I send Irei down two times to get more cake. He says that if he wasn't the Head Ambassador, we'd never have gotten third helpings, but I think he's just trying to get laid.

Of course, as he says, it's not trying for you succeed every time. It's just called succeeding, Amshira. I'm succeeding at getting laid.

You're succeeding at being an annoying bastard, too, I point out. He just smiles.

Irei takes a bath before the water cools entirely, then true to his word, rubs bethseria into the aching muscles of my thighs and lower back with his steady, calloused hands. When I thank him, he just grins and tells me I'm not doing this for you, sweetheart. This is for me.

I hit him, though not hard. He just laughs, and I sigh, leaning into his coarse but soothing touch.

"Are you alright?" I ask, breaking the comfortable silence stretching between us, smooth as spider's silk. Or Shikkan silk, rather. "His words were blunt and crude, but wielded with admirable cruelty."

"The cruelest thing is he spoke the truth," Irei sighs. "I imagine my father did whisper such sweet nothings in my mother's ear to seduce her away from her husband. I imagine they first met each other in places like this, where they could be anonymous for a night and leave come daybreak. When I think of that, I feel shame for her, and protective of her, and yet angry for Rhyda and myself and it's all terribly, terribly tangled. I don't know how to tell the difference between what I should feel and what I actually feel."
"That's how I feel about O'otani. I can't decide how much I blame her because at the same time, I'm crafting her excuses. Then, in the next breath, I'm condemning her with such righteous glee- all so terribly, terribly tangled. Oughts and should and can'ts and won'ts."

"They say she was very beautiful," Irei says thoughtfully. "My mother. The only memories I have of her are after years of heavy lirium use. Her skin was sallow, her eyes sunken and bruised, her thin frame wracked by a phlegmatic cough. She was lovely still, in a fragile way, but in the stories she's verdant. Lush. Like a blooming summer night, lively and lovely and warm. Perhaps lush is a shortcut to lusty and her reputation is being tailored after the fact, but I like to believe that one day in early spring, a Grand Councilor rode through Tayim and caught sight of a lithe, laughing girl with sun-kissed cheeks and a mischievous smile. I imagine her curls bounced when she laughed, and she laughed often. And I like to imagine how he would have looked at her at the very beginning of it all. Like she was a treasure to be guarded or a woman to be loved, not a responsibility to be kept, a burden to bear, a sacrifice to make. I imagine the sting of betrayal never entered his gaze, and hers never faltered, and then I remember that I am the very proof of that betrayal, the very fault they made with their faltering, and I'm- ashamed. Then I think of Keth and Anissi Inneswar and the like and their heavy-handed, moralistic judgement and I'm furious. One day soon, I'd like to think of it and feel nothing at all."

"We all wish for that armor at times, love, but perhaps it's wisest that we never receive it. Feeling is what makes us human, is it not? What makes us real to one another and ourselves. Even if it hurts."

"Rhyda hurt. I saw it on his face when he looked at me often enough. He still swore he never regretted my mother, though, just how her story ended. Though perhaps it never truly began."

"He sounds like a good man."

"He was," Irei says with a wistful smile. "He was startlingly decent. Keth's mother Anissi was jealous that her younger, poorer cousin caught the Grand Councilor's eye when Anissi, a matriarch and stately widow, had not. When Kiri took up with Lyris, Anissi was all too ready to say she'd been right all along, that she'd known it would all come to ruin. She expected Rhyda to be chagrined, I think, and to beg her pardon."

"And I take it he didn't?

"Shards, no. He told her off. Said Kiri got tangled up in webs she didn't weave and everyone was all too willing to believe she was the spider. Said new wealth and lust and drugs cast a thick glamour, and that her clan should've intervened not to pass judgement or distance themselves from her actions, but to get her out of a dangerous situation. A powerful, wealthy narcissist with near-unlimited access to Lirium and good times was the siren song that drowned her, but it helped that no one around her threw her a damn life raft before they threw her their self-righteous judgment."

"She was young and careless, and perhaps faithless, and it must have been so easy to blame her. To look at her actions and the pain they caused and see nothing but ego-driven selfishness, forgetting that she was a victim, too. It would've been so much easier and cleaner for Rhyda to forget, too, to blame her for all of it and move on with his life, but he never took the easy way out. Not even when the kionaxi clan tried to hand it to him on a silver platter- abandoning her like she'd abandoned their marriage, shaming her as she had shamed him, and them, in conceiving me. But he fought for her so fucking hard no one knew what to think."

"He was a good man," I say gently, because it bears repeating. "Very few people meet a personal slight with understanding and forgiveness, let alone mercy."

"He suffered for it, too," Irei sighs. "People talked. Of course they did- it was quite the scandal. Half said he was a blind, lovesick fool chasing after a younger woman's skirts when they were still stained with his brother's leavings. The other half said he was doing it all to undermine Anissi. And that just made it an even bigger scandal, even juicier gossip- the possibility that patient, good-natured Rhyda Nara was going toe to toe with the Matriarch."

"Why did Rhyda helping your mother undermine Matriarch Anissi?"

"When Kiri first ran away with Lyris, she was gone for two weeks. Rumors trickled in of what she and her opulent paramour had been up to- spending Rhyda's money, attending lavish parties in debauched clothing, and, of course, Lirium. When she came back strung out and dazed, Anissi went to her and told her plainly that she was shaming not only herself, but her clan, and that if she ever acted that way again she would have no clan to return to. She thought she was being rather magnanimous, offering a second chance to a girl she'd never even really given a first, but my mother was proud. She laughed at Anissi, called her old fashioned, and carried on carrying on with her husband's younger brother."

"When Lyris learned she was pregnant, he abandoned her. She had no family to take her in but her clan, so she went to Anissi for help, and Anissi turned her away. Said she could clean up the mess she made or she couldn't, but she wasn't going to drag the rest of the clan through the mud with her. They fought, and Anissi told Kiri she either had to leave Kionaxi lands or submit to sanctions. Kiri ignored the matriarch and went to Rhyda instead, begging for refuge, and he gave it to her. That was just who he was.

But that is not who the Kionaxi are. We're a conservative clan. If my mother had been born Markiri'toviranthi or Markiri'xaitotovi, this would have played out very differently. If the husband she cuckolded hadn't been a highly esteemed Grand Councilor, and if she hadn't gotten involved with his brother of all people, if she hadn't made her debauchery and her lirium use so public- in short, if she hadn't become a source of great shame for her traditional relatives- it might have all been swept under the rug and forgotten, if not forgiven. But she wouldn't play the graceful penitent, she wouldn't swallow her pride to placate the Matriarch, and when Rhyda took her in anyways, it made Anissi look weak.

She saw it as a personal slight and never forgave him. He never forgave her for declaring my mother xanharxin. Because Kiri, she believed it. She believed she'd destroyed everything good about herself and it just drove her deeper into self-medication.

And then I was born, and Rhyda knew what her excommunication would mean for me. A xanharxin child would not have a fair or easy life. So the calm, mild-mannered Grand Councilor knocked on Anissi's door and told her that she was either going to accept Kiri's son into the Kionaxi clan with some small amount of grace or he was going to make sure that the Kionaxi never saw another cent of government money. The clans existed long before the unified Kamai government, but they're each treated as an administrative district, and a certain amount is earmarked each year for their upkeep, not to mention the stipend paid to the Matriarch. She relented grudgingly, but the damage was already done."

"And what kind of damage was that?" I ask, genuinely curious. Beyond that, I want to keep Irei talking. He never talks about his family, his past- for obvious reasons- but a selfish part of me wants to know it all. Every action, every reaction, every scar. Because he is mine, his wounds are mine, his history is my history, his honesty a sign of great trust from a man who doesn't trust anyone easily.

Irei's brows lift. "Oh, only the end of the world. The world as we knew it, at least. Power shifting hands like sand, traditions upheld and overturned, huffing and hissing and finally, shattered god be blessed, the Great Compromise. Our friendly little peace treaty. It's quite clever, too; I wish I'd been the one to negotiate it. Though the woman who did could go toe to toe with any leader or diplomat the world over and hold her own."

"You've compromised me, you lascivious prick, and sitting atop your damn horse for three days straight has compromised the tender muscles of my back and thighs. But go on. Tell me of this Great Compromise the Kionaxi clan made. Just don't stop with the bethseria."

"Fussy little thing, aren't you?"

I huff. "I did tell you I was an expensive mistress, didn't I? I was quite forthright. Beyond that, you knew I was a prince who was raised in a palace, so you really have no one to blame for this but yourself."

"I will blame you as much as I damn well please, Amshira Amarin. I will blame you for dashing my good sense right out of my head, for distracting me in meetings, for haunting my daydreams and leaving me lying awake at night, aching with wanting you. I will blame you for each kiss, and bless you for each one, too."

I flush. "Use that flattering silver tongue, Ambassador, and tell me a story. After that we can discuss other activities for both my tongue and yours."

Ire's answering look is heated, prickling along my skin like wildfire, and how does his gaze still undo me like this after so much time? Will there ever be a day when that lust-hazy, intense look doesn't make my breath catch in my throat and my heart stutter in my chest? Will his tender words ever stop making me ache?

Goddess, I hope not.

"The title of Matriarch passes from mother to daughter, but Matriarch Anissi Inneswar had only a son, our charming friend Keth. The title then goes to her closest female relative still capable of bearing children, which is her niece Kemvir Taashi. Anissi clung to the old ways with a gleeful fastidiousness and Kemvir, well, Kemvir just wanted to burn everything down and see what she might make of the ashes. Questioned everything but her own name and said loudly and publicly that the Kionaxi clan was too insular, too conservative, trading away common sense for tradition.

Anissi didn't want Kemvir to succeed her, so she found a work around. In Kama, a marriage is seen as a ceremony that fuses and shares one's innate divinity. That runs much deeper than blood, so there is legally no difference between being related by blood or by marriage."

"Interesting," I reply. "In Shikkah, nothing runs deeper than blood, and your debate about common sense and tradition reminds me of our conflict over the vasayaste. My mother upholding the old ways, Kyoro pushing change, or just pushing... it's all so very familiar."

"Politics are everywhere," he says sagely. "If Anissi's son Keth married, his wife would be legally equivalent to her full-blooded daughter. So, she betrothed Keth to Raashia Tolvei, the daughter of a close friend from a very powerful, very wealthy family. Anissi treated Raashia as her heir, training her to take over the role of Matriarch, and all the while tensions bubbled just below the surface. Reformers decrying the clan's stagnation, traditionalists staunchly refusing to make concessions.

How Anissi handled my mother's situation hurt her. Badly. She didn't want to look weak, and she didn't want to be connected to her scandalous cousin, so she declared her clanless. Xanharxin. The more liberal members of our clan saw it as archaic and judged Anissi as harshly as she judged my mother. The fact that Rhyda Nara bent her to his will, making her admit his brother's bastard son, the child of a xanharxin mother, into the clan that had cast them out made her look weak to the more conservative factions. Then there's the fact that the Matriarch and the holder of the hereditary council seat have to work together and Rhyda and Anissi could only be civil in five-minute increments.

She was humiliated. She looked weak. And Kemvir being Kemvir, she found a way to make it worse. To stir up more trouble. She married Aryuul Sula without the Matriarch's blessing or presence, which simply isn't done. It was a slap in the face, a very public insult, practically a declaration of war. It said I am my own Matriarch, and I do as I please.

It got ugly. Anissi and Raashia Tolvei in one corner, Kemvir Taashi in the other, everyone taking sides. Debating if they wanted to be led by Anissi's younger doppelganger or a trigger-happy little radical. Then came the second scandal. Not as bad as Kiri, but close."

Raashia has a little sister. Ishalai, quiet thing, always did as she was bid, never made waves. Somewhere along the twisted way, she fell for Kemvir Taashi. Fell for her hard and fast, broke every bone on impact, every vow. And Kemvir and her husband Aryuul both wanted Ishalai Tolvei back. So they wed her, both of them, once again without the consent or witness of the Matriarch. It undermined Raashia to have her own sister sleeping with the enemy, so to speak, and with everything else it just about did Anissi in. She grasped wildly at power, but it slipped through her sands like sand. Like silk. And Kemvir Taashi would've tried to pick it up and run with it, but she probably would've fallen. She burned a lot of bridges fighting Anissi, pissed off the conservative clan members enough to ensure that they wouldn't accept her leadership without fighting her every step of the way.

Thank the shattered god for Iriis Inneswar. Anissi's younger, wiser sister stepped in and sat them down. She said that neither Kemvir, Anissi, or Raashia would be easily accepted as Matriarch by the clan. That if they fought each other for it, they'd tear everything they were supposed to be safeguarding apart. Anissi stepped down before she was directly challenged and Iriis became the Matriarch even though she wasn't of childbearing age, though Kemvir's daughter Yinmari is her heir and will become the next Matriarch. The Great Compromise. The conservatives were so glad they'd avoid Matriarch Kemvir that they agreed to make concessions and embraced the more moderate Iriis with, not open arms, but something close to it. The reformers grumbled, of course, but they decided to tolerate less change knowing that Kemvir's daughter would inherit from Iriis."

"Wait. Kemvir and Aryuul both married this Ishalai? How does that work? Is that- is that even legal?"

Irei smirks wolfishly. "Your delicate Shikkan sensibilities are showing, love."

"I am not being prudish, Irei Nara," I huff. "I'm just asking a question!"

His smirk becomes a small laugh as he shakes his head, reaching out and running his fingertips along the curve of my jaw in that way that always makes me shiver slightly, the skittering touch both too much and never enough. Halfway between sexual and tender, comfort and control.

"So your question is how three people work together? What, am I to describe to you in lurid detail everything that six hands and three tongues can do? Shall I speak of the obscenities they get up to, the sins they commit in a big wide bed, or perhaps on the floor, all writhing limbs and-"

I slap his chest. "Stop teasing me, you ass! I don't need an anatomy lesson. I've never touched a woman like that, but even I know where the holes are. And what they do."

"And what do they do?" Irei asks, trying mightily not to smile, failing miserably as his lips twitch ever upward, a flash of his white teeth shining through.

"Drive foolish men like you properly mad!" I snap, though I'm smiling, too. "Take seed, rob sense, and then babies. Or something. But that still doesn't tell me anything about how three fucking people can get married in Kama!"

"Three fucking people can't get married in Kama, Shira. Don't be absurd."

"But you just said that-"

"If three people are fucking, they're far too distracted to make vows. And if they're doing it properly, their mouths will be otherwise occupied, no? And their hands certainly cannot be bound together in the ceremonial knot when they're roving over naked skin..."

"Now you're just trying to shock me!"

Irei shrugs. "It amuses me when you get flustered. Your cheeks color so prettily, and I'm left with the incongruity of a man who will swallow me whole without a moment's hesitation but somehow cannot bear to hear the words 'naked skin' spoken aloud without blushing like an innocent. It's... rather charming, actually."

I flush deeper still. "The blushing or the swallowing whole?"

"Get down on your knees, love, and I'll tell you," he says with a sly grin.

"I am not getting down on my knees just to suck your cock, you depraved diplomat! Not after you refused to do the civilized thing and hire a damn coach and instead made me spend three whole days riding something much less pleasant than your prick! My thighs are already sore. My back aches. So, no, I shan't be bending to tend to your every whim, my lord."

"If I was your lord, I'd punish you for such insolence."

"If you were my lord, I'd still be a prince," I reply with a sweet smile. "And I'd still outrank you."

"You were a prince," Irei corrects. "Now you're a filthy commoner, just like the rest of us."

"Filthy! I'll have you know I just bathed!"

"Filthy," Irei murmurs. "A soul stained black with pure depravity."

"Depravity isn't pure, idiot."

"Neither are you, my beauty," he croons. "I've corrupted you."

"No, you haven't," I say softly, the teasing tone falling away from my voice. "You saved me. You're still saving me, even now."

"You saved yourself, Amshira."

"Before you," I tell him, "I didn't even know who I was. Just who I was supposed to be."

"Amshira," he says, softer this time. Almost beseechingly. "You don't have to-"

"No, I don't!" I reply quickly, forcefully, a small laugh stuttering across my wet lips. "I know I don't have to. You taught me that. You. I can be a prince and an ayadaxa, a blushing innocent or a reprobate little slut. I can be feminine and foolish and tart and thoroughly undiplomatic and you'll never, ever judge me for it. Never hold any of it against me. Instead you'll just hold me up."

His eyes melt into mine, and the heat there is echoed in the rush of adrenaline flooding my limbs, the sweet euphoria of getting caught in his gravity, and for a moment all I can think is fuck, he's beautiful. Dark skin and dark hair shining, a proud brow and strong chin, rolled up shirtsleeves revealing brutal, beautiful patterns of ceremonial scars across his strong forearms. Molten eyes that don't just look at me, but actually see me. All of me. And he wants me so strongly it knocks the air from my lungs, because that need in his eyes is answered in my own with a reverent certainty.

"You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, ever touched," he says softly. "You are a prize beyond worth. So why wouldn't I hold you up to the light and let the world see you, and marvel at my damned good luck? Your face is so sweet they think you a courtesan, my love, and they marvel at your grace and loveliness. And then I get to watch your brilliant mind destroy them during a game of xalzan. I get to witness their shock and awe when you shrug off your Shikkan politeness and say exactly what you mean. When that fire, that Kamai ore in your blood, makes itself known. I love you, Amshira."

"And I love that, to you, I've only ever been Amshira. Not a bastard, not a prince, not my mother's legacy. You've given me the space to explore, to find out who I really am. I'm not who my family always wanted me to be, I know that, fuck, I've always known that, but for the first time, it doesn't hurt. I don't flinch away from the truth of myself anymore. I don't feel like I'm living a lie day in and day out, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to look at me and really see me- and no doubt disapprove, and prove once and for all that I'm not a fit heir."

"You fit me well enough, don't you?" Irei asks, eyes sparkling, practically glowing into mine. Fuck, he's beautiful. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"I'm not convinced. Why don't you come here and show me? Prove to me exactly how well we come together."

"I thought you were too sour and sore from the horse-riding to think of riding anything else. Was all that complaining all for naught, my pretty one?"

"I'm damned sore, I'll have you know," I reply haughtily. "So what's a little more pain? I'd much rather ache from you than for you."

"So you ache for me, little one? You would welcome pain to have me, to be with me?"

"I would welcome you," I murmur softly. "Just you, Irei, pain or pleasure or both or neither. I don't think I have it in me to deny you."

His answering groan is hard, guttural, his eyes striking into mine with a furious intensity as his wet, pink tongue slips out and licks his bottom lip, making it glisten in the golden twilight leaking in from the room's wide windows.

"You should not say such things to a man," he tells me thickly. "You should not make such promises and concessions."

"Why not?" I challenge brazenly. "It's the truth."

"Because you're liable to drive foolish men like me mad!" he says, both a threat and a promise. I shiver despite the fire blazing in the hearth, despite the warmth of the bath lingering in my languid limbs, filling me with a hazy, cozy heat. Kindling that heat into a fire, into something dangerous and perfect sparking between us, splitting the sky like lightning. Or just like light.

"Take seed, rob sense, though no babies. Or something," he says with an amused smirk, though the hunger in his eyes never wavers or abates. He's looking at me like he wants to eat me alive, like I'm prey, and I might just let him.

Irei calls me a contradiction, at once brazen and innocent, but he's no better. He wears the mask of an inscrutable diplomat. He knows how to keep his emotions out of his eyes, to leech any hint of true feeling from his rich voice, to make his face and body tell a story that he himself carefully choreographs. He's not a flatterer, or a sycophant. Kama is the bridge between the east and west, so there's no need to pander or ingratiate. I've heard him called cold. Remote. Far too blunt.

But with me, he laughs. He jokes. He praises me, warmth infusing every word that falls like an offering from his lips, every inch of his dark eyes. He speaks of his past and his clan with brutal honesty, sharing that truth with me when it would be so much easier to hide it away. He wants me to know him, all of him, and it's a heady thing, truly seeing someone else like that. Headier still to be seen, and coveted, and cherished.

"You're an absolute menace, Irei Nara."

"Yes," he easily agrees. "I lure helpless royalty to my island kingdom and imprison them in my fine manor house. I make them slave away as my assistants and pay them only in kisses. I force them to abdicate to keep them warming my bed."

"As if anyone else would tolerate your bullshit," I reply snidely. "And fair warning, if I ever find someone else in your bed, I will water your pretty gardens with your blood. And theirs, too. I'll also bury their bodies on your property, so the blame is properly placed. Imagine the scandal, the Kamai head ambassador and a whole acre of dead lovers..."

"You highly overestimate my virility and your own bloodthirstiness. Surely only a half-acre of dead lovers, no?"

I laugh, sudden and bright. "Let's just agree it's two thirds of an acre of dead lovers. It'll be the second Great Compromise."

"Why don't you come over here, then, and we'll try for a third? I know I'd be honored to compromise you greatly."

I roll my eyes at his sheer audacity, but I still walk over to him, because his eyes are full and bright and calling me forward like a beacon. Like a star flashing brilliant in the silvery night. A night that clothes me in a foreign bravery, as if no light shall ever know what I do here with him, so I needn't even consider holding back, or hesitating, or feeling embarrassed by my brazen, wanton hunger. My greedy, clutching hands, my slick tongue twining like a vine under and over his, thick and hot and rich and sweet as honey.

I break away to laugh breathlessly, because he's stolen mine. He's taken it all, and all of me with it, and I'm so fucking grateful, because somehow, in the taking of it, he's given me back to myself. And that is a gift, a kindness, I can never repay.

I'll try, though. I'll be his ayadaxa, his petted plaything, under the cover of this comfortable darkness, this foreign tavern in a far-flung corner of Kama.

I grin back at him, challenging, wanting, feasting all at once. "Then let the third Great Compromise begin, you damnable fiend."

But we're not damned, either of us. And even if we somehow were, I know we'd find a way to save one another all over again.

We fuck and sleep and it's glorious. I wake languid, sprawled like a cat in a sunny corner across Irei's naked chest. It's fully afternoon, the sun high in the sky and glaring in through the open windows, and a warm breeze chases fresh air and fragrant greenery through the small room. Cozy, though, not cramped.

Irei leaves and comes back with food, and bless the goddess herself, there's yet more spiced plum cake. And then there are balls of rice rolled in sweet seeds and wrapped in ishmani leaves. A thick gruel dappled with berries and honey, a dense cake beneath. Miniature dumplings filled with an eggy custard and fragrant spices. I groan through the entire meal, lost in the foreign flavors, because they are foreign. Seramichen food, not Kamai, and I remember then that Jeshema's wife Kesirah is from Tambrinthi, the Seramichen capital.

"He's a lucky bastard, isn't he?" Irei asks as he swallows another bite of baktvi- thin, nutty pastries twisted with cinnamon and coated in a honey glaze. "He's eaten this way every damn day for sixteen years."

"She could be mute and covered in boils and I'd still say marrying her was his good fortune. I need the recipe for the plum cake, if you can get it. You know, pull some strings. I'd start with old friend ploy, and if that doesn't work, move on to very important, very demanding Ambassador."

Irei throws his head back and laughs. "Perhaps. Perhaps you go down and tell her how much you loved her food and flutter your pretty eyelashes at her and she gives it to you, charming little ayadaxina."

"Why does everyone in goddess-damned Kama seem to think I'm a whore?" I sigh, exasperated. "Lyu I understand, because Lyu understands nothing but whores, as he is a huge one himself. Or was, I suppose, because I heard Tipari say the second he leaves her bed for another is the second she burns his life to the ground and makes bread from the ashes."

"Why bread?"

I shrug. "I don't know why bread, but she made it seem very ominous. It's no more absurd than a Shikkan prince in hiding repetitively being mistaken for a whore."

"A very expensive whore. And perhaps it isn't you at all, love. Perhaps everyone just assumes I have to pay for it."

"No one assumes that, you ass," I snark back. "You're seven and thirty, you've still got all of your hair, your face is comely enough, and you've not grown fat from sixteen years of Kesirah's cooking. You're also rich and powerful, though, so even if you had a face like your horse's backside, you'd still find partners eager to tumble into you bed."

"Where you shall then promptly murder them, water my gardens with their blood, and bury their bodies on my property to frame me for the crime, right?"

I smirk. "Glad you remember, darling."

Irei just smiles back, shoving a piece of baktva in my face. "Here. An offering for my expensive, and apparently murderous, mistress."

"A mistress has more dignity than an ayadaxa, though! More permanence. I mean, fuck, you're the one paying me. I'm your assistant. Which, by the way, makes the rest of our interactions extremely unprofessional."

"Professional if you're an ayadaxa, though."

"Ixar metir tal ayadaxa," I mutter darkly. I am not a whore. Then, a thought flickers and I smile faintly. "Imagine how disgustingly appalled my family would be by all of this, Irei. It's bad enough that we're both men, but to have their prince as your employee, your assistant, and then for him to be mistaken all too often for a prostitute? Imagine my mother's face." I can't help but laugh as a picture of her utter horror blooms to life inside my mind.

"I won't have to, soon enough," he says ominously. "She'll come back for you, and with or without an army, she'll expect you to go with her. She probably thinks that we've spent these months together barely tolerating each other, with me ignoring your presence because I find your parentage and prim manners distasteful. And you're horrified and by my blunt Kamai practicality and harsh mien. How do you think that's going to go, my love?" he grimaces, looking genuinely frightened for a moment. "Hello, Somé. I've kept my vow to you and kept your son safe. By the way, he now works for me, I'm fucking him, and he's abdicated and has nominal interest in being king of anything outside my bedroom. Oh, also, he keeps getting mistaken for my whore."

I grimace. "Maybe we don't phrase it like that, hmm?"

"Maybe we leave Kama in the night and we're both refugees somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away from her."

"There won't be any army," I reassure him. "Let's be honest. She's gone to Raclen to beg a mad queen for aid. It's the contingency plan of all contingency plans, unlikely and desperate and as fickle as Queen Misery herself. None of the eastern monarchies will intervene in what they see as a glorified civil war so far from their shores and the only countries with enough coin to lend us money or aid will not do so when they know we're unlikely to ever be able to pay it back. It pits them against the vasayaste, the noraya, and the Shao Asha all at once. They're more likely to drop their coin by accident running away. Perhaps then we could hire a few sellswords, but nothing more. My mother won't want to accept this, but she'll have to. And I'll have to hope that one day she'll realize it's absurd to be angry at me for not going back to a role that doesn't even exist anymore. That time will temper her anger and she'll realize how goddess-damned happy you make me and, if not approve, at least not loudly object."

"She will geld me in my sleep and wear my balls as a necklace, h'yonmi. Your mother is like an avenging angel when she's angry."

"Don't be absurd," I say simply. "She'd never geld you in your sleep. She'd do it when you were awake so you could see it coming and tremble in abject, helpless terror."

"She's almost as bad as Taís," Irei remarks with a small smile. "And we survived her, did we not?"

"She survived us," I correct primly. "Now give me the last of the baktvi, please."

He does, and I swallow it in two bites. "Are we leaving now?"
"If you like," Irei promises. "But I thought before we left, we might take a turn by the xalzan tables. Keth and some of his friends are still here, and while intensely petty, it could also be highly gratifying."

"You want me to hustle him, don't you?" I ask with an arching brow. "Put on my nicest tunic and flounce downstairs smiling like an idiot, asking about this foreign game I've of course never played. Betting high enough to gain everyone's attention and losing a few times so I seem like an easy target. Then the second they join, I cut their throats. Metaphorically speaking, of course."

"No, not of course," he tells me. "We've agreed there are two thirds of an acre of dead lovers on my property, all buried there by you, you bloodthirsty little fiend!"

And I realize, belatedly, that he's right. I am bloodthirsty, after all Keth said of my lover, after the way Irei flinched when he heard his own mother's name spoken with derision. How Keth dismissed me with a glance and then stole our damn plum cake just to be an ass.

"You know," I tell him softly, "that courtesans often make the best assassins. They can get so very close to powerful men without them suspecting a thing, assuming no guile, no cruelty could hide behind a pretty, placid smile. And then the knife sinks deep." I grin up at him. "After everything that pretentious ass said about you and your mother, after the way he insulted me, I should like to see him suffer."

When we leave the Six Swallows a few hours later, we pay Jeshema Priotivosi with Keth Inneswar's coin. And there's still enough left over to buy us lunch as we ride on to Oxorovanxa. 

_______

Yes, I did get way too wrapped up in clan politics and Irei's tragic backstory. Sue me. Family drama is my catnip. Hopefully this made sense and gave some insight into his character and Kama as a whole. And also the chemistry and bond between Shira and Irei