Crown of One Hundred Kings (Nine Kingdoms Trilogy Book 1)

by Rachel Higginson

  “I am indeed from Heprin,” I countered. “My companion and I have journeyed from the Temple of Eternal Light.”

  If possible, Gunter’s eyes narrowed further and something akin to recognition lit his expression. “You might have hailed from there recently,” he argued, “but you are not from there originally.”

  “I am not.”

  “And you’re not Arrick’s wench.”

  I nearly choked on air. “I am not that either.”

  Gunter’s wide mouth split into a smile. “So what brings a fair maiden well into treacherous territory with only a novice monk by her side?”

  I squared my shoulders and suggested, “Maybe it was the novice monk that dragged me along instead?”

  “No,” Gunter decided. “The monk has the look of terror about his face. You, my dear, are something more than afraid.”

  “And why does there have to be a reason?” My fingers felt cold and shaky. If Gunter was the mercenary his reputation declared him to be, the crown pressed against my hip was in more danger than ever. “My only goal was to see more of the realm. To see, after all this time, what my homeland looks like.” Lie. “I can hardly remember it.” Another lie.

  “I have sworn to kill Arrick Westnovian,” Gunter replied.

  My gut curled with fear for a man I had known scarcely a month. “Does he know this?”

  “He does.” The stranger leaned in, smelling of leather and spice and something sweeter, something like peppermint. “He has sworn to kill me in turn.” I nodded. That seemed reasonable. “So until either I kill him or he kills me, no one shall get in the way of our intentions.”

  “You’re warning me not to kill Arrick because you want to?”

  “Aye.”

  “That makes no sense.” When he opened his mouth to reply, I held up a hand to stop him. “It’s no matter anyway, as I do not wish any harm on Arrick or his men. They have been good to us. And in turn, we shall reward them for their service.”

  Gunter’s eyes glinted. “Reward? And how will a penniless maiden and impoverished monk reward anyone? With smiles and feelings of gratitude?”

  Anger burned through me, eating away at my resolve and intelligence. “Aye.”

  “I am to understand that you will travel through Soravale before you head to the Diamond Mountains?”

  “Yes. That is what Arrick has suggested.”

  “Then I suggest, fair maiden, that you learn to lie better.”

  The breath left my lungs in a gush. By the time I’d worked up the ability to speak again, he’d already gone. He walked slowly over to where his horses were penned, holding a hand out to them in a gentle gesture that contrasted starkly with his gruff aura.

  Arrick approached from the other direction, so I reluctantly tore my gaze from the newcomer I did not trust to meet the eyes of someone I could reluctantly admit I was growing to trust a great deal.

  He paused near us and nodded toward his friend and enemy, “I see you’ve met Gunter Creshnika.”

  “Friendly fellow,” Oliver grunted.

  Arrick’s lips twitched but his gaze stayed steady on me. “Did he bother you?”

  “No.” Arrick raised an eyebrow, forcing me to explain. “At least no more than you do.”

  This time I was rewarded with a chuckle. “He doesn’t trust people by nature.”

  “I’m not faulting him for that,” I answered. “Some might say you trust people too easily.”

  “Are you speaking of yourself?”

  “Not me,” I smiled at him. “I wouldn’t dare insult your kindness.”

  He stepped closer to me, forcing Oliver to move back. “And yet, it feels as though you are.”

  I felt myself lean into him. “I’m merely suggesting that you could learn a few things from your friend.”

  His lips twitched. “When the Cavolia set up camp, they allow their horses to sleep in their beds with them. And when they kill an enemy, they bleach their bones and wear them around their waists as belts.”

  My gaze flicked to Gunter as he leaned in to nuzzle his horse’s snout. “That cannot be true.” Gunter’s long leather coat hung to his calves, blocking any view of bone belts that might be there.

  “Even stranger still, they share their wives.”

  My mouth snapped shut and I tore my gaze from Gunter to Arrick. “You don’t mean…”

  He nodded confidently, “I do mean.”

  Oliver’s face flamed red and he abruptly excused himself.

  “What is your point?” I asked Arrick, keeping my eyes fixed on his face, instead of gaping at the Cavolian women and men like I wanted to.

  Arrick stepped forward again, letting his fingers trail along the inside of my wrist. “My point is, Tessa of Elysia and Heprin and the Temple of Eternal Light, while he might know better than to trust you, he isn’t really an expert on all of the wise things of this world.”

  Some magic danced through the air, warming my skin and belly. I leaned closer to him, hypnotized by the mystery in his eyes and the compelling twist of his lips. “But you are, Arrick Westnovian of the Blood Woods and Commander of the Rebel Army?”

  He flinched. Just barely. I wouldn’t have caught it if I hadn’t been staring at him. But there, in his eyes was a moment of doubt… or regret… or…

  He bent down brushing his mouth against mine. I lost my breath at the sensation.

  My mind blanked and a too-hot haze covered every inch of my skin. I had expectations and hopes and something like desire blooming inside me, but as hastily as he had kissed me, he retreated.

  This time when I struggled for breath it was out of frustration.

  “Sir?”

  I swallowed down a new wave of embarrassment and followed Arrick’s gaze to one of his men. Arrick looked as discomfited as I felt and I reveled in the red flush covering his neck. “Yes, Dravon?”

  “The meal is ready,” Dravon answered stonily. His eyes darted to mine briefly before returning to Arrick’s. “If you are.”

  “I am.” Arrick cleared his throat and straightened his tunic, even though it wasn’t askew. “I’m ready. Feed the people. Don’t wait for me.”

  Dravon nodded, “As you wish.”

  Arrick didn’t hesitate. He held out his arm, indicating that I should take it. “Shall we eat?”

  My mind flashed back to my past life, the one before chaos and grief and pain. I hadn’t taken a boy’s arm in years. Since I was a child.

  I hadn’t been the recipient of manners this courtly since… I reached up to touch the gemstones dangling around my neck, the sense that I was missing something stirring inside me once more.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him, wondering why he stood there like a chicken with his arm cocked at the elbow, frozen in mid flap.

  “I’m supposed to do this,” he sighed. He played with the finery draped over his shoulders. “My father told me.”

  “Well your father doesn’t know everything,” I argued. “You look like a lost chicken.”

  He growled at me, but then his blue eyes lit with victory. “There,” he pointed at my father as he mirrored the gesture to my mother. She linked her arm in his and he led her off toward the dining room. “See?”

  I glanced down at the shimmering gold of my gown. It would stand out against the stately blue of his tunic. But I liked that.

  Trying my best to mimic my mother, I slipped my arm through his and nibbled on my bottom lip in an effort to keep from smiling.

  He stared at me with wonder, his bright eyes dancing with confusion. “That feels…”

  “Strange?” I whispered, hating that my stomach seemed to plunge to my toes.

  He shook his head. “No, Tessa. That feels nice.”

  “Tess?” Arrick asked, still holding his arm out to me much like the little boy in my memory.

  “Thank you.” I linked my arm with his and ignored the bubble of warmth fizzing through me and that buzz of something sharper, something I was not yet ready to discover.

&nb
sp; Dinner was an extravagant affair compared to even the hearty meals of the rebel army. The Cavolian women cooked with spices I had never tasted before. The bold flavors burned my tongue and boiled in my blood, but everything was delicious.

  The stew contained root vegetables and hunks of wild elken. They served flat bread with a dusting of spices followed by a sweet mead that washed everything down.

  By the time supper was finished, I felt dazed, warm, and full.

  I tried to help the women clear the dishes and wash out the soup caldron, but they shooed me away in a language I didn’t understand. Finding Oliver propped against sacks of potatoes near the fire, I slid down next to him and smiled at the flames so different from the ones we encountered yesterday.

  “I have never tasted mead this sweet before,” Oliver declared loudly.

  I grinned at his wild eyes and ruddy cheeks. “Did you have your fill of it?”

  He held up a wineskin, sloshing some of the honey colored liquid onto his lap. “Never!”

  Reaching for the skin, I laughed when he held it out of reach with his long arms. “Woman,” he slurred. “You may be royalty, but that does not give you the right to my mead.”

  “Oliver!” I abandoned my quest for his drink in order to make sure we were out of hearing distance from anyone else.

  We weren’t. Clusters of people, both Tenovian and Cavolian hovered around us, but nobody seemed to notice his blatant slip up.

  He didn’t either. He tipped his head back and guzzled more mead, only pausing to hiccup.

  “You’re drunk,” I accused him.

  His head lolled to the side. “I’m not,” he argued. “I’m… I’m taking a break.”

  I understood him even though his words came out sounding like Imatakeabrrreaka.

  “From what?”

  The wineskin slipped from his fingers and landed at his side, tipped up just right so not to spill. If his head hadn’t plopped on his arm and his body drooped nearly sideways, I would have thought he’d done it on purpose. “From worrying about you.”

  Had he been worrying about me?

  Music began behind me and the strange sound drew my attention away from my drunken friend.

  Cavolian men stood near each other, bathed in the glow of the fire. Each held a different kind of wooden instrument; the plucking sent melancholy spiraling through the balmy night.

  The air still smelled of burning embers and the spices from dinner. Laughter drifted around me, telling the story of survival and life and of Tenovians who weren’t crushed beneath the weight of tragedy.

  I wondered at the strangeness of the night. I had lived in silence for the last eight years. And now, in the span of a few weeks, I was bombarded with voices and laughter and now music.

  My heart swelled; my mind spun with every new sensation; my memory bloomed with old ones.

  Those that didn’t play began to take women in their arms and dance around the fire. Soon the Tenovians joined in as well, laughing and swaying to music like none I’d heard before.

  Gradually the music picked up tempo. Soon clapping and shouts of joy joined the song.

  Leaving my satchel and Shiksa next to Oliver, but well within sight, I stood and moved to the edges of the crowd. I felt more like an outsider than I had the entire time we’d been riding with the rebel army. Even the rebels found single women to swing around and hold close.

  The Cavolian women danced with a sly grace. Their shapely figures seemed designed for the music. Tenovian women were built sturdier and taller than the Cavolia, but they seemed to pick up the style of dance easily.

  I watched in awe as the two cultures mingled together in a wild way. The music grew heavier, the mead flowed faster, and I waited for someone to bay at the moon.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  My hand flew to my heart. I turned to Arrick. “Yes,” I agreed.

  He held out a hand to me. “We should probably join.”

  There was a lift to his lips, subtle and captivating. It reminded me of the music. I wanted to lean in and trace it with my finger.

  His warm hand closed around mine and tugged me forward. I resisted too late. We were already swept up in the dancing before I could remember to decline.

  “I-I don’t know how,” I confessed.

  His hand tightened over mine and his other arm wrapped around my waist, nearly lifting me off the ground. “I don’t believe you.”

  My fingers curled into his tunic, “It’s true!” He spun me around, my toes brushing the soft earth. “I’ve been locked away in a monastery! I don’t know the first thing about dancing!”

  Arrick smiled down at me, hypnotizing me once more with his blue eyes. He set me back down on my feet and moved more carefully, allowing me to follow his confident lead. “I disagree.” His arm tightened around my waist and I held on more firmly to his tunic, afraid that he would twirl me again. “You do happen to know the first thing about dancing.”

  I found myself smiling back at him. “And that is?”

  “To trust your partner.”

  “Ah.” I shook my head, amused by the way his ego seemed to spread wings and take flight.

  He stepped from side to side, showing me the basics with patience I hadn’t expected. I wasn’t a terrible student, but I was embarrassingly out of practice. Even as a child, I hadn’t been my parents’ pride and joy in a ballroom. That had been my sister, Katrinka.

  Eventually, I learned the necessities of the dance and let Arrick handle the complicated steps. We laughed our way around the fire, enjoying the way the music danced with us and the stars sparkled overhead.

  After a while, the music slowed and with it our steps. Arrick pulled me against his chest so that we were almost indecent. He held me there, daring me to pull away.

  Another flash of memory or maybe recognition buzzed through me. There was something about Arrick, something that had been niggling through me since the moment I saw his face fully for the first time. The way he held me. That challenging look in his eyes. The way in which he touched me. It was all familiar. He was familiar.

  His words from earlier danced through my head, floating on the music.

  I thought I was going to lose you again…

  But before I could fully grasp my thoughts, he asked, “Did the monks keep you by force?”

  His question came so suddenly that I couldn’t formulate an immediate answer. His brows drew down at my silence.

  “Tess?” he asked softly. “Did they truly lock you away?”

  I shouldn’t have been so candid with him. “I was exaggerating,” I finally told him.

  “So you could have left any time you pleased?”

  No, I couldn’t have. Father Garius wouldn’t have allowed it. But it wasn’t to be cruel. He kept me there for my own protection, something I had always been keenly aware of. I couldn’t explain all that to Arrick however. So I lied, “I could have. The monks housed me out of charity. Not captivity.” He looked at me in such a concerned way that the next words out of my mouth escaped without my permission. “Although at times it felt like I was a prisoner. I was an orphaned child. And a girl at that. Where could I have gone? I was too young to have any marketable skills. I was, clearly, naïve to the outside world. I had no money or other family. I would have starved within weeks. And if someone else had found me… Well, the possibilities are unthinkable. The monks were the only thing keeping me from ruin. I needed them.” Truth.

  Arrick’s fingers brushed over my jaw. I forced my gaze to his and found tenderness waiting for me. My heart responded immediately, stopping and then speeding up until I could barely breathe through the pounding of it.

  It had been years since I had felt this cherished. And I didn’t know what to do with it.

  There it was again. For a moment he reminded me of someone else. Those bright blue eyes sparkled with an intensity that I had seen before. His mouth pressed into that familiar serious smile and I could have sworn he was someone I knew. Someone I had truste
d once upon a time.

  But then he started speaking again and all traces of that little boy from my childhood disappeared. In his place stood a man. A man that was caring, but also terrifying. A man that rebelled against king and country and fought for a different kind of world.

  “Then I’m glad you had the monks,” he murmured. He leaned in, brushing his lips over the corner of my mouth. Stars burst to life in my blood. I wondered if the entire world could tell that I was as bright as the sun inside. “But now you have me.”

  He stepped away, leaving me to stand by myself in the middle of the universe. The heat of the fire warmed my back and the warm night air caressed my face.

  “I’m glad of that too,” I whispered to Arrick’s back as he left me dancing with the feel of his lips against mine.

  14

  The next morning, we prepared to set out once again. Help had arrived for the Tenovians from a neighboring village. Arrick decided that we had done what we could, and he knew I was eager to be on my way.

  Oliver sidled up next to me looking as though he had just risen from his death bed. “Are you alright?” I shouted as loudly as I could.

  His whole face scrunched up in misery. “Mead,” he mumbled.

  At just that moment his horse was brought to him. The rebel soldier who had cared for it held out the reins while Oliver stared at them with a mutinous tilt to his green-tinted chin. “No.”

  The soldier rocked back on his heels. “What do you mean no?”

  “I can’t do it,” Oliver confessed. “I can’t possibly ride that thing all day.”

  “Are you ill?” The soldier looked truly perplexed.

  Oliver nodded once. “Of a sort.”

  The soldier turned to me. “Is he ill?”

  I slanted my head and held his steady gaze. “Does drinking an excess of mead usually make one ill? Because if so, then yes, Oliver is very ill indeed.”

  The soldier’s head tipped back and he let out a great guffaw. He grabbed Oliver’s hand, dropped the reins in it, then walked away.

  Oliver doubled over and promptly threw up.

  “Ack! Oliver! Warn me the next time you decide to lose your lunch!”