Kate Elliott - Traitors Gate

He shifted back one more step, enough to gesture toward people outside she could not see. 'Sergeant! Hold the three reeves and that man Keshad under guard.' He stepped into the chamber, raising his sword. 'Miravia. Go outside.'

She stepped in front of Mai. 'No. This is truly Mai, Chief Tuvi. I know it.'

'She is a demon, what the people here call a lilu. She has seduced you, Miravia. Even you.'

'I want my son!' cried Mai.

'So after all it has come to this. The child was born in the midst of demons, and now they seek to claim him. Miravia, step aside. I don't want to harm you.'

'No,' said Miravia, but Mai shouldered her aside and placed herself in front, staring him down as she drowned in the death of her hopes.

'Kill me then, Tuvi-lo. I do not fear death. Not much, anyway. But tell me, if you please, if it is true these stories I hear. That Sheyshi was his mother's agent. That when he discovered who had me killed, he allowed his mother to take over the running of my household anyway! That he married the Sirniakan princess his mother brought for him. That his army is spread across the Hundred guarding every gate and road, just like the Qin army across the towns of the Golden Road? Paying taxes they call tithes. Hanging executed criminals from posts as a warning, just like you Qin did in Kartu Town in our citadel square after making us watch the executions. Is that all true?' The tears began to flood, but she had to speak. 'Is Atani well? Is he thriving and healthy? Do they take good care of him? Did Priya and O'eki stay with him, or were they dismissed? And did Anji's mother or his new wife find you a good wife, Tuvi? Someone special only, as I would have?'

Mai had never set out to deliberately cause another person pain. She had never cut anyone, much less killed a man, but she saw the blow connect in the way he gasped as his eyes lost track of her briefly as the words stabbed home.

No. The women in charge of Anji's household had not found him someone special. Why should they? They didn't care about Tuvi personally. He was just another weapon at Anji's disposal.

He sheathed his sword. 'Miravia, go with the others. You — what must I call you?'

'You know my name.'

His mouth pinched closed as he refused to say it. 'You will come with me. For after all, I find I cannot kill you, even knowing what you are. Let the captain decide.'

Let the captain decide.

'Mai?'

'Do as he says.' She kissed Miravia on each cheek, and they embraced tightly, for it might be the last time. 'Be happy with Keshad.'

She must go quickly lest she lose her composure. For it was composure she needed more than anything. She walked through the garden with Tuvi at her back, close enough to kill her swiftly should it come to that. Reeve Odash leaned on his broom, his face seamed with confusion, but he did not protest. Tuvi's escort of twelve men stared openly, as much delighted as startled to find Tuvi marshaling a beautiful young woman out of a garden shed. Two of the soldiers were Qin soldiers she knew, young men she'd traveled with. They gaped like fishes, but Tuvi's fist nudged her in the small of the back so she kept moving without a word even as he ordered them to run ahead and clear a path.

So it was that folk were ducking out of the way, hurrying into barracks, closing shutters, as Tuvi marched her through the alleys and training yards of the reeve hall. They passed under a gate guarded by two soldiers and along the verge of a cliff on a narrow trail paved with flagstones, past pools scratched into the stone, and thence to the very prow of Law Rock where the wind sang over the rushing waters. A humble thatched roof surrounded by a simple wood railing sheltered a dull stele, squat and wide, set in the earth, nothing much to look at except for the flower necklaces draped over its upright end. One had slipped off, the white flowers a blaze of brightness against the raked dirt.

Then they came around the point and walked up a flagstone path on the eastern rim that ended in a wall and a gate guarded, once again, by soldiers. She did not know these men, and they were definitely outlanders with smooth cheeks and eyes as hard as pebbles as they looked her over without lust but with a glint that warned her, too late, that they had recognized her.

'What is this, Chief Tuvi?' they asked. 'Isn't this-?'

'Let me through,' he said in the tone of a man who does not

expect to be refused. They hesitated just long enough for his expression to kindle, and in that battle Mai saw the war within the household. Who ruled? Anji, or his mother?

They rapped a signal on the gate. It was opened, and Tuvi guided her along a narrow whitewashed corridor and past several slits behind which she heard voices speaking in a language she did not know. Twice, Tuvi paused to answer a question posed from an unseen interlocutor, and twice another gate was opened and they passed through into an identical blank corridor. The third gate opened onto a porch that overlooked a garden, its ornamental bushes severely pruned and its flowering shrubs exceptionally elegant in a sparse aesthetic she recognized as Anji's.

The blow took her like the knife up under the ribs. There he was, seated on a simple camp stool under a simple awning beside a low table, bent over what was almost certainly a set of maps while he talked with a pair of local men she did not know. One was a militia captain and the other an ostiary of Ilu, if one judged by the stripe on his blue cloak. He smiled in that familiar, beloved way in response to a comment by the ostiary, but perhaps the wind alerted him to the scuff of their feet as Tuvi touched her elbow to bring her to a halt under the shade of the porch. Perhaps the birds — for there were birds, a pair of red caps and several bright yellow bellies with their green banded wings — called a warning. He stiffened. He lifted his chin, as though scenting the air. He rose and slowly, almost hesitantly, turned.

Of course he knew her instantly. The air sang with his shock. The wind smothered its cry in the leaves. A petal spun lazily, drifting to earth.

Her breath caught on a sob.

There. It was done.

He spoke, although he was too far away for her to hear. The militia captain looked startled, squinting at her as if the sun was shining in his eyes, while the ostiary's posture suggested a more complicated wine fermented with equal parts rue, resignation, and compassionate amusement. They took themselves off, crunching away on a graveled path.

Anji picked up one of the knives holding down a corner of his maps. Then he came, his trim figure simply arrayed in a tunic of first-quality silk dyed a shade of red so bold it seemed garish, like a fabric someone with poor judgment had chosen for him just because it was gaudy.

She was shaking so hard she grasped at the thought, as trivial as it was. She needed something to hold on to as he mounted the steps onto the porch.

'That color does not suit you, Anji. It reminds me of the way young men boast to get attention. Subtle greens and blues are more elegant.'

He passed Tuvi, handing him the knife, and put his hands on Mai's shoulders, holding her so he could examine her. The weight of his hands was familiar; his scent, laced4with sweat and horse and the mild spice of khaif on his breath, made her want to wilt into his arms; his gaze devoured her.

'How can this be?' he murmured, hands hot on her shoulders and face flushed with that same driving heat.

Without another word he embraced her and kissed her, and although she had meant to say a hundred things to him, to negotiate, to name a higher price than the market value, she could say nothing. She clung to him. She twined her hands in his hair. She kissed him wildly. This was still her Anji.

'Anjihosh!' Tuvi's voice was the whip that separated them, and his the hand that wrenched Anji away from her. 'She is a demon. You must see that.'