The Devil Incarnate (The Devil of Ponong series #2) (9 page)

“Pass word around to the rice merchants that if they want
our business, they must come to our marketplace tomorrow,” the woman said.
“There are so many more of us than Thampurians. They might not like us, but
they’re fond of our coins.”

“But that does me no good tonight!” someone on the other
side of the circle said.

“If you have no rice tonight, eat dried jellyfish,” the
woman said.

People gasped.

“But that’s famine food,” the joking man said; only he’d
stopped laughing.

The woman shrugged as if resigned. “It’s jellyfish or
hunger. You choose.”

A nearly toothless
grandmother sighed as she rose. She put her hand on her back and bent this way
and that to work the kinks out. “If I’m making jellyfish, I need pepper flakes
and sweet seed oil. Who here has some to trade? I have fish cakes.”

RhiLan bought fish
cakes, fragrant anoin seeds, and a little oil. Then the café owner came back,
followed by soldiers. She wouldn’t give them a chance to humiliate her again.
The other Ponongese seemed to feel the same way – they all hurried off
into the alleyways and quickly dispersed.

~ ~ ~

QuiTai screwed her
eyes tight and braced herself as RhiHanya poured water over her ankle to flush
out the wound. Eyes still closed, she asked, “Is it healing?”

“Only a little new
pus. We won’t need to use maggots.”

The tightness in
QuiTai’s shoulders loosened a bit. “Thank goodness. Sometimes they destroy too
much muscle.” She opened her eyes and craned to see her ankle.

“Only if your healer
doesn’t know what she’s doing, or you wait too long to treat it in the first
place.” RhiHanya’s knee popped as she rose from the hard wood floor.

“Always scolding me.” But QuiTai smiled. She’d missed the
comfort of daily life with a woman. Men were fine for sex, but she’d never met
one who made domestic life as pleasant as a woman could.

Do not. Do. Not. Start
thinking like that. This is strictly business.

“Drink the rest of that potion RhiLan made for you.”

QuiTai braced herself and gulped down the rest of the drink.
She’d let it cool; that was a mistake. Bitterness coated her tongue. As bad as it
tasted, at least the black lotus in the potion helped her relax.

RhiHanya lifted QuiTai’s legs back onto the divan then felt
her forehead. “I think the fever is finally broken, but only the night will
tell.”

QuiTai pulled the
blanket under her chin. Every time she moved, the sharp scent of her sweat
wafted from her damp clothes. A wrinkle she couldn’t smooth irritated her
shoulder blades. If only she could bathe and put on a fresh blouse.

RhiHanya curled next
to QuiTai on the divan and wrapped her arms around her. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“The blanket is
enough.”

It’s bad enough that I’ve infected this
apartment with my unhealthy stink. Why would you embrace the source?

QuiTai gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the comfort of
RhiHanya’s body, but it was difficult when her hair was being stroked. The
chill came on strong, setting her teeth chattering and her aching legs into
restless motion. She lifted her head from RhiHanya’s bosom. Her breath caught
as she realized how close their lips were.

“I’m warm enough now. You can let go.” She hadn’t meant to
whisper as if they had been intimate.

Do not push your hair
behind your ear or tilt your head and smile. Do not flirt with this woman. Do
not entangle yourself with her.

“I don’t have much patience for sickness.” QuiTai tried to
escape from RhiHanya’s arms.

RhiHanya gripped her tighter. “So I see, but you’re not
going anywhere until you’re healed completely.”

“There’s no honor debt between us. You and your cousin have
paid me a great favor, but it’s time for me to leave. I wasn’t joking when I
told RhiLan that I’m a danger to her family.” QuiTai scowled. “Would you let go
of me?”

“No, I won’t. Not
until you’re well enough to free the others from Cay Rhi.”

Shocked, QuiTai
flinched. Every rumor she’d spread about herself had been selected to support a
certain image. No one in Levapur would be foolish enough to look to her for
help. Maybe those tales hadn’t reached the outer islands yet. RhiHanya’s faith
in her had to be quashed immediately.

“I’m a dedicated disciple of the conjoined goddesses of
self-interest and self-preservation. Don’t expect heroics from me.”

“I know your reputation. I’ve also seen your actions. I know
which I believe more.”

“I am not a nice woman. Ask anyone in Levapur, and they’ll
tell you that the only thing I care about is coin.”

“What coin did you earn freeing me? That old cat-man gave
the other Rhi money and told them it was from you. That wolf-man Petrof tried
to kill you. You can’t even rest in your own bed because the sea dragons hunt
you. So don’t try to sell your story to me. I know better.”

Nothing she gave was ever enough. This crazy woman actually
thought she’d try to take over a remote compound controlled by the colonial
militia to free a bunch of people she didn’t even know. Wasn’t it enough that
she’d freed the ones she had? And, as RhiHanya pointed out, given them enough
money to start life over somewhere else? At what point did she end up owing her
life to the people of Cay Rhi?

It was time to put a stop to this path of thoughts.

“Even I have moments of weakness.”

QuiTai could see that RhiHanya wasn’t going to stop
defending her. There had to be another way to convince the woman.

“I have done as much
as I can do for the people of Cay Rhi. They aren’t my problem anymore. I have
other commitments. Other responsibilities. Pressing personal matters.”
Such as finding out who paid Petrof to kill
me and making sure they never send another assassin after me again.
“Don’t
look to me for a happy ending. This is real life, and in real life, some
stories end badly for innocent people.”

She could read the
impact of her words in RhiHanya’s face. Disbelief, caution, a flash of anger,
then desolate sadness.

RhiHanya said
nothing for a while. When she finally spoke, she pleaded with QuiTai in hushed
tones. “My pillow sister was left behind on Cay Rhi.” Her gaze locked on
QuiTai’s eyes. “Tell me you’ve never loved someone. Tell me you’d let them live
in captivity, and I’ll call you a liar, Wolf Slayer. I know what you do to
people who hurt your blood kin.”

She couldn’t let this woman push her into a stupid, futile,
suicidal attempt to free the slaves. So what if RhiHanya was right? Once she’d
killed the men who paid Petrof to slaughter her family, she was done with
retribution. It paid so poorly.

RhiHanya’s fingers hurt QuiTai’s arms. “Tell me you don’t
love someone.”

“I don’t.” She could look right into RhiHanya’s eyes and say
that.

“Never?”

QuiTai almost lied, but RhiHanya tilted her chin as her eyes
narrowed. She knew she was going to regret this, but she spoke anyway. “I also
had a pillow sister. Jezereet. She was an Ingosolian. An actress. The star of
all the stages of the continent.” A bittersweet smile spread over her mouth as
her lips trembled. Jezereet had been so beautiful – not only her body, but
like RhiHanya, she’d sparked with life that drew people to her. How could they
resist? “But she’s dead now. Everyone is dead.”

“Some stories end
that way, little sister. It’s real life.” From the smile on RhiHanya’s lips,
she’d thrown QuiTai’s words back at her deliberately. “But you didn’t abandon
her while she lived.”

“Actually, I did.”

“No.”

As much as it hurt to admit it, QuiTai said, “Yes.”

“Prove it. Tell me this story.”

 
Why did she let
RhiHanya maneuver her into a corner like that? She could refuse, but that would
be unforgivable rudeness to a woman who risked so much to heal her.

“Our daughter was killed during the Full Moon Massacre.”
Sadness enveloped her like a cloud on a mountaintop. Could she ever talk about
the past without it overwhelming her? “People warned me that few relationships
can survive the death of a child. But we weren’t ordinary people. Not us. Of
course we’d stay together.” There was no way to explain how hard they’d tried.
For years, they’d been so in love, so committed to each other. She’d tried to
help Jezereet through the pain. Jezereet tried to absolve her of guilt. But in
the end, it only took a few months to destroy what had once been perfect. “We
were more ordinary than I thought.”

“That doesn’t sound as if you abandoned her.”

“But I did. I felt
my hurt was greater than hers and wondered why she expected me to act as if she
alone knew true grief.” A tear staggered down her cheek. “We still loved each
other, but we couldn’t be together. I moved out. Eventually, she took other
lovers. You know it’s not the Ponongese way to be possessive, and we both had
other lovers when we were actresses. We had to. The troupe paid us next to
nothing, but rich fans threw gifts at our feet. So I wasn’t hurt when she found
new admirers. But it was different when Petrof also flirted with her, and... I
don’t know.” She sighed. How many nights had she tortured herself over what
happened? And still, she didn’t know what she could have done to change it.

“Petrof was the werewolf we met in the jungle,” RhiHanya
said.

QuiTai nodded. “Maybe she wanted to hurt me. Or maybe she
was so distraught about our daughter’s death that the black lotus Petrof
offered her was her way of escaping the pain.” The last thing she wanted was
pity, and that’s all she saw on RhiHanya’s face. “So I let her succumb to her
addiction, and she died because of it.” She wiped away her tears. “You
understand? I’m no hero. Things got difficult, and I walked away.”

“She let you walk away, little sister. I won’t. That’s a
promise.”

QuiTai knew a threat when she heard one, but she was too
tired to argue about it anymore.

~ ~ ~

School mistress Ma’am
Thun released her students for lunch, picked up her umbrella, and headed for
the marketplace. Her heart clenched when she saw the soldiers at the edge of
the town square. She hadn’t done anything wrong in her entire life, but that
didn’t stop her from averting her eyes as she went past them. Not a word was
spoken to her. Still, she exhaled relief. Then she gasped.

The marketplace was usually full of people this time of day.
Stalls were normally jammed together in a haphazard maze of riotous colors, and
oh! the noise and odors. But she preferred shopping there since the same goods
were often less expensive than in the stores.

Today, the expanse of packed dirt was mostly bare. She saw
three rice merchants, several jellylantern sellers, and a few butchers. There
was only a handful of customers. It took a moment for it to sink in. There
wasn’t a single Ponongese. No fruit, no spices, no women with their baskets
balanced on their heads singing out their wares as they walked through the
crowds.

Contemplating what this might mean, she cautiously moved
toward the stalls. Had the parents of her students seemed worried or upset this
morning? No. There had been no difference in their shy smiles and respectful
bows. What had changed since then? It had to be something dreadful if the
soldiers were involved. They mostly sat down in the fortress and let Levapur
be. Governor Turyat, that unctuous idler, must have ordered them to shut out
the Ponongese.

She hoped he’d make an announcement explaining his reason,
because her imagination already searched for explanations, and each of them
made her more uneasy than the one before. The last thing a Thampurian should do
was panic. It would set such a poor example for the Ponongese.

“Ma’am! Pork?” a butcher called out to Ma’am Thun.

She drew closer to
his stall, which sat alone in what had been a bustling corner of the
marketplace just yesterday. Beside his stall, on the bare ground of what had
been her favorite place to buy tamtuks, she could see the splatter ring of oil
left behind. “I don’t eat pork. It causes indigestion and worms,” she told the
butcher. “Where are the fishmongers? I must have fish for my dinner.”

He sighed. “The soldiers escorted the fishermen down to the
harbor in groups, and when they came in with their catch, they wouldn’t let
them sell. I have no idea where they went. Maybe if you go into the Ponongese
neighborhoods...”

Ma’am Thun frowned. “I’m not accustomed to climbing
upslope.” The thought of ascending that steep, winding road made her ribs press
painfully against her corset.

The butcher placed a pale slab of meat on his forearm and
offered it to her for inspection. He swatted away a fly that landed on it. “If
you cook it well, you won’t get worms.”

She turned her head. “So, I have a choice of rice or rice
for dinner.”

“There’s also jellylanterns.”

Ma’am Thun squared a withering glare on the butcher. He
shrank back. The power of a teacher’s disapproval didn’t diminish over the
years, she noted with a bit of satisfaction. “I can’t eat a jellylantern.”

“The snakes do. Not the lanterns. They dry the jellies and
eat them somehow.”

The butcher seemed to enjoy her shudder, like a schoolboy
who had placed a loathsome creature on his teacher’s desk. She was far too
experienced to let him see how angry she was at the idea that she’d stoop to
eating something so un-Thampurian. She’d go hungry first.

~ ~ ~

Kyam’s knuckles
bumped against his glass when he reached for his drink. That should have been a
sign that he’d had enough, but Hadre wasn’t around to scold him, and he
couldn’t think of a single reason to stay sober. He caught hold of his glass on
his second try and drained it. When he turned to signal the Red Happiness’ bar
keep to refill it, though, the Ingosolian suddenly seemed obsessed with a spot
on the bar.