Warrior (19 page)

Marla sighed. “Yes, Mahkas, I know. And as I’ve told you before, even a betrothal is years away for Damin. He turns thirteen in a few weeks. I have to get him through the next two years after that first, before he even gets access to a
court’esa
. I’m not going to commit either Damin or Leila to a marriage they may not want when they get older.”

“Leila adores Damin, Marla. She speaks of little else.”

Marla smiled sympathetically. “Then let’s see how they feel about each other when they’re old enough to understand what marriage is all about, shall we?”

“As you wish.”

Marla rose to her feet and rolled up the scroll from Ruxton’s messenger. “It really is very rude of me to march in here and take over this way. Why don’t you take your seat, Mahkas? I’m sure you have lots to tell me about what’s been happening over the past year.”

She obviously didn’t want to talk any further on the subject, so Mahkas had little choice but to bow to her wishes. He took the seat Marla offered him, thinking at least she hadn’t said no to the marriage and while ever that situation remained, there was hope that he would one day become Warlord of Krakandar in his own right and no longer be the regent for anybody.

The family gathered for dinner that evening, as they always did on Marla’s first night home.

Dispensing with a formal arrangement in the dining hall, Orleon had arranged the tables in a much smaller horseshoe shape so that everyone could see each other. With the princess and her husband, her brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and the various children belonging to all of them, the diners numbered more than a dozen.

Marla had deliberately seated Damin next to Luciena and had warned him—quite openly in Luciena’s hearing—to be on his best behaviour. The young prince smiled at Luciena when he arrived at the table. She wasn’t sure if it was because he had heeded his mother’s warning and decided to do his best to make his new stepsister feel at ease, or if it was simply in his nature to do so.

“So, you’re the new one, eh?” Damin enquired cheerfully, as he took his seat. “Welcome to the lunatic asylum.”

Luciena studied the boy curiously, trying to detect if he was genuine in his welcome or mocking her somehow. After a moment, she bowed her head politely. “Thank you, your highness.”

“You don’t have to call me that. Nobody else does.”

Luciena looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“Well, the slaves do,” he shrugged. “And some of the townsfolk. But nobody around here does.

Mother says I’ll get enough of that when I’m older.”

That was the last thing Luciena expected to hear. She glanced across the table to where Marla was talking to Mahkas as she took her place, smiled nervously and took a sip from her wineglass. Damin was also served wine, although his was watered down, as was the wine served to all the children. He was a good-looking boy, big for his age, with fair hair and blue eyes, as if the gods had conspired to grant Hythria a prince who looked the part, even if he’d yet to prove he could act it.

“Have you met everyone yet?” Damin asked, looking around the table.

Warm candlelight reflected off the silverware, and the low hum of conversation filled the room with a soft buzz as everyone was seated. Luciena looked around, shaking her head. “There’s so many of them.”

“Then allow me to introduce them,” Damin offered, as the first course was served. He leaned back a little as a slave ladled the clear meaty soup into his bowl and then picked up his spoon and pointed it at the other arm of the table. “The one with the blond hair and the black eye at the very end over there is Starros,” he explained, as Luciena began to sip her soup. “He’s my foster-brother. Been in the palace since he was five. We all know he’s Almodavar’s bastard, but he’ll never admit to it.”

“Who’s Almodavar?”

“The senior captain of Krakandar’s Raiders.”

“Isn’t Starros the one you were fighting in the fens this afternoon?”

“What gave it away?” Damin laughed. He also bore a magnificent shiner, even more impressive than the one he’d given Starros.

“Just a hunch,” Luciena replied with a smile, relaxing a little with the wine, the tasty soup and the generally convivial atmosphere of the room. Despite her reservations, she felt herself warming to the young prince. There was little artifice about him and no hint of arrogance she could detect. On the other hand, this conversation now meant her total contact with Damin Wolf-blade amounted to about ten minutes. Hardly time to take the boy’s measure. She indicated the dark-haired young man sitting next to Starros. “The one next to him is Travin Taranger, isn’t he, Xanda’s brother?”

“That’s right. He and Xanda are my cousins. Their mother was my father’s sister, Darilyn. She died before I was born.”

“And the young woman next to him?”

“Rielle Tirstone. She’s Ruxton’s eldest. If you want to make friends with her, you’d better do it quickly. Mother’s arranged for her to marry Darvad Vintner from Dylan Pass, so she’s leaving soon for Izcomdar. The chap sitting next to her is Travin’s brother, Xanda, but you already know him.”

“I met him in Greenharbour,” Luciena confirmed, eyeing the dark-haired young man speculatively. She liked Xanda and was sure he’d gone out of his way to ensure she was comfortable on the journey here. Feeling her gaze on him, Xanda glanced up from the conversation he was having with Rielle and winked at Luciena, before returning his attention to whatever it was Damin’s stepsister was telling him. Afraid she was blushing, Luciena quickly turned back to Damin. “Xanda came to my rescue, actually. He was very chivalrous in my hour of need.”

Damin laughed. “Good to hear he’s doing something useful in Greenharbour besides drinking all the taverns dry. The girl on the other side of him is my cousin, Leila. She’s Mahkas and Bylinda’s daughter.”

“The cause of the fight?”

“News gets around this place pretty quick, doesn’t it?” Damin remarked. He seemed a little put out that it was already common knowledge he’d been fighting Starros over Leila.

“Are you sorry you fought your foster-brother?”

“No,” the boy replied with a sudden grin. “I was just hoping that we could come up with something more interesting to brawl over than a stupid girl. I don’t know why Starros sticks up for her all the time. She really is a sissy, you know.”

Luciena glanced at him warily, but offered no comment.

Sensing her disapproval, Damin added a little defensively, “She only ever wants to do boring, girly things.”

“Perhaps that’s because she’s a girl?” his new stepsister suggested.

“Kalan’s a girl and she’ll try anything we do.”

“That probably makes Kalan the exception, your highness, not Leila.”

“I suppose,” Damin shrugged. “And really, you don’t have to keep calling me ‘your highness,’

Luciena. It sounds a bit odd, actually, coming from a member of the family, as it were.”

“You’ll have to get used to it some day.”

“But not today.”

She smiled. “Very well . . .
Damin
. Not today.”

“Good. Now that’s settled, let’s get back to the introductions.” He pointed with his spoon to the small, slender woman on the head table, her dark hair arranged carefully, her clothes more formal than anyone else in the room. “Sitting next to Leila is my Aunt Bylinda, Uncle Mahkas’s wife and, according to my mother, the most patient woman in all of Hythria, because she puts up with us. Next to her is Krakandar’s regent, my uncle, Mahkas Damaran.”

“I met him earlier, too.”

“He’s all right,” Damin informed her as they watched his uncle drink the last of his soup. “We can usually get anything we want out of him.” Then he added in a lower voice, “He gets a little crazy sometimes and you don’t want to cross him, ’cause he’s a sore loser. Fortunately, he picks on the Medalonians and not us when he’s in a bad mood, but he’s a good administrator. Mother says Krakandar didn’t do nearly as well in the past, even under the governance of the Sorcerers’ Collective.”

“Then he must be very good,” Luciena agreed, wondering what the young prince meant by
a
sore loser
.

“Well, the next two at the table you know already—my mother and Ruxton Tirstone.” He leaned back a little so that Luciena had a clear view. “On this side we have my half-sister, Kalan, sitting next to Ruxton, and the boy next to me is Narvell, her twin brother.” He nudged Narvell in the ribs. “Say hello to Luciena, Narvell.”

“Hello to Luciena, Narvell,” his brother said through a mouthful of bread, winking at Luciena.

Damin elbowed him a little harder and grinned. “Idiot.”

“The twins don’t look much alike,” Luciena remarked.

“Don’t let that fool you,” he warned. “They’re like opposite sides of the same coin. Hurt one and you’ll have the other down on you like a falling building before you can blink. Kalan’s smaller, but she’s older than Narvell by twenty minutes. She never lets him forget it, either.” He leaned forward and pointed to the two boys sitting on Luciena’s right. “Those two reprobates on the other side of you are Ruxton’s sons, my stepbrothers, Rodja and Adham Tirstone.”

On hearing their names, the boys looked up from their soup. The younger boy, Adham, who was sitting next to Luciena, grinned at her and added in a loud voice, “Don’t believe a word he tells you, Luciena. Damin’s full of sh—”

“Adham!” Ruxton cut in loudly before his son could complete the sentence. “This is a dinner table, not a backstreet tavern.”

“Sorry, sir.” Adham winked at Luciena and finished off his soup with a loud slurp.

“So, there you have it,” Damin announced. “The entire clan.”

“And you don’t mind living here in Krakandar? Even though your parents live in Greenharbour?”

she asked, rather overwhelmed by them all. Raised an only child in an almost entirely female household, she was finding this dinner a little more than she’d bargained for. They were all so boisterous. So
loud
.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Adham laughed.

“Don’t you miss your mother, Damin? And what about you, Adham? Don’t you miss your father when he’s away?”

“Not really,” Adham said after thinking it over for a moment. “Anyway, this place is heaps more fun than our old place in Greenharbour.”

“We’ll have to show you the slaveways while you’re here,” Damin offered. “Then you’ll see what we mean.”

“The
what
?”

“The slaveways. They’re the tunnels that connect all the rooms in the palace. I think the one in your room comes out next to the bookcase in the sitting room.”

Luciena felt thoroughly bemused by the idea. “I have a secret tunnel in my room?”

Before Damin could answer, his mother tapped the side of her glass with her knife to call them all to attention. She rose to her feet and raised her glass in a toast. Nobody looked surprised. This had the feeling of a ritual; something done the first night she came home every year, Luciena thought.

“To Hythria and the High Prince!”

“To Hythria and the High Prince!” they all echoed dutifully, rising to their feet and raising their glasses.

Luciena sipped her wine and glanced at Damin. He was quite the opposite of what she’d been expecting. He seemed no more dangerous than poor Mankel, the kitchen boy she’d had to sell before Princess Marla paid her debts.

Marla raised her glass once more, and her voice softened as she glanced around the table. “To my family!”

“To family!” they responded, much more enthusiastically.

A few moments later, Mahkas Damaran raised his glass in the direction of the princess, bowing to her respectfully. “Welcome home, Marla.”

Everybody cheered as Mahkas proposed his toast, the words obviously another family ritual.

Luciena sipped her wine, still feeling a little lost in her new surroundings. As she resumed her seat, the reality—and the magnitude—of Princess Marla’s offer to adopt her began to sink in. For the first time, it occurred to her that if she wanted it, she could become part of this family.

Just as I imagined when I was nine, sitting on my father’s lap as he explained how things would
be different now he was marrying the princess . . . how he wouldn’t be able to live in our house any more,
but that was all right because soon I’d have brothers and sisters and be a princess, because Papa is
marrying the High Prince’s own sister
. . .

Luciena caught herself daydreaming and took another good swallow of wine.
I must be careful
, she reminded herself sternly, while in the back of her mind a disturbing echo bounced around her thoughts, taunting her, tantalising her, as if there was something she had forgotten to do. It whispered to her like a lover coaxing her out from behind a screen to reveal her nakedness in the cold light of day.

Welcome to the family
, it whispered.
Welcome to the family . . . welcome to the family
. . .

When Luciena finally retired for the evening, exhausted both mentally and physically by the ordeal of her first day in Krakandar, it was to find Aleesha poking into every nook and cranny of the impressive suite, ooh-ing and aah-ing over each new little thing she discovered.

The room Orleon had allocated Luciena was vast. Located on the second floor, it was decorated with a carefully chosen mix of expensive Fardohnyan silks and Hythrun tapestries, while the furniture had clearly been influenced by Krakandar’s proximity to Medalon. It was dark and heavy, and there were padded leather sofas either side of the marble-faced fireplace rather than the more traditional low table and scattered cushions she was used to. Even the existence of the fireplace reminded Luciena that she was far from home. Nobody in Greenharbour had a fireplace, unless they were pretentious beyond words or so poor they were living in a one-roomed apartment where the lack of space meant they were forced to cook in the same room where they lived and slept.

“This place has internal plumbing!” Aleesha announced as Luciena sagged against the door, the day finally done.

She treated the slave to a weary smile. “This is supposedly one of the greatest palaces in Hythria, Aleesha, and all you’ve noticed is the plumbing?”