Honored Vow

Amirah was alive and sent her to Orso after

    Honored Vow

    165

    the priest called the sepat. He was going to use her, her allure, to stack the
    odds in his favor. Even happily mated semels still might want to have a
    reah on their land, in their house, ensconced in their bed.
    It made my stomach roll to think that she would allow herself to be
    used, but she had made choices I did not understand before as well.
    According to the law, all reahs, on discovery that they were reahs—
    so at the time of the first shift—were to be presented to the semel-aten. So
    basically you flew to Sobek, met the semel-aten, and once you were of
    age, eighteen, you were sent to Sobek if the semel-aten wanted. Amirah’s
    parents had presented her to Ammon El Masry when she was sixteen, and
    when she was eighteen, he had requested she return. She then became
    wosret, his consort, until she found her mate. Every year at the feast of the
    valley, she walked at his side and saw semel after semel.
    The thing was that every semel was supposed to make the trip to
    Sobek every year, but this was life, real life, and not everyone could go to
    every feast. Logan had missed many before he saw me, only wanting to go
    to the last one we attended because he wanted to present me to the priest,
    the semel-aten, and as many semels as would be there. The fact that all
    had not gone as planned was not his fault.
    But Amirah, who had not wanted to remain the consort of the semel-
    aten and did not want to live her life as basically his mistress, had
    pretended that she had found her mate. And the power of a reah was heady
    to begin with, and coupled with pheromones and the promise of a true-
    mate, Terrance McCord had succumbed and had taken a reah home to his
    tribe from the feast of the valley a year ago.
    “May I speak?” I asked suddenly, and the argument that had risen in
    decibel level while I was thinking came to a stop.
    The priest granted me permission. “Yes, reah.”
    “The semel-aten was mistaken,” I said, turning to look at Amirah.
    “Because he told us all, even His Grace, that you were dead.”
    Her eyes flicked to mine. “The sylvan of my tribe found my semel,
    my sheseru, and me. He’s the one who allowed the lie.”
    “Is he still alive?” I asked her. “The sylvan?”
    She squinted at me. “As far as I know, why would you—”
    “Is he?” I asked Ammon El Masry.
    His eyes narrowed as he regarded me. “He is not.”

    166

    Mary Calmes

    I looked back at her. “So maybe the sylvan was looking after you at
    the request of the semel-aten, huh? And you’re here… why?”
    Her eyes studied my face. “I want my freedom.”
    “And so because you want to be free of the semel-aten, the price is
    to help him here at the sepat and try and tempt any of the mates of the
    yareahs you see here beside me, is that it?”
    Her eyes were hard as her chin snapped up. “I do not answer to any
    of you mated chattel.”
    She saw mating just like as I used to, as a prison, as a death sentence.
    “May I have permission to speak?”
    I turned my head to look at Yusuke. We all did.
    “Speak,” the priest told her.
    Her eyes met Amirah’s. “I tell you now, reah. If my mate becomes
    semel-aten, then he has dominion over you, and the day he does, I will
    take your head myself for what you visit on us this night.”
    Amirah smirked at Yusuke. “You will be dead in the morning, as
    will your mate.”
    “We’ll see, reah.”
    “Oh,” Amirah spat back, “you would leverage your power against
    mine!”
    “Silence!” The priest’s voice rose, and no one dared say a word.
    “The mates will retire to prepare for the opening of the sepat. There is
    nothing in the law that says that a reah may not enter the pit with the other
    mates of the semels. It is done; she may attend and change with the other
    mates.”
    He moved in close to Amirah, and his eyes looked right through her.
    “Thank you, Your Grace.”
    “Your choice of path is a mistake,” he told her, his voice dark and
    low.
    “I will be consort no longer. I will be free.”
    He nodded. “Well, then, do now as your master bids you and meet
    Jin Rayne.”
    She stepped close to me. “I have heard of you.”
    “And I have no use for you,” I told her, leaning sideways, “or your
    master. May I greet the phocal now?”

    Honored Vow

    167

    “You may,” the priest said, and Ammon, as angry as he was, and
    Amirah, as fuming as she was, had no recourse but to step back