Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(72)

“Was not our meeting previously sufficient?”

Yes, they had sworn their support to her and Denaochi’s cause on the strength of his bravery and her display of sorcery, but Naranpa kept envisioning them stabbing her brother and then sitting around making polite conversation while courtesans fucked in the background and he bled to death in the middle of the room. She had no warmth toward her new allies.

“You need to share a meal.”

“You hope to make me like them.”

Sedaysa smiled. “On the contrary, I hope to make them like you, Sun Priest. It is an alliance of common cause that Denaochi has brokered. Let us see if we can deepen that.”

“Why are you helping us?”

Sedaysa came to sit on Denaochi’s bed. She rested a hand on his arm, her face gentling. “We have a history, your brother and I. Has he told you about it?”

Naranpa sat up. Denaochi had told her almost nothing of what his life had been for the past twenty years. She was both eager and apprehensive to learn more.

“My husband owned the Agave before I did, and Denaochi worked for him. Not here but at another house. One that catered to more specific tastes.”

“Pain.” She raised her chin. “He has told me something of those days.”

“Has he?” She sounded surprised. “And that my husband purchased him for his own? That is how we met. He was brought into our household but kept… separate.” Sedaysa met Naranpa’s gaze. “But we still encountered each other. At meals, passing in the hallways. How could I not be intrigued? He was funny and so handsome.” Her face softened. “And for the first time since my marriage, I was not alone.”

“So he kept you separate, too.”

“From the world.” She sighed. “Perhaps it is no surprise that Denaochi and I became lovers. I had married a much older man for security, not love. The Maw is not like the Sky Made districts. Might rules here, and that often leaves girls like me and boys like Denaochi with few resources.”

“I grew up here. I know what it’s like.”

“Of course you do. But you’re a woman of power now. I thought perhaps you had forgotten. But safety seemed a small concern compared to first love.” She brushed a hand across Denaochi’s cheek. “I was willing to risk it all on this handsome courtesan.”

“Your husband found out.” That was easy enough to see.

Sedaysa looked up. “I suspect he set us up all along so that he could administer his righteous punishment.” Her eyes were sad. “Me, he only beat until I passed out. I do not like to think on what he did to your brother, and I have never asked for specifics, but I heard the screams every night for weeks. He made sure of that.”

She threaded her fingers through Denaochi’s. “Your brother came to me a month later, and he was a changed man. His humor gone, that scar on his face. Together we conspired to kill my husband.” She tilted her head. “Does that shock you?”

“I am not here to judge you or him.”

“My husband was a cruel man. Not a drop of kindness in him. I did not mourn his death, and I inherited all of this and more.” She spread her hands to encompass the Agave. “But it broke something in Denaochi. We were never lovers again. But I owe him much. I owe him my life. So if he comes to me and asks me to help him unite the bosses to his cause, and his cause is you, then I do it. And I continue to do it, until he asks it no more.”



* * *



Pasko and Amalq arrived shortly after, and Naranpa, bathed and wearing a new dress from Sedaysa’s overflowing trunks, found herself around a table in the Agave’s decadent courtyard having tea with her new allies, the criminal bosses of Coyote’s Maw.

“I must admit that when Denaochi told us his sister was the Sun Priest, I did not at first believe it,” Amalq said, once they were settled with their cups.

Naranpa took a sip. The tea was bright and summery, a fit for the hothouse if not for the weather outside. “I left for the tower when I was a child, to work as a servant.”

“That does not explain things.” Pasko was a large man with a deep voice that Naranpa imagined was used to menace.

He seemed ill suited for the tea table, and she found herself reluctant to sit with him. She attributed it to her own biases and tried her best to set it aside, but it was there in the back of her mind. Something that told her Pasko was to be watched.

Naranpa set down her cup. “I became Sun Priest almost by accident. I was working in the kitchens, and one of the other girls had fallen sick. Her duty was to bring tea to the Sun Priest every evening, which for that night became my duty. The Sun Priest then was a man named Kiutue. He was striking. Tall, with a beard. Winged Serpent by birth, but he must have had Obregi heritage somewhere. I thought him a great bear when I met him first. But he was kind. Gentle. He became my mentor.”

“You seduced him.” That was Sedaysa, and Naranpa flushed.

“I did not. It doesn’t…” She caught the edge of a smile on Sedaysa’s perfect lips. Was she teasing her? Naranpa didn’t think it amusing and refused to rise to the bait.

“I took his tea up that evening,” she continued, “and he was working with one of his dedicants, an unpleasant man the kitchen girls knew to stay away from. Seeing him there made me nervous, and I ended up spilling the tea on one of their star charts.”