The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“We have puras, who mate with us and bring us pleasure and give us company. You have a pura, do you not? The prince who hunted in the grass.”

“He is my husband,” she said, amazed that her voice emerged so evenly despite the turbulence of her thoughts. He is my beloved husband, but I scarcely know him.

“Oh! You are allowed husbands in the western lands, are you not? It is a custom common among barbarian women. If you don’t want your husband anymore, then perhaps I might have him as my pura, if you are willing to trade him to me. It is true I get lonely.”

What an idiot she had been to think that walking away from Sanglant’s anger would make the trouble go away. Over the years Sanglant had, perhaps, come to believe she would never return; maybe he had mourned her loss and, then, been blindsided by her reappearance. On top of that he was horribly wounded. The servant girl, Anna, had told her of his devotion to Blessing and how he had agonized over their daughter’s unnatural maturation. Anna had spoken a very little bit of their journey east, but only Li’at’dano’s words had brought home to Liath what a massive undertaking it was to lead a western army so far into the wilderness. Sanglant understood the threat Anne and the others posed; he was not afraid to face them down.

o;I am no warrior either, although at times I must fight. After everything I have seen, I wish it were not to a war that I have returned, for there is so much to learn and to study. This war seems like a desert to me, a barren wasteland. But still, it must be crossed.”

“You speak as if with my own heart.” Sorgatani’s earrings chimed as she shifted on her cushion. Her words seemed freighted with reticence, the speech of a woman shy of speaking her deepest feelings because she had never had a close companion before, only the comradeship of duty, the tutelage of one more powerful than she, and the inevitability of the isolated life that she would inherit when she came fully into her powers.

Power frightened those who did not possess it, and well it might when It resided in the flesh of an otherwise ordinary woman.

“You must be lonely,” said Liath. The bitterness of the solitude she had suffered with her father as they lived as fugitives all those years was as fresh now as it had been when she had lived through it. It was impossible to trust when you were always running. It was hard to clasp hands with people soon to be left behind, never to be met again. Her years in Heart’s Rest had been Da’s last gift to her, and giving that precious respite to her, granting her the time to develop affectionate bonds with Hanna and Ivar, had killed him. He had given his enemies time to catch up with him, because he wanted to make his daughter happy.

Impulsively, Liath reached out. “We are alike, you and I. We might be sisters.” She grasped the other woman’s dark hand.

A spark burst where their skin touched. A report like the clap of thunder deafened her as she recoiled. The servants leaped up, bells jangling, but Liath nursed her hand and, when tears stopped stinging and she had enough courage, turned it over to examine it. Red blisters bubbled on her palm. They burned like sin.

“I pray you, forgive me!”

“Nay, you must forgive me.” Sorgatani sounded near tears. She cracked an order at the servants, and the older one hurried to the chest and brought out a tiny leather bottle. Bowing low before Liath, she produced a salve and, when Liath held out her burned hand, smoothed the sweet-smelling paste over the burned skin.

“I should have warned you not to touch me,” continued Sorgatani. “I should not have let you sit so close. If I could wish one thing it would be that you do not abandon me, now that you know the truth. You see how it is.”

“I see how it is,” said Liath, wonderingly, lifting her gaze. The sting had dissipated the sorcerous veil that disguised the Kerayit girl’s features. She could now see Sorgatani clearly—a beautiful, almond-eyed woman no older than herself, with black hair neatly confined in braids, an oval face broad at the cheekbones, and a lovely dark complexion. “I see you. I could not see you clearly before.”

Sorgatani stared back, taking her measure, and they both smiled and, in unison, glanced down. Liath blew on her palm. The cooling touch of her breath and of the salve eased the pain.

“May no person touch you? Can you never have a husband?”

“No Kerayit woman will ever have a husband. That is the law. We are the daughters of the Horse people. Just as they have no husbands, so do I and my sisters have no husband. There was one of us who married many years ago—it was allowed because he was her luck. When he died, the luck passed into the body of her son. They are both dead now, mother and son. Such is fate.”

“Do you live always alone, confined in this wagon?” Such a fate seemed so ghastly to Liath that she struggled to hide the pity in her tone. Sorgatani deserved better than pity.

“We have puras, who mate with us and bring us pleasure and give us company. You have a pura, do you not? The prince who hunted in the grass.”

“He is my husband,” she said, amazed that her voice emerged so evenly despite the turbulence of her thoughts. He is my beloved husband, but I scarcely know him.

“Oh! You are allowed husbands in the western lands, are you not? It is a custom common among barbarian women. If you don’t want your husband anymore, then perhaps I might have him as my pura, if you are willing to trade him to me. It is true I get lonely.”

What an idiot she had been to think that walking away from Sanglant’s anger would make the trouble go away. Over the years Sanglant had, perhaps, come to believe she would never return; maybe he had mourned her loss and, then, been blindsided by her reappearance. On top of that he was horribly wounded. The servant girl, Anna, had told her of his devotion to Blessing and how he had agonized over their daughter’s unnatural maturation. Anna had spoken a very little bit of their journey east, but only Li’at’dano’s words had brought home to Liath what a massive undertaking it was to lead a western army so far into the wilderness. Sanglant understood the threat Anne and the others posed; he was not afraid to face them down.

“He is still my husband, although we have been apart for so long. Have you no men in your own tribe whom you desire?”

Sorgatani’s shrug had an eloquent lift. “How is your hand?” she said instead. “Will it heal? Have I scarred you?”

Liath turned up her hands to expose the lighter skin of her palms. “It’s gone already,” she said, surprised to find it so. The merest sting, like the probing of a bee, and a sheeny pink flush shading the skin were all that betrayed which hand had touched Sorgatani.

“You are very powerful! I hope we can become allies.”

“I hope we can become friends.”

Sorgatani’s smile was, like a rare flower, beautiful and precious and bright.

Hammering blows stuttered against the door. The entire structure shuddered. In a cacophony of bells, the younger servant leaped up and slid the door sideways enough to peer through. Torchlight flashed through that gap. Outside, amazingly, night had fallen although Liath had no sense of so much time elapsing while she conversed with Sorgatani.

“Bright One!” The shaman’s powerful voice had the force of an avalanche. Even Sorgatani, unwittingly, trembled.