A Lotus for the Regent (3 page)

“
I've always wanted to see the place you grew up,” said the Admiral,
and his voice was deep and carried easily. He was not speaking quietly, and
Ajalira knew every Lotus in the room could hear him.

“
Five peals?” One Lotus dared to murmur. “For a sight-seer?”

“
The Admiral is the richest man in the Sunjaa nation, except for the
Regent.” Another Lotus spoke up. “Perhaps he is going to buy another Lotus?”

“
The Guildmaster wouldn't sell him another.”

Ajalira ignored
the quiet words around her, focusing on the distant conversation between
Saerileth and the Guildmaster.

“
How many full-blown Lotuses do you have?” asked Saerileth. “I want
none older than myself, either.”

Ajalira furrowed
her brow. Why would Saerileth be discussing the purchase anyway? She could not
buy another of her kind.

“
We have only one full-blown Lotus younger than yourself, and she is
not for sale.” The Guildmaster sounded apologetic.

“
Who?” Saerileth asked.

“
Tamra.” The Guildmaster answered, and the sound carried more
clearly. Ajalira saw that some of the other Lotuses had heard this.

“
She can't be meaning to buy Tamra!”

“
What of Lotus Zarelia?” asked Saerileth. “Surely she is full-blown
by now. And she would be a year younger than I.”

“
Did you not hear?” The Guildmaster's pity was obvious. “Lotus
Zarelia died six months after you left us.”

“
How?” The voice was the Lord Admiral's.

“
She was murdered,” said the Guildmaster.

“
Murdered?” From the sounds, Ajalira suspected that the Admiral was
on his feet. “Who would murder a Lotus? Who
could
?”

“
A guest,” said the Guildmaster.

“
This death must be answered.” Saerileth, too, must have been
standing. “The death of a Lotus—it is unthinkable. Why did we not hear of
this?”

“
It was not something I wanted known.” Ajalira gave up on the
pretense of attending to her translations and boldly moved to the window.
Though the Guildmaster was receiving his guests in a chamber on the opposite of
the garden, she could see the three people framed in the window. The
Guildmaster waved back to the chairs the others had obviously just vacated. “I
had taken in a refugee, and my kindness was repaid with treachery. She set upon
us with a sword, and the woman was obviously highly-trained. She took down
Lotus Zarelia, a trainer, and two guards before we overpowered her. But have no
fear. The Lotus's death was answered. I gave the murderer muscarine.”

“
Ah.” Saerileth sat back down. “A just death.”

Ajalira heard
the words, but her mind refused to accept them. Muscarine. Lethal poison, and
one that caused a painful death over many hours. Muscarine. Death. Murder.

The garden swam
before her eyes just before blackness swallowed her up.

****

Ajalira sat up.
She was lying in her own chamber, and Evix was at her side. Her head throbbed,
and she could not remember how she had come here.

“
So my pet is awake.” Evix sat beside her, and he laid a cool cloth
on her brow. “You mustn't scare me like that. What if one of the other Lotuses
had been the first to tend to you? They might have felt your horns.”

Memory returned
then, and Ajalira shook from head to foot. Six years ago she had come here with
her heavily-pregnant mother, fleeing the Ausir civil war. Her mother had been
the last of the royal Tamari line, and they had hidden in the Dimadan while
their ship sailed on without them, decoying away their pursuit.

The Guildmaster
had wanted Ajalira in exchange for aiding them, for having an Ausir Lotus—when
he should at last reveal her species to clients—would have been a prize beyond
reckoning. But Princess Kirami had proudly refused to turn over her daughter,
and she had, in the tradition of all Tamari women, taken up the sword to defend
her own.

But Kirami was
past eight months gone with child, and though surprise and her own skill had
given her four kills, she was overwhelmed. It was at that moment Ajalira had
stepped forward. Though only twelve then, Ajalira had known what she was doing.
She had offered herself as a willing Lotus in exchange for her mother's life.
The Guildmaster had agreed, but her mother had died in childbed a week later.
The baby had not survived either, but Ajalira was Tamari. Her word was her
bond, and it was not the Guildmaster's fault her mother had died.

Or so she had
always thought until today.

Her mother had
been murdered.

Ajalira had sold
herself into slavery and prostitution, and the Guildmaster had betrayed her. He
had lied, and she was no longer bound to keep her word. He had not honored
their agreement. She was free. Dishonored, of course, sullied beyond recovery,
but free.

“
Ajalira? Pet?” Evix patted her shoulder. “What's wrong?”

Ajalira stared
at him. This man, this white-skinned, black-haired, Zenji human, ought by
rights to be her husband. It was not his fault he could not ask her to wed him.
They were both property of the guild. Not that she wanted to wed Evix. She did
not share his feelings, and she did not think it right that a Tamari Lady
should give her hand to a sterile Lotus-trainer. And yet to whom could she
honorably turn? Evix had had her maidenhead. He was the only one who could
cover her shame.

“
Evix.” Ajalira sat up and put her arms around her trainer. “I am
running away from the guild.”

“
What?” Ajalira had never heard such raw emotion in Evix's voice.
“For Abrexa's sake—
why
?”

“
I know you do not understand.” Ajalira shook her head. “Being a
Lotus is not a matter of pride to me. I hate it. I am … a whore.”

“
A Lotus is
not
a whore.” Evix leaned her head on his
shoulder. “She is a being above the rest of us, a flower of culture and beauty.”

“
I am a slave and a whore,” said Ajalira. “But no more. My honor no
longer holds me here.”

“
What do you mean?” Evix's kiss on her brow was as affectionate as
ever.

“
Do you know how I came to be here?” asked Ajalira. She tried to
force some love for this kind man into her heart. “How I came to be a Lotus,
even though I was twelve when I arrived?”

“
No.”

“
My mother sought asylum here, but she and the Guildmaster could not
agree. She fought for my honor, but I sold myself into slavery and shame to
save her life. I had thought she died in childbirth, but the Guildmaster killed
her with muscarine.” To hear it put so baldly brought tears to Ajalira's eyes.

“
I've been your trainer since your first menses,” said Evix, twining
one of her golden locks around his fingers. “And you've never spoken of this to
me. Not once.”

“
Why should I have?” Ajalira fixed her tear-filled eyes on him.
“There was nothing you or I could have done. But … you love me.” She raised her
finger to his lips. “You have told me this more than once, and I believe you. I
want you to come with me. We can flee this place and go somewhere we can live
as man and wife.”

“
You would take me with you, pet?” Evix kissed her fingertips. “But
how do you propose to flee? Where in the Dimadan can we go that we would not be
found at once?”

“
Nowhere in the Dimadan,” said Ajalira. “But the world is much bigger
than that. Is the Sunjaa Lord Admiral's ship still in port?”

“
No, they went with the moonsrise tide.”

“
But the pearl ship goes tomorrow,” said Ajalira. “We can creep
aboard and hide below decks. We need only hide for one day before we reach
Arinport, and then we will be free. If we find no place in Arinport, then we
will at least be at liberty to strike out farther west.” She did not speak of
returning to the Ausir. That she could not do, not while wedded to a
Lotus-trainer.

“
So you will be at the docks when?” Evix slipped his finger through
her hair and caressed one of her hidden horns.

“
As soon as the sun sets.” Ajalira knew that would give them only an
hour to hide before the ship set sail, but she did not want to give the sailors
too long to find them before putting to sea.

“
I will be there.” Evix kissed her brow once more. “Trust me, pet.”

****

The sunset
colors were gold and crimson and vermilion, and for the first time in six years
Ajalira did not hate the sky. Of course, shame still sat heavy in her chest.
There was no way to wipe out the past years, no way to bring back her chastity,
but at least she would not continue to dig herself deeper into disgrace. She
would give herself in marriage to the man who had the best claim on her, and
Evix, at least, would be happy.

She crouched
low under the gangplank, waiting for Evix's arrival. But as the minutes passed,
she feared he had given her up. If he did not come for her, what would that
mean? Would she be left to live in her humiliation, knowing that the man who
had had her maidenhead lived apart from her, taking other women in her place?

Rushing
footsteps from the direction of the compound sent the adrenalin rushing through
Ajalira. Had they missed her? Was she discovered?

“
Ajalira!” The Guildmaster himself.

Ajalira refused
to be dragged out from her hiding place kicking and screaming like a tantruming
child. No, she was a Tamari Lady, and she would die like one. She came out from
under the gangplank and stood to face her enemies.

“
What are you doing?” asked the Guildmaster. Ajalira could not read
his face or voice. He seemed perfectly calm, perfectly unruffled. “Where do you
think you are going?”

Ajalira did not
answer. She searched the path behind the Guildmaster for Evix. She hoped that
he would not come out now.

“
Looking for your trainer?” The Guildmaster gestured in the direction
of Ajalira's gaze. “Evix is not coming. Surely you didn't think he actually
cared
for you, did you?”

Ajalira
blinked. How could he know?

The other
Lotuses opened their mouths in small round shapes of shock. It was, Ajalira
knew, a great deal of expression for a Lotus.

“
She did, Guildmaster.” Lotus Tamra nodded toward Ajalira. “She thought
that Evix loved her!”

“
Evix doesn't care for you, girl. You're just one of his many
assignments, and one of the most disappointing he's ever had.”

Ajalira choked
on the bile rising in her throat. She had thought her situation painful enough
when she believed Evix loved her, but to know that she was nothing to him, that
he had fucked her for years and had thought of her as a task only—she could not
breathe from the horror.

“
Take her back with us.” The Guildmaster gestured to Lotus Tamra, but
Ajalira raised her hand.

“
There is no need to paralyze me. I will walk back with you.” Ajalira
moved forward.

“
What am I to do with you?” The Guildmaster grabbed her by the
wrists. “What you have done is unprecedented. You are so bad that I have no way
to respond.” He shook his head. “You have disgraced every Lotus ever to wear
that tattoo. You have disgraced your trainers and tutors. You are shame cloaked
in flesh.”

That Ajalira
did not dispute. Death seemed sweeter now than ever before, sweeter and yet as
unattainable. Suicide was cowardice, and for her, the last of the Tamari royal
blood, it was unthinkable. She had a duty to live, and she would not fail in
it. She stood silently, her wrists still in the Guildmaster's clasp.

“
You cannot be allowed to live among the Lotuses whom you have
shamed.”

“
Certainly not.” Lotus Tamra allowed enough of her distaste to show
for Ajalira to see it.

“
But we cannot let you go, either. Not only because that is what you
have desired—and having brought such disgrace upon the guild as you have done
you do not deserve to have anything—but also because someone might have seen
you here, as a Lotus. You would besmirch our reputation everywhere you went.”

And
, thought Ajalira,
it would be known that you had had an Ausir
here, and Ausir refuse to accept that people can be property. Who knows what
that news would do to your guild?
Of course, the Ausir civil war meant that
perhaps it would not affect the guild at all, but it was not a chance the canny
Guildmaster would take.

“
I have no punishment sufficient for your crime.” The Guildmaster
shrugged.