dasis, would Stashie wait? Or would she run? She certainly wouldn’t be able to do anything to save Dasis. No one had power against the soldiers. Stashie had taught her that, and since Stashie believed it, she wouldn’t even try.

  They passed under a gate in the fortress. The desert smell fled, replaced by the scents of horses and too many people. A trembling started deep in Dasis’s stomach. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know why they had found her and dragged her away. But she knew that she was about to find out.

  The soldiers brought her to a tent stationed just inside the fortress. As they pulled the flap back, she recognized the feel of silk against her skin. Sharp incense rose and tickled her nose. She blinked at the lights burning in holders at two ends of the tent. The ground was covered with ornate rugs and a large mound of pillows near the back. A man sat at the only table, his long legs stretched out before him.

  “Leave us,” he said.

  The soldiers let go of her arms and backed out of the tent. She could see their silhouettes flanking the outside.

  “You are Stashie’s partner,” he said. His voice had the deep rumble of a man accustomed to power.

  The wariness Dasis felt had slid into confusion. Whatever was happening to her had something behind it. Something old.

  “That means you are her lover.” He got up, grabbed one of the candles, and placed it on the table. His face flared into view as easily as if he had lit a match beneath it. The sun had given his skin a curiously flat look. The lines around his mouth and eyes were not laugh lines. They had a more sinister depth.

  A small white scar ran across his left cheekbone. But his eyes held her. His eyes glittered with a malevolence she had never seen in a person’s face before. He draped one arm casually over the large pillow supporting his back. “I’m Tarne. I was her lover once. Her first lover. I doubt that she has forgotten me.”

  Dasis held herself rigid. She remembered now. Stashie, starved and abused, whispering his name with a hatred that Dasis hadn’t heard before or since. Mumbled threats from nightmare-filled sleep. And once, just recently, from the lips of a boy soldier. “Oh, Stashie,” Dasis murmured. She now understood why her partner had agreed to seeing the King. Not for Dasis, but for revenge.

  “You know something?” His voice remained calm, interested, as if they were discussing whether or not the following day would be hot or if the King had been seen in the bazaar.

  “I thought you were stationed outside Leanda.”

  He laughed. “A long time ago. Does she still speak of me? Is her memory that fresh?”

  “She has only spoken of you once,” Dasis said. “The day I met her. She hasn’t mentioned you since.”

  He nodded and indicated a pillow. “Let’s talk,” he said.

  She ignored his overture. “What do you want from me?”

  “Do you know that Stashie was a virgin when I took her? I had her blood all over me, more than once. Do you find blood erotic?”

  Dasis felt as if her heart would pound through her chest. But she wasn’t going to let this man see that he had disturbed her. “I assume you brought me here for a reason,” she said.

  “She was beautiful, full of twice as much fire and passion as she showed this afternoon. She defended her brother and of course I had to kill him. That didn’t quench her flames. When I touched her that night, she fought me, then gave in. She liked having a man inside her.”

  Dasis bit back the retorts that came to her lips. She would wait until he let her know why he had brought her here. Then perhaps, she would know if she dared risk herself to protect Stashie’s honor.

  “I’ve never understood heart readers,” he said. “Women touching women, claiming to have a power that men lack.”

  “There can be male partners,” Dasis said.

  “But never all-male heart-reading teams. And few men would debase themselves by doing women’s work. Magic is a tool for the powerless, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Dasis felt a spark of understanding rise. “The King believes in it.”

  “And he is dying. What else could make a man feel so powerless as watching his life ebb from him and being unable to stop it?” Tarne chuckled. “No. Succession should be decided by strength, not by magicks or blood. The King’s sons have no power. They were mere children until a few days ago when they discovered that their father was dying. Now they’re frightened children.”

  “What do you want from me?” Dasis asked, even though she thought she knew. With the knowledge came a kind of calm.

  “I took Stashie every night, and still she fought me, long after the other rebels in the village had grown quiet.” His eyes glittered in the candlelight. “She never told you this. You look interested.”

  “I find it fascinating when people justify their perversions.”

  He smiled. “She has found a match in you. Or perhaps you remind her of what she was. Your fire is softer than hers was. I couldn’t stop her from disobeying me. I tied her to the top of her brother’s grave and I let my men draw blood from her. Twenty-five of them. Some twice. Many women wouldn’t live through that.”

  Dasis shuddered in spite of herself. Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought of this. “She escaped.”

  He shrugged. “I let her go. She had been soiled. Once a spirit is broken, I don’t care for it anymore.”

  “And yet you brought me here tonight.”

  “Yes.” He stood, walked over to her. He was shorter than she had thought he would be, his head barely reaching the top of the tent. He took her hand, and held it like a lover would. His fingers and palm were lined with calluses. She wondered if he could feel her fear. “You’re going to be reading for the King. They’ll contact you in the next few days. The King thought Stashie’s spark admirable, and Vasenu, his son, thought she would have no reason to manipulate the outcome. You, of course, are part of the package. And they know nothing about me.”

  Dasis resisted the urge to pull her hand away. His touch made her stomach turn. “What do you want?”

  “Have you ever had a man before?” he asked gently. His other hand stroked her cheek, slid down her neck and into her blouse, cupping one breast. She remained still, but couldn’t stop a grimace from passing over her face. “No? Then you don’t know what it’s like to be really touched”—he pulled down her blouse, leaving her breasts free, then ran his hand on the outside of her skirt, digging his finger between her legs—”here, the way a woman should be touched.”

  “Do that,” Dasis said, keeping her voice calm, “and I won’t be able to read in front of the King. Our power is based on our sexual connection. I am Stashie’s first lover. If I weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to read at all. All you did was abuse her. That’s not love.”

  “Then it shouldn’t affect your readings either. I feel no love for a woman like you.” He shoved her away from him. She had to take a step backward to keep from falling. “One of the King’s sons must inherit to allow the old man to die in peace, and to lull his advisers into thinking that all will be well in the Kingdom.”

  “You have other plans?”

  He glanced at her. His face became flatter somehow, and she knew with a sudden certainty that anger was the only emotion he knew how to feel and how to use.

  “I am not going to remain an adviser for the rest of my life,” he said, his tone as flat as his expression. “There is power here, and I plan to use it.”

  “We can’t read your heart. There would be no reason to.” Dasis didn’t move to cover herself. She didn’t want to provoke him further.

  “You don’t have to
. You will read the twins’ hearts, and then, no matter what you see, you will say that the King’s son Ele has the purest heart.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I will make you my woman. I will parade you in front of your friend Stashie. I will beat you and rape you in public. I will let my men use you. I doubt you are as strong as your friend. I think that twenty-five men would take your mind as well as your female purity.”

  Dasis swallowed air. The image was very clear to her. He would break her spirit—and destroy Stashie at the same time. Stashie had walled part of herself off. She could take the abuse. But she wouldn’t be able to watch it happen to someone she loved. “Sounds like hell for you too,” she said.

  He laughed. The sound had a ring to it that spoke of warmth and good times. She shivered again. The mirth in his laugh frightened her more than almost everything else had. “You’re attractive enough,” he said. “And it won’t take that long to break you.”

  “Unless . . .”

  He froze, clearly not expecting her to speak. “Unless?”

  “Unless I like it.” She forced the words out, even though they repulsed her.

  He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. For a moment, she felt like he saw her as an equal, someone who actually had a chance of besting him. Then he smiled a very slow, measured smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make sure that you won’t like it at all.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Stashie rested in the warmth of Radekir’s arms. Radekir was longer than Dasis, more angular, her scent spicier. The differences had aroused Stashie, made the lovemaking continue longer than it had in a long time. Stashie was sweat-covered, spent, and more comfortable than she had ever been.

  The room had grown completely dark. Stashie could barely see Radekir. Her even breathing was relaxing, and the gentle movement of one thumb along Stashie’s spine took the tension with it.