He woke late—well into the morning, judging by the slant of the wintry sunlight streaming into the sitting room. The tapestries remained over the windows in the bedroom, shrouding it in shadow, but the doorway to the room beyond showed considerable daylight.
And no Oria.
Abruptly and fully awake, and with a curse, he leapt from the bed and to the locked cabinet where he’d stowed the mask. Still locked, but he retrieved the key from where he’d put it—hidden while Oria was tending to nature’s call, and while he loudly thought of other things—and unlocked it. The mask gleamed with sullen light within. He even touched it, just in case it wasn’t real, though Oria couldn’t create illusions—not that he knew of, anyway—and found it unnaturally warm. Foul thing.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he locked the cabinet again, and considered swallowing the key. That would provide a few days of reprieve, theoretically, but as for that, Oria could simply have the cabinet chopped apart. Besides, the mask did belong to her, and she did need it. He couldn’t destroy the thing, or her knowledge of its existence. They could only work with it.
Finding clothes laid out for him, he swiftly dressed, then pocketed the key. Telling Oria the sad tale of his parents’ separation had been interesting—and had affected him deeply, too. He hadn’t had much cause to think back to that epic argument, or the reasons for it, over the ensuing years. At the time he’d been headstrong, full of warrior pride and the arrogance of a young man in the prime of his strength. He’d been angry at his mother, laying all the guilt at her feet. She hadn’t supported his father. She’d abandoned them all. Stubborn, unreasonable, callously independent, arrogant, cold-hearted. With a wince of deep chagrin he recalled all the faults he’d accused her of, both in his wounded son’s heart, and aloud, griping with his brothers.
Never once had he thought about what his father had driven her to by issuing his ultimatum, so determined to have his way. I don’t want that to happen to us, Oria had said, with that stricken look on her face. He’d made her laugh, distracting her, but for an endless moment the knowledge had throbbed between them that they very well could face an irreconcilable battle exactly like that.
And with far less history of connection between them to see them through it. If his own parents, after four children together and decades of marriage couldn’t resolve their differences…
He would learn from this cautionary tale. That’s all there was to it.
All vestiges of the dinner they’d shared had been cleared away, replaced by the cold remains of breakfast. He must’ve been sleeping like the dead if all that activity hadn’t wakened him. He grabbed a muffin and wolfed it down, savoring the tang of dried fruit. It only added to the irony of it all, that his mother and her women ate so much better than the royal household in Arill City did.
Determined to find Oria, he stepped out the doors. A young woman leaning against the wall smiled and curtseyed. “Good morning, Your Highness. May I escort you?”
“I’m looking for Her Highness the Queen,” he replied, studying her. She seemed familiar.
“Certainly. Queen Vycayla is in her morning room. Allow me to—”
“I meant Her Highness Queen Oria.”
The woman’s smile turned wry as she gestured for him to accompany her. “Not ‘Her Highness’ and not ‘queen,’ yet, I think—or you wouldn’t be here to take our lady away with you, Your Highness.”
“I see gossip flies with its usual speed,” he observed.
“Oh yes. The juicier, the faster it flies,” she agreed cheerfully. “And the betting pool grows on what you’ll decide, now that you are King of the Destrye.”
Decide—about what? He gave the woman a longer look. “I know you… Alyx.”
She grinned, and he saw past the white robe and older face to the young woman she’d been, in fighting leathers and training alongside them. The Destrye women had a difficult time going toe-to-toe with the bulkier men, particularly when upper body strength allowed them to wield heavier weapons. Some like Alyx, however, developed the speed, agility, and sheer tenacity to have beaten a number of men, to the male warriors’ everlasting chagrin—and not a little resentment. When Queen Vycayla left, Alyx had gone with her.
“Good to see you, too, Lonen,” she replied. “Though I never expected to call you my king.”
“Believe me, no one was more surprised than I.” He exchanged grimaces with her for all that had happened since their mutual youth. Then he realized what she’d meant, that the women fighters wondered if he’d change his father’s decree on their status. “Do you?” he asked. “Call me your king.”
She shrugged, staring down the hall. “That depends on whether you earn my fealty.”
A sticky problem. By law his mother’s hermitage and lands belonged to Dru and fell under his rule, but his father had been understandably unwilling to press the point. They’d drawn water from the lake, but hadn’t required taxes or tithing. So much so that it hadn’t occurred to him to access the stores here to alleviate the food shortage in Arill City. Changing the law regarding the women fighters would cause trouble in various quarters, particularly the traditional and stodgy ones, but that would be a small price to pay for additional food and healthy warriors for the defense of Dru.
Besides, Oria would be pleased. Anything he could do to balance her sacrifices and the inevitable friction for her of living in a foreign culture would be worth it. If she never wanted to leave him, he could neatly avoid the ramifications of dragging her back. That was just good strategy.
He stopped, and faced Alyx. “As far as I’m concerned, Dru needs every warrior we can get. I would be privileged for you and your sisters to fight alongside me.”
Something fierce and bright shone in her face, and she went down on one knee, bowing her head. “My king, I offer you my fealty.”
He laid a hand on her head, a strange set of emotions passing through him. How angry his father would be. How his older brother Ion would’ve mocked him for womanly softness and sympathy. So odd that he could miss them with such grief—and also take such perverse delight in defying their ghosts.
“I accept. Of course,” he added lightly, drawing her to her feet, “I might lose the throne to Nolan and you’d likely be out of luck there.” Definitely out of luck, as Nolan would be outraged that he’d countermanded their father, on top of being the sort of man who couldn’t stomach competition from women.
“Then we’ll have to assure you are the one to win,” Alyx replied, with considerable determination. “Your wife is through there, seeing to her Familiar.” She cast him a sidelong look. “I don’t wish to question my king, but you’re certain this is wise—a foreign sorceress as Queen of the Destrye?”
One day people would stop asking him that. “Yes.” He loaded all of his conviction into the affirmation. “More than wise. Oria will be the saving of our people.”
Alyx nodded, very seriously. “Then I will serve her and guard her with my life.”
She strode off, no doubt to share the news with one and all—which made him realize he’d better tell his mother before she heard it from someone else. He itched to see Oria, to reassure himself of her well-being and bask in her loveliness, but he owed this duty to his mother and the throne.
Which would be her morning room? East side of the house, assuredly, but behind which door? He’d hate to trespass by opening the wrong one. Fortunately—perhaps guided by Arill—Vycayla emerged just then from a room across the hall. Expression set in austere lines of thought, she looked older in the harsh light of morning. The silver threaded thick through her hair, or maybe it showed more because she had it braided back from her face, now that she’d finished dazzling her visitors by playing avatar of the goddess by wearing it long and loose.
She caught sight of him, and her face smoothed into serene lines, making him second-guess that he’d seen signs of age at all. “You’re looking much better,” she said by way of greeting. “Your Oria says you slept long and hard.”
“I did. Thank you for the healing.”
She waved a hand. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for the least of humanity—or the animal kingdoms. We treat all who come here, regardless of station or relation.”
He set his teeth, ignoring the dig. “I’ve decided to countermand my father’s edict. Women warriors will be welcome in whatever capacity they wish to serve.”
Vycayla gave him an impenetrable look, the bright winter light casting sharp shadows under her silver-threaded brows and broad cheekbones. “A bit late,” she finally said.
“I can’t change the past, Mother. All I can do is change the present.”
She nodded, pressing her lips together and looking into some internal vision, a dark reverie he hesitated to interrupt, though it stretched out uncomfortably long. Finally she raised her gaze to his. “Did he… say anything? A message for me, maybe.”
His heart stuttered, clenching hard. Had no one told her? He supposed he should’ve been the one to do it. When he’d returned from Bára, thinking the war over, he’d thrown himself into the pressing problems of assuming kingship—and making sure the Destrye could survive the coming winter. His mother always knew what went on in Dru, with people loyal to her keeping her informed. All his life, Vycayla had known everything before anyone else, and he’d grown accustomed to that reality, relied on that assumption. But, had he been thinking, he would’ve taken the few days to journey to see his mother and tell her of her husband’s and sons’ deaths himself.
He’d learned that compassion since marrying Oria, understanding how the widowed spouse would feel in a way that his self of only half a year before hadn’t been capable of. Now he had to find a way to give her a truth she could live with.
“It happened too fast for last words or messages,” he told his mother. On impulse he picked up her hands, holding them in his. Strong and long-fingered, the bones more pronounced than he remembered. With some surprise in her eyes, his mother gazed back, clearly braced for the pain. “The Trom touched him and he died instantly. I doubt Father—or Ion—even realized their deaths were at hand.”
She nodded, swallowing hard, her gray eyes shining with unshed tears. “Not a bad way to die, all in all.”
“No.” He cleared his throat. Tempting to make something up, to tell her that she’d been in his Father’s thoughts, in Ion’s, but they’d been focused on the war. If they’d thought of her, they hadn’t said. “I’m sorry,” he said instead, “that I haven’t been a better son, that I blamed you for leaving. I’d like to do better.”
Carefully, braced to be rebuffed, he put his arms around his mother, as he hadn’t done in easily a decade, surprised to find her shorter and frailer than he remembered. Nothing like Oria’s delicate and birdlike bone structure, but far from the hearty mother of his childhood. She leaned into him, returning the embrace, then drew back and framed his face with her hands.
“You have always been a good son,” she said. “And you’ll be a good king. I’ve regretted not being a part of your life. I’d like that to change.”
“Then you’ll stay in Arill City?”
“No,” she replied firmly, dashing those hopes. “The Destrye cannot have two queens.” She looked past him and he turned to see Oria in the doorway. Wearing a borrowed white robe, Oria looked like an angel of Arill, her copper hair full of light as if touched by the goddess.
“How is Chuffta?” he asked her, and she shook her head, mouth set in unhappy lines.
“He still hasn’t woken up.” Her gaze went to Vycayla. “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do?”
“Nothing that I know of, child,” Vycayla answered with professional compassion. “I’ve done all I can for him. The ways of the derkesthai are mysterious. I think we must simply wait.”
“Is there anyone who would know more?” Oria persisted, her eyes hard and intent. Not one to back down easily from any challenge. His mother might see Oria as a child—and his wife was young in many ways—but she possessed a will of steel.
Vycayla glanced at him and he gave a small shrug. Oria deserved the truth, whatever it might be. “There’s a colony of derkesthai,” his mother conceded, “two days journey from here, in the Taal mountains. That’s why I’ve seen them, from time to time. You could take your Familiar to them if he hasn’t awakened by the time you return.”
“Return?” Oria looked at him blankly and Lonen winced internally. Terrible timing.
“From the duel and securing the throne,” Vycayla explained slowly, sliding him a look as if she’d begun to doubt Oria’s intelligence. Or sanity.
“Oh.” Color flooded Oria’s face and she clasped her hands together. “I see. There’s not enough time to visit the colony before the seven days are up. Of course.”
“Precisely,” Vycayla agreed. “But I can keep your Familiar here. He’ll be safe and warm, in good hands, until you can return and make the journey. If he hasn’t woken on his own by then.”
Sensitive to the nuances in his mother’s assurances, Lonen gave her a hard look. “And the odds that he’ll die before we return?”
Oria pressed her fingers to her mouth as if she could take back the sound of distress she’d made.
His mother gave him a resigned glare. “I have no way to evaluate that. We don’t have any way to feed him, but he’s also partly a magical creature.”
“If we left today, that gives us half a day of travel, all of tomorrow, then half a day to the derkesthai colony. Less if we ride fast.” He calculated in his head, picturing the map. “Then we could take the diagonal back to Arill City and be back before sunset on the seventh day.”
“That’s in good weather, and without problems,” Vycayla argued. “You’d be cutting it too close.”
“Buttercup is faster than most horses,” he replied, still in deep thought.
His mother made a choking sound. “Excuse me?”
“My horse.” He frowned at her. “You know he’s fast—with great endurance.”
“I know that,” she replied, a smile tugging at her stern mouth. “But not that you’d named him Buttercup.”
“He named himself,” Oria inserted with a frown on Buttercup’s behalf. “I simply asked what it was. Lonen didn’t know before that. I’m surprised a healer of your ability who can look into the wounds of others wouldn’t respect the names we choose for ourselves.”
Vycayla raised her brows. “Extraordinary.” Then returned to Lonen with a firm stare. “It’s too risky. You have no idea what they’re up to in your absence.”
“If you traveled there with your retinue ahead of us, you could affirm my continued good health, suss out the situation, and forestall Rhiten Robson from declaring me dead.”
“With Nolan agitating otherwise?” she scoffed.
“You can back him down if necessary. He’s as afraid of you as I am.”
Vycayla snorted at that. “This is a very bad plan. Needlessly asking for trouble. Are you sure this isn’t about sentiment,” she said, sliding a glance at Oria, “rather than solid judgment?”
As he wasn’t all at sure that his fundamental determination to hold the throne against Nolan’s challenge didn’t stem more from sentiment than solid judgment in the first place, he couldn’t provide a good answer to that. He seemed to have only sentiment left, as nothing made sense the way it used to. Besides which, a large part of him believed that Arill had guided his footsteps to taking Oria as his wife and queen—if the goddess wanted him on the throne of Dru, She’d grace their travels, too. Perhaps Arill Herself had arranged events so they’d visit the derkesthai colony—who could say?
Ultimately, however, Oria watched him with such hope and terror in her eyes that he couldn’t possibly make any other choice. So be it.
“Oria needs her Familiar to work her magic,” he embroidered on the truth, willing Oria to go along. “I can’t win the duel without her, and she can’t assist without him. We must do this.”
Oria nodded, carefully, though she lowered her gaze to hide her troubled expression.
“Ah, well, that settles it,” Vycayla agreed, dusting her hands together, then ringing a bell. “I’ll have supplies assembled for you. At least with visiting the colony, if they can’t help this one—or if they decide to keep him there—you can choose another Familiar.”
Turning to the lady who came to her summons, Vycayla missed Oria’s outraged reaction. Lonen gave her what he hoped was a quelling stare, going to her to set a hand on her rigid back. “Let’s go pack up our things. The sooner we depart, the better.”
Oria flashed him a wry and grateful look. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“Thank you,” Oria said quietly once they were alone in their rooms. “I know you’re risking a great deal by doing this.”
He gave her a smile as he retrieved the saddlebags. “I promised to do everything in my power to make you happy. Chuffta’s well-being is critical to that.”
“Even so, I appreciate it.” Then she held out her hand, palm up, a determined and expectant look on her face. He scrutinized her empty hand, then raised a questioning brow. “The key to the cabinet where you put Tania’s mask, please,” she said. A definite command, though at least she added the pleasantry.
“Oria,” he began, thinking fast. Not fast enough, as she’d planned this.
“I’m abiding by the rules you set. I didn’t argue when you locked it away and hid the key as if I’m a child who can’t be trusted.”
“Should I point out that you broke that trust only yesterday?”
“But not since. I didn’t touch it last night without you and I didn’t take the key and open the cabinet while you slept, though I saw in your mind where you hid it.”
“You see my thoughts that clearly?” And here he’d worked so hard to cover that.
She smiled slightly. “Things you feel strongly about I see the most clearly. And the mask is amplifying my abilities. You kept worrying about that key and me finding it, even in your dreams.”
He didn’t know quite what to say to that. He’d known she could read his thoughts and feelings when he married the sorceress. That didn’t prevent the revelations from unsettling him, though he had nothing to hide from her. Not anymore, anyway.
“I know you’re afraid, Lonen.” She closed the distance between them, laying her hands on his chest over his shirt. Tipping her head back, she gave him a long, solemn look, her gorgeous eyes large in her pale face, her lush lips, so torturously kissable and unattainable, slightly parted as she searched for words. “I’m afraid, too. The mask is powerful and I do lose myself in it, more than I’ve confided in you.”
Neither of them was wearing gloves, or he would’ve put his hands over hers. Instead he ended up waving them in the air. “Then why under Arill’s gaze do you—”
“For the same reason you took me to Odymesen’s Chapel in the first place,” she interrupted in a sharp tone. “I need that mask. More important, I need to learn to work with it—and you need to learn to help me. If we’re going to be taking this side trip, that means a lot of hard riding. I might as well use the time productively. Especially since you’ll be right there, to supervise.” Her mouth quirked with wry impatience as she said it.
“You’re giving in, just like that?” Arill forgive him for doubting Oria’s sincerity, but… “You’re suddenly happy to let me control your access to the mask.”
“No, I’m not happy about it,” she snapped, eyes flashing with fiery arrogance that perversely reassured him. That was his Oria. “But I also didn’t like passing out while I bled from ears, eyes, and nose. So, yes, I’m giving in. You and I are a team. You’ve said it often enough. I’m going to trust you to take care of me—and see to it that I learn to use the mask without losing myself to it.”
“Is this about Chuffta?” he asked her, hesitant to compel her with that kind of debt.
“No. And also yes. You’re a good husband to me, Lonen.” She smiled ruefully. “I’m trying to be a better wife. Not an irretrievably stubborn one. If that means working with your concerns regarding the mask, then fine.”
His heart turned over and he wanted to kiss her with the desperation of a drowning man gasping for air. “You are the best of all possible wives, Oria,” he told her, giving himself the weak substitute of running a hand over her shining hair, silky from the washing. “I love you with everything in me, and more than anything else in this world.”
“I love you, too,” she replied, though a faint line formed between her brows. “We’ll get you back to Arill City in time to knock that odious Nolan on his ass, so you can get to the business of being the king you should be.”
He didn’t tell her he wasn’t sure he cared that much about being king. Instead he dug the key out of his pocket and handed it to her. When her eyes sparkled in anticipation, he sent a prayer to Arill that he hadn’t made the wrong decision.