by R. J. Price
The idea of that brought out a little anger over the fact that they left him just a bit hung over so that he wouldn’t notice them honouring a tradition older than palace lands.
“Why did you wear that?”
“I didn't know,” he said.
“Why would everyone do that to you? Because obviously more than one person did that.”
“It's an old tradition,” he muttered. “Warriors bound to be mated would go into war wearing their mating clothing. The blood was a symbol of their strength and prowess. I... I guess without war to march to, they altered the tradition.”
“These are from the warriors who support you?” she asked.
Aren approached and took the shirt from him gently. Her fingers danced over the fingerprints, counting them. The queen stared at the shirt, then looked up at Av with a frown.
“Danya's books say this number of warriors can link to one warrior. Who are these people? Who has submitted to you?”
“Submitted?” he asked. “No, they might support me, but they haven't submitted.”
“Who, Av—who supports you?”
“Er, Gamen, Ella, who visited for a moment and then was gone after she touched my back. Url, Jer, the warriors at court. Lerd. Lerd touched me. I almost bit him. He shouldn't be touching me. I'm pretty certain he was my father's spare because I know my mother and father agreed to a spare lover and frankly, no.”
“You think your father had a lover while mated to your mother?” Aren asked.
“Yes, but before she passed, many years before.”
“There's no way Ervam had a lover. He was with your mother to her dying end. The only reason he went to bed again was to show Jer that a mate dying doesn't mean the end of his life. I mean, sure, his forcing himself out there ended in an adorable bundle of joy...” Aren trailed off and her face twisted into an annoyed, almost amusing look. “That boy is still unaccounted for.”
“Your sister is still unaccounted for,” he said quietly.
“My sister is at court!” she shouted. “And my mother is at court. And my father is at court.”
“Why did your voice take the terrified tone at your father?” he asked.
“My sister is at court,” she repeated. “I've only seen her the once! What kind of guardian am I?”
“I blame distraction by my adorable features,” he offered up.
“Your brother isn't learning a thing, and my sister could end up like Em because I've done nothing supportive or helpful. Our siblings could end up poor for the world!”
He watched as Aren marched out the door, furious. He tossed the shirt to the side and was thankful when he found another. With it, he found a purple tie.
And then he realized what was wrong with Aren's dress. The shreds of the mating dress, a light blue, were all over the floor of the room he had pulled her into. The dress she had worn was full and an entirely different colour.
Curious, Av put on the purple tie and went after his mate.
His mate.
Av smiled slowly and paused in the room to look around. He moved to the writing desk and opened the drawer, pulling out the letter opener. He slipped the little thing into his trousers and followed her out of the room.
His mate.
He had a few people he had to see about their sins against his mate. The spirits might judge a man after his life, but he was willing to challenge the spirits to make things right.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Aren walked into the banquet hall and everyone came to a stop. She flowed past Para, who gaped at her, and glanced at Cerlot, who was staring at the floor pointedly. Past the court, she stepped onto the empty dance floor.
Turning to the musicians, she met the eyes of the violinist.
“Why does no one dance?” she asked.
“We await you, Lady Aren,” the violinist said.
“The court does not need to wait for me, to dance,” she responded.
“As you say, Lady Aren,” the man responded before raising his violin.
The band struck up a song, but no one moved to the dance floor. Aren turned to the doors as Av strode in. There was a glint of metal at the man's hip, but no one tried to stop him to question as he strode past everyone. He stepped onto the dance floor and then up to her, taking her hands as he pulled her into a dance. They glided across the floor.
As the music ended, Lerd stepped up and pushed Av back without comment. The warrior bowed to Aren, a deep thing that, had she known properly, Aren could have struck him to the ground. She knew that was the case and knew that was why Lerd did it.
Did that mean the throne was finally making a statement she understood as it said it? Or was that bit of information from one of the books she had read over the winter?
She took his offered hand and accepted the dance as Av slunk off to the crowd. That next dance made her question why she was with Lerd when Av was there. She hardly knew the man—Lerd that was. Why was she dancing with him when she was mated with...?
Aren walked away from Lerd mid-song and found Av. She didn't give him time to explain why he was with Para. She pulled him back to the dance floor and he led her through a waltz.
As the music died down, a group of children ran onto the dance floor screaming as loudly as they could. Mie and Anue were with them, she recognized as much but couldn’t put names to any of the other faces.
The musicians took up a tune that was more upbeat, but hardly had anything appealing about it. The children began dancing and shouting, shoving one another on the dance floor as the adults moved to the available food awaiting them on the tables.
She moved away from Av, to join the children. Anue took her hand and tried to show her how the children were dancing to the music, but Aren couldn't understand. Then, as the musicians took up a different tune, Mie took her hand.
It was an imitation of a slower dance for adults. Mie bit his bottom lip as he tried to lead Aren through the steps, but at the very least the boy was trying.
Halfway through, someone hit him in the back of the head with something. The group of children exploded in giggles as Mie turned and tried to put on his best warrior pout.
“Sorry,” Ella said as she approached both Mie and Aren. “My Aia causes many problems. She's coming into her rank. Mie, go confront the challenge, otherwise she'll think she owns you.”
“Challenging!” Mie shouted, then turned and ran towards the group of children.
Ella drew Aren away as Mie leaped into the group. There was a shriek behind them.
“Best to let them do as they should do. Questioning a warrior's instincts can cause frustration later on in life. Such as how Lord Av is currently trying not to look upset. If he were allowed to act upon his instincts properly, interacting with other warriors, he would simply come and step between us.
“I realize this is no fault of his father. The man did his best with the others he had around for his children to interact with. He had to look out for the well-being of commoners and other ranks alike. The only one who might have been able to meet Av on even ground would be Lerd and the high lord chose father over son, as youth are wont to do, chasing after the admiration of their elders.”
“Lerd is leaving his children and mate here. Mie will have someone to interact with.”
“My concern isn't Mie,” Ella said with a small sigh. “It's Anue. Van says that your daughter will finish with us, but where will your sister finish? She is a good queen thus far, but I've also met Para and Cerlot, and I do believe there are wrinkles in her training. Her instincts are very strong, otherwise she would end up a great deal worse. You need to set her up with another queen who has the experience.”
“Shouldn't one of the queens ask this?” Aren asked. “At another time?”
“I'm using this opportunity to speak to you about it while giving the queens time to chat amongst themselves,” the warrior said quickly, ushering Aren off of the dance floor and towards the head table, where food would be served. “We were told to council o
n pleasure, but you will have many talks of that. I prefer to take this opportunity to speak about the young girl who has been given into your care. Telm would do her best, but it will not be good enough.”
“I suppose you would suggest the West?” Aren asked.
Ella paused as they stepped up to the table. She looked away, a frown creasing her brow.
“Van would prefer her in the West. I understand that, but Anue's rank belongs either to the North or to the East. In the North she would learn a stronger way of things, where queens really do rule. In the East she would have the run of Gamen's island and her magic might bloom.”
“It is my understanding that my sister has no trouble with magic,” Aren murmured.
“Palace land tricks is all that is. She would learn how to use her magic in the carefree way that those on the coast do. They do not need to put magic into heating, little into light, leaving them with a great deal to use to their heart's desire.”
“I have a problem with sending her away,” she said sternly. “As you said, those who raised her did quite a terrible job. How can I trust one of you not to infest her with your separation beliefs?”
“There's no other way,” Ella said. “Finishing happens in a different environment than the lady grew up in.”
“This is a different environment,” Aren said.
“Amongst other ranks. There are hardly any at the palace.”
“Then send me your sons and daughters, send me your governesses and maids. You send me your ranks and then there will be ranks for both Anue and Mie, and the high lord's children, and any children I should have.”
“You would demand to foster my children here?”
“I think someone once told me fostering is a polite term for holding one hostage,” Aren said. “I propose you send your ranks here, some to find jobs, some for finishing. All free to leave as you please.”
“While that would be something to consider, I must also press you to seriously consider sending Anue someplace else for finishing. The benefits for the lady are great—just look at your situation. Even if you hadn't been taken by the throne, being finished away from your parents gave you a chance to improve your life quality.”
“What's life quality?” Aren asked, then linked the words together. “People talk about the quality of their lives?”
“That's all they really talk about,” Ella countered. “Every comment from nearly everyone is a comment on the quality of their lives. It may be difficult for you, but you need to give her a chance to improve herself. It is a burden on the mother, yes, or sister in this case, but it is one that you accept when you are made guardian.”
“You could have used this time to talk about anything else, anything at all.”
“I had to bring up a topic that would make you look uncomfortable enough that, when I went back to talk with the other women, they might believe we were speaking of pleasure things,” Ella said as a crier raised his voice to bring everyone to the tables for dinner. “Think on it, Lady Aren. The reason I chose that topic was to bring it up to you now, that you might be able to consider and let the idea settle before she comes of age. She has bloomed early, so that will give you years of dealing with her tantrums before you have to part with her for finishing.”
“Tantrums?” Aren asked.
“Think of your first few years after your time came,” Ella murmured. “Surely you broke more than one item, made those who cared for you highly uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable enough that they stopped visiting,” Aren muttered, waving her hand to rid herself of the edged feeling and fractured memory.
“I'm sure someday, you will look back on this and be grateful. No one brought up the finishing of my children until just this morning. I stabbed the man.”
Aren looked past Ella, to Van as the baron stepped up to his mate, but put careful distance between the two of them. Turning her attention back to Ella, she wondered for only a brief moment before she spoke her mind.
“You stabbed a man for bringing up finishing? Beg your pardon, but I was under the impression that your heir, who is not your firstborn, was a few years away from mating and thus taking the title?”
“He is fourteen,” Ella protested. “I do appreciate that you did not make an assumption as to my age because of my children.”
“Jer is to be a grandfather shortly,” Aren said quietly. “What did Van tell you? That you should send your daughter to Gamen? Surely you can trust him, of all people. As you said to me just now, the East is marvellous for young queens to learn how to use their magic in different ways than they are used to.”
“My eldest daughter, barely sixteen, my mate tells me”—Ella turned to glare at Van, who paled, but managed not to flinch under the look—“would only be finished properly on palace lands. For each of the other lands are simply other lands. We make peace, we see the world in the same way. Palace lands see the world in a way unlike our own and this is what he believes finishing should teach a child, to look out at the world and ask why.”
“Tradition says follow,” Aren said. “Honour asks why. Is she an honour queen, Lord Van?”
“We see a rank for what it is, and do not attempt to break a rank down into lesser groups,” he said. “My eldest daughter is a queen, two years younger than yourself. Tradition dictates that from sixteen to eighteen a girl be finished away from her blood.”
“Your mate says to open their eyes.”
“That is absolutely true,” Van said. “However, it is also true that a man sends his daughter away to be finished so that when a man takes her to bed and proceeds to break her heart, the father is not near enough to kill the fool. No doubt she would find suitors on palace lands. No doubt they would bed her. However, I will kill anyone who deflowers my daughter and then casts her aside as if she is no longer of value. If she is here and I am there, it will take me some days to arrive. Giving me time to calm myself that I might not kill on your land.”
“How kind of you,” Aren said.
“It's not kind at all,” Ella said. “Because if he killed on your land, I'd kill him, then you just for causing me trouble. If anyone hurts my children, it is my duty to kill them, not their father's.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Dinner was painful for Av. Aren was distracted by whatever Van and Ella had been speaking to her about. If it was anything near what Er and Olea attempted to discuss with him, it was any wonder she wasn't blushing.
It hadn't been years. He and Aren had come together only a few times and Aren certainly hadn't had any complaints. She was new to such things and didn't know what she liked. That didn't mean either of them were failing at anything, as his father had pulled him to the side to reassure him.
Apparently it also didn't mean that both of them would not receive talks from just about every rank on palace grounds about how they might please one another. He supposed it was a small thing. Something no one really thought about until one was taking part in the ceremony. After Perlon and Mar had mated, had Jer and Av not jokingly lectured Perlon on the proper way to pleasure a woman?
The food was simply food. It felt dry in his mouth compared to what else he'd like to be tasting.
Hadn't Aren made comment about him kneeling before?
Av felt the heat flush through his face as he reached for his drink, if only for something to do with himself. The drink seemed to do nothing to really distract him, only reminding him that the taste was strong enough to remain long after his sip.
He was required by tradition, and the barons who expected their damned celebration, to remain in the hall until such a time as his father told him it was polite to leave. At that point, all else be damned, he was tossing Aren over his shoulder and carting her off even if she protested.
It made him uneasy each time the servants approached the table. Lords and ladies approached as well to give their regards. He wanted to snarl at them all, to throw something at the lord who dared reach out to try to touch Aren.
She stiff
ened and Av had bared his teeth, but could do little else.
Until the throne recognized him formally, until she sat beside him, there was still nothing he could do.
That wasn't true, there was plenty he could do. He could act upon his desires and shout and scream and throw things. Aren might even have no problem with him slapping the lord who dared touch her. In the end, however, he would be viewed as a petulant child before he sat beside the throne.
If he acted out once sitting beside the throne, then he would be seen as a force to be reckoned with.
“Stop that,” Aren said.
He turned to her, fully expecting that she would be facing him. Instead she was turned towards a lord who had a hand out.
Attempting to touch her.
Av stood and the lord simply looked at him, arrogant in his belief that he had the right to touch Aren because in his bloodline it was tradition.
Turning back to the table, Av found that someone had slipped away with his knife for eating, along with the letter opener that he had set on the table beside his eating utensils. He glanced to Jer, who was sitting on the other side of him, and found his brother intently conversing with a lady on the other side of the table, who was trying very hard not to look at Av.
“She said stop,” he said finally, turning back to the lord.
“Tradition—”
“She said stop,” he repeated. “Does stop mean something else to you?”
“Tradition dictates—”
“She said stop,” he said yet again, a little louder than before.
“Av, please,” Aren said quietly.
“No—stop means stop, not try harder,” he protested.
The queen stood, her brown eyes locking with his for a moment. “Obey.” She turned to the lord. “Obviously our language is not your first language. When someone says stop that means no. To do otherwise is to encroach on the privacy of the one who has said stop. To encroach on privacy is assault. Do you know what assault means?”