by Anne Bishop
Prince Sadi had offered to help pay some of her expenses while she was in Dena Nehele. Would he be willing to extend the Queen’s gift to a small loan so she could pay her First Circle an advance against their quarterly wages? Would she have the courage to ask him?
*Cassie?*
She plunked the hat on her head and scowled at Vae. “See? I’m wearing the hat.”
*Yes.* Vae gave Cassidy a tail-tip wag. *Now Gray will not worry about your face molting.*
The image of pieces of skin fluttering to the ground like discarded bird feathers made her queasy. Kindred tended to describe things in relation to an animal, but that wasn’t always a comfortable picture for humans when they were the subject of the conversation.
Vae headed for the stairs, pausing long enough to make sure Cassidy was following her.
*Gray is outside with Ranon and a young male who is a Warlord Prince,* Vae said. *He is family to Ranon, and Ranon wants you to see him, but there are worry smells too.*
“Ranon has probably spent a lot of years keeping his relative hidden from the Queens,” Cassidy replied. “It can’t be easy for him to bring a young Warlord Prince into the open.”
*Why? You are Ranon’s Queen. You are Dena Nehele’s Queen. The pup belongs to you.*
You can’t claim what you can’t find, Cassidy thought. Hide some of the Queens so there will be someone left to rule. Hide the young Warlord Princes so that another generation can survive long enough to stand on a killing field and fight for their land.
The world was simple for Vae. Not because she was a dog, but because she had grown up in the village the Queen of Scelt called home. Even if only a few actually served in a court, a Territory Queen held the life of every person in her hands, as well as the land itself. Lady Morghann was a strong Queen and a close friend of Jaenelle Angelline, and Morghann’s husband, Lord Khardeen, ruled the village of Maghre on his Lady’s behalf. So Vae had no reason to doubt that praise and punishment would be given fairly—and both would be given when deserved.
Vae wouldn’t hesitate to bring someone who mattered to her to the attention of the Queen she served. For Ranon to bring the boy within sight of a Queen was a huge act of trust.
Cassidy stopped at the door leading outside as she thought about this young male Ranon had brought to the boardinghouse. Brother? Or son? Was that the reason he and Shira had been acting so uneasy? Was it their son or just his son?
Neither, Cassidy decided as she rounded the side of the house and saw the three men. The boy was in his late teens—too old to be anything but a brother or cousin to Ranon.
Gray’s smile was warm and open when he saw her walking toward them. Ranon’s expression was somewhere between determined and hopeful. And the youngster . . .
How many friends had he seen taken away only to return broken or crippled—or never to return at all? She had no sense that the Shalador Queens had mistreated their own people, but the Shalador Queens had had little power, controlled as they had been by the Province Queens.
She stopped when there was enough distance between her and the men that Ranon could dismiss the young Warlord Prince before approaching her, eliminating the requirement of an introduction.
She watched Ranon assess the distance, and knew the moment when he realized what it meant. A moment later, he signaled the youngster and approached her.
“Lady, may I introduce my younger brother?” Ranon asked.
“You may,” Cassidy replied.
“Lady, this is Prince Janos. Our father was Lord Yairen’s son. Janos, this is Lady Cassidy, the Queen of Dena Nehele.”
“It is an honor to be introduced to so great a Queen,” Janos replied, bowing too low for the act to be respectful since his Summer-sky Jewel outranked her Rose.
*You bow too low,* Vae said. *That is rude. Sniffing female parts is rude too. That is confusing because there are good smells there, but it is something you must learn or you will get smacked on the nose. Or nipped.*
Janos’s face turned dusky red as he snapped upright, making it clear that the insult had been unintentional. Ranon’s coloring wasn’t much better.
And Gray looked a bit too curious about female smells.
Thank the Darkness, Cassidy thought when the back door opened and a young woman walked out. Sixteen years old. Maybe seventeen. And beautiful in a way that made the breath catch when she moved. Long dark hair and green eyes. And a Purple Dusk Jewel.
“What are you doing here, Reyhana?” Ranon growled.
Surprised by his animosity, Cassidy stared at him. Yes, he outranked the girl, but she was a Queen and should be shown some respect unless Reyhana had done something to earn his anger.
“I asked the elder Queens if I could work here as a service to the new Queen,” Reyhana replied, her voice a shade too defiant.
“You’re a Queen. You shouldn’t be doing servants’ work,” Ranon snapped.
“Why not?” Cassidy asked.
The silence was more startling than a thunderclap would have been at that moment.
“Why not?” Ranon said. “She’s a Queen!”
“A Queen who doesn’t know how to work is of no use to her people,” Reyhana said.
“Well put, Sister,” Cassidy said. Ranon looked like he’d been clobbered with a fence post, and she was sorry for what she was about to do to him, but the girl was her priority now. “My family is not aristo, Prince Ranon. We never had servants. And even though by caste I am a Queen, I am also a daughter. So when my mother pulled out the rags and mops on cleaning day, I dusted and polished furniture, and mopped the floors right along with her. And when it was my turn to clean the bathroom, I had very bad thoughts about my brother.” She looked Ranon right in the eyes. “Why is it that a man can hit the center of a bull’s eye at one hundred paces and yet can’t manage to get all of his stream in the toilet bowl when he’s standing right over it?”
Janos and Gray stood there with their mouths hanging open. Ranon, poor man, looked ready to slink away.
But it was the suppressed snort from the young Queen that told Cassidy she had achieved her goal. She’d talk to the girl later about the proper way to address a Warlord Prince when his Jewels were dominant.
She smiled at all of them. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to take a look at the vegetable garden.” As she walked away, she added on a distaff thread, *Vae, keep an eye on the males. Make sure they’re still breathing.*
One, two, three . . .
*Ranon? Ranon! Are you breathing?*
There, Cassidy thought. By the time Ranon, Gray, and Janos untangled themselves from Vae’s attention, Reyhana would be safely among the older women—the ones Prince Ranon would not dare offend without good reason.
When she reached the vegetable garden, she stopped.
It should have been good soil, but it was parched, almost barren, and the plants struggling to grow wouldn’t yield the bounty needed to feed these people. Not parched for water; the ground was still soft, a sure sign that there had been a long, soaking rain sometime in the past day or two. No, it was parched for the connection with a Queen, for that necessary give-and-take that kept the land healthy.
Why had the Shalador Queens neglected this? Cassidy wondered as she knelt at the edge of the bed. Surely they were aware of the need. Had they been so afraid to call attention to themselves that they hadn’t done this one thing that would have helped so many? Or had they stopped because they realized that if they made this land richer than the rest of Dena Nehele by following traditions, it would have been taken away? Ranon had told them that the reserves were half the size they had been when Lady Grizelle and Lia had established those parts of Dena Nehele as a place that belonged to the Shalador people.
Well, it was time everyone stopped denying one of the duties of a Queen.
She didn’t turn around. If she looked at him, Gray would join her—and raise too many objections. Ceremony could come later. First she would show them why; then she would show them how.
; Cassidy called in a short-bladed knife and made a cut on each palm. As the blood flowed, she vanished the knife and pressed her hands into the soil—and sent her Rose-Jeweled power flowing through her blood and into the ground.
So parched. So needy. So empty for so long.
Power flowed, spreading through the vegetable garden like sweet rain.
The land was the true root and heart of the Blood’s power. They were the caretakers of the Realms. That was more than society and cities. It was more than music and literature, more than ruling over the landens. A connection to the land was an important part of what made the Blood who and what they were, and the Queens were the bridge because their power supported the land.
So parched. So needy. Soaking up everything she was willing to give. She could feel the land responding under her hands, wanting more. Wanting everything.
“Cassie?”
A little more. She could give a little more. Saturation would come soon, and the land would stop draining her.
“Cassie.”
So parched. So needy. To be wanted so much.
Then the power was draining too fast, too much. But she couldn’t pull away, couldn’t turn away when there was so much need.
Just a little—
“Cassie!”
CHAPTER 6
TERREILLE
The ground felt soft and smelled lightly of herbs. She didn’t remember seeing herbs in the vegetable garden.
Groaning, Cassidy rolled onto her side. Her eyes felt sleep-crusted, but it was too much effort to pry them open. One hand pressed on the surface next to her head. Pillow. Was she in bed? How did she get there? What in the name of Hell happened? Every muscle ached, and she felt parched, like she had been wrung so dry she was hollow.
Quiet rustling. Movement. Then a weight settled beside her on the bed.
Had to be Shira since the psychic scent was female, but she couldn’t tell anything beyond that—a sure sign that something was wrong with her.
“Hell’s fire,” Cassidy muttered with her eyes still closed. “Am I late for the evening’s feast?”
“By about two days,” said a voice that wasn’t Shira’s but held a vaguely familiar tartness.
She rubbed the crustiness from her eyes and looked at the woman sitting beside her. Short, spiky, white-blond hair. A thin face that looked a decade older than the woman’s real age. Gray Jewel and Hourglass pendant. And a wicked smile that curved unpainted lips but didn’t reach the glacier blue eyes.
“Lady Karla?”
“Kiss kiss.”
Cassidy struggled to prop herself up on one elbow—and failed. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking after you. I was at the Keep visiting Uncle Saetan when Vae arrived howling that you were dying and needed help from a Healer who knew about Queen things. Being a Healer and a Queen, I figured I would know how to deal with whatever happened. So here I am.” She paused, then added, “Lucivar is here too.”
“No,” Cassidy groaned. “Not Lucivar.”
“Oh, he’s not the worst of it.” Another pause. “Maybe he is the worst of it, but he’s not all of it.”
Hell’s fire. “What happened?”
“You were an idiot.”
It was said lightly, but Cassidy heard the anger under the words.
“You let your power flow without restraint, without limit,” Karla said.
“I’ve always done that,” Cassidy protested.
“Then you missed a step in your education.” Karla’s voice stung like a slap. “That did you no harm in Dharo, where the give-and-take of power is done so often it doesn’t take that much power to renew what had been used. But this land was empty, Cassidy. I don’t think anyone has made that kind of offering here for generations. You were a drop of power away from breaking your Rose Jewel. Not just draining it, breaking it. If that Warlord Prince hadn’t had the sense to pick you up and get you into the house to break the connection to the land completely, at best you would have been broken back to your Birthright Tiger Eye. At worst . . .” Karla shook her head and sighed heavily. “Well, there’s no reason to dwell on that, is there? You still wear the Rose. And thank the Darkness for that.”
Yes. Thank the Darkness for that.
Information began to sink in. Cassidy huffed and grunted, but she got herself propped up on one elbow. “Two days? I’ve been asleep for two days?”
Karla nodded. “We can call it ‘sleeping,’ which is a very generous word to use since even the deepest healing sleep usually isn’t that deep—not when there’s hope of the person coming out of it. I was about to call Lucivar and arrange to bring you to the Keep so Jaenelle could look at you. Then you shifted to a more natural sleep, and I decided to wait a few more hours. Which was fortunate for you—and this village.”
Keep? Jaenelle? Damn. If Lucivar was here, she couldn’t brush this off in her next report to Prince Sadi. And if she had been “ill” for the past two days . . .
“The First Circle,” Cassidy said.
“They couldn’t figure out how to declare war on a vegetable garden, so they’re waiting for some indication that you’re going to recover. The only reason this room isn’t filled with hysterical males watching every breath you take is because I wear the Gray and outrank them all. Also, I threatened to rip the balls off any male foolish enough to enter without my permission—and Lucivar threatened to break all the bones of any man who even tried to enter.”
“Lucivar threatened my court?”
“Court, family, village. He was too pissed off about what happened to you to be particular about whose bones were going to meet his fist.”
Cassidy flopped on her back. This was getting worse and worse. Then she struggled upright again. “Family?”
“Mother, father, brother—and your cousin Aaron.”
“Mother Night.”
“And may the Darkness be merciful. My darling, everything has a price, and scaring the shit out of that many Warlord Princes . . . Well, how you’re feeling physically is only the first part of the payment. There were so many who wanted to express an opinion about what you did, they ended up drawing straws. The two short straws get to yell at you.” Karla called in a small hourglass and set it on the bedside table. “Here. A gift. Ten minutes of sand in the glass. That’s how long each of them is allowed to voice his full opinion of what you did.”
“Who . . . ?”
“Ranon and Gray drew the short straws. However, I’ll warn you now that I don’t think your father is going to hold back his thoughts on the matter. And neither is Lucivar.” Using Craft, Karla floated a mug over to the bed. “Here, drink this. When you showed signs of finally waking up, I made this tonic for you.”
Cassidy leaned back against the headboard and took the mug.
“You’ll have the remainder of today to rest and recover. After that, darling, you face your family and court. And Lucivar.”
Cassidy took a sip of the tonic and fought the desire to gulp it down. Her body craved whatever was in this brew. Craved it as much as the land had craved the connection with her.
She took another sip, then remembered the last thing she’d seen before the world had gone dark. “Gray. Is he all right? He must have been upset when I . . . fell.”
A strange look came into Karla’s eyes. “You woke up more than the land, Cassidy. Much more.”
Ranon cautiously approached the vegetable garden. He didn’t want to deal with Lucivar’s thunderous temper or Prince Aaron’s snarling restraint—or the worry he saw in Lord Burle’s eyes. And even though the boardinghouse’s grounds gave him plenty of room to maneuver, he didn’t want to be caught alone with the witch who had brought Cassidy’s family to Eyota. The Gray-Jeweled Queen was intimidating enough, but she had stayed inside with Cassidy. Surreal SaDiablo was a long step past scary as far as he and all the other men were concerned, andshe had been prowling the house and grounds—and the village.
Going down on one knee, he reached out to brush a fingertip over
the leaves of one little plant. A strong, healthy plant growing vigorously now. All the plants in the garden were growing vigorously now—had started growing within hours of Cassidy’s collapse.
Gray had noticed the blood soaked into the ground, but the cuts on Cassidy’s palms hadn’t looked that deep, and Shira hadn’t thought Cassidy had lost enough blood to account for losing consciousness. And nothing Shira or the Queens knew could explain what had drained Cassidy’s Rose Jewel to such a dangerous level so quickly.
If there had been some kind of attack, why hadn’t she called for help? And how could she have been attacked when he and the others had been standing right there? Gray was the first to realize something was wrong, had snatched her up and run into the boardinghouse. But they still didn’t know what had happened—or why.
Shira wouldn’t talk about the vision she’d seen, wouldn’t confirm if this was the danger that might have cost them the first Queen to give them hope since Lia.
Was this his fault somehow? Had he failed in his duties? How? How?
Ranon felt the other presence, picked up the psychic scent, and knew who was about to join him.
Theran gave them all cold silence, which was understandable since Daemon Sadi was holding him personally responsible for Cassidy’s well-being and Grayhaven hadn’t wanted her to come to Eyota in the first place. But Gray’s anger and distress was a hot, pulsing, living thing. Until they knew what was wrong with Cassidy, Gray was an unsheathed weapon, and no one knew the sharpness of that blade or how deeply it could cut.
He waited until Gray knelt beside him. Neither of them could resist coming out to this spot several times a day.
“They grew even more overnight,” Ranon said, keeping his voice quiet. “We’ll actually get a decent crop from this garden.”
“She can’t do it again,” Gray snarled. “This almost killed her.”
“I know that.” And he did. He also knew the Queens had looked upon this garden in shock initially, then almost understood how this had happened. Almost.
“Company,” Gray said, not turning his attention away from the plants.