The Silver Sparrow

My Entertainment

Stepping into the outer room, Zahara paused for her eyes to adjust to the sudden absence of light. The space was dimly lit, with only one hurricane lamp to illuminate the dark walls of gleaming obsidian. Expecting to find him in his bedchamber through the inner door, she walked past the round table, and paused to note the spilled wine on the white tablecloth. A goblet lay on its side by her feet, its content emptied onto the priceless carpet like a fresh trail of blood. She picked it up and placed it back on the table, pushing away the image her mind conjured as to how it had gotten there. It was always better not to know.

A shadow caught her eyes and drew her attention to the window. The moon, full and high in the sky, casted its golden light through the large opening where a dark figure lounged carelessly on the windowsill, as if unaware of the certain death its height promised should one were to slip and fall. As always, he sat daringly with his back against the frame, one leg extended lazily on the ledge, the other hanging loosely outside the window. The silver goblet in his hand glinted in the moonlight as he turned it back and forth absentmindedly. The wine had been gone a while ago, she could tell. He had a tendency to leave it unfilled and nurse the emptied cup for a long time, unwilling to break his chain of thoughts with such interruptions when his mind was too occupied by something important.

Without a word, Zahara headed to the window and replaced the empty goblet in his hand with a new one she'd filled from the table. He took it in silence, keeping his eyes fixed somewhere in the distance as she waited for him to initiate the conversation.

"Does it ever bother you," he drawled at length, sipping from the cup she'd given, "when they expect you to breed?"

The melancholy in his voice surprised her. She'd expected him to be in a different mood, to goad her over Amelia, and grin victoriously when he succeeded. Instead he'd asked her this, and he sounded almost tired.

"No more than being kept for entertainment, I assure you," she replied indifferently. She may have been born a bharavi, and had been expected to do nothing more than to breed more bharavis and oracles, but whatever her previous life had required, it was still far better than the life she was leading now.

He turned and regarded her appearance for the first time that night. The white gown she wore would be noted, of course, so would the moonstone on her neck—the same one she'd been given on her eighteenth birthday, as per tradition, to eventually bestow upon the man she chose to marry. It was a symbol of sorts. One that told him she would never surrender completely. He liked to be reminded sometimes of what she was, and that she still had some defiance in her. After a long absence, she knew it was what she needed to rekindle his interest and maintain her status in the Tower.

A grin appeared on his lips soon after. The dress and the necklace excited him, she could tell.

"Is that what you think you are? My entertainment?" He asked with a noticeable edge to his tone. "Am I so susceptible to pleasure, Zahara?"

She resisted the urge to swallow, knowing he would catch it in an instant. Reluctance made him suspicious, and indecision was seen as a sign of dishonesty. Assume too much and he'd find one a liability, too little and one appeared incompetent. Salar Muradi of Rasharwi allowed only competent, intelligent people around him, and if she were to continue to belong in that circle, her answers to these questions of many meanings had to be correct.

It just so happened that she knew how to do just that. From the very first day they'd met, it had been her direct, unpretentious ways she responded to his questions that captured his interest. He'd enjoyed these conversations with her, and she had come to realize the longer she could keep them going, the less his needs would be for her to satisfy him in bed. There had been nights when they'd simply talked, and those had been easier for her to bear, even though his intelligence had always stretched her thin and drained her completely of energy, leaving her mentally exhausted the next day.