She could have stopped him. Could have numbed his knife arm, or twisted away, but she hesitated. In an instant the silk was cut and he was inside her.
None of Inevera’s lessons had prepared her for the rush of pleasure as her husband took her. She might have been overwhelmed, but for the countless hours spent practising the pillow dance. Her hips moved of their own accord, twisting as her thighs gripped him, pulling him into her more forcefully at times, and holding him at bay at others.
But Ahmann was no meek eunuch, and she found the practised poses harder to hold when her own senses were aflame. Ahmann made up for his lack of experience in passion, and they wrestled in the pillows for control. Inevera felt her own climax building and against all wisdom let it take hold, racking her from skin to centre. She howled, and Ahmann began to thrust with abandon. She tightened, her nails digging into his hard buttocks until he roared and they both collapsed panting and spent.
They slept for a time, and then Inevera woke to Ahmann caressing her again. His breathing was deep and even.
Even in his sleep, my wolf paws me, she thought with pride, and wriggled her hips back into him, feeling his night stiffness.
But Ahmann was not quite as asleep as he seemed. He pushed her onto her stomach and mounted her like a dog mounts a bitch, grunting softly as he ground into her.
When you control a man’s cock, you control him, Qeva had taught, but Inevera felt no control here. In some ways, she wanted none. How was this possible?
Because he’s not just a man, a voice within her said. He’s the Deliverer.
She groaned into the pillows.
You have the Deliverer’s cock in you.
Her groans became a cry. She thrust back at him hard, and soon he was spent as well, and fell into a deep sleep.
But Inevera did not sleep again. She lay awake through the rest of the night.
The dice were tricky, giving only half-truths at times.
She had known she was to make him a man, but she hadn’t expected him to make her a woman as well.
10
313 — 317 AR
‘My son promised me he would one day give me a palace,’ Kajivah exulted as she danced through Ahmann’s kai’Sharum quarters in the Kaji palace. It was not even truly Ahmann’s, much less Kajivah’s, but the woman did not seem to care — nor did Ahmann’s three younger sisters, Imisandre, Hoshvah, and Hanya, who ran shrieking about the rooms.
‘He promised me, and though Everam knows we’d never had much good fortune, I believed him. They said I was cursed for having three girls after him, but you know what I say?’
Inevera closed her eyes and took a breath. It’s only wind. ‘That Everam blessed you with a son so great, he needed no brothers?’ There was no hint of sarcasm in her tone, though she had heard these words a thousand times since meeting Kajivah on her wedding day, barely a week past.
‘Precisely!’ Kajivah bleated. ‘A mother knows these things. I always knew my son was destined for greatness.’
You have no idea, Inevera thought. Indeed, how could she? Kajivah and her daughters were illiterate and uneducated, with little to distinguish them. Dim-witted women who had loved the one male in their family too much and one another not enough. Until recently, they had subsisted on the unskilled work she and her daughters did cleaning the homes of affluent families and the charity of local dama.
Now, Kajivah would never work again, and live always in opulence. That fact alone was almost more than she could contemplate. True greatness was beyond her, like the sky was beyond the fish.
Kajivah continued to prattle on as she surveyed her new surroundings. She was harmless enough, and respectful of Inevera’s white veil, but she was forever underfoot, and doted on her son overmuch when Inevera wanted him hard.
She wished she could marry the woman off. She’d had Ahmann betroth his insipid sisters to his lieutenants before they’d even said their vows. They were comely enough, and the marriages would cement the loyalty of his men. The girls had cried with joy when he informed them, not even asking which of them would be betrothed to whom.
But Kajivah was too old to bear new children, and none of the men Inevera had suggested was good enough for Ahmann to agree to give them his sacred mother. And so she was consigned to their household and Inevera’s sufferance.
She’ll be good enough at watching the children, Inevera supposed, until they turn five and begin to outwit her.
‘Mother! Look at this!’ Ahmann cried. Inevera turned to see her husband, reaching tentatively to touch the water tinkling from the fountain in their receiving room. Before his fingers touched the water, he snatched his hand back as if he had been about to profane something holy. Having spent the last ten years sleeping in a tiny stone cell, it must seem an impossible luxury.
Inevera remembered her first visit to the Dama’ting Palace, and smiled as Kajivah ran to her son and the two of them began to unknowingly use a porcelain chamber pot as a water pitcher, drinking right from its rim. The girls heard their laughter and came running with a great many shrieks and whoops, all of them tasting of the fountain.
Inevera shook her head, finding peace easily. Kajivah was harmless, and her care was a small price to bring such happiness to Ahmann.
Three years passed, and each summer, Inevera presented Ahmann with a child. Two sons, Jayan and Asome, to be his firstborn heirs, then a daughter, Amanvah, to be hers. She acquired two sister-wives, Everalia and Thalaja, after interviewing every unmarried dal’ting in the tribe and casting the bones over the best of the lot. They were essentially servants, but fit to breed Ahmann sons to increase his status and holdings. Soon both were with child.
Ahmann had proven an excellent kai’Sharum. Given a beginning command of fifteen men, the dama had scoffed when he chose many of his former classmates in sharaj over older, more seasoned veterans. But Ahmann’s men knew him from when he had been Nie Ka, and were used to obedience. His unit had tighter discipline than any other among the Kaji, and they fought more fiercely, taking so many alagai that the other kai’Sharum had begun whipping their men to try to stir them to equal frenzy. Soon Ahmann was commanding fifty men, the largest unit in the tribe, and the least of his warriors held a kill count to impress any drillmaster.
Now the other kai’Sharum eyed Ahmann warily. ‘Kai Haival dreams of skewering me like a lamb,’ he told her one day as she bathed him. ‘I can see it in his eyes, though he does not have the courage to challenge me.’
‘I will need his blood,’ Inevera said.
Ahmann looked at her. ‘Why?’
He had always been bold, and that trait grew stronger as the years went by. He continued to obey, but as if Inevera were an advisor, like Shanjat, rather than the voice of Everam. He had begun to question.
‘To read his fate,’ she said. ‘To ensure it does not include killing you.’ And to keep searching, she added silently, in case there are more like you.
‘I just told you he did not have the courage,’ Ahmann said, turning away and leaning back against her. He closed his eyes, serene as she massaged his sore muscles in the steam. Stubborn.
‘Cowards kill as often as heroes,’ Inevera said. ‘Only they do not strike from where they can be seen. A knife in the back; a lie in other men’s ears; venom in your food.’
‘Even then, he would have to get past my fifty, and then me.’ Ahmann had no need to boast of his own unmatched vigilance and strength. It was true the chance of another man harming him was remote.