A Heart of Blood and Ashes

by Milla Vane

  Yet his cock still stood stiff as an iron pike. That owed nothing to her appearance. It was the bold way she looked at him. It was the heat of her. It was knowing her lips would be wrapped around his shaft this night.

  The barmaid returned then, mead sloshing over rims in her haste. She served Yvenne first and plonked another pewter flagon in front of Maddek with as much care as she might serve a dog. Kelir’s was delivered in the same haphazard fashion.

  As long as the mead didn’t spill into his lap, it mattered not. Amused, Maddek drank. The barmaid watched Yvenne’s first swallow with the intensity of a mother watching a newborn latch onto her teat.

  With foam on her upper lip, Yvenne eased the woman’s unspoken concern. “It is refreshing, thank you.”

  The woman’s smile was wide and bright. “Anything else, my lady?”

  “I cannot imagine—”

  “You will be staying overnight? Your party has secured a private chamber?”

  Yvenne’s gaze flicked to Maddek. “I believe so.”

  He nodded. A large private chamber for Yvenne, himself, and his Dragon guard, though a few of the warriors would sleep in the stables. Parsathean horses were too valuable to leave where any bandit might steal them.

  “Shall I arrange for a bath in your chambers, then?”

  “A bath?” Pleasure lit Yvenne’s face.

  Her pleasure was outshined by the barmaid’s. “We will begin heating the water now. I shall happily attend to you . . . in any way you wish,” she finished breathlessly.

  Because inns often catered to all of their guests’ needs. Maddek frowned but before he could respond, Yvenne shook her head. “I am accustomed to looking after myself.”

  The woman appeared as if she might burst into tears.

  Ardyl, who had been quaking with laughter through this exchange, slid her arm around the barmaid’s soft waist and pulled her closer. “Do you wish to attend to someone, you can attend to me.”

  The woman’s devastation seemed eased by Ardyl’s interest. Eyebrows arched, Yvenne glanced quickly toward Kelir—perhaps to see how the warrior liked Ardyl flirting with the barmaid he’d singled out for himself—and her brows rose ever higher when she saw Kelir’s broad grin.

  She looked to Maddek and whispered, “Is this also a competition between them?”

  It was. Though not as Yvenne likely imagined. They would not compete for the barmaid’s attentions. The competition would come later, after they’d secured those attentions.

  And Kelir did not even look at the serving woman now. Instead he focused on Yvenne. “So you think Maddek handsome?”

  “I believe it,” she said. “But I am no true judge.”

  “He has a fine brow,” Kelir said.

  Her lips twitching, her gaze rose as if to appraise it. “Indeed. Placed very neatly above his eyes, where a brow should be.”

  “Those eyes are also keen. Only half the riders in Parsathe have keener vision than he.”

  “Commendable. And when he scowls at us, those keen eyes appear quite dark, which I like very much,” she mused while Maddek lifted his mug. “And even though he laughs as he drinks, he dribbles no mead down his chin. By his own admission, a beard free of drips is preferable to one that is not.”

  “He is remarkably adept at drinking and eating,” Kelir agreed. “It is thanks to his strong jaw. I have seen him consume a roasted grass rodent in a single bite.”

  “Is that impressive? How large is a grass rodent?”

  Kelir demonstrated with his hands, and Yvenne began giggling.

  “To be fair, he ate a young one, and most of it was tail,” Kelir added, then lowered his voice as if confiding in her and as if Maddek did not sit between them. “His beard is a foul sight.”

  Her eyes widened. “Is it?”

  “Warriors should be as silver-fingered Rani.” Kelir rubbed his own shaved jaw. “Rani has a smooth face. As I do. As we all do—though Danoh and Ardyl have an easier time of it.”

  Slowly she nodded. “So you are the more handsome.”

  “I am. Unless you think this hideous and repulsive.” He traced the scar that raked down the side of his face.

  Though her expression didn’t alter, Yvenne’s leg tensed against Maddek’s. “Are scars repulsive?”

  “The barmaid thought not,” Maddek remarked dryly, and Kelir grinned.

  “She did not,” he agreed.

  Those moonstone eyes met his. “Do you think scars are repulsive?”

  “No.” Maddek set down his mead. “Scars are but stories for a warrior to tell. Just as the smiling lines on that woman’s face are.”

  By the appreciative light that lifted through her expression, Yvenne liked that answer.

  Maddek thought she would enjoy something else more. “Ask Kelir to tell you how he earned that scar.”

  The warrior groaned.

  Across the table, a laughing Fassad broke in. “If you do not tell it, we will—and you will fare far worse for it.”

  Kelir narrowed his eyes at the other warrior. “You were not there to see it happen.”

  “But we have heard the tale many times over.” Fassad gestured to Maddek. “Most often from him.”

  “You heard the worst telling of it, then.” Submitting to the inevitable, however, Kelir turned to Yvenne again. “It was during the campaign against Stranik’s Fang. We’d crossed the Lave and ridden south for a full turn when we came upon a great herd of three-horned fanheads.”

  Beside him, Yvenne sucked in a sharp breath. Her wide eyes searched Kelir’s face before tripping to meet Maddek’s, then returning to Kelir again. “Fanheads?”

  She sounded almost disbelieving, though they’d seen a family of the heavy reptiles only a day past. She had looked at them wonderingly then—but seemed far more surprised now at their mere mention.

  Kelir nodded. “As far as could be seen.”

  She stared at him, lips parted. “Go on.”

  “It had been a long day of riding through a narrow canyon.” He gestured to Maddek beside him. “I remember not how we came to speak of it—”

  “We had been comparing drepa hunts,” Maddek supplied. He flicked the four raptor claws threaded on the leather cord around his neck, clicking them together. “Kelir only had two then.” And three now. “He thought to make up the difference with the fanhead’s snout horn.”

  “I would have. From it, I’d have carved the finest hilt ever gripped by Parsathean hands.” Kelir looked to Yvenne again. “There was a bull, the largest ever have I seen. And I approached it so slowly—”

  “But it charged,” Yvenne broke in, her eyes bright. “And struck you with its two longhorns, tossing you into the air—that was when your cheek was laid open—but you managed to grip its frill and find a seat upon its back. Then it ran, so far and so fast. It took half the night for Maddek and a dozen other warriors to chase you down.”

  Kelir shot a dismayed glance at Banek. “You told her?”

  Brow furrowed, the older warrior shook his head.

  “My mother did,” Yvenne said, and let go a merry laugh. “Until this moment, I had not known the warrior who’d ridden the fanhead was you. Oh, but I remember how she described it all—that the bull was almost twice as tall as you were, and that its frill was as green as new grass.”

  It had been green. Most were not. The three-horned fanheads they’d passed the previous day had red and yellow frills.

  Unease squirreling up his spine, Maddek frowned. “Your mother told you?”

  “We followed the campaign closely from our chamber.” Some of the amusement bled from her tone, replaced by melancholy. “She would have given anything to march with the alliance’s army. Perhaps even lead it.”

  But the warrior-queen’s body had been wasted by poison—and Maddek’s mother had led the army, instead.

&nb
sp; “She watched us?” A glance at the other warriors confirmed that they were as unsettled by the thought as Maddek was.

  “Yes.” Softly biting her bottom lip, Yvenne searched his face before looking to the others. “Not only the army. Everyone.”

  “Everyone?”

  Her gaze returned to his. “The alliance council. Other royal houses. People within villages and cities and outlands.”

  “Only in the southern realms?”

  “Parsathe, too. Sometimes farther. She often looked for the Destroyer, but his magics concealed him from her eyes.”

  At this moment, Maddek cared not about the Destroyer. “She watched my mother? Envied her?”

  Yvenne’s pale eyes hardened until they resembled the moonstone they were named after. Tautly she said, “Do not suggest that my mother conspired against yours.”

  He would not. Queen Vyssen had died three years ago, and Yvenne sent the message to his parents in the past year. But in that tower chamber, more than Nyset’s heir might have been bred and fostered. “I wonder if it was not your mother who harbored a hatred of mine, for all that she had done and Queen Vyssen could not.”

  “You think my father did? He hates everyone.” But a breath later she understood his meaning. The realization was followed by a bitter and disbelieving laugh. “You think I did?”

  “Did you?”

  “No,” she said fiercely. “No.”

  Maddek believed her. But he made no reply, downing the rest of his mead, trying to wash away the sour doubt that crawled up his throat.

  Kelir was frowning at her, too—but in confusion rather than suspicion. “What purpose did she have?”

  “To teach me,” Yvenne said hotly, as if her fury at Maddek still burned. “So I would know something of the world beyond the chamber walls and be prepared to lead my people.”

  Maddek believed that, too. From what he had seen, her mother had taught her well. Yvenne had been guided as Maddek’s parents had guided him.

  “What did she tell you of Goge, then?” Toric asked, though Maddek did not think the young warrior cared much about Goge—only what sort of things her mother’s blessed gaze had looked at that he might look at now, too. “Did she tell you of this village?”

  “Unless there is some marker, it is difficult to know. I recall no specific mention of the village nearest the bridge ruins.” Her gaze slipped around the common room. “It seems much like other Gogean villages she described.”

  “And how did a warrior-queen describe them?” Maddek tore free another roasted joint from the platter. “Did she see what I do—a land ripe for conquering, because beyond the Gogean city walls there are too few soldiers guarding its roads and borders? Did she see a people reluctant to take up arms, because they must join a queen’s guard instead of knowing the pride of defending their own homes? A people who will forever rely upon the alliance to protect them from the Farian savages, and yet whose council minister begrudges every speck of grain the army consumes?”

  Nods and low grunts of agreement came from the other warriors. Of course they had observed what Maddek had. Any fine warrior would, and his Dragon were among the finest.

  Yet Yvenne did not look upon him as if she thought so. Instead her clear gaze searched his face as if looking for something more from him . . . and did not find it.

  Quietly she said, “So it is not only me.”

  Maddek frowned. That was disappointment in her tone, and he disliked the effect it had on him—heaviness within his stomach, tightness in his chest.

  “What is not only you?”

  For a long breath she gave no answer. Then she said, “Bid your Dragon to leave us alone, for you will not wish them to witness my response.”

  “Why?” Did she intend to slap him? With a short laugh, Maddek glanced at his warriors and saw the same surprise and amusement there. “They might like to watch.”

  She merely looked at him. Waiting.

  Was this repayment, then? Earlier in the stable, to spare her any humiliation, Maddek had also made certain his warriors would not witness what was done and spoken. “Are they words best left unsaid?”

  “No. These words need to be said.”

  “There is nothing you can say that they cannot hear.”

  Her answer was firm, her gaze unwavering. “They cannot hear this.”

  Curiosity warred with irritation. Finally he nodded.

  Without argument his warriors rose, each clutching their mead in one hand and their plate in the other as they sought new seats. Among the villagers, there was no hesitation before room was made on their benches and the warriors were welcomed at different tables. Yvenne’s gaze followed them, and then she turned to Maddek, who was downing the rest of his drink.

  “You are not a king,” she said gravely.

  A fact well known, as he had not yet been named Ran. And perhaps he would never be, if the Parsatheans choose another to speak for them.

  “I am not,” Maddek agreed.

  “You misunderstand me. Even if you are named Ran when you return to the Burning Plains, you have neither the heart nor the mind of a king. You recognize no strength except that of a sword. You are only a warrior.”

  So it was not a slap. Instead she ran him through with a judgment as sharp as a blade.

  Struggling to draw breath, slowly Maddek set down his drink. He ought not to care for her opinion. But he saw in Yvenne what she did not see in him. She was a queen—and she had deemed that he lacked not only a king’s title but the character.

  Maddek could not even claim with true conviction that she was wrong. For he had thought many times he was only a warrior.

  But he also believed he would serve his people well. Yet she did not think so? The woman who would be his queen, his bride?

  Never had he been eviscerated so efficiently.

  Relentlessly she continued. “I thought you resented protecting me because you despise me for my treachery. But now I hear the same disdain when you speak of the Gogeans. Do you always resent those you have promised to help and protect? Do you only offer your sword grudgingly—or do you only resent them when they are not Parsathean?”

  Anger welled through the ruptures she had torn in his pride. Maddek had offered his sword in full allegiance to the alliance. That allegiance had not been returned. “It is not I who am reluctant to fulfill my duties to the alliance. The Gogeans rely on Parsathean might to protect them, yet every bushel of grain sent to the Lave must be pried from Kintus’s fingers.”

  Unflinching even in the face of his quiet fury, she simply asked, “How do you feed yourselves on the Burning Plains?”

  “We all hunt.” As her mother had likely told her, if Queen Vyssen had truly spied upon the alliance. “We all sow the fields and reap the harvest. And when we are threatened, we all fight.”

  “On the Lave, you did not sow the fields and reap the harvest. You depended upon Gogean grain.”

  His jaw tightened. An army could not function without food. Was she suggesting they should have grown their own around the camp? “That was the alliance agreement.”

  “So it was.” She reached for her mead and said easily, “What would happen at home if you could not harvest or hunt enough?”

  “All would go hungry.”

  “Even the children and the elderly?”

  “They would be the last.” Maddek and every warrior he knew would fill a child’s plate before his own.

  “Have they gone hungry since the alliance was formed?”

  “No.”

  “The Gogeans have,” she said, holding his gaze. “Young, old. Farmers, millers, innkeepers, merchants. All have gone hungry but the queen—and the king before her—and their guard.”

  Maddek frowned. How could that be? “This is Temra’s most fertile land. Never do Gogean crops fail. Always they produce more than their people
can eat.”

  “And the alliance squeezes them for every bushel. Farmers are fined and their children conscripted if they fail to produce their portion, even if giving a full portion will not leave enough for their family or their village. Even if it means that the next year, they will produce even less, because they have not the same number of children to work the fields with them. And those conscripted children are not allowed to return to their villages after serving in the guard, because the queen fears an armed resistance—and she would not train the soldiers who would rise up against her. Yet she cannot reduce the number of her guard, and she cannot loosen her grip upon the farmers, because the alliance makes certain to tell her that the Parsatheans will withdraw from the Lave and her people will all be raped and killed by savages if Goge does not deliver every sack of grain demanded.”

  “Is this truth?” He searched her face, not truly doubting, but also struggling to believe. “I have fought alongside Gogean soldiers. They never spoke of hunger or the crown’s tyranny.”

  “If you doubt me, speak to the villagers or to the queen’s guard.” With a subtle gesture, she indicated the Gogean captain who sat with his soldiers at the other end of the room. “If they will speak of it. But do not call it cowardice if they refuse. If forced to decide between indulging a Parsathean warrior’s curiosity and protecting their families—considering they might be punished for what they say—speaking might not be their choice.”

  Perhaps not. Still Maddek would find out more before he left Goge. Because he would fight for and support the alliance, but such tactics could not be tolerated.

  In that, Yvenne seemed of the same mind. Little wonder that she cut him down for speaking of the Gogeans in such a manner. He deserved it.

  But was she certain all was as she claimed? Her mother had died three years ago.

  “You know of this from Queen Vyssen?”

  “Yes. But more recently from my younger brother, on the council.” Her gaze flickered for a moment. “And I have heard it from others.”

  Others? While locked in her tower?

  Sharply he asked, “Do you speak of my mother?”

  Her expression froze, eyes wide and gleaming, her face suddenly bloodbare with a stark fear that gave him no pleasure to see—and then she pressed her lips together, as if to protect her tongue from his ripping fingers, before slowly nodding.