Page 39 of Queen Demon
“To the dustwitches,” Bashasa clarified.
“That’s not any better,” Kai said. “They think I’m an expositor’s familiar.” And he didn’t know any more about them than Ziede and Amabel did. Less, even.
Bashasa nodded to the Prince-heirs and the others, conferring in different clumps. “The only thing we have managed to agree on here is that if the dustwitches consent to a meeting, I should not be the one to go to it.”
They had got further along than Kai realized. He wondered if anyone understood that Bashasa must have subtly shifted the conversation in that direction, so that now they were talking about what to do when the meeting took place, instead of arguing about whether it should take place at all. “You didn’t think that through.”
“I was rushed,” Bashasa admitted ruefully, with that devastating candor. “I didn’t realize their objections to me going would be so well-considered. But Sister Ziede and Tahren Stargard have offered to go in my stead. It gave me pause, because I wasn’t certain how the rest of the army would accept their leadership in this. I know they are respected, but I thought they were still seen as outsiders.”
“Like me,” Kai pointed out. He was the most outside outsider in the army. Possibly in the whole Arik.
“True. But this…” Bashasa stirred the tokens in Kai’s hand. “This is a sign that that is changing. That they may accept them, and you, not just as officers in my cadre but as leaders.” Bashasa met his gaze, serious. “You could be a leader. A leader of Witches.”
Kai felt his brow furrow in consternation. “You want me to kill the Doyen and take their place?”
“No, Kai, as we discussed before, may I remind you, I don’t want that.” Bashasa let out a breath. “The Doyen seems to have great control over their people. If you can convince them that they will benefit by an alliance with us, if you can find out what they want, and make with them an agreement we can trust, they could become part of your cadre, give their allegiance to you.” He nodded to himself, forming new plans even as Kai watched. “You and Ziede will know best what to ask, how to evaluate the truth of their answers.”
“Give their allegiance to me?” Kai repeated, as skeptically as possible.
“Yes, to you.” Bashasa made an openhanded gesture. “Who else? They will not consider giving it to a mortal, will they? Not with the attitude Hawkmoth spoke of.”
Kai would rather just kill the Doyen. He was pretty certain that when he met them he wasn’t going to like them. Still groping for objections, he said, “Why me and not Ziede?”
It was the wrong question. Bashasa just got more confident. “Ziede is a Witch. As she said, it is not her way to rule other Witches.”
Kai protested, “It’s not my way either.”
“Is it not?” Bashasa tilted his head to the side, and Kai knew he had lost the argument. “From what you have told me, the Saredi ruled themselves justly and with consent, but the captains they chose for themselves had the authority to make decisions for all. And your mother in the underearth ruled your house. And your Saredi grandmother ruled far more than that, though it seems she never took a title for herself.”
Kai tried one more time. “I was just a scout.”
Bashasa nodded patiently. “Who was charged with leading and teaching other scouts.”
Kai thumped back against the wall in exasperation. “Do you remember every word I say?”
Bashasa actually looked hurt. “Of course I do, Kai.”
Kai sighed, rubbed his face, and gave in. “I was supposed to be your bodyguard.”
Bashasa smiled at him. “Were you? That would be such a waste, when you could be so much more.”
The answer to the message came just as early twilight touched the sky with purple, when the sentries spotted a lone figure walking out of the plain toward the field where the attack had taken place. They moved at an even, unhurried pace, and stopped just at the rippled line where the grass was still recovering from Ziede’s wind-devils.
They had come from the direction of the creek bed where Kai and Ziede had found the injured vanguarders. The wind-devils had seen no one else in that area, or any of the other approaches to the encampment. Ziede had pointed out that there were ways to use chimeras to conceal movement, and that the long twilight was an ideal time to attempt it, but the whole camp was already on high alert for that.
As agreed, reluctantly on some of the Prince-heirs’ parts, Kai, Ziede, and Tahren walked out to meet the dustwitch.
“Bashasa probably planned this from the beginning,” Ziede said as they walked through the paddock gate.
“What beginning?” Tahren asked, her tone only a little ironic. “The middle of last night?”
As Ziede glared at her, Kai said, “No, I saw him get the idea. He really wanted to come out here himself.”
“I know,” Ziede said. “That’s worse.”
The breeze was gentle and filled with the call and flutter of evening birds and insects. They were past the packed earth in the paddock now, and the long grasses, even after being knocked back by the air blast, dragged at Ziede’s and Tahren’s pants and Kai’s skirt, and grasshoppers fled their approach. Kai had put on the blue embroidered Arike-style coat Bashasa had given him, hoping it made him look a little less like an expositor. It was also better for holding intentions.
Ziede could have flown them out here, which would have been very dramatic, but might have been taken as an attack. Kai didn’t want to ruin the whole thing at this point, since Bashasa would probably just make them start over with another message.
