Sorry this chapter took so long, I've been suffering from writer's block. Also, the beginning of this chapter was moved to the end of chapter 5.5 because I didn't like the current chapter divisions, so you might want to go back and reread. And as always, thanks for reading.

- Swpoet

_____

"Shall we?" Sholu asks, holding out his hand. He's standing to the side of my chair, smiling so serenely I want to scream.

"Shall we what?" I snap, unable to help myself.

"Dance," he says, motioning around us. "The plates have been cleared and the band has begun to play. Outside these walls wagons of food are being distributed to hungry Rizsavans. All anyone can talk about is the bright future of the city now that the Kyorin are gone. It's a time for dancing."

"Are you asking me or commanding me?"

His smile falters. "Would it really be so bad to dance with me?"

My eyes answer him.

He sighs. "Take my hand, O'otani. People are watching now."

I look around. The lords and ladies turn in drunken circles, lost in revelry. They shimmer like dragonflies beneath the light of the sconces, laughing loudly, existing in a dream world of sweet music and gauzy silk. It's a glamour, all a glamour, as separate from the gritty reality of Rizsava as the citadel is from earth.

"Let them watch." I answer. What can they do to me? They're all just bugs, turning tighter and tighter circles around a temporary light.

"And I suppose you'd let them talk, too?" He asks.

I shrug. "Why not? What can they say that matters, fools that they are?"

"The talk of fools has felled kings," he tells me, holding his hand out farther. "They will not talk tonight. You will not give them reason to. You will dance, and laugh, and be merry, and the new regimes will grow strong because of it."

I hesitate, then lay my hand in his. Just a few more days, I tell myself, only a few more days of letting him command me. Soon Halima will be safe, his leverage will be gone, and I will finally be free.

He smiles and helps me up, wrapping his arm around my waist as he leads me closer to the music. For a brief moment I imagine cutting that arm from its body and leaving it a bleeding, formless stump. It allows me to smile a genuine smile at our onlookers.

And we do have onlookers. Attention follows power, and they think us the most powerful in the room. Gentlemen raise their glasses in toast to us as we pass. Many smile and bow. Several ladies even glare at me when they think I'm not looking, jealous of Sholu's attentions.

I laugh. They're fools, all of them: glittering, simpering fools. Do they even know if they lust after the power or the man?

It's all the same to them, I suppose. The measure of a man is his power, and power rolls off of Sholu in waves. It doesn't hurt that he has a pretty face, a striking bearing, and perfectly refined manners. The majority of them probably think me lucky to hold his arm.

But they have no idea what he really is. He's a coyote wearing a tunic, a trickster whose pretty words and impeccable manners only serve to hide the blood dripping from his muzzle onto the marble floor. He's nothing more than an animal, amoral and self-serving. He would swallow any one of them whole without a second thought.

So would I. But for now, they have to think me innocuous, so I swallow down my violence, my anger, and put a smile in its place. After all, I still have a part to play.

"You look pained," Sholu remarks as he leads me in a fast-paced northern dance, our feet tripping in time with the beating of a bass drum. "Parties don't agree with you."

"It's not the party that pains me," I reply coldly.

He sighs. "Always so caustic. One of these days you might actually wound me, Kionike."

"A knife to the gut," I reply, spinning away from him. "Or to the throat," I continue, spinning back. "One of these days."

He laughs.

"Does talk of your death amuse you?" I ask, nearly stepping on his feet. I was never much of a dancer.

"Sometimes," he says with a smirk. "Especially when it comes from the mouth of a five-foot-tall woman in a ball gown."

"I don't have to be tall to kill you, Mesviraste," I remind him. "And I'm not worried about getting blood on the dress, if that's what you're afraid of."

He chuckles, his face flashing with a sharp mirth that seems out of place among the drunken revelry around us. "No, I don't imagine you would care about a few blood stains. I bet you'd revel in them, killer that you are." He looks at me with his clear grey eyes and smiles a knowing smile. "Don't think I've forgotten what you are. I could never forget. You're nothing more than a tigress sewn into a dress."

"If I was a tigress you'd have been gored to death long ago," I mutter, letting him draw me closer. My blood runs hot; my fingers itch to tear into him, to rip sinew from muscle from bone.

He runs his hand along my lower back, startling me. Goosebumps raise across my already flushed skin.

"Tell me," he says, smiling strangely. "How would you do it?"

"What?"

"Kill me," he says. "A bite to the neck? A knife to the heart? What do you dream about at night, little murderess? What kindles your bloodlust?"

I stare at him, at a loss, trying to understand the game he means to play. His eyes are alight, burning like twin brands, boring into me with an intensity that makes it hard to look away. Still he wears that strange, knowing smile.

"I would cut your throat," I tell him, spinning out again.

"That's all? Seems too clean for you."

"You only asked how I would kill you," I tell him coldly. "Not what I would do to you before."

"Ah," he laughs, nodding. "So tell me, what would you do to me before?"

"Take you apart piece by piece," I reply, vivid images rising in my mind. The same images, the same plans, I've coveted for months. I wonder how many times I've dreamed of his death.

"A dissection, then."

I shake my head. "Dissection means you're looking for something. I'd take you apart for the sheer pleasure of causing you pain."

He studies my face. "You're sadistic."

"I'm just," I reply. "Debts must be paid, and I owe you a great debt of pain. I intend for you to feel it, every bit of it, before I let you die."

"Let me die?"

"Yes," I say. "I will hurt you so badly that death will seem a reprieve."

He cocks his head, amused. "You think of this often, don't you? Do you plan my dismemberment as you drift off to sleep? Do you think of warm blood the way other girls think of warm bodies and writhing limbs?"

I don't answer.

"You're so sure you'll kill me," he says. "I admire your certainty. It's... deliciously naïve."

"I am not naïve," I hiss, glaring at his impassive face.

"You are," he says, "Naïve, yet violent. Highborn, yet vicious as any daughter of the noraya. You're a mess of contradictions, O'otani."

"And you are nothing," I answer, looking for a knife to twist. "Nothing at all."

He sighs. "I am everything, little tiger. When will you realize that? In the new world there is me, and there is dust."

"You think yourself a god."
"No," he says. "A protector, a liberator, maybe, but never a god."

"Protector, liberator," I sneer darkly. "You are a destroyer of worlds. Who have you protected? Who have you liberated?"

"You," he says simply.

I miss a step, stunned by his reply. I try to recover but the dance has ended, the music tapering off into silence.

"You- liberate me?" I say, almost choking on the words. "Protect me? Is that- what twists of logic allow you to believe that?"

"I am your savior, whether you know it or not" he says simply. "Now keep your voice down and take my hand, before people start staring. The next dance is starting."

I hesitate. He's insane, I think, staring into his bright eyes with an emotion deeper than disgust. Almost horror. But the music is starting again and if I stand there, stiff and still, people will notice. If I recoil from him and banish myself from the room, if I scream out the obscenities burning behind my lips, people will stare. Drunk as they are, they aren't blind.

Just one night longer, I tell myself, taking his hand with a shudder. One night more of playing his games.

"How you shudder," he says, taking my other hand as we begin a slow azsurette. "As if my touch was poison to you."

"It is," I reply acidly.

He shakes his head. "I was never the poison. That was the Dimaraste, whispering lies in your ear your entire life. They're what I saved you from."

"You think you saved me- from my own family?" I repeat, almost awed by his convoluted logic.

He nods. "Without me, you would have lived forever in the shadow of Somitu's son. A weak, decadent bird. You would have been trapped by him, by your family, by every expectation a daughter of the Dimaraste must bear. But now you might live free."

"I am your prisoner," I hiss. "I am not free."

"You are my prisoner because you won't admit I'm not your enemy," he replies. "But even now, you're more free than you ever were before. Because I see you. I know you. Little tiger, I understand you. Could your cousin ever say that?"

"Do not talk of him," I say harshly. "Ever."

"They never loved you," he continues. "They loved who they wanted you to be. Civilized, decorous, pretty, and tame. Everything you're not. You would have spent your entire life trying to fulfil their expectations, and you would have failed. But now you have a chance to be yourself. I've let you out of your cage."

"You're mad," I say, shaking my head.

"We both are," he says, smiling broadly.

"I'm surprised you didn't ask me," Sholu says as he escorts me back to my chambers, the feast having finally ended as the sun began to peak out from behind the dunes. He insisted on walking me back to my sleeping chamber; he grips my arm even now, as if I need the support.

"Ask you what," I reply coldly, my voice barely a question.

"Why I didn't take you to the hanging."

I continue walking silently, but my interest is piqued. I do wonder why I wasn't there when the Kyorin breathed their last.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he presses, putting pressure on my arm to turn me to the left, down a long hallway lined with half-burned down tapers.

"No," I lie. He laughs.

"You're so transparent," he murmurs. "So easy to see through."

I blush hotly.

"I wanted to spare you pain," he says, offering a benevolent smile. "The last hanging you were at was your own. I thought it would bring back unpleasant memories."

I pause, digesting what he has said, and then laugh. He looks confused.

"What amuses you?"

"Lies," I mutter. "Lies on top of lies. Don't think I believe you for a moment, you whoreson. You would drag me to a hundred hangings if it would benefit you politically."

"What other reason can you find for your absence?" He probes.

I shrug. "Either you wanted all the glory for yourself, or you didn't trust me to keep calm. Maybe you thought I would reverse at the last and beg for their lives."

"Would you have?" He asks. "After the strength of your condemnation?"

"Yes," I answer without thinking. "I am only a monster part of the time."

He shakes his head. "I admired your conviction."

"You used me," I spit back. "Played me like an instrument. I was just too angry, too stupid, to see it."

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on," I retort. "You never would have let them go. You only gave me the choice because you knew what I would choose."

"I thought you would kill them," he says. "You're right to think I bet on it. But I wasn't entirely sure. And if you had said to let them go, I would have let them go."

"Liar."

He sighs. "Do you really think I needed them dead? Their city is mine. Their people are mine. If I banished them, what could they possibly do to hurt me? Who would rally behind them? The west is poor and tired, trying to avoid a war, and the east is too disinterested to dirty their hands. I'd like them dead, yes, because I detest loose ends, but it was by no means a necessity. Even now Airi and Kasrin breathe. They chose to live, like you said, andI let them! They were banished after the hanging." 

"Then you placate me with trifles. Little morsels of power."

"I gave you a gift," he says. "I've given you eight gifts so far."

"Eight?" I ask, intrigued despite myself.

"Your life," he says. "And the life of your little maid. Freedom from your family. Four dresses, each finer than the last. That's seven. The ability to decide the Kyorin's fate makes eight."

"My life is not a gift," I sneer. "Do you really think so? Do you really think that this half-life I live is worth the title of gift? A life without safety or security, without family, my only friend in the world a naïve thirteen-year-old girl I can barely protect? A life watching the city I love burn, worse than that, turn away from me? A life as your puppet?" I laugh, but a few tears fall from my eyes.

"It will be," he says. There's a strange look in his eyes, one too close to pity for my liking. But beneath the serene cast of his face there's a sort of fervor, a zeal I can't place. "I know I've hurt you, O'otani, believe me. I know what it's like to lose your world. But did you ever think of the better one that might be built in its place?"

"Better? I was happy!"
"You were trapped!" He says, his voice rising. By now we've reached the door of my chamber. I want to turn away, to shut him out behind wood and iron locks, but his eyes hold me in my place. "You were on board a sinking ship, chained at the ankle to a boy not worth your love! And now you're a part of the new regime. Don't you see? You'll be a part of the new world I build! A pivotal part."

"You should have let me die," I say proudly, glaring at him with the force of months of solitude, of pain, of precarious existence and roiling waves of anger. "Because I will never be part of your regime. I would rather cut my own heart out and eat of it than be a part of your world!"

"I will not let you die," he says, stepping closer to me, that strange intensity still alive in his eyes. "I will always save you, even from yourself."

"So you can use me," I return hotly. "So you can make me a prop, a tool to legitimize your rule!"
"Is that really what you think?" He asks, stepping closer still. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my neck, smell the wine he's been drinking. "That this is all for the sake of politics?" He practically spits the last word.

"What else?" I answer, pressing back against the door to get away from him, from the smell of him, the heat of his skin.

"What else," he laughs. "Are you really so blind? Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"What are you talking about?" I snap. "You're just talking madness! I don't know why I expected more, you're-"

Before I can say another word he seizes me and presses his lips to mine. It's not a kiss; I couldn't call anything so violent, so desperate, by such a soft name. It's a collision, almost bruising in its intensity.

I go still from the shock, and then I shove him away with as much force as I can muster. He staggers back, caught off guard. I step forward and land a swift blow to his cheek; a ring on my finger cuts him. Blood wells up and drips down his face slowly.

"What else," I hiss. "What is this? Are you mad? You dare? You dare touch me?!"
He just laughs softly to himself, wiping the blood from his face. Then he stares at me, meeting my astonished anger with nothing short of mirth. A smile slowly splits his face.

"Damn it if you aren't just like her," he mutters to himself. "A replica, almost."

"Who?" I spit back. "What're you talking about?"

He only shakes his head. "Sleep well, little tiger girl," he mutters as he walks away.