“Really?Thank you.Since they want to start this stupid game, I should push them a little more.It's best if they dig their own graves."
She went silent for a few moments, her brow rising.
“Ah… really?Hmm, I know I didn’t name you, but I like what I call you.”
“I mean, I know it's not appropriate but still…”
Her expression became more downcast as she listened to the voice rattling on in her head.Once it was done, she let out a dramatic sigh.
“Fine,” she pouted.“I’ll think about it.”
Arriving footsteps alerted her to the presence of someone she was expecting.
"Enoch!You've come."
He stopped before the bars, gripping them with both hands.His injured arm throbbed, reminding him of the arrow that had nearly taken her life and the choices he had made since.
“You seem to be in good spirits; I was hoping you weren’t worse off."
“They can only punish me superficially; they can’t do anything that the Great Khan will see should he return.”
He frowned."Superficially?"
“Come!Tell me what happened.”She deflected his question, so he pursed his lips and didn’t pursue the matter further.
"The Fourth Wife's body," he said quietly."They found it.Just as you wanted."Enoch hesitated.There was more—so much more—but the words lodged in his throat."Khatun."His voice dropped."There's something else."
She waited with clear eyes.
He told her everything, the news that came from Orda Naiman’s camp.
She listened attentively, and once he was done, she laughed.
Enoch watched her, searching for the emotion behind it—sorrow?Fear?Madness?
No.
Bliss.
"Tell him," she said, recovering from her joy."Tell Somadina everything."
Enoch's blood ran cold."Everything?"
Her golden eyes met his.“Everything.”
Chukwuemeka stepped into the indoor shrine, as he had done many times before.Each time, he had felt the same prickle at the back of his neck, the same urge to turn back, the same knowledge that he was entering a place where men like him were guests at best and intruders at worst.But he had always pressed forward, because Chukwuemeka did not turn back from anything.A paranoid man, with multiple plans and contingencies, planning his rise from the bottom up, and oh, how far he had risen.From the destitute warrior who couldn't protect the woman he loved from the clutches of the imperial family, to a father and a successful advisor to the next Igwe of the Borjigin.
Today, the urge to run was stronger.
He ignored it.
Obiageli knelt before the altar of the Udamili, shaped in the form of a woman with her chest flayed open, water pouring out.
Her face was painted with white, her lips lined black.She wore the full regalia of the Oracle: coral beads weighing down her neck, brass rings circling her wrists, and a headpiece of eagle feathers casting shadows across her painted face.
She looked at Chukwuemeka coldly, as she'd always done.There was nothing out of the usual.
"Great Oracle," he said; taking a knee was custom.
