Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs, Book One) (2 page)

Devesh smiled, and his lingering hands traced silken lines along her back. “You look... enticing this evening. Although I must admit to preferring the bloomers.”

She grinned and flushed with the memory of their fevered kisses. Their grapplings were still innocent, but that night, they had ventured closer to the passion they would share one day. Her skin prickled, her clothes even now a thin barrier between his hands and her bare skin.

“Some activities require a certain type of attire,” she said.

“Indeed.” His smile grew. “I didn’t know if you would come tonight. Sneaking out of the palace is dangerous business, and you’re quickly becoming a repeat offender.”

“No more dangerous than sending a note through Priya. What if she had read it?”

“I’m sure that she did.” His smile was bright against his bronzed skin. “But what could she make of a poem declaring your beauty in the moonlight? I imagine she thought it quite romantic.”

She no doubt did. Priya was constantly gaming the odds of one match or another at court.

“You should take care in feeding her overactive imagination.” But her admonishment was weak. Devesh’s kisses were like a smoky drug, leaving her hazed and blissful afterwards: three days was far too long to go without them. “If she suspects our romance is real, and not just your earnest fantasy, word could get back to the Queen. And if we’re caught before my birthday, the Queen will throw you out of the embassy simply to spite me for flouting her rules.”

A wild strand of her hair tangled with the evening breeze. Devesh brushed it from her face, then cupped her cheek. “A moment with you, even stolen, is worth the risk.”

His words were as intoxicating as his kisses. She reached up, eager for more. Devesh slowed and deepened their kiss, taming her feverish passion with a deliberation that made her even more crazed. Waiting to be with him was like a slow torture of endless minutes. But the day was coming: she could almost taste its nearness like the mouth-watering scent of a long-hungered meal just outside of reach. Soon she would be free: free of the court, free to kiss in broad daylight, free to leave Dharia behind and find the vermin who killed her father. Devesh had promised to help her search his country until they found the men responsible. She ached for that day like she did for Devesh. Soon she would have both.

When the intensity of their kiss made her gasp for breath, she broke it and leaned against him. “Two weeks, Dev,” she whispered. “Just two. And I’ll be eighteen.”

“I’m counting the days, my love.”

His intense gaze made her suddenly shy. She turned her attention to toying with the collar that brushed his neck. “You will say yes, won’t you? When I ask?”

He gently pulled her face up to look at him. “When you are free to marry for love, Third Daughter of the Queen, you had better not ask anyone other than me. I’ll have to hang myself from the nearest tree or else die of a broken heart.”

Her shyness was banished in a stroke. “Aren’t courtesans supposed to be the ones breaking hearts?”

“Truly,” he said with mock despair. “There’s nothing more sad than a broken-hearted courtesan. I would have to commit suicide just out of professional courtesy.”

Her laugh was cut short by the realization that a man stood in the shadows behind Devesh, watching them with a look that would cut stone. She jerked in surprise, let out a small shriek, and only recognized the owner of the stare when Devesh turned to see.

“Queen’s breath!” she exclaimed. “Janak, don’t startle me like that.”

“It is my job, my lady.” His gruff voice and scarred, angular face held no apology. Janak was
raksaka
, the deadly protectors of the royal household for generations, known for their ability to move unseen and unheard and for their unwavering loyalty to the Queen. Less so for their tact.

“Your job is to protect me, not frighten me halfway to my grave.”

His hardened face was impassive except for the small lift of one eyebrow. “Sometimes one requires the other, your most royal highness.”

She glared at him. His lack of respect was less concerning than the fact that he stood before her at all. His standard all-black raksaka attire was like one long piece of light-stealing fabric continuously wrapped around his body, and he nearly blended with the forest, even now as she was looking straight at him. His soft-footed boots had served him well in tracking her unnoticed. She turned to find Devesh had retreated, restoring a proper distance between them.

“Arama, Princess Aniri.” He gave her a small bow, hands pressed together with the casual greeting as if they had not just been caught in each other’s arms.

She sighed. The evening was ruined, but the greater danger was that Janak would report them back to her mother. He wasn’t simply raksaka, but the Queen’s informal advisor as well.

“Wait for me,” she said to Janak with as much royal disdain as she could muster. “Over there.” She gestured with a single raised eyebrow of her own that he should stand apart by the bridge. Raksaka only retired when incapable of serving, but if he betrayed her secret, by the Queen’s breath, she would seek an early retirement for him. If there were any justice in the world, he would have been retired long ago.

Janak didn’t move. “Your Highness, as much as you clearly needed my assistance this evening…” He glanced at Devesh’s now properly attentive form. “…I’m here to deliver a message that your presence is required in the Queen’s chamber.”

Aniri threw a nervous glance at Devesh. “What does my mother want at this hour?”

Janak smiled, a look that was simply bizarre on his face. In fact, Aniri couldn’t remember ever having seen him smile. Until that moment, she would have said he wasn’t capable of producing one.

“Prince Malik has made an offer of peace,” Janak said.

Aniri blinked. “The barbarian prince?” They weren’t at war with the Jungali, but a recent raid on crops and farm animals at the northern border had been bloody and brutal. Several were left dead—Dharian and Jungali both—and tensions had been raised. “I thought the Queen dispatched some of her guard to the border. And the Jungali have made reparations. What more is there to—”

“The villagers don’t want reparations, your most royal eminence,” Janak said. “They want justice. And the rumors of the Jungali being in possession of a new flying weapon leave the Queen with few choices. Even an increased military presence at the border runs the danger of provoking them.” He gave Aniri a withering look. “My lady might take care to learn more about the difficulties of her Queendom.”

“I don’t need lectures from a palace guard.” But the truth was she paid little heed to the politics of her mother’s court. She was Third Daughter—there had never been a need.

He bowed his head, a deference she was sure was meant to mock her. “My lady misunderstands my message. The barbarian prince has made an offer of peace. In exchange for your hand.”

“What?” The horror in her voice was a beat slower than the small hairs rising on her neck. “An arranged marriage? But... he’s... Jungali.

“Indeed.” Janak’s smile grew wider, and the panic in her chest bloomed even as she struggled to keep from giving him the satisfaction of seeing it.

She was so close to being free, so close... Her eldest sister, First Daughter Nahali, had arranged her own marriage by choosing a respectable Dharian noble: she would carry on the Queendom. Second Daughter Seledri’s arranged marriage to a prince of Samir had forged another bond in the long-lasting peace between Samir and Dharia. That left her, the Third Daughter, free of royal obligation once she came of age. Free to marry for love. Free of the tightly scripted palace life that choked her like a silken gag.

It was impossible that an arranged marriage would be asked of her now. And even if it were, no marriage had ever been arranged between a Dharian and the barbarians of the north. They ate with their bare fingers and killed each other with clubs—

Devesh’s hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump. “Aniri, listen to me. You must refuse him.” He turned her toward him, his grip growing stronger, and she winced at its strength. A scuffle of pebbles told her Janak loomed at her back. He might wish to see her forced into a duty she never wanted, but he would protect her with his life. Even Aniri didn’t doubt the loyalty of raksaka to those in direct line for the crown. No matter that she was as likely to become Queen as he was.

Devesh dropped his hold on her but didn’t move away. “I’m worried for you, Aniri.” His voice was soft again. “I must speak to you about this. Will you be at the Queen’s tea tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Afterward, can you meet me…” He glanced at Janak. “…in the place we first met?”

They had met in the Queen’s training hall, where Aniri had accepted the handsome new fencing instructor’s offer of lessons even though she had fenced for years. The hall would afford them some privacy, whereas at the Queen’s tea, she could hardly look at Devesh without arousing suspicions.

“I will meet you there,” Aniri said softly. But an ache already stabbed her chest: a fear that somehow it might be her last time with him.

He stepped back. “Very well. Gods be with you, my lady.” He bowed deeply in farewell and turned to slip away into the darkness. The shadows swallowed him along with possibly her last chance of a carefree life. She stared after him, her stomach wrenching into knots tighter than the rope she’d fashioned to steal away to him. When Aniri had composed her face, she turned and marched to Janak, the slick rocks by the riverside cutting into her slippered feet.

She stared up at the impassive face of her guard. Why her mother insisted Janak, of all the raksaka, attend her was beyond her understanding. It mattered little to Aniri that he had attained the highest rank among the raksaka, that he had served the Queen in many duties both at home and abroad, or that he was the Queen’s most trusted advisor. He had failed in the one duty that mattered to Aniri: protecting her father from the common robbers who’d killed him. And now Janak stood there, holding in his hands dangerous knowledge about the only man she had ever loved half as much.

“You will not speak of Devesh to anyone. If you do, I will see that you serve the rest of your life guarding the royal stables.”

“Trust me, your most royal eminence,” Janak said coolly. “If I could convince the Queen you were anything less than a reckless menace to yourself, I would gladly fulfill my duty elsewhere. The stables would be a welcome change of scenery.”

She glared at him, not sure if her threat carried any weight at all. Finally, she brushed past him, marching toward the palace without a look back. He shadowed her all the way as though he expected her to bolt for freedom and disappear into the dark after Devesh.

She only wished that were possible.

Aniri closed the door in Janak’s face, leaving him standing outside the Queen’s office. His ever-stoic expression broke in surprise as the heavy, wooden door swung shut. He was no doubt still lurking there, but he could wait to hear secondhand about her humiliation in this arranged marriage to a barbarian. Besides, she needed a moment alone to quell the pounding in her chest. While the chambermaid fetched her mother, Aniri could think of no better place to collect her thoughts than the Queen’s office.

This was where mementos of her father were sequestered away.

Her mother’s carved desk dominated the small room, in between the adjacent bedroom door and a gilded bookcase along the opposite wall. Aniri drifted toward the shelving. Paintings of her father sat between the treasures he brought back from his travels. She picked up a rough seashell that glinted green and purple secrets in its coiled form. It was from the isles off the west coast of Dharia and still smelled of the ocean.
Listen closely, Aniri, and you’ll hear Devruna’s promise of calm seas for your travels.
She had believed her father, with the wide-eyed innocence only a child can, and heard the goddess’s words in the shell’s soft noise.

Now, the only words she heard were his, but they eased the tightness in her chest anyway. She put the shell back in its place by a tiny statue of Devruna riding a tentacled sea creature. Next was a nubbled glass vase, heavy with sand as black as midnight, yet it sparkled in the flickering gaslamp light. The sand was from Chira, where volcanic mountains spilled ink-like lava and created shores of glittering blackness—a strangely devilish idea that entranced Aniri.

Her father would have taken her to all these places had he lived.

Her fingers trailed across the smooth shelf to an ink sketch of him reclined under a tree. He was probably no older than Devesh when the drawing was made. His face was serious as he scribbled something with an ornate feather quill. Aniri recognized it as a gift from her mother: she said he blew like a feather wherever the wind took him. His travels kept him away for weeks at a time, but he always lavished tales and treasures on his three little girls when he returned. Aniri burned with envy when her sisters were old enough to take those trips with him. She was robbed of her turn by the murderers who stole her father’s life in a countryside Samirian inn.

The Queen had moved on quickly after his death. The abundance of courtesans in her court seemed to satisfy whatever needs she had for male companionship. Aniri tried not to think of it because whenever she did, she had a difficult time keeping her tongue. At least her mother hadn’t chosen another man to be king, one who might try to play father to her as well.