by Ronie Kendig
Dressed in greens and golds, his mother rose from the settee elegantly, hands clasped. Shoulders squared. Their eyes met. “O Lady beneficent!” A shudder rent her façade of courage and confidence. “Tili!”
He inclined his head. “My queen—”
“Do not!” she said with a groan, reaching for him.
He went into her arms, savoring the love that had guided him through unruly years and so many turmoils. After kissing her cheeks, he eased back, remembering Peani was with them. “Pray—are ye well?”
“As can be expected,” she said, ever graceful and proper. She looked to Relig’s bound. “Peani has not fared as well, considering the child—”
“Aye,” Tili said, catching his new sister’s hand and planting a kiss on her cheek. “Osman shared the news. Congratulations, sister.”
She smiled, but truth had been spoken. The toll upon her was great. The battle had yet to begin and already she faltered. Was she so frail? He thanked the Lady he had not succumbed to the machination of his mother and taken Peani as his bound. She had been too pretty, too petty, and too pampered for his liking.
“Have ye word of Kiethiel?” Tili asked his mother. His heart ached to know the location of another, but his mother would hold no answer there.
“None,” she breathed. “We had hoped to find her here with the prince.”
“He has threatened to leave in search of her, but we have dissuaded him.”
“Dissuaded? Why?”
Tili snorted. “The war, Mother. We all put aside our heart’s wishes in this day. He is the Fierian and must remain here for the battle. As must I.” He took her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Kiethiel will be well. She is strong like ye.”
His mother seemed ready to speak, then pressed her lips together and nodded.
Grateful for her silence, Tili released her. “I wanted to see how ye found the accommodations.” He nodded around. “Where are Father and my brothers?”
“Your father and Aselan went with the prince, I am told. Relig and Osmon are on a tour of the grounds and armies with the young colonel. Aburas had much to say—”
Tili chuckled. “I imagine well he did.” He considered his mother. “’Tis good ye are here. As ye are settling, I will beg yer mercy—”
“Mercy—no. Wait.” Mother reached to him. “I think one would speak with ye.”
Tili glanced to Peani “Aye?”
Startled, his sister straightened. Shook her head. Then rushed into an adjoining room, from where a servant girl in brown emerged.
He glanced at his mother for clarification. “I—” The eyes. He snapped his gaze back to the servant. Nay, no servant. Astadia. His pulse jammed. He started forward then thought better of himself. Of her. Of his mother. The queen.
Hiel-touck!
Fisting a hand, Tili swallowed, his mind taking a split-second assessment. When he’d last seen her, she wore trousers, leather armor, daggers, and braids. Now, she was all . . . softness and curves in skirts and coils. He had to admit, he liked this attire better, for her curves fit well the feminine cut. What he liked even more was the way the curves had fit against him when they had kissed.
Mercies . . .
Of note were the long sleeves that hid her mark. Was that her choosing? Or theirs?
“Two minutes, Thurig as’Tili,” his mother said in clear warning as she left the receiving room and joined Peani.
With the adjoining door partially closed, he shifted. Faced Astadia again. Heat rolled up his shoulders, his hands itching to take her into his arms. Think not with yer loins but yer brain!
She was an assassin. Taken by Drracien. Poired. How was she here? What was her intent? Had she deliberately gone to his mother? To what end? Betray him? Hurt them? The thought sent a trill of rage through him.
“Til—”
“How?” The question barked past his barriers. Anger jolted him, realizing how easily she could ruin him, his family. “What are ye doing here? With my family?”
But her eyes. They were molten. Liquid. She looked ready to crumble. Nay! Astadia Kath did not crumble. She crumbled others.
Now her chin trembled. His instincts warred—one to strangle her, another to crush her into his arms. What had happened to effect this change in her? “Are ye well?” He hated that he cared. Not until he knew the full of what transpired, how she left with the Dark One, yet appeared here.
“Aye,” she managed, softly. Brokenly.
And it undid him. “Blazes, Astadia. Ye had me worried,” he confessed, running a hand through his hair. “How did ye come to be here? And why with my mother?”
Her eyes slitted. “You think I’m here for some dark purpose?”
“Nay,” he said, drawing it out, stepping closer. “Aye,” he conceded, seeing something new in her—brokenness. Raw hurt. Whatever happened, ’twasn’t good. “Ye were fair angry when we last—”
“Think you I am so vengeful, I would harm them because you rejected me?”
He braved another step. “’Twas no rejection.”
“Wasn’t it?” Her chin lifted, her neck graceful and elegant—and bare right down to . . .
Eyes to her face, he chided himself. “’Twas merely an attempt to save ye injury—”
“So to save me injury, you inflict your own.”
“I hurt ye?” Truly, someone had. They were inches apart, making it difficult for him to take a breath—so scared he would frighten her off. Which would manifest as a punch.
That blazing vulnerability appeared with the ripple of her throat as she swallowed. “I’m an assassin. How could you possibly hurt me?”
“Apparently with more ease than imagined.” He reached for her.
Astadia slapped his hand away.
“What happened to ye?”
She glowered, and again he reached for her. Again she swatted. This time, he’d anticipated it. Countered by catching her wrist and securing it behind her. She struggled and jerked back, but he yanked her forward. Her other fist flew.
With a smile that fueled the fire in her eyes, Tili caught and drove it behind as well. Both hands at her back, he hauled her to himself. She was a wild thing of beauty. She stirred him and riled him as no other woman. Her beauty was not in coiled hair and rouge and low bodices—though hers at the moment certainly worsened his distraction—but of fire and courage.
Astadia’s lips parted with a gasp, wariness in those liquid green eyes. But then she bucked. “Release me!”
“Never again.”
She stilled, surprised by the words. Good. He’d intended that. Liked it that she now searched him, the truth of his words. What surprised him more was that he meant it. “Tili—”
“Never again,” he whispered, releasing her hands and catching her lips in a soft, teasing kiss. “I’ll never leave ye again.”
Her hands slid up his chest.
Greedy to have her in his arms, he pressed her against himself, burying his face in her neck. But then . . . he felt it. Like a surf crashing against the rocks. Crying. Her sobs went violent and deep.
Astadia was . . . crying?
Tili strangled his desire. Chastised himself for not paying attention to the signals he’d seen then lost sight of as he held her. She tangled his mind. What had she gone through? He cupped her head and held her, enraged that anyone could cause her to cry. Whatever hurt they had perpetrated against her—“I’ll kill them,” he promised against her ear.
Her arms tightened around him, breath hot along his neck as her tears slowed raggedly.
No more could he take it. He eased back and framed her face in his hands. “What happened?”
She batted away her tears, shaking her head, but not enough to break free. Anguish roiled through her. “He—they—then he—” She clutched his tunic tightly in a fist until her trembling calmed. Then she shoved back without warning. Using the sleeves of her gown—his mother would rail at that—she smeared away the tears.
She glowered, shaking her head. Where grie
f and some very real terror had colored her cheeks a moment ago, now anger and that fiery spirit roared back to the surface. “I’ll murder them. Both of them! All of them!”
Tili felt like he’d been struck with a sword hilt. “Astadia.”
Her darting eyes locked onto him.
“Breathe.”
She shuddered and turned away, swatting aside her skirts.
“What happened?” he managed around his traitorous thoughts.
“They held me prisoner. In the high tower of the Citadel, I think. Brought in that hideous creature-man . . .” Her thoughts sought purchase, gaze darting around the room, then back to his. “I don’t know what he did to me.” Again, her chin trembled. “But never—never have I felt such cold, horrifying darkness.” She shuddered. “Then everything was sharp and torturous. Like shivs being drawn across every inch my flesh.”
And she would know of that, being an assassin.
“That thing kept calling me unnatural, shrieking so that my ears bled. Next thing I know, Drracien is pitching me through”—she shrugged—“this space. Somehow, I ended up on the plains outside Hetaera. A day and a night alone before I found the remnant.”
“Sounds like ye scared them.” Tili liked that. She had certainly scared him when they first met. Or at least inspired a healthy respect. “What did he mean that ye were unnatural?” He reached for her, relieved when she did not push him away again. “I mean, I knew yer beauty is unnatural—”
She sniffed, rolling her eyes. “I know not what he meant, but the way that thing shrieked . . .” She covered her ears. “They all looked at me as if I were the monster.”
“Ye are no monster, trust me. I’m an expert on them.” The need to pull her into his arms tugged at him. “How did ye come to be here, with my mother?”
She lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug, drawing his gaze to her bare clavicle that peeked out. “She had pity on me—my clothes were shredded. I was dehydrated and exhausted.”
“Do they know—”
“We’ll depart soon,” came his mother’s abnormally loud voice, warning of her return.
Astadia gave the barest shake of her head and stepped from his touch.
His mother entered with a bored, passive expression. “I trust you are reacquainted enough?”
Reacquainted? “How do ye know of Astadia?”
Regal in her bearing, his mother glided closer, a knowing smile on her refined features. “When we had her tale after discovering her on the road, ’twas her numerous mentions of the steward that alerted me.” His mother was the most perceptive woman in the kingdom, and she knew it. “I see my intuition was right.” She smiled at Astadia, considering her. Appraising her.
What did his mother think of her? Without knowledge of Astadia’s profession, what would one think? He could not fathom, for to him she was the assassin and the beauty who had cut out his heart and made off with it.
“So, you are smitten with our Prince Tili.” His mother seemed to preen. “You have chosen well, and a surprise at that. Not because of anything about you—after all, you are a comely little thing, but ask Peani—he is not easily snared.”
Humiliated, and seeing his sister’s face go crimson, Tili stepped forward. “Mother, enough.”
Astadia twitched. The title. Their conversation. His words that it wouldn’t work.
Blast, he just wanted out of here. Go fight an incipient—it’d be less humiliating.
“He’s handsome enough,” Astadia said quietly. “But a bit thickheaded.”
Shock held him fast as his mother let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, I do like her, Tili. I’m so glad I convinced the king to take her under the Nivar banner.”
“Took her—” Tili frowned, glancing again at Astadia, who stared back without a trace of humility or embarrassment.
“Aye,” his mother said. “Is that a problem? Do you not trust us to look after her? She’s safe here with us.”
More a problem than either of them could ever know, since they didn’t know they sheltered a murderer. The council at Nivar would not approve. However, it did solve one problem for Tili—making sure she was not far enough from his side to be snatched again. But that presented another problem: temptation.
“She is right,” Astadia muttered, drawing closer. Too naïve, too unpracticed in matters of court to know how she stepped out of line just then. “I am well here. Your mother, the queen, has been more than gracious.”
Where had this creature of diplomacy come from? Should he be concerned?
“The Nivari are at the door. Ye have only to call for me.” He gave his mother a curt bow, then backed up, glancing again at Astadia. Something telling him he should not leave these two alone.
• • •
“King Thurig, I would have ye meet Vaqar.”
“A Tahscan,” Thurig said, a growl in his words and disgust on his lips. “Ye have Pathfinders and Jujak. Aye, even my own son. Why do ye need—”
“Where I go, he will go,” Haegan said as he led them up the stairs to the king’s solar. “I’ve asked that he not leave my side. As a warrior, he brings skills I am just learning, but also . . . Abiassa has gifted Vaqar with the ability to detect inflaming.”
“How?” Thurig asked.
“Quite literally, he can smell the inflaming, the wielding. I do not want to end up like my father, yet nearly did.” Shame seeped into him. “’Tis easy to miss the inflaming and embrace doubts. When Poired comes, I fully expect him to manipulate my will and doubts against me again, so he may gain the advantage and slaughter those I am tasked with protecting. Therefore, Vaqar or one of his people is with me. Night and day. When he detects dark wielding, he alerts me. Vaqar will be my shield.”
Thurig answered only with a grunt as they trod the semi-darkened passages.
“What of my sister? And Thiel?” Haegan glanced to Aselan, quickly noting how their silence filled the hall. “Are they well? What word?”
“There has been no word of Kiethiel since Gwogh sent her out,” Aselan said.
Haegan himself had news more recent than that, though it was of no comfort. “Chima came bearing Laertes but not her. Laertes said the Ematahri were keeping them in cages.” He decided not to mention the fact that Thiel had been taken from the cage some time before Chima’s escape, that she had almost escaped herself. “I’ve sent a Drigo to search for her.”
“We thank ye,” Aselan said. “She is strong.”
As everyone said, yet it gave Haegan no relief. “And my sister?”
Aselan’s face darkened.
Haegan stopped. “What?” Fisted his hands. “Is she . . . dead?”
“Nay,” Aselan said, glancing at Haegan’s hands, at the wakes roiling off them. “At least, not as far as I know. They snatched her—ambushed the Legiera as they fled the Tooth.”
“Fled?”
“Aye.”
“I would have this story.”
“Prince Haegan,” King Thurig broke into the conversation. “I would pay my respects to yer father, that I might sup before the moons rise.”
“Of course,” Haegan said as they climbed stairs and explained what had happened to both him and his father. “While I escaped mostly . . . unaffected, I am afraid the same cannot be said of my father, for he endured the inflaming of the Infantessa and the Dark One for much longer.” He stopped before the doors, where two sentries stood faithfully. “I . . . He will not know you.” He thought to warn them, but what was there to say? No words could prepare a soul to see such degradation of a man.
He stepped aside and the sentries opened the doors. Mustering his courage, Haegan entered. Spotted his father sitting in a chair, staring blankly. Would he know him today? He’d known Haegan on the roof but for a second. “Father, I have brought guests.”
No response. Haegan glanced back. And though Thurig hesitated for a second, he came forward. “Zireli, what are ye doing sitting about?”
More surprise spiraled through Haegan—that Thurig would address
the Fire King so casually, but also that the query pulled his father from the stupor.
His father blinked. Looked at their guests. “Thurig?”
A bear-laugh boomed.
His father came to his feet.
Drawing in a breath, Haegan watched, marveled.
“What are you doing in Seultrie?”
The bubble of hope popped. Haegan’s gut cinched. He feared Thurig would falter and then his father would grow agitated.
“Interrupting yer daydreams, it appears,” Thurig said, never missing a beat. “Don’t ye have a kingdom to rule? A nemesis to overthrow?”
They were the wrong words. His father shook his head. Slowly. Then frantically. He backed up, the chair clipping the backs of his legs, dropping him hard to the seat, which groaned beneath the impact. “No no no.”
Haegan surged forward. Caught his father’s hands. “Father, did you read mother’s letter?”
Pale blue eyes met his, unfocused, confused. “Adrroania?”
“Aye,” Haegan said softly, soothingly. “I’m told she sent another.”
“I would like to read it,” came his father’s slurred words.
“I’ll have it delivered at once.” He patted his father’s hands then rose and started for the others, motioning them out of the room. They complied, their expression hanging with the weight of what they’d seen.
As the doors closed, Haegan turned to Thurig. “I would have warned you, but there is naught to say to prepare one.”
What he expected, he wasn’t sure, but what happened never would have entered his mind. The burly, formidable king gathered Haegan into his arms. Patted his back. Breathed hard. “Ye have my sympathy, m’boy.”
Something in Haegan broke. Shifted. Righted. Aligned. Stung his eyes.
“That should no’ happen to anyone, especially no’ Zireli.”