The King of Forever (Scarlet and the White Wolf, #4)

by Kirby Crow

  “Come to us,” the stranger said. “Come to the temple mountain, the place of gods. All your answers are there, and everyone you love. It’s all waiting for you, Scarlet.”

  Again, Melev came to mind. The ancient had wanted more than just magic from him. He had wanted the Creatrix, a powerful instrument of the Shining Ones that had been hidden deep inside a distant mountain. Scarlet knew where that mountain was, but he had told no one except Liall. Liall had refused to speak of it ever again.

  But he couldn’t mean the Nerit, he thought. It was thousands of leagues away, across the sea.

  “The mountain is here, Anlyribeth. It waits for you. She waits for you.”

  “Who?” he asked, against all sense and reason. He wanted nothing more than to be away from this man. Why was he lingering to question him? “Who are you?”

  “I raised the Black Moat. I saved the realm. I am the Red King.”

  The very air seemed to turn crimson at the words. A gory curtain swept between them, as if covering the world in blood. And then he was alone, left with the mist and the silence, in a gray space surrounded by a limitless horizon. The taste of metal was in his mouth. He turned, searching for a direction, a sign, anything.

  “Scaja?” he called. “Mum?”

  But it wasn’t Linhona’s hand that dragged him from the earth and shook him hard until finally he drew a ragged breath.

  Tesk leaned over him, stark fear in his eyes. “Ser! Are you injured? Can you speak?”

  He tried to, but the world wavered and blurred, and the last thing he heard was Tesk shouting frantically for aid.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Less Talking

  “His arm may be broken, my lord,” the curae said.

  Liall was coldly furious. He stood with his great arms crossed, his legs planted apart, and glared daggers at the hunting party guards.

  The useless hunting party guards, he fumed, knowing no man could command Scarlet, no matter what size. The guardsmen he had assigned to protect his t’aishka were hulking giants even by Rshani standards, well-trained to the sword and the battlefield, and fearless fighters.

  And here they stand looking like schoolboys ready for a scolding.

  “It’s not broken, Liall,” Scarlet argued from the bed that he’d been carried to. A livid bruise marked his cheekbone.

  Six months in Rshan na Ostre, and Scarlet still refused to call him by his birth name, or even the boyhood diminutive his mother had given him: Nazir. Neither would Scarlet accept his own court name: ser Keriss, the flame flower. As far as his love was concerned, they were Scarlet the pedlar and Liall the Kasiri bandit, forever.

  “My leg is fine, too, whatever your curae tells you.” Scarlet’s face pinched with lines of pain and he gasped as the curae manipulated the bones of his foot. His snow-pale skin was stained with two bright spots of red high on his cheeks, a sure sign that he was angry as well as injured. “I know when my bones are broken.”

  These rooms were larger than their old apartments, and far more private—set high in a wing of the outer tier of the palace—but plainer, wide and airy, with great, blue-tinted windows east and west and polished golden boards underfoot. The queen’s rooms in the inner tier were too grand and altogether too painful for Liall, and he’d ordered them sealed after her death, wanting to avoid the memories they held.

  For himself, Scarlet claimed only a small place in their new chambers: a curtained alcove with a tall window and a fire grate, where he would spend long hours sunk into the deep cushions of the window-seat, perusing the vast library of books in the Nauhinir. It was a new beginning for them, or so Liall had thought.

  Today seemed like a replay of old times.

  Scarlet’s right arm was unwrapped from its bandages and propped with a pillow over his chest. It looked swollen and red, shading to purple in places. His left trouser leg was cut open to the knee, exposing the area where a jagged tree limb had slashed the muscle deep.

  Esiuk, the royal curae, took up a needle threaded with boiled sinew and bent over his task. “Please do not move, ser.”

  “I won’t.”

  Liall wanted to tear the whole palace down. No hunt was without risk. He knew that, and yet despite every precaution he could command, Scarlet had been in danger.

  Alexyin had said he would see to placing smaller game in the grove. Was the lure of easy prey what called the ice cat, or was there something darker at work here?

  Tesk was in the room, watching Scarlet with a deep frown. He had saved Scarlet’s life, but he didn’t seem happy about it, or proud. He seemed angry. “He trusted his weight to a deadfall, sire,” he said. “But before, when the cat came, he did not move to protect himself. I think he froze. I beg your forgiveness.”

  “I was surprised,” Scarlet said. “I told you that, Tesk. There’s nothing to forgive. It’s no one’s fault but mine.”

  Jochi stepped forward tentatively. “Sire?”

  Liall turned on him, and the murderous look he gave the Setna stopped him in his tracks. Jochi blushed and began to stammer an apology. Scarlet had remarked that Jochi had the kindest Rshani face he had ever seen, with a gentility that few could appreciate. His tall height was all slenderness and quiet grace, his hair like a length of white silk, and his expressive eyes were a deep gold that hinted at passion.

  A passion he has never displayed, Liall thought. At least not in my sight me. He’s always been so coolly polite. The only person he’s attached to is Scarlet.

  He cut the air with the flat of his hand, interrupting Jochi’s apology and barely missing his nose. “I will not hear excuses from you. Not this time.”

  “My lord, no one wished him harm. I swear to you—”

  “You didn’t wish it, but it happened! Is this how you guard my family? You allowed him to leave his guards behind, and so you allowed a dangerous animal within striking distance of him. What if he’d run into a snow bear or a pack of wolves? I have considerable respect for your position and your family, and that’s the only reason you’re not hanging by your heels over the castle walls. Damn you!” Liall grabbed Jochi by the front of his virca and dragged him close. “Damn your incompetence!”

  Scarlet pushed himself up from the bed on his elbow. “Liall, stop!” He hissed in pain and fell back. “Tesk, tell him.”

  Tesk was silent.

  Jochi’s expression turned cold. “My lord, if you believe I wish harm to ser Keriss, then I should be hanging over the walls already,” he said calmly, though he was up on his tiptoes to keep his balance. “I did try to see you before we left. I wanted more guards; men with hunting skills evenly matched to ser Keriss. I was turned away.”

  Liall thought back. This morning? He’d been closeted with a Rshani merchant envoy from Sul-na, bringing new trade terms with the Morturii. He barely remembered Jochi’s request for an audience.

  He uttered a sound of disgust and shoved Jochi away. “I said I would see you later in the day.”

  Jochi straightened his virca. “Ser Keriss did not wish to hunt later in the day, and he did not wish his game scared off by armored guards clanking through the woods. That’s why I wanted the hunters.”

  “Liall, enough,” Scarlet said. He sounded tired.

  “Lie down!” Liall shouted. “You’re bleeding.”

  Scarlet roused himself and shouted back. “Stop yelling! The fault was mine. You want to be a bully to someone? Try me.”

  Despite everything, that brought a smirk to Liall’s mouth. Scarlet was the only man in Rshan who dared to speak to him that way. He knew there were rumors that the king was ruled by the small Hilurin like a besotted bride, but those rumors were never uttered to his face. He didn’t care anyway. Let them gossip. He had the throne, the power, the army, and he had Scarlet.

  They can all go fuck themselves, he thought as he strode to the bed.

  “Be quiet and lie down,” he ordered. “How bad is it?” he asked Esiuk.

  Scarlet narrowed his eyes but reclined on the pillows once mor
e. Liall was not foolish enough to take that as a sign of victory. His ears would be burning from Scarlet’s curses later. Scarlet was very fond of Jochi, one of his few true friends in a land not his own.

  “The muscle will heal cleanly, my lord,” the curae said. “If ser Keriss will hold still long enough for me to finish the stitching, that is.”

  “You heard him,” Liall said. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Be still and let him work. The rest of you, get out.”

  Tesk bowed and turned.

  “Tesk.”

  “Sire?”

  Liall took Tesk’s hand for a moment. “You have my gratitude. I won’t forget this service.”

  Tesk looked down and bowed again formally, almost stiffly. “My king.”

  With an anguished look at Scarlet, Jochi turned to follow the guards.

  Liall’s order rang out like a diamond hitting the floor. “Stay, Setna.”

  Jochi froze. “Yes, my lord.” He faced the king.

  Scarlet bridled once more, but Liall knew he had put it off too long. It had to be done. He fixed Jochi with a withering look. “For some time you have held the position of tutor and bodyguard to my t’aishka. I intend to relieve you of those duties. If I had a suitable replacement now, I would do it this moment. Until I find a man better suited to the task, I hold you personally responsible for his safety. Is that clear?”

  Jochi’s golden eyes widened in dismay. “Sire, please.”

  “Cats stray. Men go where they will,” Scarlet spoke up. “He couldn’t have known the ice cat would be there, and he isn’t responsible for what I do.”

  Liall kept his attention focused on Jochi. “You are responsible. You will be held responsible. Are we perfectly understood, you and I?” he pressed.

  After a brief moment, Jochi shoulder’s sagged and he bowed deeply. “Perfectly, sire.”

  “Good. Now get out.”

  After Jochi had gone, Liall dragged a chair over to the bed and sat heavily. “Well, say what you have to say.”

  Scarlet apparently had so much to say that he couldn’t decide where to start. He spluttered for a moment in gutter Falx, the language of the Morturii slums, before snarling bastard at him and flopping back on his pillows. “Jochi isn’t my keeper. I’m a man grown and you can’t put my mistakes on him. You have no fucking right!”

  “I have every right.”

  “Just who in Deva’s shrieking hell do you think you are?”

  “I think I’m the only fucking king in this room.” Liall strove for calm. This was not the manner to take with Scarlet. It never worked. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair. “I’m King Nazheradei of Rshan na Ostre, and like it or not, Jochi is my subject and will do as I command.”

  Scarlet’s jaw went tight. “And me?”

  “You’re Scarlet, son of Scaja the wainwright. You’re also ser Keriss kir Nazheradei, t’aishka of the king, royal consort, and Lord of the Wild.” Liall had formally given Scarlet the noble title last month, along with the Wild itself; a patch of rich hunting lands in the rocky countryside of the Nauhinir. The customary gift of land had angered his court, but it was expected that a nobleman should own something in his own right. It seemed even his small gifts to his t’aishka would be resented. “I don’t expect you to obey me, so get your temper down before you burst a vein. What I do expect is for you not to openly curse me or to coax my servants and vassals to defiance. What do you think would happen to Jochi if you were killed?”

  Scarlet frowned. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  Liall snorted. “Don’t wager on it. Living as atya of the Kasiri is not so far away in my memory, and krait-law is not that different from Rshani law. I would have made him pay for your life, and your guards would have paid as well. Is that what you want?”

  Reminding Scarlet of their Byzantur adventuring seemed to get through, because his chin dropped. “Of course not. Now that there’s light to see, I only wanted to wander a bit and taste more of the land. You said hunting was safe.”

  So that was it. Scarlet’s wilding nature was coming to life with the sun. “Hunting is never safe. I said it was safer within the palace grounds, not outside of them, as you well know.” Liall sighed. “We have not spent much time together lately, I know. That’s why I leave you in Jochi’s company: because you’re fond of him and he cares for you. He would not allow you to come to harm. That is, if he can help it.” He cupped Scarlet’s face in both his big hands, making Scarlet look at him. “You outrank him, love. Jochi has to obey you the same as he must obey me. He tried to change your mind about going off alone with Tesk. I know he did.”

  When Scarlet did not protest, Liall went on. “He tried to change your mind. And when that didn’t work, he bowed to your will, as he must, and obeyed. You left him no other avenue.”

  “I’m sick of being watched and followed like a thief. It’s not my way to have eyes on me all the time.”

  “It’s unwise for a king’s t’aishka to go traipsing through the woods alone—”

  “I don’t traipse!”

  “Because,” Liall continued, “quite apart from all the ordinary dangers, you make a very tempting target for my enemies.” His thumb brushed the curving mark under Scarlet’s right eye. A mariner had dealt that wound. It was faded in color, but the scar would remain gray, as if someone had drawn a fine line there in ashes. Hilurin always scarred so.

  “I wanted to kill the man who did this to you, remember? I haven’t exactly kept my love for you a secret. At first, it didn’t matter, because Cestimir was to be king and we were supposed to leave. You’re my weakness, Scarlet, and now everyone knows it.” He kissed Scarlet on the forehead, then sat back and looked at him steadily. “And you cannot go anywhere alone, love. Not anymore. Not as long as I’m king. I never intended to bring you here at all, but now that you are here and—I hope—intend to remain, our lives must change.” He massaged the bridge of his nose tiredly. “I thought we’d covered this ground already.”

  “We have,” Scarlet said morosely.

  “And so?”

  Scarlet shrugged. “As you say, you’ve been busy. We’ve spent little time together in the past month. I wanted a change. I got bored.”

  Liall grunted. And grew tired of having palace gossip poured into your ears. “Deva save us all from a bored Hilurin.”

  Scarlet winced as Esiuk’s needle threaded through his skin. “I took down a buck before I fell.”

  “A reindeer?” Liall couldn’t stop himself from grinning. “With your little bow? You amaze me. Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “Fly, for one.” Scarlet shook his head. “I thought it was a hill made of earth or an outcropping of rock. It didn’t look like a deadfall. Even if it was, I expected the ice would hold me up.”

  “The ice becomes rotten this time of year, especially so close to the sea. Any area off the main paths can be treacherous. Did you enjoy using the bow?” Liall was glad to be off the topic of his many absences and glad that they were not snapping at each other anymore. Scarlet’s temper was like quicksilver, but so was his forgiveness. He never stayed cross for long, and for that Liall was grateful. Lately, though, gossip of Ressilka had put a wedge between them, and Liall ached to see it gone.

  Scarlet nodded. “The bow is a fine way to hunt. Better than snaring, anyhow, and surer.”

  Deer and other game in Scarlet’s homeland were brought down by snares, spears, traps, or staked pits. In Byzantur and even Morturii, the bow was a cowardly weapon of disgrace, the tool of assassins and spies. Any weapon that put a man beyond arm’s reach was shameful to use, and even possessing one with the excuse of hunting was extremely dangerous. A bow was an indictment, and the man who owned one could be accused of many things. Scarlet had never even touched a bow before coming to Rshan.

  “I’m glad you’ve taken to the weapon. It’s a pretty thing, is it not?” Liall glanced at the door where Scarlet’s heavy hunting cloak and boots had been piled, the slender bow named W
hisper resting on top of them. A servant would put them away later, when they judged it prudent to return.

  Scarlet followed Liall’s gaze. The supple bow was carved from seasoned black oak, the grip inlaid with bone and silver and mother of pearl fittings in the swirling Ostre Sul pattern of the winter aurora. Though it was perfect for Scarlet, it was half the size of a Rshani bow and a fourth of the drawing power. Liall had known it would be good for hunting rabbits and small game, but with accuracy and swiftness, an arrow was deadly to a target of any size. A rabbit was smaller than a man’s head, after all, and an eye makes a handy target. It pleased him to know that he had added one more defense to Scarlet’s arsenal.

  “Very pretty,” Scarlet agreed. “I’m getting better, but some of my arrows still go wide of my mark.”

  “The bow is yours, but no man owns the arrow, Scarlet.” Liall was suddenly serious. “Remember that. An arrow can always go astray, even at the last moment. No man ever masters it completely.”

  “What about women? I bet Jarek would be a fair shot with my lady there. I still feel strange picking her up, like I should be looking over my shoulder for an Ankarian guard to call me out as a spy.”

  “She?” Liall chuckled. “You think your bow a female, then? My t’aishka finally decides to sample the pleasures of a woman, but she’s made of wood.”

  That tugged an embarrassed smile from Scarlet, despite Esiuk’s presence. “As if I’d ever. Even if I liked her, I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d make a mess of it, that’s for sure.” He shook his head. “Things are so different here. You have masters but no slaves, magic but no gods, and men can lie with men, and women with women, and no one takes the slightest notice.”

  “You’re the only magic this country has seen in a thousand years.” Liall ignored the remark about men. Scarlet was not ashamed to be known as his lover, but the stigmas inflicted on Scarlet in his homeland were hard to erase. Liall hoped that, in time, he would completely forget them.