“I’m sure he’s forgiven you,” Tasia said.
Had Ashley a whit’s less poise, she would have fallen from her horse. “Forgiven me? Him? Whatever for?”
“For how you treated him.”
Ashley laughed. “Sometimes, your thinking astounds me.”
“As yours does me,” Tasia said. “Well, concerns more than astounds, but still …”
“If you’re that … concerned, don’t worry,” Ashley said. “I more than made up for any distress I may have caused him. He and I shared some fun times in the castle. Really fun times.”
Tasia’s face fell, and Ashley was tempted to admit she’d implied more intimacy than had actually occurred.
The moment passed.
“If I have anything to feel bad about,” Ashley said, “it was that I didn’t understand his true potential. I was engaged to a wizard, and I foolishly let him get away. That will not happen again.”
Tasia wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m sure it won’t.”
She wasn’t even going to contest Xan? Good. Not that it would have been much of a battle, anyway. Ashley hid a grin by pretending to cough daintily into her handkerchief.
“The important thing now, though, is the queen,” Ashley said. “She won’t be easy to handle. When we get to Escon, we’ll be wined and dined or we’ll be imprisoned or anything in between.”
“Is it wise, then, to be going into such an unknown situation without so much as a plan?” Tasia said.
“Would that we had a choice.” Ashley sighed. “We simply don’t know how Queen Anna sees my father. Does she understand the predicament he was in to make the choices he did, or does she see a budding usurper? If the latter, she could take countermeasures at any time, and this is my one chance to change her mind.”
“We have mages, though,” Tasia said. “She has none. Now that the duke has decided to recruit more, General Flynn thinks we should hunker down behind our walls. The queen will have no choice but to find her own mages to compete. Once she’s broken the law, we can convince her we saw the same necessity she did.”
“Uncle Benj is a great general in a lot of ways, but he always sees risk as outweighing reward.” Ashley paused. “Imagine Bermau and Kaicia uniting behind an army of mages, one that could withstand anything Dastanar could wield. Eventually, King Barius would be overthrown, leaving the potential for the three kingdoms to be made one.”
Tasia frowned. “Let me guess who you think should lead that single kingdom …”
“Neither King Wybrande nor Queen Anna are going to accept rule of a rival over them. They’ll need to find a neutral party. Someone strong and able. Someone involved in the fight against Dastanar’s incursion from the beginning. And someone who is a mage.”
Tasia groaned. “You are …”
“Ambitious,” Ashley said. “Brilliant. Creative. Delight—”
“Egotistical,” Tasia said. “Were you going to go through the entire alphabet?”
Ashley grinned. “Of course.”
They lapsed into silence for a while until Tasia finally spoke. “It’s no sin to be ambitious, but you’ll be careful, at least? And not do anything that will hurt a lot of people?”
“I never make promises I can’t keep.”
“Ashley, I’m serious.”
“So am I.” She set her eyes on the road ahead. “I’m far from where I want to be, and I can’t see what’s over the next rise. If this horse takes one wrong step, I could die. If bandits are waiting around a bend, we may all take arrows. Nothing I am trying to accomplish is easy or safe.”
10.
Tasia lost herself in thought.
Queens and kings. Politics. War.
How had she gotten embroiled in such a mess? So much for a quiet life tending patients and hopefully finding a nice husband someday.
She smiled. Children.
Tasia stroked her horse’s neck, bringing herself back to the present. Better she was involved, though, in that she might have some small influence on events. If she could ease the coming suffering for the tens of thousands likely to be affected if there were a war, any sacrifices she made would be worth it.
Beside her, Ashley likewise stared ahead with unseeing eyes, probably considering how to spin webs within webs to ensnare all three monarchs.
Tasia sighed. She needed to clear her head. Talk to someone normal, someone not intent on conquering the civilized world.
She dropped back to ride next to Lainey and motioned for the other girl to slow. They resumed pace when Ashley was out of earshot.
“You heard that?” Tasia said.
Lainey nodded.
“Can you believe her?”
Lainey frowned. “I can’t believe you!”
“What?”
“Xan. You can’t just let her have him. He deserves better.” Lainey shuddered. “I deserve better. Please don’t let her become my sister-in-law.”
“It’s not like I have a lot of say in the matter.” Tasia turned away to stare at the scenery they were riding past.
Brown leaves had fallen from surrounding trees, leaving the woods stark and barren. Rotted wood clogged a small stream, causing the water to overflow its banks. The smell of death and decay permeated the air, most likely an animal corpse rotting nearby.
“How so?” Lainey said.
“Have you seen Ashley? She’s every guy’s dream girl. She’s literally Xan’s dream girl.”
Lainey narrowed her eyes. “You’re the one he proposed to.”
“Ashley was first.”
“But he didn’t propose to her. Duke Asher arranged the match.” Lainey grinned, triumphant in making her point.
“Fine. In an incredibly romantic gesture, he sent me a note, thinking of me when he was alone and locked in a cell. Ashley broke his heart. You were mad at him. He and Brant were barely speaking. Dylan was so consumed with Mari he didn’t notice Xan’s absence.” Tasia slumped in the saddle. “Yeah, I wonder why he sought me out.”
Lainey recoiled.
“Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean …”
“No, it’s okay. I … I did abandon him.” Lainey closed her eyes for a moment. “I was so angry with him. It all seemed so clear. Killing is wrong. He killed those men when we rescued Lady Ashley. Therefore, he must be a bad, bad person.”
“You were going through a lot.”
Lainey grimaced. “That’s no excuse. Dylan told me what happened at the manor. Xan had no choice, and neither did I in the stable. I wasn’t able to forgive myself, though, so I made Xan pay for it.”
“I’m sure he understands—”
“Whether he does or not doesn’t matter. What I did was wrong. If he’s alive and I see him again, I owe him an apology,” Lainey said. “Now, stop trying to distract me.”
“I wasn’t—”
Lainey glared at her.
“Okay,” Tasia said. “Maybe a little. Sorry.”
“Why are you so convinced that you don’t have a chance with him?”
Tasia hesitated. The subject wasn’t a comfortable one for her, but she owed Lainey for the accusation about Xan.
“I told you about the first couple of guys I liked,” Tasia said, “patients in the hospital?”
Lainey nodded.
“After that was a gardener’s apprentice.” Tasia smiled warmly. “He couldn’t speak to me for stuttering. So sweet. And okay, no other girls gave him a second glance, but I’d chat with him every morning as I passed through the courtyard. He started giving me fresh-cut flowers, a wonderful start for the day.”
She grimaced. “Then Ashley found out about him, teased me about him at dinner one night. The next morning he wasn’t in the courtyard, so I called out for him. There was rustling and, weirdly, giggling on the other side of a wall. Female giggling.”
“No!” Lainey said. “She didn’t.”
“Oh but she did.” Tasia shook her head. “He and Ashley were entangled, her dress at her waist and her shift barely covering her breasts
. Her lipstick coated his face.”
“That’s horrible,” Lainey said.
“He avoided me after that. I never saw him again.”
“It’s one guy. Just because—”
“The next guy was different,” Tasia said, “one of the journeyman surgeons. Low born, of course, but to a wealthy family. Tall. Well built. Deep hazel eyes I could lose myself in. His fiancé had died less than a year prior.”
“Don’t tell me …”
“The gardener was bad, but he and I had never even held hands. Everet …” Tasia’s breath caught at her mental image of him. “I thought he and I had something. My first real kiss that went beyond a peck on the lips. First time really, you know, wanting to have other firsts. I was so scared when I told him Tender Morris would frown on me doing, you know, anything else before marriage, but he took it so well. And I was careful to hide him from Ashley.”
“Tasia … you don’t have to continue.”
“She never said a single word before or after.” Tasia wiped at her eyes. “One day, I walk into the hospital. ‘Where’s Everet?’ The other nurses tried to distract me, but I persisted. ‘Downstairs.’ They told me not to go.”
She shook her head, trying to dislodge the memory. “After that, I just stayed away from guys.”
“Look,” Lainey said. “I understand. I do. You feel like she’s so much better than you, but she’s not. And not every guy will fall for her tricks. Xan won’t.”
“He loved her before he even met …” Tasia clenched her hands. “Can you not … Just … Being constantly reminded about him isn’t helping anything, okay?”
“It hurts that much?”
Tasia nodded, her voice too shaky for words.
“Okay,” Lainey said. “I promise, not another word. Ever. Unless you want to talk, and then I’m here. But … I guess I just don’t understand …”
Tasia narrowed her eyes.
“Not about him; I promised,” Lainey said. “Lady Ashley. It’s just that you’re so … loyal … to her. I know she’s your cousin and all, but if someone treated me like she treated you …”
“Have you noticed that no one calls me ‘my lady?’ ”
Lainey’s face reddened. “I’m sorry. Should I have … I mean, my la—”
“No! Don’t you start. That’s not what I meant.” Tasia let out a long breath. “Did you know I wasn’t born a noble?”
“I suspected, especially after the duke mentioned that Lady Ashley’s mother was a commoner.”
“I guess I’m in the mood to reminisce today.” Tasia sighed again. “My father was a rock farmer.”
Lainey’s face screwed into a puzzled expression. “A what?”
“I called him that once when I was four because his fields had more stones than crops, and my parents probably would have thought it both cute and funny if it weren’t so true. And to make things worse, he had to give half what he managed to coax from the ground to the landowner and another quarter as taxes.”
“I know families like that,” Lainey said.
“Anyway, just before I turned ten, my little sister, Chelsea was born—a brother had been stillborn a few years before—and I overheard my mom and dad talking when they thought I was asleep. Basically, their conversation came down to the fact that, though they both loved me, they had no idea how to feed four mouths. Mom’s labor had been rough, and she wouldn’t be able to help in the fields for a while, and as much as I tried, I simply didn’t have the physical strength dad needed.”
“Let me guess,” Lainey said, “they decided to marry you off.”
“They discussed it,” Tasia said, “but in my home duchy, Hoyna, marriages are outlawed before the age of thirteen. Mom argued that no one paid much attention to that particular law, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. Apparently, he couldn’t risk drawing any notice from the nobles because of something that happened between his sister, Alaina, and Duke Macias a long time ago.”
Tasia paused, reliving that moment. “I’d never even heard of this sister, and as they continued to talk, I got another shock. Mom told Dad we had no choice but to ask for money from Alaina’s husband, who was the Duke of Vierna!” She snorted. “I was stunned. Me, related to nobility? How? And if that was true, why did we live on the verge of starvation?”
She stopped to take a drink from a wineskin tied to her saddlebag.
“You can’t stop there,” Lainey said. “I have to know what happened next.”
“Dad rarely raised his voice at Mom, but he shouted that he’d never accept a handout. So I decided that, if Dad couldn’t save my family, it was up to me.” Tasia grinned. “I’d go to Asherton, a place that might as well have been a million miles away, and beg my rich uncle for help.”
Lainey’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you ran away.”
“Sorry. Can’t.”
“You walked from Hoyna to Asherton?” Lainey said. “That had to take you a week, minimum.”
“The days ran together, but it was more like a week and a half. My shoes didn’t last a quarter of the trip, and I had no coat, no blanket, no provisions. If not for the kindness of strangers, I would have died so many times … And good thing water was plentiful because I probably cried about a pond’s worth of tears.”
Lainey winced.
“So finally, I get to this huge castle and make my way to the antechamber outside where Duke Asher grants audiences. Once there …” Tasia grimaced. “I can only imagine what I must have looked like. Filthy from the road. Thin enough from malnourishment to appear diseased. Wearing rags.”
“How’d you get in to see him?”
“I marched right up to the soldier guarding the door and announced, ‘I’m the duke’s niece come for a visit and would you please let me in?’ ”
“I bet that went over well,” Lainey said.
“Surprisingly, it did. The guard passed along the information, and a while later, General Flynn showed up and asked my name. When I told him that Alaina was my aunt, he escorted me to a small office somewhere deep in the castle, shaking his head the entire time. He stationed a soldier outside the door and disappeared after ordering me to stay put. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew enough to be scared.
“He returned a while later with a huge bear of a man, dressed more regally than anyone I’d ever seen, and a little girl no older than me. I think my eyes must have just about bugged out. At that point, I couldn’t read and had never even seen a storybook, but had I found an illustration somewhere of the absolute perfect vision of a princess, it would have looked exactly like Ashley.
“When I finally tore my eyes from her, I noticed that the duke didn’t look happy. Worried and frustrated, in fact. Of course, I had no way of knowing then what passed between the three of them. How dangerous I was.”
“Huh?” Lainey said.
“The duke never remarried,” Tasia said. “Ashley is the last of his line. If they acknowledged me as a relative, I could become a threat. What if I someday had Ashley assassinated?”
“You wouldn’t do something like that,” Lainey said.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t. No sane commoner would. But nobles have to consider such things,” Tasia said.
“Wouldn’t General Flynn inherit? Lady Ashley always calls him ‘Uncle Benj.’ ”
Tasia smiled. “An honorary title only, I’m afraid. He and the duke grew up as best friends. Ashley has no other blood relatives living on her father’s side.” She paused until Lainey nodded her understanding. “So the four of us are in a room, and I’m scared because they’re so intimidating. But I speak up, ask if they need a chamber maid. Say I don’t have any experience, but I’d work hard. The duke frowns, says he couldn’t do that with a relative. And I didn’t know it then, but he was considering one of two options—have me killed or send me to an orphanage far away.”
“I can’t imagine him having a ten-year-old girl put to death,” Lainey said. “I get that he can be ruthless, but he’s not cruel.”
“If he thought it necessary to save his daughter?”
“Point,” Lainey said. “So how did you end up neither dead or shipped off to a faraway land?”
“Ashley. She hugged me, commenting on how disgustingly dirty and smelly I was, of course.” Tasia grinned at the memory. “Then she told her father that she needed a relative as a playmate and that I’d do perfectly … once she got me cleaned and properly dressed. Nothing the duke or General Flynn said would change her mind.”
“Okay,” Lainey said, “so she did one nice thing for you, a thing that also served her purposes. That doesn’t mean she deserves your undying loyalty.”
“Really? What do I owe her, then? Let’s see, not only did she save my life, but my family’s as well. My dad is still too proud to accept charity, but he finally agreed to ‘help me’ by managing the estate Duke Asher granted me when he raised me to nobility. When Chelsea is marrying age, she’ll have a proper dowry and will have the choice of any eligible man in the duchy.”
Lainey frowned. “Still …”
“Then there’s the hospital.” Tasia clenched her hands tighter on the reins. “Ashley found me crying in my room one day. I didn’t want to tell her why, but there’s no denying her when she wants something. Finally, I admitted that the duke had forbidden me from volunteering as an orderly because it wasn’t an acceptable pastime for a lady.”
“You can’t make me believe she ran to her father to beg your case,” Lainey said.
“No, she called me an idiot for wanting to be around stinking, bleeding, sick peasants. Literally held her nose,” Tasia said. “But the next day, the duke summoned me to his office and informed me he’d changed his mind. Apparently, Ashley had gone to him and noted that she and I traveled together a lot and wondered, if she ever got sick, if me having knowledge of medicine might be of great use to ease her suffering.”
Tasia shrugged. “Just about everything good in my life is because of her. I owe her so much.”
Gryphon (Rise of the Mages Book 2) Page 9