“
Careful, Oria.”
She was sick to death of being careful, of
being so cursed weak. But she really did not look forward to
sitting at that table and having everyone’s anger shout at her for
hours. How could she make good decisions under those conditions?
Especially when only she and the Destrye prince need agree to the
terms, as they both spoke for their people at the moment. The rest
was courtesy and she had used up her quotient of that
commodity.
“
An excellent idea.”
“Right.” So great was her relief at the
suggestion that she forgot herself and spoke out load, reaching up
to scratch Chuffta’s chest.
Lonen gave her a startled glance, then
scrutinized her Familiar, distaste wafting off of him. That time
she didn’t care. She took a physical step back, bringing his stormy
gaze to hers again. “I have a suggestion, Prince Lonen. Is there
any reason you and I can’t sit down alone and discuss terms one on
one—do we need all these people?”
She’d surprised him, which at least backed
off the worst of the disgust. “My brother will be annoyed,” Lonen
said slowly, thinking it through, “but I outrank him. What of your
advisers, your council?”
“They will also be annoyed, but I outrank
them.” She nearly smiled at the flicker of amusement that lit the
stormy gray of his eyes. “Arguably they have had their opportunity
for days now to make their opinions known.”
“Believe me, Princess, they have.
Repeatedly.”
She didn’t ask why the Destrye had tolerated
the obstructionism. From the resolute set of Lonen’s jaw and the
determined anger rising out of him, he, at least, was done with
it.
“Then I see no reason you and I shouldn’t
sit down privately to discuss. Come. I know a place.” She set her
plate down, not hungry in the first place, and beckoned to Juli.
She liked the junior priestess, who possessed both a solicitous
nature and discretion, and asked Juli to relay that Oria had
withdrawn to her tower and should not be disturbed—after a suitable
delay. They’d see how long that lasted before Folcwita Lapo and the
others realized she’d circumvented them. She started to go. When
Lonen didn’t accompany her, she turned back. “Problem?”
“Shouldn’t we include a guard of some
sort?”
“Why—are you afraid of me?” She regretted
asking it, because his reaction stabbed at her, that severe
distaste, shaded with suspicion and distrust. His eyes flicked to
Chuffta and away.
“I don’t know.” He paused for a long moment.
Then his mood shifted and he smiled in truth, a bright emotion
echoing it, a flash of who he might be when not at war. “It depends
on if you have that sword on you. My life could be in danger.”
“A risk you’ll have to take, Prince Lonen.”
She made herself stay somber. And did not further draw attention to
Chuffta by mentioning his ability to guard her well-being.
“I
t’s King Lonen, by the
way,” he told Oria as he followed her out the doors. The dragonlet
had swiveled its head backwards on its neck, keeping those bright
green eyes fixed on him, unblinking, reminding him uncomfortably of
its enormous lethal cousins. He wouldn’t let it unsettle him. Or
her, with her uncanny gaze that seemed to see more in him than he
liked.
Could she read his thoughts? It would be
interesting to test it. Something to discomfit her from that
unshakable poise. Like working up a vivid image of tossing up her
skirts and ravishing her until she screamed his name and—
“When did that happen?”
He nearly asked what before he caught
himself. She cast him a questioning glance, which at least seemed
to prove she hadn’t eavesdropped on those prurient thoughts.
Something that felt like a reprieve, after the fact. Still—what
witchy powers did she possess? He wanted to pose the question, but
it seemed…intimate. Not appropriate for the conversation they
needed to have. About politics. So the Destrye could finally leave
this cursed place and go home, find their own women again.
What Oria—or any of the vile Bárans—could or
could not do should no longer be his problem. A fine goal for the
negotiation.
Oria frowned slightly, and the dragonlet
leaned into her, tail coiling so much like a snake that he fought
the impulse to throw it to the ground and stomp on it. “
King
Lonen?” she prompted, emphasizing the title.
“As soon as my brother the heir died,” he
said shortly. “There’s no need for discussion, ceremony, or…law
committees, among us, as it seems you Bárans have.”
She nodded, looking thoughtful, neither
confirming nor denying. They arrived at a set of closed doors, two
of the city guard outside it.
“Admit no one but Queen Rhianna,” she told
them, and they bowed, opening the doors for her. She began to
ascend a winding set of stairs, but Lonen paused, taking a moment
to observe the weight of a large metal-clad bar settling into place
behind them, as if by magic.
“Operated by a secret external mechanism,”
came her explanation, and he turned to find her copper gaze on him,
again discerning far too much. “But it can be lifted from the
inside with a bit of effort. I managed it, so I’m sure you
could.”
“Ah.” He restrained a comment that her slim
arms looked barely able to lift the weight of the dragonlet, much
less that bar.
“I hope you don’t mind climbing,” she said
as he joined her on the step. “It’s a bit of one.”
“Not a problem.” He took in the spiraling
stairs, made of stone and clinging to the curved outer wall of the
tower, circling an echoing space from the ground floor to the
dizzying heights above. Flaming sconces studded the walls at
intervals, but failed to illuminate the ceiling that must be there,
somewhere, high above. Open windows looked out on the city, though
the night seemed too still for breezes. “Do you intend to be
queen?” he asked, earning a startled glance.
“Is that one of your terms?”
“No.” He didn’t know why he’d blurted out
that question. “I don’t care about your government, as long as you
keep it far away from the Destrye.”
“Then why do you ask?”
He gestured at the endless rise of stairs.
“Making conversation. It looks like a long walk.”
“I apologize for that. But it’s the best
place for me to be for a number of reasons.”
“Why’s that?”
“No one will be able to interrupt or
interfere with our conversation. I want a solution, not more
arguing and delay.”
“I meant, why won’t they be able to
interrupt?”
“It’s my tower.” She shrugged. “No one may
enter without my permission, by sacred law.”
“Interesting. To protect your virtue?” If
so, he shouldn’t be alone with her. Certainly the thought shouldn’t
give such a punch to his gut.
He surprised a breathy laugh out of her.
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Try me.”
She threw him a repressive glance, all humor
sapped from her expression. “None of it is relevant to our
negotiations. To answer an easier question—no, I have no desire to
be queen and there are…reasons I should not take that role. Suffice
to say, we have a queen. My mother is alive and well. There will be
decisions to make depending upon what you and I agree the Destrye
role in our government will be.”
He mulled over her words—both spoken and
what she cagily withheld. When she’d first offered surrender, he’d
proposed total subjugation because he’d been thinking in battle
terms. Fighting made things simple. You won or you lost. Usually if
you lost, you died. Or wished you had. But this would not be so
straightforward. He had no desire to rule Bára from afar. During
that interminable wrangling, his father had never gotten to the
point of giving his vision for the future of the two peoples—one of
many things Lonen would give a great deal to know that his father
would never be able to relate.
None of them had discussed what would happen
if they managed to stop the golem incursions, other than a vague
idea of going back to a way of life already thoroughly destroyed.
But King Archimago had died in part because he’d taken
responsibility for the innocent portion of the population of Bára.
Rage at the injustice of it all boiled through Lonen. Against all
odds, they’d triumphed…and yet, what had they won?
Oria paused, putting a slim hand against the
stone wall. She’d paled, her breathing labored.
“Are you well?” he asked, though clearly she
wasn’t. The dragonlet peered around her hair at him, the stare
oddly accusing.
She raised her eyes ruefully at the
remaining stairs. “I am not in condition for extensive exercise, to
my great chagrin. Also, as you observed, I’ve been unwell these
past days.”
Something told him that wasn’t the entire
truth, but before he could question her further, she pushed away
from the wall with a grim set to her jaw, gathering up her long
skirts, and set to climbing again.
“Why pick a place so far then, that takes so
much effort?”
“I’ll need to get up there eventually
tonight, it might as well be now. And…I’ll be able to think
better.” She hadn’t been looking at him, but did then with a slight
grimace. “I should probably not admit such things to my enemy.”
She was likely right, but for a few
moments—to his own chagrin—he’d forgotten that about them. Also he
wasn’t entirely sure what she’d admitted. “I could carry you,” he
found himself offering, then regretted it instantly.
Already shaking her head, she brushed him
off. “Really it’s better if you don’t touch me.”
Don’t touch me.
Her desperate command
of before still rankled. “I’d hardly rape you,” he replied, stiffly
furious. “None of your Bárans have been bothered that way.”
“I did not know that,” she said quietly,
perhaps because she lacked the breath for more. “But that’s not
what I meant. I intended no offense, King Lonen.”
Feeling like he should apologize but
unwilling to, he remained silent for the rest of the ascent. Better
for her not to waste breath talking anyway. Finally, they reached
the very top and she led him through a series of rooms to an
open-air terrace full of flowering trees, blossoms luminous in the
night, and the rustle of trailing vines. Oria lifted her face to
the sky, Sgatha high and rose-colored, sighing in what could only
be relief. No sign of Grienon, so he must be in his dark phase.
Lonen wandered to the balustrade, struck by
the view of Bára below, all falling away beneath her eyrie. Beyond
the high city walls the Destrye camp blazed with campfires, the
long dry plateau moonlit around them. Oria’s tower. It tugged some
emotion from him, a strange tenderness that felt misplaced amid all
the rage and grief.
“You live up here, all the time, alone?”
She joined him at the edge of the balcony,
though still a good distance away, well out of touching range. As
if he’d try after she’d sounded so horrified by the possibility. “I
go down sometimes. And I’m not alone. I have—had—attendants,
teachers. My mother, too, spends time with me here. A few others.
Also, there’s always…”
When she didn’t finish the thought, he
turned his back on the staggering—and stomach-dropping—view. The
torchlight made her hair even more coppery, if possible, and the
moon gave a pinkish cast to her fair skin and the winged lizard’s
white hide, both more otherworldly than ever. How she could both
fascinate and repel him, he didn’t know. Unless she practiced
sorcery on him as he suspected her brothers had been doing to his
father. What he needed was to get away from her unnatural influence
and this place of monsters and death.
Superstitiously, he moved away from that
dizzying drop. She might look fragile and become sickly climbing
stairs, but he knew firsthand how powerful the Báran magic could
be. He did not care to sample what a long fall that would be.
“There’s always what? That lizardling you
cart about everywhere?”
“His name is Chuffta.” She sounded stiff.
He’d annoyed her, insulting her pet. Good. Better than feeling that
strange tenderness.
“You don’t really believe you can talk to
that thing, do you?”
She gave him a long look, then went to a set
of low chairs around a table with a freakish violet fire burning in
the center of it. Pouring from a pitcher into two transparent
goblets, she nudged one in his direction, then sat back, cupping
the other and drinking deeply. She heaved such a sigh of relief
that he couldn’t restrain his curiosity and went over to pick up
his. The goblet was made of something very thin that felt as if it
might shatter in his grip. He sniffed at the contents. Fruity and
sweet. He tasted it. Juice, not wine. Figured.
“Shall we get to the subject at hand?” she
suggested in an even tone.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Because the answer doesn’t matter. What I
do or do not believe has no bearing on our negotiations. We could
argue all night about our differences and it seems both our peoples
have wasted enough time doing that already. What terms do you
propose?”
“You don’t have an offer?”
She actually made snorting noise, at odds
with her regal poise. “No wonder you all spent so many days
discussing. If I’m not mistaken, you’re in the position of power.
It seems to me that this conversation should consist of you, the
conqueror, giving terms to me, the conquered—at which point I
attempt to weasel out whatever concessions I can.”
Abruptly tired, he sat across from her,
dangling the goblet between his knees, reminding himself to handle
it gently. He felt strangely naked wearing the soft garb of the
Báran men, the loose material of the shirt and trousers so thin he
barely felt it on his skin, but also grateful for it in the overly
warm night. Something about sitting there with her, with the softly
burning fire—pretty, even in its strangeness—and the moonlight
turning the night-blooming garden into an oasis in her stone city
surrounded by an unforgiving desert, made all the war and politics
feel far away. For a wild moment, he entertained what it might be
like to be there under other circumstances, to be courting her as
he would Natly, seeing if he could make her laugh and—