The Heart of Betrayal

The hall still roared with excitement.

  “Well done,” he conceded.

  And then a question was shouted from an elder in the back.

  “When will the marriage take place?”

  The advantage was yet mine. Before the Komizar could answer, I called back to the elder, “At the rise of Hunter’s Moon to honor the clan of Meurasi.” Six days away. Cheers erupted again.

  I knew the Komizar had envisioned an immediate execution of the wedding, but now it was not only announced publicly, it was a date that would honor the clans. The girl Meuras was born under a Hunter’s Moon. If he changed the wedding day now, it would be an insult.

  The Komizar stood to accept congratulations. Quarterlords and soldiers pressed in, and I lost sight of him, but I saw that at least some of the governors wore wooden smiles, caught off guard by this new development. Perhaps they were unsettled that as Council they hadn’t been consulted, or maybe it was something else: that I would be queen. The Komizar hadn’t even blinked when I said it. If he had balked at anything, I thought it would be that. Vendans do not have royals. But I saw on our hillside rides how he seemed to flaunt it, a princess of the enemy.

  A tankard was thrust into my hand, and I turned to thank whoever had delivered it. It was Rafe.

  “Congratulations, Princess,” he said.

  We were surrounded, our elbows and backs touching others who mingled in the crowded room, pushing us close together.

  “Thank you, Emissary.”

  “No hard feelings, right?” a nearby governor interjected.

  “A mere summer distraction, Governor. I’m sure you’ve had a few of those,” I said pointedly. He laughed and turned to another conversation.

  “Just a few days,” Rafe said. “That’s not much time to get so much ready.”

  “Vendan weddings are simple, I’m told. A feast cake and witnesses are all that’s required.”

  “How lucky for you both.”

  The air was brittle between us.

  “I’m sorry about your queen,” I said.

  He swallowed hard, belying his fiery stare. “Thank you.”

  I could see the rage crackling within him. He was a storm ready to tear loose, a warrior far past the point of holding back—weary of being a compliant emissary.

  “Your dress is quite striking,” he said. He forced a strained smile to his lips.

  The Komizar was suddenly at my side. “Yes, it is. She’s becoming more Vendan every day, isn’t she, Emissary?” He dragged me away before Rafe could answer.

  The night wore long, every elder and quarterlord offering regards to the Komizar, but he received quiet, more devious nods from those who had met with him in his clandestine chambers. It was a strategic move and not a real marriage at all, not even a true partnership as the clans would expect.

  I watched him slowly grow irritated with the talkative clan being in the hall. These were not truly his people. They spoke of harvest, weather, and feast cakes, not weapons, wars, and power. Their ways were weak, though he reaped his army from their young. Their only common goal was more. For the clans, more food, more future. For the Komizar, more power. For the promises he dangled before them, they gave him loyalty.

  It was evident how much he really did need me when he walked away from one elder mid-sentence, his patience spent. He stopped short in front of me, his eyes clouded with wine, and pulled me behind a pillar.

  “You must be getting tired. It’s time for us to go.” He called to Ulrix that we were retiring. It drew laughs from those within earshot.

  I saw Rafe watching from a distance as if he might spring. I grabbed a fistful of the Komizar’s shirt, yanked him close, and whispered through a razor-tight smile, knowing we were being watched, “I will sleep in my own quarters tonight. If this is to be a marriage, it is to be a real one, and you will wait like all good bridegrooms do.”

  The haze of wine was flushed away by his anger. His eyes cut through me. “We both know there’s nothing real about this marriage. You’ll do just as I—”

  “Now it’s your turn to think carefully,” I said, returning his glare. “Look around you. See who watches. Which do you desire more? Me or the fervor of your people? Make your choice now, because I promise you—you can’t have both.”

  His expression went cold, and then he smiled, releasing my wrist. “Until the wedding.”

  He yelled for Calantha to escort me to my room and disappeared back into a circle of drunk soldiers.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  KADEN

  I was already weary of this governor. He never stopped talking. At least the small squad of men who accompanied him were mostly silent. It was clear they feared him. If not for his province’s crucial importance as a supplier of black ore to the Sanctum, I would have let him trail behind us on the road to choke on our dust.

  It was only another day’s ride before I could be rid of him. He’d fit in well with the chievdars, though. His favorite topic was domination over the enemy swine and all the ways they should be sliced and strung. Wait until he learned we had two enemy swine sleeping in the Sanctum. Neither I nor the men traveling with me had told him, hoping to avoid another tirade.

  Most of the time when he spoke, I tried not to listen anyway. Instead I thought of Lia, wondering what had passed in the last eight days. I had charged Eben and Aster with making sure she had everything she needed and called upon Griz to look after her too. He had taken a liking to her, which was not in his nature—but Griz was strong in the old ways of the hillfolk, and the gift had heft with them. With the three of them watching after her, she would be fine, I kept telling myself.

  I thought of the taste of our last kiss, the concern in her eyes, the softness of her voice when she asked about my mother. I thought maybe the tide was turning for us. I thought about how much I couldn’t wait to return to her and listen to her chant the acknowledgment of sacrifice. Paviamma. Every word that—

  “And then I said to him—”

  “Shut up, Governor!” I snapped. “For three blessed hours, until we set camp, shut up!”

  My soldiers smiled. Even the governor’s squad smiled.

  The governor puffed out his chest and scowled. “I was only trying to break up the monotony of the ride.”

  “Then spare us. The monotony suits us fine.”

  I went back to my thoughts of Lia. How could I tell her that I knew in my gut from almost the beginning that we were meant to be together? That I had seen myself growing old with her. That a gift I wasn’t even sure she really possessed had told me her name long before I ever laid eyes on her.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  PAULINE

  Bryn leaned forward, looking into his cider. He was the youngest of Lia’s older brothers, always the cheerful, fresh-mouthed one, who got into as much mischief as Lia. The past several months had sobered him. There were no grins on his face now, no quips on his tongue. “Regan and I secretly cheered when she bolted. We never thought it would come to this.”

  “Walther too?”

  He nodded. “Maybe him most of all. He’s the one who left false leads up north for the trackers.”

  Regan leaned back in his chair and sighed. “We had all voiced our opposition to shipping her off to a stranger and strange land. We knew she’d be miserable, and there are other ways of creating an alliance with a little persistent diplomacy—”

  “But apparently, Mother wouldn’t hear of it,” Bryn interjected, the first hint of bitterness in his tone.

  The queen? “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “She and the Royal Scholar were the first to suggest they accept the proposal from Dalbreck.”

  That was impossible. I knew the queen. She loved Lia, I was sure of it. “How do you know this?”

  Regan explained that after Lia disappeared, there was a huge row between his mother and father. They were so incensed they hadn’t retreated to their private chambers to vent their anger. “Father accused her of undermining him and making him look like a fool
. He said that she never should have pushed the matter if she couldn’t control her own daughter. They shot the sordid details at each other like they were poison arrows.”

  “There has to be an explanation for all of this,” I said. “Your mother loves Lia.”

  Regan shrugged. “She refuses to discuss the matter with any of us, including the king. Even Walther couldn’t pry anything loose, and he is always able to coax things from her.”

  Bryn said she mostly stayed in her chamber, even for meals, and he only saw her walking the halls when she was on her way to see the Royal Scholar.

  “But the Scholar hates Lia,” I said.

  Regan nodded in agreement. The animosity between Lia and the Scholar wasn’t a secret. “We assume she’s seeking comfort and counseling in the Holy Text. He is the expert on such things.”

  Comfort. Possibly. But I could hear the doubt in Regan’s voice.

  Bryn downed the rest of his cider. “You’re sure she was abducted?” he asked again. His tone was laced with despair. I knew how much he loved his sister, and the thought of her in barbarian hands brought him heartbreaking misery.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “We’ll confront both Mother and Father,” Regan said. “We’ll make them listen. We’ll get her back.”

  They left, and my spirits lifted. Regan’s resolve gave me a sliver of hope at last. He reminded me so much of his brother. If only Walther were here to stand with them too. I kissed my fingers and prayed for Walther’s swift return.

  I pushed up from the table to go back to our room. I could see the weariness in Gwyneth’s face too as she rose. It had been a long day of waiting and anticipation.

  “Well, there you are!”

  Gwyneth and I both whirled around.

  Berdi stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “Blazing balls, I’ve been to half the inns from here to the lowlands looking for you two! I didn’t think you’d be snug up in the middle of town.”

  I stared at her, not quite believing what I was seeing.

  Gwyneth found her tongue before I did. “What are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t season a pot of stew to save my life worrying about you two and what happened to Lia. Figured I’d be more useful here.”

  “But who’s watching the tavern?” I squeaked.

  Berdi shook her head. “You don’t want to know.” She wiped her hands on her dress as if she were wearing an apron, then sniffed the air. “Not much in the way of cooking here either, I see. I may have to poke my head in the kitchen.” She looked back at us and raised her brows. “Don’t I get any kind of welcome?”

  Gwyneth and I both rushed into her wide-spread arms, and Berdi swiped at tears she blamed on the dusty ride. The only thing missing in that moment was Lia.

  I hold her back.

  Be still, child.

  Let them take it.

  She trembles at my side,

  Fierce with rage.

  We watch the scavengers take the baskets of food we have gathered.

  There is no compassion. No mercy.

  Tonight we will go hungry.

  I see Harik, their leader, among them.

  He eyes Morrighan, and I shove her behind me.

  Silver knives glitter at his side,

  and I am grateful that when they leave,

  He does not take more.

  —The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Calantha escorted me to the bath chamber. While my door was no longer locked as if I were a prisoner, my new freedoms apparently still required guards posted at the end of my hall as a precaution, the Komizar claimed, and I had no doubt they reported back to him every single time I so much as poked my head out the door. I also had escorts, who were essentially guards too, everywhere I went. Last night when Calantha walked me back to my room, she hadn’t spoken a word. This morning seemed to bring more of the same treatment.

  We entered the dreary, windowless bath chamber, lit only with a few candles, but this time instead of a wooden barrel, there was a large copper tub. It was half full of water, and waves of steam shimmered over the surface. A hot bath. I hadn’t thought such a thing existed here. The sweet scent of roses filled the air. And bath oils.

  She must have noticed my steps falter. “A betrothal gift from the clan,” she explained flatly, and she sat on a stool, waving me toward the tub.

  I disrobed and eased into the scalding water. It was the first hot bath I’d had since leaving the vagabond camp. I could almost have forgotten where I was if not for Calantha’s baubled blue eye staring at me and the milky one gazing unfocused into the shadows.

  “Which clan do you belong to?” I asked.

  That got her attention. Both eyes were focused on me now. “None,” she answered. “I’ve never lived outside of the Sanctum.”

  This revelation puzzled me. “Then why did you have me braid my hair to show off the kavah?”

  She shrugged.

  I sank down into the tub. “That’s how you solve all your problems, isn’t it? With indifference.”

  “I have no problems, Princess.”

  “I am your problem, that much is certain, but even that’s a mystery to me. You both prod me and thwart me as if you can’t make up your mind.”

  “I do neither. I follow orders.”

  “I think not,” I countered and ran a soapy sponge down my leg. “I think you’re dabbling with a bit of power, but you’re not quite sure what to do with it. You test your strength now and then, bring it out of hiding, but then you shove it away again. All your boldness is on the outside. Inside you cower.”

  “I think you can bathe by yourself.” She stood to leave.

  I took a handful of water and threw it at her, splashing her face.

  She bristled, and her hand flew to the dagger at her hip. Her chest rose in deep, angry breaths. “I’m armed. That doesn’t worry you?”

  “I’m naked and unarmed. I’d be a fool not to worry. But I did it anyway, didn’t I?”

  Her eye blazed. There was no indifference in her face now. Her lip lifted in a condescending sneer. “I was like you once, Princess. Answers were simple. The world was at my fingertips. I was young and in love and the daughter of the most powerful man in the land.”

  “But the most powerful man in—”

  “That’s right. I was the daughter of the last Komizar.”

  I leaned forward in the tub. “The one who—”

  “Yes, the one your betrothed killed eleven years ago. I helped him do it. So now you know, I am quite capable of being bold. Arranging someone’s death is not so difficult.”

  She turned and left, and the heavy door rattled shut behind her.

  I sat there stunned, not quite sure what to think. Had she just threatened to orchestrate my death? I was young and in love. With the Komizar? What did she think when she found out about our marriage? Was that why she had been so silent? Surely she had more reason now to kill me.

  I finished my bath, the luxury of it now gone. I rubbed the sponge over my arms, trying to think only of the baths where Pauline scrubbed my back and I scrubbed hers, how we poured pitchers of warm rosewater over each other, the baths where we laughed and talked about love and the future and all the things that friends share—not murder. I couldn’t quite absorb it. Calantha had helped the Komizar kill her own father.

  And yet she hadn’t drawn her dagger on me, even though I saw the rage in her eye. I had pushed her just as I intended, but didn’t get the answer I expected. Still, much was revealed. In the heartbeat of a second, beneath all the scorn that masked her face, I saw a girl, a younger Calantha, one without an eyepatch, who was terrified. A small glimpse of truth.

  She is afraid.

  Fear and thannis were two things that seemed to grow easily in this kingdom.

  * * *

  When I came out of the bath chamber, Calantha had left two scrawny smooth-cheeked guards as my escorts in her stead. Apparently she’d had enough of me for
one day. I’d had enough of her too. I started to turn one direction, and both guards stepped forward to block me.

  “I don’t require your escort,” I said. “I’m going to—”

  “We were told to return you to your room,” one of them said. His voice was uneven, and he shifted from foot to foot. The two of them exchanged a wary glance, and I saw a knot of leather at the shorter one’s neck peeking from beneath his vest. He wore an amulet for protection. No doubt the other guard did too. I nodded slowly, noting their cautious expressions, and we began walking in the direction they indicated, one on either side of me. When we reached the darkest part of the hallway, I stopped short. I closed my eyes, my hands splayed on my thighs.

  “What’s wrong with her?” one whispered.

  “Step back,” the other said.

  I grimaced.

  I heard them both scramble back.

  I fluttered my eyelids open until my eyes were wide and crazed-looking.

  Both guards were plastered up against the wall.

  I slowly opened my mouth, wider and wider, until I was sure I looked like a gaping cod.

  And then I let loose a bloodcurdling scream.

  They both ran down the hallway, disappearing so quickly into the shadows I was impressed with their agility.

  I turned, satisfied they wouldn’t be coming this way again, and went in the opposite direction. It was the first time I had twisted the gift into a sham since I’d been here, but if I wasn’t going to be handed my newly earned freedoms, it appeared I would have to seize them. There were secrets just steps away that I had a right to know.

  * * *

  The caverns deep below the Sanctum were quiet. Only a little borrowed light from a lantern in the outside corridor helped me navigate. I entered a long, narrow chamber that had clearly been in recent use. A half-eaten loaf of bread was wrapped in waxed cloth. Books lay open on a table. Numbers and symbols that made no sense to me were scribbled on sheets of paper and gave no clue as to where the strange robed men were from. Several tiny sealed flasks filled with clear liquid lined the back of another table. I lifted one and held it to the light. Their own stock of spirits? I replaced it and searched the dim corners but could find nothing.