Enkido opened his arms, and she fell into them. From his robes he took a tear bottle. He held her, steady as stone, stroking her hair with one hand as he collected her tears with the other.
“I’m sorry, master,” she whispered when it was done. It was the first time in years anyone had spoken aloud in the training chamber. The sound echoed to her sensitive ears, seeming wrong, but what did it matter now?
Even the palm weeps, when the storm washes over it, Enkido signed, moving to hand her the bottle. The tears of Everam’s spear sisters are all the more precious for how seldom they fall.
Ashia held up her hands, pushing the bottle away. “Then keep them always.”
She looked down, even now unable to meet his eyes. “I should be overjoyed. What greater husband could a woman dream of the Deliverer’s son? I thought that fate was taken from me when I was sent to you, but now that it has come again, I do not wish it. Why was I sent here, if only to be given to a man who would have had me regardless? What point in the skills you have taught, if I am never to use them? You are my master, and I want no other.”
Enkido looked at her with sad eyes. I had many wives before giving myself to the dama’ting, his fingers said. Many sons. Many daughters. But not one has made me as proud as you have. Your loyalty makes my heart sing.
She clutched at him. “Asome may be my husband, but you will always be my master.”
The eunuch shook his head. No, child. The command of the Deliverer cannot be denied. It is not for me or you to speak against his blessing, and I will not shame the Deliverer’s son by coveting what is rightfully his. You will go to Asome a free woman, unbound to me.
Ashia pulled away, walking to the door. Enkido did not follow.
“If you are no longer my master,” she said, “then you cannot command my heart.”
The wedding was everything she might have dreamed as a girl, fit for a prince and princess of Krasia. Her spear sisters stood beside her as she waited for her father to escort her to where Asome waited with Jayan at the foot of the Skull Throne in Sharik Hora.
Enkido was in attendance as well, guarding the Damajah and watching over the proceedings, though none of the guests knew it. She and her sisters knew the signs, saw the slight ripples he left to mark himself to them.
The oaths and ceremony were a blur. Two thrones had been provided for the bride and groom at the feast, but Ashia sat alone, waiting on her husband as he accepted gifts and spoke to the guests, Asukaji at his side.
No expense had been spared, but the rich, honeyed cakes were bland to Ashia’s tongue. She longed to be back safe underground, eating plain couscous at the foot of Enkido’s table.
But for all she walked through the day in a daze, it was the wedding night that brought home her true fate.
She waited in the pillow chamber for Asome to come and take her as a husband, but hours passed in silence. Ashia looked more than once at the window, dreaming of escape.
At last, there was a sound in the hall, but it never reached the door.
There was a vent above the archway. Ashia was up the wall in an instant, her fingers easily finding holds in the minute cracks between the stones. She put her eye and ear to the vent, seeing the back of Asome’s head, with Asukaji facing him. They looked to be arguing.
“I cannot do this,” Asome was saying.
“You can, and you will,” Asukaji said, taking her husband’s face in his hands. “Ashia must give you the son I cannot. Melan has thrown her dice. If you take my sister now, it will be done. One time, and the ordeal be over.”
Realization was a slap in the face.
It was no sin for men to love their own gender. It was common enough in the sharaj, boys forming pillow friendships to pass the years before they were old and experienced enough for their first wife. But Everam demanded new generations, and so all but the most stubborn push’ting were eventually bound to marry and share the pillows, if only long enough to produce a son. Everam knew, Kajivah had said as much to Asukaji many times.
But she had never thought she would be a push’ting bride.
They entered a moment later. Ashia had plenty of time to get back in the pillows, but her mind was reeling. Asome and Asukaji were push’ting lovers. She had never meant anything to them save as a womb to carry the abomination they wanted to bring into the world.
They ignored Ashia, Asukaji undressing her husband and stiffening him with his mouth until he could do the deed. He joined them in the pillows, coaxing them together.
His touch made Ashia’s skin crawl, but she took shallow breaths, and endured.
Despite his words, there was jealousy in her brother’s eyes, his face darkening as Asome gasped and saw Everam, seeding her. As soon as the deed was done, Asukaji pulled them apart and the two men fell into an embrace, seeming to forget she was even there.
Ashia thought then about killing them both. It would be simple. They were so lost in each other she doubted they would notice until it was too late. She could even make it seem an accident, as if the act had been too much for poor Asome’s heart. Her brother, distraught at his lover’s death, would have taken a knife to himself rather than live without.
Enkido had taught her to do those things, so cleanly that the Deliverer himself would never know.
She closed her eyes, living the fantasy fully, not daring to move lest she make it reality. She breathed, and eventually her center returned. She rose from the pillows, pulling her wedding robes back on, and left.
Her husband and brother did not notice.