09-19-2016, 01:34 PM
She accepted the hand up and the kiss, though her instincts told her it was foolish to allow. There was no point looking to Lirida, like a child checking misbehaviour went unnoticed; plenty of eyes watched, Nythadri did not need to sweep the room to know it, so the Aes Sedai did not need to watch to know every movement she made. Probably, she had just confirmed every rumour of licentiousness that had ever found her its victim, but the damage had been done a long time ago. At this rate, they’re going to have to bundle me up in Green or cast me out altogether.
“You’ll be waiting a long time, you know.”
For the trust, and for the story – which, given the suggestive glint in his eye, she did not doubt he would find disappointing. She smiled though; reigniting a sly humour dampened by talk of Seanchan and conspiracy, enjoying the gentle warmth of his touch, and of his lips. For a moment after, she watched him walk away.
Outside it wasn’t exactly cool, but it provided peace from the viper-pit within and she could suffer the sun if she could do it in solitude. She wandered an area of marble patio until the hum of conversation died, coming to rest against an exquisitely wrought railing. When she leant on it, it was hot to the touch, pushing spikes of unbearable heat through the fabric of her sleeves. She straightened, drumming her fingertips against it instead, making a game of the short sharp scalds, so that it almost felt like music.
All it took were these few moments of silence and privacy to bring her back to herself.
She thought of Farune, and of a nameless gaidin holding out a white orchid. Jai snaked like dark mist through these memories; the whisper of his breath against her ear, the warmth of his hand on her own. Abandoning her game, she traced where he had touched her neck, curling the hair around her fingers and staring out over Daryen’s expansive gardens. His face had branded in her mind, the haunting in his eyes, and the earnestness in an appeal of a man laying himself bare. And what exactly does he expect from me?
“What a wicked game.”
And one she was more and more fed up with playing by the minute. She could retreat – it was always an option. But it would be like standing still in the middle of a battle while the crash of steel rang in your ears. Eventually you would find yourself a casualty of someone else’s swing. She longed for a permanent balance, but she had yet to find it.
Thoughts beginning to drift, she was startled by the clink of a glass on the railing beside her, marking an end to the brevity of her respite – which had contained little peace, anyhow. Her cautious gaze drew down, discovering water, not wine. And the man that had put it there was Imaad Suaya.
“Water is difficult to come by at these functions if you don’t ask for it. The wine’s popularity is on account of its uncanny ability to help soften the company of insufferable fools. So it’s a necessary evil.”
She noticed that Imaad’s glass held neither wine or water, but an amber liquid that suggested it was far more potent. Clearly, he suffered the company of fools more than most.
“Thank you.”
She accepted the drink with something of a droll smile, appreciating the coolness against her palm. Water. Nisele works quickly, she thought wryly, but she could not imagine the woman having not flown Jai’s company to make subtle enquiries about Nythadri’s unanticipated appearance, and then blanketing opinion of her as a sweet youthful ignorant, vacant like a little doll. By Imaad’s tone, though, he was apparently resolved to make up his own mind about her. He didn’t treat her like a child, and the sly glint of his expression did not suggest he would go easy on her.
“So.”
He watched her take a sip, expression ever so slightly on the edge of amusement. “A daughter of the Tower in our midst. What a dubious pleasure.”
The comment was so unexpected and unscrupulously barbed that she actually laughed, pleasantly surprised to find a diversion from the usual painted courteousness. Stifling a cough, she replaced the glass on the railing, and regarded his caustic face with an open smile.
“And I take it I am experiencing the 'dubious' pleasure of introductions with Imaad Suaya – though perhaps dubious is really the wrong word. If I had to dance one more courtly dance I think I might scream. You are more refreshing than your brother.”
“Of course. He may have gotten the pretty looks, but he didn’t get the intellect.”
His smile curved sinister, but appraising the man’s rectangular face and narrow eyes she found that she liked him immediately – despite the danger that lurked quietly like a predator under placid waters. His was not the wit and sarcasm of a good-hearted rogue, it was the ruthless insubordination of a man accustom to getting exactly what he wanted without playing nice to get there. The risk made it interesting. “Accepted Nythadri.”
He toyed with the sound of her title as he toyed with the contents of his glass. “It’s not often the Aes Sedai lets your lot out of their gilded cages.”
Her fingers played with the stem of the glass. “Gilded, is it? It seems gossip travels as quickly as the wine, if you think you think you know the inner-workings of the Tower.”
Gilded indeed.
“Undeniably. After all, it’s an unusual occasion. No surprise that the gossip this morning is… a little crazy.”
Another flicker of a smile, like the licking of flame. His pose was expectant, mocking. It was meant to draw her attention, and it did, but she did not dignify him with a reaction. She brought the water to her lips again, stalling away the moments before he would pursue his point; he’d all but just admitted the discrediting gossip about Jai was down to him, answering every doubt about her certainty. At least he is direct. She could appreciate that, if his sardonic jeering was becoming less like an amusing diversion and more like the cold steel of teeth about her neck.
“You seem very cosy with the Asha’man.”
“Do you think I had a choice? He’s a natural flirt. He seems to think no woman should be able to resist.”
She thought it the right comment to fit an approximation of the image Imaad wished to purvey of the Asha’man, with enough casual disinterest to mark her as a neutral party. Pale eyes sought the merchant’s face to discover his reaction, but she could detect little beyond his sarcastic laugh, narrow eyes creased with the mirth of another’s misfortune.
“You didn’t look particularly resistant to me, my dear.”
His tone was beginning to grate. “You already noted the bands on my dress. I’m no easy quarry, Imaad,”
she said scathingly. “And he has plenty of women to choose from.”
“A man like that chases the unattainable like a dog chases its tail.”
She rolled her eyes dismissively. “Your very genuine concern is touching, but--”
He turned in towards her, leaning an elbow on the railing and swirling with the liquid in his glass round and round. “And if he sullies your reputation in his persistence? They say Aes Sedai have eyes in the back of their head, that they see everything. Now, I am no expert,”
he touched his other hand to his leather-clad chest, “in the ways of the White Tower, but an Accepted could stand to lose a lot if she found herself in a position with an Asha’man that spun out of her control. Especially when that Asha’man is as unstable as Jai Kojima.”
He raised his drink, a cynical smile pressing around the lip of the glass as he sipped. There was a disturbing glint to his eye, a consummate amusement that bordered on unsettling.
It gave her pause. She couldn’t decide if he was trying to warn her away from Jai as Tamal had done, or if he danced a plan she could only catch in glimmers. Why do you want this Seanchan treaty so badly? “What does it matter to you if my reputation gleams or lies in tatters?”
He laughed, and it wasn’t the pleasant laugh of shared jollity. He laughed at her. “It doesn’t matter to me. But surely it should matter to you.”
How wrong you are. Gossip had always followed Nythadri, and she had always let it spiral. Harlot. Murderer. It would have been an easy thing to reverse once, but she had never bothered; not denials, not confirmation, just pure ignorance. Even the Tower held whispers, but with no fuel to fire them they became simple facts. She liked the simplicity and solitude the isolation brought, and that expectations of her were lower than dirt. No, it was not her reputation she coveted, but the naked threat in his words did strike a chord; perhaps not the one he had intended, but a chord all the same. For an Accepted who had already spent time at the Farm, she balanced on a very thin line. It would only take a very small push to fall. Imaad seemed prepared to push.
When she did not speak, he grinned. “If you don’t play, Nythadri, you become a pawn instead. Dance with me, or I’ll tie strings round your wrists and make you dance. Either way, you dance.”
He seemed to have found the measure of her quickly, stirring her frustrations into a fury with the most nonchalant of words. Make me dance? Anger rose, tingling her skin like raging fire, denied an outlet. Like most things with Nythadri, it ran cold and sharp when it rolled off her tongue. “Are these threats, merchant?”
She did not play with words or wrap them up in pretty bows; she would not play this game.
It only seemed to make him laugh. “Be kinder to an old man, and maybe I’ll even sing you the tune.”
Thoughts of the Game distilled from her mind. Rare to anger but quick to act on it, she stepped into his personal space. “If you cross me, Imaad Suaya, do not think I will forget your name when I wear the shawl.”
Imaad raised his glass, tilting is head down to her in a mocking bow. “That,”
he said, “is more like it.”
As she glared into his faintly amused face, she realised that he had been poking for an emotional response. The fact she’d given it to him only made her fury storm. Her grip on the glass of water intensified, so that she almost feared its delicacy would smash into a thousand pieces before she eased the pressure and abandoned the glass on the railing instead. There were no goodbyes, just the whip of banded robes as she passed, and the hum of Imaad Suaya’s laughter ghosting after her.
“You’ll be waiting a long time, you know.”
For the trust, and for the story – which, given the suggestive glint in his eye, she did not doubt he would find disappointing. She smiled though; reigniting a sly humour dampened by talk of Seanchan and conspiracy, enjoying the gentle warmth of his touch, and of his lips. For a moment after, she watched him walk away.
Outside it wasn’t exactly cool, but it provided peace from the viper-pit within and she could suffer the sun if she could do it in solitude. She wandered an area of marble patio until the hum of conversation died, coming to rest against an exquisitely wrought railing. When she leant on it, it was hot to the touch, pushing spikes of unbearable heat through the fabric of her sleeves. She straightened, drumming her fingertips against it instead, making a game of the short sharp scalds, so that it almost felt like music.
All it took were these few moments of silence and privacy to bring her back to herself.
She thought of Farune, and of a nameless gaidin holding out a white orchid. Jai snaked like dark mist through these memories; the whisper of his breath against her ear, the warmth of his hand on her own. Abandoning her game, she traced where he had touched her neck, curling the hair around her fingers and staring out over Daryen’s expansive gardens. His face had branded in her mind, the haunting in his eyes, and the earnestness in an appeal of a man laying himself bare. And what exactly does he expect from me?
“What a wicked game.”
And one she was more and more fed up with playing by the minute. She could retreat – it was always an option. But it would be like standing still in the middle of a battle while the crash of steel rang in your ears. Eventually you would find yourself a casualty of someone else’s swing. She longed for a permanent balance, but she had yet to find it.
Thoughts beginning to drift, she was startled by the clink of a glass on the railing beside her, marking an end to the brevity of her respite – which had contained little peace, anyhow. Her cautious gaze drew down, discovering water, not wine. And the man that had put it there was Imaad Suaya.
“Water is difficult to come by at these functions if you don’t ask for it. The wine’s popularity is on account of its uncanny ability to help soften the company of insufferable fools. So it’s a necessary evil.”
She noticed that Imaad’s glass held neither wine or water, but an amber liquid that suggested it was far more potent. Clearly, he suffered the company of fools more than most.
“Thank you.”
She accepted the drink with something of a droll smile, appreciating the coolness against her palm. Water. Nisele works quickly, she thought wryly, but she could not imagine the woman having not flown Jai’s company to make subtle enquiries about Nythadri’s unanticipated appearance, and then blanketing opinion of her as a sweet youthful ignorant, vacant like a little doll. By Imaad’s tone, though, he was apparently resolved to make up his own mind about her. He didn’t treat her like a child, and the sly glint of his expression did not suggest he would go easy on her.
“So.”
He watched her take a sip, expression ever so slightly on the edge of amusement. “A daughter of the Tower in our midst. What a dubious pleasure.”
The comment was so unexpected and unscrupulously barbed that she actually laughed, pleasantly surprised to find a diversion from the usual painted courteousness. Stifling a cough, she replaced the glass on the railing, and regarded his caustic face with an open smile.
“And I take it I am experiencing the 'dubious' pleasure of introductions with Imaad Suaya – though perhaps dubious is really the wrong word. If I had to dance one more courtly dance I think I might scream. You are more refreshing than your brother.”
“Of course. He may have gotten the pretty looks, but he didn’t get the intellect.”
His smile curved sinister, but appraising the man’s rectangular face and narrow eyes she found that she liked him immediately – despite the danger that lurked quietly like a predator under placid waters. His was not the wit and sarcasm of a good-hearted rogue, it was the ruthless insubordination of a man accustom to getting exactly what he wanted without playing nice to get there. The risk made it interesting. “Accepted Nythadri.”
He toyed with the sound of her title as he toyed with the contents of his glass. “It’s not often the Aes Sedai lets your lot out of their gilded cages.”
Her fingers played with the stem of the glass. “Gilded, is it? It seems gossip travels as quickly as the wine, if you think you think you know the inner-workings of the Tower.”
Gilded indeed.
“Undeniably. After all, it’s an unusual occasion. No surprise that the gossip this morning is… a little crazy.”
Another flicker of a smile, like the licking of flame. His pose was expectant, mocking. It was meant to draw her attention, and it did, but she did not dignify him with a reaction. She brought the water to her lips again, stalling away the moments before he would pursue his point; he’d all but just admitted the discrediting gossip about Jai was down to him, answering every doubt about her certainty. At least he is direct. She could appreciate that, if his sardonic jeering was becoming less like an amusing diversion and more like the cold steel of teeth about her neck.
“You seem very cosy with the Asha’man.”
“Do you think I had a choice? He’s a natural flirt. He seems to think no woman should be able to resist.”
She thought it the right comment to fit an approximation of the image Imaad wished to purvey of the Asha’man, with enough casual disinterest to mark her as a neutral party. Pale eyes sought the merchant’s face to discover his reaction, but she could detect little beyond his sarcastic laugh, narrow eyes creased with the mirth of another’s misfortune.
“You didn’t look particularly resistant to me, my dear.”
His tone was beginning to grate. “You already noted the bands on my dress. I’m no easy quarry, Imaad,”
she said scathingly. “And he has plenty of women to choose from.”
“A man like that chases the unattainable like a dog chases its tail.”
She rolled her eyes dismissively. “Your very genuine concern is touching, but--”
He turned in towards her, leaning an elbow on the railing and swirling with the liquid in his glass round and round. “And if he sullies your reputation in his persistence? They say Aes Sedai have eyes in the back of their head, that they see everything. Now, I am no expert,”
he touched his other hand to his leather-clad chest, “in the ways of the White Tower, but an Accepted could stand to lose a lot if she found herself in a position with an Asha’man that spun out of her control. Especially when that Asha’man is as unstable as Jai Kojima.”
He raised his drink, a cynical smile pressing around the lip of the glass as he sipped. There was a disturbing glint to his eye, a consummate amusement that bordered on unsettling.
It gave her pause. She couldn’t decide if he was trying to warn her away from Jai as Tamal had done, or if he danced a plan she could only catch in glimmers. Why do you want this Seanchan treaty so badly? “What does it matter to you if my reputation gleams or lies in tatters?”
He laughed, and it wasn’t the pleasant laugh of shared jollity. He laughed at her. “It doesn’t matter to me. But surely it should matter to you.”
How wrong you are. Gossip had always followed Nythadri, and she had always let it spiral. Harlot. Murderer. It would have been an easy thing to reverse once, but she had never bothered; not denials, not confirmation, just pure ignorance. Even the Tower held whispers, but with no fuel to fire them they became simple facts. She liked the simplicity and solitude the isolation brought, and that expectations of her were lower than dirt. No, it was not her reputation she coveted, but the naked threat in his words did strike a chord; perhaps not the one he had intended, but a chord all the same. For an Accepted who had already spent time at the Farm, she balanced on a very thin line. It would only take a very small push to fall. Imaad seemed prepared to push.
When she did not speak, he grinned. “If you don’t play, Nythadri, you become a pawn instead. Dance with me, or I’ll tie strings round your wrists and make you dance. Either way, you dance.”
He seemed to have found the measure of her quickly, stirring her frustrations into a fury with the most nonchalant of words. Make me dance? Anger rose, tingling her skin like raging fire, denied an outlet. Like most things with Nythadri, it ran cold and sharp when it rolled off her tongue. “Are these threats, merchant?”
She did not play with words or wrap them up in pretty bows; she would not play this game.
It only seemed to make him laugh. “Be kinder to an old man, and maybe I’ll even sing you the tune.”
Thoughts of the Game distilled from her mind. Rare to anger but quick to act on it, she stepped into his personal space. “If you cross me, Imaad Suaya, do not think I will forget your name when I wear the shawl.”
Imaad raised his glass, tilting is head down to her in a mocking bow. “That,”
he said, “is more like it.”
As she glared into his faintly amused face, she realised that he had been poking for an emotional response. The fact she’d given it to him only made her fury storm. Her grip on the glass of water intensified, so that she almost feared its delicacy would smash into a thousand pieces before she eased the pressure and abandoned the glass on the railing instead. There were no goodbyes, just the whip of banded robes as she passed, and the hum of Imaad Suaya’s laughter ghosting after her.