The Lotus Ascension (4 page)

Sillara rose,
and Konas followed. “Thank you!”

Within five
minutes' time, Sillara was standing beside her mother's litter. Kamen and Konas
were standing not a dozen paces away, and their horses were being led from the
stable. Sillara watched them both mount their horses, and the differences
between them brought a smile to her lips. Konas was an Ausir, with the wide,
large eyes and high cheekbones of his species. His horns, unlike Sillara's own,
did not curve back around his skull but rather branched up and out through the
gold of his long hair. His green eyes were more purely emerald than Ajalira's,
and his skin was an almost marble fairness. Kamen was as dark as Konas was
fair, but his black dreadlocks were streaked with grey. Though Konas was as old
for an Ausir as her father was for a human, Konas, being Ausir, did not show
his age on his face.

As soon as
Ajalira was settled into the litter, Sillara followed her. “I am sorry your
gown is so hot,” said Ajalira, and Sillara swallowed the laughter that bubbled
up in her.

“
I am well, Mother.” Sillara smoothed down the pale blue silk of her
Ausir-cut gown. The high neck and fitted bodice were, admittedly, more
confining than the translucent Sunjaa linen her mother wore, but Sillara had
been wearing Ausir fashions for the past ten years. She was used to them. What
amused her was that her mother should think of her clothes. “It will not
matter,” said Sillara, suddenly understanding Ajalira's real thought. “No one
will be thinking of me at all anyway. It will not be seen as an official
reception of Captain Orien's ship by the Ausir Queen just because I am wearing
Ausir clothes. I do not care about the ship. I am just a girl going to meet her
sailor-brother after his first two years of service.”

“
I know,” said Ajalira, patting Sillara's hand. “I suppose I am just
worried because I can't really believe that he's back, that he's alive. How can
you be so calm? So collected?” Ajalira was, Sillara knew, only half teasing.

“
Because I was never worried.
Unlike you, Mother, I am not now in a different state from the one
I was in an hour ago.” The litter shifted beneath them, and the even tread of
the litter-bearers ate up the distance between the Itenu estate and the docks.

Though Ajalira
kept the curtains closed, Sillara did not need to see to know that the streets
were packed with people. The crowds, of course, made way for the Itenu
entourage. Sillara smiled. She supposed there were about two dozen guards
around her litter. This was the first time she had been outside the gates of
the Itenu estate in six months, the last time having been the King's private
celebration upon the birth of his latest son by his second concubine. She
traced over the little Itenu falcon just over her heart on her left breast.
Soren had gotten his the day before he put to sea, and her parents had been
furious over hers, which was the same design, only smaller. Ausir did not
tattoo their flesh. That was a human convention, and she was to be the Queen of
the Ausir.

Sillara
fidgeted. She was of noble birth on her father's side, royal on her mother's,
and she would never dream of failing in her duty. But King Tivanel Seranimesti
of the Ausir was only a name to her, and she did not look forward to leaving
Arinport for Tivanel's city of Duildal.

Despite the
fact that she had not been to the docks for two years, not since Soren's ship
had put to sea, in fact, she remembered each street with perfect clarity. She
knew that they were now within sight of the harbor,
knew
that within three more paces they would be able to see Soren's ship.

And at three
paces, the litter jarred so strongly that Sillara was pitched into her mother's
lap.

“
Abrexa's chain!”
Konas's muttered curse was only a little softer than Kamen's low
whistle.

Sillara pulled
apart the curtains and looked out at the harbor. There, with the serpent flag
of the Sunjaa King
flying
just above the speared boar
of Captain Orien, was not the sleek Sunjaa caravel in which Soren had set out.
Instead she saw a large galleon. It rode low in the water, obviously full of
plunder, and the figurehead was an upraised fist with a trailing scourge
clasped in it.

For the first
time that day shock pierced Sillara. Soren and his captain had returned as
masters of their enemy's vessel.

Chapter Two

Arinport's
harbor had never smelled sweeter. After two years at sea, Soren was glad to be
back home, especially as he sailed in his chief enemy's flagship. The brazen
sailor—his breast full of Sunjaa pride, his head full of
Ausir
designs—stood bare-chested on the bowsprit, steadying himself against the jib's
ropes. Soren savored the sight of Arinport, its mud-brick and limestone
buildings at once familiar and foreign. This was his home, and he had grown up
here, but the world he had seen in the past two years of His Grace's service
was wide and varied, and no place resembled Arinport. He wondered where Sillara
was amidst the jumble of streets and houses.

Soren breathed
deeply, his chest expanding. The wide tattoo of the Itenu hawk across his
pectorals looked as if it might take flight. From shoulder to shoulder the
inked bird stretched, its stare intense, its fierce claws grasping at his upper
abdomen. Soren let go of the rope and capered back down the narrow bowsprit
without support. His legs were the surest of any sailor he knew. He leaped with
both feet onto the forecastle deck and called out orders.

“
To starboard.
Take us home. And let those who slept peacefully in their beds
these past two years stand amazed at our approach.”

The sailors and
deckhands raised their voices in a single, triumphant cry. Beyond the main mast
Captain Orien stood, and though he shook his head at Soren, his lips were
turned up in an indulgent smile. As first mate, Soren had a way with his
men—not only on deck but also in common quarters. Many of the sailors had told
Soren that he was the best they had ever had. A soldier would die for a
friend—how much more so for a peerless lover?

“
Everyone's going to be shocked at our return.” Nathen, Soren's
dearest friend, fell into step beside the first mate and descended the steps to
the main deck beside him.

Soren pointed
to a sailor climbing the foremast and barked out an order, then turned his
attention to his friend. “Not everyone.”

“
You think someone has predicted our return in the Scourge's own
ship?”

Soren did not
have to look at Nathen to know his friend would be wearing an eloquent look.
“No, no one could have seen this.”

“
Then who?”

“
My sister.”

“
Sillara.”
Nathen's word was but a breath.

Now it was
Soren's turn to smile wryly. “I have only one.”

Nathen blinked
as he seemed, with some effort, to clear away a thought. “How can you be so
sure you know her? You've always talked about your special connection or
whatever, but how well can you know her at all? Sure, the two of you did
everything together as children, but when her tutelage started, that damned
Ausir stepped in and swept her off. Haven't you felt some sort of division?”

“
No.” Soren slapped Nathen on the back and pulled his shirt over his
bare flesh. “We still share everything.”

As the harbor
came more into view, Soren could see the citizenry gathering at the wharf. With
his keen Ausir eyes, he watched the docks fill up with spectators. The ship was
fast for a galleon, and it cruised into the shallow waters.

“
Drop main and fore topsails,” Soren called. “Bring in the jib and
staysail.” He glanced back at Orien who steered the ship from the quarterdeck.
It was strange to see him as pilot, but it was Sunjaa tradition for the Captain
to dock his own ship. Soren could not help but smile at all they had
accomplished, and Orien returned his smile with his own wide, toothy grin. As
son of the richest nobleman in the kingdom, Soren had already been wealthy. But
what with his prize money, he was also independent. Once he saw Sillara,
everything would be right with the world.

The ship
docked, and Soren ordered rope ladders to be fastened overboard. The rigging
secured, all the sailors came to attention, and Orien walked ceremoniously
among them, shaking hands with some, smiling at others, and in general both giving
and receiving cheer. Soren stood closest to the dock side of the ship and
greeted his captain.

“
Welcome home, sir.
A most triumphant return.”

Orien laid a
hand on Soren's shoulder.
“Thanks to you.”

Soren glanced
over at Nathen, who winked at him. In honor of the solemnity of the moment of a
victorious captain returning home, Soren kept himself from laughing, but he
could not help but remember the shocked faces of the pirates when they realized
they had been boarded.

As was proper,
Orien was the first to descend the ladder, and when his feet struck the boards
of the pier, the assembled crowd, until then caught in silent wonder, erupted
in applause. Soren and Nathen joined in clapping, and many of the sailors
whistled and called out. Movement beyond the pressing crowd caught Soren's eye.
He saw his father astride a
horse,
and beside him rode
Konas, the Seranimesti Ausir who lived in Arinport as his brother's watchdog.

If they were
here, perhaps his mother and Sillara were, too. Soren leapt to the forecastle
and climbed the foremast, ignoring Nathen's inquiry as to where he thought he
was going. He searched the crowd and soon spotted his mother's litter. The
crimson curtains bore hawks of embroidered gold. Soren leaned forward as far as
he could, wishing and hoping that his mother might part the curtains so that he
might glimpse whether his sister was inside. And they did part. But where Soren
expected to see the golden horns of Ajalira, he instead saw his sister's own,
set within her masses of lovely, black hair. She turned her face toward him,
and the beauty of her countenance nearly toppled him from his perch.

She was
changed.
Translated.
Magnified.
Like Arinport, she was strange yet familiar to him. He knew her intimately, but
there sat a woman whose exalted beauty rendered her alien.

“
Soren,” Nathen called out to him over the cheering of the crowd, “
get
down here. You're next!”

Soren obeyed
with alacrity. He sprang over the side of the ship, not even using the ladder,
and he hit the dock running. The cheering turned to a communal gasp, and after
a moment of shocked silence, the people yelled even louder. Even though the
galleon lay low in the water, its hold stuffed full of plunder, what Soren did
was risky. Another man might have broken his leg.

Soren split the
crowd in his haste, and he left the onlookers with amazed expressions. Kamen
turned his horse at his son's approach, and if his skin could bear a hue, Soren
knew he would be blushing. His father's eyes flitted from Soren to Orien far
away. Soren understood at once, but he did not care about any possible
upstaging. He had to see Sillara.

“
Welcome home, son,” Kamen called out. Konas reined in his horse
beside Kamen's and smiled down at the brash, young sailor.

“
Where is my sister?” Soren asked, jogging toward the litter. “Let
her come out and greet me.”

Before anyone
could object, Sillara leapt from the litter and ran into her brother's arms.
The twins, separated not even by a womb, were reunited. Soren hugged her,
picked her up, and spun her around, causing her to squeal in delight. When he
put her down, he held her out at arm's length.

“
You are Chiel come down to live with us. The radiance of day is on
your brow, and the beauty of night shines in your dark eyes. You have become a
woman. I feel I should hardly know you.”

Sillara looked
Soren up and down, smiled, and kissed him on his cheek. “The years at sea have
been good to you. No figure of manhood in all Arinport—indeed, in
all the
world—could compare with yours.”

They hugged
again, and Soren caught sight of Konas out of the corner of his eye.

“
I envy you, royal Ausir,” Soren said. “Closeted away with such
beauty daily, tasked with the instruction of a mind as lovely as her form.”

Konas bowed
forward in his saddle, and his eyes burned toward Sillara. “I'm the most
fortunate of Ausir. Her tutelage has been my joy, and I know she will make a
glorious Queen.”

“
You shall have a party, brother.” Sillara took her brother's hand
and led him toward her litter. People were gathering around to gawk at Sillara,
who was rarely seen in public. “I know how you sailors need a diversion after
so long at sea.”

“
That I long for. And you will sing for me?” Soren knew Sillara did
not sing in company, but one of her melodies would suit him perfectly right
now.