Sivir warns of the blazing sun, the endless sand, the spirits that are said to stalk the ruins of Shurima.
Cassiopeia smiles. She smiles and it makes Sivir's heartbeat quicken, makes a shiver run across her skin even though they stand unshaded at the edge of the city, where the market touches the desert. She hopes Cassiopeia does not notice.
"You trust in yourself too little," Cassiopeia says, voice thick and sweet like honey. As she speaks, a strong breeze wends its way through the market stalls, through the mass of humanity packed as close to the desert as life can endure. The breeze catches the light green silk of her dress and presses it against the curves of her body. She acts as though she doesn't notice – but surely she must. Stray locks of auburn hair that have escaped their bun whip about her face. Her dark green eyes stay locked with Sivir's.
Sivir's calloused fingers rub the gold-tinted steel of her blade, itself a relic of old Shurima. She's trying to focus, to think. The metal is hot to the touch, but she is a child of the desert. Heat is in her blood.
So is ambition.
But.
Cassiopeia would have her go west. The ashaeir, those born of the desert, do not travel west. To the west is naught but sand, endless sand, golden sand, heaped up into shifting dunes as tall and as treacherous as mountains. Sometimes the winds blow and the dunes groan and fall down upon themselves, recalling the fall of the ancient city of her ancestors. There are no oases to the west. The sky goddess Nuit faces only east – in the west, her tears do not fall. Those who go west do not return.
In the west, water is more precious than gold.
Sivir knows in her heart that she trusts herself exactly enough. How else has she survived for so long? Discretion is the better part of valor, they said – and she listened. She listened and walked away when her Noxian masters turned their sights to Ionia. She would fight for a cause. She would never die for one.
And so she'd expected assassins. She'd expected vengeance. She'd expected she'd be made into an example for others who thought to abandon the Noxian empire.
She'd expected she had traded one death for another.
She had not expected this.
Not a pale-skinned and dark-eyed noblewoman, scion of some important family, who holds herself with an effortless grace and calmly, confidently, bids Sivir journey west with her.
"I can pay, of course," Cassiopeia continues. Gold flashes briefly in her hand before she tucks it away again, fast, a skilled trick, a sleight of hand Sivir wouldn't expect from a woman as soft as the one before her. There's a hint of danger about Cassiopeia, a reminder she should not be underestimated. Perhaps she is not so soft.
"I value my life more than I value gold," Sivir says, and as the words spill from her lips, that is when she knows her answer will be yes. Why else would she speak of value if not to negotiate? If she did not mean to negotiate, why had she offered Cassiopeia a warning instead of her back?
Not that, she thinks, she should ever offer her back to this woman before her. If she is just half as deadly as she is achingly beautiful, it is a wonder she has even bothered to seek a guard for her journey, even one so skilled as Sivir.
Cassiopeia leans in, not enough to encroach, only enough to be felt. Her voice is steady, her tone direct. "You should know that I can pay any price you name for your services."
Sivir answers the challenge by leaning in as well. Her pride will accept no less. She looks into Cassiopeia's eyes and does not look away. "Half," she says. She knows herself and she knows her price. "And assurance that Noxus will forget me."
They are the same height, Sivir and Cassiopeia, though Sivir is bigger, more muscled. Cassiopeia is smaller, but Sivir does not mistake that for weakness. Not from this Noxian. Fluttering green silk hides her skin. Sivir imagines that Cassiopeia is all lean muscle beneath her clothes.
Cassiopeia withdraws from the space. Her eyes, glittering green like emeralds, are unreadable.
Sivir is well attuned to the rhythm of deals. Cassiopeia already knows what answer she will give, she's only creating time, creating suspense, playing mind games.
She does it masterfully. By her mere existence she creates desire.
Sivir notices herself holding her breath. She forces herself to release it, to resume her own life, to depend on no other.
She has heard tales of Shurima since she was an orphan child, ward of her clan. The city of the sun, of the gods. The city that fell to dust and sand. The city that was the home of the ashaeir before they were cursed to wander. Shurima is in your soul, the elders of the ashaeir used to say, your blood is gold. She doesn't know if she believes in ancient souls or golden blood – she is mortal and she bleeds red – but she burns to know that the tales are true.
Cassiopeia has come to her and lit a fire in her.
She must see Shurima.
The elders called it qismah. The sense of knowing what will come because it must be so. A willing inevitability.
Fate.
Destiny.
"Thirty," Cassiopeia finally says, tone measured. "The other twenty will be High Command's price."
It is Sivir's turn now, and her response calls for the speed of confidence. "Shurima is rich beyond dreams," she says. She both hopes and believes it is so.
"So is Noxus," Cassiopeia replies. Is the scorn in her voice truth or another game or both? Impossible to know. In any case, irrelevant.
"Forty-five," Sivir says. If Shurima is truly as rich as the tales then fifty, forty, thirty - even just ten would be more gold than she can spend in a lifetime. But Sivir is ashaeir, a warrior, a survivor, dark of skin and strong of arm. It is her nature to want and to fight. She will hold her ground.
"Thirty-five," answers Cassiopeia. "And I will see to whatever… provisions are required for our way."
"Forty," Sivirs says, "Or you find someone else to die for you."
Cassiopeia's lips press into a tight line and there's something off about her, something that Sivir can't place. It's unnerving. "Done," Cassiopeia says. "Forty. And my family will take care of your problem."
Sivir nods and offers Cassiopeia her hand.
Instead of taking her hand, Cassiopeia clasps Sivir's forearm in the custom of the ashaeir. Her eyes catch Sivir's and they linger. Of Sivir's arm – for a long time she does not let go.
Sivir feels adrenaline spike in her. Negotiating her price had held other thoughts at bay, but only momentarily. The world slows and sharpens now. She can hear the beat of her heart in her ears. She will not pull back first. She tells herself it is because of her pride.
It's intoxicating, how skillfully Cassiopeia plays her.
At last, Cassiopeia lets go.
Freed, Sivir shivers at the absence of touch.
If Cassiopeia notices, so be it. Let her take it as a compliment.
"You know this desert far better than I," Cassiopeia is saying. "Tell me what we will need and I will arrange for it."
Sivir nods.
There's something in her hand. Cassiopeia has slipped her something - so easily Sivir did not notice. Another sleight of hand.
It's a bracelet, gold, finely worked in a Northern style from beyond the mountains that separate the desert from the rest of the world. The craftsmanship is remarkable. Serpents slither lifelike, round and round, emeralds for eyes, chasing their tales. The bracelet is heavy and, from its color, Sivir judges it is nearly pure.
Sivir looks up from the splendid gift and Cassiopeia smiles.
Sivir smiles back.
They are partners now, on this journey to Shurima.
Qismah.