House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(7)
After her outburst, Carien indicates that I sit down and, though I’m still crawling with misgivings, I do so. Next to me Destia smirks then sips at her drink.
When the rustling of silk, taffety, and lace has quieted, Carien crosses her hands over her knees and leans forward. “Tell us about the bat.” All the heads around me come closer, and I am reminded of jackals gathering about a wounded goat.
The bat. I keep my face still, and imagine the things that I could do to these little jackals if I were still a War-singer. I want to lash out, to tell them his name, and explain to them that he is not an animal. But I know from their looks and from their gleeful maliciousness that this would be sport. And, frankly, I need their husbands’ business partnerships – and for that I need them. What Jannik doesn’t know. . . . I shudder in revulsion at what I am about to do. “It’s a political marriage–”
Carien waves me silent. “Oh we don’t want to hear the Pelim House line. We can get that from the Courant.” She leans nearer still, close enough that I can see the lamplight shine yellowly off her teeth. “Do you touch it?”
“No.” At least that is not a lie. I have. I don’t. I want to. I will not. “No, I haven’t.” Then why have I never taken scriv again? It’s not like I have consummated my marriage. It’s not as if I could poison him with the touch of my scriv-infected skin.
My answer leaves her looking disappointed and she withdraws. “Really?” She eyes an area above my head, apparently bored with me now that I have failed to give her what she wants. “How dull. Don’t you ever get curious?”
“About what?” I ask without thinking.
I have Carien’s interest again. Her smile is infuriating, a smile that says I know something you don’t. “I’ve heard they’re magical.”
And here I thought everyone in MallenIve had relegated the bats to nothing more than people-shaped animals or sometimes, if they were lucky, to the status of kept-whores. “Have you now?” I try to take a deep breath, but the stench of scriv is so heavy I feel like all I’m breathing in is spoiled fruit instead of air. It’s been so long since I had any that I’ve realized how awful it actually smells. The women here are rotten with it.
Carien narrows her eyes. “There’s talk.” But it seems something in my tone has warned her off, because she sits back with a sudden easy grace and looks around. “Where’s that damn servant? Ives lets the Hobs get away with murder here.”
The honey-blonde laughs. “Hardly surprising, given his predilections.”
The women all smirk together.
I take their lapse of interest in me as an opportunity to gather myself. Scriv. So much of it in this room, and there is only one type of magic that calls for such quantities in these social situations. Readers. Damn it. All of them? I eye the group warily.
Carien’s moments of looking not-quite at me are explained. Now that I’m aware of it, I can see how their interactions with each other are careful, with a slick layer of surface agreement that indicates heavy emotional shielding.
There is no way to be truly hidden around them. If I’d been able to go on to University, I would have learned some shielding techniques – enough that I could at least misdirect – but even that is a trick that only a few really get the knack of.
This is why we War-Singers and Saints loathe the Readers so. There is no perfect way to hide the lies, the insecurities, and the complexities of engagement. The best I can do is focus on some very strong emotion, something so powerful it will blank out all others. Very few people have something big enough to work. Love certainly isn’t enough. However, I am lucky.
Lucky. If that’s what one wants to call it. My fingers twitch, and I force myself to remember the things I did.
Dash’s face as I cut him off in a nightmare world, willing him to die. The scratch on Owen’s cheek, sentencing him to death. I ran away from my family and my future, only to destroy it. Only to end up with a future that is hardly better than the one I tried to escape. And people died for my rebellion. Dash and Owen were merely the ones whose names I knew.
These things are me. This is my guilt. And, beyond that, I have the time I wasted in not killing my brother straight away, and the innocents who died because of that.
The guilt hits me solidly and the blackness fills my throat.
Across from me Destia shifts, turning a little to stare at me in confusion.
Carien narrows her eyes, smiles grimly, and taps her fingers along the wooden arm rest of her chair. We watch each other, waiting to see who will make the next move, and what it will be. She is like a little snake, ready to strike.
They’re interested in the bats, and that interests me. MallenIve society detests them as vermin. It’s not the done thing to show any fascination. I need to draw these women out a little and find out what they know. If it’s true that Carien and her cronies know that the ba– the vampires are magical, then how long before they have them condemned to death, or worse, used to replace scriv dust – their teeth and bones ground to powder and snorted from little glass spoons?
It must not happen. I pull my guilt around me, let it seethe. “How do you mean magical?” I affect my best tone of bumbling confusion. “I must confess that the idea strikes me as somewhat ludicrous, certainly I–” I pause, mouth still open then shut it with a decisive snap. I flush, intensify the guilt. There. Let them make of that what they want.