Naranpa squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door.
She had expected the Agave to be much like the Lupine, a gambling den redolent with tobacco smoke and fermented drink, but she found herself in a courtyard filled with uncommon greenery and unnatural heat.
“A hothouse,” she murmured, as she noticed the braziers burning every few paces and the clay diffusers that warmed the space. A white stone path wound through the courtyard, and she followed it, already sweating under her fur cloak. Around her, vines sagged with orange and pink blossoms, and small ponds burst with teal and yellow flowers. She passed a young boy sitting cross-legged on a rug, sweet notes rising from his flute. The air was heavy with spice and citrus, and lanterns in painted paper boxes flickered gently under a ceiling adorned with the stars of the night sky. Just outside was winter, as cold and mean as Tova had ever seen, but inside its walls, the Agave offered a summer night in the southern lands of the Meridian.
She did not linger, as much as it tempted, but pushed through another set of doors, these deep red, into the inner chamber.
If the garden hothouse had been a paradise, this room was something out of a story. A very particular kind of story. There were plants here, too, growing in glorious and colorful profusion, and the air was perfumed with the same decadent scents, but among the vines and pots full of blossoms were thin woven screens that hung from ceiling to floor, and behind those screens were beds. And on those beds were people in various stages of undress, their low moans intermingling with the flute and drum.
A pleasure house, she reminded herself. What did you expect to find here, Nara?
She had thought to find Denaochi in pain, being tortured in some cold, awful place by equally cold and awful men, not this sensual idyll. She averted her eyes, keeping her gaze on the tiled path that led through the room, but she couldn’t block out the sounds around her, and her face flushed in embarrassment. She was not particularly worldly when it came to matters of the flesh. While the priesthood did not frown on sex among its order, it did not encourage it, either, and marriage was forbidden. Iktan had been her only lover, and it had never bothered her, but she was suddenly and acutely aware of her lack of experience.
Head down, eyes averted, and mind distracted, she did not see the woman standing in her path until it was almost too late. She came to a halt, startled.
“You must be the sister.”
The woman’s eyes appraised her. Her skin was a deep brown and oiled to a shine. Her hair was pure silver. She wore a skirt the shade of moonlight, and a shawl of silver netting covered her otherwise nude chest. A collar of iridescent feathers floated around her delicate neck. She smiled, parting generous red lips.
Naranpa could not hide her sharp inhale. This was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, and for a moment she forgot her words.
The woman’s smile spread, no doubt knowing the effect she had, and that was enough for Naranpa to rally. “And you must be Sedaysa,” she replied, remembering the name Zataya had given her.
“He said you were not coming.”
Naranpa lifted her chin. “He was mistaken.”
Something flashed across Sedaysa’s features that looked like relief. “He agreed to give blood sacrifice in payment for his failure. In fact, he gives it still.”
Which meant he still lived, but in what condition? “I know of blood sacrifice. I have given my own blood before.”
“As Sun Priest?” Sedaysa was doubtful.
“No.” She didn’t explain further, but she thought of Zataya’s stingray spine and her obsidian knives and braced herself for what she might find ahead.
“Now that you are here, he no longer needs to suffer.” Sedaysa stepped to the side. “Go free your brother.”
Naranpa stepped forward tentatively. At first, she only saw the people, small groups of men and women in fine clothes drinking from long, delicate cups, and she knew these must be the bosses of the Maw. She spied a tall woman in a wrap dress of deepest blue, heavy jade beads around her neck, leaning close to talk to a man in a billowing red cloak, a crown of speckled feathers on his head. There was a feast laid out on a low table, and another handful of people lingered there, eating with their hands and laughing. They stopped to watch as Naranpa passed, their eyes like pinpricks against her skin.
And then she saw him.
Denaochi knelt naked upon a dais strapped to a wooden rack. His head lolled on his neck, and his hair which had been so neatly coiffed hung loose and tangled around his face. His arms were splayed wide and tied at the wrists and shoulders with heavy rope, and familiar white stingray spines pierced his body. One through his tongue, more through each ear, and one through his genitals. Where there were not spines, there were knives. At his shoulders and elbows and hands, through his hips and thighs, inner and outer, but none through his torso. He was meant to bleed to death, very slowly.