Warrior (30 page)

As for Kalan . . . well, if my daughter wants to join the Sorcerers’ Collective then I have a bigger problem than a few missing children to worry about, Elezaar. A much bigger problem.”

News arrived back at the palace a couple of hours later that Wrayan Lightfinger was unable to attend the princess because he was no longer in the city. According to the messenger Elezaar had sent to the Pickpocket’s Retreat, Wrayan had been gone for over three weeks and wasn’t expected back for a few more yet.

Puzzled, but a little relieved that Kalan had not made contact with him, Marla made her excuses and left the ball, having decided to speak to her daughter directly. This insane notion about joining the Sorcerers’ Collective had to be nipped in the bud and the sooner it was done, the better.

Banned from the party and confined to her room as punishment, Kalan rose to her feet hurriedly when her mother entered.

“If you’ve come to ask me to change my story, I won’t,” Kalan declared belligerently as soon as Marla closed the door.

“Even if you’re lying?”

“But I’m not lying!” she protested. “What I said happened is the truth. I decided to see if I could give the guards the slip. Narvell and the Tirstone boys helped me by creating a diversion and Starros and Damin came after me to make sure I was all right. It’s all my fault.”

Marla smiled and took a seat on one of the chairs by the unlit fireplace. “So your brothers are liars then?”

“Of course not!”

“Yet all of them claim to be the instigator of this affair. You can’t all be telling the truth, which means at least five of you are lying. If I’m to believe my daughter, I must see your brothers are punished, not only for their prank, but for their dishonesty as well.”

Kalan frowned and took the seat opposite her mother. “Can’t you just . . . let it go?”

“Not until I know the truth.”

Marla waited while Kalan thought on that for a moment, wondering when she had grown so tall.

She wasn’t as porcelain pretty as her cousin Leila, and would certainly never be the temptress Rielle was, but Kalan had a feeling of depth about her, a strength of character that belied her meagre ten years.

“I believe,” Marla added, when Kalan continued to maintain a stony silence, “that it may have something to do with your wish to join the Sorcerers’ Collective.”

Kalan stared at her mother in surprise. “How did you . . . ? Of course, Elezaar told you, didn’t he?”

“Elezaar is, first and foremost,
my
slave, Kalan. You should remember that before confiding in him.”

“Well, I won’t be making
that
mistake again!” the child declared, crossing her arms defensively.

“Did you want to talk to me about it?”

“About what?”

“About joining the Sorcerers’ Collective.”

“Why? You’re just going to say no.”

“And do you understand
why
I’m going to say no?”

“Because of politics,” Kalan replied, in a bored voice. “Everything is about politics. Everything I learn is about politics. Everything I
do
for the rest of my life will be about politics. You’ll marry me off to some disgusting old man I’ve never laid eyes on before because of politics. Politics, politics,
politics
!”

“If you hate politics so much, I would think you’d be grateful I’m going to deny you the Sorcerers’ Collective. There’s no greater hive of political manipulators in all of Hythria.”

Kalan glared at her. “All I am to you is the spare daughter you can use to make some great alliance to secure Damin’s throne some day.”

Marla was cut to the quick to think Kalan thought so little of her. “That’s not true, Kalan!”

“Then what’s your plan for me, mother?” she demanded. “What am I being groomed for?”

When Marla couldn’t answer immediately, Kalan nodded with satisfaction, as if her point was proved.

“See. You’re not interested in what I can do—only who I can do it
to
. Well, make sure you get me a good
court’esa
when the time comes, mother. I’m going to need to know that sort of stuff when I marry some grubby old creep you’ve picked out for me to seal your great alliance for you.”

Marla rose to her feet, hurt beyond words by Kalan’s scathing tone. She couldn’t believe her own daughter thought her so calculating, so cold. What was it Luciena had said?
There are rumours
about your ruthlessness
. “I’ll speak to you again, young lady, when you’ve a more civil tongue in your head.”

“Don’t you mean a more complimentary one?”

Marla didn’t dignify the child’s accusations with a reply. She turned on her heel and strode from the room, hurt most by the realisation that there was more than a modicum of truth in Kalan’s words.

But as she opened the door and stepped into the hall, Kalan’s accusation was abruptly forgotten. The sound of something breaking and a loud shout came from the room next door. Damin’s room.

Instantly alert, the guards on duty outside the room drew their weapons as they turned and burst through the door in response to Damin’s shouted cry for help. Her heart in her mouth, Marla rushed in behind them.

The sight that confronted Marla in her son’s room left her speechless.

Damin was standing over Luciena Mariner, who lay facedown on the rug, held firmly there by Damin’s boot, which rested, none too gently, across the back of her neck, pushing her face into the floor. With his right hand, he held her right wrist, twisted upward at a painful angle, and in his left was a small blade with a golden hilt. Its jewelled scabbard lay on the floor near Luciena’s face. On her jaw was a rapidly purpling bruise where she’d obviously been hit and her nose dripped blood onto the priceless Fardohnyan silk rug, creating a slowly spreading stain beneath her.

Tears of pain spilled silently down the young woman’s cheeks and her expression was one of abject terror. The moment of horrified silence that followed was broken only by Luciena’s whimpering sobs and the odd counterpoint of the orchestra playing a bright tune in the ballroom downstairs.

The princess stared at Luciena, aghast, and then looked at her son. He didn’t look like a child. He was breathing heavily, no doubt from the exertion of overpowering Luciena. His eyes burned brightly, almost savagely. For a brief moment, Marla felt she’d been given a glimpse of the future and saw the man Damin would one day become—and it was a dangerous one.

“What’s going on in here?” she demanded, when she finally found her voice, her mind unable to think of any reason why Damin would attack Luciena so brutally.

“I was hoping someone would be able to tell
me
,” Damin replied, letting Luciena’s arm go with a shove and stepping back from her. Free of Damin’s boot, Luciena struggled to sit up, looking around in blank, incomprehensible fright. He still held the small knife. Fortunately, Marla couldn’t see anything that looked like a stab wound on either Luciena or her son.

“Damin!” she demanded impatiently, in no mood for any more of his pranks this night.

Her son stared down at Luciena and then spoke to the guards. “You might want to restrain her before she tries anything else.”

“Restrain her?” Marla demanded, waving the guards back. “Damin? What happened?”

“What happened?” he repeated incredulously, suddenly a child again. “I’ll tell you what happened, Mama. This wonderful new stepsister you brought us . . . well, she just tried to kill me.”

Marla Wolfblade knew only one way to deal with a crisis and that was by falling into a regimen of ruthless practicality. Mahkas knew this from experience, and as he hurried along the hall in response to the brief note Elezaar had just delivered to him in the ballroom, he was terrified by what he might find.

Because someone had just attacked Damin, right here in the palace.

And when she was afraid for her children, Marla was liable to do anything.

As he strode along the hall, leaving the dwarf panting in his wake, Mahkas ran through a mental inventory of the steps he’d taken to protect Damin. He rehearsed his excuses, silently justifying everything he’d done over the past thirteen years to keep his nephew safe.

The note in his hand was screwed into a tight ball, his knuckles white with fear. Unconsciously he rubbed at the small scar under the sleeve of his formal embroidered coat with the crumpled paper, not even aware he was scratching at it again. In the background, the orchestra struck up another tune, a folk dance Mahkas remembered learning when he was a child. The distant music evoked a rush of memories he didn’t have the time or the courage to deal with . . .
Darilyn laughing at him because he
couldn’t remember the steps . . . Laran counting aloud as their mother, Jeryma, led him through the
dance . . . and years later, in Cabradell Palace . . . Riika, barely ten years old, laughing delightedly as she
mastered the same dance with her big brother, Mahkas, while Glenadal smiled indulgently as he looked
on
. . .

Concentrate!
Mahkas ordered himself impatiently. Now wasn’t the time for reminiscing.

Particularly about Riika. Now was the time for deciding how he was going to deal with Marla.

Will she blame me?
he wondered anxiously.

It’s not my fault. Almodavar’s responsible for security in the palace. If someone got to Damin,
then, plainly, it’s his fault. I have done everything humanly possible to protect my nephew, short of
locking him in a padded cell
. Yet it hadn’t been Somehow, an assassin had slipped through the cracks and tried to kill the High Prince’s heir.

What if she decides to replace me as regent?

Mahkas’s fear was a valid one. If Marla decided Mahkas had failed in his duty as Damin’s protector, there was nothing to stop her going to Lernen and demanding the Regent of Krakandar be replaced. She might even try to supplant him with that self-serving, overly smart, far-too-full-of-his-own-importance husband of hers, Ruxton Tirstone.

That makes sense
, Mahkas concluded anxiously.
It would be just like that glorified shopkeeper to
think he could wheedle his way into his stepson’s regency. All that nonsense about the wonderful
intelligence he provides, the help he gives her. All those smug looks, the subtle touches, the secret smiles

. . . all of it designed for no other purpose than to let me know that Marla turns to him for advice more
often than not these days, rather than me
.

Come to think of it, Ruxton may even have been responsible for the attack on Damin
, Mahkas reasoned, warming to the notion of a betrayal from within the family.
How else would a spice trader
ever manage to get promoted to Regent of Krakandar without something dramatic happening?

Something designed specifically to discredit the incumbent regent?

The more he thought about it, the more logical his assumptions seemed.
I never liked that snide
little bastard
. . .

Mahkas reached the door to his study and took a deep breath. He understood what was happening now. Marla wouldn’t like what he had to tell her about her husband, but it made perfectly good sense and he was sure he could convince his sister-in-law of her foolishness in trusting someone so far beneath her.

Bracing himself for the confrontation, Mahkas took another deep breath before he opened the door and stepped inside.

Almodavar was already there, along with Raek Harlen, two other bodyguards flanking the entrance and Damin, who was sitting on the edge of the desk swinging his legs back and forth, as he listened to his mother discussing the attack with the two officers. The boy seemed unharmed, which was a relief.

“Sorry to drag you away from the ball, Mahkas,” Marla remarked, looking up as he closed the door behind him. “But we’ve had an incident I thought you should be apprised of.”

Mahkas nodded, a little surprised to find Ruxton wasn’t here. “Your note said there’d been an attempt on Damin’s life.”

“There was,” Marla confirmed.

“I want the city sealed,” Mahkas ordered, turning to the Raiders. “And the palace guard doubled. Call up every man, even those off duty.”

Neither Almodavar nor Harlen moved to respond to his order. Mahkas could feel his palms sweating as the panic threatened to unman him.
Oh gods, has she replaced me already? Is that why I’m
here? To be told I’m no longer Krakandar’s regent?

“Belay that,” Marla countermanded, although neither officer had shown any inclination to do as he’d ordered.

“But Marla—”

“Unless you fancy Luciena has an army gathering just over the border to invade us, Mahkas, I’d really rather not draw attention to our domestic problems while Rogan Bearbow and half the noble families in the north are kicking their heels up in the ballroom.”

“Luciena?” he asked in confusion. “Luciena
Mariner
?”

“That’s who tried to kill me,” Damin announced. He didn’t seem unduly upset or in the slightest bit injured. But then, the boy had taken down Geri Almodavar in the dark. A slip of a girl like Luciena would have presented no problem at all.

“Is that true?”

Before Marla could answer, the door opened behind Mahkas and the dwarf waddled in. “I want you to find Xanda,” Marla ordered the Fool, ignoring Mahkas in favour of her pet. “Tell him I want him to bring Luciena’s slave to me.”

“Shall I tell him why?”

“Only if you can do it quietly.”

“As you wish, your highness.” The dwarf bowed and closed the door on his way out.

Marla then turned to Mahkas and deigned to answer his question. “I’m afraid it is,” she confirmed.

“But . . .
why
?”

“That’s something we’d all like to know,” Almodavar replied.

“Didn’t someone think to ask her? Or is she . . . ?” He glanced at Damin with concern, recalling how Almodavar had given the lad forty laps of the training yard for failing to follow through that night the captain had sought to test his ability. Surely, Damin hadn’t killed the girl?

Dear gods, he’s not yet thirteen
. . .