Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Thirty: A Foolish Dream

The moment Zahara had laid eyes on Lucidra Naeem, she knew her husband had bedded this woman, many times, and not once out of necessities.

The woman must have been no more than fifty, judging from her history with Muradi, but those eyes spoke of someone who had lived three times over and was well on her way to the forth. The evidence could be seen from numerous lines that marred face and arms; some left behind by the hands of time, others shaped by devices of wind and sun, the rest seemed to have been carved by humans, or something equally monstrous that ate humans. Lucidra Naeem was a walking testament to the existence of crime and damages that couldn't be undone. She wasn't a beautiful woman, had likely never been before those scars were inflicted, but you could spot her in a crowd of thousands from a hundred paces and never forget that face for life. It made perfect sense that Muradi had bedded this woman for a time; she would have caught his attention, his respect, his eyes.

That's why you thought you could negotiate with her.

But there were limits to how far a woman would endure mistreatment, and from one woman to another, she could tell that limit had been crossed with Lucidra. And she was here, for all the impossibilities of it, to convince this woman to forget and forgive when she herself had not been able to for twenty years. Not to that extent anyway.

She had decided to come on a small boat with only Qasim as an escort, dressed to be identified as a woman from a distance and in the dark. That they approached without appearing a threat was important. A boat full of bandits inspired cautions and would likely be eliminated on sight, one carrying an unarmed woman and an escort might offer a different outcome.

'There are advantages to being considered weak as a woman,' Muradi had said. 'Men who underestimate one tend to not live very long, go very far, or die very well.'

There must have been enough men who wouldn't live long or die well on that ship, because the crew had brought her and Qasim on board without much too many questions. Zahara had revealed nothing about who she was, only that she carried an important message for the captain. No further explanations had been needed. Men were not raised to be suspicious of women. Most men anyway.

But no explanation had been needed with Lucidra. The moment Zahara had removed the hood of her cloak and allowed her hair and eyes to be seen in the light, the older woman knew precisely who she was and why she was here. She could see it in those sharp eyes, in the tightening of that jawline that turned the long scar on her cheek almost white. It occurred to her only then, seeing those wounds and a lifetime of hardships they represented, that she might have been too late. Azram, after all, needed only a body, not his father back alive.

Still, she had to try. "You know who I am," she said. "And why I'm here."

Lucidra turned to the crew and jerked her chin toward the door of the cabin. "Leave us," she said. "Watch the man she brought. Kill him if he makes a move."

The crew left as instructed. The cabin grew quiet, save for the sound of small waves lapping against the hull and the occasional creak of the wood as it rocked the ship from side to side. Zahara took the seat with an unease she hadn't felt for a long time. She had never been on boats or ships before, and the motion it made kept stirring up the content of her stomach. She had also forgotten, until she'd boarded the small boat to get here tonight, that she didn't know how to swim.

Not the best condition to negotiate with anyone over a stake this large, nor a task any careful person would try to accomplish under the circumstances, but she was a trueblood Shakshi, born and raised as one in the Vilarhiti, and out there in the desert, you wait for the best condition, you die waiting, or someone you love would.