Crucible of Fate

now, I suspect that Jin will eviscerate the semel on sight. We’ll have to wait and see on the sheseru.”
    He cleared his throat. “If, or when, I guess, Jin’s power rises—without Logan here, what is your plan to calm him back down?”
    “I don’t have one.”
    “Okay, so we’ll hope for the best.”
    “Send word back to Crane. Have him send Logan here.”
    He was shaking his head.
    “What else would you have me do?”
    “Nothing, I’ll see it done. How long after you go in do you want me?”
    “Does he have a lot of khatyu?”
    “What does that have to do with anything?” Taj sounded annoyed.
    “I don’t want any of my men hurt.”
    “Your men will not be hurt, Domin.” He groused like I was trying his patience. “But to answer your question, from what Rahim can see, there are barracks for a hundred men. He and his men released gas canisters inside already; they have all of his khatyu immobilized.”
    I was surprised. “There were no soldiers inside?”
    “There are maybe ten in the main room with the semel.”
    “I thought this would be difficult.”
    He shrugged. “I did maintain that none of us would be hurt, if you recall.”
    “Okay, then, I’ll see you inside.”
    “When?” he inquired. “I want to know precisely when you want me.”
    “Ten minutes after I go in.”
    “Okay, good.”
    “Does Rahim know where Constantine is?”
    “No, I had them check everywhere, and there’s no sign. You’ll have to ask Yuri what happened, and I don’t know how many men he took with him. I don’t know who else is missing, because I think I’ve accounted for everyone.”
    “No, Hanif advised me. It was just Yuri and Constantine.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    I shook my head.
    “You need to talk to him about that.”
    I put it on him. “That’s your job, sheseru. The protection of the mate is a duty of your station.”
    He studied me. “And will you relinquish it to me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Consider it done,” he said forcefully, and I realized that even right there on the street, I had learned something. Instead of doing everything, I had to let others help me. I couldn’t be everywhere at once. I needed the support.
    “Thank you.”
    “Of course.”
    “Okay,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “Be careful when you come in.”
    “You be careful. If Jin’s power rises and it’s unstable, the Shu will run instead of being caught in it. They won’t allow themselves to ever be pulled through a shift.”
    “All right,” I said before I walked back to Kabore, Jin, Koren, and Hanif.
    “He won’t come in with us,” I notified the semel’s son.
    “Thank you, my lord.”
    “Will you show us inside?”
    “Yes, follow me.”
    I was expecting a palace, a villa, something. I thought when Hanif had said “fort” that he meant just not as artful as other homes. But it was truly a fortification and seemed like many of the others the crusaders had built that I had seen in Egypt.
    The walls were twenty feet high, made of white limestone, and when we walked through the open doors, I noted they were easily three feet thick. I would have posted armed sentries on the outer wall and men carrying high-powered rifles with pistols in holsters on their hips. But there was no one. When we passed though the iron gates of the inner wall, there were no armed guards anywhere in the courtyard. It felt medieval, the interior no more lavish than the exterior until you reached the archway that led from the rest of the common areas into the home of the semel.
    The enormous pillars were all carved with different Egyptian gods, beautifully rendered.
    “Come, my lord,” Hanif called, leading me deeper into his father’s home.
    The floor was done in brightly colored mosaic tile that formed an enormous sun. The scattered gilded chaises added to the sumptuous surroundings, and the entryway opened up to a marble floor with a deep pit of steadily rising flames. At the other end of the room stood an enormous throne on a raised dais much larger and more lavishly decorated than mine back at the villa.
    A man sat there, flanked on his right by a stunning woman and on his left by just as beautiful a man. The woman was draped in dark-blue silk that contrasted perfectly with her alabaster complexion. The man was barely covered, but what there was of his outfit was gold silk. Both were awash in sparkling jewels. In front of the dais stood an older woman, another younger woman, and a man about the same age. There