Jabone's Sword (40 page)

"What's wrong, do you not want to go?"

"I don't mind going to the palace, I like it there. You will to. It's the reason we're going I don't like. My madra makes plans to go back to the territories," Jabone said. "To fight the Amalites in their hive. I don't want to go, Kasiria, I don't want either of us to go." He wrapped his arms around her then. "I almost lost you there. I never want any of us to go back again. I don't care what happens there."

She hadn't even thought about it, hadn't wanted to she guessed, just wanted to put the battle out of her head, let it be like a bad nightmare she could talk herself out of in the daytime. But it wasn't just a bad dream, it had all been real. When she started to remember how they had looked crawling through the woods, how they had come upon them like relentless waves of flesh with swords, pikes and axes, when she remembered the burned-out husk of the village of Grey Noke and the look on Derek's face as he perished, his dying words fear for her safety, and remembered that he was only there because he was trying to protect her, then she knew what she had to do.

"I
do
care what happens there, Jabone. Unchecked those things will swarm the whole of the territories and then the Jethrik. I know that means nothing to you, but it's my country," Kasiria said gently. "I understand if you don't want to go . . . "

"Don't you dare say such a ridiculous thing! I am bound to you. If you must go there then so must I. In all honesty I knew this is what you would say, and were you to say you would stay here I would go because I would not send my family and my friends to face
that
while I cowered here. The only problem with the spell that Jestia put on you is that you don't know what your body went through. You almost died and you don't seem to understand that at all, because for you it's not quite real. My mother stitched you so well that even your scar doesn't remind you. But I was awake. I saw everything. I saw your insides, Kasiria. I watched you as you just lay there looking almost dead. So I'm afraid, afraid for you, afraid for everyone I love who will be going. I will go, because I'm no coward, but you can't make me like it. No one can make me like it."

She nodded, and said, "If Tarius the Black is leading the combined forces of our two countries then it will not be for us what it was, Jabone."

He nodded, but didn't seem any happier.

Now they were preparing for the feast. Apparently they would feast tonight and talk business tomorrow. The palace was not like the huge, drafty castle she'd grown up in. It wasn't a fortress. In fact it looked much like the homes around it only bigger and with a huge garrison attached to it. They had all been given their own rooms but at the moment she was in Tarius and Jena's.

"I have no clothes," she said in an excited panic. "I don't know what's proper and it wouldn't matter if I did, because . . . I don't have anything to wear anyway," she said, gesturing to the brown puffy pants and bright red shirt she wore that actually belonged to Jabone.

"Relax girl," Tarius said. "It just isn't that formal." But Kasiria noticed Tarius was donning fancy armor. Jena must have read her mind.

"That's her battle armor not dress armor. She doesn't own dress armor," she said.

Tarius stood to her full height, put her hand on her chest and said, "I like to get dressed up pretty when I feast or kill people."

The skulls on her palderons and knee cops appeared to be smiling at Kasiria mockingly and Kasiria said to Jena, "I need something to wear besides breeches and a shirt."

"Oh, you mean like a girl," Tarius teased.

"Tarius finish dressing and go away," Jena said with a smile. She looked Kasiria up and down. "I have an extra dress you can wear. You're taller than I am so it may be a little short on you."

Kasiria looked at what Jena was wearing. You could see her knees as it was, anything shorter would be obscene.

"I ah . . . "

"She's all yours," Tarius said, and gathering up her sword and slinging it on walked out.

"Too short?" Jena asked.

"I'm just not used to well . . . When I went to the academy and switched to men's clothing that was a big leap, but at least it was one I wanted to take. I know it's the way you all dress but I'm just not comfortable wearing so little clothing in front of anyone but my husband." She felt her face getting flushed. She considered Jabone her husband though they hadn't been married in any sort of ceremony she'd ever seen, but among the Katabull the binding held that meaning and she was Katabull. However she thought parading around half dressed in front of strangers was a bit much to ask of someone who'd only been in the country a few days and still couldn't even speak the language.

"I could ask Hestia, you're very close to her size . . . "

"No, don't bother the queen with anything as frivolous as that."

"Mother finds nothing about clothing to be frivolous," Jestia said, walking into the room in a long, flowing blue velvet gown that was absolutely beautiful and exactly what Kasiria would have liked be wearing to a feast at the Queen's palace. "Tarius said you might need my help," she said, and Kasiria wanted to strangle Tarius. As it was she owed Jestia a debt she could never pay, and she knew Jestia delighted in the knowledge.

"Kasiria needs a dress," Jena said, "and I'm afraid all of mine are too short."

"Too short," Jestia said, as if she couldn't imagine such a thing.

"I have to admit it took me awhile to get used to Kartik clothing myself," Jena said.

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to Jabone running around in that nothing he wears," Kasiria said.

"It's called a loin cloth," Jena said.

"I don't understand you people at all. If you've got your junk covered what else matters?" Jestia said. Then she nodded looking thoughtful and looked from Kasiria to Jena and back again. "She's taller but you have a lot more boobs and more hips," she said to Jena as if Kasiria weren't important enough for her to talk to her. She seemed to think a little more then finally turned to look at Kasiria and ordered, "All right. Change into one of Jena's dresses and I'll make it longer."

Kasiria took off Jabone's clothes and put on one of Jena's dresses, and then before she had a chance to see how she looked in the mirror, the dress was changing color and growing longer and the neckline lower. She turned to look at Jestia and shook her head. "No . . . I can't have . . . Well there should be more cloth here." She moved her hand back and forth between her breasts. It was so low cut that when she looked down she could just make out the beginning of her scar.

"But there isn't any more cloth. You can have it long like that or short," Jestia said with a shrug.

"Why'd you change the color?" Jena asked curiously.

"Red and blue better suit her coloring than the yellow and green. Yours, too, really Jena," Jestia said with a shrug. Jena nodded so she obviously agreed. "How do you like mine?" Jestia asked, spinning around.

"It's beautiful Jestia," Jena said with real appreciation.

Jestia giggled. "I made it from the drapes behind Mother's throne."

"Jestia," Jena said in a scolding tone but her smile made it ineffective. "You have to stop goading your mother."

"She'd better stop goading me. She's all upset that Ufalla and I are getting married . . . "

Kasiria interrupted her, "But you're both . . . " she fell silent when they both turned to look at her as if she were about to eat a live toad, and she realized that what she'd been about to say would probably get her chewed up and spit out by these two women.

"Both what?" Jestia asked with a sadistic smile.

"So . . . Well suited to each other," Kasiria said quickly. Jena and Jestia looked at each other and laughed.

"What are you going to do?" Jena asked Jestia.

"What do you mean, what am I going to do? I'm going to marry her anyway. My mother can demand all she wants but I'm not one of her subjects, I'm her daughter," Jestia said, flipping her hand in the air. "If she pushes me too hard I'll make her feeble, turn prince boring into a dog and then I'll be queen and . . . Well I don't think any of us want to see that so she better just tread lightly and stay out of my way, that's all I'm saying."

"I doubt that," Kasiria said under her breath. Then aloud said, "I can't sit down to a feast with the Queen of the Kartik half dressed."

"Half dressed?" Jestia said pulling a face. "You're wearing more than Mother is. I have to go find Ufalla. She's hiding somewhere because she's sure Mother's going to have her beheaded. I could use a spell to find her, but it's just so much more fun to look for her the normal way." She grinned wildly rubbing her hands together. "It will make the finding so much more entertaining."

"Jestia, don't be late for your mother's feast," Jena said.

She made a dismissive noise and said, "I'll get there when I get there and if we make an entrance all the better."

Kasiria looked at herself in the mirror and then at Jena who laughed and said, "Kasiria you wouldn't want to be wearing more clothing than the queen would you?"

"I suppose it doesn't matter. By their customs I'm not nearly naked, right?"

"Not at all. I admit I was not so bold myself when I first got here, but it didn't take me long to embrace their ways." Jena smiled broadly. "Of course I was never proper enough to suit my father or my aunts. You look beautiful and I'm sure you'll put the sparkle back in Jabone's eyes."

"He doesn't want to go back."
"I know," Jena said.

"I think he's mad because I do."

"He's not mad, Kasiria, he's worried," Jena said.

Kasiria rubbed at the scar where she could see it. "He says between Jestia's spell and your fine sewing I don't really understand how close I came to dying and don't know enough to be scared. But I do know fear now, Jena. I remember the battle. I remember leaving Derek and Richard and all the others behind to be eaten by those beasts. I remember the look on Jabone's face and I remember the arrow. I just think my reaction is different than his. It just makes me want to go back and kill them all to the last man."

Jena smiled. "I wonder just how much you heard Tarius tell you when you were asleep. That's not the first time I've heard you say something that might have come straight from her mouth. Put all of it out of your mind for now, Kasiria, tomorrow we will talk of war but tonight we will feast and dance."

* * *

Tarius watched as Jestia tugged Ufalla into the dining hall far after they'd started their meal and thought,
Ufalla looks more uncomfortable than Kasiria does. While I understand why Ufalla looks like she's chewing rocks I don't understand Kasiria. She's the king's daughter. She should be used to these sorts of things.

Hestia was glaring at Tarius then. "How could you let
that
happen?" Hestia said, motioning her head towards the young couple who sat down between Jabone and some young man of Hestia's court that Tarius didn't know. When she saw how he looked at the two girls—with total disdain—she had no desire to. She was glad to see Jabone laughing and enjoying himself and trying to get Kasiria to relax. "Tarius, I asked how you could let that happen?" Hestia accused.

"First off I had no control over that happening Hestia, and second it would take a cold heart to try to kill that love."

"Tarius I know you don't understand as you and Jena are a love match and you are a follower of the Nameless One alone." Most Kartiks believed in the nameless god but they also believed in many others, the Nameless One balanced the rest out as most of them were willful and selfish which was why the Katabull didn't believe in them. "You don't understand that royalty has to live by a standard different than the common man . . . "

"I don't understand it because it is utter crap," Tarius said, dismissing the entire idea with a flip of her hand. "And you'd best not insult my non-blood kin," she said pointing at Ufalla, "or then you'll have a fight with more than just Jestia."

"I have nothing against Ufalla, Tarius. She's a nice girl, a brave girl, a beautiful girl. I know, I can tell looking at her that she loves my daughter, but . . . Jestia has duties . . . "

"Made up ones because we all know that unless some peril should befall your family she will never rule. that being the case, why shouldn't she have what she wants? Because it looks bad, because it sets a bad precedent? Bearing children should never be a duty. I say again, Hestia, it takes a cold heart to try to kill love."

"She can keep her love, but she needs to remember her responsibilities as a royal. Tarius, your son, he has made a good match for himself. Jena and Arvon and Dustan are all Jethrikian. She is Katabull so that is a good match she fits your family well. Ufalla, she is half Jethrikian the royal line must remain pure . . . "

"Unless Jestia is an even more powerful witch than I think she is, I don't think you have to fear Ufalla 'fathering' Jestia's children," Tarius laughed then got serious. "So what's your real complaint? That she's shirking her duties as an heir to the crown or that you couldn't? Jestia has always been willfull and headstrong, Hestia. I thought it was some joke when she said she wanted to go with the others to the territories, but I did everything in my power to break her, so that she would beg to be left behind. She didn't budge so she already had my respect before she went and she certainly proved herself there. Had she not been with them then all would have perished and the Amalites would still be growing under the ground undetected. You should be proud of her, Hestia, Jestia is a smart girl, a brave one, and though she doesn't want anyone to know it she is a kind and compassionate girl as well. Jestia threw herself between Ufalla and an axe-wielding Amalite to save her. That being the case do you really think that there is anything you can say or do against their coupling that would affect Jestia's opinion in the slightest? She's going to do exactly what she wants to do. You never have been able to control her and you won't stop her now. If I were you I wouldn't try because she has become a very powerful witch, and you will only make yourself look a fool."

"How powerful?" Hestia asked curiously as if this would be the deciding factor.