by Reid, Stacy
“Will I be stripped of my lands, my home, and my inheritance?” He braced against the answer even though he knew what must be done.
“No,” Ajali said.
Shock and relief pierced him in equal measure. That had been one of the fears of his father, losing the Westk’arr massive holdings and wealth. “Darkans have been sworn enemies of Nuria for years. By the laws of our lands, I should be exiled.”
“I know your loyalty is to this realm and to me. And I have seen you wield your power of fire. You are not a pure blooded dark one.”
Gavyn was a half-blood, a half breed. His mother…his mother, had been a Darkan. And there was nothing the woman he loved more than life itself despised more than a Darkan. That he was of that cursed race was a secret he had hoarded deep inside and had never told another soul. Whenever the cursed marks appeared on his skin: swirling marks of an inked demon, fighting to break through his skin, he would disappear for months, roaming the covens of witches to give him the necessary potions to dampen the rage he could feel writhing through his veins.
“How long have you known you were a half-blood?” Ajali asked.
“Since my one-hundredth year. Something awakened in me, vile and ruthless, a power which I denied once I learned its origin.”
“Will you tell my sister?”
“I’d plan to tell her tonight…even knowing she might revile me.”
“She would hate that part of you, yes,” Ajali murmured.
Gavyn closed his eyes. There had been a chance to tell her. A moment of indecision had led to years of regret, Gavyn realized. He should have told her that night in the cave years ago, the first time he had ever kissed her. She’d unburdened her fears of the unstable power inside her to him and had peered up at him with such trust and aching hunger. And instead of sharing his darkest secret, he had kissed her endlessly. Knowing that if she knew she touched a half-blooded Darkan, she would have pierced his heart with her sword before incinerating him with her flames.
Would she genuinely hate him if she knew? It was a question that still plagued him in the dark of the night. Yet he did not truly believe it of the generous and loyal woman he knew. Xian was accepting of Tehdra whom she met only a few weeks past. Surely, she would be just as accepting of Gavyn’s half-blood with the dark ones. But would she want to marry him, be the mother of a hybrid Darkan? Tonight before the trumpet of war, before falling into bed with her, he had planned to reveal everything to her and asked for her hand in marriage. Loss clutched at his throat and gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. “Will you tell her?”
Ajali glanced at him. “No.”
They stood in a silence fraught with an unknown peril, staring into the roaring flames. “My mother…my mother was a Darkan,” he said roughly.
“A closely guarded secret by the house of Westk’arr. No one in our kingdom seems to know,” Ajali said.
“That is because my father slaughtered everyone in our household who knew.”
Ajali stilled for several moments, his thoughts shifting through the bloody history of the house of Westk’arr. “Including your mother.”
Gavyn tipped his head to the sky. “Including her.” Shrugging away the harsh memories, he said, “You are afraid I have mated your sister.”
“Have you?”
"That feral and primal nature of the dark ones had never manifested in me, not even when I kissed her. I seemed to have escaped that madness of my tainted legacy." The sorrow inside him deepened, burning the back of his throat until the emotions reached inside and stirred the slumbering beast. “You plan to…to use her to cement an alliance.” Say no, he silently demanded.
“It must be done.”
“You know she is precious to me,” he murmured, fighting the need to bellow his rage. Tonight he had touched a piece of her he had longed for, there had been a promise of much more, and now it was slipping away like ashes in the wind.
“I’ve suspected for a long time my sister was important to you, and now I know why you have not asked me for her hand in marriage.”
“I had planned to ask her tonight.”
Ajali stiffened. “You will let her go when the time comes.”
It was the king who commanded and not his friend.
“I never had her,” Gavyn said flatly, breathing through the rage and loss tightening his chest in a vise grip. “Shall we join everyone?”
He felt Ajali’s stare on his as he walked away, but Gavyn relentlessly suppressed all the chaotic emotions stirring in his heart.
Let her go. Do nothing foolish. Let her go.
* * *
Xian walked with her head lifted high through the long hallway of the castle, her hands clasped at her front toward the war council. A place she had never been summoned before. Only two hours had passed since the soundwaves declaring war had blasted through the air. The ball had ended, their guests had returned home, and warriors had been dispersed by the hundreds to the streets of Adara. They would move with stealth and great vigilance. If spies lingered, they are to be unearthed, dissidents arrested, and the citizens reassured.
Ajali and his most loyal high dukes, Gavyn included, had excused themselves and had been secreted in the war council since. Each duke ruled over a province with millions of citizens and an army. They would soon return to their respective provinces to mobilize the warriors and prepare the people of their territory for war: food storage, families covering in one household for safety, and relentless training of their warrior force.
Ajali requesting her presence had surprised Xian. He had always sought to keep her in the dark about the seedier and more dangerous aspect of ruling, despite her many protests over the years. She had removed the flimsy scraps of jewelry she had worn as her gown and had dressed more practically in a dark green kaftan and had bounded her waist-length locks into a coronet around her head.
Upon approaching the war council, two of the four warriors guarding the entrance turned around and open the door. She swept inside, her gaze scanning the small group of people standing in the center of the room, staring at a wall which highlighted an etched map of the seven kingdoms of Amagarie.
Battle strategies were already being discussed.
Ajali glanced up, and she wanted to weep at the cold bleakness in his eyes. He had worked so tirelessly to keep his people safe and their kingdom away from war.
“You called for me, Kalija,” she murmured.
Everyone shifted their attention to her, except for Gavyn. His shoulders were tense, and something unknown but hungry and dark seemed to swirl around him. Something was frightening and primal in his countenance, yet also eloquent and just beautiful. A trick of light perhaps, for he faced her, and the energy around him had vanished. One moment she was starkly terrified, and the next moment her whole body flushed with heat.
A man dressed in flowing green robes and a jewel-stubbed half-crown stepped forward and bowed deeply before her. His frame was one of lithe power and coiled redness, and the deep blue of his eyes was watchful, cynical even. Though his lips curved, the smile did not reach his eyes, and her senses warned her to tread carefully with this man.
“Princess Xian,” he murmured, lifting from his bow to study her with a bold appraisal. “I am Prince Baku, of the high court of Zandreal, of the Kingdom of Avindar." As if to prove his words, lightning crackled and flared in the depth of his eyes. “We did not get the chance to meet earlier, and I regret our first introduction must be under such circumstances.”
Confusion rushed through her. Why would a prince from Avindar—the realm of lightning, be present in Nuria’s war chamber? She glanced at Uriah, her twin brother, who had always been able to communicate a thousand words with a mere glance. Except now, his face was smooth and expressionless.
A prickle of unease darted through her. “Prince Baku, an honor, I am sure.”
“Well,” said Lord Bastien, one of her brother’s most trusted high chancellors and advisor. "The princess is here, and it is best we get on with it."<
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“Ajali?” she asked, ignoring everyone else and peering up at him. “How may I serve our kingdom?”
It was foolish to anticipate anything but a request of duty. Suddenly she was glad for all the training she had been doing in the dark pits of the wastelands. Many nights she had stumbled into bed, with bruises and such aching pain she could barely move the next day. Now that she would be required to aid her realm, she was more ready than she had ever been.
Ajali stepped closer to her, but when he spoke his voice rang through the chamber. “War has been declared by the Emperor of Mevia. No other kingdom has responded to the call, their battle horns remain silent, but a march is inevitable. Our kingdom must prepare for when the kingdoms rise against this anarchist.”
Murmurs of assent swept through the chamber.
Uriah stepped forward to stand beside Ajali. “Alliances must be formed if we are to combat the terrible might of Mevia,” Uriah said staring at her, an unfathomable emotion in his light green eyes. “We lost deeply in the last great war. Our Queen and King…my mother and father. We lost thousands of sons and daughters on the battlefield, and our nation still heals from the wounds that were dealt then. Our people must not know the heartache of the last Great Wars and must be protected at all cost.”
She glanced at the prince who stood a few feet back, staring at her with disturbing intensity. As if he lusted for her. Her gut tightened, but she showed no outward reaction. Alliances between two kingdoms were only formed through marriages of royal blood. Uriah was already married to Lady Shae, a high duchess from Aria—the Kingdom of Earth and Sands, cementing an alliance between Nuria and Aria.
Knowledge settled in her bones, and a lump formed in her throat. Xian had the suffocating sense that the life she had just been promised in the ballroom by the man she loved was about to end before it had even begun. Her gaze collided with Gavyn’s, and now she understood the energy which had throbbed around him, it had been one of loss, or perhaps anger.
“An alliance with whom, Uriah?”
Chapter 4
A deep silence lingered within the war chamber for several moments, then Prince Baku moved closer to her. “An Alliance with my kingdom, Avindar, Princess.”
There was the merest hint of amusement in his tone, and resentment flowered through her even as her heart trembled. “It is well known throughout the seven realms the King of Avindar and the Emperor of Mevia formed an alliance. It is unprecedented for a kingdom to have more than one alliance. Loyalties would forever be divided until a side is chosen.”
“These are unprecedented times,” High Chancellor Bastien said. “And it is not impossible. Caelum—the Kingdom of Water—had two alliances once, before they dissolved those treaties and buried their kingdom underneath the oceans of Amagarie.”
“There is division within Avindar. And my father will support me in my choice of bride,” the prince said sauntering forward a few more paces until the edges of his swirling robe caressed over her feet. “With an alliance with both Avindar and Nuria, my father would unlikely respond to the call of war. His loyalty would be split, and he would be unable to make a move.”
“Your father would remain a neutral party?” she asked, her heart pounding so fast she felt faint.
“He might,” the prince said, his eyes kissing over her skin with unchecked greed. “But whatever aid he renders to Mevia—grains, weapons, warriors, he would have to do the same for his other kingdom of Alliance. We would also have one of the much coveted Phoenyx in our realm. There is a rumor the Emperor tried to capture your brother for the force inside of him. My father would be well pleased Avindar has a body which houses the eternal fire, a Tenzu.”
She glanced away and met the regard of her brother. Ajali’s eyes were grave but utterly resolute. “You are the only princess of Nuria. We must strengthen our kingdom by forming a powerful alliance with Avindar. We need a foothold within Avindar, something to loosen the Empire’s power there or even threaten it.”
“And I’m to be that sacrifice,” she said softly.
Xian could not imagine marrying or giving her body to another but Gavyn. Xian knew he felt a similar regard, simply for the fact he had never married or taken another lover since their first kiss. She pressed trembling fingers to her lips, the memory of his taste and scent crowding her senses.
“You will travel to Avindar tomorrow to meet the king and—”
Shock punched through her. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Ajali rested his hands on her shoulders. "There must be no delays. Before he sounded the trumpet of war, the emperor was several pieces ahead on the board of war. His spies are already infiltrating the other realms. We know they are here in Nuria. Promises and oaths are being brokered, assassins dispatch. We cannot and must not delay in positioning ourselves. The binding ceremony will be completed in Avindar.”
Unable to help herself she glanced beyond her brother’s shoulder toward Gavyn. He stared at them, his expression a mask of chilling indifference. The prince followed her gaze, and he narrowed his eyes in speculation.
She looked away from Gavyn, unable to explain the pain ripping through her heart. Of course, he would not protest his king's order or fight to keep her with him. Never had he made any declarations in the years they had been friends. And with so many lives reliant on another alliance for their kingdom, he would not object.
“I will do my duty to Nuria,” she said, lifting her chin, despising that tear burned behind her eyes “Whatever it takes to save our people.” And she wanted to cry that her heart did not echo with deep resolve.
Approval flared in both her brothers’ eyes and her heart broke even more. They had both been fortunate to choose the person they loved to walk by their side. Yet they would think nothing of denying her the same security. She was a pawn, nothing more, and it was time to move her across the war board. This was not how she had envisioned serving her people, but on the battlefield, defending their homes and lives.
The prince stepped by her side and grasped her hands. His touch felt, unfamiliar, cold, and frightening. Unable to stop the impulse she pulled her hands from his and strolled over to the large stone table. There she poured wine into a chalice conscious of her brother’s loyal friends staring at her. She took several swallows of the potent wine, hoping to mask the pain and doubt clawing inside of her.
“We will leave for Avindar tonight to my palace,” the prince said smoothly coming into her line of vision. “The passageway through the wastelands will soon become impassable as the silent assassins who live in those barren caves will haunt the place, working for the highest bidder.”
And it was impossible to move from Nuria to Avindar without traversing a section of Taryllion, vast and imposing wasteland which separate the borders of the seven kingdoms.
"My sister's Queen's blades will be with her at all times," Ajali commanded. “And Nurian warriors will accompany your convoys to Avindar. In addition to the princess’s personal blades, at least fifty warriors will stay with my sister for her protection.”
“Of course,” the prince said conciliatory. “I will also add a team of my own guards. The princess is precious to all of us.”
“If harm befalls her, I will hold you personally accountable.” Ajali glanced at her, a worried frown chasing his features.
What did he see? That her heart was breaking into several pieces?
Prince Baku slammed a fist across his chest and bowed. “I will protect her with my life.”
“Good. Make ready to depart within the hour—”
“I will leave in the morning.” Her softly spoken words fell into the chamber like a heavy boulder.
Ajali sent her a sharp, probing glance but did not refute her.
"Your Highness," Bastien said stepping forward, a most displeased frown on his face. “It is not wise to delay your journey for even a minute. Spies might have—”
“This morning I woke with dreams in my heart that I had all intention of realizing.” She made h
er way toward the door. “Those dreams were buried under the call of war. I know my duty. I shall do it. But I will not leave my palace tonight. By noon tomorrow, I shall be ready to depart.” At the door, she spun around. "Prince Baku…you must know I will not come to our marriage pure as you would assume."
High Chancellor Bastien looked ready to collapse.
Ajali had frozen. “Xian—” he began warningly.
“And you must know that my heart belongs to another, and I cannot promise to love you if that is what you seek. I will respect our vows once they are made, and perhaps in time love will come. I will require at least six months of marriage before any consummation of our alliance for I wish to know the manner of man you are.” She feared they could hear the pounding of her heart. “Do you wish our joining still?”
“Princess! This is most unusual,” High Chancellor Bastien blustered. “And outrageous!”
Uriah uttered a choking sound, which he turned into a very unconvincing cough.
Prince Baku’s dark brown eyes had gone flat and assessing. For a moment he did not seem to be at all offended; rather, he seemed to be amused. “Of course. I have a harem; I assume a princess of Nuria has the same privileges as a prince and you’ve had consorts in the past. I do not require a pure bride, only that she is from the house of Phoenyx. And I believe a month of knowing each other should be sufficient for consummation.”
“Four months,” she said, returning his unflinching stare.
The prince smiled tightly. “Perhaps I’ll agree to three months, and no more.”
She canted her head left, then without saying another word, departed the chamber.
“Xian.”