T I S A A N A H
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“T
hat went exactly how he wanted it to,” Sammerin said, shaking his head, and Max scowled in a way
that said he knew his friend was right.
I watched Max as he slumped back down onto that crate, my teeth gritted. Stupid. So stupid, in that uniquely male way, to sink to getting into a dick-waving contest instead of stopping to think about what that would mean. Gods, what a privilege that must be.
I may have had the ability to decay flesh — a thought that made me shudder — but I still lacked the freedom that would let me behave so carelessly.
Max caught my eye. “What?” “You made it too easy for him.”
“Trust me, I’ve known Zeryth long enough to know that he would have found an excuse for that display regardless. That was unavoidable. Now or later.” A scoff. “Bastard.”
“It doesn’t matter. You cannot give him so much to use against you.”
Max’s face hardened. “That man treated you like an animal, and he was just looking at you like you were—” He let out a breath through his teeth. “And you’re telling me that I didn’t play nicely enough?”
I wanted to laugh. How could someone be so cynical and yet so naive? “Do you understand how many men have looked at me that way? Like a thing, not a person? I wouldn’t have survived a week in Esmaris’s court if I had
—”
“But that’s not right.”
“Of course it’s not right, but it is the way it is. The only weapon I have is to use that.”
Max looked down at his shoulder. At that glistening black rot. “I don’t think that’s even remotely true, Tisaanah.”
A whisper, far away, as my eyes fell to that patch of rot:
{Look at what we can do together. Beautiful.}
That one echo of a whisper, and it was gone again. It was always, always so tired.
“I am bound to the Orders,” I said, to Max. “That is true whether I like it or you like it. And that…rot…” I lifted my hand to his shoulder, biting back my disgust at the word. “That does not belong to me. That belongs to them.”
Bound to Zeryth. Bound to Nura. Bound to Queen Sesri. And, of course, perhaps most dangerously of all, bound to Reshaye. All those ropes cutting into my skin. My skin that could kill. My hands that would decay.
It was easier, I acknowledged, deep in the back of my mind. It was easier to be angry at Max for doing what I couldn’t than to think about all that implied — than to think about what those people made me and what my servitude, my slavery, would force me to do.
Because that? That just made me feel sick, no matter how many times I told myself that it would all be worth it if it meant freeing those that I left behind.
“But you are more than all of those things,” Sammerin said, quietly. “Don’t forget that.”
“I will be whatever I need to be.”
“What about what you want to be?” Max leaned forward, wincing at the movement. “What about you?”
What about me? I was a means to an end. My mother had sent her only child away. Serel had been ready to sacrifice his life. What they gave up for me to had to worth something.
“It is not the time for me to be selfish,” I said. “Not yet.” And because I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore — at
Max and the way he saw me, at the wound I had given him, at everything that it implied I would be used for — I turned around and went upstairs, finding some small relief in the salty breeze and unforgiving stark sky. Zeryth lounged at one end of the boat. But I was drawn towards the back, where Nura stalked in circles.
Thwimp.
The sound was sharp and clean. Every three paces, Nura threw a little knife at the masts, buying glints of silver in the wood. I wandered to her and couldn’t help but be impressed that her knives were lined up in a straight, perfect line, nearly touching, accuracy impeccable.
Her face lifted to greet me. That little movement startled me, despite myself. Sometimes, when I first saw her, it was like the sharp edges of my mind caught a fraying piece of fabric, snagging at threads of memories that didn’t belong to me. Sometimes they were tinged with a bittersweet affection. Other times, furious anger. Most commonly, I saw the sad, determined, unapologetic look in her eye as her hand raised to my — Max’s — temple in Sarlazai, paired with that devastating betrayal.
“I heard that mess downstairs.” Her attention turned back to her throwing knives.
Thwimp.
“I forgot how entertaining those standoffs could be,” she added.
“I would not call it entertaining.”
She shrugged. “Either way, it sounds like that wasn’t the most intriguing part.” Her eyes flicked to my hands. “Rot. Interesting.”
Self-consciously, my fingers curled. “Yes.”
“Aren’t you lucky to have that kind of power…”
I did not feel lucky. But I said — to her and to myself — “If it will accomplish my goals, then yes.”
My mind ran over the memory of Esmaris’s sneering face, and Reshaye’s exhausted hiss slithered through my thoughts. I winced.
“We’ll see what we can do with that,” Nura said. “But that’s impressive and unique. I’m sure it will strike fear into the hearts of your Threllian Lords. Into anyone, really.”
Thwimp.
Her fingers moved so fast that they became slender white smears. This one buried itself into the wood a little off-center. She grimaced at it, then gave me a long, thoughtful look. It would have been easy to shrivel under that gaze.
What does Nura want? I asked myself. I was good at answering that question. But Nura— Nura was difficult. She was cruel and cold. But she had been so gentle with me when I was sick. And she had testified on Max’s behalf when no one else would. She had damned him, but also saved him.
And yet she hadn’t batted an eye to destroy an entire city, to kill hundreds of innocent people, to betray the person that she claimed to love the most in the most terrible way.
She leaned slightly towards me when she spoke again.
“Zeryth harasses Max because he sees him as a threat, and he needs to prove his dominance at every opportunity,” she said, her voice low as she cast one brief glance to Zeryth at the other end of the ship. “He does the same thing to me, as is obvious. You are either Zeryth’s friend — meaning, someone he can use — or a threat.”
Possess or destroy. It was always the same.
“What he just saw will make you a threat to him,” she said. “Be aware of that.”
I almost scoffed. I would never allow Zeryth — or Nura, for that matter — to see me as dangerous. Not really. I would show them parts of my strength, yes. I would show them what I could give them. But even during my time in slavery, I never allowed myself to be seen as a threat. There was power in being underestimated.
“That would be silly of him,” I said. “I am bound to the Orders. You know this.”
“Just because he thinks he can use you doesn’t mean he isn’t also afraid of you. Be careful. You have too much potential to be eaten up by his primal temper tantrums. What a waste that would be.” She gave me a quick, knowing glance. “Men want power because it makes them feel good. Women want power because it lets us do things. And imagine, Tisaanah, the things we could do with you.”
Her eyes snapped back to Zeryth and didn’t move, not even as she flicked three more blades from her fingers.
Thwimp, thwimp, thwimp.
This time, they were in a perfect line. And she gave me one little smile that unfurled over her face like frozen winter’s breath — a little pleased smile that told me those knives landed exactly where she wanted them.
