“No.” She answered without hesitation or doubt. Kalindra was a believer, although that didn’t make her wrong. She saw the expression on my face and added, “But don’t worry. If Relos Var dared try anything here, Thaena would show up personally to deal with him. Just because she normally lives in the Land of Peace doesn’t mean she can’t manifest here.”
I felt a chill. “So if Thaena is the only thing protecting me from Relos Var … I really can’t leave, can I?” I felt sick. Taja’s assurance that I could leave if I wanted to now tasted like ash.
Kalindra was sympathetic. “I’m sure Relos Var will forget about you eventually.”
“I don’t even know what this has to do with me.”
Kalindra’s brown eyes stared at me. “There’s a prophecy.” She paused. “No really, stop laughing.”
I laughed some more.
Kalindra looked annoyed, but waited for me to stop.
“A prophecy? Right. Khaemezra said … I thought she was jesting. You’ve got to be joking! I’m here because of a prophecy? More of Caerowan’s Devoran paranoia? That’s why Relos Var wanted me? Because some crackpot mad hermit declared I’m going to save the world or something?”
Her smile turned cruel. “It’s not that kind of prophecy.” She unbuckled her scabbard and laid her sword, chain, and a brace of daggers in a neat pile next to several folded white cloths: towels, from the look of them. Apparently, the Black Brotherhood did indeed use this place as a public bath.
“So, what kind of prophecy is it?”
She unlaced her bodice. “The mineral springs here are good for sore muscles and healing injuries. Your wounds are healing nicely, but a soak wouldn’t hurt you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” I eyed her as she tossed her bodice aside. She made no effort to shield herself from my stare as she disrobed. There didn’t seem to be any separation of bathing areas for men and women.
My anger ebbed. I was distracted for some reason.
“I’m sorry. Did you ask a question?” Slit skirt followed bodice, then bracers and open-mesh chemise. Her body was taut and well muscled. As she bent over to pull off her boots, her back revealed a crisscross of old scar tissue—the hallmark of the disobedient slave. My eyes traced the lines of hardship: the scarring around her wrists and ankles, the brand on the back of her thigh. Old wounds, faded scars. If she was anyone’s slave, it wasn’t recently.
“I forget.” I stared at her. She wasn’t beautiful. Her face was too long and her nose too crooked. She wasn’t soft enough, fresh enough, for Quuros standards, but Kalindra was hard and fierce and wild. She had her own beauty.
She caught me staring and laughed, a soft throaty chuckle. “Aren’t the baths public where you come from? You must have seen a naked woman before.”
“Not like you.”
She started to reply, some whip-quick remark, but it died in her throat as she looked at me. We stared at each other too long. You know what that’s like, don’t you? You look at someone, and maybe the situation is appropriate and maybe it isn’t, but you make eye contact, and all the little protections, all the walls we put up to keep each other out, un expectedly fail. You look too long and you see too much, and there’s this sudden sharp thrill as you realize just how badly you want this other person, and that it’s entirely mutual. She stepped toward me, raised her hand to my face.
I knew what would come next. I wanted what would come next, but a dozen ugly images flashed through my mind. Xaltorath’s “gift.”
I turned away.
I wanted her. I really did, but I didn’t trust myself at all.
My hands shook as I pushed the drawstring pants off my hips, kicking them aside. I dove into the pool like a rabbit hiding from a wolf, not caring that the mineral water was scorching hot or how it might hurt.
Maybe I wanted it to hurt.
“Do you know what I like best about staying here on Ynisthana?” Water splashed as Kalindra stepped into a pool.
She sounded farther away than I expected. I opened my eyes. Kalindra had lowered herself into one of the other pools, physically separate from my own. Unlike me, she’d taken the time to grab towels, soap, and sponges.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re allowed to say no.”
If words were daggers, hers left deep, slow cuts. I felt a release of tension I hadn’t even realized was there, a wave of disorientation. How powerful was that idea?
Here was a place where I could say no.
I exhaled and grabbed the edge of the stone pool as if I would drown without the support. I pushed myself up enough to rest my arms against the black slate rock, crossed my hands under my chin. I thought about the ways Kalindra’s words might be lies: Khaemezra still had my gaesh, after all. I also thought about Taja’s opinion on the freedom inherent in a gaesh. I could still say no. Even to a gaesh command I could say no.
I reached out and touched the back of Kalindra’s hand as she reached for a washcloth. “I don’t really want to say no,” I confessed. “I just don’t know how to say yes.”
She had a glorious smile. Kalindra picked up my hand. “Then go with the first one, for now, until you figure out how to do the second. And when you do…” She kissed my fingertips, slow and sweet as if my hand was fragile and precious. “… come find me.”
I shuddered again, but it was the good kind of shudder. Something about the slow, gentle way Kalindra moved defied Xaltorath’s tainted memories.
Then she put a sponge in my hand. “Now wash up, Monkey. We’re going to be late to a party.”
28: THE FINEST HEALERS
(Talon’s story)
Heavy weights forced his eyelids closed, and someone was sitting on his chest. Kihrin tried to breathe, but it was an effort. He was pinned. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t—
Kihrin gulped air as he opened his eyes. He was lying down, softness wrapped around his body, a pillow under his head. He stared up at a gathered canopy of blue silk, watermarked and shimmering from the reflected light of the morning sun. The air smelled sweet with jasmine and lilac.
The weight on his chest wasn’t a man, a woman, or a water buffalo: he was being held down by a single silk sheet.
Kihrin sat up in bed. He was so weak it reminded him of when he was a child with red fever, so drained by illness the very act of movement was a mark of accomplishment. A large white bandage wrapped around his chest. He reached up and felt for the smooth surface of the wire-wrapped gem around his neck. It was still there.
“Oh, he’s awake! Master Lorgrin, he’s awake!” a woman said. A young woman came into view behind the silk drapes of the four-poster bed. She wore a blue shift that resembled lingerie more than any proper clothing and left about as much to the imagination.
“I—” His tongue stuck in his throat. He was thirsty, and hungry, and, at the same time, nauseated.
Another voice. Male. “Hold him up. He needs to drink this.”
Kihrin looked up to see an old man, dressed in the blue colors of a physicker. Kihrin didn’t have the strength to push him away as the man pressed a goblet against Kihrin’s lips.
“Come, child. You need to drink,” the old man told him. “I know you’re thirsty. I promise, you’ll keep this down. You must trust me.”