Draken tipped the flat of his sword toward his forehead in salute. Aarinnaie had won this round soundly.
***
Draken leaned on Osias’ bed and let the sword clatter to the floor. The Mance rolled over, wide eyes open and abruptly alert. “Draken?”
“Dislocated shoulder,” Draken muttered. Admitting it aloud sent a new wave of nausea through him. He sank to the floor and husked out, “Wake Tyrolean.”
Steady, lad.
Bruche hung about in the forefront of his mind like a nervous father awaiting the birth of his first child. The cold sensation set Draken to trembling. He fought to control his rising panic and mumbled, “I need it set, and I need to go after her.”
Without a word, Osias sent Setia after Tyrolean and helped Draken onto the bed. Draken shifted around in a futile effort to make himself comfortable, but there was no escaping the throbbing wrongness in his shoulder.
Tyrolean arrived sleepy and bare-chested. He said nothing as his quick fingers unbuckled Draken’s armor and pulled it gently away. He probed the extent of the injury, the pressure of his hands making Draken hiss before he leveraged the arm back into place.
Draken cried out: a guttural inflection of consuming agony which was gone as fast as it had appeared, followed by sheer, stunned relief. Worse were the mail sleeves. Despite being buckled across his back, they still required some awkward twisting of his rapidly swelling shoulder. Draken groaned as the last of the armor came off.
Elena’s pendant had fallen on the bed and Tyrolean pressed it into Draken’s hand. “What happened, my lord?”
“Aarinnaie,” Draken said, his breath short. “Gone with someone on horseback.”
“Taken?” Osias asked sharply.
“Went willingly enough.”
Draken thought of her cry ringing out in the clearing: Stay your blade! A wave of weakness washed over him, not from the pain, and not from the fear of his near death, but from the memory of her looking back at him. Much emotion had been poured into her cry.
Steady
, Bruche said again.
You’ve had a bad time of it.
Tyrolean began to bind Draken’s arm against his side. “Who was he?”
“Didn’t say,” Draken said, “as he was rather busy with trying to kill me.”
Tyrolean’s fingers stopped and he looked into Draken’s face. “Then why didn’t he, my lord?”
He avoided Tyrolean’s gaze. “Because Bruche was better than him.”
The Captain gave a crisp snort of accord, and went back to the knot on the makeshift sling. “Rest now,” he advised. “It’s a Gadye innkeep, right? She’ll have something for your pain.”
“I have to speak with her tonight. She knows more than she’s said.”
“You’re not sound enough to move,” Tyrolean said. “Ice, Setia, if the inn has a cellar.”
She nodded and slipped through the door as Osias finished dressing and arming himself.
Draken looked from Osias back to Tyrolean. Osias had become a friend, truth, but the Captain was a soldier first, used to taking orders and giving them, and taking decisive action. Foremost, he was accustomed to setting his personal feelings aside. This, more than the rest, reassured Draken.
He drew a deep breath and set his jaw against the pain. “You don’t know where Aarinnaie is, do you?”
“I will work to find her trail,” Osias said. The firelight flickered on his silvered skin, somehow dispersing and absorbing light at once.
Setia returned with the ice, chips of it in a cloth bag. She gave it to Draken but turned to Tyrolean. “Do you find Osias beautiful?”
Tyrolean jerked as if shaken awake. “The Mance are a handsome race, no doubt.”
Setia glanced at Draken and nodded, satisfied.
The Mance seemed to miss the moment, as he was busy pulling on boots and slinging his cloak over his shoulders. He turned back at the door. “Your assignment, Captain, is to see Draken rests and does not disturb our hostess until we are better informed.”
Draken looked at Tyrolean, who returned a wry grin as the door latched behind the Mance. His first, Draken thought, since they’d met.
“The Mance thinks he outranks the Night Lord and his First Captain, does he?” Tyrolean said.
Draken felt he could almost like him in that moment. “You think you can keep me here, Tyrolean?”
Tyrolean adjusted the ice on his shoulder and dropped onto a bench, forearms on his knees. “You’re not fit to stand, much less call on the Gadye mask. I don’t see it will be a problem.”
Draken closed his eyes. It had been far too long since he’d rested, and more since he’d seen a bed. Galene’s scarred face filled his mind. What did she know about the man who had stolen Aarinnaie away?
“And call me Ty, will you—” Tyrolean interrupted himself with a yawn. “Whenever I hear my full name it makes me think I’m awaiting a whipping from my father.”
Draken was asleep before he could answer.
***
He woke to an excruciating headache, a sour stomach, and the sound of rain pattering the ground. He lay for a moment, just breathing, garnering courage to move. Finally, he opened his eyes to find Setia smiling down at him.
“You’ve blood on you. I thought you might like to be clean.” She reached out and wiped his cheek with a wet cloth.
Draken stirred, testing. Even moving his arm the slight bit that Tyrolean’s binding allowed sent a stomach-turning wave of pain through him, so he submitted to Setia’s washing without protest. The ice had melted when he slept, dampening the bed under his shoulder. The rest of him was sweaty with fever.
“Drink this,” Setia said, holding out a small metal cup. “The innkeep had it sent.”
The thick brown liquid smelled caustic and coated his throat, but he swallowed it down obediently. Anything to ease his hurts. “Some wine, if you will,” he said hoarsely, and Setia helped him with that, too. He felt more himself by the time Osias and Tyrolean strode in and shut the door.
“Good, you’re awake.” Tyrolean dropped down on the bed next to Draken. Creases of exhaustion narrowed his outlined eyes. “A Va Khlar merc took Aarinniae, I think. He left their symbols in the woods, and a good blood trail. Chased them to River Erros, but they were gone. We’ll follow as soon as you’re able.” His shrewd gaze took in Draken’s state. “Not this day, I see.”
Draken struggled to a sit to prove him wrong, but the Captain had to grasp his forearm to help him. His head throbbed in protest at the new position. He tried to make his mind form a coherent thought. Elena had mentioned that name. Va Khlar.
“Are you certain it’s Va Khlar’s people who took her?” Draken asked.
“I was third in command at Reschan after I made horse marshal,” Tyrolean said. “Four Sohalias I spent in that pisspit of a town. I know Va Khlar sigils well enough.”
“What are they? Va Khlar.”
“Not what, but who. He fair owns Reschan, and he’s no loyalist to Elena, nor the Brînian Prince,” Tyrolean said. “Calls himself a trader, but the ‘traders’ who take his name do anything for coin, even kill.”
“And you think he’s at the bottom of the plot against Elena?”
Tyrolean nodded. “Unlikely coincidence Aarinnaie was rescued by one of his men.”
“The princess would make a valuable member of Va Khlar’s clan,” Osias said.
“Should she decide to join,” Setia said. Tyrolean gave her a questioning glance and she went on. “She went with him, truth, but it doesn’t mean she’s joined them. Perhaps she’s a prisoner; perhaps she felt she had no other choice.”
“All right. Here’s a thought,” Draken said. “Perhaps Aarinnaie didn’t know he’s Va Khlar.”
“By your account she went fair willing,” Tyrolean said. “So there are two alternatives. Either she’s gone with him in full knowledge of what he is. Or…”
“Or she’s been abducted and doesn’t even know it,” Draken finished. And she being from a wealthy royal family, she’d fetch a pretty pile of crowns. Except... “Aarinnaie has some sort of hold on the man she rode off with. She stopped him from killing me. That doesn’t sound much like hostage behavior.”
“Maybe Aarinnaie hired him.” Tyrolean scrubbed his face red with a wet cloth, scattering tiny droplets across his leather-clad knees. “But all that aside, consider this difficulty: as Night Lord, your word is law. By keeping you from your given task of returning Aarinnaie to her father, Va Khlar’s man insulted Queen Elena as if to her face. You cannot let this pass.”
“I’m not in the habit of answering every slight, Captain.”
“Point taken, my lord. But what if Va Khlar is behind the insurgency?’
Draken frowned at Tyrolean, who shrugged. “You must admit it’s a possibility. And damned if the four of us can best him on his own ground in Reschan. We need troops, and quickly.”
Draken rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and chin. He was in desperate need of a shave, and, despite Setia’s ministrations, a hot, soapy bath. Bruche shifted his perspective and the internal, phantom movement made him nauseous. He swallowed, willing his stomach to settle. “What might Aarinnaie’s father do when Va Khlar asks for ransom?”
“He’ll hunt them like the dogs they are and give them a death to be reckoned with,” Tyrolean said. “And if Prince Khel discovers you were mixed in it, he’ll come after you next. You let her get away.”
Draken’s foul mood and throbbing shoulder caught up with him. “Well, forgive me. I was distracted with trying to not get killed.”
“Nonetheless.” Tyrolean smiled grimly. “It could mean war, if we let things progress so far.”
“Moving troops could cause war. We can’t call any—not yet. Not until we know more.” Draken shifted and released a sharp moan as a bolt of pain lit up the nerves from his fingertips to his temple. Aarinnaie had gone from dangerous assassin to spoiled brat to political nightmare in a matter of days. But whatever she was, her adeptness and escape nipped at his rage. He thought of what Elena, and especially Reavan, would say if they knew his plan had gone so far awry.
“It’s all gone wrong. I can’t let Va Khlar kill her.” He paused as pain rolled through him and went on when the worst of it passed. “I have to save her life, even if I have to pay for it myself. It’s my reward for having caught the little terror in the first place.”
Every moment that passed the trail grew colder. Draken began to swing his legs over the side of the bed, but Tyrolean laid a firm hand on his arm. “My lord. You’re not fit to ride.”
“We might never find her if we leave it too long, Captain, and whoever is behind the plot will have their war,” Draken answered. “Setia will help me dress and then we’re off.”
***
The unpleasant Gadye potion worked well enough to allow him to move about the room, and Setia had convinced him taking time for a warm bath might further sooth his hurts. When he sank into the warm water, Setia ran the wet cloth over his shoulders and back and gently rubbed his neck. After she’d washed his hair and shaved his face with her own razor-sharp blade, he smiled gratefully. “I can manage the rest, Setia. Thank you.”
She did not speak or smile as she withdrew, and he wondered if he’d turned down another overture without realizing it.
Why do you send the Moonling away if she is willing?
Bruche asked.
I’m not like you, rutting with anyone who catches my eye.
And not all of them female, too.
We Brînians are a demonstrative people
, Bruche said, making Draken snort aloud.
You could do with a dose of it yourself. I’ve noticed how you feel about the Mance. He obviously would oblige.
Draken tried another tack.
I’m not desperate, you know.
Ah, Elena. The memories hardly do it justice, I think.
Enough. She’s my Queen and yours, now.
Draken reached for the pendant on his chest and stared at her image.
A beautiful trinket
, Bruche commented.
And a beautiful Queen.
Reluctant to leave the soothing warmth of the bath, Draken dropped the pendant back to his chest and leaned his head back, listening to the water slide over his skin. Beautiful was an apt description. So why did her pendant feel like such a weight?
Your wife. The Gadye. Elena. Even Setia. You’d swear away your soul to spare theirs—
“Shut it, Bruche.”
Draken climbed out of the tub to dress, trying not to worry over how he would ride. Just managing the laces on his breeches was a trial. The medicine might have taken the edge off his hurts, but it had done little to ease his exhaustion or stiffness. Tyrolean wanted to bind his arm again, but Draken turned him down. “I’ll need to be free to ride.”
“Don’t strain it again,” Tyrolean said.
“Don’t worry,” Draken said dryly. Every motion was a reminder to avoid doing that. “I’m going to go see Galene one more time, to see if she’ll say anything more. Ready the horses and I’ll meet you in the yard.”
Galene’s door opened before he could knock. “My lord, please come in.”
“I can’t help but feel you tricked me, my lady.”
Galene lifted her hands, pale against her filmy veils, and gestured him inside. She sat before saying, “I meant you no harm, Lord Draken. The Crossing swears not to betray our patrons. I hope you understand.”
He sank onto a low chair opposite her. The silky cushions were as colorless as the smoke surrounding them. “And yet I somehow feel betrayed.”
“I’m afraid you don’t quite know the meaning of betrayal just yet.” Galene slid a languid hand along her thigh and tipped her veiled head. “Sohalia comes. The Seven Eyes reveal the secrets you keep from yourself, which often is the worst betrayal of all.”
The gray smoke clutched at his lungs and heart and mind and he felt himself lost in the memories of the Seven Eyes. They spoke each night in the language of light. They called to him and he must answer...
Draken!
Bruche sounded alarmed for the first time. Draken found he was gripping his sword hilt. He laid his hand in his lap and forced his voice to respond. “I’ve been a soldier. Now I am Elena’s Night Lord. It’s all I know.” But he felt uncomfortably aware of his plans for revenge against the man who had killed his wife.