Luneshale Pass Cerastes

The flower. Zaahira searches her face and the subsequent silence is almost too long to bear. She reaches with affection, and a raw vulnerability to look for the thing she has had and lost, a life made beautiful with a counterpart. But she does not know about the kind of woman Eset is.

Zaahira wants love. Toula trusts implicitly. Tavina is a friend. Senmut keeps her in confidence. They see a loyal, god-fearing servant. They don’t see that she is insidious and hungers for power; that her lust for Khusobek is because she likes the idea of being ruined; that she is born of sin and will also be unmade in it; that she is the ashes of an old fire- and she wants to be.

“Don’t,” she looks down at the mazoi’s paw holding over her own, and shakes her head, “don’t make the mistake of thinking I am good.”

And when she lifts her eyes again there is only stone.