A draft of wind rushes in through the window when the door opens, and then there’s a sharp intake of breath. “I apologize, Your Majesty. I’ll wait outside until you’re . . . er, decent.”
Isa turns to face her guest, somewhat annoyed by his prudishness. “This is who I am, Obe. No lies, no chains, no frills. This is all I have left of myself. And it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, so come in and shut the door.”
The young warrior hesitates and takes a peek down the corridor. Eventually he slips in, shutting the door so gently she barely hears it click. He leans against it, folding his arms as he takes her in, and for the longest moment he speaks with nothing but those intense eyes of his, caressing her body with them, and it’s enough to make her shiver.
“I hate this, Isa,” he says. “I hate seeing you so unhappy. It kills me that I can’t do anything about it.”
Bars of light from the adjacent blinds stripe his face, showing it to be creased with worry.
She looks out the window. The gilded colossus across the city looks back at her, judging her. “You being here is enough,” she says.
“I feel like a better man would do more.”
“And a better king wouldn’t need you to.”
Obe Saai lets out a long breath. She hears him walk toward the bed, then feels him come closer. Gently, lovingly, he drapes a silken gown around her naked back, letting his hands linger on her shoulders, thumbs rubbing idle circles on her nape. His breath is warm against her cool skin, and right now it’s the only thing that’s real to her.
“You’re wrong, you know,” he says.
She feels his voice ripple down her spine. “Oh? How so?”
“You’re not all you have left. You have me too.”
“I know,” she says.
“You have your cousin.”
“That’s true.”
“And many others who would gladly give their lives for you, for their king.”
Slowly, she untangles herself from him, wrapping the gown around her body. She drifts to the foot of the large bed taking up much of the chamber, and there she sits like she’s carrying the weight of a mountain. “I know, Obe; I know these things, and I’m not ungrateful, but it’s not enough. I’m sorry, but it isn’t.”
You will have to die, Your Majesty. You will have to play games, and eventually, you will have to be the piece sacrificed for the greater good.
He looks down at her like he’s sad she can’t see how wrong she is. Obe is not simple by any means, but his world is painted in stark colors, with no room for ambiguity. He proceeds to pace the width of her chamber, his hands on his waist. “I used to look up to him, you know? My uncle. But now . . .” Obe shakes his head, pausing to look down at Isa, his hurt and confusion written in the lines of his face. “He shames me, Isa. He’s a disgrace to every Saai in the kingdom, and his scheming will be the death of us all.”
A reckless impulse veers into Isa right then. Knowing she is stoking a fire, she says, “He’s still your uncle.”
His eyes spark with strong emotions, and he seems to loom taller in the room. “He is nothing to me, and if he thinks the Sentinels will just lay down our arms and let him butcher innocents in this city, then he’s in for a surprise—bond or no bond. I’ve been talking to my comrades, and there’s a real”—Obe brings his fingers together as he thinks of the appropriate word—“cohesion, you know? We’re all fired up, for you, for our king. We’re not going anywhere, not even if the motherdamned Shirika threaten to rain fire down on us.”
She’s witnessing the hubris of youth, passion yet to be tempered by experience and disappointment. She takes it anyway, because it’s hers and hers alone.
Isa leans back onto her elbows and brings one foot onto the bed, leisurely, parting her legs, letting the silken gown slip down her body. Obe is a fire, but he can burn hotter still. “You’ll have to obey them,” she says. “The gods must not be defied.”
He wears the light-green tunic of the King’s Sentinels, but the insignia on his breast and the marks on his neck are those of the Saai clan. He slips out of the tunic now and stands naked before her, a strong, powerful, striking silhouette against the sunlight flooding in through the open windows. “For you, Isa, I would declare war on heaven,” he says, and she knows he means it. At least right now.
But she needs to hear more.
Make me feel alive, she says with her eyes. Remind me I am young and beautiful.
He comes toward her, answering her silent request. He smells like the earth, like the lush jungles of her kingdom, like the roaring waterfall gushing beneath them. He leans closer, pushing her flat onto her back. “For you I would align my soul with the powers of hell.” His voice is dusky; his eyes blaze with fervid reverence. “For you I would storm the golden gates of the Infinite Path and raze its ivory walls to the ground.” He kisses her neck, scorching her skin, singeing her, making her shudder. “I would do these things for you, or I would die trying, because no heaven is heaven without you in it.”
And at last, he captures her lips in a possessive kiss, this Saai warrior, the blood of her mortal enemy, her lover. She is an empty shell, but Obe is life and energy. He is hope, the only thing she knows to be true in the universe, and so she yields to his fire and his zealous worship, and she burns in it.
She burns, and she says to herself, I am powerful, I am adored, I am absolute, a king, a goddess, and nothing on this earth can touch me.
Isa knows she’s a liar, but lies are all she has left.
When Obe leaves, she begins to play the game that has been set for her.
She summons Jomo’s clerk to her chambers and has him sit while she paces nervously, gathering her courage. She can’t see all the pieces on the game board just yet, nor read the moves that have been made, but she can see that she has been maneuvered. That much is clear to her now.
She just can’t do anything about it.
The irony. To be a king, and yet to be powerless.
“I have a message I need you to send via mirrorscope,” she tells the clerk at last. The young votary already has a pen and a pad in hand. He looks up when she makes a cutting gesture. “I don’t want anyone finding out about this just yet, so nothing on paper.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” The votary puts his pen down and then asks, politely, “To whom will this message be sent?”
She inhales deeply, thinks before she lets it out, and then decides to take the plunge. “The prince regent,” she says. “Tell him that I accept his proposal and that he can start preparing for bride-price negotiations with my cousin.”
The votary manages to keep his expression unchanged, but the way he falls very still betrays his surprise. “Will that be all, Your Majesty?”
“Don’t tell my cousin. I will let him know myself.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
As the votary leaves to deliver her message, Isa walks to stare out the window at the gilded warrior who’s been taking up much of her thoughts lately. I will play this game for now, she tells herself, because I have no choice. But I must find a way to make the game end on my own terms.
46: Ilapara