She skipped down the curved staircase and into the hall outside her office. The guards had grown used to her morning rides, and her escort always awaited her at the stable without her even asking.
“My Liege!”
She paused, turned and saw Nalin, dressed in riding leathers, striding towards her from the great entrance to the Keep.
“What’s this?” she asked as he reached her.
“I always seem to arrive after you’ve just finished your ride. I thought today I’d join you, if you’ll have me.”
“I’d enjoy that, but why now?”
“Curiosity more than anything, I suppose, my Liege.” He smiled. “And the fact that riding kept me sane while you were in Thristas.”
She resumed walking, and he stepped in behind her. “And what raw emotion are you looking to soothe this time, my Will?”
“Does boredom count?”
Arriving at the portico, she asked, “Do I bore you?” They took the steps down to the park together.
“My time with you is anything but boring, my Liege. It’s the time in between that’s threatening to destroy me.” He laughed, and she joined in, realizing she might indeed enjoy his company after all.
In the stable, Pharaoh’s personal stable hand, Jal, saw to it that a horse was quickly saddled and bridled for Nalin. Then they mounted, and with the guards following a distance behind them, they set out on Ariannas’ favorite trail. She and Malaki had discovered this one on their last ride at the end of Council, and although she didn’t always take it, she took it more often than any other. It led through tall trees and thick brush and left her feeling like she was alone and not under the constant surveillance of the guards, and she chose it today because she sensed that Nalin wanted to talk and desired privacy.
They started out at a walk initially, warming both themselves and the horses up.
“So tell me, really, why did you want to join me today?” she asked.
“I’ve been thinking, my Liege.”
“I’m sure you have.” She smiled at him and then patted Pharaoh on the neck.
“About the burden you put on yourself.”
“I’ll grant you there’s a burden, and it is mine. But I didn’t put it there. Eloise did.”
“I’ve watched you these last few months. You take yourself to task over everything, most of which is nothing. You make demands of yourself no one else would dare make.”
“And you say things you shouldn’t be saying.”
Nalin pulled his horse to a stop, and rather than pulling away, Ariannas decided to stay with him. The guards would see and halt a fair distance to the west behind them, leaving her privacy with Nalin intact.
“Allow me to speak candidly. Will it ease your burden to know I, too, have no desire to see us joined?”
“But—”
“No. This is the one thing Flandari cannot have. As for the rest, you have a lot to learn and nobles to win over. As your Will, I’m here to guide you. And as your Will, I’m telling you that you can’t do it all in a day.”
“Nalin…,” she cautioned him.
“No. Listen to me. You tried—I watched you try—to become Empir in two weeks of Council. And I’ve watched you since, poring over your mother’s scrolls in the hope that all your inner doubts will be relieved by something in there. But becoming Empir takes a lifetime. You’re angry at Eloise. So am I. She left me to deal with the task of making you Empir and on my own for months here in Avaret, not knowing if you were alive or dead.”
Her heart crunched—that’s how she’d always described the feeling she had at the top of her stomach when something moved her beyond her ability to express. “I never…thought about that,” she murmured. “That must have been hard on you, not knowing what was going on and having to carry on as though you did.”
Nalin nodded slowly. “Yes, but that’s not my point. You need to ease up on yourself, or you’ll come apart.”
“But there’s so much.” Her throat tightened, but she refused to cry. “And the things I’ve had to do….”
Nalin put one hand on her hands resting on the saddle’s pommel. “I know. You’ve made hard choices. I don’t know if I could have made them.”
“My brother….” Her voice trailed off.
“Your brother was a murderer who would have lost no sleep over murdering you. Don’t forget, he was in the midst of attempting to do just that when we rescued you from the dungeon.”
Growing restless, Pharaoh started prancing in place, pawing the ground relentlessly. Ariannas tried to rein him in, but she only succeeded in spinning him once around. “So,” she said as she continued to struggle with her impatient stallion, “it’s all right—what I did is all right with you?”
Nalin’s gelding was giving him trouble, too. “I have to admit it wasn’t easy at first. But you’re my Empir, and I’ve accepted it. It took me a while to realize the truth of what happened, and that was when I began to understand it. Your powers are frightening to most people, and yet using them was the only way you could survive. I’ve accepted that now, as well. So find a way to forgive—”
“Run!” It was one of the guards. Ariannas whipped around to see what had happened, but the trees hid the guards from view. And just as she was about to kick Pharaoh into a gallop, two people on horseback came at her and Nalin from the east, brandishing swords and yelling. The noise from them as well as from her guards behind them and their attackers left Ariannas disoriented and confused. She carried no weapon, nor did Nalin; that was the guards’ responsibility. And, from the sound of clashing steel and all the shouting, she didn’t think her guards were in any position to assist.
One attacker jumped from her horse, landing behind Ariannas on Pharaoh’s back. Pharaoh reared, but the woman maintained her seat, with Pharaoh finally settling to all fours but still fighting against restraint. As he slowly but reluctantly settled down, Ariannas trying to fight the woman off, the woman wrapped a rope around Ariannas’ body, bound her arms tightly to her sides and wrested the reins from her hands. Ariannas tried to turn to see how Nalin was faring, but she could only glimpse Nalin’s horse falling, Nalin still astride him, before a hood of odd-smelling homespun cloth was thrown over her head.
“Nalin!” she yelled, unable to see a thing.
“Quiet or I’ll slit your throat,” the woman behind her warned in an accent Ariannas recognized. Thristan.
She wanted to scream, get someone’s attention; she had to do something, but what? Then, within seconds, a strange sensation enveloped her, filling her with warm confusion. She realized, sluggishly, that they had drugged her. She remained aware of her captor’s movements but was unable to respond in any way except compliance. Her mind was like a vat of butter—someone could stick a knife in and meet no resistance. And as she felt the drug, or whatever it was, consume her, stealing her away, her captor kicked Pharaoh into a gallop and rode off with her. To where, she didn’t know and she didn’t care, not anymore.
CHAPTER TWELVE
a bad break
Nalin opened his eyes slowly, unable to remember where he was or what had happened. The smell of wet woodlands mixed with the metallic smell of blood assaulted his nose, but his eyes refused to focus. In the distance, he heard the thud-thud-thud-pause thud-thud-thud-pause of galloping horses, and in another distance, he heard shouts and running feet on the ground. What…? What ha…? His mind couldn’t form the questions, but he needed answers and a way to find them.
He tried to move. Perhaps action would clear his head. Lying on his right side, he slid his right arm beneath him and brought his left around to help push himself up. But the second he tried to do so, his right leg screamed in pain, and his voice echoed after. Must have broken the damn leg.
The approaching footfalls had nearly reached him. He hoped they were coming to help him, but his gut twisted at their approach. More attackers? he wondered.
Yes, that’s what happened. He and Lisen riding, pausing, talking, the guards positioned
far away. Too far away, he thought. He’d thought it then, too, but had said nothing. What a fool. They’d been attacked, with the guards subdued somehow and unable to protect them.
“Lisen?” he heard his voice croak. So weak, he thought. I can’t fight them off if they’re here to hurt me. Then they arrived. He could hear their voices. It was over.
“My lord?”
“Holder Corday?”
The second voice he thought he recognized. Commander Tanres, he hoped. Thank the Creators.
“Commander?” he asked, his voice weak.
“Stay still,” the same voice replied. “You’ve got a bad break. Go get a stretcher!” she yelled over her shoulder.
“Where is the Empir?” he asked.
“I’ve sent guards out to find her.”
“And what—”
“No, my lord. Let’s get you to the Keep. Send for the Primate!”
Nalin’s head spun, and then the world went dark.
He awoke in a room filled with flickering candles. He tried to sit up, but his body refused to cooperate.
“Ssh, quiet, my lord. You’re wounded and need to rest.” A woman’s voice. He hoped at first that it was Lisen, but all too quickly he realized it was the commander.
“What happened?” His mind was filled with clouds of forgetfulness, but an urgency drove him to find his way back to the present. “Tell me.” His eyes finally focused, and he saw Tanres sitting next to him, her voice a study in urgency and concentration.
“All right, but don’t tell Primate Niko that I said anything. He wants you to rest.”
“Not a word. I promise.” His leg hurt, but not as much as before. Must be cilla nectar, he deduced. Explains my fuzzy head.
“It appears that you and the Empir were set upon by several individuals who took her and left you for dead.”
“The Empir is gone?” Had he heard right? How could that happen in the middle of the park with two guards watching?
“Aye, my lord. A search party is being organized. I should be there right now, in fact. Just thought I’d check in with you first and then get back to them.”
“What happened to the guards? They should have….” It took so much energy to speak.
“Murdered. I don’t know how anyone could have bested them so easily. It didn’t look like they put up much of a fight. I take full responsibility, my lord. This never should have happened.”
“No,” Nalin said, fighting drifting off—a fight he quickly lost.
Having dismissed Shan for the next several hours, Lorain sat on her couch and nursed Elor herself for the first time in days. She did mind the discomfort, getting her teat to fill again with milk, but the privacy was necessary. She needed to be alone when the news came.
What she’d done—oh, she tingled at her part in the sister’s undoing. She reveled in her little play at seduction and hoped the guards had subsequently functioned below their usual level of discipline. “Just leave them vulnerable,” the Thristan had requested. How she hoped she had. But shouldn’t someone have arrived by now to inform her of some sort of tragedy? Shouldn’t someone have recognized the importance of the mother of the only Heir to Garla and come to advise her? She hated the suspense.
Oh, of course, she realized. There’d be a time of confusion and darkness as those in the Keep crashed about trying to make order out of chaos. But eventually, they would come to her. She would, however, appreciate sooner rather than later. Elor suckled what little milk she could produce after days of not nursing, and it hurt.
She jumped at the door flying open behind her.
“My lord, forgive me,” Shan said, out of breath. “But I just had to tell you. I was out with Anir. Thought the Empir’s park might be a nice place to sit in the sun, you know. Good for me, good for the baby.”
“Please, Shan, get to the point.” Lorain’s heart beat fast at the possibility of finally learning what had happened.
“The Empir’s been abducted! Can you believe it?” He stepped around to stand in front of her, his daughter up at his chest in the sling, apparently already fed. “At least that’s what everyone seems to think happened. The guard I spoke to—he escorted me out of the park so they can investigate—he told me the Empir was taken, the guards on her detail dead and Holder Corday wounded. I think he and the Empir were out riding this morning.”
Lorain could barely speak, but she managed. “So the Empir has been taken. Are you sure that’s what they told you?” Who would have guessed that this simple nurser she’d hired could prove so invaluable at the very moment when she needed him. But “taken” did not mean dead. If this were true, it could complicate everything she’d planned for.
“Aye, my lord. I’m sure. No one knew much of anything, it seemed. Just that much. Nothing more.”
“Sit, sit.” Lorain patted the couch beside her. She couldn’t have Elor’s nurser all breathless and flustered when it came time to feed her boy again.
“What does this mean, my lord? What does it mean for the small one?” He looked down at Elor, lying there in her lap, sated for the moment.
“I don’t know, Shan.” She consider his question and began mulling it over out loud. “They’ll send out a party of guards and search for a while. They might search for a week or a month or even longer. They won’t give up until they find her, I suppose, whether dead or alive. Or, if they decide they’ve searched long enough—and they could, you know—they would declare her dead. Long life to the Empir.” She rubbed Elor on the head and allowed herself to smile ever so slightly. Wouldn’t do to give too much away, even to a servant. “We can’t put too much stock in rumors, though,” she added, this time directly to Shan.
“Oh, no, my lord. And I might have got it wrong in the excitement.”
She patted Shan on the knee. “I’ll get the truth of it. After all, I’ll need to know whatever they know, my child being the only Heir and all.”
The nurser nodded, and Lorain sat back, content in the knowledge that the Thristans would never spare the Empir’s life. What she’d sought for her child had come quickly, and this time she allowed herself to smile fully in satisfaction.
“I’m afraid the break is very bad, my lord.”
Nalin grimaced, not in pain—the cilla was working fine, thank the Creators—but in frustration. He needed to be up and organizing the efforts to locate the Empir. Yet here he lay, in a bed somewhere in the Keep, unable to even sit up, much less stand.
“So, Your Grace,” Nalin said, “what do you plan to do?”
“I’ve sent for a healer from Solsta. This is beyond my skills to treat.”
“And in the meantime?”
“We’ll keep you comfortable.”
It took all Nalin had not to strangle the man. “Comfortable” meant more cilla nectar and bed rest. Somehow he had to reclaim control.
“I need to talk to Commander Tanres. I need a full report on the situation.”
“I’d advise against it.”
“Damn your advice! The Empir’s missing. I’m not about to go missing, too. Commander Tanres. Now!”
The primate nodded. “I will send for her.”
“Thank you,” Nalin replied between gritted teeth. “And no more cilla until I say so.”
“I can’t force it down your throat.” Niko smiled before he turned and left, and that’s when Nalin knew he would survive this.
He lifted his head from the pillow as best he could. He didn’t dare move much more than that, or the pain would beat him down again. His right leg was elevated and wrapped in bloody bandages. They looked bloodiest near his ankle which led him to believe that the break might be there, but what did he know?
He dropped his head again. The cilla made him dizzy, and he had to let the dizziness drift away before he could think. Tanres would be here soon, and he must be fully present for that conversation.
How had it all gone wrong? His thoughts drifted. Guards yelling, “Run!” He’d tried to fight, but the lug who’d attacked him had fo
rced his horse down. He couldn’t see Lisen at all and lost consciousness soon after that. He nodded. It all made sense now. It was the horse that had broken his leg. Damn.
“My lord?”
He must have drifted off again because when he opened his eyes, Commander Tanres sat completely settled into the chair to his left.
“Oh, Commander, I’m sorry.” He tried to pull himself up a bit, but the commander put one hand on his chest and with little pressure pushed him down again.
“No, my lord. No need for you to sit up. We can talk like this.”
“Did I hear you right before? The Empir was abducted?”
Tanres nodded with a shrug. “All indications point to that.”
“And what are you doing?”
“A search party was sent out with both guards and trackers. They lost the trail at the eastern edge of the park.”
“Creators.” Nalin closed his eyes and wished that his leg would cause him so much pain he wouldn’t care anymore that his Empir had been taken under his watch. “I think I heard someone speaking Thristan. Does that help?”
“It does, my lord. We’re fairly confident that they continued in a generally eastward direction, and the searchers have split up into two groups, one going to the south of the river, and one, to the north.”
Nalin sighed. “You’re never going to find her.”
“That’s the pain and the nectar talking, my lord. Believe me. I’ve seen it before. But trust me in this one thing. They have that stallion of hers, and he leaves a large trail. They will miss something eventually. Once we can catch sight of one of his hoof prints, we’ll be back on the trail like lightning.”
Blooded (Lisen of Solsta Book 3) Page 13