He lifted it to eye level, while Edene turned her face away and pretended not to watch. When he chirruped, it raised its claws and lowered its head, seeming to curtsy. Al-Sepehr nodded in return and set it down. Quickly, it scuttled away.
Out of the corner of her eye, she studied him—the long rectangular face, the long rectangular hands laced with tattoos or henna the color of dried blood on the palms and sooty ink across the backs. He looked weathered and capable, with broad shoulders under his desert robes.
He said, “How do you like my pretty?”
She followed his gaze back to the bird. “They’re more beautiful in flight,” she said.
It had terrified and frozen her. She had vomited until she had nothing left to bring up except her own intestines and her just-kindled babe. And yet she felt a peculiar loyalty to the terrible bird, especially now that she knew its mate lay chained and crippled under al-Sepehr’s care. She too would do what he wanted, she thought, if he had such a hold over her.
With an effort, she managed not to press her hands to her belly. It was possible he did not yet know she was with child. She must escape while she could still run. And before she gave him something he could use to control her as easily as he controlled his giant birds.
“It’s called the rukh,” he said. “I will have you trained to take over its care. It is time you made yourself useful. Do you understand how little chance you have of surviving an attempt to escape?”
He gestured to the sheer walls of the cliff below, the rumpled desert beyond, the frame of stark brown mountains that limited the horizon. You could not walk out of that; not without knowledge and supplies.
Edene nodded. Even if she had not believed him, she would have nodded.
“If you wear your veil where men can see you,” al-Sepehr said, “you may have the freedom of the keep. The archers know to shoot you down if they see you fleeing.”
“I understand,” she said.
He gestured to the bird. The rukh. Against the pale sky, Edene saw the dark wings of its mate outlined and approaching. Some massive dead thing hung limply from her enormous claws. A camel, perhaps; the outline was correct.
Al-Sepehr said, “You say they are more beautiful in flight. They are,” he said. “But they are more useful to me here.”
Edene nodded as if she understood him. But all she could think was A ring. A ring in his pocket that makes you move in silence, without being seen.
* * *
The emperor (no longer in-waiting) was so gracious as to dismiss them before he withdrew, flanked again by his two guards. Hrahima managed to hold her silence until the little group was outside the royal precinct and well away from any eavesdropping ear. And then her ears flattened and her tail lashed and she spat a Cho-tse word or phrase in tones that indicated it would be best for everyone if nobody asked what it meant. It echoed from the stone walls of the corridor. Samarkar imagined the force of it trembled the tears that still clung to her face.
She would not break down entirely. She would not give Songtsan that much. But it was hard.
Samarkar waited another ten steps or so, forcing herself to breathe by focusing on the pressure of her collar against her throat. Finally, as mildly as she could and in the lowest audible tones, she asked, “Were you about to cast a spell against his magnificence?”
That brought Hrahima’s ears up; in their ignominious retreat, they had outpaced the footman, and a few moments remained before he would catch up. “My people do not practice wizardry,” she said, but Samarkar heard the elision.
“But the legends of your people are full of stories of sorcery—”
“It’s not sorcery. And those are not my people’s legends.” Hrahima extended her stride.
With a glance backward at Temur, Samarkar broke into a trot to keep up. Her head came only to the Cho-tse’s bicep; a fast walk for Hrahima was very nearly a run for Samarkar.
“But the hypnotic gaze of your eyes—”
Samarkar choked off when Hrahima pinned her on just such a look, the irises of her eyes green and orange and shot through with fracture lines like the eyes of some tortoiseshell cats. Samarkar almost stumbled, and kept her balance only through deep concentration.
Hrahima hissed, but her hand snaked out to steady Samarkar, so Samarkar guessed the Cho-tse was not truly angry. “It is not sorcery,” she insisted. And then she, too, glanced over her shoulder—where bandy-legged Temur and the doorman were catching up—and muttered, “I spoke of the Immanent Destiny and the Sun Within.”
“You did.”
“The faith of my people demands surrender to these things. And in return, we are granted certain abilities.” Her shrug was a thing out of legend, shoulders rising and settling like the shaking of a mountain. “I have broken with the faith. Apparently my destiny was not something I could make myself surrender to.”