“Rodolf arrived just before the rains did. After I killed him, we made sure the rains washed away all trace of him and his men. Their bones lie deep beneath the hard-packed earth, unmarked and unmourned.”
“Good.” Harlan still wasn’t looking at me, but neither did he shake off my hand, so I edged closer and stroked his back, somewhat amused to find myself soothing him over this after all. “How did you kill him?” he asked.
I hesitated, not really wanting to expose the monster inside myself. Harlan turned his head to look at me finally, his gray eyes assessing. “If it’s too painful to speak of, you don’t have to tell me, but if you can—I’d really like to know.”
“You might be sorry you asked,” I said, trying to be teasing and failing utterly as my voice creaked.
He put his hand over mine on the rail, covering and enfolding it as he looked steadily into my eyes. “Never. You can tell me anything.”
“You’ve grown into such a fine man,” I marveled. “You were a good-hearted boy, but you’re even better now. I’m amazed that you could, coming from what we did.”
“You did, too,” he replied. “You have found your place as an embodiment of Danu’s ideals. You are clear-eyed and act in the name of justice, protecting the weak and defending those who can’t defend themselves.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can,” he replied solemnly.
“I’m not always that. Killing Rodolf—there was nothing clear-minded or just about that.”
“Tell me.”
~ 10 ~
I took a breath, steadying myself to find the words to speak of something I hadn’t in so long. “When Kaja found me, I was so broken. I knew nothing about the outside world—not even stupid little things like that I could open the portholes in my cabin or light the lantern, so I sat in the dark.”
“How could you know?” he asked.
“I know I couldn’t have, but I was so helpless, on top of being injured. Kaja taught me how to defend myself. Remember that little dagger you gave me?”
“An eating knife,” he agreed. “So many times over the years I wished I’d thought to give you more weapons, spent more time teaching you to use them.”
“I wasn’t ready. Remember that I slept most of the time, with all the blood loss, and other damage. And we never imagined I’d be going alone.”
“No. You shouldn’t have had to.” He looked over the sea and I knew he’d never forgive himself that Kral found us.
“None of us can change the past,” I said softly, giving his back one last pat and turning to look out to sea beside him, adding my hand to the stack over his.
“True words,” he agreed. “So, Kaja taught you what I didn’t.”
“Yes. And she helped me create… a veneer, I guess. I layered Priestess Ivariel over broken Jenna, sealing up all those cracks. I colored my hair, darkened my skin, took vows of silence and celibacy, so no one would hear my accent or trip over how very messed up I was sexually.”
He made a snorting sound, but didn’t comment.
“And it mostly worked. But when Ivariel learned to wield a sword and blades, so did Jenna, and she… Jenna is not rational.” I paused, but he didn’t argue with me that we were the same person, as many people might attempt to do. “On the caravan road, a man tried to rob me. I don’t remember it, but I came back to myself with him in ribbons.”
“He deserved it.”
“Did he? I meted out vengeance, not justice.”
“Sometimes they’re the same.”
“Sometimes they aren’t. With Rodolf… I don’t remember much of that night either. I went to him, to keep him away from Ochieng and the D’tiembos.”
“He let you go alone?”
“I snuck out without telling him,” I confessed, “because he wouldn’t have sanctioned it. But I couldn’t bear to see them hurt. They would have defended me, those kind people who’d opened their home to me. They didn’t deserve being attacked by the beetle men.”
Harlan breathed a laugh at that, which gave me the heart to go on. “Rodolf, he attempted to assert his marital rights, and Jenna… Well, she awakened and she took him apart. Many of his men, too. I don’t know how many men I killed that night.”
“All of them, apparently,” Harlan noted, no reproach in his voice.
“No, because Ochieng and the D’tiembos brought the elephants. They were the ones to finish what crazed Jenna started. They cleaned up the mess. I woke up much later—I nearly died of my wounds—and so I mostly know the story from what Ochieng has told me.”
Harlan made a thoughtful sound, glanced at me as he squeezed my hand. “Thank you for telling me. I’m not sorry you killed him.”
“I’m not either, but…” I wrestled with how much to tell him.
“But you’re afraid it will happen again, when we reach Dasnaria.”
I blew out a long, cleansing breath, beyond grateful that he’d said it. “Exactly.”
“The red rage is a part of the Konyngrr family tradition,” he said, surprising me. “Did you know that?”
“No! I mean, it has a name?”
“It does. The battle fury that consumes a warrior, makes them nearly unstoppable. They don’t feel wounds, often don’t remember what occurs. It makes sense that you wouldn’t have heard the stories, as I doubt the women would’ve retold them, if they even knew. But when I began training, they warned me about the red rage. More, they encouraged us to use it. It’s said that our ancestor took the throne of Dasnaria largely because he was so fearsome in battle.”
I assimilated that with the sense of the world shifting beneath my feet—more than the unsteady sea caused. “I always assumed that insane rage came from what had happened to me.”
He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “That might’ve helped to trigger it, but it makes sense to me that the Konyngrr women would inherit the trait as easily as the men. The women just had less opportunity to express it.”
Or we’d always vented our aggression through cold calculation. Cruelty, manipulation, and poison had been the weapons of the Konyngrr women. And my mother had been the best at all of those twisted skills. “Has the red rage happened to you?”
“A time or two. It can be useful, if you’re pointed at the right thing.” He canted his head at me. “It allows you to advance without fear.”
“Thank you. That is helpful to know.”
He smiled at me, a little wistful. “A small thing, but at least something I can give you, after all this time.”
“Harlan, you gave me everything. You are the reason I had the time, that I had a life at all.”
He let go of out handclasp and put an arm around me, pulling me into a one-shouldered embrace. “I’m glad you found Ochieng,” he said gruffly. “I worried that, if you lived, that you wouldn’t find a way to be… I don’t want to say normal, but—”
I interrupted him with a laugh. “I won’t ever be normal, but yes—Ochieng gave me the time and space to heal, and he offered me love when I needed it, without expecting anything from me in return. Where you set me free, Ochieng gave me grounding to find myself again.”
“Now I understand why you’re concerned about explaining to him that you didn’t mean to sneak off on your own again.”
My heart squeezed. “Yes. I promised I’d never do that to him again. Hopefully he’ll understand.”
“He seems like the understanding type. My Essla, however…” He blew out a breath. “She may not be so forgiving.”
I briefly wrestled with what to say. “You should know—and I’m breaking a confidence here—but she talked to me about that. She suggested that I ask you to go with me to Dasnaria.”
He straightened, turning and searching my face. “Come again?”
“I know, it shocked me, too. But that’s why she came to find me this morning. She suspected this mission would be difficult for me, that I’d need your support and help, and also that you needed to go back, to tie up your own loose ends.”
“She never ceases to amaze me,” he said reflectively. “That may be another answer to the conundrum of power. For all of her brusque and decisive ways, Essla is truly selfless. If anything, she forgets to want enough for herself, she’s always so intent on protecting everyone else.”
“Sound like someone else I know,” I said with a smile.
“Yes.” He grinned wryly. “She says the same thing.”
“So, the question is, once we depose Hestar, who do we put on the throne of the Dasnarian Empire?”
He sobered. “Do you want it?”
“I…” I hesitated. “Do you think Jepp has foresight?”
With a deep belly laugh, he shook his head. “No. She is simply a very good bullshitter.”
I wondered. “I just haven’t thought about it,” I said, knowing it wasn’t true as I said it.
“You thought about it some.” He gave me a keen look. “I saw it in you.”
“I am my mother’s daughter,” I retorted. “Enough that, yes, all right, I thought about it—even wanted it for a few minutes—but I don’t know if I want to discover how power might corrupt me.”
“Maybe you’d be the right person to wield it. You know what it’s like to be powerless.”
“True.” I turned it over in my mind, but the decision felt too huge. “Kral is the logical choice.”
“He won’t take it.”
I raised a dubious brow and Harlan wagged a finger at me.
“You don’t fool me. By the way, I knew you wouldn’t kill him.”
“I thought I might.”
“No you didn’t.” He grinned at my scowl. “Regardless, Kral loves Jepp—she saved him from being a monster, and she would be miserable as empress. When he gave it up, he gave it up forever.”
“We’ll see.” Personally, I thought Kral was like me. Hulda had fed us ambition from the cradle on. I doubted Kral would be able to turn it down. “I suppose we can see how Leo, Loke and Mykal turned out,” I mused.
“I don’t hold out high hopes.”
“No.” I didn’t either. “If we put a child on the throne, that leaves them open to manipulation by the worst elements. We can’t do that—not to the kid or the empire.”
“We could burn it all down,” Harlan suggested, blandly enough that I wasn’t sure if he was joking or serious. “Depose Hestar, scatter the Domstyrr, return the empire’s holdings to its composite kingdoms and protectorates.”
“End the Dasnarian Empire entirely,” I breathed, dazzled by the possibilities. What a vengeance that would be. The lost princess returns to the empire that nearly destroyed her and destroys it instead.
“It would be a glorious ending to the tale,” he said, still watching me.
“Or a tragic ending.”
“Glory or tragedy—both in the eye of the beholder.”
“I suppose that’s true. I—”
“Come on you two,” Kral called from the door to the dining cabin. “Jepp is ready to broker your marital apologies.”
“I suppose you’d know all about that,” I said, heading that way.
He grimaced ruefully. “You have no idea.”
I paused, studying him, beginning to truly see him as is, not as he was. “I like Jepp,” I told him, and it felt like a kind of peace offering. “Her mother was one of the best people I’ve ever known. If Jepp is anything like Kaja…”
“Honest to a fault, afraid of nothing, everything she thinks comes out of her mouth?” Kral asked with a half smile.
“Sounds right.” I started to move, then paused again. “I’m glad she saved you.”
“Me too, sister of mine. Me too.”
Maybe Harlan was right, and Kral wouldn’t jump at the chance to be emperor. We would see.
~ 11 ~
Kiraka arrived like a second sun, blazing gold in the sky. Zynda could hear Kiraka’s thoughts and warned us of the dragon’s imminent arrival, so we were on deck and ready to go. The guys were rigging another rope ladder for Kiraka to slip over her shoulders, so they could climb up, along with a pulley system to load supplies. Zyr and Karyn had already left, getting a head start to make up for the gríobhth’s slower speed. Zynda had sweetly offered for Karyn to ride her or Kiraka, so Zyr wouldn’t get too tired, which Zyr had not appreciated.
“His gríobhth form is particularly possessive, even territorial,” Zynda explained to me. “He can’t stand the thought of Karyn riding someone else—he goes a little crazy with it.”
“Then why did you poke at him about it?” I wondered.
She widened her big blue eyes in false innocence. “That’s my responsibility as a big sister. Don’t you torment your little brothers—or rather, didn’t you, before?”
“No.” I must’ve been giving her an odd look because a line formed between her winged brows. “I mean, when we were little, maybe, but the boys leave the seraglio around age seven to be raised as men. I didn’t see any of them again after that until I turned eighteen and went out long enough for my wedding festivities. And that was for, like, three events.”
She stared at me in consternation, a hint of panic in her face. “The women don’t leave the seraglio ever? At all?”
“Some do. The wives go out to attend their husbands’ beds, same with the concubines and rekjabrel. And the empress goes out to attend court.”
“So do Inga and Helva,” Jepp chimed in, “and there were some family breakfasts with the wives and kids outside the seraglio when I was there—gender divided, though. And the women could observe court entertainments from behind a screened alcove.” She made a face.
“Things have opened up considerably,” I observed with interest. Inga and Helva’s influence, no doubt.
“Are you kidding?” Zynda burst out, expression a little wild. “It sounds like a cage!”
Marskal glanced over, his hands full of rope, looking concerned, but I waved him away. Zynda was only upset on my behalf, I figured. “It is a cage,” I replied very seriously. “A plush and luxurious one, but a cage nevertheless. That’s why I’m going back to break it open.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” she bit out, a hint of dragon fire in her voice. “I’m not just dropping you off. I’m going with you.”
“Don’t fuck up the plan now, shapeshifter.” Jepp assessed her friend with a keen eye. “We all know you make a terrible soldier, but if you can’t follow the plan, tell us now.”
Zynda sulked, there was no other word for it. “Fine,” she said. “But if anything goes wrong, I’m burning it all down with dragon fire.”
“Innocent people,” I reminded her. “There’s a reason this is a targeted strike.”
“Jepp,” Kral shouted, “let’s go!”
“See you girls in Dasnaria,” Jepp said with a saucy grin, giving us each a kiss on the cheek before she jogged off to leap onto the rope ladder dangling from Kiraka, climbing as agilely as a spider monkey.
“That’s my cue,” Zynda said. And she was a hummingbird hovering before my eyes. She zipped around my head, then zoomed to the other side of the ship, exploding in midair into the sapphire blue dragon. Kral was climbing up to Kiraka after Jepp, Marskal and Harlan headed my way.
“Ready?” Marskal asked gravely, and I nodded. I was beginning to learn that Ursula’s lieutenant was as habitually somber as Ochieng was sunny. He provided a counterbalance to Zynda’s wildness in a way that I supposed Ochieng must balance my more dour nature. We hadn’t been apart like this in many years, not since I’d gone to Chimto to stop a war. Not that we hadn’t been apart for long days of work and sometimes overnight, but not divided by such distance—and I felt more unmoored than I’d expected.
When we “spoke,” he’d been understanding, of course, and agreed that the strategy and timing made sense. Oddly, I could hear the cadence of his voice, even relayed by Andi speaking through Jepp. It had been more disconcerting than reassuring, however, the dissonance of not being able to touch him, or feel the subtle shifts of emotion that spoke more clearly than wo
rds.
My shoulders groaned at the climb up the rope ladder, and I ruefully reflected that there would be several more in my future. When I touched ground again, it would be in Dasnaria. Again sandwiched between Marskal and Harlan, I braced as Zynda plunged us into the churning storm.
Dasnaria in late summer turned out to be surprisingly lush and beautiful. Though we flew as high up as the dragons could, the features of the land below laid out under us like a colorful map. Harlan shouted in my ear, pointing out the cities and mountains, names I’d memorized along with which family held how much power, but had never laid eyes on.
We’d decided to land at Robsyn, a minor kingdom on the main continent and a calculated risk, but one I’d argued for. Princessa Adaladja of Robsyn had attended my misbegotten wedding celebrations—and had offered me help to escape the marriage to Rodolf. I’d been too obedient, too certain of my doom and the immovability of the bars of the cage that held me, to even contemplate her words. Now I’d redeem that offer, if it was still good. Even Kral had agreed that if anyone would be bold enough to aid us in this treachery toward the empire, it would be Prince Fredrick Robsyn and his unconventional wife.
Fortuitously, though Ada had described their kingdom as distant from the Imperial Palace, it did lie in our flight path. As the dragon flew, it wasn’t that far at all, not considering the distance we’d already covered. Besides, we had to land somewhere to reshuffle our passengers, and both Harlan and Kral had seemed certain there weren’t any open spaces where the dragons could land unobserved. It seemed odd to me, after the vast plains of Chiyajua, occupied only by grass and wildlife, but Dasnaria was densely populated. It made me even more keenly aware of how lucky Harlan and I had been to make our way through the mountains unseen.
That, and Harlan’s cleverness, even as a boy.
Robsyn Castle turned out to be set in a lush and lovely river valley. It had high walls, of course, but they were studded with glowing fires that somehow looked warm and friendly. Though night blanketed the valley, lights shone from clusters of homes sprinkled throughout—and I recalled gazing from the window of the seraglio at a manse where we’d stopped for the night on my wedding journey. I’d been dreamy, doped up on opos for the pain and to make me docile, but I’d wondered about people living beyond those glowing windows, trying to imagine another life besides my own.
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