Again, the three lunged simultaneously, a graceful unit. Colbey bobbed, lacing his blade between them, separating. Steel carved deadly patterns through the air around him, two missing cleanly and the third nicking his chest. Even as they condemned him as the bringer of destruction, their strikes definitively lethal, he had, thus far, done nothing but defend. The idea of slaughtering the gods of Renshai, Sif and Modi, never entered his mind; but his strategy would soon unravel. He would have to kill or die.
Colbey scurried toward the door, blocking the lightning attacks of three immortals. Escape would serve better than his usual offense here. The quick, ceaseless movements widened the burning tear in his backside. Blood seeped warmly down the back of his leg, and sweat stung the superficial wound on his chest. Still, he did not slow, zipping in to catch Sif’s sword as he ducked beneath Modi’s, battering Vali’s aside. Luck alone dictated that, eventually, they would coordinate a blitz he could not defend. And Odin’s devastating plans would proceed without opposition. The fatal mistake—requesting assistance from fools. Colbey shook the thought from his mind, averting another triple attack. He refused to place faith in prophecies, and even that in his religion evaporated. The deities to which he had dedicated his every svergelse, spar, and battle since infancy had betrayed him.
The rasp of steel at Colbey’s back sent him into a furious, awkward spin. His blade cleaved air, then met resistance, biting through flesh with a force that jarred his hand. True to his training, he completed the maneuver as a scream rang through his ears and hot pinpoints of blood sprayed his naked back. His sword crashed against Sif’s. Modi jerked back a lunge. Magni held the hammer in a two-handed grip, fingers white. Vali scurried into wild retreat, eyes round as cut gemstones and pale gaze fastened beyond Colbey. Something slammed the floor at Colbey’s back.
Colbey back-stepped, stance low and eyes restlessly seeking every immortal. Two paces brought him far enough to see Baldur lying still in a scarlet puddle, handsome features twisted and wide eyes already beginning to glaze. The god’s blood dribbled over Colbey’s crossguard, slicking the leather hilt beneath his right palm. Rage and grief hammered him simultaneously. He did not need his talent to read the thoughts taking shape in every head, including his own. Loki all over again. It did not matter that the gods had attacked him, nor that he had only defended. He had killed Baldur, just as Loki had centuries before him. And that act had heralded Loki’s steadfast devotion to chaos and, ultimately, the Ragnarok.
It’s over. Colbey backed toward the door, unwilling to sheath the filthy blade yet refusing the insult of cleaning it of Balder’s blood in the presence of peers and family. The gods would hear no further arguments from him, and any future forays to Asgard would meet with instant and unified violence. “Damn you.” Directed at Vali, words spoken barely above a whisper cut the silence like an explosion.
*Take us back to chaos,* Colbey sent the sword. *Take us home.*
The sword obeyed, triumph tainting the contact; but it did not gloat. As the wild abandon of Chaos World replaced the solid order of Asgard, Colbey caught a last glimpse of gods rushing, teary-eyed, to the corpse.
The prince of demons found his own vision blurry. Home.
CHAPTER 5
The Chosen
Battles are won by courage, not strength; by skill, not numbers.
—Colbey Calistinsson
PINK dawn light trickled through Tae’s window in Béarn Castle, casting streaky shadows across the woolen coverlet. Uncertain what other worlds might hold, he folded short-sleeved tunics and blouses into a densely woven cloak, tucking undergarments, breeks, and leather britches into the cracks. He had just reached for his heavy travel blanket when a knock thundered through the room.
Tae abandoned his efforts, trotting to the oaken panel, tripping the latch, and drawing it open. Mior shot through the widening crack, marching back and forth along his legs with purrs loud enough to reach his ears from the floor. Matrinka stood in the hallway. Her dark locks fluttered over her ample bosom, and the slowly dispersing swell of her abdomen enhanced the feminine curves that made Kevral appear boyish in comparison.
Tae bent at the waist, but Matrinka placed a hand on his forehead to stop the movement.
“Bow, and I’ll kill you.”
Tae froze in mid-movement. Until that moment, he had not realized what he was doing. “And well-deserved punishment that would be.”
Matrinka stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. She ushered Tae deeper into the room, and he followed, careful not to trip over the cat still twining around his ankles.
“What can I do for you this morning, Ladyship?”
Matrinka’s brows arched, and she turned him a stern look. “You can start by dropping the Ladyship, Prince Tae.”
“Point taken.” Tae sprang to the windowsill, crouching there to leave the choice of bed or chair to Matrinka.
She accepted neither, preferring to stand. Mior’s tail lashed as she measured the distance from floor to Tae. Matrinka did not speak for several moments.
Tae broke a hush too awkward for old friends. “Did you come to wish me well, or only to threaten my life?” He added facetiously, “Kevral.”
Matrinka smiled. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you.”
Couldn’t, Tae corrected, only to himself. The gentle healer released the occasional spider or beetle found in the hallways, and the idea of her harming a human seemed madness. “I wasn’t worried,” he said.
Matrinka finally came to the point of her visit, “You’ve always been the cautious one. The man of reason. Keep the others out of trouble, please.”
Matrinka’s words stunned Tae, and he could not help laughing, though it clearly distressed her. He explained his cruelty with personal insult. “The cautious, reasonable man is the same lunatic who climbed the castle walls to see a baby.”
Mior leaped to the ledge, claws raking the wall as she scrambled into position. Delicately, she hopped onto Tae’s knee headed toward a nonexistent lap.
Tae dropped into a less defensive position, providing the cat with a perch against his abdomen and right thigh. “And you’re asking me to contain two tornadoes and a hurricane.”
Matrinka finally smiled. “Darris is the hurricane?” she guessed.
“Right. Not insane enough to rush, war-screaming, into a battle against thousands . . . and dare to believe he might win.” Tae referenced Kevral. “Or to duel a demon who wrinkled his tabard and insulted his mother’s footwear.” Tae stroked Mior as she settled against him. “But he’d stir up a hornet’s nest just to watch the patterns of their flight and experience a quazillion stings for the detail it would add to his songs.”
“A quazillion?”
Tae shrugged. “Give or take a few bizillions.”
Despite the joke, Matrinka’s grin wilted; and she lowered her head.
Tae sighed, hating to make a vow he could not keep, yet knowing how much Matrinka needed it. “I’ll do my best.” Longer than a year ago, he had escorted Kevral to Pudar amid ambushes and dense patrols of his father’s own men charged, not only with preventing travel in the West, but directly with slaughtering him. He had managed to bring Kevral and himself most of the way safely, though it had taken every instinct and wary skill to do so. Kevral would have preferred to attack, killing any who stood in their way, but Tae had managed to convince her of the wisdom of his approach. If necessary, he believed he could do so again.
“I can’t ask for more than that.”
“You could ask,” Tae revised. “But it seems pointless.”
The creases in Matrinka’s cheeks revealed the smile on her lips, but her position did not allow Tae to see more. The coarse, black hair fell in a wavy curtain, hiding even her eyes.
Guessing Matrinka’s other concern, Tae said, “It won’t seem the same without you along. We’ll miss you.” He pitched his voice carefully, so as not to sound disparaging or too wistful. He did not wish to stir any unnecessary guilt. However Matrinka felt about
her role in the matter, she did belong in Béarn with Marisole.
“I’ll miss all of you, too. And worry for you every day you’re gone.” Finally, Matrinka raised her head, hair cascading into its proper position against her back. She looked at him from beneath a fringe of straight bangs, her brown eyes enormous and soft as a fawn’s. “They’ve selected your companions.” Vacantly, she spread the travel blanket, wrapping his things into a tight bundle worthy of an experienced traveler. “Besides Darris, Kevral, and Ra-khir, there’re two elves. There’s a Northman called Andvari, an ambassador from Nordmir after the elves recreated peace.” Captain and several companions had ended the deadly, svartalf-stirred wars in the North with magical illusions. “And there’s a Pudarian healer, Perlia. She sells cures in the market.” Matrinka added quickly, “Not quackery, known herbs. And her skills.”
Mior’s weight wore on Tae’s leg. The tingling started in his toes, creeping rapidly toward his knee. His petting grew more distracted. He wondered why Matrinka felt it necessary to defend Perlia’s practices to a crime lord’s son. He attempted to maintain his side of the conversation. “A healer. Good.” He gave Mior a long, apologetic caress before shifting her to the sill and dangling his legs to restore blood flow before it became too painful. He added quickly, “Not that we’ll need one. I’ll be keeping my rasher companions out of trouble.”
Mior made a deep sound of protest.
“The hurricane and the tornadoes.”
“Right.”
“And Perlia?”
Tae jerked his head up, groaning. “She’s impulsive, too?”
Mior clambered into Tae’s lap, rubbing against his arms as she circled into a comfortable position.
“Oh, no. Not at all.” Matrinka finally took a seat on the very edge of the bed. She glanced at the bundled gear in her hands, as if noticing it for the first time, then set it aside. “She’s young, gentle, inexperienced. A beautiful woman with a sweet disposition. I thought maybe you could . . . um . . .” Her chin sank to her chest again, allowing her to hide behind the shielding hair.
Tae rolled his eyes. “Fall madly in love, marry her, and sweep her off to Stalmize as my princess.”
Matrinka stiffened, the redness of the skin beneath her hair revealing that he had struck close to home. “I was going to say keep her safe.”
Tae stared silently, waiting for Matrinka to meet his gaze, which she finally did.
“Am I that obvious?”
Irritated by the matchmaking, Tae refused to let her off the hook. “Yes.”
“I didn’t mean . . .” Matrinka stammered. “I only wanted . . . I—I was trying to help.”
The reminder brought a fresh rush of grief to a situation he believed he had already accepted. Like his memories of his mother’s murder, it swept in to haunt him, usually in the quiet moments when he missed Subikahn and envied Ra-khir’s routine nights and evenings with Kevral. To hide welling tears, he turned his gaze out the window, at the leaf and stone gardens that had replaced the multicolored flowers and summer vegetables.
Mior launched into a subdued purr, forgiving his movement with uncharacteristic generosity. The bed creaked as Matrinka rose. A moment later, a gentle hand touched Tae’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tae. I’m a supreme idiot, and I deserve to freeze in Hel upside down for eternity.”
The overstatement allowed Tae to regain his composure. Surreptitiously, he wiped away the tears, though he knew he could not hide his sorrow from Mior and, therefore, from Matrinka. “If that’s the punishment for saying stupid things, I don’t stand a chance.”
Matrinka tousled Tae’s hair. “I really am sorry.”
Tae made a dismissive gesture. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. You just caught me at a weak moment.” He wound his fingers through the calico fur. “Actually, things worked out better than I deserved or expected. Not only did I manage to compete with perfection, I have a son to keep me linked to the woman I love forever. Subikahn has a brother and a stepfather who not only adores him but who understands the significance of fathering to me. I never have to worry about him stealing my son.” The words came easily. He had considered the matter too long not to have found answers and, at least, a transient peace. “What more could I want?”
“A wife to share your love. A warm presence to cuddle at night and worry for.”
Tae shrugged, the romantic image wholly Matrinka’s. “My son is enough—I don’t want anyone else to worry for.” He left a still hand on the cat. “I want to do things right, without repeating my father’s mistakes. I don’t want eighteen years to pass before my son stops despising and starts loving me.” He clamped his lips shut on a bitterness only beginning to disperse. It had taken that long to piece together the memories of stirring in his sleep to find a rough hand replacing slipped blankets and adoring eyes studying him from the darkness. His father had wanted, even believed he needed, Tae tough. He had hidden his affection behind a gruffness that quailed his son, driving him onto the streets at fourteen. Only recently had Tae learned of the myriad invisible safety nets his father had woven to protect a son living alone on the streets. Weile Kahn’s words still resounded in Tae’s memory: “Return when you’re twenty. If you’ve survived, you’ll have proved yourself worthy to succeed me.”
Driven West by Weile’s enemies, hunted and battered, Tae had sworn never to return. Healing that rift had taken desperate confrontations he would not repeat. Subikahn would not weather Weile Kahn’s brutal techniques, ones even the crime-lord-turned-king now realized had unnecessarily traumatized his only child. “Right now, Subikahn is everything. I don’t need, or want, the distraction of another woman.”
Matrinka studied him through eyes that sympathized without patronizing. “Tae, I don’t know if this will help or hurt now. If you were the one who discovered Kevral’s plight and declared war on Pudar to rescue her, I’m sure she would have married you.”
Tae stared, frozen, the words nonsensical to him. “Plight? War on Pudar? What are you talking about, Matrinka?” He added a hint of warning to his voice. This time, he would not accept that Kevral needed to tell him about it. She had not done so in the week he had thus far spent in Béarn.
“This has to stay between the two of us.”
Tae nodded.
Matrinka glanced at Mior. “I’m sorry, the three of us.”
Reminded of the animal’s presence, Tae resumed petting the soft fur.
“Ra-khir and Kevral are sworn to secrecy by King Cymion of Pudar.”
At the name, Tae narrowed his eyes. More than a year ago, svartalf and enemies of his father had framed him for the murder of crown prince Severin. He had engineered a jail break that had rescued him from a tedious, agonizing execution, but he still harbored resentment against the king who had threatened to draw and quarter him.
“Tae, you have to promise me you won’t retaliate for what I tell you. And you’ll speak of it to no one.”
Tae’s gaze swept to Matrinka’s eyes. “If I make that vow, I’m going to resent it desperately, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” Matrinka admitted, returning his look without flinching. “But without the vow, I’m done talking.”
Trapped, Tae nodded. He felt certain Matrinka had gotten her information from Mior and wondered at the extent of the cat’s intelligence. In the past, she had acted on his simple commands, but the fierce yellow eyes radiated knowledge beyond that of other cats. As if I have any way to know how smart cats in general are. “I promise.”
“Against what?”
Tae considered briefly. “Against my honor as a Knight of Erythane.”
“Funny.”
Tae fluttered his fingers in helpless agitation. “What do you want me to swear against?” It all seemed silly to Tae, as if mentioning a value would somehow magically tie it to the vow.
“Your love for your son.”
“Fine.” Tae scratched beneath Mior’s chin, the cat stretching her neck to its limit. “I promise against my love for Subikahn.�
�� He appended impatiently, “Tell me already.”
Matrinka drew a deep breath. “King Cymion held Kevral prisoner and forced her to lie with Prince Leondis to create a royal heir.”
Tae’s hands winched around the window sill, and his jaw clenched painfully. The urge to inflict on the king of Pudar every threat lowered against him for the elder prince’s death flared suddenly.
“He told Ra-khir she was dead, but Mior helped him find her cell. Even the other knights didn’t believe Ra-khir, so he declared war on Pudar.”
Tae’s eyes grew from slits to wide-eyed disbelief. “By himself?”
“By himself,” Matrinka confirmed. “Mior’s not good with details, but, apparently, Ra-khir wound up bargaining for Kevral’s freedom. No retribution, no mention of the matter, and the prince’s baby returns to Pudar at the time of its birth.”
“Baby,” Tae repeated, rage stoked to a bonfire, violent and barely contained. Splinters from the wooden sill gouged beneath his nails.
Matrinka grimaced. “I forgot to mention she’s pregnant, didn’t I?”
Information fell into place, and consideration displaced some of Tae’s anger. “That explains the heated exchange between Kedrin and Colbey about grandfathering.”
“What?”
“I didn’t hear the whole thing,” Tae admitted. “But I do know Colbey’s words to Kevral sparked it.”
Matrinka raked back her locks with a hand. “But how could Colbey grandfather . . .” She trailed off, deep contemplation replacing confusion. “You don’t think Ravn. . . ?”
Tae made a motion of surrender.
“This complicates things.” Matrinka turned away, hands hovering as if on their own. “This complicates things . . . badly.”
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