Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) (5 page)

As Varene and Gunjan explained the bird’s presence, the prince’s scowl deepened. When they finished, his face was turning a fetching shade of red.
Ah, here we go.
Having known him for decades, Varene took a tranquil breath and prepared to wait out the storm.

But just as he opened his mouth, Jilian touched her husband’s elbow. When he turned, she gave him a mild look. He held still for a moment, gazing at her, and then took three slow, deep breaths before facing the bird with passable calmness.

Gunjan, apparently oblivious to the prince’s ire, balanced on one leg. “Your Highness, much animosity has occurred between our two lands. There is, as you know, a…history.”

The bird’s pretentious tone implied Teganne was to blame for that history. Alvarr crossed bulging arms as the three humans shared a cynical quirk of the brow.

Gunjan drew himself up, much like a pompous man, to speak again. Varene bet that his mien reflected his master, the sultan.

“Despite that history,” the jencel continued, “my Sacred Lord Kuramos has need of your aid. Prince of Teganne, will you allow your Royal Healer to journey to Kad?”

Varene narrowed her eyes. So she’d been
told
to come, while Alvarr was given the courtesy of a request? Such meager regard these Kaddites had for her own rank and sex.

Alvarr, still appearing serene, waved one finger at the bird and muttered a spell. “
Priyar fok.
”

The bird blinked and cocked his head. “Hello? Hello? Why has everything gone silent?” He turned toward Varene. “Where’s all the noise? I can’t even hear myself! Wh—”

Alvarr growled and snapped his fingers. The hubbub halted mid-word as the bird froze in place, beak half-open.

“Thank Fate! That tongue needed a rest,” the prince said with a satisfied nod. But the levity evaporated as Alvarr stepped toward her, shaking his head. “‘Rene, you can’t mean to do this.”

She blinked. “Of course not. Though I’d like to hear why you think I shouldn’t.”

“The Sultan of Kad
cannot
be trusted! The dealings I’ve had with him…” Alvarr cupped a weary hand behind his neck. “He is ruthless. Think of it—he tried to steal you away without even telling us! And Qiara…” His gray eyes hardened. “My daughter and best friend held hostage! That he freed them in the end can’t compensate for the offense.”

Her lips thinned. “No. Of course not.”

Jilian spoke then, worriedly. “And what if this is all a plot to make you another hostage?”

Varene snorted again. “I know you both love me, but I’m not a princess with a realm for my dowry. Anyway, the bird expected a male Healer, not me. My gut says he tells the truth. And…there is this.” She extended her fingers, displaying the ring.

Alvarr emitted a sharp laugh. “Is
that
what Kuramos did with it!”

She passed the object to the prince, who inspected it with a low, foreboding whistle. “A shadow of the FireRing in Kad. He claimed it had been demolished… Sly of him. Certainly no one could get through it at this size. He gave no hint that his ‘demolition’ was reversible.”

He tossed the ring onto the floor, where it clung as if magnetized. Under his whispered spell, the ring pulsed and expanded, finally reaching three feet in diameter. It shimmered for a moment, then disappeared.

Sobered, Alvarr looked over at Varene. “That was one of the last pieces of magic left in Kad, I’ll wager. As I enlarged the shadow here, the true Ring in Kad was resized to allow Crossings. I can send you there instantly.” His voice softened. “You may be right. Kuramos wouldn’t offer the Ring—wouldn’t risk a breach in his defenses and permit magic back into his realm—unless his need were great.”

Varene nodded and pursed her lips. Despite her initial resolve, her thoughts were now ricocheting. She tugged on her habitual ponytail. Leaving Teganne was an appalling thought, one she’d never expected to consider. Her breath hitched as she fought the sparks of memory that threatened to yank her under, drown her in guilt and terror.

And yet…

By training and by calling, she was a Healer. She restored health and life to all those she could, and did her best to comfort and soothe when she couldn’t. This Kaddite illness was a deadly puzzle that needed an answer. Her kind of healing might find a solution where Kad’s physicians had not.

Jilian reached for Alvarr’s hand and they faced her silently. Their expressions spoke of misgivings, but also compassion—for her, and perhaps, even if grudgingly, for the sultan whose family was suffering.

Varene looked back at the frozen bird. He’d flown a very long way to reach her. Tegannese healing was the best in all the realms. Everyone knew it. She was proud of that.

But Death had still come for those she’d loved. And it had bested her. Again and again.

She would have given anything for Findar to be alive, or…

No. Don’t even think it.

But here was a chance to save others. No guarantees—there never were—but a possibility. And some of the ill were
children
. She had no right to ignore them.

Alvarr and Jilian shared another glance. When the princess gave an almost imperceptible nod, the prince’s gaze returned to Varene. “Varene na Seryn, you’re a free woman, and shall make your own choices. You alone can choose your path, or decide where your skills might best be needed.”

“Thank you.” She gave them a wan smile and her pulse accelerated. Her choice, her decision.

“With the Ring, you can reach Kad in seconds,” Alvarr murmured. “But since Kad has no mages to send you home to us, your return would have to be the slow method, on fyddback. You’d be gone for many days.”

“I understand.”

“Then,” Jilian asked, “dear one, what do you wish to do?”

Varene looked around the Healing Rooms, both her refuge and domain for so many years; a place as familiar and precious to her as her own hands. She looked out the window, past the grey walls of the castle and the lush fields along the river to the soaring, white-tipped mountains beyond. Toward Fallorm and all her reasons for staying here.

But her gaze rebounded, and there in the prince and princess’s eyes were love and acceptance. And a reflection of the strength she would soon need.

There had never really been a choice. No options.

Varene na Seryn, the Royal Healer of Teganne, fixed the bird with an intense stare of her own and nodded for Alvarr to unfreeze him.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
he Kaddite nobles who pleaded their petty disputes before the sultan’s court received only half of Kuramos’s attention that day. It was fortunate for them that half his attention was still worth a great deal.

He sat tall on the Leonine Throne, listening to a long line of opponents argue like jealous monkeys. He passed judgment and sentences, upheld honor and approved justified revenge. But the image of his son, lying so still and pale in the bed, never left his mind.

And neither did his awareness of the empty chair of ibis skins and feathers on his right. The chair that had been Dabir’s.

Outside, golden sun baked the white domes and spires of his city. Even in the shelter of the marble palace, thick air weighed upon the jewelry-laden brows and necks of those present. Male servants in loincloths waved giant palm fronds, circulating the air as best they could, but sweat beaded the skin of the litigants and the other nobles watching from the tasseled carpets.

Attending the sultan’s judgments of the nobility was a privilege reserved for men of high rank, an ancient tradition Kuramos privately thought bizarre. Who under Naaz’s sun would willingly waste time on the bickering that pervaded such afternoons? But that was the irony. Kuramos wanted to escape but could not, while those without responsibilities here attended of their own accord. Even his foes.

Especially
his foes. But they were always looking for a stumble, a misjudgment they could use to their advantage. Seeking out malcontents they could entice to their cause. And with petty cases like these, someone would always be dissatisfied.

“O Lord,” the latest complainer shrilled as his forehead touched the floor, “I beg of you: please do not allow my neighbor to insult my family! Last week he built a fence that cuts off our access to our own lirrfruit trees! My cook can no longer gather our own fruits to brew for breakfast…”

Kuramos’s hands twitched, aching to curl into fists. Tradition, indeed—ancient family conflicts and jealousies played out again and again, differing only in the details. Today Death stalked the corridors of his palace, yet here he must sit, pretending all was well. If he did not, if word of the illness reached his foes, the strength of his rule and of his very dynasty would be shredded by poisonous treachery.

And how well his enemies had already pruned that dynasty! They’d sliced off its leaves and branches, burned and hacked at it until only twigs remained to shake in the oncoming gale.

The goddess would have Her revenge at last.

“But O Lord,” whined the neighbor who’d built the offending fence, “consider what he keeps from you: his own father sold me that land
and
those trees! A handshake sealed the bargain thirty years ago, and though I have permitted his cook to take fruit from
our
trees until now, it is within my right to fence my own property. Furthermore—”

At precisely the moment when the sultan knew he would burst a vein if he didn’t wrap his hands around both neighbors’ necks, a shriek echoed through the great hall.

Kuramos’s gaze streaked to the open doorway of the antechamber and he shot to his feet, palming the hilt of the scimitar belted at his waist. His guards had leapt to attention at the scream, then relaxed at what they saw. Kuramos, however, remained in a fighter’s stance as he took in the spectacle.

A splendid blonde in foreign garb wrestled with three palace guards for control of a well-stuffed travel pack. Her prudishly long skirts swirled around her as she gave one man an impressive clout across the chin. Adding to the confusion was Kuramos’s own jencel, dive-bombing the guard who gripped the hellcat’s squirming waist.

“You fools!” the woman yelled. “You’ll crush them! Lay one more hand on that pack and you’ll wish your life were over!”

Amazingly, the guards’ faces reflected a curious mixture of contempt and…fear.

The woman turned toward the crowd of astonished courtiers but her gaze raced past them all to slam headlong into Kuramos’s. The impact sent his pulse staggering. Eyes blue as cornflowers, and as cutting as tempered steel…

“You!” she shouted into the room. “Is this how you treat the Healers you beg to come to your family’s aid? Call off your dogs!”

Murmurs shot through the room. The nobles stared at the disheveled and furious woman, and then their gazes rose to their sultan—some with horror, others with venomous pleasure.

But Kuramos’s mind was already roaring like wind over desert dunes. The woman’s indigo skirts were Tegannese in style… Gunjan, who’d been sent to fetch the Royal Healer of Prince Alvarr, was with her…

His jaws ground together. Aghast and furious, he finally understood the last words of Dabir ib Rubai.

“She” had come.

T
he dark, empty blur of the magical Crossing from Teganne had lasted only a few moments, with Varene’s unease lightened by the pinpricks of Gunjan’s talons on her shoulder and the rough canvas of the pack she clutched in both hands. But when she emerged in Kad’s FireRing, everything went wrong.

Through the blur, an incredulous male voice roared out: “A woman? Where’s the
Healer
? Teganne has deceived us!”

Shapes like flat diamonds glinted and rose around her. She fought to focus her eyes, and soon realized a cadre of guards with raised spears surrounded the Ring. Her heart almost leapt into her skull.

Gunjan launched himself over the guards’ heads, screeching, “She IS the Healer, she IS the Healer!” Even after the men reluctantly lowered their spears, their contemptuous expressions displayed their thoughts:
A woman, a Tegannese Healer—a sorceress!

Varene glared back, swimming in a sea of adrenaline fury. Flight wasn’t an option—she had no power to go back through the Ring. That left only fight, and she was alone and unarmed. She bit her tongue and took a shaky breath, struggling for control.

A dubious guardsman poked his spear into her canvas sack of herbs and remedies. The liquid silverwort she’d carefully sealed in a pig’s bladder welled up through the slice.