Jabone growled at him and started to get up, but Tarius stayed him with a hand on his arm saying something to him in Kartik.
"No I won't," Kasiria said, but she looked not at him but at her plate.
"Persius," Tarius said in a calm tone. "Kasiria will do what Kasiria wishes to do, and while I breathe no one will order her to do otherwise."
"What treachery is this? Do you bring me here to tell me that you mean to steal my child?"
Jabone jumped from his chair, growled again and then spat words at Persius in Kartik that made the hair stand up on the back of Persius's neck even though he had no idea what he was saying. Again Tarius's hand was on Jabone's arm. She whispered calming words to him and he sat down but he didn't stop glaring at Persius and he didn't stop growling.
"I came here to deal with the Amalite horde. To once again put myself and all I hold dear on the line to fight in your land. A person can not steal what belongs to no one," Tarius said.
Persius looked at Kasiria. He couldn't fight with Tarius and win, not with words and certainly not with weapons. "Kasiria, what is this? You have a duty to our country."
"I'm fighting for our country, and what other duties would you have me perform? A princess in a country that sees women as nothing more important than dirt. There is nothing for me here."
"You will go home. I've had enough of your sword-slinging dream."
Jestia sighed and said, "See? I told you. she was better off not being able to talk to him. It's ruining what was going to be a barely eatable meal as it was."
Persius glared at her and was surprised when Tarius actually laughed. She looked at him and said in a voice barely above a whisper. "A word to the wise. Angering Jabone is enough of a folly, but don't piss off the little witch. She has much power, is fiercely loyal to her friends, and has a very bad and very short temper." Then Tarius just went on eating as if nothing were happening.
Persius took a deep breath, calmed himself, and then tried a different approach. "Kasiria, I just want you to be safe. I just want . . . "
"What about what she wants!" Jena screamed across the table at him. "She's a woman not a toad. You've got a hell of a nerve Persius to demand anyone do anything when you are seated at our table."
Tarius actually grinned at the confounded woman as if she'd just done something incredibly cute, and she said nothing.
Because she's already told me where she stands. So she's done, and as far as she's concerned any more talk is just a waste of time.
"Tread gently, Persius," Hellibolt whispered in his ear. When Persius looked around him every eye was on him and all but Tarius had stopped eating.
"Why Kasiria?" Persius asked. Kasiria was hopelessly quiet as if trying to find an answer he might understand.
"Because," it was Jestia again, "you're not her people. She's with her people now idiot."
"Jestia," Tarius said harshly, and then spit something in Kartik at the younger woman. Who just shrugged as if to say she didn't care about incurring the wrath of the Great Leader but she fell silent.
"What is going on?" Persius asked Tarius.
"It's not for me to tell you," she said.
Kasiria took a deep breath and looked at him. "Father, I . . . Jabone and I, he is my husband."
Persius shook his head as if trying to make what he'd just heard stick somewhere.
"I love him, he loves me, and my place is with him, with his pack. My pack."
Persius looked from Kasiria to Jabone and back again. So many things were going through his brain. What did it mean, what did any of it mean? Tarius's son, his daughter, husband and wife. It just couldn't be.
"Tarius, what did you say about this? Did you condone, encourage, it?"
"There are things more powerful at work here than you or I. They had bound themselves together before we even found them and fallen in love without knowing their connection to each other. So how dare you or I or anyone else say anything regarding their coupling? They were raised on different continents an ocean apart and yet they found each other. That can't just be coincidence. Their souls wanted each other."
He looked at Kasiria. She was looking at him, obviously expecting more orders and thunder from him and readying herself for it. If he tried to get her to bend to his will she would fight him and she'd win. He looked at Jabone. He was still growling and his very expression dared Persius to cross him. And he remembered everything that Hellibolt had told him and now it all made perfect sense. He looked from Jabone to Kasiria and back again.
They are one person broken in two and only whole when they are together, like Tarius and Jena. I have never known that in my lifetime because the only person I ever loved like that I could never have. Even if I could make Kasiria bend to my will I couldn't do it. I couldn't bear to see her broken. Hellibolt told me those things for a reason. I have to let her go.
"This is what you truly want, Kasiria?"
"Yes. It's all I want, to be with Jabone, to be part of the pack of the Marching Night."
Persius nodded then looked at Tarius, "And you will take her into battle with you and then take her back to the Kartik with you when you go?"
Tarius nodded.
Persius looked at Jabone. "This would be easier if you didn't hate me."
"Some things shouldn't be easy," Jabone said with a hiss, and Persius was reminded of how his mother had cursed him on the day he'd shot her through.
"He doesn't hate you," Kasiria assured Persius.
Persius nodded and thought.
No he doesn't hate me. he hates what I did which is mostly the same thing, but if I were him I would hate me too so I can't fault him for that. The same loyalty he shows to his mother he will show to my daughter, the same respect . . . They all show her respect. That's why she has no qualms about leaving her own country, because among the Kartiks she is respected. Among the Katabull . . . He is their Great Leader's son, he is a prince among his people and . . .
He spun quickly to look at Hellibolt who just grinned an all-knowing grin,
and you said Kasiria was destined to rule. You know far more about the future than you ever disclose.
"I think you'll be happy, Kasiria, and when all things are considered, what could be more important than that? I will miss you." Persius smiled and he didn't have to work at it.
Hellibolt's wrong about one thing. I will have what I desire. These two will have children and when they do my blood and Tarius's will be mingled, our legacies will be forever sealed together, we will finally be one.
* * *
After the meal Tarius suggested that Kasiria talk to her father in private while their food settled and before they discussed the Amalite hive in detail.
Jabone wasn't happy, but Kasiria hadn't expected him to be. "It will be fine," she told him and kissed him on the cheek.
"I do not trust him," Jabone said. "He will try to poison you against me."
"But you trust me right?" Jabone nodded. "I don't think he's going to try to talk me into anything but even if he does I'm still going home with you."
He nodded and smiled a roguish smile and said, "Even if I have to tie you up," he assured her.
She laughed and walked in the direction of Persius's camp. She was more than a little surprised to find him just standing in the middle of the chaos staring off into the distance apparently at the tree tops. She walked up to his back.
"Father, I'm sorry but . . . "
He didn't turn to face her. "There is no need to apologize Kasiria, I understand. If I could have had what I most wanted in this world I would have gladly given up my title and lived in a hovel."
"Did you love her then, father?" Kasiria asked softly.
"Who?"
"Tarius the Black."
"Where did you get that idea?"
"Hellibolt told me a long time ago."
"That old fool," Persius muttered. Then he looked at her smiled and shrugged. "Did I love her? I still love her. I loved her when I tried to kill her. Don't make me explain it, Kasiria, because I can't, not and have it make sense to anyone."
"He said the only other woman you came close to loving as much was my mother."
"It's true. I was at my very lowest in the midst of Tarius's curse and your mother . . . She was the only one who could make me forget my troubles for even a little while."
Kasiria took a deep breath and thought about not telling him at all. "My mother was the Katabull."
He stared at her in confusion. "What?"
"My mother, she was the Katabull."
"That's impossible," her father said, shaking his head.
"Are you Katabull?"
"Of course not."
"Then she had to be, because . . . " She took another deep breath. "She had to be because I am. Father, that's what Jestia meant when she said I am among my people now."
"I don't understand," he said, shaking his head again. "You aren't Katabull, Kasiria. You are living among them now, I assume your husband is one, but you aren't. You can't be."
"But I am," Kasiria said. She had no intention of telling him of her mother's and grandparents' plot to put a Katabull on the throne. What good could that do anyone now? "I didn't know. The first time I was in real danger I just changed and Hellibolt told me. I can't just change—call on the night—not like the others, but I am the Katabull. I wasn't going to tell you. I thought, well what's the purpose of you knowing? Then I thought maybe it would make you understand why I belong with them, with Jabone. You don't need to worry about me because I'm one of them."
"I doubt I will ever worry less about you since you choose a way of life which will constantly put you right in the middle of danger. My mind races, Kasiria," he said. She couldn't be sure what he was thinking. "You were the Katabull that was injured then?"
"Yes. An arrow."
"That is why Hellibolt asked the sex of the Katabull. How he knew you were injured." He looked at her then as if trying to peel away the layers and see the beast within. He laughed then and shook his head. "Oh Kasiria, no wonder you were always my favorite child." He hugged her then and she hugged him back. He seemed to notice her sword for the first time then. He jumped back and took both her hands, checking them over.
"It's my sword but not my finger," Kasiria assured him, smiling, "It was Jabone's sword . . . Well not my Jabone. It was Tarius's father's sword."
"She gave you Jabone the Breaker's sword?" Persius asked, curious
"She said the sword wanted me," Kasiria said with a shrug.
Her father shuddered then and said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I shot Tarius in the belly with an arrow and she nearly died. Then you were shot in the belly with an arrow and you would have died had it not been for her."
"I was actually shot in the lung and if it wasn't for all of them I'd be dead. Jestia especially, and don't think she doesn't rub that in every chance she gets." Kasiria laughed and then she was just telling him all about everything that had happened since she had left the academy. About Derek giving her the Kartik unit. All about Jabone, and the Kartik, and Ufalla and Jestia, and Eric and young Tarius.
"Now Tarius, he's the one you should be hearing all this from. He can weave a tale better than the greatest of the palace bards, though he's still not as good as Tarius the Black."
"You glow," her father said.
"What?" Kasiria asked.
"When you tell me of him and of your friends and your adventures together you glow," he smiled.
"They
are
my friends. I never really had that before. It feels good, the way I know them, the way they know me."
Her father nodded. "Even when you tell of the bad parts there is a passion to your voice, Kasiria. I haven't felt that in a very long time. Hang on to that passion, Kasiria, cherish it, saver it, and never forget what it's like. It will serve you well when the years grow long and the nights cold."
She just nodded her head.
Jabone ran up to them then. "Madra is ready to talk of the battle now."
Kasiria nodded thinking that Jabone was happy to have any excuse to come and get her before her father could spirit her away. She took his hand and allowed herself to be dragged along after him.
"So," her father asked following her. "Do the Katabull ever walk at an ordinary pace?"
"Not much," Kasiria answered with a smile.
"Now I think about it, your mother never did. Always in such a hurry to get where she was going. I feel like such an idiot. I know why she didn't tell me—because of what I did to Tarius. She was afraid I'd reject her."
Kasiria thanked the gods for her father's ego. She imaged it had served him well, sparing him from the many truths he'd rather not know. If Tarius had been a great lover of men she never would have found him a suitable match. How much comfort he must take from his idea that she was only lost to him because of her peculiar affection for her own gender. Kasiria looked at him, he seemed smaller to her now, as if her own personal growth had cost him size.
I still love him because he is my father, but he is the man in those stories. Short sighted, egotistical, he almost killed Tarius only because he couldn't have her. That's not in the stories but I know it because now I see him as he really is. Not some god on a pedestal just a man
—
and not even a particularly good one.
This was yet another thing Kasiria wished she didn't know.
She found herself riding with the rest of her unit somewhere near the middle on either side of a supply wagon. Once again Jabone was on the other side of the wagon. Tarius's orders. She didn't even pretend that she hadn't put them here because it was the safest place for them to be and she had ordered Jabone to ride on one side and her on the other so that they wouldn't distract each other.
Behind her Jestia and Ufalla were having one of those discussions that were only really tolerable when you were having it with your own lover.
"No, I love you more," Ufalla said.
"No I love you more," Jestia said.
"I've loved you longer and therefore more," Ufalla said.