CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Palace of the First, Yoyette, Coroleas

I t was very dark, not a lamp lit anywhere in the apartment, and for that reason Salome was very relaxed.

StarDrifter could not see her back.

His hands were very soft and very sure on her body, and Salome allowed herself to drift into a state of sheer bliss.

She’d never had a lover like this. No wonder her mother and grandmother had succumbed.

But she would be careful. Yes, she would.

But no need to be careful now. He couldn’t see. He wouldn’t know. He didn’t suspect.

He didn’t talk, and Salome appreciated that.

He ran his hand down her flank, each individual finger touching her differently, each sending separate trails of ecstasy down her body.

Why had she denied herself an Icarii lover for so long? Who would want to deny themselves this?

He kissed her shoulder, and she felt his mouth smile against her flesh.

“You may stay the night,” she murmured.

“I had no intention of leaving,” StarDrifter whispered.

A moment’s irritation engulfed her. StarDrifter refused to defer to her, laughed at her commands, ignored her demands.

Then his hand slid even lower, and her irritation vanished on her gasp, and was forgotten even before StarDrifter mounted her again.

She dozed. She was vaguely aware that StarDrifter had left the bed and used the washroom. She smiled as she felt his weight settle back on the bed, and stretched catlike as his arms wrapped about her once more.

He turned her face to his, and kissed her, slow and deep, making Salome rouse fully from her slumber and arch her body into his.

His hands were sliding slowly over her again, moving teasingly down her body. One slid over her sex, and she parted her legs for him, moaning with pleasure as his fingers slid deep within her, stroking and caressing.

He was murmuring in her ear. Not talk, just soft nothingness. His hand was now sliding up her body, stroking, stroking, and Salome realized his intent had changed. No longer was he arousing, but comforting, almost like a mother trying to lull her child to sleep.

And she did feel sleepy. Salome stretched once more, then yawned, and allowed StarDrifter to snuggle her in close to his body.

Within moments she was deeply asleep.

StarDrifter waited almost half an hour for the drug to have its full effect, then he rose from the bed and walked back to the washroom. He washed the smell of her from his body, then dressed, patting the pocket in his breeches where earlier had rested the pessary, now working its stupor deep within Salome’s body.

StarDrifter lit a lamp when he came back into the bedchamber, partly so he could see what he was doing, partly to see if the light caused Salome to stir.

She slept on, her mouth now very slightly and unbecomingly agape. StarDrifter walked over to the bed, the lamp in his hand, and stood watching her for some minutes.

He might loathe her, but he could still manage to admire her beauty. Then, curious, he put a hand on her shoulder and rolled her over onto her belly.

She didn’t stir.

StarDrifter sat down on the bed and brought the lamp closer…then muttered a soft oath of surprise. He lifted his free hand and lightly traced his fingers down the very faint outline of a scar down her spine.

Stars! She’d had wings taken out!

StarDrifter drew in a deep breath, thinking. She had far more Icarii blood in her than he’d originally thought. At least a half blood and possibly far more.

His fingers traced the scar again. It was very old, and StarDrifter suspected she’d had not wings taken out, but wing buds. Icarii didn’t grow their wings until they were five or six, when the wings developed from nascent buds in their backs. Someone, her parents, had known she was likely to develop wings, and so had the buds removed when she would have been three or four.

Once more his fingers stroked down her back, this time more caressing than exploratory.

Her cruelty—was that Icarii arrogance more than anything else?

StarDrifter shuddered, finally drawing his hand away from her. Stars, he thought, anything but that.

He rose, stood for a long moment looking down at her, reflecting that by morning her entire world would have collapsed, and persuading himself that it was worth it; she had denied her Icarii heritage, refused to accept it, she deserved whatever ill came her way…

Giving himself a little shake, irritated that he’d fallen into such reflection, StarDrifter walked away from the bed and toward the shelf where stood the Weeper.

He stood before it, the lamp raised in his hand.

Then, very slowly, StarDrifter bowed before it. “I greet you well, Weeper,” he said as he rose. “My name is StarDrifter SunSoar, a prince of the Icarii and a once-powerful Enchanter. I have come to take you to the Lord of Elcho Falling—”

He stopped there, horrified, for the bronze statue began to weep. Although there were always trails of moisture down its cheeks, now the bronze eyes began to flood with tears, so much so that the moisture ran down the deity’s bronze body in rivulets, dripped off its toes, and puddled on the floor.

“Please,” StarDrifter whispered, almost overcome himself by the Weeper’s show of emotion, “allow me to take you in my arms, that I—”

The statue was weeping even harder now, and making soft, heartrending noises.

StarDrifter swallowed, “—that I may carry you to the Lord of Elcho Falling, so that he may release your tortured soul.”

Stars! He didn’t know what to do. The deity was now sobbing, StarDrifter could virtually see its shoulders shaking, although he knew that was not possible.

“Please,” he whispered, risking resting his hand on the deity’s shoulder.

What he felt from it was extraordinary: a loneliness so deep it broke StarDrifter’s heart; a sadness so consuming it almost drove StarDrifter mad; a desperation for this man, this Lord of Elcho Falling, that was inconsolable.

StarDrifter did the only thing he could. He put the lamp down, then reached forward and took the deity from its shelf, cuddling it in his arms.

The deity was bronze, it was not capable of moving, but nonetheless StarDrifter thought he felt—or intuited—it snuggling against his body, almost as a small child would.

“I’ll take you to he who waits for you,” he whispered, “but for the moment you must be quiet.”

Then, wrapping the deity in a bundle of Salome’s clothes that she’d discarded by the bed, he left the bedchamber.

There were guards outside, but they were so used to Salome and her lovers that the sight of a man emerging from her chamber late at night was of no fuss to them.

Nonetheless, one stopped StarDrifter, asking what it was he held in his arms.

StarDrifter grimaced. “Her soiled linens,” he said. “She demanded I hand them to the laundress.”

The guards both laughed, waving him on his way. “At least she did not require you to wash them yourself!”

Ba’al’uz leapt up from the bed as StarDrifter entered, his eyes riveted on the bundle that StarDrifter carried. “You have it!”

“Aye, and it was easier than I’d thought,” StarDrifter said. He made as if to hand the bundle to Ba’al’uz, but the Weeper shrieked the instant he lifted it away from his body.

StarDrifter reflexively hugged it back to him, and the Weeper fell silent.

Ba’al’uz and StarDrifter looked at each other, and StarDrifter thought he could see flat hatred in Ba’al’uz’ eyes.

“Looks like I’ll need to carry it,” said StarDrifter.

“At least until the ship is well embarked,” Ba’al’uz muttered. “Tell me, how long do we have? When did you give Salome the pessary?”

“About an hour ago,” StarDrifter said, then stopped awkwardly, as if he’d wanted to say something else but thought better of it.

“But?” said Ba’al’uz, his eyes narrowed.

“I had a close look at Salome’s back,” StarDrifter said slowly, wondering if he should tell Ba’al’uz this, but wanting to distract him from any thought of taking the Weeper.

“Yes? And?”

“She has a long scar down her spine. Very old. As a child she had wing nubs cut out of her back.”

“Salome is an Icarii?”

“Yes. At least, she has Icarii blood in her. One of her parents, and probably one or more of her grandparents.”

Ba’al’uz stared at StarDrifter, then gave a small nod and a smile. “Very well, then. Now, we must leave.

The ship embarks at dawn.”

An hour later, as they left the palace to hurry to the wharves, the Weeper still securely wrapped in StarDrifter’s arms, Ba’al’uz took a moment to whisper to one of the men standing guard at the gates to the Palace of the First.

[ Part Six ]