The Edge of the Blade

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “There should?” I tried to wrap my brain around that, as Karyn stood to join us.

  “I sent word to men loyal to me. They’ll get us to the Hákyrling, which will be ready. I plan my rescues,” he emphasized with a sly grin.

  “Shut up,” I muttered. “It could have worked.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “I didn’t think you’d help. You warned me umpty-million times that you couldn’t and wouldn’t.”

  “I wasn’t going to let Karyn burn.”

  “Thank you,” Karyn said in a fervent tone.

  “Let’s fight about it later.” I scanned the quiet woods, no sound but the faint calls of that one bird. “Were you two pursued into the forest?”

  “No. Once we made the perimeter, the guard fell back. We haven’t seen any since.”

  “That makes no sense. This was way too easy. I don’t like it.”

  “I have an arrow in my back and you call this easy?”

  “Yes. And you told me I could bitch about this once we were safely away. Crossing that outer ring of guard posts—I wasn’t going to make it. An armored guard had me dead to rights, but he saluted and stepped aside. And now no one is chasing any of us. I don’t like this.”

  “Maybe they don’t know who we were and decided to let us go,” Karyn put in. “Aren’t they mainly concerned with keeping people out of the Imperial Palace?”

  “If they didn’t know who we were last night, they know it now,” I said darkly. “Why aren’t Hestar’s people combing the countryside for us?”

  “Probably he’s just as happy to have me gone,” Kral replied. “I was but one more threat to his power. Now he can declare me as banished as Harlan. Can’t you just be glad of it?”

  “No, because I have a suspicious nature,” I retorted. “See what you’d have to live with?”

  “I look forward to it,” he replied, sounding like he meant it. “That alone will keep me from going out of my mind with boredom.”

  Karyn snickered.

  We made it to the road a few hours later, then only had to walk the edge of it from the cover of the woods for another hour before coming across Kral’s men, hiding in wait for us.

  They gave us hot food, warm mjed, and dry cloaks. We traveled in the colors and under the banner of a noble house local to the area.

  And made it to Jofarrstyr by nightfall without incident.

  Too easy, my mind whispered, along with other snaking thoughts that I couldn’t quite pin down. But I didn’t say it aloud.

  We hid until full darkness, then snuck out to one of the lower-rank pavilions and walked onto a boat piloted by sailors from the Hákyrling. As Kral had promised, the ship was ready. The moment we boarded, men below put out long oars as they had when they rowed us through the Sentinels on the way to Nahanau, forever ago. With no lamps lit, the only sound the dipping of the oars and the men’s soft grunting as they worked, we glided out of the harbor.

  I stood at the rail, snowflakes falling thick around me, watching the few lit lanterns in the harbor grow smaller. Jens stood ready to pilot the ship, Kral beside him, Trond having dispatched the arrowhead with relative ease. Sailors crawled in the rigging, prepared to set sail once we left the calm waters and hit open sea. Everything was falling into place.

  Too easy.

  Karyn stepped up beside me, golden hair in a long braid over her shoulder, warm cloak wrapping her. “Good-bye, Dasnaria,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to her.

  “Are you—why?”

  “You have to leave your home, without even saying good-bye to any of your friends and family. I know nothing can make up for that, but if I can do anything for you, you have only to ask.”

  She cast me a puzzled look. “You risked your life to save mine. I think that makes us even.”

  “Your life wouldn’t have been in danger if not for me,” I countered. “I wish I hadn’t goaded Kral to offer you an out from your marriage.” It gnawed at me that maybe my motives hadn’t been as pure as I’d convinced myself. I’d never been a jealous or possessive lover, but I hadn’t liked Kral belonging to someone else. Now he’d given up everything to be with me, the crazy idiot, and I had no idea what to do with him.

  “I’m glad you did. You were right. I would have lived there in my childhood home for the rest of my life, never knowing the joys of the marriage bed, children, anything beyond those lands. Maybe hlyti guided you in this. It was meant to be.”

  “You Dasnarians are a fatalistic lot.”

  “Are we? You’re the first person I’ve ever met who wasn’t Dasnarian. Are all your people like you?”

  I didn’t have to give that much thought. “No. That is, it depends. There are lots of women fighters like me, scouts. But otherwise—not really.”

  She giggled. “That doesn’t surprise me. You strike me as an . . . unusual woman.”

  “Do you mind, about Kral?” I took the plunge in asking her, feeling that I really should attempt to be generous. “I think he’d honor the marriage, no matter what Dasnarian law says, if you asked him to.”

  She gave me an incredulous look. “When all the while I’d know he pined for you? No, thank you. I have a chance for a real marriage now. I don’t want one with a man desperately in love with another woman.” She shuddered delicately.

  “I don’t think he’s in love with me.” He certainly hadn’t said so outright. The concept of Kral in love seemed . . . bizarre and impossible. I imagined him mouthing impassioned words, like the minstrels did, and snorted.

  “Jepp.” Karyn faced me, very serious. “I might not have lived with Kral, but I know him quite well. The first time I met him, he told me of his sole ambition, to become Emperor. He wanted me to know before I agreed to the wedding. A great risk on his part, as I could have revealed what he said, but it meant that much to him, to take that chance. For years, he schemed to that end.

  “Then he gave it up without hesitation for you. After the guards took you away, he was like a crazed man. He pretended to accompany me back to my cell, saying he’d see me safely imprisoned, then the moment we were alone, he killed all of my guards. You should have seen his face—terrifying to behold. The rest of it . . . he clicked through one step after the other. I knew nothing would stop him. Even when he had me wait in the boat and told me if he didn’t return in an hour to row myself to shore, I knew he wouldn’t fail. With the fire burning in him, it simply wasn’t possible. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”

  The ship lurched as the hard crosswise current of open sea caught us. Men above passed shouts, the lines creaking and the sails flapping, then snapping full bellied.

  I glanced back to find Kral watching me with his usual intensity. They’d lit a lantern, now that we were away, and the flickering light cast sharp shadows across his face. No, he would never be the romantic, but then neither would I. If he expected me to have babies, well . . . we’d have to fight about that one. The prospect made me oddly cheerful. A rousing argument with my Dasnarian lover made for far better fun than easy times with anyone else I’d known.

  I smiled at him and cocked my head in question toward his cabin. He nodded once, long and slow.

  Karyn followed the exchange and laughed. “If that’s not love, I don’t know what is,” she repeated, sounding wistful. “Maybe hlyti is guiding me to mine. Perhaps he’s in your Thirteen Kingdoms, wondering where I am.”

  “If we can get back, I’ll help you look. We’ll introduce you to every eligible man—or woman, maybe you’ll discover—we can find, I promise. Like I said, anything you need, just ask.”

  “Will you teach me to use knives like you do?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She gazed back at the sprawl of Jofarrstyr along the coastline, the thousands of flickering lamps. “I feel bad about them, all the ones still stuck there.”

  “I do, too.” I thought of Inga, saying she was needed, offering to set up an exchange of information. It might be possib
le. Suddenly more things seemed possible than before. “Maybe we’ll think of something.”

  27

  The sky gleamed misty blue through the windows over Kral’s bed. A good omen, I hoped. The smell of sea air and the sounds of the ship surrounded me with comforting peacefulness. All quiet. Racing before a good wind, by the feel. No sounds of alarm.

  It couldn’t be that we’d gotten away clean, but it seemed we had. Too easy.

  Little mouse. The whisper echoed, then scampered away like the creature itself. I twitched, wanting to reach out and physically grab at the tease of memory.

  Kral turned restlessly and pulled me against him. “Why are you awake? We’ve hardly slept.”

  It was true. We’d made love with ferocious hunger for hours, giddy with being alive, with being free, falling asleep as the watch called out the early hours. “Sorry. I popped awake. You go back to sleep.”

  He levered up to peer at me, rubbing a finger over my lower lip. “Something’s wrong. You’ve been awake for several nights running; you’re injured, exhausted, and you need rest. You should be sleeping like the dead.”

  Like the living dead. I shivered, looking into his blue eyes, shades lighter than the sky beyond, still unable to put a mental finger on it. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Is this the thing you wouldn’t tell me before?”

  I frowned at him, trying to bring up the exact memory. We’d had that conversation, and I clearly remembered deciding not to tell him something—arguing with him about it—but by my mother’s blade, I could not recall what secret I’d withheld.

  “You still don’t trust me,” he said, taking in my silence, face settling into stark lines. “How can you love me but not trust me?”

  “The one has nothing to do with the other,” I snapped, and tried to wriggle away, but he held me against him.

  “No more of that,” he said. “No more walling me out. You and I are in this together. Talk to me.”

  “You’re not exactly easy to talk to, and I’m not much for confiding my feelings.” I pushed against his chest.

  “So we’ll both work on that.” He set his jaw in that obstinate way of his.

  “Kral.” I gave up and leaned into the embrace. “You made this huge sacrifice for me. I’m grateful for my life—and more—but I’m not worth it.”

  “You’re saying you think we are not worth it. This thing you believe about not marrying your great passion.”

  “You have to recognize the logic of that.” Despite myself, I traced the lines of his muscled chest, my stupid heart fluttering when he kissed my hair in response. “What we have is fire and sex and . . . not the things that make daily life. Now neither of us has roots, no place to live. Even if we did, I’m not that kind of woman.”

  “So we live on the Hákyrling until we find a place we want to be. No, don’t interrupt. You accused me of having a fantasy about a cottage and babies, but I never said that. Maybe I wanted to be Emperor for too long, but for now I want to simply be, without ambition. And I want to do that with you. Whatever we’re doing. If we do have babies, we don’t need some cottage to safely raise them in. Not with such a fierce mother and fearsome father.” He pulled back and grinned at me. “Who could get through us to harm our children? There is no law that says marriage and children come with settling down in one place. That is not the way of things.”

  I blinked at him, astonished. “We’d . . . just sail around?”

  “Well, we have things to do. Many games are afoot. I thought we’d start with finding a way back through the barrier and rescuing Lady Mailloux.”

  “Look at you,” I said drily, “making amends all over the place.”

  “And I shall keep doing so,” he said resolutely, “until I make that list of yours.”

  “You’re already on it,” I confessed, my heart gone to mush.

  “Good.” He grunted it, but the softness in his eyes showed how much it meant to him. “Because I cannot love a woman who doesn’t respect me.”

  “Right back at you.” I narrowed my eyes at him for good effect. Couldn’t have him thinking I’d gone soft on him.

  “I’m learning, hystrix. I’m learning. Now tell me your secret, so we can add it to the list.”

  “That’s the problem—I can’t remember it. Don’t scowl at me.” I sat up and scrubbed my hands over my scalp. “There’s something I’m forgetting, and it’s important.” Urgent, even, and my trick of giving the memory time to emerge would take too long. “But it’s connected to something else I’d forgotten and then remembered, which might help. I met a High Priestess of Deyrr. Inga thought I knew her because she called me by name, but I don’t remember meeting her before that moment.”

  “You told me you saw her with Hestar and Kir in the entertainment salons.”

  “I did?” That explained that curious fuzzy spot. “What did I say about her?”

  “Nothing more than that. You refused on the grounds of protecting me.” He slid me a half-annoyed, half-affectionate glance.

  “Okay.” I pressed my fingers to my temples, willing the memory to form. “Okay, I remember saying that, but not what I was thinking about. I’m pretty sure she messed with my head. There was something Ursula tasked me to find out that had to do with Deyrr and I failed to. Or I found out and forgot.”

  “Perhaps it will come back to you, now that you’re away from her influence.”

  “Maybe. But I can’t shake the feeling that it has to do with how easily we escaped.”

  A call from the lookout of a ship sighted, followed by footsteps and a knock on the cabin door, requesting the captain’s presence. With a sigh, Kral was up and yanking on clothes. I followed suit, grumbling about having nothing but the exotic crimson version of my leathers to put on.

  “I like them,” Kral remarked, patting me on the ass. “Very you.”

  We made it above to find the Hákyrling going fast at full sail. As one, we climbed the rigging and I got a flash of our future together. Maybe it could work. I loved the shipboard life more than I ever would have guessed, and sailing from place to place would satisfy my footloose ways.

  At the crow’s nest, Ove nodded and grinned at me, handing Kral the long-distance glass. Three crows also croaked greetings at me. He’d replaced the ones lost to the fish-birds, which made me smile. That, the bright sun, and the sheer freedom of the seas—and maybe that strange warmth of knowing Kral loved me and would always have my back.

  “What is it?” Kral was asking, a fine form as he braced himself against the sway of the mast.

  “Ship approaching on an intercept course,” Ove replied. “From the direction of the islands.”

  I held out my hand for the long-distance glass and looked also. My throat grabbed with unexpected emotion. Look at me, a mess of feelings these days. The ship flew Ursula’s hawk, along with the new one for the Thirteen Kingdoms, with thirteen interlinked rings forming a chain within the three overlapping circles of the goddesses. She’d come after me. “Ursula,” I managed to say. “Um, that is, Her Majesty the High Queen.”

  Kral grabbed the glass back and looked again. “How did she get through the barrier?”

  “Maybe Queen Andromeda helped her?”

  The crows sent up a cawing warning at a great seabird swooping overhead. It landed with a whoosh of wide wings and shimmered into Zynda. With a salute, Ove climbed down the rigging to make room for all of us in the small space.

  “Jepp!” Zynda seized me in a fierce embrace. “Thank Moranu you’re all right. We got your message, but we’ve been sailing around forever looking for you. Where have you been?”

  “Message?” Kral asked in a dry tone, giving me a narrow look.

  “I may have asked Nani to relay an update for me,” I told him with an innocent smile, then turned on Zynda. “Did you meet with her? I promised to help her back across the barrier.”

  Kral smacked a hand to his forehead. “Of course you did.”

  “Imperial Prince Kral.” Zynda n
odded to him.

  “No longer. Plain Kral will do,” he said.

  She gave me a bemused look. “Indeed?”

  “A lot has happened,” I said. “We’ll have to catch up. Is that really Her Majesty on the ship? Did Queen Andromeda bring you across the barrier?”

  A mischievous look crossed her face. “Ursula, yes. Andi, no. We’ve discovered something new about a certain jewel.” She slid a cagey glance at Kral.

  “You can say it in front of him.” I put an arm around Kral’s waist. “I trust him. He’s on our side now.”

  “You and I are on our own side,” he corrected. “But we can evaluate alliances along the lines of the loyalties you still hold, on a case-by-case basis.”

  Hmm. We clearly would not lack for things to argue about. But then, he wouldn’t be my Kral if we did.

  Zynda flashed me a wicked smile. “I should have guessed all the good advice in the world wouldn’t stop you from this particular destiny. At any rate, yes, the Star of Annfwn allowed us to cross the barrier.”

  The phrase echoed in my head in that same weird way. The Star of Annfwn. You’ve seen it. Touched it. I remembered . . . something. Not enough. In the hilt of a sword all this time. But it wasn’t in Ursula’s sword—not since Uorsin died.

  “Does Her Majesty have it?” I asked. “I thought it was lost from the sword.”

  “It was, yes, because she swallowed it and it’s resided in her belly ever since.”

  “Can that be healthy?” The thought kind of appalled me, though I knew of spies who’d resorted to those techniques to smuggle things out. But with the intent that they’d pass through, not stay in them forever. Magic was so strange.

  Zynda wound her long hair back from her face, coiling it so the wind wouldn’t whip it in her eyes, and fixed it with a jeweled pin. “She seems to be fine. Even better, we’d been sailing around the archipelago, tracing the edge of the barrier, when she discovered by chance that they could sail right through it, with no difficulty whatsoever. Many of the crew are Tala, but plenty are not. Including Harlan.” She slid Kral an assessing glance. “We think it’s because of the Star.”