Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) by Leona Wisoker Page A

seen in the southlands; when presented, they’d been wearing wigs .
    “Lord,” the younger woman said, dropping to her knees. “We not please?” Her pale blue eyes anxious, she slid her hands under her breasts as though offering them up for appraisal.
    Alyea just stared, at a loss for words. The youngest woman had the lightest skin and most delicate build of the three, along with ash-blonde hair.
    “What are you doing here?” Alyea blurted. “You’re northern !”
    The young woman stared at her, uncomprehending. “I am yours, Lord,” she said. Her hands slowly moved from her chest, sliding down her stomach. “You want?”
    Alyea choked off her first response: Hells, no! She couldn’t figure out how to get out of this without offending some stupid southern custom, and found herself wishing Deiq were around. He’d know how to sort this out.
    Then it occurred to her that he’d probably left her alone on purpose, to force her to deal with this on her own: it was exactly the manipulative sort of thing he did . Anger began to simmer again.
    Mistaking her hesitation for interest, the kathain began to smile. The older woman dropped to her knees and reached for the boy’s groin with hands and mouth; the boy tilted his head and arched his back in near-theatrical appreciation.
    “Oh, gods,” Alyea breathed, horrified, and found she didn’t care about offending custom any longer. “No. No! That’s enough. Get out. Out!”
    They scrambled to their feet, bewilderment returning to their expressions, and retreated a few steps.
    “Out! Out! ” She found herself on her feet, a heavy wooden bowl in her hand, with no memory of having grabbed it from the side table. She raised it to throw, too angry to consider common sense; their expressions went sullen, and they bolted from the room without further argument.
    She threw the bowl anyway, just to relieve her too-tight nerves. It hit the wall by the door as Deiq stepped into the room. The bowl cracked into three splintered pieces; he ducked just in time to avoid the fragments.
    Her fury turned scorching at the sight of his ever-smug face. Untrustworthy, manipulative, deceitful bastard —
    “ Out! ”
    “Alyea!”
    His expression was honestly shocked. She took a savage satisfaction in that, and threw a thick-walled glass vase. This time he snaked out a hand and caught it, wincing a little.
    “You’ll run out of objects soon enough,” he observed, his dark humor returning, and set the glass vase carefully aside on the floor.
    She glared at him. “Get out,” she said again, low in the back of her throat, as near to a growl as she’d ever come. “I will not talk to you right now. And take them —” She pointed a shaking finger towards the outer room. “Take them with you! I’ve had enough. Enough! ”
    He studied her face for a long, intense moment, as though judging her sincerity; Alyea gave him back the most menacing glare she could summon.
    “You have a great deal to learn,” he said at last, clearly disapproving.
    “Well, that won’t happen tonight!”
    “Obviously,” he remarked. With a shrug that came as much from his eyebrows as any shoulder movement, he retreated from the room. She stood still, listening; heard him, low-voiced and entirely too calm, urging the kathain from their quarters out into the hallway.
    The door shut behind them. In the silent relief of being alone at last, she dropped to sprawl across the rumpled bed and promptly burst into tears.

Desert Pride, Honor, and Death
     
    (excerpt)
Another area in which the southlands differ dangerously from the kingdom is in the matter of death. Take, for example, Pieas Sessin’s death. One accustomed to northern ways might think that his uncle, Lord Eredion Sessin, would be furious; that Lord Eredion might set out to exact vengeance upon Lord Alyea. This is absolutely not the case. In fact, if you were so crass as to ask him directly—which I strongly, most strongly, Lord Oruen, advise against