by Shea Godfrey
“She is better than I am,” Jessa whispered, “and I know it.”
“You are different than she, that is all,” Radha said, a gentle correction. “The blood of Bharjah was not always black. At one time, your father’s people worked the land and held true to their gods, and men flocked to their banner. They were given protection for their loyalty and they thrived. Do not ever forget that, Jessa-Sirrah. You are the rightful Princess of Lyoness. You are the Nightshade Lark and the Woman Within the Shadows.”
Jessa accepted all her titles, and they sat less heavy within her chest than they once had. Perhaps being loved and loving someone else in return had proven a balm against the burden of such responsibilities. She could do nothing about her royal blood and the shame it caused her, and she could do nothing to help her people, either. She had always known it. “Yes.”
“Just so.”
“Yes, Radha.”
“Shall I tell you a secret now?”
“Where are you going?” Jessa demanded, her mouth dry and her hands unsteady.
“I am going home, child. I wish to visit the burial ground where my mother lies, and my husband as well.”
Jessa listened to the simple words, though she understood that they were far from simple.
“And in the dark of a terrible, black night, a lifetime ago and a thousand leagues away, my daughter’s bones were smuggled from Karballa, in a basket stained with the blood of the sacred stag. A basket that was carried home at a great cost, so that she might rest beside them both, my mother, Aba, and my husband, Tinsella.”
Jessa blinked and pulled her hands from Radha’s.
She had always known that Radha had been married once, long ago before she had traveled with Jhannina, before she had refused to let the beautiful young woman be taken alone to face the Butcher of the Plains. Tinsella…Tinsella was the name of Jhannina’s father, my grandfather. And Aba…Aba was my mother’s grandmother.
Radha leaned forward in her soft chair and held Jessa’s face between gentle hands. “And you, my daughter’s daughter, had best come and claim what is rightfully yours.”
Radha’s face blurred in Jessa’s vision as a sudden ocean of tears overwhelmed her eyes, though only for a moment before they spilled over. She felt Radha’s soft lips beside her mouth, and then the old woman’s voice within her head.
My blood, only now do I know that you are safe and free to meet the world with strength and cunning. To meet your fate with a power that no one may ever take from you. Free to make your decisions in life with your chosen lover beside you. A lover whose thread is furious and strong upon the Great Loom…a thread that has been entangled with your own since the birth of us all.
Jessa rose upon her knees and wrapped her arms about Radha’s shoulders and held tight. “Blood…” She wept as her grandmother held her with equal strength. “I am your blood.”
Radha’s quiet laughter was filled with love. “It shall be interesting to see what happens.”
Chapter Eleven
Owen Durand studied both Jessa and Darry, and Jessa could only guess at what he might be thinking—a Lyonese princess with her tanned skin and dark hair beside his very own daughter, who stood pale and straight. Darry’s curls were tied behind her neck and she did not wear a uniform, dressed instead in brown homespun and brown boots. Her white tunic was tucked in with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, though more importantly her bandaged left hand sat upon the hilt of her sword in the presence of the king.
It was the sword that Radha had won for Darry, and Jessa remembered the sight of it as it had flared in the torchlight before her lover had seized it with a strong hand. It was a beautiful, fierce weapon, and it sat naturally upon Darry’s hip. Jessa’s own dress was simple, a black skirt and pale blue tunic, both crisp and clean. She wore one of Radha’s fringed black shawls tied about her waist, an unexpected gift from her grandmother, who had given it over with a satisfied smile.
And so what is there here that would announce our royal blood?
“If those from the Green Hills will return,” Owen began, “they will be here before the moon is high.”
“You are thinking of Joaquin,” Jessa replied.
“Yes.”
“Was your brother involved in this?” the queen asked simply as she sat to the left of her husband.
“Why do you think I would know?” Jessa countered, curious as to where the answer might lead.
“If you wish to accuse my lover of something, do not play with your words,” Darry said in a rather harsh tone.
“Because we do not know him as you do, Jessa,” Cecelia answered smoothly. “I am only looking for insight, that is all.”
“I know my brother only in the sense that he has been an unwanted presence in my life since I was a young girl,” Jessa explained, her tone clear and unencumbered by emotion. “As I told you before, he has been my keeper.” She looked to the king. “And as I have told you, my Lord, I know him to be cruel and clever.”
“But do you think he knew of Serabee’s intentions?”
“That El-Khan would bring the might of the Sahwello to invade your home?”
“Yes.”
“No, I do not.”
“Why?” Cecelia asked.
Jessa looked at her hands upon the table’s surface and studied the bangles she wore as she moved the pieces in her mind. “Serabee is of the Fakir, and my father’s dog,” she said in a quiet voice, each move on the board leading to another, and another. She looked up. Why am I here? was a familiar question to her, and it entered easily into her thoughts, just as it had for months. What was the endgame to be, and who was to benefit by sending her into the very heart of Arravan? Why was she here?
“Is your father’s dog?” Owen’s voice was dark.
Darry straightened her shoulders back at his tone.
“My Lady Radha has told me that he is still alive,” Jessa answered as her hand brushed against Darry’s for a brief moment. “Which means Serabee is still a threat.”
Owen’s temple gave a hard twitch.
“He is most likely riding for Lyoness as we speak. Such a defeat as was dealt him will send him into retreat.”
“You are certain of this?” Owen demanded.
Darry took a step closer to Jessa’s chair. “It’s all right, love,” Jessa whispered. There was no need for her to look. “I am certain of nothing, my Lord. But if I were he, and I attacked the High King of Arravan within his very own palace and failed despite the strength of my dogs behind me? I would be running for the skirts of my master.”
“Bharjah.” Owen sighed as Grissom Longshanks entered the solar.
“A rider from the Thirteenth has returned. Those from the Green Hills will return several hours before dawn. There was no attack upon the lodges or the lands there,” Grissom informed them.
“Then they came for you,” Darry said to her father. “Or they came for Jessa.”
Owen returned his eyes to Jessa. “I wish to know your opinion, Lady Jessa.”
“Serabee and Joaquin are thick,” she said at once. “This would not happen unless by my father’s bidding. Serabee is a great high-up man among his people. His power is severe, not just political but in majik as well, as you saw last night. To answer to a fikloche such as Joaquin? It is only by my father’s wish then or Serabee’s own design. Perhaps in this attack upon you, Joaquin makes his bid for the throne and works in partnership with Serabee. By striking at the heart of Arravan and succeeding? This would place Joaquin at the foot of our father’s throne before all others.”
“Even Sylban-Tenna?” Grissom asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “I told you before that my father’s throne is not like Arravan’s. It is a prize to be taken.” Jessa turned from Grissom to the king. “Not to be given to the eldest merely because they came first and they cried the loudest. Lyoness must be earned.”
Darry chuckled in surprise and then cleared her throat as Owen’s brown eyes flared in her direction.
; “But if Serabee and Joaquin worked together in this, what is in it for Serabee? Perhaps he looks to the long view, yes? He is on my father’s leash because Bharjah is Bharjah and no man is greater within Lyoness, not even a Lord of the Fakir. But to be the First Councillor to King Trey-Jak Joaquin? Joaquin will not ever be a great man. Serabee perhaps saw his future in controlling a puppet king. This would not be unwise on his part.”
There was a long moment of silence, and then Owen huffed. He scratched at a day’s growth of beard, his eyes thoughtful.
“Or perhaps I am wrong,” Jessa said, reconsidering.
“How so?” Owen asked at once.
“To be within the Green Hills and far away when the Fakir strike? How could it be me, Joaquin will say, and this is all very tragic, for my sister was slain as well. He has become a fast confidant of your son’s, and so surely this will help him, should he come under your suspicion. But in the end, when these men are found out to be of Lyoness? Joaquin would be caught within his own trap. He cannot follow our father to the throne if his head tops a pike before your gates. What good would this do Serabee, then, to sacrifice his men and expose the Fakir, if his puppet burns within the flames of Arravan’s anger? If you returned to your home, my Lord, to find your family slaughtered and your palace walls breached by men of Lyoness, would it matter what my brother said to you? Could he convince you to give him a horse and let him ride for home?”
“That is not likely, no,” Owen answered.
“Just so. This avenue of thought makes no sense, then. Even Joaquin would see his own death in such a plan,” she agreed. “And for my father to devise such a thing? This would merely enrage you and incite all of Arravan into a frenzy that would demand vengeance for their slain. And let us not forget,” she added, “you were not meant to be here. My father would want you dead above all others. Why deal with the lion on the battlefield when you might tangle with the cub instead? Better to attack you within the Green Hills and hope that both you and your sons would be killed.”
Jessa studied her bracelets once more. Absently, she turned her wrist and slid them free. She spread the fingers of her right hand above them as they sat upon the table. The metal bangles began to turn, slow at first and then with a purpose. They made a strange, low sound upon the wood of the table as they spun, slight and scratching. It was a parlor trick, really, but it helped her think. Her power was such an integral part of her being that to be without its presence even in the smallest of things did little to help the deeper edges of her logic. Why am I here?
“There has been no war between our two lands for many years,” Jessa continued. “My Radha told me once that the last war was very costly for my father, both in gold and influence. And still he did not win what he wanted.”
“He did not,” Owen acknowledged, his eyes drawn to the spin of the bracelets.
“And though Bharjah still retains absolute power, the Lords of Lyoness are not so eager to answer another call to arms, for their memory is very long and many sons of my country were lost. To have an army is one thing, but to go to war with an army that does not wish to fight? This does not seem like a good thing to me.”
Owen’s lips turned in subtle agreement.
“To push Arravan into invading Lyoness with such righteousness behind us?” Darry asked. “It would be a very foolish thing to provoke. It would take Bharjah farther away.”
“It would take him farther from what he wants. The Lowlands would be behind us as we rode against him,” Owen agreed as he followed her logic.
“Or this is about me,” Jessa suggested boldly as the bracelets came to rest beneath her touch. “And how best a pawn such as I might be used to capture a king.”
Owen’s eyes widened.
“If I die upon Arravan soil, the Nightshade Lark and the only Princess to the House of Bharjah? Daughter to the only queen to have ever shown mercy toward the people of my land, murdered within the House of Durand after I had been offered up in a grand gesture meant to bring about peace?”
Darry set a hand upon the back of Jessa’s chair. “A sacrifice.”
“Bharjah would have his reason to ride to war,” Owen declared.
“With all the might of his Lords behind him,” the queen added.
“The last piece of jade in my father’s tower…just as he claimed.”
“They were sent to kill you then,” Darry said.
“Perhaps, my love,” Jessa answered as she turned to her. She saw the fire in Darry’s gaze and the tightness of her body. She looked so fierce, in fact, that Jessa wanted only to hold her until she calmed and fell still beneath her kisses.
“But why my family as well? Why provoke me so?” Owen demanded. “Better to send an assassin than an army.”
“My Lord.” Jessa held tightly to Darry’s gaze and saw Tannen Ahru upon a piebald stallion as she laughed in the sun. His question was a good one, and she was afraid she knew the answer. “There need not be a reason why. They were Fakir. If Serabee El-Khan finds his way back to Lyoness, then the Fakir will ride to war with my father. If war is what he intends, to assuage the grievous insult of my murder.”
“But you are not dead,” Owen answered quietly.
“And who is to know that?” she inquired. “Serabee may say whatever he likes if he even has the courage to face my father in light of his failure. And what bird of a Lyonese spy will fly to my father’s wrist, bearing tidings he does not wish to hear?”
Owen let out an unexpected snort of amusement.
“Unless, of course,” Jessa added almost casually, “I return to Lyoness with the truth.”
“With Joaquin tied to your baggage?” Owen asked, his tone curious.
“However you would permit my return. Throw my brother into the deepest hole you might find, if that is your wish. But if my father rides to war upon the justification that I was murdered within the walls of your palace, then my return would expose him.”
Owen sat back in his chair slowly and with ease as he marshaled his thoughts into order. That she was a master tactician he had no doubt, for her mind worked as Jacob’s did. Her thoughts flowed with ease and grace, not unlike a strong dark wine poured into the finest of goblets.
He wondered, then, who had trained this princess. Who had been so keen and proficient as to cultivate such critical logic, as well as her affinity for the long view? A logic that was clearly on display, impressive in its knowledge of men and the dark games they were capable of. Games that might lay waste to entire countries with little regard for anything else.
But he would not let her ride to her death, taking his own daughter with her. “No,” he declared.
“I quite agree,” Darry said in support.
“I could try.”
Owen knew he was being tested, and he knew as well that she was utterly serious in her suggestion. He waited for her to look away, waited for her to take it back. When the silence stretched on and she did neither, he felt his heart beat with a smooth swell of pride for her. “No.”
“I cannot be the cause of a war.” For the first time there was a tremor of emotion within her voice.
“You are the cause of nothing. If the plot that you propose is true, then you are merely caught within the tide, as are we all. And if you are right, then your father may ride to war even as we speak.”
“This isn’t your fault, Jess.” Darry added. “If he used you as a pawn and moved you as such, that was not your doing. The consequences of his actions are not your responsibility.”
“Though if Bharjah does not ride to war,” Owen suggested, “if your father sits upon his throne and dozes in the afternoon sun, thinking of nothing more than his jade and how he might torture his children?” He watched as her eyes acknowledged the truth of his insult. “It does not matter. For I intend to ride to war against the Fakir,” he announced in a deadly voice. “And against your father as well, should a single man loyal to his flag raise a sword against me.”
Jessa’s eyes reflected understanding. �
��But to reach the Fakir you must cross the border into Lyoness. And if you cross in force…”
Owen smiled, though he felt little amusement. “Then so be it. Your father’s resistance will merely slow us down on our way to the Kistanbal Mountains.”
“You will need a faster horse than the one you have,” Darry replied, and Owen lifted his eyes to his daughter’s. “Talon has a brother you may be interested in if you wish to keep up.”
Owen smiled in earnest now. “This is good to know.”
“Do not underestimate the Lords of Lyoness,” Jessa interupted their banter.
“I will ask them to hand over the men of the Fakir first and foremost, how does that sound?”
“I told you once,” Jessa replied evenly, “that I hold the hearts of my people with great care. Nothing I have said since that moment negates that fact. Nothing. That you seek to destroy the Fakir? This pleases me more than you will ever know. And if the Lords of Lyoness and my father’s army oppose you in this pursuit, then they deserve to fall before you.”
“But?”
“But I would ask that you have a care for those caught unwittingly between you and your goal. The people of Lyoness have been at war since my bloodline first took the throne.”
“I do not understand.”
“That is because your people live in peace,” she explained. “That is because you are a good king, by all accounts, and have seen to the well-being of your people. You have tried to make their lives better with your power and would see them prosper. This is not the sort of rule my people have known. Their circumstances are of capitulation and servitude to my family’s will and cruel whims. Their war is of survival, and from what I have seen, they have found an unforgiving opponent.”
“I will do what I can, but this will be war, Princess.”
“That is all I ask—thank you, my Lord.”
Jessa’s eyes were intense as the fingers of her right hand rubbed against the bracelets still upon the table. The tension in her shoulders held a movement she had yet to make and it was a posture surprisingly familiar to Owen. A smile pulled at his lips. “I can see you thinking.”