Oria's Gambit (26 page)

Another turnabout, for Oria to be strong and
her mother so fragile.

Gallia looked as beautifully composed as she
had the night before, but her sgath had dimmed, streaked with
unhappiness and a sickly pain.

“Are you well, sister?” Oria asked her, after
the formal greetings, which Yar rushed through, shimmering grien
snaking about him.

Gallia started with surprise. “Very well,
thank you. Bára’s magic is yet unfamiliar to me. I would not have
expected it, but I assimilate Báran sgath differently. It has
a … different flavor.”

Oria wouldn’t have expected that either, but
it was interesting. So rarely did the priestesses travel to their
sister cities that little information was available regarding such
things. “We can postpone the contest if you—”

“Do you seek to delay, sister dear?” Yar
ostentatiously took Gallia’s bare hand in his. “Perhaps you are
afraid and seek to avoid the certain humiliation of defeat. We will
accept your forfeit.”

“No forfeit,” Oria replied, though she didn’t
like his lack of concern for his new wife. Had Yar always been so
self-involved, so callous to the needs of others? Perhaps so.
Sometimes what seem to be the flaws of youth are truly the chasms
of personality.

“Prepare to be defeated then. Priest Vico—we
are ready to begin!” He dropped Gallia’s hand as abruptly as he’d
seized it, striding over to address the priest.

“Quickly,” Oria bent to Gallia. “Whatever
should happen today, you will find a champion in our mother, the
former queen. She has bad days and good. More of the former than
the latter. But visit her regularly, talk with her. You’ll learn to
anticipate the good days. And if Yar doesn’t treat you well, take
your appeal to her. She’ll help you.”

Gallia seemed briefly taken aback before her
cloak of
hwil
settled. “I appreciate your concern, sister,
but I am content.”

Oria doubted it, but she let the woman
maintain that façade. Deliberately, she set it aside. She couldn’t
think of her new sister’s plight and maintain the appearance of her
own
hwil
.

Lonen brushed a hand over her braids. “She is
a sorceress like yourself, not powerless. She’ll find a way to
handle him.”

“Arill make it so,” she replied, just so he’d
smile. “The onlookers will leave,” Priest Vico declared.
“Contestants and attendants to remain. Master Chuffta, you may sit
to the side.”

“The creature helps her,” Yar protested.
“It’s an unfair advantage.”

Oria didn’t say that she had to be in contact
with her Familiar for most of the benefit. If Yar didn’t realize
that, all the better.

Priest Vico considered. “The derkesthai have
a long history of assisting Báran kings and queens. If Princess
Oria’s Familiar gives her an advantage, then that would go towards
her duties as queen as well, and should be ascertained as such.
Master Chuffta may remain.”

Oria breathed an internal sigh of relief to
at least have Chuffta with her.

“
Always. Even when I’m not physically
present, I am with you.”

“
Unless I’m intimate with Lonen and you’re
not listening,”
she reminded him.

“
Naturally.”
He managed to keep his
mind-voice free of even the least hint of sarcasm. He hadn’t
commented on her belated wedding night this time, for which she was
grateful. Some things weren’t for sharing with anyone else. What
had passed between her and her Destrye warrior would remain their
private secret.

“The contest,” announced Priest Vico,
“consists of three parts. We begin the first, the demonstration of
compatibility.”

Just as Oria had predicted. She’d explained to him
that the initial testing of compatibility between prospective
spouses began with proximity, progressed to casual skin-to-skin
contact, and then probably to some form of more intimate contact.
She didn’t know about the last as she hadn’t made it that far with
anyone. It perversely pleased him that she hadn’t, even though
rationally it would be better if she had, and could have known what
to prepare them for.

Regardless, this portion would likely be the
most difficult for Oria. Her powerful magics weren’t in doubt—at
least to his eye—only her ability to withstand her husband’s
touch.

After the onlookers departed at Priest Vico’s
command, Juli stepped up to cut the ribbons to Oria’s mask, while
Yar and Gallia’s attendants did likewise. For the first time, Lonen
looked on Yar’s face, studying his enemy. He had the gawky
looks—and unfortunately pimpled skin—of a beardless boy, his eyes
strangely dark beneath beetling red brows. Gallia was a lovely
woman, with blue eyes and skin more golden than Oria’s cream. She
took her time blotting her face, her hands unsteady.

“The journey took a toll on her,” Oria
murmured to him.

“Perhaps last night also,” he agreed. It
bothered his wife to think of her brother mistreating a woman,
though it hardly surprised him, given what he’d seen of Yar’s
selfish character. Even if he hadn’t been deliberately cruel to
her, the boy had no compassion in him, no sensitivity to the needs
of another person. On top of his likely inexperience with a woman,
it made for a bad combination for a virginal bride. Drawing on the
hard heart he’d built over years of warfare, he pushed the sympathy
aside. “It may sound callous, but if her exhaustion helps our
cause…”

“I know.” But Oria sounded glum.

“This battle was forced upon us. We didn’t
choose it, but we’ll fight it anyway.” If the Destrye had learned
nothing else from the Golem Wars, they’d come to understand that
truth all too well.

Oria flexed her fingers on his sleeve. “And
yet we’ve both discovered the myriad regrets of the actions we’ve
taken to win those battles. I’d prefer to find a victory that
doesn’t require another’s crushing defeat.”

He winced at the reminder that many Bárans
had been equally forced into conflict. Now who was selfish? He was
saved thinking up an optimistic reply to that by Priest Vico.

“Please embrace your spouse.”

Lonen brought Oria into his arms, carefully
touching her over her clothes, postponing the inevitable impact on
her. They’d been close when he carried her, but still nothing like
this, the lines of their whole bodies folding together. She turned
her cheek to lay it against his chest, wrapping slender arms around
his waist and nestling against him. Her soft breasts and thighs
snuggled into him as if made for him, a slim dagger fitting
perfectly into the sheath of his body. Holding her like this
reminded him of the first time she’d handed him one of her delicate
glass wine vessels—that he might fail to temper his strength and
shatter her out of carelessness.

“This is proximity?” he murmured, brushing
his lips over the braids crowning her head.

She breathed a laugh. “He skipped a few
phases since it’s clear we are able to be near each other without
suffering.”

Indulging himself in the rare luxury, he ran
his hands along the elegant line of her spine and dainty curve of
her waist. “Is it truly better with me then than it was—being
near?”

She raised her face, giving him a small
smile. “Better than I ever imagined.”

“Remain in physical contact, but take each
other’s hands, please,” Priest Vico instructed.

“Here we go,” Lonen muttered, and Oria drew
composure about her like a cloak of winter chill.

“Whatever happens, just keep going,” she told
him. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

He doubted that, and reserved the right to
act to protect her according to his own judgment, but he dropped
his hands to his sides as she did, lacing his fingers carefully
with hers, as if being gentle with her would make any difference.
She shuddered, closing her eyes as lines of pain formed around
them. She slowed her breathing in a way he recognized now as a
method for mastering difficult input. Not unlike a wounded warrior
steeling himself against the surgeon’s knife.

From what he could tell, she seemed to be
doing better than during their wedding ceremony, though that could
be entirely false optimism. Especially as bewildering as that
experience had been.

Over her head, he met Chuffta’s intent gaze,
exchanging wordless hope and concern.

Priest Vico might be helping her as Lonen
hoped, because he wasted little time making Oria endure the
contact. “And now a kiss, maintained until I ask you to stop.”

Number three. At least the trial would stop
at a kiss. Not what Lonen had hoped for their first kiss, but so it
went in their star-crossed marriage. Oria raised her face, lines of
strain between her brows and bracketing her lovely mouth. “Stop
fretting,” she taunted. “Chicken.”

Arill, how he loved this woman. Delay only
made it worse, so he brushed her lips with his, unable to savor the
sweetness of her with the incoherent sound of pain she made. Doing
his best to shield her, he held back his emotions as he would on
the battlefield. Her heart pounded in frantic beats, shuddering
into him, and he kissed her softly, soothingly, if only to make
that aspect as bearable as possible.

A scuffle and cry in the background. “Beast!”
Gallia cried. Adhering to the rules, Lonen kept the kiss, ignoring
whatever had happened. If Yar and Gallia forfeited, so much the
better.

“You may desist,” Priest Vico called in a
placid tone as if nothing had happened.

Oria broke away from him, gasping for breath,
clutching her hands to her stomach as if she might be ill. He
checked his impulse to reach for her, to comfort her, clenching his
hands into fists instead. So wrong that what should be good between
them was the worst thing for her.

“Both marriages pass the compatibility test,”
the priest declared.

“Are you insane?” Yar thrust a finger in
Oria’s direction. “Look at her. She’s staggering from the impact of
that barbarian’s foul touch.”

“Look to your own bride, Prince Yar,” the
priest replied. “Impacts occur on many levels. However, I concede
that Prince Yar and Priestess Gallia demonstrate greater
compatibility, so far as magic is concerned.”

A fine point, as Gallia, while not obviously
physically stressed as Oria, looked miserably unhappy, a trickle of
blood at the corner of her mouth. She took the cloth her attendant
offered, wiping it away and seemed grateful to don her mask
again.

Oria did too, quietly talking with Juli as
she did so. With a pang that he refused to accept as foreboding, he
watched her face disappear behind the featureless metal again.

Lonen worried for her palpably, his concern tugging
at her, but she couldn’t reassure him. At this point, she could
only grit through. He’d been as gentle as possible with her, but
the contact, particularly mouth to mouth, had burned like acid,
hollowing her out as surely as if he’d taken his axe to her. If she
thought about it too much, she’d become depressed at the
unlikelihood of them ever being able to touch with pleasure. A
small consideration, perhaps, given the far more daunting obstacles
they faced, but one that had become strangely important to her.

“
Yesterday you were certain you could not
lie with him at all and you have. Give it time. You’re doing
brilliantly well.”

Grateful for her Familiar, she sent him a
loving thought and straightened, moving to Lonen and putting her
hand on his padded forearm.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured.

“No apologies,” she reminded him.

He growled under his breath but subsided when
Vico spoke.

“For the second part, the priestesses will
demonstrate their sgath. Please, gather your sgath and offer it to
Grienon through me. Would either of you prefer to go first?”

“I’ll go first,” Oria said, ignoring Lonen’s
muttered protest. Yes, she was giving Gallia time to sort herself,
but she couldn’t do less. Even though Oria had focused on Lonen’s
kiss, trying to ignore the pain of contact in favor of the
surprisingly lovely tickle of his beard on her face, the shocking
tender heat of his mouth—her sgath had relentlessly revealed how
harshly Yar had kissed his new bride. Lonen was likely right that
she should treat Gallia as the enemy, but her heart ached for her
sister.