Page 15

After the day’s final meal, Tyelu lingered in the kitchen helping her parents clean. Jos was entertaining two Tersi widows in the living room, the last in a ceg or so of women who’d dropped by to assess him as a potential husband. They’d been dropping by all afternoon, since word had gotten ‘round about Tyelu being hauled in front of not one but two planetary leaders for kidnapping the Q’Mhel.

The audacity , she thought, and bit the inside of her cheek against a smile.

Her father threw her another assessing look, as if he expected her to burst into a temper at any moment.

Surprisingly, the women attempting to plead their cases to Jos caused her not the slightest amount of concern. Tyelu had deliberately tried to muster a smidge of jealousy. Shouldn’t she feel at least a hint of that old, reliable monster?

But the jealousy refused to appear. She’d floated through the day in a pleasantly bemused state, baffling everyone around her, even Jos.

Gared slung a muscled arm around her shoulders and jogged her against his side. “Come now, daughter. You’ve been too sweet today. What mischief’s running through that pretty head of yours?”

Tyelu’s mother flipped a towel at him. “Leave her be, husband. Isn’t it enough that she’s happy?”

“That’s what worries me,” he muttered. “Promise you won’t do any permanent damage when you go out there.”

Tyelu’s eyebrows arched high. “To who?”

“To anyone.”

She laughed at his morose tone. “I’m not planning on doing any damage.”

“There, now,” Alna said tartly. “She’s promised.”

“Why don’t I believe her?” Gared raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if pleading for intervention from the gods. “He’s a good lad. Strong, if a bit scrawny.”

“He’s not scrawny,” Tyelu said, exasperated. “There’s plenty of muscle on him.”

Alna’s eyes twinkled merrily. “And you’d know, is that it?”

Tyelu huffed out a laugh and turned back to the dishes. “I’d hoped to find time to take him over to my property today.”

The main door closed, and the outer room quietened by one female voice.

“That one didn’t last long,” Alna said.

Tyelu bit the inside of her cheek again. Kraden smile just wouldn’t stay away. “Maybe if he’d quit being so graphic about his work, the women wouldn’t leave so quickly.”

“He does it a-purpose,” Gared growled. “Never seen a man so anxious to get rid of a pretty woman.”

Alna cut a sly look toward Tyelu. “He’s already got one handful. What does he need with another?”

“And a good handful she is,” Gared agreed, smiling down at his daughter. “The best of the lot.”

The praise warmed her through and through. She stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to her father’s cheek, and laughed when he caught her in a whirling hug. For a moment, she felt like a little girl again, safe in the arms of the man who loved her best. Her parents had endured so many hardships. Losing two sons in a Sweeper raid, gaining another lost and frightened little boy, nursing him back to health and sanity. And then Tyelu’s wilder years, when she’d returned from her duties on Banam and drifted aimlessly without purpose or meaning.

Until Jos had popped into her life and saved them all.

“Stop that, you two,” Alna scolded just as the front door opened again.

Familiar voices filled the living room. Gared dropped Tyelu with a grin, then the three of them left the kitchen to greet Ryn and Ziri. To Tyelu’s surprise, Enel ab Awd and his son stood just behind her brother and his wife, unwrapping layers of outer clothing. Enel was a big man, as most Pruxn? were, strong of heart and fair of face. A quiet man. He’d lost his wife not long after their son’s birth and had yet to find another.

She studied him now, appraising him as a woman should. Enel had a strong kinship tie to Sigun. He owned two extensive properties, one near the capital, inherited from his parents, the other nearby. And he’d done well with his holdings, too, increasing them steadily until they were a rival for her parents’. He knew when to let a woman fight her own battles, as she recalled from their recent run-in with the Sweepers, which counted for a lot. Any woman should be pleased to call him mate.

He'd tried for Ziri, though to hear Alna tell it, Ryn had already won Ziri’s heart by then. And while single Pruxn? women were scarce, the recent influx of Tersii refugees had eased some of the strain. Several had already found good husbands on the Choosing field. Why shouldn’t Enel find a good wife among the remainder?

Jos stepped into Tyelu’s line of sight, his eyes hot against his impassive expression. “See something you like?”

“What? Oh!” She shook her head. “Just playing matchmaker. Have you met Enel?”

“Am I going to have to fight him off?”

Tyelu threw back her head and laughed, catching every eye in the room. When her amusement died enough for her to speak, she peeked around Jos and said, “Enel, would you like to fight for me in the Choosing?”

“Respectfully, Lady Tyelu, you’re a good woman in your own way,” he replied, rather solemnly, “but I’d rather be trampled by a herd of bovi.”

Everyone snickered, including Ziri, who shot Tyelu an apologetic glance.

Tyelu paid their amusement no mind. She twined her fingers with Jos’s and glanced up at him through her eyelashes. “Does that ease your mind, Q’Mhel?”

“I guess it’ll have to,” he grumbled.

“There’s fresh made pie,” Alna said. “Everyone’s welcome.”

They all tramped back to the kitchen for some of her mother’s pie, squeezing around the farmhouse table, even the woman who’d been courting Jos. A young Pruxn? widow, as it happened, who’d dared inciting Tyelu’s wrath more to find out what was being done about the Sweepers than to find a new husband. Her’s had been killed when Sweepers attacked his ship during a cargo run, leaving her to rear two toddlers and manage a tiny holding on her own.

Once pie was served, the talk turned, as it usually did, to molnog. Molnog breeding, molnog wool, molnog wool colors, molnog prices in the current market. Sheering molnog for their prized fleece, turning it into the many handmade products Abyw was famous for.

Tyelu turned to Jos, sure that her family’s obsession with the domesticated animal would make his eyes glaze over, and caught him staring down at her. The look on his face made little birds flap around in her stomach.

“What is it?” she murmured.

“I was picturing you in a sweater the color of Ziri’s eyes,” he whispered against her ear. “And now I’m not sure I can stand up in polite company.”

She all but melted into him. “Leave your window unlatched tonight.”

“Believe me, I will.”

She turned back to the broader conversation, her cheeks flushed warm, and caught her mother’s gaze. Alna’s mouth twitched into a knowing smile before Gared drew her into the debate over how feasible breeding for lighter colors would be.

Tyelu snuck her hand into Jos’s under cover of the table, letting him anchor her as the conversation washed over them both.

The conversation lingered well into the evening. Guests straggled out as the night wore on, the widow to tend her children, whom she’d left with her mother; Enel and his son to their local holding; Ryn and Ziri to theirs. Jos helped tidy up after them, then stretched into a mighty yawn and took his leave.

Tyelu waited long enough to satisfy propriety before wishing her parents a good night. She wrapped her outer garments lightly around her and let herself out, meeting the bracing cold head on. The night had darkened under another bank of snow-heavy clouds. Already, miniscule snowflakes drifted down around her, melting into her coat and scarf.

She veered away from her hovercar and around the side of her parents’ home, shimmied up to the second story using the toeholds she and Ryn had worn into the wood and rock. Ryn, mostly. She’d spent too many years studying under the heavy hand of Mother Jakuv. But she’d used them later, when she’d come home and found Hrelum too small a cage for her warrior soul.

Once at the top, she tapped on Jos’s window, then tested the latch. It opened before she could do more, and Jos reached through and hauled her up and over the sill. His mouth came down on hers as he nudged the window closed.

Mindful of the thin curtain separating his temporary room from the hallway, she wrested herself away and whispered, “Hush. They’ll hear.”

“Don’t care,” he muttered hoarsely. “I need you.”

She could hear how much he needed her, feel how much in the rough, desperate way he backed her toward the bed, his mouth moving over hers as he shoved her clothes aside and fell on his knees before her. He dragged a hot kiss over her bare stomach, then found her core and she cupped his shoulders as he drove her relentlessly into a delightfully ragged orgasm with his lips and tongue and fingers.

Still standing, she thought dimly, biting her mouth to stifle her gasping breaths.

When he was done tormenting her, he kissed his way up her body and buried his face in her throat. “Stars, what you do to me.”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” she whispered, and he groaned at the heavy promise in her voice.

After they’d loved each other as thoroughly as time allowed, they burrowed under the heavy quilts piled upon the bed. He pulled her into the curve of his body, and they slept deeply until Gared’s quiet footsteps woke her at the start of the new day.

She tried to slip out of bed without waking Jos. His hand caught hers before she’d made it out of the covers.

“Where are you going?” he whispered.

“Chores. Shower.” She flipped her wrist, breaking his hold, and slipped her fingers into his hand. “Today’s the local Thing.”

“I know. Are you ready for it?”

No , she thought, and forced the denial away. “It’s going to be a long day. Make sure you eat a good meal when you go down.”

“You and your family,” he grumbled. “Always trying to fatten me up.”

The laughter in his voice brought a smile to her face. It stayed with her long after she’d snuck out his window and down the side of the house again. Even the thought of what lay ahead failed to puncture her happiness.

Until it came time to dress.

Her happiness, that deep contentment she felt around Jos, withered as she rummaged through her clothes, considering what to wear. It was just a Thing, she thought as she pulled out and discarded trousers and dresses and sweaters and traditional tunics. Just a Thing where she’d be both judge and jury, and possibly the executioner.

Her hands slowed and she was drawn, relentlessly, inevitably, to the wooden chest placed at the end of her bed. Hesitant, she knelt before it and opened the heavy lid. There rested layers of quilts and woolen blankets tucked around keepsakes and memories. She dug through them carefully, pushing aside the dragon her mother had knit for her and her first wooden toy, carved by her father when she was little more than a glint in his eye.

Beneath them lay the life she’d set aside when she left Banam, the embroidered sleeveless tunic, its slender black belt, the matching pants and knee-high boots. And under them, the ritual sword she’d carried, a symbol of the queen’s justice.

Judge. Jury. Executioner.

Had she not played all three in her life? Did her hands and heart not carry enough blood and grief?

The weight of that life pressed down upon her, and she bowed her head beneath it, allowing it to bury her as she’d buried her sword in this chest, hiding it away so she could find some small measure of peace. Her father expected this from her, expected her to pick up her armor and take her place by his side, mediating the province’s problems as if she understood how to render judgment blindly, dispassionately, objectively.

Her hands trembled against the chest. I can’t do this , she thought. I can’t be what he needs me to be. I can’t lift my sword and take another life. I cannot judge another life as I judged my classmate, a poor, innocent girl who was guilty of nothing more than being born into the wrong family.

But what of Jos and the relationship growing between them? What would he think of her, the man she’d grown to love, if she deflected her duty and slunk away like a coward? Jos, who revered duty so much. Jos, who had willingly placed himself between her and danger, and would again. Jos, who would willingly sacrifice so much more if she asked it of him.

Coward , she thought bitterly, unaware of the tears trickling down her cheeks. How dare you shy away from duty when your people need you?

For the Thing was not merely trials and remediations; it was more than settlement and redemption. It was the law that bound her people together, the structure allowing them to work harmoniously toward a greater good. Her father’s firm hand had allowed Myunad Province to flourish. The Hrela prospered as many of their neighbors did not, eking out a profitable and healthy existence upon the winter-bound land. Thriving where others struggled to survive.

How could she turn her back on her father’s legacy? How could she return to the aimless, purposeless life she’d lived after returning here, to her home?

She sucked in a calming breath and, steadier now, drew her Queen’s Guard uniform from the chest. There came a time in every warrior’s life when the sword must be laid aside. And there also came a time when the sword must be, once again, taken in hand.

She hefted her sword and measured its weight against her palm, testing the balance and strength of the finely crafted blade. Tomorrow, she could rest, but today…

Today she must resume the mantle of the warrior her parents and people needed her to be.