The Invisible Ring (12 page)

Since he had the lighter-ranked Queen, the first move was his. Meeting her eyes for a moment, Jared smiled as he moved a Warlord Prince onto the battlefield and accepted the unspoken challenge.

She moved her Queen.

The game began.

His father had told him chess was a game of the heart as well as the mind, that it was a kind of training ground because it showed you your own weaknesses. Which was why you didn’t play it with an enemy.

When he was young and first learning the game, that hadn’t made much sense. But later, as he watched his father play with friends who dropped by for an evening game, he began to understand. Belarr always tried to protect the Healers on the board as well as the Queen, sacrificing any male piece if it could block the attack.

Reyna, on the other hand, tended to use the Healers as protection for other pieces, even the Blood males and witches who were the pawns in the game. Her Healers, Priestesses, and Black Widows were usually captured long before any of the stronger male pieces.

When he’d pointed this out to her one time, she had shrugged and told him to care for his own.

He’d told his father about this quirk in an otherwise intelligent woman, thinking Belarr would find it as amusing as he had.

Belarr, too, had shrugged, but it wasn’t as lighthearted a movement as Reyna’s had been. He’d carefully masked whatever he had been thinking and said, “Healers and Queens don’t play the game well.” Then he’d abruptly changed the subject.

At the time, Jared had thought Belarr’s reaction was due to Reyna’s returning home completely exhausted from a long and difficult healing. Now, watching the Gray Lady’s Queen scamper around the board attacking, protecting, risking capture, the memory became shaded with a different meaning, a deeper understanding.

He passed up a couple of opportunities to capture, initiating attacks on the other side of the board where she had to use the stronger male pieces. Even then, she sacrificed a Priestess instead of a Prince.

He swallowed the anger that was building up inside him again. It was only a game, a way to relieve her boredom. But, Hell’s fire, didn’t the woman have any sense? You didn’t sacrifice the distaff gender while there was still a strong male left standing unless there was no other move.

When she moved her Queen to protect a Blood male that couldn’t escape capture, his temper finally snapped.

“Lady,” he said through gritted teeth as he took the Blood male, “it’s an insignificant piece. You shouldn’t be risking your Queen for a pawn.”

The air in the wagon chilled so much he could see his breath.

Startled, he looked at her.

The gray eyes that had been warm and friendly a moment ago were icy, hard, and reflected a fury that came from so deep within her they reflected nothing at all.

Never breaking eye contact, she reached out and deliberately knocked over her Queen. “There are no pawns.”

Looking away, she began gathering up the captured pieces that were lying beside her on the bench, carefully setting each one into the box.

Watching the jerky movements of muscles clenched in anger was worse than feeling the lash.

“Thank you for the game,” she said stiffly, feeling around for the last piece.

“I’m tired now. I wish to rest.”

As she picked up the last piece, a Blood male, her fingers closed protectively around it.

The cold dismissal stung, but he accepted it. After double-checking that all the pieces and the dice were back in the box, he slipped it into the cloth bag and left the wagon. He returned the game to Blaed with faint thanks and hurried away.

No one approached him. No one asked what had happened. Even Thera took a long look at his face and left him alone.

Not a game to be played with an enemy, because it exposed the heart’s weaknesses.

All these long years later, he understood the quarrels between Belarr and Reyna as he never had before. Despite their Craft and their courage—or, perhaps, because of it— Healers didn’t have a strong sense of self-preservation and would drain themselves to the breaking point before they’d back away from a healing. Which was why, by Blood Law, every Healer had to be served by at least one Jeweled male unless she had a Jeweled consort or husband who would assume the duty of protecting her from herself.

Was that why courts had originally formed around Queens? To protect them from giving too much of themselves?

Since he’d never served in a court before he was Ringed, he’d never been with a Queen he respected let alone wanted to protect, never experienced the fierce loyalty and pride that he’d heard filled men when they served a good Queen.

For the rest of the morning, his thoughts chased each other, swinging from the Gray Lady to Reyna and back again. Speculation and memories kept poking at him until he felt savage and frightened. He couldn’t shake the idea that Reyna would like Lady Grizelle, and it troubled him. That Belarr would probably consider her a good Queen troubled him even more, because Belarr would question the honor of a Red-Jeweled Warlord who would abandon a Queen during a difficult journey.

Hell’s fire, he was a
slave
. He hadn’t agreed to serve her. Why shouldn’t he escape if he got the chance? He wanted to go home. He wanted to talk to Reyna. Wanted,
needed
to explain.

Belarr had never been a slave. There was no way he could fully appreciate the emotional difference. What would the Sadist do if he were here, wearing the Invisible Ring?

No answers. No answers. Just a churning uneasiness that came from knowing that he would have to make a choice soon.

Just when he thought the day couldn’t get any worse, it started raining again.

“Hell’s fire,” Randolf snarled. “What’s wrong with Garth now?”

“I don’t know,” Jared said as the big man ran awkwardly toward them, holding out his arms to help maintain his balance on the muddy road.

Garth tended to roam ahead of the rest of them and then shuffle back to keep them in sight, much as a pet dog would do. The fact that the Gray Lady didn’t keep him on a tighter leash was another thing about her that baffled the other males. Granted, Garth couldn’t ride the Winds by himself, if he had ever been able to, and it wasn’t likely that he could get far enough away on foot to prevent the Gray Lady from incapacitating him with the agony that could be sent through the Ring of Obedience, but that leniency wasn’t typical in a slave owner.

Jared shook his head. Right now, he wasn’t interested in puzzling over the peculiarities of female behavior. He was cold, wet, and tired. The afternoon light—what little of it there had been that day—was waning, and the only thing he was interested in was finding a place to make camp and getting something hot to eat. So his voice had an edge to it when he said, “What is it, Garth?”

Garth gave no sign of having heard him. Instead of continuing toward Jared, he suddenly veered toward Corry and Cathryn, waving his arms as if he were trying to herd small farm animals into a pen.

“Shoo! Shoo!” Garth shouted, waving his arms.

There was something sadly amusing about watching Garth, but there was nothing amusing about the way the children froze, their eyes getting bigger and bigger, or the fear in Corry’s face when he grabbed Cathryn’s hand and ran back to the wagon.

“Garth,” Jared yelled, starting toward him.

Garth changed directions and ran toward Eryk. ‘’Shoo! Shoo!“

“Garth!” Jared put the crack of a lash into his voice. He held his ground when Garth turned again, and clenched his teeth when the big man grabbed his upper arms and lifted him off his feet.

“ ‘Rauders!” Garth shouted, shaking him. “Fight ’rauders!”

Jared felt Randolfs bristling temper and wondered if this was going to turn into a maiming fight. Then he felt Brock’s battle calm and saw the other man silently come around behind Garth. Randolf might have been a well-trained guard before being made a slave, but in a fight, Jared would rather have Brock’s steadiness at his back any day.

“Put me down, Garth,” Jared said firmly.

“Fight ‘rauders!” Garth insisted.

“When you put me down.”

Garth dropped him.

Jared slipped on the mud and would have landed on his back if Garth hadn’t grabbed him again, planting his feet so firmly on the road it made his bones rattle.

“Damn it, Garth!” Jared snapped as he stepped out of reach.

Garth just hopped from one foot to the other in an anxious, shuffling dance. “ ‘Rauders!” he said, growing more insistent and more frantic.

Jared eyed the big man, then took a deep breath and blew it out. Hell’s fire. There weren’t any marauders. No one but slaves owned by a stubborn idiot of a Queen would be traveling on a day like this. Most likely, Garth had spotted an animal moving through the brush and trees that bordered the road. Although . . . unless they had been startled for some reason, even animals would find a spot to shelter in, wouldn’t they?

Made uneasy by that thought as well as Garth’s continued distress, Jared sent out a wide psychic probe that spanned the narrow road and extended several yards on either side. A few seconds later, he choked back a shiver of fear.

Still out of sight but coming steadily toward them were thirteen Blood males—twelve Warlords . . . and a Sapphire-Jeweled Warlord Prince whose psychic scent had that distinctive blend of viciousness and passion that separated Warlord Princes from other males. They were a law unto themselves, no matter what Jewels they wore. And they were always dangerous.

Jared took a step back before he could stop himself. “Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.” He whipped around to face Randolf and Brock. “Get everyone back to the wagon. Now!”

Brock narrowed his eyes as if that would let him see farther in the pouring rain. “Jared—”

“NOW!”

Brock and Randolf looked at Garth, who was now standing in the middle of the road with his legs far enough apart for good balance and his huge hands clenched. Nodding grimly, they wrapped their hands around his thick-muscled arms and dragged him toward the wagon, leaving Jared alone on the road.

Jared raked one hand through his dark hair and swore when the rain squeezed out by the motion trickled down his back.

Thirteen men, all of them wearing Jewels. He’d pulled back the moment his psychic probe had touched the Sapphire shield and he realized it belonged to a Warlord Prince, so there hadn’t been time to discern how dark the other Jewels were. The Sapphire was probably the strongest among them, but that didn’t help much. If he were free to use the Red Jewels, he could take a Warlord wearing the Sapphire. But the Red were only one Jewel rank darker than the Sapphire. That wasn’t enough of an advantage against a man who was, by his very nature, a killer. A Warlord Prince wasn’t going to stand back and let anyone strike at his lighter-Jeweled followers. And if he was rogue, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain from a fast, vicious strike that would leave most of them helpless.

Except the Gray. If that Gray strength was unleashed . . .

Jared shuddered, his mind suddenly filled with the image of a chess piece scampering around the board, attacking, defending.

You’re a slave. Remember that! You’re a
slave.

It should have mattered. It didn’t. He couldn’t stand by and watch the Gray Lady risk herself in a battle while there was one man among them who was still standing.

The Warlord Prince and his men came into sight a couple of minutes later.

In the waning light and the rain, they were nothing more than dark, moving shapes, but he felt the power that swirled around them.

And the anger.

For a moment he just stood there, torn between his instincts to protect and the reality of his position. As a slave, he was forbidden to wear the Jewels, and without that reservoir of power, all he had was the strength that was always within him. Granted, it was a deeper well than most of the Blood had, but not enough against a Sapphire who could draw on his reserves and sustain the attack.

Jared turned away and kept a measured stride as he walked back to where the wagon had stopped. He felt a swift, light probe brush against his inner barriers and pushed back instinctively, letting the Warlord Prince know for certain that he would face one man who was a Jewel rank darker.

As he approached the wagon, he smiled grimly. Interesting how easily all the males had responded to the protective instinct. Brock and Randolf had placed themselves so they effectively blocked the narrow road. Ludicrous since they weren’t wearing Jewels and didn’t have any weapons. Then he caught the look in Brock’s blue eyes and wondered what hidden things the guard might be carrying.

Garth hovered near the wagon. The children and Polli were bunched next to the rear wheel. Thayne held the team of horses and anxiously watched Blaed, who was standing in the middle of the road, a peculiar, blank expression in his hazel eyes.

A jolt of realization swept through Jared, strong enough to take his breath away. Mother Night. Courteous, easygoing Blaed was a Warlord Prince.

As their eyes met, Jared felt some emotion—pain? regret?—flash through Blaed.

Knowing he’d have to talk to the younger man later—if there was a later—

Jared nodded as he passed Blaed and continued to the wagon.

The shutters that gave access to the driving seat were wide-open. Shoulder to shoulder, Thera and the Gray Lady watched the road.

“Rogues or marauders?” Thera asked as Jared reached them.

Jared looked back. The thirteen men had stopped, barely visible in the rain.

He almost asked what difference it made, but his attention was caught by the quickly hidden look of relief in the Gray Lady’s eyes.

“Rogues,” she said quietly.

Thera narrowed her eyes and studied the Gray Lady. “They can be more vicious than marauders, and that’s a Warlord Prince leading them.”

Saying nothing, the Gray Lady backed away from the opening.

Thera gave Jared a puzzled look and followed.

A few seconds later, the shutters were slammed shut with enough force to startle the horses and the sharp, muffled voices told Jared a hot-tempered argument had started.