That was the extent to which Ischade’s power had swelled. It hunted like a
beast, and left Tasfalen shaking in a lust he could not satisfy, though he
tried, with the slave, who spent the hour in a terror greater than any she had
yet experienced in this gilt prison, with this most jaded of Rankene nobles.
Ischade leaned back and shut her eyes, lay inert for a long time while the
thunder rumbled and rattled above the house and a flop-eared, freckled mage
labored to save a god and a seer. Sweat bathed her limbs, ran in trails on her
body beneath the robes. She felt the last impulses of that convulsion, tasted
copper on her tongue, rolled her eyes beneath slitted lids and thanked her own
foresight that she had sent Straton to Crit this night.
Not yet for this fine nobleman. Sweets were for prolonging. She lay there with
the fires sinking in the hearth and on the candles round the room; and in her
blood. She stretched out the merest tendril of will and wrapped it about the
house, ran it like lightning along the old iron fence and up to the rooftree,
where a small flock of black birds took flight.
She sent it pelting gustlike down the chimney and scouring out across the floor
with the roll of a bit of ember.
“Haught!” ,
Haught was there, quickly, catfooted and sullen-faced as ever, standing in the
doorway of the room he shared with Stilcho. Ex-slave and ex-dancer. She gazed at
him through slitted eyes, simply stared, testing her resolve; and beckoned him
closer. He came a foot or two. That was all. Cautious Haught. Wary Haught.