Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(91)

He could see Lord Tuun thinking along similar lines, her slate eyes narrowed, and he wondered if perhaps she could turn them all to stone long enough for them to run.

“And who are you?” Lord Pech asked, stepping forward. “Why has not Sovran Daakun come to greet us?”

“Daakun is indisposed,” the woman said, and the spearmaidens around her rippled in amusement. “But you may call me Sovran.”

“And why would we call a woman Sovran of Hokaia? Were not your kind found unfit to rule this city three centuries ago?”

The woman’s eyes flashed, and she raised her spear. Two dozen maidens followed suit. “Careful, little man, lest I remind you how Cuecola fell to spearmaidens before she was rescued.”

Pech stepped back, affronted. Cuecolan guards moved between them, their own spears ready. The promise of violence filled the air.

“His low opinion of women will get us all killed,” Lord Tuun whispered to Balam.

Balam had often wondered how he would die. A traitor cousin within his house, a disgruntled trader who felt cheated, wild magic that turned against him. All possibilities for a man like him. However, dying because piddling Lord Pech could not set aside his prejudices and his ego was intolerable.

“Sovran Naasut.” He pressed a hand on a guard’s shoulder to let him through. “It is our honor to be welcomed to your fine city. And although we hope that we will not have to call upon the people of the Meridian to take up arms once again, I am afraid you are correct, and these are dark times we must discuss. But I assure you, we are not your enemy.”

Naasut’s sharp eyes seemed to flay him, skin first, then flesh, and finally bone. He stood there and let her look. Whatever she saw of him made her grin. She thumped the white spear in her hand against the ground three times. The maidens around her echoed her call with answering thumps and howled in delight.

Lord Tuun’s eyes tightened. Lord Sinik made a small whimpering sound. Lord Pech covered his ears.

“And who are you?” Naasut asked.

“I am Lord Balam of the House of Seven, Merchant Lord of Cuecola, Patron of the Crescent Sea, White Jaguar by Birthright.”

“All those titles, and yet you know my name.”

“As do all across the four corners of the Meridian,” he lied.

Her smiled widened, and Balam took it as a sign that she was a woman amenable to flattery. Perhaps this would not come to bloodshed and magic after all.

“And the rest of you sulking behind your soldiers. All of you are Cuecolan lords?” she asked.

The other three had the sense to step even with the line of guards and introduce themselves. Lord Tuun first, then Sinik, and Pech last. He did not look pleased, but at least he did not insult Naasut again.

“And to which lord does this man belong?” Naasut snapped her fingers, and two spearmaidens came forward dragging Balam’s spy between them. His hands were tied, and he had been beaten badly. They tossed him down the wooden steps, and he crumpled to a heap at their feet, whimpering.

Balam shifted his expression to mild concern, but he hid well the acute chill of terror that slipped down his spine. He watched the others for reactions. Tuun’s face was a mask. If she suspected the man belonged to Balam, she did not let it show. Sinik gasped, his hand over his mouth, and Pech’s expression darkened, but to his credit, he did not speak.

Naasut sauntered down the steps, two maidens breaking off to follow her. She propped a sandaled foot on the man’s back.

“Well? Does no one claim him?”

She bent over and hauled him up by his hair. Balam could see that his fingers were crushed and his face swollen from blows. And there was something distinctly wrong with his mouth.

“He’s swallowed his tongue,” Tuun whispered, part awe and part revulsion.

Naasut’s eyes fixed on the stone sorcerer. “Yes. It seems he was able to break his own fingers and swallow his tongue before we could beat a confession from him.”

“How do you know he is one of ours?” Sinik said, and Balam could see his horror slowly turning to outrage. “He could belong to anyone. Golden Eagle or another of the Tovan clans, your own rivals here in Hokaia, even the Teek!”

“He is no instrument of the Teek,” a voice said from the top of the stairs.

Another woman had joined them while they had been focused on the poor spy at their feet. She was a good head and a half shorter than Naasut, but she commanded the space much the same. She wore a netted blouse and wide pants like the sailor on the ship, Alani, and her waist-length hair cascaded around her in waves, her overlarge eyes the angry gray of a hurricane.

“The Teek do not truck with men.” She said that last with a sneer, and Balam thought she and Pech made a fine pair.

“Queen Mahina has proven herself to the spearmaidens. Her loyalty is not in question.”

Balam’s expression was a flawless mask of cool indifference, but his mind was racing. The Teek had come, and not only had they come, they had brought a queen. And, if he guessed correctly, a fleet of elegant racing ships. He should be afraid—the true Sovran of Hokaia clearly deposed, his spy unveiled, an alliance between the Teek and the spearmaidens brewing—but all he could think of was the possibility in it. The potential in the chaos.

“The fact that I do not know who this man belongs to is the only reason you are still alive,” Naasut said.