Broken Road (4 page)

“You should feel
honored!
” Andhērā fairly chirped. “Lord Léi Shēng has not invited any young ladies to court since Prince Beniru was a boy!”

The young lady—who was really a girl of perhaps nine—backed away from the syrupy sweet Duchess.

“But I didn’t
want
to come to court!” the gi
rl protested. “I like helping Daddy with the sheep and the goats. And I just got a kitten! What will Lily think when she finds out I’m gone?”

“I am sure your kitty will understand.” Andhērā tried—and nearly failed—to make the transition from sugary to soothing. “If you stay the night and serve us, Lord Léi Shēng will ensure that Lily will grow up big and strong…and quite smart, too.”

Amihan watched, sickened, as Andhērā enticed the little girl onto the pallet that had been placed in the center of the room. The Duchess gagged her victim, then set about tying the girl’s arms and legs to iron rings set into the floor. When she finished the last complicated knot, Andhērā disappeared.

The Duchess’s victim wasn’t alone for long, however. The Elder God of Wind sl
ipped into the room and paused just long enough to ensure he had his son’s attention, before kneeling and orally pleasuring the girl.

If Amihan thought the girl’s moans were hard to listen to then, they were
nothing
compared to her reaction when Léi Shēng
entered her. The gag did its work, but it still sounded to him as if the little girl was nearly howling to the moon; and with the shivers running up and down Amihan’s spine, it was all he could do not to join her.

~*~

“You are leaving, Prince Amihan?” A
ndhērā inquired the next morning. “I thought you were going to stay until your Lord Father received word about Duchess Aĺakána?”

Amihan, who had slept badly the night before, was tempted not to answer the woman. But while reaching for a pair of sandals, hi
s tongue got the better of him.

“Screw Aĺakána! Screw my father and his fucked up ideals! I have bowed, scraped and kissed his boots for the last time!”

“Is this about last night?”

Amihan chucked the sandals at his trunk and whirled on his stepmother.

“I c
annot believe you
participated
!
You
, of all people, should be condemning my father’s actions!”

“I am naught but a lowly Duchess,” she reminded him. “I gave Lord Léi Shēng a second, healthy son. I should have been rewarded with the oil on my breast, the dia
dem proclaiming me High Queen. Instead, I am stuck with a title that announces to the Three Worlds that I am but an orphan—and that I have no say over whom my lover brings to his bed.”

When the Thunder God returned to his packing, Andhērā added,

“If you do not marry Aĺakána, you forfeit the throne. My son, with his fortuitous marriage to Princess Masama, will be the next the Elder God of Wind.”

“Perfect Prince Beniru!” Amihan sneered, then said no more.

Thessalonica

“Get up. We are le
aving.”

“What?” Krystállina rolled over and barely opened her eyes.

“It is not safe here,” Amihan replied. “Come. Help me pack. I do not know what mortal women wear.”

“What do You mean, ‘It’s not safe here’? You’ve been gone for three months and I’ve been perfectly fine!”

Amihan looked at her uncomprehendingly and it took several minutes before Krystállina caught on.

“Time must run differently in Lord Léi Shēng’s palace,” she explained. “I thought You’d gone after Princess Aĺakána after all. My father has been quietly pressing me to accept the suit of a merchant’s son. I was going to take it as soon as they made the an
nouncement that the Elder God of Wind was expecting His first grandson.”

“You are in all the more danger that you did not accept his suit.”

“You keep speaking of danger. Who will harm me? Has Your father found out about my existence?”

Amihan stopped packing. “Do you trust me?”

Krystállina waited perhaps a hundred heartbeats.

“I do.”

“Then you will ask me no more questions about what danger we are facing until we are well out of Thessalonica!”

~*~

“Krystállina Óneira, daughter of the olive grower Andreas Óneira.”

Titus glanced up from his work, wary when he saw the young man accompanying his son’s future bride. But the merchant quickly decided that the boy must be a bodyguard, for Titus could never resist embracing her.

“Krystállina, my dear! Sit down, sit down. I just got in a shipment of French wine that I’m
dying
for you to try!”

The young woman took a plush chair near her benefactor’s desk while a servant scooted forward to present her with a goblet of the aforementioned wine. Amihan, mindful of his perceived role, hovered silently in a corner.

“Isn’t that wonderful? A grower in the Loire Valley persuaded me to try a sample of his wares. I daresay I’ll be doing business with him in the future!”

Titus drained his goblet and sat back with a lusty sigh. “Now, my dear, what can I do for you? Come to tell me the good news in person, perhaps?”

“I need more time to make a decision,” Krystállina hedged. “Where is Milos?”

“Surely you—”

“Surely
nothing!
My father sent this gentleman to chaperone me while I get to know your son better. He married my mother for love. He knows these things take time!”

“Demeter bless him,” Titus murmured. “Milos is in Roma, supposedly overseeing the business. Although last I heard, he was studying at some university and not attending to my Roman interests at all!”

“Do you have a ship bound for Roma soon, Sir?” Amihan said in a deferential voice. “Andreas was eager to have his daughter meet with her intended as soon as possible.”

Titus glanced at him, but addressed his response to Krystállina. “I have a ship bound for Ostia tomorrow at sunrise. Once in Ostia, the cargo will be transferred to smaller ships that can handle the Tiber all the way to Roma.” He gave a derisive snort. “If Milos has been reading my letters, there will be cargo waiting in Ostia to bring home.”

“I would be glad for the passage to Ostia and then to Roma,” she replied. “Will you be supervising this voyage?”

The merchant shook his head. “I am off to Alexandria. My family hasn’t done business with the Egyptians since the time of Cleopatra VII and I want to see if Alexandria or perhaps one of the other cities—Thebes, maybe—is still viable. But now that I know you are going to see my son, I will send my second best ship and tell my lieutenant guiding the voyage to accommodate you accordingly.”

Milano, Lombardy

Holy Roman Empire

September 1225

Krystállina’s plan worked perfectly. Titus’s generosity had gotten them out of Thessalonica with a legitimate story, and with Amihan’s accompaniment, the merchant’s lieutenant thought his guest’s disappearance from Ostia meant that she had found passage to Roma on her own. By the time Milos bothered to read his father’s inquiries—if at all—it would be more than a year before anyone realized Krystállina was missing.

From their inn at Ostia, Amihan had transported them to Milano, far to the north. He quickly found a suitable place to live several miles outside the city and it was here that he and Krystállina began to make their life together. First, however, came a few days of rest.

“Why were You there?” Krystállina asked late in the afternoon following their arrival. “At the Temple of the Elder Gods, I mean. Were You hoping that I would wander by and turn out to be suitable?”

“I was not waiting for you or any other woman,” Amihan replied. “My father had been summoning me for weeks and I finally answered.”

“
Weeks?
” she echoed. “Do You not have a grand suite of rooms at the Dark Moon Palace fit for a Crown Prince and his retinue?”

“My mother left my father as soon as s
he found out that Duchess Andhērā was pregnant with his child. I lived with Dowager Queen Sundara until I was twelve, after which I took my place among the Monacan.”

“What’s that? Some clan of Princes who have nothing better to do than play around with The
ir powers until some position of minor importance becomes available?”

Amihan chuckled. “The Monacan? No, they are a people native to a land that other mortals will not discover for another three or four hundred years, if I mark my Sight correctly. The Monacan learned as I grew that I was some sort of god spirit to be revered. They have provided me with ample companionship and plenty to keep me content, allowing me to stay away from my father as much as possible in the last fifteen years.”

“Yet You answered Your father’s summons this time?”

“He wanted to celebrate the finalization of my brother’s marriage contract. Or rather, he wanted to
brag
about the finalization of my brother’s betrothal and exasperate me about mine.”

Krystállina, seeing that the sky had turned to dusk, got up to lay the fire.

“So after bragging that Prince Beniru would be married…when?”

“Three summers from now.”

“Three s
ummers from now, Lord Léi Shēng ordered You to track Princess Aĺakána down and rape Her until She conceived His first grandchild.”

Amihan had nothing to say to this that he hadn’t said already, and so rose to see what he could persuade from the larder for
supper.

“I am not finished!” Krystállina turned away from the fireplace, tinderbox in hand. “Let me guess. You were on Your way to find the Princess when You ran into me and thought You would get a little ‘exercise’ first. Only, instead of ‘practicing’ on me, You managed to fall in love.”

“It amazes me that you do not know me after four months of being together,” Amihan replied. “We may have had to sneak around at night to maintain a semblance of obedience to your father, but did you ever
once
suspect that
I had an ulterior motive? Did you think I came to you to slake my thirst after deflowering some helpless innocent?”

When she stared at him in silence, he added, “I may be of my father’s blood, but I am
not
of my father’s tastes!”

“Lord Léi Shēng makes a ha
bit of raping young women?”

“Girls, actually. He recently deflowered a nine year old for my entertainment, and tied me up so that I could not yell or intervene.” Amihan’s face darkened. “
That
is why we left Thessalonica.”

Krystállina dropped the tinderbox in her surprise. “Can’t He be reported to someone?”

“To
whom?
My father killed the High King of the Gods five hundred and twenty years before we were born—the others fear him!”

She collapsed into her chair. “And there is no way to kill a god?”

“There is, but it is one of the utmost secrets of the universe.” Amihan’s voice grew grave as he, too, sat down. “It is a secret granted only to the Elders, though some of the other gods stumble across it from time to time. Most use it to take their own lives, but some have used it to dispatch their enemies. All who successfully complete the invocation are hunted down and executed.”

“Have…have any humans ever discovered the secret?”

“Many times since the beginning of the world. They, too, are executed; regardless of whether they are successful.” He closed his eyes. “Though since my father crowned himself High King, I imagine the punishments have become much grimmer.”

They sat in silence for quite a while, before Amihan rose and picked up the fallen tinderbox.

“Go find something for supper. I will see to the fire.”

~*~