CHAPTER 25 #4
The woman stared at me.
“Please let the orsi know that I’m here.”
The sentry disappeared into the house and shut the door behind her.
“What are you doing?” Lute murmured.
“Showing them courtesy,” I said. “Just because they are rude to me doesn’t mean I will be rude to them.”
“You shouldn’t be kneeling in front of them,” Lute said under his breath.
“This is their custom.”
Sometimes stools weren’t available, and the Okula sat straight on the pads, but this usually happened when they were traveling. They should’ve brought a stool. Not offering one was rude.
“I’m not kneeling,” he told me.
“Nor should you. Your job is to look menacing and glower at everyone who approaches. Maybe do that thing where you put your hand on your sword.”
Lute widened his stance and put his arms behind him in a textbook parade rest.
“Perfect,” I told him.
“How long are we going to wait?” he murmured.
“Until they see me.” I put some volume into my voice. “I’m not Harzi, but I’ve done everything the right way. They do prize ceremony and hospitality, so they won’t throw me out. They will delay, hoping I leave.”
“Should you lower your voice?” he asked.
“No. They are listening to us right now. Now they know that I know and also that I know that they know.”
Lute blinked a couple of times, shook his head, and fell silent.
After ten minutes, kneeling was not comfortable in the slightest.
After half an hour it started to get painful.
We were about an hour in, and my legs hurt like hell.
The doors swung open, and an older man in an ornate Harzi tunic stepped out.
Lute put his hand on his sword.
“We welcome you to the House of Morning Sky. The orsi will see you now.”
I looked at Lute. My legs had gone numb. He bent down, grabbed me by the elbow, and lifted me to my feet. Ow.
Blood rushed back into my feet. Every step sent needles through my soles all the way through my calves. Ow, ow, ow.
Lute half helped, half carried me up the three steps and inside the house.
We walked into a large room with glossy wooden floors stained dark blue and ornate wooden columns.
People in Okulan attire waited on the sides: a few retainers in embroidered overtunics and a handful of guards, their swords in plain view.
Most of them were tall and long-limbed, with beige skin warmed by a peach undertone and dark brown, auburn, or red hair, worn in half-ponytails or braided away.
Rellasian hairstyles emphasized elaborate lattices and flattering curves, while the Okulan hairdos seemed to mostly revolve around getting the hair out of your face and securing it, so it didn’t fly around.
In front of us, on a raised platform, the orsi sat in a carved wooden chair.
Each Okulan clan was led by a tair, the clan lord, a gender-neutral term.
The orsi were their deputies. The word literally meant “hand.” They looked after the clan’s interests at their assigned posts and spoke with the voice of the tair.
This orsi was young, only twenty-two years old.
Unlike most of the Harzi around her, she was on the shorter side, a couple of inches taller than five feet and slender.
Her outfit, the same style as worn by the sentry that had met us, was decorated with exquisite embroidery depicting a white bird with long feathers amid red flowers.
She had a heart-shaped face with delicate features and chestnut-brown hair that rested on top of her head in an elaborate crown of braids, secured with golden cords and clips carved out of bone.
A thin band in matching Harzi blue crossed her forehead, identifying her status.
It looked tattooed, but it wasn’t. It was drawn on with a plant-based dye similar to henna, and they had to redraw it every couple of weeks.
Digi Dareel. The first daughter of the Harzi. Smart, gifted, diligent, and shrewd. Everything the heir to the clan should be.
A simple stool waited for me in the center of the floor. No mat to pad it. Assholes.
I gave everyone a shallow nod and sat. Lute parked himself next to me.
The orsi regarded us with large brown eyes, traced with dark eyeliner and accented with gold powder.
Four people stood next to her chair: on the right, a tall woman in her thirties and an elderly man whose hair had gone completely gray, and on the left, a middle-aged man in warrior garb next to a tall younger man with sharp features and a mane of auburn hair.
The young man wore an expensive outfit. A cascade of gold loops dripped from his left ear.
Ha. All the right people. Time to get this party started.
The tall woman spoke. “What do you want from Clan Harzi?”
“I need a mordok.”
The tall woman shook her head. “We do not sell mordoks to outsiders.”
“I don’t wish to buy one,” I said. “I have come to offer the orsi a secret that will put her in my debt. Should she wish to be free of it, allowing me to borrow a mordok will suffice.”
“You know nothing of us,” the middle-aged warrior man said. “We do not need your secrets.”
“I think you do, Mrest Eser.”
His eyes narrowed. The name was a gamble, but he couldn’t have been anyone else.
“Let her speak,” the man with golden hoops said. “What’s the harm? If we don’t like what we hear, we can throw her out.”
Oh, yes, my gentle lamb. Come to the slaughter, Tarak. You deserve it.
The tall woman opened her mouth. Digi moved her hand, and the retainer stopped and stepped back.
“I will hear you out,” Digi said.
Yessss. “My secret will draw blood. Please be sure that only those you trust with your life remain in the room.”
“There are no traitors here,” Digi said. “You may speak.”
I looked at Mrest Eser. “You should draw your sword. Once I speak, the orsi may be in danger.”
His eyebrows came together.
“Humor her,” Digi ordered.
He unsheathed his blade, a slender, wicked sword.
“Lute,” I said, “draw your sword. I might be attacked in a minute.”
The sword was in Lute’s hand so fast, it might have jumped into it.
“Young woman,” the elderly man next to the orsi said, “did you come here to die?”
“No, Karet Or, I came here to help your grandniece.”
I faced the orsi.
“The tair sent you here to oversee the trade deal with the Jal Family. You were supposed to be recalled upon its conclusion. You expected to stay here for three months. A year has passed, and you are wondering why your father hasn’t sent for you.”
The room went quiet like a proverbial tomb. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be ours.
“Go on,” Digi said.
“Your father knows you are not his daughter. He has no intention of recalling you. He’s buying time for your second brother to consolidate his support by taking over your deals with the Northern Clans.
Once he’s ready, he will accuse you of betraying the clan and will send his sword brothers to bring you back. In chains.”
“You lie!” the tall woman snarled, ripping the spear from her back.
Lute raised his sword.
“Stop,” Digi ordered.
The tall woman halted, but she really didn’t want to. The young man with the golden hoops took a step back. Next to him, Mrest Eser’s face sank into grim determination. He was like a man preparing for a death charge. Digi’s granduncle stood still like a statue.
“Have you any proof?” Digi asked.
“You must have wondered why your cousin joined you here instead of enjoying the company of his many lovers and indulging in those hunts he loves so much. After all, Tarak has always avoided work whenever possible.”
Everyone looked at the young man with the golden loops in his ear.
“Tarak reports your every move to the tair. All visitors, all conversations, where you go, what you do, which goods you purchase and from whom. He has done a thorough job. It is the first time in his life he has ever worked so hard. Search him. Your cousin carries the black claw, which gives him the authority to take any life belonging to the clan. He can kill you at will.”
Tarak ripped a dagger from his waist and lunged at Digi.
Mrest Eser smashed the pummel of his sword into the young man’s solar plexus.
I had seen Everard do it to the Magnar brothers repeatedly during their practice sessions.
Tarak folded in half. Mrest Eser gripped his arm and twisted it. The dagger clattered to the floor.
The older warrior thrust his hand into Tarak’s robe and pulled a metal object out. It was solid black and shaped like a miniature dragon claw.
Silence claimed the room. Nobody made a sound except for Tarak trying to suck the air back into his lungs.
Digi regarded me. Her expression was perfectly calm. That was some amazing self-control.
“If I am not my father’s daughter, whose daughter am I?”
“Ask the man next to you.”
Mrest Eser jerked as if bitten by a snake.
Digi turned her head slowly and looked at him.
Sometimes we don’t notice glaringly obvious things because we are conditioned to ignore them.
She was probably seeing him for the first time.
The same dark eyes. The same shape of the mouth.
The same cut of the nose. The pain in his face that could only come from a parent expecting to be separated from his child.
The retainers of Clan Harzi stood frozen, afraid to move.
Mrest Eser was a retired general of the Harzi clan.
He had been ordered to accompany Digi by the tair, and, as the orsi, she now held his fate in her hand.
She could banish him. She could imprison him.
She could order his death to hide her secret.
Digi turned her head, looking at no one and everyone at the same time.
“My father is the best warrior in the clan. He is our savior and the most honored of the generals. I am blessed.”
Mrest Eser put his hand over his face.
“Prepare a feast and bring out the best wine. Today is a day of celebration and reunion. I shall honor my father, and we shall sing of his achievements. Tomorrow, we go to war.”
And it would be a brutal and quiet war, fought through trade, spies, and assassins.