Ildiko scanned Serovek’s sweeping scrawl. “Brishen, if Belawat knows of the galla, and Gaur discovers you’ve kept this information from them, they’ll assume you’re planning something nefarious with the Beladine.” That’s all they needed, war with their allies over a wrong assumption.
“I know. I’d hoped for more time but at no point since this disaster began have I been granted such a boon.”
“I can still travel to Gaur as your envoy,” she said. “I know what to say and how to say it. My uncle will grant me an immediate audience, if only for curiosity’s sake.”
He stiffened. “I’d be...displeased to say the least if he kept the Kai queen waiting.” His mouth curved into a wan smile. “Two days ago, I might have said yes just to see you safely out of Bast-Haradis. Now it’s too dangerous. I’m risking the lives of my messengers as is, and they’re fast and light on horseback. I won’t risk my wife.”
“I can be a fast traveler,” she argued.
Brishen gathered her close. “I’m sure you can, but I want you here. I need you here.” His words simultaneously warmed and frustrated her. “There’s nothing stopping you from writing the message to be delivered. If you believe you know the best way to impart this news, then do so. You’re Gauri; I’m not. I trust you to know what to say. Just do it in writing.”
He growled softly when Mesumenes approached and bowed to Ildiko. “My lady, a word if you please.”
Brishen rested his forehead against hers for a moment. “Go. I must ride out with Mertok anyway. We’re clearing all the homesteads on the western side of the Absu and sinking wells in preparation for more people. I’ll find you later.”
She watched him leave before turning to her overworked steward. “Now what fires need putting out?”
The hours flew by, and she didn’t see Brishen again until they met for hurried changes into more formal clothing for supper. The great hall was full of people, the benches crowded with diners from the provinces under Saggara’s control.
Brishen leaned in to whisper in Ildiko’s ear. “How empty are my larders now?”
She scanned the sea of Kai from her spot at the high table. “Still fairly full for now, but that won’t last if we feed this many people every night.”
Brishen spent the majority of the meal answering questions between quick bites of food. Ildiko listened and stayed mostly silent, observing how the various lesser nobles and vicegerents employed tactics and strategies worthy of the most complicated battle plans to place themselves high in Brishen’s esteem. Kai women didn’t flirt the way Gauri court women did, but she understood the intense scrutiny to which Brishen was subjected. Those women, widow and maiden alike, with an eye on the throne in even the smallest way, judged him as a potential mate or lover. They judged Ildiko as well, but as an adversary and obstacle.
Supper was interminable and lasted for centuries in her estimation. She almost cheered when Brishen stood and called an end to the evening. He escorted her out of the hall and up the stairs, exhaling a relieved sigh when they found themselves alone in the corridor leading to their rooms. “Thank the gods that’s over. And lucky us. We get to do it every night.” His words carried the razor edge of bitter sarcasm.
She couldn’t agree with him more and regretted that she’d halted their celebratory escape. “You still need to talk with the Elsod. Remember, she had more to tell us.”
He groaned. “I forgot.” He laced his fingers with hers. “Let’s get this over with.”
The Elsod had exchanged the bed for a seat by the fire. She sat swaddled in a blanket and made to rise when Brishen entered the room. He motioned for her to remain seated and dragged another chair close to sit opposite her.
Ildiko retreated to a corner to listen as the memory warden repeated to him what she’d told her earlier. When she was done, Brishen leaned back in his chair, expression haggard. He looked to Ildiko. “Make sure your letter includes a generous dose of groveling and flattery. I don’t see Gaur being too quick to give up one of its valuable generals to help us. We’ll likely end up with some luckless stable hand, if Sangur the Lame bothers to send anyone at all.”
“And Belawat?” the Elsod said.
He rose to pace in front of the hearth. “I’m friendly with the margrave of High Salure. I can ask him to exert whatever influence he might have with the Beladine court.” He paused as if considering whether or not he wanted to ask his next question. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes.”
The faint slump to his shoulders revealed his weariness. “Of course.”
The Elsod straightened in her seat and shrugged off the blanket, looking as if she prepared for battle. “You are the only surviving member of the royal house of Khaskem. The throne of Bast-Haradis now passes to you as does the duty to ensure succession of your line and the continuity of the monarchy. You must provide the kingdom with heirs.”
Ildiko’s hands fisted in her skirts. She had dreaded having this conversation with Brishen. Now it seemed the Elsod would do it for her.
He whirled on the old woman, teeth snapping together in annoyance. “Are you jesting? I think we all have enough to worry about at the moment that’s far more important than who gets to play king after me.”
She didn’t back down. “This is no small matter. It’s as important as defeating the galla, and you must consider it now. You are married to a human woman. The Kai will accept her as a powerless hercegesé; they won’t accept her as a Kai queen. And she cannot bear you children. As the Kai sovereign, it’s your duty to give the country heirs.”
The temperature in the room noticeably dropped. Ildiko glanced at the windows, certain someone had thrown open the shutters to let in the winter wind. They were latched shut, with nary a draft to disturb the lit candles set about the room. Instead, an icy fury poured off Brishen. Normally sanguine in his affections and temperate in his emotions, he now practically vibrated with rage. “Considering what I’m about to willingly embrace, don’t presume to lecture me about duty to crown and country,” he bit out in scathing tones.
This time, the Elsod paled. Her eyes dropped to her lap, and her voice softened. “Forgive me, Sire, but I have to tell you honestly. You must renounce Ildiko of Gaur, dissolve your marriage and marry a Kai woman.”
“No!”
Everyone flinched at his bellow, including Ildiko. She caught the Elsod’s eye. “Surely, this could have waited. His burden is heavy enough already.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Brishen stilled, staring straight ahead before he slowly pivoted to face Ildiko. She tried not to cringe further into the corner. Her husband’s features settled into a blank mask. Only his eye blazed, no longer yellow but white as a summer sun at noon.
Her teeth chattered, and she hugged herself for warmth. A whine hummed up her throat as he padded toward her. She didn’t fear him. He had never hurt her, and she trusted he never would. But she had hurt him. The shock of it lay behind the blank look and swirled in his eye.
Forgive me. She desperately wanted to say the words, but they fell to ruin on her tongue, leaving her to stare silently at him until they stood nearly nose to nose.
The tension threatened to suffocate them all. Brishen clasped her hand, turned and pulled her wordlessly toward the door that connected his chamber with hers. He ignored the Elsod and the other wardens, striding without pause until they were over the threshold in his chamber and the door closed behind them.
He dropped her hand as if it scorched him and as quickly gripped her waist to hoist her in the air. Ildiko gasped and clutched his shoulders, staring down at his face. The mask cracked and bled away. Brishen’s features stretched tight along his cheekbones and sank under his eye sockets. A muscle flexed in his jaw, and she braced herself for an ear-pinning.
None came. Instead, he stared at her for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, flat. “Had I sent you to Gaur for safety, would you have come back when it was over?”
Her vision
blurred. Had he cut the sentence short before “when it was over” she could honestly answer in the affirmative. To abandon him during these dark days was unthinkable. But that wasn’t how he asked the question, and the flicker of knowing in his gaze revealed he was aware that how he couched his words determined how she answered him. Oh how she wanted to lie.
His fingers flexed against her sides, claws pressing lightly into her gown’s heavy fabric. “Would you have come back when it was over?” he repeated in those same dead tones.
Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I would have wanted to.”
He lowered her until she no longer dangled midair and dropped his hands. The empty expression settled over his features once more. “So my reward for defeating the galla is to lose my wife and be put out to stud.”
Ildiko wiped her face with her sleeve. The horrid, deathly calm he embraced knotted her insides. “You are the king of Bast-Haradis and will very soon assume the throne. Whether or not we dislike or disagree with the circumstances, the Elsod is right. It’s your duty to provide your country with a legitimate heir to the throne Just as your father did, just as your brother did. You must have a Kai queen.”
He froze her in place with an unblinking regard. “Do you want me to renounce you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. It doesn’t matter what you want either. Our wishes and desires come last here. You’re no longer simply Brishen Khaskem of Saggara. You are Bast-Haradis.”
“Answer my question, Ildiko,” he almost snarled. “Do you want me to renounce you?”
“No!” she cried. “Never.” She massaged her aching throat where more sobs gathered to choke her words. “I also don’t want you to suffer through that ritual or fight galla. But you will because you must. And you must renounce me.”
He snatched a goblet from the table next to him and hurled it against the door. “I am king!” he roared, the thin veneer of calm burned away by rage. “I will do as I wish, and I will keep my wife!”
Ildiko ventured to touch him, a light glide of fingertips on his arm. He shivered but didn’t move away. He breathed hard, as if winded from a long run across the plains. Sorrow warred with pity to see her valiant husband struggle under the yoke of kingship. “Privilege,” she said gently, “gives the crown its shine. Duty gives it its weight. It’s because you are now king that you can’t do as you wish. The person you are—honorable, brave—will do what’s required.”
“I’ll abdicate.”
Her knees buckled at his declaration, and this time her fingers dug into his forearm. “Oh my gods, Brishen. You can’t abdicate! You’ll plunge this country into civil war.”
He snatched her to him, and her feet cleared the floor for a second time. “I will not give you up,” he vowed between clenched teeth. “I will suffer the ritual, gladly. Let it rip me apart and put me back together again. I will rob my people of their magic and fight the galla. I will not renounce my wife.” He shook against her, burying his face in her neck. “Don’t leave me, Ildiko,” he implored. “The burden is only bearable because you’re here.”
The gasping sob that escaped her lips rendered her speechless for a moment. She hugged Brishen with all her strength, feeling his powerful body shake in her arms. She caressed his thick hair. “I will stand beside you through all of this,” she said when she could finally speak. “And welcome you home with gladness when it’s over, and you return triumphant.”
He raised his head to once more pin her with that singular lambent gaze. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” And she didn’t lie. She would remain in Bast-Haradis, as wife, as regent, as succor and sanctuary in the bleak days to come.
“I will not renounce you,” he repeated and once more sought solace in the curve of her neck and shoulder.
Ildiko didn’t argue, only continued to stroke his hair and silently grieve over the inevitable.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Brishen pulled his cloak hood forward, shielding his eyes from the bright morning sun and waited at the main gates for his guest’s arrival. Sleep was a forgotten luxury. Even when Saggara quieted and slumbered in the daylight, he had lain awake next to Ildiko and counted the strands of a spider’s web spun high in a corner of his bedchamber. When he wasn’t counting, he watched his wife sleep.
Hers wasn’t a peaceful rest. She mumbled, clawed the blankets and turned back and forth. Her pale eyelids fluttered ceaselessly, the eyes themselves shifting from side to side under the translucent skin. She frowned often and reached for him, growing still when her hand found his arm or chest, as if assuring herself he was still there.
He tried not to dwell on their conversation from two nights earlier. The remembered words still made his guts roil as did the look on her face when he asked her if she intended to return to Saggara if the galla were defeated.
“I would have wanted to.”
Such a mournful utterance, as if she’d already said farewell to him in spirit. The sense of betrayal kicked him in the chest so hard he forgot to breathe. Then came the backdraft of fury.
Until then, he’d accepted the monumental task before him with relative equanimity laced with a touch of bitterness. He’d carry the burden that to save his kingdom, he’d strip generations of Kai of their birthright. And he might not return home alive. All of that he accepted as part of his duty as Bast-Haradis’s newest king.
The Elsod’s insistence that he put aside Ildiko in favor of a Kai wife had ignited the helpless anger simmering below the surface. Ildiko’s agreement and staunch defense of the warden’s argument fanned it to a bonfire. It had taken every last drop of control not to shake her, shout at her and ultimately grovel at her feet and beg her to stay.
A cry went up, signaling a small contingent of riders had been spotted turning onto the main road leading to the redoubt. Brishen shook off his grim thoughts and listened for the next alert confirming the riders were Beladine from High Salure. The gates opened, and he stood to the side, listening to the growing thunder of hoof beats drawing close.
Anhuset drew next to him, her head bare, silver hair fluttering in the wind. She used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, and her breath steamed from her nose and mouth in vaporous clouds. She reminded him of a dragon waking from slumber. His lips twitched.
“What?” Her squint deepened with her growing scowl.
He shrugged. “Nothing of import. Good morning to you, sha-Anhuset.”
She huddled inside her heavy cloak. “Nothing good about it. I should be sleeping instead of standing out here half blind and freezing my arse off, waiting for his lordship to arrive. Not only are humans ugly, they’re inconvenient.”
Her peevish expression only intensified when a dozen horses cantered into the bailey, wheeling to an abrupt halt that sent mud spraying in all directions. The rider on point swung easily from the back of a heavy-boned courser. Brishen instantly recognized the commanding height and shoulders wide as a battery wall. The margrave of High Salure pushed his hood back, his grin friendly as he strode to Brishen.
The two men clasped forearms in greeting. “How was your journey?” Brishen said.
“Interesting. We passed one of your scouts. Looked like she was headed to Gaur and in a hurry.” Serovek’s gaze settled on Anhuset. He inclined his head in greeting. “Sha-Anhuset,” he said in a voice that might have coaxed bees from their honey.
Brishen was sure Anhuset’s backbone made a snapping sound as she stiffened. “Lord Pangion,” she replied in clipped tones.
His smile widened even more, flashing square, white teeth. Different from a Kai’s. Much like Ildiko’s. So human. Brishen’s chest tightened.
The lord of High Salure gazed beyond Brishen’s shoulder to the bailey crowded with wagons, horses and row upon row of tents. “It looks like you’re quartering half of Bast-Haradis here.”
Brishen turned to survey the scene. Displaced Kai families slept in those tents, homeless for now until an army of resurrected dead could purge the galla from Bast-Haradi
s. From the world altogether. “That’s probably accurate,” he said. “Come. I’m guessing you’re parched from the road.”
“I’ll see to quartering your men and getting them fed,” Anhuset said. She glared at Serovek when he thanked her in honeyed tones. Brishen, watched, fascinated as his cousin strode away, Serovek’s stare steady on her back. Ildiko had once told him that Anhuset had beguiled the Beladine. He had a difficult time believing it. It seemed he was wrong.
Ildiko was still awake and greeted Serovek with a wide smile and outstretched hands when he entered the great hall. “Welcome, my lord! It’s good to see you at Saggara.”
He caught her hands in his and bowed. Wavy dark hair spilled down in a curtain, hiding his face and Ildiko’s fingers. Brishen went rigid. This man had rescued him, and Brishen owed him a life debt, but he found it hard to squelch the jealousy rising within him or the suspicion that behind the hair, Serovek might have kissed Ildiko’s slender fingers.
Serovek straightened. “The fair hercegesé,” he said. Brishen’s hand flexed briefly on the hilt of the knife sheathed and belted at his waist. “How are you, my lady?”
“I’m well, Lord Pangion.” Her cheeks flushed the delicate pink Brishen once associated with the amaranthine mollusk. “I’ll take my leave of you for now and see to that refreshment. Please make yourself at home in our hall.” She turned to Brishen, and her expression sobered. “Is there anything you need before I leave, my lord?” The rose in her cheeks faded. “Leave for the kitchens,” she amended.
This sudden awkwardness between them, fueled by fear, sadness and his own sense of betrayal, hung between them like a dark cloud. “I’m fine, Ildiko,” he said and watched her figure until she disappeared through the doorway leading to the kitchens.
He returned his attention to Serovek, whose measuring gaze questioned. Brishen had no intention of explaining. He gestured to a pair of chairs. “Your message said you sighted galla in your territory. Are you certain?”
Serovek shrugged out of his cloak and draped it across his chair before sitting, long legs stretched out before him. “Quite certain. I didn’t see them myself, but a thane of mine did. They attacked a small estate near where your borders touch mine. Three galla. Fortunately for the family, the thane’s brother was visiting. He’s some kind of sorcerous monk and trapped them within a rune circle inside the house. It didn’t hold them for long but long enough for the family to escape, warn the neighbors and flee to High Salure.” He stretched his hands out to the fire to warm them. “I’ll risk a guess and say you’ve dealt with a few of those things yourself the past couple of days.”