A Lotus for the Regent by Adonis Devereux Page A

an
honorable man. He had had no idea when he saved her of what she would then owe
him.
    Ajalira was
grateful for the curtains hiding her from the Regent's sight. She had expected
that he would have her pass the voyage in his company, but instead she had been
left alone and told to rest. So now she was still unused to seeing him. He was
not so tall or broad as the Admiral, but Ajalira did not find the Admiral half
so beautiful. The Regent's long, black dreadlocks fascinated her. She wanted to
touch them, just as she wanted to touch the gleaming silver hoop in his nose—and
the ones on his nipples.
    Ajalira sat up
and wiped her face. She wronged the Regent to think of him so. She was a
sullied woman, and though she knew enough of Sunjaa politics to know that the
Regent was unmarried, she could not believe that so beautiful a man did not
have a lover. She would be a long while yet in Arinport, and just because she
was free of the guildhouse, it did not mean that her shame was covered or wiped
away.
    When the litter
stopped, Ajalira's eyes were dry, her jaw set. She was already running through
the words in her mind.
    “ Ajalira?” The Regent himself reached up to help her down from the
litter, and as his hand touched her skin, all the words vanished. She was
silent as he set her down. She looked up at him, and the sorrow in his eyes
struck her like the Lotus's blow to the mouth.
    Ajalira was not,
she knew, particularly short. She was a Tamari, born of a line of soldiers, and
she was not accustomed to having to look fully up to see a man's eyes. Evix had
been nearly the same height as she. But the Regent was more than a full head
taller than Ajalira, and she could not help her admiration of his lithe
warrior's grace.
    “ Please, follow me.” The Regent moved through the palace like a ship
through the water, and Ajalira was pleased to notice that the servants seemed
genuinely happy to see his return.
    “ An official scroll,” said the Regent to the serving-boy who opened
the door for him. “And sealing wax.”
    “ Yes, Your Grace.” The boy scampered off, and Ajalira was left alone
with the Regent again.
    “ I'm sorry that your journey was so overwhelming.” The Regent
gestured to a high-backed wooden chair. “Will you not sit?”
    “ No, thank you, Your Grace.” Though she had not given him his title
in the Dimadan, here it seemed impossible not to. Lord Kamen Itenu was
the Sunjaa Regent, and in any other nation, Ajalira suspected he would have
already been made King due to the wisdom and skill of his rule.
    “ You have nothing to fear here, Ajalira.” The Regent moved around a
carved desk to sit behind it. “I wish to thank you for what you did for me.”
    Ajalira shook
her head. “No, Your Grace. I did only what anyone of honor must.”
    The Regent's
eyes flashed with sorrow, and Ajalira could not understand. Why would those
words cause him pain? “Not just anyone would risk injury,” he gestured to her
bruised mouth, “or death for a stranger.”
    Ajalira furrowed
her brow. “That does not affect duty.”
    The Regent
laughed then, a sound as sorrowful as his eyes had been. “I've only ever heard
one other person talk like you.”
    “ The scroll, Your Grace.” The serving-boy was back, carrying a
scroll, an unlit candle, and a cylinder of red wax.
    “ Thank you.” The Regent dismissed the boy with a wave. “Can you read
Sunjaa as well as speak it?” he asked.
    “ Yes, Your Grace.” Ajalira stepped nearer, assuming he wanted her to
read what he wrote.
    “ Then read.” The Regent wrote—and Ajalira noticed that he had the
graceful, flowing hand of a born artist—and every word was balm to her aching
spirit.
    “ I, Kamen Itenu, Regent of the Sunjaa nation, Lord of the House
Itenu, Bearer of the Serpent-Seal, do hereby declare that Ajalira is a free
woman, and no one may lay claim to her labor or her person without her leave.”
In short order, he had affixed his seal to the base of the