Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(161)

Despite his blindfold, Adiv seemed to miss little, and a small smile played around the corners of his mouth. Kaden was beginning to think the man not only noticed his awkwardness, but enjoyed it as well. As the silence stretched out, the minister’s smile widened.

“It would be inappropriate for the Emperor to dine alone,” he said finally, spreading his hands in invitation before bringing them together in a crisp clap. The twin wooden doors at the end of the refectory swung open.

Kaden’s eyes widened. Alone in the doorway, half in darkness, half illuminated by the lanterns inside the hall, stood a young woman. That would have been reason enough to take notice. After all, Ashk’lan was a monastic community and Kaden had not left it for eight years; Pyrre had already occasioned a good deal of glancing and chatter among the acolytes, but if Akiil had seen this …

While the merchant had a certain rough elegance, the woman in the doorway looked as though she had stepped straight from a vision of opulence, a dream of beauty made flesh. She wore a long gown of Si’ite silk, the fabric red as arterial blood and supple as water. The dressmaker had known his art, cutting the cloth to emphasize the fullness of her breasts, the curve of her hip, while a separate loop of fabric ringed her neck, tied below her chin in an elaborate bow.

Even more striking than the presentation was the girl herself: the Dawn Palace had been filled with attractive women—the wives of atreps, well-known courtesans, priestesses and princesses by the dozen—but Kaden was certain he had never seen one so beautiful. Night-black hair cascaded past her shoulders, framing a pale face with full lips and high cheekbones. She might have been one of the Nevariim he read about as a child—an impossibly beautiful, infinitely graceful creature from the tales told at his bedside. Of course, the Nevariim were long dead, if they had ever lived at all, and this woman was very real. Kaden put the children’s stories out his mind.

Adiv had cocked his ear to one side, as though listening to the stunned silence. After a moment he grinned, evidently satisfied with the reaction, then spoke: “She is called Triste, and the bow around her neck is yours to untie. Although,” he added, turning to face Kaden with that disconcertingly blank blindfold, “I would leave her at least partly packaged until after the meal. The Shin are famed for their asceticism, but I fear our dinner conversation might suffer if she sat here just as Bedisa made her. Triste,” he said, beckoning imperiously, “come closer that the Emperor might admire you.”

The young woman kept her eyes fixed on the rough stone floor as she approached, but there was nothing bashful about her stride, a languorous swaying of the hips that arrested Kaden’s gaze. He stood hastily, almost knocking over his chair in the process, grabbing at it with his hand to keep it from falling and cursing himself silently for an idiot as he did so. From the length of the hall, the ripeness of Triste’s body had led him to believe she was older than him, a woman grown. This close, he could see how young she was—sixteen at the most. He wondered absently if someone had lit a fire in the hearth. He was sweating beneath his robe as though he had been running for hours.

“You should greet the Emperor, Triste,” Adiv urged. “Be thankful you have been given to a great man.”

She raised her head slowly, and Kaden saw that her round violet eyes were full of fear.

“It is an honor, Your Radiance,” she said, the hint of a quaver in her voice, and suddenly he felt shame mixed with his desire, shame for drinking in the sight of her so fully and shame for thinking that she might be his, packaged up and delivered like a new suit. He bent to free her from the bow at her throat, and her perfume, a concoction of sandalwood and jasmine, made his head reel.

He fumbled with the simple knot for what seemed like minutes, uncomfortably aware of his knuckles pressing into the girl’s firm flesh and the eyes of the small dinner party on his back. He didn’t dare look at her face again, fixing his gaze instead on the tiny, intricate tattoo of a necklace that circled her neck.

“Go on,” Adiv urged. Even the man with that infernal blindfold could sense his awkwardness! Ae only knew what Tan and Nin were thinking. “She won’t thank you for keeping her standing much longer.”

Kaden’s face burned, and all the exercises he had studied over the past eight years to still the mind and slow the pulse fled. Pain was one thing, but this … this was something else altogether. He thought he might never be able to look Tan in the eye again. Finally the silk fell away.

He went to pull out her seat and found that one of the slaves had already done so. Awkwardly, he gestured for her to sit down. Adiv clapped his hands together again in good humor.