On Fire's Wings - Christie Golden [76]
“You saw him?” Jashemi asked, his voice low and urgent. She nodded. As if steadying himself against the onslaught of a desert storm, Jashemi asked quietly, “Who is it?”
Oh, she did not want to tell him. Better it was some stranger, someone he did not know….
“Halid.”
He stared, his mouth open, not wanting to believe her. “No, you must be mistaken, Kevla. Halid is devoted to my father. I see it every time—”
There was no time to indulge his doubt. “Jashemi, I am so sorry, I wish it were not so, but it is. He stared full into the fire and spoke clearly. I didn’t want to believe it either, so I waited, and I watched…but his voice and features were the only ones that even came close to those of the man I saw with Yeshi. It is Halid. It can be none other.”
Jashemi shut his eyes and breathed deeply through his nostrils. Kevla wanted to comfort him, as she had done in this same place so long ago, but a deeper instinct told her to step back. Jashemi needed to come to a point of acceptance on his own.
He sat at the pool’s edge, gently kicking the water as he stared into its depths. Quietly, Kevla sat beside him.
At last, Jashemi spoke in a ragged voice. “It makes sense. You told me that my…that Yeshi said something like time was running out. That they had to—had to kill Tahmu soon.”
“Yes,” Kevla whispered.
“Halid is Tahmu’s Second. He will become khashim if anything happens to Tahmu before I have reached Acknowledgment. That gives them only six months from today. No wonder Yeshi was so upset that I wanted to push the ceremony up.”
He shook his bare head in sorrow and disbelief. “My mother has betrayed my father with the one man he truly trusts, and the two of them are planning murder. This sounds like a fireside tale, not my life.”
Kevla watched as the pain gave way to anger. It was subtle; his nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed, but she knew every expression that flitted across his face.
“They will not succeed,” he said through clenched teeth.
“How do we stop them? Are you going to tell your father?”
Jashemi shook his head. “No. How would I explain knowing this? I cannot mention your…abilities. I have to have my own proof. I must somehow catch her with him.” A blistering oath escaped his lips and he pounded the stone floor with a fist. “Halid! How could they do this?”
Gently guiding his thoughts back to action rather than anger, Kevla asked, “How do you plan to accomplish this? You cannot lurk at Yeshi’s door every night.”
He turned to her, and Kevla shrank from the coldness of his smile.
“No,” he said, “but you can.”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “I can.”
For the next several nights, Kevla got very little sleep. Every night, she would light a fire in her room, gaze into the flames, and say quietly, “Show me Yeshi.”
If Yeshi was near a fire, be it in her bedroom or elsewhere in the House, Kevla would see her. Sometimes she was too far away, other times her face was as clear to Kevla as if the woman were standing right in front of her. She found that the more she practiced, the clearer even the vague impressions became.
She was not overly concerned on nights when Tahmu was in the House. Not even Yeshi would dare invite a lover in when her husband might enter at any moment. Those nights, Kevla slept gratefully, her dreams troubled only by the appearance of the Great Dragon and his unceasing question.
Inevitably, Tahmu would have to leave. He did so a few weeks after Jashemi’s birthday celebration, and Kevla knew that Yeshi would not let the bed grow cold.
It took several hours after nightfall, and Kevla was beginning to nod off when a voice came from the fire.
“I thought you would never come,” breathed Yeshi. Kevla snapped awake and stared into the fire. Sure enough, there was Halid, crushing Yeshi to him in a tight embrace.
Kevla swallowed hard, hoping the plan would work. She closed her eyes, calmed her racing thoughts, and said softly, “Show me Jashemi.”
The flames shimmered and crackled. The forms of Yeshi and Halid gave way to the image of a bed with only one occupant. Jashemi’s face was