Down the hall she heard the shouts of more warriors, combing the palace for her.
—Your firstborn is dead.—
Inevera stared at the dice, sorting through the mixture of emotions that passed through her.
It was the duty of all dama’ting to produce a female heir, but she had put her own needs aside for her people, using the dice to bless Ahmann with two sons first, one for sharaj and the other for Sharik Hora. The boys had been born out of duty, but as they grew within her, Everam worked His subtlest magic, for in that miracle she had come to love the infants as they suckled her breasts.
As they grew, the boys vexed her in equal measure. She had thought her sons would take after Ahmann, but they were their own creatures. For what son of the Deliverer could be anything but a disappointment?
Jayan was Sharum to the core—brutal and willfully ignorant. From cradle to the Maze, he had never wasted a moment on caution or personal safety, leaping without a glance below. As a leader, he was apt to solve problems with the spear rather than wisdom. He was clever in his way, and might have made a name for himself, but the only name anyone ever needed to hear was his father’s. Too much decision had been thrust upon him before he was fully a man.
The dice had never been much use with her own children, but she had always known in her heart he would die young.
That fear trebled at word he was heading north.
—Doom befall the armies of the Deliverer—the dice had said—if they should march north with enemies unconquered at their back—
Confirmation of Jayan’s death brought a wave of anguish, made worse by the guilty feeling of relief that the moment she’d dreaded for so long had finally come.
There would be time to fill tear bottles later. She envisioned the palm bending before the wind of her pain and focused her breath until she was ready to cast again.
—Three times will your power be challenged tonight.—
This gave her pause, and for a moment, she felt a touch of fear. Her eyes flicked to the single entrance to her casting chamber. Outside Micha and Jarvah waited with Damaji’ting Qeva, ready to defend her with their lives. Other Sharum’ting waited outside her chambers, as well as eunuch guards trained by Enkido himself.
If the news of Jayan’s defeat reached the Damaji, there was no telling what they might do. None of them could be trusted, schemers all. They would not hesitate to act if it was in their interests.
She lifted the dice a third time. “Almighty Everam, Giver of Life and Light, give your humble servant knowledge of what is to come. Who will challenge me this night?”
The dice flared and fell into a complex pattern as always, but the message was simple.
—Wait.—
There was a cry outside the chamber.
Melan looked up as Inevera entered the room. She had removed her white headwrap, holding her mother’s black one in hand. Qeva lay at her feet, aura extinguished in death. Across the chamber by the doors lay Micha and Jarvah. Their auras were flat and dim, and they lay unmoving.
To Inevera’s shock, Melan laughed. It was so unexpected, she hesitated.
“Come, Damajah!” Melan cried. “Can you not see the irony? Is this not precisely how we found you with my grandmother all those years ago?”
It was true enough. Inevera had not wanted to assume leadership of the Kaji Dama’ting prematurely, but when Kenevah had threatened her plans to put Ahmann on the Skull Throne, she had not hesitated to kill the old woman.
“Perhaps,” she allowed, “but it was not matricide as well.”
“Of course not,” Melan sneered. “The weaver’s daughter could never harm her sainted mother. How is Manvah? Still in the bazaar? Perhaps the time has come to pay her a visit.”
Inevera had heard enough. She raised her hora wand, firing a blast of magic at Melan.
The instant she raised the wand, Melan’s hand darted into her robe, holding a warded piece of rock demon armor, plated in gold. The magic bent around the warding, tearing apart the room and leaving Melan untouched.
She’s ready for me, Inevera realized. “How long have you planned this betrayal, Melan?”
Melan held up her burned, misshapen claw of a hand. “Do you have to ask?” She snorted. “Longer. Since your first bido weave, I have dreamed of this day.
“But Everam spoke to you. The dice named Ahmann Jardir Shar’Dama Ka and you his Damajah. What could I do, but obey?”
Melan pointed one of her talons at Inevera. “But you failed to foretell Ahmann Jardir’s defeat, and have not kept our people unified in his absence. Everam favors you no longer. The dice have spoken against you ever since the Northern whore supplanted you in the pillows. It is time for a new Shar’Dama Ka and a new Damajah.”
Inevera laughed. “You don’t have what it takes to satisfy my push’ting son.”
“No woman does,” Melan agreed, “and I haven’t the recognition our people need in any event.”
“Kajivah,” Inevera spat the name.
Melan clapped her misshapen hand. “How delicious that you yourself handed me the weapon. Asome will have beatified her by now, and she will occupy your pillows by the throne … a few steps down. A figurehead and blunt instrument, but one we’ve learned to aim quite effectively.”
Inevera raised her hora wand. “You won’t be aiming anything, Melan. You walk the lonely path tonight.”
Something stuck Inevera then, knocking her across the room. If she had not been strengthened by magic, the force would have left her broken and helpless. As it was, she was thrown like a doll and hit the floor with a jolt that sent pain lancing up her limbs and the wand clattering from her grasp. She looked in the direction the strike had come from, the room momentarily spinning.
But then the whirl resolved into Dama’ting Asavi, who was supposed to be hundreds of miles away.
Advising Jayan.
“You killed my son,” Inevera said.
“It was your own prophecy that spoke his doom.” Asavi put a hand to her breast. “Since the wise Damajah chose not to reveal it to her son, who was I to speak it to him?”
He would not have listened, in any event, Inevera thought. But it did nothing to lessen the pain as the words cut into her, nor the anger blowing through her like a hurricane.
Melan and Asavi spread out to opposite sides of the room, keeping Inevera between them so it became difficult to see them both at once. Their auras were brightening, each having activated a hora stone to strengthen herself for the fight to come. Their jewelry and the items in their hands all shone with power.
Too much power for Inevera’s comfort. Her eyes flicked to her hora wand, but Melan kicked it farther away.
Made from the limb of a demon prince, the weapon was more powerful than all Melan and Asavi’s hora combined. So powerful that Inevera had come to rely on it overmuch, and had few other items of offensive magic on her person. She took comfort, at least, that it was useless to her enemies without hours to study how she had positioned the wards of activation.
But even disarmed Inevera was not defenseless, as Asavi learned when she raised a flame demon skull and sent a jet of fire at her. One of Inevera’s rings tingled and the fire became a breeze as it passed over her.
Inevera wasted no time, darting right into the fire and kicking the skull from Asavi’s hands. She followed through into a full spin, meaning to drive an elbow into the woman’s throat, but Asavi was no novice to sharusahk. She slipped a hand under Inevera’s elbow and pulled it along its natural circuit as she dropped her own weight, attempting a takedown with wilting flower, a sharukin that would shatter the line of power in her leg.