Goddess by Fiona McIntosh

day.
    Arafanz strode over to greet her, looking entirely comfortable and untroubled by the heat. ‘We should be doing this in the cool of the dawn or early evening, but I do have to check something and it was the perfect excuse to give you the fresh air you crave. I’m sorry I have not offered until now. We will not walk, but ride. Is that to your suiting?’
    She nodded. ‘Thank you.’
    ‘I see you’ve covered your face fully. That is acceptable for the desert but please don’t do it on my account.’
    ‘I do it for my own comfort,’ Ana assured him.
    She saw the ghost of what could have been a smile move briefly over his mouth, crinkle the corner of his eyes slightly. It was gone before she could fully register it, frustrating her. The man was so controlled with his emotion it was almost an arrogance.
    Arafanz gave orders to the two men who waited with them as Ashar assisted Ana onto her camel. ‘She is called Farim,’ the Razaqin whispered. ‘She is a quiet, beautiful beast as her name suggests.’
    Ana badly needed an ally at the fortress if she was ever going to escape Arafanz’s clutches. She took her chance and tentatively reached to touchAshar’s hand to ensure that he felt her gratitude. ‘I shall be gentle with her, thank you, Ashar,’ she murmured for his ears only.
    Arafanz led the way, Farim dutifully lumbering after his camel. Months of despair and loneliness began to leech out of Ana as they moved away from the fortress and into the desert proper. The sun’s heat tried its best to burn through her linens but the fabric took the brunt of the rays bravely, saving her skin. She had wrapped the tail of her headdress about her face as Lazar had taught her. It didn’t feel like a veil, even though it had the same effect; to her it felt as though dressing this way gave her a connection to Lazar. This is how he had looked just before the heat of each day in the desert. Suddenly she felt at one with the desert—as if she were coming home. Despite the hostility of the sun’s heat and the parched sands, that notion calmed her. Was it because the desert had kept her safe when she had been abandoned as a newborn? Or was it because the desert was where she had finally lain in Lazar’s arms? She could pretend that the man ahead was Lazar, leading her deeper into the sands. A daydream of just the two of them. Another welcoming sand dune, the luxury of the second chance to know each others’ touch, lips, love.
    Once again, as if he could steal into her thoughts, Arafanz dropped back to ride at her side, cutting into her reverie.
    ‘How are you, Ana? Delving into happier memories?’
    She could not help but like his voice. He had an economy with words too, not dissimilar to the Spur and, like the man she loved, Arafanz had the ability to be caustic in one breath, gentle in another. ‘I’m well, thank you,’ she answered, matching his brevity.
    ‘The child?’
    ‘My baby grows, perhaps flourishes, in spite of the imprisonment of his mother.’
    ‘Do you feel many changes? Motherhood has always intrigued me.’
    She twitched a smile, even though she didn’t want to, at the naivety in his question. ‘It intrigues me also. I have no experience with it. I feel like I’m still a child myself.’
    ‘Old enough to conceive,’ he said softly, not looking at her.
    ‘Some men would consider a girl of nine summers old enough. That her body has ripened early does not make her sufficiently mature for the trauma of pregnancy or the trials of parenthood.’ She tried to keep her tone even but the words came out taut.
    ‘But you are, Ana. You talk like an ancient. I feel sure your maternal instincts are strong.’
    ‘Do you remember your mother?’ she asked, deliberately trying to catch him off guard.
    He smiled softly, not in the least perturbed. ‘I do. I have been gone a long time from her but I can remember her clearly. She was a quiet, long suffering, endlessly patient woman—I had eightbrothers, you