they can, but I fear the results of their heavy-handedness. I think our father is resigned to handling repercussions for some time to come.”
Mari swung her arms to stretch some of the kinks from her muscles. “Isn’t there anything you can do to help guide him? He’s on unsteady ground as Asrahn-Elect as it is. The last thing he needs are riots.”
“He’s not well, Mari! We need you back home. Things will be awkward, though it wouldn’t be the first time. I doubt it will be the last. Even though you drive Father to distraction, life is generally more pleasant when you’re around.”
Mari smiled. “That’s sweet, Belam.”
Belam shook his head, face flushed. “When I saw your body laid out in front of the villa on the Huq am’a Zharsi, I thought you were dead!”
“Calm down—”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” For a man who flirted with death almost every day, Mari’s incident with the Feyassin had unsettled him more than it should have. “You’re my best friend, Mari, and we’ve both paid a heavy price for your defiance.”
“I tried to stop you from fighting Indris. I called out to you.”
“I heard. But I wonder, was it me you were trying to save, or him? How could you betray your House so? Especially now our father needs us more than ever. He’s not the man he was, Mari.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” She grabbed him by the chin, turned his head to face her. Mari looked into his eyes, then slapped him lightly on the cheek in affectionate rebuke. “We’re both alive, both well, both wasting a beautiful day arguing. Let’s not. Between the two of us, we may be able to protect our father from the worst of himself.”
As for sleeping with Indris, she did not regret it at all. Mari turned her attention to the skydock. She felt like one of the wind-ships, held in place by lengths of chain when she had the ability, no, was meant, to fly free. Every time she had attempted to take to the air, her family weighed her down with the chains of their expectations.
“I worry about you, Mari,” Belam offered by way of explanation. “I don’t want to argue, but you’re so reckless. Why did you sleep with him?”
“I didn’t know who he was at the time. I assume our father knows?”
“His only consolation, my only consolation, is knowing Indris is dead.”
She schooled her expression to stillness and kept walking. They moved in silence for some time, unspoken tension rising, until Belam asked the question she was dreading.
“Why did you give yourself to a Näsarat?” Belam’s voice was very soft, as if he feared the answer more than he struggled with the question.
“If it had been anybody else, this wouldn’t be an issue. It never has been before. Besides, you said yourself you wanted to marry Roshana,” she reminded him gently. “Though the hypocrisy is entirely your own, how much of your indignation is sourced in Father’s bigotry?”
“My words are not deeds. I neither married Roshana nor lay with her.” He closed his mouth with an audible snap. She could see the whiteness around his knuckles as he clenched his fists in frustration. “Of the two of us, you went the further.”
“Yes, I did. I usually do. And you being angry about it won’t change anything.” Of all the living members of the Great House of Erebus, Belam was the only other one she thought might be turned from the course their father had set them on. Kasra, their half brother and heir to the Great House, was in all ways a creature forged by the malignant stain she remembered as their grandsire, Basyrandin. Kasra was more a witch’s student than a warrior, and all the more dangerous because of it. Kasra did not share the closeness of his warrior-poet siblings, and Mari did not seek his good opinion as keenly as she did Belam’s. Rarely had there been secrets of any substance between her and Belam. The secrets she now kept from him were ones that would hurt him, and he would never understand why she felt the need to do what she had done.
“I can’t forgive you yet, Mari.” Belam’s voice was sad. “What you did…”
“I know,” she said. He smelled of oiled leather and sun-warmed glass from his armor. From goat’s milk on his skin. Mari gave him a searching look. “But that’s something you need to reconcile with yourself. Don’t take too long, Belam. The past days have shown