Silhara caressed her hair. “Peace, woman. This is nothing more than a mask. An illusion. It will fade in a few hours or sooner if I break the spell.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief, and her changed eyes closed for a moment. When she opened them and smiled, all his pent-up hunger broke free. She was Martise. Silhara slid his arms around her slim waist and brought her back against him. His hands splayed dark over her jeweled bodice, and he itched to rip the contraption off her.
Anya’s eyes met his in the mirror. “She doesn’t know, does she? That you desire her? Want her above all others.”
She faced him, and he put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Don’t speak. There are things of beauty even my magic cannot recreate.”
She arched in his arms, sinuous and graceful while he removed her silks and allowed her to peel off his tunic. Her hands were practiced at touching just the right places, in just the right ways to bring the greatest pleasure. He stroked her breasts, her buttock, and slid his fingers over the smooth curve of her shaved cunnus. He didn’t kiss her mouth, nor she his. He knew the way of hourin. They might use their mouths in ways that defied or horrified the imagination, but they never kissed the men—or women—they serviced on the mouth.
He guided her to the bed and lay down. She rose above him, bent and plied tongue and hands to his body, stroking and licking. For several minutes he bore her touch and watched her long brown hair flow over his belly and thighs as she kissed a path to his cock. That first burn of desire, when he’d transformed her features, had guttered. He was a fair illusionist, but it wasn’t enough. The houri might wear Martise’s face for a brief time, but she wasn’t Martise. She smelled different, felt different, moved different. Even staying silent didn’t help, and the fantasy he tried to play out in this room crumbled.
Silhara drew up his knees and gently pushed Anya’s head away from his softening erection. “Enough,” he said and drew her up so that she lay against his side. “I am undone.”
Frustration, lust, need; they all ran high in his blood, but not for the woman sharing the bed with him. He stared at the ceiling, wondering if Gurn had locked away his already decimated bottle of Peleta’s Fire. If he couldn’t find surcease in a prostitute’s willing body, he’d find it in the oblivion of another bout of drunkenness.
He glanced at Anya when she rose on one elbow and hovered over him. The longer he gazed, the less she looked like Martise, and the spell was still firmly in place. Her eyes were sympathetic, but the soul behind them was not Martise’s.
“May I speak?”
He nodded.
She took his hand, pressed his palm against her cheek. “She is more than this face. You crave what no sorcery nor hourin trick can create. Your illusions and my skills are for naught. I’m not the woman you want.”
Her words brought home the depth of his yearning. He closed his eyes, fighting down sheer terror. She kissed his hand. He opened his eyes and laid a finger across her perfect lips.
“If you say anything, I’ll cut out your tongue.” His words lacked any bite, though he meant every word of his threat. Martise had unmanned him before a houri, and she wasn’t even here. He’d be damned and Anya dead before he let such humiliation become fuel for snickering gossip at the marketplaces.
Anya’s eyebrows arched in amusement. “I wouldn’t be the Houri Prime at the Temple if I told tales of the bedchamber.”
If the fiasco of his thwarted desire hadn’t already killed his erection, her statement regarding her status would have done so. Silhara groaned in agony.
“Ah gods, how much did you cost me?”
She told him, and he groaned louder. Rising, he dressed, revoked the illusion and instructed her to dress as well. She waited for him at the door while he snuffed candles and doused one of the lanterns. He took the remaining lit one and guided her into the corridor and down the stairs to the first floor. Standing before the closed door of the chamber off the side of the kitchen, he rapped sharply and waited. The door opened. Gurn, wide-eyed, naked and holding a cudgel in one hand, greeted them.
Silhara smirked. “Well, aren’t you a sight? And here I thought it was me and my reputation that chased visitors away from Neith.” He didn’t give Gurn time to digest his sudden appearance at his door. Instead he pulled Anya in front of him and nudged her across the threshold.
Gurn’s eyes went round and wide as dinner plates. Anya whistled, her admiring gaze noting all his endowments.
Silhara hid his amusement behind a frown. “You best enjoy her. She’s your dinner for the next two months.” His eyes narrowed. “And if you ever serve me slop like you served tonight, I’ll hang your carcass from the biggest orange tree and let the crows strip you to the bone.”
He strode back toward the kitchen, smiling faintly. At least one of them would enjoy so costly a gift. The smile died. He intended to spend a lonely night in his room, burning a bowl of tobacco and cursing the apprentice who’d brought him low before a prostitute.
He looked up, into the blackness of the third floor stairwell and wondered if she slept. Shadows clotted behind him, trailed his feet as he continued up the stairs and down the hall to his room.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Martise tucked a stray strand of hair into her braid and braced herself for breakfast downstairs. She hoped her swollen eyes wouldn’t attract attention. Then again, she expected to find only Gurn and Cael joining her in the kitchen this morning. The master of the house was otherwise occupied.
Outside, the sky was gray and the air heavy with the scent of rain. Any other day, she’d rejoice over the coming storm. Neith and the surrounding farms and orchards were parched, desperate for a deluge. But today the weather reflected her mood, and she closed the shutters against the gloomy sky.
Her stomach knotted, and her chest ached. “He’s nothing more than a path to freedom,” she muttered. A repeat of the words she’d chanted to herself the previous night while she lay in her bed and wept quiet tears. She’d been lulled into believing the Master of Crows didn’t quite deserve his reputation. She was wrong. His subtle cruelty was breathtaking, reminding her of Cumbria’s warning when they’d first arrived at Neith.
“He possesses a sharp tongue and has eviscerated more than one hapless opponent in a conversation. You’d be no match.”
The bishop was right after a fashion. Silhara had wielded the knife that gutted her, but he’d never said a word. Even Balian’s crass insults paled in comparison to the mage’s silent contempt.
He’d kissed her as if starved for her. Not a gentle kiss that coaxed and questioned but one that possessed and demanded reciprocal passion. She’d given it to him gladly, arched into his lean body, spread her thighs to feel the weight of him against her. She’d fit into every angular space, as if the gods had made her specifically for him. He tasted of sweet wine and smelled of summer oranges. All her senses drowned in the heat of his closeness and the feel of his callused hands on her.
At first Martise blamed it on the power of her Gift and the strange, intense connection Silhara drew from it. He believed as she did, instructing her to rein in her overly enthusiastic talent. She’d changed her mind when they tried to heal his hand. Her Gift’s connection was broken, its power bound by her growing control, and still Silhara’s black eyes burned as he rested his bloody palm against her chest. His fingers twitched, drifting down a fraction as if to cup her breast.
Martise, hardly daring to believe the Master of Crows might find her desirable without the blessing of her Gift, held her breath and waited. He’d fled.
She was torn between admonishing herself for not seizing the moment and pathetically grateful she hadn’t. Silhara of Neith might have been moved to feel some fleeting desire for her. But he’d rejected her in the end—and driven home his point in the most devastating way. He’d rather pay for the pleasures of a woman endowed with a striking beauty than take what Martise freely offered.
Or he might not have thought of her at all.
Tha
t brought her up short. Silhara was more than capable of doling out enigmatic insults and sly innuendo, silent or otherwise. But in her experience he usually preferred a more straightforward approach. If he didn’t want her because he found her lacking, wouldn’t he have simply told her? And in terms that left no room for doubt or question? Had he sent for the houri because he wanted a woman and saw Martise as nothing more than an additional pair of hands to labor in his grove?
Anger incinerated her melancholy. She didn’t know which infuriated her more—the idea that he rejected her because she didn’t meet his standards, or the notion she was no more notable than a bench or a chair and therefore never considered in his decision.
She growled, straightened her skirts with a snap and raised her chin. He wasn’t worth her tears and certainly not her affections. His actions reminded her why she was at Neith in the first place, and it wasn’t to become his lover.
She strode into the kitchen, indifferent to the aroma of frying ham and buttered eggs, and stopped.
Gurn, bearing the unmistakable look of a man very content with the world, sat at the table with the houri next to him. His big hand caressed invisible spirals over Anya’s back, sometimes pausing to play with her thick hair as it cascaded over his fingers. She was as exquisite in the harsher morning light as she was in evening’s candle glow. She smiled and ran her hand over Gurn’s ribs and abdomen, sliding lower. Caught up in each other, neither noted another presence.
Martise, stunned by what she witnessed, cleared her throat. The two jumped apart like adolescents caught in a hallway alcove. Gurn reddened when he saw Martise, but Anya only grinned and waved her to the table.
“Martise! Good morning. Come sit with me. Gurn is good with his hands, but I still can’t understand him.” She winked and laughed when he blushed even more at her innuendo and rose to lift a pan of sizzling bacon from the fire.
Despite her dark mood, Martise smiled. The houri was a friendly, lighthearted spirit, her only artifice the crimson paint on her lips and the kohl under her eyes. While the image of Silhara naked in this woman’s arms made her stomach churn with jealousy, Martise couldn’t dislike her. She was paid to provide a service. Emotion didn’t enter into the transaction. But beyond that, Anya seemed a kind woman, one who’d smiled gently and bowed in respect as if Martise were the mistress of the house instead of another servant.
So why would the houri, paid to spend the evening with Silhara, be in the kitchen groping Gurn?
Anya patted the spot Gurn vacated in invitation.
Martise nodded. “Let me help Gurn first.”
Gurn handed her a cup and waved her away. She took his seat while Anya poured tea and refilled her own cup. She looked to where the servant crouched by the hearth, filling plates with his fragrant cooking.
“I think I might visit Neith again, of my own accord. If the smell from those plates is anything to judge by, Gurn is as good a cook as he is a lover. I think maybe I should pay him for such a fine evening.”
Confounded by the confirmation that Anya had spent the night with Gurn instead of Silhara, Martise stared at her owl-eyed. “But I thought Sil…the master brought you to pleasure him.”
Anya’s eyes were measuring as she gazed at Martise over the rim of her cup. “So it would seem. But sometimes this,” she waved a hand down her face and over her bodice, “isn’t enough, or even what’s truly wanted.”
Considering the houri's breathtaking appearance, Martise found that unlikely, but a thwapping noise at the door leading to the bailey stopped her from asking Anya more. Gurn placed their plates on the table. He opened the door, and Cael sauntered in. The mage-finder ignored Anya and crawled under the table to find his customary place beneath Martise’s feet. Gurn peered outside, shaking his head. He signed to Martise.
“Oh no.”
Anya stared at Gurn, then at her. “What’s wrong? What did he say?”
“The clouds are starting to clear and move off. If it rains, it won’t be here.”
A bellowed “No!” made all three people and the mage-finder jump.
Martise and Anya abandoned their seats to chase Gurn as he raced into the great hall. A rapid thudding sounded on the ceiling above them. Silhara, dressed only in trousers and looking wild-eyed and enraged, tore down the stairs. He cleared the last few steps, swinging over the railing and landing nimbly on his feet. He sprinted down the hall leading to the grove. The small entourage followed after him with Cael leading the way.
Outside, Silhara skidded to a stop. Above him the storm clouds were slowly rolling back, thinning in spots to reveal a wide and merciless blue sky. Martise stood with Gurn and Anya nearby. She glanced at Cael. The mage-finder’s eyes glowed red.
Silhara raised his fist to the sky. “You are mine!”
He searched the ground, kicking twigs out of the way until he found a long sturdy stick.
“What is he doing?” Anya’s tremulous voice echoed the unease in her wide eyes as she sought Martise’s gaze.
Martise didn’t answer, only watched Silhara as he drew a wide circle around him with the stick. A barrier ward. The mage meant to call down dangerous magic, the kind that could strike down its summoner. The man played with his own life as carelessly as children played with toys.
“Gurn, we need to move back to the house.”
Alerted by her tone, the servant ushered both women to stand in the shelter of the doorway’s overhang.
A subtle wind swirled from the clouds, lifting Silhara’s hair until it wrapped around his body and obscured his face in snaking black tendrils. Standing in the circle’s center, he raised his arms, palms curved upward in a summoner’s position. The barrier circle lit around him in a ring of white fire. Martise sucked in a hard breath, her Gift awakening within her.
Obsidian clouds, swollen with rain and fractured by lightning, boiled in the east. The wind strengthened and bore down on the grove in a shrieking tempest. Orange trees bowed in its wake, supplicants before an ill-tempered god.
“What is he doing?” Anya’s words were snatched away in the rising maelstrom. She huddled behind Gurn, kohl-lined eyes round and frightened. Cael howled, snapping at Martise’s braid as it whipped over her shoulder.
Martise clutched Anya’s arm, as much to stay upright as to reassure. “He’s summoning the storm!” Her shouted reply was no more than a whisper in the wind’s wail. “It will kill him, Gurn!”
He clutched her elbow in an unyielding grip. Martise didn’t fight him. Despite her words, she knew it to be a useless endeavor to try and stop Silhara. Interrupting him in mid-summons was as dangerous as his attempts to force the storm in their direction.
Her stomach churned. He was powerful. She’d witnessed the strength of his Gift and the iron will he used to control it, but only god-like power could harness the force and unpredictability of weather. The few great mages who’d successfully bent Nature to their will for a brief time were legendary, and all save one had suffered gruesome deaths in the event.
“Please,” she whispered, and prayed to whatever god might listen that she and Gurn wouldn’t have to bury Silhara’s obliterated remains in the grove he risked his life to save.
Dust blew upwards in a gritty fog, shrouding the grove and all of Neith. Martise almost lost sight of Silhara amidst the choking cloud. His lips moved, reciting ancient words unheard but felt in the earth anchoring him in place. The ground rumbled, echoing the thunder, and the wind smelled sharp with the scent of the coming deluge.
He clapped his hands together. Indigo light shot out of the spaces between his fingers and arced skyward. Martise gasped and covered her ears as the air around her compressed with a sudden punishing silence. Like her, Gurn and Anya held their hands over their ears, and the houri screamed. The light hurtled toward the storm line, clasped the thunderhead in a splintered embrace and wrenched it toward the grove. Clouds collapsed in on themselves, struggling against the relentless pull of Silhara’s summoning spell.
Forking ever clo
ser to the grove, lightning struck the ground in white and crimson spears. Grass, parched by the long drought, burst into flame in their path. An orange tree split beneath a lightning bolt, erupting into a column of fire.
Thunder cracked above them as the clouds began to rotate, spinning ever closer to Neith until they hung over the house and grove like a widow’s veil, with the wind keening a protest over Silhara’s dominance. A burst of sheet lightning shot across the underbelly of the storm and the sky opened.
The grove, bent to the wind, was instantly doused in gray sheets of rain. Parched and cracked from months of baking in the merciless sun, the thirsty ground ran rivers of water. Indigo light slowly faded into the dark clouds, a last remnant of the summoning spell. Martise watched, her heart in her throat, as Silhara lowered his arms. Rain streamed off his bare chest and shoulders as he crashed to his knees in the mud, head hanging low.
“He did it.” Anya’s voice was faint.
Martise bolted into the downpour with Gurn and Cael hot on her heels. Gurn overtook her and reached Silhara first. The servant placed a tentative hand on the mage’s shoulder and squeezed. Silhara raised his head, and Martise took a shuddering breath. She prayed the falling rain hid her tears as she stood in front of him and met his black gaze. His face was drawn, glistening with rain. He smelled of brimstone, and his hair stuck to his cheeks and neck in wet strands, but his expression was almost blissful.
Martise wanted to scream at him, shout that he was an idiot, and a stand of trees wasn’t worth his life, that she loved him and didn’t want to grieve for a man who’d stolen her most guarded possession—her heart.
Instead, she held out her hand. “Will you come in from the rain, Master?” Her voice was soft, almost lost in the rain's drumming. “There is tea this morning, a warm fire in the kitchen’s hearth, and those who celebrate and thank Bursin you live.” Gurn’s hand flexed on his master’s shoulder at her words, and Cael whined.