by Val Roberts
"Then why do you wear them?” he asked, truly curious. Even nearing fifty, Sabinet had gorgeous legs. In fact, she was as taut and toned physically as most women half her age.
"Because you like them,” she breathed into his ear. “Although after the coronation, I think I'll only be wearing them in the bedroom.” He knew that tone of voice and it always made him shudder, even after twenty-eight years. He glanced at the door, almost reflexively. “I programmed it to lock when you came in, because I knew I was going to bruise your ego, Ramondar. I thought you might need a reminder of why I still keep you around."
"Now?” It came out a little strangled, but he'd managed to form a word.
"Now, before I spend another month sleeping alone.” Her fingers dragged down out of his hair and started unfastening the magnetic studs holding his shirt together. “Have I ever mentioned that my family can trace its origins to a concubine of Peridos the Fourth?"
"No you haven't.” Now she wanted to talk about genealogy? What in the world was Sabinet trying to do to him?
"We generally don't advertise the fact, because she had a very famous sister.” She reached inside his shirt and lightly scratched her nails over his chest, sending all the blood in his brain somewhere else. “Her name was Carnivale Penthes.” The name sounded vaguely familiar, but for the life of him he couldn't think of why. In fact, just about the only thing he could think of was what his wife was doing to him and how good it felt. “So you see, Ramondar, in a peculiar way, I'm Zonan, too. And I've never left your side."
In that instant, he fell in love with the woman he'd been married to for nearly three decades.
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Chapter Thirteen
Taryn followed the Sanctuarian through a maze of corridors and across—a volleyball court?—before he led her down a Spartan corridor into what looked like a cell block. When he opened the door she paused and looked back at him without expression.
"It is the residence for those who come here to shed their worldly goods and contemplate spiritual matters, so the quarters are somewhat plain,” he explained. “The new moon celebration is tonight, and the ceremony is not for viewing by the uninitiated, but you should be comfortable here, Your Highness."
"Normally a person has to have done something very wrong to be kept in solitary confinement,” she commented as she unslung her pack and walked through the door.
"Normally ladies seek enlightenment at the Enclave on the full moon.” His lips twitched in a smile. “You would have much company then, but I fear it would not be to your taste."
"Oh?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. What insult was he setting her up to receive?
"Ladies of Barian seldom come to the Enclave armed and tend to converse on topics of some triviality while they are here.” He turned to one of the small rooms. “This penitent cell has been cleaned and furnished for your use. It has excellent light in the morning."
"Thank you.” She walked into the cubicle and let her pack slide to the floor. It was plain, but no more spartan than her BOQ in Balsom. The monk—if that's what they were called—hovered in the doorway.
"Perhaps one of your companions could bring a selection of reading material for you?” He gestured helplessness, which looked out of place on him. “I have no knowledge of your taste, Your Highness."
"That would be nice. Thank you.” He still didn't leave, so she cultivated patience and waited.
"What would you like for dinner, Your Highness?"
Okay, the title thing was getting irritating. “Please call me Taryn, and I'll eat whatever everyone else is having.” His eyes started to twinkle, but she couldn't tell if it was in amusement or irritation. “Unless they're eating something special as part of the ceremony,” she amended with some haste. “Really, whatever you want to feed me is fine."
"Be careful, Prince Taryn, or Shobenar will pull out that recipe for lark's tongues that we've been trying to get rid of for years.” The twinkle had graduated to a full grin, and he was definitely amused.
"You're right, that sounds disgusting. I'm more into plain food, although combat rations are getting pretty boring.” She unbuckled her scabbard and placed it on top of her pack. “Is there a special meal for the celebration? I don't know anything about Sanctuary."
"Nor would I expect you to.” He bowed. “I will tell Shobenar that our regular meal will suit your palate."
When he was gone, she wandered the eight-feet by ten-feet area of her cell for a few seconds, then took off the oversized coat and wished she had thought to ask him about a bath. She paced the small room for another few minutes, then explored the entire building and discovered, along with a menacing hum emanating from the door to the rest of the Enclave, that there was a large communal toilet with showers at the opposite end. It was far more luxurious than she would have expected for penitents, with a deep bathing pool and a strange, cedar-paneled closet full of benches and some kind of a control panel in the wall. There was even a walk-in cupboard complete with a hundred towels large enough that she could wear one as a dress.
If not for the lack of company, it wouldn't have been bad at all.
"Vixen?” echoed through the large central space of the building, sounding like Dorcan multiplied several times. She came out of the baths and found him standing next to the humming door, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
"Right here.” His face relaxed in unmistakable relief. “What's up, Dorcan?"
He offered a small, rectangular object and she walked across the echoing chamber to take it from him. “They asked me to program a book for you.” The big man shifted his weight, nervous, while she inspected the thing. “I didn't know what you would like, so I put a little of everything in it."
"Thank you, but I can't even figure out how to open it.” She offered it back and watched his face freeze as if he'd done something wrong.
"I'm sorry, I forgot you're probably used to paper books.” The words were a little rushed, as if he wanted to get past the apology without dwelling on her ignorance. “Here, let me show you how it works.” He pulled it from her hand and thumbed a sort of button in the case, making a screen light up. “There's a menu to choose titles from, you just highlight and press here, and then it comes up on the screen. This is how you change pages, and you can search on a keyword with this.” He offered it back. “It holds about six thousand titles. There's history, and military tactics, a few adventure stories, and,” he looked at the floor and blushed slightly, “some romance novels."
Taryn laughed. Who would have thought that tough-as-nails Dorcan would harbor a secret fetish for true love and happy endings? “What, no candles so I can read while I'm soaking three days on a horse out of my muscles?"
Dorcan looked up, startled. “I—I can get some if you want."
"No, that won't be necessary.” She accepted the device and squeezed his hand. “Thank you for everything you've done already."
He blushed even more, then nodded and stammered, “S-see you in the morning."
When he was gone, she considered what to do and finally ended up in the bathing pool with the book reader and more than a hundred gallons of the hottest water she could stand. She spent an hour soaking out the kinks while she skimmed three hundred years of history that was decidedly different from what she had learned in Zonan schools. After washing with soap that smelled better than the wonderful lavender-scented stuff Leone stocked—and how had they gotten the bars so evenly sized?—she wandered back to her room wearing only a pair of enormous towels and ate what was waiting for her.
The rest of the night loomed long and empty, so she kept reading after putting the towels away to dry to banish the loneliness that was suddenly a burden. Finally her eyelids were heavy, so she closed them. Only for a moment, and then she would turn out the light.
* * * *
Silean Sylvanen Penthes hadn't been this nervous since her own coronation. After informing Auran where she was going, she had deliberately sneaked out of the palace fo
r a very special, very clandestine visit to this unpretentious townhouse in Balsom's diplomatic district. And now she stood, trembling like a teenager and loitering in the frigid shadows of the front stoop, unable to remember a word of the apology she had rehearsed for over an hour.
If this was what men went through whenever they approached a woman they desired, she had nothing but respect for their entire sex. It was a wonder the species hadn't died out. She took a deep breath and rang the bell before she lost her nerve.
Nothing happened.
No noises from inside, no lamp being lit to show a visitor's face. Disappointment warred with relief as she turned to begin feeling her way down the steps. By the time she was at the bottom, her vision had blurred and her throat had closed down so that even breathing was difficult. She stepped, unseeing, into the street and turned toward the palace.
And hit a wall.
"Silean?” No, not a wall. She had walked directly into Herren Cavanaugh, returning to his house from some evening's entertainment. Her heart froze for a second, then started beating a rapid tattoo in an attempt to make up for it. “What are you doing wandering around without your escort?” His hands closed over her shoulders and kept her close to him while he looked around the dark streetscape for potential brigands. As if there would be brigands in the streets of Balsom in this weather, especially in this neighborhood. Hysterical laughter made an attempt to get out and she quashed it with all her will.
"I came to see you,” she murmured through her tight throat. “To apologize for what I said yesterday."
"And I've been looking all over the Lady Palace for you with new information from Barian,” he breathed next to her temple. “It's still colder than an asteroid's dark side. You'd better come in before you freeze."
She nodded and let him shepherd her up the steps. After he fumbled for a moment with the lock, the door swung open, spilling golden light into the street until he pulled her inside and shut it behind them.
The foyer was warm enough to make her cheeks ache with the transition from the cold night. She turned to look at him in speechless reproach, but he was busy pulling off his cloak and gloves.
"Now you know my dark secret,” he said, his back to her as he hung the cloak on a mirrored stand just inside the door. “It's solar powered, so I'm not contributing to the winter smoke in the city, Your Majesty."
And how had he hidden the collectors? She untied her own cloak and tried to think of something to say. Strangely, there was no sense of betrayal, but only a dawning realization that she'd been even more wrong about Herren than she'd already known.
"I see,” she finally put into the strained silence. He took her outer garment from her fingers and hung it next to his, then fixed her with a rueful-looking half-smile.
"Come into the kitchen. I know I could use a drink and, unless I miss my guess, you need one, too.” He took her hand and led her through a couple of hallways to the back of the house.
"How did you install this without anyone knowing?” she asked when she found her tongue.
"I didn't.” He let go of her when they reached the homey room with its scrubbed pine table and dark brick hearth. Silean sank into a chair. “The previous owner was a Helicon assistant consul who was asthmatic. She had a medical exemption for the installation,” he said as he busied himself gathering a bottle and glassware. “I bought it when she retired, about ten years ago."
"And you succumbed to the male need for technological gadgetry,” she observed. He frowned, but he still offered her a glass of brandy.
"My decision was entirely practical, Your Majesty,” he said as he took turned another chair backwards and straddled it, then swirled his drink. “I save a small fortune in heating and lamp oil, and I haven't been sick a day since I moved into this house.” He sipped, quirking one eyebrow at her. “Can you say the same over the last decade?"
She returned his bold gaze as she sampled her drink. Obviously, he knew she couldn't claim to have been well for ten years, because every winter she had breathing trouble and the physicians blamed it on the smoke-laced city atmosphere. Last year, they had even gone so far as to suggest she winter in a warmer climate. “This is very good brandy,” she commented instead.
Herren sighed. “Silean—"
"You're right, Herren. If we had the money, I'd do this with every house in Balsom, starting with the Lady Palace.” She looked into the amber liquor in her glass. “Zona just doesn't have the money.” She forced herself to look him in the eyes and took a deep breath. “You were right about everything."
He laughed, but it sounded a little grim. “Just when I was having second thoughts.” He raked a hand through his hair, still that dark, dark auburn that made her toes curl. “They entered the Enclave today."
Silean felt a strange thrill, but whether it was from fear or excitement she had no idea. She got up from her chair and took another sip of her brandy. “What does that mean?” she wondered out loud.
Had Jervais been able to get there ahead of them with her note of blessing for the match? And the fine titanium chain, more costly than gold would have been—had it arrived in time? She turned back to face Herren, suddenly determined that there would be no more secrets between them, and no more secrets from her people.
"Von Stassos might want to get his story to a truthtester before it comes out in their media,” he cautioned. “In the past, he's had terrible luck in trying to fight rumors."
"Herren, if you were seriously searching for a woman who could be a queen, you had Taryn in debt to you for her life, and you were going to a Sanctuary Enclave, why would you be going there?"
He finished his brandy before answering. “Good point. Would you like to see the rest of the house?"
Silean gulped the rest of her brandy and set the glass on his table with a thunk. “I believe I would."
"And then I'll escort you back to the palace,” he continued, but his eyes slid away from hers when he said it.
"Yes, you will.” She felt herself smile. “In the morning."
* * * *
Blade couldn't banish the unease or the nervous energy, repeatedly going over scenarios in his mind of what would happen when Llamass told her the truth and she left to go back to Zona and death. Nothing had helped, not the pounding hot shower, not the care and concentration required to unsnarl the hair that he left long only because it had been part of his cover, not Llamass's carefully inconsequential conversation over a meal he hadn't even tasted.
He'd been guarded by Sanctuarians every moment since he'd been shown into the Enclave's royal apartments, so there wasn't anything he could do, but every muscle screamed for action. He had to get to Taryn somehow, even if Llamass had warned him not to bother trying. He had to. The thought kept running through his brain as he tossed in a bed that was far too large without the soft curves that should have been lying next to him.
Finally, when the faint sound of chanting had been gone for over an hour, he couldn't stand it anymore. He threw off the duvet and pulled on an Enclave robe from the closet, then carefully cracked open the exit door. The corridor was deserted and only the faint luminescence coming out of the paint gave any light. It was just enough to keep from running into a wall without a moon. He pulled up the cowl of the robe and tried to walk like a member of the order who had a good reason to be wandering around in the middle of the night after a new moon ceremony.
After two close calls, he found the door to the penitents’ block unguarded, which made him pause in a shadowy corner, sensing a trap. After Llamass had gone so far as to tell him he wasn't trusted, it was weird that she wasn't chaperoned—unless the bald statement had been designed to get him exactly where he was. Llamass was nothing if not subtle. As if anything less than an antimatter baffle would have kept him away from this woman tonight.
Or the guard could have stepped away for a few minutes for something like a bathroom break, which meant he would have to hurry. He palmed the electrical shield control and slipped through the door, r
eassured when it latched and the shield came back online behind him. Only one cell had light spilling from it, so he padded through the main room until he was standing in front of it.
He peeked through the door grille. She'd left a reading light on, turned to the lowest setting, and a pocket-size book reader lay on her stomach, rising and falling with each breath. Her face was relaxed in sleep, the expression as innocent as an infant. Only a couple of days ago this woman had killed four people for his sake without even knowing his name. She had fought at his side, she had argued with him, she had slept with him, she had run away from him, and she had trusted him.
And now he was watching her when she was most vulnerable, when the walls were down and she wasn't armoring her soul with that damned scar. The nanites he'd injected the night before would smooth it away in a couple of months, but it was only a symbol of her barriers, not the barriers themselves. Galen had been right, he did owe her more than his life. He owed her everything, and if only she would let him he would give her everything he had, everything he was and would ever be. Something swelled in the center of his chest, sending warmth all over his body.
It was time to gamble it all, just throw everything out there, because he wasn't willing to give up the way his father had. The rest of his life was too important, regardless of how the politics fell out.
He eased the door open and slipped into the cell, closing it quietly behind him. He picked up the reader and set it aside, knelt at the edge of the bed, then smoothed an errant lock of fiery gold hair behind her ear. She sighed and opened her eyes.
"Blade?” She blinked once and reached up to touch his arm in a feather-light caress. “What are you doing here?” She tried to sit up and he gently pushed her back down. She was waking up far more quickly than the morning at Leone's inn, so maybe that first night had been more brandy than Taryn, but it didn't matter now. “They said—"
"I know,” he interrupted, “but the new moon is tonight which means now or not for another month, and I'm not sure I—we can afford to wait that long.” We. Yes, that was right, because for the rest of his life, all his decisions had to take her needs into account. They needed a pregnancy as soon as possible to cement everything else, including peace and quite possibly Zona's entry into the last century if not the current one. It meant she wasn't going to get enough sleep tonight, either, as much as he wanted to fold her into his arms and cuddle her close forever. He pulled down the blanket.