by Amy Raby
These words elicited mumbling and whispering among the villagers. Celeste caught the word “Kjallan,” which was uttered several times. Her stomach fluttered. These villagers didn’t look violent, but rural Riorca did not hold Kjall in high regard.
The three men conferred among themselves. One of them beckoned. “This way.”
He led them farther into the city, and where two roads crossed, he pointed at the ground. “Next wagon comes through, you get a ride.”
Celeste looked where he was pointing. The road was clearly rutted, with hoof marks between the ruts. She said to Rayn, in Kjallan, “They want us to get a ride on a wagon.” Then to the village leaders, “When does the next one come through?”
“Tomorrow morning,” said one of the men.
“We need help, then,” she said. “Food and shelter. Maybe shoes and a change of clothes.” She realized uncomfortably that she had no money with her. She asked Rayn, “Do you have any coin?”
He shook his head. “Wasn’t carrying any when I went overboard.”
“I’m afraid we’ve no money with us,” said Celeste to the village leaders. “But when we reach Denmor, we can send you some—”
The villagers began to protest, insisting that they would accept no payment for their hospitality, although Celeste detected an undercurrent of reluctance. Perhaps because she was so obviously Kjallan.
“Your husband,” said the village leader. “He is Riorcan?”
“He’s not my husband,” said Celeste. “And he’s Inyan.”
There was much discussion of this, including some disapproving clucks in Celeste’s direction. Then the village leader said, “Sabine will give you a place to stay tonight.”
“Sabine?” Celeste looked around.
A woman came forward. She was blond, middle-aged, and a head shorter than Celeste.
Celeste told Rayn, “This woman is putting us up for the night.”
“How do I say thank you in Riorcan?” asked Rayn.
“Kelem de,” said Celeste.
Rayn clasped wrists with the woman. “Kelem de.”
Sabine answered with a rapid flood of Riorcan that Celeste didn’t understand. Then she beckoned, and Celeste and Rayn followed.
The woman led them several blocks down the street to a pit house. They descended a staircase to the front door and entered. The house had but a single room with a hearth, a table and chairs, and a large bed. Celeste supposed they’d all be sharing the bed, or else she and Rayn would be on the floor. No privacy here. But it beat sleeping in the woods.
Sabine looked them over as if gauging their usefulness. “You help with supper. After, you wash your clothes.”
Celeste exchanged a look with Rayn. “She wants us to help,” she told him in Kjallan. This was going to be awkward. She’d had servants looking after her all her life; she’d never before even tried to cook or do laundry. She doubted Rayn had either. But she would do her best.
“We’ll help, then,” said Rayn.
• • •
When Celeste had imagined her trip to Riorca with Prince Rayn, she had not envisioned standing beside him at a laundry tub, taking turns stirring their clothes in the water with a wooden bat. Sabine had loaned her a clean syrtos to wear. It was scratchy and slightly oversized, but warm.
“Have you ever done anything like this?” she asked Rayn, stirring once more and wondering how long it took clothes to get clean.
“Never,” he said. “You want me to stir for a while?”
She handed him the bat.
Celeste and Rayn were in the yard behind Sabine’s house, where they’d hauled the water up from the stream and mixed it with lye. Several of the children had found them and were watching from a short distance.
Rayn stirred vigorously, and the children giggled.
“What’s so funny?” called Celeste in Riorcan.
More giggles. Celeste shrugged, and accepted the bat from Rayn for her turn.
“You’re doing it wrong,” said one of the children.
“What do you mean?” asked Celeste.
The child, a little girl, ran up to the laundry tub. “You don’t just stir it. You beat it.”
Celeste swung the bat at the clothes in the laundry tub. Water splashed over the rim.
The girl laughed and said, “Like this.” She grabbed the bat and began to beat and rub at the clothes in the water.
Celeste could see that the girl was an expert at the task. It shamed her to be shown up by a child. “Thanks. I’ll take it now.” She took the laundry bat and imitated the girl’s movements.
The rest of the children, encouraged by this exchange, crowded around. Celeste grinned at Rayn. At least she was learning something.
The evening passed pleasantly enough and that night they slept, as she’d predicted, crowded together in the same bed, the children snuggling up to their parents.
In the morning, Celeste went outside to fetch her gown off the line. It was clean and dry, but unfortunately spoiled, the texture of its fabric destroyed by its ocean dunking. There were a couple of small tears and places where the stitching had come undone. So be it. She could hardly complain about a ruined dress after an ordeal that had nearly taken her life.
Rayn emerged from the pit house. “I’d give anything for a cup of coffee right now.”
“I’d do the same for chocolate.”
“We should head up to that crossroads and look for a wagon,” said Rayn. “There’s no telling how early one might come.”
Celeste nodded. “Let’s get dressed.” She looked around uneasily. Sabine and her husband and children were still in the pit house. She hadn’t realized before how much of a privilege privacy was. The clearing they stood in was surrounded by trees. She could either strip off her clothes in front of Sabine and the others in the house or do it here in front of Rayn.
“Turn around,” she said to Rayn.
He scowled. “I’ve seen you before.”
Not up close and in good light, he hadn’t. “Turn around.”
“After I get my clothes.” He pulled his tunic and pants and smallclothes off the line and turned his back on her.
She knew she ought to immediately turn around herself and put on her ruined dress. But she stared, mesmerized, as he pulled off his borrowed Riorcan tunic, baring his back. Muscles rippled beneath his sun-bronzed skin. He was comfortable in his motions, as if he knew how fortunate he was to be blessed with the body he had, and enjoyed every second of being inside it. She was disappointed when he flung on his tunic and covered himself.
When he pulled down his borrowed pants, still unaware of being watched—or perhaps he knew and didn’t care—she blushed and turned around. With trembling hands, she unhooked the borrowed dress and pulled it off over her head. She heard a rustle of leaves behind her and froze. “Not yet.”
“I haven’t turned round,” said Rayn.
She put on her own dress. Gods, it was a mess. The fabric was so stiff, she couldn’t hook it in the back.
“Ready?” called Rayn.
“I need help.”
He came up behind her and drew the fastenings with fingers that were warm on her neck.
They went back into the house to thank Sabine for her hospitality and say good-bye to the children, and headed out into the village proper, toward the crossroads where they’d seen the wagon tracks.
“Do you have plans for when we reach Denmor?” asked Rayn.
“I’ll contact Lucien,” said Celeste. “He’ll arrange passage home for both of us.”
Rayn eyed her. It was plain that something was on his mind.
“You don’t like that plan?” she asked.
“What if Lucien was behind the assassination attempt?”
What a ridiculous accusation. Not only did it make no sense; it was offensive. “He wasn’
t.”
“It happened on his ship.”
“He obviously didn’t intend it to. Aside from the fact that assassination isn’t the sort of thing Lucien does, why would he put his sister in danger?”
“I think that part was a mistake,” said Rayn. “The assassins obviously expected just me in that room. They didn’t know what to do with you.”
“Don’t sidetrack yourself with this line of thought,” said Celeste. “It will get you nowhere. I am absolutely certain my brother had nothing to do with it.”
“I think you might be a little naïve about Lucien. Maybe he’s not the wonderful person you think he is.”
“He is that wonderful. I know him well.”
“He’s the son of a man who launched a bloody invasion of Mosar, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.”
Celeste’s face heated as she took that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. “Yes, he’s the son of that man. And I’m the daughter of that man. You know that, do you not?”
“I am well aware of it,” said Rayn.
She looked into his accusing eyes. Where was this hostility coming from? She certainly hadn’t seen it when they’d been alone in the Riorcan wilds. “Are you an exact copy of your father, Rayn?”
“In some ways, I’d like to be.”
“But are you?”
“No,” he said. “I am not an exact copy of my father.”
“Then why do you assume Lucien must be the same as his father? Do you think that of me as well? Do you believe that if I’d been emperor of Kjall at the time, I’d have launched that Mosari invasion?”
“One of the people killed during that Mosari invasion,” he said through gritted teeth, “was my aunt Vor-Lera. She was beheaded and her head placed on a stake outside the fortress of Quedano.”
Celeste could feel his anger falling off him in waves. It caused her an almost physical pain. He wanted to make her feel guilty? She’d been eight years old when the Mosari invasion had taken place; she had possessed neither the wit nor the power to stop it. She supposed that in Rayn’s mind, Florian’s stain spread over his family like a bottle of spilled ink. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”
“I’m glad someone is,” said Rayn.
She rounded on him. “If it makes you feel better to heap scorn on me, go ahead. My father invaded Mosar, and I did nothing to stop him. I was eight years old. Maybe that excuses my inaction and maybe it doesn’t. But don’t take out your anger on my brother, because he was older, and he did try to stop it. Lucien is the very opposite of his father. He saw firsthand every mistake Florian made, and has been determined ever since not to make those mistakes himself.”
“You say so—”
“I know so,” said Celeste. “I don’t tell this to many people, but Florian hated Lucien. He used to hit him, knock him down. Those two were never on good terms. Lucien is not his father. And neither am I.”
Rayn looked skeptical. “Do you know what we say in Inya, about how to tell a good king from a bad one?”
“No.”
“The bad king is surrounded by bodyguards.”
Her mouth fell open. “You think my brother is a bad ruler because he has bodyguards?”
“A good king doesn’t need them.”
She shook her head. “Any ruler of a nation of significant size, whether he’s a good ruler or a bad one, will have enemies. You have enemies. Does that make you a bad king? If you’d had a bodyguard on the ship, we might not be here right now having this argument.”
“So you’re saying the attack is my fault?”
“You were the target.” Her feelings were in a tumult. She had not realized that Rayn harbored so much hostility toward her brother, her family, and even her country. In his eyes, she was tainted by her nationality and lineage. “I understand now why you haven’t accepted the marriage proposal.”
“Celeste—” he began.
“Don’t give me excuses now,” she said. “I want to know why you slept with me, if you hate me so much.”
“I don’t hate you,” said Rayn.
“What is hate, if not this? You’re angry at me not for anything I did, but for who I am.” Had he possessed ulterior motives when he’d slept with her on the beach? Now that she thought about it, it was ludicrous to think that Rayn had found her so appealing that he’d simply lost control that morning. He was a prince and the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on. He could have any woman he wanted. Why would he think her anything special?
Maybe he’d slept with her as a form of sick revenge. Love and leave the daughter of the man who’d murdered his aunt. Her emotions were spinning out of control when Rayn’s words captured her attention.
“Here comes our wagon,” said Rayn.
12
Rayn wasn’t sure what to do about Celeste’s pensive silence; he was so uncertain of his own feelings that he couldn’t give her the answers that he knew he owed her. So it was a relief when he spotted their potential ride to Denmor trundling their way, loaded with copper ore and drawn by six shaggy ponies. He’d seen dogs larger than those ponies. They were sturdy animals, with thick legs and barrel chests, but he could see why six were needed. He waved down the driver and learned that the wagon was going to Denmor. It would reach the city in several days. The driver had no objection to their climbing onto the back of the cart, as long as they didn’t expect to share his provisions.
Celeste struggled within the confines of her ruined dress to lift her leg high enough to get a foothold on the wagon frame. When that didn’t work, she tried pulling herself up with her arms.
Rayn stepped forward and seized her about the waist. She shuddered at his touch.
She weighed practically nothing. He lifted her gently onto the ore pile. “Why struggle when you don’t need to?”
She gave him an irritated look and, when he released her, climbed farther up the pile to put distance between them.
He climbed up and settled on top of the copper ore himself. Celeste had tried to find a spot where she wouldn’t be in close contact with him, but there wasn’t enough room. They were only inches apart, and he felt highly conscious of her warm presence. The driver called a hey-up to his ponies, and the creatures strained at their harnesses, setting the wagon in motion. He’d hoped the ponies would be fast, but he saw now that their accustomed gait was a plod. This was going to be a long trip.
What could he say to her? Certainly he didn’t hate her. His feelings were more complicated than that. She obviously thought it unfair that he judged her and Lucien by the actions of their father, but what else was he to do? She’d had the benefit of growing up with both men and knowing them intimately. Rayn had met Lucien on a handful of occasions, and Florian never. He was working with limited information. He could hardly stake his country’s safety on vague assurances.
Of course sons didn’t necessarily follow in their father’s footsteps. But quite often they did. It was not unreasonable for him to worry about the possibility. He had seen men rebel against their fathers early in life, only to change as they aged, becoming more and more like their fathers over time.
It was hard to sit so near the woman and not touch her. Her perch was precarious—she could use a steadying arm about her. But the expression on her face told him his touch would not be welcome. The wagon lumbered over a tree root. She swayed dangerously as the cart rocked, and brushed his shoulder with her arm. But she caught herself and inched away.
He shouldn’t have slept with her.
But gods above, that lovemaking session at the forest pond was something he could never regret. He’d been with women who had more sophisticated bed skills, including Zoe, who could suck a cock like nobody else. By the tentativeness of Celeste’s touch, he knew she was relatively inexperienced. But the way she responded to him! It was as if she’d been dying of thirst and he’d held a waterskin to her l
ips. Celeste drank his touch, like she’d never experienced such a thing before. She made him feel like a god come down from the sky, when every move he made elicited moans of rapture. He was getting an erection just thinking about it.
He glanced at her and caught her looking at him. She flushed and turned away.
There was nothing simple about his involvement with Celeste. He was a prince, and she was a foreign princess. He couldn’t marry her just because he liked her and enjoyed going to bed with her. She came with strings attached, and those strings could be disastrous for his country. He was not going to betray his people just so he could have a good time in bed.
But gods, he wished he could.
• • •
It took three days for their wagon to reach Denmor—the longest three days of Celeste’s life. Rayn had turned taciturn, and she took this to mean that he was distancing himself from her. So be it. She would have nothing further to do with him until she had a better idea of his intentions. Never again would she allow her physical desire to override her sense of reason.
They’d camped nightly by the side of the road, building a fire and scrounging spinefruit and mushrooms. On one guilty occasion, when they were desperately hungry, Celeste had used her mind magic to still a rabbit, which Rayn had killed with a blow to the skull. But still they’d slept alone, curled up like miniature crescent moons on either side of the fire.
Finally their ore wagon trundled into the outskirts of Denmor, and she looked around with interest. The city had changed since the last time she’d been there. Only a decade before, Denmor had been a village situated on the Strof Harbor, one of the few naturally sheltered bays on the Riorcan coast. When Emperor Lucien had granted control of Riorca to the Obsidian Circle, the Circle had abandoned their mountain shelters, named Denmor their headquarters, and settled there. The village had grown into a city—too quickly, as the roads lagged behind in development.
The wagon was headed for a smelter on the west side of town. She hopped down without a word to Rayn.
He landed lightly beside her. “Where to?”