Silence reigned in the chamber for a few moments before Serovek raised his goblet. “Well? Are we three or two?”
Brishen raised his goblet as did the monk. “We’re not much better off with three, but it’s more than two.” He inclined his head to Megiddo. “You have my gratitude and the gratitude of all of Bast-Haradis.”
Serovek helped himself to the uneaten portion of bread on Megiddo’s plate. “I also took the liberty of sending a message to the mountain clans wintering at the base of the Dramorins. I trade with them. They have as much to gain or lose from joining this fight as any of us.”
That bit of news surprised Brishen. The nomadic clans who wintered on the plains in Belawat territory and summered in the mountains were almost as insular as the Kai. Unlike the Kai, they were human, and he doubted a people closed to others would help their human neighbors much less the non-human Kai.
“I hope you trade with a friendly chieftain who owes you a favor,” he said. “And pray to your troop of gods that he says yes and arrives soon. We leave for Saruna Tor tomorrow. Three of us or four, we can’t wait any longer.”
Megiddo’s gaze drifted as if he looked inward. “Gul Hill. I remember my mother telling me about that place. She said it was cursed.”
Brishen smiled briefly. “That’s what we Kai want you to believe. It keeps humans away from Kai sacred ground.”
They spent the next hour making plans for their travels and exchanging ideas for how to move their armies of ghosts to herd a horde of demons back to their birthplace. It would be the most terrifying cattle drive Brishen had ever participated in. He only hoped he was better at herding galla than he was at herding cows.
Again Serovek declined his offer of a chamber in the manor house, and Megiddo echoed him. “Nothing personal, Your Majesty.” He uttered the address around a sly grin. Brishen winced, still unused to the title. “This is a fine abode indeed, with all the comforts of a woman’s touch added to it thanks to your lovely queen. But you’re up to your ears in courtiers, bureaucrats and parasites in fine silk and velvet. Human or Kai, it doesn’t matter. I’ll suffocate in that air. Give me an open field and a warm blanket any day over this.”
“Good luck finding an empty field around Saggara these days,” Brishen said in a dry voice. “A place can be made for the two of you in the barracks, like before. Or the stables.”
Megiddo was quick to choose. “Stables.”
Serovek was slower to decide. “Barracks for me. I like my horse well enough, but there’s far more interesting company among your soldiers.”
Brishen had no doubt the margrave thought of Anhuset. Either she’d accept Serovek’s courtship and swive him until she killed him or simply split him open with her claws or sword. One way or the other, he’d be dead, and Brishen hoped she’d at least wait until they got this Wraith King business behind them first.
They parted ways in the great hall with promises to meet again later for a more formal meal and a council meeting with Brishen’s newly appointed sejm and regent.
He spotted her crossing the bailey, Mesumenes by her side, as was the usual thing these days. They waded through ankle-deep mud and the sludge of melted snow, deep in conversation and oblivious to the crowds of Kai eddying around them. The steward scribbled on the top page of a sheaf of parchment, nodding or shaking his head at whatever Ildiko told him.
Her red hair shimmered in the torchlight, bright and fiery as a hilltop beacon among the Kai with their black or silver locks. Even Serovek and Megiddo, both dark-haired and tanned by the glaring sun, blended more easily with the crowd than she did.
His soul ached at the sight of her. Ached for her. She had emasculated him in their chamber, human tears streaming down her cheeks as she did it. Brishen wielded knives that could never be as cutting as the words she uttered then.
“...this isn’t lovemaking. It’s breeding…”
Had she carved any deeper, he would have bled out in front of her. The shock of her accusation had rendered him speechless at first. He’d barely gotten over the realization she’d sacrifice their marriage for the security of his throne, and now this. His fury didn’t boil hot. Instead, it settled in his gut, colder than a lump of ice that refused to melt, spreading to freeze every other emotion inside him. He hadn’t gone near Ildiko for two nights and days since then except at the more formal suppers in the great hall, and those interactions were torture of the acutest kind. He didn’t dare touch her, and he didn’t let her touch him. If either happened, he’d break, and kings did not break.
She persevered under the cloud of his resentment, wearing that placid mask he so utterly loathed now. The mask only fell away when she saw Serovek again and met Megiddo for the first time. Then, her entire face lit with a smile.
Brishen bent the stem of his goblet nearly in half. Across the hall, he caught Anhuset’s gaze. Piercing. Concerned. Ildiko was even more skilled than he at hiding the turmoil between them from those guesting at Saggara, but neither fooled his astute cousin. She eyed him and Ildiko every time they crossed in their daily tasks. Anhuset never asked, and Brishen didn’t volunteer, but he knew she wondered.
He remained secure in his knowledge that no one except Anhuset had guessed there was trouble between him and Ildiko until Serovek pulled him aside. “Is your wife ill?”
Brishen stared at him for a moment before answering. “Why do you ask?”
His question came out more belligerent than he intended. Serovek stiffened, and his mouth turned down. “Because she wears the look of a woman either sick or sorrowing. The last time I saw such an expression in a woman’s eyes, I was returning her husband’s body to her after he fell in a raider’s skirmish.”
The lump of ice filling his chest and spreading slowly through his limbs, disintegrated in a sizzle of steam. Brishen clamped his teeth together and counted the breaths he inhaled and exhaled through his nostrils. “I can’t interpret such things in a human’s eyes,” he said in a guttural voice.
Serovek’s stern features didn’t soften, and his gaze set hard on Brishen. “Then you aren’t looking close enough, Your Majesty,” he said before bowing abruptly and melding back into the crowd of Kai to chat and socialize as if they were lifelong friends. As if they were human or he was Kai himself.
At supper, they sat side by side but either spoke to others or ate without comment. Tension pulsed between them so thick Brishen imagined he could hack through it with his axe.
Ildiko, dressed in black, reminded him of a red-beaked magpie. She presented a cool facade to the rest of the diners, but she quivered in her chair, perched on its edge and ready to fly away if he even twitched toward her. Surely that wasn’t fear of him? He’d done nothing to incite such an emotion in her. He was on the verge of abandoning the supper and escorting her out of the hall to hash things out between them when one of his justiciars approached the table, wife and daughter in tow.
Cephren was one of Brishen’s favorite ministers, a man whose judgments in his provincial court were known far and wide to be fair and sometimes merciful. Brishen wanted him on his war sejm for those reasons and was heartily glad to see him arrive safely with his family at Saggara.
Cephren bowed. “My liege.” He bowed a second time to Ildiko. “My lady queen.” He gestured to the two women with him. “You may remember my wife, Lady Hemaka and my daughter, Ineni.”
“It’s good to see you, Cephren,” Brishen said. “There’ll be no leisure here for you, I’m afraid. I’ve reserved a place for you on my council, and there’s much work to be done.”
The justiciar beamed. “I’m eager to assume the tasks awaiting me, Sire.”
Cephren coaxed his daughter forward. An attractive young woman with a direct gaze and a proud tilt to her head, she reminded him of Anhuset. Not as fierce but not easily intimidated either by an audience with her sovereign. “Ineni has an idea she wishes to present to you, Sire.”
Brishen held up a hand, curious as to what the girl wanted to tell him. “Please do,”
he said. Exquisitely tuned to his wife’s every movement, he sensed her sharpening focus. She leaned forward to listen, as if Ineni were about to reveal a secret of the ancients.
“Sire, there’s a minor stream three leagues north of Akoris Dale. Fed by the snows which melt off the Dramorins in the spring.”
He nodded, intrigued. “I’ve ridden by it before while on patrol.”
Ineni grinned, warming to her subject. “Years ago, a wind dike was built there to protect a neighboring field of dream flower from the flood waters. I go there often. Forgive me if this seems impertinent, but if you brought in a crew to remove the dike, the stream can flood the field.”
Cephren’s smile became pained, but he stayed silent.
Brishen imagined the stream as he remembered it. “It would create a shallow lake.”
Her honey-yellow eyes almost glowed. “Knee-deep at its deepest point.”
“Easily crossed by the Kai and a wider barrier against the galla than the stream by itself.”
Ineni laughed, a sound of pure delight. Beside Brishen, Ildiko drew a sharp breath. “Yes!” the girl said. “And you wouldn’t destroy a food supply by doing it.”
Brishen turned his attention to Cephren who met his eyes with despairing ones of his own. “Not a food supply, no. Only your family’s wealth. This is your field, isn’t it, my friend?”
Cephren bowed his head. “Yes, Sire.” Ineni’s smile faded into a stricken expression. So taken by her idea and Brishen’s approval, she forgot how it would affect her family’s fortunes.
Brishen hoped he might offer his justiciar some comfort. “Your daughter has an excellent idea, Cephren.” He nodded to her. “You’re to be commended, and your father recompensed for the loss of the field.” Cephren immediately brightened as did Ineni and her mother. Brishen motioned to Mertok who stood nearby. “Did you hear all that?” His master of the horse nodded. “See that it’s done as soon as possible.”
Ildiko spoke beside him. “Lady Hemaka, I would very much like to talk with you and your daughter and hear more of her ideas. Would you both join me for a goblet of wine after supper?”
Brishen’s eyebrows arched, and murmurs rose from the Kai close enough to overhear the invitation. To be singled out by the queen for a social gathering was a high honor—one to garner both respect and envy. And no little resentment.
Hemaka blushed as did Ineni who gaped at Ildiko. Hemaka bowed low. “It would be an honor, Your Majesty.”
Brishen turned slowly to stare at his wife. She refused to meet his eye. “What are you up to, Ildiko?” he wanted to ask but held his silence and finished the remainder of the supper in conversation with Serovek, Megiddo, and members of the sejm.
He stood to call an official end to the meal, halting when the doors to the hall opened, and a troop of Kai, led by Anhuset, entered. Behind them, a cadre of humans followed. Dressed in calf length robes dyed in jewel colors and boots that laced above the ankle with wide-legged trousers tucked inside, they strode toward the high table. Six men, with their obvious leader on Anhuset’s heels.
Hair dark as a Kai’s and skin the color of oiled walnut, he approached the table where Brishen sat. Serovek had risen from his seat, face creased into a wide smile. He leaned around Megiddo and raised a hand to Brishen, thumb tucked against his palm. “Four,” he mouthed.
Brishen grabbed Ildiko’s hand and coaxed her from her seat. She didn’t resist and accompanied him around the high table to meet their newest guests. One could have heard a feather drop as the Kai king and his human queen faced the nomads who wandered the plains in winter and sheltered in the Dramorins in summer. An isolate people of unknown origin and unknown culture, they sequestered themselves away from other peoples even more than the Kai. Serovek’s charm had worked its magic again to drawn them out long enough to parlay with Brishen.
He gestured for Anhuset to step aside. The nomad chief reminded him of a predator bird. If a hawk could be transformed into a man, then he stood here now in Saggara’s great hall—wingless, sharp-eyed and no less lethal. Brishen almost expected a raptor’s piercing cry when he opened his mouth.
“Your Majesty,” he said in a low, clear voice. “I am Gaeres, fifth son to the chieftain of Clan Kakilo of the Quereci. We received word from Serovek of the demon horde and come to offer our help.”
As he had done when Megiddo arrived at Saggara, Brishen led Gaeres and his entourage, along to the council chamber with instructions to send for the Elsod. Before he left, he touched Ildiko’s elbow. She bowed before he could say anything, her features somber. “I’ll end the meal and send everyone off, Sire. Good practice for after you leave.” She nodded to the chieftain’s son and returned to her seat without looking back.
He put her from his mind simply so he could think clearly. Both he and the Elsod explained the ritual to the newest arrival, once more leaving out the part about stripping the Kai of their magic. Gaeres said nothing at first, his fingers tapping gently on the table’s surface. Lamplight burnished his hair and winked off the small brass coins threaded in the length of braids woven at his temple and caught in a bone clasp at the back of his head. “When do we leave?”
It seemed almost too easy. Every person who lived and breathed had a stake in seeing the galla defeated, but the ones tasked with making it happen tended to find their motivation in additional things. Brishen had a kingdom, a throne and a wife to save. Serovek, his country and people. Megiddo responded because of a duty to the convictions of his faith. What moved Gaeres of the Quereci to offer himself up as a Wraith King? He didn’t have to wait long for his answer.
“I’m the youngest son of a chieftain’s third wife. I’m of low status and no importance.” Brishen inwardly sighed, remembering with fondness when he held the same status. Gaeres continued. “I wish to marry later, but I must rise in my clan so I may attract a suitable wife willing to share her hazata—her home—with me.”
Intrigued by the hint of social structure within the secretive Quereci culture, Brishen wondered Gaeres didn’t make his own tent. “Why not share your home with her?”
The other man scowled, as if such an idea was too preposterous to seriously consider. “Only the women own hazatas, along with the livestock, the blankets and the pots. Men own the ponies and weapons.”
It was an interesting concept. While the men ruled the clans, it was the women who claimed ownership to most everything. And if it took something this monumental to woo a potential mate, Brishen wondered what a Quereci man had to do to gain a second and third wife.
Gaeres’s frowned deepened at Brishen’s silence. “Is my reason to join you unacceptable?”
Brishen hid a smile, doubting that the full force of a Kai grin would be seen as friendly. “Not at all. I can think of few things more admirable to fight for than the favor and affection of a fine wife.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, something knotted inside him loosened, allowed him to breathe easier. He had such a wife, and he’d follow the wisdom of his own words. Ildiko was worth fighting for. Resentful of the Elsod’s insistence that he remarry, he turned a jaundiced eye on her. “We have four now. Is it enough to harness the dead?”
“It’s better than two or three,” she hedged.
He growled. She wouldn’t be satisfied until he had a hundred Wraith Kings, and even then he doubted it was enough. Whether the memory warden approved or not, they were out of time. No word from Gaur had arrived, and they had four men willing and ready to suffer through the ritual that would allow them to fight the galla and maybe survive the battle.
It was after midday when he sought his bedchamber for the first time in three days. He stared at the closed door, imagining Ildiko sleeping in the bed they shared and in which they had found such joy. He hadn’t shared it with her since she accused him of trying to breed her.
He flattened his palm against the door. It wasn’t true. Not that at least. A child by his human wife would cause more problems than it would solve, even if she could co
nceive. The Kai wouldn’t allow a bastard such as Anhuset on the throne, and she was a full-blood Kai. They’d revolt in an instant if anyone other than a legitimate Kai of pure blood sat on the throne. Ildiko didn’t know that, and her remark that she was lesser to the Kai because she couldn’t bear his heir was wrong. It didn’t matter if she bore him a dozen children.
She was right in that he’d become ravenous and desperate. Brishen always hungered for her, dreamed of her when they were parted, eager to sink into her arms when he returned. It was a luxury he’d taken for granted—days, months, years to indulge in the love of his beautiful, ugly wife. Now, time slipped through his fingers, and with it the woman who meant everything to him. He fought the shackles binding him to a role and a throne he never wanted. His terror at the idea of losing Ildiko made him hold on to her harder in whatever way he could. With the affections of his body and the devotion of his soul. Somehow one began to overshadow the other, and Ildiko finally refused him in her mistaken belief that his desperation sprang from the want of an heir.
It still hurt, still gutted him, but he began to see past the anger and the pain to understand why she did it. Serovek was right. He needed to look harder.
He placed his other hand on the door and considered for a moment, wondering. The Elsod said he was the direct recipient of magic that had not suffered the fade of several generations thanks to a mother who probably bathed in and drank the blood of innocents to retain her illusion of youth. He’d been raised to believe his power was as diminished as the peers of his generation and never tested it beyond the spells he’d been taught were within the reach of his reduced capacity. He had never tried before. What if he stretched a little farther?
The spell to open the door whispered on his lips, the power flowing down his arms. He concentrated, imagining the grain parting like water sliding through his open fingertips. He almost lost focus when the wood softened under his palms, melting like hot candle wax, dissipating until it was no more substantial than revenant smoke from an old cooking fire.