An angry shout echoed through the halls, followed by an unmistakable sound: the sharp smack of the shaxa—a piece of cord knotted with shards of bone. Asha heard it hit and tear, again and again, at the flesh of someone’s back.
The elderly slave whimpered. Asha made her way past elaborately carved cedarwood doors inlaid with ivory and brass. She passed room after room after room until she came to the small court at the heart of the commandant’s home, where the heady smell of moonflowers enveloped her.
And then she saw the slave.
He slumped in the shallow fountain pool. The lanterns hanging in the galleries cast him in shadow, but she could see his hands bound and tied to the fountainhead. Blood streamed down his back and into the water of the pool, turning it pink.
Jarek stepped into her line of sight, severing her view of the slave. He’d taken off his tunic. His back glistened with sweat and his muscles rippled as he rounded on his property.
“Well, skral?” His words slurred together. “Was it worth it?”
Asha retreated, pressing her back against the wall, heart pounding in her chest.
She might be the Iskari. She might hunt dragons and bring back their heads, but Jarek held her father’s army in his fist. He had the loyalty of every soldat in the city. And for reasons she’d never been able to figure out, he’d never been afraid of her.
She could turn and leave. She didn’t have to do this. It was the slave’s fault, after all. He shouldn’t have touched her.
“Please, Iskari.” The words broke up her thoughts like an axe. Asha opened her eyes to find the elderly slave wringing her wrinkled, liver-spotted hands. Her hair was gray and bound in a thick braid. Her anguished, heart-shaped face beseeched Asha. “Please help him.”
A crash resounded, followed by a low grunt. Asha dared another look around the corner. One of Jarek’s low-lying sofas lay broken, its leg snapped off beside the purple daturas, whose petals opened in the moonlight.Charm him,Dax suggested.Entice him.But Asha didn’t know how to do those things. She was a hunter. She knew all about killing things and nothing about seduction.
Asha thought of the way the slave touched her in the sickroom. The way he caught her in her father’s courtyard, holding her carefully against him. As if he wasn’t afraid.
It shamed her. Ifhewasn’t afraid—of Asha, of the law, of his own master whipping him up to Death’s gate—how couldshebe afraid? She was the Iskari.
Jarek spat. His back was still to her. He reined in the shaxa, getting ready for another round of lashes. The longer Asha waited, the more of the slave’s life trickled away.
The shaxa lashed the air, ripping at flesh. The heartwrenching sound echoed around the courtyard and through Asha. She squeezed her eyes shut. With her left arm strapped uselessly to her torso, she drew one of her slayers with her burned but padded hand. It shook with the pain. She gritted her teeth and held on.
The next time Jarek reared the shaxa back, Asha stepped into the courtyard, catching the whip across her blade. When Jarek went to lash again, the shaxa snagged. Asha held on tight, despite the pain.
Jarek stumbled. He spun, squinting through his drunken haze. His face contorted with anger and shone with sweat.
“Who’s there?”
The fountain pool was filling with blood. The sound of the gently cascading water seemed out of place.
“That’s enough,” she said with more courage than she felt. “I’m cutting him down.”
Jarek’s face darkened. “I’m well within my rights.” He tugged on the shaxa, willing it back to him. But it didn’t budge.
“You’re killing him.”
At the tremble in her voice, a tremble Asha couldn’t control, Jarek’s features settled into an icy calm. “Since when do you take an interest in the health of my slaves, Asha?” He looked from her to the skral and back, his mouth twisting. “You think I forget that it runs in your family?”
It took three slow heartbeats for her to realize what he meant.
Rayan.Her uncle. The draksor who fell in love with a skral.
“Should I expect this when we’re married?” He stumbled a little, then steadied himself against the trunk of the lemon tree. “My wife carrying on with my slaves, in my own home?”
She tried to sound calm. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
He looked to the half-slain slave. “It’s disgusting.” He dropped the shaxa, drew a double-edged dagger, and started toward the fountain. “I won’t tolerate it.”
Panic sparked inside her. Asha threw down the slayer wound with the shaxa and drew her other one, making her burned hand sting anew. She clung to it and moved for the fountain. Sobriety and swiftness got her there first.
Asha spun to face Jarek and raised her slayer, keeping herself between him and his slave.
