Woman of Silk and Stone (21 page)

Feeling sick, I simply waited, knowing there
wasn't anything to do until Adar brought Tam to me. I needed to be
strong and ready to comfort the kid, since he undoubtedly wouldn't
understand why his aunt was trying to kill him.

The council finally caught up to us, and I
could hear them calling out in distress over the state of the
outpost, demanding to see Tam, but I didn't know what to tell them.
I didn't see Adar anywhere, and although there was plenty of smoke
billowing around, none of it felt like him.

It was then, out of the corner of my eye, I
saw a flash of color. It almost looked like something was climbing
out of the ground about a hundred yards to my left. Squinting, I
could just make out the shape of two people, one tall and dressed
in long skirt, and the other short and struggling against the
woman's grip.

I realized that there must have been an
underground escape tunnel or something similar that led away from
the outpost, and that Ninna had somehow bolted. My eyes darted
around the landscape, searching for Adar, for any sign that he was
in pursuit, but nothing appeared, just the steady burn of the
building in the distance.

Gripping the arm of the Horde member next to
me, I pointed frantically at the escaping figures. "She's out!
She's still got him! Where's Adar?"

He called out a warning and men all around
me took to their
sisu
, hurtling after
them, but I knew they wouldn't make it in time. Ninna had heard
them and was standing stock still, holding a long, thin dagger
above a clearly terrified Tam.

Without thinking, I ran. I ran the way I had
when I first arrived and was fleeing from the Horde, when I flew
over fields of blue grass, feeling the power in my legs, the
strength of my muscles propelling me beyond human capabilities. Now
I flew over sand, moving so quickly I could hear nothing but the
sound of air rushing past my head, feel nothing but the silky spray
of sand kicking up behind my heels, see nothing but the small,
terrified boy who needed me.

When I crashed into them, I thrust my right
fist against Ninna's abdomen, catapulting her twenty feet backward.
I clutched Tam to me as I rolled to the ground, trying to shield
him from my hard landing. If I was going to run like that again in
the future, I really needed to work on my ability to stop without
crashing.

He was weeping desperately, as if his heart
was broken, and probably it was. The only mother figure he'd had
for most of his childhood had just held a knife to him, and there
was no way I could shield him from that knowledge.

"Shh, shh, you're okay, you're going to be
alright," I murmured, trying to calm him down, checking him over
for any sign of injury. Apart from a bruise on his cheek, he
appeared unharmed, but he definitely needed a healer. Glancing over
my shoulder, I saw the riders who had taken off before me finally
approaching, and thankfully Tilmun was on a
sisu
not far behind.

"Where is Adar?" I asked the group, not
really expecting an answer anymore. Something had gone terribly
wrong, because I couldn't imagine what was keeping him from me.

As expected, no one answered, but Tilmun
finally reached us and dropped down to Tam's side, taking the boy's
head in his pudgy hands and bowing over him, chanting quietly but
firmly. Shuddering with the excess of adrenaline, I stood up and
walked toward Ninna's collapsed figure.

She was alive, but I could tell my strike
had damaged her badly; she was clutching her stomach and moaning,
her once-pleasant looking face drawn in pain and streaked with
tears. For a moment, one vivid second, I felt sorry for her, guilty
that I had hurt her so badly when all I wanted was to save Tam.

And then she turned her hate-filled eyes to
me and smiled.

"Why wouldn't you just die?" she croaked,
her previously smoky voice now harsh and guttural, like she'd
swallowed razorblades. "All of this..." she coughed, her entire
body writhing in agony, sweat beading on her forehead. "So
unnecessary, if you'd just fucking DIED!"

I stared down at her, pity and revulsion
mixing in my gut to form stony resolve.

"So Tam would have grown up just fine, then?
Lived a long and fruitful life?"

She laughed, and it was the sound of dry,
crackling leaves, a hollow, desolate noise. "Well, maybe not, but
he would've lived a while longer. He was easier to manage than his
father; I might even have let him live if he'd passed the crown to
me," she whispered, the light starting to fade from her eyes. I
felt the presence of others behind me and hoped someone had the
sense to get Tam out of hearing range.

"Kashaptu! Idimmu! What have you done?"
Tilmun stood beside me now, his normally jovial face ruddy with
rage, his fists clenched and shaking. "Did you...did you murder
your own brother?"

Ninna smiled faintly, almost as if caught in
a fond memory. "Oh yes. He had discovered my growing army of loyal
soldiers, my secret funds. He would simply have banished me, but
the
halqu
managed to cast a spell and made
his heart stop; his wife too, when she came to see what we were
fighting about."

She dissolved into another fit of coughs,
blood trickling from her lips, and I knew we wouldn't get much more
from her. I knew someday soon this would hurt, the knowledge that
I'd ended a life, but just now, I couldn't drum up much guilt.

Everyone had paled at the mention of the
halqu
, and I remembered I had been told
the last one left the kingdom, but not where or why.

"The
halqu
did
this? But why?" a Horde member asked, sounding stunned. Ninna
wheezed out what I thought was a laugh.

"He loved me. The only one who ever did. And
now he is gone," she moaned, closing her eyes, and for the first
time, I thought she might be feeling true emotion. Her entire body
shivered and trembled, and then suddenly went still. Startled, I
stepped forward, not thinking, only wanting more answers.

Just as I knelt by her side, I heard Adar's
voice, at last. I turned to look for him and saw black smoke
hurtling towards me, and heard his voice on the air, crying out,
"Honey-
sa
, NO!"

And that's when the knife plunged into my
chest.

Well, that was pretty anti-climactic.

All that build-up; Ninna saving her last bit
of strength to stab me as a final revenge, Adar screaming out in
despair, everybody running around like chickens with their heads
cut off.

It was just a little-bitty stab wound.

As Ninna stared up at me, satisfaction
blazing in her glazed eyes, I pulled the knife out of my chest and
grinned.

It had barely gone in, just parted the flesh
and then stuck in the impenetrable petrified wood shield around my
heart. Within seconds of the dagger's removal, my skin closed and I
simply wiped away the blood.

The light died out of Ninna's eyes and her
lips parted on a final gasp as her body went truly still for the
last time. Glad I could take away even that small triumph, I turned
to look at Adar, whose skin was blazing, his entire body coated in
flames.

"Where the hell were you?" I demanded
sharply, secretly happy to see that he appeared unharmed.

He simply stared for a moment before lunging
and swooping me up in his great, sinewy arms. I shrieked as I came
in contact with the fire still rolling over his skin, but it merely
tickled at me, almost playful, so I just let him hold me while my
clothes burned away to ash.

After a few minutes, he calmed down enough
to douse the flames and then growled at the man closest to us to
give me his cloak. Once I was wrapped up and sufficiently shielded
from any unwanted gazes, Adar shifted me in his arms so he could
look into my eyes.

"
Ti summu
, I
thought I'd lost you. I told you that you are my one weakness! Why
did you put yourself in danger?" he asked, his voice relatively
calm despite the reddish glow of his skin.

"I thought we were immortal. Temuk said
nothing could hurt you," I answered, confused. For that matter, how
had the stupid woman been able to stab me? Shouldn't the knife have
just passed through?

Adar nodded, looking exhausted. "It is true
that
I
am impervious to harm; but you are
not. It is difficult to kill you, but if your heart is destroyed,
then both of us will perish. My soul is tied to yours, as yours is
to mine."

I glared up at him, thinking this was
information he should have shared earlier, but with effort, I let
my irritation go. There was enough to worry about at the moment.
"Well, lucky for us, I have a wooden shield around my heart," I
told him, grinning at his baffled expression.

Before he could start getting into details,
I smacked his shoulder. "And you didn't answer my question! Where
were you? I thought you would be with Tam?"

Adar sighed and frustration passed over his
beautiful features. "I was foolish and overconfident. I
underestimated the woman. When I arrived at the outpost, they were
nowhere to be found, and I...questioned..." he paused, and I knew
that he had done a lot more than simply question the unlucky soul;
"one of the renegades. He told me they were only there as decoys,
that Ninna had taken the king to the grasslands outpost. So I set
this one ablaze and flew to the other location, only to turn back
halfway because I felt your distress."

Shame looked strange on his face; it wasn't
built to carry that particular emotion. I didn't like it.

"It's not your fault, Adar. We had a pretty
half-assed plan. We were very, very lucky." Now that I knew
everything was settled, and the danger had passed, I was ready to
collapse. Glancing over to where Tilmun stood watching us with a
bemused expression on his face, I gave him a wan smile. "Is Tam
doing any better?"

He startled out of whatever thoughts in
which he had been lost and focused on me. "Yes, Honey. He is
understandably distraught, but he will recover."

Grateful for that reassurance, I looked up
at Adar and gave him an impetuous kiss. "I'm done now," I stately
plainly, and then promptly passed out.

Two months had passed since the attempted
coup, and things had finally settled down.

Tam was hard to console; he had loved his
aunt deeply, and finding out that not only had she intended to kill
him and take his throne, but that she had been part of his parents'
death, which no one had ever suspected, hit him pretty hard. For
three days, he stayed in his room, curled up on his bed, refusing
to eat or bathe.

And I stayed with him.

Those days bonded us in a way that I think
would have normally taken years, if ever. I held him through his
devastated tears, through the rages and temper-fueled fits over
what Ninna had done, through the agonized realization that he had
been betrayed on the most fundamental level, and finally, I held
his hand when he left his room to address his people.

Things in Solis had actually gotten a lot
better. Ninna's secret funds were discovered and redistributed to
the journeyman's guild. Shakar was removed from the council when it
was discovered he aided her theft in return for a kickback. The
renegade
Litum
were stripped of their
positions and were sentenced to hard labor in the desert for life.
Frankly, I thought they were getting off easy, but whatever. Not my
kingdom.

The people of Solis forgave their young
king, and based on my suggestion, the council was expanded to
include leaders from every class: merchants, laborers, women. Yeah,
I totally sneaked the woman's vote in there on everyone, and it was
so worth it to see the expression on Efrim's face when he realized
he had to work with Mistress Damki, who represented the working
ladies of Solis.

There were some less than pleasant
repercussions, however. Hamsum was absolutely shattered that he
had, in his own mind, failed me, and he withdrew his vow, which
apparently was a major dishonor. I tried to forbid it, and refused
to accept, but he simply walked away and left to ride with the
Horde for a season. Adar assured me that Hamsum would get over it
in time, and to give him the chance to regain his honor. I'm still
hoping to see him ride through the gates, but I know Adar is
right.

Halqu
were under
some scrutiny now as well, after the news that the previous
halqu
, who had supposedly traveled to
Shuru
ten years ago, had actually murdered
the king and queen, and had been living in the Golden City all this
time. He was the old man who tried to kill me in the great hall,
which was a shock to everyone. After Adar had knocked him out
during the attack, he had simply never woken up, his heart
stopping; which was some kind of poetic justice, even if it wasn't
very satisfying.

Somehow, I came out of the whole thing as a
hero, a warrior woman. Plus, I was mated to a
Darisam
, which apparently carried some cachet.

Which brings me to now.

I lay in the middle of the blue fields of
silk-grass, feeling the wind dance over my skin, the warmth of the
sun melting into my bones like an old friend. There was no sound
but the whisper of the breeze passing by and my own breathing.

And then the smoke came.

It twined around my ankle first, trailing
invisible fingers up my leg to the backs of my knees, dallying when
I shivered in pleasure. I felt him form above me and opened my
eyes, staring up at the face I loved with all of my heart.

Adar had been single-minded in his
courtship. I told him the day I emerged from Tam's room that he
wasn't off the hook just because we were technically already
married. He merely smiled at me, and the next day I awoke in a bed
covered in blue-hued flower petals, their fragrance floating around
me in a cloud. The next day, he managed to serve me waffles in bed,
which was quite an achievement since no one in Solis had ever heard
of a waffle.