Awakening Defiance: (The Saoirse Saga Book 2)
Page 17
Kia snorted. “I’m thrilled to attend such an enlightened program of learning, and she is sitting here listening.”
“Haven’t you enjoyed our sojourn in the mountains?”
“Yes, and stop changing the subject. How long are we staying?”
“Nowhere near as long as I want. Another lesson for you, Kia. Enjoy what happiness comes your way because there’s no guarantee more will come.”
“Has he always been such a fountain of optimism?” she asked Nagavi.
“I’m off to sleep.” Nagavi finished his meal, picked up his backpack, and retreated to where Teina was unpacking her blanket at the rear of the cave. “You kids have fun.”
As Kia snuggled into Rial’s arms that night, wrapped in the warm thick blankets, her face resting on his chest, she sighed. “Thank you for saving me,” she whispered.
“We’re saving each other.” He kissed her neck, his lips tiny butterflies that made her shiver.
“What’s the surprise? Who are we going to meet? Jared?”
“Yes.”
She squealed.
“And I want you to meet my grandmother.”
“Your… grandmother?”
“My mother’s father died during Teyrn’s devastation of the planet, but after years of careful investigation, I found out my grandmother was alive. Hence the ploy of repairs for the Kaudagan. My father must never learn about her existence or else he’ll have her killed or use her to blackmail me.”
“I’m honored.” She was. This must mean a lot to him, and even if he’d not told her in advance what he was up to, he was demonstrating his trust in her.
“I need to ask you something, Kia.” He put a finger to her lips. “Shh. You don’t have to choose tonight, and I’ll accept whatever decision you make, but as I’ve said, I am patient. Did I mention that when I fix my mind on a goal, I never give up?”
“Repeatedly, but go ahead and ask. I’m in a generous mood.”
“My grandmother is a priestess on Falaichte, and I’m hoping she will bless our union.”
She pulled away from him. “Bless? Do you mean bless as in offering good wishes or is bless a legal term on this planet?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does. No games, Rial, be honest with me. I should know what I’m agreeing to. Or doesn’t my opinion count because you’ve already decided what’s going to happen?”
Rial took a deep breath before answering. “Kia, you say you have chosen me, and I have most certainly chosen you. I am asking you to confirm our decision to be life partners in a binding agreement. What do you say?”
Kia stared openmouthed at him.
“I take it that as you haven’t said no, the answer is yes?”
When she didn’t respond, he rushed on. “I want to formalize our relationship. Is that a bad thing?”
“How dangerous is it for me if the emperor finds out?”
“If the blessing is considered a religious ceremony, which this is, it isn’t recognized by interplanetary law especially if it isn’t registered with the local authorities, which it won’t be. This might appear to be impulsive, but I’ve considered this step at length, and I wouldn’t do anything that would endanger you. I will not break my promise to you or your father.”
“So what is this ceremony? Some sentimental fantasy? An attempt to bind me to you in case I decide to unchoose you?”
“Unchoose me? You plan on playing such a willful game?”
She ran a finger along his jaw, traced the outline of his lips, and smiled. “You think me that fickle?”
“Are you going to make me beg?”
“Hearing you plead would please me and may incline me to grant your request. Yes, you may beg.”
“You are my life, and I cannot live without you. I would be honored if you would accept to join your life to mine in a Falaichte blessing.”
Kia closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Yes, I will. I do—”
The sentence remained unfinished as his lips silenced her.
Ambuya’s community of refugees from Teyrn’s rape and destruction of their planet lived in a series of caves in the sides of a hidden valley. Nonetheless, that afternoon, enjoying the warm air of the lush basin’s microclimate, the matriarch and priestess had conducted the blessing ceremony with grace and elegance and afterward provided a simple, plentiful feast. As darkness fell, people assembled and lit a generous bonfire of misīdàwood, a black tree that released a spicy fragrance when burned, drank berry wine, listened to songs, poetry, and offered wishes for a long life of happiness for the couple.
Kia sat in a large circle around the flaming bonfire and gazed up in wonder at the thick dusting of stars in the Falaichte night sky. She still wore the embroidered blue tunic and leggings lent to her for the ceremony, and Rial was next to her on one side with Jared and his pregnant wife, Kultaseni, a smiling, green-eyed, dark-haired beauty, on the other. A dozen schemes buzzed around her brain as she thought about how to persuade Rial to return to Falaichte for the birth of her nephew or niece. All that was left of her family was here. Yes, she also had the Chenjerai, but Jared was blood.
Ambuya, Rial’s tall, black-haired grandmother, was on his other side. Kia had immediately felt at home with the older woman. Something about her capable, generous and practical nature reminded her of her mother.
Nagavi was seated on the other side of Ambuya. Kia doubted he ever let his guard down one hundred percent, but he appeared to be as relaxed as she’d ever seen him as he laughed and joked. She wondered about the relationship between him and Teinen—were they friends or lovers or both?
She sighed, her heart full of emotions she thought she would never experience again. “I have a present for you,” she whispered in Rial’s ear. “I’ll return in a minute. Relax,” she told him as his eyebrows drew down, “Teina’s coming with me.” One aftereffect of the recent stay in Tajriba was his restlessness if she disappeared for more than a few minutes.
When Kia reappeared, she wore a thick purple cloak with the hood up, hiding her face and body. She strolled toward Rial and stopped behind him. Putting her hands on his shoulders, aware of the tightening of his muscles, she announced, “This dance is rarely seen because a srilao dancer can only perform it for her partner.” She removed the cloak—the spectators gasped at the sight of her slender figure clothed in a bandeau, loose billowy pants sitting low on her hips, and a veil across the lower part of her face, all of the same silvery cloth—and clasped Rial’s head in her hands, preventing him from turning and seeing her. “This dance is called The Partner’s Challenge.” She hadn’t told him he could stop the dance anytime. She wanted a little payback for being made to wait and to have fun watching him squirm.
Jared held a drum on his lap and tapped a slow rhythm. Kultaseni clapped a counterpoint, and soon everyone joined in.
Kia twirled, the bonfire flames created flickering red flashes on the silvery cloth. She moved away, watching Rial’s reaction, the veil hiding her smile as he gaped at her, his jaw hanging open. As she danced, the audience watched, mesmerized, unable to tear their eyes from her sinuously shimmying hips and undulating arms. She pivoted toward a young man, rolling her torso as he stared up at her cross-eyed and unable to look away. Checking Rial’s reaction with quick glances, she repeated the seductive moves as she swayed from man to man, relishing the look of helpless fury on his face.
Jared increased the tempo, and her body responded, bending, twisting, shimmying, the silver cloth swirling, now hiding, now revealing her body as her hands described intricate patterns and her feet stamped in time with the beat, tempting each male, young or old, as she moved around the circle. She was opposite Rial, her head thrown back, one hip shaking when he jumped up and strode toward her. She didn’t wait but took off running toward the trees. The onlookers broke out into raucous cheers and whoops of laughter.
“Kia!”
The urgency in his voice filled her with delicious apprehension, and she ran faster.
/> He caught her at the tree line, his eyes alight with a fierce jealousy.
She laughed breathlessly, ripping the veil off. “I was wondering how much longer I’d have to keep dancing. If you hadn’t moved before the dance ended, our partnership would have been over.”
“A partner’s challenge, indeed. I should have known you’d settle the score with me somehow. Well played, Kia.” He swung her up into his arms and headed into the forest. “Well, my beloved, this is our last night on Falaichte, and I have plenty more games in mind to play with you. What do you say to that, my sweet Kia?"
She laughed. “I’m going to take all the happiness I can get.”
Epilogue
Kia rested her hand on Rial’s shoulder as he sat in the pilot’s chair while they waited for authorization from Xarunta’s interplanetary spaceport. The Kadaugan sat in its permanent bay in the royal section, but they needed permission to enter Xarunta’s airspace and land the shuttle at Rial’s palace. The spaceport was, after all, the entrance to the most beautiful gem in the empire’s crown and a busy place.
She’d left Falaichte giving hugs she didn’t want to end and promises of returning that she had no guarantee of keeping. Soon they were en route to the Kadaugan and the Chenjerai. From Ylväs Suq they set a course for Xarunta. The emperor had requested Rial’s return. He wished to hear the report on the destruction of the laboratory on Tajriba and any information Rial had unearthed about the rebels.
Kia studied the viewscreen where Xarunta floated in the clean, sparse beauty of space. They would be home tomorrow. While she wasn’t yet entirely comfortable with the term, it no longer seemed strange to call Rial’s opulent palace home. Wherever he was, her place was beside him.
She had come a long way since the moment the invasion siren blasted its awful warning over Sestris. The city, its inhabitants and her beloved family didn’t exist anymore. They had all been obliterated by the orders of an insane tyrant who refused to have a single whim denied.
Thanks to Nagavi, Cheydii, the Chenjerai and mostly Rial, however reluctant she was to admit it, she could think of her family’s murders without being consumed by fury. Instead of seeing her father slumping to the floor of a makeshift stage in front of the people he'd governed for decades, she concentrated on the dream image of her parents waving and her young twin sisters blowing kisses as she stood on the shore watching their little boat depart. We live in your heart, her mother said. Remember everything we taught you, her father added with a smile. You are stronger than you know.
Jahanamu had been a curse and a benediction, but these days she rarely thought about the hell of working as a slave on the mining asteroid. Instead, Rial filled most of her thoughts, yet Ambuya’s blessing provided no legal status and therefore no protection from the emperor. Occasionally she wondered if their partnership was one of convenience influenced by the nanobots. How much of her emotions were swayed by her underlying desire for revenge? That was something they both wanted. Her need for vengeance wasn’t the red-hot rage it had been initially; the demand had cooled, hardened, and taken up residence in the core of her heart, prepared to wait as long as necessary for fulfillment.
Kia didn’t think about the mines anymore, but those hard-learned lessons stayed with her. She didn’t doubt Rial was in love with her and she with him, but would they last when the infatuation phase finished? He was an experienced, considerate and passionate lover, as Teyrn’s attempts to dominate his son included an early introduction to the pleasures of the flesh. The corners of her mouth lifted as she recollected the previous night. Despite her uncertainties and unwillingness to trust him completely, she couldn’t envisage life without him. “Did you hear what Teyrn’s assassin said before someone shot me with the crossbow bolt?”
“No. I could barely stand on my feet at that point. Why? What did he say?”
“He said your father would be glad to be rid of me and that he wanted you back under his immediate control.”
Rial looked up at her. “My father resents that I have any relationships at all. He sees them as obstacles to his control over me. It’s not personal, and he knows better than to trifle with my consort. Under his control means he’s worried that the nanobots are eroding the implant’s effect. He’s most likely thinking to add one of his special implants. When I was younger it took a long time for the nanobots to negate the effects of the device, during which I had no choice but to obey him. But don’t worry, the last time I was forced to wear a control implant, the nanobots nullified its influence instantly. Of course, I played along to deceive him, which is never pleasant.” He reached for her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed her fingertips. "Together we are strong, and I have no intention of being apart from you.”
A beep warned of an incoming message. “ Welcome back, Prince Rial. Your shuttle is ready to board,” an impersonal voice announced.
"What’s the next step in our plan?” Kia asked.
Rial turned from the command console and smiled up at her.
She was becoming familiar with the small nuances in his expressions and didn’t like it when he gave her one of his enigmatic smiles. It meant he wouldn’t be telling her anything.
“I fear events are moving fast, but all will be revealed in good time, my sweet Kia, all in good time.”
THE END
FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you very much for reading Awakening Defiance, Book Two in the Saoirse Saga. If you enjoyed the story, let your friends know. If you have time, please leave a review as they are like gold and help other readers decide if the book is one they’d like to read.
Sign up for my mailing list, and get your free copy of Hekate’s Chalice, Book One in the Adept Solutions Series, and receive notice of new releases. Click here to get started: https://tinyurl.com/yale54pw
Books by Teagan Kearney:
The Kala Trilogy
Healer’s Magic
Vampire’s Bane
Demon’s Nemesis
The Adept Solutions Series
Hekate’s Chalice
Sorcerous Deeds
The Saoirse Saga
Stars & Ashes
Awakening Defiance
The Hidden World Trilogy
Veiled Planet
One Summer in Montmartre
Gold Dragon Haiku
https://writingmynovelnoworkingtitleyet.blogspot.co.uk
Twitter at: https://twitter.com/@teagankearney
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeaganKearneyWriter/
Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/teagankearney
Drop by anytime