Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (23 page)

Curious to see what Mityam made of that, Voorus crept around
the chair. Mityam seemed shocked, as well he should be. Married ladies didn’t
have business with unmarried men, personal or otherwise, and certainly not in
private. Voorus noticed she had yet to look at him again. Not even a coy
glance. Why would she come to him and then ignore him?

Seething,
he asked, “What interest could you possibly have with QuiTai?”

Now
Mityam was truly alarmed. He turned to Nashruu. “Oh, my dear! A woman like
that? No, no. This won’t do.”

Nashruu’s
fleeting look of disgust changed quickly back to a properly docile mien. “I
realize that it’s a bit unusual, but I have my orders.”

“I think
your husband would agree with me that it’s best that you ignore these ‘orders’
you think you have. This isn’t befitting a woman of your station,” Mityam said.

Mityam
struggled to rise from his chair, and Voorus put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll
escort Ma’am Zul back to her home. You can wait here for my return.”

Groaning, Mityam sank back into the chair. “Only sensible
thing to do. I’d escort her myself, but…”

“Oh, absolutely. Ma’am Zul?” He bowed and indicated she
should precede him to the door. To his relief, she didn’t make a scene, but
they’d lived together long enough that he knew she was fuming underneath her
polite expression. That made two of them.

“Have a talk with her husband,” Mityam called out.

Voorus nodded as he opened the door for Nashruu. He
realized that they’d be alone. She might talk to him. He didn’t think he could
bear it. He wanted explanations even though he already knew that none would
satisfy him. There wasn’t an apology sincere enough to make him forgive her,
but he wanted her to try so he could coldly, cruelly, let her know exactly what
he thought of her. Some matters of honor could only be satisfied by drawing the
soul’s blood. He wanted hers to pour onto the ground where he could spit on it.

~ ~ ~

“You wanted to speak to me?” Voorus winced at the pinched
sound in his voice.

Now that they were out of his apartment, Nashruu seemed
less bold. She stared forward grimly as she walked, as if the strangeness of
Levapur already bored her. At the next road, she suddenly stopped and faced
him.

“I’m sorry. Sorry for everything. Sorry for leaving you
without a word. Sorry for returning in this manner. I’m not supposed to
apologize to you, but I feel it’s in order. We’ve treated you poorly. If it’s
any consolation, he uses all of us horribly.”

“He? Who? What?” he asked, although he knew already. Not
all of it, of course. Even QuiTai admitted she hadn’t known all of it, but she’d
known – guessed – enough the moment Nashruu had walked down the
Golden Barracuda
’s gang plank. He’d
frozen in terror, anger… he couldn’t even name all the emotions that had washed
over him in that moment.

Thank
goodness QuiTai had had the sense to drag him behind the crates as Nashruu,
Khyram, and Kyam strolled past.

“I think I know why
I was exiled,” he’d told QuiTai when he was able to speak.

“Me too,” she’d
said.

His throat had hurt.
“I didn’t know she was married.”

QuiTai had put her
finger to his lips. “Spies, everywhere, Captain. You don’t want them to know
your business.”

A burst of hysteria
had
overwhelmed
the confusion and grief. He’d laughed,
bitterly. QuiTai was right, though: he didn’t want anyone to know his business
– except her, because right now she was looking at him with such sympathy
that
he realized it had been
a
very long
time since
anyone had been kind to him. He’d bowed his head so their
foreheads nearly touched. This woman, whom he’d tried to have hanged more times
than he could count, shed a tear for the injustices he’d suffered.

Voorus didn’t touch Nashruu as they walked through the
Quarter of Delights toward the Dragon Bridge. He didn’t need to. A spark flowed
between them as if they held onto one of those new electrical fantasies.

“My Grandfather,” she said.

It took him a moment to realize she was answering him. He
corrected her carefully. “Our Grandfather.”

Nashruu’s hand went to her mouth.

“I slept with my
cousin. I guess I really am a Zul,” he’d told QuiTai.

“So you figured that out,” Nashruu said. She started
walking again.

“I’m not stupid. I have a mirror.” He was angry with her,
with their Grandfather, with the entire Zul clan.

They crossed over the Dragon Bridge, a small stone arch
that spanned a gully, into the neighborhood where only members of the thirteen
families lived. It was the flattest land in Levapur. Each compound was huge,
with massive main houses and several outer buildings around the large inner
courtyard.

The
compound walls sat behind a row of trees that shaded the dirt road. Despite the
wealth behind them, the walls were plain stucco and the gates that broke the
long expanses were small and often unpainted. By each gate there was a bell
pull that would summon a servant. It was very much like Thampur, and yet no one
would ever mistake Levapur for Surrayya. The colors were too vivid. The sun was
unrelenting. Everything simmered here.

“Even though we’re the only two people on this road, take
my arm and I’ll whisper. Oh come on, I won’t contaminate you. That’s much
better. We look like friends now. I hope we are,” Nashruu said.

“You were talking about our Grandfather.”

“He’s your true Grandfather. He’s more of a second cousin
to me, I think. The charts are complicated. And like you, I’m only half Zul.
You’d be surprised how many of us are. Half Zuls pretending to be full Zuls,
that is. Bastards, all of us, which explains a lot.”

Voorus wondered if others behind the compound walls they
passed were suffering through their own turmoil too, if the entire world were
constantly unhappy and hurting, but none of them would dare show it.

What
would it be like if people were permitted to be fragile when they were going
through hell? Would everyone speak in gentle voices and try to make their way
easier, or would they attack? You never knew. People surprised you. QuiTai had surprised
him.

And what
about Nashruu? Should he try to make her feel how much hurt she’d put him
through, or should he treat her soul like delicate glass? Was this awkward and
hard for her? Had she also been used?

“Why does he do this to us? What’s the point of sending
you to seduce me, then making you leave me? He did make you leave me, didn’t
he?” Voorus hated that his heart so plainly rode his voice.

She nodded, but not with any conviction. “I left because I
had what I was sent for.”

“What could I possibly have given to you?”

“A son.”

He couldn’t breathe. So it was true. That boy on the wharf
looked too much like Kyam. But Voorus looked like Kyam too. QuiTai had
whispered all of this to him as they’d hidden behind the crates, but the
meaning of her words hadn’t sunk in until now.

Voorus repeated QuiTai’s prophetic words. “Fresh blood.”

How did QuiTai see such a vast conspiracy from the way he
looked at Nashruu? All he’d done was look. QuiTai had let go of the boy she’d saved
from falling off the wharf and turned to him. Then she’d looked back at
Nashruu. When she’d turned back to him, he’d seen the truth dawn on her as if a
god sat on her shoulder and whispered the secret to her. One glance from him to
Nashruu, and QuiTai had known they’d been lovers. All from a single glance.

Nashruu’s hand wrapped tighter around his forearm. “Yes.
Exactly. Our King likes the idea of a pure line and doesn’t think of the
consequences of inbreeding. Thankfully, Grandfather does. He learned from his
father. Kyam’s son and the King’s eldest daughter would have been first cousins
through all four parents. Our son and the princess are first cousins only
through two. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than a prince with no chin and
the wit of a flounder.”

They spoke of treasonous deception and unforgivable
manipulation as casually as the weather. If the people living in these
expensive estates had any idea… They wouldn’t believe it. Who would? It was a
monstrous fantasy. He felt as if the real him walked like a ghost beside his
shell and someone else were inside his body. His life couldn’t be this
complicated, could it? Intrigue was for QuiTai and Kyam and the rest of the
dammed Zul clan, not bastards from the wrong part of town. He didn’t belong in
the historical annuals, not even as a footnote.

“The King
should be grateful to be saved from his own folly, but I can’t be thankful for
being forced into this scheme,” Voorus said.

His son
was betrothed to the King’s eldest daughter. His
son
.

Maybe if
he thought about the next generation instead of himself, he could be at peace
with Grandfather’s schemes.

They
walked over interlaced tree roots spreading over the road’s surface. In
Thampur, a road through the richest part of town would be paved with bricks.
Here, it was dirt.

“It was the best year of my life,” Nashruu said. “I didn’t
leave because of you. I wrote a note that said that, but lost my nerve and took
it with me. I still have it, if you want to read it. It was just that I didn’t
dare give you hope. You were the type who would look for me forever if you
thought there was hope, so I thought it was kinder to make sure you had none.
But it was never because of you. Please believe me. The best part of coming
here was that I could say that to you.”

And just that quickly, he forgave it all and loved her
again.

~ ~ ~

Voorus and Nashruu stood at the Zul family compound’s gate,
but didn’t go inside. Up close, Voorus could see the fine etching of time on
Nashruu’s face. After so many years in Levapur, the sun had done worse to him.
But now that the shock was over, he saw the Nashruu he’d known.

“Grandfather argued against it, but I thought you deserved
the truth finally. Besides, it’s clear that Lady QuiTai would gladly spill our
secrets to you. She doesn’t like Grandfather,” Nashruu confided, as if he didn’t
know that.

“I need time to think about all this.”

She smiled kindly at him, even took his hand. “Take all
the time you need.”

He could have stood there until the sun set.

“But,” she said.

He held his breath. What was it with the Zuls that they
never let anyone enjoy a moment?

“I’ve been ordered to save Lady QuiTai from the fortress.
I have the power of a writ, signed by the King, to let her out, but I was told
only to use it as a last resort. So I went to the fortress–”

“You went…” Horrified, Voorus braced a hand against the
compound wall for support. He was glad the only other person on the road was a
Ponongese servant far off in the distance. A Thampurian would have hurried over
to see if there was gossip to gather.

“Lady QuiTai is stubborn. She seems to prefer to die than
to pledge her support to Grandfather,” Nashruu said.

Under the toe of his boot, he crushed a thin layer of
brittle mud left from a rain puddle that had dried months ago. He wondered if he
should blurt out that he’d been faithful to her all these years. That he’d only
ever loved her. But she was worldly now. Such an outburst would make him sound
like a schoolboy, and it would only embarrass her, but he wanted her to know.

He squinted at the dappled shade down the lane and tried
to figure out if the far-off person was walking toward them or away. “I can see
her point.”

Nashruu leaned away from him. “Yes, well, don’t we all
wish we were free of him? But since that’s not going to happen, I have to be
practical. She won’t budge to save her own life. There must be something she
wants, though. Kyam wouldn’t tell me. But you’re friends with her. I saw you
two huddled together in the shadows at the wharf.”

“That wasn’t–” Why did he have to keep explaining
that? Why was it anyone’s business?

“Please, tell me what I can offer Lady QuiTai. I have to
get her to agree to serve Grandfather. You have no idea how I’ll suffer if I
fail. How your son will suffer.”

He winced at the crude attempt at manipulation. He’d only
just learned he had a son. Wasn’t it too early to try to use the boy as a
lever? Did they think that fatherly concern took only a minute to develop?

“I don’t know QuiTai well enough to give you any insight,”
he said stiffly.

“You looked awfully close on the wharf.”

“We aren’t lovers. We’ve never been lovers,” he blurted.
Nashruu looked a bit alarmed. He spread his hands. “She’s not the type to have
close relationships with anyone. Have you asked her what she wants?”

Nashruu tugged on her gloves, a gesture he recognized: she
was frustrated. Her gaze shifted to the long, shady lane. “She had ridiculous
demands.”

“Let me guess. She wanted Ponong to be independent again.”

She scowled. “And for the King to bow down to her people
and apologize. What sort of insane person asks for something like that?”

He was as offended as Nashruu was.

“Can’t you think of anything? Please, this is important.
It’s not just for Grandfather. I’m asking for Thampur. We need Lady QuiTai on
our side when the war starts. I can’t fail. Please.”

Thampur had never done a damn thing for him, but his son
was to become part of the royal family. Thampur was going to belong to his son.
Giddy joy swept over him and he couldn’t hide his smile. He had a son!

He had a
son whom he could never acknowledge because it would ruin the boy’s rise to the
top of Thampurian society. Could he risk a relationship, though? Something more
than silence and distance? Could he pretend to be an uncle, a family friend?