Free A Lotus for the Regent by Adonis Devereux Page A

“Fetch her out.”
Once the servant had run off, he addressed Kamen. “Regent, she is recalcitrant.
She will give you nothing but trouble.”
    “ I'll take my chances.”
    When Kamen saw
Ajalira, his heart broke. A purple welt covered half her mouth. Someone had
punched her. Her disheveled hair still held its braid, but it was frayed, with
stray locks hanging down her back and across her shoulders. She wore a
bloodstained white nightgown, but the blood was not hers. It was dry. Ajalira
held her head up proudly, her upper lip stiff, her shoulders squared. She
locked gazes with Kamen, and she pierced him with her blue-green stare. As she
stepped forward, the sound of metal clinking caused Kamen to look down. She
wore chains on her ankles.
    “ We thought she might run,” the Guildmaster said. “She had tried to
escape before.”
    Kamen did not
take his eyes from Ajalira's noble beauty. Her smeared cosmetics were nothing
more than her badge of courage, and Kamen loved her for that. Though a
prisoner, she was unashamed. And all this she suffered because she had told
Kamen the Losiengare secret. All this for Kamen. “You shall release her at once
into my custody. Consider her payment for the ships the Crown will send to
guard the Dimadan.”
    The Guildmaster
opened his mouth, but Kamen's withering stare devoured whatever complaint might
have been uttered. He snapped his fingers, and the slaves unchained her.
    “ You shall bathe her and give her fit clothes to travel in,” Kamen
said, and the Guildmaster ordered it done. Anger pricked Kamen, and he
struggled to keep his emotions from slipping into full-blown rage. He wanted to
throttle the Guildmaster, and for this moment, he wished he were not a
political figure. If he were still the first mate on Darien's ship, he would
have already beaten the pompous old man into unconsciousness.
    Ajalira was led
away, and Kamen sat down to wait for her. He thoughtlessly ate whatever snacks
the servants gave him, but the savory treats held no flavor. Ajalira suffered
for him, a stranger. The Guildmaster droned on at him about the naval arrangements,
but Kamen did not listen. Ajalira had been beaten for him, a random guest in
the guildhouse.
    Ajalira's return
was like a second dawn. She was clean, her hair elaborately piled up on her
head in lovely, complicated braided patterns, and she wore the garb of a Lotus:
the short shirt that left her stomach bare, the long skirt, and the pallav with
which she wrapped her shoulders and face. Just like Saerileth. But in every
other way she was unlike Darien's Lotus. Her hair was blonde, not black. Her
eyes were blue-green, not merely blue. And her face held an alien beauty that
Saerileth's common charm could not compete with. The only evidence of Ajalira's
mistreatment was the bruise on the side of her mouth.
    Kamen approached
Ajalira, and she bowed low to him. “Master.”
    Not her master,
but Kamen could not correct her in front of the Zenji. He simply held out his
hand. “Come, my lady.” She laid hers in his, and he walked away with her,
accompanied only by the silent gawking of the Lotuses.
    ****
    Kamen made sure
he stayed away from Ajalira on the return journey. He did not want the crew
gossiping, and he knew that if he were in the same cabin with her, he would not
be able to resist her. And that was the last thing Ajalira needed. Kamen could
not figure her out, but he set his mind to do so. He did not know what to make
of her, but he could not deny his attraction. He could not let her kindness go
unanswered. He hoped that by taking her away from the guildhouse, a place from
which she had tried to escape, he had in part repaid her generosity.
    The new day
dawned behind Kamen, and he felt the first rays of the morning warm his neck.
He watched from the bow as Ruben piloted the Aramina into the harbor. At
last, he was back in Arinport. Kamen mourned the burned remains of an entire
neighborhood that had caught fire during the Ausir's wild