Dragon Soul (62 page)

I’d made the decision when I was much younger, as contrary as ever to the current state of things. It was no secret among anyone in Volstov that a woman’s place in society was below a man’s, and though I was nothing but a forgotten orphan and therefore less than worthless to begin with, I somehow considered it my little joke: to be worth more than anyone else when I was at once a woman
and
an orphan. Contrary, indeed, but I knew the tales as well as anyone. There were ways to buy Talent with your own talents, to offer something to the earth and the sky and receive something from it in return. It was not so simple as drinking from the water and receiving the blessing—the strength, the power—but the one burr in my side was that I could not choose with what I would be gifted.

I could, however, choose the form that would receive it.

And besides which, it suited me better.

I put myself in the hands of the Esar’s personal magicians—a blank slate, upon whom they could practice their designs without remorse; no one would notice I was missing. The experiments had been conducted while I was
much
younger, when I’d been deemed a suitable candidate for the process and had offered no protests to the contrary. I’d had very little in common with other children of a similar age and background—no parents or family at all to speak of, no one to protest or demand I be one way rather than another, and I’d imagined that perhaps I might find my way more easily through the world if I made this my purpose in life. Simply put, it was right for me. I was a little girl and, back then at least, my eyes were very innocent. Who would ever
suspect me of any darker thoughts, any plans of my own or deeper designs?

At that time, the Esar had been in need of an agent—a female agent—who could be trusted in Volstov and afar. It had to be a woman, for women were so often considered benign little jewels of the court, and for all their restrictions, the lack of consideration they were afforded allowed them, in some regards, greater mobility and greater access. I had nothing to say one way or the other about the injustice of this. It was the way Volstov was, and in my own way, I had subverted it. There were other women, magicians or widows, who managed to make a place for themselves among the men—whereas I had managed to make a place for myself among the women—and their strength and determination was that upon which I modeled myself, even at so young an age.

The sacrifice of my freedom had seemed to me very small indeed, and I’d given it up much more easily than I had my tongue—a decision with which I’d made peace years ago. It hurt less, to begin with, and while losing my tongue made my body something less than what it once had been, this new change quite obviously did not. I’d hidden my true identity for as long as I could remember—there were some things the experiments had
not
done away with, and it took the utmost vigilance to keep them as intimate a secret as I wanted them kept. My clothing did a great deal of the work for me, and carefully trained body language did the rest. I had never allowed another man—or a woman, for that matter—to observe me in an undressed state, and I had never felt before that I was missing out on much. Riding beside Kalim now, however, made a strange memory rise to the surface, of another ride through the desert, when it had been cramped and hot with his arms around me and the wind kicking up ahead.

It was the closest I’d ever been to another person. Even my old partner had never come so near. And yet I still felt as though it was too far, by some measureless standard that I’d never before anticipated using.

How curious I was.

The sun was rising again when we reached Karakhum. By then, I was more than ready to see the backside of my camel. I was a trained rider, but our travels of late had been quite intensive, and I was looking forward more than anything to a good soak in a
private
bath and perhaps the leisure of riding sidesaddle upon a sweet, properly trained
horse
.

As always, though, I had some business to attend to before I could reward myself with even the simplest of pleasures. I couldn’t properly relax until I was sure that Airman Rook had destroyed the dragonsoul, and I could not be sure that Airman Rook had destroyed the dragonsoul until I saw it shattered with my own two eyes. As I watched his companion—Thom, he’d called him—ease him down off his camel, I had a feeling my presence wouldn’t be much welcomed by Rook’s bedside. There would be some recovery time required for both Rook
and
Madoka, and I might just be able to slip some personal time in during it. I could catch up on my correspondence, send the Esar a letter—carefully devoid of any more private details, of course, for despite what he thought, what the Esar did not know would not
always
harm him—telling him that I would be on my way to Thremedon very shortly, my foray into the desert successful. If my news was to his satisfaction, no doubt he would need the time to prepare for me a very warm welcome, and I wished to give him as much advance warning as possible.

Then there was the matter of Dmitri, who always did fret so when I didn’t write him for months at a time. It put him in a frightful mood, pinned as he was to the city, and I didn’t think much of wishing that fate on his fellow wolves, not to mention the hapless criminals he caught, unlucky enough to run afoul of him during such a time.

“This is where we part ways,” Kalim announced, sliding off his camel with an ease that I envied. “My men will not stay in the city.”

“And what about you?” I asked. A desert breeze eddied around my boots, kicking up the dusty hems of my many-layered skirts. They would already be out of fashion in Thremedon, and I would have to buy new ones before I returned to the Esar’s court. For once, I found that I had nothing to do with my hands—no hair to twirl, no coy motions of the wrist. I was tired, I was hot, and I was—in all likelihood—sunburnt to within an inch of my life. I had never found myself so far removed from my element, and I had never been stripped so clean for all the gritty sand I felt everywhere.

I ought to have known. Rumor had it the desert could separate a man’s flesh from his bones. It shouldn’t have surprised me at all that it had found no trouble in infiltrating the layers in which I’d cocooned myself.

Kalim laughed, a hoarse, rough sound that was nonetheless pleasant to hear. “I took my schooling in this city,” he said, “and I like its
buildings and its windows. But I go where my men go. If I did not, I would find myself a very lonesome man, do you not think so?”

“They should go where you lead them,” I said, stubborn and more peevish than I might have liked to seem—especially as an ambassador of my liege. The wind whipped a long, awkward piece of hair into my face, and before I could move, Kalim was there. He brushed it to one side, his fingers coarse as the sand itself. For once I looked him straight in the eye, even though all I wished to do was to drop my gaze. There was no artifice in the troublesome rhythm of my heart—simple adrenaline, I knew, but it had never reacted so over something as straightforward as this. I could smell him. Just as the sand was clean, so was his scent—the sweat and the sun and the camels a bare whisper over the skin beneath. “It doesn’t trouble
everyone
to be alone.”

“Perhaps not,” Kalim said, shrugging his shoulders easily. He glanced over his shoulder as the Volstovics passed us by, the dragonsoul—and Rook, whether he’d admit it or not—in tow. We were lucky we had arrived early; there was no crowd to gawk at us. The dragonsoul might yet make it indoors without causing a commotion. “It seems to me that all creatures of warm blood desire some form of companionship or another. Even lizards and snakes seek mates. And, as you know, lizards and snakes are cold inside despite all this sunlight. But maybe that custom seems strange to one whose home is not the desert.”

“I’m quite content with my walls,” I said, the words sounding hollow to my ears. My heart wasn’t pounding with excitement, but fear. I
needed
walls, just as Kalim needed the open space of the desert. We hardly knew one another. The safest, not to mention the simplest, thing to do would be part ways now. It would seem difficult at first, but in the end would prove much easier than whatever mad things were currently racing through my mind.

A real girl at last
, I thought. But I knew as well that this feeling, desert or no—woman or no—was a worldwide experience. An equalizer, one might call it.

I was humiliating myself.

“Contentment is quite a different thing from pleasure,” Kalim said, and without warning, without even so much as a
handshake
, he put his arms around my waist and kissed me upon the mouth.

I fought it, of course. It was uncalled for and invasive and there were people
everywhere
. I could hear Airman Rook’s derisive snort, and
a catcall that sounded
distinctly
like it’d come from Madoka. It certainly hadn’t come from Badger, thank bastion and all else. But Kalim’s arms were quite strong and sure. From this close the scent of him was overpowering, smelling more like the sun than the desert itself ever had. His shoulders were sweaty when I rested my hands against them, and taking that presumably as a sign of consent, he lifted me clean off my feet. Not exactly how every woman pictures her first kiss, but then I’d gone long beyond the stage of ever picturing
anything
of such a nature. Not even a dirty little orphan had dared to pull this manner of stunt on me. It was entirely a surprise, and it was entirely too much. What made it even more difficult was that I had no tongue at all—but if this lack of proper anatomy surprised Kalim, he gave no indication of it. The kiss was deep, as though I had everything it could require.

“Put me down,” I said at once, when our lips parted. Our faces were still far too close, our bodies pressed together in a way that left very little to the imagination. Was he mad, I wondered? Perhaps there was a little madness in all the people of the desert—too much sun did much to desiccate the brain.

Kalim complied, grinning like a jackal, and even when he’d set me back on my feet I didn’t feel as though I was properly on the ground.

“Hate to fucking break up the party,” Rook snarled, though the bulk of his energy was clearly going to keeping himself upright, “but if we’re getting Madoka to whatever excuse this place has for a clinic, it oughta be sooner rather than later. You all can continue the freak show behind closed doors where nobody’s gotta look.”

“Also, it might be a good idea to get out of the sun,” Thom added, ever the conciliator. “We’ve been standing in it probably much longer than is strictly healthy. I think I’m getting a headache, and some of us…Some of us are worse.”

He put a hand against the dragonsoul in Rook’s arms. It was quite evident to me, if no one else, that Thom’s concern was
not
for himself.

It was also evident that I was going to have to wrangle all these wild horses—converse in the language only I, apparently, knew; call for medical attention; keep an eye on the dragonsoul while Rook was being tended to; procure food for Badger and Madoka, to keep their strength up. Apparently a bath for myself was out of the question.

I was by no means a caretaker. But neither was I the sort of woman who ran off into the desert following the whims of a strange man.

At least, not the whims of
this
strange man.

“Merely consider it,” Kalim said with a smile. “You are still young, and you have impressed my men with your skills at riding.”

“Have I?” I replied. “Unfortunately, the desert does
not
suit me.”

Kalim mounted up, with nothing more to say to me than that, and I shielded my eyes against the climbing sun.

My skin had the propensity to freckle. No, I would not be living in the desert, ruining my complexion, living without running water, and without all the comforts that I had earned through cleverness and steady determination alike. I had not come all this way only to abandon everything that mattered as though it had meant nothing at all. What, then, would be
my
worth?

“Perhaps I will come to you, then,” Kalim suggested. “I have always wished to open talks with the Volstov.”

It felt as though the Cobalts in the distance were about to grow legs and move, all on their own. Then Kalim spurred his camel quickly into a trot, to follow his men out past Karakhum’s city walls, and did not turn to look behind him as he left.

I had found something in the desert, something that I had not been looking for—something that I would have to keep for myself. However, I intended to write first thing to the Esar and tell him there were tribes in the desert disposed to friendly relations between our peoples.

Or perhaps I would not.

I had chosen to be restricted by Volstovic practice. This way, Kalim would never become entangled in the webs I made my living spinning. He could never be used as a bartering piece to get to me, and by extension the Esar. I could be very happy with that.

It wasn’t the first time Thom’d sat vigil at my bedside while I was recuperating, whereas I’d never once stood over his. And I sure as bastion didn’t like the implications of that.

Sure, it was just dumb beginner’s luck that I kept getting the short end of the stick jammed in my eye and he didn’t even get scratched, and that was the way it had to be, I guessed, since if Thom was the one in bed and I was the one sitting next to him, I’d’ve been long gone already.
Not even a note on the table—just some money, and the assumption that he’d use it to drag his sorry ass home for good and keep himself out of trouble. He could read for the rest of his life, sit in some professor’s armchair, talk until his jaw fell off, and not get in anybody’s way. Especially not his own. No arguing about it, no questions asked. And the second any of his blood spilled while we were together, that was gonna be the way of it.

He’d been dragged around for long enough.

I slept for a while, getting my energy back and trying not to think about how much my ribs hurt, and I let the desert doctors look at me like a good little boy while Thom stayed out of the room and kept the dragonsoul hid good and proper. Couldn’t let anyone else see it, even the medics—my girl had this bad habit of attracting too much attention, good and bad—and I didn’t want anybody to see her when she looked like this. Everyone had a whole lot of advice for how I should and shouldn’t feel, what I should and shouldn’t do, and just what she was and wasn’t anymore, but in the end, only I knew the down-and-dirty truth of it.