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Stahma walked home with her hands together, hidden in the voluminous sleeves of her dress so none could see how her fingers clenched into points of pink rage. She’d spoken out of turn—once—and despite the fact that she’d been right, Datak had seen fit to excuse her. Apologizing for his wife being overtired, saying she had better go home and rest before she said anything more—controversial. Stahma had taken the escape hatch, but she still chafed at her flight. The negotiations for Defiance’s shipping contract would stretch on for hours more; Datak could’ve used her insight, but he’d sent her away in his fit of pride. Foolish man. Always having to be handled, like Alak as a crying infant. It was a petty vengeance she’d planned, but enough to salve her petty heart. She would go to the baths, alone, think of Kenya a great deal, and use many, many ‘assistants’. By the time Datak returned, she really would be too tired for his nonsense. When she went to the baths, though, she was not greeted by the taboo privacy she had expected. Indeed, she couldn’t believe what she saw. But no matter how she gasped, how many times she blinked, it wouldn’t go away. It was as real as she, as real as shame, as real as honor. And no matter what her shock or sickness, she couldn’t look away. “Alak,” she whispered under her breath. “What have you done?” Stahma still thought of Alak as her little angel, no matter how he had grown. What Datak saw as insolence, Stahma tolerated merely as a child’s shortsightedness. But now, seeing him doing this—she couldn’t even recognize him. Especially with his face buried in the dark curls of Christie McCawley’s groin, she herself spread-eagled in a bath. The water draped over her nude body, half of it emerging like a chain of islands, the rest submerged.

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