Warrior (80 page)

Damin wanted to address the whole family (with the obvious exceptions of Mahkas and Bylinda, who would undoubtedly consider his intentions treasonous), and he was in no mood to repeat himself.

They were having a late breakfast when Damin arrived. As soon as Luciena spied him, she ordered Aleesha to take the children downstairs to the day nursery. The slave gathered the children to her and hurried them from the dining room with a nervous curtsey as she passed Damin by the door.

He closed the door behind the departing children and then glanced around the room, fixing his gaze on the two slaves standing watch over the buffet.

“Out!” he ordered abruptly.

The slaves did as the prince commanded without question and left the hall through the slaveways entrance behind the screen at the back of the room.

“Good morning, Damin,” Tejay said cautiously, apparently the only one present who wasn’t afraid to address him directly.

“My lady.”

Damin glanced around the dining room. Xanda and Luciena sat together at the far end of the long table. Next to Luciena were the three empty places just vacated by her children. Tejay’s four boys were too young to join the adults at meals and were probably down in the day nursery having breakfast.

Next to the empty seats, Adham was sitting beside Tejay.

Kalan and Rorin were missing, but they should be here soon. He’d sent Wrayan to fetch them when they got back to the palace from the fens. That was just before Orleon had met him in the hall and handed Damin the letter he currently held in his right hand. It had arrived by speeded courier yesterday, but with the city sealed against travellers from the south, the guards on the gate had been reluctant to admit the courier. Finally, one of the officers on the gate had agreed to accept the letter, but he’d waited until he’d finished his watch before delivering the document to the palace.

“I have a letter from my mother,” he announced, holding it up for them to see. “Ironic, don’t you think, that she includes an apologetic note to Mahkas informing him she will not agree, under any circumstance, to a betrothal between Leila and me.”

Nobody was sure what they were supposed to say to that.

Adham broke the uncomfortable silence. “Are you all right, Damin?”

“Is anybody here
all right
?” he snapped. Then he shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you.

I’m just a little annoyed at the notion that this whole damn mess might have been avoided if somebody had thought to deliver this letter yesterday.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Tejay pointed out. “Mahkas found Starros and Leila together more than a week ago. The damage was done long before you or that letter got here.”

The news didn’t make Damin feel any better, but he forced himself not to dwell on it. There was too much to be done. “Orleon’s currently arranging to have the ballroom cleared so Leila can be laid out before the funeral. How’s Bylinda faring?”

“Your aunt is far stronger than anyone gives her credit for, Damin. She’ll come through this in one piece,” Tejay said.

“And Mahkas?”

There was a moment of awkward silence before anybody answered him. It was Xanda who finally found the courage to tell Damin what had happened after he left. “He lives, Damin. Rorin healed his wounds as best he could, but I gather there was some residual damage beyond even a sorcerer’s skill to mend.”

“That’s good news. I really don’t have time for him to die right now.”

His comment had them all staring at him in concern. Before anyone could respond to it, however, the door opened behind him and he turned to find Kalan, Wrayan and Rorin filing into the dining room. Both Rorin and Kalan looked as if they’d been up all night and Kalan’s eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. She ran to her brother when she spied him and threw her arms around him. Damin hugged her silently, understanding her pain. Leila was dead because she thought Starros would be waiting for her in the afterlife. It would be a long time, if ever, before Kalan could forgive herself for her part in that lie.

After a few moments, Kalan stepped back and studied him warily. “Are you all right, Damin?”

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Although I’m leaning towards ordering a lashing for the next person who asks me that.”

Kalan seemed to think he was serious. She took a seat at the table beside Adham, folded her hands in her lap and said nothing more.

“Marla sends other news in her letter,” Damin added grimly. “The worst of which, I’m sorry to tell you, Adham, is the news that Ruxton Tirstone was taken by the plague.”

Every eye in the room fixed on the young trader, wondering how he might take the news of his father’s death. Damin watched the colour drain from his face, but he remained in control of his emotions. Nobody else reacted to the news. Perhaps, with everything that had gone on this past day, they were all so emotionally wrung out there was nothing left in any of them to grieve for Ruxton Tirstone.
It’s a pity, really
, Damin thought.
Ruxton was a good man. He deserved more than this
.

“I wish we had the time to do his memory justice,” Damin told his stepbrother sympathetically.

“But there are other things that demand our attention and, in the end, we’re probably better off doing what we can for the living rather than the dead.”

Adham nodded silently in agreement. Kalan reached across and took his hand comfortingly, but said nothing.

“To that end,” Damin said, turning his attention to the two sorcerers, “I need you two to do whatever you must to save Starros. Even if that means selling his soul to whatever god is willing to come to his aid.”

Wrayan and Rorin exchanged a worried glance, but it was Kalan who answered him. “Damin, you can’t make that sort of decision for Starros without—”

“I can and I have, Kalan,” Damin announced. “I’ll take responsibility for it.”

Wrayan shook his head. “Damin, I think you should consider—”

He turned on the thief impatiently. “You told me your only choice was to sell his soul or let him die, Wrayan. If you’re not willing to do the latter, then speak to the gods and get it over with. There’s a war coming. I can’t afford to have the only two real sorcerers in Hythria tied up tending the former assistant chief steward of Krakandar Palace, even if he is my best friend.”

“What war?” Tejay asked suspiciously.

“We think Hablet is taking advantage of the borders being closed to gather his troops for an invasion,” Adham informed the Warlord’s wife, before Damin had a chance to explain. His voice was dull and emotionless, but it was clear he wasn’t incapacitated by his grief.

“You didn’t get that intelligence from Sunrise Province, did you?” she asked.

“Mostly it came from the Fardohnyans,” Adham agreed, looking a little puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

“Terin wouldn’t know if his arse was on fire unless somebody was there to point it out to him,”

she remarked sourly, confirming Damin’s suspicions that all was not well in the Lionsclaw household.

Tejay looked up at the young prince with a frown. “That’s where you’re going, isn’t it? To Sunrise?”

Damin nodded. “With as many Krakandar troops as I can muster. I plan to swing past Byamor on the way and collect Narvell and all the Elasapine troops Charel Hawksword can spare us, too.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Tejay announced.

“Is that really a good idea, Tejay?” Luciena asked with concern. “If we really are facing a war—”

“It’s a war that, more than likely, will be fought in my province,” Tejay pointed out. “There’s no way I’m going to let Terin deal with this on his own. Assuming he’s capable of dealing with it in the first place.”

Damin studied her with concern. “We’re going to have to have a little chat about your husband fairly soon, aren’t we?”

She nodded, looking resigned. “Yes, Damin, I think we are.”

“What about your children?” Luciena asked.

“They can stay here. Krakandar’s by far the safest place in Hythria, at the moment. Bylinda may even welcome the distraction.”

“Even if Aunt Bylinda’s not up to it, you’ll be here to keep an eye on them, Luciena,” Damin told his adopted sister. “There’s still too much plague about for you and Xanda to risk heading back to Greenharbour with your own children, and I want Xanda here to keep an eye on things while I’m gone.”

His cousin looked at him doubtfully. “What exactly am I supposed to be keeping an eye on?”

“A month or so from now, Mahkas is probably going to get some news from the High Prince that will drastically affect the length of his tenure as regent here. I have a feeling he’s not going to take it very well. I want someone in the palace I can trust—and someone who can take charge if need be—so that when we’re through dealing with Hablet, I still have a province to come back to.”

Xanda glanced at Luciena to see if she had any objections before he nodded his agreement.

“We’ve been away from Greenharbour for so long now, a bit longer isn’t going to make that much difference. We’ll stay.”

“Thank you,” Damin said, greatly relieved his cousin hadn’t balked at the suggestion. He turned to Adham with a questioning look. “What about you?”

“Rodja will have everything under control in Greenharbour. I’ll tag along with you, if you don’t mind.”

Damin spared him a thin smile. “Just the answer I expected from a man corrupted by Almodavar into following the God of War.”

“What did you want me and Rorin to do?” Kalan asked.

“I’m sending Wrayan back to Greenharbour. I want you and Rorin to go with him. Mother will need your help, and if ever there was a need to have a couple of insiders in the Sorcerers’ Collective, it’s going to be in the next few months as we prepare for war.”

“No,” Kalan said flatly.

Damin stared at her in surprise. “What?”

“I’ll go back to Greenharbour with Wrayan, but Rorin is going to Sunrise Province with you.”

“Why?” Damin and Rorin both asked at the same time.

“Because you’re Hythria’s heir, Damin, and we can’t afford to lose you in battle. Rorin is the only magical healer in the world that we know of. The most useful place for him in any battle you’re involved in is at your side.”

“She’s actually got a very good point,” Wrayan agreed.

Damin hadn’t thought about the advantage of having a sorcerer at his side in battle. The idea had a lot to recommend it. He glanced at Rorin, who shrugged. “I’m fine with it if you are.”

“Then I guess you’re coming to Sunrise with us, Rorin,” Damin said.

“When do we leave?” Adham asked.

“Tomorrow morning,” he informed them. “At first light. As soon as we’re finished here, I’m going down to the barracks to talk to Almodavar. I plan to leave for Elasapine with all the Krakandar troops we can spare now, which should be about twenty-six centuries, and have Raek Harlen follow with the rest of them in a couple of weeks.”

“Aren’t you going to wait for Leila’s funeral?” Kalan asked.

Damin shook his head. “If I wait, Kalan, I may run into Mahkas.”

“I think, given the circumstances, Damin,” Xanda suggested carefully, “you may find him willing to forgive you.”

“I’m not really interested in whether our uncle forgives me or not, Xanda,” Damin replied coldly.

“My concern is one of timing.”

“I don’t understand,” Kalan admitted with a frown.

“It’s quite simple, Kal. The next time I see Mahkas, I
will
kill him, and as I said earlier, it doesn’t suit me for him to die just yet, so it’s better for everyone if I just get out of his way until it does.”

His words left them speechless. Damin glanced around the room at his family and his most trusted friends—these people who thought they knew him so well—and was disturbed to realise they were looking at him like he was a complete stranger.

To hell with it
, he thought.
They were going to find out who I really am sooner or later
.

Besides, it was Elezaar’s final Rule of Gaining and Wielding Power.

Eventually, every true prince must step forward and take command
.

And he should expect his people to follow him
.

Marla Wolfblade had buried four husbands, but it had never occurred to her that she might one day be forced to carry on without Elezaar at her side. Watching them lower him into the child-sized grave, she felt the wrench of his death even more keenly than when he’d died in her arms. Losing Elezaar meant losing a part of herself. He had been by her side for so long, she felt incomplete without him. And afraid. Afraid of what the future might hold.

Afraid of what she had become.

It was still hard for Marla to accept that Elezaar had taken his own life. That his death was accompanied by unconscionable betrayal was almost beyond her comprehension. Nevertheless, even when she forced herself to confront the cruel reality of his final deed, somehow Marla couldn’t find it in herself to hate him for it.

Because I am responsible for Elezaar’s death
, she acknowledged silently,
as surely as if I’d
handed him a vial of poison and ordered him to drink it
.

It devastated Marla to realise Elezaar had killed himself rather than confront her fury and, along with her unbearable grief, it made her confront the truth about who she really was. Marla knew she’d hardened her heart over the years. She’d had to, simply to survive. She effectively ruled Hythria and nobody did that by showering hugs and kisses on the Warlords. Marla had no choice but to grow hard and unsentimental. It was toughen up or die.
But when did I become so heartless?
she wondered.
Was it
the night I arranged to have Nash killed?

Was that the beginning or the end of my journey into the abyss?

Am I now so terrible?
she asked herself.
So cold? So ruthless that Elezaar would willingly taken
his own life rather than face my wrath?

As the slaves settled Elezaar’s small, twisted body in the temporary grave Rodja had ordered dug in the small garden of her townhouse, Marla remembered the first time Luciena had accused her of being ruthless. It had come as a shock to her then to learn that people thought of her that way. It was devastating to realise even those closest to her obviously believed the same about her.
Do my children
fear me as Elezaar must have? Do they quail at the mention of my name? Does the whole of Hythria
tremble when I speak?