Free Queen of Ashes by Eleanor Herman

don’t trust,” she replies.
    He shrugs, walks over to the ebony chair and sits. “Prove it. Get in the bed.”
    She looks at the bed carved from cedar of Lebanon, adorned with ivory panels. The plump pillows and embroidered linen coverlet don’t look inviting so much as alarming. She looks back at him. His eyes gleam with a knowing look. She yanks the coverlet off and slips inside.

Chapter Seven
    LAILA OPENS HER eyes and sees a room of dim silver-pink light. Time to get up. She closes her eyes and opens them again immediately, surprised that the window is in the wrong place. This isn’t her bedroom. Where is... Then she remembers. Riel. She spent the night in Riel’s room. She sits up quickly, enormously relieved to find he is not in bed with her. Scanning the room, she sees him in the corner, on a mat, his head resting on his hand. His green eyes—which remind her of a lizard’s—are wide-open and unblinking, staring at her.
    â€œSleep well?” he drawls.
    She nods. After tossing and turning for some time, afraid what he would do, she fell into an exhausted and fathomless sleep.
    He rises—he is wearing only a loincloth—stretches and sits on the bed. Laila clutches the sheet and scoots away from him. “Afraid I’m going to bite you?” he asks. “Let me look at you. A man can only determine a woman’s true beauty first thing in the morning, before she adorns herself.”
    As he reaches toward her, Laila forces herself to stay still. A princess should show no fear. “Your skin is so beautiful,” Riel whispers, stroking her cheek. “I never thought to see a woman from Upper Egypt so pale. It’s like alabaster.”
    She looks at him, the handsome face, the perfect physique. What woman wouldn’t want him? What woman wouldn’t beg him to join her in bed?
    Maybe Laila is the only one who wouldn’t. She doesn’t belong here, not with him. Yes, he’s magnificently attractive and intelligent and radiates a strange power, but she doesn’t love him. Could never love him. Doesn’t even like him, come to think of it.
    And if she’s not in her room when the twins come to dress her, they will panic and call for Wazba. Wazba will send his men out to search for her, fearing she has been abducted. This silly mistake will turn into a very public catastrophe.
    But she has to say something to Riel, who is waiting. She forces a smile. “I bathe in milk every day to keep my skin white,” she says. “And I try to stay out of the sun except for my morning ritual of worshiping Ra, which, incidentally, I need to perform soon. I must return to my rooms.”
    â€œReally?” he says archly. “Most women are in no hurry to leave me. And we never even got started.”
    Most women
. It strikes a very sour note with her, this bragging about all his women. She needs to go. She makes a move to slide off the bed, but he grabs her arm, painfully hard at first, but then it becomes a caress.
    â€œOh, you have goose bumps on your arms,” he says. “Are you cold?”
    â€œThe morning air is cool,” she replies. And her shift is thin, though she doesn’t want to draw his attention to it.
    â€œWait,” he says. “I will give you a shift far more beautiful than the finest-woven cloak.”
    He extends his palm to the open window, then pulls it back. To Laila’s amazement, a cloud of white butterflies enters, hovers a moment, then settles on her arms and legs, their gossamer wings a whisper against her skin. She is afraid to move, afraid to hurt the delicate creatures. After a time, he gestures toward the window and, spreading their wings, they fly out.
    â€œHow did you...?”
    He laughs. “Oh, this is one of my own conjurer’s tricks, a little joke, you could say. On our endless travels, it was my way of letting Brehan know I had slept with a woman. As I’m sure