“I THOUGHT I’d die when you rode out in my place. We were fighting, trying to get you and your family to safety. I’d gone down in the battle and couldn’t continue. You took my horse and rallied my men. It had been years since you’d fought as part of a unit, but you took command and led the enemy away in the most brilliant retreat I’ve ever seen.”
Griffin grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me once, twice. “You son of a she-wolf! We were supposed to be protecting you, escorting you to safety, but you took command and led those bastards into a trap. I heard that not a single Landaun on the ground survived that day. And then you took my troops and hid away, teaching them to fight from cover, to strike and retreat. You baited the enemy, leading them away from the capital, giving us time to evacuate. When it was done, you sent the survivors onto a ship. You surrendered in exchange for their safety.”
“Well, that was stupid.” My throat was tight. As he spoke, I winced at images of war, blood, and terror, our gliders twisted and smoking, leaving us to fight on foot or on horseback.
I saw Griffin bleeding and broken, unable to stand on his own.
I recalled the frightened faces of my nieces and nephews, my sister… my son. I’d grabbed him—hugged him hard and said good-bye, believing I wouldn’t survive. I’d seen the same belief in eyes that were so like my own.
There’d been weeks and months of fighting, of hunger and hardship and unceasing travel, harrying the enemy. Vividly I remembered approaching the enemy, looking into their hard, alien faces, and extending my sword in surrender.
“I thought you’d escaped.” I looked at Griffin. His face was pale. The memories still haunted him. “But you didn’t.” He shook his head, speechless. “They captured you. And Suzan. And your little girls.”
My legs went weak, and Griffin caught me, then carried me to the padded floor.
“I think my memory is coming back,” I croaked, my mouth dry with the memory of fear and dread. “I thought you were gone. I thought you were safe—” I’d thought it was over, that once I surrendered, my life would end.
But it hadn’t.
Submission and surrender. They’d forced me to my knees to taste the sweaty, filthy cock of their commander. I’d listened to the laughter and jeers of his soldiers. They didn’t kill me; death would have given our people a martyr. Instead they dragged me to the capital with the intention of showing my people their broken hero, but my people were already gone.
The palace was empty, as was the temple and all the buildings in the city. The dead lay unburied and uncaring, but thousands had escaped. I’d looked at the empty city and rejoiced. We’d been unsuccessful in making alliances to help us fight, but they’d come and taken our refugees. That knowledge had given me… hope, even in the face of death. Regardless of my future, my loved ones had been given another chance. But they’d caught Griffin. And his family.
“Helios.”
I opened my eyes. I was cradled against a giant, hard chest.
“Flashback,” I uttered.
“I understand. It’s just the start.”
“I know.” My arms came up and rested on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Lio.”
I didn’t know what he was sorry for. Perhaps for giving me unconditional love? His implicit faith in my abilities? My laugh came out as a sob. Though safe in his arms, I was overwhelmed with the memory of being thrown naked onto a slave block, stripped of my name and identity. I vividly recalled the first time a trainer took my ass, leaving me broken, bleeding, and trembling in shame and impotent fury.
Mingling into the horror were the good moments and the bad times that came with my life. My marriage and the birth of Alexander. The joy of coming home from the temple to see a smile on the face of my baby son. The sadness when I first realized Cloris was merely a tool of her father. The lonely years that followed, highlighted by occasional encounters with Griffin and his sweet wife.
“She knew, didn’t she? Suzan, I mean.”
“About us? Of course she knew.”
And I laughed; the memory was a delightful wash of color and sensation. She’d been a young soldier who’d taken two rather naive young men into her bed. It had been Suzan who’d first taken my hand and guided it to Griffin’s, forcing us to confront our love.
“Oh shit. Suzan!” My laughter felt dangerously close to hysterics.
He laughed a delightful, wicked laugh. “She was so very kinked!” And though he laughed, a tear streaked down his face. He’d loved her so very much. He must grieve for her still. How could he not? With the laughter came the pain of knowing she was gone, and I hadn’t been able to say good-bye.
I remembered precious nights spent in their snug little house, the children asleep in one room while the three of us made love in their bed. Sorrow twisted through me at those memories. After the death of Cloris, I’d found my solace in their arms. Suzan had been the third of our whole. If things had been different, we’d still be lovers today.
“How did she die?” The question was painful, causing my voice to sound tight and harsh.
Griffin didn’t answer for a very long time. I waited, knowing how hard this must be for him to confront the memory. I was willing to believe that he’d never spoken of his wife’s death to anyone before. In fact, I was certain he hadn’t.
When he spoke, his voice was soft. I almost couldn’t hear the words. “When they realized that I wouldn’t submit to their torture, they moved on to my family.” He stopped speaking. He just breathed as though he had a great weight on his chest. He inhaled and then swallowed hard. “Suzan didn’t survive the torture. She wasn’t meant to. As I watched… as our children watched, they beat her to death. They didn’t even question her first. Then they turned to my little girls—”
That’s when I broke. All the tears, the grief and guilt, rolled over me, and I didn’t resist. I grieved in his arms then, twisting with the pain that had been locked inside, unseen and unknown. I cried for my weak-willed wife and for my stiff-rumped uncle. I cried for the dozens of temple workers and apprentices who’d fallen in the first attack. I cried for the gaunt-faced refugees who wandered the countryside, trying to survive. For Suzan, with her sunshine hair and blue, blue eyes. For her children.
I cried for myself.
I cried for Griffin, who had been left behind.
I cried as though I’d never stop.
THE SOUND of a soft chime woke me.
I was stretched out on the floor. The lights were dim. The warm body cradling mine moved away, leaving me cold and bereft.
“How is he?” The woman’s voice was soft and low.
“About how we expected it to be. Memory comes in fits and starts.” A heavy sigh. “I just wish he had better memories.”
“But he’s resting now?”
“Yes, until the dreams start again. How long’s it been?”
“About seven hours, standard. You look like shit, Captain. Why don’t you take a break, grab something to eat? He’ll need food too. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“How much longer do we have in ID?”
“If I bring us out in a couple hours, we’ll have about a four-day trip. That’ll give him time to recover a bit more.”
I cracked an eye open and saw Griffin and Carlotta standing together. Both looked worried. For me? What a concept. I wanted to sit up, to tell them both to fuck off, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. All I wanted was to lie here and not think. Not feel. Before I could manage the will to speak, Griffin left the room and Carlotta came and settled on the floor next to me.
“Hello, handsome.” She smiled slightly. I’d initially thought she was shockingly beautiful in a bizarre, flamboyant fashion, but here in the soft lights, she was… pretty. The lines of her face were softer. Maybe it was her hair; it was still pulled back but loose, with strands falling around her face.
“Did you hear?” she asked.
“About four days.”
I continued to lay there on my side, looking at her. Her hair was nearly as long as mine. She wore it in a ponytail. Mine was loose and spilled all over the floor. It was going to be a bitch to comb out. Good thing Griffin liked doing it.
“I’ve got a small group who will rendezvous with us. You’ll arrive with a royal guard.”
“Made up of Talisians.”
“True. Talisians who swore fealty to you over five years ago.”
“It was on a battlefield. You were bleeding. Your left arm. Up high.”
“And you bound my wound.”
That left me speechless. But of course, I recovered.
“In this light, I see what your sister would have looked like eventually.”
She smiled softly. “Cloris was prettier than me.”
“No. Not at all. Your strength gives you beauty. She never had that strength.”
“No. Unfortunately Cloris was more my father’s daughter, afraid of him and yet devoted to his will. I was influenced by my mother. She was outraged by the war. If they’d survived, my mother would have taken the throne.”
“She’d have deposed your father?”
Carlotta smiled, and the expression reminded me of Griffin at his worst. “No, she wouldn’t have deposed him, but Father would undoubtedly have fallen ill and remained confined to his quarters… for a very long time.”
Like her mother, Carlotta was not a woman to cross. I was grateful to have her on my side.
“I remember seeing you at the betrothal dinner. But your hair was black then.”
“It changed a bit, didn’t it?” The words were sarcastic, but the tone wasn’t. She sounded sad.
“Why?”
Not content to drag myself through the hellfire of memory, I had to force her along for the ride.
“I imagine it changed that final night in the palace.”
“When your family was killed?”
She nodded. “The Landaun raped me within inches of my mother’s body. They raped me, and all I could see were her dead eyes.” Her voice was dispassionate. Numb.
I started speaking without thought. “The first time I was raped, they tied me and threw me over a bench. All I could see was the pool of blood on the floor from my broken nose.”
She looked at my face a bit more closely. “It doesn’t look bad. Not at all.”
I grinned and found the energy to push myself up to a sit. “I was prime meat. They brought in the best Vash healers to fix me every time they broke me. They had a stable of Vash slaves, all broken and beat.” I remembered how gray they seemed. How sad. “I wonder how much they sold me for?”
“I doubt it was even close to the amount Tomas paid for those crystals of candar.”
“Hmm. Now that doesn’t seem right, does it? That a royal whore would be of less value than a rock?”
She shook her head and laughed at my comment. But then something less funny came to mind.
“Carlotta, you’re my sister-in-law. You’re my family.”
“Yes, I am. That’s why I recognized you when your raiders rescued us from the Landaun.”
“You’re also the aunt of my son.”
She went very quiet, her face sober. “I admit that’s part of my reason for coming with you. He’s the only blood family I have left, Helios.”
That meant Alexander was the heir to the rightful queen of the Talisians. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. But I looked at her and saw nothing but the same loneliness I’d seen in my own eyes, when I was U’shma’s slave.
I scooted back on my ass and leaned against the wall. The more we talked, the clearer my thoughts became.
“I don’t know what exactly we’re walking into, but it could be very bad. When I return, someone will wonder about my eye tattoos and figure out where I’ve been all these years.”
“So don’t hide it.” She looked at me unflinchingly. “You’ve done nothing to bring shame to your people.”
“Honor in slavery, eh?” I chuckled. “And the long-absent king brings his sister-in-law as his chief bodyguard. That’ll ruffle some feathers.”
“No doubt,” she agreed.
“Not to mention that I have no intention of being bullied into giving up Griffin this time.”
“He is a very inappropriate choice for a queen, Helios. I can’t see him in a tiara.”
That image made me laugh, and the laughter felt good. It brought life back to my nerves and muscles, and clarity returned to my mind. Just then, Griffin entered carrying a covered plate. My stomach growled.
“Your timing is impeccable.”
“My timing has always been perfect.” His smile was dangerously close to a leer, and a thrill of arousal skittered through me. It faded as Griffin’s face turned sober.
“My timing had better be perfect.” He slid to the floor and sat facing me. “We have to do something. The three of us. And it’s not going to be easy.”
Carlotta and I looked at each other, then back at Griffin. He had his hands resting on his knees, his fingers linked. He looked deceptively casual.
“We have to go home,” he said. “To Arash.”