Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [130]
Rebellion had no doubt played a role in Kama’s choices—if her father couldn’t appreciate her talents, then, by the god they all shared, she’d find someone who would. And in those days—the same days when witches, gangs, and cognizant corpses ran riot on the streets of Sanctuary—Molin had needed all the talent he could get. A set of eyes and ears inside the Third Commando was a gift he could never have purchased and couldn’t refuse when Kama offered to provide them.
He didn’t ask questions when Kama began visiting his palace chambers at midnight, slipping in through a window, never the door. If she stayed until daybreak, that was because they shared a fascination with intrigue and a need for uncensored conversation.
Kama took Molin completely by surprise when she suggested they share his bed for “curiosity’s sake.” Vashanka have mercy! Molin enjoyed Kama’s company, her friendship; she could take a joke at a time when jokes were scarce. He knew who and what she was, of course, and that she made a ritual out of sleeping with each of Commando’s new recruits. When she sat cross-legged on Molin’s worktable, bantering politics and philosophy, her hair hacked short, and her woman’s body encased in a mercenary’s scuffed leathers, it had been remarkably easy to forget that she was a woman. And even if Molin had seen the woman in her, Kama was Tempus Thales’s daughter, and no man who knew the Riddler wanted him for a father-in-law.
But wine had flowed freely that night and once she’d raised the flag, Molin discovered that he, too, was, curious. Kama proved adventurous between the sheets and he—he’d only recently begun to explore the gifts his witchblooded mother had left him. There’d been a moment, as the sun rose, when they could have laughed and declared their curiosities sated, but that moment passed in silence.
Fate facilitated their passions. The situation in Sanctuary went from bad to worse—the fish-eyed Beysibs, the Nisi witches, a host of mages, Kama’s fellow mercenaries, her father’s Stepsons, a Wrigglie revolt, a usurper on the Imperial throne, and a necromancer or two all conspired to reduce the city to chaos. As the first among Prince Kadakithis’s advisors, Molin needed to meet with Kama almost every night. They were discreet but happy, and those who knew them best sensed the change.
Tempus Thales took his daughter’s choice of lovers in stride. If anything, the revelation eased the tension between the two men. But Rosanda, who hadn’t graced Molin’s bed in a decade, judged herself betrayed—all her tightly cherished dreams of a prosperous widowhood were doomed if Kama bore Molin a son. Rosanda was not bold enough to confront Molin directly, instead she found a man—several of them—to advance her cause.
After the assassination of Emperor Abakithis, and under the aegis of Lowan Vigeles, husband of yet another of Lord Uralde’s daughters, Sanctuary became a true sanctuary for what remained of the Imperial family. Their Land’s End estate, though closer to the city walls than the similarly named Serripines estate, served the same purpose—a bastion of false hopes as the Empire crumbled. Armed with her version of events, Rosanda appealed to her brother-in-law. More to the point, she appealed to her niece, Chenaya.
If by some chance Molin Torchholder lived a thousand years, he’d never fathom why Savankala had chosen to imbue Chenaya with a measure of immortality. The girl couldn’t lose a contest whether it was a simple coin toss or a fight to the death on the hot sands