02-17-2017, 11:17 PM
There was no dancing around the images in his head now. He was thinking about it: the piles of gore formerly Imaad Suaya. Maybe more of a puddle ooze rather than a pile of flesh. Or just the erect posture of a man stripped of his skin like that flayed elk. Or what it felt like to struggle through strangling him still. That was new. He’d never actually thought about what it meant to feel someone go limp in his hands. The push of steel through flesh, sure. The sharp edge of Saidin; didn’t think twice. Scent of rotted carcass? Could actually do without that one blowing in on random breezes in his life. Tamal meanwhile had been provoked. An unplanned gut reaction to the collapse of conspiracy overhead. This new scan of ideas was the slow intensity born from the deep embers of hatred. Not so much for Imaad’s pug face. Politicians and merchants: their like were expected to be scum; but hatred at his own gullibility. How many nights did they share drinks and a card? The vile taste of defeat twisting Imaad’s expression every time Jai swept the coins toward his end of the table. Was imaad sore over being defeated at all or frustrated he couldn’t prove that his opponent was counting cards and swiping cash right out from under his nose. Light only knew if his disgust bubbled up from somewhere else besides greed? He’d done a good job proving an unstable man on the hunt. Was that the purpose? Or was it as Nythadri said: to undermine another reputation. The man who scruffed him by the collar and wrenched him back to his feet.
The ideas swirled watery and vague. Behind the rising waves toward violence, he logically began to sort them out, one by one. The captain of the guard, Antony, intercepted the note meaning to proceed with something now the voice of dissent was out of the picture. All the while Suaya’s man tracked the voice to the Golden Fox to dig up dirt that would prod him like hot pokers in case he came back. To discredit him. Maybe, or as nythadri said, to discredit Daryen for standing aside a known lunatic. But no matter how pissed Jai was, they were as Daryen said: brothers. And if the challenge ever came, Jai would step ahead of the line to shield any brother. Though if it were for Daryen, he might curse the bloody bastard as he did it. Suaya should have anticipated such a reaction. Unless he had and that was the entire point?
Plagued, Jai lifted from the table his arms made across his knees. He could hear the jest in Nythadri’s tone. Could see the mirth plucking the pale strings of her eyes. But the feeling did not jump from her throat to his. There was no dancing around the fact. He thought exactly about what she said not to do. It tightened his jaw shut as irons. Turning that plump mesh of fur and leather into a pile so hideous as to repel the very maggots inching up for a sniff would be a pleasure. Until he could not stand to look at the face of control any longer. Nythadri was more composed than he could fathom a single person could be. More than composed. Her flirting only shoved the dagger of doubt into his stomach. Her naked foot rubbed his ankle. Light, that should have been far more enjoyable than he was letting himself feel.
Layering another flavor of disgust in this veritable cesspit was Fate and Daryen. Their conspiracy did what? Carried the wildcard back to Arad Doman? The question of why lingered heavy on the horizon. That same question escaped vulnerable from his tongue back in the estate when he’d posed it to Daryen. When he’d tried his best to avoid running into the man but had in fact walked dead straight toward him. Daryen kept his answer short, too. Trust him. Then changed the subject as he did his clothes. Bloody white blasted gauzy silk all draped open in the breeze. Didn’t he know what a bloody button was!
A cool voice in the darkness touched at the edge. Summoned audible nearly straight from his head. “There’s another thing to consider. And that’s Daryen himself...”
The chaos, the anger. It all slammed to instant silence in his head. Frozen as the sickle light overhead. Numb but for the heavy press of his forehead across his arms. Every other sound died under the tune of Nythadri’s reasoning. “...He clearly knows his court. His people. And presumably, he invited Imaad today. he’s not fighting a blind battle.”
She said something else after. For once, the sound of his name parting her lips did not breach the gate. It already shut on his listening.
The variables started to come together. Daryen invited Imaad today; and Nisele; and all the rest. And him.
Daryen wants the treaty.
He knew his own court. Daryen knew the wolves were circling. Was he trying to decide which one to pick off first? Or was he using Jai as bait to lure them within range.
It was like turning at the last second to find a brother snuck up from behind to shove him off a bridge. When all the backstabber had to do was ask! And he would have lept of his own free will! Burn the man!
Blood gushed hot through his face when he let go of fisting knots into his own scalp. Never having realized he’d taken the fistfuls. It torched the rest of him awake. The shoulder. The leg. Liridia’s present. Every single scar a miscalculated lesson. Liridia was a peripheral advisor. Her warder a mere statue to step around. Sadiq’s wisdom a coincidental guide in the darkness. Nisele wove her designs for that darling royal family if Daryen continued to refuse everyone. As Jai knew he would. The idea of marriage sickened them both something fierce. Jai knew his own limits. He would not be able to charge toward death while the weight of a wife dragged love from his ankles. He had a guess why Daryen hated the idea so much. Though news of a lost child shook that theory a little. That left the parasite brothers. Tamal’s devices were roused by his brother’s puppetry. And Imaad. The bloodsucking merchant was only after zeros to add to his account.
And then bloody King himself. The master who shoved stones across the board of his court. If there was something Daryen did not do, it was fight blind. He knew his enemies. Light! Jai knew the man knew his enemy. Which is why it burned him sick to wonder what folded the cards in his friend’s head all of a sudden. To seek a peace with the very race he’d bloodbathed to win the country in the first place. The man literally ripped High Blood children from their decapitated parents’ arms to ship living messages back over the Aryth. Now he wanted to clink crystal and pretend it never happened.
“He knows I’d forge a bloody path through the mountains for him. I’d sit in a hole the rest of my life translating the Karaethon Cycle if he ordered it. Blast it, Nythadri! I’d strap on the blindfold myself and walk into Shayol Ghul beside him. But he’s not asking! Not saying anything!”
Harsh, and barely contained, Jai flexed with animosity.
He scrubbed his hair again. Exhaled the rest away. Bloody nervous ticks and bloody nothing to count but stars. But just admitting the depth of his allegiance doused some of the fire. About as much as a bucket over Dragonmount, but it was enough to swing the pendulum back from snapping out of control. Though even Jai wasn’t quite sure where that allegiance stood: with rank as a whole or to his superior in particular. Light, Jai wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he ever encountered the actual Dragon Reborn. Salute, he supposed.
He should laugh. The situation was so absurd, but he’d figure out something. He even managed to dig a grin out of the irony’s grave.
“For the record. Screw the Tower.”
Apparently that final bit she added sank in after all.
He pushed up. There was about a mountain of sand to swipe away, but dry, it fell easy as powder; though gave some care for the perilous crust of salt glued to his leg. Then with the most heroic and dramatic sweep of a palm as he could conjure akin to the gesture that brought her here, he offered the lady-in-name a hand to rise. And the moment he closed around her fingers, she was yanked most unladylike into the trap of his arms.
Mirth swarmed again, but distinct from before. The gaze of passion was still there but rounded off by reality. He knew this was likely the last time he’d get Nythadri alone. Let alone ward off any chill snaking inside the black swimming around her shoulders with his own heat. Which he did. Ignoring the ache of her pressing into the dark flush of fresh bruising. He said nothing. No grin to wash out the reality of their situation. Just tried to study her like she was seeing something to solve. The line of her jaw. The place of her lips. Her tousled hair was a wreck: he liked to think he had something to do with that. What did she see when she looked at the world? Was it all ghosts and music, or did something else fill the stroma?
“Think maybe we could bargain that tenfold down a bit? You owe me an ocean of debt, you know.”
His face met her shoulder; hugging her close. He heard himself laugh. The sound came surprisingly easy.
“Care to see Daryen’s suite? Its gaudy as glitter, but not bad. And I know for certain there’s bandages.”
And empty. Light, everything hurt; and he was bloody hungry.
The ideas swirled watery and vague. Behind the rising waves toward violence, he logically began to sort them out, one by one. The captain of the guard, Antony, intercepted the note meaning to proceed with something now the voice of dissent was out of the picture. All the while Suaya’s man tracked the voice to the Golden Fox to dig up dirt that would prod him like hot pokers in case he came back. To discredit him. Maybe, or as nythadri said, to discredit Daryen for standing aside a known lunatic. But no matter how pissed Jai was, they were as Daryen said: brothers. And if the challenge ever came, Jai would step ahead of the line to shield any brother. Though if it were for Daryen, he might curse the bloody bastard as he did it. Suaya should have anticipated such a reaction. Unless he had and that was the entire point?
Plagued, Jai lifted from the table his arms made across his knees. He could hear the jest in Nythadri’s tone. Could see the mirth plucking the pale strings of her eyes. But the feeling did not jump from her throat to his. There was no dancing around the fact. He thought exactly about what she said not to do. It tightened his jaw shut as irons. Turning that plump mesh of fur and leather into a pile so hideous as to repel the very maggots inching up for a sniff would be a pleasure. Until he could not stand to look at the face of control any longer. Nythadri was more composed than he could fathom a single person could be. More than composed. Her flirting only shoved the dagger of doubt into his stomach. Her naked foot rubbed his ankle. Light, that should have been far more enjoyable than he was letting himself feel.
Layering another flavor of disgust in this veritable cesspit was Fate and Daryen. Their conspiracy did what? Carried the wildcard back to Arad Doman? The question of why lingered heavy on the horizon. That same question escaped vulnerable from his tongue back in the estate when he’d posed it to Daryen. When he’d tried his best to avoid running into the man but had in fact walked dead straight toward him. Daryen kept his answer short, too. Trust him. Then changed the subject as he did his clothes. Bloody white blasted gauzy silk all draped open in the breeze. Didn’t he know what a bloody button was!
A cool voice in the darkness touched at the edge. Summoned audible nearly straight from his head. “There’s another thing to consider. And that’s Daryen himself...”
The chaos, the anger. It all slammed to instant silence in his head. Frozen as the sickle light overhead. Numb but for the heavy press of his forehead across his arms. Every other sound died under the tune of Nythadri’s reasoning. “...He clearly knows his court. His people. And presumably, he invited Imaad today. he’s not fighting a blind battle.”
She said something else after. For once, the sound of his name parting her lips did not breach the gate. It already shut on his listening.
The variables started to come together. Daryen invited Imaad today; and Nisele; and all the rest. And him.
Daryen wants the treaty.
He knew his own court. Daryen knew the wolves were circling. Was he trying to decide which one to pick off first? Or was he using Jai as bait to lure them within range.
It was like turning at the last second to find a brother snuck up from behind to shove him off a bridge. When all the backstabber had to do was ask! And he would have lept of his own free will! Burn the man!
Blood gushed hot through his face when he let go of fisting knots into his own scalp. Never having realized he’d taken the fistfuls. It torched the rest of him awake. The shoulder. The leg. Liridia’s present. Every single scar a miscalculated lesson. Liridia was a peripheral advisor. Her warder a mere statue to step around. Sadiq’s wisdom a coincidental guide in the darkness. Nisele wove her designs for that darling royal family if Daryen continued to refuse everyone. As Jai knew he would. The idea of marriage sickened them both something fierce. Jai knew his own limits. He would not be able to charge toward death while the weight of a wife dragged love from his ankles. He had a guess why Daryen hated the idea so much. Though news of a lost child shook that theory a little. That left the parasite brothers. Tamal’s devices were roused by his brother’s puppetry. And Imaad. The bloodsucking merchant was only after zeros to add to his account.
And then bloody King himself. The master who shoved stones across the board of his court. If there was something Daryen did not do, it was fight blind. He knew his enemies. Light! Jai knew the man knew his enemy. Which is why it burned him sick to wonder what folded the cards in his friend’s head all of a sudden. To seek a peace with the very race he’d bloodbathed to win the country in the first place. The man literally ripped High Blood children from their decapitated parents’ arms to ship living messages back over the Aryth. Now he wanted to clink crystal and pretend it never happened.
“He knows I’d forge a bloody path through the mountains for him. I’d sit in a hole the rest of my life translating the Karaethon Cycle if he ordered it. Blast it, Nythadri! I’d strap on the blindfold myself and walk into Shayol Ghul beside him. But he’s not asking! Not saying anything!”
Harsh, and barely contained, Jai flexed with animosity.
He scrubbed his hair again. Exhaled the rest away. Bloody nervous ticks and bloody nothing to count but stars. But just admitting the depth of his allegiance doused some of the fire. About as much as a bucket over Dragonmount, but it was enough to swing the pendulum back from snapping out of control. Though even Jai wasn’t quite sure where that allegiance stood: with rank as a whole or to his superior in particular. Light, Jai wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he ever encountered the actual Dragon Reborn. Salute, he supposed.
He should laugh. The situation was so absurd, but he’d figure out something. He even managed to dig a grin out of the irony’s grave.
“For the record. Screw the Tower.”
Apparently that final bit she added sank in after all.
He pushed up. There was about a mountain of sand to swipe away, but dry, it fell easy as powder; though gave some care for the perilous crust of salt glued to his leg. Then with the most heroic and dramatic sweep of a palm as he could conjure akin to the gesture that brought her here, he offered the lady-in-name a hand to rise. And the moment he closed around her fingers, she was yanked most unladylike into the trap of his arms.
Mirth swarmed again, but distinct from before. The gaze of passion was still there but rounded off by reality. He knew this was likely the last time he’d get Nythadri alone. Let alone ward off any chill snaking inside the black swimming around her shoulders with his own heat. Which he did. Ignoring the ache of her pressing into the dark flush of fresh bruising. He said nothing. No grin to wash out the reality of their situation. Just tried to study her like she was seeing something to solve. The line of her jaw. The place of her lips. Her tousled hair was a wreck: he liked to think he had something to do with that. What did she see when she looked at the world? Was it all ghosts and music, or did something else fill the stroma?
“Think maybe we could bargain that tenfold down a bit? You owe me an ocean of debt, you know.”
His face met her shoulder; hugging her close. He heard himself laugh. The sound came surprisingly easy.
“Care to see Daryen’s suite? Its gaudy as glitter, but not bad. And I know for certain there’s bandages.”
And empty. Light, everything hurt; and he was bloody hungry.
Only darkness shows you the light.