dropped his eyes. “No, my lady.”
“I am only Isis here.” She searched his face. “You never suspected? You were not playing a game to deceive me?”
“How could I?” he whispered.
“Because I think you know that most Opiri never consider the possibility of being deceived by a human.” She paused, as if carefully choosing her words. “Even if you had attacked me when I found you, there would be no punishment. We understand a former serf’s justifiable fear and anger.”
“We? Did you feel the same when you owned serfs?”
“I never kept any human in bondage, nor did I take part in the War.”
“But you hunted humans for blood.”
“I never killed,” she said. “But I saw much suffering. Six years ago I was among those who discovered this Citadel after it had fallen into chaos and savagery. I began to realize what life on our world could be.”
“And you changed it?”
“I can take little responsibility for what Tanis has become. All our citizens have shared in the work. We established new laws, expelled the worst of the Bloodlords and freed the serfs, giving them the choice of whether to remain under a new regime based on equality, or go their own way in freedom.”
“How many stayed?”
“Most chose to take a chance with us.”
“And the Opiri? Did they agree to abide by your new laws and give up their Households?”
“Those who did not were quickly removed from the city.”
“But you’ve still got former serfs living with their former masters.”
“We have many immigrants from other Citadels and Enclaves, people who have no experience of Tanis as it was.” Her eyes were bright and earnest. “There is safety here. Safety we must maintain.” She stroked his arm. “I see more than one man in you, Daniel. You are an enigma. I think you pretend to be a fearful and defiant serf now, but that is not what you were when we first met. Whatever the purpose of this act, it is unnecessary...unless, of course, you mean us ill. And I do not believe you do.”
If she had been any other woman, human or Opiri, Daniel would have interpreted her lingering touches as an invitation. But he already knew better, even if his body continued to react as if she might invite him to her bed as a willing partner.
Manipulation. Deception. She was as controlling as any Bloodmistress with dozens of serfs at her command.
Once again he shut down his body’s response. “You will still hold me here,” he said, “whether you believe it or not.”
“I would understand your true nature, Daniel, and your reason for coming to Tanis.”
“I’ve given my reason.”
“Yet now you doubt that what you sought is real, simply because you were brought in for questioning.” She lifted his chin with her soft hand. “I do not expect you to understand this all at once. But if your hope brought you here, it will help you to see with new eyes, and leave behind your old habits of servitude. If you choose to stay.”
“When you haven’t even decided whether or not to make me leave?”
Isis sighed and shook her head. “You are in need of fresh clothing, a good meal and rest. We shall discuss these matters in greater detail at another time.” She let her hand drift down his arm. “Let me show you to your quarters here at the Center. When you have been cleared, you will be given a tour of the city and time enough to see what we have to offer. Then you shall be granted a chance to apply for citizenship...if that is what you desire.”
He dropped the mask completely and straightened, glad to shed the false weight of fear and submission. “And what is the price?” he asked.
“As you must know,” she said, “every citizen is expected to do his or her part, human or Opiri.”
“Humans have to give blood,” he said.
“Willingly,” she said. “But you must have known that.” She tapped on the door, and the guards opened it.
“I will take Daniel myself,” she said.
The guards’ faces tightened with worry, but they made no protest. Isis, Daniel thought, had them in the palm of her hand.
He followed her along the corridor to a door at the rear of the building. A second, smaller building stood on the other side of a narrow garden. Summer flowers nodded gently in the breeze left by Isis’s passing as if they, too, offered obeisance.
“These are the visitor’s quarters,” she said. “They are used only until the prospective citizen has been properly introduced to the city and is assigned a permanent residence. I hope you will find your room comfortable.”
The room she indicated was near the back of the building. She opened the locked door with a key hidden somewhere among her robes and invited him inside.
It was more or less what Daniel had expected: a bed, a small table, two chairs, a small chest with a lamp. An inner door led to a bathroom. There were no windows.
A thread of real panic worked its way through Daniel’s gut. He hated small, windowless rooms. He hated being a prisoner. But he’d known it might come to this, and so he stepped inside.
“I will see that food and drink are brought immediately,” Isis said. “Clothes will come after I report the sizes you require.” She looked him up and down with a faint smile. “I think I have already made an accurate estimate.”
An intensely physical tension rose between them as Daniel realized that she had been as fully aware of his body as he had been of hers.
Her smile faltered, and he had the sense that she was startled by the change in the air, as if she had suddenly lost the use of a tool she had wielded with ease all her life.
What would she do, Daniel thought, if he let her see just how little under her influence he really was?
She must have seen something in his eyes that alarmed her, for she looked away and backed toward the door. “I will speak to you again soon,” she said. “Rest well, Daniel.”
In a moment she was gone, and the door lock engaged. Daniel sat down on the bed and stripped off his boots, dirty shirt and pants, trying to distract his thoughts from Isis and the sense of walls closing in around him. He stepped into the shower and imagined that the water was washing away the memories, but they were never far from his thoughts. Part of him still lived in that tiny, dirty cell Lord Palemon had kept him in when Daniel wasn’t being used or punished for defiance. Even his good years with Ares and his time in Avalon and Delos hadn’t erased that cell from his mind.
When he walked out of the bathroom, Isis was standing by the door. A tray of food and a pitcher of water lay on the table, but Daniel barely noticed them. Isis wet her lips and stared at him, and his body reacted exactly as it had before. This time there was no concealing it.
“I am flattered,” Isis said huskily.
