“As if half the women here wouldn’t have done the same given the chance. I just beat you to it. And don’t you dare try to be sanctimonious with me. We were all worshipping—” Veixizhau stopped talking as another wife cleared her throat and pointed.
Pointed at me.
I waved.
Veixizhau scowled at me. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for a bed,” I answered. “Humorously enough, they didn’t have any other place to put me. But you’ve learned your lesson, right?”
Her nostrils flared. “Sure. I’ve learned my lesson. I should have poisoned you instead.”
“There’s always next time.”
None of the other women came to her defense. Veixizhau ignored them and focused on me. “I wouldn’t smile, tumai. Because you had it wrong back there. I only told one person what happened to you, Exidhar—and I assume he told the others because he wanted to impress his friends. But those friends? They had no part in it. Which means you just fed an innocent man to Kaen’s dead monster of a wife.”
I did indeed stop smiling. “No, Oreth said Darzin—”
It couldn’t be true. Oreth had plotted to kill me. I knew that.
Veixizhau laughed. “In any other case, it would have been smart to point the finger at a royal. It’s not like the duke would have punished one of them. I bet it never even occurred to your Oreth to tell the truth. He thought finger-pointing would serve him better. He was wrong.”
“You’re lying.”
“That’s the best part; I’m not. And don’t even think about being all righteous with me. You belong to Suless now, and it’s only a matter of time before she claims you.”
“Suless is dead,” I reminded her.
“No, she’s not. Oh, I can’t wait for you two to meet. She loves murderers.”
I flinched.
She saw the reaction and smiled. Then Veixizhau turned, head held high, and swept out of the common area.
All the women were quiet until Bikeinoh clapped her hands. “All right, everyone. Let’s have dinner and then go to bed early. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a very long day.”
“What does tumai mean?” I was back to being numb, distracted by minor details.
She paused before answering. “I suppose the closest word in Guarem would be knight.”
I nodded. Veixizhau had said it like an insult, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe it didn’t matter. A different word seemed more fitting.
Monster. Kaen did collect them, didn’t he?
Bikeinoh touched my arm. “Let’s find you a room.”
* * *
No gods or goddesses presented themselves to me in the weeks that followed, not god-kings or the Eight. Veixizhau’s words proved hollow.
But I couldn’t shove her accusation from my mind. Couldn’t escape the nagging suspicion that Oreth had been innocent—at least innocent of that crime.
I retreated into myself, speaking to no one unless spoken to first, seeking no company, snapping at polite attempts at conversation. I’d managed to avoid Senera and Relos Var, and while I was in theory now Duke Kaen’s man, he’d made no attempt to put me to work. I didn’t see Brother Qown either and found myself glad. I wore my anger around me like a coat, and I didn’t want to hear Qown insist I was smothering myself.
That lasted several weeks.
“Janel, what are you doing?”
I looked up from the book of Devoran prophecies I’d “borrowed” from the duke’s library. “Isn’t it obvious?”
We were in the middle of the training yard, which, like everything else in the Ice Demesne, lay deep inside the crystal pyramid. The giant room was divided into sections so multiple groups might train at once, but the large space did nothing to hide the accumulated stench of sweaty bodies.
Xivan raised an eyebrow and pointed to the training mat. “Get in here. I want to see what you can do.”
“I’m busy.”
All noise near us stopped. Even the nearby men stopped their sparring.
Duke Kaen’s soldiers used the same training facilities as Xivan’s new recruits; none of the men appreciated sharing those facilities with women. Which meant all the while the women trained, the men watched, harassed, and heckled—or at least as much as they thought they could get away with under Xivan’s baleful stare. There had been incidents. Soldiers who had groped or, on three occasions, done worse. Some thought the duke wouldn’t mind if someone else helped themselves, if he no longer cared to claim them as his own.
Xivan took those men away, and we never saw them again. After the third “example,” the incidents stopped.
But now every eye turned to me.
Xivan’s eyebrows rose up. “Get in there, now. If I ask a third time, you’ll be fighting me rather than Talea.”
Talea, Xivan’s apprentice I’d first met in the caves, had started her lessons eight months earlier, which gave her an edge over the other students. I returned to reading my book.
I knew I was being childish, but I couldn’t make myself stop. My anger was a slow-burning fury, and the fact I had no clear direction for my rage made it worse. How much easier it would be if I could just hate a special singular someone and not the whole world.
A curved Khorveshan sword landed, dull side down, against the book’s spine and then pulled the entire folio from my hands. I had enough time to recognize Xivan sliding another sword within my reach before she swung her own blade toward my head.
She fought with live steel.
I rolled to the side and grabbed the sword, grinning as I stood. The grin faded as I felt the weapon’s weight. I’d never fought with a weapon I couldn’t swing around like a piece of silk. I could lift this, but only just. Making this weapon an extension of my arm and will? Out of the question.
This was a problem.
“No more smiles?” Xivan mocked.
“I’ll smile when this is over.” I swung at her, but the force of my blow was inconstant and slow. She blocked me and came inside my reach to nick me on the arm. I hissed.
“When you’re ready to start,” Xivan said, “just let me know.”
Muscle memory and instinct had trained me to fight a certain way. Without the strength of a dozen men, those instincts became pitfalls.
I ran at her again, screaming, determined to at least have something to show for my efforts. She watched my approach with amusement, blocked me without effort, and turned on her feet at the last minute like changing leads in a race. “No wonder Oreth didn’t think you should be a stallion. You fight like a mare.”
My vision turned red. To the side, someone screamed.
Xivan’s tunic caught fire.
She looked down, saw the burning threads, and laughed. Still holding the sword with one hand, she quenched the flames with the other. “Remember that trick, student. Against a different opponent, it might prove a good distraction.”
She swung the curved sword, a beautiful ornate dance.
I moved to block the attack, failed, watched my sword fall out of alignment, and instead went to kick the duchess. Her leg hooked inside my own.
I ended up on the ground, Xivan’s sword at my throat.
“How can you expect to defeat an enemy when you haven’t even mastered yourself?” Her voice was even, the question serious rather than rhetorical.