The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (18 page)

Just the one thing had been
enough to turn her around and resolve to pretend she had never come:
“
She intends to kill Aiul,
you imbecile!” Knowing that bit of information could be fatal,
if they were aware of her knowledge.

So she plotted, staring at
lovely, pornographic tapestry she'd had placed over the gaping hole
Aiul had left in the wall. She contemplated the exaggerated anatomy
of the figures it depicted as she brooded, imagining scenario after
scenario, searching for the one that would end with the Meites
choking on their own blood. So many possibilities, so many
variables! But there had to be a way. There was
always
a way. She was not going to let them kill Aiul, not if she could
stop them.

She was startled from her
fantasy by a knock on the door.

“Come,” she called
out.

A guard she didn't recognize
opened the door and leaned into the room. He was young, and more
than a little nervous. “Empress, a visitor from House Prosin
is here for you.”

“
Prosin
?”
she nearly shouted. “Execute them at once!”

The guard blinked at her a
moment. “Execute...ahh?” he stammered.

“It's a joke,” she
assured him, and gave him The Smile, the one that melted all men.
Well, all men except Caelwen. “I never execute anyone without
knowing who they are first.”
Except when I've been drugged
and tricked.
She waited for some response from the man, but he
said nothing, seeming even more bewildered. “Well, who
is
it?”

The guard stammered briefly
again, shrugged, and finally answered, “I don't know. The
slaves just told me that. I'm really sorry!”

It was Kariana's turn to be
confused. “Um, for what?”

The guard took a knee and
bowed, “If I offended you somehow. I didn't know I was
supposed to find that out. I didn't even know I was supposed to come
up here and tell you about visitors until the slaves told me.”

Kariana tittered at this.
“That's because it's their job, and they're taking advantage
of you.”

The guard nodded back, the
expression on his face one of great enlightenment.
Clearly, we
are not one of Caelwen's sharpest tools, are we?

“Tell
the visitor I will attend them shortly.” By which she meant
'longly'. House Prosin had no business expecting to be received at
all, much less in a timely manner.

An hour seemed about right. She
spent the time perfecting her makeup and hair. When at last she did
arrive in her reception room, she was feeling quite beautiful. She
would dazzle a man, and intimidate a woman.

That view of the world was
dashed against the ground at first sight of her visitor. The woman
was tall and well curved, ruby lips and raven hair such that men
might kill for. Kariana self-consciously folded her arms across her
chest, as if to hide herself from the much more amply endowed Prosin
woman.
I look like a little boy next to her.
“What
business could House Prosin have with me that doesn't involve
poison?”

The woman gave a disarming
laugh, seemingly honest.
She's Prosin. Everything they do is
manipulation. Never forget it!

“I
see you've met some of my House. But, no, I am here for something
entirely different.” The humor faded from her face as she
continued. “My name is Teretha, and you saved my son's life. I
am here to offer my gratitude and my service.”

Kariana knew the shock and
confusion must be written all over her face, but she could do little
to suppress it. “I what?”

Teretha laughed again and
nodded. “Rithard, of House Amarath. Had you not sent Caelwen
as a witness, I think he might have been found dead along some
roadside in the undercity, instead of being taken prisoner.”

“Well, that's novel. It's
the first time I've had Prosin visitors who weren't threatening me.”

Teretha's expression grew
somber. “Maralena, yes? I doubt I liked her any better than
you did. It would seem some Meites liked her even less than that.
One of them seems to have done the both of us a favor, hmm?”
She flashed a knowing smile.

Kariana nodded, not trusting
this a bit, but not wanting to make another enemy. “I'm
listening.”

Teretha took a deep breath,
preparing her pitch. “Maralena made threats. I make friends.
Let's be friends, you and I, hmm?”

“Oh, how lovely! We can
make pretend tea and play with our dollies! Oh, and brush each
others' hair!”

Teretha smiled gamely at the
barb, then answered smoothly, “I was thinking of a different
sort of friends. The sort who tell each other secrets, and warn each
other of trouble.”

Kariana gave a grunt of of
disdain at this. “I've never had any friends like that. Well,
except for the one I stabbed because she was a
Prosin spy
.”

Teretha nodded, her expression
filled with loathing and disgust. “Again, Maralena's doing,
not mine.”

“So you say.”

“I bring a gift, to show
my sincerity. It was Narelki who sent men to attack Lara and started
the whole mess. She stood by and let Aiul think it was you.”

Kariana shrugged at this,
pleased to see the Prosin woman's disappointment. “Old news.
Maralena told me that just to hurt me, to make me feel guilty for
stabbing Marissa.”

Teretha's expression darkened
at this. “I see. Did she also tell you it was my son Rithard
who deduced it?”

Kariana stared at her for a
moment, considering the implications, hearing Caelwen's words in her
memory,
“He has very special talents
!”
“
No,” she answered at last. “No, she most
definitely did
not
mention
that.”

Teretha extended a hand,
gravely serious now. “Maralena was a disgrace to our House,
and made an enemy of you for no reason but pride and arrogance. I
would undo that. We share a common enemy in Narelki. I propose an
alliance.”

Kariana shrugged again,
ignoring Teretha's gesture. “Narelki will get what she
deserves, but she's hardly my most pressing problem. The Meites
are.”

Teretha nodded agreement, even
as she lowered her hand with an air of resignation. “ I have a
plan for that, and it involves Narelki. She
is
my problem. She wants my son dead.
”

“Well, then, I suppose
Davron's holding him prisoner works in your favor, doesn't it?”
Kariana tittered. “They don't care much for each other, Davron
and Narelki.”

Teretha's jaw clenched as she
bit back a retort. “I'm negotiating for his release, but it is
less than useless if Narelki can still strike at him. Rithard will
never be safe as long as she remains a threat.”

“So we know what
you
get. What do I get?”

Teretha smiled again. This was
where she wanted the conversation to go, it seemed. “My plan
would deal with the Meites
and
Narelki in one fell stroke. Help me, and you gain the loyalty not
only of House Prosin, but Amrath as well.”

Kariana
raised an eyebrow at this. “How is that possible?”

Teretha
raised her eyebrows and rocked forward, grinning. “By
acquiring the right friends.”

Kariana
listened intently as Teretha explained her plan, and smiled at the
simplicity. She felt her mistrust slowly replaced by abject awe at
Teretha's cunning and audacity, her simple cutting of an impossible
knot.

I could learn so much from
her.
Yet a nagging voice in her
head argued it was not enough. She remembered staring up at the
statue of Tasinal, blood running down her face, and dreaming the mad
dream of being able to dispense with cunning once and for all, to
have the power to simply smash her enemies rather than fence and
spar for every advantage.

I could be more. If my
father hadn't held me back. If I had been trained.
The notion of
living by her own rules, and not having to lie and manipulate was a
powerful one indeed, but to reach that, she would need to prove
herself. This was a stepping stone.

“I'll play this game,”
she agreed.
And win.

Narelki looked up from her desk
in the library as Slat opened the doors. “You have a visitor,
Mistress,” he told her.

Kariana, seeming even shorter
standing next to Slat, gave Narelki a look of grudging surrender.

Narelki nodded to Slat. “You
may leave us.” She waited until the doors had closed before
addressing her uninvited guest. “Did you truly imagine you
could
summon
me like a slave?”

Narelki was expecting rage,
petulance, or perhaps even feigned long suffering nobility, but she
was taken aback by what she saw on Kariana's face: sheer terror.

Kariana's eyes darted back and
forth, as if searching for hidden listeners. “I felt safer in
the palace, and I couldn't trust a messenger. I'll just have to hope
Amrath's Library keeps its secrets.”

Narelki was tempted to simply
eject Kariana and go back to her treatise.
This is such an
obvious production.
Still, it
wouldn't do not to find out what the child was up to. She was
possessed of a certain low cunning that could prove troublesome if
not watched carefully. “Nihlos would have fallen long ago if
the Library of Amrath were not inviolate. Speak whatever lie you
came to tell and begone.”

Kariana
began to blink quickly, her features trembling as if her brain were
being overloaded.
Ah, there. A little more pressure at
that crack, I think, will prove telling, or at least amusing.
“It's
more than one thing,” she stammered after a moment of thought.

You
are absolutely infuriating with your idiocy.
“Then perhaps
you ought start with the first, hmm, then proceed on to the others?”

“Okay,
okay! I'm just trying to figure out which
is
first.”
Kariana fidgeted like the child she was for long moments as
Narelki's patience unraveled even further, but at last she blurted
out, “They're going to kill Aiul!”

Narelki
felt a brief chill, the natural reaction to hear one's child is in
danger, before she considered the source of the information. She
gave Kariana a patronizing look. “Who?”

“The
Meites!”

The
chill in her gut rose again, briefly.
They are indeed capable of
it, but why would they?
She pushed it down again, feeling her
lips purse in annoyance. Kariana was a habitual liar and a crude
manipulator. This story was likely the hook for something, though
precisely what remained to be seen. Still, there was something in
her demeanor, her choice of words that seemed worth hearing her out.
Narelki raised her eyebrows and offered Kariana a cold, calculated
glare. “Let us say for the moment that you had fooled me with
this pathetic attempt at deception. How did you come by this
knowledge and continue breathing?”

Slowly,
with copious amounts of hand waving and self aggrandizing, Kariana
trotted out her obviously rehearsed back story.
There I was, just
minding my own business, thinking only pure thoughts, when suddenly
yadda yadda. Youth are so arrogant, imagining their plodding,
mundane attempts at cleverness are unique or even very effective.
A zombie no one else had seen was convenient, and Kariana's feigned
noblesse oblige was sickening, her bravery in going to demand
answers from powerful sorcerers absolutely ridiculous.

“I
was working up my nerve to go in when they started chanting this
poem, and then they started fighting, and Maranath yelled out, 'She
intends to kill Aiul, you fool!'” She paused a moment and
looked at the floor, embarrassed. “And then I ran away.”

The
ice in Narelki's belly refused to go down this time.
No! Oh, no,
it cannot be that!
She
stared intently at Kariana,
forming each word carefully, like a sculptor chipping ice from a
block. “What were they chanting? What words?”

Fear
shone on Kariana's face at Narelki's new tone. “I can't
remember! Something about a thousand years, and ten centuries, and
–.”

Narelki
could not help herself. She had spent years since her fall, working
so hard to master her once raging emotions. She no longer had the
luxury of that freedom. Yet the fury could not be contained. Kariana
forgotten, Narelki leapt to her feet, seized a vase from her desk,
and smashed it against the wall where it exploded in a rain of
pottery, water, and flowers. “
Traitors!”

Kariana
was slowly backing away, eyes bright with sudden fear, hands up as
if to ward off a blow, shouting. “What? What did I say?”

Narelki
barely heard her. With a shriek, she grabbed at the edge of her desk
and flipped it over, scattering the contents over the floor. “I'll
kill you
all
, you back stabbing, treacherous whores!”

It
was, Narelki thought, like having a seizure, or the closest
experience she had to compare. One felt it coming on, the jaw
clenching like a vise, the pressure inside the skull demanding
release, and then the feeling that one's head were literally coming
apart at the seams. Control fled in a blinding flash as everything
was blotted out. Then came the flailing about, smashing things,
often enough of great value, as if they were a sacrifice. Control
returned slowly, some time later, and one often enough found
themselves in a humbling position. She ran her hand over her face as
she contemplated the mess. “Brilliant,” she muttered to
herself. “I'll be lucky to salvage that treatise.”
Undignified, but better than feeling helpless.

She
suddenly remembered her guest, and cast a tired glare her way.
Kariana stood cringing in the corner, pallid and wide-eyed like a
prey animal. “Wretch,” Narelki spat as she struggled to
regain her dignity. “Even a fallen Meite terrifies you, I
see.”