Shadowed By Wings (27 page)

I realized, too, that the figure had been crouched there for some time. Watching me. Her own thighs were spread, one of her hands tucked into the dampness of her cleft.

We held our breaths, she and I.

Oh, yes, it was a she. Not one of the eunuchs, no. The figure before me had hip, had breast. The moonlight seeping through the casements in the central chamber lit her curves, clothed in the linen of her bitoo.

I knew not what to do. The woman crouched on her haunches at the threshold of my burrow seemed likewise paralyzed, and in her fear, I recognized her, despite her features being shrouded entirely in dark. Prinrut.

I felt safe, then, for her withdrawn, docile demeanor made her the least frightening woman in the viagand. I withdrew my hand from between my thighs and offered it to her. I was instantly befuddled, not having expected myself to do such, taken aback by my own action. My hand wavered, but she withdrew her hand from between her legs and clasped mine before I could retract it.

Her fingers were warm, wet. They interlocked with mine. I found my grip tightening. She responded likewise. My body quickened. The heat in my groin swelled, pulsed, and I began to breathe too quickly.

I tugged her forward at the exact moment she came toward me.

I pushed my back against the burrow’s wall, that she might squeeze in beside me, and I wondered, trembling, at what I was about to do, wondered whether it was not too late to avoid it, wondered whether I wanted to avoid it, wondered whether I’d gone mad. Wondered, too, at the intensity and immediacy of my reaction to her smell, her wet fingers entwined in my own.

Her breath sounded loud in my little burrow. Her form and warmth filled the cave. She lay down beside me, on her side, the both of us squeezed together, facing each other. One of her knees lay between my thighs. One of her arms draped over my ribs. Because there was no room, no room at all, I placed an arm over her. My hand perched uncertainly atop her hip, like a nervous bird that could at any moment burst into flight.

Never before had I been with a woman in such a situation. I was surprised and delighted by the curve of her.

Her breath, so venom laden, breathed warmth against my face. She moved closer. I swelled with want. Then her lips pressed against mine, and oh! the hunger in me.

Her breasts against mine felt so different from the firmness of a man’s chest, felt so welcome and warm and giving, and at once I was filled with a need to feel those breasts against mine without the cloth of our bitoos dividing us. I tugged at her bitoo, she at mine. Elbows grazed stone, mouths panted; it was impossible to remove our bitoos in such a space. I thought I heard something rip. Her neck tasted salty and was soft, so soft, beneath my lips.

Oh, Re, I wanted her breast in my mouth, wanted her nipple on my tongue.

And then her fingers were in me, and I gasped, arched. Melted. Her arm moved, fast. My need built greater. I needed the dragon, needed its tongue, wanted its song.

I think I climaxed, but it was so incomplete, the need that rolled after it so fierce, that I pushed my hips against her in greed. I realized that her own want was huge, and in craving divine merger, I sought her moist depths in hopes I might alleviate a little of the immense need in the both of us.

How new and warm and welcome the wet of her. How intoxicating the push of her muscle, the soft curve of her breast and hip and belly.

We invaded each other, over and over, until I felt swollen and raw and could scarce breathe from exhaustion. Soaked through with sweat, we lay in each other’s arms.

Finally, our breaths slowed.

She moved, then, and placed her lips against my ear.

“Someone will have heard us,” she whispered, so quietly that I had to guess at half her words. “Even above the sound of the monsoon outside. Please, may I report our transgression tomorrow morn? Before anyone else does? Will you give me that gift?”

I went cold. Was stunned.

“Someone
will
have heard us,” she repeated, and by the catch in her throat, I knew she wept.

She was afraid. Afraid of the inevitable report of transgression. Afraid of the mark the plump eunuch would make in his ledger against her name.

She was asking me to allow her to announce our intimacy to all on the morrow, that in declaring such, she could earn a merit, thus detracting a demerit or so that would be marked against the both of us. She was also calling our beautiful, passionate embrace a transgression, which I knew in my soul it was not.

Befuddled, I shrugged.

Agreed.

I didn’t realize until later that I could’ve claimed the right to announce our transgression myself, and thus reduce somewhat the punishment that was to shortly come my way.

I’d not make that mistake again.

Shortly after weeping her thanks against my neck, Prinrut crawled out of my burrow and melted into the dark, to her own cave.

“Naji slept restlessly last night,” she announced the next morning, before even half of us had crawled from our respective burrows. She avoided my eyes. “I claim the responsibility of reporting her transgression.”

“You, too, slept restlessly, made noise that interrupted the much-needed sleep of others,” Greatmother said, her white-flecked irises swimming in orbs of blood. “I claim the responsibility of reporting that transgression.”

It became clear to me then.

Those dove coos, those feather whispers I’d heard in dreams I’d attributed to childhood memories, had been the kisses and gasps of viagand women joined in need within their burrows. I realized, belatedly, that the phrase both Prinrut and Greatmother had used,
you slept restlessly
, was code for the intimacy we’d shared. It was an intimacy that Greatmother would not name for what it was, for it was an act she, too, performed on some nights, out of insatiable need and loneliness.

I wondered what ludicrous phrases represented other acts committed in the viagand chambers.

And though I resented Prinrut claiming the transgression against me, and though I burned with fury that she would even call the passion we’d shared a transgression, I forced myself to let go of that anger and, if not forgive her, then move on. I decided that I had to let go of my ire, see. Because I wanted affection with Prinrut far more than I wanted to hold a grudge against her.

I craved affection. Acceptance. A sense of family and belonging.

Prinrut visited me each night thereafter. She would answer none of the questions I asked of her, though, would turn away from me as I pressed my love-swollen lips against her ear and breathed my questions softly so that none could hear. After several nights, I stopped asking, for her continued silence aggravated me and saddened her, and I did not want to lose her companionship. No. If not for our intimacy and the venom draft the eunuch gave me each eve, I would have given in to a madness of despair.

After our first time together, I was smarter: I refused to concede Prinrut the right to claim a transgression against me. We agreed in hushed voices that we would announce our own actions each morn, using the accepted code. After the first few announcements, I easily deceived myself into believing those marks against my name in the eunuch’s ledger meant little.

I don’t know how long I would have mindlessly gone on in such a manner, obediently quaffing down drafts and engaging in pleasure with Prinrut, if one dusk the plump eunuch had not refused me my venom.

I stared at him, on the threshold of panic. We’d just returned from the latrines after being force-fed an evening meal. Instead of waddling to my stone burrow alongside me, to hand me a venom draft, he clapped his hands together and made an announcement.

“The rest of the viagand returns from the recovery berths two days hence. Make sure you’re all well rested for their return.”

Rigidity amongst those around me. Prinrut gasped. Her eyes glazed over and her limbs locked picket stiff. At once her face wore that slack, vacant look of catatonia.

The eunuch clucked with annoyance. “Greatmother, see to it that she revives before morn, hmmm?”

Greatmother murmured acquiesence. The eunuch turned to leave.

I stepped forward, one hand outstretched. “My venom draft?”

Again he clucked irritably. “Naji, don’t be noisome.”

“Will you bring it later?”

He frowned. “You’re walking, eating, quite hale now. You’ve recovered from Prelude nicely. You’ll not require the drafts further.”

“But—”

“One mark against you, for insolence!” he cried, and he drew forth the ledger he’d held tucked under one flaccid biceps and furiously leafed through it.

“I claim the responsibility of reporting her transgression,” Kabdekazonvia said.

“You,” the eunuch snarled. “I’ll not waste my ink giving you the benefit of Naji’s effrontery. You’ve eaten nothing for three days now. Nothing! Stupid girl; stupid, stubborn girl.”

Kabdekazonvia stared groundward, her sloped shoulders appearing to melt off her.

The eunuch scratched the ledger angrily with his quill, slapped the book together, and tucked it back under an armpit.

“Good evening, girls,” he said primly, and he jerked the sole door in the chambers open. I caught a glimpse of the Retainers beyond; the eyes of one man met mine and he licked his lips lewdly. The eunuch closed the door after himself and I shuddered.

“Naji, Misutvia,” Greatmother said wearily, “carry Prinrut to her sleeping quarters.”

We did so, draping one each of Prinrut’s arms about our necks and drag-pulling her forward. I avoided looking at her vacuous stare, closed my mind to how the cool rigidity of her arm about my neck reminded me of the death-lock of a corpse.

With force, Misutvia and I managed to fold Prinrut inside her cave. I crouched at the entrance of the burrow, paralyzed by her glazed eyes and vacant face. I felt impotent and useless.

“Prinrut, wake up,” I murmured, and I shook her nearest arm. It was like shaking a felled tree. I dreaded a night without both her and my venom, didn’t know how I would survive the dark with only the reality of my imprisonment to keep me company. “Wake up, Prinrut!”

“You’ve become attached to her,” Misutvia said, from where she was crouched beside me. “It’ll be hard on you, when she goes.”

My heart tripped against my ribs. I studied Misutvia’s cool eyes, shadowed beneath her severe ebony bangs.

“Goes?”

“She won’t enter the barracks again, Naji. She’s decided to die rather than submit once more. Isn’t that clear?”

Greatmother appeared behind us, a rigid, toothless, blood-eyed wraith.

“You engage in idle gossip, Misutvia, and poison Naji’s mind with your gross speculations. I claim the right to report your transgression on the morrow.”

Misutvia shuddered, then pulsated with silent anger.

“Of course, Greatmother,” she finally whispered, downcast eyes blazing. “That is your choice.”

I didn’t sleep that night, not at all. I stole to Prinrut’s burrow a clawful of times and pleaded with her to come back to me, to wake up. Toward dawn, she did. She gasped once, like a fish out of water, eyes protruding, lips gaping wide, then clutched my wrist tightly.

She stared into my eyes, dread as sharp as knives in her look. Panting, she formed her lips as if to speak. She stopped herself, bit her lip, closed her eyes. Squeezed my hand tighter, gripped by a dread she would not share with me.

“Sleep now,” I murmured, crawling in beside her, melding my form to fit hers. She felt as cold as rain-slicked bone. “I’m here, we’re together; sleep.”

I cradled her as if she were my child, and I rocked the two of us until the scream of a jungle bird beyond our prison’s stone walls woke everyone in the viagand. Pinch lipped and sallow, all of us, save for Kabdekazonvia, crawled from our stone caves. Morning.

“You slept poorly last night, Najivia,” Greatmother began, turning her blooded eyes upon me the moment I straightened from my knees. “I claim the right—”

“I slept soundly,” I snapped. “I only woke to do your duty, to wake Prinrut as the eunuch bid you do. You shirked your duty, and
that’s
a transgression. I claim the right to report it.”

Silence from the viagand women, all standing as stiff as dead songbirds impaled upon roasting skewers. They turned their unblinking dragon eyes upon me.

Misutvia spoke. “She’s quite correct, Greatmother. You slept when you should not have. Naji has made a legitimate claim.”

“You have no need to inform me of such,” Greatmother whispered, and her words were a stale, frail wind. “I strive to be pure.”

“Yes, Greatmother,” Misutvia said, malice dripping from her lips. “You do. It is your choice.”

FOURTEEN

K
abdekazonvia didn’t crawl out from her burrow at all that morning. Just before the eunuchs showed up, Greatmother bid Prinrut and me bring Kabdekazonvia forth. I crouched before her burrow; a putrid, honeyed stench wafted from within.

I quickly stood up and pulled Prinrut away.

“No,” I said, head buzzing. “Don’t.”

Prinrut looked away from me, toward one of the narrow casements high in the central chamber’s stone walls. Outside, rain thundered down. The air was heavy with damp. “So. She’s free.”