A bite tugged at her line, and she frowned. Free time’s over.
She tossed her braid over her shoulder and leaned forward to pull out the fish. True to its name, the fish fluttered across the surface of the pool in an effort to escape. She hauled in her catch. A good-size, stretching from her fingertips to her elbow. She admired the flutter a few more seconds.
Another quick glance at the sun sent her hurrying to gather her fish, gear, and mount Teifa, heading back for the palace. A twenty-minute ride took her through a manicured forest, the lush growth carefully tended by the palace gardeners. Broad-branched taw trees towered over verdant moss, carpeting the forest floor; shy yellow and pink harnica flowers poked their bell-shaped petals through the thick blades.
Once out of the tree cover, she saw the castle shimmering in the sunlight. This view of the palace showed a more rounded face, than could be seen from the sea. Small windows punctuated the broad walls, with only a few balconies to break up the pattern.
As always, her heart lifted with pride at the sight of her home. On top of the highest tower, an emerald-and-gold pendant flapped in the breeze. A sentry stood at attention at the large wooden gate.
The guard sighted her, quickly opening the gate. He greeted her with a grin that softened his beak-nosed face. “Best hurry, Princess. His Highness’s ship has already docked.”
She nodded, urging her horse through the gate.
In the cobbled stableyard, she handed the string of flutters to a boy who came running. He flashed her a gap-toothed grin. “Good fishing, my lady?”
Daria dismounted. “Fish fit for a king. Or rather two kings.” Tossing him the reins, she retrieved her catch.
She left the yard, treading a graveled path to the kitchen door. She paused outside the open door, tempted to step into the warmth. Inside, the cavernous room bustled with servitors preparing for the banquet. A wild boar, speared yesterday by her brothers, turned on a spit in a huge fireplace on the far side. Enticing odors wafted on the steamy air. She was tempted to stop and grab a quick snack. With all the speeches at the dinner, it might be a while before she had a chance to eat.
“Princess Daria!”
Daria grinned, recognizing Issa’s voice, and looked over her shoulder.
Issa stormed over, her shoes crunching on the gray gravel, her face flushed. She slowed when she reached Daria, arms akimbo on her plump waist. “Where have you been? I’ve searched all over the castle for you. King Thaddis has arrived. You must hasten to prepare for the banquet.”
“I know.”
“Smelling like fish.” Issa sniffed, the look of disdain at odds with her good-natured features. “Into the tub you’ll go. I’ve had it waiting an hour since. The water’s gone cold twice. I’d better add extra essence of tashalily.”
Taking a last reluctant whiff of the food-laden air, Daria handed her string of fish to the nearest servitor. “Tell whoever serves them to King Thaddis and my father that Princess Daria presents them with her compliments.”
Issa huffed at the apron-clad man. “You’ll do no such thing.”
Behind Issa’s back, Daria winked at him, then allowed herself to be chivied off by her maid to another entrance and up several flights of steps to her room. Inside, a copper tub steamed by the fireplace. A formal dress in emerald velvet was spread over the pink shell-embroidered covering of the canopied four-poster bed. Her jewelry box sat out on the mother-of-pearl inlaid dressing table. She slipped off her shell necklace and tucked it in a corner of the box.
Issa helped Daria strip off her shirt, tunic, and trews, and then poured perfume from a crystal decanter into the tub. The spicy-sweet scent of tashalily flavored the air.
Daria slipped into the tub, but wasn’t allowed to relax.
The maid handed her scented soap. “Don’t miss an inch. You’re to smell like a lady and not a fish.”
In spite of Issa’s impatience, Daria took her time, running the soft, soap-soaked seasponge over her skin, enjoying the sensation of the silken water playing over her body. When she finished, she rose, the water cascading off her.
Issa enveloped her in a fluffy pink towel, briskly rubbing her glowing skin dry. She handed Daria fresh silk undergarments. “I just happened to be crossing the courtyard when King Thaddis entered with your father.”
“How did my father manage the walk?”
“Limped, he did.” Issa made clicking sounds of disapproval. “Stubborn man. The healer doesn’t want him walking about on that broken leg for another week. But your father insisted on properly greeting King Thaddis. Face looked drawn. Fair hurt me to see him.”
“When you’ve finished with me, you must go see he takes his pain draught.” Daria stepped into a seafoam green silk underdress and pulled it on, relishing the feel of the soft material clinging to her skin.
“Have to pour it down his throat, I will. Complains it makes him fuzzy-headed.”
Issa slipped the heavy jade-velvet overdress over Daria’s head. Issa’s busy fingers straightened the dress, making sure the vee slashed into the front panel of the skirt opened at the correct angle to show the underskirt.
Daria fished in her jewel box for emerald earrings and a pendant. Sitting in front of her mirrored dressing table, she fastened on the jewelry while Issa attacked her hair. The heart-shaped pendant lay just above the curve of her breast, revealed by the rounded neckline trimmed with gold lace.
“King Thaddis is a handsome young man.”
The manner of her nurse’s words made Daria glance sharply in the mirror at her.
“His kingdom is ten times the size of your father’s.”
“Issa.” Daria’s tone warned the maid not to proceed with her idea.
“Don’t you take that tone with me, Princess. Didn’t I nurse you as a babe, change your diapers, sing you to sleep on many a long night?”
Daria rolled her eyes. Short of a royal command from her father, nothing stopped Issa when she wanted to make her point. Most of the time, even Iceros gave way to her.
“Issa. I’m not leaving Seagem. If I marry, it will be to someone from here or to someone who can live here. I’ll not leave my family and the home I love.” Even as Daria said the words, she thought of Khan, wondering if he’d ever ride or sail into Seagem.
Issa brushed Daria’s hair with a long, loving stroke. “It’s a woman’s lot, my dearheart.”
“Not mine. Seagem’s my lot. The ocean’s water runs through my veins. I wouldn’t be able to survive without it. I’ll never leave.”
“You don’t know what your future has in store.”
Khan, I hope. “I don’t have to leave my home to be with a man. You know that my father promised my mother I’d choose my husband.”
“And you might want to choose Thaddis.” Issa looped several braids up into an intricate twist, leaving one loose blond curl to dangle down Daria’s shoulder.
“I might, but I won’t. Besides, he already has a mistress whom he loves. Perhaps he’ll marry her soon. I’m certainly not interested.”
“You’re so stubborn.”
“I’m not leaving to live in another kingdom, no matter how handsome the king, or wealthy the country.”
Not even to Issa would Daria confide her secret wish about Khan. She glanced over at her jewelry box, where the Lovestar lay safe in a little compartment.
Holding several emerald hairpins in her mouth dammed up Issa’s conversation. One by one, she pulled them out, pinning them into Daria’s braids. For a final touch, she lifted Daria’s gold coronet from a round box, enameled with Seagem’s coat of arms. She slipped the band around Daria’s brow, securing the ends into her hair. The coin-sized emerald at the center of the coronet rested in the middle of her forehead.
Issa stepped back, surveying her handiwork with obvious satisfaction. “There. Now you look like a princess, instead of a fishmonger. I predict King Thaddis will be quite taken with you.”
Those words would have made most girls blush with pleasure. So why did t
hey send shivers of foreboding slithering down her spine?
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the great hall of the palace, the aristocracy of Seagem gathered to welcome the ruler of Ocean’s Glory. White damask cloths covered tables placed in a giant u-shape around the sides. The polished wooden floor in the center of the room, inlaid with rose-patterned mother-of-pearl, remained clear for the dancing that would take place later. Several eager swains had already solicited Daria for a set. But tonight, she couldn’t muster her usual enthusiasm for one of her favorite activities. Probably because, for courtesy’s sake, she’d have to dance with Thaddis.
Daria tried to relax by listening to the lilting strains of the musicians seated on a dais in the corner of the room, but the thrum of almost a hundred voices in conversation all but drowned them out. Nausea churned in her stomach, and the beginnings of a headache tapped at her temples. She motioned away a platter piled with slices of boar offered by a servitor, her stomach twisting at the rich smell of roasted meat.
A fire crackled in the enormous fireplace nearest the high table. Over the mantel hung a large portrait in a gilded frame—a picture of Daria’s mother painted soon after her marriage to Iceros. In the portrait, Queen Iselda was dressed informally in flowing rose silk. Her long brown hair curled freely over her shoulders. The bouquet of lavender and pink tashalilies rested on her lap, matching the ones in crystal vases on the tables around the room. Iselda’s soft blue eyes watched over her family, seated at the banquet table below her.
Daria had only vague memories of her mother, but she’d never forgotten the maternal combination of lavender-scent and love. She’d inherited the othersense talent that ran strong in Iselda’s family, but Daria had been too young for Iselda to teach her how to use her special ability. Tonight of all nights, she wished she knew how to focus her othersense, for unease prowled through her thoughts, just vague enough to cause her to be on edge.
What would you think of Thaddis, Mother? Would you have urged me to marry him? Or would you feel as I do, that I can’t quite like him, although I don’t know why? I didn’t like him before, but now…he seems even…darker.
An ache of longing for her mother clogged her throat. If you were alive, I could share my dreams about Khan with you. I know you’d understand.
She slanted a glance at Thaddis, sitting between herself and her father at the head of the table. His auburn hair waved to his shoulders; a gold band studded with firestones circled his brow. His profile, straight nose and firm chin, seemed as handsome as a statue of Yadarius, the SeaGod. Thaddis seemed to listen to Iceros’s conversation, but, as if discerning her study of him, he glanced at her for a moment before turning back to her father.
She suppressed a shudder. The coldness in his tawny-colored eyes reminded her of a mountain lion she’d seen once when she’d been hunting with her brothers. The lion had stared at her with the same assessing gaze.
I’m his prey.
She shook off the feeling, trying to listen to the beginning of the familiar sea tale told by her father.
The king sat at the head of the table in a carved ebonwood throne, padded with chartreuse velvet cushions, his flowing blond hair held back by a gold-and-emerald coronet. Iceros’s green eyes sparkled as he talked, and a smile softened the normally austere planes of his bearded face.
She could tell by the flourishes Iceros made when he lifted his goblet of wine, and the laughter he interspersed between sentences, that his pain medication was effective. Maybe too effective. Her father usually demonstrated more reserve. Obviously, he didn’t share her reservations about his old friend’s son.
Her three older brothers sat scattered among Thaddis’s retainers. Cihkel, tonight seemed like an exact copy of Iceros, as if a sculptor had carved them side-by-side. He paused between bites of food, listening to their father’s every word. Joshel’s dreamy gaze had drifted to a pretty girl across the room, probably lost in the composition of one of his poems. And Setteff waved his hands in the air as he chatted away to one of Thaddis’s men about hunting exploits—already seeming to be fast friends with him.
My family. Although they only sat a few feet away, it seemed to her a barrier divided her from them, as if she floated apart inside a soap bubble. Daria resisted rubbing her temples, instead taking a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of smoke and tashalily.
She stretched out a hand, reaching for her wine goblet, hoping the gesture would burst the strange feeling. But the sense of isolation refused to depart.
Thaddis set down his own drink and addressed Iceros. “I remember the treacherous shoals surrounding Seagem, but each time I sail through them, I can’t believe a way through exists. I held my breath a few times at how close we sailed to some of the rocks, and placed my trust in that pilot you sent out to guide us.”
“And well you should.” Iceros fingered the golden case containing the tiny collapsing telescope hanging from a heavy gold chain around his neck. “My pilots have been sailing in these waters ever since Yadarius appeared to my ancestor in a dream, giving him the map of this coast.”
“I remember the story. However, I still think your pilots are a brave lot to regularly attempt that passage.”
“Courage is bred into those men and women. When my ancestor established Seagem, he appointed the captain of his ship as the pilot for these waters. The position is hereditary. The secret way through those rocky reefs is known only to them and to the royal family.”
“A formidable barrier.”
“Protects us. With the shoaled ocean on two sides, the desert at our back, and our longtime ally—” Iceros lifted his goblet toward Thaddis “—Ocean’s Glory over the mountains on our other side, we have a kingdom of peace and prosperity.”
A servitor appeared before Iceros—the one she’d earlier given her fish to. With a bow, he flourished a large ceramic platter in front of the king, displaying three large flutters arranged in a circle with garnished vegetables piled in the middle. “With Princess Daria’s compliments.” He winked at her.
Daria winked back, experiencing the first bit of lightness she’d had all evening.
Her father’s eyes lit with pride. He motioned for a portion to be placed on his plate, and then turned to Thaddis. “Fishing, hunting. My daughter excels at both.”
Thaddis lifted one auburn eyebrow. “How unusual.” He waved away the platter without sampling anything.
Rude boor. Daria’s feeling of ease vanished. At least, the man could have taken a piece and pretended to eat it.
Iceros lifted his goblet. “Nonsense, Thaddis. It’s just that your lady mother was ever the quiet type, content to stay at home. Skilled with her needle, an excellent chatelaine.” He sighed, remembering. “If she’d been interested in hunting, you’d not find Daria’s exploits so different.” He took a swallow of wine.
“I doubt my father would have allowed it.”
“You judge your father too harshly. He loved your mother dearly and granted her every wish. You will do so, too, when it’s your turn.” He glanced up at the portrait of his wife. “If you’re lucky to love the lady you wed.”
Thaddis pinned his gaze on Daria. “I do love the lady I shall wed.” he said the words with utter conviction.
Daria resisted an inward squirm. Surely he doesn’t mean me? No, he couldn’t. He said he loved the lady. Thaddis barely knew her. He must mean Pasinae.
He looked back at Iceros. “However, there will be no need for her to hunt and fish. I have plenty of men to handle that.”
Daria bit her lip to seal inside the hot words she wanted to utter. She pitied the woman Thaddis took to wife. Even Pasinae. Although that woman didn’t seem like the meek type, content with typical feminine interests and duties.
Iceros grinned. “Wrap her up in silk and velvet, will you? Sounds like you already have her picked out. Well, I doubt the woman exists who would say you nay. Tell me, Thaddis, who have you chosen, and when do you plan to wed? We would be there at your side.”
Dar
ia toyed with her goblet, curious in spite of her aversion.
Thaddis hesitated, his whole body stiff. Then a charming smile crossed his face. “I had not meant to broach the topic in this manner. But why not in front of family and friends?” He leaned over and took the cup from Daria’s hand, set it down, and possessed himself of her hand.
She gasped, trying to withdraw.
“Iceros.” Thaddis stood, raising his voice for the whole room to hear. “I ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.” He waited, his face confident.
Daria froze in dismay; she couldn’t even move her hand. The chatter stilled, and the music trailed away. She could feel the hush of expectancy surrounding them.
The merry look on her father’s face vanished, replaced by thoughtfulness. “What about the Lady Pasinae?”
Thaddis lifted his chin. “Lady Pasinae has returned to her homeland.”
Iceros stroked his beard, twisting the ends between his forefinger and thumb. “Your father and I discussed such an alliance several times. I was reluctant only because I don’t want to lose my dear daughter, even to such beloved friends. I’d hoped to see her settle here, have a chance to dandle my grandchildren on my knee.”
Thaddis nodded at Daria’s brothers. “You have sons who will give you grandchildren a plenty.”
“That is true. However, I promised my wife that all her children would make matches of their own choosing.” Iceros looked at Daria, a fond light in his eyes. “Well, dearheart. How say you? Will you have Thaddis, ruler of Ocean’s Glory, to be your husband?”
“No.” The word burst forth from between Daria’s lips before she could couch her refusal in diplomatic terms and echoed through the room.
Thaddis’s hand tightened around hers in a bruising grip.
She dared not look at him.
Her father abruptly shifted back on his throne, his face impassive.
But Daria knew him too well. He was displeased with her.
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