A Heart of Blood and Ashes

by Milla Vane

  “Yet the queen bested her?”

  “No. Kabli pointed to another sparrow and hardly a moment passed before the queen let her arrow fly—but she didn’t hit the bird.” Amusement shook through the old man’s voice. “Instead she struck the kergen through the eye. Then she smiled and said to us, ‘I missed the sparrow. The iron is yours to take.’”

  Maddek grinned and Yvenne met his gaze again, her face alight with laughter. The warriors behind them were roaring their own amusement at Banek’s expense.

  Wearing a broad grin, Kelir asked him, “What then?”

  “What was there to do? She bade us to continue our journey—but warned us that if we tarried, she would return and her arrow would not miss again. Then she left us there with a dead kergen and a wagon train too heavy for our horses to pull. So we each took a few ingots and raced for home. I imagine that iron ended up in Syssian furnaces, where it had originally been intended.”

  “So you were not raiders that season,” Yvenne said, still laughing, “but poorly paid escorts for a load of Syssian iron.”

  “We were,” Banek readily agreed. “Though she let us leave with our lives, so perhaps not so poorly paid. A fine woman she was. A fine queen.”

  Maddek had heard that claim of every Syssian queen. But he had not heard this particular tale.

  Neither had the other warriors. “How is it you’ve never told us this before?” Fassad asked him. “I thought we had heard every raiding story there was to hear.”

  The amusement bled away from the older man’s face, which suddenly wore every one of his years. “That was the last happy arrow my sister drew. While we rode home, the Destroyer’s army was crossing Temra’s Heart, and at the end of that summer Kabli fell at the battle for Parsa. I was the only warrior in that raiding party to survive his march.”

  A march that began with the razing of Parsa, the ancient city at the heart of the Burning Plains. Then south—where Rugus fell, followed by Ephorn, Toleh, and Goge before Anumith the Destroyer made his way north again to Syssia. After conquering that city, his devastating campaign crossed the western edge of the Burning Plains toward Blackmoor and the Flaming Mountains of Astal. No one had been able to halt his course of death and destruction, not even the daughters of Krimathe or the warlords of Lith, though the blood of the gods themselves ran through their veins. But it was the Destroyer’s ambition that saved those who survived him, because he seemingly had no desire to rule—only to lay waste to everything in his path. As if determined to reduce the entire world to rubble, he continued west across the great ocean and had not been heard from for a generation.

  For a long moment, there was no sound but the squelching of mud around the horses’ hooves. Then Yvenne said softly, “It is said the Destroyer returns.”

  “If he does, we will once again see him bleed,” was Maddek’s vow, and it was echoed by each of his warriors.

  A faint smile touched Banek’s mouth, his gaze slipping over to meet Yvenne’s again. “I was at the Syssian wall that day—when Queen Venys cleaved through his flesh, and when she fell before him. I saw your mother that day, too, and it was as if I were seeing Queen Venys again, for she was just as strong. Every sorcerer and warlord in your mother’s path fell before her sword. And she was as a raging storm when she tried to reach the queen’s body before the Destroyer reanimated her.”

  “But was too late,” Yvenne murmured. “Yes, she spoke of that day often.”

  So had Maddek’s mother and father, who had also been there—and who had retreated with everyone else when Queen Venys had risen again. They’d all fallen back, not away from the Destroyer, but from the demon who possessed the warrior-queen’s body.

  In that retreat, the alliance had been formed. For the Destroyer moved on after crushing Syssia, but the demon-queen remained. So every remaining rider from Parsathe and every soldier from the southern realms had come together to defeat her, and it had been her own daughter who finally struck the killing blow.

  “She was fierce, your mother.” Banek eyed Yvenne speculatively. “She must have been the same age then that you are today.”

  “Near to it,” she replied. “She was six years shy of a queen’s age. I am but five years shy.”

  “Is that why she married Zhalen?” Maddek asked her. “She was too young to take the crown without issue?”

  Just as Yvenne was.

  “She needed no husband to conceive a child—many Syssian queens never married. Nyset did not. Venys did not. The union with my father was only to strengthen the new alliance.” She cast an unreadable glance at Maddek. “She had sight beyond what was seen, but she did not look long enough to see what he truly was. Or perhaps he knew that she would observe him from a distance before offering for his hand, and he wore a false face until they were married.”

  Gruffly Banek said, “I was sorry to hear of the illness that stole her strength. If not for that, no doubt she would have destroyed him when she realized what he was.”

  A bitter smile twisted her mouth. “It was not an illness.”

  Maddek frowned. “That is what has been said.”

  “Zhalen said many things. He said that he loved her even as he poisoned her wine with a full measure of fellroot.”

  The same poison that had withered the minister Nayil’s limbs—though it had been delivered by a blade, not ingested. Drinking fellroot should have killed her. But perhaps a strong, goddess-favored queen could survive it.

  Goddess-favored, but not invincible. “She did not see him do that, either?”

  Yvenne shook her head. “Nor did she know that it was he who poisoned her. Not to begin. While she was still fevered and suffering, Zhalen told her there was a conspiracy among the nobles—that they claimed she had been tainted by the same demon who possessed her mother, and had tried to kill her for it. And with that lie, my father purged every strong house that could have stood against him. By the time she discovered the truth . . . she hardly had the strength to hold a sword, let alone lift it. So he locked her in her chamber, visited her in her bed, and got his sons upon her.”

  “And got you upon her,” Maddek bluntly said. “Is being born of her poisoned flesh why you are so much smaller and weaker than Nyset’s other heirs?”

  Her shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. “My brothers seem unaffected. But I was born almost two full turns too early, so small that my mother said she could hold me in the palm of her hand. I should not have survived. So perhaps that is where all of my goddess-given strength went—it was spent keeping me alive as a babe. And it pleased my father that I was so frail. He believed my weakness and hunger would make me easier to control.”

  Maddek’s bark of laughter drew her gaze to his again. “Your father is truly a fool,” he told her. “For I have only known you a short time and know you could never be easily controlled. So you need not worry your husband will make the same mistake.”

  Her grin matched his, and she held his eyes for a long moment that heated his blood. Slowly her smile faded, though the intensity of her stare did not.

  A soft frown puckered the skin between her eyebrows as she continued to study him. “You are much more handsome when you scowl.”

  He laughed again. “Am I?”

  “You are,” she said primly. “You should refrain from smiling, especially after we are married.”

  “That will be no hardship. After we marry, I’ll have little reason to smile.”

  “I will make sure of it. It is so much more pleasant to look upon your face when you are unhappy, I shall endeavor to make your life a misery.” She eyed the grin that broadened in response to that. “Already you deliberately displease me.” Looking to Kelir, who was shaking with mirth upon his horse, she said, “Remember this moment if ever anyone speaks of how bitterly contentious our marriage is. I only have one small request of my would-be husband—that he does not smile—and immediately he deni
es me.”

  “I will remember it, my lady,” the warrior choked out.

  “As I will,” Maddek said dryly.

  She gave him such a slyly amused look in response that it seemed to Maddek the worst misery would come not after their marriage, but during these next seven days when he would not have her beneath him, and instead rode across Goge with his cock forged of molten steel.

  Her eyebrows arched, head tilted as she regarded him. “Now you scowl at me. It pleases me that you are so easily trained. I have heard every good husband ought to be—though perhaps not one who will also be king.”

  Laughter danced in her pale eyes when his scowl only deepened. But despite the ache in his loins, his mood was still light—and perhaps it was best to let her believe he could be easily led. So he didn’t respond but looked forward and said, “We will rest the horses at the head of the ruins.”

  And rest the woman who would be his bride. For as soon as the moon rose full, she would not find sleep until his seed overfilled her sheath. But there would be no rest for Maddek here.

  Until that night came, easy rest would not likely find him again.

  CHAPTER 12

  MADDEK

  At a word from Fassad, his hounds bolted past Maddek’s mare. Their agile bodies cut through the ground-clinging mist as they raced for the ruins looming directly ahead. They scrambled up the steep mound of rubble and were lost from sight.

  All was quiet except the plodding tread of the horses along the muddied road. The land surrounding the crossroads might have once been cultivated, but the fields lay fallow now, stubbled grasses growing in clumps around scattered boulders and broken stone. In the distance, a small herd of striped-legged antelope grazed near a copse of trees, pronghorn heads raised and alert to the warriors’ presence—but the Parsatheans would not be hunting them today.

  As the horses were rounding the ruins, the hounds emerged silently from the mist, tongues dangling. Judging by their wolfish grins, they hadn’t found any threats within the rubble or the road ahead. Still Maddek didn’t call a halt until the path began to curve back toward the river, where he could see both the way forward and the way they’d come. This route was well-traveled, and he didn’t expect that Syssian soldiers would catch up to them this day or bandits to be foolish enough to attack a group of Parsatheans, but better to have a view in both directions.

  The ground was firmer near the ruins than on the road, yet still soft. Mud sucked at Maddek’s boots when he dismounted. Yvenne moved more slowly. She was just swinging her leg over when Maddek caught her waist. Her thick cloak was still damp from the earlier rain, her spine stiffening at his touch—until she looked over her shoulder and saw that it was he. The immediate softening of her body had the opposite effect on his.

  Only seven more nights until he knew the softness and heat within her.

  Only seven more misery-filled days.

  He brought her slight form against his chest and carried her to the nearest slab of stone—a toppled column that lay half embedded in the soft earth, creating a wide ledge that came up to his knees. “You need boots. Your sandals are not well-suited for riding.”

  “Perhaps not, but muddied toes will not kill me,” was her tart reply. “I must tend to my horse.”

  “I’ll bring him to you.”

  She stood taller than Maddek when he set her upon the ledge—a position he suspected she liked. Her full lips curved as she looked down at him.

  “This must be how my mother and her mother felt. It must be a wondrous thing to stand so tall, never having to look up at anyone. Is that how you feel?”

  Maddek had never thought of his height as wondrous. He only stood as tall as Temra made him.

  But some elevated themselves in other ways. “Did you not look down upon everyone from your tower?”

  “No. Zhalen could not risk me being seen. Our windows were shuttered and locked, and we had but cracks to look through.” Her shrug could not be as careless as she tried to make it seem, for her voice thickened. “It mattered not. My mother could still see beyond the chamber walls and describe it all to me.”

  It mattered not. A lie. But not all untruths were on purpose. Maddek would not hold that one against her.

  Instead he directed her attention to Kelir, who had ridden toward the river’s edge, searching for dangers the hounds might not have scented. “He and Ardyl are in constant competition. When we were younger, she grew taller than he.” Taller than Maddek, too. “It was not until he reached his bearded age that his height overtook hers—but he did everything he could to speed it along. Once I found him hanging from a tree by his legs, because he hoped to stretch their length by a span.”

  Her sallow face alight with laughter, she watched the warrior return across the muddied flat. “Is that why he is always the last to dismount?”

  She had noted that? It was true that Kelir sat upon his horse longer than any other, but the height it offered was not the only reason he saw the other warriors settled before he took his own ease. As he was leader of the Dragon, the responsibility for Maddek’s security—and now Yvenne’s security—lay heavier upon him.

  But she was not wrong. “Watch how he rides by her,” he said, and when Kelir stopped near Ardyl but did not dismount until the female warrior looked up and saw him sitting so high above her, Maddek glanced back at Yvenne and saw her wearing a grin as broad as his.

  “Now she will cut him down with her words,” he told her, and though they were not near enough to hear Ardyl’s response, the flush that creeped over Kelir’s cheeks was easy to read.

  So was the querying glance Banek sent in Maddek’s direction, for his mare and Yvenne’s gelding were still saddled.

  “I will fetch your mount,” Maddek told her. “You ought to spread out your cloak beneath the sun.”

  Which was hot and had already dried the ledge she stood upon, though mist still rose from the sodden ground and from the moss-covered rubble behind her.

  Returning with their horses, he saw that she’d done as he’d suggested—and that beneath the cloak her robe was wet, the darkened silk clinging to her slim figure. But he did not think she would remove the robe and lay it out, as several of his warriors had done with their belted linens—as Maddek would have done if the damp and heavy material was not the best leash upon his cock. She’d folded her arms tightly against her chest, hands clamped beneath her chin as if to conceal the way the silk hugged her small breasts.

  But it was not out of modesty, Maddek realized as he led her gelding up beside the ledge. Her teeth chattered.

  Beneath a blazing sun. Though puffed white clouds drifted in the sky, none shielded Enam’s glaring eye. “Are you cold?”

  “No.” Brow furrowed, she looked uncertainly around, her pale gaze touching upon the ruins before sliding past them to the rushing river.

  “Are you fevered?”

  Her mouth flattened with irritation. “I did not take ill in the storm. I am not that frail.”

  Even warriors caught chill. He studied her face, the moonstone eyes that were still focused uneasily on the river. “Are you sensitive to magics?”

  Her gaze clashed with Maddek’s, her face utterly still. “I would not know,” she said slowly. “Never have I encountered any.”

  This would be a place to encounter them. He held out the gelding’s reins, and it seemed an enormous effort for her to unlock her arms and close her shivering fingers around the leather lines.

  Her palms were blistered, skin cracked and weeping. Maddek’s fists clenched against the instinctive need to take the reins back from her, but she would not appreciate it or benefit if he tended to her horse to spare her hands. As with saddle-sore muscles, the only remedy was more riding and calluses.

  Instead he moved to his mare’s side and said, “There are warriors who feel a chill near Parsa.” The ancient city the Destroyer had razed—
just as he had razed this bridge and trading village. “Perhaps the same dark magics linger here.”

  With a grunt, she pulled the saddle from her gelding’s back, stumbling under its weight and setting it heavily upon the stone. “Is Parsa still abandoned, as this place is?”

  “Yes. It is home to nothing but wraiths.” Malignant specters that raised the hairs on the back of any warrior’s neck, sensitive to magics or not. As he placed his saddle beside hers, Maddek’s gaze swept the fallow fields, the ruins. “The hounds usually sense such things.”

  In the alliance’s march against Stranik’s Fang, dogs had often alerted the army to the priests’ magics, allowing Toleh’s monks to cleanse any befouled areas before the warriors passed through. But Fassad’s wolves did not appear uneasy. Instead they were tussling playfully at Fassad’s feet as he fed them treats from his store of dried meat.

  “Perhaps I did take a slight chill in the rain, then,” Yvenne said wryly. “And it seems to be passing.”

  She no longer shivered, at least. Still, as soon as they were fed, Maddek would ask Fassad to send his hounds over the ruins again.

  “Go on,” he told his mare, and she immediately trotted to the nearest clump of grass. Not waiting for Yvenne’s command, the gelding started after the mare. Yvenne barely managed to strip its bridle free before the fool horse was out of reach.

  Her gaze was upon Maddek’s face when he glanced back at her. “You hope to get rid of my mount,” she said.

  “Why do you say that?” Because he’d not said so to her, though he had been thinking that they would likely pass through another village before night fell, and it would be best to find her another horse.

  “Because you often wear the same expression when you look at me.” She glanced away from his sudden frown as Toric—who had laid out belt, linens, and furs to dry—approached wearing only his sword, boots, and a small loincloth. The warrior offered bread and cheese. Taking a large chunk of both, Yvenne continued, “Danoh told me the gelding has weak pasterns, a short back, a steep shoulder, and shallow lungs.”