Jason made a face. “If this was a game, I’d definitely decide I was too far behind to have a chance and hit the restart button. I'd go back to, uh, a saved game. In Tiaesun. Before the meal started. And this time before we went into that meal I’d drag you over to your parents and I’d say, ‘Kira has seen someone who looks like her double, so the Imperials obviously have plans already underway to kidnap her and try to take her back to the Empire against her will on the prince’s ship. We need to get her out of this palace right now!’”
Kira couldn’t help laughing, imagining the scene. “And my poor parents, hearing you say all that, would decide that their daughter had finally succeeded in driving you crazy.”
“You can’t drive me crazy,” Jason said. “My special demon powers, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kira stopped laughing as she looked at Jason and saw the weariness in him, the gauntness from their lack of food, and the way he was looking at her. “I’m going to say this because it’s an option. I can wait here or head east to meet the legions. Once they have me, they won’t keep chasing after only you.”
“You know my answer already, right?” Jason said. “Didn’t we already both promise that neither one would die for the other?”
”We did,” Kira agreed.
“So if you head east, I’m going with you. I’m not leaving you.”
“Just like my father stood with my mother,” Kira said. She looked around again at the magnificent and forbidding scenery, then back at Jason. The cold wind whipped at her hair, so she had to brush it back, thinking about the choices she had. The choice she could make now. There were moments when truth seemed very clear, when the right path was easy to see, and as Kira looked at Jason she realized this was such a moment for her. “Hey, Jason.”
“What?”
“Will you promise yourself to me someday? Will you accept my promise on that day?”
He stared at her without speaking for a long moment while Kira waited nervously. “That’s a marriage proposal, right?” Jason finally said. “You just proposed to me?”
“Are girls not allowed to do that on Urth?”
“Sure they are.” Jason blinked, breathing fast. “I’ve got to be crazy. This couldn’t happen to me.”
“Is that a yes or a no? I think I deserve a clear answer, Jason.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed, then nodded. “Sure it’s a yes. How could I not say yes? You want to marry me? Me? Really?”
“Yes,” Kira said, smiling. “Somebody has to keep on eye on you. It might as well be me. And you’re usually fun to have around, and you’re also pretty handy when I get attacked by a dragon or kidnapped or chased by an Imperial legion.”
“But you only said you loved me a little over a week ago!”
“It’s been a pretty eventful week, Jason. Yes, I spent a long time deciding how I felt,” Kira said. “Trying to understand how I felt. Maybe I’ve been in love with you for months. I don’t know. But when I decided, I knew. And I know now. Just like I know that you really love me. Love me enough to face death with me. The thread doesn’t lie, Jason. It’s right there!”
“Except the thread isn’t there,” Jason said.
“It’s intangible! What’s so strange about that? Can you see love, Jason?”
He smiled back at her. “Right now I can. I’m allowed to ask you, too, right?”
“If you want to,” Kira said. “Yes.”
“Will you, um, promise yourself to me?” Jason asked.
“I just said yes,” she pointed out. “But I’ll say it again, because it’s important. Yes.” Kira took a deep breath. “So…we’re engaged. We don’t have to get married as soon as we turn eighteen. We can wait. I’m fine with that.”
“What about your parents?” Jason asked, visibly nervous.
She eyed him. “Are you scared of my parents? I thought you were prepared to stand by me against anything and anyone.”
“They are the daughter of Jules and the Master of Mages,” Jason pointed out.
“So?”
Jason looked around at the mountains surrounding them. He shrugged. “So. I’ll stand by you. This all has to be an elaborate hallucination, anyway. I’m sure I’m really under deep sedation somewhere back on Earth.”
“Are you saying I’m an hallucination?”
“No one as amazing as you could be real,” Jason said, grinning.
“Oh, you are so delusional. Maybe I’m one of those goddesses.”
“That’s it! And I’m the mortal champion who you’ve selected to fight for you! Best game ever! What happens next?”
“We walk again,” Kira said, smiling at him, wondering how she could feel so elated when they both appeared to be doomed. She pointed to the northwest. “That way. Down the slope until it meets that ridge, which I think leads to some low areas. I will have you note, Jason of Urth, that our path from here is downhill.”
“See? That’s a good omen!”
“What’s an omen?”
“It’s like foresight,” Jason explained. “Omens are sort of ambiguous signs of what the future holds. They’re usually hard to interpret.”
“So they are just like foresight,” Kira said.
“Kira, we’re going to make it.”
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re going to make it.” For this moment, she could believe that.
Kira and Jason headed down off the peak, the chill winds biting into them, their bodies sore, their stomachs hollow, and the Imperial legionaries continuing to fill the mountains behind them as the sun sank lower in the west.
Chapter Eleven
“The Peace of the Daughter has ended,” announced Beran of Palla, his expression that of a man attending the funeral of a loved one. Mari and Alain, and the other officials in the conference room, gazed somberly at the ambassador from the Free Cities as he gestured to the map on the wall behind him. “The two Imperial legions in the north have entered the Northern Ramparts and are moving rapidly westward.”
The moment of silence that followed was profound. “Where are they striking for?” Olav of Ulrick, the ambassador from the Western Alliance, finally asked. “Merida? Alexdria? Cristane?”
“None of them, as far as we can tell.” Beran moved his finger across the map. “All of the reports we are receiving from scouts are that the legions have broken up into numerous small columns which are sweeping through every low spot and path in the Ramparts.”
“That’s insane.”
Tiae’s ambassador to the Bakre Confederation, Tresa of Tiaesun, leaned forward, intent on the map. “That doesn’t sound like an attack aimed at taking one of the Free Cities. It sounds like a search.”
Beran nodded in reply. “We believe the same.”
“What are they searching for that would be worth that kind of risk and provoking war?” Ambassador Olav wondered.
“The daughter of the daughter,” Beran said, gesturing toward Mari.
“So the Imperials did kidnap your daughter Kira?” asked President in Chief Julan of the Bakre Confederation.
“Yes,” Mari said. “It's now certain that she was taken from Tiae aboard the flagship of the Gray Squadron after being kidnapped on orders of Prince Maxim. The girl who was seen leaving Queen Sien’s palace at dawn was a double, left there to deceive us about the time when Kira was kidnapped.”
“The Bakre Confederation failed to act in time to intercept that squadron,” Julan said, his voice heavy. “We let our doubts delay us. We owed you better, daughter. You did not delay in coming to Dorcastle in our hour of need. We should have not have delayed in acting as you asked.”
“I do not blame you, sir,” Mari said, her stomach knotting at the idea of Kira trying to outrun and outfight two entire legions. “I know what it’s like not to be able to do what you want to do. You’re not the only one who sometimes finds their hands tied.”
“Maxim has actually sent legions into the Northern Ramparts in pursuit of Lady Kira?” Olav asked incredulously. “Who wo
uld start a major war in pursuit of a girl? Or a boy? Lady Kira isn’t the daughter of Jules. There are no prophecies concerning her. Am I right?”
“You are right,” Alain said. “There are no prophecies. Maxim appears driven by a refusal to accept the failure of his original kidnapping plan.”
“Failure at the hands of the daughter of the woman who humiliated his father!” Beran said. “No one else could have driven him to this. He sought to avenge his father’s failure by not only defeating you, Lady Mari, but also by humiliating your daughter.”
“Bad idea,” President of State Jane remarked.
“Yes. Instead, she is humiliating him.” Beran pointed to the map again, this time along the coast well east of Marida. “On the advice of the daughter, the Free Cities began mobilizing our forces four days ago. One of our coastal patrols encountered three Imperial warships here in our waters and was driven off. Marida responded by sending out two warships. They discovered that two of the Imperial vessels were carrying only skeleton crews and unable to put up a fight. One of those was sunk and one captured. The third managed to escape.”
He paused. “The captain of the captured ship confirmed that the Imperial ships were the remnants of the Gray Squadron. Prince Maxim received information that Lady Kira had gotten away alive from Caer Lyn after destroying his flagship, and sent the remaining ships of the Gray Squadron in pursuit. They caught up with her sailboat just off the coast but not in time to stop her from making it ashore.”
“Was she alone?” Mari asked.
“No. As you and your husband guessed, the boy from Urth had managed to find her. Maxim ordered such an unrelenting pursuit that another Imperial ship was lost on the rocks while trying to catch them. Our ships saw the wreckage on the coast.”
Jane leaned forward, disbelieving. “Kira set afire one Imperial ship, and caused another to run aground and be destroyed? She accounted for two-fifths of the Gray Squadron?”
“It’s tempting to see what she could accomplish against those two legions,” Olav of Ulrick commented, then looked an apology at Mari and Alain. “I would not seriously suggest such a thing, of course.”
“We understand,” Mari said, unable to resist a brief smile. “Alain and I do have quite a little girl, don’t we?”
Beran of Palla cleared his throat. “The captured Imperial captain said that most of the crews of his ship and the one we sank were sent ashore in pursuit of Lady Kira and Jason of Urth. The ship that escaped had Prince Maxim aboard.” He paused. “There is something I should mention, but I know the subject is a delicate one.”
Mari looked steadily at him, all humor fled. “Was Kira assaulted?”
“Not to our knowledge!” Beran hastily assured her. “No, this concerns the Dark One. The captain we captured insisted on repeatedly warning us that the ‘daughter of darkness’ is a great danger to the west.”
“The Imperials are calling me the daughter of darkness?” Mari said. “I suppose that’s—”
“Not you, Lady. The captain used that term for your daughter.”
“Daughter of the Dark One,” Alain said.
“Exactly.” Beran grimaced, plainly uncomfortable. “He said that Lady Kira had been discovered one evening crouched over the unconscious body of a young sailor, preparing to…pardon me, Lady, but this is the term the captain used…preparing to feed. The sailor’s companions drove her off, and when he regained his senses the young sailor claimed that Lady Kira had appeared out of nowhere to seduce him.”
“Mara can be invisible?” Mari asked.
“The legends vary on that point, Lady. Usually it’s described as being able to blind the senses of men. The officer said that in addition to some sailors having witnessed her supernatural abilities and, um, unnatural appetites, the total destruction of Maxim’s former flagship is also being attributed to Lady Kira’s malign powers.”
President Jane shook her head in disbelief. “The captain of an imperial warship said that? Not one of the crew?”
“That is correct,” Beran said. “The belief that Lady Mari is a cover for Mara the Dark One is a longstanding one within the Empire, but it has been confined to the lower levels of society there. For a high-ranking official to express it is highly unusual.”
“No one has actually seen Kira drinking blood, have they?” Julan asked.
Beran nodded. “Yes. A very highly placed someone. The captain said that Princess Sabrin claimed to have confronted the daughter of darkness while alone, encountering her in the act of drinking the blood of a young man, and to have walked away from the encounter unharmed. Sabrin commented in the hearing of some of Maxim’s officers and sailors sent to search her ship that she had required no guards to protect her from Mara’s daughter, and had ordered Kira not to harm her. Apparently Prince Maxim never encountered Kira without several guards present.”
“Why would anyone high in the Imperial household stoke fears of Mara by claiming she had a daughter that was loose in the world?” President Julan asked.
“Maxim has been claiming that like Emperor Maran he could control Mara,” Ambassador Olav said. “But if instead he has loosed Mara’s daughter on the world and has proven unable to control her…”
“Then,” Alain said, “Maxim will be proven both unable to match his boasts, and responsible for unleashing a peril against the Empire. A peril that Princess Sabrin is claiming to be able to confront and control.”
“Yes,” Beran said. “And the proof exists, in the eyes of that captain at least, in the fact that the daughter of darkness destroyed Maxim’s flagship but spared Sabrin’s yacht.”
“Wonderful,” Mari said, letting her unhappiness show. “Sabrin is trying to discredit Maxim and build up her prospects by portraying Kira as a blood-sucking monster, which also reinforces the Mara claim against me.”
“But how could Mara even have a daughter?” Olav wondered. “Why would the Imperials believe that? Don’t the stories all say that she traded away her ability to have children along with many other human attributes in exchange for unfading beauty and eternal unlife?”
Beran spread his hands, speaking apologetically. “The Imperial captain told us that Mara’s alliance with the most powerful of Mages is responsible. Mara required such a potent Mage to cast the necessary spell to call an offspring of hers into being.”
Mari surprised herself and everyone else with a brief laugh. “I have to admit that my husband played a vital role in the creation of our daughter. I couldn’t have done it without him.” She paused, thinking. “As unhappy as I have always been about the Mara thing, if Kira is aided by the rumor that she is the, uh, daughter of darkness, and that same rumor creates problems for Maxim, any embarrassment to me is a small price to pay.”
“It is indeed aiding her,” Beran said. “The captured captain told us that the group of sailors who witnessed your daughter’s, um, assault on a young sailor were badly rattled by the experience. Word of that was passed around quickly, and on top of the extreme fatigue that all the Imperial search parties were suffering from, discipline was disintegrating. Prince Maxim was told that the search parties from the ships were rapidly losing any semblance of an organized military force.”
“So he ordered the legions to go in,” Jane said. “Faced with failure, he more than doubled down on his bet.”
Beran visibly hesitated again. “I feel obligated to mention that both the male and female sailors in the search parties were frightened of encountering your daughter, Lady. According to every captured sailor we spoke with, Kira is believed to be a threat to young women as well as young men.”
Mari stared at him. “Why?”
“The sailors claimed she had attacked women with a clear aim of…satisfying her thirst.”
Mari covered her face with one hand. “What has your daughter done, Alain?”
“I am more concerned that by escaping and evading Maxim she has triggered the war we feared,” Alain said.
She dropped her hand and gave him a glare. “Kir
a did not start this war. She bears no responsibility for refusing to be a victim!”
“I am sorry. I did not mean to imply otherwise,” her husband replied.
“I think,” said President of State Jane, “that the kidnapping of Kira and the Imperial hunt for her has set things into motion, but these are all things that would have happened eventually. For them to happen now, when the Empire is not prepared for the war it has been edging toward, may be to our immense benefit. Does the information available to the others here agree with ours, that the Empire has not mobilized?”
“Yes,” Beran of Palla said. “By moving the two legions in the north into the Ramparts, Maxim has left the northern Empire effectively undefended.”
“That matches our information as well,” Ambassador Olav said. “The Empire has been caught flat-footed by Maxim’s impulsive actions.”
Mari inhaled deeply before speaking. For the moment, she would have to stop thinking of her daughter and instead guide what had become a planning session for war. Guide it in ways that would produce the least damage and the most viable peace afterward. “That gives us an opportunity. If we act together. What are the intentions of the Free Cities?”
“We have been invaded, Lady,” Beran said. “As our forces continue to mobilize, they will move east to meet with and destroy the legions that have entered the Ramparts. Those legions would have been extremely dangerous if concentrated into large units, but with them spread out we should be able to defeat the individual small forces one by one.”
Ambassador Tresa from Tiae nodded. “Maxim isn’t an idiot. He must have thought he could get the legions into the Ramparts, catch Kira, and establish strong defensive positions before the Free Cities could mobilize and hit back.”
“If we hadn’t begun mobilizing days ago, that might have worked,” Beran agreed. “Lady Mari, Sir Mage, the forces of the Free Cities also have orders to search for your daughter and the boy.”
“I am extremely grateful for that,” Mari said. “Kira has spent time in the Free Cities. If she sees soldiers from any of them she will know she can trust them.”
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