The Desert Spear

a gift from Everam. Her acceptance of his proposal seemed assured, and with it his foothold in the Northland. But he found that mattered less to him now than the thought of having her at his side. Brilliant, beautiful, and young enough to bear him many sons, she also contained a boundless passion that came out in her anger, and in her loving. A worthy bride for even the Deliverer, and a valuable check against the Damajah’s rising power. Inevera would try to stop the marriage, of course, but that was a worry for another day.
    Jardir saw the light on in his chambers and frowned. Everam’s Bounty had no Undercity for women and children, even on Waning. His wives instead took turns waiting in his private chambers with a bath and a willing body, but Jardir wanted neither water nor woman. His lust could only be sated by one, and beneath his robes, her scent was still on his skin. He wanted to keep it there a little longer.
    “I require nothing,” he said as he entered. “Leave me.”
    But the women in his room were not lesser wives, and they made no effort to leave.
    “We need to talk,” Leesha said, and at her side Inevera nodded.
    “For once, I agree with the Northern whore,” Inevera said.
    There was a moment of silence that seemed to Jardir to last for many minutes, as he struggled to embrace this new development and return to his center.
    He looked more closely at the women. Their clothes were ragged and torn. Inevera had a blood-soaked scarf tied around her leg, and Leesha’s shoulder was similarly bound. Inevera’s nose was twisted and swollen three times its normal size, and Leesha’s throat was purple and bruised. She favored one leg.
    “What has happened?” Jardir demanded.
    “Your First Wife and I have been talking,” Leesha said.
    “And we have decided we will not share you,” Inevera said.
    Jardir made to go to them, but Leesha held up a finger that checked him like a child. “You keep your distance. No touching either of us again until you make a choice.”
    “Choice?” Jardir asked.
    “Her or me,” Leesha said. “You can’t have us both.”
    “The one you choose can be your
Jiwah Ka,
” Inevera said, “and the other shall have a quick death at your hand in the town circle.”
    Leesha gave Inevera a look of disgust, but did not argue.
    “You agree to this?” Jardir asked, surprised. “Even with your Gatherer’s vow?”
    Leesha smiled. “Strip her naked and cast her into the street for all to see, if you prefer.”
    “Weak, like all Northerners,” Inevera sneered, “leaving enemies to strike another day.”
    Leesha shrugged. “What you call weakness, I call strength.”
    Jardir looked from one woman to the other, unable to believe matters had come to this, but their eyes were hard and he knew they meant every word.
    The choice was impossible. Kill Leesha? Unthinkable. Even if it wouldn’t destroy any potential alliances in the North, Jardir would sooner cut out his own heart than harm her.
    But the alternative was equally impossible. The
dama’ting
would not follow Leesha, and if he stripped Inevera of power—and in favor of a Northern woman—they might choose to follow Inevera still, causing a schism through his empire that might never heal.
    And she was his First Wife, the mother of his children, who had orchestrated his rise to power and given him the tools to win Sharak Ka. Despite the pain she regularly caused him, he looked at her and found he loved her still.
    “I cannot make such a choice,” Jardir said.
    “You must,” Inevera said, pulling her warded knife. “Now, or I will cut the whore’s throat myself.”
    Leesha drew her own knife. “Not if I cut yours first.”
    “No!” Jardir cried, throwing the Spear of Kaji. It struck the wall and embedded deeply, quivering between the two women. He pounced on them, cat-quick, grabbing their wrists and pulling them away from each other.
    But as he did, the wards on his crown flared to life, illuminating the women, and both shook their heads as if waking from a dream.
    Leesha was the first to come to her senses. “Behind you!” she shouted, pointing.
    “Alagai Ka!” Inevera cried.
    Alagai Ka. The name Jardir and his men had laughingly given to the rock demon that followed the Par’chin, but it was an ancient name, one that carried an aura of immense power. Alagai Ka was consort to the Mother of Demons, and he and his sons were said to be the most powerful of the demon lords, generals of Nie’s forces.
    He