The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (33 page)

She could hear him walking behind her, his pace as measured and sedate as her own, though his breathing was uneven and harsh. The corridor leading to the cellar was dim; the short stairwell leading under the house was even dimmer. In the dark he could not see her hands shake, but she knew he would sense her fear nevertheless. This was the one thing that
could
still make her afraid, and they both knew it.

Inside the small cellar, a single lantern burned steadily on a shelf stacked with sealed jars. The lantern’s oil was scented of hyssop, but this was not quite enough to mask the scent of mildew wafting from the earthen floor and walls. The cellar never quite dried out from floodseason to floodseason; they used the space only to store those items that were proof against the smell. And those items that were otherwise deemed unimportant, like the little girl chained against the far wall.

Sanfi came into the cellar behind Tiaanet and stopped, his eyes narrowing. The girl leaned against the wall, her head lolling, but in the silence her soft mutters were audible, as was the sound of her
ankle-chain, rattling as she methodically rubbed her leg against the stone wall.

“Why isn’t she asleep?” he asked.

Tiaanet swallowed. But before she could formulate an answer, Tantufi’s head lifted. She focused on their voices with an effort, blinking huge rheumy eyes.

“No sleep,” the girl muttered. “No sleep sleep sleep so many nearby, so many.”

Sanfi set his jaw, his fists clenching. He stepped toward the girl, his whole posture warning of his intent. Tiaanet quickly stepped in front of him.

“It’s habit, Father,” she said. “She’s just used to being kept awake by the guards. She doesn’t understand that you
want
her to sleep now.”

“Get out of my way,” he said.

“She won’t be able to help it, Father, she’ll have to sleep eventually—”

He reached up to caress Tiaanet’s cheek, and she fell silent, frozen.

“I want her asleep now,” he said softly. “Her magic works just as well if she’s unconscious.”

No.
Tiaanet closed her eyes, hearing her heart pound in her ears. So few things could hurt her now, but this she had no defense against.
Goddess, please, no. I can’t stand to watch again while he beats her, she almost died the last time, no. Hananja, please help me.

Then, as if in answer to her prayer, the solution came to her.

“You promised, Father,” she said. In the closed stillness of the cellar, her voice sounded unnaturally loud, dangerously harsh—much like that of the zhinha Iezanem. She saw him frown in response to it, saw his anger begin to focus on a new target.

Yes. Me, not her.

“You promised that you wouldn’t hurt her again, after the last
time.” She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She was taller than him by a fingerwidth or so, and normally kept her head tilted down so as to avoid looking down on him. Now she did it deliberately, belligerently. “And did I not please you that night, Father? Did I not buy her safety well enough for you?”

His eyes widened, his whole body going taut with fury. “How dare you,” he whispered.

“If you want her to sleep, I can give her an herb-draft,” she said. Deliberately Tiaanet stepped closer to him, crowding him, glaring into his eyes. “Then you can have your plague. But you don’t want her
asleep
, do you? You want her dead. You’re too angry to think right now, Father, because Wanahomen stole the march on you, but why does that anger you so? He’ll be a good son-in-law. He uses others and lies as you do. As you
will
, if you hurt Tantufi when you promised not to, or do none of your promises in bed have any value? That wouldn’t surprise me, nothing else you do in bed has any—”

It was almost a relief when the storm broke. She’d been running out of ways to taunt him. He roared in fury and backhanded her so hard that she spun around and fell among several piled sacks of decorative white sand, meant to be used in the atrium garden. The sacks were soft enough that she broke nothing falling on them, but the breath was knocked from her lungs, and between that and his blow her vision went gray for a time.

Through the gray Tiaanet heard Sanfi shouting, something about how she was just as much a poison as her mother, a curse on his lineage, a curse he didn’t deserve. He took hold of her hips and she waited for him to drag her off the sacks, onto the floor where he could finish venting his rage. But he left her where she was. Instead she felt the back of her dress torn open, her legs shoved apart. There was more fumbling and cloth ripping and then a stunning new pain came into her, four times worse than the blow he’d struck her, forty times worse than the first night he’d ever come into her room, so
many years ago that she barely remembered any of it but the shame that she had once felt. There was the potential for shame here too, and perhaps a bit of disgust as he snarled and grunted and ground himself against her backside, but she felt none in spite of the pain. The time when she had been ashamed of him, and of herself for being his daughter, had passed years ago. Now all that mattered was that it was
she
who bore the pain, and not Tantufi. Not Tantufi.

Thankfully, he was too angry to try to please her, as he so often did to assuage his guilt. That made it go quickly.

When it was done, she waited, listening to him gulp air and compose himself, knowing that the apologies would not come now. For a time he would still blame her for provoking him. For making him hurt her. At most he might worry that she would leave him, and then she would have to endure being shadowed by his guards everywhere she went. He had warned her since childhood that he would have her hunted down by assassins if she ever tried to flee. They would not use weapons, though; he would authorize their slowest and most brutal methods as a parting gift for his only beloved child.

(She did not fear this for herself. What was more pain? But he would do it to Tantufi too, and that she could not endure.)

Only later would guilt replace her father’s anger, and then he would offer apologies that meant nothing, and gifts she did not want, and yet more promises never to be kept.

After a while he got up and left the cellar. Tiaanet lay where she was, feeling moisture cooling on her body, waiting for the last of the ache to fade from her head and ribs and elsewhere. For a time she drifted, thinking that she imagined the touch of gentle fingers along her lips, and the soft patter of tears on her cheek. But they could not have been her own tears, since she no longer cried.

“Sleep,” whispered a voice in her ear. “Sleep now, sleep. I will stay awake for you. Safe safe safe. Sleep.”

Tiaanet slept.

“I am wondering,” said Mni-inh, speaking slowly so as to make his anger very clear, “whether you have lost your mind.”

Hanani, sitting beside the bathing pool with her hands folded in her lap, sighed. A day had passed since their last argument; it seemed the time had done little to smooth the ground between them. “This is the only way, Brother.”

Mni-inh sat on a rock opposite her, where he had been braiding his hair until Hanani told him of her plan. Now he sat half naked, hair a mess, glaring at her in his fury. “That, my apprentice, is not true at all. You don’t have to help the Prince in any way, much less follow through on this ridiculous plan to teach him narcomancy.”

“He could go mad—”

“
Let
him.”

Hanani stared at Mni-inh, shocked. After a moment Mni-inh sighed, rubbed his face, and stood to begin pacing.

“Hanani—” He shook his head in frustration. “You say anger gives you no comfort; fine. You’re a better Servant of Hananja than I, because I want him to hurt as deeply as he hurt you.”

Hanani frowned. “The desire for vengeance is natural, Brother, but there’s no peace in it.”

“I know that! But I cannot bear what that arrogant jackal’s machinations have done to you. You never smile anymore. You won’t even speak to me of—of what happened. There’s a space between us now where once we were closer than blood.”

Hanani sighed and closed her eyes, reaching for calm. She didn’t want to talk about Azima; didn’t even want to think about him. Yet Mni-inh kept bringing the subject up, over and over, worrying at it like a child with a half-healed scab. Never mind that
she
had borne the wound.

“All of that is irrelevant, Brother,” she said, when she felt herself able to speak in a neutral tone. “Whatever the Prince has become, the Hetawa had a hand in creating—”

Mni-inh made a sound of annoyance. “
Wanahomen
is irrelevant, Hanani. Nijiri is mad to rely on him, and I couldn’t care less what happens to him!”

The anger was returning. Hanani clenched her fists on her thighs and prayed for the Goddess to make her strong against it. “
He is why we’re here
, Brother. Or would you rather all of this be for nothing? The pain I suffered—” Now the anger was eclipsed by revulsion and the ugly memory of Azima’s hands, and the uglier memory of her own hands shredding his soul. She focused on her words. Words could not hurt her. “The life I took. Anger doesn’t comfort me, Brother. But knowing that what I endure, what I do, may help Gujaareh—
that
comforts me, yes. Helping the Prince helps Gujaareh.”

Mni-inh had stopped pacing to stare at her, and as she watched, his face flickered through sorrow to anger to comprehension, then back to sorrow.

“I should have protected you,” he said softly.

And just like that, Hanani understood why he was so angry.

“What happened to me was not your fault,” she said, as gently as she could.

“I was two tents away! I should’ve heard. I should’ve
known
—” He faltered silent, his fists tight at his sides.

Hanani rose, went over to him, and took his hands, looking into his eyes so that he would see she did not blame him. “I am some years past childhood, Brother. You can’t protect me from all the world.”

He looked at her with his eyes full of regret, lifting a hand to her cheek in a way that he had not in years. He had stopped that at the same time he had stopped hugging her, and she had missed both terribly in the years since. So she leaned against his hand, letting him know without words how grateful she was for the gesture, and he let out a long pained sigh.

“You’re the daughter I never knew I needed,” he said softly. “No one can love another person so powerfully and still keep perfect peace in his heart. I shouldn’t love you as I do. But I don’t care, Hanani. I do not care.”

Nor do I, Brother
, she thought to herself.
I could never regret loving you as much as I do.

Yet Mni-inh had spoken truly. As Sharers, they had pledged devotion only to their petitioners and tithebearers and fellow Servants, in service of the Goddess. Individual love—the selfish, powerful stuff of families and lovers—interfered with that.

So Hanani said nothing, but she lifted her hand to cover his. Mni-inh smiled, his face wry and somber. “And here I’ve been adding to your burdens,” he said. “Even as you struggle with this yourself, you must take the time to comfort me.” He sighed. “Forgive me.”

She shook her head, not wanting to speak. But something within her relaxed, just a little, as he put words to the frustration she’d been nursing for days. So she felt better when Mni-inh let out a long, slow breath, and let her go.

“Train your Prince,” he said. “If you can. He’s old for it, and probably too barbarian-minded. But if you’re determined to do this, I’ll help you.”

She managed a smile, for him. “Thank you, Brother.”

He nodded, sighing. “Now. If you’re going to try and bludgeon magic into that fool’s head, you’ll need all your strength. Let’s go see whether these savages can manage a decent meal, hmm?”

*  *  *

So it was that later that evening, after an absolutely delicious meal at the communal hearth for those who lacked slaves, Hanani followed young Tassa up a long trail that was little more than a series of vaguely connected ledges along Merik-ren-aferu’s eastern wall. Tassa, born and raised to canyon life, scrambled over rock piles and up steep slopes like a lizard, snickering at Hanani whenever she balked or had to stop and rest. But he did not leave her, for which she was grateful.

During one rest, as she sat on a flat slab of rock and prayed the snakes and spiders under it would stay put, he came to sit beside her, his eyes bright and curious. “Why?” he asked. “Go, Wana. You.” He pointed up toward the top of the cliff, which Hanani could not see; the lantern she carried cast a bright circle, but beyond it was darkness. She could only hope they were close.