“They hadn’t even noticed me.”
“Who can know what another sees? Men of the Mein don’t discuss serious matters in the company of women. This is just the way my people are. And there’s the issue of who this particular woman is.” He invited Corinn to smile. She did not. “Think of it this way: you did me a great favor. I am in your debt for it. You know, of course, that many say I’m too close to you. Many wish we weren’t so enamored of each other. With that small action of demonstrating where I draw the line, I have assured my generals’ confidence. They’ll happily wag their tongues to others. They’ll say, True enough, Hanish may dote on the princess, but he knows how to keep her in her place. Let them think that, Corinn. If they do, you and I can enjoy each other all the more.”
“What were you talking about, anyway? Something with Maeander…”
Hanish dismissed it with a flick of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Unrest in Talay. It’s nothing, though. Rumors, grumblings. Honestly, Corinn, if it becomes anything of importance I’ll tell you all about it. But, now…” He stepped closer, changing the pitch of his voice in a way that suggested carnal intimacy. He slipped an arm down the small of her back and tugged her close. “Let’s make our way to the baths, yes? We’ll soak, and then we’ll lie side by side as the kneaders do their work, hot oil and all. And then, once they’re finished…we’ll send them all away and think of something more to do as we steam.”
As he walked away, Corinn had the uncomfortable sensation that he had slammed a door in her face again. Hanish paused at the far side of the room. He let his robe slip from his shoulders and crumple on the floor. Naked, he dipped his hands in the basin of oil and herb-scented water there, massaging the moisture onto his shoulders, rubbing the muscles of his neck. The lamp to his side highlighted the contours of his body. His back muscles reminded her of slender wings, folded and hidden beneath his skin. He glanced at her and said, “Come.”
He walked through the portal and out of view. Corinn-twisting and heaving on the inside, still expressionless on the outside-followed him, loosening the knot that held her robe as she progressed.
And so despite the things unsaid by her lover she might have allowed herself not to determine her allegiances based more on desire than on blood kinship. She did not think this through in so many words. She did not say, “No matter what is to come I choose Hanish. He is the one I love, need, want most in the world. He is the one I can believe in because he’s here beside me now. I hunger for him; he feeds me. Nothing else is as real.” But had she been forced to say this, she might have. And even if she wasn’t forced to, she might have lived by such a creed without ever having uttered it.
Might have, that is, up until the middle of that night, when she was pulled out of a dreamless sleep. She waited a moment in the stillness, sure that her name had just been spoken. She turned her head enough to see Hanish. He lay on his back beside her. He was awake. She almost lifted her head and asked if something was troubling him. His eyes were open. They stared straight up at the ceiling, but his expression was vague, unfocused, his cheeks flaccid and mouth gaping. He might have been asleep, except that his gray eyes were open, blinking every so often. And then she heard him say, Of course. I have not forgotten.
She heard him say this? No, she hadn’t heard anything. He did not actually speak. His lips had not moved. The room was dead quiet and had not been disturbed by anything louder than their breathing. But somehow he had formed that thought and sent it out and she had picked it up.
Again, she nearly sat up and spoke, but she was stopped by something issuing from another source. It was a force that she felt in the air, which she pinpointed as being beyond the foot of the bed. It was not a single person; it was a chorus of separate, intertwined entities. She could not actually hear their words. It was something more amorphous than that. She knew, somehow, that they were not even in the room. She simply understood the content of their message. She knew what they were saying. They were accusing Hanish of weakness. They were testing his devotion, prodding him with accusations that he was betraying them.
Ancestors, he answered, you are all that matters to me.
Corinn lay without moving a muscle, staring at Hanish’s open eyes, listening to it all, chilled to the center, breathing shallowly. She took in the back-and-forth between them, the accusations and denials. At first it just seemed a bizarre thing, an incredible curiosity. She was so perplexed by what was happening that it took her a while to realize that they were circling around and around one particular issue-herself. When they brought it up directly, she felt her breath catch in her throat. They asked Hanish if he would kill her. If it came to it and was necessary, would he drain the Akaran bitch’s blood?
Hanish did not hesitate in answering. She is nothing to me, he said. I hold her close only to make sure she’s safely here for you.
They did not believe him. They asked again. This time he answered directly, so clearly Corinn had no difficulty understanding him. Clearly enough that she would hear the words over and over again in her mind ever after.
I would kill her without remorse, ancestors, Hanish said, at the very moment you wish her dead…
CHAPTER
The note lay on the pallet beside him. The corner of it was warm from where his forearm had rested on top of it. It was impossible for Melio to believe that anyone could have placed it there. He was a light sleeper, likely to wake at no more than the sound of another person’s breathing. As part of his Marah training, he had learned how to be watchful of the world even while he walked through dreams. Yet there it was. A square of paper that could have been placed there only by someone’s stealthy hand. He would have grabbed the missive up quickly, except that he dreaded its mysterious placement was a harbinger of news he could not face. When he noticed Mena’s Marah sword leaning against the wall he was even more worried.
He lay propped on his elbow for a time, staring at the letter, at the weapon, hearing the sounds of the waking world outside the open windows and through the thin walls, the drip, drip caused by the night’s heavy rains. Since Mena had disappeared a week earlier, he had been staying inside the priestess’s compound. The servants, fearful and superstitious, had accepted his presence. They even took comfort from it. They had grown more dependent on him than any of them would have predicted. They had been taking orders from Mena for so long, they were at a loss for how to act without direction. They needed the focus he provided as he organized a search effort. Even as he lay there, Melio knew they were but a word away. He almost called to ask how the letter might have gotten there beside him and to have their company as he read it.
Eventually though, he unfolded the paper and read it in solitude. As soon as he had digested the words, he bolted from the pallet. He sprinted from building to building, room to room, calling Mena’s name. His voice alternated between rising and choked, desperate and sternly controlled. The servants followed him. They fanned out to every corner of the priestess’s compound.
Within a few minutes it was clear Mena was nowhere on the premises. None of the servants had seen or heard anything of her, and they were most distressed that Melio had a piece of physical evidence that she had been among them. He did not divulge the contents of the letter. He crumpled it tight in his fist and sat down on the wet dirt of the courtyard. To the horror of the servants, he cried into his clenched hands. He knew it was unfair not to tell them what drew the tears. He knew that they could only misinterpret his emotion in the ways most frightening to them. But he could not help himself.