by Grace Draven
Brishen shook his head. “Not personally. Just the results of their ravages. I’m glad you’re here. For all that I’m reluctant to reach out to Belawat for help, I don’t have much choice. And I view you first as a friend and second as a Beladine.” He glanced at the doorway where Ildiko had disappeared. Don’t make me change that opinion, he thought.
Serovek whistled. “This must be bad.”
“Worse than you can imagine.”
A pair of servants delivering a carafe of wine and plates of cold food interrupted them. Serovek ate while Brishen recounted the attack in the Kai capital and the bodies they’d recovered from the Absu near the town of Escariel.
Serovek poured himself a second goblet of wine. “How do you kill these creatures?”
Brishen finished his own wine. “You don’t, but they can be banished back to their place of origin.”
“How?”
“Ah,” Brishen said. “That’s where I need the aid of both Gaur and Belawat. There’s someone here at Saggara who can tell this tale better than I can. She’s upstairs.”
They finished the wine and food, and Brishen led Serovek to Ildiko’s old room.
The old warden once again occupied the largest chair in the most coveted spot by the fire. Her faded eyes followed the two men as they entered, Serovek’s impressive size shrinking the space.
“Elsod,” Brishen said after a brief bow. “May I present Serovek, Lord Pangion, Margrave of High Salure. His territories border mine. He was instrumental in my rescue from my captors many months ago.”
The Elsod tilted her head, gaze running Serovek’s length. “A Beladine saving a Kai from the Beladine,” she said in the Common tongue. “Interesting. More than a neighbor then. A friend. You’ve succeeded where your father failed, Sire.”
Serovek jerked and leveled a surprised stare on Brishen.
“I’m the last legitimate Khaskem. None of my family survived the galla attack.”
Serovek stepped away to bow low before Brishen. “Your Majesty,” he said in the most solemn, formal voice.
Brishen sighed inwardly, suspecting the casual camaraderie that had always existed between them was now a thing of the past. The costs of kingship were both great and small.
The warden repeated the plan she’d presented earlier to Brishen, leaving nothing out. Serovek listened without interruption until she finished, and remained quiet for moments afterwards. “So you need a human Wraith King to lead the human dead.”
Brishen nodded. “Indeed. Ildiko has drafted a missive we’ve sent to her uncle. That was the scout you saw. We’ve sent a copy by pigeon. Ildiko believes he will find someone suitable and willing, but I have my doubts. I’ve no additional trade to offer beyond the amaranthine and no military support to give. We’re cut off by the galla, and I need every fighting Kai here to defend us.”
Serovek huffed. “You’ll probably have worse luck with the Beladine court. King Rodan wouldn’t send you a bucket of rancid horse piss after your father signed that trade agreement with Sangur the Lame. Unless you breach the agreement.”
“There’ll be no breaching agreements. Gaur makes a more powerful ally than Belawat makes an enemy.
Serovek pointed to Brishen’s empty eye socket. “I’m surprised you’d say that, considering.”
He shrugged and touched the scarred ridge of his cheekbone. “This is of no consequence in the scheme of things. You know that Belawat’s only interest in Bast-Haradis is as a means to attack Gaur. As long as the trade agreement stands, Gaur won’t let your people invade my lands. It’s in Belawat’s best interest to help us. Gaur’s rivers and coastline protect it far more than the mountains cordoning Belawat. Water, not rock, stops galla.
“If your Elsod is right…” Serovek paused to offer the warden a quick bow. “There’s no time to deliver a message to Rodan and wait for a reply. Even if there were, he’d probably tell you to shove your plea for help straight up your—”
Brishen cut him off. “Understood.”
“I’ll do it,” Serovek declared. “I’ll stand with you against the galla.” He grinned. “But you knew I would, didn’t you?”
Brishen returned the smile, lightheaded with relief. “I hoped. And prayed. What about High Salure and its governance?”
The other man waved a nonchalant hand. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You realize this has a whiff of treason about it.”
“I don’t see how. Belawat hasn’t declared war on either Gaur or Bast-Haradis.”
Brishen wasn’t nearly as insouciant. “Yet.”
Serovek snapped his fingers. “Exactly. There’s no treason. I’m not allying myself with a declared enemy. I’m helping a neighbor and defending my territory just as I did when we tracked down the raiders who were killing my farmers and stealing livestock. The fact they held a Kai herceges prisoner was incidental.”
“A fortunate coincidence for me then,” Brishen agreed. He sought the Elsod. “Can we control the dead as is? Just the two of us?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The galla are many; the dead will have to be even more. It will be difficult for only two of you to control them.”
Again Serovek waved away their concerns. “Eh, I’ve faced worse odds.”
Brishen stared at him doubtfully. “You have?”
“No,” the other man readily admitted. “But that’s no reason to hide under the bed. Or forego a good drink. Tell me you’ve tapped a barrel of Dragon Fire in preparation for my visit. We’ve much to plan and I’m still thirsty.”
They took their leave of the Elsod and were in route to Brishen’s smaller council chamber when a vicegerent crossed their path, followed by two young Kai women.
The vicegerent introduced the two women as his daughters. Both greeted Brishen with graceful bows and calculating smiles, along with their names and ages. Their gazes flitted briefly to Serovek before sliding away on a shudder. The Beladine’s soft snort of laughter followed them as they bid farewell and continued down the corridor.
“I see the vultures are already circling,” Serovek said. “Are you certain they don’t know yet that the throne is yours?”
Brishen lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. He was wearied of such machinations. He’d been introduced to more unmarried and widowed women in the past two days than he had in the past twenty years. Names and faces were already blurring together. “I’m sure they do. I just haven’t confirmed it yet. The Elsod will announce it and preside over some thrown-together coronation. I’ll summon a war sejm after that.”
“And Ildiko?”
Brishen’s jaw clenched at Serovek’s familiar use of her first name. “She’ll act as regent while I’m off fighting galla. She isn’t prepared for it but will do it. What choice is there?”
“The Kai won’t like it.”
Considering the threat every last Kai and human faced, their dislike was the least of Brishen’s concerns. “They don’t have to like it. They just have to accept it.”
They entered the council chamber, and Brishen closed the door behind him. He gave it a half minute before someone planted an eavesdropper on the other side. To thwart them, he incanted the same spell the Elsod had used earlier to muffle his conversation with Serovek.
The other man shook his head and flexed his jaw to pop his ears. “Useful magic, that,” he said. “Annoying though.” He declined Brishen’s offer of a chair. “If your ministers are anything like the pack of wolves always circling the Beladine court, they’ll spend their time planning your wife’s assassination, your overthrow, and the elevation of a favored puppet to your the throne.”
Serovek wasn’t telling Brishen anything he hadn’t already planned for. “Then they’ll be in for a surprise. The councilors I choose for the war sejm will benefit more if I stay on the throne. Anhuset will remain here also.”
Serovek winced. “I’m sure that went over well.”
“About as you might expect. But she’s more useful to me here, guarding Ildiko and suppo
rting her. Mertok will stay too, so it isn’t as if I’m singling her out. The first hint of sedition that rears its head, and that person will be put to the sword. Ildiko may be human, but she isn’t weak. She’ll do what’s necessary to hold the throne until I return.”
“If we return.”
“I can’t afford to think otherwise.”
Serovek and his company had traveled through the night to reach Saggara by morning. He assured Brishen several times that High Salure would be secure without him for an extended period. He left the hall to see to his men, refusing one of only three small chambers left in the main house, preferring a pallet in the garrison barracks.
Brishen climbed the stairs and eased quietly into his chamber. Ildiko huddled in the bed and didn’t stir when he stripped and slipped under the covers to spoon around her. She was warm and soft and smelled citrusy from the orange water she’d requested their apothecary distill from the wild grove that bordered one side of Saggara.
Her hair tickled his nose, and he buried his face in the tangled locks. His garrison could now boast that nowhere else in Bast-Haradis did this many beautiful Kai women congregate. The lesser nobility had gathered in force, for safety, for influence and for the chance to show off their women folk to the king between kings. Ildiko’s serene mask as she watched them vie for Brishen’s attention on a nightly basis didn’t fool him for a moment.
He pulled her closer into the curve of his body. He regretted not telling her he had no more interest in them than the shade of whitewash painted on the walls. That she, above all others, held his heart and his soul. Maybe if he had, she might not have embraced the Elsod’s advice so readily.
Maybe. Ildiko was a pragmatic sort who understood the requirements of duty better than anyone. Better, even than he did. It was why she’d willingly agreed to marry him in the first place. Her arguments supporting the Elsod’s insistence that he renounce her had kicked him in the gut, and the pain of her betrayal nearly put him on his knees. A day of reflection and the memory of her agonized expression tempered his initial fury. She didn’t want him to renounce her anymore than he did. They only differed in their sense of obligation to the roles in which they’d been suddenly and unwillingly thrust.
“You are my queen,” he murmured into her hair. “And my queen you will remain.”
She replied with a slurred “I love you, Brishen,” and he exerted all his willpower not to crush her to him, meld her into his skin. Keep her safe. Keep her close.
The following evening the signal bells hung at each of the redoubt’s corners rang repeatedly, summoning the permanent residents and those who bivouacked in the bailey and surrounding fields. They gathered outside the perimeter walls before a hastily erected platform, faces curious and hopeful as they gazed at the Elsod and Brishen beside her.
His mouth was dry as a plate of sand. These people looked to him to save them. If they learned how he intended to do it, they’d turn on him faster than a pack of magefinders and tear him apart.
The crowd went silent when the Elsod stepped forward and raised her arms. “The Scrying Wheel revealed a great tragedy,” she announced in a powerful voice that belied her frail looking figure. “One verified by the scouts returning from the capital. Haradis has fallen to the galla.” An anguished cry rippled through the gathering. “Those who survived the attack now travel to Saggara.”
A lone voice spoke up. “The royal family? What of them?” The question hung in the air as all gazes shifted to Brishen.
“None survived,” the memory warden replied. “Save one.” Her pause deepened the breathless hush hanging in the air. She turned to Brishen, and with the help of her masods, sank to her knees before him. “The king is dead. Long live the king.”
As one, the crowd of Kai genuflected before Brishen, some with grief stamped on their features, others with hope. The second made him flinch. “Stand,” he commanded, and the shift of feet rumbled like far-off thunder. “We are a country at war.” His voice carried on the frosty air, sure and resolute. “Not with the human kingdoms—they who live and breathe, bleed and die as we do.” His gaze settled on Serovek and his troop, standing separate from the Kai. “Cherish their families and love their children and elders as we do,” he continued. “We are at war with creatures who know nothing of these things, value nothing beyond the need to devour and destroy.
“We all know the stories of the galla, but we aren’t defeated, not yet. There is a way to turn them back and send them once more from our world to the prison from whence they came.” The crowd shifted and murmured among themselves. “But for it to succeed, you must unite. Put aside your differences, your petty ambitions and work together as one people. If you don’t, we won’t survive.”
Brishen waited, allowing his words to sink in, allowing the Kai time to realize the challenge that lay before them. He spoke again, his voice building to a roar. “Long may the moon rise above Bast-Haradis! Long may the Kai thrive beneath her light!”
The Kai responded with shouts of their own. “Long live the Kai! Long live the King!” They surged the platform, and Brishen stepped down, instantly swallowed by bodies that pressed against him and hands that touched him reverently, as if he’d suddenly transformed from a nobleman to a god.
He caught sight of Ildiko still on the platform next to the kapu kezets. She held the Elsod’s elbow and gazed at the sea of cheering people, face pale and set.
More cheering erupted when Brishen returned to the platform, and the Elsod performed the simple ceremony of placing a plain gold circlet on his head. The applause wasn’t quite as loud when Ildiko bent her head to accept the second circlet, and Brishen noted the faces of each noble family closest to him in rank. A few seemed genuinely glad; most wore calculating expressions and thin smiles that did little to mask their resentment at swearing fealty to a human queen. He could only imagine how they’d react when he named her regent in his absence.
For a few hours, the Kai forgot about the galla and the danger they posed. Brishen ordered the opening of wine and ale casks. Fires were lit, and musicians set to playing their instruments while others gathered for impromptu dancing. As coronation celebrations went, it was neither regal nor formal nor even dignified. Brishen didn’t want it any other way.
He found Ildiko amidst a cluster of Kai women, all talking to her at once. She wore that falsely peaceful mask he was growing to hate. Anhuset hovered nearby, a grim guardian.
All conversation ceased when he waded into their ranks, with bland apologies for the interruption and whisked Ildiko out of their clutches. Anhuset’s dour “Thank the gods that torture is over” made him grin and Ildiko chortle.
The manor’s upper floors were deserted and blessedly silent. In the sanctuary of their chamber, Brishen removed Ildiko’s clothes and his own until they both faced each other, naked and dappled in firelight. They exchanged caresses instead of words, kisses instead of conversation, and by the time they stumbled to the bed in a frantic rush, Brishen forgot—for a moment—the hollow chasm that yawned in the pit of his belly.
He made love to Ildiko through the evening hours, savoring her touch, the feel of her in his arms and the gasping sound of his name escaping her lips as he pleasured her. When they rested, she idly stroked the ridge of muscle that sculpted his stomach. He’d thrown back the covers to cool off, and her hand in the darkness glowed like a pearl against his own slate-colored skin.
“You’ve abandoned Serovek,” she said and punctuated the remark with a kiss to his shoulder.
Knowing Serovek, he was in the thick of it—dancing, drinking, charming his way through the crowd of Kai and likely annoying Anhuset every chance he got. “I very much doubt I’m missed.” He rolled her onto her back, his blood heated once more simply by her proximity. “And I couldn’t care less if I were.”
The following afternoon he finished the last touches to the instructions he intended to give his war council and left the first-floor study for the bailey. He slowed and changed direction when
he spotted both Ildiko and Anhuset peering intently at something near the stables. A wagon blocked his view of the thing capturing their attention. When it rolled away, he arched an eyebrow.
Serovek was deep in conversation with one of the Kai stable masters. His horse, saddled and packed for the return trip to High Salure, grazed contentedly nearby. Brishen looked back and forth between the Beladine margrave and the two women before taking a circuitous path to where they stood. Neither sensed him lingering the shadow of a stall gate. Serovek had disappeared into the stable’s interior on the opposite side from where Brishen eavesdropped.
“Do human women truly find him handsome?” Anhuset’s voice lacked its customary sarcasm. Her question held only disbelieving curiosity.
Ildiko chuckled. “I imagine so. He’s blessed with good looks, a fine form and good character.” Brishen’s eye narrowed. Her praise seemed excessive. “And I imagine they don’t call him the Beladine Stallion for nothing.” He scowled.
Anhuset snorted and turned back to hoist a horse blanket over one shoulder. “Nothing but a bunch of bluster if you ask me. I’d want proof to believe that nonsense.”
“Any time, any place, fair Anhuset.” Serovek’s sudden appearance out of seeming thin air made Ildiko jump and Anhuset snarl. He closed the distance between himself and the Kai woman until there was only a hand’s length of space between them. Brishen feared the margrave courted imminent disemboweling. “Name it,” he almost purred, “and I’ll be happy to prove the title is more than bluster.”