As you love me, you will never remove it, she told him that day.

The wards were normally out of alignment, but with a twist Inevera could activate them, and the bit of hora would resonate with its twin, sound carrying through to her like a child’s toy of cups and string.

Including the sound of Leesha Paper moaning pleasure into her husband’s ear.

I am the palm, Inevera told herself, and this is only wind. I will bend, but I will not break.

Her eyes flicked to Melan and Asavi, her closest advisors. They could not hear the ring – its magic tuned to the wearer alone – but it made little difference. Ahmann and Leesha played their lovegames openly now, at least inside the palace. Inevera was forced to smile and act unbothered, even as it eroded her power among the dama’ting and the men in Jardir’s court.

She clenched her fist. There was little she could do to oppose them. Ahmann was Shar’Dama Ka, and by any accepted interpretation of the Evejah, it was his right to have any woman he desired. Inevera had worked for years to ensure his needs were met by her personally, or women she had carefully selected – ones that brought him power and children, but whom she could easily dominate or eliminate.

Leesha Paper was neither. She could indeed bring Ahmann power, but she was cagey with it, and haughty as an Andrah’s First Wife. She would not be dominated, and Inevera had failed to eliminate her twice. The first time Inevera had commanded her eldest daughter Amanvah, betrothed to the red-haired Northerner Rojer, to poison Leesha. The girl was loyal but inexperienced, and bungled the job badly.

Leesha could have gone to Jardir then, making their fight public and ugly. Jardir would have been furious. Perhaps uncontrollably so.

But Leesha had said nothing, and even allowed Amanvah to remain in her presence. Inevera had been forced to concede her a measure of respect for that, and when she had her eunuch Watchers break into Leesha’s bedchamber soon after, she had foolishly tried to bully the woman off rather than simply killing her. That same night she had been forced to save Leesha’s life, that they might face the mind demon attempting to kill Jardir together.

Of course, if she hadn’t, the demon might well have taken Jardir’s life, and hers as well. Much as Inevera hated to admit it, the Northern hedge witch was formidable, and her power had only increased that night. Inevera had been unable to stop her from taking powerful alagai hora from the mind demon – much as Inevera herself had. She had sent eunuchs to retrieve the bones, but they returned beaten and empty-handed. Leesha would not be taken off guard again.

So Inevera listened. Listened and tried not to feel replaced. Supplanted. Humiliated.

She breathed, restoring her calm. The woman would be returning to her barbarian village soon enough, and good riddance. Inevera would reclaim her rightful place in Jardir’s bed, and all would be as it was.

Perhaps.

The moans and cries of passion faded, replaced by gentle murmuring. Inevera strained her ears, trying to make out the muffled words. This was worse than the cries of passion and the slapping of flesh. Inevera had watched her husband with other women many times, and knew well the sounds he made, and those he drew from women. Confident in her pillow dancing, Inevera had no fear of anything Leesha could do in love. It was the quiet moments, when he and Leesha lay intertwined, that Inevera loathed.

‘Marry me,’ Jardir said.

‘How many times must I refuse you, before you stop asking?’ Leesha replied, feigning ignorance of the incredible honour she was being paid.

‘If you refuse me ten thousand times,’ Jardir said, ‘I will ask ten thousand more. Come, there is still time. I am Shar’Dama Ka, and can marry us with a wave of my hand. Wed me now, in secret. Your mother and Abban can bear witness and sign the contracts. No one else need know until we deem otherwise, but we would know.’

Abban. Inevera’s lip curled. He was wrapped up in this, making his own plays for power and Jardir’s ear. He would need to be dealt with, as well.

‘Ask me ten thousand times, or twenty thousand,’ Leesha said, ‘the answer is still no. You have enough wives.’

‘I will deny them all my bed,’ Jardir said, and Inevera bristled. ‘All save Inevera,’ he amended, and she found her breath again, still stunned at his foolishness. It was said Sharum could not haggle, and Jardir was Sharum to his bones.

‘So I would only have to share you with one other woman instead of fourteen?’ Leesha asked.

‘You share me now,’ Jardir growled, and Inevera bit her lip at the sound of their renewed kissing.

‘We are alone, Ahmann,’ Leesha said, and Jardir gasped in pleasure. ‘For the next few hours, I am not sharing you with anyone.’

‘Damajah!’ Melan cried. ‘Your hands!’

Inevera looked down and saw blood running from her clenched fists. Her long painted nails were sharp, and had cut hard into the heels of her hands. Numb, she hadn’t even realized it. Even now, they seemed someone else’s hands as Melan and Asavi took them, carefully cleaning and bandaging the wounds.

How had it come to this? How had she failed Ahmann, that he shamed her so? She had seen him trained and educated before the Sharum could beat the potential from him or see him killed in waste. She had handed him a unified Krasia, and given him the tools to drive the alagai all the way back to Nie’s abyss. She had given him four sons and three daughters, and selected Jiwah Sen to keep his bed warm and provide him with yet more children.

‘Perhaps I should have selected Northern whores for him to slake his lust for white skin upon,’ she muttered.

‘Men are predictable creatures,’ Melan said.

‘The first thing they do when they overpower something is hump it like a dog,’ Asavi agreed. ‘Many of the Sharum are developing a taste for pale skin.’

Still lovers after all these years, Melan and Asavi shared quarters and were always at each other’s side. They had no personal interest in men beyond their seed, and had long since used the dice to choose a father for their daughter heirs, both doing the deed in one night and never seeing him again.

But for all their bias, the words rang true enough, and Inevera should have anticipated it. Now, because she hadn’t, her husband was bewitched by an infidel whore in the perfumed chamber where they had lain so many times.

Already Leesha’s whispered advice had begun to change Ahmann, making him rethink centuries of culture and tradition. Some of his resulting decrees were innocuous enough, but others were dangerous, alienating his own people for the sake of Northern sensibilities, forgetting they were meant to be his subjects, not allies.

They did not have years to treat with the chin. Sharak Ka was coming. In some ways, it had already begun.

7

Training
300 AR

Inevera always hated when her father brought Sharum to their home. She and her mother did all the cooking and serving while her father shouted and swatted at them, making a great show before his friends as they grew increasingly drunk and rowdy, playing Sharak with clay dice. Even before he took the black, Kasaad had forbidden Soli to do work of any kind. ‘You’re a warrior, my son, not some khaffit or woman!’

When she was younger, the men had ignored Inevera and leered at Manvah, but as she approached womanhood some of those leers had turned Inevera’s way. One Sharum, a disgusting man named Cemal, had even tried to paw at her.