Rafi didn’t need the reminder. He’d spent half of his sleeping hours worrying about the amount of food the dukes and underlords, their retainers, and hangers-on were glutting through. Why couldn’t they all have stayed at their own estates and simply sent letters of congratulations and a nice gift? Maybe something that would fill their larders? Winter wasn’t even upon them, but Santiago would soon be relying on the salted stores the Fishermen’s Guild put up during the spring run.
But food wasn’t his only worry.
The conversation with Belem and Lord Inimigo’s imminent arrival had Rafi’s mind spinning till dawn. When Rafi finally dozed off, the Performer girl’s voice had provided the accompaniment to his nightmares.
It was that damn lament I requested. Rafi shook his head, trying to dislodge the echo of his dream. Next time, I’ll ask for dancing tunes.
The song made him think of the only time he’d seen his father, Belem, and Inimigo together in one location. Rafi had accompanied his father to witness peace brokered between the allied states Santiago, Impreza, Belem, what remained of King Wilhelm’s outlying holdings, and Inimigo’s state of Maringa.
You can never trust Inimigo, his father had cautioned. It doesn’t matter how many plans I thwart, he already has four more in play.
Rafi had ridden knee to knee with his father to the treaty table, surrounded by heavily armored men. He remembered watching Inimigo cross the field on foot—his charger had been put down the day before, after the final battle—but the man’s gold armor and red tabard were fine as any king’s, and he held his head high and proud.
I thought he was coming to agree to peace, Rafi had said, confused by the man’s pompous appearance.
As long as the throne is empty, peace with Inimigo will be uneasy. His father gave Rafi a hard look. Mark my words, son. This treaty will not last.
Why don’t you take the throne then, Father? I’ve heard the other lords say you earned it.
His father shook his head; the lightweight mail at his neck jingled as he moved. It would take a better ruler than I to hold that throne.
Fingers snapped in front of Rafi’s face, drawing him out of the memory. “Where’d you go?” Dom regarded him through narrowed eyes.
“I’m sorry. I was thinking of Father.”
“Father wouldn’t have minded the horse sweat, but he’d have sent you home too, for fear the ladies would be appalled at your stench.”
“The ladies that flirt with you won’t notice that you smell just as bad?”
Dom scoffed. “Never. They’re so overwhelmed by my good looks that the rest of their senses stop functioning completely.”
Rafi couldn’t help but laugh. “Dom you are—”
“Shh!”
“No, really, your self-confidence boggles.”
“I said, shh!” His face had gone serious—a rare look on Dom. “I hear something over there.”
“Like what?” Rafi whispered.
Dom shrugged and moved toward the noise, unhindered by any concern for his own well-being. Not that the forest was rife with predators, but after their father’s death Rafi saw danger in unexpected places.
Rafi drew his belt knife and followed his brother through the brush.
Three boys—correction, two boys and a filthy Johanna—struggled forward on the edge of collapse.
“Hey!” Dom yelled, stepping through the brush and letting it snap in Rafi’s face. “What are you all doing out here?”
“Oh, Lord Dom. I’m so glad to see you,” Johanna said, sounding breathless. “My mother didn’t return to our wagons and the boys and I have been running, but Michael got tired so I carried him, then Joshua fell so I carried him, too. Please, I need to get to the manor in time to change so that I can—”
Her mouth dropped open when Rafi stepped through the bushes.
“Our horses are just over that way,” Rafi said, ignoring the expression on her face. “We’ll be happy to give you a ride to the manor.”
“I . . . I don’t—”
“I’ll take the boys,” Dom said, digging treats out of his pockets. Johanna’s brothers didn’t seem to mind that the cookies may have been in the company of pebbles and random bits of snakeskin. “They can ride double on my horse. Rafi, you take Johanna back on Breaker so that you can both clean up before dinner.”
“That’s not necessary,” Johanna said, managing to stand up straight.
“Sure it is.” Dom knelt next to the older of the two boys. “You can’t possibly expect—you’re Joshua, right?”
The boy nodded.
“You can’t expect Joshua to walk on that foot.”
Joshua turned bright eyes on his sister, and for the first time Rafi saw Johanna off balance.
“Well . . .”
“Dom, don’t you have something in one of those pockets that could mend up that toe a bit?” Rafi walked backward, hoping that Johanna would follow. “Your brothers will be in excellent hands.”
The little one smiled around a bite of cherry tart, and Rafi felt his heart twinge.
“Go, Jo,” Michael said. “He has treats.”
Chapter 42
Johanna
Johanna didn’t like the idea of being alone with Rafi. And by Mother Lua’s light she was such a mess. Sweat made her now-torn shirt stick to her body, and she was certain her hair stuck up all over her head. Why did Rafi always catch her when she looked her worst?
Not that he cares. And, of course, I don’t either. It doesn’t matter if he thinks I’m ugly. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from fidgeting with her vest and wiping her face on her sleeve when his back was turned.
Rafi walked a few steps in front of her, too high-and-mighty to walk beside her.
“So I guess this clears your debt?” she asked as they neared the horse. “It must be nice not to have that hanging over your head.”
“No, my honor debt still holds,” he said as he swung into the saddle. “I couldn’t possibly leave three weary travelers in my woods alone. That would be wrong.”
“Wrong? How?”
“Part of being a duke requires me to take care of all my subjects. Typical courtesy doesn’t free me of my mistake.”
“I’m not one of your subjects. I just live here.” She was too blasted short to get into the saddle unaided and unwillingly accepted the hand he offered. “In my opinion, this counts.”
Rafi yanked her up behind him, as if she weighed nothing. Johanna couldn’t help but remember the hard lines of his body at Punishment. He’d been hung up like a side of beef at the marketplace, all the curves and corners of his muscles on display for her perusal. She tried not to the think of the press of his body against hers as he fell when Alouette cut him free, and his bare chest against the tender skin inside her wrist.
“If you live in Santiago, you’re my responsibility.” He kicked the horse into a trot, and Johanna gripped his leather jerkin with as little physical contact as possible. “And your opinion doesn’t really count.”
“Of course not. Why would it?”
He didn’t argue, and Johanna fought the urge to flick his ear like she did to her brothers when they irritated her.
They didn’t talk, and the ride to the manor was blessedly short with the horse trotting along a worn game trail.
The DeSilvas’ estate appeared over a rise, yellow stone walls a stark contrast against jewel-toned windows and bright white balconies. A few underlords had already arrived for the evening’s festivities, eyeing Rafi and Johanna as they rode under the main gate.
And probably assuming awful things.
“I’ll drop you off at the kitchen entrance,” Rafi said as they rode toward the stable.
She hoped that if he dumped her like baggage in front of the manor there would be less speculation. “No need to trouble yourself. I can walk the rest of the way, my lor
d.”
He looked into Johanna’s face. “When you say ‘my lord’ like that, I wonder what words you’re replacing my title with in your head.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Hooflicker. Flea-eating dung monkey, Johanna’s mind supplied. Blood crept into her ears, but she made herself meet his gaze.
“Of course not, you’re a perfectly trained Performer. Quiet, biddable, always thinking the very best about your benefactors.”
Johanna did not like the teasing note in his voice. “Always the very best.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, his mouth twisting into an arrogant, sarcastic smirk. “I wouldn’t want you to think poorly of me.”
“And what if I did?” She issued that challenge as she slid off the horse.
He leaned over the side of the saddle, narrowing the gap between them. “I’d find a way to change your mind.”
She laughed and walked away. “Good luck with that, my lord.”
Chapter 43
Jacaré
Jacaré didn’t get the rest he needed in Vicente. When they left the city, they’d replenished their supplies and rode new horses, but he also carried a new burden.
“Swear to me that if you find this man, you will spare him no mercy.” Lord Venza had held tight to Jacaré’s hand. “He killed my child, left her in an alley to bleed to death. Swear that you will avenge her murder and the girl from Belem too. I expected to go into the ground long before my child, not have to bury her before . . . before she even experienced life.”
Lord and Lady Venza’s pain was too familiar for Jacaré to ignore. He knew the anguish of a life cut short, and his conscience wouldn’t allow him to disregard their plea.
“If I find the man responsible, he’ll pay for his crimes.” It was the best promise he could make under the circumstances. Finding the heir came first.
Performers’ Camp lay half a day’s hard ride from Vicente. Leão had ridden ahead, scouting the trail Tex said would take the crew in the right direction.
The hills were pockmarked with quarries, some abandoned, some still functioning. Shadows dripped into one of the scarred pits, disappearing into its stony depths, before they saw Leão again.
He stopped midtrail, waiting for the crew to catch up.
“Did you find it?” Jacaré asked.
Leão nodded, the late afternoon sun casting his cheeks and forehead with a golden hue. “There’s a narrow path through a stretch of boulders. It’s barely wide enough for us to ride on two abreast. Over the hill is a small valley, farmland on the outskirts, and tents and wagons grouped in the middle.”
“Anything else?” Jacaré asked.
Leão took a long swig from his canteen before he answered. “I . . . I felt something.” He shivered, but he couldn’t possibly have been cold. Sweat beaded his forehead, and the sun blazed against his back. The unclaimed land north of Santiago wasn’t nearly as humid, but summer clung to their skin and tickled their noses with the smell of horse sweat and lush undergrowth. “It was like someone in the valley was working magic.”
“That’s impossible,” Pira said. “The people of Santarem don’t have essência. They can’t—” She suddenly realized that neither Jacaré nor Tex had disagreed with Leão’s claim. “They can’t use magic, right?”
Jacaré shifted in his saddle, having mentally prepared for this conversation and the related questions for days. “The quick answer is no. The people of Santarem cannot work magic.” He looked at the next hill, knowing the girl they’d been searching for could be on the far slope. It was tempting to push off the discussion for later, but he knew that both Pira and Leão deserved the truth. Actually, they both had deserved to know before they had crossed the wall.
“They can’t work magic unless they are descendants of Keepers.” The words fell like a rock in a pond, ripples widening and washing over them.
“That’s not possible,” Leão said. “The law expressly forbids copulating with anyone other than another Keeper.”
“That didn’t seem to stop you in Belem,” Pira said smugly.
“I did not—”
“Your shirt was off!”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Enough!” Jacaré’s voice cut over all of them. “It wasn’t always the law. Once there were Keepers who took people from Santarem as mates. Many of these Performers are descendants of a Keeper-Santarem bonding.”
Leão shook his head, shocked and dumbfounded.
“They may have a remnant of essência and some of our other traits, but after three hundred years most of our influence has been bred out.”
“Maybe soldiers like you three, but full Mages . . . we couldn’t,” Leão said with a dismissive shake of his head. “There would be an imbalance of power, and eventually the Mage would be able to control their mate’s free will.”
“We don’t have time for a history lesson. We have an heir to save,” Tex reminded them, his voice low and gruff. “Quick version: Everything you’ve been taught about why we crossed Donovan’s Wall was false. Yes, the people of Santarem rose up and slaughtered a good number of our people. The war was ugly, but it wasn’t unfounded.”
“What?” Pira and Leão said at the same time.
Jacaré took over. “Some Mages were using their power to turn non-Keepers into slaves. Our people divided into two factions: The Nata, who wanted to use their power to dominate the people of Santarem, and the rest of the Keepers, who felt it was wrong. The Nata were ultimately defeated. The remnants of us crossed the wall to keep the people of Santarem safe.”
Leão’s face went pale. Pira, on the other hand, was flushed with anger.
“The barrier must remain standing,” Jacaré continued. “There are Mages in Olinda who might be tempted to rule, to reestablish the Nata, if they realized it was an option.”
“But . . . ,” Pira started, looking at each of the men, seemingly unable to finish her thought.
Leão spun his horse and trotted back the way he had come without another word. Pira followed, casting her brother a glare over her shoulder.
“That went well,” Tex said, turning in the saddle to face Jacaré.
“They’ve been lied to their whole lives. All that matters now is that they believe us,” Jacaré said, watching the distance between him and the younger members of his crew expand.
“They have to. We were there.”
Chapter 44
Rafi
Rafi didn’t want to hand Breaker’s reins to the waiting groom. Going into the house meant facing the frivolity and flirting, the subterfuge and schemes. He wanted to get back on his horse and ride until Breaker’s stride drove a certain Performer girl out of his thoughts.
She was infuriating, prideful, and rude. She hadn’t murmured a word of thanks for getting her back to the manor before she had to perform. Not that he expected it; but still, the courtesy would have been nice.
“Walk him a bit before you take him into the stable,” Rafi said, patting the horse fondly on the neck. Breaker’s black coat was hot under his fingers, but the well-conditioned animal wasn’t blowing and sweating. “And an extra scoop of oats, if you please. He deserves it.”
The groom nodded his assent and led Breaker into the paddock.
“You can judge a lot about a man from the way he treats his mount,” boomed a voice from the barn door.
Rafi whipped toward the sound, a smile already tugging at his lips. “My father used to say the same thing.”
“Your father was smart.” An old man with a curly cap of steel-gray hair stepped onto the walkway separating the two grazing yards. He limped a bit more than Rafi remembered, his steps crunching unevenly over the gravel. But the face was the same as always, and as familiar to Rafi as his own: the hard jaw, the dark eyes, and the hair that had to be kept short or it would turn wild. “He was also one of t
he best men I knew.”
“I’ve heard you say that before.” Rafi took a couple steps toward his uncle and caught the man in a tight embrace. “Or you wouldn’t have let him steal my mother away.”
“Steal?” Fernando, the Duke of Impreza and Lady DeSilva’s elder brother, said with a half laugh. “I couldn’t have kept Liliana out of your father’s arms if I’d poured an ocean between them.”
Rafi’s throat tightened at the slight hitch in his uncle’s voice.
“I expected Camilio to come thundering down the path to greet me. It’s hard to believe I’ll never ride with him again.”
Three months earlier, Rafi, Dom, and their father had gone to an underlord’s property to hunt an abnormally large panther that had killed two farmers. They’d been midhunt when the duke keeled over. He was dead before he hit the ground. All signs pointed to heart failure, though his father had always been a healthy man.
“I wished you could have been here for the burial, but we all knew it was impossible to leave during Salting Time.”
Impreza’s main export was fish and other things harvested from the ocean. Early summer was their busiest season, and every man, woman, and child packed, prepared, and shipped the harvest. Even the inland farmers sent whomever they could spare to the ports to help with Salting Time. For several years, Rafi, Dom, and their mother made the trip to the southern state to work alongside Duke Fernando and his people. Rafi stood shoulder to shoulder with fishwives and underlords and learned how to process fish, seaweed, and ocean animals into dozens of different products. In Impreza the gentry were expected to work alongside the peasants, and Fernando could not leave his state even to attend his brother-in-law’s interment.
“But you’re here now.”
Fernando gave Rafi’s shoulder a tight squeeze, and they began moving toward the house.
“I saw Belem’s carriage outside the stable. I guess we’ll get your naming out of the way soon?”
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