be used by good and evil alike. Mesema understood swords, and she could only grow to understand them better as time passed. But if the god was a sword, the pattern was something else again. Where a sword cut and laid bare, the pattern bound and kept hidden. Much like Arigu.
She didn’t trust Arigu. Worse, something kept her from saying so. Instead she turned to Banreh, motioning towards where she knew the Cerani general waited, putting aside the thudding in her stomach. “Let us leave this place,” she said.
“I think there is someone behind the Carriers,” Tuvaini said. “A man.”
Lapella made no indication that she had heard him. She lay across the bed, turned away on her side, her smooth curves bare for his inspection.
He ran a finger along her hip. He knew she listened. Lapella would always listen to him. “And those who fall ill hear his voice and become his creatures.”
She moved, a slow, oiled motion, turning her face to the pillow, her hip to the bed.
Tuvaini watched her, watched the lantern gleam on her skin. He knew she held tight to his words. She thought he was giving something to her, sharing secrets, making a bond.
“He has touched the emperor, this man.”
Lapella stiffened at that, her fingers knotting in the sheets, then she drew a deep breath and relaxed.
“He plans for the day he will speak and Beyon will follow his will.” Tuvaini pictured Beyon’s face. He wondered when the light in the emperor’s eyes would die. The Carriers were already preparing the ground for their advance, buying favors within the palace walls, even from Tuvaini himself.
Lapella moved to receive him, though still she did not speak, even as she lifted herself.
Tuvaini thought of the enemy’s purchases. Entry through the Red Hall to kill the emperor’s Knife. Access to Prince Sarmin, through the secret ways. Tuvaini had sold them both when the price offered exceeded their value. Though the first time, with Eyul, he hadn’t known the target.
Lapella sighed beneath him and he twisted his fingers within her hair, pulling her head back.
The man behind the Carriers—the enemy—he might walk the palace even now. He had failed once already, and he would fail again.
There had been a moment when Eyul had been locked in combat with one of the Carriers, a moment when it had seemed their intention had changed. The Carrier pretending to attack Tuvaini hadn’t moved to finish Eyul, though Eyul was injured; instead, it ran. Eyul lived. Beyon and Sarmin lived also, occupied with the prince’s wild bride.
Tuvaini need only wait for his moment.
The enemy had failed, and he would fail again. A wild bride, with wild ways.
He would fail again.
Tuvaini, spent, pushed Lapella from him. Sweat ran across his ribs. “He buys favors, but he doesn’t know what he has paid.”
Lapella lay silent, gleaming, soft motion in her hips.
He could hear her breathing now. “He will take Beyon, but I hold the keys to Beyon. And when I choose, Beyon will be undone.”
“What then?”
At last she speaks.
“The empire will be great once more.” A strong empire would defeat the curse at last. Once the Pattern Master showed his hand Tuvaini would strike, and the Cerani would no longer live in fear of his design. They would reach for magnificence, as they had in the Reclaimer’s time. There would be art and song, and trade to be had. The light of heaven would fall once again upon the throne.
Lapella rolled to face him. Already he wanted her again: her ripe curves, her dark curls, the faint scars of the wounds that made her his, the way she bit her lip when their eyes met. She ran a finger down his cheek and a lump came to his throat, surprising him. “I’m afraid for you,” she said.
He rolled over and entered her once more, pinning her hands against the pillows. This time would be even better. He liked to see himself in her eyes. “Worry for the Carriers and their Master.”
Chapter Sixteen
Eyul dreamed of the young princes. He dreamed of blood running across shining tiles, reflected in a child’s dead eyes. In his dreams, the young Beyon spoke to him in the courtyard, though in life he had not.
“Why are we always here?” the child Beyon asked him once. “We are not here. It is a dream.” Eyul closed his eyes to shut away the
blood. “I am ill, and so I am always dreaming.”
“I’m tired of this dream,” said little Beyon. “I’m tired of dreaming