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Seth had not mistaken her motherly attitude toward Raider. Regardless of what Raider had said about not being one of the Sudai, Asha, quite clearly, regarded Raider as hers to look out for. She chided him sometimes, made him drink water, even took the wine away from him once. She would pat his shoulder and occasionally watch him with a line between her brows.
One night, they had a campfire. The day’s travel had brought them to a rocky area where scrub hugged the rugged hills. Some of the younger Sudai had made a great effort to collect firewood for this rare treat of light and heat and the dancing that would go with it.
And the dancing was spectacular.
To the pulsing beat of drums, the trill of pipes, and the plucked notes of a stringed instrument that Seth was itching to take a look at, the dancers whirled around the campfire, silks gleaming in the light then fading into the shadows, metal disks and polished stones flashing on their clothes and swinging out from their necks.
But it was Raider that Seth couldn’t stop watching.
Raider grinned and danced with everyone, sweeping here and there, laughing with such beautiful abandon that Seth’s heart seized tight. Raider swept up one of the lovely, brown-skinned girls and twirled her around as she laughed. He danced with the men as well, and it made Seth wonder: had Raider been with any of these men?
He was wearing only his shalvar pants, the loose blue silk offering him a fluidity of movement that Seth’s arcane clothing did not. His bare feet were quick and light in the sand, his bare torso mesmerizing in the firelight.
“He is beautiful, isn’t he?” Asha whispered.
“You caught me.”
“I have caught you many times.”
She probably had. Seth couldn’t help himself. And he couldn’t stop thinking about what Raider had said that last night at the oasis after Seth had pointed out that pleasure sometimes made for pain later.
That’s true, Raider had acknowledged. And you’re maybe better at planning for that than I am. But I do wonder if it really makes you happier.
Seth couldn’t think of any time in his life when that had made him happier. It certainly didn’t make him happier right now.
“Yes,” Seth admitted. “He’s beautiful.”
Everyone knew it. Seth wasn’t the only one who watched Raider. Everyone tried to catch his attention. Everyone touched him whenever they passed him. It put a terrible longing in Seth’s heart.
Raider’s gaze leaped across the campfire to Seth. Raider beckoned him with a hand, but Seth shook his head. He would rather watch.
“Pah,” Asha chided and squeezed Seth’s knee. “It is not always good to only watch.”
“You’re watching.”
“I’m old!”
“You are not. You’re as spry as anyone here.”
She grinned and sprang to her feet, proving him right. She caught Seth’s hand and pulled him with her. He laughed in embarrassment as he was swung into the circle. He knew how to move in a fight but not in a dance. Asha clapped her hands to the beat, nodding for him to do the same.
Seth did his best. And even if he lacked the smooth rhythms of the others, it was fun. The sand was cool under his bare feet. The night was dark and lovely with stars. The fire crackled with heat, and the sounds of music and laughter filled the air.
All of that vanished, just for a second, when Raider appeared in front of him. He was smiling. Not grinning, as he often did, but smiling. He reached out and touched Seth’s arm. It wasn’t sexual, but it still sent a bolt of lightning through Seth’s body.
“Now I’m happy,” Raider said.
“You looked happy before.”
“This is different. A different happiness.”
Seth drew a breath, though he had no idea what he might say. But it didn’t matter because someone grabbed Raider’s hand and pulled him away, back into the dance.
When the dance finally ended and the dancers fell, exhausted, to their places around the campfire, the storytelling began. Raider was reclining beside Seth, legs out and crossed at the ankles, leaning back on his elbows. Seth knew Raider was half drunk. He’d watched how often people had passed Raider the wine, had watched the increasing looseness of his body. The firelight was playing over his relaxed form as he translated for Seth.
The old storyteller sat on a mound of cushions on the other side of the fire, his weathered face made beautiful by the light, his aged voice bearing a rich wisdom. The Wind Keeper, they called him.
The Sudai held that the wind carried wisdom and stories across the desert. The Wind Keeper caught them to give to the tribe. Every tribe had a Wind Keeper, or something like it. The Sudai, Seth had learned, belonged to a larger network of tribes that roamed with the sun and sand. The Free People, they named themselves, trading goods in the cities, trading stories between each other’s caravans.
