Oria's Gambit (8 page)

“What do you want of us?” The former queen’s
face remained still and remote as a carved statue, but her dark
eyes held dread. “We have nothing left to give.”

“Mother.” Oria took her mother’s hands, skin
to skin, Lonen noted. So it could be done. “The Trom have attacked
Dru and again stolen water.”

Though pale as ice already, the former queen
blanched, then eased herself into a chair. “Oh, Yar,” she
whispered.

“It has to be.” Oria went with her, keeping
her hand and kneeling at her mother’s knee. “There’s only one path
left to us. I must become queen as soon as possible, both to hold
the throne against him and find a way to … take control
myself.”

Oria didn’t look his way, but her mother did,
gaze flicking to ascertain how much he understood. “Yourself? You
can’t mean you propose to try to summon
them
?”

“I do. I see no other way. As queen, I’ll
have access to all the temple secrets. I have to try this.”

“And if you break?” Cagily, Oria’s mother
looked at him and away again. “We need to discuss your plan without
this barbarian present.”

“I’ve proposed to King Lonen that we wed,”
Oria interrupted. “And he’s agreed. If you’ll support my choice
with the temple we can marry tonight and petition the council
tomorrow.”

The former queen’s expression didn’t falter
from its smooth serenity, but Lonen didn’t miss how her knuckles
whitened as she gripped Oria’s hands. “This extremity is not what I
had in mind when we discussed the necessity of a marriage for you,
my daughter.” The words seemed to hold a wealth of subtext, enough
to fuel a furious urge in him to lay about with his axe and cut
through all the stultifying politics. They discussed marriage to
him, not a death sentence, though you wouldn’t know it from the
former queen’s dire expression.

“I know what I’m doing.”

The former queen shook her head. “I don’t
know that you do. Are you doing this out of some misplaced
guilt?”

Oria’s slim shoulders moved in a shimmy of
discomfort. “It seems someone here should be shouldering that very
well placed guilt.”

“Becoming my honored wife and queen of the
Destrye is hardly a punishment,” Lonen grated out, harshly enough
to startle both women out of their communion.

Oria stood hastily and brushed a slim hand
over her immaculate braids, as if caught with a hair out of place.
“My apologies, King Lonen. We intended no insult. I am indeed
honored to wed you and become your queen, as Bára is privileged to
claim you as king.”

A pretty speech—she was good at those—but her
mother’s mouth tightened over unspoken words. “This is why we
should discuss this in private, Oria.” She raised meaningful
brows.

“No.” Oria straightened her shoulders and
moved to align herself beside him. Not touching him, naturally, but
close enough that he could if he forgot himself and tried. “King
Lonen is part of this. He’s aware that some temple mysteries will
remain secrets from him, so speak as you will.”

“Is that so?” Rhianna gestured at him with a
languid hand, but her eyes bored into him dark and hard as a rare
moonless winter night. “Then is he
aware
that he can never
bed you? Their barbarian race thinks nothing of rape.”

Oria moved slightly in front of him at his
growl, forestalling his retort. “We’ve discussed it. Barbarians
they may be, but the Destrye are also a race of disciplined
warriors. He will not harm me. He has agreed to a marriage in name
only.”

“Until he loses self-control.” Rhianna’s gaze
bored into him, as if he’d already defiled her daughter in truth,
rather than only in fantasy. “You are innocent of many of the
harsher realities of the world outside our walls, Oria. You cannot
risk this. Not for any reason.”

“The Destrye have a long and bloody history,
it’s true,” Lonen told her, unwilling to remain silent on the topic
any longer. “As do your people—something I’m sure must be as
well-documented in your texts as in ours. We also have a tradition
of protecting women, who are sacred to the goddess Arill. I would
allow no one to harm my wife—not even myself.”

Oria didn’t turn his way, but something about
the softening of her posture made him think she paid close
attention. Perhaps she mentally read the truth in his words, so he
strengthened that sentiment, pushing it towards her.

“Protecting women?” Rhianna’s lip curled,
emotion cracking her visage. “Is that why you murdered defenseless
priestesses in cold blood, one after another, like the animals you
slaughter without care?”

Lonen didn’t physically flinch, but only
through dint of great will. That night, the first priestess he’d
killed—the way her wondering eyes went dark with death—had reminded
him of the first doe he’d shot. Murder. Yes, it had felt that way,
had gone against everything he believed in. Nothing like the fair
fight of the battlefield. He’d done it out of extremity, yes, but
how to defend an indefensible act?

“I am—”

“You don’t deserve a treasure like my
daughter,” Rhianna spat. “You have no idea what she proposes to do
and worse, you mind-dead brute, you won’t be able to help her when
she needs it most. You’ll destroy her instead, like the monster you
are.”

S
truck hard by the wave of
guilt and remorse from Lonen—along with a vivid memory image of a
dying doe and blood on his hands—and with surprising, strong
protective feelings of her own, Oria wrestled the potent emotions.
He’d meant every word of what he’d said about not harming her, and
about holding the female sacred—a fascinating and foreign image in
his mind of a fertile goddess bestowing blessings. The truth
resonated in him regardless of the rest.

She deeply regretted bringing him to this
meeting.

Once a model of
hwil
, the former queen
had become like the bay beyond Bára, her emotional state as
unpredictable as the bore tides, and as lethal in their ability to
swamp the unwary.

“Enough, Mother,” Oria said, venting some of
the emotional tension with some judicious grien that took the form
of a dust devil swirling past the window, briefly whipping the
sheer silk curtains that hung limply by the sides. “We’ve all
committed grave sins in the name of war. You and I may not have
held the knife blades, but we’ve drunk the water bought with the
blood of Destrye children. Something you confessed you knew was
happening and that you did nothing to stop. None of us are
innocent.”

She caught a flash of surprised gratitude
from Lonen, glad then that she’d stood up for him in that rare
moment of weakness. He seemed so strong, so fierce—even brutal in
his anger at times—but he possessed a tender heart under that
muscled chest.

“
Something you detected in him all along,
hmm?”

Ignoring Chuffta’s too-smug observation, she
forged on. “You’ve left this to me, Mother. Unless you wish to
reclaim your mask and your crown, in which case I’ll gladly step
aside for you, I need you to support me in this decision.”

“So much of this is my fault, the result of
my many failures to act…” The former queen nearly chanted the
words, sounding like those prematurely aged out of sanity. Oria put
a finger to her temple, in lieu of putting her face in her hands.
Sometimes her mother seemed like her old self, her mind as incisive
as ever, then suddenly…

Lonen brushed the sleeve of her robe,
carefully not touching her skin, but putting her on alert
regardless. He had an inquiring feel to him and an image formed of
a person tending to her mother. Was he silently asking if the
former queen needed a healer? She shook her head minutely, just in
case. Her mother was beyond help.

“Then don’t fail to act now.” She said it
crisply, as her mother might once have prodded her, adding a nudge
of grien. “You promised to help me. This is how you can. I need you
to do this.”

Rhianna lifted a tear-streaked face, her
sgath hanging about her like tattered rags. “I wanted so much more
for you, my beautiful and powerful daughter. You should have an
ideal match, a man who will treasure you and know you as you
deserve to be known, give life to your magic, bring you wealth and
glory, and provide you children. No one less than the most powerful
of Báran kings deserves you, not this mind-dead—”

“Will you intervene with the temple or not?”
Oria cut her off as she should have done much earlier. No anger
wafted off Lonen, however—at least, not more than the dark,
brooding fury that seemed to underlie most of his thoughts. Had he
always been of that nature or had the war done that to him? An
intensely curious interest prowled over her that tasted distinctly
of him. No doubt he’d have more questions for her. Joy.

Then disappointment crushed her relatively
minor aggravation.

“I won’t do it.” Her mother lifted her chin,
an echo of the proud queen she’d been. “I won’t cooperate in
sending you to your doom. Not even to save Bára. The sacrifice is
too great.”

“This is my marriage, my decision, my
life.”

“Don’t ask me to help you ruin it. I love you
too much.” Her mother fulminated with dark sgath, much of it
reaching towards Lonen like the shadowy tentacles of the wyrms that
lurked in the damp cellars of Bára. Time to get him away from her.
No telling what her unstable magic could do, even as passively as
sgath typically worked. Oria had seen her mother blur those lines,
too.

She set her teeth, keeping the flawless
façade of
hwil
. “I won’t ask it then. But I will marry him
and petition the council for the crown tomorrow. Will you support
me then?”

Rhianna turned her face to the window, face
once again remote, seeing only the past. “I am not well.” Her voice
wobbled and she swallowed hard.

“I know, Mother.” Oria’s heart thudded dully
with the pain of seeing her like this. For a while it had seemed
she’d recover, but lately she only seemed to fall further into the
depths of her mind, her sanity fracturing more with every descent.
“Don’t fret. I’ll visit you in the morning and we can talk.”

Her mother didn’t reply, so Oria beckoned to
Chuffta, who flew to her shoulder. The winding of his long tail
around her arm gave her comfort.

“
It was a bad day. Perhaps she’ll be more
lucid tomorrow,”
he said as they withdrew. Lonen paced
stoically at her side, his emotions tightly reined, thoughts
unusually opaque.

“
She was lucid enough for a while
there—enough to recognize what a terrible idea this is.”

“
I don’t think it’s a terrible
idea.”

“
You don’t?”
Her toe caught the hem of
her robe in her moment of inattention.
“But you said
that—”

“
That the Destrye king would not be easily
led. I think he is a good mate for you.”

She rolled her eyes behind the mask.
“Like
you’d know.”

He gave her the mental equivalent of a shrug.
“You like him. The rest can be overcome.”

“
Now you sound like him.”

“
Attempting to summon the Trom yourself,
however,”
he continued, turning severe, “that
is a terrible
idea. Even your mother retains enough wit to know that. You run the
risk of—”

She bumped her shoulder to interrupt the
lecture, making her Familiar spread his wings for balance.
“I’m
not discussing this right now.”

“You could be having this conversation with
me, you know,” Lonen commented.

They emerged into the servants’ corridor and
Oria paused, both undecided about the direction they should take
and chagrined at Lonen’s remark. “I apologize.” She made herself
face him. “I’m in the habit of being with Chuffta and talking to
him, not with…”

“Another human being?” he supplied, a ripple
of humor beneath it.

Why that made her blush, she had no idea. His
body heat, perhaps, like a coal brazier in the narrow, enclosed
hall. “Right,” she replied, determined to leave it at that.

“What happened to her?” Lonen asked, with so
much gentle concern it nearly undid her.

“I explained already. My father’s death
damaged her.”

“You said because of this ideal mate
business.”

“Yes.” She braced herself for a barrage of
more questions.

He pondered, however, hand stroking
thoughtfully over his beard. “It seems to me that if I make
guesses, then you’re not technically telling me secrets.”

“Lonen…” She hated the helpless sound in her
voice, but she didn’t know what she could possibly say to explain
any of it. The encounter with her damaged mother had left her wrung
dry and facing High Priestess Febe felt beyond her. They should go
to the temple and do that next, but she couldn’t quite find the
impetus to leave the stuffy, shadowed corridor. Perhaps all of it
had been a stupid, hopeless plan. She was so tired of fighting.

“Give me some rope here and see if I can
climb on my own.” Lonen leaned against the wall and crossed his
ankles, still stroking his beard as he studied her. She didn’t
object because at least she could hide a little longer. “Your
mother called me ‘mind-dead,’ which I assume refers to my not being
a sorcerer.”

“I’m really sorry about that,” she whispered
in furious embarrassment. “She’s—”

“You apologize too much. I’m not offended,
though I gather that’s an insult. I know as well as you do that I
don’t have magic. I don’t consider this a failing. I don’t want it,
except maybe to help build aqueducts.”

Bemused, she parsed the word. “Build
what?”

“Never mind. An idle thought, and something
we can discuss later, when you come with me to Dru.”

“Which I can’t promise that—”

“Yes, yes, I know. Never mind that, either.
What’s important at the moment is that I gather that is this ideal
mate thing would connect you mentally to your husband, and there’s
some sort of magical component, too. Which your mother and father
had and she’s distressed to the point of refusing to help you marry
me because she places such a high value on wanting that for
you.”