“Something has corrupted the city’s blessings,” Hong-la said. “And those on the temples are beginning to fail, I fear. Priests now are sickening as well. We—the Citadel—we have begun the process of checking and renewing the prayers all around Tsarepheth, but as you must be able to imagine, great empress, this is not a simple process, nor a swift one, and we are so very busy with the sick.”
“And anyway,” she said, “the demons have already come within.”
“It is so.”
“But previously—someone, somehow, must have given them permission to enter.”
“It is so,” he said again. “Or, at least, somehow abrogated the protections against their entering.”
Cold danced along his spine as he said it. Who can give such permission?
The master of a house. Or the master of an empire.
Hong-la, veteran of two courts and a college of wizards, was glad for the moment that the woman he stood before was an empress, and that he could not be expected to meet her gaze. But why would an emperor invite demon spawn into his own realm? Unless he were somehow tricked into it?
“Empress,” he said, when the silence had stretched long, and he was too aware of her painted gaze on him through the lattice of the screen, “is there more? My patients—”
Silk slicked against silk as she shifted. “We are burning my younger husband at sunset,” she said. “You must stay to witness the execution.”
6
A line of gold like the edge of a paper set alight crawled the eastern horizon when Temur led his liver-bay mare from her stall, and even the desert was mild. Not cool, precisely—but not dangerous.
He watered Bansh well, stroked her fetlocks and pasterns, felt her flesh firm and cool and sound wherever his hand touched. She had been brushed and was gleaming, her tack cleaned meticulously, restitched where it was worn and hung beside her door. Someone had replaced her threadbare saddle blanket. Temur felt a pang of discontent with himself; it was he who should have seen to those repairs, and while he had visited Bansh daily, it was he who should have seen to her care. No matter how competent Ato Tesefahun’s grooms were.
She seemed happy to see him now, though, and—her owner-notched, black-tipped mahogany ears pricked, her tail switching—she also seemed pleased at the prospect of exercise. She nibbled his shoulder while he saddled her and grabbed for the bit so eagerly Temur had to defend his fingers. He liked the spring in her step, the sparkle of well-rested spiritedness that attended her. He liked the way she pranced a step as he swung up into the saddle—and he liked his own response too: the strength of adequate food and sleep seemed to throb from his fingertips, and all the tension of worry and conspiracy crackled through him, lending nervous energy.
The sun was rolling along the horizon by then, orange rays broken by buildings striping the world into dark and gold bands like the hide of a Cho-tse. A vulture lazed upon the sky, flexed pinions clearly visible. Temur entertained the fancy that it supported itself by its fingertips against some invisible wall.
As if his thought had summoned her, Hrahima’s tiger-great silhouette slipped from the side yard as he and Bansh passed. Bansh rose into a trot. Hrahima jogged gently alongside, keeping pace with swinging, easy strides. Her harness lay smooth and clean over her fur, supporting her knives; a slender rope bounced at her hip and a flap-covered wallet rode the other. Temur had never seen her with more gear.
“Out for a run?” she asked, ever so casually.
“I guess we both are,” he answered.
Mare and cat jogged a few strides companionably before Hrahima raised a retracted claw to the sky. “That’s a steppe vulture,” she said. “They don’t usually come so far west.”
“Maybe it followed us.”
Warming, Bansh stretched out, and Hrahima’s breath and strides came faster. Still without strain, however. When Temur stole a glance at her sideways, her whiskers pricked forward. In her relaxed, ragged ears, the gold rings jingled.
They reached the earth-paved street and were no longer alone. They had continued out the back of Ato Tesefahun’s property, moving farther from the docks and more toward the periphery of Asitaneh. This street was dominated by a glassworks—the roar of the ovens could be heard from the road, even though the building itself was set well back from other structures for safety—and men with carts and little clots of veiled women with market baskets and bags were beginning to make their way through the outskirts of town.
With a shift of weight, Temur slowed his mare. Bansh wanted to run, and at a walk she placed each foot fussily, kicking it high and snorting as she set it down again. Temur and Hrahima—and Bansh, no doubt, with her clean steppe lines and rangy, nearly maneless build—attracted quick glances and a few outright stares.