Oria sorted through the revulsion rolling
off him, complicated with a black sense of betrayal and despair. He
reminded her of the glass forges, seething with molten heat so
fierce nothing could cool it. “Surely the golems have not attacked?
There shouldn’t be any outside the walls.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” As Lonen’s
forced calm snapped, so did the glass in his hand. With an oath, he
hurled himself to his feet and flung the broken goblet against the
stone balustrade, sending Chuffta into startled flight.
“
Oria, the Destrye is crazed,”
he
warned.
“No.” For she saw it in Lonen’s mind as
clearly as the sgath showed her the life signatures of everything
around her, the images congealing with horror. “The Trom attacked
Dru.”
She collapsed back against the cushions,
cold horror making chill sweat run down her back. The mask chafed
and she longed to pull it off, toss it aside, and weep freely. Too
late. Yar had outmaneuvered her. Her worst fears had come true.
She was forsworn again—her promises broken
and scattered to the winds—and the price would be giving up her
happiness forever.
T
he impulse to roar his
fury, to breathe fire like those fearsome dragons, battled to break
free of Lonen’s control. He’d been a fool three times over. All
along, through the endless journey accompanied by nothing but his
thoughts, he’d nursed the hope that Oria hadn’t known about the
Trom attack, that she hadn’t broken her word and betrayed their
truce yet again.
Don’t let a bit of foreign pussy make you
think with the little head instead of the big one.
The words of
Ion’s ghost rattled in his heart.
All this time he’d been feeling this
nostalgic sentimentality over those brief encounters with Oria. To
the point of fantasizing about having her in his bed instead of
Natly. And here the object of his prurient dreams and more
disturbing nightmares reclined on her plush cushions, clad in
crimson robes and wearing that cursed gold mask, cloaked in
offensive calm. He should wrench it from her, break those delicate
ribbons, so he could look into those haunting copper eyes and learn
the truth.
“You made me a promise.” Instead of a roar,
the words came out harsh as her fragile glass breaking on
stone.
“Yes,” she returned with an equanimity she
hadn’t shown before. “And to my knowledge I kept it.”
“Then how did you know the Trom attacked
Dru?”
With a heavy sigh, she stood, scrubbing her
palms on her thighs, leaving a smear of damp on the silk robe. He
hated the thing on her—too like her sorcerous brethren who’d hurled
magics at them, and those who’d died so easily under his hand. Oria
walked the low wall that bordered her terrace, looking out over the
city with every appearance of seeing, which made his skin prickle
with unease. The white dragonlet landed beside her, mantling its
wings and snaking its neck to fix him with that accusing green
stare.
“I see it in your mind.”
It took a moment for Lonen to catch up to
what “it” she meant. When he did, he didn’t much like the
implication. “You
can
read my thoughts.” His voice came out
flat. From behind, she looked more familiar, though her glorious
copper hair was all caught up and braided with ribbons as gold as
the mask they held. He missed the metallic fall of it that had so
bewitched him from the beginning. Then kicked himself for falling
so rapidly under her spell again.
“An overly simple way of putting it, but
let’s agree to that.” The mask made her voice strangely hollow. “I
see the giant derkesthai flying overhead, a Trom greeting you.
There’s…” She faltered. “Char in the air. More dead.”
“Worse than that.” He strode up to her at
the railing, intent on forcing her to deal with him honestly. “Our
crops burnt to the ground. Much-needed food for the winter, gone.
Yes, more Destrye dead, but more deaths to come, from slow
starvation and the diseases cold and malnutrition bring. And the
water—they’re taking it again, in greater volumes than ever before.
Foul magic.”
“They took the water, too?” She sounded
faint but with an edge of anger.
“Why did you do it, Oria? Why?” He stopped
himself from asking a third time, from begging her not to be what
he most abhorred.
The uncannily smooth mask turned to face
him. “I didn’t,” she repeated. “I don’t control the Trom.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?” This time
the question came out as harsh as he felt. Oria didn’t flinch,
exactly, but a shiver ran through her, despite the heat. “I was
there the day it touched you, and you didn’t die like the others.
When it spoke to you and you refused to tell me what it said.”
“You decide what you believe, King Lonen of
the Destrye,” she replied, as soft as he’d been hard. “I can only
give you the truth as I know it.”
“You’ve changed,” he said, before he knew he
intended to. But the tentative belief that perhaps she wasn’t
behind the attack gave him an absurd rush of relief.
“Yes.” Not a smile in her voice, but some
wry amusement. “So have you.”
“Would you take off the mask so we can
talk?” He sounded plaintive to himself, involuntarily raising a
hand, as if to remove it.
She stepped back, deliberately out of reach.
“Don’t touch me.” No ragged plea this time, but the cool command of
a queen. “And no, I cannot show my face to anyone but close
family—and then only should I choose to do so. Which, these days, I
don’t.”
“Then how do you eat and drink?” He flung a
hand at the pitcher of cool juice, belatedly realizing that she
hadn’t shared it and thus could have poisoned him.
“Alone,” she said, and turned her mask
towards the vista again, for all the world as if she saw it.
“Your ways are very strange and unnatural,”
he growled at her in his frustration.
She actually laughed, the sound like
raindrops on tin shingles. “Oh, Lonen—you have no idea.”
Absurdly, he found a smile breaking the
aching stern tension of his jaw, and he rubbed it, feeling the
sweat-stiffened hair of his beard, realizing suddenly how bad he
must look. He should have taken the time to bathe. Or asked to
visit Bára’s baths before meeting with their queen. Or very nearly
queen, whatever that meant. He scrubbed both hands through his
hair, wishing he could at least tie it back off his neck.
“Here,” Oria said, moving gracefully to the
table. It had held a violet fire the night they’d talked but now
appeared to be only a smooth white surface, though the glass
animals still pranced along the edge. More magic. She picked
something up and held it out to him. Bemused, he took it. The
leather hair tie he’d worn that night. “You left it behind,” she
added, as if that explained anything.
Wordlessly, he took it from her and tied
back his hair, happy to have the mess of it off his neck. Though
he’d been on the terrace before at night, he’d remembered it as
more shaded. Looking about, he noted the bareness of the
overhanging branches, the crisp brown of the vines. “Your garden is
dying, Oria.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m no
longer wasting water on it.”
He choked back the protest that it wasn’t a
waste. That was the idealist in him again, picturing her in the
fantasy of the impossible garden, beautiful and outside the world.
The visible evidence helped reassure him about her, though. If the
Bárans were behind the latest attack and water raid, at least Oria
wasn’t using their ill-gotten resources. Perhaps he could trust her
to uphold her promise in good faith then. The hope felt fragile,
too full of idealistic wonder, but without her help, the Destrye
would surely perish.
“How will you aid Dru then?”
“I’ve been pondering this since you
arrived.” Seeming restless, she paced along the balustrade. “I
promised you everything in my power and I intend to keep that vow.
However, while greater than it was, my power remains constricted in
certain ways. I can think of one solution that is rather simple to
execute, but vastly complicated in its ramifications. You won’t
like it.”
“I don’t like my people dying either.”
“All right.” She returned to her couch,
under the gently flapping silk awning that provided the only shade.
“Why don’t you join me, Lonen.”
He did, if only to get out of the sun.
T
he moment of truth. Oria
centered herself as best she could, breathing out the unexpected
nerves. Being around Lonen again did strange things to her. As if
he triggered the rise of different energy in herself, ones she
wasn’t accustomed to grappling with. If he accepted her proposed
plan, that would be yet another challenge to face.
“
I’m not sure this is a good plan at
all.”
“
Nor am I, but we’re in a
corner.”
Chuffta ruefully sighed for the truth of
that. The Trom attacking Dru, taking their water, Yar haring off to
the sister cities, looking for a bride with bribes in hand: It all
added up to him outmaneuvering her. She couldn’t possibly find an
ideal mate before he did. He was at least three steps ahead of her.
But the law didn’t require that she have a temple-blessed husband.
Just that she have a husband. A bit of a loophole in Báran law—one
that existed mainly because so few would contemplate the step she
planned.
Subjecting themselves to a mind-dead,
magicless, and sexless marriage as well as a loveless one—a high
price, even for the throne. Some sacrifices were too steep for
most.
Except for her.
“Tell me,” she said, pouring him another
glass of juice, pleased that her hand remained steady. “Are you
married?”
He sputtered on the mouthful. “Engaged.
Why?”
Unfortunate but not surprising. “Why haven’t
you married her yet?” She sorted through the sudden gamut of his
emotions—defensiveness and guilt uppermost among them. A very
beautiful woman, with masses of curling black hair and luminous
dark eyes. Voluptuous and sensual, doing things to Lonen that—Oria
cut off the scene, grateful for the mask that hid her flush.
“I’ve been a little busy keeping my people
alive,” Lonen growled.
“You’re fond of her, but you don’t love
her.” It shouldn’t matter, but it did. Oria didn’t expect love for
herself, but it would be difficult to watch him wish for
another.
“Reading my thoughts again?”
“My apologies. Her image rose up quite
clearly to me.” Along with strong feelings—conflicted ones she
didn’t care to examine, even if looking too closely hadn’t felt
overly intrusive. That he didn’t love that beautiful woman would be
enough. “It doesn’t matter, truly, but it would make things even
more difficult if it would disappoint you greatly to break your
heart or hers by marrying me.”
Lonen set the glass down, very carefully. He
laced his fingers together and leaned forearms on his knees. Then
looked at her. “Excuse me?”
She should have planned what to say better.
“It would be a marriage in name only, consecrated by the temple
here in Bára, but otherwise non-binding for you in most ways. You
would not be required to be faithful to me, so you could continue
to be lovers with that dark-haired woman, if your customs allow
it.” The idea gave her a surge of bitter jealousy. Still, that was
only fair to him. She would never be able to be his lover—nor
anyone’s, as temple law would bind
her
to fidelity—but Lonen
should not have to give up intimacy for the rest of his life, too.
He didn’t carry the burden of expiating Bára’s crimes.
Lonen studied her, his dislike of her mask
palpable, his astonishment grown stronger. “You want me to marry
you, according to your temple laws, and keep Natly as my
lover.”
“I did say you wouldn’t like it.” Natly. It
had been better before this shadow fiancée had a name.
He laughed, dropping his forehead to his
knuckles, then wiping the sweat from his brow. “Nothing with you
ever goes as I expect.”
“I’m explaining this badly.” She held up her
arm, and Chuffta came to her, offering his affection and support.
She scratched his breast and he leaned into her. That helped calm
the strange spike of jealousy, the grief at giving up the dream of
finding an ideal mate. Always a fantasy anyway. “This isn’t about
what I want. It has to do with…well, magic and the way that it
works. I’ve learned a great deal about wielding magic to help Bára,
and will continue to learn more. One thing I’m certain of is that I
cannot extend my abilities to assist Dru without the Destrye
becoming my people, too. Through you.”
At least she knew that much now, after
spending hours every day studying the texts available only to
priestesses in the temple. She loved her rooftop terrace, drying up
as it was, even more for leaving it and returning in the cooling
evenings.
“Why me?” Lonen asked. He was still watching
her with unnerving intensity, that male vitality pricking at her.
Though she’d deliberately closed the channel, sensual energy still
leaked through, warming her, despite knowing he was thinking of his
fiancée. “Arnon isn’t married either.”
Oria shook her head, partly to dispel
disappointment that he was so eager to foist her off on his
brother. Of course he would be, but it still wounded her pride.
“You are the king. It might have been an easy ritual that made you
so, but such responsibilities are binding on planes the Destrye
might not perceive.”
“But the Bárans do.” He sounded accusing.
Something darker ate at him, some profound tension.
“Some of us. I do. And the knowledge was
hard-won.” He wouldn’t be able to understand what it had cost her.
Even if they remained married the rest of their lives, he would
never know her on a profound level the way an ideal husband would.
She had to resign herself to that.