Chapter 2 #2
round and firm as autumn apples and nipped down to a slim waist
encircled with a leather belt embedded with gems of emerald and
ruby and amber and onyx, from which hung not one but three jeweled
sheaths, a bone-hilted blade strapped into each. Her leggings
hugged every league of her long, lissome legs, which moved in time
with her sleekly muscled arms. She wore boots the same tawny hue of
her skin, and her mass of dark hair was plaited into one thick
braid that hung down her shapely back to the womanly swell of her
hips. An armband of gold graced her left upper arm, and etched
leather cuffs protected both of her wrists.
She stood in the middle of the stage, chin
up, shoulders back, and eyes blazing as her brother, who was
dressed as she was, walked up to stand beside her. The pulse in
Aleksi’s cock hammered. By the stifled groans coming from the table
of men, his was not the only one.
Two men set stools at the edge of the stage
and sat, a small drum in each of their laps. Sahar and Asim bowed
to their parents and then to each other. The men began to beat the
drums, slowly at first, softly, and Sahar and Asim began to circle
each other, a blade in each hand. The drums beat faster, harder,
and brother and sister crouched and doubled their pace.
Asim lunged forward and jabbed with his right
hand and Sahar jumped back with the ease of a cat, landing in a
loose crouch, and then she lunged forward and jabbed with her right
hand and Asim jumped back. Asim repeated his lunge and jab with his
left hand and Sahar jumped back again before lunging and jabbing
with her left. They continued in this fashion, moving in a circle
around the stage, their blades stopping a hair’s width from flesh.
The gathering clapped in time with the drum beat, and Aleksi sat
forward on his seat. Asim was strong and quick and agile, but
Sahar, Sahar moved like smoke. Silent, sinuous, and stealthy,
striking with the swift, sure precision of an assassin and then
slipping away, a mesmerizing spirit dancing beyond her assailant’s
reach.
Aleksi could not take his eyes off her.
Their circle complete, Asim and Sahar stood
face to face and dipped their heads to each other, sucking in deep
breaths and blowing them out slowly. Then Asim turned a half circle
to his right as Sahar turned a half circle to her left, their
blades clashing before they returned to face each other and
repeating the movement to their opposite sides. They repeated the
moves three times, their blades meeting with a clang before they
whirled around again on one foot, the other barely touching ground
before pushing off, and then they twirled completely around and
began to circle each other, legs bent and arms outstretched.
The drums beat faster and Asim slashed his
blade waist high as Sahar dove over the knife and somersaulted to
her feet. Asim swung low and she jumped up and over his blade. He
swung high and she dropped to her knees and slid in a full circle,
slashing at the back of his hamstrings, a fatal blow in a real
fight, before jumping back up to her feet with a feral grin.
They flipped their blades full circle,
catching them by the hilts, and then they closed the distance
between them, striking their blades against each other’s in an
intricate pattern that mimicked the rapid beat of the drums. They
stepped forward, backward, and sideways, maintaining their rhythmic
pattern, and then they each whirled around in a full circle, their
blades meeting in the middle, and back around the opposite
direction, their blades meeting again. Leaping to opposite sides of
the stage, they faced the gathering, their faces glowing with the
fine sheen of their exertion. Flipping their blades full circle
once more, they caught them by the hilts, sheathed them, and bowed
low to the gathering.
Aleksi jumped up from his seat, whistling and
clapping half a beat before the courtyard erupted into wild
applause. Sahar straightened and turned her smile on him, her
cheeks several shades pinker than they had been. Aleksi’s chest
swelled and he was grinning back at her like the village idiot, but
he neither cared nor tried to hide it. Yago the Wolf stepped out
from behind his table and walked over to her and bowed low before
her. He offered her his arm, which she took, her cheeks pinker
still, and hand in arm they walked back to the royal table, where
she resumed her seat, smiling shyly at Yago’s gallant bow before he
returned to his own seat.
Aleksi saw red.
Who did this Yago the Worm think he was,
insinuating himself into her performance like that? She was not
some frail-bodied, faint-hearted, empty-headed doll who could not
find her own way back to her seat without his help. Why had the
proud tigress accepted Yago’s arm and blushed so prettily at the
oily snake?
Why did Aleksi care? She was not his. She
never would be. She was a princess and he a bastard. He needed a
wife of humbler means and easy temper, a wife willing to work her
fingers to the bone if need be, not some pampered princess, no
matter how fiery and beautiful. Aleksi shook his head and raked his
hand through his hair. She was not for him. He did not need a woman
like her.
Trouble was, he wanted her.
He should not, but there was no denying the
allure she held. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the
emerald green of hers challenging him. He could hear her voice, low
and smoky, threatening to geld him. He could breathe in and smell
her perfume, a tantalizing mix of musky woman and sweet, exotic
flower.
The Wolf returned to the table, and Aleksi
turned on his heel and left the courtyard. It was either that or
entertain the gathering with a real knife fight.
Sahar and Halah lay shoulder to shoulder on
Sahar’s bed, bellies down, their feet in the air, legs swaying back
and forth in time as they admired the hummingbird brooch Munir had
given Halah as a gift of betrothal.
“Oh, Lala.” Sahar held the brooch up, its
body of verdigris copper and wings of inlaid abalone shining
iridescent in the rooms candle light. “It’s beautiful, like
you.”
Halah blushed. “That is what Munir said.”
“He was only speaking the truth.” Sahar
touched the side of her head to Halah’s. “I am so happy for you
both.” She caught her breath as a stabbing pain seared her through.
“If only Ommar could see you so happy.” Shame filled her. “I am so
sorry he is not here for you.”
“Hush, Sasa,” Halah insisted. “You were only
a little girl. It was not your fault that you were not strong
enough to hold on.”
Sahar clamped her hand into a fist as Ommar’s
ghostly fingers slipped from hers. Not your fault. Not strong
enough. Only a girl. Those were the words her entire
family had spoken over and over, meant to assuage her pain, her
guilt. The words she had sworn to prove wrong by not only competing
in the races, but winning them.
She handed the brooch back to Halah and gave
her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Munir is a lucky man,” she said.
“I am glad you will still be living in the palace, though I will
miss having you in the room next door at my spoilt brat princess
beck and call,” she added in her best haughty tone.
“That Aleksandr should not have called you
spoilt,” Halah said, rising, as always, to her cousin’s
defense.
“No,” Sahar agreed. “That was not politic.”
She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the draperies of
golden worm weave, the image of Aleksandr standing in defiance of
his half-sister’s denouncement, shoulders squared and jaw jutting
forward filling her mind’s eye. “But then I do not think he is
overly concerned with being so. Lucky bastard,” she said under her
breath.
But of course, Halah heard her. Like her
mother, she could hear a pin drop a hundred paces away as clearly
as she could a false note sung or spoken. She eyed Sahar under
raised brows.
“I do try,” Sahar said. Unlike Halah, all
Sahar had inherited from her mother besides her green eyes and the
ability to dance was a spine that would only bend so far.
“Sometimes more successfully than others.”
Halah rolled on to her side and faced Sahar.
“Your father was politic in his response to your surprise
announcement tonight.”
“Indeed,” Sahar agreed. He had not said one
word about her riding in the races, not yet, but he would, as would
her mother the next time they had her alone.
“He was not quite so polite with Yago the
Wolf though,” Halah said. “Especially when Yago escorted you back
to the royal table. I thought your father’s glare would burn the
Wolf to cinders.” She shook her head. “What could the Wolf have
meant by doing that? He practically declared his intention to court
you in front of not only your parents but every royal from a
hundred leagues away.”
“I do not think that was his intention.”
“Oh yes it was. Your father was not the only
man glaring pointed barbs at him for it. Your Aleksandr looked as
if he would gladly tear the Wolf apart limb by limb.”
Sahar blushed for the second time this day,
and she seldom blushed. “He is not my Aleksandr,” she
said.
“You forget, I was there the first time he
met you. I saw his face. I heard his proposal.”
“Aye, when he thought me some simple-minded,
easy-tempered servant girl.”
Halah flashed one of her impish grins,
another trait she shared with her mother. “Who would you choose?”
she asked. “If you had to choose, right here, right now, between
the bastard Aleksandr and the prince Yago?”
“To what?” Sahar knew perfectly well what
Halah meant.
“To marry. Quit stalling. “
Aleksandr’s square jaw, full lips and cocky
grin came instantly to mind, and Sahar smiled despite herself as
she imagined that cursed shock of hair falling onto his forehead
and over his big brown eyes. She breathed in and inhaled the earthy
scent of man and horse, sweat and leather that had assailed her
nostrils when he had leaned close and whispered in her ear, sending
a shiver down her unbending spine.
She thought of Yago the Wolf, of his handsome
face and manners. Of how smoothly he had made room for her in the
line of riders. She had been caught off guard when he offered her