“I know you,” he said.
“Not anymore.”
“Always.” He stretched out beside her. The tent was just long enough for him.
She pushed herself as far away as she could. That was not very far at all.
She should not have stripped naked. It was a warm night, to be sure, but any person with wits would have known enough to keep her clothes on in an enemy camp.
She had not been using her wits. Euan had scattered them beyond recall.
She pressed up against the tent wall. No more than she could blast him would he rape or harm her—that was not why she had to get away. The danger was in herself.
She had made her choice. She had gone with Kerrec and borne his child and given herself completely to the riders and the Mountain. And yet, one clear sight of this avowed enemy of all she was and she was lost all over again.
If Briana had not been so badly hurt, if Kerrec had not had to do that thing which Valeria had encouraged even while her gut twisted with the pain of it, maybe she would have had some resistance. Even now, knowing Euan most likely had had something to do with it, she had all she could do to keep her hands off him.
“Sometimes,” he said in that warm deep purr of a voice, “two people are made for each other. They may come from opposite ends of the earth. Their nations may be sworn to destroy one another. They may be avowed enemies from the very beginning. And it doesn’t matter. They belong together.”
“I belong with Kerrec,” Valeria said through clenched teeth.
“I don’t see him here,” Euan observed. “Somehow I can’t imagine he sent you, either, seeing that you’re here to seduce me.”
“I am not—”
He cut her off with a flick of the hand. “Don’t lie to me, rider. Don’t lie to yourself, either. The only reason one of your kind would be allowed out of Aurelia is if no one else would do for the task—and while I have the utmost respect for your talents, if all they needed was a rider, they would have sent one with more training and less—shall we say controversy?”
Valeria had had that exact thought. Hearing him say it made it real.
He leaned back on his elbow, lounging with an attitude she well remembered. “Now I grant you, you probably had no inkling until you saw me on the bearskin. You always were more interested in your horses and your magic than in human intrigue. That brown ferret who brought you suffers from no such deficiency. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
That, too, Valeria had been thinking. “What is he doing?” she demanded.
“Using us,” he answered.
“Aren’t you using him? You’re not the hopeless innocent I am. You can’t tell me you didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Briana.”
He showed no sign of surprise. That disappointed her a little. She had hoped he might not know—but that had been foolish.
Of course he knew. Another man might let himself be a puppet king, but not Euan Rohe.
“I wanted her killed,” he said. “I was overruled. This will serve us better, I was told. I don’t suppose you’re here to soften me up for her? I’d make a fine prince consort, don’t you think?”
Valeria’s blow laid him out flat. She stood with stinging hand, even more startled than he was.
He lay where he had fallen. His eyes were full of wolf-laughter.
She locked her hands behind her to keep from hitting him again. “That would have been too simple,” she said. “They changed the law. A rider still can’t take back any rank or office he left behind—but his offspring can.”
“Ah,” said Euan as understanding dawned. “Ah, so. You wouldn’t be the royal broodmare.”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “I’m not noble born.”
“Yes, that would matter to them, wouldn’t it?” He sat up, keeping a wary eye on Valeria, and clasped his knees. The bruise was already coming up on his cheekbone. On that milk-fair skin, it was strikingly obvious. “So they’re looking to put a horse mage on the throne. That can’t be popular.”
“Oddly enough,” she said almost dispassionately, “it does seem to be. It’s the mystery, you see. And the tragedy. The people love tragedy.”
“You don’t.”
“I am the tragedy.”
Valeria bit her tongue, too late. She should never have said that. It was that damnable sense she had always had with him, that they understood one another. Maybe they did—but that did not mean she could trust him. At all.
“So,” he said after a small but significant pause. “You chose him. So did the empire. He did the proper thing, of course. And that left you in the cold.”
“I hope I’m not as pathetic as that,” she snapped.
“Never,” he said. His tone was light, but he was not mocking her.
She chose not to notice that particular nuance. “Laugh all you like. He would have refused if I had made him. I didn’t. I told him to do it. I chose the empire, too.”
“Of course you did. Hurt like merry hell, didn’t it?”
This time when she lunged, he was ready for her. His arms were even stronger than she remembered.
She had grown up with a yard full of brothers. She did not fight fair.
Neither did he. He gripped her wrists and held her at arm’s length and let her flail herself into immobility.
She hung above the floor, breathing hard, with the sweat drying on her and nothing else between her and his bright golden stare. After a considered interval he lowered her onto her feet, but he kept his hold on her wrists.
“Let me go,” she said.
It took him a moment’s thought, but he obeyed. She stood where he had set her. “I don’t know what anyone thinks I can do. You’re not corruptible. They’re idiots if they think you are.”
“Every man has his price,” Euan said. “You are very close to being mine.”
She went still inside. “For what?”
“For anything,” he said.
“You’d stop being high king? Give up all your plots? Stop making war on us?”
“I said ‘close,’” he said.
A faint sigh escaped her. “Not close at all, then.”
He shrugged. “As these things go, you’re a serious temptation. I’d certainly listen to you where I’d throw any other ambassador out on his ear.”
“But I have nothing to say,” she said. “I’m here because of Pretorius, and because I couldn’t stand to be in Aurelia. He has all the words and gifts and negotiations. I’m one of the gifts, I suppose.”
“And your white horses.”
She shook her head. “They’re not here for you. They won’t Dance your future.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“They’re not for you,” she repeated. “Nor am I—whatever you might be thinking.”
“I am thinking nothing but that whoever tries to use you for his own purposes will live to regret it.”
“Including you.”
“Including me,” he agreed. He bowed to her as if he had been an imperial noble, brushed her forehead with a fugitive and altogether impertinent kiss and ducked through the tent’s flap into the night.
Chapter Thirty-One
Euan made it all the way to his own tent before his knees failed him. Safe inside, with the usual hangers-on either asleep or elsewhere, he let himself sag to the floor.
He lay for a long while and simply breathed. He would wager his kingdom that she did not know what she could do just by living and breathing and being Valeria.
Horse mages had power over men as well as horses—he had learned that in the School of War. What no one admitted was that these were not simply Beastmasters with a predilection for horses. They were riders and horsetamers only because their gods chose to take that form.
They could work their will on gods. They could manipulate time and fate and sway the course of nations. They were mages the way their gods were horses.
Valeria was all of that and a woman besides—a beautiful woman whose body he knew all
too well. Lying on the floor of his tent with the weight of the night pressing down on him, Euan faced the truth.
He’d been slow to take a wife not because it was too soon or he was too preoccupied with securing his place but because none of the women he had been offered was Valeria. She had gone so deep under his skin that he could not even want to be free of her.
And here she was, all noble and heartbroken. She was usually in that state, he had noticed, where Kerrec was concerned.
“I never did like that man,” he said to the roof of the tent.
“Why? Is he a bad man?”
Euan jumped half out of his skin. Conor curled in a corner, watching him with big owl-eyes.
“By the One!” Euan burst out. “Have you been here all along?”
Conor nodded, but his mind was not on the question. “I saw her,” he said. “She came and we sat on the white horses. She doesn’t think magic is bad. In her country, she says—”
“I know what she says,” Euan said, cutting him off. “That’s her country. This is ours.” He paused as the rest sank in. “You sat on the white horses?”
“The old one,” said Conor. “He’s older than anything. His fur is soft. His back is wider than I am.”
“You sat on a white god.” Euan was often amazed by this child of his, but this went beyond anything he had seen yet. He was not about to call it frightening—he would not take it that far. He would be damned if he would give this boy up to the priests, no matter how many times Conor proved that they would lust after him if they knew.
Conor came and nestled in the curve of his side, clasping warm small arms around his middle. Euan tugged at the thick red hair, so like his own, and tilted the boy’s face up. “You won’t tell anyone about this, either.”
“Just you,” Conor said. “And her. I can tell her anything. She has it, doesn’t she? She has magic.”
“You can see that?”
Conor nodded sleepily. “Our cousin is all black and empty. She’s full of light. I saw her coming from a long way away. She makes the stars shine brighter.”
That was how Euan felt, almost exactly. “You like her, then?”
Conor nodded again. “Almost as much as you.”
Aiee, Euan thought as his son dropped into sleep. He could not blame the boy’s gifts on contagion from Aurelia’s mages. He had sired Conor when he was hardly more than a boy himself, before he went off to his first full-fledged war.
The people had lost that war, too, to the marching ranks of Aurelia. Someday they would win. If the One was so disposed, Euan would bring about that victory.
Euan was high king of the people. Conor would be more than that. There would be other sons—that went without saying—but this was the firstborn, the child of his youth. In the way of the tribes, all the highest honors went to him.
Conor would be worthy of them. He would grow out of his strangeness and learn to curb his tongue.
As for Valeria…
Euan smiled in the last of the lamplight. The One had given him a gift. He would be ungrateful if he refused it.
Euan made sure Conor was safely and soundly asleep. Then he went looking for Gothard.
As far as Euan knew, the sorcerer never slept. When Euan found him, Gothard was sitting in front of his stone hut, head back, scanning the stars.
Euan did not want to know what Gothard expected to find there. “Tell me what you’ve done with our gift from Aurelia,” he said.
Gothard lowered his gaze from the sky to Euan’s face. Euan watched his mind come back from wherever it had gone. He showed no annoyance at the interruption—which proved to Euan yet again that he was either dead or resurrected. The Gothard he used to know had had a vicious and barely controlled temper.
This Gothard saved his passion for destroying the remnants of his imperial kin. He tilted his head slightly. “Why? Do you want it back?”
“Is any of them still alive or able to speak?”
“See for yourself,” Gothard said, flicking his hand toward the hut.
Euan eyed him in deep suspicion. He stared back coolly. With sudden decision, Euan peered into the hut.
A shielded lamp hung from a rafter. By its dim light Euan saw five huddled shapes lying close together.
As he looked close, nostrils flared to catch the smell of blood or death, one of them stirred and muttered. Neither the movement nor the sleep-heavy voice showed any sign of injury.
Euan turned back to Gothard. “Bring me the one most likely to make sense.”
Gothard seemed to find that amusing. “As your majesty commands,” he said.
He did not move or speak, but inside the hut, one of the sleepers rose and came stumbling out.
Euan scowled. Gothard knew how he hated sorcery. The more it served his purpose, the worse he hated it.
He shifted his scowl to the imperial princeling who stood blinking and gaping in front of him. With time and practice he had learned to tell them apart, but they did all look alike—smooth brown skin that turned greenish when the sun was off it, curling blue-black hair, delicate aquiline features.
This one was prettier than some, but he had a deformity, a withered leg that he tried unsuccessfully to hide. “The priests will want that one,” Euan said to Gothard in his own language.
“I want to be priest,” the boy said in a horrible accent and worse grammar. “I worship One.”
Euan ignored him for the moment to return to the hut. The rest of the prisoners were still asleep—drugged or ensorcelled, it little mattered which. They did not wake when he plucked away blankets and examined each one.
They were all whole, young and strong. The magic in them made his teeth ache.
The priests would want them as sacrifices, but Euan had already seen what use Gothard made of young imperial mages. The last lot had all been destroyed, all but one. This lot might not last much longer than that one had, whether Gothard won or lost his latest war against Aurelia.
The imperials had to know this. For a fact the brown man did. Which raised the question of why he had allowed this gift to be given.
There must be a sting in the tail. Something to do with magic. With imperials, that was always the way.
Had they known about Gothard?
Now there was the question.
Euan left the four young nobles to their ensorcelled sleep. The lame one was still standing in front of the hut, eyes wide and vacant. Gothard had gone back to his contemplation of the stars.
Euan shook the young nobleman out of his fog. The boy blinked and peered. “Priest?” he asked.
“The One forbid,” Euan said in Aurelian. “Tell me something.”
The boy’s lip began to curl. Then transparently he remembered where he was. “Whatever you wish, sire.”
“Why were you sent here?” Euan demanded. “The truth now—not what we’ve been told.”
“It is the truth, sire,” the boy said. “We struck a blow to the empire’s heart, or should we say its womb? We would have died gladly for the One, but they reckoned it a worse punishment to keep us alive and send us here.”
Euan shook his head. “It’s not that simple. There’s a trap in you somewhere. You would do well to find it before it springs on us all.”
The boy stiffened. “Sire, if any such thing had been done to us, we would know.”
“Would you?”
“Most likely not,” Gothard said, joining in at last. “I have examined them, cousin. So far I’ve found nothing.”
“Look deeper,” Euan said. “It may be set to spring if one of them dies.”
“What if there is no trap?”
“Then it’s something else,” Euan said. “Find it. Then get rid of it.”
“As his majesty wishes,” Gothard said.
Euan grinned, showing all his teeth. The boy flinched. Even Gothard’s eyes flickered.
That made Euan grin the wider. “His majesty does wish.”
There was a large and scowling tribesman outside Valeria’s t
ent in the morning. “The Ard Ri invites you to ride with him,” he said.
Valeria was only half awake and desperate for the privy. She scowled even more blackly than the high king’s messenger, tucked her head down and thrust past him.
His astonishment enveloped her, then dissipated as he stalked in her wake. When he could not have mistaken where she was going, he slowed somewhat but stayed close.
She hoped he enjoyed the view. Relieved at last and somewhat more awake, she turned to face him. “The Ard Ri hates to ride. Where is he going that is so far he has to subject himself to the back of a horse?”
“Dun Gralloch,” the man answered. He was Caletanni from the color of his plaid—royal clan, Euan’s clan.
“And what is in Dun Gralloch?”
“Need,” said the Caletanni.
He did not elaborate. Valeria was intrigued, as surely she was meant to be. “I’ll ride with your king,” she said. The decision might seem sudden, but it felt inevitable.
Pretorius was not to go. When he went to find his horse, a wall of tribesmen stood between. The messenger who had come to Valeria said, “You and the rest stay here. She comes with us.”
“Not alone,” Pretorius said.
“Certainly not alone,” said the messenger. “We’ll all be with her.”
“I must insist—” Pretorius began.
“Don’t,” said Valeria before the Caletanni could speak.
“Lady,” said Pretorius, “this is dangerous. If he takes you prisoner, holds you hostage—”
She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Sir,” she said, “this is what you brought me for. Will you turn coward just as the battle begins?”
“You need my protection,” Pretorius said.
“I have the stallions,” said Valeria. “Stay. Learn what you can. Find our most particular enemy and weaken him—the more the better—before I come back.”
“If you come back.”
“I will come back,” she said.
Even then Valeria thought he might try a working to force the king to change his mind, but it seemed he reconsidered. When she rode Sabata toward the king’s tent with Oda and Marina following, Pretorius stood where she had left him, watching her with flat dark eyes.
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