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heat and power, and thought perhaps I understood another of Lilia’s frequent
cryptic comments—this one about what she called feminine magic. “The woman who
can wield her own womanhood can bring any man to his knees,” she told me. Over
and over, she told me this.
    “Hello, slave girl,” he said.
    “Hello, soldier boy.” I lowered my head shyly but could not
dislodge my eyes from his. “Join me in the water?”
    “And lose my head for it?”
    “Everyone’s asleep. They won’t know.”
    He looked around. There was only darkness, stone walls, water
trickling from the fountain in the center of the pool. Arching doorways led off
in several directions, all of them dark. It was dark in the courtyard, too,
where we were. The crescent moon was above us, waning, hanging low in the
sky.
    Giving a nod, he set down the shoulder pack he’d been carrying,
stripped off his garment and revealed the white fabric that was his
undergarment. It twisted around his lean hips, down between his legs and up
again, the untucked end hanging like a short curtain over his man parts. And
then he was sliding into the pool with me, his breath rushing out of him as he
closed his eyes. “Oh, you are so right. This is good.”
    “Yes, I know. My Lilia made it part of my duties to clean the
pool, so if I’m caught, I have my scrub brush nearby.”
    “You are not only beautiful but smart, little Amarrah.”
    I blushed with pleasure.
    “What will be my explanation if I
am caught, clever one?” he asked.
    I thought for a minute as he sloshed through the water, closer
to me. When I looked up again he was standing very near. And something inside my
belly went all molten. “You won’t need an excuse. You can run like a gazelle,
leap the wall and be gone before anyone gets a close look at you.”
    “And leave you to be whipped for cavorting with an unknown male
in the harem, where men are forbidden to set foot?”
    “I would say you were an intruder. That I was about to scream
for help.”
    “That might work.”
    “If not, whipping isn’t so bad. I can take it.” I said it
proudly, but my words made his expression darken.
    “How often have you been whipped, Amarrah?”
    “Not once—since I came to the harem. Before that?” I lowered my
head. “No, I do not want to think about before.”
    “It was bad, in the king’s palace?”
    I nodded. “Never the king, though. The other servants.”
    “Wrinkled old hags, jealous of you being the most beautiful
female in all of Babylon.”
    My eyebrows rose high. “I…you…think I’m…”
    “More than the harem girls, more than anyone. So beautiful that
I have not been able to stop thinking of you. And I would have come to you
anyway, even if I did not have…dire news to share.”
    I blinked, torn between wanting to know what this dire news was
and wanting to pursue the topic of his apparent fascination with me.
    Responsibility first. Always. Duty to those I served was my
only reason for being. This I had been taught from the very cradle. And now that
I was slave girl to the slave girls, I was willing—even eager—to serve them.
    “What is this dire news, Harmon?”
    He lowered his head. “There’s talk in the ranks. It’s been
suggested that your beloved Lilia has been unfaithful to the king—with one of
his soldiers, no less.”
    My hand flew to my lips and my eyes widened, for I knew it to
be absolutely true. I had to warn her! I turned toward the pool’s edge, but
Harmon stopped me with a hand on my arm.
    “There’s more,” he said.
    I turned to face him, tears already burning in my eyes. “Hurry,
then. I must warn Lilia before it’s too late.”
    “It might already be, Amarrah. I came as soon as I could,
but—”
    “Just tell me. What else is there to know?”
    He took a deep breath, nodded resignedly. “It’s been whispered
that they are witches—Lilia and her two sisters, as well. The high priest has
been told. This harem is a very dangerous place for you now,