Chapter 5 Sadaré
SADARé
INSTEAD OF running after Melé like I truly want to, I force myself to follow Isha like the willing and obedient… servant? concubine?… I supposedly am. Whatever his mood swings indicate, he certainly seems to be giving me more attention than a mere servant would warrant with this tour.
His dark, commanding presence guides me out of the west wing along a grand staircase that chases down the inner wall of the salon.
After meeting yet more double doors, it deposits us on a columned landing overlooking what must be the fortress’s central courtyard.
The pale bone of the walls appears shadowed by the leaden sky overhead, but I can see well enough to make out the semicircular face of the towering east wing across from us, with a landing much like ours accessed by curving double staircases on either side.
Halfway to it, a silver fountain rises in tiers that overflow with what looks like smoke-swirled gray water, spilling out into a channel that bisects the courtyard and vanishes somewhere beneath our feet.
It also flows in the opposite direction into a grate under the landing across from us.
Two gracefully arched bone bridges span the canal on either side of the fountain, connecting the south and north sides of the courtyard.
The main keep is to the north, lurking hugely in the gloom.
Lush trees crowd the space between paths, their green leaves muted, and yet their branches burst with ripe fruits—oranges, cherries, apples, pomegranates—that somehow gleam in the permanent twilight.
Maybe it’s because the tainted-looking water likely feeds their growth, but the sight makes me less hungry and more uneasy.
You must forget. You must drink of my waters.
I certainly haven’t forgotten he said that.
I abruptly turn my attention to the spiked, domed cage that spans the top of the courtyard’s walls, separating us from the forbidding clouds above.
Hopefully he assumes that’s the source of my discomfort.
It is disturbing. It gives the admittedly lovely courtyard the air of a prison.
Isha follows my gaze like he has been when he’s not pretending I’m beneath his notice.
“It’s to protect the courtyard from whatever might escape the Pit of Hell on wings and be so bold as to attack,” he explains, the sharp lines of his profile elegant in the upward tilt of his face, limning him against the darkness.
I can’t help glancing at him, my eyes tracing the beard-shadowed hardness of his jaw, and I bitterly wish he wasn’t quite so beautiful.
“Such a creature wouldn’t last long against me, but I do worry for the shades under my protection. ”
Or he wants to prevent our escape. But any attempted egress by way of the sky, as he suggested, would no doubt end poorly.
I ignore the south wing like before, since exiting that way is as equally deadly, though I hear a distant clang of either hammers or swords and surmise that’s where the guards must be stationed.
It makes sense they would be concentrated at the literal gate to hell.
It’s not as though an attack would come from the Blessed Isles.
Which might mean the bridge there from the north tower is unguarded.
At least there’s no one here now to block our path as we wend our way down the stairs and into the courtyard garden.
It’s just the two of us, him leading the way.
As long as one doesn’t look up, the atmosphere is rather magical.
Tempting, almost. I try not to stare at the ripe fruit or the swirling grayish liquid running along the canal, burbling from the fountain.
My traitorous mouth is beginning to water even while my throat is painfully dry.
Shades must need to eat and drink. I didn’t expect that, just like I didn’t expect to find my body still—mostly—made of flesh and blood. I’m not sure if I can avoid eating and drinking forever, and perhaps he’s counting on that.
But I can try.
Unfortunately, the only other place to fix my eyes upon is Isha, which is somehow worse—a different sort of temptation, and yet far more dangerous.
“Are only the shades here under your protection?” I ask. And the rest left to fend for themselves? I don’t add.
“And those in the Blessed Isles, of course,” he says without turning.
“Right, which are reserved only for the noblest of mortals.” I resist rolling my eyes this time, in case he were to catch me at it. “I suppose you decide what ‘noble’ means.”
“I don’t, actually. I did once, long ago, but I grew tired of it.
” He glances back at me, giving me a glimpse of that unfathomable weariness in his expression.
I’ve seen the same in Daesra as a result of his long years, and yet this etches far deeper.
But then it’s as if it was never there, Isha’s face becoming as smooth and ageless as ever—as perfectly unreachable—before he turns back around. “I delegated the task to three judges.”
An odd versus even number, so there would always be a verdict one way or another, and the smallest odd number at that, after the efficiency of one.
Since he decided who would serve as these judges, then their judgment is just an extension of his, but I don’t push him on that point.
I feel like I’m walking on thin ice as it is, despite the warm air, abundant well-kept trees, and groomed paths.
If his weariness is any indication, his rule might be bitter indeed. He’s already admitted there’s a reason he brought me here, beyond what it would do to Daesra—for the taste of something else. Perhaps something other than bitterness.
It almost feels like the labyrinth all over again, except this time the labyrinth I need to solve is Isha.
“What determines a shade’s placement here?” I ask.
“I do.” The short, sharp edges of his words are as good as a warning.
“Were they good people or bad people in life or…?” Perhaps I’m inching hazardously close to Melé’s origins with this question, but I’m genuinely curious about the others who might be here.
He stops and turns so abruptly I bump into him. His eyes pin me even as I back away, startled, my hand tingling where it landed on his hard chest. I can still feel the heat of him against my palm.
“I don’t feel the need to explain myself to you, Arinae.”
That drags my focus away from his overwhelming presence, and I scowl up at him. “It’s Sadaré.”
“Ah,” he says wryly, “so I found the perfect way to vex you when you’re vexing me.” With more seriousness, he adds, “But you are Arinae to me.”
That was who I was before I met Daesra. Isha, the bastard, wants me untainted by him, my flavor pure, so of course he would prefer that name for me.
My eyes narrow even as I smile. “And if I do more than vex you?”
His smile is just as cutting in return, his iron eyes flaring as he leans forward. “As much as I desire your obedience, I must admit that I’m looking forward to such an occasion.”
We’re so close now, my words are a whisper between us as I tilt my face up to him. “You did say you had more desires than one.”
“Is that a challenge?” comes his low murmur in return.
He looms over me, but I stand my ground.
Only a handsbreadth separates us, his lips close enough to kiss, and the narrow space is charged with something both explosive and magnetic.
And wholly precarious. A hunger stirs in me that has nothing to do with my stomach.
There’s a pull between us, just like there is a push.
Guilt floods through me, dousing the tension. I shake myself and take a step back, surprised by the potency of my response to him. His flavor is as intoxicating as wine, and yet I need to keep my wits about me if I’m to have any chance at winning this game.
I need to intoxicate him, not the other way around. Whatever I must do to escape, I know Daesra will forgive—as long as I don’t lose myself to this act.
I can’t lose myself. I can’t lose Daesra.
I won’t.
Isha blinks as if breaking out of a daze, and abruptly turns on his bare heel, seizes my elbow, and hauls me after him, seemingly finished with my nonsense.
He’s not fooling me. I could read it in the coiled lines of his body, in the bright glint in his dark eyes—he likes the push as much as the pull. Defiance as well as obedience. How much he’ll tolerate my rebelliousness is another question.
I expect we’ll head for the main keep looming to the left, to the throne he can lord over me, but instead he steers us straight up the stairs into the east wing.
Instead of his undoubtedly grand throne room, we find his perhaps equally grand dining room, mirroring the salon on the opposite side of the courtyard.
The floor is the same spiral of black and silver, but the circular expanse is lined in waiting attendants rather than pillars of bone.
The ceiling is lower—perhaps with the kitchens stationed where there was an open gallery above the salon—with a huge if oddly shaped chandelier consuming the space below.
After the dimness of the courtyard, it takes me a moment of squinting into the relatively bright candlelight to recognize the open jawbones of some behemoth creature hanging overhead, each wickedly sharp tooth crowned in a wax taper.
There are hundreds of flickering flames.
It probably belonged to a monster much like the one I saw swimming in the sea outside.