“Nonsense,” Shamavah said. “Mistress Leesha has a body to rival even the Damajah. Let Shar’Dama Ka see well what he cannot have until the contract is signed.” She held up a wrap of cloth so diaphanous and scant Leesha wondered if she should bother to dress at all.
“Enough,” she snapped, pulling the dress Elona had chosen over her head and throwing it to the floor. She took a cloth and began to wipe away the paints and powders Shamavah had applied to her face while Elona looked over her shoulder and bickered over the colors.
“Wonda, go and fetch my blue dress,” Leesha said. Her tone wiped the grin off the girl’s face and sent her scurrying.
“That plain old thing?” Elona asked. “You’ll look—”
“Like myself,” Leesha cut her off. “Not some painted Angierian whore.” Both women seemed ready to protest, but she glared at them, and they thought better of it.
“At least leave your hair,” Elona said. “I worked all morning on it, and it won’t kill you to look nice.”
Leesha turned, admiring the job her mother had done with her rich black hair, sending it in curling cascades down her back with a rebellious cut across her forehead. She smiled.
Wonda returned with Leesha’s blue dress, but Leesha looked at it and tsked. “On second thought, fetch my festival dress.” She threw her mother a wink. “No reason I can’t look nice.”
Leesha paced back and forth in her chambers, waiting for Jardir to arrive. She had sent the other women away; their talk only made her nerves tighten further.
There was a knock at her door, and Leesha made a quick check of the mirror, sucking in her stomach and giving her breasts a last lift before opening the door.
But it was not Jardir waiting on the other side, only Abban, his eyes down as he held a tiny bottle and a tinier glass.
“A gift for courage,” he said holding the items out to her.
“What is it?” Leesha asked, opening the bottle and sniffing. Her nose curled. “Smells like something I’d brew to disinfect a wound.”
Abban laughed. “No doubt it has been used for that purpose many times. It is called couzi, a drink my people often use to calm their nerves. Even the dal’Sharum use it, to give them heart when the sun sets.”
“They get drunk before going off to fight?” Leesha asked, incredulous.
Abban shrugged. “There is a…clarity in the haze of couzi, mistress. One cup, and you will be warmed and calm. Two, and you will have a Sharum’s courage. Three, and you’ll feel you can dance on the edge of Nie’s abyss without falling in.”
Leesha raised an eyebrow at him, but the corner of her mouth curved in a smile. “Perhaps one,” she said, filling the tiny cup. “I wouldn’t mind a little warmth right now.” She put it to her lips and tossed it back, coughing at the burn.
Abban bowed. “Every cup is easier than the last, mistress.” He left, and Leesha poured herself a second cup. Indeed, it went down more smoothly.
The third tasted just like cinnamon.
Abban was right about the couzi. Leesha could feel it wrapped around her like her warded cloak, warming and protecting her at the same time. The warring voices in her mind had fallen silent, and in that quiet was a clarity she had never known.
The room felt hot, even in her low-necked festival dress. She fanned her breasts, and noted with amusement the furtive glances Jardir cast while trying to feign disinterest.
The Evejah lay open between them as they lounged on silken pillows, but Jardir had not read a passage to her in some time. They spoke of other things; her improving language skills, his life in the Kaji’sharaj and her apprenticeship to Bruna, how his mother had been outcast for having too many daughters.
“My mother wasn’t pleased to only have a daughter, either,” Leesha said.
“A daughter like you is worth a dozen sons,” Jardir said. “But what of your brothers? That they are with Everam now does not diminish her gift of them.”
Leesha sighed. “My mother lied about that, Ahmann. I am her only child, and I have no magic dice by which to promise you sons.” As she spoke, she felt a weight lift from her. As with her clothes, let him know the real her.
Jardir surprised her by shrugging. “It will be as Everam wills. Even if you have three girls first, I will cherish them and hold faith that sons will follow.”
“I’m not a virgin, either,” Leesha blurted, and held her breath.
Jardir looked at her for a long time, and Leesha wondered if she had said too much. What business was it of his anyway, if she was or wasn’t?
But in his eyes it was, and her mother’s lie weighed on her as if it were her own, for she confirmed it by her silence.
Jardir looked from side to side as if to verify they were alone, and then leaned in close, his lips practically touching hers. “I am not, either,” he whispered, and she laughed. He joined her, and it felt honest and true.
“Marry me,” he begged.
Leesha snorted. “What need do you have of another wife, when you already have…”
“Fourteen,” Jardir supplied, waving a hand as if it were nothing. “Kaji had a thousand.”
“Does anyone even remember the name of his fifteenth?” Leesha asked.
“Shannah vah Krevakh,” Jardir said without hesitation. “It is said her father stole shadows to make her hair, and from her womb came the first Watchers, invisible in the night, yet ever vigilant at their father’s side.”
Leesha’s eyes narrowed. “You’re making that up.”
“Will you kiss me, if I am not?” Jardir asked.
Leesha pretended to consider. “Only if I may slap you, if you are.”
Jardir smiled, pointing to the Evejah. “Every wife Kaji took is listed here, their names honored forever. Some of the entries are quite extensive.”
“All thousand are listed?” Leesha asked doubtfully.
Jardir winked at her. “The entries don’t begin to shorten until well after a hundred.”
Leesha smirked and picked up the book. “Page two hundred thirty-seven,” Jardir said, “eighth line.” Leesha flipped through the pages until she found the correct one.
“What does it say?” Jardir asked.
Leesha still had difficulty understanding much of the text, but Abban had taught her to sound out the words. “Shannah vah Krevakh,” she said. She read the entire passage to him, trying hard to mimic the musical accent of the Krasian tongue.
Jardir smiled. “It gives my heart great joy to hear you speak my language. I am penning my life, as well. The Ahmanjah, written in my own blood as Kaji wrote the Evejah. If you fear to be forgotten, say you will be mine, and I will pen an entire Dune to you.”
“I still don’t know that I wish to be,” Leesha said honestly. Jardir’s smile began to fade, but she leaned in, giving him a smile of her own. “But you have earned your kiss.” Their mouths met, and a thrill ran through her greater than any magic.
“What if your mother catches us?” Jardir asked, pulling back when she made no effort to break their embrace.
Leesha took his face in her hands, pulling him back to her.
“I barred the door,” she said, opening her mouth to his.
Leesha was an Herb Gatherer. A student of old world science, and a conductor of her own experiments. She loved nothing more than to learn a new thing, and whether it was herbs or warding or foreign tongues, there was no skill she could not master and bring new innovation to.