Page 28 of Silver & Gold

Working against the strap across his forehead, Seth rolled his head to one side then the other. His head spun, blurring the figures, but the warrior woman was unmistakable. There was another woman, dazzling with gold, and a man in black robes.

The man said in the trade tongue, “You’re in—”

“The fucking dungeon! Where the fuck is Raider?”

So much for staying calm.

“You’re in no position to ask questions, Curator.”

Seth strained against his bonds. Leather, he thought they were. Maybe he could break them. He bowed up off the table, yanking to one side then the other.

“The man you know as Raider …”

Somehow, that cultured female voice, speaking now in the trade tongue, froze Seth as the man’s voice had not.

The woman stepped toward him. The arcane light flashed against her golden headdress. Fanning high, it was shaped like the rays of the sun. Fine gold chains looped downward from its prongs, and a fringe of them hung at her forehead, obscuring her dark eyebrows. Her rich blue gown was heavy with golden embroidery.

Seth didn’t need to be told who she was. Empress Zarina. Ruler of the Golden Empire. Daughter of the now-dead Emperor Hassan. The man who had been Raider’s lover. The man whom Raider had killed.

Gold rings glinted on the empress’s fingers as they reached toward Seth’s face. Polished nails pressed into Seth’s cheeks.

“The man you know as Raider,” she repeated, “and whom I know as Shashem. What is he … to you?”

Shashem. Was that Raider’s real name? S, Kahzir’s book had said. S stood for … Shashem?

“Please don’t hurt him. Please let me see him.”

As those words escaped Seth’s lips, he heard how they echoed the words he’d heard so often from Raider. Those words had always made his heart ache, but he felt them on a different level now. Bound to this table, he could do nothing. He couldn’t help Raider. He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t fight. They could do anything to him like this.

The empress’s fingers drummed against Seth’s cheek. “Nasrin thinks you are lovers. She says you were intimate when she saw you on Atri’s steps. But there are many kinds of lovers. Sometimes, it doesn’t mean much.”

“Please—”

“Perhaps if you answer my questions, Seth of the Arcanum, you will get to ask one of your own.” The empress released his face. “Fadesh?”

The man stepped into Seth’s line of sight. His black robes, trimmed with gold, identified him as one of the Hand, the empress’s contingent of arcanists. Seth had seen a few of them, years ago, when he had visited Kastari with Marcus and the scholar from the Arcanum.

This man looked about fifty. He had a long dark beard threaded with gray, and his dark eyes held a cool intelligence that sparked Seth’s memory of sitting across a desk from Catalus—Kahzir—as he assigned Seth to the hunt for Julian. The look was common among arcanists. Seth had never thought anything of it. But then, Seth had also never thought anything of the scar marking Kahzir’s hand—had Raider done that?—nor of his reputation as a skilled surgeon.

But Kahzir, with whom Seth had spoken many times over many years, had bound Raider to a table like this one. Kahzir had cut him on a table like this one.

The black-robed arcanist drew Kahzir’s book from among the folds of his black robes.

“This book,” he said, flashing the golden symbols of the cover at Seth. That was all he ever got. The cover. Why had Raider not wanted him to read it? “How did it come to be in your possession?”

“Is Raider alive?” Seth whispered, nearly choking on the question.

“Yes,” answered a strong female voice. Not the empress. The warrior woman. She then said defensively, “What? He couldn’t focus. What use for him to think his lover is dead?”

The arcanist said, “We could simply compel him.”

“This is more useful to me,” the empress cut in. “Fadesh, Nasrin, stop arguing. Fadesh, continue.”

The arcanist’s cold eyes glared down at Seth. “Answer, Curator. Why was this book in your possession?”

Seth spoke of his assignment, how he had pursued Julian from Masir across the Kesh to Aqarat. He told them what had transpired there in Prince Rahim’s palace. He told them of the sand serpent and the escape. What use to conceal it? What use for them to even ask him? Rahim must have told the empress everything already.

Then she stepped in, waving the arcanist away into the shadows. She asked about how Seth had kept on Julian’s trail, and he told her of the arcane scope he had found in a bazaar in Demir.