For the moment, I wanted to enjoy being alive.
Finally it felt like enough. I stayed his wrist when he moved to gather more rain. He glanced down at me, concern creasing his face, smiled a little, then turned a wary eye to the dragon again. I’d forgotten Kiraka’s presence. Or rather, that her being there would be strange to Nakoa. She lay like a cat on the sand, her forelegs stretched forward, tail curled around herself, and wings mantled against the rain. Ruby eyes glowed with what I would have to call affection.
“Kiraka,” I told him. My voice was rusty, each word clawing at my throat.
Nakoa gave me a bemused smile and caressed my cheek. “How do you know?”
I shrugged a little. “She said.” I tapped my temple. “Here.”
“Ah,” he breathed the exclamation, then kissed the spot. “So clever, so wise. You have found what is yours to know.”
“Not yet. Soon.” I had things to tell him. More important than this. A fit of coughing took me that racked my burned throat.
“No words, mlai. We have all the prosperous future for words. Drink.”
Nakoa—of course—insisted on carrying me back to the palace. I would have protested but had no voice or strength for it. And he simply scooped me up and started walking as the sun rose, burning off the last of his rainstorm. Kiraka said she’d stay behind, to watch the sunrise and enjoy the cool.
As the light grew, it became clear that we were on the opposite side of the volcano from the palace. How had he found me? How had he come so far, so fast? No wonder he’d been out of breath. Then again, I’d been lying in the rain a long time. Exhaustion overtook me and, though I tried to keep alert, my head kept nodding, until it would hit Nakoa’s shoulder, startling me awake again.
“Rest, mlai,” Nakoa finally said with a frown. “Heal.”
One day I would be back to full health, with no injuries, and I’d make sure to stay that way. But I took Nakoa’s suggestion—or rather, couldn’t fight the dragging sleep anymore—and gave in to it.
He woke me occasionally, each time the sun a bit higher, to drink more water. Once he tried to give me some fruit, but my stomach rebelled and even Nakoa’s thunderous frown couldn’t make me try it again. When I awakened on my own near midday, a contingent of his guard had met and surrounded us, and we approached the harbor from the far side, away from the palace. Not at all abandoned now, it bustled with ships, all with sails showing colors and symbols of the various islands, some I recognized and some I did not.
Nakoa noted my increased alertness. On some of those other awakenings, I’d barely kept my eyes open long enough to drink the water. “Better?” he asked.
“Much.” I felt like I’d never be not thirsty again, but I was far better than I’d expected. My throat no longer burned and my tongue no longer felt like a brick in my mouth.
“Good. I have sent guards ahead to fetch healing help for you.” He hesitated. Unusual for him. His face carefully blank, he asked. “Where were you—can you say?”
“Inside the volcano. Tane walled me into a cave, so I would get the treasure for him.”
Nakoa gave me a dubious look. “You do not like him, but it was not him. He is at the palace searching for you.”
I snorted a laugh, but he didn’t join in. “He went back, to make you think so. His men may still wait—outside the cave. High up. I’m not sure where. Kiraka found me and brought me out. It was . . .” Terrifying. Unbearable. My worst nightmare come true. And yet, I’d survived.
“I shall send guards to see.”
“And to contain Tane.”
“No. He has done nothing wrong.”
What? “He tried to kill me!”
“If he had wished to kill you, you would be dead. If he did as you say, he only attempted to use you. A challenge within his rights.”
So much about this culture I still didn’t understand. Then the import of what he’d said dawned on me. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
Irritation flickered in his eyes, along with something more. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“How can you say that?”
He sighed. “Dafne mlai. It is no secret you wish to be free of me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, except the truth. “I didn’t leave you. Tane and his men grabbed me in the library and carried me up there!”
“You were in bed with me.” His face set into brooding lines.
“I woke up and couldn’t sleep, so I went to the library. Ask your guard at the door.”
“They have been asked. They say only that you left. Which I firmly told you not to do. The two who went with you cannot be found.”
That didn’t bode well. Dead or defected to Tane’s side? “When did you tell me not to leave the room?”
He ground his teeth. “I said you were safe with me, but perhaps not the guard.”
“I misunderstood.” I wanted to clench my own teeth. “I still don’t understand everything you say perfectly.”
He didn’t reply to that. I felt terrible that I’d been foolish.
“I’m sorry, Nakoa.”
For once he didn’t tell me not to be sorry. He simply gazed into the distance, scanning the harbor and ships.
“Do you think I did this to my own hands?”
He didn’t respond immediately, squinting at something in the harbor. Or the bay beyond. A runner came up to him panting, speaking the tumbling words so fast all I caught was the pitch of alarm, of an unexpected storm.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Nakoa gave me a look that was, if anything, darker, possibly betrayed. “A ship is arriving and we do not recognize the sails. Friends of yours?”
“How—how would I know?”
“Perhaps this is who you set out to meet.”
“I told you, I—”
“Now is not the time. We will talk more.”
Yes. Yes, we would.
28
My friends, indeed. The ship flew Ursula’s hawk, along with the one for the Thirteen Kingdoms, with thirteen interlinked rings forming a chain within the three overlapping circles of the goddesses. A swell of pride made me unexpectedly weepy for a moment. No doubt much of the jangling emotional aftereffects of the last terrible day and the fight with Nakoa, but also seeing the symbol of what we’d accomplished. On top of all the nostalgia for home.
I was a mess. With Nakoa fuming in betrayed anger and me torn between outrage that he didn’t believe me and plaguing guilt that I’d put myself in harm’s way and that I’d entertained doing the very thing he blamed me for . . . well, the timing couldn’t have been worse. How in the Thirteen had the ship gotten to Nahanau so fast?
I managed to persuade Nakoa to remain at the harbor as the ship pulled in, instead of taking me back to the palace, mainly by dint of arguing that he needed me to translate. At first he replied that anyone understood the point of a knife at their throats, and I very solemnly told him that if he hurt someone I cared about because he wouldn’t let me help negotiate, then I would never forgive him. Who knew who Ursula would have sent to argue for my release, but I would do everything in my power to prevent bloodshed.
It made Nakoa even angrier, but he gave in. With ill grace. He also refused to put me down.
“No. You had your way in staying. I will have my way in this. Compromise.”
“That is not how compromise works,” I muttered furiously. “And don’t you ever get tired?”
He gave me a burning look of warning. “Yes. I am tired, mlai. I will be more tired before this is done. Don’t fight me in this.”
“Does that mean I get to fight you on other things?” I snapped back.
A hint of amusement lightened his visage. “I expect nothing other—unless you shed your skin and become someone else, my dragon queen.”
I refused to let that mollify me. “You’re only insisting on this to make a show to my people that you think I belong to you.”
“Yes. You do belong to me.” He nodded at
my growl of frustration. “But not only that. You are still weak and not well. I can do this for you.”
“I could sit,” I pointed out.
He shifted me in his arms, pulling me closer and nuzzling my neck. “What is the pleasure in that?”
Incorrigible man. How I could be both furious with him and full of love for him escaped me, but that seemed to be my new reality. At least he gave me glimmers of hope that we could find a way through this. “Fine. Make your show, but when it comes time to negotiate, I need to stand on my own.”
“We will see.” All teasing gone, he studied the ship with a granite expression. If he perceived any threat to me—or to his keeping me with him—this would go sour very quickly. I would have to play the conversation with utmost skill. Much depended on who Ursula had sent. Hopefully someone patient and not likely to bristle at Nakoa’s overbearing ways. She would have thought of that, known that the situation demanded tact, someone who put rational diplomacy before action.
The ship docked and the gangplank extended. I caught the metallic gold flash of a crown next to bloodred hair, dashing my hopes for someone reasonable. I groaned mentally. Ursula strode down the plank, hand on the hilt of her sword, followed closely by a grim-faced Harlan.
“This is your queen?” Nakoa asked in a low tone.
“Yes. Let me handle the introductions, Nakoa. I mean it.”
He studied her. “We will see.”
At least by obstinately keeping me in his arms, he couldn’t draw on her and she wouldn’t attack him for fear of hurting me. I hoped.
She surveyed Nakoa’s warriors lining the pier; then her steely gaze found me, face tightening with anger and concern. She appeared to dismiss Nakoa the same way she seemed uninterested in the guard—a calculated strategy on her part I knew well—and focused on me.
Her eyes shone with cold rage, the talon scars on her cheek going white and pulling slightly. “Dafne—what in Danu happened to you? Are you hurt?”
One day people would stop inquiring after my health before anything else.
“I had quite the night, but I’m fine.” I tapped Nakoa’s shoulder. “Put me down, please, Nakoa mlai.”
He gave me a long look, but complied. My legs wobbled a bit and my head swam, so I appreciated his steadying hands on my waist. Now he and Ursula stared each other down over my head, the tension between them as palpable as if I were standing between two infernos.
“King Nakoa KauPo of Nahanau, Her Majesty High Queen Ursula of the Thirteen Kingdoms. You are allies, not enemies.” I said it twice in both languages.
Nakoa’s hands flexed on me, but he did not speak. Ursula gave me an incredulous look and spoke in Common Tongue. “Danu take that, Dafne! This man abducted you. Zynda told us everything. He will release you or die.”
“He is a dead man, regardless,” Harlan promised, as boilingly angry as I’d ever seen him, despite his eerily quiet pronouncement, “for his transgressions against you.”
“No. He is my husband. All that has transpired between us has occurred within the marriage customs of these people.”
“Not within ours,” Ursula ground out. “He abducted and raped you. That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s not true, Your Majesty. I . . .” I couldn’t tell them I loved Nakoa before I told him. And it didn’t matter that I loved him, because I couldn’t stay. It might be better for him if I let him continue to believe I didn’t. “I have feelings for him.”
They both regarded me with sympathy that edged on pity. “This happens,” Ursula said, more softly. “It’s common and part of what goes on in the mind in abductions of this kind. You only believe this because of what he’s done to you. Once we have you safely away from him, you’ll see.”
I set my teeth against the frustration of it. The doubt that wormed into my heart, dividing it between them. “We will have that conversation. But look at where you are. You have but one ship. As fierce as you both are, you are surrounded by greater forces. This will be solved diplomatically and I will translate. I am unharmed.”
“Are you saying that he hasn’t . . .” That flash of old pain in her eyes as she searched for the words.
“I’m all right. I promise. We can talk more, privately, but only after he is reassured that you are here to parley, not to attack.”
Not happy, but knowing the truth of it, finally she acknowledged Nakoa. “King Nakoa KauPo. We have much to discuss.” She still said “discuss” like she meant “cut your throat.”
I translated for him, resisting the urge to shade the words with more promising pitches. He heard Ursula’s tone well enough as it was.
“I will hear her words,” he replied.
I repeated it exactly and Ursula eyed him, then me. “Here? I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
This time I turned to Nakoa. “Where shall we have this conversation? She is a powerful ruler, a warrior to be wary of and very angry on my behalf. Not the throne room. Someplace . . .” Neutral. “With level ground.”
“Tell her to follow. Only her and her protector. No one else.”
I relayed the instructions and she nodded without surprise, eyes narrowing a bit, however, when Nakoa caressed my cheek. “Will you insist on walking, my dragon queen, or may I carry you?”
I felt much better, though my mouth was already parched again and the headache had returned. A concession, too, for him to ask, which made it far more bearable, as undignified as it made me. I held up my hand, unfolding my fingers to show him my open palm, a sign of appreciation that made him smile, ever so slightly. “Please carry me, mlai. And if I could have more water?”
He swept me up, barking out commands. A young woman immediately ran up with a bowl of water, which I drank, offering her my thanks. Without further words, Nakoa headed up the trail to the palace. Ursula and Harlan followed behind, heads bent together as they conferred, Nakoa’s guard falling in behind.
He didn’t go far, taking a fork from the palace path to one that led to a clearing on a ridge overlooking the harbor and palace both. A flurry of servants had placed a table there with four chairs—and a footstool for me, of course—and set it with pitchers of water and wine, along with platters of food.
Nakoa set me in the chair and I relaxed into it, feeling as if I might never get up again. One of Inoa’s ladies hastened up, giving Nakoa a fresh garland for me. I’d totally forgotten that mine had broken in the library. He made more of a display than usual, holding it so that I had to bend my head to accept it. Once I did, he picked up my hand, held my gaze with not quite a smile, then pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist before letting me go so Inoa’s lady could minister to me.
She immediately lathered the numbing cream on my feet. The rest of me hurt so much, I’d forgotten about them, so the relief came nearly as a shock. I drank down more water as she worked to clean them. Then let her do the same with my hands.
Nakoa sat beside me, observing her work, Ursula and Harlan across from us. Ursula made a visible effort to choke back her seething temper, while Harlan’s anger seemed to have abated, leaving interest behind, as he observed Nakoa with a neutral expression.
“Maybe we should start with why you look like you’ve been dragged behind a horse through a forest fire,” Ursula suggested in a dry tone that didn’t fool me for a minute. She’d watched Nakoa’s ritual with ill-concealed hostility and clearly itched to take her blade to him, and Danu take the consequences.
“It’s a long—ow!” One of my fingers sang with bright pain and Inoa’s lady looked aghast. Especially when Nakoa questioned her sharply.
“It’s likely broken.” Harlan eyed my hands from across the table. “Possibly several others. Will the king allow me to set them for you?”
He’d done that for Ursula, straightening the nose Uorsin had smashed. The memory still made me queasy and I wasn’t sure I’d be brave enough. Still he’d done a good job of it.
“Nakoa mlai, this is Captain Harlan of the Vervaldr, the High Queen’s .
. . protector. He has healing skills and offers to help me.”
Nakoa gave Harlan a distinctly unfriendly once-over. “Dasnarian?”
Harlan inclined his head and replied in that language. “By birth. Not by allegiance, King Nakoa KauPo.”
Nakoa grunted a non-reply but nodded his agreement and made room for Harlan, dismissing Inoa’s lady. “For you, mlai.”
“I know. Thank you. Thank you for all of this.” I gestured to the refreshments and Ursula. “Will you be patient more and allow me to tell her what’s happened in our language?
He smiled, a minute twitch of his set mouth. “You are meek when you want something. I shall remember that, in the future. Tell her what she needs to know. But you will eat and drink as you talk.” He sat back, arms folded, watching Harlan kneel beside me to take my hands carefully in his big ones.
“It might be better,” Harlan said, raising an eyebrow at Ursula, “to get Dafne taken care of first, and save the negotiations for later.”
“It would be better,” she snapped, “to get Dafne on the ship and take care of her there.”
“Nakoa would not stand for it,” I snapped back, echoing her tone. “Work with me here. I’m doing the best I can to keep you all from killing each other. Your Majesty,” I added.
Harlan swallowed a laugh and she considered me with some surprise. And more than a hint of betrayal. “Dispense with the formalities and give us the story already.”
I told her the tale, picking up from what Zynda had relayed to her, having to pause now and again when Harlan’s ministrations grew impossible to ignore. Though they were broken in three places, the two smallest fingers on my left hand were “only” fractured, he said, which meant they wouldn’t need to be reset, to my great relief. Using supplies from the packs on his belt, he splinted my fingers and bandaged them, listening without comment as I spoke. My hands free, and at Nakoa’s pointed glare, I tried eating some fruit. Thankfully my stomach didn’t rebel, so I continued to nibble, taking it slowly.
The Pages of the Mind Page 31