“Oh.”
No longer speaking to him, she said pointedly, “There hasn’t been a Mhurange raised from the Illiumate in a thousand years, it’s only ever happened twice.”
“It is true that politics is not the favored path,” Smooth Guy agreed with the caution of a man placing a tile in birit. “Historically the Hakam is more likely to elevate a candidate out of complete obscurity who has distinguished herself despite the disadvantage obscurity creates.”
Qanath gasped so hard she choked on her own wind and spent the next minute hacking and coughing, trying unsuccessfully to take a drink. The upside of this was that, by the time she got her breath back, Havec had gotten up to speed. It sounded like her mother had done the precise opposite of his, fucking with her life without her permission in order to help her acquire power instead of take it. He couldn’t see how that made it better; he suspected that Qanath agreed.
The moment she could speak again, she rasped, “You cannot mean to tell me she kept me at the bottom my entire life to teach me how to jump.”
“Something like that.”
“Where do you come into this?”
“I sold myself into the Scolate at the age of twelve and went off to the Collure.”
“The Scolate grants scholarships,” Qanath said from the corner of her mouth for Havec’s benefit. “If you pass the tests, they send you off to university. Once you graduate…”
“The loan comes due,” he supplied.
“Anyway,” Smooth Guy continued, and there was a hint of irritation in his voice, as if being forced to talk about himself was rubbing off that slick veneer. “I put in my five years in the Corps of Engineers, and as soon as the term expired, I applied for another, to get my graduate degree. Conjuration, obviously.” He nodded at the tiny black kitten in the center of the table, now lying motionless on its belly with its legs outstretched as if it were a flying squirrel caught mid-leap.
“Which gets you here how?” Qanath pressed.
“Your mother bought my commission.”
“And? If you had a problem serving, you would never have gone back. The Scolate has many means of rising in its ranks, I don’t think there’s a better way to make a name for yourself. What did she offer you that made her way preferable to the scheme you already had?”
With studied calm, he told them, “The last four Mhurange have been male. Word is, the Hakam has no intention of singling out another man until some of the more bellicose goddesses and nonbinary divinities have been appeased.”
Qanath sat back in her seat, letting out an angry breath. “Please. At the end of the day, merit is what matters, whatever barana rakis has to say. You know it as well as me and yet you’re not willing to bet on yourself? Why would someone as ambitious as you are throw your lot in with me?”
The mask was starting to crack in earnest, and his jaw flexed. Through his teeth, he told them, “Not insurmountable odds, but still they’re long. And I don’t have the contacts. In an age without a war to fight, there’s only so far military service gets you. It’s pretty hard to do something so amazing anyone outside the ranks gets to hear of it.”
“I’m to believe you gave up?”
“Changed my wager,” he corrected coldly. “Why waste my life striving after something I may never achieve when I can guarantee it to my children?”
Both of them sat back from the table in unison as if they had choreographed the move.
He added irritably, “A deal I made before anyone knew about this.” A wave of his hand taking in both of them made it obvious what he meant.
Sitting forward again, Havec said bluntly, “I like guys, guy.” He nodded to the girl sitting next to him. “And her, so if you fuck with her, I’m going to kill you. To be clear.”
Smooth Guy made a prim face at him, as if it had been vulgar to say so. Come to think of it, it probably wasn’t Done to threaten people, not in so many words, not in the circles these two hoped to tread. Qanath had hinted on more than one occasion that many rules were bent for Avatethura Masters, though; it would be nothing short of a travesty not to capitalize on it.
“Oh,” he cried facetiously, “was I not supposed to say so? Her mother might have bribed you with her womb, but if she doesn’t want you, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Well, I tell a lie: there are, but all you would really accomplish is to give me an excuse.”
“I’m well aware of the implications,” Smooth Guy said haughtily.
“Are you?” Havec asked doubtfully. “If you were, you would grasp that your entire future hinges on whether she’ll ever consent to have you, and if you understood that, one would think you would be less of a stuck-up dick. Just a thought.”
He never learned what Smooth Guy might have said to this; he had placed one hand flat on the center of the table, and suddenly there was flesh beneath his palm. Hair-On-End had taken the opportunity to turn back into a human, sprawled across the center of their table, and of course his hand was on the thing’s ass. With a curse, he shoved it away from him, hard. It rolled across the tabletop, wine glasses spewing wine everywhere and spraying broken glass across the floor. Then it rolled right off, onto Smooth Guy’s lap. His chair went over backward and the air sizzled as someone let loose raw sorcery instinctively.
Havec didn’t wait to find out what might come of it, bracing his hands on the table and leaping across. One of the legs of the chair had broken, and Smooth Guy was lying amidst the wreckage looking dazed, The Thing still on top of him. It was pushing itself upright as Havec closed on it, and he grabbed its collar at the throat. It bared its teeth at him, teeth far too large and pointed to belong in that human mouth. He hissed back and punched it in the eye.
Its eyes were vast, their pupils yawning pits, and he grew dizzy. He swayed, frightened he might fall in. The air around him was bitterly cold and somehow dead, and he shivered as the thing in his hand opened its mouth again. He stared at it, frozen, losing track of which of them was at the mercy of which.
Then Smooth Guy said sharply, “Dai. Dai, Arandgwail.”
The world snapped back into focus, leaving him crouched on the floor of the common room of an inn, holding the collar of what looked to be an ordinary man. Havec had the sense that he had only just avoided something unspeakably weird that he would never, ever have been able to forget and was desperately glad he couldn’t imagine it.
Standing, he let Hair-On-End go so he fell back onto his master’s lap. “Sorry, sweetie. I might have given you a go, but you aren’t Kebbal’s type.” That said, he made for the stairs at the rear of the room.
Qanath lingered long enough to suggest that they talk tomorrow, after tempers cooled. Then she was following on his heels. When she caught him up at the top of the stairs where he had stopped to wait for her, he said at once, “If you have any idea what that thing was about to do to me, please don’t share.”
Two Straightforward Questions
Qanath lay staring at the ceiling, lit by a single stripe of lamplight slipping between the shutters from the town square. Havec slept peacefully beside her, still save his deep, even breathing, the hard cynicism he wore in the daytime smoothed away. The room was quiet save for the soothing rustling of the fire in their little potbellied stove, the world beyond shrouded in the eerie silence that seemed to come with snow. It must be bitterly cold. Inside, however, it was pleasant, and beneath the thick quilt, she nestled in a cozy cocoon. The air smelled of wood smoke and wood soap, just a touch of Havec’s sweat; comforting, familiar scents that spoke to repose. In the midst of all this restfulness, she remained stubbornly awake.
She turned her eyes onto the ceiling again as she recalled that Amril had assumed they were together before he even knew they shared a room. A woefully misguided misread of both of them, but Qanath was flattered by it too. Leaving aside his sexuality, she had always felt like Havec was out of her league, and it made her belly flutter to think Amril might not agree.
It was hard to know what to make of him, and it was hard to know what to make of how little he wanted them to know. ‘Smooth guy,’ Havec called him, and the nickname said it all. He gave titles like that to everyone; so far as she was aware, she and Xar anKebbal were the only people in his life who had ever merited a name. Still, the epithet was a pointed judgment, that was plain.
And her mother? What was one to make of that? Was she truly to believe that, after eighteen years of concerted indifference, the woman had elected to care? To carve out an integral place for her daughter, if not in her heart, at least in her plans? It was exactly what she had always wanted and that was why she was so afraid to believe in it.
She rolled over and closed her eyes, but they opened again immediately. When she rolled back onto her back a second later, Havec stirred, muttering. She had spent enough nights beside him by now to know he would remain motionless from the moment he closed his eyes ‘til dawn; if he was restless, it was her fault. Heaving a sigh, she sat up.
She climbed from the bed and slipped back into her trousers, tucking in her rumpled shirt. She slipped her shoes on and went straight for the hallway, trying not to make noise. The corridor and stairwell remained lit, but only dimly by a few scattered lamps. Qanath found the darkness welcome and made for the stairs, thinking to sit before the hearth fire until the dancing flames lulled her tumultuous thoughts. Halfway down the stairs against the back wall she could see into the room beyond, but it was only when she reached their foot and made for the fire that she realized she wasn’t alone: her mother’s stalking horse sat in an armchair, staring into the flames as she had meant to do. Arandgwail wasn’t immediately visible, but the patch of deeper shadows on his lap might actually be a small dark shape.
