Page 58 of Queen Demon
It was the same size as Kai and Ziede’s, bedrolls and belongingsneatly stacked, smelling of the soap and oil the Arike used to clean and condition leather. Bashasa sat down on the battered mat that covered the dirt and flattened grass, drawing Kai down with him. “It’s not still bleeding?” he asked.
“No.” Bashasa hadn’t asked him to prove it, but Kai pulled his shirt up to show him the wound, covered with dried blood but obviously already scabbed over, healing far more rapidly than a wound on a mortal. Kai tried not to sound exasperated by all the fuss. “You know it doesn’t affect me like a mortal. You’ve seen it.”
“I’ve seen it, but the other wounds you’ve taken have never bled like this,” Bashasa pointed out. Kai wasn’t going to mention that it wasn’t usually this bad but that he had been in a hurry and worried. That seeing the dustwitches hold mortals as hostages like that, using them against other Witches, had rattled him and he hadn’t realized it until later. Lying didn’t feel right and the only defense against Bashasa’s perspicacity and persistence was to not talk, something that the other Prince-heirs hadn’t figured out yet. So he said nothing. Bashasa asked more gently, “Do all Witches do this?”
Now that was just annoying. “Only me. They get their power from other places. I thought you knew that.”
“I thought I knew several things I apparently do not,” Bashasa retorted. He shook his head, clearly reevaluating some assumptions. “You did this to destroy the bridge? You did this to flood the Summer Halls?”
“Yes, the bridge,” Kai admitted. “A legionary stabbed me for the Summer Halls. I didn’t ask him to, it was in the back.” He rubbed his face, tired and not sure how he had gotten into this conversation, if they should have had it earlier or if he should have tried harder to avoid it. “How did you think I was doing these things?”
Bashasa sat back, gesturing as if it was self-evident. “Because you were a demon!”
“Power has to have a source.” Kai dropped his hands. “Witchesuse the spirits that live in the earth, the wind, the water. The dustwitches use decay. The Immortal Blessed use the Well of Thosaren.”
“Expositors and Hierarchs use their Well, created by who knows how many years of death and pain.” Bashasa’s tone hardened into anger. “Your source. Is stabbing yourself.”
“It’s pain.” Kai stiffened, tried and failed not to sound defensive. “Hierarchs kill mortals for power. I’m using my own pain.”
“I am not questioning the morality of it, Kai. I am questioning…” Bashasa said wearily, “Why someone who means to do good should have to hurt themselves in this way. It’s…”
Kai felt the tension drain out of him. It was a relief, that Bashasa didn’t see it as something worth condemning. There was no other choice. Using the Hierarchs’ Well would mean being enslaved to it, or worse, becoming like a Hierarch himself. Torturing and killing legionaries and Hierarch servant-nobles was certainly an option but Kai felt too much of it led to the same place in the end. Besides, there weren’t always going to be legionaries available whenever he needed them. Using his own pain was the only real choice. And it was his, to do with as he wanted. He healed so much faster than a mortal, it was an ideal solution. He said, a little wryly, “Are you going to say it’s unfair?”
“Do not make light of this, it is a terrible thing to go through.” Bashasa stood and went to the door flap. He leaned out and Kai heard him quietly ask the soldiers for water and a clean cloth.
“No,” Kai corrected, unwilling to let it go. “Because it’s my choice. Terrible things are when other people stab you.”
Bashasa turned back with a flask of water and a bowl full of folded pieces of toweling. “I am not going to debate the philosophy of self-stabbing with you. Much as I might want to.”
“Good,” Kai muttered.
Bashasa sat down and arranged his supplies, and gestured for Kai to lift his shirt again. Reluctantly, Kai did, and Bashasa gently sponged away the dried blood, with movements as careful asif he was trying to clean an open wound. It didn’t hurt anymore, except for a mild ache in the flesh behind the scab. Kai could have taken the cloth away from Bashasa and briskly cleaned it up himself. But he didn’t.
It had been a bad day, in many ways, and this was… nice.
“Is it because this person, this body, was an expositor?” Bashasa asked, most of his attention on his task. “Does it help with using the intentions?”
“Talamines. Because the way I… He wasn’t dead, when I took his body. His memories were all still there. It wasn’t like that with Enna.” Even though all the Saredi might be dead, he wanted to make that clear, to make sure it wasn’t forgotten, that it wasn’t the Hierarchs’ slanderous account of the Saredi that survived.
“To be sure,” Bashasa assured him calmly. “For the Saredi, it was a ritual of mourning, correct?”
“A way to save what was left of the person.” Bashasa had said before that he understood, but it was still a comfort to hear it again. “Talamines’ memories were there, but they were fading. I had to make them my memories before it was too late.” He shook his head. “If I could do it over again I’d have a better idea what I needed to look for.”
Bashasa sat back, wringing out the cloth in the basin. “Which is why you and Ziede must study the intentions you capture from expositors. You could not retain all his education on these matters.” His cheeks were a little flushed. Kai wondered if he had found this nice too.
“Right.” Kai tugged his shirt down and found himself hesitating again, not sure he wanted to ask this question. “Are you going to tell the other Prince-heirs?”
Bashasa eyed him, absently folding the unused cloths. “Yes, because discussing delicate matters such as these with Lahshar is my favorite way to punish myself for all my mistakes.” He added more seriously, “It is none of their concern how you do what you do.” He set the bowl aside, frowning. “It is my concern, becauseyou are my officer, and I must understand the full implications to you of anything I ask you to do.”
When he put it that way, it made a lot of sense.
“And though I’m not sure how this could be used against you, it is better we do not take a chance that word might spread to our enemies.”
Kai nodded and shrugged agreement. He couldn’t think of a way either but that didn’t mean some knowledgeable expositor couldn’t.
Bashasa sighed. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“I think that’s all,” Kai said honestly. “So far.”
