“Then I am choosing to be stuck with it. Stuck with you,” he said.
Kira grinned. “Lucky me. Thanks.”
When Kira heard the others starting to leave, she ran down to help see them off as their carriages and coaches pulled up, the horses rested and ready for the trip to the train station in Pacta Servanda. Queen Sien, smiling as Kira saluted her but giving off an odd sense of saying goodbye in more ways than one; Lukas, giving Kira a quick pat on the shoulder; Jane taking Kira’s hand and thanking her formally.
Alli and Calu shook their heads as Jason walked toward them. “You’re not coming back to Danalee with us,” Calu said.
“Huh? Why not?”
“Duty calls, and it’s calling your name.” Calu smiled fondly at Jason. “We’ve enjoyed having you.”
“I’m staying here?” Jason said, confused.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Alli said, fussing with his collar. “You and Kira are still underage. Give me a hug goodbye and get back inside.”
“You guys have been so great,” Jason said. “I don’t know how to—”
“Just keep being who you are,” Calu said. “And stay in touch.”
When the others had left, Mari looked at Asha. “Are you staying the night?”
“If I may. Master of Mages Alain and I still have much to discuss.”
“Go ahead, Alain. I’ll talk to Kira. Jason, could you wait upstairs? You'll be staying in the guest room again.”
Kira, wary, followed her mother into the kitchen, where Mari sat down and looked at her. “Why do you want to talk to me alone? Did I do something wrong?” Kira asked.
“No, dearest, you did great. Here’s the idea we came up with. We need to disrupt what the Imperials are planning. A lot of that planning is surely focused on you. A public announcement that you were committed might not be believed and would be seen as a blatant attempt to rule out Imperial ambitions for you—”
“Imperial ambitions for me?”
“I know that sounds weird. I’m sorry.” Mari studied her daughter while Kira waited, feeling awkward. “It’s clear that the Imperials think they can still get their hooks into you. Maxim is staking his prestige on getting you. But, if it becomes obvious that your interests are firmly and genuinely set in another direction, it should throw off their plans and give us a chance to undermine Prince Maxim’s position.”
Kira eyed her mother suspiciously. “My interests? What direction?”
“Jason.”
“Mother, I really like him. But…I still don’t know if love is the right word.”
“That’s all right,” Mari said. “You don’t have to change that. All that matters is what the world sees. Your father and I, along with you, were already planning to go down to Tiaesun for the formal reception associated with the visit of Prince Maxim and the Imperial ship squadron. Jason is going to come as well.”
“Really?” Kira said, elated. Suspicion rose again. “Really?” she asked in a different way.
“While we’re there, you and Jason will go out together, be seen being happy together, buy each other jewelry in public where lots of people can see—”
“What? Buy each other jewelry? Mother, that is a serious sign of commitment!”
“You and Jason will know that it doesn’t mean that. But Jason came from Urth. There are a lot of stories about him helping you last year, about how he saved you during that storm at sea and helped you fight your way out of Kelsi, and how he decided to stay on this world. A lot of people know he's been spending time here with you.”
“You mean our enemies,” Kira grumbled.
“No, I mean a lot of people. Including the Imperials. Word will get around very rapidly about you two if you're acting like a pair in public. It will be obvious that you may not be officially committed, but you are very much tied to someone else and could not possibly be interested in Prince Maxim under any circumstances.”
Kira stared at her mother. “Whose idea was this?”
“Actually, Sien was the first to think of it.”
“Great,” Kira said. “My own queen has been plotting to embarrass me.”
“That’s another thing. It’s time you knew,” her mother said. “Sien is not your queen.”
“Yes, she is.” Kira shook her head at her mother. “I’m Kira of Pacta Servanda. Pacta Servanda is in Tiae. Sien is the queen of Tiae. She is my queen.”
Her mother took a deep breath. “Your name is not Kira of Pacta Servanda.”
Kira realized that she must have been staring at her mother for at least a minute, unable to speak. “What?”
“Have you ever looked at your birth certificate?”
“You know, for some strange reason I didn’t think I had to in order to know my own name!”
“Your name is Kira of Dematr,” Mari said.
How long had Kira spent staring wordlessly at her mother this time? “Kira. Of. Dematr.”
“That’s right,” her mother said.
“No. That’s wrong. You are Mari of Dematr. You are the only citizen of the world. I am a citizen of Tiae.”
“No, you’re not,” Mari said. “The decision was made that my children would also be citizens of the world, so that I would not be influenced by their allegiance to any particular ruler or place.”
“Who made this decision?” Kira demanded, feeling like the ground was shifting under her feet.
“I didn’t,” her mother said. “Leaders of the world. Representatives of every government. Including Queen Sien herself.”
“My own queen helped with this?”
“Sien is not your queen.”
“AHHHHH!” Kira collapsed into a nearby chair, her eyes locked on her mother. “How could you do this to me? I have spent the last seventeen years thinking my name was Kira of Pacta Servanda. Wait. I’m an honorary officer in the Queen’s Own Lancers. How can I be an honorary officer of the Queen’s Own Lancers if Sien is not my queen?”
“She gave you a waiver,” Mari said. “The commander of the Lancers knows.”
“The commander knows?” Kira slumped backwards. “My whole life has been a lie.”
“Kira, you’re being a little overdramatic.”
“What else haven’t I been told? You are my mother, right? For real?”
Mari nodded. “Do you think I would have stuck with this if I had a choice?”
“Oh, very funny,” Kira said. She flopped her head back, staring at the ceiling. “Why wasn’t I told?”
“We thought you’d be upset.”
“Good guess. I am.”
“And we wanted you to have a semblance of a normal childhood, a chance to be like the other kids.”
“Seriously?” Kira asked, sitting forward to look at her mother. “Normal childhood? What part of normal childhood had bodyguards accompanying me when I went to a classmate’s birthday party, and testing my piece of cake before I got to eat it, and opening all the presents to screen them before the birthday kid even got to see them, and a security sweep of the neighborhood that included Mages? I was eight years old, and for some weird reason I didn’t get invited to many more birthday parties after that.”
“That was overkill,” her mother conceded. “You got to go to a lot of Gari’s and Andi’s birthday parties, and Ashira’s and Devi’s, and—”
“Mother, I am trying to wallow in the misery of this betrayal!” Kira got up. “Fine. My life is a lie and everyone I know has been plotting against me.”
“I’m glad you’re keeping a sense of perspective about this,” Mari said.
“And now I will go tell Jason that he is going to Tiaesun to show off to everybody that he’s my boyfriend. My really, really serious boyfriend who is going to make a completely spontaneous and private gift of jewelry to me in front of as many spectators as possible. Oh, and tell him my name isn’t what I thought it was.”
Her mother grimaced apologetically. “Kira, we’re also going to need you and Jason to put on some public displays of affection.”
“What does that mean?” Kira asked, wary again.
“Holding hands, hugging, kissing—”
“You said public. We’re supposed to do that with people watching us?”
“As many people as possible,” Mari said.
“I hate you.”
“You’ll get over it. Dearest, you know we wouldn’t ask this of you, and of Jason, if it didn’t seem the best way to short-circuit the Imperial plans and their march toward war.”
“So now you’re trying to make me feel guilty for getting upset,” Kira grumbled.
“Yes. How’s it working?”
* * *
Naturally, Jason didn’t get it. “You’re a citizen of the world? Cool.”
“That is not cool,” Kira informed him. “Neither is us making a public spectacle of ourselves.”
“So I’m being invited to go to Tiaesun—”
“It’s not an invitation, Jason. Invitations can be turned down. You’re going to Tiaesun.”
“Okay. What exactly are we going to be doing?”
“You will very publicly buy me jewelry, and I will very publicly buy you jewelry, and we’ll…kiss and stuff.”
“We like to kiss and stuff,” Jason said.
“Not in front of crowds of people watching us, we don’t!”
“And this will make the Imperials think we’re serious about each other?”
Kira made a face. “It’s supposed to make them think that we can’t wait to turn eighteen and marry each other.”
Jason stared at her. “Marry?”
“Not really,” Kira said. “We just want the Imperials to think we are privately engaged, without making an official public announcement which would obviously be an attempt to influence them, because if they think their plans to neutralize me and to neutralize Mother can’t work because of you—” She stopped speaking, staring at Jason as a terrible realization hit. “If the Imperials think you are standing between them and their plans, they’ll target you!”
“Target me? Like, assassination target me?” Jason asked.
“Yes, target you like assassination target you!”
How could her mother and her father and Queen Sien have missed that?
They hadn’t missed it, Kira suddenly understood.
Jason was to be bait, dangled before the Imperials in the hopes that arrogant Prince Maxim would make a mistake big enough to discredit him.
“Mother!”
Chapter Two
The Destiny had once been part of the daughter’s fleet, preying on Imperial shipping and helping to defend Pacta Servanda when Syndar had attacked. In the intervening years the wooden three-masted sailing ship had been upgraded a bit, a new steam boiler installed for propulsion to assist the sails, and breech-loading deck guns mounted fore and aft to replace the ballistae that had formerly been the Destiny’s main armament. She was now part of the fleet of Tiae, on loan from Queen Sien for Mari and Alain’s trip down to Tiaesun.
Kira leaned on the starboard rail, staring into the west. Somewhere out there was the Western Continent, a once-mythical place that had been visited by only a couple of expeditions since the fall of the Great Guilds.
Without her willing it, her Mage senses reached out, feeling for the amount of power available to cast spells. Like all other areas on the water, there was little power here. Surprised, Kira tamped down her Mage senses. The last thing she needed was for them to do something without her directing them to, especially if it was in a place where other Mages could tell she was the source. Fortunately, her father was the only Mage aboard this ship.
Her mother came to stand by her. “How are you doing, Kira?”
“I’m fine,” Kira said. “I’m on my way to formal social events where I’ll have to make nice to the Imperials who are obsessed with forcing me to marry into the Imperial household. And my own parents and my queen…excuse me, my former queen, are painting a great big target on my boyfriend and hoping the Imperials try to kill him. And on top of that, I keep stumbling over my own name because it’s a different name than I thought I had for seventeen years.”
“You’re doing pretty well, then.”
“All things considered, yes.”
“Dearest, there is going to be an awesome amount of security around Jason. Neither you nor he will be able to see most of it, but a fly won’t be able to get through to hurt him. I promise.”
Kira sighed. “You do keep promises.”
“Have there been any more bad dreams since we left home?”
“If there had been you would have heard,” Kira said. “I’m told that my screams would terrify even a Mage.”
“Your father was not trying to make you feel bad when he said that,” her mother said. “He, and I, were scared when our daughter let out with that shriek in the middle of the night.”
“I’m sorry,” Kira said. “It’s only happened a couple of times. I think after what I went through six months ago a nightmare every now and then isn’t all that strange.” She looked out over the long, slow swells of the ocean, seeking a way to change the subject. “What was it like when you sailed these waters during the war?”
“Like this,” Mari said, leaning on the railing next to her and letting Kira’s change of topic slide. “As Captain Banda told me, the ocean changes her moods all of the time, but she’s always the same under all that.”
“The first time you captured another ship, what were you thinking?”
Her mother grinned. “I was thinking it shouldn’t feel so exciting and almost fun, because I was also scared. That was the Pride, you know. The first ship we captured was the Pride. And now everyone talks about how my daughter fought the sea and beat it.”
Kira shook her head, laughing at the idea. “I did not beat the sea. We barely survived it.”
“Your father heard some of the sailors on this ship talking. The story going around is that any ship you’re on will never sink in a storm.”
“People are crazy,” Kira said. “Did I ever tell you how rough and uncomfortable the sailor clothes were?”
“Tough, though, right?” her mother sympathized. “Sometimes you have to be practical. Oh, speaking of clothes, Sien told me she’s having some special matching dresses made for you and me to wear to the big formal event.”
“Really?”
“You do know if I had mentioned matching dresses a year ago that you’d have exploded, right?” Mari said, smiling at her.
“That was another Kira, who thought she would never be anything but a pale shadow of her mother.”
“The only bad part is that we won’t be able to wear any kind of coat with them, so we’ll have to wear thigh holsters under the dresses. I brought mine, and Sien said she’d make sure one was ready for you.”
“A thigh holster?” Kira asked. “You’ll have to show me how to use that safely.”
“What are mothers for?” Mari gave her a look. “You also need to warn Jason if you’re wearing it.”
Kira felt her face grow warm. “I don’t need to warn Jason. He doesn’t go pawing around down there. I set limits and he respects them.”
“Good.” Her mother paused, looking at the ocean as the swells made their endless progression. “What’s going on with him, Kira? You know how it was with me and your father. I fell in love with him without realizing it, spent a while trying to talk myself out of it, then embraced the inevitable about the time he chose to stand by me against a charging dragon.”
“Father still says that he’s worried some day you’ll realize you could do a lot better,” Kira said, laughing. “Jason and I…it’s hard to explain. He loves me. I know he does. And I feel like I’m caring for him more and more, but it’s like there’s something waiting, something that isn’t there yet, and when it happens I’ll know, but right now I don’t.”
Her mother didn't say anything else for a long moment, looking out over the water. “Kira, there's something I've noticed about you. When it comes to doing things, dealing with exte
rnal matters, you're as impulsive and direct as I am. Get it done! But when it comes to your heart, to important things inside you…you're a lot more cautious and guarded.”
“What if I am?” Kira replied, feeling defensive. “I've got plenty of reason to be that way. You know how guys have stalked me like I was prey, because they wanted to bag the daughter of the daughter of Jules so they could boast about it!”
“You don't think Jason is like that, do you?”
“No! It's just…I don't know. All right? Maybe I'm being overcautious, but don't I have a right to that?”
“You do,” her mother agreed. “Absolutely. You shouldn’t feel pressured. You know your father and I like Jason, but whether he’s that special person for you is your decision and yours alone.”
Kira paused, uncertain how to ask. “Mother, how are you?”
“I’m fine,” Mari said. “Weight of the world on my shoulders, everyone counting on me to save the day, a daughter who’s actually being pretty nice to me most of the time these days. The usual.”
“I mean inside.”
“Oh. The surgery? Doctor Sino did a follow-up. Didn’t we tell you? She says everything looks great. I should be able to once again carry a child to term and have a safe delivery.”
Kira grinned, hugging her mother. “I’m so glad. Um, are you and Father going to, uh, start…trying?”
Her mother smiled back. “We already are, dearest. We didn’t think you wanted to hear about it, though.”
“I don’t! Thank you!” Kira laughed again. “Did I ever tell you that Jason says his parents used to talk about that in front of him? What they were doing with other people?”
“Ugh,” Mari said with an exaggerated shudder of disgust. “How did two people with apparently no redeeming qualities produce a boy like Jason?”
“Well, you know how multiplying two negative numbers produces a positive number,” Kira said.
“I don’t think people work like that when they multiply. Interesting idea, though. Hey, want to see if they’ll let us fire some test shots from the forward gun? I looked at it. It’s one of your Aunt Alli’s models.”
“They’ll let us do that?”
“I’m pretty sure if we ask they will. Do you think Jason would want to join in?”
Blood of Dragons Page 3