Brishen took one step, then another, passing easily through the door. Once inside the room, he turned and watched the wood solidify. Strong, heavy planks and strap hinges that could withstand several strikes of a battering ram before giving way . Excitement surged within him, carrying regret on its back. The Elsod was right. He possessed a stronger, older strain of magic, and soon he would let it burn bright, burn hot and burn out, never to ignite again. Fate possessed a malicious sense of humor sometimes.
Ildiko lay as he imagined her, on her side with her back to the door, nearly buried by a pile of blankets and furs with only her red hair visible. The fire in the hearth had gone out, plunging the chamber into a sepulchral darkness easy for a Kai to navigate, impossible for a human.
He padded silently to her side of the bed and found a spot on the floor to sit, his back propped against the mattress, legs stretched out to the wall and crossed at the ankles. Brishen wanted to crawl in bed with her, haul her into his arms and hold her close. Just hold her. That was all. He hadn’t done so in days, and his craving ran deep. But this separation was of his making, and he hesitated, unwilling to wake her. Unwilling to risk another rejection. He lay his head back on the mattress and closed his eyes, content to listen to her light, steady breathing.
Sleep had almost overtaken him when a rustle tickled his ear followed by a hesitant touch on his head. Ildiko’s fingers glided along his scalp, teasing loose strands tucked behind his ear. Brishen didn’t move, content to sit docile under her caress.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
It was a simple statement but said with such warmth that he almost groaned her name. “So am I,” he replied in a voice gone hoarse. Never before had they been this far away from each other, and he hadn’t even left Saggara. She welcomed him back with gladness, as she always did.
Still cautious and afraid he might destroy this detente between them, he avoided the subject of their earlier argument. “What did you think of the Quereci chieftain’s son, Gaeres?”
Her fingers paused in their combing of his hair before taking up their work. “My interaction with him was brief. I thought him proud and purposeful. Certainly unafraid.”
Brishen couldn’t agree more. He envied Ildiko’s talent for sussing out a person’s character in even the briefest of encounters. “He’s agreed to do this because he wants to marry later.”
Once more her fingers rested idle, this time near his nape. He shifted so they’d brush against his skin. “Good gods,” she said. “A Quereci woman must be formidable indeed if a suitor has to fight galla to prove himself worthy of her hand.”
They both laughed, and Brishen savored the sound of her laughter, something he rarely heard from her these days. “We’re all moved by something we want more fiercely than anything else.”
“Staying alive and not being devoured seems worthy enough to me,” she said dryly.
“His reasons aren’t as noble as Megiddo’s, but I understand them better.”
“I know nothing of warrior monks, but I liked Megiddo from the moment I met him.” She traced the rim of Brishen’s ear, making him shiver. “There’s something regal about him, along with a humility you don’t often see in people. I suspect the ways of a priest called out to him when he was still tethered to lead strings.”
They stayed silent after that, Brishen lost to the feel of Ildiko’s hand in his hair even as the cold from the floor numbed his legs and backside. He forced himself not to tense when she ended their quietude, her tone sharp.
“No reply from Gaur. I’ve checked with the pigeon keeper enough times that he now hides when he sees me. I’m ashamed of my homeland. Your ally offers nothing while the enemy that planned your capture and torture sends two of their own to help you.” Her fingers tightened in his hair, loosening when he hissed. “Sorry, my love.”
He forgave her instantly with those magic words. “In their defense,” he said, “Gaur is still a distance, even for a fast bird. And Belawat doesn’t know it’s assisting me. I suspect when Rodan finds out, Serovek will have to answer for a few things. As for the monk, he may be Beladine-born, but his allegiance is very much aligned with his order. Were Belawat to declare war on that brotherhood, there’s no question on which side Megiddo would fight.”
An earlier suspicion reared its ugly head. Brishen hesitated in mentioning it, but he wanted nothing hidden between them, even when it was painful. “Why did you invite Cephren’s wife and daughter for a private meeting after supper? The favoritism was obvious.” And resented by others. Many disapproved of Ildiko as queen, but that didn’t make her any less influential or her attention any less coveted.
She was quiet for so long, he didn’t think she’d answer. Her hand left his hair to retreat under the blankets. He mourned the loss of her touch. When she finally spoke, her voice was guarded. “The Lady Ineni is educated, well-spoken and thoughtful. I’m told she’s even skilled with knives and the bow. Her suggestion regarding the wind dike was brilliant.”
She paused again. Brishen’s gut churned in anticipation of her next statement. He knew what she’d say.
“She would make an acceptable queen, Brishen.”
He surged to his feet to loom over her. “Stop it, Ildiko.” Her eyes rounded, and she sat up. Swaddled up to her neck and down to her wrists in a heavy sleeping gown, she reminded him of a wraith herself—pale skin, pale gown, strange, haunted gaze. “Stop matchmaking me with every Kai woman who strolls through Saggara’s doors. Last I checked, I still had a wife, one I’m more than happy to keep.” He took a breath, striving to conquer his anger. “Are you that eager for your freedom?”
Her voice rose to match his. “I’m not a captive. There is no freedom to seek, only duty to fulfill.” Her tense features softened, as did her tone. “You heard what the Elsod said.”
“I don’t care what that crone spouts! I refuse to accept such a fate! It’s defeat, and I won’t be defeated. Not by galla, not by politics nor the machinations of ambitious court parasites.” He clenched his fists and strove for calm. “I will save my kingdom,” he said quietly. “And my reward will by my wife at my side.”
Slender fingers curled around his wrist and squeezed. Ildiko’s eyes were glossy in the darkness. “Promise you’ll return to me, alive and whole.”
“Promise you’ll be here for me to return to,” he countered.
“I swear it.”
He rested one knee on the bed and bent to place his hands on either side of her. I’m not desperate for a child, Ildiko. I’m desperate for my wife. That’s it. No matter what you believe, you aren’t lesser. Not to me. You are all.” Her eyelids fluttered down, and a small sob escaped her parted lips. “Lay with me. Give me the memory of your touch so I may carry it with me when I ride against the galla.”
She lunged for him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and pulling until they both fell back on the bed together. Her gown and his garb soon landed in a heap on the floor. They lay beneath the covers, skin to skin as their hands mapped journeys over each other’s body.
Ildiko cupped Brishen’s face. “It’s so dark in here. Except for you eye, I can’t see you.”
He kissed her, tracing her lips with the tip of his tongue, before sliding into her mouth to gently tease her tongue. When he pulled back, they were both gasping. “That’s not true,” he said between planting more kisses across her forehead, cheeks and nose. “Dark or not, you see me. From that first day in the gardens at Pricid—our wedding day—you’ve always seen me.”
She held him close, with her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. He rested in the hot cradle of her thighs, his erection pressed at the entrance of her body. “Forgive me,” she implored. “I only meant to be honest with you. Instead I was heartless.”
He shushed her. “No condemnation between us, Ildiko. Not here, not now. No demons to battle or memory wardens to obey. No thrones to defend. Just us for now.” For always, he thought.
Later, he wondered
that their lovemaking didn’t set the bed linens on fire. As desperate as before, it was no longer tainted by his fear of her abandonment or her misunderstanding of his affections.
In the post-coital languor, they lay together, Ildiko drawing shapes on Brishen’s chest and stomach with a fingertip. She sneaked in a kiss on his nipple, then blew a draft across its tip to tease him. He jumped and covered the sensitive nub with one hand. He glided his claw tips across her buttocks, not touching, but close enough to disturb the air and tickle her skin.
It was her turn to jump. “Stop that.”
He kissed the top of her head, unrepentant. “Vengeance.”
She nestled even closer against him, and her breathing slowly deepened. Brishen thought her asleep until she spoke in a drowsy voice. “What are you thinking?”
Within their peaceful cocoon, he was reluctant to speak aloud his grim musings. But she asked, so he told her. “That I can’t fail in this endeavor.”
“You won’t fail,” she declared, staunch in her belief. “And you will be revered. The great Kai king who saved a kingdom and possibly an entire world.”
He sighed and hugged her, careful not to clutch too hard. If he held her as hard as he wanted, he’d break her. She settled into him and was soon slumbering, breath ghosting warmly across his chest. “I would have been content to live my life as just Brishen,” he whispered into her hair. “Who was loved by Ildiko.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Saggara is close.” Kirgipa stared after a wagon that rumbled into the crowd, loaded with goods and people. Wheels creaked and the oxen in their traces snorted as they strained to pull the heavy cart down the rutted path that led from Escariel’s docks to the town itself.
The noise was deafening. Across the banks, a black roiling wall of galla shrieked and gibbered its frustration at their inability to reach the prey in sight. The river sang back, taunting the horde. Livestock and transport animals bleated and whinnied, instinctively recognizing the too-close proximity of a deadly predator. Horses reared, fighting their riders, and more than a few people were almost trampled when a team of six overpowered their driver and raced through the town.
Kirgipa had surrendered the queen to Dendarah, whose warrior training made her a better child-minder in the dangerous chaos. Necos tapped his ear and shook his head. Kirgipa repeated her statement with a shout.
“Less than hour on horseback from Escariel. No more,” he shouted back.
They had reached the port town a few hours earlier, noting with alarm how the few galla following them had suddenly multiplied into another horde. There wasn’t one main body of demons poisoning the land and tracking the Kai.
Hundreds of carts stuffed with both people and their possessions packed the main road. Soldiers on horseback wove through the crowd, breaking up impromptu brawls over wagon space and doing their best to keep order. Dendarah’s gaze swept back and forth across the chaos milling around them. “Good luck trying to get such transportation,” she yelled. “Even if we had coin or something valuable to barter, no one is giving up their ride.”
Necos pointed to a wagon parked away from the main bustle. Still half empty, its driver bent leaned from his high seat, counting out the coins a Kai man pulled from a satchel. “Stay here. I’ll try to get seats. At least one. You and I can walk while Kirgipa rides with the baby.”
He returned, scowling. Dendarah looked beyond him to the cart, still with more than enough room for the three of them waiting. “Don’t tell me he said there wasn’t room?”
“There’s room,” he snapped. “For a king’s fortune in fare. The people sitting in there now must have given up everything they own for a place.”
Dendarah’s expression darkened. “Take the baby. I’ll talk to him. There are all kinds of ways to barter.” Her hand on the hilt of her dagger promised negotiations would be neither friendly nor up for refusal.
Necos held her arm. “You know we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. Cutting off a cart driver’s bollocks because he won’t give us a seat isn’t exactly the way to stay unnoticed.”
“I hate thieves,” she snarled, but released her grip on the knife and gave the baby a quick pat on the bottom.
Kirgipa shrugged. Her feet ached, and she had two blistered toes rubbed raw from her still damp shoes. She was so tired, she could lie down in the middle of the road and fall asleep, unaware of her surroundings until a horse stepped on her or a wagon rolled over her. A seat on a rickety cart sounded wonderful but not worth the trouble of securing one. “We’ve walked this far,” she said. “And we can get there in less than a night if go now.”
The matter was settled, and they joined the mass exodus of foot traffic from Escariel. The moon hung high and bright above them, flanked by a retinue of attendant stars. The main road was a quagmire of mud, softened by melted snow and churned up by hooves and wagon wheels.
They were a trio once more. Nareed had refused to leave the riverbank with her broken brother when Necos declared it time to leave. Kirgipa had at first argued with him over abandoning the two. Necos’s pitying gaze rested on Sofiris, once more conscious but still vacant-eyed.
“What choice is there, little maid? We can’t stay, and we can’t force them to come with us. If she changes her mind and catches up, they’re welcome to travel the remaining leagues with us.”
She couldn’t argue that logic. They left the two sheltered by the riverbank, their shapes slowly disappearing behind a curtain of gently falling snow.
Kirgipa turned for a last look at the Absu and the screaming galla on the other side before putting her back to the scene and her gaze on distant Saggara. She prayed to whatever gods might still hear a Kai prayer that her sister lived and was herself not far from the redoubt’s safety.
They were once again back in a throng of Kai, fleeing their hunters. Dendarah passed the queen back to Kirgipa. She and Necos took up positions on either side, using warning expressions and well-placed elbow jabs to keep others from walking too close to them.
The road widened once they left the town boundaries, easing the congestion. Those on foot spread out, drifting away from the road and the wagons that splattered mud on any unlucky enough to travel behind them.
Kirgipa and the guards caught up with a pair of Kai—fishmongers by the smell of them. One wore a faded red hat woven of yarn and oddly enough, fishing line. Bait hooks hung from the stitches in a glittering array, giving the hat an almost jeweled appearance. His companion’s head gear was less flamboyant, though Kirgipa gawked at the dried fish tail he wore around his neck as either a talisman or charm.
She was so caught up by their appearance that she didn’t notice her companions’ attention until Necos caught her elbow to slow her down and let the two walk past them.
“I heard the king as left for Saruna Tor with the kapu kezets. His queen went with him as did the Beladine margrave and two others,” Red Hat said.
Necos and Dendarah pretended their attention was elsewhere as they listened.
Fish Tail eyed his friend doubtfully. “Who told you that? And who’s looking after Saggara?”
Red Hat punched him on the arm. “Are you deaf? The news is running through this crowd like fire. A war sejm is overseeing things, with that battle axe Mertok making sure none of them think to take the throne while the herceges is gone.
“You mean the king.”
Red Hat whistled. “That will take some getting used to. The young prince as king. Never imagined such a thing. Not with all those children his brother sired. Every last one gone in a night.”
“I can see it. Brishen always ruled Saggara and its territories with a fair hand. If he survives the fight with the galla, he’ll make a decent king. I don’t know if I’ll get used to a human queen though.”
A third Kai, walking close by, added her remarks to the conversation. “The queen of the Kai should be a Kai herself,” she said. “Besides, who will rule once Brishen Khaskem is dead and no heir to succeed him?”
Necos casually lengthened his stride until he stood on Red Hat’s other side. “Why is the king going to Saruna Tor?”
Fish Tail gestured at Necos and smirked at Red Hat. “See? Not everyone has heard this news.”
Red Hat hissed at him and answered the question. “Rumor has it the kezets have a plan to drive back the galla. The Beladine margrave is helping him, along with a mountain chieftain and a monk. One Kai and a pack of humans. Never thought I’d see that either.”
Necos thanked him and eased back into place next to Kirgipa. He gradually guided the two women away from the main body of traveling Kai until they gained enough distance to talk without being overheard.
Dendarah rubbed her eye, a gesture that revealed her fatigue. “Well, with everyone thinking the Khaskems of Haradis dead and Brishen made king, no one will be actively looking for other survivors of the royal house. But the trip to the tor alters our plan if the hercegesé isn’t in residence at Saggara. Is it possible her personal maid stayed behind?”
“I doubt it,” Kirgipa said. “Sinhue would go with her. There’d be no reason for her to stay behind. Her duty is to the hercegesé.”
Necos watched the crowd as it moved past them. Hundreds of displaced Kai who would join many more already at Saggara. “Then we continue as we have been. Find sanctuary at Saggara with my wife, my child and my sister. When the hercegesé returns, we’ll seek her help.
Dendarah twitched a corner of ragged swaddling over the baby’s bare shoulder. “Can you truly trust her?”
Kirgipa lifted her shoulders. “I hope so. I didn’t know her long, but she was kind to me and Sinhue.”
“And not every queen is like Secmis,” Necos said. “Precious cargo is troublesome cargo. We must turn her over to her living relatives. She is the rightful ruler of Bast-Haradis.”
Duty. Kirgipa sighed. It always came back to duty.
Dendarah’s gloomy statement didn’t lift her mood. “Let’s hope there’s still a Bast-Haradis for her to rule when this is done.”