Threads of Desire (Spellcraft) - By Stone, Eleri Page 0,5

she is.”

“She’s angry. She’ll curse me tonight, sanctify herself in the fountains of Risa at dawn, avoid me in the marketplace tomorrow and be back here again by nightfall.”

“And then you’ll tell her?”

He made a soft sound of denial. “I will bind her to me as tightly as I can manage it before I tell her anything.”

A long pause as Rael, his most trusted servant, moved around the room lighting the oil lamps. “I hope you’re right.”

“I always am.”

Chapter Three

Sweat trickled down her back and between her breasts. The rains had come early, drenching everything and leaving behind a wet, miserable heat. Midday in the marketplace was never pleasant, even when you were lucky enough to be able to afford to rent one of the small stalls and owned enough fabric to drape a canopy over your booth. Ily was neither lucky nor rich. Kal, who was both, had bribed the peacekeepers to evict a silversmith’s apprentice who’d set up in the stall directly across from her. The confused man had protested the mistreatment loudly and been cuffed for his efforts by Calef. She didn’t expect to see him back any time soon. Calef was a reasonably effective peacekeeper who had little tolerance for troublemakers even when their only offence was in choosing the wrong stall.

Kal caught her glare, shrugged and sat in the shade while his servants arranged his clearly inferior merchandise. The youngest, little more than a boy, fetched him a goblet of wine and a sweating bowl of chilled grapes.

Everything about him spoke of cool elegance, except his eyes. They were hot and not at all civilized. He smiled and she jerked her gaze down to her work. If she must suffer the sun—and his presence—she would have something tangible to show for it. She wouldn’t remember the feel of his hands on her body. The slow, sure touch that had set her ablaze with embarrassing ease. She would not sit here trembling with shame and want while he watched her squirm.

She turned her attention to the thread spread across her lap in radiating lines connected to a series of spools set directly in front of her. She tested each of the spools to ensure that they would turn freely. When she was satisfied that everything was precisely as it should be, she closed her eyes.

First, the red. Not the sunset color of dried saffron but the bright shock of fresh blood. The icy blue of the snow capped mountains to the north. Green to ground it and a milky cream to soothe the eye. She held the pattern in her thoughts with the practice of long hours of disciplined meditation. The marketplace dropped away, the buzz of noise and the stench of unbathed bodies roasting in the sun. The sensation of the heat faded along with her hunger. The biting flies which had harassed her all morning. And lastly, blessedly, her awareness of her unwanted watcher.

No one would disturb her now. She’d never practiced her art in the marketplace. While she was weaving, she’d be completely exposed, vulnerable amongst strangers. Casting required absolute focus, and the marketplace was loud and dirty. Anything might distract her and destroy the weave. Someone could steal the final product before she’d recovered enough to protect it or herself.

But Kal watched over her today. He would, she knew, prevent others from harming her so why not make use of his intrusive vigilance? Buyers would pay extra for a carpet they’d seen created with their own eyes. They would tell their friends they’d witnessed the weaving. They’d—please the gods—bring others to pay for the spectacle.

The threads caressed her palms as they moved through her hands. Closing her eyes, she offered up a silent prayer that there would be no pulls or snags. These threads...they were all she had left. She’d arranged them carefully before she began, but one could never be certain. If her concentration was broken, there was no way to resume the weave. The cupped shapes that formed the border reminded her of Kal’s goblets and for a second she regretted the fact that she did not have golden thread. Red sufficed. Like the wine.

For a long time she thought of nothing but the colors running through her mind, running now through her fingers, cool and light, collapsing and reforming patterns of bright and dark. A kaleidoscope of perfect beauty. And from that first moment when she let the casting fully claim her until the last thread whipped