The Scholomance (71 page)

She looked away,
blushing and scowling and unable to answer.

“Oh, the
temptation to misuse this power is dreadful.”

“It doesn’t
matter,” she said furiously. “I know what you’re going to tell me.”

“Do you now?” The
lights of his eyes dimmed and fanned out as his smile faded to one that was
almost gentle. “There are only two ways to play the game, child: To win, or to
lose. You can’t win if you fuck Kazuul and you can’t win if you don’t. Those
being your only options, you’ll lose more comfortably if you submit to him.”

“I don’t submit
to anyone.”

“I never said
‘Embrace him and rejoice,’ dearest.” He went back to polishing the skull.

“So you think
I’m being stupid again,” Mara said, watching his hands at work.

“You have a
certain tendency. Look, my darling heart, you admit you want the brute. You
admit it gains you nothing to deny him. If you thought about it, you might even
admit it is somewhat unwise to continue to bait him in this manner. No, you’ll
never find your unfortunate Connie by thrashing in his bed, but neither will
you lose her there, so take what you want from him. I hardly think he’ll
protest.”

“It’s a
distraction.”

“I beg your
pardon?”

“Kazuul. He’s
only trying to keep me in bed so I don’t find Connie and leave. He still wants
something from me.”

Horuseps glanced
around. “Dearest, it would astonish me to learn that Kazuul ever thought of
your poor, lost lamb at all, save as a rival to your affection. In fact, I
would venture to suggest that your pursuit of this misplaced human is proving a
singular distraction to him. That’s just the way his kind thinks,” he said with
a heartfelt and cynical sigh. “If fucking you is all
he
desires, then
obviously, fucking him must be all that
you
desire. I’m sure it shocks
him every time you roll over and go to sleep.” He smiled at her, genially
enough. “Now tell me you’re not doing that solely to spite him.”

Mara did not
reply.

“I thought so. He’s
never really had to woo a woman before, you know,” he remarked, running his
fingers along the topmost curve of what appeared to be a rhinoceros horn
mounted on his wall. They came away dusty, apparently, and Horuseps frowned as
if deeply concerned. “I can’t begin to imagine how he must be going about it.”

“He took me for
a sunset stroll in the garden.”

He looked at her
again, far more sincerely surprised. “I confess I wouldn’t have thought it of
him,” he said, and cocked his head. “How did it go?”

“It was fucking
freezing. I thought my toes were going to fall off.”

“Ah.” Horuseps
came over to where she sat and knelt down. He lifted one of her feet gingerly
(amusement, curiosity, and a curiously gentle desire blew through his touch),
inspected it, and began to rub away the lingering burn left by the ice. “Beyond
that?”

“He offered to
teach me more magic.”

“If only you
would…?”

“I’m sure that
part was coming.”

“Are you?” he
asked, and picked up her other foot. “Kazuul believes in the overwhelming show
of force, not devious finesse. You give him too much credit, I think.”

“I don’t think I
give him enough.”

“Also true, from
a certain point of view. But let me put to you a simple question.” Horuseps
looked up at her, not smiling, his hands cool around her heel. “Would you be
with him now if it weren’t for your Connie?”

Mara fought down
the first word to leap to her mouth without exploring it and said instead,
crossly, “If it weren’t for Connie, I wouldn’t be here with any of you.”

Horuseps waited,
gently massaging her instep.

“Maybe,” she
admitted.

“Even if he had
nothing to offer you at all?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”
Mara scowled and pulled her foot back. “He says he’d never use that
Dominion-thing on me, but I don’t know if I believe him. He’s done
something
.”

“Has he?”

“I…I think about
him.”

“Hardly the
Killing Curse, my dear.”

“I don’t think
about anyone!” Mara insisted as Horuseps stood up to loom over her. “I don’t
think about my mother. I didn’t think about my father, before or after he died.
I don’t even think about Connie unless I have a reason to. So why do I think
about him? He’s done something to me.”

“Oh hush, my
darling one, hush.” He bent to lay his hands upon her shoulders, and for a
moment, she was afraid he’d kiss her. It took a lot of effort not to cringe,
but he only said, “You would never be here speaking to me if you really didn’t
know what you were going to do, now would you?”

The question,
gently-spoken as it was, caught her entirely by surprise. No. No, of course she
wouldn’t. Mara dropped her eyes, confused, and he caught her chin and brought
them back up.

“You only want
me to tell you to go to him so you can use me to talk yourself out of it,” he
said. “I’m sure I could convince you in the end—I’m very good at that—but I
won’t. You are what you are, Bitter Waters. You take what you want, and for
you, asking for reasons would be like asking permission.”

She frowned.

“I’m glad you
appreciate the likelihood of that,” he agreed and, smiling, released her. “So
ask not, dear heart. Morality is mortality. Take what you want.”

And then he
beckoned beyond her to the first uncertain student to open his doors, inviting
him in, preparing his next lesson, dismissing her. Mara retreated to the first
ring of risers, but didn’t sit. She watched Horuseps bring the student down
onto the dais with him, unabashedly flirting as he listened to whatever
difficulty was being described. He’d chosen his next Proteus, it seemed, a
handsome and not-too promising old man with a young face who believed he could
use his Allure against a demon (he’d heard the rumor that Horuseps was male,
but he’d also heard that he was in the habit of letting his favorite students
borrow books, and for the chance to read
The Fallen Son
and
Voices of
the Flame
outside the Scrivener’s keeping, he was not opposed to buggery). Horuseps
had no conscience when it came to grooming his next bedmate. Pleasure was a
rarity in the Scholomance and it was worth pursuing.

And perhaps it
was at that.

Mara left the
two of them talking, tapping lightly at the demon’s mind for goodbye and receiving
a wordless farewell like a caress in return. She climbed the winding stair to
the top of the lyceum, and before she reached the last of them, her body was
already alive, as if it were a sentient thing separate from herself that knew
what waited for her at the end. The lamps in the hall that led to his door were
still glowing, but as abstract carvings became an orgy, they began to flicker
and fade, giving cold stone the illusion of movement, and her anticipation
grew.

It didn’t have
to mean anything. It could be sex for the sake of sex, it could be hers just
because she wanted it. He could be a man like any other man she’d ever had, and
when it was done, she could sleep beside him again and know that nothing had
really changed. She was in control. This was her decision.

She heard his
voice before she reached the curtains at the foot of the stair, just Kazuul’s
at first, rumbling too low to determine speech. So she stopped, and her
immediate impulse was to retreat before she was noticed and thought to be
eavesdropping on him in whatever private conversation he was having. Then she
decided that anything he felt he had to say in private was probably a good
thing for her to know, and she moved forward again. And then she heard the
mocha-rich and melodious tones that could only belong to Letha, and for the
second time, Mara halted. This hesitation didn’t last long. She came the last
three steps to the curtains and through them without attempting to hide
herself.

He was sitting
on the arm of his throne in obvious good humor, his cup in one hand and the
other drumming lightly on the tabletop. He paid no attention to the demoness
who straddled him, her slender arms around his neck, her hips moving in
graceful circles against him. Letha moaned, long fingers caressing the shell of
his pointed ear while her other hand dragged slow across his chest, her palm
turned inward so that her short quills gouged him, drawing delicate beads of
blood for her to lap at with kittenish pleasure.

Mara felt her
eyes narrow. Her gaze dropped to Kazuul’s hip where, beneath the mellow curve
of Letha’s enwrapping thigh, the many layers of his heavy loin-skirt seemed
intact. She had begun to feel something, but wasn’t sure yet exactly what it
was.

“Never did thee
offer to let me sleep in thy chambers,” Letha said with sulky sensuality.

“Thou dost not
sleep.”

“Be that the
only reason?”

“Nay, but ‘tis a
pressing one.” He sipped at his wine.

“Can she give
thee more than I?” Letha murmured, cupping her breast winsomely as she combed
at Kazuul’s hair. “Truly?”

“Aye.”

“Beyond that. Oh
my lord, say it not so that I have been so utterly replaced!”

“Thou art.” There
was a smile in his voice, even if Mara couldn’t see his mouth through Letha’s
head. “Utterly.”

“I am stabbed. I
am slain. That mine ancient place could be usurped by such a child!”

“Ancient indeed,
first-born. I have had millennia to learn thy simple tricks.” He set his cup
aside and put his arm around her, stroking down the long quills of her back
before gripping her buttocks, stilling her playful writhing to bring her right
against him. “Thou hast never come to me save that thou hast some demand to
make.”

“Demand? Request!
The humblest request of thy most faithful and devoted servant!” Letha pouted,
running her fingertips across his lips. “Surely more than could be said of thy
clay-born plaything. Tis she who maketh demands of thee!”

“Never,” he said
placidly, moving her against him. “Never once.”

“With words,
nay. With the mark of thy lenience upon her, what need hath she of words? Nay,
she wieldeth thee as a babe’s rattle! She raileth at thee at her will and thou
art made her fool!”

“Mind thy
tongue.”

Letha obeyed at
once, but chose an interesting interpretation, snaking out a startling length
of flexible black to lick at him, twining down his body in serpentine passes
until she knelt on the floor, kissing at and stroking her cheek upon the bulge
at his groin. “Do not disgrace me so, I beg thee,” she moaned. “Thou wouldest
place mine hand beneath her foot, oh cruel master! I, who have loved thee
throughout the ages!”

“At thy
convenience.”

“At my
pleasure.” Letha’s hand caressed the buckle of his belt, then slipped beneath
the many layers of his skirts. Her arm began to work. “At thine.”

He rumbled
contentedly, smiling even as he said, “Out with thee.”

“Hast thou not
vigor enough for two, my lord?” she asked, pouting. Her hand kept moving. He
wasn’t slapping it away, either. “Must I smell thee daily on her skin and know
only hunger?”

“Slake it with
another.”

“And with whom
shalt thy hunger be relieved?” Letha countered. “For ‘tis not slaked in thy
white-eyed creature. Come,” she purred. He sipped his wine and watched her as
she kissed a slow trail down his chest. “Thy pretty bird shall not return to
roost for hours yet. Let me tend thee. Therein lieth mine only love. Let me
honor thee as thy precious toy doth not and desireth not to do. Should not my
love, my service, have some value greater than her cold cunt?”

“Nay.”

“Oh tyrannous
lord!” Letha cried, turning her face away as though she’d been slapped. And
that was when she saw Mara, and her expression melted at once from tearful
entreaty to very mild consternation.

Kazuul looked
sharply around in the next instant, warned either by her stillness or by some
psychic flare which eluded Mara’s senses. Then he seized the demoness at his
feet and flung her away so that he could leap up unimpeded.

She decided she
knew what she was feeling after all. She decided it was anger.

“Don’t stop on
my account,” she said. “I was just leaving.”

Even sprawled
across the floor, Letha’s voluptuous body gleamed with seductive promise. She
brushed her hand across her cheek, smoothing away some unseen bruise, and
watched without distress as Kazuul stepped over her. He moved toward Mara, and
she threw out a mental punch which may not have delivered any damage to his
fortified mind, but which did stop him.

“You can have
her,” Mara said, not as calmly as she would have liked. “And she can have you.”

She left them,
left Letha’s wary murmurs and the answering snarl with its brutal punctuating
slap, but when she reached the theater at the top of the stairs, he was there,
reaching out to take her arm.

Rage took her at
once, and this mindslap did land and even drove him back, if only half a step. “Don’t
you touch me!” she shouted. “Don’t you ever touch me again!”

“Mara—”

“Oh, I’m your
possession, am I? I’m your property! You can throw me down in the dining hall
in front of everyone and
step
on me! You can ram a spike into Horuseps
and make me give you promises while everyone
laughs
at me! You can mutilate
any man who’s ever looked at me, you can even get rid of
Devlin
, and
then you can take yourself off to fuck Letha!”

He drew back,
then actually started to smile. His hated smile, his most triumphant smile. “Nay,”
he said, not quite laughing. “Lay aside thy woman’s jealousy—”

“Jealousy? I’m
not jealous, you son of a bitch, I’m
pissed off
! I don’t care if you
fuck her and every other person in this school, but how dare you,
how dare
you,
cut me away from everyone else in this mountain while you dip your
dick with anyone you please! No!” she shouted, slapping at him with hand and
head together (and this time, she even saw him wince). “I’ve come back to you
and come back to you for Connie’s sake, but I won’t be your dog even for her!”