Kate Elliott - Traitors Gate

Now he woke and braced himself as memory flooded: / am a slave, my sister is a slave, and this day will be no different from the days that came before.

A warm, naked body stirred against his, and Miravia rolled over, her swelling belly pressed into his abdomen, and kissed him. 'I thought you would never wake! Didn't you hear the rooster?'

He clutched her close, tears brimming, and buried his face in her thick hair. It was shoulder-length, still ragged at the ends where she had chopped it off seven months ago.

'Are you crying}' She brushed a finger along his cheeks before letting it tangle in his curls.

'Just a bad dream.'

Beneath blankets and on a plush cotton-stuffed mattress raised on a pallet of wood, they made their cozy nest. He would have lingered here half the morning stroking her hair and caressing her skin, but after frowning at him, as if she wasn't sure he was telling her everything, she wriggled out of his grasp and rose. How glorious she was, all curves, and her smile in the dim sleeping chamber as she looked down on him was the most glorious curve of all. Her belly was growing each day.

If joy could kill you, he would be dead right now. He would have expired seven months ago, the first time they had kissed.

She poured water into the basin and washed, then deftly wrapped a taloos around her naked body. Pausing with a hand on the curtain that partitioned off the sleeping chamber, she swept her hair back from her face.

'I'm going up to the pool to pray,' she said, as she did every morning at dawn.

The curtain slithered down behind her. Her footfalls tapped on the planks of the porch that wrapped the shelter. She exchanged a greeting with someone farther off, and moved away.

Canvas walls tied down between floor and roof beams blocked the wind, which moaned over the sturdy roof. A pair of chests lay closed, with clothes draped over them. A bowl of oil blended with mosk-chasing purple thorn had burned out during the night, leaving its lingering scent. He closed his eyes and luxuriated in the fading heat within the comfort he had made for them out of Miravia's grief. As he drifted between waking and dozing, he smiled, breathing in the scent of jasmine she always left behind. Maybe in the world beyond Merciful Valley she would have refused to eat his rice and chosen Chief Tuvi instead, out of loyalty to Mai, but Tuvi had left to serve Captain Anji, and Kesh had stayed. So the world beyond the valley didn't really matter, did it?

'Keshad? Aui! Come out here and help me, you cursed lag!'

He sighed. Rising, he wrapped a kilt around his hips and, shivering, pulled on a wool tunic over it. It was cursed cold up here in the mornings, with the season of rains fading. His toes ached as he yanked on a pair of the woven socks necessary up in the mountains. He hurried outside just so he could pull on his boots over his freezing feet.

Reeve Miyara was waiting at the steps, arms crossed, scanning the darkening clouds spilling out of the west on a driving wind. 'We're in for another storm. You'd think the cursed storms would stop with the end of the Whisper Rains, eh? Do you think the firelings bring the storms here? For I've never seen so many firelings as I have in this place. It's like they've come to visit that Silver prayer ritual with Miravia. There were so many in the cave the day Mai gave birth to Atani. Maybe they've all come to visit the place she died.'

'Surely they were here before you reeves ever discovered this valley and used it as a refuge.' Kesh put out a hand. Was that a drop of rain? He'd heard no thunder.

'It's hard to think of firelings as being like us, as having a home, isn't it?'

If it rained, Miravia would run back home and strip off her soaked taloos, and… He smiled.

She laughed. 'You're not truly listening, are you? You're

wishing you were back in your bed. What is it about men that they get that idiotic look on their faces when they're getting good sex regularly?'

She was an honest, hardworking Lion fifteen years older than he was. He did not know her well; she visited once a month, an assignment mandated by Captain Anji. She arrived on Wakened Eagle with a sack of rice or nai and a pouch of salt and spices. More important, she came bearing an offering to be presented at the altar at dawn on Transcendent Deer, which was the day Mai, stabbed by her traitorous slave, had vanished into the pool. Then they would share a meal, while she and Miravia would reminisce about Olossi's markets and festivals or discuss flowers and herbs, a passion the two women shared. She usually left at dawn on the next day, Resting Crane, but today she seemed inclined to linger. Nor did he see her eagle.

'Why did you agree to the assignment?' he asked, emboldened by her joke. 'Flying supplies for us? Visiting the cave?'

'I grieve for Mai. I didn't know her well, but I loved her, too. The Hundred was a different place, when she was still with us.'

'What do you mean?'

By the way she took a step back and pinched her lips together, he realized she did not trust him. What in the hells had he ever done to earn her mistrust? He'd been loyal to Miravia. As bored as he often became isolated up here, he never for one breath regretted his choice to stay.

Miyara's distrust annoyed him. 'I know you asked for the assignment, after Captain Anji asked for the valley to be set off limits until Miravia's year of mourning had passed. So he can send his offerings and observe the proper rituals, too. You and Reeve Siras are the only people we ever see.'

Her frown passed swiftly, like dawn's rising. 'If he's truly observing a year of mourning, then it seems strange he married again so quickly. But maybe it's all of a piece. Maybe Joss was right.'

'He married again? When? Who?'

'Neh, think nothing of it. Outlanders have different ways.' She licked her lips nervously and gestured toward the thatched roof that sheltered the kitchen. 'Miravia put on the rice before she went up. I came over to ask you to help me choose among the turnips and radish, which you'd like me to harvest, it being your garden.'

'The hells!' He tromped down the steps, and she stepped back, a hand curling around the reeve's baton that swung from her belt. He stopped short as his irritation sparked from a smolder to a flame. 'You can't just let a remark like that flash like lightning and not think I'm going to jump! Married! It's true most folk wait a year, unless there are young children who need care and not enough aunties and uncles to-' He broke off, thinking of the infant child Tuvi had carried off with him. Surely that baby had plenty of uncles! 'What else has been going on out there we don't know about? Why don't you and Siras tell us anything?'

'Do you ever ask a cursed thing about what is going on beyond this sheltered place?' she retorted. Her anger boiled up as suddenly as the thunder now rumbling out of the peaks almost as if it had been birthed by the force of her words. 'Or wonder if we've been commanded to keep our mouths shut?'

'But- I-'

'Heya!' Her eyes widened as she looked past him. She broke into a run.

He turned. Miravia had stumbled into the clearing from the trail that led up to the waterfall; she was swaying, hands extended as a falling woman begs for help.

The hells!

He bolted, passing Miyara easily, and reached Miravia in time to catch her as her legs gave out. She was washed gray like a corpse, and breathing hard.

'My love! Ravia! What's happened? Are you hurt?'

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. In her stunned gaze he saw nothing but blank incomprehension, as if a lilu had sunk its claws into her heart and drained away all thought, leaving only emotion. But her body worked. She regained her feet, pulled away from him, and began running back up the trail. He had to follow, glancing back to assure himself that Miyara, armed with baton and sword, was jogging at his heels. A look of alarm erased the suspicion that had so recently scarred her expression. They wound up through the thickly perfumed trees, the late flowering bushes, the profusion of fruit. He bumped his head on a dangling sun-fruit, which dropped to thud on the earth and tumble away into the undergrowth. So much lay hidden.