You think you’re clever, Viridiana Sovari?” the Godking asked. Garoth
Ursuul was younger than she had expected, maybe fifty, and still vigorous. He was thick through the arms and body, bald as an egg, and his eyes fell on her like a millstone.
“Pardon me, Your Holiness, ” she started to make it a question, then
changed her mind. “Yes. And it’s Vi.”
He beckoned her forward, and she climbed the fourteen steps to stand directly in front of his throne. He looked her up and down, not
surreptitiously as men so often did, nor hot and boldly.
Garoth Ursuul looked at her as if she were a pile of grain and he was trying to guess her weight.
“Take off your dress,” he said.
The inflection of his voice gave her nothing to work with. It might have been a comment on the weather. Did he want her to seduce him?
She didn’t care if Garoth Ursuul banged her, but she planned to be lousy if he did.
Becoming the Godking’s lover was too dangerous. She’d been warming one monster’s bed since puberty, and she didn’t fancy trading up. Still, god or king or monster, Garoth Ursuul was one you didn’t cross.
So Vi obeyed instantly. In two seconds, Master Piccun’s dress slid to the floor. Vi hadn’t worn undergarments, and she had worn perfume
between her knees. It was the most punctilious obedience.
He couldn’t fault her for it, but at the same time, she knew sudden nudity wasn’t nearly as enticing as slow disrobing or the tease of lace
undergarments. Let Ursuul think her an ineffectual tease, let him think her a slut, let him think whatever he wanted, as long as he did it
from a distance. Besides, she wouldn’t give any man the satisfaction of seeing her back down. Vi felt the stares of every courtier, adviser,
Vürdmeister, servant, and guard in the room. She didn’t
care. Her nudity was her armor. It blinded the drooling fools. They couldn’t see anything else while they saw her body.
Garoth Ursuul looked her up and down again, his eyes not shifting in the least. “You wouldn’t be any fun,” the Godking said. “You’re
already a whore.”
For some reason, from this terrible man, those words sank in with barbs. She stood naked before him, and he’d completely lost interest. It was what she’d wanted, but it still hurt.
“All women are whores,” she said. “Whether they sell their bodies or their smiles and their charm or their childbearing years and submission to a man. The world makes a woman whore, but a woman makes her terms. Your Holiness.”
He seemed amused at her sudden fire, but his amusement passed. “Did you think I wouldn’t see what you did with my guard? Did you think you could eavesdrop on me?”
“Of course I did,” Vi said, but now her flippancy was a farce. He saw me? Through the wall? She knew she had to hold on to her bravado or she might dissolve right into the floor. With the Godking, if you wanted to win, you had to play as if you despised life. But she’d heard about gamblers who’d lost.
The Godking chuckled, and his courtiers followed his lead. “Of course you did,” he said. “I like you, moulina. I won’t kill you today. Not many women would get in a pissing match with a king, much less a god.”
“I’m not like any woman you’ve ever met,” Vi said before she could stop herself.
His smile withered. “You give yourself too much credit. For that, I will break you. But not today. Your Sa’kagé is giving us trouble. Go to your little underworld friends and find out who the real Shinga is. Not a figurehead. Find out, and kill him.”
Vi felt naked for the first time. Her armor wavered.
