“The baby grows well enough,” said Salome. “It—”
“He,” said StarDrifter.
“—has been moving and wriggling for all he is worth. I doubt he”s much fussed about the
wings.” She paused, looking at StarDrifter as if it was his fault. “I really don”t want wings.”
StarDrifter laughed, the sound one of pure joy. “Welcome to your full heritage, Salome.
Welcome to the wonder of Icarii life.”
Maximilian smiled, enjoying StarDrifter”s happiness.
Then he glanced over to his spot by the fire. For a moment he”d been sure he”d heard the
Weeper laughing softly.
CHAPTER TWO
The Palace of Aqhat, Tyranny of Isembaard
Ishbel sat by one of the open windows in her chamber, enjoying the peace and beauty of
the night. A breeze wafted in, rippling her lawn nightgown and the hair she”d left loose about her
shoulders. The warm air was scented with a hint of faraway spices, and the sound of frogs, and
of children playing somewhere, could be heard from the riverbanks.
The river had come to mean so much to her.
From the day after the birth, and murder, of her baby, Isaiah had been taking her down to
the river to bathe. For the first three evenings they did this, Ishbel could only sit in the water and weep. Isaiah said nothing, but he would wash her down with gentle hands, and massage her
scalp, and soothe her misery. During the day there was always hustle and bustle, people moving
and shouting, soldiers and horses milling as Isaiah pushed forward his invasion, but at dusk,
everything would quiet, and Isaiah would come for Ishbel, and walk her down to the Lhyl.
There she bathed, and passed some brief and gentle conversations with Isaiah, and
healed. Ishbel decided the waters of the Lhyl must hold some magical properties, because their
gentle lapping had healed both her body and spirit from the travail and loss of her daughter.
She no longer wept, and every day she waited for the dusk, when Isaiah would come.
Memories of her previous life, more than ever now the baby was gone, slipped further
and further away with each day”s ending. She never thought of the Great Serpent or her former
life in the Coil. She no longer harbored any ambition to return to Serpent”s Nest. Only two weeks
had gone by since that terrible night when Ba”al”uz had killed her daughter—and attempted her
murder as well—but even that shocking night seemed to be a long-ago dream.
She did think of Maximilian. Not an hour of any day passed that she did not find her
mind returning to him. Ishbel did not like this, for thoughts of Maximilian brought such a
confusing welter of emotions to the surface that she did not think she could bear it. Prime among
these emotions was guilt at the loss of the baby, but there was also a regret that was so sharp it
may as well have been a dagger for the degree of pain it caused, and an anger at him for turning
such a cold back to her, and an anger at herself for not being honest with him.
She wanted desperately to forget him, and buried herself in Isaiah as a means by which to
accomplish this. Isaiah offered her nothing but comfort, and Ishbel needed comfort so badly…
Ishbel sighed, wondering where Isaiah was. Preparations for invasion were almost
complete. Tomorrow they would leave for Sakkuth, where Isaiah”s main army gathered. Ishbel
would go with him. Ishbel was ambivalent about returning to the north at the head of an invading
army, but she did not wish to be separated from Isaiah, and she could not bear to be left behind at
Aqhat, with that pyramid—she glanced in the direction of DarkGlass Mountain—looming over
her.
DarkGlass Mountain now exuded a clear and malevolent threat. It was not only she who
could feel it, or Isaiah, but everyone. Servants went about their appointed tasks, abnormally
quiet, eyes glancing every now and then in the pyramid”s direction.
The days seemed somehow darker, and colder.
There was something so ominous, so malignant, about DarkGlass Mountain, that Ishbel
felt as if it snatched her very life from her body every time she glanced at it. She tried not to
think about what Isaiah had shown her crawling up from the abyss below, nor about how the
pyramid seemed to hate her very personally.
Ishbel wanted to leave this place. All the joy of the land had gone since the death of her
child and the growing malevolence throbbing across the Lhyl from DarkGlass Mountain.
There came a soft sound from the corridor outside her chamber, and Ishbel”s head tilted
slightly in that direction, glad to be distracted from thoughts of the pyramid.
Soft voices. Isaiah, talking with the guards.
Ishbel smiled, pleased. He had come to take her to bathe.
The door opened, and she looked at him. “Isaiah.”
Unusually for Isaiah, he was wearing very little jewelry—just some small gold hoops in
his ears and a bangle about one wrist, and his great mass of black braids had, like her hair, been
left to swing freely about his shoulders and back.
He smiled, just a little, and it struck Ishbel then that Isaiah was a sunshine man, a man of
the light, whereas Maximilian had always been so much of the shadows.
“I had hoped you”d still be awake,” Isaiah said. “I”m sorry I am so late. We can still go to
bathe, if you like, or…” He sat down on the low couch with her, their bodies touching in a score
of small places, and Ishbel knew then that his “or…” held a number of possibilities.
What should she do? Isaiah had always left open the possibility that their “marriage”
could be whatever she wanted, and he had never hidden his desire for her.
“It has been dark for hours,” she said.
“I”m sorry. Invasions are finicky things to arrange.” He reached out a hand, tucking a
stray tendril of hair behind one of her ears, and let his fingers linger a moment on her skin,
caressing.
Ishbel hesitated, then leaned her head, very slightly, against the pressure of his fingers.
Maybe he would be a comfort for her.
“We will be leaving in the morning,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I know this journey back to your homeland will be difficult for you. It is possibly not the
way you”d hoped to return. I”m sorry it must be at the head of an army, at my side.”
“I am not so sorry to be going home at your side,” she said, very softly. She wondered if
she was doing the right thing, if succumbing to Isaiah”s seductions would cause more problems
than it might solve.
But he was so comforting, and she found herself longing very much for the reassurance
of a man”s arms about her, and the solidity of his body curled about hers at night.
Perhaps if she went to Isaiah, she would forget Maximilian.
He, surely, had forgotten her.
“Then I am most pleased at that,” he said, and cupped her face in his hands, and kissed
her.
This night, when his hand encircled her breast, she moved in toward him, rather than
away.
“Frankly, I thought Isaiah would have put you in complete command of all his forces by
now,” Ezekiel said, draining his wine cup. “It is a wonder I have a job left at all.”
Axis laughed, and refilled both their wine cups. They were in Ezekiel”s quarters, and had
been for the past hour, sinking ever more deeply into a slight inebriation. Although Axis had
spent time with Ezekiel and several other of the generals previously, this was the first time he”d
spent such a companionable evening with him.
Companionable, but they were both still wearing their swords.
“Isaiah offered me a command,” Axis said. “I refused.”
“Really? Why?”
“You thought it might be a stepping-stone for me to greater things? A generalship,
perhaps?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“And the minds of Morfah and Kezial and Lamiah and Armat, too, no doubt.”
“Indeed. Why did you refuse the command?”
“It was tempting, Ezekiel, I won”t deny that, but I did not want to lead men against the
kingdoms to the north.”
“A conscience, then.”
Axis smiled. “And that”s not a good thing for a general, eh?”
Ezekiel tipped his head in a vague response. “And so you will be moving north with us?”
“Yes. I may not wish to command, Ezekiel, but I do not want to be left behind.”
“Then watch your back, Axis. Lamiah and Armat particularly resent you. And fear you,
which is even more dangerous. You are too close to Isaiah, and they worry about your
connection to the Icarii assassin.”
Axis wasn”t quite sure where to start with that little speech—there was so much to think
about, and address, within it. “You don”t resent me, Ezekiel?”
“A little, but not fatally.”
Axis laughed in genuine amusement, and decided he both liked and trusted this man. “I