by Elise Kova
“It was no trouble.”
“I think with Baldair it will always be trouble.” The man stepped up and into the room from the garden. He carried the scent of roses with him, as though the plants knew who he was and wanted to bless him with their very essence. “Which makes me ask: are you serious about joining my brother’s foolish guard?”
“Is it foolish?” she mused in a soft hum. She kept her eyes lowered to avoid appearing obstinate to the Crown Prince of her world.
The prince thought quietly for a long moment, easing his dark gaze off her. “Well, seeing as my brother is nothing but, I cannot foresee it being anything less. However…” Raylynn felt the moment his attention fell back to her, and she lifted her eyes to meet his. “It may be less foolish with someone who is clearly both as loyal as she is skilled on his retainer.”
“I am loyal to him,” she affirmed. Raylynn crossed the room to where the prince had assumed a seat and fell into a kneel. “Just as I am loyal to you, Prince Aldrik Ci’Dan Solaris, son of Princess Fiera Ci’Dan.”
His posture and expression betrayed nothing at the mention of his mother. There was no sorrow in his eyes, or longing. It was as though she had listed off the name of any old noble.
Raylynn smiled faintly and added softly, “You have your mother’s eyes, my prince.”
“You knew my mother?” he asked tentatively. His air of arrogance vanished, exposing something more—curiosity, and something else.
“I did, but not as well as my mother knew her.” Raylynn remained kneeling, her posture perfect before her sovereign.
“Who are you?”
“I am Raylynn Westwind, my prince. Your mother entrusted an old order into my mother’s care. Things went awry, and my mother was slain. I was raised in the Nameless Company, as she was, and her mother before her.”
“Why are you not in the service of the Empire?”
“My mother had a pact with yours,” Raylynn answered delicately, wondering if the prince could possibly understand what she was trying to say. “She did not have a pact with the Empire.”
“I see.” Prince Aldrik rose and strolled away, giving his back to her.
Where Baldair was an open book, the elder prince was guarded, withdrawn. He clung so deeply to the innermost walls of himself that she didn’t know how he escaped enough to speak with anyone. Raylynn took the opportunity to stand, feeling as though unspoken permission had been granted.
“Clearly, the pact did not extend to my brother, given the state he finds himself in.” It was a probing attack.
“It extends to your brother a great deal, my prince.” She would not explain how, not unless expressly ordered. “His state is a result of his own choices.”
A dark chuckle resonated from the Crown Prince. “I am surprised Baldair tolerates someone who makes him accept responsibility for his choices.” His demeanor shifted yet again, like firelight on a multi-faceted pane of glass. “I trust, however, since you make him take responsibility, that you will do the same? That you will put the Crown before yourself?”
Raylynn didn’t miss the defensiveness that permeated the Crown Prince’s words when he spoke of his younger brother—despite all the nonchalant airs he put on. “The time for hesitation on that matter is long gone.”
“Well, then, Raylynn Westwind, I shall thank you personally for your help in seeing my brother here alive.” Aldrik stepped away from the bookshelf he’d been examining and adjusted his well-tailored, pitch-black clothes. Raylynn didn’t know how he didn’t boil in all the layers. “I shall see you back to his recovery room, should the clerics allow it.”
“There’s something else.” The whole meeting had been a sort of reaffirmation for her that Aldrik was not the prince she was destined to follow. They didn’t click together as her and Baldair had. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t look after him as well. If for no other reason than for Fiera. “It is why I asked for this audience, if your grace will follow me, please.”
“My time is very valuable—”
“It’ll only take a moment, my prince. It’s in the stables.”
“Interrupt me again, and I will see you sleeping there.” He glowered. Raylynn had to struggle not to point out that she had slept regularly in far worse conditions.
She focused on the task at hand. They left a stately building situated at the center of the Crossroads—where Baldair had been moved to upon the Emperor’s arrival in the West with the army. Raylynn took one glance behind her at the large circles of stained glass, taking particular note of the one she knew to be Baldair’s room. With a small nod of conviction, mostly to herself, she brought the prince across the square to a gilded stable.
“His name is Baston.” Raylynn stopped before a stall, motioning toward the mount. “He’s a Warstrider—very loyal, large, clearly well bred.”
The Imperial prince assessed the creature. She could see he was taken with the animal. “I would like to gift him to you, my prince.”
“Isn’t this the horse you and Baldair rode in on?”
“It is, and he agrees you should ride him.” Raylynn swallowed her instant fear around horses and patted Baston’s mane. “Think of it as a gift from Mother.” Her vague dismissal of the usual article—the Mother—was entirely intentional.
Somewhere out there was Princess Fiera, still alive in some way or another, still fighting from the shadows. She had given Raylynn a gift... but it was never meant for her. Raylynn could feel it in her bones.
Furthermore, the beast was just far too large for her to ever be comfortable around it.
“Thank you,” the prince said finally, startling them both.
“You’re very welcome, Prince Aldrik. Should you need anything else, you have only just to say.”
Raylynn did one more bow and walked away. Her footsteps chimed lightly against the stone. Walking her path sounded right. And while there were parallels between her and her mother, she would help Fiera’s son live a long life from the vantage of his brother’s guard, until the very end of it all.
32. Baldair
He had watched the whole exchange from his window.
He hated this building. It was the same one they always stayed in at the Crossroads, and it merely reminded him of all the past times he had been taken to the West on official matters and not for pleasure with his friends. The only benefit it had was that it did offer a fair vantage of the Crossroads.
Aldrik continued to assess the beast when Raylynn reappeared in his room, pulling Baldair away from the scene below.
“How’d it go?” Jax asked from the couch. “We only had the play-by-play.” He motioned to Baldair.
“Well enough.”
“What does ‘well enough’ mean?” Erion asked from the opposite corner of the room, where he chose to play billiards alone rather than sit with the group. His skepticism of Raylynn would fade in time, Baldair was sure.
“Some things will remain between my sovereigns and I.” Raylynn gave Baldair a conspiratorial look that put a deep chuckle in the back of his throat.
“So we’ll never know?” Erion remained sour.
“No, you will.” Raylynn answered the Westerner, but her focus was on Baldair. She ran a finger over the cleric’s patchwork, searching his face for anything he had to say on the matter.
“You will know when she wants you to know,” Baldair said. He delighted in the way his words set her to laughter.
“How do you feel?” she asked outright.
“Getting stronger.”
“Good. You have a war to get to.”
That was the last thing Baldair wanted to be reminded of. He’d already had too much bloodshed and death and pain. But he knew he had no choice. And he knew he had a woman he could keep at his side who seemed, in her own way, a natural born leader.
“Well, I’ll need a new horse for it, since you gave o
urs away to my brother. Don’t go fancying him more than me.” Baldair hated the thought. He hated seeing Raylynn bow before Aldrik. He knew she merely honored her mother’s oath to the Crown, but Raylynn was something he didn’t want to share with Aldrik in any way.
“I won’t.” She put his fears to bed with an easy laugh. “You’re the one tangled in my red line.”
Baldair looked at her, reminded of the fate she seemed to so love. Well, it was something he could find himself loving as well, if it truly kept them together. Jax and Erion took his shift in focus as dismissal.
“We can find you a new mount when you’re better,” Raylynn reassured him. “But for now, I think dinner is in order.”
“And what are you hungry for?” Her answering look made his flesh prickle.
“Tonight, I want traditional Western.”
“As you’d like.” On her terms was becoming a delight to him. “And then? What comes after?”
“I think you know…” Raylynn trailed a finger from his navel to his chin, dragging patterns of lust atop his clothes.
“And then?” He wanted to hear her say it. The cuff was already digging into his side. He’d wanted to make the matter official since he’d first woken, but things hadn’t moved as quickly as he wanted.
“Then, I suppose, one of those golden bracers you so fancy.”
Baldair produced the item in question. A metal cuff with space just enough to squeeze one’s wrist through. But Raylynn’s was slightly different from the ones Jax and Erion wore. Adorning the opening were cross-strips of red ribbon.
“I thought we could do those things in reverse?” Baldair couldn’t stop the outpouring of happiness he felt when she slid it onto her wrist.
“If that’s the case then… I think you know what happens next, my prince.”
He certainly did. The only person in his world at that moment was the woman straddling him, kissing his mouth with the passion of a young lass.
Yet, she was anything but. Sturdy and strong, scarred by life, experienced. She was as beautiful as the swords she wielded and just as dangerous. Baldair gripped her hips, swelling his chest to the point of pain to meet her mouth.
She was his. But, perhaps even better, he was hers. Somehow, that would be enough for them both to survive the war in the days to come.
The final installment of the Golden Guard Trilogy.
ON SALE MAY 2017
A new world from Elise Kova
Her vengeance. His vision.
Ari lost everything she once loved when the Five Guilds’ resistance fell to the Dragon King. Now, she uses her unparalleled gift for clockwork machinery in tandem with notoriously unscrupulous morals to contribute to a thriving underground organ market. There isn’t a place on Loom that is secure from the engineer-turned-thief, and her magical talents are sold to the highest bidder as long as the job defies their Dragon oppressors.
Cvareh would do anything to see his sister usurp the Dragon King and sit on the throne. His family’s house has endured the shame of being the lowest rung in the Dragons’ society for far too long. The Alchemist Guild, down on Loom, may just hold the key to putting his kin in power, if Cvareh can get to them before the Dragon King’s assassins.
When Ari stumbles upon a wounded Cvareh, she sees an opportunity to slaughter an enemy and make a profit off his corpse. But the Dragon sees an opportunity to navigate Loom with the best person to get him where he wants to go.
He offers her the one thing Ari can’t refuse: A wish of her greatest desire, if she brings him to the Alchemists of Loom.
About The Author
Elise Kova has always had a profound love of fantastical worlds. Somehow, she managed to focus on the real world long enough to graduate with a Master’s in Business Administration before crawling back under her favorite writing blanket to conceptualize her next magic system. She currently lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and when she s not writing can be found playing video games, watching anime, or talking with readers on social media.
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