Leviathus bowed to the Third Circle, hiding his laugh with a cough, and the two of them exited in a swirl of white-and-gold arrogance.
“That went well,” Ezio muttered, spreading a knife full of pungent cheese on a round of flat bread.
Hafsa Azeina pushed the cloud of short hair back from her face and glared at the men seated around her.
“You are all idiots,” she informed them. “That settles it. Your spectacle will just have to wait for a better time. Were it to be held now, with tensions so high and common sense so sorely lacking, such a thing would be destined to degenerate into goatfuckery and bloodshed. I speak for Ka Atu in this, and I forbid it.”
“I can see where the girl gets her shy nature,” ventured Loremaster Rothfaust into the silence. Luli peeped and pulled her head back into his wild gray beard.
Hafsa Azeina found that she had lost her patience with stinky old men and their cheeses, as well. She rose, causing them all to scramble to their feet once more, and gave them the faintest nod of her head. “If there is nothing else.” Her tone indicated that there had better not be. “Patreons.”
* * *
As Hafsa Azeina stormed down the corridors, servants and courtiers alike scattered from her path. Her foul mood had not been improved by the morning’s foolery. Her legs ached from walking on hard stone morning to night, the halls grew close and oppressive, and she could blame her malaise neither on a woman’s moonsblood nor on her link to Khurra’an.
The vash’ai was in a fine mood, as the kitchen-girls had let him kill a young pig and even now were brushing his hair in the sunlight. She could feel him purring all the way across the palace.
You grow fat and lazy, she chided him, but her heart was not in it.
You should try it sometime. Maybe get that knot out of your tail, he responded.
She found herself wishing for the company of Ani. The youthmistress could always be counted on for a level-headed view of things, and was more observant than she seemed. If all else failed, they could share a bottle of usca and she could listen to the other woman’s exploits.
Then again, her friend would have been wholeheartedly in favor of that fool spectacle.
Friend. She had not thought of the other woman as a friend for some time, and wondered whether it was still true. Can a monster have friends? Can the queen consort have a life of her own? She shrugged the thought away. This place and these people with their false smiles and clouds of perfume were getting to her. It would be nice to get on a horse and just ride with someone whose ambitions ran no deeper than hunting tarbok and occasionally hunting Askander Ja’Sajani.
Once in her chambers, she stripped off the gaudy robes of the queen consort and dressed in a Zeerani tunic, sheer and simple. She tied what was left of her hair back as best she could with a leather thong. She washed the powders and paints from her face, and scrubbed away the perfumes until she smelled more like herself and less like a whorehouse on a hot day. Then she drank half a pitcher of sweet water.
Ah, she thought, human again. Or as close as she would ever be.
A pounding on the door warned of Saskia, and Hafsa Azeina’s lips twitched. The girl was likely to break a door down before she learned to knock like civilized folk. The dreamshifter rose even as the door banged open. Saskia stood framed in the doorway, all sullen scowl and affronted elbows. Had she been a lionsnake, her feathers would have been standing straight out around her head.
“Some outlander bint wishes to see you. I left her in the atrium,” she said, and turned to stomp off.
“Saskia Ja’Akari.” She made it a request, so as not to add further insult to the warrior’s injured pride. “Please, stay.”
The girl’s scowl darkened, and she leaned against the door’s frame. “Dreamshifter?”
“I would ask a favor of you. I need you to act as my private guard while we are in Atualon.”
“What? Why?”
“It is customary for a member of the royal family to be accompanied by a private guard,” she explained, “so no one will think twice if you are with me at all times. Well, they will think twice, because you are a barbarian, and pretty besides. But if you are known as my guard, the palace will be open to you. Would you agree to do this?”
“Why do you need a guard? You are a ruler of this land. You are in no danger.”
“I am consort to the ruler, not a ruler in my own right. A disgraced consort, no less. Were it not for the king’s desire to win over Sulema, my life would be forfeit.” She smiled without a trace of humor. “Such a life as it is. You are Ja’Akari, Saskia. Think like a warrior. Does this place feel safe to you?”
“No. It feels like a trap.”
“One that has been sprung, yes.”
“If this is a trap, Dreamshifter, who is the intended prey?”
“An excellent question. Now you think like a Ja’Akari. I need you to be my eyes and ears. As a guard, you may walk unremarked where I cannot—the kitchens, the barracks, the inns. Keep your eyes open, and your ears, and your ka. Be wary of your dreams. There are traps in Shehannam as well.”
Saskia snorted and pushed herself upright. “Well, this is encouraging, Dreamshifter. Some of the others were worried that you had gone back to the outlanders’ ways. I will be happy to correct them.”
“Best you do not.”
“You wish me to lie?” The girl sounded scandalized.
“Of course not. But I do trust you to be discreet.”
The girl considered her words for a moment, then nodded.
“If I flush out our enemies, you will devour their hearts, that we may rest easier at night.”
Hafsa Azeina inclined her head.
“Then I will do this thing, and when it is finished we will go home. This is good. Ehuani, when we go I may take a few of these Atualonian men home with me. The outlanders may not be suitable for hayatani, but,” her grin was predatory, “I do like the kilts. I am beginning to think our men should show off more leg.”
The girl was incorrigible. Hafsa Azeina remembered that there was a reason for this visit.
“I had best go see this visitor you spoke of. What does she look like?”
Saskia shrugged. “Like an outlander. Pale and weak.”
Hafsa Azeina reached out to Khurra’an. The sire dozed in a sunlit corner of the kitchen courtyard. Can you meet me in the atrium?
Danger?
Always.
I come.
She left her quarters and Saskia fell in behind her, moving with the loose-hipped and arrogant walk of a warrior. The young woman eyed the Draiksguard openly, and men snapped to attention as they passed. Hafsa Azeina smiled grimly. She should have thought of such a ruse earlier. Next to this vibrant girl, she would be all but invisible.
The Queen’s Atrium was at the bottom of the tower, and it had once been Hafsa Azeina’s favorite place in all the world. A very feminine, very female retreat with high arches and panes of clear glass to let sunlight and air into the gardens, pink crushed stone pathways, a riot of verdant life and brilliant flowers. At its very center the Queen’s Pool burbled and splashed merrily, crowded with stone turtles and whimsical fishes and birds and fantastical animals. Hafsa Azeina recognized a golden kirin peeking from between the fronds of a giant fern. She remembered the day Wyvernus had given it to her, and how she had kissed him.
In the center of the pool, a sculpture of Sajani Earth Dragon depicted in human form lay supine upon a giant lily-pad. So skillfully had she been wrought that her blue alabaster skin looked soft and warm. It seemed that she might wake with a smile at any moment. Coins of gold and silver, gems and jewels and pearls of every description, and even humble pewter slags littered the lily-pad and shone in the water all around her sleeping form. A true dragon’s horde, wishes for wealth and health and happiness. And, of course, wishes for children.
How perilous of us, she thought, to entrust all our hopes to a dragon.
The Queen’s Atrium had once hummed with life like a hive full
of fat honey-bees. Now the queen’s maids were gone, and with them the children, and their swarming attendants. A few gardeners grubbed in the dirt. One short woman in a plantmaster’s smock was scolding a group of Draiksguard as they maneuvered the roots of a young tree into a hole, like a wren harassing an arrogance of dragons.
It was quiet now, but despite the warmth and promise of saghaani—and this, a young day late in the spring, was the very essence of beauty in youth—it felt like a dread quiet, the kind of sound one might experience in a sickroom or before an execution, or in the hours before a deadly storm.
A young woman sat on a white stone bench near the pool. She was wrapped neck-to-ankles in a gown cut in the Western style and meant to hide and suggest a woman’s curves. Her glossy hair was bound in a net of spidersilk and jewels fashioned to look like tiny red roses, so realistic that dew on their miniature leaves glistened in the early light. Her face and lips were flushed with health, her dark eyes bright with mischief, and her fingertips and the soles of her bare feet glittered with gold dust. She was exquisite, a doll on a shelf, and though the skin of her face was naked to the sun, still it was no more her true face than her brother’s masks were his.
Hafsa Azeina stopped near the woman, and she could hear Saskia’s quiet breath at her back.
“Matteira.” She inclined her head. “Good morning to you.”
“It is, is it not?” The lovely young woman rose with exquisite grace and held out both hands so there was nothing for Hafsa Azeina to do but take them. They were surprisingly strong, and warm, and calloused. “I have not been to the atrium in so long—hardly ever, since Mother… I see the gardeners have tended her roses well.”
“I should say Atualon has tended her roses well,” Hafsa Azeina suggested, as Matteira bent to kiss her fingertips after the manner of the river folk. “You were beautiful as a child, but it is a scandal that any woman should be so lovely. Bashaba was a true friend to me when we were young. You favor her, you know.”
“So I have been told. Oh, Zeina, we have missed you! You must promise never, never to go away again. Atualon is simply no fun without you. Look at you… dressed like a barbarian warrior-queen, and your skin spotted like a cat’s. And your hair, your beautiful hair! Was Ka Atu furious?”
“Ka Atu can hardly complain about my hair, since he seems to have misplaced his own.” A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Matteira had been as delightful a child as she was beautiful. “I hear you own a fools’ troupe now?”
Matteira waved her hand. “Oh, yes. They needed a patroness and I needed something to spend my brother’s money on besides clothes. Speaking of which, we need to get you to a real dressmaker. Zeina, oh. Oh!” Her eyes went wide and round. “Ohhhh, he’s beautiful. Is he yours? I had heard the barbarians had great cats for pets, but oh, Zeina! Is he safe?”
Pets? Khurra’an huffed as he came up to stand beside her.
“Safe?” She laughed. “Of course he is not safe. Neither is he a pet, Matteira—you should know better. Khurra’an is foremost sire of the vash’ai. Khurra’an, beloved, forgive this impertinent cub. If you kill her for her insolence, please make it a clean death.”
“A clean death is better than many would give the daughter of Serpentus.”
The words hung in the air between them like an angry new ghost.
“Is this why you have come, Matteira? Your life and your brother’s were secured long ago. Certainly my return does nothing to change this. Unless you or Mattu have suddenly become echovete, and wish to reclaim your father’s throne.”
“Not I,” the girl said, with a sober look. This was the girl behind the mask. “Not Mattu.”
“In that case, you are no threat to me and mine.” Are you?
“A threat… no. A way out, perhaps. I know you have no wish to remain in Atualon. This is no place for you or your daughter.”
“Your blood is the wrong color,” Daru had said. The hairs on Hafsa Azeina’s nape prickled as Matteira fumbled at the purse on her hip. It had been long years since she had misjudged an enemy.
“Hands still,” she growled. Khurra’an rumbled a low counterpart, and the girl froze.
“It is not… I am not… it is not what you think,” she protested. Khurra’an padded closer, until his nose was a ghost’s breath from the girl’s collarbone. The girl held so still she was hardly there at all.
She is not afraid of me, the cat thought. Or of you.
She is shaking like a leaf.
Like a bird pretending at a broken wing. There is no smell of fear on this one. He sounded more amused than anything. But she does not smell of a threat, either.
Hafsa Azeina stared into the girl’s eyes, and knew that her own were as cold and hard as drowned stones.
“Well? Let us see, then.”
Matteira drew forth a book—a slender volume bound in dark leather, with leaves stamped in gold all along its spine. She held it out, hand trembling, and the dreamshifter stepped forward to take it.
“You can stop pretending to be afraid of me. I have lived too long among the barbarians—lies and games simply are not as much fun as they used to be.”
Matteira relaxed, folded her arms across her chest, and gave Khurra’an an accusing glare. He bared his tusks in a cat’s grin and threw himself on the ground between them.
Tell her to rub my belly.
Do you promise to keep your claws sheathed?
No.
Then I will not. She looked at the book, and then looked closer. A Guide to the Herbs of Atualon, their Lore and Uses, Volume Nine. She turned the slim and beautiful volume over. Her hands were shaking now, and it was no pretense. There, on the back cover, was stamped the name of the woman who had written and illustrated this book: Bashaba. She opened the book. Its spine was stiff, the pages white and crisp as new-flensed bones.
“Your mother wrote this.” There was no mistaking that hand, the artist’s eye.
“She did.”
“I had thought there were only six volumes in this collection. When was this written?”
“She finished it this past Winterseve, just in time for my name-day.”
Hafsa Azeina sank to the bench. The world about her seemed to shudder, as if she was in Shehannam and the Huntress had sounded her horn.
“Bashaba is alive?”
“Very much so, alive and locked away from the world. She has been held in Salar Merraj since my father was killed, sealed away from atulfah and held hostage against my good behavior and Mattu’s. We exchange letters once a year, though I am not allowed to see her.” Her voice broke on the last word, and she fell silent.
“I never knew.” She slammed her mind’s doors shut, lest Wyvernus feel her growing rage. “I was told she had been killed.”
Matteira took the bench next to her, and plucked the book out of her nerveless fingers. “I know. That was one of the things we had to promise—never to tell anyone she was alive. If anyone found out, she would be killed.”
“You were children.”
Matteira’s smile was devoid of all warmth. “Welcome to Atualon.”
Her thoughts had scattered like a clutch of spiderlings, and Hafsa Azeina struggled to gather them in.
“What do you want from me, exactly? Why come to me now, and risk your mother’s death after all these years?”
“My mother has grown tired of captivity. She wishes to be free.”
“I can hardly help your mother to escape when I am trapped as well.”
“You misunderstand me.” Matteira replaced the book in its leather purse. “My mother does not wish to escape. She wishes to return to Atualon… as queen.”
“That is not possible. She has been sealed.”
“Anything is possible, once a woman sets her heart to it. My mother believes that she has found a way to dissolve her seal. She would be able to return to Atualon and take her place as Sa Atu, wielding power beside Ka Atu as she once did for my father. Perhaps in time she would bear another child, and t
hat child might be echovete. The ruling families would be united once more, under the guidance of two great leaders. The Dragon would be kept peacefully at rest for another generation. I would have my mother back. And you—” her smile widened, like a cat that knows it has caught its prey “—you and your daughter would be free to leave.”
It is as if I have been playing a game of Snakes and Stones, Hafsa Azeina thought, only to find out my enemies have been playing Twenty Moons. But she said only, “What do you wish me to do?”
“My brother and I have sent messengers out—discreet messengers, I assure you—to the parens of those families I believe might listen to reason. Several of the members of the First Circle have agreed to meet with us on neutral ground, a Mer family stronghold. If you would but speak to them with us, and join them to our cause, we might approach Ka Atu together and persuade him to see reason.”
“We might approach Akari Sun Dragon and persuade him not to burn so brightly, while we are at it. Wyvernus would never agree to such a thing.”
“Would he not? If he refuses us, he is left with his failing strength and one untrained girl. If he agrees, he will have a true queen and helpmeet. Would he give up a chance to hold onto the Dragon Throne, do you think, for this new-found daughter?”
“Everyone gets what they want,” Hafsa Azeina mused. “How often in life does that happen?”
Never, when two-leggeds are involved, opined Khurra’an. I have watched you play your human games. Not once have I seen a game end with all hunters and no prey.
I have played deadlier games than this, and with deadlier opponents. Never have I been prey. “I will meet with these parens,” she decided, “and I will hear what they have to say.”
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