Kaede Wariyamo had black hair and perfect olive skin. Her eyes were deep brown, nose stately, mouth wide and full, neck slender. In keeping with the impending harvest, her hair was bound in a single tail and her nagika was simple cotton. A nagika was a dress that looped over one shoulder, the cloth gathered to the opposite hip and falling long to the floor, fully covering the ankles, leaving one breast bare. It wasn’t, as Solon had explained to Midcyri on numerous occasions, that Sethi men didn’t find breasts pleasing or innately feminine. They simply weren’t erotic in the same way. In Seth, a man would comment on a woman’s breasts as a Midcyran commented on a woman’s eyes. But after ten years in Midcyru, Solon’s pulse quickened to see the woman he loved and who’d once loved him so exposed. Kaede was twenty-eight years old now, and most of the innocent girl he had known had receded from her face. The intelligence had come more to the fore, and a steel that had once been buried deep now lay close to the surface. The holes of the clan piercings on her right cheek had long closed, but the dimples remained, showing the world she had not been born an empress.

Solon thought she was more beautiful than ever. He remembered the day he had left to train with the magi. He had kissed that slender neck, caressed those breasts. He could still remember the smell of her hair. It had been in this very room, where they’d thought no one would find them. He had wondered often when she would have made him stop, or if. But they’d never found out. Her mother, Daune Wariyamo, had found them and berated them both, calling him such foul names that had he been a little older he would have thrown her from the palace. Nor had she spared her daughter the vitriol. Solon had failed Kaede there. He had allowed his own shame to keep him from protecting Kaede, who was even younger and more vulnerable. It was only the first of his regrets with her.

“Oh, Kaede,” he said, “your beauty would shame the very stars. Why did you never write?”

The sudden softness in her eyes steeled. She slapped him, hard.

“Guards! Take this bastard to the dungeon.”

26

Men were gathering in the great yard before the city’s south gate when Kylar arrived. The queen’s messengers canceling the attack wouldn’t arrive for a few more minutes. Kylar was almost certain that they would. However, Durzo had taught him that when you deal with human beings, never count on logic or consistency. Either way, Kylar’s work wasn’t finished.