The Desert Spear

floor.
    The landing knocked the breath from her, but a thick carpet kept her from real harm. The cord at her ankles and wrists was cut, and the hood was yanked from her head. The room was not brightly lit, but after being hooded, the oil lamps stung. Leesha raised a shaking hand to shield her eyes while they adjusted. When they did, she found herself strewn on her belly on the floor before Inevera, lying on a bed of pillows and regarding her as a cat might a cornered mouse.
    The Damajah looked to the two warriors behind her. They were clad head-to-toe in black as all
dal’Sharum,
and their night veils were up, but they carried neither spear nor shield, each with a ladder held in perfect balance on one of his shoulders.
    “You were never here,” Inevera said, and the men bowed and vanished.
    She looked down at Leesha and smiled. “Men have their uses. Please, come join me.” She gestured to another pile of pillows across from her.
    Leesha wobbled slightly as the blood returned to her numb feet, but she stood as quickly as she was able, resisting the urge to rub her throat as she looked around the large room. It was a pillowed love-chamber, dimly lit and scented, every surface coated with velvet or silk. The door was right behind her.
    “No one guards the other side,” Inevera said with a laugh, waving her hand as if to give Leesha permission to check. She did, reaching for the brass pull-ring, but there was a flash of magic and she was thrown backward, landing with a thump on the soft carpet. She saw wards flare around the lintel, jamb, and sill of the door, but they faded in an instant, gone except for ghostly afterimages that danced before her still-adjusting eyes.
    More curious than fearful, Leesha got back to her feet walked up to the door, studying the wards masterfully painted in silver and gold around the frame. Many were new to her, but she noticed wards of silence worked in with the rest. No one outside would hear what went on within.
    She flicked a finger against the net, watching the wards around the contact point flare for a moment, illuminating the tightly woven net.
    What’s powering it?
she wondered. There were no corelings about to provide the necessary magic, and without magic, wards were just writing.
    Given time, Leesha knew she could disable the wards and escape, but that was time she would have to take her attention away from Inevera, and there was no telling what the woman might do. She turned back to the Damajah, still lounging on her pillows.
    “All right,” Leesha said, walking over and taking a seat opposite Inevera. “What is it you’d like to discuss?”
    “Do you mean to play the fool?” Inevera asked. “Did you think I would not know, the moment you touched him?”
    “So what if you do?” Leesha asked. “There was no crime. By your own laws, a man may bed whom he pleases, so long as she is not the wife of another man.”
    “Perhaps behaving like a harlot is the way a woman gains a husband in the North,” Inevera said, “but among my people, such women are kept in line by the wives of their victims.”
    “Ahmann asked for my hand long before I bedded him,” Leesha said, intentionally goading the woman while she worked out her escape. “And I doubt he considers himself a victim.” She smiled. “His willingness was quite apparent in his vigor.” Inevera hissed and sat upright, and Leesha knew she had gotten to her.
    “Renounce my husband’s proposal and flee Everam’s Bounty tonight,” Inevera said. “I give you this one chance to live.”
    “Your last two attempts on my life failed, Damajah,” Leesha said. “What makes you think another would have success?”
    “Because I won’t leave it up to a fifteen-year-old girl this time,” Inevera said, “and because my husband won’t find us here in time to save you. I shall tell everyone that you came to murder me the night you seduced my husband. No one will question my right to end you.”
    Leesha smiled. “
I
question whether you can manage it.”
    Inevera produced a small object from beneath her pillows, and there was a gout of fire that brightened the room, striking Leesha with an intense flash of heat before it vanished.
    “I can incinerate you where you sit,” Inevera promised.
    It was an impressive trick, but Leesha, who had been brewing flamework for over a decade, found the effect less profound than the means by which it was created. Inevera had struck no spark, mixed no chemics, made no impact.