“Rumors?” He leaned forward, fingers curled tight over the knob of his cane to steady himself.
“That the mixed-bloods of the Scorched live just as long, if not longer, than the pure of Valathea, despite the harsher climate. And, it must be said, put off the more aesthetic ravages of age quite longer.”
“Tosh.” He slumped back and waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve heard the rumors, everyone likes a good fairytale, but I’m of mixed blood myself, my dear, and as you can see such mingling has not been so kind to me as the stories would suggest.”
A bitter undercurrent caught her attention and swept it away. Anger that had nothing at all to do with the fading of his looks, nor his health, lay like a frond of spines beneath his words. It was no grand leap to puzzle out what would make a man like Nouli so deeply resentful.
“It’s a subtle effect in the mixed, diluted as it is, and distributed amongst people who do not live nor eat the way the Catari have.”
He snorted. “Clean living and thick blood, those are your suggestions? I could have told any fool the same, it is the thing most prescribed by all backwater apothiks. Good knowledge, yes, but hardly revolutionary.”
“Incomplete knowledge,” Pelkaia said, and saw his eyes narrow with interest. “Due to… poor relations between Valatheas and Catari early on, my people failed to share certain insights with their new neighbors. Certain… recipes.”
From within her tunic pocket she produced a small vial of elixir. It was not enough to perform miracles, for it was diluted and extracted from plants not grown in the traditional ways, but it was enough to keep Pelkaia’s mind quick. Or, at the very least, to restore it from abject sluggishness.
Nouli was not a slow man, despite whatever age had done to him. He licked his lips, eyeing the little thumb-thick cylinder of stoppered glass. “And that is what, exactly? Some potion of youth? If you’ve come to peddle me fables, Captain, I’d ask you to save the interruption for dinner tonight, when I won’t be postponing important work for entertainment’s sake.”
“Your skepticism is welcome. There is no magic in this vial, no one remedy to heal all the ills of time. It is, if anything, a stopgap, a momentary measure of restoration. But it does work, Master Bern, I can promise you that. It may be no miracle, but it can make your thoughts move easier, for a while. Something about removing old oil from the brain matter – the true function has been lost to time and war. But I recall the making of it, all the same.”
He scowled. “You expect me to what, exactly? Take your word and drink down this concoction? It could be poison, for all I know. Or some bitter tea that will only grant me indigestion.”
“I expect you to do nothing blindly, Master. I expect you to draw off samples, set it beneath your magnification glasses and probe around in its making. Perhaps even feed it to a sandrat to judge the results. What you do to assure yourself doesn’t matter to me. Only know that you must have half this amount remaining, when you finally decide to drink it, for it to have any effect at all.”
She tossed it to him, end over end in a gleaming arc, and he fumbled forward, knocking his cane aside in his haste to save the thin glass from dashing against the hard floor. “You Catari have kept your secrets close, always. Why now? Why give this to me now, if it is indeed what you say it is?”
Such a clever man. Perhaps he was not so blind to her manipulations as she had expected. She caught herself smiling. A lively mark in Nouli was going to make this game much more entertaining. “If I told you I was dying, would you believe me?”
His lashes fluttered as he blinked in shock. “I would have no reason not to, but you seem in good health, why do you…?” He trailed off, eyeing the vial in his hand thoughtfully. She could tell from the furrow on his brow she did not need to explain to him why she appeared in good health when she was, in fact, dissolving from the inside out.
“I wish for something of my people to live on, once I am gone.”
He picked his gaze off the vial and stared at her. “Your people continue, out in the desert. They will not die with you, my dear.”
“No, but knowledge is a tenuous thing. Better to store it in as many safe places as possible, don’t you think?”
He frowned. “But that is not all.”
“No, no, of course not. Someday – someday soon – I may require a favor of you in return.”
She watched the balance of scales shift in his mind, watched the wary guardedness seep back into his expression and posture. Here was not a man used to wagering his future against his present. Or, perhaps, a man who had done that very thing one too many times and found the payoff wanting.
“What favor?”
“I cannot be certain yet, but nothing that would risk your position.”
His eyes narrowed, his fingers closed tight around the vial, his arm drifted backward, preparing to throw it. She held up her hands, palms out, put on that easy smile she’d been practicing and said, “Nothing untoward. I swear it. But take some time to consider – the vial is my gift to you, regardless of your choice. When you’re satisfied with your research, send for me, and I will bring you something new to puzzle over.”
“I will not–” he began, but she had already slipped out the door, shutting its well-oiled hinges behind her. She paused there, breathing softly, back pressed against the door as she strained the very edge of her hearing. Waiting, Waiting.
A shuffle of feet, the scrape of a stool, the click of the cane.
But no breaking of glass, no tinkle of precious elixir bleeding out onto the floor.
He’d taken her bait. She had now only to wait for the payoff.
Her smile was an easy, natural thing, as she strolled out of the Honding palace.
Chapter Nineteen
Thratia led Detan to her bedroom, and his stomach was tied too tightly to make any smart remarks on the fact. Night had well and truly come to Aransa, and a small part of him was glad he could no longer see the city he’d abandoned. While the curtains were pulled back to let in the moon and starlight, their natural shine was not enough to dispel the shadows lurking in the corners of the room which was Thratia’s sanctum. The whole place, the whole night, made his skin crawl.
He hadn’t been sure what he’d expected, but he had an unsettling suspicion that even ascetic hermits holed up in caves in the badlands enjoyed more luxury than Thratia Ganal.
She moved to the window, put her back against its frame, and watched him while he took in her private space. A low bed, just wide and long enough to hold her, huddled against the far wall, its foot pointed toward the singular window she occupied now. Shelves filled the other wall, bursting with rolled maps, books, and hand-written folios. A desk, a chair, a wardrobe. Nothing else. Not even a rug on the hard, stone, floor.
“Are you a prisoner?” he asked, just to shake that low-lidded, intense look off her face.
“Only of myself.”
“Shouldn’t you have some sort of map on the wall, of all the lands you’ve left to conquer? Or, I don’t know, a tapestry of babies being chucked into a bonfire. Is there a special agency that handles interior decorating for mad bastards?”
A ghost of a smile, seen only in the brief gleam of her teeth. “I have all I need, and it is private.”
He swallowed, recalling the heavy lock she’d opened to let them in. He was quite certain no cleaning crew ever set foot in this room, and yet, even with the surroundings bled of color in the pale light, he could not find a speck of dust or filth. Her fastidiousness irritated him almost as much as her conquest. Almost.