For the first time, Nuuma smiled. “Not just a tool of my daughter’s, after all.” She stood. “Very well. She comes, too. Be on the far prairie before dawn.”
And then matron and Shield swept from the room, flickering the lanterns with their passing. Ziha stood to follow, but her older sister grabbed her wrist, holding her back.
Once their mother was gone, Terzha exhaled a hard breath. “Stars and skies, she’s in a mood.” She banged a gloved fist against the table. “I really am hungry,” she confessed to no one in particular, “but I’ll take balché over soup any day.” She raised her voice. “I said balché!”
A servant shuffled in from the now-unguarded back door with a barrel of the alcoholic drink. Once the container was breached and their mugs filled, she peppered Ziha with questions about their trip across the grasslands. It took a full mug to loosen the younger girl’s tongue, but eventually, she was sharing the trials of leading arrogant and contentious scions across unknown lands with only the vague decree to get them all to Hokaia as quickly as possible.
“And what of Kuya?”
Xiala, who was carefully nursing her balché, recognized the name. Kuya was the woman who had harassed her and whose eyeball rested in her pocket even now.
“She deserved it.” Ziha was defensive.
“I’m not saying she didn’t, but be careful who you make an enemy.” Terzha studied her sister. “I think Mother’s wrong to leave you here alone with them. But Layat’s only days behind, and he’s to offer support.”
Ziha’s face fell.
“You’ll survive it.” She patted her sister’s arm reassuringly. “Just take a few more eyeballs, if you must.” She barked out a laugh. “Skies, where did you even get the idea?”
“Speaking of survival,” Iktan cut in. Xiala noticed xe had not drunk from the mug. “The Shield captain is dead?”
Terzha swallowed. “You caught that, eh? That’s why Mother’s on a tear, among other things. They were lovers, you know. She’s heartbroken.”
“I don’t know what’s more disconcerting,” Iktan said, “the idea of Nuuma fucking or the fact that she might indeed have a heart.”
“It’s the latter, trust me.” Terzha took another drink.
“And who managed to kill him?” Xir eyes flicked briefly to Xiala, a reminder of the Odo Sedoh’s murderous potential.
“She won’t say. All I know is that she came back from meeting with the matrons raging about incompetence and something about ‘that damned Sun Priest.’？”
Iktan leaned forward, xir whole body suddenly alert. “What about the Sun Priest?”
“She wasn’t clear, and when I asked later, she denied she’d said anything. But I heard her.”
Iktan stayed primed another moment before relaxing. “Perhaps it was nothing.”
Terzha shrugged, and Xiala could see the woman was well on her way to drunk. She felt conflicted that for once she was not the overtalkative fool deep in her cups.
Iktan stood. “You’ll have to excuse me. If we are to leave at first light, there are some tasks I need to complete before then.”
“I’ll come, too.” Xiala rose quickly.
“Stay!” Terzha reached for her, but Xiala had already moved away. The woman’s hand flopped on the table. “I hate drinking alone.”
“You have Ziha.”
Ziha was quietly snoring, her head resting on folded arms.
Terzha sighed, disappointment wrinkling her freckled nose. “So I do.”
They left the heirs of Golden Eagle behind and made their way back to camp. Iktan was unusually quiet on the walk, but Xiala had much on her mind, too, and did not disturb the ex-priest. They reached the edge of the camp, and Xiala murmured a farewell, thinking to go to her tent.
“I don’t think it’s wise for you to sleep alone tonight,” Iktan said.
She turned, mouth in a scowl.
Iktan laughed, a low sound like the crackling of thin ice underfoot. “I mean, because you’ve made enemies, and you make an easy target without your Song, Xiala of the Teek.”
She flushed, embarrassed that she had thought xe meant more.
Xe nodded. “It is a difficult thing to have a heart, Xiala. Do not think I do not see yours and where your affections lie. I have sympathy for your affliction.”
Were her feelings for Serapio an affliction? Perhaps. “And yet you would use them against me.” She remembered Iktan’s casual offer to Nuuma to use her as a weapon against Serapio.