“Care to join us, Iktan?” Xiala asked smoothly. “We were just talking about you.”
Xe tilted xir head toward her, a smile leaking sideways across xir face… and then burst into laughter. It was a high, wheezing laugh that bent the ex-priest over, hands on knees. Ziha gaped, dumbfounded. Xiala gave her a reassuring smile.
“Stars and skies, Ziha!” Iktan said, rubbing at xir eyes. Xe dropped down to the furs next to Xiala. “You do not cease to amuse, I will credit you that.”
The Golden Eagle commander still held the knife in front of her, but she was starting to look foolish. Xiala guessed she had no idea what to do. It reminded her of when her own sailors had crossed someone and had to make peace while still saving a bit of dignity.
“Come sit with us, Ziha,” she offered. “Iktan won’t harm you.” She lifted her chin and cut her eyes to the assassin, who was now leaning back on one elbow, looking completely at ease. “I won’t let xir.”
A flicker in Iktan’s eyes, there and gone, sent a cold trickle down Xiala’s spine, telling her she walked a fine line, and she would be sorry if she crossed it.
“Yes, come sit with us,” Iktan coaxed the girl, “and bring some of that tea you have hidden away. The kind they import from Obregi.”
Xiala nodded hopefully, and Ziha rallied. She sheathed her knife, collected the tea, and joined them. Her hands shook as she poured the water into the pot, but Xiala and Iktan said nothing. Ziha placed the pot over the fire to boil, the familiar sounds of preparation too loud. When she drew back her arm, she knocked against a cup, sending it rattling against its neighbor. She let out a small scream, which Xiala pointedly ignored.
They waited in silence for the water to heat, perhaps the most awkward minutes of Xiala’s life. She had been in many uncomfortable situations before. Faced down belligerent drunks, vengeful crewmen, and pompous merchant lords. But she had never played counselor to a seasoned killer and a girl commander, and she did not intend to start now.
“I should leave you both to work this out on your own,” Xiala said, as she took the pot from the fire and prepared the tea. “I’m not one of you, and frankly, I don’t care to know your secrets.” She shot a meaningful glare at Ziha, who still looked like she might piss herself if Iktan so much as sneezed. “I don’t want to get involved in your politics, I certainly don’t want to be your friend”— she thought she saw Iktan’s shoulders fall at that—“but as I was told upon my arrival into this thrice-damned company, it seems we are people who are in a position to help each other.” She handed a cup of tea to Iktan, and then to Ziha. “So, might I suggest we do that?”
“I know how you can help me, Ziha.” Iktan leaned forward. “You can run.”
Ziha paused with the cup raised midway to her mouth, her expression puzzled.
Iktan nodded. “That’s right, you heard me. Run away.” Xe gestured, a wave of fingers. “Go on. Run. Run!”
Ziha dropped the cup and bolted for the door. Tea splattered across the furs, struck Xiala’s knee, and hissed in the fire where it hit the hot coals.
“Really?” Xiala asked, annoyed.
Iktan laughed, an amused chuckle, and sipped from xir cup. Xe glanced at Xiala.
“Do not give me that look, Xiala. She’s lucky I don’t have her spanked and sent back to her mother. A careless tongue is one thing when you are a scion in the Great House idle with gossip, but Ziha is here to command. And when we get to Hokaia and the stakes are that much higher, she will damn us all if she thinks she can share secrets to make friends and somehow that will serve the interests of Golden Eagle.”
She could see the logic in Iktan’s thinking, but she thought the lesson could have been done better.
“Why was she sent? She is very young.”
“Twenty. Not so young. Old enough for the responsibility that she asked for, I may add. Nuuma wished to come herself, but that would compromise any subterfuge. The other clans do not know that Golden Eagle plots with Cuecola for now, and they want to secure allegiances before taking action. Nuuma thought it best to stay in Tova. She does have another daughter, Terzha, who might have come, but Ziha wanted a chance to prove herself. Well, I will make her prove herself.”
Xiala pursed her lips, thinking. “You’re here to look after her,” she said, with sudden clarity. “All this bickering and threatening, it’s all for show.”
“Not for show. For a purpose. But one she cannot see, yet. I am better as a thorn in her side than as a nursemaid.”