The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) Read Free Page B

rest his shoulder against hers for a moment, a Syprian gesture that could be a greeting or an offer and request for reassurance. “Well?” he asked. “How did it go?”
    “That depends on which side you’re on.”
    He lifted a brow. “That badly.”
    “Yes.” She hesitated. “I need to tell you…”
    “Ixion’s found himself a lawgiver who thinks he can use Ixion against the Gardier,” Ilias interrupted grimly.
    “That’s… exactly it.”
    Ilias just looked tired and resigned. “We’ve been expecting it. He manipulates people. Even without curses, he’s good at it.”
    Tremaine took a deep breath, searching for reassurance to offer and not finding any. Giliead, the god of Cineth’s Chosen Vessel and the only one who had been capable of communicating with the single Gardier crystal they had captured, had already flatly refused to help unless Ixion was executed. What this was going to do to the fledgling Rienish-Syprian alliance Tremaine didn’t want to consider. Given the way Syprians hated and feared magic and sorcerers, it had been a miracle the alliance had even progressed this far.
    Two women passing down the corridor, dressed in the height of Capidaran fashion, were staring at them with sharp critical expressions. Capidarans could be astonishingly provincial at times, even here in their largest city, and many seemed to regard the Syprians dubiously. Perhaps because they were too like the native inhabitants of this area, forced out to make way for the Capidarans. Tremaine stared back, widening her eyes slightly, and was rewarded when both women looked hurriedly away. She turned to Ilias to find him watching her quizzically. He asked, “How do you do that?”
    “What? Oh.” She shook her head slightly. Things you learn in a mental asylum. “It’s a talent.”
    Gerard stopped in front of them, preoccupied and harried. “Hello, Ilias. Tremaine, we’re starting again.”
    “Oh, goody,” she said mock-brightly, and got to her feet.
     
     
     
    I lias watched them go. The hall was cold, but he didn’t want to go back to their room in the building across the street. It was cold too.
    He wasn’t used to having nothing to do. Even when he and Giliead were home at Andrien, there was always something that needed to be done. A fishing boat with a leaky hull, a fence to repair. There seemed to be so much that needed doing here, but none of it could be done by him. He felt useless.
    Then he saw Pasima coming up the corridor and felt worse. She was a tall woman from the coastal Syprian strain, wearing a dark-colored stole pinned at her shoulder, mostly concealing the colors of her Syprian clothes. Her dark hair was braided back from her face, and while her features were a little less finely cut than those of her beautiful sister Visolela, men still turned to follow her progress as she walked past.
    Ilias knew she would sail by him without a glance, so it took him a moment to realize those were her boots with the red-stamped leather planted on the floor in front of him. He looked up at her, startled and wary. Her face was set in hard lines and white from long days of tension. She sat down on the bench, almost close enough to touch. Startled, Ilias shifted away, just to make it clear he didn’t find her presence any favor. “Someone might see you,” he told her, making no effort to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.
    She watched him critically, long enough to make the back of his neck prickle, though he just looked back at her and refused to break the silence. Then she said, conversationally, “You really think this foreign woman wants you?”
    He could have done without that. He said dryly, “Curse marks don’t make any difference between the legs.” The silver brand on his cheek, given to any Syprian who survived a wizard’s curse, made him a pariah in the Syrnai. His status was a little better since Tremaine had married him, but not in the eyes of people like Pasima.
    She shook her head, as if he