The Garden of Stones - By Mark T. Barnes Page 0,12

there was the nameless lover she had taken, the one who had set her nerves on fire. He had been beautiful. Soulful light-brown eyes, the left tinted orange under lantern light, beneath a tangle of unkempt dark curls streaked by the sun. His large hands, hard as iron, had been sure and gentle against her skin. His arms and shoulders had been decorated with tribal tattoos, raised ritual scars, glyphs, and brands. A well-traveled man, some professional adventurer. He had not burdened their coupling with awkward, with any, words. She had never asked for his name, nor he for hers. She regretted this now, for how was she to find him again?

Mari had needed the release last night, knowing full well the morning after the battle would still see tensions and tempers running high. Her people had always been warriors, and battle was the way disputes were settled under strict rules of conduct. The complex codes of sende were often as much about the perception of power as its achievement. The Rōmarq, littered as it was with the ruins and ancient treasures of three previous empires, was a shining prize. Governing a prefecture that bordered the Rōmarq had been like an anchor tied around Far-ad-din’s ankles. It was inevitable somebody would seek to end him, to gain access to the shining trinkets of yesterday. Mari had a bitter taste in her mouth at the knowledge that the inevitable somebody had been her father.

As to whether Far-ad-din was a traitor? It was not for her to decide. Corajidin had his reasons for wanting to topple Far-ad-din from his perch. He believed there was a cure for the illness that was killing him, buried somewhere in the sunken ruins of the wetlands. He had not accepted his impending death without a fight, and Far-ad-din had paid the price for her father’s hunger to survive.

A unit of Iphyri stomped past in their layers of crimson steel and leather. The horse-men had been created by Erebus scholars centuries ago, before the Torque Spindles stopped working. They were beautiful in their way, deep-chested, heavily muscled, and strong. Smart enough to follow orders, without the independence to betray their masters. The Iphyri leveled their moist gazes in her direction. They were grist for the war mill. Quick at killing. Fearless and obedient till death.

Mari nodded to the various bows of her father’s subjects, though she felt a hypocrite. Her position with the Feyassin—the Asrahn’s guard—had originally been taken on so she could spy on Vashne. To be perhaps derelict in her duty should the opportunity occur, to allow harm to befall their head of state. Yet in service to the Asrahn, Mari had found a place for herself she had not expected. There was honor there. Honesty and pride, gratitude and respect. Though her father desperately clung to her, fostered the embrace of the Great House of Erebus, the sometimes fiction of Mari’s post put her beyond the ready use of her House. Feyassin did not marry. Did not use their bodies to form political alliances. As a Feyassin, she was no longer the coin of society.

Her father’s pavilion sat atop a tall dune. Mari ducked into the pavilion past the guards; swordmasters of the Anlūki commanded by her brother Belamandris. Banners hung from wooden stands, casting long shadows. Lacquered wooden lattices supported the pavilion walls, while richly embroidered silk panels divided the pavilion into separate rooms for the illusion of privacy.

Corajidin and his wife, Yashamin, Belam, and Thufan were seated on camp chairs around a low table. Thufan’s tattooed mountain of a son, Armal, stood behind his father. His face brightened when Mari entered, then flushed red. Her skin crawled at the sight of Wolfram, who lurked on the edge of the light, his head bowed beneath shanks of gray hair and the mat of his beard. The stave upon which the Angothic Witch leaned seemed as crooked and infirm as the man it supported. Slivers of mismatched wood, bound together with strips of leather, bronze bands, and crooked old coffin nails. The leather and metal of calipers supported both his legs. Once strong, the Human was now a withered husk, consumed by his appetites. Brede, the witch’s armed apprentice, lurked in his shadow, a woman who once had claim to a wanton’s beauty. The collar around her neck proclaimed her as much property as pupil. Farouk, a poor cousin and her father’s scar-faced adjutant, brooded by the entrance to the pavilion. Mari noted the