I stayed in my crouch and kept hold of my knife anyway, pivoting to keep her in sight as she walked. As I did so, I saw faces among the crowd that I recognized. Some of the servants who’d been at the Fire Day party. A couple of Dekarta’s courtiers. T’vril, white-lipped and stiff; his eyes fixed on me in something that might have been warning. Viraine, standing forward from the rest of the crowd; he had folded his arms and stood gazing into the middle distance, looking bored.
Zhakkarn and Kurue. Why were they there? They were watching me, too. Zhakkarn’s expression was hard and cold; I had never seen her show anger so clearly before. Kurue was furious, too, her nostrils flared and hands tight at her sides. The look in her eyes would have flayed me if it could. But Scimina was already flaying someone, so I focused on the greater threat for the moment.
“Sit up!” Scimina barked, and the old man jerked upright as if on strings. I could see now that there were fewer cuts on his torso, though as I watched Scimina walked past him and flicked the wand, and another long, deep slice opened on the old man’s abdomen. He cried out again, his voice hoarse, and opened eyes he’d shut in reaction to the pain. That was when I caught my breath, because the old man’s eyes were green and sharpfold and then I realized how the shape of his face would be familiar if he were sixty years younger and dearest gods, dearest Skyfather, it was Sieh.
“Ah,” Scimina said, interpreting my gasp. “That does save time. You were right, T’vril; she is sweet on him. Did you send one of your people to fetch her? Tell the fool to be quicker next time.”
I glared at T’vril, who clearly had not sent for me. His face was paler than usual, but that strange warning was still in his eyes. I almost frowned in confusion, but I could feel Scimina’s gaze like a vulture, hovering over my facial expressions and ready to savage the emotions they revealed.
So I schooled myself to calmness, as my mother had taught me. I rose from my fighting crouch, though I only lowered my knife to my side and did not sheathe it. Scimina probably would not know, but among Darre, this was disrespect—a sign that I did not trust her to behave like a woman.
“I’m here now,” I said to her. “State your purpose.”
Scimina uttered a short, sharp laugh, never ceasing her pacing. “State my purpose. She sounds so martial, doesn’t she?” She looked around the crowd; no one answered her. “So strong. Tiny, ill-bred, pathetic little thing that she is—what do you THINK my purpose is, you fool?” She shouted this last at me, her fists clenched at her sides, the odd wand-weapon quivering. Her hair, up in an elaborate coif that was still lovely, was coming undone. She looked exquisitely demented.
“I think you want to be Dekarta’s heir,” I said softly, “and the gods help all the world if you succeed.”
Quick as wind, Scimina went from a screaming madwoman to smiling charm. “True. And I meant to begin with your land, stomping it ever so thoroughly out of existence. In fact I should have begun doing so already, if not for the fact that the alliance I so carefully put together in that region is now falling apart.” She resumed pacing, glancing back at me over her shoulder, turning the wand delicately in her hands. “I thought at first the problem might be that old High North woman you’ve been meeting at the Salon. But I looked into that; she’s only given you information, and most of it useless. So you’ve done something else. Would you care to explain?”
My blood went cold. What had Scimina done to Ras Onchi? Then I looked at Sieh, who had recovered himself somewhat, though he still looked weak and dazed from pain. He was not healing, which made no sense. I had stabbed Nahadoth in the heart and it had been barely a nuisance. Yet it had taken time for him to heal, I recalled with a sudden chill. Perhaps, if left alone for a while, Sieh would recover as well. Unless… Itempas had trapped the Enefadeh in human form to suffer all the horrors of mortality. They were eternal, powerful—but not invulnerable. Did the horrors of mortality include death? Sweat stung the cuts on my hands. There were things I was not prepared to endure.
But then the palace shuddered. For an instant I wondered if this tremor signified some new threat, and then I remembered. Sunset.
“Oh demons,” Viraine muttered into the silence. An instant later I and every other person in the room was thrown sprawling in a blast of wind and bitter, painful cold.
It took me a moment to struggle upright, and when I did, my knife was gone. The room was chaos around me; I heard groans of pain, curses, shouts of alarm. When I glanced toward the lift, I could see several people crowding its opening, trying to cram their way in. I forgot all of this, though, when I looked toward the center of the room.
It was difficult to see Nahadoth’s face. He crouched near Sieh, his head bowed, and the blackness of his aura was as it had been my first night in Sky, so dark that it hurt the mind. I focused instead on the floor, where the chains that had held Sieh lay shattered, their tips glistening with frost. Sieh himself I could not see entirely—only one of his hands, dangling limp, before Nahadoth’s cloak swept around him, swallowing him into darkness.
“Scimina.” There was that hollow, echoing quality to Nahadoth’s voice again. Was the madness upon him? No; this was just pure, plain rage.
But Scimina, who had also been knocked to the floor, got to her high-heeled feet and composed herself. “Nahadoth,” she said, more calmly than I would have imagined. Her weapon was gone, too, but she was a true Arameri, unafraid of the gods’ wrath. “How good of you to join us at last. Put him down.”
Nahadoth stood and flicked his cloak back. Sieh, a young man now, whole and clothed, stood beside him glaring defiantly at Scimina. Somewhere deep inside me, a knot of tension relaxed.
“We had an agreement,” Nahadoth said, still in that voice echoing with murder.
“Indeed,” Scimina said, and now it was her smile that frightened me. “You’ll serve as well as Sieh for this purpose. Kneel.” She pointed at the bloody space and its empty chains.
For an instant the sense of power in the room swelled, like pressure against the eardrums. The walls creaked. I shuddered beneath it, wondering if this was it. Scimina had made some error, left some opening, and now Nahadoth would crush us all like insects.
But then, to my utter shock, Nahadoth moved away from Sieh and went to the center of the room. He knelt.
Scimina turned to me, where I still half-lay on the floor. Shamed, I got to my feet. I was surprised to see that there was still an audience around us, though it was now sparse—T’vril, Viraine, a handful of servants, perhaps twenty highbloods. I suppose the highbloods took some inspiration from Scimina’s fearlessness.
“This will be an education for you, Cousin,” she said, still in that sweet, polite tone that I was coming to hate. She resumed pacing, watching Nahadoth with an expression that was almost avid. “Had you been raised here in Sky, or taught properly by your mother, you would know this… but allow me to explain. It is difficult to damage an Enefadeh. Their human bodies repair themselves constantly and swiftly, through the benevolence of our Father Itempas. But they do have weaknesses, Cousin; one must simply understand these. Viraine.”
Viraine had gotten to his feet as well, though he seemed to be favoring his left wrist. He eyed Scimina warily. “You’ll take responsibility with Dekarta?”
She swung on him so fast that if the wand had still been in her hand, Viraine might have suffered a mortal wound. “Dekarta will be dead in days, Viraine. He is not whom you should fear now.”
Viraine stood his ground. “I’m simply doing my job, Scimina, and advising you on the consequences. It may be weeks before he’s useful again—”