Storms of Destiny (14 page)

For a while she’d considered dressing like a boy. Her hair was still barely long enough to touch her ears and collar, and she was slender enough, with small breasts. But since coming to stay with the Shekk, and having more to eat, she would have had to bind her breasts painfully in order to appear sufficiently flat-chested. Her voice was a problem; too high-pitched. And, most important, she had not spent enough time in the company of men or boys to emulate them. So Thia had reluctantly abandoned the notion.

After weeks with the caravan, she was accustomed to long marches. She lengthened her stride, falling into the mindless rhythm of walking, determined to get into Q’Kal before the city gates were closed for the night.

She concentrated on moving swiftly and surely, determined not to think about where she would sleep, how she would live, what would happen.
Let the future worry about
itself, the present is where we live,
she thought, remembering an old Amaranian proverb.

Hoofbeats sounded behind her on the road. Thia’s heart bounded in her chest. Could the Shekk have missed her?

Quickly, she scuttled to the side of the road, scrambled up the bank and pushed her way into the brush, feeling greenbriers catch her clothing and flesh.

Dropping to her hands and knees, she wormed her way into a thicket, then peered out cautiously.

A rider was approaching, sure enough, a rider astride a horse that moved as smoothly and quietly as a shadow. Thia tensed.
It couldn’t be … could it? There are many gray
horses …

Just as the horseman came abreast of her hiding place, the gray halted, standing obediently in the middle of the road.

Thia heard the rider’s voice. “Thia? I know you are there.

Come out.”

She blinked in astonishment, then wriggled forward, losing more skin and snagging her veil so thoroughly that she had to remove it to untangle it. “Jezzil?” she whispered as she struggled with the thin fabric, trying not to tear it.

“Yes …”

Finally the veil came free, and she hastily fixed it in place, then slid down the bank, her small bundle of food and her few possessions bumping along beside her.

Falar whickered as she caught the familiar scent. “What are you doing here, Brother Jezzil?” Thia asked as she walked up to pat the mare’s neck.

“I came looking for you tonight, and you were gone.” The Moon would rise late, and she could not make out his features, only see his form silhouetted against the sky. “You left without saying farewell.”

Thia bit her lip, hesitated, then blurted, “Forgive me. I couldn’t bear to. I was afraid …”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of everything. But mostly afraid that if I tried to bid you farewell, I would lose the will to go. And I
must
go,”

she said fiercely. “I’m endangering the Shekk and his daughters—perhaps even the whole caravan!—by my very presence. I had to get away.”

He did not answer, but dismounted smoothly from Falar’s back and walked over to her. Try as she might, she could not discern his features save as a pale blur. “I know,” he said. “I do understand. But … I found I could not stay with the caravan when you were gone. I had to come after you.”

She shook her head dazedly. “Wh-Why?”

“Because, Sister Thia, I understand you. I trust you. And I cannot see you come to harm because you are alone in a strange city.” His hand moved to his side and she heard the clink of coins as he jingled them. “I asked for my payout and left.”

“You’ve left your job?” Thia could scarcely believe it.

“Yes. We’ll go to Q’Kal together. You’ll be safer that way.

And I …” He hesitated, then chuckled, one of the first signs of amusement she’d ever detected in him. “And I will have someone to talk to, someone who understands.”

Thia’s mind raced like a herd of startled cattle. “You want to stay with me? For us to … live together?”

He took a step toward her. “Fear not, I mean no disrespect, sister. I speak only with respect and friendship. I believe we could … help … each other.”

She backed away a step, hesitated. “You are telling the truth,” she muttered, thinking furiously. “I know you are.”

“I would never lie to you,” Jezzil said.

“You had better not,” Thia said dryly.

The movement of his head reminded her of Falar’s when she pricked up her ears and gazed warily into the distance.

“Aside from the fact that lying is a sin,” he said, “and I have enough sin burdening my soul to last me for a dozen lifetimes, what did you mean by that?”

She took a deep breath. “I can tell when someone is lying,” she said. “Always.”

He did not speak for a moment, then, when he did, his words were slow, thoughtful. “I … see. How do you do that?

Can you read faces, eyes, that well?”

“I don’t know how I do it,” she said. “I just can. I don’t need to see faces, or eyes.”

He made a sound, half amused, half skeptical.

Thia flushed. “I can prove it,” she said. “Tell me three things from your past, make one of them a lie. I cannot see your face in this darkness.”

“You don’t have to prove—”

“Just do it.”

Jezzil was silent for a moment, then said, in slow, deliberate tones, “I abandoned my brothers to die in a fire. I have never known a woman. I slew a monster in a moat.”

Thia laughed harshly. “You think to trick me,” she said.

“All of those things are the truth.”

Now it was Jezzil’s turn to take a step backward. “How do you do it? Magic?”

“I don’t know. I just can,” she replied. “I have always been able to do it.”

“Can you do other magic?”

“No,” she said, then remembered that he’d known where she was, even when she was hidden. “Can you?”

“I … I …” He stammered for a moment, then must have remembered who he was talking to, and said simply, “Yes.”

“Let me think for a moment,” Thia said. Folding her arms across her chest, she paced back and forth across the road, thinking.
It would be good to have someone to talk to,
she mused.
But … he is a man! From what the High Sister told
us, even men who are well-intentioned cannot control themselves. There were stories that even the High Priests suc-cumbed to fleshly temptations in Verang at times.

The thought of the High Priests reminded her that they might be trying to trace her, follow her trail.
But they are
looking for a young woman alone,
she reminded herself.
Not
a woman who shares a hearth with a man.

She glanced back at him over her shoulder, heard an impatient sound from Falar, then heard her paw the roadway.

Jezzil spoke to her, his voice holding unmistakable author-ity, and the mare stood still.

If Jezzil were with me, no one could break in and harm me
while I slept,
Thia thought.
No priest, no drunken bruiser
looking for a whore. Jezzil is a warrior. And I must sleep
sometime …

Her heart rose a bit within her as she realized she’d made her decision. Her steps swift and sure, she walked back to him. “Let us try it,” she said. “I am willing.”

He nodded. “Good,” he said, and she heard relief and pleasure in his voice. “On to Q’Kal, then.” He swung up on Falar and reached down a hand. “Hand me your bundle.”

She gave it to him, and he quickly lashed it to one of the ties on the saddle. He reached his hand down again. “Now you.”

Thia looked up at him. “Me? Ride with you?”

“It grows late,” he said. “We don’t want the city gates to close before we can get there.”

After a few abortive tries, he rode Falar over by the bank, and Thia was able to climb up, then slide on behind him. She perched uneasily on Falar’s round rump, feeling the surge of

the strong muscles between her thighs, through her rucked-up skirts.

“Hold onto me,” Jezzil directed. “We must hurry a bit.”

Thia leaned forward and grabbed his belt.

He must have given some signal, for Falar’s hindquarters bunched, and then they were heading down the road at a dizzying pace. Thia had never gone so fast.

She found that she was clinging, not to Jezzil’s belt, but had wrapped her arms around his body, hiding her face against his back. Her nostrils were full of the smell of oiled leather, and the edges of the plates in his armor dug into the skin of her forehead, cheeks, and chin.

Falar’s hoofbeats sounded like miniature thunder as she galloped, and Thia struggled to hang on, to balance. She clamped her legs tightly about the mare’s flanks.

She heard Jezzil shout, “Stop that! Do you want her to pitch us off?” But even before his warning, she’d felt the muscles of the mare’s rump tighten like a drawn bowstring.

Hastily, she forced herself to loosen the muscles of her calves.

The cantle of the saddle dug into her thighs and groin, the plates from Jezzil’s armor scored her flesh, the night rushed past her so fast that she grew dizzy and her head reeled.

And yet Thia had never felt so alive, so
free
. She heard a sound, realized it was coming from inside her, bubbling up like clear water from a mountain spring.

It was laughter. Pure, joyous laughter.

Eregard Livon Willom q’Injaad, third son of King Agivir of Pela, stood with his brothers on the wall-walk of the ancient fortress that enclosed much of the capital city of Minoma.

The ramparts of the old fortress stood high above the city that had outgrown their limits two centuries ago. The fortress itself had crumbled, as had the castle it guarded.

But the outer protective wall remained, enclosing the royal palace Agivir’s grandsire had built, along with the Old City.

Eregard leaned on the rampart and sighed as he looked down at the prosperous, bustling harbor town. It was a beautiful vista, and the autumn air was as clear and tangy as a fine Pelanese vintage. The Prince could easily make out the blue-green waters of the Narrow Sea beyond Minoma’s sheltered bay. So many ships rode at anchor that their spars and masts resembled the forests from whence they’d come.

If I concentrate on the view,
the Prince thought,
I won’t
have to listen to Salesin gloat about wedding Lady Ulandra.

I can just let his voice blur into the whisper of the wind and
the cries of the sea birds. I will not allow myself to envision
my brother screaming as he plunges down from these ramparts to the street below.

Salesin, Crown Prince of Pela, Viceroy of Kata, noticed his younger brother’s preoccupation with the view. “Eregard! Don’t look so sour, this is good news!”

Eregard nodded. “Indeed, brother,” he said softly. “Excellent.”

“You weren’t even listening!” Salesin accused. “Hear me, baby brother! Father says that if I produce an heir within a year, he’ll consider relinquishing the crown. He wants to be free to spend more time with Mother.” The heir’s tone betrayed his contempt for a king who would let a woman— even his queen, the Princes’ mother—influence him. “What d’you think of that, little brother?”

Eregard was royal, and he’d learned to control his features before he learned to straddle a horse. Royals did not betray their inner thoughts or emotions … not to friends, and most certainly not to enemies. So his expression when he turned to face his brother was neutral, conveying only polite interest. “I think Mother thrives on company, and we should all spend more time with her.”

Salesin stared at his brother for a moment, then threw back his handsome head and laughed, long and loud.

“Where did you learn to dissemble so well, youngster? In one of your everlasting books?”

Eregard smiled thinly. “Where else, brother? Books are no substitute for your fleshpots, of a certain, but they do teach a few minor lessons.”

Salesin’s grin broadened, losing all semblance of good humor, until his teeth were bared wolfishly. “Remind me to take you along to some of my haunts, brother. You could use a few lessons in learning to be a man … if it’s not already too late, that is. You haven’t been baring your backside to Lord Malgar and his mincing bunch, have you?”

Despite his control, Eregard felt himself flush hotly, and knew that his brother had not missed that. He shook his head, but held his tongue.
Don’t let him bait you. He always
wins, and he never stops. Push him, and you will regret
it …

As the brothers bristled at each other, Prince Adranan, whom both had forgotten, stepped between them. “Here, now. Let’s have none of that. Mother wouldn’t like it.”

Salesin’s lip curled. “Adranan, try not to be any stupider than you can help. Who cares what Mother would like?”

Eregard looked at his brothers, then shook his head inwardly.
Did our mother cuckold the King? How can we be
siblings? We are nothing alike!

Agivir’s sons were all young, but any resemblance between them ended there. At twenty-seven, Crown Prince Salesin was tall, lean, and disturbingly handsome. His men jokingly called him the “Demon Lover,” in homage to both his looks and his cold-blooded prowess with women. The Prince had dark, saturnine features and gleaming black hair with a pronounced widow’s peak. A short beard and moustache framed his thin lips. His eyes were pale brown, almost the color of amber, startling in his dark countenance.