“I could have ducked,” I told him. “She’s slow.”
“I’ll show you slow!” my sister hissed. “I’ll beat you like the slave you are!”
Lifting a brow at her, I raised my manacled wrists and smiled sweetly. “Hitting a chained woman -- tut. Did you forget the cambots, dear?”
“You fucking bitch!” my sister spat, and shot a spiked heel at my shin. I stepped aside, and the kick missed. Suddenly Arles had his hands full as she lunged for me, screeching. He looked taken aback as he contained her frenzied struggles.
“I’ll take her.” Jarrat appeared from the midst of the crowd to grab his wife’s wrists and drag her away. Spinning her around, the big man pulled Isa across his shoulder and straightened.
“Put me down, you lickspittle!” She pounded his back with her fists, feet kicking a meter from the ground in hysterical fury. “I order you!”
He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and turned away. Long blue braid swinging, Arles’s brother strode off, carrying his wife, who howled at me, “I hope he flogs you bloody, thrall bitch! I am your queen!”
“Best not let our mother hear you say that, Isa!” I called back.
The courtiers snickered.
Ragnar sighed, his expression resigned. He looked at Arles and angled his head toward the palace. “Attend me.”
His son nodded, caught my leash, which he’d released in the struggle with Isa, and drew me after him as the two men strode into the palace. Their respective teams of bodyguards closed in around us, eight very big men in the red and blue of the palace guard. Swords swung at their hips, the only weapons permitted in the Imperial presence since the assassination of Arles’s mother by one of her own guards.
Personally, I’d always thought that particular policy was just begging for trouble.
* * *
The emperor’s private inner chamber was just as I remembered it, with its tall, arched windows, intricately patterned carpet, and bronze statues of the gods in heroic poses. Arles, Ragnar and I sat on thick cushions around a low, inlaid table covered with trays of food and glasses of wine. I nibbled a canapé and kept my mouth shut, aware that, as a thrall, I was being treated as the guest I most definitely was not.
I damned near choked when Ragnar met his son’s eyes and said, “What in the name of Odin’s eye do you think you’re doing?”
Arles didn’t even flinch at the emperor’s obvious anger. “Having drinks with my father. Unless you have something else in mind?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, boy. It doesn’t suit you.” He stabbed a ringed finger in my direction. “I’m talking about parading a princess of Swanhilde on a leash! Have you lost your mind?”
“Gisel turned her back on her rank when she fled ten years ago.” Arles’s voice was so even he might have been talking about one of the canapés. “Now she’s just a mercenary I captured in battle. She chose to become my thrall in exchange for the freedom of her crew. I am hardly the first Torrean captain to take an enemy captive.”
“She’s the daughter of my ally, Arles! You are humiliating Zerelda in the imperial media!”
“Zerelda’s daughter has been humiliating this family in the media for years,” Arles observed coolly. “Turnabout is fair play.”
“Gisel is not Isa. She isn’t responsible for her sister’s actions,” Ragnar snapped.
“No, but she is responsible for her own.” Arles took a deliberate sip of his wine. “She jilted me, remember? I’ve been cleaning up the resulting mess for the past decade.”
“Gisel was barely more than a child, frightened by the sight of her bridegroom flogging another woman,” Ragnar growled. “And yes, I do know exactly what happened that night.”
Horrified heat flooded my face. Oh, Odin’s blood!
Even Arles’s cheeks darkened. “I was drugged.”
“So I’ve been told. And I don’t blame you for whipping the chit; I’d have done the same. But you were a grown man, and Gisel was seventeen. We failed her in not tracking her down before she flew off with that Galon Teve character. Though I suppose it was lucky he found her, or she’d be dead now.”
Arles sighed. “I’m aware of that, Father.”
Ragnar turned toward me and studied my face, his gaze probing and intent. “My spies tell me the child I knew has become a warrior. When I think of you going up against one of the lizards with nothing more than an axe…” He shook his head. “How the hell did you survive?”
“Your Excellency, I didn’t survive,” I told him. “I hacked off the bastard’s head and cremated Galon with its skull.” I’d shot them both into the nearest star. My captain’s body had flared bright, blazing like a Viking’s pyre an instant before it vanished.
Both men sat back on their cushions, brows shooting upward in surprised respect. Ragnar glanced at his son, his expression calculating, before he transferred that narrow gaze to me. “You do realize I can order Arles to set you free.”
I hesitated, surprised at the instant “No!” that rang in my mind. I forced myself to consider the idea. It was certainly tempting, especially considering my mother’s probable reaction at tonight’s ball. And yet…”Arles believes parading me as a thrall will spike the guns of his political foes. I think I owe him that much.”
He snorted. “You don’t owe any of us anything, girl. We’re the ones who failed you by not keeping you safe.”
I gestured, sweeping that away. “Arles is your heir, Your Excellency. I don’t want the Torrean Empire to suffer for my actions by falling into the hands of your foes.”
“Fuck our foes,” Ragnar snapped. “Gossips and schemers, the lot of them. Arles can silence them if he stays on Tor and does a little work to build alliances among the nobility. He has no need to make a pawn of you. Hell, if he has any sense, he’ll make you his wife.”
“No.” Arles rapped out the word in cold, unadorned refusal.
“Forget your pride and look at her, boy.” The anger had drained from Ragnar’s voice, leaving only weariness. “She has intelligence and courage, and the combat experience to use them. I wanted her for you even when she was a girl, but she’d be a far better empress now.”
“Oh, our enemies would love that,” Arles growled. “Given the dance Isa has led Jarrat, just imagine what they’d say of Gisel.”
“And Gisel will prove them wrong.” Ragnar leaned an elbow on his knee. “You forget, you’ll have time to win them over. I have no plans to die anytime soon.”
“Neither did Mother.”
Ragnar’s wife had been killed by an assassin when Arles was only five years old.
“And I still grieve, but not even an emperor can gainsay death.” He grabbed his son’s hand in an urgent grip. “Don’t sacrifice a love like your mother and I shared for nothing more than your own damned pride. And you do love Gisel, don’t you?”
I expected another stark “No.”
Instead Arles sounded as tired as his father. “Yes, I love her. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t. But I won’t plunge the Empire into chaos to have her.”
“Damn you, Arles.” Ragnar threw up his hands, gems clinking softly in the long, braided blue hair as he fell back in his seat to glower. “You’ll do as you will, no matter what it costs us all.”
“No, Father,” Arles corrected grimly. “I’ll do as I must.”
Chapter Six
That night I watched my mother stride across the ballroom at the head of an entourage of diplomats, courtiers, and royal bodyguards. It took all my discipline and training to keep the sick dread off my face. I felt a hand close comfortingly over my arm, and I looked around to see Arles give me a nod of encouragement. I smiled at him, surprised and oddly warmed, though he still held that damned leash in his hand.
Zeralda came to a stop before me and flicked her fingers. Instantly the courtiers melted away and the bodyguards fell back to a discreet distance, where they eyed the crowd with the intensity of career paranoids. Behind us, the four men of Arles’s Imperial Guard did th
e same.
“Hello, Mother,” I said, studying her cautiously. Zerelda appeared not one day older than she’d been when I’d run away. A tiny woman who barely came up to my shoulder, her features were as fine and delicate as a Fairy queen’s under a cascade of red curls bound in a complex arrangement of braids and gemstone clips. The ethereal effect was enhanced by her gown, which fluttered around her body in sheer, pale blue petals, shimmering softly in the golden ballroom light.
I felt like a bear next to her, faintly ridiculous in the peacock blue gown that swirled to mid-thigh and bared my long arms even as it displayed my abundant cleavage. Between my height, my breasts, and the muscle I’d built for hand-to-hand combat, nobody would ever mistake me for a Fairy.
“Gisel… oh, my love…” To my astonishment, Zerelda pulled me into her arms, hugging me close despite our awkward difference in height. Her voice broke with genuine emotion. “I feared I’d never see you again. I thought you dead.”
Astonished, I put my arms around her and tentatively returned her hug. “Ah… I’m sorry I worried you.” I didn’t know you’d care.
She pulled back to meet my gaze. There was vulnerability in those striking, blue-violet eyes, astonishing in a woman who’d always been so utterly self-controlled. “I sent agents out when you vanished. They searched for years, but they could find no sign of you.”
“I was aboard the Valkyrie Quest under an assumed name,” I told her. “I became a mercenary.”
“So Ragnar tells me. “ She added dryly, “Apparently I need to hire away a few of his spies.” She squeezed my shoulders. “I am glad you’re home, Gisel. I have missed you so.”
“And I’ve missed you,” I told her, a sense of unreality stealing over me. Where was the hard-eyed queen who’d palmed me off on a series of nannies -- when, that is, she wasn’t chewing me out for dishonoring my House?
Zerelda sighed. “If you missed me, I doubt it was very much. I made so many mistakes with you, my dear. I was so angry when you ran away -- at first. Then when it began to seem that I’d lost you forever, I started to think about everything I’d done wrong. I can’t blame you for fleeing.” She shot Arles a hard look. “Especially after what you saw the night before you were to marry him.”
Arles stared back at her, impassive. Behind him, his bodyguards watched hers, hands light on the hilt of their swords.
“No, I am the one who was wrong,” I told her. “Running was the act of a coward. My thoughtlessness could have destroyed Swanhilde. We’re fortunate that the emperor elected to hold to the treaty and defend us from the Fafnar.” I took her small hands in mine. They felt fragile and cold. “I am so very sorry, Mother.”
“What else were you to do? I drove you away with my demands. And you could have so easily died…”
I squeezed her hands, seeking to warm them. “Mother, you did not drive me away.”
Zerelda shrugged. “I gave you no reason to stay, either.” She looked down at our linked hands. Her thumb touched the jeweled manacle around one wrist, turned it back and forth so that the thin chains clinked softly. “Do you want me to free you from him?” Though she did not look up, the queen spoke in a low, deadly voice that told me she meant every word. “I vow to do whatever it takes. Even if it means war.”
My jaw dropped as I stared at her bent head. My gaze flew to Arles, who stood so tense and still he might have been cast in bronze. His face was expressionless, but anger flashed hot in his eyes.
“No, Mother,” I told her hoarsely. “I have made an agreement with the prince, and I mean to keep it.”
He relaxed fractionally.
She looked up, examined me as if she’d never seen me before. Perhaps she hadn’t. “You love him.”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
A muscle flexed in her jaw, and she turned that look on Arles for a long, long moment. The anger drained from her eyes, and she sighed. “Then do as your heart demands. I want only your happiness.” My mother squared her shoulders and gave me a smile that looked a trace tense. “Seek me out tomorrow. We will speak more of this in private.”
With that, Queen Zerelda walked away, royal pride in every stride.
As I watched her entourage close in around her, I noticed a crowd of Torrean nobles hovering nearby, accompanied by the usual cambot swarm. Isa stood among them, her face white, her fists clenched at her sides. She shot me a killing look and stalked off.
“Come,” Arles said in my ear, and offered his arm. “I want to speak to you somewhere a bit more private.”
I hesitated, wondering why he was dispensing with the leash, then folded my hand into the crook of his elbow and let him guide me across the gleaming ballroom floor. His bodyguards surrounded us like wary wolves.
The orchestra played the first notes of the “Stellar Waltz,” and dancers began to circle the dance floor in a colorful, shimmer-silk blur, whirling in stately circles.
We escaped down a corridor, boots ringing on the faux marble. Arles stopped to touch a spot on one wall, and a door slid soundlessly open. I hadn’t even known it was there, for it was camouflaged by a vidfield that made it look just like the wall around it. We all slipped inside, and the captain of Arles’s bodyguard closed it behind us, frustrating a dozen cambots who weren’t quite fast enough to make it through.
“That’s better,” Arles said in satisfaction, turning to usher me down the narrow corridor. “The thing I hate most about being home is those damned cambots. I can’t go to the head without a swarm of them checking to see if I wipe my ass.”
I laughed. “Gods, yes. It’s maddening.”
Trailed by his guards, we rounded one corner, then another, before Arles opened a door into darkness. He led the way out into a moonlit corner of the palace garden. The only sound was the soft patter of water and the plaintive churrr-churr of night birds calling for mates. I glanced up, past the leafy trees that screened this section of the garden. Stars spread across the sky in a bright bloom of light, and Tor’s two moons rode the sky, a fat, full moon in the east, a smaller one in the west.
“Beautiful night,” I murmured, and gave Arles a smile. “Very romantic.”
He didn’t smile back. “Yes.”
I frowned at him as he turned toward the captain of his guard. “Dolph, give us a little privacy, please.”
Nodding, the big guard -- he was fully as tall as Arles -- pivoted to his three fellow agents and gestured. They faded into the surrounding leafy shadows with such skill, I wouldn’t have known they were there had I not seen them go.
Arles drew me over to a bench and tugged me down to sit. I eyed him warily, not sure I liked the grim line of his mouth. “What’s wrong?”
“This is not working.”
My heart seemed to crash through the pit of my stomach. “What isn’t?”
“Making a thrall of you.” He looked away from me, staring across the moonlit garden. “I release you from our bargain. You may return to Swanhilde with your mother or go back to the Valkyrie, as it suits you.”
I stared at him, stunned. “But… why? You told Ragnar…”
“That was before I watched the cambots orbit you and your mother during your reunion.” He frowned, flexing one big hand on his knee.
“So? When she wants privacy, she activates a jamming field. Any vid the ‘bots shot wouldn’t be useable.”
“As we all do. But watching those ‘bots brought home to me that my father is right. I have no business using you to resolve my political problems. I can handle my foes myself. I don’t need to drag you through the muck to do it. Not that politics was ever my real reason for any of this.”
I shook my head, bewildered. He’d been so adamant about keeping me only a few hours before, despite Ragnar’s obvious disapproval. “I don’t understand.”
Arles took my hands in his and met my gaze, his green eyes almost painfully naked with honesty. “I took you captive because I wanted you. Actually, that’s not strong enough -- I craved you. I wanted to make love to you, talk to
you, be with you. But my pride would not let me simply seek you out. What kind of man would go crawling to the woman who jilted him? So I seized on Torrean politics as an excuse for your capture.”
Now my heart was in my throat, catapulted there by hope. “What are you saying?”
He hunched over my hands, his expression troubled. “I thought only of myself -- my needs, my foes, my throne. I never really considered how you would suffer.” Shaking his head, he added, “No, your mother was right. None of this was your fault. I can no longer pretend it is.”
The words were out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. “Arles, I don’t care why you took me. I only want to be with you. I meant what I said -- I love you.”
“As I love you.” He said the words without hesitating.
For an instant, joy blazed incandescent in my brain.
Then he spoke again. “But what I told Ragnar is still true. I won’t plunge the Empire into chaos for our happiness. Too many innocents would suffer -- including you. You’d become a target for my enemies if it comes to civil war, and…”
“I do not need your protection!” I shot to my feet, fisting my hands as rage flooded in to replace my aching devastation. I started pacing, trying to regain control of my temper. “I’m a mercenary, Arles. I killed a Fafnar warrior with an axe, for Odin’s sake. I may have played submissive for you, but that does not mean I will allow myself to be victimized. Any foe of yours will regret fucking with me.”
He rocked back and studied me in wary surprise. “Yes, you’ve got a formidable reputation, but Torrean politics…”
“… are considerably more civilized than the wars I’ve fought.” I raked frustrated hands through my hair, my chains clinking. “Arles, I’ve killed enemies with my bare hands. I held Galon in my arms as he died, and comforted him despite my grief. And then I got up, hunted down his killer, and avenged him, though that damned reptile almost gutted me. I’ve spent years doing whatever it took to keep my people alive and win wars for those who hired us. I would be an asset to you, you bloody fool.”
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