Desert Wind

"I oppose this arrangement," the man says stiffly.

His hair is braided and adorned with golden trinkets, the expensive cloth falling from his shoulders. She remembers him, a teen, running in simple temple dress through the citadelian dark streets.

Jul sights, her own dress beautiful, the cloth smooth and lovingly patterned, moving with her breath.

"I oppose as well."

In the end, it doesn't matter, what they wish for.

---

Their joining ceremony is nothing joyful. Their marriage bed warmed, but not with each other, and thank gods for that.

Her husband gets deeper and deeper into the council, Jul gets deeper into the councils vaults. She pretends surprise when he complains of the artefacts going missing - not that he cares about them truly, only burdened with investigation matters.

---

She disappears for days, weeks on the end, delivering long lost precious tokens to the rightful owners.

"Don't be so reckless," he warns her, as they have their customary drink together in the shade of gardens, now theirs to enjoy. "There's talk of golden haired spirit robbing the Temple," there's an unsubtle look to her hair, "I wont be able to intervene if that sprit is caught."

She laughs, because of course he'll go down with her, if she's caught, and at the awkward attempt at care. How ridiculous.

"I wouldn't worry about spirits," she shrugs. "Besides, I heard the guards are not that quick."

---

The guards are not that quick, yet she lets one catch up to her for a tease of a conversation.

"I live here, you know" she informs him playfully, when a tan man gets up to her, her bag hidden, a luxurious coat draped over her simple pants and undershirt.

"Oh," he says, and the playfulness is gone from the chase, "you're the next Magisters spouse."

He says it and averts his gaze.

"So what?" She demands, ignoring the shadow of her husbands ambitions, "That puts me above suspicion right?"

"If you see anyone suspicious, please tell me."

She would like to take him to bed, she thinks. If he agrees, maybe.

---

Then there's a foreigner with wild curls and accented tongue. He tells stories, some heroic, some scary, other rowdy and wholly inappropriate for the halls of the palace.

He becomes a celebrated guest in their house (and her husband's bed), when he comes from his travels, dusty, loose tongued and smelling of far dangerous places. Jul knows, she has to hurriedly wash off foreign scents from herself in guards home often enough. Less often then she'd prefer, still.

They share their food with him until his face fills out a little and his checks become rounder from fresh fruit, bread and rest. Some time he spends with her husband alone, more often he sneaks into the temple library in the early hours of the morning, when she herself comes back from the nights in the city. He always entertains her with the wildest stories of his travels and lovers, when she asks.

---

"You're not worried he might be after your secrets?" Not that she cares much, but it's unlike him to be so unguarded.

On the other hand, through shadows and blood and secret deals he is the Magister now. Maybe nothing can really touch him.

"Oh, your worry is so sweet," he smiles wistfully, as if they worry for each other for real. "I had him followed, of course. All he cares about is sad stories and rich lovers." With a surprise, she thinks he's jealous but not of gold and magics for the first time in his life.

---

"I met the sweetest minotaur in the mountains. He adored the starts mythos, I wanted to read on more for him. I'm not that knowledgable in the star signs."

"I hope you don't tell my husband of all the beast people waiting for you out there," she prods a little, not sure which she is jealous of more - this strangers freedom, the softness in her husbands gaze, or the ease with which this man is allowed to move around the Temple's underbelly.

"You can't share the wind," the man replies sweetly, putting the scroll back from where he took it. "As you can't the sunlight."

If Jul is taken aback, she doesn't show it. Her agreements are her own, even if this man, who's in her house only in passing, seems to see more than he should.

"I'd advice you to get familiar with the night sky," she half-jokes half-warns. "So you wouldn't get lost."

He shrugs, the earring and the beads around his neck sparkling, ignoring the threat. "There are more ways to find the path. You would know."

---

Next time her husband whisks away his long awaited guest, Jul gets a hold of his travel bag. He must have seen her, she knows, at the caves entrance two days from here. She noticed his figure from afar, the red of his beads glistening in the desert sun. So it's not with malice, that she combs through his belongings, but with self preservation (that's what she'd tell anyone. if they asked).

Jul doesn't really intend to find anything, until at the bottom, wrapped in a scarf she find an oil lamp. He's travelling, so that's not an outrageous thing to have.

Only the lamp is too finely made, and the patterns too intricate and foreign to be just any bazaar dealers ware. It's warm to the touch, despite not being lit. And when she rubs the design of caged birds, golden sparks dance at the tip of the lamp.