Oria's Gambit (22 page)

They didn’t move. “You do not yet command our
obedience,” the leader replied, just as it had when they met
before. If it was, indeed, the same being. Difficult to
discern.

Silence whistled through the chasm, a hot
wind kicking up a swirl of sand on stone. Lonen’s desperate
curiosity to know what the Trom said reminded her that they spoke a
language he didn’t know but she somehow understood.

“
Mind to mind,”
Chuffta said.

Ah, yes.

“We will see the one who summoned us, as
required.” The Trom spoke as if observing the weather, without
inflection.

Much as she disliked Febe, Oria couldn’t
stomach watching her turned to pulp by the Trom, nor did she wish
to hand power to the High Priestess in case the dread guardians
would respond to her commands.

“The priest you seek is not within the city,”
she replied, willing the honesty of that to suffice to convince
them to leave.

“But I am.” Febe stepped before them, her
sgath shivering with her temerity, her
hwil
strained. Both
afraid and tremulously delighted with herself. “As Summoner, I
invite you to enter the temple.”

Lonen swore at that, able to understand those
ritual words from the previous ceremonies, though he did not draw
his axe, his hands clenching into fists and rage going black. “Stay
behind me, Oria.”

And watch him die? Never. She didn’t move,
staying right beside him as the three Trom crossed. “Summoner,” the
lead Trom greeted the high priestess. “What do you require of
us?”

“Kill this one.” Febe pointed at Oria.

E
verything blurred into a
high, colorless whine in his head. Even as Lonen reached for his
axe determined to die protecting Oria if he had to, Chuffta spread
his wings, breathing green fire that raised the already broiling
temperature on the exposed bridge to unbearable levels. Oria’s
magic, too, as familiar on his skin now as her scent in his head,
billowed up. Tornadic gusts spun into life, catching Chuffta’s fire
into swirls.

The Trom remained untouched by any of it, as
if encased in one of Oria’s transparent drinking glasses. The
leader regarded Oria and Chuffta, then stepped closer without
concern for the fire, unbuffeted by the wind and sand that scoured
Lonen’s exposed skin. Axe in hand, he moved to intercept the
thing’s lethal caress.

And found himself immobilized. By Oria’s
magic, Arill take her.

“Oria!” he shouted, fighting her grip that
held him as surely as chains. “Release me, curse you.”

She shouted an unintelligible reply, her
voice harsh as a carrion bird’s.

The Trom spoke, strange words he couldn’t
parse. But Chuffta stopped the defensive fire and Oria lowered her
hands, seeming stunned. Whatever it said, Febe understood and
clenched her fists in impotent rage.

“If you won’t kill her, then kill him,” she
screeched over the howling wind.

“No!” To his terror, Oria imposed her slim
form between his frozen one and the Trom.

“Defend him and die at their touch,” Febe
crowed her victory. “Lose him and join your broken mother as a
widow who will never gain the crown.”

Oria raised her hands. “I’ll take option
number three.” As it had on the rooftop, her powerful grien magic
surged, gaining that sharp edge, and struck the high priestess like
a giant fist.

She staggered. “Impossible!” the woman nearly
howled. “Abomination! You’ll die for this. Kill her. Protect me and
kill the foul grien user.”

“Not me, not today,” Oria said, quietly
enough that he almost didn’t hear it. Abruptly her magic released
him as she drew it back, her braids snapping in the unfelt wind of
it.

With a cry of despair, Febe fell, punched
again by the fist, then scrabbled for purchase, fingers sliding on
the sand as an invisible grip dragged her to the edge of the
chasm.

“Mercy, I beg you!” she sobbed.

Then Febe plummeted over the edge, her long,
wailing cry echoing back before attenuating into nothing.

Brutally reminded of his brother’s death by
the same unending fall, horror crawled through Lonen’s heart. But
he still had Oria to defend. She recklessly still stood between him
and the Trom.

“The Summoner is dead,” she declared, her
voice reverberating with strange harmonies. “You may depart.”

All three inclined their heads to her and the
first spoke. They turned and walked over the bridge, disappearing
back into the palace. Moments later, three dragons lifted into the
sky and wheeled out of sight.

Suddenly realizing by the scream of his
straining shoulders that he still held the axe mid-swing, Lonen
lowered it, then spoke to Oria’s back. “If you ever do anything
like that again, I’ll kill you myself.”

Oria, unbelievably exhausted, could barely keep to
her feet. Not in the overloaded, close to breaking sense, but in a
different way, one she’d never experienced before. Her mask moved
slickly over her sweating face and she longed to be rid of the
thing—especially as her sgath showed the world only dimly, as if
through a haze of smoke. Empty and aching, she turned to face
Lonen.

“I could say the same back to you.”

“It’s not funny.” He sounded weary, too.

“I didn’t mean it as a joke. But it’s
irrelevant now. They’re gone.”
For now
, she didn’t say,
though the unspoken words hung in the air between them.

Lonen acknowledged that with a grunt. “Are
you all right?”

“Yes.” Though she wasn’t sure of the truth of
that. She felt… odd. But physically unharmed.

“What did they say to you—why didn’t it kill
you when Febe commanded it?”

“I—” She didn’t want to give voice to it any
more than she already had. That the Trom had told Febe they could
no more kill her than one of their own. And it wasn’t clear if
they’d meant they actually couldn’t or if they didn’t want to.
“I’ll tell you about it later. We must go through with the
coronation.”

“You’re clearly exhausted,” he said in a
neutral enough tone, though his concern and frustration with her
snapped and snarled like two dogs fighting over the last piece of
meat. “You have to rest and build up your reserves, or you might
not survive whatever the ritual involves.”

“We don’t have time.” It ticked away inside
her, the imminence of Yar’s return.

“That’s not the most important consideration
at this point,” he insisted.

“You were the one who came to me for help.”
She would have snapped it, but she didn’t have the energy. Really
she wanted to sit. If she could just sit on the ground for a moment
or two. Or lie down…

Lonen snapped fingers in front of her mask.
“You’re dead on your feet. Let’s go back to your tower.”

“I can’t help you if I don’t have control of
the Trom, and I can’t do that unless I’m queen. We’re so
close—let’s just go in the temple and get it over with.”

“Oria.” Lonen spoke her name sternly enough
to command her attention, if not her obedience. “Arill knows I was
willing to let that priest near my cock with a knife so you could
get that crown on your head, or whatever you Bárans do, but you
won’t be any good to Dru or Bára if you’re dead. I am not letting
you do this right now.”

“You don’t get to boss me around,
Destrye.”

“
He has a good point, Oria—you’re very
tired and you have very little sgath in you.”

“It’s not fair,” she complained to both of
them, vaguely aware that she sounded pitiful and whiny. “Either I
have too much energy in me or not enough. I’m sick to death of
being fragile.”

Lonen laughed. “Right—so damn fragile that
you knocked that priestess into the chasm like a woman sweeping
dirt off the porch.”

She choked back the remorse. Febe had tried
to kill her, but Oria had never thought she’d be capable of murder.
Though once the priestess had realized the truth about Oria’s grien
magic… Well, there had been no choice.

“Come on.” Lonen said more gently. “Let me be
strong for you. I can carry you up, if you’ll let me.”

“It’s too far,” she protested. “Even you
can’t climb all those stairs carrying me.”

“How do you think you got up there last
night?” A few mischievous sparks made it through to her weakened
sgath vision. “Besides, you weigh no more than a kitten.”

“A kitten!” She sputtered, unable to come up
with a retort.

“A drowned kitten.” He leaned in, wrapping
her in his bracing energy, for once only a comfort and not at all
too much to bear. “All fur and spitting feistiness.”

“You did
not
just call me feisty.” She
thought that had put up her back enough to rally, but she swayed on
her feet.

“
Better to retreat and rest to fight
tomorrow, than to surely suffer defeat today.”

“And if Yar arrives?”

She’d asked Chuffta, but Lonen replied. “Then
we cut down that tree when we come to it. Let me carry you, Oria.”
He pulled his mantle off his shoulders, setting it around her, then
strapped his axe again to his back. “That will be hot, but will
protect you from my touch. Say yes.”

“Fine,” she replied, if only because she’d
run out of energy to argue. Maybe even to stand, the way she swayed
on her feet. “With the sun going down, I’m a little chilled
anyway.”

“Only a Báran could say such a thing.
Chuffta, man, do a buddy a favor and either fly or ride on my
shoulder.”

“He says he’ll fly so he won’t score your
flesh, but that if you get padding, he’d ride your shoulder in the
future.” She drew the cloak around her, making sure it covered her
skin. “I’m ready.”

She braced herself for the searing contact,
but he slipped gentle arms familiarly beneath her shoulders and
knees, easily lifting and tucking her against his muscled chest.
With easy strides, he crossed the bridge and carried her through
the palace.

Dreamily, she let her sgath vision go, closed
her physical eyes, too, and simply absorbed the scent and feel of
him. So familiar already. “This is so easy for you,” she
remarked.

“I’m getting quite a lot of practice,” he
replied in that wry tone of his.

She winced, opened her mouth to apologize,
remembered she shouldn’t, and sighed instead. “I wish I wasn’t like
this.”

“I understand why you say that, but don’t.
Your blessing and your curse. Without this, you can’t have the
other—and your sorcery is fantastic to behold. I wouldn’t change a
thing about you.” To her surprise, he pressed a kiss to her mask
over her forehead, his energy swirling with a tenderness that
disarmed her. “Well, maybe I’d change that stubborn temper of
yours. And your reckless bravery.”

“And the fact that you can’t bed me,” she
reminded him.

“Oh, I’ll find a way to bed you, Oria. Mark
my words on that. You promised me if I survived the Trom, that
would happen.”

“I’m sure I never said such a thing.” She
yawned.

“That’s how I heard it.” He sounded
insufferably pleased with himself.

“And you call me stubborn. You’re worse.”

“Oh yes, my lovely sorceress. More stubborn
than you are by a far stretch, so you might as well give up and
succumb to my manly charms.”

They were just passing through the main doors
of the palace, about to take the turn to her tower when he halted.
Then cursed, using Arill’s name.

“What?” She reached to see with sgath. Like
lighting a too-short candle wick, it sputtered, then died, leaving
her effectively blind. She reached for the magic below Bára, but it
trickled in far too slowly to replenish her stores anytime soon.
Much as she hated to acknowledge it, Lonen had been correct about
not facing the coronation ceremony.

“
Oria—there’s an entourage at the bridge
to Ing’s Chasm. I think it’s—”

“I think Yar has returned,” Lonen spoke at
the same time.

“P
ut me down,” Oria
commanded. Because she sounded more like her imperious self and not
the bone-weary waif of before, he acceded. But he kept a hand near
the small of her back, in case she fainted.

“I’m not going to faint,” she said irritably,
making him smile.

“At least you’re feeling spry enough to read
my mind again. I’ve been thinking all sorts of things that you
missed.”

“Perhaps I chose not to sully my own mind by
looking,” she replied in that lofty, prim tone. If her odious
brother hadn’t been crossing the bridge to the palace, he’d have
sent her an image to make her lose that composure. Chuffta winged
in, angling through the open palace doors to accommodate his wide
wingspan, sinuous neck snaked back in flight like the great fishing
birds that frequented the lakes of Dru. Oria held up her left
forearm and he landed there as neatly as any tamed raptor
might.

The three of them waited in resigned silence,
with increasing resignation, as it became clear that the young
prince had indeed brought a priestess with him. The pair led a
joyful procession up from the gates below, both in their golden
masks, though hers was of a slightly different style, and she wore
yellow silk robes instead of crimson. They walked arm in arm,
sleeves drawn back and her forearm laid over his, their hands laced
together. A posture even Lonen recognized as a blatant display of
their compatibility. He’d never thought to experience a jagged bolt
of envy for another man’s fortune with a woman, but he hated that
Yar and his future bride already enjoyed what remained a distant
promise for him and Oria.