by Cate Rowan
Gunjan cleared his throat.
“Yes, yes, what is it,” the sultan growled, not looking up.
“Great Sultan—” Gunjan began.
At the sound of the papery voice, the sultan lifted his head and stared straight at Gunjan. “Jencel! Why aren’t you in the Cage?”
“Ah…perhaps you’ll let me answer that in a moment, O Lord. The Healer asked me to find you.”
Kuramos shot to his feet. Gunjan backpedaled on his high perch even though he was safely across the room.
“Is everyone all right?” the sultan asked, eyes large with concern.
“From what I gathered, yes.”
“Then what does the Healer want?”
“She believes she knows a cure.”
“Praise the Goddess!” Then the sultan clamped his fingers around the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening. “Are you here to tell me she’s cured my family?”
“Well, ah, no, O Lord. She’s searching for this cure, a plant called sugarwort, in the city—but she knows she has it in Teganne. She asked me to fly there tonight and send someone back through the FireRing with a supply.”
The sultan’s shoulders slumped with a sigh, and he gave a judicious nod. “Then that is exactly what you should do.”
“Yes, O Lord. Ah, er, one other thing…”
Kuramos cocked a brow.
“The Healer wanted me to tell you something.” Discomfited, Gunjan shifted to one foot and lifted the other into his chest feathers. Somehow he always felt better that way. “I think she was joking. In fact, I’m sure of it, O Lord—”
“Just tell me what she said, Gunjan.”
“Yes, my sultan. I believe her exact words were, ‘Have Kuramos tell his guards not to wave their spears around this time.’”
Gunjan’s flight muscles quivered as he waited for a backlash. After all, a sultan might not enjoy being told what to do. He couldn’t imagine his sultan liking it, anyway.
When Kuramos broke into a grin, Gunjan nearly fell off the étagère.
The sultan straightened, a smile still planted on his lips. “You’ve delivered the message. I’ll take care of things from here.” He strode to one of the many windows stretching across the wall and swung it open. “Good luck and fast wings to you, jencel. Fly well, for all who are ill!”
“I will, O Lord. May those you love stay safe on this side of the egg!” Gunjan flew out into the sunshine he loved.
Kuramos had just returned to his treasury revenues and balances, a task he detested but deemed crucial to being an informed monarch, when he was interrupted again.
“O Lord,” said Hamar from the doorway, “the Royal Tailor is here for your fitting. He says he has chosen magnificent material for your Raliyam garb.”
Kuramos sighed and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “He’ll have to wait a short while.” He enjoyed wardrobe fittings even less than looking over the ledgers, and neither would be able to pull his thoughts from those who were bedridden.
Before Hamar could respond, footsteps pounded down the hall toward the office. Hamar peered out and hastily backed into the room to avoid a collision.
“Great Sultan! O Lord, I have news—” One of the palace guards careened through the doorway.
“Can I not finish my accounts without interruption today?” Kuramos snapped.
He regretted the outburst, but had no chance to form an apology. “The market, O Lord!” said the agitated guard. “There’s a riot!”
Kuramos narrowed his eyes. “More than the usual haggling over prices?” The guard’s rattled demeanor confirmed it. “How bad?”
Before the answer came, Hamar’s swift intake of breath stopped further conversation. The steward’s face paled.
“What is it?” Kuramos felt himself rising from his chair.
Hamar stared at him, wide-eyed. “Where is the Royal Healer?”
“My jencel was just here. He said she was in the city, looking for…” Dread twisted around his spine. “Oh, by the goddess, no!”
Hamar took a step forward, locking gazes with the sultan. “Sohad wanted herbs to help with the treatment. He requested infirmary funds to take to the market. Do you think…”
But Kuramos had already leapt to the window. “GUNJAN!” he bellowed. “GUNJAN, COME BACK!”
He scanned the sky, so empty under the waning sun. Finally a black speck appeared, growing larger by the moment. He stepped away from the window to allow the bird room to land on the sill.
Gunjan halted there, but kept his wings half-spread as if ready to bolt. “M-my sultan?”
“The Healer. You said she was going to the city to find her herb. To the marketplace?”
“Yes, O Lord.”
Gunjan’s wings relaxed, but Kuramos’s body tensed. The sultan swung his head to the south, though walls and distance obscured his view. “Was she going alone?”
“I don’t know, O Lord. But the servant girl was bringing clothing to her, so perhaps—”
Kuramos spun on his heel. “Meet me at the South Gates, Gunjan!” He sprinted toward the door.
“O Lord!” Hamar shouted as Kuramos passed him and the astonished guard. “A riot—I can’t let you take the risk!”
“In that case,” the sultan roared as his legs pistoned him down the hall, “tell yourself I’m going shopping!”
Kuramos bolted through the corridors, servants and courtiers flattening themselves against the walls to get out of his way. He cursed his haste—he should have taken the guardsman with him. He twisted to look back, but he’d rounded another corner and couldn’t tell who might be following.
Minutes later, he reached the forecourt. Buld, his Captain of the Guard, was already gathering a squadron of men and their muscular, six-legged fydds to head into the fray. Kuramos sped toward Buld, who stood by the three-horned head of his massive mount, shouting orders. Without explanation or a by-your-leave, Kuramos put his own foot through the stirrups and leapt on.
Buld commandeered the fydd of another man without batting an eye. “Follow the sultan’s lead!” he yelled.
“Gunjan!” Kuramos howled up at the circling jencel. “Find the Healer!” He pointed toward the clamor beyond the gates. The bird squawked in surprise, wheeling in a tight circle, then soared past the castle walls.
Kuramos and his guards charged down the ramp to the gate. Watchmen flung the doors wide to let the cavalry streak through, their sultan in the lead.
They galloped into the market; shoppers carrying baskets and goods fled from the fydds’ plate-sized hooves. “Varene!” Kuramos shouted, scanning for the sight of her and her companions, for a glimpse of her blonde hair. “VARENE!”
Above them all, Gunjan flew on, a black arrow streaking toward the thunder of hundreds of voices. Had the jencel spotted the missing three in the heart of the mob? “Out of my way!” Kuramos bellowed at the pedestrians, as much for their own protection as to clear the road. The dust kicked up by the crush of people and fydds coated his tongue.
Two guardsmen surged forward and flanked him, the one on the left holding the banner of the sultan. He turned to the man on his right. “Tell the captain to make the crowd disperse.” The messenger nodded and whirled his mount around.
Kuramos drew his scimitar. It flashed in the last shafts of the reddened sun. He and his outrider forced their way through the darting mass and around the corner of another aisle.
“HOLD!” he roared into the throng that choked the aisle.
The outrider on his left added his voice. “The Great Sultan commands you to hold!” He unsheathed his own blade and thrust it high. But their voices made little headway against the thousand-headed mob.
Buld proved his worth again—twelve bugles blared behind the sultan. As the riders and their horns closed in, the edge of the horde turned and scattered in the dimming light. People flung themselves into tents and between the stalls, hopping over the criss-crossed ropes that staked them. The riders pushed on through the dust and screams
.
“VARENE!” Kuramos shouted. “Royal Healer!”
“She’s here, O Lord!” yelled a voice he didn’t recognize. “We’ve saved her for you, her and her companions!”
Relief blasted through him. He sucked in a fiery breath.
“Aye,” screamed another. “And now that you’re here, O Lord, you can do the honors!”
The crowd parted down the middle. There, in the center of his market, he spotted Varene’s blonde locks dangling filthy and bedraggled about her shoulders. Beside her stood the physician’s assistant and Varene’s petite maidservant—all three gagged and roped shoulder-to-shoulder to a stake, a pile of flame-licked logs circling their bound feet.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kuramos spurred his mount the last fifty feet toward the fire, his deadly scimitar raised. Rioters scattered like rats before him, but all he could see were Varene’s desperate blue eyes above the filthy gag.
“The sultan wants revenge on the Teg!” someone shouted. “Help him!”
Flame streaked past his fydd’s nose. The beast shied, twisting away in a half-rear, but Kuramos clamped his legs and drove it forward through sheer force of will. Too late, he realized the flame was an arrow set afire.
It shot into Varene’s thigh.
Naaz, NO! “Kill that archer!” he roared to his men.
The burning shaft of the arrow quivered. Fire and smoke licked the air. His mount swerved under him, rattled by the flames.
Kuramos leapt down and sprinted the last distance. He slashed the ring of cords around the captives’ ankles, then sliced up through the bonds around their chests, trusting instinct to guide his blade through rope and not the flesh beneath. Three people pitched forward, released. Kuramos reached to pull Varene over the flames to safety, but she caught halfway, over the fire, still affixed to the thick stake.
The arrow! Horrified, he looked down, expecting to see blood streaming from her thigh. But the arrow had pierced her robe and pinned it to the wood, where it smoked and burned.
“Your robe’s caught!” He ripped at the toggles holding it closed, but they wouldn’t budge—and even if they had, her hands were still bound beneath it. Heated smoke filled their lungs, and Varene coughed into the gag, fighting for air.
A guard pulled the other two captives free. The Healer’s terrified gaze locked with the sultan’s.
He clamped her arm in his fist. “Don’t move!” With a wordless plea for Naaz to guide his blade, he sliced down through the wretched robe, severing it from the stake and flaming shaft. One twist and he had Varene in his arms, away from the fire.
He cut the rope from her hands and she clung to him, coughing into his chest. His gaze swept over her body for burns, but he saw none, though her feet were bare and dusty. Had her shoes fallen off in the riot, or had the captors taken them? And what more had they taken—or done to their victims?
Water splashed and sizzled behind him. Guardsmen with commandeered wooden buckets were putting out the flames before fire could snatch at the cloth of the booths. He saw the physician’s assistant with his soot-streaked arms wrapped around the maidservant. She curled her fingers in Sohad’s begrimed kaftan, tears streaking her face. Except for their shock, they seemed unharmed.
The sultan signaled for the nearest guardsman and spoke in a grinding rage. “Tell Buld to find those responsible for this treachery and bring them to me. Listen to my words: Do whatever it takes.”
“I hear and obey, O Lord.” He sped off on his fydd.
Kuramos followed him with his eyes, looking back the way they’d ridden in. A man with a bow clutched in his fist had been tossed into the aisle. A dead man, just as Kuramos had ordered. His neck had been neatly sliced.
The sultan grunted in small satisfaction. It would take a great deal more vengeance before this day would be forgotten.
He looked down at the woman in his arms. “Can you stand?”
She nodded, still gagged, and gazed up at him with exhausted, red-rimmed eyes.
He set her on the ground, gently, in case she hurt in places he could not see. She swayed for a moment and leaned against him, balancing. Then she reached up to loosen her gag’s knot.
“Let me,” he said softly. He stepped behind her and tugged the knot free, smelling the pungent smoke in her tangled hair and a lingering scent of herbs.
The rag that had bound her mouth dropped to the dust. She stared at it and shuddered.
“Varene.” He stepped in close, resting his palms on her shoulders, and whispered into her ear. “Did they do anything else to you? Did they hurt you more than I’ve seen?”
She shuddered again, then raised her hands and covered his own. “No.” She shook her head. “No, they didn’t.”
A breath he hadn’t even realized he’d withheld sighed out over their fingers. “What about your companions?”
“I don’t think so. It all happened so fast. They were too intent on killing us. On burning the witches at the stake.” A half-sob spilled out, then she spun around to look up at him, her eyes filled with wounded innocence and outrage. “They said I had brought the illness upon your house, that it was a plot, that I wanted to murder you all…” Her voice broke on “murder” and the dam of her composure seemed to burst as well. In the aftermath of her torment, her usual belligerence had fallen away, revealing a naked vulnerability. Her upturned gaze, so unguarded and full of tears, pierced his heart.
Not knowing what else to do, he pulled her close, holding her as sobs racked her body. When she leaned into him, he slid a hand up to cup the slim nape of her neck and rubbed the other one in circles over her lower back, feeling the curve of her spine under his palm. “I swear to you, Varene,” he whispered, “it will be all right. I’ll make it all right.”
Her hands wrapped around his back, bunching the folds of his kaftan, and they stayed like this, connected, as dusk settled over the market.
As her sobs slowed, Kuramos became aware of the rise and fall of her torso as she breathed. Soon his body sensed the rest of her, pressed close against him, warm and soft and womanly.
His eyes closed tight. Her curves fit his, their swells in all the right places… the glorious narrowing of her waist, which his large hand spanned. His loins stirred reflexively.
Her long lashes fluttered against his chest and her breath hitched, held. Agonizing seconds rolled by, until her fists loosened their grip on the silk of his kaftan and flattened, slowly, against his back. Her fingers, warming as her shock faded, pulled him minutely closer against her.
More of his blood flooded downward, and his heart scrambled to pump what was left. Her smallest movement seemed magnified by his heightened senses. She shifted her foot a tiny step, and her core snuggled closer.
He barely suppressed the groan that danced in his throat. “Varene,” he whispered, and tightened his arms, drawing her in.
“O Lord!” A mounted guardsman trotted over. “The captain has heard your orders. He wants to know if you wish the market closed tomorrow. He recommends against it, but will of course follow your command.”
Frustration scorched Kuramos’s thoughts, and only with great effort did he keep that from his voice. He stiffened and pulled a few inches away from Varene. She released him and turned, hiding her face. “Have him set a formidable patrol, but the market must open.” With a visible presence of guards, no one would be willing to risk their lives on another riot—and the city’s residents depended on the goods and trade. Besides, Buld would have an easier time finding informants if the merchants and patrons were gathered.
He looked down the row and caught the captain watching them. Buld turned away, but the sultan knew his embrace with Varene had been noticed.
He trusted Buld with his life—he had to, and Buld had long proven his loyalty—but he’d been a fool to comfort Varene in a public place under so many gazes. There would be whispers, then rumors. Given what had just happened to Varene, his lapse meant she might be even more vulnerable to assassins. The old anger boile
d up again, and the old foreboding, the one that should have been guiding his every move.
He had to get Varene back to the safety of the palace and its shielding walls, and fast. Back to their privacy—for many reasons.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
To everyone’s surprise, Sohad spotted half the sugarwort still in its cotton bag, haphazardly kicked under the canvas of a nearby market stall. The bag had been ripped open, and the rest of the twigs had been scattered in the dust and trampled underfoot.
He and Priya collected all they could, and Kuramos assigned a guard to look for any remnants they might have missed. Varene wasn’t sure whether the mangled sugarwort would still be viable, but they had no choice.
The coins they’d tried to leave in exchange for the herb were long gone, no doubt pocketed by someone who hadn’t earned them. The sultan offered the proprietress a stunning sum in compensation, as well as the assistance of his own carpenters and canvas-makers in repairing her stall, which had capsized when the mob bolted.
With the sugarwort in her hands at last, Varene found herself unwillingly seated in front of Kuramos on his massive fydd.
Except for their thighs, which nestled together of necessity, he didn’t touch her. She suspected that having the sultan literally at her back, with the two of them surrounded by a cadre of guards, was very much a warning to those who might still be watching from the shadows among the stalls and nearby aisles. And the long-ago rumors of Kuramos’s ruthlessness were precisely confirmed as they rode down the aisle, past the archer whose head had been nearly sundered from his neck. She suspected that was only a taste of what would come to those whom Buld captured.
But given the unseemly embrace she and the sultan had shared, what they had felt and done in the sight of those who had just tried to kill her, she wondered if the message he was projecting were more succinct: “MINE.”
