flash of desire vanished without a trace.
“I was expecting you,” she said, stepping to the side of the doorway and
allowing him into the nursery.
“I didn’t know I was coming here myself until a few moments ago.” He lifted her
hand to his lips, as if she were any other Rankan noblewoman.
Jihan shrugged. “I can tell, that’s all. The rabble,” she gestured toward the
doorway and the city beyond it, “aren’t really alive at all. But you, and the
others-you’re alive enough to be interesting.” She took the Stormchild,
Gyskouras, from the Beysib woman’s arms and went back to the obviously
pleasurable task of bathing him. “I like interesting…”
The Froth Daughter paused. Torchholder followed her stare to its target.
Seylalha, the lithe temple-dancer and mother of the motionless toddler in
Jihan’s arms, was doing a very attentive job of wiping the sweat from Niko’s
still-fevered forehead.
“Don’t touch that bandage!”
Seylalha turned to meet Jihan’s glower. Before becoming the mother of Vashanka’s
presumed heir, the young woman had only known the stifling world of a slave
dancer, trained and controlled by the bitter, mute women whom Vashanka had
rejected; she seldom needed words to express her feelings. She made a properly
humble obeisance, cast a longing glance at the child, her own son, Gyskouras,
cradled in Jihan’s arms, and went back to stroking Niko’s forehead. Jihan began
to tremble.
“You were saying?” Molin inquired, daring to interrupt the fuming creature who
was both primal deity and spoiled adolescent.