Despite whatever rank each palace name might imply, the inside of the Otter looked much like the Mole. Two long outer hallways with interior rooms branching off and a vaulted thatched roof high overhead. Woven rugs in bright colors hung from the walls, and across from each thatch door was an alcove that contained a small ceremonial figurine. Here, fittingly, they were otters.
The boy led him to the last door in the hallway and knocked before entering. “Lord Balam of the House of Seven, Merchant Lord of Cuecola, Patron of the Crescent Sea, White Jaguar by Birthright,” he announced, and Balam was impressed that he had taken the time to learn his address.
The room was dominated by a low table surrounded by sitting cushions, and through a doorway farther in, Balam spotted low reed bedding draped with fabrics, the packed dirt floors swept clean. A woman rose and came into the front room to meet him. Her deep plum hair coiled down her back, and she wore a sea-green robe wrapped tightly around the pronounced curves of her body. She carried a bottle of xtabentún in one hand and gestured to the table. He lowered himself onto a cushion, and she joined him, plunking the bottle down between them.
The boy hurried to a side shelf and retrieved two small clay cups and set them on the table.
She rolled dulled eyes to him. “You can go back to the Grand Palace to await my mother, but remember, not a word to anyone.” She pressed a cloth bag that rattled with cacao into his hand. He bowed smartly before departing.
“So we meet again,” she said, pouring Balam a drink. “And once more, I find myself in jail.” She slid the cup toward him, her rainbow eyes taking him in.
“A much nicer cell than the one in Kuharan.”
She laughed, the sound bitter. “Still a jail.”
“A princess,” he said, smiling. “You surprise me.”
She made a face of distaste as she poured herself a drink, although it was apparent she had already been drinking directly from the bottle. “I don’t know what game my mother is playing. The Teek do not have royalty. We barely have a government at all. Just village elders and grandmothers.”
“And yet your mother comes claiming the title and the authority.”
“To impress the likes of you,” She downed the drink in a long swallow and poured herself another. “Lords and matrons and the Sovran. But her power is not unilateral. When she returns, they will argue her decisions in the listening house just like anyone else’s.”
Like most outsiders, Balam knew nothing of how the Teek governed. It was impossible to infiltrate their insular islands and floating cities. They had limited trade and no tourism and were notorious for killing anyone who did not respect their rules. Xiala, princess or no, had told him more in a few moments than he had been able to glean in a decade of spying.
“And so why did you call me here?” he asked. “It is not to renegotiate our agreement, I hope.”
She blinked her large eyes at him.
He smiled. “Now I jest. I have heard that you successfully brought our mutual friend to Tova.”
“To die!” She said it with such venom that he flinched, his fingers tightening involuntarily around his cup.
“It was his choice.” He set his cup to the side and folded his hands on the table.
She pressed the meat of her palm against her left eye, as if her head ached. “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t die, or at least he was still alive two weeks ago when I left Tova. I do not know how he fares now.”
It was nothing he did not already know from his own sources. “You still have not told me why you asked to see me.”
“I need you to help me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“They’re planning to ship me back to Teek.”
“I would think you would want to return to your homeland after thinking yourself banished all these years. Particularly since your welcome in Hokaia is compromised.”
She slammed her palm down, rattling the cups. The bottle tipped, splashing the table with liquor before she righted it. “Get me out of this! I know your kind, Balam. You have a plan, something that benefits you.”
“I hardly think—”
“Cut the shit.”
He paused, mouth open. There was opportunity here, as there always was with the desperate. But he needed to find his advantage. “Very well. Let’s say I do. Surely you know I am not an altruistic man.”
“Spring me from my mother’s tender care, and I’ll sail your ships for you. Expand your trade. Whatever it is you need.”
He sat silently, making a show of thinking, but he already knew exactly what he wanted.
“I cannot save you from returning to Teek. You and I both know that this is not the time to challenge your mother’s authority.”
“But—”
He raised a hand to silence her. “I propose a working arrangement of a limited duration.”
She drank from her cup. “Go on.”
“Return to Teek, and be my spy. We plan for war, Xiala, and I find this trusting of allies tedious business. I need someone who is close to the queen”—he stopped her again when she began to protest—“and when this war is over, I will give you whatever you want. A ship, no, a fleet of ships. Riches beyond your imagination.” He leaned across the table, his voice low with promise. “I will give you Teek itself if that is what you want.”
Her eyes flashed, and he felt the air shift, the same feeling he had gotten on the docks that first day they met, the same feeling that had preluded Pech’s demise. He knew she drew her magic to her, but to what end? Had he pushed too far, asked too much? He half expected her mother and the Teek guard to burst through the doors and accuse him of treachery. He pressed his long sharpened nail to his palm, ready to draw blood and call shadow.
“What you ask is treason against my own people,” she said. “For that, I want something more than riches.”
“Name it.”
“I want you to save him.”
At first, he did not know who she meant, but there was only one man they had in common. And the look on her face—he knew it well, for he had felt it himself, if only once.
“Ah, the heart is a terrible thing. You have fallen in love with him.”
“He does not deserve to die.”
“So seems to be the consensus.” He thought of Powageh’s similar protests. “Tell me, truly. What makes him so special? Ten thousand will die for this war. What is one more?”
She set her jaw. “That is my price.”
He sat back. “Very well. I will spare him when we take Tova.” He meant it not at all, of course. Serapio was too dangerous to let live, but if a small lie now would bring her to his side, it was easily made.
“Tell the truth!”
Her voice vibrated with power, the far roar of a coming wave. Her eyes swirled, pools of color that a man could drown in. He felt her power now, different from what had happened at the feast. This was compulsion, the yearning to splay his secrets out before her. He dug his fingernail deep into his palm. His mouth began to open, and he bit his tongue. He brought his hand up and slapped his bloody palm across his lips.
She Sang for a moment more, but his sorcery was already weaving around him, protection from her magic. She exhaled, the air rippling before her, and stopped. Her shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Sorcerer,” she spat.
But it had been a near thing. He had thought himself immune to such magics, but twice in as many days, Xiala had almost overpowered him. Tuun’s quick thinking had thrown a protective shield over him at the feast, and now his own magic saved him, but both instances were too dangerous for his liking. Perhaps Serapio was not the only one of this pair who was too dangerous to let live. Only when he was sure he could control his words did he release the protection spell. His hands trembled. “That was not nice.”
“I am not nice,” she shot back, unbowed. “Do not cross me on this, Balam. Or I will find you when you least expect and bind your blood in your veins and Sing the flesh from your bones and your bones to crack until there is nothing left of you but your name, and even then people will fear to speak it should I find them and do the same to them!”
“A shark after all,” he said, after a moment. His drink sat untouched, but now he reached his unbloodied hand forward and took the cup. He sipped from it, and a steadying warmth suffused his body and calmed his shaken nerves. “Very well. We have an agreement.”
“And one more thing.”