The games… the ones where—unless she got an idea in the next few hours—she would let down all of her new subjects with a single word.
Chapter 15
As Veron entered the training cavern, Yelena was already there in her kuvari robes, practicing the sword. Her hair was up in the braided circlet as it always had been, and her movements were lithe and agile as ever.
“Did you miss me?” she asked with a sweep of her blade, smiling impishly.
“Two thousand years passed in the blink of an eye,” he murmured, leaning against a blackstone pillar. Two thousand more could pass before he’d miss her—no, not even then.
Dark-amber eyes darted to him as she stepped into a lunge. “Look at you, all decked out.”
He was already dressed in his combat leathers, ready for dinner.
“So your mother finally married you off. And to a human.”
He crossed his arms. He cared for Aless, but rubbing it in Yelena’s face wasn’t going to win him any favors here. “I do as my queen commands.”
She forced out a laugh. “I certainly would have used that to my advantage.”
“It was never going to be yours to use.”
Setting her jaw, she practiced a block. “You just couldn’t see my vision.”
Oh, he had seen her vision, all too clearly. An ambitious, royal-blooded kuvari who had known she could never have defeated her own mother in single combat… and so had used a love affair with him in Nozva Rozkveta to try to learn Mati’s weaknesses, in a bid to seize the throne of Nozva Rozkveta. Her plan had relied on making the Offering to him, then dueling to join Mati’s Quorum—but he’d learned about Yelena’s lies first and had told Mati.
Instead, Mati had betrothed Zoran to Yelena’s mother. And that had been the end of that.
“Your… ‘vision’ was a pack of lies,” he said casually. “And I wasn’t about to let you try to overthrow my mother.”
“Try?” A deep laugh. “I would have succeeded.”
Yelena was a skilled warrior, but not Mati’s match, whom even Nendra would have struggled to best. But for a person desperate to step out from her mother’s shadow, Yelena truly seemed to believe in what she was saying.
“You don’t have anything to prove,” he said. “Everyone knows you’re one of the strongest kuvari. And not just in Dun Mozg.”
She rolled her eyes, slashed low, and then high. “I don’t need to be told that.”
“Because you already know. Everyone already knows.”
She blew a sharp breath from her nose. “Your point?”
He stepped in front of her, and she stopped a blow just short of his arm. Her eyes wide, she looked him over, and he rested a palm on her sword-hand.
“My point is that Alessandra is a human,” he said, keeping his voice low. “There’s nothing to be gained from challenging her.”
With a sneer, Yelena straightened, pulled away, and sheathed her sword, her pale kuvari robes dark with sweat. “Is that what you predict I’ll do? Challenge your little human?”
“I know better than to try predicting what you’ll do, Yelena.” He peered down at her, at the wheels turning in her gaze, in her expression. “But our peace with the humans, our trade—even the food this queendom is getting—rely on my marriage with Alessandra.”
“They’re weak. Helpless. At the slightest challenge, they scurry like salamanders. No strength at all.”
“Not in the ring. Not combat strength. But Alessandra has a different kind of strength,” he shot back. Aless wasn’t weak. Wasn’t helpless. In a test of wits, Yelena would find herself vastly outclassed.
“There is only one kind of strength that matters, Veron,” she hissed.
This was going nowhere. “I’m asking you this as a favor, Yelena.”
“A favor? For old times’ sake?” Raising her eyebrows, she looked away with a shake of her head, then crossed her arms. When her eyes met his once more, they were narrowed and dancing mischievously. A look he’d seen from her countless times. “Maybe one last roll in the moss, then, for old times’ sake?”
He groaned under his breath. There was no sense in trying to reason with her when she would only toy with him for her own amusement. Yelena was determined to issue the challenge and embarrass Aless in front of everyone present, send a ripple through the queendoms about the new Nozva Rozkvetan human princess refusing to fight and thus having no honor.
No more toying. He’d simply beat Yelena to the ring and challenge her first. Once he defeated her, as victor he’d be able to choose his next opponent, and that would be that. Yelena would never even get the chance to embarrass his wife.
It was the right move.
He turned away and strolled to the exit. “Nice talking to you, Yelena,” he deadpanned.
“See you at dinner,” came the jesting reply.
Aless rose from the stone bench in the chamber she shared with Veron. Decorated in smooth stone and metal, its surfaces were hard, sharp, softened only by what appeared to be undyed silk, a soft, cottony white. Silk bedding, cushions, curtains. Even a silk rug, woven in shades of white and tan. The room was a marriage of soft and hard.
In the mirror, she wore her dark-blue satin dress—one of her best—fitted through the richly embroidered bodice, with boots beneath, and the strand of Mamma’s pearls around her neck.
She couldn’t fight—true—but she was still a princess of Silen. And everyone who looked her way tonight would know that, and know that with her station came the aid they all enjoyed. And that if any harm came to her, they’d be without it.
Gabriella tightened the braid she’d coiled at the nape of her neck. “There. Perfect.”
“I approve,” Gavri commented from her post at the doorway, swirling the tip of her own braid around her fingers. “There’s something I love about that hairstyle, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
As casual as Gavri seemed now, her meeting with Zoran had shaken her. She’d practically run from the stable after all.
“Very funny.”
Both Gavri and Zoran had things they needed to say to each other, it seemed, questions that needed answers, wounds that needed healing. Maybe it would be better if they said them instead of keeping them bottled up inside. Easier for them to move on.
She strode up to Gavri and jabbed a finger at her. “You are going to meet him in the stables later.”
“I am?” Gavri stared down at her finger. “I can’t. What about guarding—”
Aless shook her head. “You need to hear whatever he has to say to you. You two have loose ends.”
Sighing, Gavri leaned her head back against the door. “If Queen Nendra hears of it, even if nothing hap—”
“You can’t help it if I need to get some air and require my guard to accompany me, can you?” With a grin, she breezed out the door.
“Good plan,” Gavri said in a high-pitched voice, sidling up to her. “I like it.”
In the hall, Veron strode toward them, over six feet of black-leather-clad muscle, the hard angles of his terrifyingly beautiful face tight, eyebrows drawn, golden eyes hard. Riza followed him with a scowl.
Had he spoken with Yelena, then?
But when he looked up, met her gaze, those hard angles gave way to a soft smile. One she’d put there.
He gave her a once-over, and the curve of that smile was unmistakable as he took her hands. “You look beautiful.”
“All Gabriella’s work,” she said, rubbing her thumb over his hand.
He gave a friendly nod to Gabriella, who curtseyed. When his gaze wandered to Gavri, she bowed her head and looked away.
This disagreement between them would have to end. Maybe they could discuss it later tonight.
“How did your talk go?” she asked as he wrapped her hand around his arm and led her down the hall.
“Swimmingly,” Riza snapped, shaking her head.
Veron hissed at Riza, then turned back to her, rubbing warmth into her hand. “She’s eager to rule�
��”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Riza mumbled under her breath.
“—but is frustrated in her mother’s shadow.”
“She’s frustrated, but she’s not stupid,” Gavri said, despite Veron’s glare. “If she embarrasses Her Highness, when Queen Zara hears about it, that could affect relations with Dun Mozg. She won’t endanger the alliance.”
“You don’t know her as well as I do,” he snapped.
“No one knows her as well as you do,” Gavri shot back, then her eyes went wide as she swallowed.
Veron went rigid, but Aless stepped in.
“How do the games work?” she asked as they crossed a corridor in the black crystal palace, their booted footsteps echoing.
“The first warrior may challenge until she or he loses,” Veron said. “When the first warrior finally loses, the victor issues challenges until she or he loses.”
“How do you win?”
“Get your opponent out of the ring, or until your opponent taps twice,” Gavri supplied, and Veron nodded, but a frown slowly furrowed his face. “No blood drawn—it’s bad form.”
“What about the ring? What’s in it?”
Veron jerked his head back. “No,” he hissed, stopping near a stone bench.
“Sand.” Gavri raised an eyebrow at him.
Sand… That wouldn’t hurt too much. “It’s light sparring, right?” she asked. “What if I accept the challenge?”
“Absolutely not,” Veron said through clenched teeth.
“Not a terrible idea,” Gavri replied while Veron scowled at her. “Hurting Her Highness would destroy the peace. She wouldn’t use the games to truly injure Her Highness.”
“If she endangers the peace, that could mean her people don’t eat.” She took Veron’s arm with both of her hands until he looked at her. “If she wants to rule and she’s intelligent—which I expect her to be, if you were fond of her—then she won’t starve her people just to make a stranger look bad.”
“She’s passionate about leadership,” he said with a sigh, “just extremely impatient, and sometimes myopic.”
That sounded all too familiar. With a fleeting smile, she lowered her gaze as they walked endless stretches of gleaming black floors reflecting the light of mushrooms, glowworms, and torches.
Yelena—as a woman among the dark-elves—had a real chance, no matter how small, of ending up a true leader. When a dream became tangible, the temptation to reach for it became nearly irresistible. What had Yelena done?
Nothing too repugnant, if she was still free, still an heir to the throne here. She might have been impatient, but not deranged.
Soon, the din of myriad voices muffled through two heavy stone doors.
“If she challenges you,” Veron whispered, “just decline. There’s no good reason for you to take such a risk.”
Two kuvari, armored in sage-tinted arcanir plate, opened the doors, revealing a sea of people crowding long stone tables and benches. Some of whom had arrived with her and Veron—her people.
Every reason for her to take such a risk.
“His Highness, Prince Veron u Zara u Avrora u Roza, Valaz u Nozva Rozkveta, Zpevan Kamena, Volodar T’my, and Her Highness, Princess Alessandra u Aldona u Noor u Elise, Valazi u Nozva Rozkveta, Valazi u Silen,” a herald shouted, and every voice in the room hushed as Veron escorted her and Gabriella in, along with Riza, Gavri, and ten other kuvari. Every dark-elf stood, tall and straight, arms at their sides.
Floor candelabra and massive crystalline girandoles lit up the grand hall, reflecting firelight off surfaces like black glass, with an empty ring of sand at the center, outlined in white etchings. Their steps were the only sound, and as they passed several empty spaces on the stone benches, most of their entourage stopped but for her, Veron, Gabriella, Riza, and Gavri.
The air was thick with the savory spice of roasted sausage, and the lemon, olive oil, polenta, and rice-flour pasta. The aroma of Bellanzole’s viands—human foods.
Veron led them to the farthest table, where a well-built, statuesque woman waited in a gleaming black throne, her long hair secured high, surrounded by four men, Zoran among them. No one else here seemed to have more than one partner, but this queen did. She wore impeccable plated black leather, and armor over her fingers.
“I am Queen Nendra. Welcome to Dun Mozg, Prince Veron, Princess Alessandra.” With a measured smile, Nendra inclined her head, and she and Veron responded in kind. Nendra gestured to the men surrounding her. “This is my king-consort, Zoran”—who grinned and nodded—“and my concubines—”
Concubines?
“—Kral, Ivo, and Cipriano.” A grim-faced muscular dark-elf in armor, a pale and slender well-coiffed man in a black coat, and a black-bearded, green-eyed man, olive-skinned just like her. Sileni?
Human? No, Zoran had mentioned a werewolf lover, hadn’t he? What about Ivo?
But she greeted each in turn with Veron until Nendra gestured to the spitting image of herself, with her white hair braided in a circlet about her head.
“And this is my firstborn daughter, Yelena.”
“A pleasure, Your Highness.” She inclined her head to Yelena.
Yelena smiled, but it didn’t reach her tawny eyes, and every shred of her brown leathers was pulled tight. A muscle twitched in Yelena’s clenched jaw. “The pleasure’s all mine.”
Queen Nendra glowered at her, then glanced at a young girl seated next to Yelena. “And my youngest, Karla.”
Karla, her voluminous hair tied in a high ponytail, met her gaze squarely, even while partially hiding behind Yelena’s hip. A bold little girl, she could be no older than five or six, if dark-elf children aged as human children did. But even for a child, she was thin. When Veron had told her about the starvation, she hadn’t wanted to believe him, but he’d been right.
Nendra turned to her people, arms raised. “Our honored guests have arrived,” she bellowed. “After Kral saved two of our volodari yesterday, he has the honor of first match. Let the games begin!”
Cheers rose up from the crowds, who then seated themselves at the stone benches once more. A musician in the corner began a beat on a large, resonant drum.
Scowling, Veron gestured her to a nearby space, where she sat between him and Gavri on the cold, hard surface, with Gabriella beyond, and Riza at the end.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered to him.
He shook his head. “I didn’t realize anyone would have the honor of first match.”
At least it wasn’t Yelena.
The spread before them was colorful, with dishes of steaming pasta and sausage placed among Sileni boules, greens, fruits, and cakes. The entire table was laden with human food.
“Please tell me there’s butter,” Gavri murmured under her breath, patting Gabriella’s arm. “Gabriella put some in my chestnut mush earlier today, and Holy Ulsinael, she changed my life.”
She laughed, and across from her, Cipriano was hiding a smile as he buttered a roll.
“Some things are worth the two-thousand-year wait,” he remarked, his voice deep and gravelly.
“I’m going to need that. Really, really need that,” Gavri said, her eyes fixed on the block of butter.
Nendra tipped her head up to Cipriano. “With this new alliance, you can have all the butter you want. Just don’t get fat, eh?”
“If I don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying, my queen.” They shared a grin that would have been sweet if Zoran hadn’t been sitting between them, blinking lazily.
“Would you pass the, er, gigantic human bread loaf?” he asked Veron, waving a fork around, and Veron obliged with narrowed eyes, sliding the boule over to him across the table.
Yelena observed the exchange with an aloof glare, her gaze raking over the spread of Sileni food. Karla sat next to her, her little pale eyebrows drawn together as she looked out at the dishes. Yelena gathered some pasta and bread onto her plate, whispering words in an encouraging tone.
As she offered her lit
tle sister human food, Yelena had to know what the peace meant. She had to.
While Zoran tore off a chunk of bread and buttered it under Gavri’s avaricious gaze, Kral stood and took to the empty ring. At its center, he clasped his hands behind his back and faced toward Yelena, who still sat with Karla.
A series of whoops rose up and rhythmic thuds of hands pounding on the stone, until Yelena looked over her shoulder at him, thumped her chest twice with a fist, and stood to raucous cheering.
“And so it begins,” Veron said on an exhale.
“Why fight during a celebration?” she asked quietly. “Why not just dance?”
“It can be like a sort of dance,” Gavri said, her mouth full of buttered bread. “When two warriors are attracted and then equally matched, it’s… probably what you humans would call a seduction.”
Swallowing, she nodded. Dark-elves chose their mates by their strength, choosing equals.
And never in her life would she ever be equally matched to Veron in combat.
Kral and Yelena circled one another, exchanging jests and feints, before Kral threw a punch, his massive physique the charge of a bull. Yelena misdirected his arm and evaded, dodging an elbow before landing a knee to the gut, then the face.
She backed away, grinning at Kral, who rubbed his jaw. As they circled, he moved her closer and closer to the white ring, until she tried to dart left.
He blocked, enclosing her in his enormous arms, but she slammed the top of her forehead against his face. His grip loosened, and she grabbed his arm, twisted it, and with her foot to his back, shoved him out of the ring.
Cheers rose up from the crowd while Yelena held up a fist, grinning.
No blood—Yelena had to have pulled her punches?
“Is he going to be all right?” she whispered to Veron.
“Nothing the hot springs won’t cure,” he whispered back.
Prodding at his face, Kral headed back to the table, where a dark-elf in gray robes and bone necklace rushed to tend him. All the while, Ivo and Cipriano and even Nendra herself patted him on the back while others shouted calls of support.
When they quieted, whoops staggered across the sea of tables, and that rhythmic thumping on the stone began again, and in the middle of the ring, Yelena stood, her hands clasped behind her back—
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