‘Kheda.’ Half-smiling, she brushed back a lock of her lustrous black hair that had escaped the confines of an array of silver combs. Silver bangles whispered musically down her arm.
‘Rekha Daish.’ Kheda made a formal bow and laid just the faintest emphasis on her domain name. ‘I didn’t expect to see you at this residence at such a time, never mind in my personal halls. Where’s Andit?’ he asked with scant ; courtesy.
‘Seeing to my unpacking in the guest pavilion on the central isle. I never knew that Chazen Saril collected star circles,’ Rekha mused, with an inconsequential wave towards the westerly hall where lamplight shone on an array of bronze and copper discs hanging on the walls. Then she took a pace forward and laid one slender hand on his bare chest. ‘You look well, Kheda, for a man we all thought dead and lost to us.
Forgive my lack of etiquette, but I had to see you for myself, just the two of us.
His skin tensed at her touch. Her perfume was attar of roses, subtle and intoxicating and powerfully reminiscent of the pale golden blooms, ruby-hearted, that grew only in the compound of the Daish rainy season residence, nowhere else in the entire domain. Kheda looked down at Rekha’s hand, her long fingers tipped with silver-varnished almond-shaped nails.
Beautifully manicured. Just as Dev predicted.
‘It can never just be the two of us.’ Kheda took Rekha’s hand off his chest and stepped away. ‘It never was.’
No,’ she agreed warmly, moving closer once more. We shared our children—’
‘You misunderstand me, my lady of Daish,’ Kheda said sharply. ‘Far more things divide us now, you and me, than ever tied us together. That was your choice, yours and my lady Janne’s.’
‘What of your choice, Kheda, to leave us all mourning you as dead?’ Rekha’s fine features hardened slightly, the tip of her aquiline nose thinning. ‘To set Sirket the challenge of establishing himself as warlord, with him barely grown and in a time of unprecedented upheaval?’
‘Unprecedented upheaval and attack from beyond the Archipelago, with magic no less, something not seen in these southerly reaches for time out of mind.’ Kheda spoke with biting precision. ‘When far from uniting against this appalling threat, our neighbouring domains could only bicker among themselves. Ulla Safar even tried to kill me for his own selfish purposes, you know that.’ He paused to swallow his rising ire.
‘I read the omens and saw the signs telling me I had to go in search of some means to counter these savage sorceries. I couldn’t do that with every eye following me, with the pomp of a warlord weighing me down and hindering my progress through every domain. And I didn’t feign my own death; I merely let people believe that Ulla Safar had finally succeeded in murdering me. Desperate times call for desperate courses, Rekha. I wish I hadn’t had to do it, but isn’t our victory over the savages proof that I was following the right path?’
Though I still have to extricate myself from the mire I’ve landed myself in as a consequence. Where are the signs to show me a way out of this?
‘But what of us—your wives, your heartbroken, grieving sons and daughters?’ Rekha’s dark eyes searched Kheda’s face.
‘I would have come back to you and made all amends I could,’ Kheda said with low fury. ‘It was Janne Daish who made that impossible for me. Go and seek answers from her.’
Neither of them spoke for a long, still moment, then Rekha shifted her gaze to the archway behind Kheda with a shake of her head that sent her long black hair rippling to her waist. The familiar gesture teased Kheda’s memory.
She shakes her head like that when she’s unsure of herself, not that that happens much more often than a moonless night. Or unsure of me—she did that a lot when we were first married.
‘You assuredly saved the Chazen domain from calamity.’ Rekha’s tone was more conciliatory. ‘And it was only right that you should claim these isles with Chazen Saril dead. You certainly earned such a reward with your sacrifices. And don’t blame Janne for doing all she could be sure Daish Sirket was able to continue his rule unchallenged as his reward for securing the domain in such a time of fear and peril. You could only have returned by taking up arms against your own son and none of us would have wanted that.’
‘I’m sure Sirket and I could have settled matters between us, if Janne Daish hadn’t set herself so implacably against my return,’ Kheda said coldly.
And fed Chazen Saril a meal of poisoned shellfish to leave him dead at my feet, to force me into a choice between fighting with my own son to reclaim my birthright or turning to secure this masterless domain before some other of my rivals or enemies did so. Where would Daish have been then? ‘You would never guess what devastation had been done \nere.’ Rekha was looking all around the hallway, her face admiring. She smiled, this time conspiratorial. ‘I would dearly love to know just how you defeated those wild mages, my husband.’
‘That is a Chazen secret, my lady of Daish,’ Kheda replied, unmoved. ‘And I am most assuredly no longer your husband, nor you my wife.’
‘From all I hear, Itrac Chazen is a wife in name only and you’ve taken no concubines or slaves to your bed.’ As she spoke, Rekha’s swift steps closed the gap between them. She laid her elegant hand on Kheda’s chest again, fingertips caressing. ‘You must be having a long, dry season.’ She raised her eyes to his, running the tip of her tongue along her luscious lips. ‘As, of course, am I. We can none of us marry again, me or Janne or Sain, without being forced to choose between abandoning the children we’ve borne to Daish or running the risk of bringing a man to the domain who might rise to challenge Sirket.’
Kheda laughed out loud in sheer surprise. You’re inviting me to your bed, Rekha? Or what, to lay you down on these bare tiles and quench my thirst between your thighs?’ He shook his head, pretending more amusement than he felt. ‘Forgive me, but of all we shared when we were married, lusts of the flesh came a long way down the list. Be honest, Rekha, you only invited me to your bed under the stars you favoured for getting pregnant and you were always swift to call a halt to such pleasures once you had quickened.’
‘You don’t think I might regret such hardhearted practicality?’ She raised one perfectly shaped brow. ‘Or desire what I have lost?’
She pressed against him, so close that he could feel her warmth through the fine silk of her dress, her soft breasts against his bare chest. Perfidious memory reminded him of her nakedness, clad only in the unbound midnight of her hair scented with roses.
Her voice trembled. ‘I wept for you, Kheda, until I had no more tears to shed.’
‘I never thought you hardhearted, Rekha.’ Kheda fought a rising desire to take her in his arms and kiss her. That wasn’t the only thing rising and he backed away, hoping she had not felt his body’s treacherous urgency. ‘I thought you the most clear-headed woman born to any domain I knew and that’s what I prized in you above all else. No warlord’s lady ever served her domain better in her trading. I take it that’s what’s brought you here? But surely you could have waited to see in the new year back in Daish before bringing your proposals for Itrac’s consideration?’
Rekha was making a considerable business of taking out and replacing one of her silver combs. When she looked at Kheda again, her face was calm, her voice composed. ‘Itrac is a dear girl and we are very fond of her, Janne and me, having sheltered her through the crisis that overwhelmed her domain last year. We wouldn’t dream of seeking to take advantage of her in trade, any more than we would one of our own daughters. Ask her yourself.’ Rekha gestured vaguely at the ceiling of the entrance hall with its ornate paintwork. ‘Min-el Ulla would never have let the tiles to reroof these buildings leave her craftsmen if she had known where they would end up. It was Janne and me who persuaded Taisia Ritsem to act as go-between. Now Itrac has her home restored, as was her heart’s desire.’ She sounded genuinely pleased.