A Rite of Swords (Book #7 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (7 page)

Most of all, he hoped she cared
for him even a fraction as much as he’d cared for her.

Thoughts of Selese had sustained
him throughout his quest, and he vowed that if he ever returned alive he would
find her, tell her how much he cared for her. Now that he was home, he felt he
had no time to waste.

Reece hurried through the crowd,
searching all the faces, eager for any sign of her. But no matter how hard he
looked, stumbling through rows of people, he saw no sign of her.

His heart sank as he pushed his
way through the crowd of thousands, swarming about to and fro. With the sky
growing darker, it was even harder to make out the faces gleaming in the dim
torchlight. They all started to blur after a while.

Reece began to feel hopeless.
Selese had probably not made it, he told himself. And even if she had, she
would likely still not be interested in him.

The smell of food filled the air,
and Reece turned to see long banquet tables being carried out in rows, heaped
with all kinds of meats and cheeses and delicacies. As the servants set them
out, the masses descended on them. Reece, stomach growling, ambled over,
grabbed a chunk of meat, and tore into it. He had not realized how hungry he
was, and as he devoured a chicken leg and a handful of potatoes, and took a
long draw on his mug of ale, he felt rejuvenated.

Reece stood there, staring
vacantly up at the play, not really watching and wondering what had ever become
of Selese.

Suddenly, he felt a tap on his
shoulder.

Reece turned around, and his
heart stopped.

Standing there, a smile on her
lips, clasping her hands nervously and looking up at him, unsure, was the most
beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Selese.

There she stood, looking at him
with such love in her sparkling eyes, delight in her face at seeing him.

Reece, caught off guard, had to
blink several times, wondering if it was real or just a figment of his
imagination.

“I’ve been looking for you
everywhere,” she said. “I found your Legion brothers, and they told me I might
find you at the banquet table.”

“Did they?” Reece said, still
staring into her smiling eyes, hardly able to speak. He wanted to tell her so
many things at once, how much he loved her, how he had never stopped thinking
of her.

But instead he stood there,
frozen with nervousness. The words would not come out. As he stood there
awkwardly, silently, she began to look unsure, as if wondering whether he were
interested in even speaking with her.

“I’ve wanted to speak to you
since you left my village,” she said. “I tried to find you, and I learned you
were gone.”

“Yes, in the Empire,” Reece said.
“On a quest for the Sword. We only just came back. I did not think I would come
back at all.”

“I’m glad you did,” she said.

He looked at her, wondering.

“Why?” he asked. “I thought, back
in the village, you had said you didn’t like me.”

She cleared her throat and worry
crossed her brow.

“I thought more about what you’d
said to me. About how you love me. About how I said it was crazy.”

He stared back at her, nodding.

“But the thing is, I didn’t mean
it,” she added. “You’re not crazy. Those feelings you felt, I feel them, too.
You see, I didn’t come to Silesia for safe harbor. I came here to find you.”

Reece felt his heart soaring as
he heard her words, hardly able to process them. She was saying the very same
things that had been on his mind.

He raised a hand and ran it along
her cheek.

“On my quest, I thought of you
and nothing else,” he said. “You are what sustained me.”

She smiled wide, her eyes aglow.

“I prayed every day for your safe
return,” she said.

The music rose again, and couples
broke out dancing at the sound of the harp and the lyre.

Reece smiled and held out a hand.

“Will you dance with me?” he
asked.

She looked down and smiled, and
lay her hand in his. It was the softest feel of his life, and his fingers felt
electrified at the touch.

“There is nothing I would love
more.”

Luanda stood beneath the
torchlight, against the stone wall on the periphery of the courtyard of
Silesia, watching the festivities, and seething. There was her sister,
Gwendolyn, in the center of it all, as she had always been since they were
kids, adored by everyone. It was just like it had been growing up: she, Luanda,
the oldest, had been passed over by their father, who had showered all his
affections on his youngest daughter. Her father had treated her, Luanda, as if
she’d barely existed. He had always reserved the best of everything for
Gwendolyn. Especially his love.

Luanda burned as she thought of
it now, as she watched Gwendolyn, the charmed one, and it brought back fresh
memories. Now here they were, so many years later, their father dead, and
Gwendolyn still in the center of it all, still the one who was celebrated,
adored by everyone. Luanda had never been very good at making friends, had
never had the charisma or personality or natural joy for life that Gwendolyn
had. She did not have the kindness or graciousness either; it just wasn’t
natural to her.

But Luanda didn’t care. In place
of Gwendolyn’s kindness and charm and sweetness, Luanda had outright ambition,
even aggression when she needed it. She displayed all the aggressive qualities
of her father, while Gwendolyn displayed all the sweet ones. Luanda did not apologize
for it; in her view, that was how people got ahead. She could be blunt and
direct and even mean when she had to be. She knew what she wanted and she got
things done, no matter who or what got in her way. And for that, she had always
assumed people would admire and respect her.

But instead, she had piled up a
long list of enemies along the way—unlike Gwen, who had a million friends, who
had never sought anything, and yet who somehow managed to get it all. Luanda
watched one person after another cheer for Gwendolyn, hoist her up on their
shoulders, watched her with Thorgrin, her perfect mate, while here she was,
stuck with Bronson, a McCloud, maimed from his father’s attack. It wasn’t fair.
Her father had treated her like chattel, had married her off to the McClouds to
further his own political ambitions. She should have refused. She should have
stayed here at home, and she should have been the one to inherit King’s Court
when her father died.

She was not prepared to give it
up, to let it go. She wanted what Gwendolyn had. She wanted to be queen, here
in her own home. And she would get what she wanted.

“They treat her as if she’s a
Queen,” Luanda hissed to Bronson, standing by her side. He stood there
stupidly, like a commoner, with a smile on his face and a mug of ale in his
hand, and she hated him. What did he have to be so happy about?

Bronson turned to her, annoyed.

“She
is
a Queen,” he said.
“Why shouldn’t they?”

“Put down that mug and stop
celebrating,” she ordered, needing to let her anger out at someone.

“Why should I?” he shot back.
“We’re celebrating after all. You should try it—it won’t hurt you.”

She glowered back at him.

“You are a stupid waste of a
man,” she scolded him. “Do you not even realize what this means? My little
sister is now Queen. We will all now have to answer to her. Including you.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” he
asked. “She seems nice enough.”

She screamed, reached up, and
shoved Bronson.

“You’ll never understand,” she
snapped. “I, for one, am going to do something about it.”

“Do what?” he asked. “What are
you talking about?”

Luanda turned and began to storm
off, and Bronson hurried to catch up with her.

“I don’t like that look in your
eye,” he said. “I know that look. It never leads to anything good. Where are
you going?”

She glared back at him,
impatient.

“I will speak to my mother, the
former Queen. She still holds a good deal of power. Of all people, she should
understand. I am her firstborn, after all. The throne deserves to be mine. She
will establish it for me.”

She turned to go but felt a cold
hand on her arm as Bronson stopped her and stared back. He was not smiling now.

“You’re a fool,” he said back
coldly. “You are not the woman I once knew. Your ambition has changed you. Your
sister has been more than gracious to us. She took us in when we fled from the
McClouds, when we had nowhere to go. Do you not remember? She trusted us. Would
you return the favor this way? She is a kind and wise Queen. She was chosen by
your father.
Her
. Not you. You would only make a fool of yourself to
meddle in the affairs of King’s Court.”

Luanda glowered back, about to
explode.

“We are not in King’s Court
anymore,” she hissed. “And these affairs you speak of—these are
my
affairs. I am a MacGil. The
first
MacGil.” She raised a finger and jabbed
him in the chest. “And don’t you ever tell me what to do again.”

With that, Luanda turned on her
heel and hurried across the courtyard, down the steps to lower Silesia,
determined to find her mother and to oust her sister once and for all.

*

Luanda stormed through the
corridors of the castle in Lower Silesia, twisting and turning her way past
guards until she finally reached her mother’s chamber. Without knocking or
acknowledging the attendants, she barged in.

The former Queen sat there, her
back to Luanda, in a tall wooden chair, flanked by two attendants and Hafold,
staring out a small window into the blackness of night. Through the window,
Luanda could see all the torches lining lower Silesia, a thousand sparks of
light, and could hear the distant cries of celebration.

“You never learned to knock,
Luanda,” her mother said flatly.

Luanda stopped in her tracks,
surprised that her mother knew it was her.

“How did you know it was me?”
Luanda asked.

Her mother shook her head, her
back still to her.

“You always had a certain gait
about you. Too rushed. Too impatient. Like your father.”

Luanda frowned.

“I wish to speak with you in
private,” she said.

“That never amounts to anything
good, does it?” her mother retorted.

After a long silence, finally her
mother waved her hand; her two attendants and Hafold left, crossing the room
and slamming the oak door behind them.

Luanda stood there in the silence
and then hurried forward, walking around to the other side of her mother’s
chair, determined to face her.

She stood across from her and
looked down and was surprised to see how much her mother had aged, had
dwindled, since she’d last seen her. She was healthy again since the poisoning,
yet she looked much older than she ever had. Her eyes had a deadness to them,
as if a part of her had died long ago, with her husband.

“I’m happy to see you again
mother,” she said.

“No you’re not,” her mother said
back, staring at her blankly, coldly. “Tell me what it is you want from me.”

Luanda was irked by her, as
always.

“Who is to say that I want
anything from you other than to say hello and wish you well? I am your daughter
after all. Your firstborn daughter.”

Her mother blinked.

“You’ve always wanted something
from me,” her mother said.

Luanda clenched her jaws,
steeling herself. She was wasting time.

“I want justice,” Luanda finally
said.

Her mother paused.

“And what form should that take?”
her mother asked carefully.

Luanda stepped forward,
determined.

“I want the throne. The
queenship. The title and rank my sister has snatched from me. It is mine by
right. I am firstborn. Not she. I was born to you and father first. It is not
right. I’ve been passed over.”

Her mother sighed, unmoved.

“You were passed over by no one.
You were given first choice of marriage. You chose a McCloud. You chose to
leave us, to have your own queenship elsewhere.”

“My father chose McCloud for me,”
Luanda countered.

“Your father asked you. And you
chose it,” the Queen said. “You chose to be Queen in a distant land rather than
to stay here with your own. If you had chosen otherwise, perhaps you would be
queen now. But you are not.”

Luanda reddened.

“But that is not
fair
!”
she insisted. “I am
older
than she!”

“But your father loved her more,”
her mother said simply.

The words cut into her like a
dagger, and Luanda’s whole body went cold. Finally, she knew her mother had
spoken the truth.

“And who did
you
love
more, mother?” Luanda asked.

Her mother looked up at her, held
her gaze for a long time, expressionless, as if summing her up.

“Neither of you, I suppose,” she
finally said. “You were too ambitious for your own good. And Gwendolyn….” But
her mother trailed off with a puzzled expression.

Luanda shivered.

“You don’t love anyone, do you?”
she asked. “You never did. You’re just an old, loveless woman.”

Her mother smiled back.

“And you are powerless,” she
replied. “Or else you would not be visiting an old, loveless woman.”

Luanda stepped forward,
impassioned.

“I
demand
that you give me
my throne! Order Gwendolyn to hand power to me!”

Her mother laughed.

“And why would I do that?” she
asked. “She makes a better Queen than you ever would.”

Luanda turned red and felt her
whole body on fire.

“You shall regret this mother,”
she seethed, her voice filled with rage.

Luanda turned and stormed from
the room, and the last thing she heard before she slammed the door were her
mother’s final words, haunting her:

“When you reach my age,” she
said, “you will find there are few things left in life that you do not regret.”