by Cate Rowan
She sucked air into her lungs, mortified, and glanced behind her to the lower deck. The gathered guests were still dancing and shouting below, and she saw no one was looking up. That should have mollified her fears, but it didn’t.
Zahlia had made her permission known, but what of his other wives? Even if they were willing to share Kuramos, Varene could not. She loved him. Loved him. No matter that their culture fostered the sharing of their man. How could she accept her beloved going to another woman’s bed, making love to someone else? How could she accept one-seventh of him?
She dropped her head, wishing for all the world that he were free, that their fates had not been so mismatched.
“Please. Stay away from me.” She stepped back, yanked herself from him, ripping her soul.
“What?” He reached for her, confusion and hunger roiling in his eyes.
“Stay away. I can’t be one of your many women.”
His head rocked back as though she’d struck him. “Varene, I—”
“No.” She didn’t want to hear his plans, how she was a temporary salve for his desires. The irony of it pierced her, for she’d wanted the same thing, too, such a short while ago—but that had changed in the last rays of the sun.
She no longer wanted to be his bedmate. She wanted to be his everything. And the ring on his finger, the symbol of Kad and of his six previous marriages, proved that could never be.
Tears burned the backs of her eyelids. She was a fool twice over—for betraying everyone she’d lost in Fallorm, and for ignoring everything she’d learned since.
He stepped toward her, but she held up a palm to ward him off. “Keep away from me. For my sake, Kuramos, leave me alone.” And she fled down the stairs as if the hounds of a demon snapped at her heels. She listened for sounds of pursuit, a part of her wanting him still, more than anything she’d ever felt in her life. But behind her lay only silence.
Down the spiral stairs she scurried, nearly tumbling onto Hamar, who was just beginning an ascent. “I’m sorry,” she managed to the carefully blank-faced steward, and careened away at the bottom of the staircase whipping her long hair behind her.
It was so uncharacteristic of her to wear her locks loose that she raised her hands to her head. Kuramos had toyed with her hair, then tossed the band on the table. Not in ten thousand days would she go back up there to retrieve it. And thank Fate she’d left when she did, or Hamar would have seen…
But now she was trapped on the sultan’s ship, unable to escape from him or his household, unable to be alone where she could scream or cry in peace.
Around her, bodies whirled in joyful and sensuous motions to the beat of the pounding drum and flute. The musicians were only a few feet away, eyes shut and intense smiles on their faces as they rocked to the music. But how could they close their eyes to the view before them? The women’s hips gyrated in uninhibited delight, their movements mimicking the intimate ones of love. Varene stood beneath the upper deck with Kuramos’s kisses cooling on her lips and despair in her heart, mocked by the dance.
A hand clamped her arm. She whirled, both panic-stricken and yearning to meet the sultan’s eyes, but found herself in the grip of a smaller and more alarming opponent: Sulya.
The sultana’s nostrils flared and her eyebrows slashed down toward her nose. “Keep clear of my husband.”
A half-laugh, half-sob plummeted from Varene’s lips. “I’m trying to.”
“That isn’t good enough!”
“Then take it up with him.” She wrenched her arm from Sulya’s grasp and tried to step past her.
But the sultana’s bejeweled fingers stabbed out and caught her forearm again. “He’s my husband. My man, and not yours. Remember it!”
Varene’s hands fisted. She wondered what Kuramos’s other wives would think of Sulya’s statement of singular possession.
Varene understood her pain and hurt, and felt sorry for the woman scorned. But she still couldn’t understand why Kuramos had ever married a woman so spiteful and petty.
And how could he be married to her, when Varene would never be able to share his life?
A new movement caught her eye—Kuramos’s sandaled feet, descending the stairway. Varene twisted away, desperate to put distance between herself and Kuramos, but Sulya blocked her.
“Let me go,” Varene hissed, “or you’ll get the opposite of your wish!”
Blinking in astonishment, Sulya let her pass.
Varene wove through the crowd. What does she think of me fleeing Kuramos? Hope it makes her happy. Not that anything could.
She headed for the stern, the farthest place, darting around gyrating bodies. Incongruously, she spied Mishka dancing near her mother. Mishka’s movements were already confident and graceful, clearly showing she had been practicing dance for years. She and Maitri twirled together, their rapt faces displaying their enjoyment.
Mishka spotted Varene and lowered her arms. “Royal Healer!” She skipped toward Varene, then glanced at her purple and diamond necklace. “Ooh, that’s pretty. But have the daisies died?”
Varene choked out a quavering laugh. “I’m afraid they’ve gone a little brown, yes.”
“I’ll make you another.” The girl smiled up at her. “I like your hair down. Now it’s like mine. See?” She twirled in place, her raven hair forming a whirling mane.
Varene smoothed her own hair back, wishing once more for the band. “Ahh. You dance so well.”
“It’s fun! You should try it.”
“Oh. No, that’s all right. I’ll just watch you.” She didn’t need more reminders of what had taken place upstairs.
Maitri swirled closer. Through the dancing, her demeanor had shifted from that of a pleasant, sweet-natured woman to a goddess of sex. “Are you sure, Healer? It’s so enjoyable.”
As is your husband… “I’m sure it is.”
Zahlia’s laughter rang out as she neared them. “You’re not being a prude again, are you, dear Healer?” She and Maitri exchanged an enigmatic look.
“No, not at all,” Varene said. If they only knew.
Zahlia’s mouth curved up, then she turned and studied someone behind her, putting an amused finger to her lips. “Indeed, no, I’d say not.”
Wary, Varene twisted and spotted the sultan’s muscled back twenty feet away—with the fierce tracks of her own lusty nails scratched down it.
She sucked in a horrified breath. Her cheeks and ears flamed like a blacksmith’s forge. In that moment, she would gladly have plummeted through the deck straight to the river bottom.
Zahlia’s gaze twinkled as she surveyed the sultan’s marks. “Well done.”
Varene shielded her eyes with a flustered hand. “Oh. Oh, oh, oh.”
The sultana clucked. “My dear, prudery makes life so confining.”
Varene glanced at Maitri, fearing her reaction, but Kuramos’s Fourth Wife had gone back to dancing with her daughter and Varene couldn’t discern a response.
A joyful shriek drew Varene’s startled attention. She spotted Priya, her hands splayed across her face, peering between her fingers at Sohad.
“Come on!” Zahlia grabbed Varene’s hand and pulled her toward the commotion. Reluctant to move closer to the sultan, Varene forgot her resistance when she spotted the tears glistening on Priya’s lovely cheeks and sensed the anticipation of the crowd.
“Yes!” Priya declared. “Yes, Sohad of Gida. I will marry you!”
Varene watched, stunned, as Priya threw her arms her new fiancé. Marry? Just this morning, she’d encouraged Sohad to tell Priya how he felt, and now her two assistants were…engaged. As simple as that.
Lonely envy exploded in her like shards of glass.
Encouraged by the whooping crowd, Priya pulled Sohad into a long and sensual kiss. When they parted at last and looked into one another’s eyes, the cheers and claps were deafening.
“Felicitations!” boomed the sultan, so near to Varene that if she just reached out… But his gaze stayed away.
The Physician’s Assistant and the handmaiden quickly bowed to him, their hands tightly clasped as if they would never again let go.
“In honor of your loyalty and service to me and mine,” Kuramos continued, “it would be my pleasure to host your wedding.”
Priya emitted a squeak of gratified surprise, and her glow intensified. Sohad glanced hesitatingly at his fiancé. “W-we don’t require anything elaborate, O Lord—”
“Nonsense,” Kuramos interrupted. “It will be as extravagant as you please, and held whenever you like. Tomorrow, even.”
“Tomorrow,” breathed Priya, her beautiful brown gaze luminous on her fiancé. “I could be your wife tomorrow, on Raliyam.”
Incredulity and bliss merged in Sohad’s eyes.
“Done!” said the sultan.
Rajvi slid next to Kuramos and touched his arm. “O Lord, unless I am mistaken, the ship is turning around. Isn’t it a little early?”
Varene glanced out and saw that indeed, they were swinging round on the wide river.
Kuramos nodded. “Unfortunately, yes, on my orders.” He raised his voice above the crowd, and even the musicians quieted. Soon only the oars could be heard, sweeping steadily through the water.
“I regret our festivities must be cut short this evening. I promise to make it up to you very soon. There is a matter to which I must attend.” He turned to Varene, and his implacable eyes showed no spark of emotion or remembrance of what had happened on the upper deck. His voice lowered. “Those who instigated the riot in the market have been found.” His gaze rammed through her. “You will be needed. There are…injuries.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Drums beat the rhythm for the evening, Varene noticed—first on the ship, and now, somberly, in the Throne Room. The sultan’s court spread down either side of the room on cushions, restlessly awaiting the appearance of the prisoners. Men sat cross-legged while the women tucked their feet beneath them. She did the same, on a crimson cushion below the dais on the sultan’s right, next to Priya and Sohad.
Kuramos himself sat on his dais as if carved in granite. Inexorable. Ruthless. His gaze focused on the open doors, through which the deep booms of the drum matched the rhythm of guards’ feet.
Buld, the Captain of the Guard, led his men into the hall in two lines, every guardsman’s expression mirroring the sultan’s. The prisoners between them limped, each man’s ankles chained to the next, in front and behind.
When all had entered, Varene counted eight ragged men kneeling before the sultan. Most were so filthy it took several moments to recall their appearances back in the market, though the drunken behemoth who’d stopped Sohad from taking the sugarwort was impossible to forget.
As she gazed at the final prisoner, Varene’s blood seemed to ooze in the wrong direction.
Bafar. The odious merchant whose insults and insinuations had drawn the crowd and whipped them into insanity cradled his right arm, grimacing in pain. Sweat dripped from his brow to the dirty stubble on his chin.
Varene rubbed an uncertain hand over her temples. She admired Buld for his success at finding these men out of the hundreds who’d jammed the market aisles that day, but wondered what had happened in the hunt or the capture that had left them so disheveled and begrimed. And injured. Each bore marks of struggle, whether scraped flesh, angry wounds, or a broken nose. Bafar was the worst of the lot. She could see from his sweat-soaked grimace and the way he held his swelling, straightened arm that it had been dislocated at the elbow, a harrowing trauma. The joint would need attention, and soon, if it were ever to heal.
And of all those gathered in the Throne Room of the sultan, only she possessed the knowledge to do it. She, the woman Bafar had reviled. Icy needles prickled between her shoulder blades.
Of the foreboding statue on the throne, only the sultan’s eyes moved. At his left, his scribe called for the names of each of the men. One by one, the prisoners gave them. As they spoke, baritones and basses and tenors, flashes of the riot came back to Varene. Her gut chilled as she recalled their voices from the mob. “She’s a Teg witch.” “She’ll spew her sorcery throughout Kad.” “Maybe we should kill her.” “Grab them all.” The panic she’d felt as these men had surged around her and roped her to the stake crawled back to her, leaving a vile coating in her throat.
Priya shuddered when she heard the voice of the man who’d threatened to rape her, and she reached for Sohad. He wrapped both his hands around hers and hugged her close.
Varene’s fingers flexed as she wished she could receive that comfort from the man upon the throne, feel safe again the way she had after the riot. Instead, she’d turned him away. Surely it was for the best.
When the sixth man recited his name, Buld clumped his meaty fist into the man’s shaggy head. The prisoner’s forehead hit the marble, whereupon he admitted a different name.
After the eighth man spoke, Kuramos roared, stilling every occupant of the room. “You eight incited a riot and nearly murdered two beloved servants and the Royal Healer of Teganne.” Every plane of his face seemed hewn from rock. “Had you succeeded, nine members of my household would now be dead.” He leaned forward on the throne and thunder rolled from his lips. “Four of them My wives!” Courtiers, guards, and captives alike trembled at his boom.
For the first time since Kuramos had addressed Varene on the ship, he turned his cold eyes to her. “Healer, I may have changed my mind about allowing them the benefit of your skills.” He glanced at Bafar and his lip curled, baring his teeth. “Why aid his arm when his soul is soon to feel Naaz’s judgment?”
With her pulse hammering, she rose slowly to her feet, pleading to Mother Fate that she would make the right decisions. “O Lord,” she began, and took a deep breath. “It matters to me that I help all those I can, if it is in my power to do so. Will you grant that power to me tonight?”
He wasn’t a man who cared for flattery, only for truth. She knew his clever mind would catch the nuances of what she’d said—admitting she was here in Kad, his realm, and that he was the one who could grant her that power, or not, at his will.
His unfathomable eyes stared down at her, deep as the sea and just as deadly. Was he the honorable and good-hearted man she loved, or the sultan of Kad, who stood alone? Her heart shivered at his distance from her, the new barrier between them.
“Healer, you came to my realm to save those I love. You succeeded.” His deep voice reverberated in her blood. “Therefore, if it pleases you, you may bind and aid Bafar the Merchant’s limb. But do not otherwise ease his pain. He has made choices. He must abide by the consequences.”
Do not ease his pain? His injury was an excruciating one. His muscles would be spasming around the distorted joint, causing additional agony. Varene’s lashes slid down and her head sank in an obedience that was only half-felt. But she did not envy the decision the sultan had to make—to execute these men, who had tried to murder three innocents for Kaddite pride and for sport, or to allow them and their hatred to linger in the world, an evil of its own, one that tainted and blackened everything around it.
How could a man make such judgments? And how could he make them and not be affected, not have his soul cut to pieces by the weight of the responsibility?
She rose and turned to her assistants. “Sohad, could you—” she began, but he was already getting to his feet to help. “Priya, I need a large cloth, or a sheet…”
“Will this do?” The handmaiden unwound a long scarf from her hips.
“Yes, but surely that’s too exp—”
“I wish it,” she said quietly, her gaze steady on Varene’s. A symbolic gesture of forgiveness, perhaps. Or maybe a stance of power—the man who’d nearly taken Priya’s life would now wear her gauzy, feminine garment on his arm. Whether it was compassion or revenge, Varene couldn’t blame her. “Very well.”
Varene walked the silent room, Sohad and Priya just behind her, and knelt beside the injured man. She looked at him for a long moment. The court’s h
ush deepened.
Dark shadows had bloomed under Bafar’s bloodshot eyes—from lack of sleep, and fear, no doubt, during his run from the guards. A corner of his lip bled in a ragged tear. The shadows and the rip would heal on their own, in time—if he were allowed that—but the arm would not. She wondered, then, if it wouldn’t be fitting for him to die, to go to whatever afterworld he believed in, with the evidence of his deed and his punishment still upon him. These men would have murdered her…and Sohad and Priya, too, for trying to protect her. Did they deserve her mercy?
Bafar’s gaze evinced defiance, contempt, and a little fear…of who Varene was, her powers, and the unknown end that would soon come his way.
She would have been dead, and Priya and Sohad with her, but for Kuramos’s rescue. Bafar’s actions had encouraged and fomented the mob, and those behind him had tied the ropes and lit the fire. Yet, if Bafar had been offered the choice to kill them in that bazaar before the riot had commenced, before the insanity had started, would he have done so?
“Hold still,” she told him. “As still as you can. We have to realign the bones, and there will be pain.” A lot of it. “Once the arm is bound, the pain will lessen.”
Bafar’s closed lips moved against each other as if he might speak, but in the end, he only nodded.
“Sohad, hold his upper arm steady, please, just above the joint.” Gently, she wrapped her fingers over the man’s forearm and her other hand around his wrist. A guard clamped his shoulders as she gave a slow, twisting pull.
Bafar’s scream shattered the hush and his head wrenched back in pain, but his bones realigned. Varene palpated the elbow joint to check it as Sohad and Priya made a sling from Priya’s veil. The three worked like the well-matched team they’d become. When Varene tested the tension of the wrap and tied the final knot, she found herself pleased by the contrast between Bafar’s brown and grimy tunic and the embroidered flowers on his new sling’s trim.
