The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran) by Kate Elliott

Valentin from the maze, startling her. He emerged, blinking hard against the sunlight. But he didn’t look as pale and sickly as he had in the nesh-pod. “I’m sorry,” he said, and touched her arm fleetingly. “But I won’t go anyway,” he added quickly. “I hate those receptions. You know I do. They’re disgusting. Dad is disgusting.”
    “Stop it! It doesn’t matter what he is—”
    “—he’s still our father,” he finished in a mincing voice, which changed abruptly. “And I wish he’d go away again.”
    “Well he won’t go away!” she shouted. “Don’t be stupid, Valentin. I know you hate him, but he’s still our father. He tries to be nice.”
    “Oh, he is nice, when he wants to be.” Valentin sat down on a bench and slid his blades onto the soles of his shoes. “He’s just so wonderful. Everyone says so.”
    It bothered Ilyana that Valentin had so little balance that he had to sit to pull on his blades. She tugged hers out of her duffel and stood first on one foot, then the other, and sealed the blades onto the latches on her boots. With a like gesture, they slung identical duffels each over a shoulder to hang along their backs. Then they skated on the path out under the archway, toward home.
    “I just want to live in nesh forever,” Valentin said, and Ilyana felt cold fear stab straight through her heart.

CHAPTER FOUR
A Transaction
    H ILLS AND FOREST BROKEN by fields and villages and an occasional town—such were the khaja lands that Vassily and his escort rode through, day after day after day, heading north. Some of these Yossian princes and dukes had mustered armies and fought Sakhalin; most of them had died or fled, and two, with their captured children and wives, had been sent north to pledge loyalty to Bakhtiian. Rather like he was being sent north, except that Bakhtiian was probably more merciful to the khaja princes than he would be to Vasha.
    But that was too distressing to think about for long. Vasha knew how to hunker down and go on without staring his worst troubles in the face.
    The land lay quiet. More, Vasha thought, because the khaja were still shocked by the sudden and devastating appearance of the jaran army than because they were now at peace. Sakhalin sacked cities that resisted and spared those that surrendered immediately. More and more, the khaja surrendered. He ought to have taken that tack with Sakhalin, he ought to have just obeyed, but to be sent out to groom horses with fifteen-year-olds! It was too much to endure.
    “Shall we go over to the merchants’ camp?” Stefan asked, his question a welcome relief. They’d done with watering the horses and had hobbled them for the night, and it wasn’t their duty this evening to stand guard.
    Vasha sighed, glancing back toward the jahar’s camp, where the captured khaja woman’s tent had been set up by older riders. Her name was Rusudani, and she was evidently a daughter or niece or cousin of Prince Zakaria of the Yos princedom of Tarsina-Kara. That was all he knew about her or was, at this rate, ever likely to know.
    “You can’t talk to her anyway,” added Stefan, reading his mind.
    “And you can’t talk to Merchant Bathori’s wife, either,” retorted Vasha, stung, “even if you do make eyes at her shamelessly.”
    “Can too talk to her. She speaks Taor. So there.”
    “But you never have, so what difference does it make?”
    Stefan punched at him, and Vasha punched back, and they sparred a bit until they both broke off, laughing and out of breath.
    “Come on, let’s go,” said Vasha. “The merchants’ camp is the only interesting place here, since we can’t go into that town.”
    “We could sneak out…” suggested Stefan, but Vasha only shook his head. Riasonovsky had laid down strict rules for his charges, and Vasha did not intend to get into any more trouble.
    They skirted the horses and started off along the river. At dusk, the river bank melded with the water and the moon’s reflection