by Jayne Faith
And then there was the prospect of selecting a Calistan wife. The Office of Royal Social Affairs continued its march toward the end goal of the Lord’s marriage.
I prayed every day that the Return would come first, before my twenty-eighth birthday when I would be required by law to bind myself to a wife I did not want.
Thoughts of Maya always chased thoughts of marriage.
My dark angel.
What would she think of my order summoning her to my bedchamber? I had to follow protocol, submitting my request to Hera, the director of harem life, which meant the other women would know I’d summoned Maya. She could not refuse the invitation, but once she arrived I could not force her to do anything unwillingly. Not that I would ever dream of such a thing.
My heart palpitated each time my thoughts fast-forwarded to the end of the day when she would join me. The anticipation made me feel youthful, hopeful. Maya had survived the Tournament and the flame, and the joy I felt in her safety was immeasurable. I wished I could live in that emotion and permanently block out the possibilities that could drive yet another wedge between us.
In addition to the matter of my impending marriage, there was the dark knowledge that never left me. It was a shadow that seemed to coagulate into solid form and sit silently, watching smugly, whenever Maya and I were together. And at other times, it hibernated in the center of my heart, beating in time with my pulse and reminding me of the ugliness of my needs.
When I couldn’t hold it back any longer, it unfurled itself and bloomed in a dark stain through me, demanding attention. Demanding satiation.
I’d decided I would call for no one but Maya, that I would deny the tormented desire Jade had created in me. I did not truly believe I could refuse my urges forever, but I hoped that I could find a solution before I had to give in to them. If there was one thing I’d come to believe, it was that miracles were possible where Maya was concerned.
I forced my mind to the present and my morning meeting with the Priestess. At such an early hour there were few people about in the palace, mostly bleary-eyed servants, and I relished the quiet as I walked with North and Calvin, my guards.
The High Priestess’s chatty administrator had greeted me and curtsied when I arrived.
I entered the office of the High Priestess, shutting the door and leaving my guards behind.
“My Lord.”
The Priestess rose from her chair and came around her desk with two tablets in her hands. Her eyes were tight, and the lines of her face were deeper than I remembered. But she managed a brief smile that seemed genuine.
I relaxed a little, but as she sat on the divan and lifted a hand at a high-backed chair, indicating I should sit too, trepidation stirred again in the center of my chest.
“I will cut right to the heart of it, my Lord,” she said. “Jeric’s blood has been tested three times, and it is positive for Pirro DNA.”
I hadn’t quite lowered myself onto the seat when she began talking, and her announcement swept the strength from my knees. I sat down hard, and the impact of her words seemed to jar up my spine and then swell between my temples. I pinched my eyes closed and drew a sharp breath through my nose.
When I raised my eyelids, her brows were drawn with sympathy.
“So,” I said quietly. “It’s true.”
She nodded and searched my face, perhaps looking for signs of an impending mental break.
My eyes wanted to unfocus, but I swallowed hard and forced my attention to sharpen. “I suppose in light of everything else we’ve learned and all that’s happened in recent months, such news shouldn't be so terribly shocking.” I propped my elbow on the arm of the chair, leaned my chin on my palm, and let out a short, rueful laugh.
Some of the tension drained from her face, and her lips pressed into a small smile. “These are interesting times, aren’t they?”
I knew she was trying to allow me a moment to absorb what she’d told me, but also sensed her urgency about the other matters we needed to discuss.
“What does it mean for us? For the Return?” I asked, trying to focus on larger matters rather than spiraling into what her announcement meant to me personally.
“I wish I had those answers. Based on what my head scholar Novia tells me, there’s a good chance that several Calistan Queens have carried Pirro blood. Maybe all of them.” A brief frown passed over her face, and her voice grew uncharacteristically hesitant. “Over time . . . over time—”
“The Pirro part of the royal bloodline has flourished?” I finished for her. “Because part-Pirro queens kept producing male heirs to the throne, who were part-Pirro themselves. And if each Lord then wed a Queen with Pirro blood . . .” I looked to her for confirmation.
She gave me a shrewd look. “Yes, it would appear that Pirro blood has been running strong in the royal bloodline for some time.”
My tongue passed over my dry lips. “How much?” When she didn’t respond right away, I elaborated, “How much of me is Pirro?”
“Approximately sixty percent of your DNA is of Pirro origin.”
My breath left me for a couple of heartbeats.
More than half?
My skin crawled, and I trained my focus outward, looking up at the stained glass window through which early morning light was beginning to break. I couldn’t afford to descend inside myself, to search anew for the parts of me that felt foreign and wrong.
I lowered my gaze to the Priestess. “If there were past queens with Pirro blood, then my father must have had some too.”
She nodded. “Yes. You got some from both sides.”
My chin rested heavily on my fist, and my jaw muscles worked for a moment. “I just don’t understand it. How it happened, how they infiltrated the royal bloodline. Or why.”
“We’re working on that. You have my word, my Lord, that as soon as I learn anything notable I will inform you.”
I straightened in my chair. “Thank you, Your Holiness.” I glanced at the tablets that rested on her lap, indicating I was ready to move on to other topics of discussion.
She powered on the devices and leaned forward to offer me one. Her shimmering robes shifted, her shoulders appearing painted with random washes of color from the stained glass window as the morning sunlight strengthened.
“We have made recent progress on our interpretation of the steps of the Sequence to reclaim Earthenfell,” she said. “The secret tenth volume of the sacred texts, as you may remember, is more cryptic than the original volumes.”
I lifted a hand, stopping her. “If the Pirros have been the keepers of the tenth volume, how do we know we can trust what it says? Perhaps it’s part of their ruse, an attempt to claim the Calistan throne and then Earthenfell. Maybe we should not be following the commands of this volume.”
Her eyes tightened and her mouth formed a solemn line. “I understand your suspicion, but my Lord, the tenth volume is authentic. If it is a ruse, then the other nine volumes are as well. Are you ready to concede that we should toss out everything we have pursued for hundreds of years? That our quest for Earthenfell is not worthy of the enormous sacrifices and determination that we as a people have carried on for generations? That your purpose, and mine, are now any less valid than what we’ve always believed?”
The silence that swelled in the room was so thick it was almost painful. My chest tightened as I considered her words. To declare the sacred texts or their commands to be illegitimate would be more than blasphemy. It would render our history, our beliefs, our very lives, pointless. And in my heart, I did not believe that our crusade for Earthenfell was misguided, even if we were discovering it had been manipulated in ways that had heretofore been unknown.
Our connection to our homeland and our need to return to it was right. But . . . something in the quest had become muddied for me, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to articulate it.
“No, I would not declare our lives invalid,” I said finally.
Her face softened. “Stars forgive me, similar t
houghts have passed through my mind as well,” she said. “I do not blame you for thinking them. But I will say it again, for both of us. The tenth volume is every bit as valid as the other volumes. We must accept it as we do the others. It doesn’t mean we toss away all rational thought or our ability to think critically, but we mustn’t allow suspicion to undermine our faith. For it is our faith that will take us home to Earthenfell.”
I drew a deep, slow breath, re-centering myself. Sudden gratitude for the Priestess bloomed through me in a surge of renewed energy. Perhaps my faith had faltered for the briefest of moments. Instead of chastising me as she easily could have, she’d reminded me of what was most important, of what I knew to be true.
I dipped my chin once in a nod, indicating she should continue.
We bent our heads over the tablets, and she directed me to an excerpt from the sacred texts that described the Sequence—the steps we would have to abide by to reclaim Earthenfell. My version had been translated to plain text so I could read it, whereas hers was in the special script that only priestesses of the Temple were trained to decipher.
For the next hour, we discussed the minutia of only a few lines of text. As my forehead began to throb slightly with the effort of concentration, it struck me that the Sequence was a bit like a play. There were roles for us to fill, words that must be uttered by the players, and movements that must be performed. Some parts of the Sequence were very specific, while others were maddeningly cryptic. We would have to play our parts as the sacred texts outlined to the best of our abilities.
When I finally leaned back in my chair, I let out a soft groan as my stiff neck creaked.
“I wonder if we should hold rehearsals,” I mused as I massaged one temple with my fingertips.
A short laugh escaped High Priestess Lunaria’s lips, and she quirked one brow. “Not a bad idea, my Lord. You, at the very least, must know down to the letter every step you will take. The other participants, including myself, have a much lighter burden.”
I stood and stretched, pushing my fists into the small of my back. “I’ll leave you now, as I know your schedule is well booked.”
She stood too. “Ah, you’re being polite as well as modest, my Lord. Your agenda is every bit as stuffed as mine is.”
One corner of my mouth pulled up in a partial smile, and I conceded her point with a tilt of my head. “We will resume this evening. Until then.” I inclined my head and turned to go.
As I left her office, her pronouncement about my alien heritage returned to the forefront of my thoughts. I’d been able to forget it for a while as we concentrated on the Sequence, but as I walked from the Temple back to the palace, a knot formed in my gut.
I wasn’t Calistan. Not fully. I was also Pirro.
The memory of my tormentor—the sensuous green-eyed Pirro woman I’d nicknamed Jade—swam unbidden into my mind like a dark creature rising from the murky depths. Was it possible Jade and I were related? My insides twisted tighter. It was a disturbing thought, considering the things that had occurred between us, all that she’d shown me and the ways she’d molded my needs and desires with her own hands and body over the years of my captivity.
I gave my head a shake and drew a sharp breath of cool morning air in through my nose.
My mood brightened to a warm glow as I turned my attention to Maya. The last time we’d been together—intimately together—was the night we’d spent in my bedchamber for the Tournament challenge. The hot ache of desire surged through me as I remembered how she’d bared herself, and I nearly reeled as I recalled in vivid detail the feel of her dark hair falling across my skin, and the hours I’d spent exploring her body with my hands and lips.
My summons for her to join me that night had been submitted as soon as I woke, but wouldn’t be communicated to her until later in the day, as was the protocol with the women of the harem.
I imagined her moving through the events of her day and wondered if she would feel at home in the harem quarters.
When I reached my own quarters, there was an unusual bustle of activity.
Victor was there to greet me with a bow, and he saw my eyes flick down a hallway from which echoed the muffled sounds of heavy objects being moved about.
After he straightened, he explained, “The Queen’s apartment is being readied for its new occupant.”
My mouth twisted in an expression of distaste. “Do they have to make such a racket?” I groused.
Maya was the last woman to stay in the apartment, the quarters within my chambers that were reserved for the Calistan wife of the Lord. The thought of any other woman occupying that space made my appetite flee and my gut pull tight.
But time was marching forward, taking its measured steps in spite of my wishes. My wedding date was mere weeks away, and the Return was the only thing that could stop it.
I had the wild, childish thought to burn the Queen’s apartment down, to render it a charred and smoking hole in the palace.
Juvenile fantasies would not save me, but I knew without a shred of doubt that I could not stand by and allow a Calistan woman to take up residence in my chambers. In my bed.
I would have to find a way to postpone the wedding, to hasten the Return, anything to ensure that Maya would be the only woman by my side.
3
Maya
I DID NOT skip dinner to ready myself for Lord Toric, as Kalindi had suggested, but as I sat in the cafeteria with Clarisse I almost wished I had.
By the darting looks and unabashed stares from the harem women, every single one of them knew I’d been called to Lord Toric’s bedchamber.
“How does the news spread so quickly?” I muttered to Clarisse.
She seemed oblivious to the attention that was thrown our way, obviously savoring her roast and root vegetable mash.
She flicked a glance around the room as she swallowed a bite. “Not a whole lot happens here. The Lord’s summons is practically all they have to talk about.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, fixing on how she’d said “they” instead of “we.” She really did seem to keep herself apart from the others.
I pinched a tiny piece off the brown roll on my plate. The anticipation of seeing Lord Toric seemed to have constricted my insides. It was somehow different this time because he’d officially called for me.
“What will you wear?” Clarisse asked.
I lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t have many options. My robe is the only new garment I have. I suppose I’ll wear that silky frock from the Tournament challenge?”
“Ah, so you intend it to be a night of sensual indulgence.” She slitted her eyes and quirked a brow at me.
I felt my cheeks heat. “Well, isn’t that what one does when the Lord calls her to his bedchamber?”
“In most instances, yes. You do have to spend the night there, but you’re not obligated to do anything you don’t wish to do.” She set her silverware across her empty plate. “You probably haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet.”
I lifted my glass of water and grimaced into it. Oh yes, the book. The giant volume containing all the rules of conduct for life in the harem that Hera had delivered to me on a tablet. I’d begun my study of it earlier that day, but still had many hundreds of pages to read.
As Clarisse pushed her chair back a few inches, a servant appeared to take the empty dishes from our table.
Clarisse glanced at my plate, which still had food on it, and up at me. “Come on, no need to sit here tormenting yourself.”
She stood, and I gave her a grateful look as I rose too.
“I’m not nervous,” I said to her in a low voice as we left the cafeteria. “About seeing him, I mean. It's just hard to know where I stand. He’s supposed to marry a Calistan woman soon, and there’s all the business about me in the media.”
I snapped my mouth closed with a click of my teeth as my pulse stuttered for a beat or two. I appreciated Clarisse’s friendship, but I had to be extremely careful. No one could
discover the truth—that I hadn’t really survived the sacrificial flame, not in the miraculous way it had appeared. The whole thing had been orchestrated by the High Priestess and Lord Toric’s brother, Jeric.
Clarisse gave me a strange look. “Why should the media reports affect what goes on between you and Lord Toric?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I blinked a few times and shook my head. “Don’t mind my babbling. Sometimes I just feel a little overwhelmed.”
“I still think you should nominate yourself as his queen,” she said. Her eyes sparked with amusement.
I snorted a laugh, relaxing a little.
“Seriously,” she said. “Bring it up with him tonight. Plant the seed, at least. Maybe he can find a loophole in the laws. He certainly doesn’t want to be with anyone but you.”
“Fine,” I said, my tone nonchalant. “I’ll propose it. I don’t expect anything will come of it, though.”
Despite my words, a warm glow ignited in the center of my chest. To be the one, the only one, by his side . . . My eyelids drifted shut for a heartbeat before I forced them open again. I knew I shouldn’t hope for it, but couldn’t help entertaining the fantasy for a fleeting moment.
My preoccupation with Lord Toric and our impending appointment did not completely distract me from another matter that had been sitting heavily on my heart. I waited until Clarisse and I were alone in a corridor and then bent my head toward hers.
“Clarisse, I must see Lana again,” I whispered.
She cast a furtive look over her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I clutched her arm as gratitude washed through me.
“Don’t get excited,” she cautioned, her eyes hard. “No guarantees. It will take time to arrange, if I can do it at all. It’s dangerous for both of you, Maya. And it’s dangerous for me and Prince Jeric as well.”