Parneres, I had finally found Parneres! This thought bounced in my head all the way to the outskirts of Tongola—Bhar's capital. There, on an empty lot, my three thousand troops labored to set up a proper military camp. The air was desiccating. The heat was oppressive. As much as I wished to remove myself into shade and dream about what I would say to Parneres, I dismounted and walked through the lines of tents, calling out encouragement. Fine dust that rose from every step taken and every peg driven into the ground filled my lungs until my voice collapsed into a cough.
My High Scribe, half-mummified by age already, seemed the only woman impervious to heat. She sunk her crooked fingers into me, eager to explain what the Queen had meant and how our situation in Bhar was particularly delicate.
"Phedoxia, we're foreign mercenaries crashing a nationalistic rebellion in the name of the Imperial Crown. I don't expect to be showered with rose petals." I unhooked her from my cloak digit by digit. "If the Divines are willing, the Queen's agent will lead us to the Scorpia Cult's secret hideout and we'll be done before the ground burns under our feet."
"And if we are not so lucky in our allies?" Phedoxia eyes burrowed into my face.
If we were very, very lucky, the agent was Parneres, and I was about to kill his cousin for good--but, naturally, I couldn't confess this to Phedoxia.
"If not, we set the ground on fire under their feet." I squinted at the white disk in the sky, coated in the shimmering daze. "Unless Tashaya's sun gets us all first."
Phedoxia scoffed. "I wouldn't count on it, Commander. Bhar is an ancient land accustomed to both Tashaya's wrath and favors. They are tenfold harsher on us."
I breathed air shimmering from heat and surveyed the terrain more closely. Phedoxia wasn't wrong. Tongola was built in praise of Divine Tashaya. The stark shadows of Their sunlight enhanced the geometric patterns on the mud-brick houses of the living. The blackstone pyramids of the dead Queens and the temples across the least expected river in the world--the mighty Jteru--boasted their perfection of form against the backdrop of cloudless sky. The crystal obelisks between them turned sunlight into multicolored rays, shifting in response to Tashaya's progress to form more and more patterns.
The countryside didn't expend the same monumental efforts to serve their patron Divine, but was in its own way adapted to Their excesses. Patches of green still clung to crevices of the rugged hills and deeply incised valleys left by the flash floods, but mostly I saw brown, beige and rust. The houses sprung haphazardly around the spider webbing canals and fields of barley. My scouts would have no problems hiding, but neither would our foes.
"Tashaya would be harder on us," I said with a sigh. "Did you obtain the maps with the locations of all the water wells from the Queen's Scribes?"
Phedoxia nodded. "Yes, but I don't trust this Queen or her Scribes."
"Surprise, surprise," I muttered. "If you find any concrete evidence of foul play, I want to know."
She saluted, and I ducked into the largest tent with the Deadhead Company standards in the front. Inside, the heat was a fraction less oppressive than out. And a rust-colored cat stood at attention in Ondrey's lap. It opened its mouth wide and hissed at me. Ondrey scratched one sail-like ear. "Hush, this is my wife, Killer. She won't eat you either."
To confirm his words, I ignored the cat and pounced on the cup waiting on the table instead.
"Thank you, sweetheart," I said after draining the tepid wine he set out for me. It was barely diluted, for safe water was more scarce here.
Being born on the shores of the Shining Gulf, I didn't deal with thirst well. I could go without food for days, but lack of water made me ill in a matter of hours. I prayed for Phedoxia to secure a plentiful water source before I drank myself into madness. Licking the last of the grape's sour moisture from my lips, daydreaming of chilly clear water, I murmured, "You got a cat. Of course, you got a cat."
It wasn't a question of if; it was a question of when. No matter how far we marched, how brutal the campaign or how meager the surroundings, cats materialized out of thin air to swirl around my husband's ankles. Divines only knew how they sensed that Ondrey couldn't live without one of their kind curled in his lap or stalking him from a corner. The local cat was a large, cadaverously thin beast.
"He must have wandered in from the village to check out the camp." Ondrey said blissfully, rubbing the cat's vibrating throat. "I chased him away, but he came back bearing gifts."
"Aha," I said, glancing at the twisted body of a dead lizard I had nearly stepped on by the flap of the tent. "Charming. Isn't the cats's purpose to catch rodents inside the dwelling, then murder them outside?"
I got a look imbued with mistrust from Killer. Ondrey got a love bite, urging him to step in and deal with the impudent human intruder. What Ondrey did was murmur peaceably.
"True, true, my heart. See, Killer is half-way there."
I sighed, stripping the cloak and the chain mail, and the padding, and the boots, and the vest, and the tunic. "Why didn't he eat the unfortunate critter? I can count his ribs."
"It's how they naturally are here, I think." Ondrey absently patted the triangular head, producing an agreeable meow. His eyes fixed on my emerging skin, my ribs, my breasts. "People are tall and skinny, and so are their cats. Must be the heat that makes them this dry."
The heat made Ondrey discard his shirt as well. The familiar and dear sight of his wide chest and mighty shoulders turning into even mightier arms evaporated the last vestiges of wine from my throat.
"Shoo," I commanded the cat and lowered myself on the blankets. Killer or not, he couldn't stop me from hugging my husband.
Ondrey nuzzled my neck. "There is a villa nearby we can hire to station the officers. I rode out to take a look. It has a cascade pool and a balcony overlooking it. Will be no problem to secure it—it's on a crag, the only road going up, fence, gates... a perfect stronghold if we have soldiers to spare."
I nodded, surrendering myself to the pleasure of listening to his breath, his heartbeat. My fingers traced a path through the fair hair on his chest. I twirled it in a glistening ring—he was sweating. We both were... the pool sounded heavenly. "Good idea, sweetheart. We'll need a safe place. The fighting promises to be cruel and bloody. Lots of hiding holes and proud people who hate us."
"What did the Queen say?"
I told him.
My heart palpitated again when the agent came up, an extraordinary pleasant ailment. "Oh, Ondrey! I might be this close to finally finding Parneres. Imagine that!"
Ondrey's wide brows creased. "I'll be fine to let someone else shoulder the junior husband duties, but Kozima turns sour every time we take to the field. If you plunk Parneres on his doorstep upon return, he's bound to go to pieces. And when he goes to pieces, Ismar, I want to be elsewhere."
I found his protesting mouth with mine and drew him into a kiss. They also tasted like local wine.
"If I decide to marry again, it will be with his formal blessing," I whispered into his lips. "Everything done by the Tenets. You're to be my only sinful secret husband."
Ondrey chuckled, and I had to lean back to catch the merry twinkle in his eyes. It made them almost blue, almost cloudless. In the Knowable World, he alone didn't think that the Divines appointed Kozima as my eternal lover. Everyone else prophesied that Kozima's soul would stubbornly emerge from the River Vash to find my reincarnation if I were to be reborn a thousand times. By some magic or curse, Kozima held a strange power to convince people of that without a single word. Foreigners and strangers took one look at him by my elbow—and their expressions told me it had afflicted them. They became believers. I was envied and I was castigated for marrying Ondrey.
And I loved Ondrey for many reasons. Among them--his immunity to Kozima's spell and for his discretion about the world being wrong. He took the scorn calmly. I loved him for his gorgeous brows too... bear's physique... the military talent he applied without resentment that his advance in the ranks was blocked by his sex... and the decisive way he made love.
He moaned his approval as I moved over him and caught his hips between mine. "Then again," he said, "it'll be the junior husband's job to put Kozima back together. They were friends with Parneres, weren't they?"
"They met each other." I rolled my shoulders, arched my back until my hair swung down, tickling my toes and his knees. So wonderful to be free of the suffocating armor. "Hold the horses, though. It might not be Parneres. Or he could be married to a powerful woman already."
Ondrey laughed, his body rolling between my thighs. "Married and sent to spy on the Scorpia Cult? The rumor has it that only mad Ismar puts her husband in terrible danger by dragging the poor sweet man into battles with her."
I kicked off my trousers, making sure they landed on the cat and buried him for a spell.
"I hear it's because her sweet man has a war fetish. They say he turns wildly passionate when there's a good fight ahead."
"That Ismar, she is clever... she knows her men..." His voice caught when his body spoke about being ready for me to take him in.
"Do you think it's Parneres?" I whispered, but he was too far into his pursuit of Indara's gift to answer. Or he pretended to be. But was it Parneres?