Stormdancer (25 page)

The prison was a stinking cesspit of oily stone and rancid air. A forgotten hole into which Kigen justice poured criminals spared from death in the arena or outright execution; a pitiful, lucky few. Debtors and thugs, petty thieves and one-percenters crammed into tiny cells with bars of pitted iron and rotten straw on the floor. No sunlight. No air. Stale bread and black water and bare rock for a pillow.

The gate guard had taken one look at Hiro in his golden tabard and hissing, clanking suit of ō-yoroi before fumbling for his keys and opening the gate to the cell block. He bobbed and shuffled along a dank corridor, looking back over his shoulder every few feet as if to make sure they were still with him. Beckoning them down twisting stairs into the reeking dark. Small rats scurried away from the torchlight in the guard’s hand, larger ones with tails thick as Yukiko’s thumb standing their ground and screeching in defiance. Buzzing lotusflies swam in corpse- stench as they passed one cell. She covered her mouth and averted her eyes.

The guard halted deep in the prison bowels, indicating a cell door at the end of the corridor. Handing the torch over, he bobbed his head again at Hiro and retreated a respectful distance. Yukiko turned to the Iron Samurai, nodding toward the cell.

“I would speak to my father alone, Lord Hiro.”
He bowed, whirring gears and hissing chi smoke.
“As you wish, Lady.”
She approached the cell with slow, heavy tread, torch held high, heart breaking when she saw the pale, filthy figure hunched in the cage. Naked but for a vomit-stained rag, gray skin glistening with a sheen of sallow sweat, palsied with the agony of lotus de-tox. Teeth chattering, head bowed, arms clasped about his knees. Locked in a private hell and not stirring an inch at the light’s approach.

She knelt in front of the cell door, jamming the torch between the bars. Flickering light crept across Masaru’s tattoos, the nine-tailed fox seeming to dance among the shadows. She reached toward him, fingers spread. The reek of the bucket in the corner made her want to retch.

He lifted his head slowly and squinted at the light, knotted tangles of graying hair hanging in dirty strings over his face. Recognition broke through the crust of withdrawal and he blinked, eyes widening, uncurling from his crouch.

Izanagi, take me. Are you real, or another smoke vision?”
“It’s me, father.” She tried to smile, tears rolling down her cheeks, clasping
his hand between the bars. “It’s your Ichigo.”
His face was alight with joy, creeping past the pain and shining in his eyes.
“I thought you were dead!”
“No.” She squeezed his hand. “I saved him, father. The arashitora. He’s here
with me.”
“Gods above . . .”
“Where is Kasumi? Akihito?”
“Gone.” He shook his head, dropped his gaze to the floor. “I commanded
them to flee before we reached the city gates. I knew Yoritomo’s wrath would
be black. Yamagata . . .”
“I know. I know what Yoritomo did. To Yamagata. To us. I know everything,
father.”
He glanced up, confusion and fear dilating his pupils. The creases at the
corners of his mouth and eyes were cut deep; dark furrows in gray stone, scars
of a torturous secret held for years. Drowning the pain in lotus smoke, seeking
oblivion in drinking dens and gambling pits, hoping for some kind of end to it
all. Hollow respite from the secret twisting inside, whispering in the dark. The
secret they now shared.
“You . . .” There were tears in his eyes. The first time she had ever seen them.
“You know?”
“I know.”
His sigh seemed to come from the depths of him, someplace dark and poisonous, an exhalation of the toxin he’d breathed since that crushing day. Some
part of her had known, had always known. Ever since he’d crouched down beside her in the Shōgun’s garden and told her that her mother was gone, that she
had left and would never be coming back. That Yukiko couldn’t say goodbye.
And she had blamed him. She had hated him for it.
“Naomi . . .” His voice cracked at the name. “Your mother, she begged Yoritomo to release me from his service. Beseeched him on behalf of our family.
The babe in her belly. You had grown up without me. She did not want that life
for our new child. The Shōgun smiled and nodded, told us he would think on
it. That he would give us his answer on the morrow.”
Masaru blinked hard, screwing his face up tight and willing away the tears.
Yukiko held his hand as hard as she could, reached out and brushed his cheeks. “They killed her the next morning. I returned from the bathhouse and found
her still in bed. Eyes closed. Throat cut.” His voice broke. “The blood . . .” He stared down at his open, empty palm, silent for a long, terrible moment,
eyes filled with hatred.
“I snatched up the nagamaki his father had given me, and went in search of
Yoritomo, intending to take his head. I found him on a terrace overlooking the
garden, watching you play with the sparrows. He was only a boy, barely thirteen, but he looked at me with the eyes of a madman. And do you know what
he said?”
Masaru hung his head, swallowing thickly, “ ‘If you defy me again, I will take
everything you have left. Everything.’ ” A low growl. “ ‘And I will hurt it first.’ ” He punched the floor beneath him, splitting his knuckles, bone grating
across stone.
“Then he smiled down at you and walked away, without a backward glance.”
Masaru ran a hand across his eyes, smearing his face with blood. “I couldn’t
tell you. If you knew what he had done, he might have seen you as a threat.
And so I told you she had left. I told everyone that she had left. It was easy to
believe. I was never home. I had been unfaithful. But I loved her, Ichigo. Despite everything, I did not stop loving her for a moment. And you were all I
had left of her.”
He looked up at her, face streaked with blood and grief. “I could not lose
you too.”
The tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks, pattering on the floor with
the sound of rain. Washing it all away, the hate, the anger, leaving her with the
knowledge that she had wronged this man. That he had shackled himself to a
madman’s throne so her life would be spared.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, squeezing her fingers.
“Forgive me,” she begged.
He reached through the bars and pulled her close, the metal between them pressing into their flesh as they embraced. She could feel the hard muscle coiled beneath gray skin, the strength in his arms beneath the lotus tremors. But it was nothing compared to the will it must have taken to kneel every day,
to give up all he was for the sake of his daughter. A strength beyond strength. She could hear the words he had spoken to her on the Thunder Child, ringing in her mind as clearly as if he had said them aloud. And at last, she understood what he had meant.
“One day you will see that we must sometimes sacrifice for the sake of something greater.”
“I’m going to get you out of here,” she whispered, holding him tight. “I
promise.”

Hideo’s pale voice traveled the length of the reception hall and into the throne room, up the woven red carpet and among the high tapestries swaying in the afternoon breeze. The minister clapped his staff against the floor three times, and the Iron Samurai manning the doorway stepped aside as one, perfectly timed; a silicone- slick machine precision to match that of the Lotusman.

The courtiers gathered in the hall outside parted respectfully, fluttering fans in front of painted faces and elaborate breathers, eyes staring behind goggles of tinted glass or slitted against the long afternoon light shearing through the windows. Representatives from every zaibatsu in Shima were present at Yoritomo’s court. Emissaries from the Daimyo of the Ryu clan stood in their rippling blue silks, obi fashioned like dragon scales. A cluster of Kitsune nobles, skin pale as snow, thick as thieves, shrouded in kimono of whispering black, glaring across the court at their Dragon neighbors and muttering darkly behind their fans. Beautiful men and women from the Fushicho lands, flesh around their eyes shaded with the color of flame, blond streaks bleached in their hair, breathtaking finery the hue of newborn sunflowers bleeding through to vibrant orange. As always, the Phoenix did their best to ignore the obvious enmity between Dragon and Fox, concentrating instead on outshining both. Of course, the vast majority of the assembly was clad in red: brilliant, bloody red, the symbol of the Tiger clan embroidered on their robes in precious golden thread. Each of them fell silent now, the innuendo and gossip fading to nothing as Shateigashira Kensai, Second Bloom, the voice of the Guild in Kigen city himself stepped through the double doors and approached the throne room.

The hiss of gears, the song of the mechabacus on his chest. Heavy tread sounded upon the carpet, the dying day glittering in those blood-red, faceted eyes. Kensai was a monster of a man: six feet tall and almost as broad, impressive bulk stuffed inside an indulgently decorated atmos- suit. The metal was crafted to emulate hard lines of muscle, embossed with gothic flourishes and filigree in the pattern of a tiger’s stripes. But his face was an anomaly; the features of a beautiful gilded youth, retching up a lungful of chattering iron cable.

Hands in fists, breath hissing through his bellows, the Second Bloom stopped before the throne with barely a bow. His backpack spat a mouthful of chi smoke into the air as the Iron Samurai closed the doors behind him. Spring- driven ceiling fans clicked and swayed in the exposed beams high overhead. Somewhere in the distance a servant roamed the halls, ringing in the Hour of the Wasp on his iron bell.

Yoritomo had watched the Guildsman approach, languid in the heat, face impassive behind a small indoor respirator. Rumor had it that Kensai was a bloated pig beneath his suit; the sheets of metallic muscle were a facade hiding slabs of soft, spotted blubber, the beautiful childlike face covering a mongrel visage that not even a mother could love. Hideo also had it on good authority that Kigen’s Second Bloom had a predilection for gaijin women. Imagining the sweaty, faceless hog soiling himself with some poor, abducted barbarian girl, Yoritomo found it easy to ignore Kensai’s intimidating stature. The Shōgun actually found himself stifling a smile at the scandal.

“Shateigashira,” he nodded. “Voice of Chapterhouse Kigen. You honor us with your presence.”
“The honor is mine, Seii Taishōgun, Conqueror of Eastern Barbarians, equal of heaven.” Kensai’s voice was a deep, metallic rumble, completely at odds with the youthful lines of his mask. “Amaterasu shine on your fields, and bring bounty to your people.”
“You are here to discuss the bicentennial, I presume? I trust my saddle will be ready on schedule?”
Hideo materialized beside Yoritomo’s throne, the long stem of his pipe resting on bloodless lips. The throne itself was twice as tall as the little minister, a twisting amalgam of golden tigers, sweeping lines and silken cushions. Tapestries swayed in the dirty breeze, slapping against the columns behind. The pillars were black granite shot through with cobalt, sleek and polished as the Guildsman’s eyes.
“The venerable Second Bloom wishes to discuss the Kitsune girl, great Lord.” Hideo bowed, exhaling a puff of sweet blue- black, narrowing his bloodshot stare.
“Ah,” Yoritomo nodded. “My arashitora wrangler. What of her?”
“Forgive me, great Lord.” The Guildsman gave an almost imperceptible bow, barely worth the charade. “I wish to give no cause for insult, nor weaken the ties of friendship and honor that bind First House and your court together. I know you have offered shelter to this girl in your own—”
“Spit it out, Kensai.” Yoritomo’s eyes flashed, pretense sliced to ribbons and slumped bleeding on the floor. “We both know why you are here.”
“The girl is Impure, great Lord.” His voice was a storm of bumblebees, plump and chitinous. “Tainted by the blood of yōkai. As is commanded in the Book of Ten Thousand Days, her filth must be cleansed. Purity’s Way must be walked.”
“Mrnm.” Yoritomo did his best to look troubled. “Yōkai-kin, you say?”
“It is our deepest- held suspicion, Seii Taishōgun. The incident with the Lady Aisha’s dog. The way she handles the arashitora . . .”
“Suspicion?” A raised eyebrow. “You mean to say you have no proof?”
A long pause, filled by the sound of the mechabacus spooling on Kensai’s chest. As Yoritomo and Hideo watched, the Guildsman reached up and flicked several of the beads across to the other side. His tone was that of a man choosing his words with utmost care.
“With all due respect, great Lord . . . since when has proof ever been required?”

The guest suite sprawled along the western wing of the palace, thin rice-paper walls, polished teak and no real privacy at all. Every inch dripped with excess. The furniture was hand-carved, masterpieces by Ryu Kamakura and Fushicho Ashikaga hung on the walls, long aquariums of clouded beach glass were set into the floor and populated with thin, miserable koi fish in all colors of the rainbow. But it all felt pompous. Fake. Coin spent not for the comfort of the guest, but for the sake of the Shōgun’s majesty.

Yukiko turned to Hiro, hovering by the door.
“You can come in if you like.”
“That would be unseemly.” His armor sang as he shook his head. “Lady Aisha would have me branded if she discovered I had entered a Lady’s bedchamber unaccompanied.”

“So, are you just going to sit outside?”
“Hai.”
Yukiko thought she could hear a smile hidden behind his fearsome iron

mask.
“Can you take that thing off?” She pointed to the mempō. “I’ve seen enough
oni to last a lifetime.”
“You have seen oni?” To his credit, there was only a small trace of skepti
cism in the samurai’s voice. “Where?”
“It’s a long story.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Can you just take
it off, please? I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me under that thing.” Hiro worked the clasp at his throat, the faceplate swung away with a wet
sucking sound and he peeled the helm from his head. His hair was plastered to
his scalp, face damp with sweat. Strong jaw, small pointed goatee, smooth
cheeks beneath those glittering, wonderful eyes.
“I am not making fun of you, Lady.”
She stared for a long moment, remembering her dreams and feeling that
ridiculous flush rising in her cheeks again. She chided herself; a quick, seething
anger that banished the nocturnal fantasies, reminding her that her father and
best friend were imprisoned by her mother’s murderer. If she could have
slapped herself, she would have.
You have more important things to think about than boys.
“I need a bath and a change of clothes.” She tried to keep her voice even; it
wasn’t his fault she was being an idiot. “So find yourself a comfortable chair in
the hallway.”
Hiro smiled, covered his fist with a small bow. Stuffing his oni helm beneath one arm, he backed out of the room, sliding the door shut behind him.
She could see his silhouette painted on the rice-paper by the scarlet sun, like a
shadow puppet from the festival pantomimes. Stalking into the dressing room,
she sat down in front of the looking glass and began attacking her tangles, refusing to think any more about dreams or childish fantasies or the boy waiting
outside her bedroom door.
The girl reflected in the mirror was filthy: chi-stained skin, dirt and oni
blood spattered across her clothes, bare feet, knuckles scabbed.
She felt ugly. Ugly like this city and the people who ruled it.
The suite had a private bathhouse, and she soaked in the deliciously warm
water for what seemed like hours, watching dried blood and sweat reconstitute
and form a dirty scum across the surface. The shampoo smelled like wisteria.
She drifted, eyes closed, remembering the village in the trees. The knife in her
hand. The blood on the floor.
The promise.
In the solitude and rippling hush, she gradually became aware of an emptiness inside her. It was as if someone had taken a piece of her and pulled it away,
so slowly and gently that she didn’t notice until there was only a hollow left
behind. But now it ached. There was an absence in her head, the feeling that
she’d forgotten something as vital as her own name or the shape of her face. She tried to grasp the feeling, to find a source. Her father? Her mother? And
then she blinked, running her hand over her eyes.
Buruu.
She missed him. Not like a lotus-fiend missed his fix, or a drunkard his
bottle. It was a softer longing, gentle and sad and deep; the lonely ache of a
morning without birdsong, or a flower without sunlight. She reached out with
the Kenning and felt him on the periphery, a smudge of heat on the edges of
her senses. And though she was too far away to hear his reply, she pushed out
toward him; a mute, clumsy affection, the ache of his absence.
I miss you, brother.
She closed her eyes, felt warm tears in her lashes.
I need you.
Drying herself off, she heard the outer door to the bathhouse slide open.
She reached down into her dirty clothes, wrapped her hand around the handle
of her tantō.
“Hiro-san?” she called.
A small figure appeared in the doorway; a girl about her age with perfect
skin and big, beautiful eyes, dark as ebony and smeared with kohl. Her lips
were plump, pouting, glistening with a long vertical stripe of deep red paint.
White cherry blossoms drifted across the silk of her beautiful scarlet furisode
robe. Her hair was tied up in an exquisite coil, pierced with ivory needles and
blood-red tassels. She held an enormous bundle of clothing in her arms, straining under the weight, her long sleeves dragging on the ground.
“Forgive me, Lady.” She bowed at the knees, eyes on the floor. “The Mistress
of the house bid me to bring you these.”
“Lady Aisha?”
“Hai.” The girl bowed again, placed the bundle at her feet. “I am Tora Michi.
My honorable Mistress asks that when you are bathed and rested, you visit her
for tea. She wishes to convey her heartfelt gratitude to you for Tomo.” “Tomo?”
“Her dog, Lady.” The girl politely covered her mouth to hide the smile. “She
wished you to have this jûnihitoe to wear for the occasion. She commands that
I help you dress.”
“Um, that’s all right.” Yukiko eyed the pile of fabric with vague suspicion.
“You can leave it there.”
“Have you ever worn jûnihitoe before, Lady?”
“. . . No.”
The smile grew wide enough that the girl’s hand couldn’t cover it. “Then you will need my help.”
It took an hour to get into the dress, and by the end of the procedure, Yukiko had sworn a dozen times that she would never wear one of the damned things again. Layer upon layer was wrapped about her: undergarments of white silk first, eleven more layers to follow, each more complicated than the last. The
outfit must have weighed a good forty pounds.
When the dressing was done, Michi applied make-up to Yukiko’s face:
bone-white powder for her skin, thick kohl around her eyes, that same vertical
stripe of red paint for her lips. Her hair was twisted up into a broad coil, held in
place by golden combs. The girl peered over Yukiko’s shoulder into the looking
glass when she was done and smiled.
“You are very beautiful, Kitsune Yukiko.”
“All this just for tea?”
Michi covered her grin.
“Lady Aisha is the sister to the Shōgun. Most ladies of the court would
spend an entire day preparing for an audience with her.”
“Gods, what a waste. There are people out in the street begging for bread
right now.”
Michi tilted her head to one side, narrowed eyes, bee- stung lips pressed
tight together.
“We should depart. The Lady will be waiting.”
Walking in the jûnihitoe proved just as cumbersome as putting the thing
on. The hem of the dress was tight around her ankles, and Yukiko found she
could only manage short, shuffling steps across the polished boards. When
Michi opened the bedroom door, Hiro was still kneeling on the other side. He
caught sight of Yukiko and snapped to his feet with a whine of gears and a spitting hiss of exhaust, leaving his jaw behind on the floor.
“You . . .” Hiro stammered. “You look . . .”
“Ridiculous,” Yukiko said. “So the less said about it, the better.” Hiro marched behind as the girls shuffled into the palace proper. Polished
pinewood boards stretched in every direction, rice-paper walls adorned with
beautiful artwork and long blood-red amulets of curling paper, scribed with
protective kanji. Ceiling fans creaked overhead in the stifling heat, and Yukiko
felt a bead of sweat running down her spine to the small of her back where her
tantō was hidden. Servants stopped and bowed at the knees as they passed,
eyes on the floor. By the time the trio reached the gardens, Yukiko’s feet were
throbbing, calf muscles protesting at the bizarre, shuffling gait she’d been forced
to adopt.
They walked along a broad veranda, sweeping gardens to their left, the
hoarse chirping of miserable sparrows piercing the reek. The trees were bent, twisted, leaves a sickly shade of gray. A large stone statue of Hachiman spilled cloudy water from its hands into a little creek, but Yukiko could see no koi fish swimming below the surface; just dead leaves and smooth, round stones. She remembered playing in these gardens as a child, chasing the birds, searching in vain for butterflies. She remembered her father kneeling down in front of her,
telling her that her mother was gone. That she wasn’t coming back. She blinked back the threat of tears and coughed, lotus pall creeping across
her tongue. Squinting up at the darkening afternoon sky, she saw that it was
the color of old blood.
The bushimen guards murmured as they passed, more and more of the
scarlet tabards appearing as they proceeded deeper into the palace. When
they reached the royal wing, the scarlet was replaced with golden tabards of the
Kazumitsu Elite, simple iron breastplates traded for great hissing suits of ō-yoroi.
The Iron Samurai would bow to Hiro, fists covered with one palm, and he
would stop and return the gesture, the pistons and gears of his armor singing.
Once the formalities were done, the Elite would look at her, silent as ghosts,
curious eyes behind their oni masks.
The hallway floorboards creaked and chirped beneath their feet: the song of
the so-called “nightingale floors,” meant to dissuade assassins and the unwelcome eavesdropping of nosy servants. Yukiko felt eyes upon her even when nobody was around, her skin prickling with unease. The robes were heavy, stifling,
and she wished for all the world to be back in her simple uwagi and simple life. The creaking stairs up to the tearoom were torture. Hiro knelt on the
ground just outside as Michi slid open a set of double doors and announced
her name. Yukiko stumbled inside, nearly tripping, blinking in the gathering
dusk amidst the tittering of a dozen young girls.
“Shhh,” hissed the Lady Aisha, snapping her fingers. The giggling died immediately.
Yukiko stepped out of her sandals and peered around the room. Walls
painted with tiger motifs, prowling in a stylized jungle. Balcony overlooking
the garden, piteous sparrow song drifting through the open doors, entwined
with a blessedly cool breeze. Mats of lotus wicker across the floor, a low table in
the middle of the room surrounded by silken cushions. A dozen serving girls
in scarlet furisode lurked on the periphery, staring at her with unmasked curiosity. But it was the woman in the center who caught Yukiko’s attention and
held it tight.
The Lady Aisha was a few years older than she, a woman in the prime of her
beauty. She seemed carved out of alabaster, a statue come down from its pedestal to swim among the flesh. Make-up, hair, dress, everything about her was immaculate. High cheekbones, rivers of coiled, raven locks, full, painted lips. Yukiko wondered how many serving girls had slaved for how many hours, all for the sake of her appearance. Though the Lady was stunning—breathtaking in fact—all Yukiko felt was disgust; a disdain at the wealth on display, the effort behind the facade. She could feel it roiling behind her teeth as she pressed
her forehead to the floor.
“Lady Tora Aisha.”
“Kitsune Yukiko,” Aisha replied, husky, smoke- scarred. “We thank you for
visiting us.”
“It is my honor, Lady.”
The terrier in Aisha’s lap bounded down to the floor, bounced up to Yukiko
and started licking her ear. She sat upright, squirming, and a chorus of bright
laughter rang out again from the legion of serving girls. Aisha drew her fanshaped respirator from within her sleeve to cover her smile. Yukiko ruffled the
puppy’s ears, feeling the world fall away beneath her feet, the vertigo of the
Kenning turning the earth upside-down.
Hello! Happy! Play?
Yukiko felt Buruu’s absence like a fresh wound as she stared into the puppy’s eyes.
Not now, little one.
The puppy barked and danced in a small circle.
“Come, sit with me, Kitsune Yukiko,” said Aisha.
Yukiko dragged herself forward on her knees until she knelt before the table. The puppy gnawed at the geta sandals she had left by the door. She watched
Aisha prepare the tea; a stylized, elegant dance of pot and saucer and sweet- smelling steam. Three of the girls began plucking at shamisen, filling the air
with soft, hypnotic music. The instruments were almost six feet long, crafted
of exquisitely carved kiri wood, inlaid with mother- of-pearl. They were played
laid flat on the floor, the girls kneeling beside them, striking the thirteen
strings with fingers and thumbs. The wavering notes were long and sweet, almost melancholy in parts, as if the instruments were searching in vain for a
voice beautiful enough to match their own.
“They tell me that you captured a thunder tiger.” Aisha’s eyes were fixed on
the tea service, scooping a bowlful into Yukiko’s cup. “And saved a Guildsman’s life. All alone in the Iishi for days.”
“Hai.” Yukiko turned her cup three times before accepting it, bowing to
Aisha.
“That must be an extraordinary tale.” Aisha bowed back, filled her own
cup. “You must tell it to me sometime.”
“If you wish, Lady.”
Aisha glanced down at Yukiko’s cup, waiting for her guest to drink first. “How old are you, Kitsune Yukiko?”
The jûnihitoe pressed down on Yukiko like the air in a tomb. Sweat burned
her eyes. She longed to rub them, but was afraid of smudging the wretched
make-up. She tried to blink the sting away instead, lifting her cup and taking
a small sip of the steaming liquid.
“I am sixteen, Lady.”
“So young. And yet here you are, the toast of our city.”
“. . . I would not know, Lady.”
“And so modest!”
The serving girls giggled. Aisha took a sip of her tea, watching Yukiko over
the rim of the cup.
“You are very beautiful, Yukiko-chan.”
“You honor me, Lady.”
“Your accommodations are suitable?”
“Hai, Lady.”
“I trust that Michi-chan was of assistance?”
“Hai, Lady. Very much so.”
“The jûnihitoe suits you.”
“My thanks for your gift, Lady.”
“My brother, the Seii Taishōgun, is overjoyed.”
“As you say, Lady.”
“I have not seen him this happy in many years. You have brought him a
great prize.”
Yukiko found herself growing angry, impatient at this silly ritual and this
pointless one- sided conversation. She felt as if this painted doll was talking at
her, not to her. That she didn’t care what Yukiko said or felt, that this was just a
momentary distraction in Aisha’s life of banality, of pretty dresses and hours
in front of looking glasses.
She knew she should keep her mouth shut, that she should nod her head
and sweat in this ridiculous dress and sip her bloody tea with a smile. But she
couldn’t.
“And yet your brother has my father locked in his dungeon,” she said.
“Starving. Almost naked, with bare rock to sleep on and a bucket to shit in.” A collective gasp, music stopping dead, corpse-pale painted faces turning
paler still. Aisha was motionless as stone, cup poised before her lips, blinking