Page 7

T ennet’s words bang around in my head like hail pounding in an ice storm, but I haven’t come so far, or faced so much loss, to back down now.

“I’m sure we can arrange that, Lord Tennet.

” I angle in my seat and stare at the man, my words disrupting the sudden silence that’s marked only by the quiet struggle of Caleb swallowing his tongue.

“If you’ve come to find a wife, I’m sure there are any number of women in Trilion who would gladly take you up on that offer. ”

He clasps his hands over the pommel of his saddle, holding his reins loosely. “Fortunately, my choice is already made. Talia of the Tenth.”

I bare my teeth at him. “What a tragedy that she no longer exists.”

“Lord Tennet, Lady Talia,” Fortiss cuts in, with such force to his voice that my blood seizes in my veins.

I glance toward him, startled, and sense Tennet’s gaze jerk from me to focus on Fortiss as well.

Once again, our new lord protector looks the same as he did when I saw him last, not even a full day ago, but something has definitely changed.

Is it a good change, though? Or does the danger that seems to unfurl like an invisible cloak around Fortiss threaten more than it protects? I’ve thrown my lot in with his leadership, sought to preserve and nurture the tiny flame of connection that sparked between us…but do I truly know this man?

Oblivious to my concern, Fortiss charges on.

“We are blessed to be able to welcome our guests with a household still flush with wine and ale from the tournament, never mind that it was a month ago. We welcome you and your men, Lord Tennet. Let’s get you off your horses.

Tonight’s banquet will be a happy event, and you’ll be pleased that some warriors of the houses remain to hear your stories and share their own.

It’s been some time since we’ve celebrated a first-blooded son of the Twelfth House at our table. Welcome.”

At this last, he gestures to no one in particular, but clearly, it’s a symbol that’s been eagerly awaited.

A tumble of five stable hands burst from the gates of the outer bailey, dashing across the courtyard to assist the riders.

I swing off Darkwing before Tennet can dismount, leaving him to glower at me as Caleb deftly slides off his mare.

I start to hand over my reins to Caleb—then check the movement and grimace.

He’s no more a servant than I am. Not ever again.

Before he can stop me, I signal one of the stable hands over. I first hand him my reins, then pull Caleb’s out of his right hand.

Caleb flinches back. “I can take care of her,” he informs me, his eyes wide with surprise.

As comfortable as he is with his new position as warrior when it involves his mighty Divh, he’s nowhere near at ease with the idea of being treated as one.

Well, he’d better get used to it. He’ll be expected to attend tonight’s dinner, even if he is lucky enough to be able to sit with Nazar and not at the high table.

There’s been no call for feasting in the wake of the tournament, not with so many warriors injured and too many dead.

We’ve also been grappling with the grim reality of Lord Rihad held in private chambers, awaiting the arrival of the Imperium.

The former lord protector’s plan to devastate the army of Divhs and leave the Protectorate crippled surely merits swift and harsh justice, but it isn’t justice for us to mete out, but an agent of the Imperator.

Would that one sees fit to come all this way.

“If you wish.” I shrug and gesture to where the stable hand is walking Darkwing toward the stables. My stallion still has his ears laid back. “We can follow them and make sure he doesn’t bite anyone.”

Caleb shoots me a lopsided grin. “Him or you?”

“I’m glad you’re having such a good time with all this.”

“I mean, you have to admit, it’s entertaining.

” He glances back to where Tennet has finally decided to dismount, and I follow his gaze to assess Lord Orlof’s son anew.

His stiff stance is evidence either of his long ride through the mountains or, I suspect, a stick as wide as a club driven right up his?—

“You know, you don’t really have a face for gambling.”

I jerk my gaze back to Caleb, and he chuckles, which does nothing to improve my mood.

We’ve moved far enough away from the Twelfth House group that he continues in a low voice, the two of us maneuvering his mare toward the far end of the stables.

She doesn’t need to be stabled near Tennet’s horses, especially if they’re as foul-tempered as he is.

My temper has definitely soured as well.

I feel trapped, hemmed in, flanked by the subtle and strangely powerful Fortiss on one side, and the bristling, bull-headed Tennet on the other.

And I’ve come too far since leaving my father’s house, endured too much, to ever allow myself to be trapped again.

I slant a glance toward Caleb. “You’ve never heard of Orlof having an older son?”

“That would be a definite no,” he confirmed.

“Then again, news on the ground about the Twelfth House was as scarce as it was about the Tenth. I knew about Merritt, and that Lord Lemille had had other daughters besides his son, but there definitely was no mention of the fact that the Tenth House’s firstborn child was a female, and that she was a full four years ahead of her brother, not a year his junior. ”

“Yes, but there was a good reason for that level of secrecy. I shouldn’t have been allowed to live as a firstborn daughter.

It was only the pleading of my mother and my father’s fear of offending the Light that he suffered me to stay alive until she got pregnant again, two years after I was born.

And then my father was so certain that he would have a son that he announced plans for my death to her in exacting detail while he thought she was sleeping. She miscarried that same night.”

“ What ?” Caleb chokes.

I grimace, but the story rushes out, as if I’d held it for so long, another moment was simply too much.

“She certainly didn’t want the miscarriage to happen—she was devastated by it.

But she also never betrayed that she was awake the whole time during his hateful screed.

Either way, he was sufficiently superstitious afterwards that it served to spare my life another few years. ”

Caleb stares at me, horrified. “I had no idea.”

“Well, there had to be some reason why they waited another four years after that to try again. My father wasn’t faithful to my mother during that time, of course.

If he’d been able to have a male child by another means he would have done so.

But finally, my mother grew afraid for my safety once again and approached him with all the trappings of a woman blessed by the Light itself.

She said she had a vision that he would be blessed with the success of a baby boy if he would lay with her and preserve his firstborn child despite the mistake of my birth.

He did so eagerly, and nine months later, my brother was born.

I was nearly four by then, and already no fool.

I understood that no matter what, there would be a boy born to my father.

It was the only way my mother could ensure my safety. ”

“But how could she guarantee such a thing?” Caleb asks, with the wrinkled brow of an innocent. “Especially if all he’d been producing was girls up to that point.”

“There were blessings, herbs, and tinctures involved, and there was also cold strategy,” I tell him with a grim smile. “There were many babies born that month to the Tenth House women, a spike of fertility that would have made it into the tales of many a passing bard if any were allowed close.”

“She’d made plans to…adopt someone else’s baby?” he asks, aghast. Caleb may have been schooled in the art of combat and war, but clearly, he has no idea what it takes to be a woman in the Protectorate.

I shrug. “She did what she felt she needed to, in order to spare my life and the life of whatever child she gave birth to, boy or girl. And it worked. Merritt was born—legitimately, by all accounts—and my father never raised a hand against me after that unless he was drinking. I learned quickly enough to avoid him during those times. Except for when he sliced my neck when my brother was maybe a year old, I never faltered in my vigilance. As you can imagine, I was far more careful after that event.”

“Blood and stone,” he mutters. Then glances back over his shoulder. “Lord Tennet doesn’t have a case though, does he? I mean, he can bluster all he wants about the marriage contract, but it’s not binding…right?”

“It’s not,” I say with a confidence I don’t feel.

Still, I push on, as if by a sheer volume of words I can convince the Light that it’s so.

“Orlof contracted for the second-born daughter of the Tenth House, not the firstborn, first-blooded daughter with a warrior band on her arm. He wanted Talia of the Tenth, not Talia of the Thirteenth.”

“Still…” Caleb holds up both hands as I slant a glare at him. “I’m just saying, maybe you should talk to Nazar about this, before Tennet puts his question to Fortiss or the councilors.”

“The councilors.” My lips twist in disgust, but the clutch in my chest isn’t going away, and I know Caleb is right.

“They’re as close to useless as anyone I’ve ever met.

They stood by for the last decade and more, letting Rihad nearly destroy the Protectorate.

They threw Rihad in prison and then moved him to a nicer cell not a day later. ”

“I mean, he hasn’t woken up since he fell on the battlefield,” Caleb points out. “It’s been four weeks, and he hasn’t so much as twitched.”

“But he hasn’t died yet,” I insist stubbornly, my voice dropping even more.

There’s magic happening here that’s not of the Light, swirling and whirling around the First House.

Fortiss has changed, I know he has, while Rihad…

“He hasn’t changed, Caleb. Fortiss took me to him two days ago.

For a man who hasn’t visibly consumed water or food for the last four weeks, he hasn’t shrunken an ounce.

His face is full, his skin warm, his sleep is easy.

He might as well be taking a nap. How is he managing that? ”

“Not from walking the Lighted path, that’s for sure,” Caleb mutters, and I make a swift, impatient gesture.

“Definitely not. I think he’s in the plane of the Divhs, getting his sustenance there.”

He blinks. “But you’d know that, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t I? I mean, I haven’t asked Marsh, but that never even occurred to me.”

I shake my head. “Gent says Rihad’s not there—or his Divh.

He says that Rihad’s scorpion died in that final attack in the melee, but that’s all wrong too, from what I’m gathering from him.

Rihad’s Divh shouldn’t have died, since Rihad didn’t.

But I can’t quite understand everything he’s trying to tell me.

It’s not like he talks in linear sentences. ”

Caleb snorts. “At least he talks. Marsh mostly communicates by pointing at things impatiently, trilling, and expecting me to understand. That said…I didn’t realize Rihad’s Divh was so broken in the melee. I mean, it disappeared, sure, but?—”

“But a Divh doesn’t automatically die when their warrior dies,” I finish for him.

By now we’ve reached the stalls where our horses have been stabled since the close of the tournament.

I glance back to see that Tennet and his men have gone, leaving their horses in the capable hands of the First House workers.

“Not unless they’re mortally wounded. And Rihad’s flying scorpion wasn’t.

Gent is sure about that. Only he’s gone—absolutely vanished. And apparently, that means he’s dead.”

“And Gent has no idea why?”

“Oh, he has plenty of ideas, but they’re all words I’ve never heard of. Like I said, it’s tied to some kind of magic that Rihad played out before the melee even started, magic that’s all bound up in the books and scrolls that Fortiss is poring over.”

We turn back toward the First House, though my strides are shorter now, slower.

Caleb frowns my way. “You heard that resonance in Fortiss’s voice, didn’t you?

I didn’t make that up in my own mind. He sounded like Rihad when he wanted to get all lord protector on people.

I thought it was just an affectation that he turned on and off like a bard would—a vocal trick to make his voice carry.

But when Fortiss spoke just now, he had the exact same trick. ”

“Mhmm.” I sigh, my head officially starting to hurt. “So you’re thinking, maybe it’s not a trick?”

“I mean…what if it is something tied to his lord protector status, and nothing more than that? He was officially blessed into the role, and we didn’t see any of what went into that. Could he have been given special…I don’t know, powers?”

I rub my brow, as if I can scrub all these thoughts away. “I have no idea. He’s not supposed to have any. The power of the Protectorate is wrapped up in the might of its leaders and their Divhs. That’s the way it’s been since time immemorial.”

“So says the woman who shouldn’t even have a Divh,” Caleb points out cheerfully. He claps me on the back. “But hey! If nothing else comes of Tennet’s arrival, at least we’re going to get a good meal of it. And since he’s your betrothed and all—maybe you should put on a dress.”

I shove him back—then stop short when there’s another commotion at the front gates.

“Seriously, this is the most activity that’s happened here in a month,” Caleb says, slowing down to peer that way as well. “Are these more of Tennet’s men? Maybe an entire troupe of bards to sing at your wedding?”

He laughs as he ducks away from my punch to his right arm, but we both watch the initial brace of horses that trot through the gates, our vantage point keeping us from seeing much more than the scramble of people getting out of their way until Caleb and I realize the truth at the same time?—

“They’re wearing Tenth House green,” Caleb blurts. “It’s your father .”