Office of the Protector
Sevan, Nalaya
The Ghanti were coming to Nalaya.
Words like white-hot razors had already flown freely from the woman who now stalked purposefully down the hall wreathed in midnight, as well as from that man of the deserts, Qasim bin Abd al Maajid. She had little tolerance for him, but even as an og'elend he was still more rational than that creature of power who had sat frustratingly immune and stone-faced against every raised protest. It made her feel like a child screaming at her mother, and that was not a feeling that she took to graciously. So if there was to be no polite verbal redress, they would settle this in the ancient and accustomed ways. Civility was a thin veneer among their kind. A weak veil that hid the reality of natures.
Like a hunting wolf, she moved soundlessly into the darkness. Her nostrils flared slightly as she took in the smell of the room with a whisper of breath. There lingered a faint hint of vanilla and vervain—her prey. Iron muscles coiled underneath skin bronzed by seemingly endless summer skies. Her fair hair drifted into her face, those ferocious blood-red eyes narrowing as she readied herself. She could see the silhouette, waiting for her movements. Her prey had to know she was here, every bit a master of the environment that surrounded them. Undeterred, she tensed with her long and slender blade in hand. Then she sprang.
Her prey whipped around, silver flashing in the darkness. She felt the sting of a blade across her cheek so lightly it only broke the barest surface of the skin. She struggled fiercely with her prey, backing the woman up against the wall, but paying for every inch with blows that spawned new bruises. She would have to hide those later to maintain her mythos. In the meantime, she pinned her victim to the wall—a creature no longer struggling even though she held her knife to its throat.
Glittering green-grey eyes looked at her, and she felt the prick of a knife at the lower junction of her ribs. It was perfectly poised to thrust upwards and plunge through the diaphragm into the heart. A blow as fatal as having one's throat cut and equally as quick. A draw...how unfortunate. Now there was little chance she would get her way.
She should have expected nothing less from the Tigress. Her thin, cruel lips curved up into a smile. "I have an appointment," Lledrith A'Daragon dal Drisinil said, relaxing the knife that was at her quarry's throat. They were still equally the predator. The Quarval-sharess could respect that and honored the unspoken threat. After all, the Protector would not have pulled that blow any more than she herself would have were their fight to go to its full extent.
"Normal people knock," Khavar T'avish said in a neutral, untroubled tone. The moonlight pouring through the slats of venetian blinds painted her coldly angelic face in stripes of white and black. It illuminated those impossibly distant eyes and turned them as silver as a coin. Off to the side came a loud yawn. Qiuse the actual tiger was a heavy sleeper, but the little scuffle had drawn his attention. He was still too young to do more than pounce on Lledrith to weight her down and bite with his sharp teeth, much short the rending power of a fully grown feline. Besides, Lledrith was his second favorite person and he would never go so far as to hurt the Mak'ur warlord.
"Fascinating," Lledrith said dryly. She stepped back into the moonlight, bruises already forming on her tattooed flesh. The stylized lines of a wolf's face was layered over her own, and the lines of its body trailed down across hers accordingly. Her nails had all been trimmed to points, which had left scratches across the inside and outside of Khavar's wrists. She was barely dressed, a broad wrap of cloth across her hips that matched another cloth that wrapped around and covered her breasts, leaving her midriff and limbs mostly bare as if displaying the tattoos. Her long, loose golden hair only added to the wild affect, flashing aside to reveal ears pierced many times over. She smelled like bitter-sweet wood smoke and blood even clean and scrubbed as she was. They seemed to linger permanently after sacrifices and religious rites like an unsettlingly intoxicating perfume. "I shall make a note of that, for next time."
Khavar lifted her left wrist and examined a drop of dark blood welling in one of the deep scratches from Lledrith's claws. The Protector looked the part of opposite, in neat business attire with fitted slacks and a blazer tapered at the waist over a soft grey blouse open a few buttons to reveal hint of cleavage now that she was, or at least had been, working alone. Her heels had left her off-balance in her fight, which was why she hadn't been more aggressive, but she was familiar enough with the uneven footing to survive.
Fortunately the Dread Wolf actually had excellent hygiene. It meant risk of infection was fairly low, not that the Protector wasn't going to put antibiotics on it. She kept some in her desk for when Qiuse was in a teething mood. She lowered her knife after Lledrith stepped back and moved around it, pulling open a drawer and fishing out a tube of triple antibiotic in the darkness with a practiced hand. "What can I do for you, now that you have made your way here?"
Lledrith smiled broadly, revealing canines that had been filed and then capped to points. She tapped the tip of her tongue against one. The smile did not, however, reach her eyes. That and the display of teeth meant a great deal. "We have no need of the Ghanti and their nobles. Let them insinuate themselves into the beds of the Edomi. The influence of weak, blue blood should not be tolerated in Sevan," she said.
Khavar applied her antibiotic cream in silence before opening another drawer. She lifted out a decanter of brandy and a glass. "I would offer you some, but I know you hardly drink," she said by way of explanation, pouring herself some of the amber liquid in the half-moonlit room. The crystal decanter came to rest on the surface of the table. "We cannot just shut out the world, Lledrith. Full of apostates or not, full of nobles or not." There was a rumbling purr and a feline that weighed about forty pounds tried to make a figure-eight circuit of Khavar's legs. The young tiger ended up rebuffed, though his mistress softened the sting by bending down and scratching behind his ears until he melted into a happy puddle on the carpet. The transported tiger had flourished since his arrival from Hostillia. "But allow me to make a concession."
"Please," Lledrith said. She'd taken up a lounging position in the chair across the desk from Khavar, a sort of boneless position born of never using chairs. She was a specimen of iron muscle left flexed and unfolded in equal portion, lines of musculature blending into natural curves so smoothly and clearly she might have been the product of sculpture.
"I will allow one of the Yath to supervise the visit, to act as his guide. If they are successful in their endeavor and no harm comes to our guests, I will reconsider my current ban on the Yath holding any position of federal authority. Does that sound interesting enough to you?"
"Very much so," Lledrith said, her genuine smile carefully covering her teeth so there was no unspoken threat or display of displeasure to it. "One of the yathrin will attend to this task. You have my word that no harm will come to your Ghanti guests."
Khavar just smiled. The word of the Quarval-sharess was, to the Mak'ur, as good as the word of God. When she commanded a city should fall, it crumbled under the assault of the faithful. When she bid them go forth and turn back invading forces, they did so in a slaughter. This would be no different—not a hair of harm would fall on this guest, not with one of the Yathrin watching him. Not from the faithful and not from apostates, if only because the representative of the Dread Wolf would probably kill any would-be assailants.
"Did you have anyone in particular in mind?" Khavar asked thoughtfully.
"Quenthel T'sarran dal Sabrae. She is a dutiful servant of the faithful and I can think of few other spirits so potent," Lledrith said, combing her clawed fingers through her thick hair. She liked the girl. Quenthel was so young and yet already on the verge of becoming yathallar. Some simply had more strength of spirit than others and her connection to the primal was as evident in ceremonies as burning magnesium in the night. Equally importantly, her manners were impeccable and her mastery of Latin flawless. She would hate to be pulled out of her territory and her duties in the Holy City, but she was young and curious enough to adapt quickly to her new role and perhaps even enjoy it.
Khavar had seen the name once or twice in Unkndirnei reports. Nothing unpleasant. The girl had just been hunting down faer practitioners, which was really best for everyone save those practitioners. It was not in the Protector's nature to approve of human trafficking. Even the evil had their lines in the sand. "I will take your recommendation into consideration. I have no objections to this particular adept of yours being the Ghantish guide. Perhaps they will enjoy the unfiltered Nalayan experience. They certainly will learn to appreciate it if they want to do business here."
The Dread Wolf's smile was thin and amused. "I have my doubts."
Some Days Later
Mijazgayin Airport
Sevan, Nalaya
Quenthel T'sarran dal Sabrae watched the private gate for diplomats with a predator's attention to detail. Somewhere in her family tree was a pair of sapphires that had left their influence in her eyes. Her lids were permanently and heavily hooded which, when combined with her long and thick eyelashes, gave her a deceptive air of sleepiness. She was tall and lithe, skin bronzed from the sun and her blonde hair almost bleached white by the same, hiding the streaks of premature silver. She was in her mid twenties and the picture of athletic health. The stylized face of a lioness had been tattooed over her own finely boned, angular one and the lines of its body continued down her whole body. Life even in the Holy City had left her with a body of smooth, toned muscle that melted into narrow curves. Mak'ur tended to be long-limbed and lean, and Quenthel was no exception. Obsidian glimmered at her throat, a polished piece that was the focus of the leather choker. Right now she was dressed in a red sarong wrapped over her hips and a matching camisole covering her torso, revealing arms and shoulders marked in the twisting black patterns. Similar lines could be seen running down her thigh on one side and both of her lower legs to her bare feet. Her fingernails had been cut and filed to points that matched her filed and capped canines.
The yathrin knew she was the perfect image of what people expected Nalaya to be. A picture of savagery and aloofness whose traditions including dining on the flesh of victims in war. They did not see the ancient traditions, the honor codes, the manners, the arts, the faith. It was a complicated tapestry, one that had kept much of the outside world to the outside and left the wild heart of Nalaya rarely pierced and never illuminated to display. It was a place of secrets and seemed intent to stay that way. Let people believe in the masks, Quenthel had some time ago decided. If they were fooled by them, they did not deserve to see the mysteries beyond. That was just after her initiation, when she had been offered her own glimpse through one of the many veils of the world.
She had fought in the Norveni Crusade, doing her own tiny part to beat back that invading army. It had left her hardened to the thought of battle and violence. But there was still a part of her that was young and curious. That was the part that had forgiven her brothers and sisters for sending her here to the capital from the center of the world, not that they had had a choice either. There was no disobedience to even the most frivolous whim of the Dread Wolf. Who knew better than the Quarval-sharess?
Her task was not an overly complicated one, at least in word. Protect and guide the Ghanti delegation while they did what they were here to do. The spirit of the matter she expected would be more complicated. The simpler a task sounded, the more difficult the execution.
She waited patiently for the Ghanti as she had been doing all morning, with all the ease of a hunter. Boredom did not seem to be a problem for Quenthel. She was used to keeping her mind still and peaceful. Every moment not spent in ferocious movement and the thrill of life and death perfectly balanced could be devoted to contemplating the nature around her. Here, she watched people. Most found the intensity of her sapphire gaze unnerving and hurried about their business. That suited her just fine. She lounged like the lioness she shared a spirit with might have on a rock under the sun. With her stood two guards in their sable dress uniforms, military decorations on display as well as a small paper sign designed to guide their guests towards them.
One of the guards leaned over, flashing her a smile. Nazaryan was a good man in her estimation. He had been nothing but the soul of manners even though he likely found her presence at least off-putting. "I see them, Siruhi."
"Very good, Sergeant," she said with an approving nod. She fanned her hand out briefly to examine her nails, delicate tendons flexing over deceptively slender bone that belied its strength. "We will wait for them to find us."
Quenthel did not know what to expect, which was rare for her. This would be peering into a world she did not understand nor pretend to have knowledge of. She was almost Yathallar, after all, almost ready to throw off the trappings of the world and vanish into the wilderness. This was the task keeping her from that level of union with the primal. But she could accept that. The world of people was quite interesting still, particularly with such opportunities to meet people from half a world away. She knew that the Ghanti would look like people—not Nalayan people, but the other kinds—and speak in strange tongues. She was told at least one would know Latin and that she was to act as their translator as they moved through Sevan and perhaps beyond. So far, the people of Ghant had not endeared themselves to the sometimes prickly Nalayans. This was a goodwill trip, from what she understood. People didn't necessarily have expectations for something in writing, but the Protector at least wanted them to leave a better impression on Nalaya than had existed previously.
Perhaps they would even carry something of her homeland with them when they left. She hoped it was not scars. Too many people had been sent limping away with those as their bloody trophy honoring another defeat. She turned the thought of all this over in her head, uncertain of what to make of it.
The Ghanti had come to Nalaya.
