That came a bit too close to pitiful Jenna, but I let that slide off. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, that my story has been an inspiration. If I can sneak into the seraglio, I’ll light that fire. I just need to get into the palace.”
“We’ve been discussing how that’s the difficult part,” Kral said, flinging up a hand in exasperation.
“I know how to get us in,” Jepp volunteered, grinning at Kral, then at the twin shapeshifters. “We fly.”
“Fly?” Kral echoed, while Harlan tipped his head to gaze at the ceiling, running some sort of scenario in his head.
“I noticed it when I was in my special prison cum guest room at the palace,” she replied. “Behind some of the locked doors that protect the seraglio, but not in the seraglio itself,” she clarified for the group. “Because they were pretty sure I was female, but found me just manly enough that they didn’t want to risk me in there full time,” she added for me.
I could just imagine what my people had made of the brash, quick-bladed warrior woman. Come to that, I wondered what they’d make of me. I’d been so long in the world, living a life of freedom and fighting my own battles that they’d no doubt find me less than feminine anymore. The thought was heartening.
“The tower rooms have windows,” Jepp was saying. “Narrow ones, and glazed, but big enough to let a person through and they don’t even have bars or grates on them, because apparently the lunkheaded Dasnarians can’t imagine an aerial attack. We don’t have to fuck around with swimming that dismal lake or trying to navigate the multiple segments and guard stations on the drawbridge of doom—or all those archers on the cleared areas around the lake. Zynda and Zyr fly us in, drop us off on a tower, we scamper down to the seraglio.” She dusted her hands together. “Boom! Done.”
Marskal cleared his throat. “I hate to immediately shoot down a proposed plan, but I feel I have to note that Zynda in dragon form is rather… noticeable.”
“And there are plenty of archers on the towers and parapets ready to literally shoot anyone down. Or anything,” Kral put in, giving Jepp an arrogant smile. “That’s why no one worries about an aerial attack.”
“I have excellent vision,” she retorted. “I counted your archers and manifold guard on the towers and parapets—and I also noticed they were all looking down, not up.”
“When a big scary dragon flies in overhead, you can be sure they’ll be looking up,” he shot back.
“Mere arrows cannot penetrate my scales,” Zynda declared loftily.
“Yes, but they penetrate my soft hide just fine,” I retorted. “It would be better not to sound an alarm, so we need the guards to be looking down.” Harlan leveled his gaze on me, nodding, as if he’d come to the same conclusion.
“A distraction.” Zyr uncoiled his long body in a shiver of relish. “I do love me a big distraction.”
Kral threw up his hands. “It’s going to have to be a spectacular distraction to pull all the guards off the walls and make it so no one happens to notice a dragon three times the size of this ship dropping people off on a tower of the Imperial Palace.”
“I am a very deep blue, nearly black at night,” Zynda said, “and I can glide in silently. Tonight is the new moon, so it will be as dark as it gets. It wouldn’t take long to drop off Ivariel.”
“And me,” Jepp put in firmly, giving me a fierce look. “I can be your guide and back up.”
“And me,” Karyn echoed. “I can help talk to the women of the seraglio. This is something I need to do,” she said to Zyr when he opened his mouth to protest. He closed his mouth with a rueful snap, then took her hand and kissed it.
“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand in a gesture I’d use to stop a charging elephant. “You all are talking about going tonight?”
“Today, really,” Kral replied as if it were a reasonable answer, “as it will take us some time to get there. Element of surprise works for us, as Hestar and our revered brothers will think we’re still pinned down by their navy.”
“And deposing the leaders will hopefully nullify the navy’s orders by the time the storm clears,” Jepp added. “Has to be tonight.”
Ochieng believed I’d be back in a few hours—and Ursula!—she would not be pleased at this change of plans. She’d wanted me to take Harlan with me, but not like this, I was certain. Harlan caught my eye and grimaced ruefully.
“If we’re deposing Hestar, we have to put someone in his place,” Kral said thoughtfully.
“Do we?” Jepp shot back.
“A vacuum will only suck someone else into the role,” he pointed out. “It would be irresponsible of us to leave it to whichever dog fights hardest for the bone.”
“Oh, well, we wouldn’t want to be irresponsible,” she replied, oozing sarcasm, and I sensed her worry beneath it.
Kral looked between me and Harlan. “It would be best to choose our replacement, someone amenable to being allies with the Thirteen Kingdoms and our other friends.”
“You always wanted it,” Harlan said blandly.
Kral still didn’t look at the visibly seething Jepp. “Yes. Yes, I did. I waited many years for an opportunity like this.”
“Ivariel is firstborn, however,” Harlan commented. Jepp straightened, a funny look on her face, and she stared at me as if suddenly remembering something.
Kral eyed me. “Empress of Dasnaria—why not? Hulda would be so proud to see her prized progeny poised to take the throne after all.”
“Except she’ll be dead,” I replied. “How about we see to that and deposing Hestar before we reorganize the government of the empire?”
“Agreed,” Kral said. “All right, so the ladies get dropped off by Zynda, infiltrate the seraglio, while the rest of us create a distraction. That doesn’t get the rest of us into the palace, however.”
“And we might need help getting out of the seraglio again,” I said. “It’s set up to allow the women out only accompanied by guard, and I doubt that’s changed.”
“It hasn’t,” Jepp and Karyn said at once, grinning at each other for the chorus.
“I can drop the seraglio team off,” Zynda said, casting a pointed frown at Kral, “then come get all of you and drop you inside the walls.”
“Me, Kral, and Harlan at once is more weight than you’ve carried before,” Marskal said, giving her a concerned frown.
“You’re skinny,” Zyr noted, looking Marskal over. “I’ll carry you and Zynda can take the overmuscled Dasnarians.”
Kral considered. “It could work. We need to flesh out the details, of course, but sunset is about five hours later there, which gives us some wiggle room. How long to fly us there?”
“I don’t know,” Zynda replied blandly, “as I’ve never been to the Imperial Palace.”
Jepp chewed on her lip. “Knowing how long it took you to fly here from Annfwn, I’m going to guess a six-hour flight.” She glanced at Kral. “Sunrise comes early still this time of year. I say we go for the small hours between midnight and dawn, when the guard will be sleepy and complacent—and everyone else hopefully asleep.”
Kral nodded, calculating. “We need to leave in about four hours then. That gives us time to thrash out the plan.”
“Make that three hours,” Karyn said. “Zyr can’t fly as fast as Zynda can.”
Zyr scowled and stuck out his tongue at Zynda. “At least I’m not a gruntling.”
“Jealous,” Zynda replied with breezy venom.
“Neither of you should be taking on a long flight on top of the effort to get us here,” Marskal pointed out.
Zynda and Zyr exchanged saucy smiles, temporarily united. “I can do it,” Zynda said.
“No problem,” Zyr chimed in.
Marskal and Karyn wore identical expressions of resigned exasperation.
“If I may point out a flaw in this plan,” I inserted, and they all frowned at me, “you’ve effectively planned for how Zynda and Zyr will carry us into the Imperial Palace, but how do you plan to get all five human
s on the backs of two shapeshifters on the long flight to Dasnaria?”
~ 9 ~
I might’ve laughed at the appalled looks on their faces, except that Kral shocked me by tossing a salute in my direction, respect in his face. “I am chagrined to find your planning ability outstrips mine, my canny sister.”
“I’m accustomed to planning campaigns where distributing people and supplies on animals is a key consideration,” I explained, feeling unduly flustered by the compliment. Then I realized my gaffe. “Not that you are animals,” I hastily reassured Zyr and Zynda, then winced, because that didn’t sound any better.
“Zyr is,” Karyn volunteered, squeaking as he pinched her under the table.
Zynda rolled her eyes. “No offense taken. And you’re right. I don’t think I could carry four of you that far. I do, however, have an idea.” She turned a charming smile on Marskal. “We could ask Kiraka to help.”
He groaned, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “The last thing I want to do is ask that old bitch of a dragon for a favor. Her favors don’t come cheap.”
“She wants retribution for Hulda’s role in unleashing the High Priestess on the people of n’Andana,” Zynda argued. “I think she’ll do it for free. We can ask Andi to talk her into it. It would be helpful to have Andi ready to magically assist, too, just in case.”
“You know what’s odd?” Jepp said conversationally. “When I was a prisoner in the Imperial Palace and facing that travesty of a ‘trial’ before Hestar and the Domstyrr, I kind of lost my temper, and—”
“That sounds like every day to me,” Kral inserted, “not remotely odd.”
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Hestar was taunting me about rape and cutting off my pink bits, blah, blah, blah, and—”
“Wait.” Kral growled the word, gone from teasing to furious in a heartbeat. “You never told me that part.”
“Well, no, because I—silly me—thought you might lose your shit and go storming off and get yourself killed trying to punish him. It didn’t happen. See? I’m fine.”
She held his gaze, stroking his arm, and I observed her technique with visceral recognition. Talking Kral down, exactly as Ochieng did with me. My brother and I, perhaps much too much alike.
“I wanted to scare Hestar, unsettle him, so I told him that Harlan had given me a message—about Jenna.”
Harlan startle in his chair. “I never spoke to you of her.”
“I know, I know, but Inga and Helva did. I was lying my ass off, stalling. But I told Hestar that you’d set Jenna up as a queen in a foreign land, where she commanded armies of shape-shifters. I don’t know what all I said, but I do recall mentioning that dragons flew at her bidding and sorcerers worked powerful magics for her. And that she was coming for Hestar, to kill him and all of his children, then would take her rightful place as Empress.”
A fraught silence fell, and Jepp grinned triumphantly. “Am I psychic or what?” She gestured to me. “Here is Jenna, Queen Ivariel of Nyambura.”
“If you’d seen Nyambura, you’d know that isn’t saying much,” I replied, still struggling with the shock of Jepp’s words.
“Details. You are commanding dragons, shapeshifters, and sorcerers, and coming to kill Hestar and take his throne.”
Definitely a stretch. “I would never kill his children.”
“Will you put Hestar’s heir on the throne?” Kral asked. “I can tell you that Hestar has been molding the boy in his own image.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know. And I refuse to decide anything right now. Let’s focus on the immediate task.”
“I guess that means it’s time to play messenger pigeon,” Jepp said grimly. She caught my concerned look and shook it off. “Don’t mind me. It’s really not that bad, it’s just creepy having her in my head. Like an itch I can’t scratch.”
Kral ran a finger down the bare skin of her arm, giving her such a warm, sympathetic smile that I wondered if someone hadn’t simply killed off my seventeen-year-old brother and replaced him with someone else. It happened all the time in tragic Dasnarian legends, so why not? It seemed like a much more rational explanation.
“You don’t have to,” he told her softly. “We can send a bird.”
“Nah. I can do it. Not like I’m going into battle bare-assed or something. Besides, she’s been popping in periodically to check on you all, because Ursula is a mother hen.” She pointed at me. “And if you tell Her Majesty I said that, I’ll cut off your pretty braids.”
“Noted,” I replied. “Would you pass along a message Ochieng? And I’ll need to explain to Ayela and the children. I can write it out.”
“You can?” Kral asked, surprised.
“I haven’t been sitting on my hands the last two decades, shark,” I answered him. “I’ve learned to read and write in a couple of languages, and it turns out I’m quite good at math.”
Jepp had raised her brows, giving him an “I told you so” look, so he held up his palms to ward us off. “No need to fling eye-daggers at me,” he laughed. “I’ll need to fill Her Majesty in on the logistics, too.”
“And I,” Harlan said, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “I’ll need to try to explain that—”
“All right, folks,” Jepp cut him off, “this is getting to be a lot of messages, so this is what we’re going to do. Next time Andi pops in, I’m going to get the request for Kiraka underway, since she’ll need to fly here. Then I’ll tell her to fetch Ursula, then Ivariel’s family. Instead of you all giving me messages, I’ll let Andi talk through me. You’ll still be passing through her, but that cuts out at least one translator.”
“She can do that?” I asked. “That does sound creepy.”
“Right?” Jepp shook her head. “Anyone else who wants to pass messages back, put in your requests now.”
While I waited for my turn to “talk” to Ochieng and the kids, I found a quiet spot on the deck and began running some knife forms. The physical ritual of the exercises soothed my agitated mind, and helped to bleed off some of the emotions crowding my heart. I only hoped Ochieng would understand that I hadn’t planned to sneak off to do this on my own.
I finished with Danu’s salute—not perfectly executed, as the sun had lowered to mid-afternoon and the surrounding storm made the waters choppy enough to challenge my balance on the pitching deck—and lowered my blades to find Harlan quietly watching nearby. He offered me a towel to dry the sweat from my face. That was my baby brother: still taking care of me.
“Essla does that form,” he commented. “Or one like it.”
“I’ve bastardized it over the years,” I admitted. “It’s got a lot more of the ducerse in it than a true follower of Danu would use.”
“Depends on what you think makes someone a true follower,” he countered. “I’d argue that it’s far more important to cleave to the principles the goddess embodies than stick to the appearance of practice. In fact, it’s when people start performing their worship for others, doing it for show and abandoning the values of the religion or philosophy, that corruption occurs.”
“I think you’re right, but I had no idea you’d become such a deep thinker.”
He smiled without humor. “You’re not the only one who spent the last couple of decades educating yourself. After you… left, and then after I was exiled myself, I spent a lot of time trying to understand how our family and country could have become so twisted.”
I rubbed the towel over the back of my neck and leaned on the rail, looking over the water. The magic made for a strange sight, the storm a churning wall in all directions, while we and a few other ships sailed under clear skies.
“I think it’s power,” I told him, as he leaned his forearms on the rail, too. “Maybe people aren’t meant to have so much power. It’s like an infection that slowly spreads through their minds and makes them unable to think rationally anymore.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve certainly witnessed many instances of power corrupting rulers.”
“Your Ursula seems to have escaped the insidious creep of it.” At least, so far.
“‘So far,’” he added my unspoken words for me. “And yes, we’re both aware of that danger. Essla maybe more than anyone, as she fears becoming her father.”
I could understand that. “I am far more like my mother than I want to be.”
“You’re nothing like Hulda,” he said with grim certainty. “Never think it.”
“You don’t know,” I replied, fixing my eyes on the water. “I have terrible things in me, Harlan. I killed Rodolf.”
He jerked, swinging his head to me. “He found you?” Harlan sounded so horrified, so aghast on my behalf that I felt like I should comfort him, but I didn’t know how. Or if I even could.
“Yes. He tracked me almost to Nyambura. He even brought the Arynherk diamond I left at the inn in Sjør.”
Harlan was gripping the rail, knuckles white. “Kral gave it to Hestar, but when Rodolf disappeared…” He blew out a long breath. “I looked for you. I never stopped looking.”
“I know you did.” I had known, in my bones, that Harlan would search for me. For so many years, when the trade caravans resumed after the rainy season, part of me half-expected Harlan to turn up. But he never had, and after a while, I stopped thinking that he might.
“No, I mean, I looked,” he ground out, anguish in his voice. He laughed humorlessly. “I thought I looked in every place that had elephants because I knew you’d find them. By the time I met Essla… I don’t want you to think I pledged the Elskathorrl to her lightly. I knew it meant I’d…”
“Given up on finding me,” I finished for him. I turned to look at him, set a hand on his shoulder. “Harlan it had been so long. Of course you had to put an end to it.”
“Did I?” He shook his head, disgust on his face. “He found you, which meant I could have, if only I’d tried harder.”
“Rodolf found me after a few months, because he had a fresh trail,” I told him. “When he tracked me, you were probably still a virtual prisoner at the Imperial Palace.”
He jerked his head in a nod. “For the better part of a year.”
The Lost Princess Returns Page 7