by Milla Vane
At least she did not lie.
“Do not again,” he warned her harshly. “Whether you use a sly tongue to speak of her or say her name aloud, my vow still stands.”
Swallowing hard, Yvenne nodded again, and the bloodbare fear faded into something both weary and longing. “May I speak of what was said regarding the alliance?”
Because she was still a queen in heart and mind, and worth listening to. Throat raw, Maddek took a swig and forced it down before he nodded.
“One hope is that burdens within the alliance might be shifted. Ephorn never hungers or thirsts, yet it sends soldiers to the Lave rather than provisions. But if we—Syssia and Parsathe—are united, we will have a stronger voice within the council. With Goge, that would be fully half the alliance who could argue for a better agreement that more evenly weighs contributions, and that does not place so much of the responsibility for the safety of every realm on either the Gogeans or the Parsatheans.”
A sensible plan. Yet still his throat burned with a pain the mead could not soothe. “This is your hope or my mother’s?”
“Both.”
“She never spoke of such hopes to me.”
“Perhaps she believed there would be more time. Or perhaps because she was a queen, and you are not yet a king.” Her voice was not unkind but still as merciless as a sword. “Perhaps she knew you are but a warrior. A fine warrior, but only a warrior—so when you look at others, you only look for weakness. You look for how to strike them down. That is what a warrior sees.”
So he did. A harsh laugh escaped him. “And a king does not see weakness?”
A poor king that would be.
“He does see it.” Her warm gaze moved across his face. “But when a king looks at a people—whether his people or not—he also sees their suffering.”
Tightly Maddek nodded. He had wished for guidance this day, advice to help untangle the problem of his bride. He had wished for his mother’s and his father’s simple lessons. Yet instead the lesson came from the woman who twisted him up so fiercely.
Still simple. But much more bitter.
She glanced away from him as the serving woman returned, announcing that her bath was prepared.
Biting her soft bottom lip, Yvenne looked to Maddek. “Do you want me to stay?”
He shook his head. “Have Fassad escort you to the chamber. If you wish for privacy, ask him to stand outside the door. Keep the dogs with you as you bathe.”
She watched him a moment more. Sighing, she finally stood, then stumbled when she swung her left leg over the bench and brought her weight down upon it. Maddek caught her waist. She steadied herself with her hands braced against his shoulders, then softly said, “You are already a fine leader, Maddek. And you will be Ran.” An impish smile curved her mouth. “But just as I will see to making your life a misery, I will also see to your becoming a great king.”
A gentle tease that he could not help but respond to—for he was absolutely certain she would do both. With an amused grunt, he told her, “Go on.”
Her hands slipped from his shoulders, and as his bride backed away she reminded him, “Wake me.”
“I will.” Maddek had not forgotten the promise of her mouth.
But that would come later. First he would learn more about the suffering that he’d been too blinded by his sword to see. His gaze fixed across the room, where the captain and his soldiers still feasted, their sullen recruits at a nearby table.
Perhaps they would not speak about hunger or tyranny. But mead always had a way of loosening tongues.
Rising to his feet, Maddek signaled to a barmaid for more drink.
CHAPTER 15
YVENNE
Yvenne could not decide which was more harrowing: seeing the blood wraiths in the fog . . . or facing the stairs that led to the inn’s guest chambers.
Her heart raced as the serving maid ascended ahead of her, leading the way. So quickly did the maid climb that she’d reached the upper landing before Yvenne mounted the first step.
Fassad followed her. Perhaps he noticed nothing amiss. Yvenne had been moving awkwardly for days. Her slow ascent while desperately clinging to the railing likely seemed yet another manifestation of her saddle soreness. But it was not her aching muscles or her shattered knee that hindered her, though she had to be careful—stepping up with her right leg and bringing her left even, before stepping up with her right again.
Step, rise. Breathing deep and steady. Step, rise. Just as she’d practiced these past three years.
Though for practice in her tower chamber, she’d only been able to build an irregular series of four steps out of footstools and stacks of bedding. This had five times that number of risers, and each one seemed as steep as a mountainside.
A scrabble of claws against wood came from behind her. Yvenne’s heart lurched into her throat when Steel and Bone bounded past her legs, upsetting her balance. So fiercely did she grip the railing, it ought have splintered beneath her fingers. Ahead the dogs turned and waited, tongues dangling. Her short gasps echoing the wolves’ panting, Yvenne focused on their toothy grins and continued up.
Step, rise.
By the time she reached the landing, cold sweat dampened her brow. Her fingers trembled uncontrollably when she released the railing.
Going down the stairs would be harder. But not until tomorrow must she face that terror.
With a hand upon his sword, Fassad told her to wait with the dogs outside the chamber entrance. She looked curiously through the door as he went inside and began searching the dark corners of the room. It was not a large chamber compared to the one she and her mother had shared in the tower, but it was bigger than many of the other rooms Yvenne had seen since they’d begun traveling. A curtain separated two sleeping areas—one side larger and more open, perhaps intended for the guests’ children or servants. Behind the curtain, the tin bathtub sat at the foot of the master’s bed, steam rising from the water’s surface. Fassad bent to look beneath the bedstead as if searching for thieves who might lie in wait.
At the stone hearth, the maid laid peat on the grate. “It is a warm night,” she said to Yvenne, “but your clothing and hair will dry more quickly in front of a hot fire. Shall I help you remove your robe and linens?”
Yvenne had never been bare in front of anyone but her mother, and that rarely. A screen in their tower chamber had served the same function as the curtain did here. “Thank you, no. I can attend to myself.”
With a nod, the maid said, “Is there anything more you require?”
“I think this will do.” Yvenne opened her satchel to find her coin purse. “What is your name?”
“Sarus, my lady.”
“Thank you, Sarus.”
Eyes as bright as the gold glinting in her palm, Sarus’s gaze darted about the room, as if searching for something else to do. She stilled when that gaze landed on Fassad, and Yvenne did not see the warrior’s expression herself, but the maid’s hasty exit told her that his face forbade any more delay.
He said a few words to Steel and Bone, who immediately raced inside the chamber and began sniffing the corners.
Digging into her satchel again, Yvenne searched for her soap and silver comb, laying them within reach of the tub. “You do not mind that the wolves stay with me?”
Fassad’s reply was an amused rumble. “The true question is whether they mind staying with you, and I think they do not. You spoil them.”
So she did. “Do you mind that?”
“No.” The tall warrior withdrew to the chamber entrance. “If you need anything, shout. I’ll be directly outside.”
The door latched behind him. Yvenne wasted no time shedding her soiled robe and stained linens. Never had sinking into heated water felt so fine. A moan of pleasure escaped her, the sound apparently unusual enough that the wolves’ ears pricked forward and they drew c
loser to investigate. Curiously they sniffed the rim of the tub and her cake of soap before thrusting their shaggy muzzles into the water, long tongues lapping.
Laughing, Yvenne pushed at their big heads with dripping hands. “Go and take your rest.”
They trotted over to the fire, where they curled up on the wooden floors that had felt so much warmer beneath her feet than the polished stone of her tower chamber. Coarse linens covered a mattress stuffed with straw, and the bedposts were roughly carved. Nothing like the silks and pillows that had adorned the tower. But in truth, there was little difference. Her mother had made certain Yvenne would recognize that. For what was the luxury in the tower but the labor of Syssians? She washed now with soap made by Syssian hands, perfumed with anise grown by Syssian farmers. Her comb was made of Syssian silver, mined and smithed—and when she finished washing her hair, she dunked soiled linens woven by Syssian weavers, then scrubbed a silk robe sewn by Syssian seamstresses.
Her father never understood that. He saw the luxury as his due—not the debt that it truly was. A people’s efforts made a realm strong, and a ruler’s duty was to dedicate all of her efforts toward protecting her people’s safety and freedom.
For freedom was the greatest luxury. Freedom and a full belly.
Now her belly was full of Gogean meat. Wrapping her body in a coarse Gogean cloak, Yvenne hung up her clothing to dry. Warmed by the heat of a Gogean peat fire, she sat on the edge of a Gogean bed, leisurely threading her comb through her hair.
Had she ever been more content? Yvenne could not recall a time. Content in her purpose, though so much remained undone. Content in her choice of husband, who was angry and grieving, yet who still listened when she claimed he was not a king—and who had defended her to his warriors, despite reprimanding her in the stables for failing in her duty to them all. She had not been mistaken when she’d chosen Maddek, though their marriage would never be an easy one. And nothing would ever be settled between them unless he allowed her to speak of his mother.
Perhaps when the grief was not so sharp, when Maddek learned to trust her, he might rescind that vow.
Perhaps.
Sighing, she carefully wrapped the soft perfumed soap in waxed parchment before tucking it away into her satchel. At the bottom lay a heavy velvet pouch containing her gold and jewelry. She wore no jewelry now but would don one item in that pouch after her marriage to Maddek: a silver crest, much like the one he wore upon his thumb.
Ran Ashev had worn the crest that now rested in her jewelry pouch. Yvenne would place his mother’s crest around her own thumb . . . if he ever allowed her to say how she came by it. For just as her fury and pain were all but impossible to separate, so his rage and grief seemed entwined. While still heartstricken by the murder of his parents, if he saw Yvenne wearing Ran Ashev’s ring he might cut off her thumb rather than listen to her explanation.
And she did not want to lose more fingers. Or her tongue.
A tap sounded at the door, followed by, “Are you still in the bath? It is Danoh.”
Coming to sleep. “I am finished,” Yvenne called.
Beyond the request to enter, Danoh did not speak and Yvenne did not expect her to. From her perch on the edge of the bed and behind the thin curtain, she could not clearly see the rest of the room, so it almost seemed as if she were alone. In the quiet, she strapped her jeweled dagger to her calf again, then admired the glint of the hilt’s rubies and sapphires against her brown skin. How well she liked the feel of the weapon—especially now, when she had no other protection but her cloak.
She had the wolves and Danoh, of course. But the dagger meant Yvenne could see to her own safety, and she hadn’t felt that particular pleasure since Ran Ashev had given her a bow.
Loosing the arrow that killed her eldest brother had been a greater pleasure still.
But that memory was followed by unhappy ones Yvenne had no wish to revisit. Clutching the edges of her cloak tight over her chest, she drew back the curtain. Danoh had tossed her furs onto the floor beside the entrance but had not bedded down yet. Instead she was examining the chamber’s corners and checking the shutters—even looking up into the rafters—just as Fassad had done to judge the security of the room. Her gaze slid past Yvenne and the curtain, landing on the dogs.
“Fassad has gone to the stables,” Danoh told her.
Instead of remaining outside the door. “Should I send the wolves after him?”
She shrugged. “If you wish. I am protection enough. But if they are not beside your bed, I prefer you keep the curtain open.”
Though Maddek would come to the bed—and anyone in the chamber might know how Yvenne saw to his need. Not that a curtain would prevent them from hearing. And not that they had greater privacy in his furs each evening. The only privacy they truly had was the custom of turning away eyes. But it all seemed more intimate within the chamber instead of a camp under the open sky.
Cheeks hot, she said, “I would keep the wolves here.”
Danoh grunted, as if the answer did not affect her one way or another. “Do you wish to keep this lamp lit?”
“No.”
The warrior extinguished the flame. By the flickering light from the hearth, Yvenne drew the curtains, then wrapped her cloak closely around her body before lying on the bed.
The barrier provided by the curtain looked more uncertain in the dark. Between the panels of fabric, narrow swaths of the chamber were visible. The glow from the fire fell upon the leg of a table, across the wooden floor, and over Danoh’s bare foot.
Yvenne closed her eyes. Maddek had said he would wake her when he came to bed. She doubted sleep would come before he did, however. Not with her heart thudding as it was, as if her blood ran slow and thick through her veins. Every breath felt heavy and her skin as hot as if she were still in the bath. Anticipation was a low burn, a warmth that heightened and tightened every time she pictured the way he looked at her with dark eyes full of fire and hunger.
Her heart gave a wild thump as the door latch slid back. Her eyes flew open, her body tense.
Hushed laughter accompanied the shuffling of feet. Abruptly it quieted, followed by whispers and more laughter. A table leg screeched against the floor, as if someone had stumbled into it. Silence fell, then was broken by a woman’s muffled giggles.
Sarus, the barmaid—who was between Ardyl and Kelir. In the dark, Yvenne could not be certain whose hands and whose mouth were currently upon the maid’s waist and neck, though both warriors seemed determined to put their hands and mouths everywhere.
But she was certain Maddek was not tangled up with them.
She sat up. “Kelir?”
Sudden quiet. Then, “Did we wake you, my lady?”
From her spot by the door, a soft grunt from Danoh sounded like a curse and answer, all in one.
But matters more urgent than her sleep concerned Yvenne. “Who is guarding Maddek?”
Fassad had gone to the stables. Toric and Banek had also planned to sleep there, watching over the horses. If they had already gone to bed, then none of the Dragon was left to protect Maddek.
“He drinks with the Gogean soldiers,” Kelir said. “Toric is still with him.”
Drinking with the Gogean soldiers. She had suggested to Maddek that he speak with the Gogeans to learn the truth of their situation. It seemed he had followed her advice.
“Thank you.” She hesitated before adding, “You may carry on now, if you wish to.”
Over Ardyl’s muffled snicker, Kelir solemnly replied, “I do wish to, my lady. Thank you.”
Eyes closed and determined to ignore the activity on the other side of the curtain, Yvenne lay back again.
Sarus’s sharp gasp—as if made in pain—had her eyes flying open again. Were they hurting her? Half afraid of what she might see, Yvenne peered through the slit between the curtain panels and could not at first ma
ke out the scene taking place on Kelir’s furs. There seemed too many legs and arms and hands. Then the glint of firelight on Ardyl’s piercings allowed her to orient limbs and assign them to their owners.
Sarus straddled Kelir’s lap, her back to his chest. His big hands cupped her breasts and he kissed the length of her arched neck. Ardyl’s face was buried between the barmaid’s spread thighs.
Oh. It was not a pained gasp that she’d heard.
Prickles of awareness racing across her skin, Yvenne watched as Sarus bit her lip, her back bowing. Kelir’s rough murmur reached her ears, too low to make out the words, but Sarus suddenly gave a breathless laugh and Ardyl lifted her head to grin up at him.
Her heart suddenly full and tight, Yvenne closed stinging eyes. So this was what her mother had spoken of. Queen Vyssen had reassured Yvenne that usually relations between lovers were unlike those between Zhalen and her mother. Always Yvenne had been sent behind the screen when her father came to the queen’s bed, and she held hands over her ears as instructed, but still she heard his cruel and mocking voice. Still she heard the slap of skin and thud of flesh. Her mother never cried out. Never. But by the sounds, Yvenne had known Zhalen hurt her.
Still, her mother had told Yvenne not to fear. That they would never choose a husband who was brutal as her father was. That they would never choose a husband who hurt her, but one who could please his partner in bed.
And although Yvenne had believed her mother, she had not known what pleasure truly looked like. Not until this moment, seeing Ardyl and Kelir and Sarus smile and laugh and gasp.
Would Maddek taste her as Ardyl tasted the barmaid?
The moment Yvenne imagined it, an ache centered deep and low inside her. Stifling a groan, she curled forward in the bed, clamping her hands between her thighs.
But Maddek would not be as Ardyl was. Because try as she might, Yvenne could not picture her would-be husband smiling and laughing as he licked her cunt. Instead his expression would be fierce, his dark gaze hot and hungry and intense.