The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala

by Jeffe Kennedy

  A frisson ran through me, something dark, with an edge of flame, the kind of hot that leaves you shivering.

  “Not much to hide here,” I tossed at her, letting the foreboding roll off me and spreading my arms to indicate my shabby working leathers. “Unremarkable me is all you get.”

  Ursula lowered the point of her sword, slid it into its sheath with a hiss.

  “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  After that, the princes came courting Ursula. Ever hopeful, they made their plays for power. When she turned them away, a few turned their intentions toward me. It amused me, to watch them realign their courtly praises and scramble to find ways to praise my beauty, my intelligence, my courage—none of which were in evidence. I tried to be pleasant, especially when Ursula sentenced me to ten laps around the stables for any time she caught me rolling my eyes.

  Somehow she managed to be kind and firm to the hopefuls, sending them packing with smiles on their faces. Before much longer, the supply thinned, then trickled off altogether. They called Ursula the Sword Princess, and some of the pub songs wickedly suggested that her blade satisfied her at night better than any man could.

  When an impertinent minstrel sang one of the ditties for us, late one night after dinner and after Father had retired, Ursula simply laughed and acknowledged it could be true. She stroked her sword, resting in its formal jeweled sheath on the table, her fingers brushing the cabochon topaz in the hilt.

  “My lover,” she mused. “It certainly gives me all I could wish—companionship, protection, an edge over the competition.”

  The minstrel toasted her and strummed a few lines.

  “And what do they sing of Andi?” Ursula refilled my goblet with dark-red wine.

  The minstrel glanced at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. Likely he had.

  I smiled at him, one of Amelia’s sweet expressions to show him I didn’t expect to be noticed. I was accustomed to falling through the cracks.

  “That’s mean, Ursula,” I stepped in while the poor man stammered. “I’ve never done anything to merit a song and you know it. Our minstrels need more inspiration than I provide.”

  He plucked a few strings on the lap harp, making that liquid sound, water running over rounded pebbles, a horse clipping lightly along a mountain trail. His blue eyes studied me while his fingers flickered in the firelight.

  “Forgive me, Princess Andromeda”—he bowed his head to me—“but it occurs to me that those who are overlooked are like the waters of our deep mountain lakes. They seem only to reflect what’s around them, but in the depths lurk the great mysteries.”

  “Sea monsters?” I replied with a laugh, imitating one of Amelia’s delicate shudders. Hopefully that covered my flinching at his use of my full name. Only my mother had ever used the whole ungainly thing. It both annoyed me and picked at the scar over my old, aching sense of loss.

  “Ah, but Mohraya has no seacoast. Let me sing you a song of the ocean, then. If it pleases you. Of lost treasure. Or paradise.” With that he launched into a winding ballad I’d never heard, of a land with turquoise waters and white cliffs, where fish fly in the air and birds swim in the waters, bringing back pearls to nestle in the petals of tropical flowers. And lovers walk hand in hand along the shimmering sands.

  Ursula smiled, her face smoothing into relaxation, and closed her eyes to listen.

  The song stuck with me.

  Silly, I know. Still, there’s something about a handsome young man singing a song just for you. Or that you can pretend is just for you. It creates this nostalgia for love you’ve never experienced. I know you can’t be nostalgic for something that hasn’t happened, yet I felt it. As if I already loved someone and he was out there somewhere, moving around in the world. Someone who would see me for me and not as the space between my sisters.

  The sense of searching drove me to longer rambles, exploring trails I hadn’t ridden before in the forested foothills that rose behind Castle Ordnung.

  Technically that land was out of bounds to me, and probably was outside the boundaries of Mohraya at some point. The boundary with the Wild Lands wasn’t clear. Very few people lived there, mostly hunters, trappers, and hermits. The Wild Lands were forbidden, the warnings laced with tales of roving demonic creatures. Restless, driven by a need to see more, I skirted those boundaries, pushed them.

  In all truth, Fiona and I had been riding out farther west each day since the wedding. I missed Amelia and her happy presence. In the quiet of my heart, I could admit I envied her. Hugh had been kind even to me. He would cherish our Amelia as she should be. As she deserved to be, our little motherless sister. But the envy worked on me, and I found myself wishing that people—that our father—looked on me with admiration. That Hugh had seen me and fallen in love.

  These were ugly feelings to have, and they plagued me.

  The farther I rode from Ordnung, though, the more the dark thoughts dissipated, and the more right I felt. So I went farther than I should have, had anyone known. Sometimes too far for me to easily make it back before I was expected, and we would return in a headlong rush, racing against disapproval.

  That day, moody with the song, I rode farther than ever. Fiona’s hooves tapped along the trail in a cadence that echoed the minstrel’s song.

  Under the waves, under the water

  All the days of his life he sought her.

  Mermaids danced in blue coral ballrooms

  While she watched from the dark of the sea.

  The longing in it made me a little teary, and I shook my head briskly at myself, nudging Fiona into a canter. We’d reached the top of a hill we’d never before climbed, finally emerging from the close, shadowed woods. A high meadow, filled with waist-high grass the color of green apples, lay before us in unspoiled splendor. With a snort of horse-joy, Fiona leapt under me, racing across the grassy bowl that curved up to the cloudless sky.

  A laugh tore from me, even as my hair escaped its coils, whipping free behind me like Fiona’s pearly white mane lashing my face.

  This.

  This was real. The smell of the air, a hint of snow sliding down from the high peaks, promising winter to come after glorious summer. It thrummed through me, filled me. I sank into the solid muscle of the horse, savoring her sleek strength. I didn’t need more than this. Formless longings meant nothing.

  Then Fiona screamed.

  I heard it after we were already falling. I fell with her, tumbling to the grass—not soft, but brutally hard under the bright dressing. Fiona’s great supple weight rolled over me, crushing my breath. Long practice had me kicking free, so her ungainly lunging to right herself left me behind, grateful not to be dragged by my foot as she galloped out of sight.

  My lungs struggled against paralysis, grasping at the bits of air they could drag in. Knife-like pangs shot through my muscles. The image in my head throbbed with stark shock.

  A man, standing there with a pack of dogs, in the fold of a wallow. Hounds bigger than wolves. No wonder Fiona had shied and lost her footing.

  They would be on me in a moment.

  A man with dogs where they shouldn’t be was never a good thing. As far as I’d gone, I was surely still in Mohraya, where Uorsin owned all hunting rights. And my sword still strapped to the saddle, racing off to nowhere. Only my little dagger remained, in the sheath on my belt. If I survived this, Ursula would kill me.

  The hissing grasses as he strode toward me sent panic through my veins. Gasping, forcing my rib cage to flex, I struggled to my hands and knees.

  “Should you move just yet?” inquired a low voice.

  The air burned like fire. I looked up through the dark tangle of my hair. He stood a short distance away, black leathers, black cloak. Seven wolfhounds ringed him, sitting on their haunches, an avid audience with uncannily blue eyes.

  “I’m fine,” I managed to say evenly, thinking of the times Ursula had knocked me with the flat of her blade and taunted me until I stood. Of course, she hadn’t done that in s
ome time, since it took me so long to get up again. “You startled my horse.”

  And you shouldn’t be on King’s Land.

  I didn’t dare say that, though. Because I shouldn’t be on King’s Land either, unless I came from the royal family, and he didn’t need to know I was Uorsin’s relation.

  “Yes,” the man agreed, dark eyes steady. “Do you need assistance standing?”

  Definitely not. The man shared the lean, hungry, and lethal look of the wolfhounds, even with his careful distance. I wiggled my knees and ankles. They felt okay. Hopefully nothing was so damaged as to make me stagger when I stood. The cold congealing in my stomach told me I couldn’t afford to appear at all weak.

  I stood, slowly, brushing grass off my riding pants as I unfolded, to give myself time to test my weight. Nothing gave way, thank Moranu.

  “I’m fine,” I repeated, returning his assessing stare, deliberately slowing my heaving lungs.

  One of the wolfhounds sniffed the air in my direction, raising its russet ears. It growled softly. A hushed word from the man settled it.

  “Not often one finds a princess unattended in the wilderness,” the man observed, as if commenting on the weather, but his face burned with an unholy, acquisitive light.

  I scoffed. “I wish! I imagine those royal brats have soft lives of silks and candies. No, I’m only hunting rabbits for my family.”

  He took a step toward me, flattening his hand to signal the dogs to stay. I steeled myself not to step back. Predators always became more dangerous when presented with a chase. Two horse lengths between us still gave me room. To do what, I didn’t know. I could never outrun those hounds.

  “Lies don’t become you, Princess.” His gaze drilled into me, evaluating, calculating. “Now, which one are you? Not Ursula the heir, I don’t think. Rumor says she looks more like a man than a woman.”

  “No closer,” I commanded.

  “Or what, Princess Amelia—you’ll scream?” He held out questioning hands to the empty sky, but he stopped closing on me.

  “I’m not Amelia,” I said on reflex. Idiot. I closed my hand over the hilt of my dagger and drew it. “And I was thinking more of using this.”

  He smiled, eyes glittering. A breeze wormed through the meadow, sending a wave through the grasses and lifting a strand of his long black hair, tied in a tail at the nape of his neck. He took another step closer and stopped, watching me to see what I’d do.

  “You’d have to get quite close to me to use that,” he purred. “Are you certain that’s wise?” He flicked long fingers, and the wolfhounds stood to attention, ears and tails high, surging around him in an eager sea.

  “What will happen is that you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine.”

  He took another step. One horse length.

  “Even if I hadn’t recognized Salena’s look about you, I’d have known you for one of Uorsin’s by the way you give orders. I am not, however, one of your subjects.”

  At the sound of my mother’s name, I lost the little breath I’d gained. The name no one spoke. This wasn’t bad. This was catastrophic.

  “Who are you, then?” I gritted out, my thighs tensing. One more step and I’d be within his reach. His looked to be a good six inches longer than mine. I was outmatched in every way. I’d have to get inside and do damage quickly, before he could inflict any on me. “Besides a bully and a trespasser.”

  He raised a defined eyebrow at my words, taking a half step. Barely outside the boundary where I’d have to act, which he had to know. He moved like a warrior and used the pressure to discomfit me. He stared me down, the hounds shifting restlessly behind him. From this close I could see his eyes weren’t black at all, but very dark blue.

  “Is that how you name me?”

  “Care to argue the points?”

  “If you’re not Ursula and not Amelia, then you’re the other one.”

  “Flawless logic.”

  He grinned unexpectedly, a flash of white teeth unsettlingly like his hounds’.

  “What shall I do, then, with this amazing piece of serendipity, Princess Andromeda?”

  “The wise trespasser would let me leave in peace. The foolish bully might find himself gutted like a pig.”

  He shifted, leaning his body a hair closer. I sank into my feet, shifting my weight into my back leg, which gave me a bit of space and made me ready to spring. Big men seldom expected a smaller opponent to jump in close, but it was the only choice for someone like me, who couldn’t afford to stay at the devastating perimeter of a larger opponent’s weapon. I kept my gaze on the center of his chest, where any movement would start.

  “Ah. Or, since I am already judged and condemned, perhaps I’ll trespass just a bit more for my trouble. If this is the opportunity I think it is, we can’t afford to waste it.”

  Don’t think. Watch for the window of opportunity.

  His hand snapped out to grab me—Moranu, he was fast—but I confused him by moving in. Men always try to grab, Ursula’s voice reminded me. It gives you time to strike if you keep your head.

  Using my momentum and holding the knife pointed down in my fist so the power of my shoulder drove it, I sliced the blade across his cheek, whipped the arc around into a circle, and slammed the hilt against his temple. My sleeve tore in his grip as I sprang away, and he dropped to his knees, clutching his face, bright blood sliding through his fingers.

  The dogs ringed him, anxious, forming a suspicious guard. I backed away, reestablishing distance. Careful to test my footing. Don’t you dare trip, or those dogs will be on you in a flash. I’d never be able to fight them off.

  The man was woozy from the blow. Ursula would have knocked him unconscious. His dark eyes found me, blazing.

  “Point to you, Andromeda.”

  “This isn’t a game.” I kept stepping back. My arm stung. “I’m leaving. Keep your dogs to you or I’ll kill them.”

  “Brave words.” He climbed to his feet, unsteady, but intention coiled through him. “But you’ve only made the test easier.”

  Blood laced down his cheek and over his throat. Three horse lengths. Where was Fiona? I’d trained her to return to me if I got unseated. If I survived this, I’d have to teach her to come to me even if there were wolfhounds involved.

  “Now that I have you, I cannot let you go until I know for sure if you have the mark.”

  I pointed the knife at him. “You do not have me. And you never will.”

  “Ah, lovely Andromeda—I think you’re mistaken in that.” A wry smile twisted the bloodied side of his face. “You surprised me with your little sticker, I’ll admit, but I dare you to come that close to me again.”

  His face darkening, he strode toward me. One pace, two. Too fast.

  I panicked.

  I ran.

  Run. Run for the forest.

  The grasses tore at my hips and thighs, whipping my arms with stinging tips. My heart gasped for blood, the cool mountain air searing into me and providing no sustenance. I wasn’t a strong runner, but I prayed to Moranu that the blow and blood loss would be enough to slow him.

  Just let me reach the forest.

  A thundering weight hit my back, throwing me down into the green cave of grass, my body shuddering with the second impact in only a few minutes. I held on to the dagger, though, striking out wildly at the man, who tried to pin me, a howl screaming out of me, something animal, feral.

  He ducked the blade and grabbed my wrist in an iron grip, holding it to the ground. I struggled to get a knee up to his man-jewels, but he pinned me under heavy thighs. With my left hand I stabbed stiff fingers for his eyes. He caught that hand, too, closing strong fingers over mine, crushing them together and pushing my hand down tight against my breast.

  I screamed. Fought.

  To no avail.

  After forever and a few minutes, plus a massive effort of will, I stilled myself. Time to rethink strategy. My thoughts, shattered into pieces, began to fit together again.

  “Finishe
d?” the man pressing me to the ground asked. He sounded grimly amused. Probably feeling triumphant. I could use that.

  I opened the eyes I’d held squinched shut since my fall. His face loomed a hand’s width over mine, the knife cut I’d given him welling blood that smeared down his face and neck, contrasting with those fierce midnight-blue eyes. His black hair had come loose from its tie during the struggle, and now it rained down around us.

  “Let me go,” I whimpered, wriggling against him in what I hoped was an enticing way. It worked in that I managed to reposition a knee to the inside of his thigh. I’d likely get only one chance at that, but even a glancing blow might distract him long enough for me to plant the dagger in one of those blazing blue eyes.

  Like you should have done in the first place.

  His dark lips twisted in that half smile. “Nice. But you don’t play the damsel in distress all that well. And if you go for my balls, I’ll break your wrist.”

  “If you plan to rape me, you’ll have to get them out at some point—I’m sure I can find a way to injure the precious things,” I snapped back.

  He blinked at me, his face curiously still.

  “Rape?” He examined me, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him, his gaze lingering on my lips. “Isn’t that rather prosaic?”

  “I’ve found most men are.”

  “Have you?”

  I didn’t answer. It had sounded good.

  “You mistake me, Andromeda. My plans reach farther than a bit of a tumble in the meadow, enticing as the thought might be. Our current position is simply serendipity.”

  His words chilled me in a way that the prospect of attempted rape hadn’t. Rape I could fight and likely win, if I kept my head.

  “You’ll have a hard time taking me hostage,” I sneered with deliberate contempt, “unless your pack of mutts will help you drag me off to whatever prison you have in mind.”

  The right side of his mouth lifted in a half smile, creasing the blood.