But it was a false beauty. Mishani knew that, even if nobody else here did, except the Sister of the Red Order that observed from one side of the dais. Asara was an Aberrant, able to change her appearance to suit her desires. Her talent was unique among her kind, and Mishani was thankful that it was so. One of her was dangerous enough.
'You must be proud, Asara,' Mishani commented.
'Of Reki?' she appeared to consider this for a moment. 'I suppose I am. Let us just say I still find him interesting. He has come a long way since I met him.'
That was something of an understatement. Though they had never met, Mishani had heard accounts of Reki as an adolescent: bookish, timid, lacking the fire of his older sister the Empress. Yet when he returned to Jospa to take the title of Barak after his father's death, he had been a different person. Harder, more driven, ruthless in the application of his natural intelligence and cunning. And in four years he had not only made Blood Tanatsua into the strongest high family in the desert, but today he had succeeded in bringing the other families under his banner.
Mishani sipped her wine. 'You must be proud of yourself, also.'
'I do have a way of landing on my feet, don't I?' Asara smiled.
'You have heard, I suppose, about the events at Juraka?'
'Of course.' The Sister by the dais had told them both about it, having received the message from other Sisters who were present at the fall of the town.
'This treaty comes not a moment too soon,' Mishani commented. 'We cannot afford to be divided now.'
'You are optimistic, Mishani, if you think that the unification of the desert tribes will benefit the west,' Asara told her. 'They will not go to your aid.'
'No,' she agreed. 'But while the Weavers divert their resources in their attempts to conquer the desert, their full attention is not on us. And with this treaty and the collaboration of the desert Baraks, they might never take Tchom Rin.'
'Oh, they will, sooner or later,' Asara said, plucking a glass from a servant who was passing with a silver tray. 'They have the entire northern half of the continent and everything in the south-east outside of the desert. We hold the Southern Prefectures – barely – and Tchom Rin. We are encircled, and we have been on the defensive ever since this war began. Behind their battle lines, the Weavers have leisure to put into practice any scheme they can imagine. Like these… feya-kori.' She made a dismissive motion with her hand.
'I do not share your fatalism,' Mishani said. 'The Weavers are not in such a strong position as it would seem. Their very nature undermines their plans. Their territories are famine-struck because of the influence of their witchstones, and we hold the greatest area of cropland on the continent. They must feed their armies, and their armies are carnivorous, and need a great deal of meat. Without crops, their livestock die, and their armies falter.'
'And what of your own crops?'
'We have enough to feed the Prefectures,' Mishani said. 'The fact that we are driven into a corner means we have enough food to go around; if we had the whole continent to take care of, we would be starving. And since the fall of Utraxxa, I am told the blight is lessened slightly.'
'Is that so?' Asara sounded surprised. This was recent news, and she had not heard it, wrapped up as she was in foiling the inevitable attempt on her husband's life. 'That implies that it may retreat altogether. That the land might heal itself if the witchstones were gone.'
'Indeed,' Mishani said. 'We can only hope.'
Mishani and Asara stood side by side as the speech ended and the nobles and their retinues mingled and talked among themselves. The usual machinations and powerplays seemed subdued now, although there was an unmistakable wariness in the courtyard. Asara made sure the man who sent last night's assassin knew she was looking at him, then stared coolly until he broke the gaze.
'Will you be travelling west again, now that the treaty is signed?' Asara asked Mishani, looking down over her shoulder at the diminutive noblewoman.
'I must,' Mishani replied. 'I have been away too long. There are others here who can take my place. Yugi needs my eyes and ears among the high families in the Prefectures.' In truth, she was reluctant to leave, though she could not deny a keen pang of homesickness. But the journey across the mountains would be dangerous, and the memories of her trip here were not pleasant.
'I almost forgot,' Asara said. 'I have a present for you. Wait here.'
She slipped away, and returned a few moments later with a slender black book, its cover inlaid in gold filigree that spelt out the title in curving pictograms of High Saramyrrhic.
Mishani's time in the courts of Axekami had taught her how to conceal her reactions, to keep her face a mask; but it would be rude not to let her delight show at such a gift. She took it from Asara with a broad smile of gratitude.
'Your mother's latest masterpiece,' Asara said. 'I thought you might like it. This is the first copy to reach the city.'
'How did you get it?' Mishani breathed, running her fingertips over the filigree.
Asara laughed. 'It is strange. We have shortages of so many things that cannot get through to us due to the war, and yet Muraki tu Koli's books seem to find their way everywhere.' Her laughter subsided, but there was still an amused glimmer in her eye. 'I know of a merchant who smuggles fine art and literature, most of which I suspect he steals from the Weaver-held territories where they have scant need of it. I asked him to look out for your mother's works.'
'I cannot thank you enough, Asara,' Mishani said, looking up.
'Consider it a fortuitously-timed reward for helping us achieve what has passed today,' Asara returned. 'At least now you will have something to read on your way home.'
Asara caught somebody's eye then, and excused herself to go and talk to them, leaving Mishani alone with the book. She stared at it for a long while without opening it, thinking about her mother. After a time, she left the courtyard unobtrusively and made her way back to her rooms. Her appetite for celebration had suddenly deserted her. Reki and Asara made love in the master bedchamber of the Muia residence, mere feet from where Asara had killed a man the night before. The silver light of the lone moon Iridima drew gleaming lines along the contours of her sweat-moistened back as she rode him to completion, gasping murmurs of affirmation. After they both had peaked, she lay on his stomach, face to face with him as she idly twisted his hair through her fingers.
'We did it…' she said softly.
He nodded with a languid smile, still luxuriating in the satisfaction of the afterglow. She could feel his heart thump a syncopation to hers through his thin chest.
'We did it,' he echoed, raising himself up on his elbows to kiss her.
When he had laid his head back on the pillow, she resumed stroking his hair, her fingertips tracing the white streak amid the black, then down his cheek to where the deep scar ran from the side of his left eye to the tip of his cheekbone.
'I like this scar.'
'I know,' Reki said with a grin. 'You never leave it alone.'
'It is interesting to me,' she offered as an explanation. 'I do not scar.'
'Everybody scars,' he returned.
She let it drop, and for a long while she just looked at him, enjoying the heat of their bodies pressed together. He was no longer the boy she had seduced back in the Imperial Keep years ago. The loss of his father and sister, the sudden impact of responsibility upon him, had broken the chrysalis of adolescence and revealed the man inside. No longer able to hide from the world in books, nor under the repressive disapproval of Barak Goren or overshadowed by the vivacious Empress Laranya, he had been forced to cope and had surprised himself and everyone else with how well he had done so. The boy whom most had perceived as a weakling, while still not physically strong, had a fortitude of will beyond that which anybody had expected; and all his time spent in books had made him crafty and learned. His confidence in himself had multiplied rapidly, helped not least by the breathtaking woman who – to his bewilderment – had stayed with him through all his trials and supported him tirelessly. He was wondrously, madly in love with her. It was impossible not to be.