Smooth, she took brush and ink, painting wards around her womanhood. The blood had ceased to flow, its crust washed away, but Inevera could still feel the ache of her consummation with Everam.
She shut the thick curtains, calling wardlight from the room’s walls, and knelt on the floor, breathing to find her centre as she prayed. Then she reached into her hora pouch and drew forth her eighth bone. It was rough, like a chunk of obsidian hacked free of the ala with a pick.
It was a priceless gift — magic of her own discretion. The ichorous slurry that ran through the palace walls like blood was limited in its uses, but there were countless spells this bone could power. It would be a year before she could have another to use for anything outside the healing pavilion. No doubt there was already speculation about what Inevera would do with the bone, perhaps warding it as a weapon or defensive shield, as many dama’ting kept about their person.
But Inevera did not hesitate, touching it to the wards she had painted on her skin, feeling them warm and activate, flaring with power in the dim wardlight. She felt her thighs clench, and she shivered in something that was not quite pleasure, not quite pain.
Healing was the strongest of magics, the most draining. The eighth bone crumbled away to dust in her hand, and she reached between her legs, probing. It had done its work.
Her hymen was restored.
If there is even a chance I am to marry the Deliverer, I should come to him a proper bride, unknown to man.
She reached for the silk robe she had cut into one long, continuous strip, and fell into the familiar weave, retying her bido.
The familiar kiosk was gone, replaced with one much larger and finer.
‘Baskets!’ a call came, and Inevera’s head snapped up in surprise, seeing her father, dressed in khaffit tan and leaning on a cane as he walked on a peg leg. ‘The finest baskets in all of Krasia!’
Inevera waited until a customer entered the kiosk, drawing Kasaad’s attention, then slipped around behind him, gliding behind the counter and through the curtain in back.
Her mother was there, unchanged by time as she held a hoop between her feet, weaving. She was surrounded by a dozen other weavers, some young with bare faces, and others of middle years or venerable. There was a hiss as Inevera passed through the curtain, and all of them looked up sharply. Only Manvah returned to her work.
‘Leave us,’ Inevera said quietly, and the weavers dropped their hoops and scrambled to their feet, hurrying past. Even veiled, Inevera thought she recognized a few of them.
‘You’ve cost me an afternoon’s work, at least,’ Manvah said. ‘Likely more, since those crows will caw about nothing else for days.’
Inevera loosened her veil, letting it fall from her face. ‘Mother, it’s me. Inevera.’
Manvah looked up, but there was no surprise or recognition in her eyes. ‘I was given to understand dama’ting had no family.’
‘They would not be pleased to know I’m here,’ Inevera admitted. ‘But I am still your daughter.’
Manvah snorted, going back to her work. ‘My daughter would not stand around with so much weaving to be done.’ She glanced up. ‘Unless you’ve forgotten how?’
Inevera gave a snort so like her mother’s, it gave her a moment’s pause. Then she smiled, replacing her veil and slipping off her sandals. She sat on a clean blanket and took a half-finished hoop between her feet, tsking. ‘You’ve prospered to have Krisha and her sisters weaving for you,’ she removed several strands before reaching for the pile of fresh fronds, ‘but their work is still sloppy.’
Manvah grunted. ‘Much has changed since your father became khaffit, but not that much.’
‘Do you know the truth of how it happened?’ Inevera asked.
Manvah nodded. ‘He confessed to all. At first I wanted to kill him myself, but Kasaad hasn’t touched a couzi bottle or dicing cup since, and turned out to be a better haggler than a warrior. I’ve even managed to purchase sister-wives.’ She sighed. ‘Ironic we should all be more proud married to a khaffit than a Sharum, but your father chose well when he named you. Everam wills as Everam will.’
As they wove, Inevera related the events of her last few years. She held nothing back, up to and including her first throw of the dice, and what they said — something she had told no one else.
Manvah looked at her curiously. ‘These demon dice you say speak for Everam. Did you consult them about coming here today?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But it was always my intent to see you again once I took the veil.’
‘What if the dice had told you not to?’ Manvah asked.
Inevera looked at her, and for a moment considered lying.
‘Then I would not have come,’ she said at last.
Manvah nodded. ‘What did they tell you? About today?’
‘That you will always speak true to me,’ Inevera said, ‘even when I do not wish to hear.’
The flesh around Manvah’s eyes crinkled, and Inevera knew she was smiling. ‘A mother’s duty.’
‘What should I do?’ Inevera pressed. ‘What did the dice mean?’
Manvah shrugged. ‘That you should go to the Maze on the one thousand and seventy-seventh dawn.’
Inevera was astonished. ‘That’s it? That’s your advice? I may meet the Deliverer in three years, and you want me to just … not think on it?’
‘Fret over it if you prefer,’ Manvah said. ‘But the years will pass no faster.’ She looked pointedly at Inevera. ‘I’m certain you can find a way to be productive in the meantime. If not, I have plenty of weaving to be done.’
Inevera finished her basket. ‘You’re right, of course.’ She stood to add it to the pile, noting as she did that even the cloth she sat upon had left dust on the posterior of her pristine robes. ‘But I accept your invitation to come weave with you again,’ she brushed at herself, sending dust flying, ‘provided you can arrange a cleaner place to sit.’
‘I’ll purchase white silk for your precious dama’ting bottom,’ Manvah said, ‘but you’ll weave till the cost is off the ledger.’
Inevera smiled. ‘At three draki a basket, that could take years.’
Manvah’s eyes crinkled. ‘A lifetime, if I buy fresh silk each visit. A dama’ting should have no less.’
9
308 — 313 AR
Inevera strode through the darkened streets of the Desert Spear, feeling none of the apprehension she’d once experienced at being on the surface at night. Even if the dice had not already promised she would see the boy at dawn, three years had passed. Inevera’s hora pouch now contained bones enough to defend her from almost any assailant, demonic or otherwise, and only Qeva was still considered Inevera’s match at sharusahk.
It was peaceful, the ancient city at night. Beautiful. Inevera tried to peel back the years to a time when the paint and gilding had been fresh, the pillars and moulding unworn. To visualize what Krasia had been like before the Return, just three hundred years ago.
The image came readily, sweeping Inevera away in its wonder. The Desert Spear had been the seat of a vast empire at the height of its power, the city proper containing people in the millions. Aqueducts made the desert bloom, and there were great universities of medicine and science. Machines did the work of a hundred dal’ting. Sharik Hora was still Everam’s greatest temple, but hundreds of others dotted the city and surrounding lands in praise of the Creator.
And there had been peace. The closest thing to war had been nomadic tribes outside the walls raiding one another for women or wells.