Free No Flame But Mine by Tanith Lee Page A

Riadis, ‘would not then have been so prudent or pious as you.’ She knew the king was afraid to harm her. Yes, even though her first child had not been his, and malformed so they said. Her family was important and influential. And now if she had twice betrayed the king he would besides look such a fool.
    The king said acidly, ‘If you birth another monster—’
    Riadis turned and left the chamber.
    She had been utterly certain of vindication. And when Curjai was born, swiftly and with little pain, she had it. Since then the king could do nothing but revel and boast of her choosing by a god.
    â€˜Stay,’ she said to her son now. But before the word had left her mouth the glass rippled. Curjai had simply vanished. Only the glory of the amethysts, only the glory of pride, remained.
    They were motionless, frozen. As if ice had clustered over them, a chimney of it, a barricade of icy prisms.
    Jemhara: This, the third time he had beheld her naked. There might have been a fourth. But that time she assumed he never saw her at all – her entry to the wreck of Ru Karismi, searching for him—
    On that occasion, and one other, it was the shape-shift that laid her bare, as now. But once he himself had undressed her body, laid bare heart and soul.
    What had she been before that conflagration?
    What was she now?
    Had he come here to kill her after all? She had dared to save his life and his sanity – surely when undesired a capital crime.
    Thryfe: What was she then beyond that blaze of white flesh? The hair – lips – eyes—Little black creature of the order of lepus, that lilted in at the window when the shutter banged. Something was in the alley. He had been about to look and see what it was – a snowfall. Was he thinking now like a man? No, no mage, no man. A boy.
    Did he want her? What did he want? He must reject the evidence of his lust, perhaps his human need. It must be more than either of those.
    What then? She frightened him.
    Jemhara too was afraid. Not of any violent act, even though with Thryfe she could not, she believed, protect herself. She had dreamed how he wrung her neck, or meant to.
    He had despised her.
    Hated her.
    Thryfe drank her in through eyes and nostrils, through every pore of his skin. The room brimmed with her.
    I loathed her. The touch of her like thorns – worse, because I have been lacerated by thorns and borne it easily. Her eyes are full of something, maybe love, maybe only my reflection …
    â€˜You are an illusion,’ crisply said Jemhara. ‘I will banish you.’
    â€˜You are not an illusion,’ steadily said Thryfe. ‘I will keep you here.’
    Between them was the inlaid table, gleaming in firelight, or from another source. The wine and apple and ring shone, three tinted moons, ruby, emerald, silver. On a wall a twig glimmered too, unnoted.
    Jemhara drew back. She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Please sit, Highness,’ she said.
    Thryfe ignored the single chair. ‘I’ll remain as I am, Highness.’
    â€˜How can you address me as a Magikoy?’ Her voice was very thin.
    â€˜I think others have done so.’
    â€˜They were wrong.’
    â€˜ I was wrong, in so much, until now. What shall I do, Jema, to put it right?’
    â€˜Leave me,’ she said. ‘Go hurriedly away. That’s best.’
    â€˜Then,’ he said.
    â€˜Then nothing. I was foretold you’d come. By a devilish god. By Vashdran—’
    â€˜A sun god, if his foretelling to me was real. I’ve never been sure. We can discuss it.’
    â€˜Go away,’ she said.
    He sighed. ‘I’d suppose you took your revenge on me, but I don’t think you so petty. What is it? Have I ruined it all, wounded you so deeply that all you feel now is the wound?’
    A whisper. ‘All I feel is love.’
    â€˜Oh, love. Love is always fearful. It sees its first object torn in shreds under a tree of ice