And there she was. Salena. Looking like she’d stepped out of his fantasies. Rhy couldn’t look away. He was dimly aware he sat riveted to the spot, frozen like an idiot, holding a goblet of truly excellent Branlian whiskey in his hand, but he seemed unable to do anything about it.
Of course he’d known that she’d grow up in the intervening years, but Salena had truly become a woman as formidable as her namesake’s reputation. With the wide, angled cheekbones of the Nahanauns, bronze skin and a full, generous mouth, Salena’s face had matured from the pretty blossom of her teens into mesmerizing beauty. Her gleaming hair was the color of rich caramel kissed by the sun, and her thick, dark lashes framed her Tala blue eyes, full of magic and sharp intelligence. She wore white—an unfair reminder, there—lavishly embroidered with pearls and small crystals, which caught the light and scattered it again. The gown left her shoulders bare, showing off her gracefully muscled arms and an entrancing amount of cleavage.
She was staring back at him, standing frozen in the doorway, her arm looped through Jak’s. Zeph and Gendra eased quietly into the room on either side of them. Rhy realized all their friends were holding their breath, avidly awaiting whatever came next. Jak even smirked pointedly, knowing full well how painful this was for Rhy—and making it clear the next move was up to him.
Faithless, treacherous louts, every one of them.
All except for Stella. The tense undercurrents must be nearly unbearable for her because she put her left hand to her lips, inserting the tips of the prettily enameled nails of the littlest fingers. It was an old habit of hers, to suck on those two fingers, and when they were kids, Stella’s mother had been forever after her to stop, bemoaning the eternally shriveled state of those fingers. Even shapeshifting back to human form restored them only so much. Stella hadn’t much cared, though she was careful to hide the habit around her mother, but Rhy remembered that summer in Annfwn when Stella had suddenly started to care—and how Salena had helped her break the habit.
It had been the same summer that he’d noticed Salena as more than a friend.
Shaking that memory away, Rhy pulled himself together, if only for Stella’s sake. These days, she only reverted to nibbling those two fingertips under stress—and him and Lena not being adults about dealing with each other was a stupid reason to upset their sensitive Nilly.
He stood, grateful for the shapeshifter heritage that at least guaranteed his balance and maybe a modicum of grace. The way he felt, pulse pounding in his skull, he’d otherwise pitch over face first. Finding he was clutching his goblet hard enough to dent the ornamental metal, he lifted it in a toast. “To old friends,” he said, impressed with himself that he sounded reasonably poised.
Jak gave him a disgusted look, but Astar came to his rescue, standing also. He offered his twin a hand up, gently tugging her fingers from her lips. “To enduring friendships,” Astar said, lifting his own goblet, Stella joining him.
After a moment’s hesitation, Rhy affirmed the toast and drank, watching over the rim of the goblet as Salena looked everywhere but at him.
“But I’m a terrible host,” Astar exclaimed. “We can hardly have a toast when not everyone has drinks.” Releasing Stella’s hand—though not before giving her a searching look to make sure she was all right—Astar strode over to embrace Salena. “Princess Salena Nakoa KauPo, you look ravishing,” he said, releasing her to take her hand and kiss it. “We hear daily about your brilliant work in Aerron—and the High Throne thanks you—but I can’t say how happy I am to have your sun-kissed self here with us tonight.”
Salena laughed, a throaty sound that Rhy would recognize anywhere, though he’d long since given up hoping to elicit it himself. “Why, Prince Astar,” she replied with warm affection, “I do believe you’ve been practicing your courtly charm.”
Rhy gulped some whiskey. Coming tonight had been the second-stupidest thing he’d ever done, and he’d done more than his share of stupid things. It only figured that the top two—possibly more—had to do with Salena.
“Don’t be sad.” Stella touched Rhy’s arm, her healing magic flowing into him with green light that chased his dark thoughts into hiding.
“I’m not,” he assured her. “Don’t waste your magic on me.”
“You’re not a waste, Rhy,” she replied gravely, her eyes softly gray, like fog. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
He smiled at her, feeling the wistfulness in it. “I think you’re the only person who isn’t hard on me.” Then he kicked himself for sounding like a self-pitying gruntling and produced a grin. “Too bad we’re first cousins, otherwise you’d be the perfect woman for me.”
“Every woman is the perfect woman for you,” Zeph informed him archly, draping herself against him. She had the whiskey carafe and refilled his goblet. “At least for the five minutes she’s in your bed,” she added with a smirk.
He feigned an outraged expression. “I beg your pardon! It’s at least ten minutes—sometimes fifteen.”
Zeph laughed lustily and kissed his cheek. “Happy Feast of Moranu, Rhy. I’m glad you came tonight, even if you had to be hog-tied.”
He clinked his goblet to hers. “Just a bit of emotional leverage and a royal command. No ropes involved.”
“More’s the pity,” she purred. “But this is a family celebration, so we must resign ourselves.”
Rhy laughed at Zeph’s flirtatious remarks, enjoying her easy ways and outrageous loveliness. Across the room, Salena glanced over, a set expression on her face, before she looked back at Astar and Jak, pasting on a patently fake smile for them. Rhy knew all of Salena’s smiles, and that one was her I’m-pretending-I’m-not-really-upset smile.
“Tonight is hard for her, too,” Stella said, tapping the two littlest fingers of her left hand against the goblet. “She doesn’t want to be here either.”
“She doesn’t?” Maybe Rhy didn’t know her as well as he’d thought. Salena had seemed to be eating up the attention from Astar and Jak. And that dress…
“Dafne didn’t have to make it a royal command,” Zeph agreed with a flutter of black lashes, “but I hear it was a near thing. Lena is here under protest, too. A pity, as I’d think you two would love the rest of us enough to want to attend. We’re never together anymore.”
“I see you and Gendra all the time,” he protested, then tugged on one of Stella’s dark curls. “And Willy and Nilly here nearly as often.” It was only Jak and Salena he hadn’t seen as much. “I can’t help it if Jak and Lena are always off adventuring.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Stella replied, eyes darkening and magic making her hair coil around his fingers as she focused on him. Rhy knew that sorcerous look well from his mother and had to resist backing up from it. “I’d like a gift from you tonight.”
“I didn’t think to bring gifts,” he admitted. Tala just weren’t that great with things, but that was an excuse. He hadn’t been thinking about his friends much at all—he’d been trying so hard not to think about the past. And Salena.
Stella huffed at him. “Moranu is the goddess of the intangible. Even mossback tradition recognizes that, so we give gifts of promises and favors.”
Ah. That explained all the scrolls. Now that he thought about it, his mother had tried to explain that to him, but he’d been too annoyed with her to listen. “I’m an idiot,” he told Stella with a smile, mentally apologizing to his mother, too. Something he’d never do aloud. “What would you ask of me, cousin?”
“You can make it easy for us to be together, Rhy. This group has always followed your lead, and that’s where I want you to take us. That’s the gift I ask of you tonight.”
Zeph, who’d been uncharacteristically silent till now, smothered a laugh and quickly drank from her goblet, but her blue eyes sparkled with amusement at his expense. He scowled at her, then smoothed his annoyance to turn back to Stella. “This group follows Astar’s lead.” He gestured with his mug at the golden prince, holding forth with expansive gestures as he told some tale that had Salena, Jak, and Gendra laughing uproariously. “As it should be.”
Stella gave him a pitying look. “I love you, Rhy, but you can be very thick skulled.”
Zeph actually choked on her whiskey, so Rhy pounded her on the back, much harder than was helpful. She escaped him by briefly becoming a black cat—who clawed his wrist with a brisk swipe before she manifested again, perfectly coiffed and in the same crimson gown and matching jewels. Just figured she’d mastered that trick, too. Nursing his bleeding wrist, he gave her a warning glare.
“Will you do it?” Stella prompted, gazing at him with earnest entreaty.
“I will do my best,” he promised her. It was impossible to refuse Stella anything.
She beamed, happiness lighting her eyes to a silver as bright as her gown. “That’s all any of us asks of you, Rhy. Not the impossible. Just your best.”
He’d opened his mouth to reply when Astar called out for everyone to gather at the fireplace. Dutifully, they all obeyed—Stella was crazy to suggest that anyone but Astar led their group—and they made a circle around a black-draped table set with pieces of paper, crystal-tipped quills, and elegant short glasses.
“We’re going to have our own ceremony,” Astar informed them. “And a special toast.”
“For a special toast, we should open the mjed,” Jak said, surveying the setup. He punched Rhy on the shoulder. “Help me out, Rhy.”
Though they were speaking Common Tongue, Rhy heard the command sense from his half-Dasnarian friend anyway. “Have you gotten so puny that you need my shapeshifter strength?” he taunted.
Jak grinned. “Yeah, that’s it.”
The four women stood together on one side of the table, their soft laughter twining through their animated conversation like flowers blooming on lush vines. Salena had her back to him, and he wondered what they were discussing. Hoped it wasn’t him.
Astar frowned at Jak. “I can call for footmen to bring it, if this cask is too heavy,” he offered.
Jak looked affronted. “The day a man can’t carry his own cask of mjed is a sad day indeed.”
“Oh, good,” Rhy said blandly, “then you don’t need my help after all.”
Jak poked him in the chest, hard enough to hurt. “Too good to help a common guy with a menial task, Prince Rhyian?”
“Not really a prince,” Rhy muttered under Astar’s booming laugh.
Astar clapped him on the shoulder. “Jak got us there, cousin. Let’s see this enormous cask.”
It was enormous. Astar and Rhy stood back, surveying the man-sized barrel in one of the outer courtyards near a service gate. Rhy coughed into his fist. “Ah, Jak, why under Moranu’s gaze did you bring a cask this huge?”
“It’s a big party.” Jak gestured at the looming edifice, its towers white against the night sky.
“What I want to know is how you got it here.” Astar scanned the courtyard as if an answer might present itself.
“A wagon,” Jak replied. “It’s this device with wheels that common people use to cart heavy things around when you don’t have footmen to do it.”
Astar and Rhy exchanged glances. “Why didn’t you leave the wagon here?” Rhy asked.
“Or at least bring the cask inside?” Astar added.
Jak gave him a look of exaggerated patience. “Because, you royal ass, the wagon had other stuff to deliver, and I told my folks that we could handle it between the three of us. I didn’t know you guys had gone soft.”
“Can we just get this done?” Rhy asked. “It’s colder than Danu’s tits out here.” Though it was still early in the evening, no light remained in the sky, and the wind bit even harder, the rivets holding the banners rattling on the battlements high above.
“It’s going to have to be in human form,” Astar said, eyeing the cask. “Too bad, as my bear form could probably hold it, but I can’t return to human form and still be wearing these clothes. Still can’t do that trick.”
He looked so mournful that Rhy shrugged in solidarity. “Neither can I.”
“And some of us can’t shapeshift at all,” Jak declared, then flexed his muscles. “But I bet I’m as strong as either of you. We can lift it.”
Astar tried wrapping his big arms around it, barely reaching halfway around. Grunting and straining, he hardly budged it. “There’s no good leverage.”
“Idiots. We all three have to lift, which will work better with it sideways.” Jak grinned at them. “Teamwork. Rhy, stand there and be ready to catch it when I tip it toward you.”
Rhy studied the giant—and heavy—cask with a jaundiced eye. “No.”
“I’m calling the footmen,” Astar said.
“An army of them,” Rhy advised.
“You two give up too easily,” Jak said in exasperation. “Stand aside, then, and I’ll show you. I can carry this by myself.” He shrugged out of his scarlet coat, unbuckled the sword belt, then climbed the cask like a monkey, clipping on some straps.
“All right.” Rhy put his hands on his hips and stood well back. “Let’s see this.”
“Wait,” Astar said, holding up placating hands. “That thing is seriously heavy. We don’t want—”
“Jak says he can do this,” Rhy replied blandly. “Are you impugning his Dasnarian manhood?”
“Right.” Jak scowled. “Watch this.”
“I’m watching all right,” Rhy called cheerfully.
“You are a troublemaker,” Astar muttered.
Rhy grinned at him. “Love you, too, cuz.”
Jak put his back against the cask, looped his arms in the straps, and leaned. Slowly, improbably, he lifted the thing. He balanced there with the cask on his back, grunting, breath puffing out white in the torchlight…
Until his legs gave.
Jak managed to drop the cask to the side, so it didn’t come straight down to crush him. The cask hit the courtyard stones—fortunately buffered with snowdrifts—then rolled down the slope of icy snow, whipping Jak helplessly toward the sky as it went. With a shout, Astar and Rhy leapt to stop its roll before it smashed Jak beneath its considerable weight. Serendipitously, with a loud crack, the cask fetched up against the stone-well housing in the center of the courtyard—with Jak still trapped in the straps facing upward, kicking like a squashed bug. Rhy burst out laughing at the sight.
“You all right, man?” Astar called, then glared at Rhy. “Don’t laugh, he could be hurt.”
“Get me down from here!” Jak yelled, thrashing at the straps so that Rhy—who’d really tried to manfully swallow his laughter—cracked up all over again. He pointed at Jak, arms and legs flailing as he tried to get loose, but couldn’t get words past the wheezing laughter.
A smile cracked through Astar’s concern before he squashed it into seriousness. “We have to get him down,” he said.
Unable to speak, Rhy clutched an arm around his gut and nodded. Astar tried to look disgusted, but a snicker escaped him, snorting out his nose. He tried to stifle the laugh, but that only made it worse. Astar’s face tightened and swelled with suppressed laughter until he looked like a bloated jellyfish about to pop, which only made Rhy laugh harder. Finally Astar lost the battle, his booming laugh ringing out, both he and Rhy leaning against the barrel to keep themselves upright.
“Fuck you guys!” Jak yelled with renewed frenzy. He went on, but in Dasnarian, the few words Rhy recognized increasingly filthy.
“All right, all right,” Rhy managed, finally mastering himself. “Hang on. We’ll get you down.”
Astar stood with his butt against the cask, bent over with his hands on his knees as he wheezed. “I’m sorry, Jak,” he managed to say. “Really, I am. But the way you look—” He choked on another laugh and cleared his throat. “How are we getting him free?”
Rhy began resolutely stripping off his clothes. “I have an idea.”
Astar eyed him. “I take it this idea doesn’t involve calling footmen?”
“Not for us manly men,” Rhy agreed with a thin smile.
“We could call the girls to help.”
“We are not calling the girls!” Jak yelled at the sky.
For once, Rhy agreed. “Strip, Astar, and do the bear thing. Jak can carry our clothes.”