‘I’ll be along in a moment.’ Itrac slipped away into her dressing room. ‘Don’t wait.’
Kheda looked at Dev, who was grinning broadly in the doorway. ‘What’s amusing you?’ he asked finally as they reached the corridor leading to his personal apartments.
‘Jevin tells me I’ll be sleeping out in the corridor tonight.’ The wizard smirked lasciviously at Kheda’s side.
‘Finally decided to exercise your rights there, have you?’
‘I haven’t decided.’ Kheda scowled. ‘Though it seems
Itrac has. I’m wondering how Janne will read it—’
‘What was Tasu saying about shark omens?’ Dev silenced him with a backhanded slap to the chest. ‘You should stop looking over your shoulder and up at the skies and all around the compass and just do what’s in front of you. Or who’s in front of you,’ he amended with a lewd chuckle. ‘You’ve every right to take Itrac in any way you want. You’ve had that right for half a year now and, Saedrin save us, your stones must ache like you’ve caught them in a vice. What more is there to think about? Itrac’s a choice piece. Or isn’t she quite what you fancy? So close your eyes and imagine she’s Risala.’ Kheda halted and shoved Dev hard against the wall, knotting a hand in his tunic. ‘Shut your foul, ignorant barbarian mouth—’
‘You could do with something to ease your tension, sure as curses,’ Dev continued, entirely at his ease. ‘And as it happens, I think this household and the whole domain would be usefully reassured to see their warlord throwing a rope to their lady at long last. Come to that, I think she might benefit from a little firm reassurance herself. She’ll certainly be fit for nothing in the morning if you turn her down tonight, now she’s got her nerve up. That bitch Janne will see it in an instant and take all the advantage she can, you know that.’
‘You know—’ Kheda broke off, unable to deny the unpalatable truths in Dev’s words.
‘I’m a faithful slave who is supposed to give you honest advice,’ the barbarian said viciously. ‘So listen when I give it. You’ve been saying how we need keep everything sailing along on a nice even keel till Risala and the Green Turtle get back, and that’s not going to be any time soon. This is no time for you to rock the boat. Now get your hands off me before I break your face,’ he concluded in an undertone. ‘My lord?’ Beyau appeared further up the corridor, his voice uncertain.
Kheda let go of Dev and stepped back. ‘We’re just coming.’
‘Our lord and lady only require their personal slaves.’ Dev looked past him to Beyau.
‘That’s right.’ Kheda forced a smile. ‘The rest of you can take some time for yourselves.’ He walked slowly back towards the open door where the tempting scents of a sumptuous dinner sought to draw him on.
So I’m cornered, with no option but enjoying an intimate dinner with every delicacy and beautiful, willing Itrac as the final dish. When I’d rather be sharing dried meats and stale water on some crowded trading beach with Risala, with no more than the chance of just talking with her.
So much for a warlord’s absolute power.
Chapter Thirteen
He had taken her out of herself with a rush of ecstasy that swept all her resistance away. She became “dimly aware that he had cast her off. No matter. She didn’t need him. She was free to revel in the delight suffusing her.
Now she was the rushing breeze, making cats’ paws on the surface of the sea, tugging at ruffles of foam until the waves did her bidding, rolling and breaking. Other breaths of wind hurried to join her game, following in her train, adding their meagre strength to her growing might. Now she was the sterner draught driving in off the ocean to scour the land, relentless as she brushed obstacles aside, commanding all lesser breezes. She ignored the weakling eddies of air seeking shelter in the lee of trees and hills, sweeping past to rise into the skies beyond, carried on an exultant surge of pleasure.
Here she was rarefied, dancing in the emptiness. The sky was her plaything, the clouds her delight. The highest wisps of vapour trailed behind her like wind-tossed hair. She drew them out into glittering threads, finer than the sheerest gossamer, and threw a milky veil over the distant sun. She was an artist, weaving beauty out of sheer inspiration. Which was entertaining in its way, but what was the point of possessing such power if she didn’t do more? What could she do with it? What couldn’t she do?
She drew the zephyrs to her, commanding them to suck the heat from the earth below, rising high on their appropriated might. Snaring the flurries, she drove them out over the water, wrapping them into squalls fat with captured moisture. Storm clouds filled the void, coalescing under the pressure of her ominous unseen presence. The water was too weak, falling as frantic rain in a vain attempt to escape the air’s crushing sense of purpose. She sent a gale to drive the downpour into the shore, cowing the submissive earth, lashing it with hail. Crackles of lightning illuminated the darkening clouds as the rising currents of air inexorably reclaimed the fallen rain at her command.
At a whim, she set the thunderclouds spinning. The storm swirled at her bidding, drawing gusts from further and further away into the frenzied dance. The rush of the winds, wheeling ever faster, was music to her ears. The power was dizzying, enthralling. She trembled with it, revelled in it, euphoric. Ripples of ecstasy shook her. She was air, pure and simple and omnipotent.
No, she wasn’t. She was Velindre. She was a mage of Hadrumal and if she couldn’t master herself better than this, she had no claim on the rank of Cloud Mistress. She fought her way free of the encircling clouds, seeking the centre of stillness, the better to regain some control over herself and the element and the seductive sensations that suffused her.
With that refuge gained and some fragile hold over her wizardly senses secured, Velindre considered the catastrophic storm. How to put a stop to this self-indulgence before it ran utterly beyond her control? The wheeling tempest loomed all around her, threatening to rush headlong into maddened violence. The clouds in the heights were spreading out to claim more and more of the sky. She concentrated on maintaining that hard-won calm, within and without, and finally saw what she must do.
Fire was caught up in the storm’s coils, capturing the sea spume and drawing the moisture high up into the skies where the wind flogged the white billows till they bled great gouts of rain. Fire was the element that set all others in motion, she remembered dimly. But fire could be snuffed. Velindre reached for the warmth drifting through the seas far below and drove it away. She seized a fugitive breeze and wove a carefully selective barrier between the ocean and the whirling storm clouds above. Rain fell, slipping gratefully through her spell to escape into the cooling deeps. Try as it might, the storm could draw up no moisture to replace the downpour. The clouds cooled, the rain lessened. Velindre tore a rent in the tempest’s formidable wall, sending the thunderclouds stumbling and falling away from one another. The deadly intent of the storm dissolved into confusion.
The magewoman opened her eyes. She was standing on the shores of Azazir’s lake, cold and wet in her sodden chemise and stockings. Mud oozed between her toes. Her tangled hair hung loose around her shoulders, wet and clinging. She blinked painful tears from her eyes as the sun rose over the rim of the barren valley with piercing brightness. Low beams struck pale gleams from the glistening rocks around her and tinged the ominous clouds still circling relentlessly above in a strange yellowish haze. ‘Hadrumal.’ Azazir’s contempt was chilling.
Velindre slipped and almost fell as she turned to see him beside her. She opened her mouth but she found she had half-forgotten how to speak.
‘You can’t rise above their small-mindedness any more than Otrick could.’ Azazir stood there, a man made out of elemental water that sparkled in the early sun, motes of green magelight rising and falling within him. ‘Arrogant, self-willed, all of you. Incapable of letting yourselves go. Incapable of finding your true potential.’