A Lotus for the Regent by Adonis Devereux Page B

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    “ We Sunjaa,” he said, “are people of the Word. When a thing is
written, it is. You are a free woman, Ajalira.”
    Ajalira closed
her eyes, not wanting the Regent to see the tears that burned there. “Thank
you.” It was still incredible to her that this powerful and important man had
gone to such trouble for her. “But, Your Grace, I am not so free as this paper
declares.”
    “ What?” The Regent actually laughed. “There is no nation in all the
west that will dare defy the Sunjaa.”
    “ No nation, true, but one girl.” Ajalira opened her eyes. This part
was easy, for her duty was clear. She reached up into the mass of her hair and
pulled out the bone she had managed to hide there. She knelt beside the
Regent's chair and held out the bone to him. “This is the spoil of my first
battle. I lay it at your feet, for you have saved my life. My life is yours,
sir, and all the spoils of every battle I fight shall belong to you, for
without you, I would have fought no battles more.”
    The Regent
stared at her. For the first time since she had seen him, there was no sorrow
in the depths of his eyes. There was no emotion at all that she could see,
none, that is, apart from shock.
    “ Abrexa's chain! What are you doing?”
    Ajalira smiled.
“You saved my life, Your Grace.”
    “ When? How?” The Regent pushed away from her and rose from his chair.
    “ When you returned to the Dimadan and carried me away from the
guildhouse,” she said. “For I was to have been executed.”
    “ Why?” The word seemed forced from the Regent.
    “ When I spoke to you, Your Grace, the Guildmaster said it showed my
incorrigible defiance. He sent a Lotus-trainer to kill me, but I slew him
first.” She held out the bone again. “So he set the Lotuses upon me, and I was
actually on the block when your ship returned.”
    “ For me.” The Regent scarcely seemed to have heard her words about
Evix's death.
    “ So I owe my life to you.” Ajalira took the Regent's hand and pressed
the bone into it. “This battle is yours, and all my battles are yours.”
    “ Battles? What in the Four Hells are you talking about?” The Regent's
shock had not lessened, but he did not cast the bone aside. He gripped it
tightly, and he did not loose his hold on her hand, either.
    “ I am not Zenji,” said Ajalira. “I am not even human. I am an Ausir,
a Tamari.”
    “ Tamari?” The Regent's dark eyes narrowed. “What faction do they
follow?”
    “ I do not know,” said Ajalira, and shame suffused her cheeks that
that should be so. “I have been six years in the Dimadan. My mother fled the
upheaval that started the civil war. We ended in the Dimadan, and I have dwelt
there ever since.”
    “ Ah.” The Regent nodded.
    “ It is the Tamari way,” said Ajalira. “You have saved my life, and
thus my battles and all their glory belong to you. I will lift my blade at your
will from now until my death.”
    “ But you're just a girl.” The Regent shook his head. “And anyone who
would send you into the battlefield should be gutted. You deserve better than
that.”
    Ajalira smiled.
“I am, I freely admit, no more than a girl. But I am a Tamari, and we do not
ever forget our debts.”
    “ I do not acknowledge this debt,” said the Regent. He raised her hand
to his lips. “I do not account you to owe me anything at all. Rather, I am
grateful for your warnings in the guildhouse. What?” He interrupted himself,
and Ajalira knew he must have seen the look of disgust cross her face.
    “ The Guildmaster knew, sir! I mean, Your Grace. He heard no less than
I did. He and his Lotuses knew.”
    “ I suspected as much.” The Regent's smile was wry. “No wonder he was
angry with you. Doubtless he would have offered me the information later … for
a price.”
    “ Despicable.” Ajalira could not help herself. “He was your host. ”
    The Regent only
then seemed to realize that he still held her hand, and he released her.
Ajalira's skin