Birthright (7 page)

If it weren’t for his timely aid, she would have been deep into the southern lands by now, lost, alone, and quite possibly in danger, all on a misunderstanding. Walking from Ijesh to Adanjénal was considerably shorter than from somewhere south of the Frost Wall. By caravan route, it was a distance of ten
selijm
, the distance a man could walk on foot in ten hours. But for those who knew the route through the mazelike crevasses connecting the two cities, there was a path that would take only seven hours, whether on foot or on horseback; its only drawback was that the way was too narrow for the bulky loads of most caravans to pass.

Both routes passed through patches of sand where the sand-demons could burrow. Only a few things could discourage the creatures from tunneling wherever they willed: hardpan desert, where the earth was baked so hard that it was difficult to dig even a few inches down; the tough, deep-rooted grass that grew at the verges of the typical desert oasis; arm’s-length tiles of stone and pottery pounded into the ground with no more than a thumb’s-length of space between them; and sowing the soil with powdered silver. The lattermost option was too expensive for most to implement. Cities, towns, villages, and even the lowliest farmer’s holding were walled, with broad stone thresholds at their entrances, too broad for sand-demons to feel safe about crossing. They were often carved with repelling runes, too, and well worth the expense, since a carved rune could easily last for generations.

But where she and her twin had to go, barefoot and weaponless, there were no grasses, no tiles, no runes, and certainly no powdered silver.

Voices pricked at her ears. There shouldn’t have been anyone making noise at this early an hour; the servants generally went about their early-morning chores quietly when they knew one of the Am’n Adanjé was in residence. Arasa heard a laugh and widened her eyes in recognition: that was her twin’s voice! Giving Elrik one last glance, she eased out of the bed, pulled on a burgundy silk lounging robe, and padded out of her bedchamber in search of her sister.

“I’m sure she’s still asleep,” she heard Kalasa say, with that lilt to her voice that said she was flirting with someone. “And if she’s here, then the baths are still filled. So if you would like to join me for a bit of fun in the water…?”

“If she is here, and asleep, now might be the time to approach her,” a vaguely familiar male voice said. They were in the front room up ahead.

Arasa stopped in confusion.
That was an odd thing to say…approach me while I’m asleep?

“I don’t want to talk about that.” The teasing had left her sister’s voice, leaving her tone flat and unhappy. “Perhaps we should just order a meal, and retire. I am tired from traveling all night.”

The reminder that her sister had traveled to see her at her request spurred Arasa into moving again. Crossing the last few body-lengths, she entered the front room in time to see her sister unwinding her turban from her head. She couldn’t stop the smile that spread her lips, and didn’t want to; she hadn’t seen her twin in more than a year. “Kalasa!”

“Arasa—it’s been too long.” Abandoning the length of linen on a table, Kalasa met her twin halfway, embracing her tightly for a long moment. When she stepped back, there was an odd, almost melancholic edge to her smile. She looked very much like her twin, too, having the same height, the same build, the same pale hair color. Only her eyes were different, with hints of orange flecks warming the beige. Kalasa released her twin, turning to introduce the dark blond man in the room. “You’ve met Hallakan, the Taje of Am’n Paikan, haven’t you?”

“Taje?”
Arasa repeated, surprised. She hadn’t realized his father had passed on, leaving the leadership of his Family to him. If the law of primogeniture didn’t apply to the Noble Families as well as the Royal Bloodline, she would’ve voted for someone else to have taken his place. She hadn’t had a lot of contact with Hallakan in recent years, but Arasa did remember he had been rather arrogant about his status as a noble-born, and a little too interested in political power for her tastes. Not that it was her place to disapprove of her twin’s choice in companions…but she did.

Of course, to be fair, most of the noble-born sons around the Empire were a bit arrogant about their birthright, and a little too interested in political power, but then most of the Families tended to jockey for a position on the Imperial Council.

Hallakan answered her implied question. “Yes; my father died of an adder bite eight months ago. It was very tragic, and unexpected,” he added. “I’ve had the runes to our Family estate revised to include a repelling of poisonous snakes.”

If Arasa remembered right, the Am’n Paikan had holdings not far from the border with Ebrin. That was where adders lived, in the northeasternmost corner of the Empire, and it could have been possible for a snake to have wandered a little farther than normal from its usual territory.

Hallakan glanced over at Kalasa, and smiled. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to our possible future Empress, after all.”

At her twin’s puzzled look, Kalasa blushed and held out her hand to Hallakan. She faced her sister as he clasped it. “Arasa…I have accepted Hallakan’s offer of marriage. We’ll be wed by this time next month.”

Shock held her still for a moment, then Arasa moved forward, embracing her twin. “I’m…happy for you! Shocked, but happy—I never thought you’d settle on just one man,” she teased her sister, pulling back with a grin. “He must be something special, to have captured your heart.”

Kalasa smirked. “Well, let’s just say I finally succumbed to his charm.”

“I feel like the luckiest man in the world,” Hallakan added, smiling at Kalasa and making her blush. “To be wed to the most beautiful woman in the whole world is a rare honor; she lights up my life like no one else. She is the Sunlight of her name, and all other men pale with envy that she is to be mine.”

“Not every man,” a voice behind Arasa stated. Elrik, clad in a deep blue lounging robe, padded into the front room. The partially open robe showed off a long strip of his chest, including the sparse scattering of his copper-red hairs and spice-brown freckles. “I prefer moonlight, myself.”

One of Kalasa’s brows arched up as she glanced at her twin for an explanation. Hallakan eyed the foreigner, his lip curling up slightly on one side. “A foreigner.”

“Elrik, I present my sister, Taje-tan Kalasa Am’n Adanjé, and Taje Hallakan Am’n Paikan, overlord of the city of Paikan,” Arasa introduced. “Kalasa, Taje, I present Mage Elrik of the Snow Leaper Tribe of Kumron, and a graduate of the Academy at Aben-hul.”

“Sajé,”
Hallakan murmured, using the commoner-honorific, and not bothering to nod his head in greeting. He was still arrogant about his social status, Arasa noted. At least her sister nodded politely.

Elrik nodded at the other man, then dipped a little lower in a half-bow to Kalasa. “Taje, Taje-tan.”

“Well,” Arasa said, covering up the awkward tension. “You’ve probably had a long journey and are tired. Why don’t you go and sleep for a while, then perhaps you can come with me to the Mother Temple later this afternoon? I have something important to show you, Kalasa, something I think will clarify the succession question between us once and for all.”

Kalasa and Hallakan exchanged a look, and the other woman nodded. “That would be good. I would like to hear your solution.”

“I heard you had a possible one yourself,” Arasa observed. “I’d like to hear it, too, after you’ve rested.”

This time, Hallakan looked at Kalasa, but she looked away from him. “Let’s discuss that later,” Kalasa stated. “And I’d like to hear your solution, first. You’ve been gone longer than I have, after all. But it’ll be after we’ve rested.”

“Of course.” Stepping aside, Arasa watched her twin leave the room, Hallakan at her heels. She caught Elrik’s puzzled look and shrugged. “I can only hope her solution turns out to be a lot easier than mine. Shall we go back to bed?”

He nodded, then paused. “Arasa…
after
this is over, if you aren’t firstborn…I’d like to discuss the, ah, possibility of my asking for your hand in marriage. If that’s all right with you.”

She flushed with pleasure, then narrowed her eyes in dismay. “And if I
am
firstborn? Are you going to run away?”

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Elrik shrugged. “No…but I thought that I’d leave the asking up to you, at that point. If you aren’t, I’ll ask. If you are,
you
ask.”

It was a silly division of responsibility, one that made her want to chuckle, but she could see the logic in it. Only a man with very little political ambition would put it that way, reassuring her that he wasn’t trying to marry her for her station. “Tell you what. I’ll remove all doubt, and ask you, here and now: Elrik, will you give me your hand in marriage, and promise before the Gods to become my husband at some point within the near future?”

“Yes.” He flushed and smiled, closing the distance between them. A light brush of his mouth against hers sealed his acceptance.

K
alasa’s
relief slumped her shoulders and turned her voice into a sigh. “Oh, yes…this is
much
better than the solution I had found. We’ll do this one.”

Hallakan leaned over his betrothed’s shoulder, frowning at the text. “
Walking
from Ijesh to the capitol? That’s all you do? And ‘the Land will know’ which one of you is firstborn?”

“Yes,” Arasa confirmed, looking up at him from the other side of the table, her hands holding the scroll open so they could read. “If it worked for the First Emperor—and it does say the Land will recognize all of his firstborn heirs—then it should work for us.”

“This isn’t even one of the official history-scrolls!” the dark blond man scoffed. “You said you found it in a collection of tales intended for
children
to read.”

“Yet it is undeniably a part of the history-scrolls that the First Emperor
did
travel ‘from the Mother Temple to the place where he made his capital,’” Arasa stated. “And that the walls of the Imperial Hall did rise up around him in proof of the Covenant between him and Djin-Tajeul. Both tales are accurate in that much detail, so why shouldn’t this one be?”

“Walking,”
Hallakan sneered. “Barefoot and weaponless, putting your trust in a child’s tale of a promise given to an ancestor, but
not
given to you! Our way is much surer—”

“We will
not
use that option,” Kalasa stated sharply, cutting him off. “I have made up my mind on that matter. It will
not
be discussed.”

“What option?” Elrik asked.

“It doesn’t matter. This is the better solution. I will put my faith in the Blood of my Family,” Kalasa returned tersely.

“You would put your faith in a fool’s quest,” Hallakan muttered, his tone slowly sharpening with disdain. “It has been more than six hundred years since the Covenant was first proclaimed, and the Flame Sea first conquered at its heart—and it was
conquered.
The Empire has been expanded and made strong because of the might of its warriors and the careful planning of its people. Not by putting
blind faith
in the Gods—do not the teachings of Djindji-Taje say that the Gods will help those that help themselves?”

“There are things about the Royal Blood that you do
not
understand,” Kalasa retorted. “Hold your tongue on the matter, or depart, so you will not be tempted to use it!”

Trouble in their oasis?
Arasa wondered, glancing silently at Elrik. He raised his brows briefly, but didn’t say anything, either. Hallakan glowered for a moment, then drew in a deep breath and let it out, composing himself.

“I apologize. I am concerned for your safety. If you are barefoot and weaponless, anything could happen, whether it’s an attack from a sand-demon or stepping on a sharp stone. And what if one of you
is
stung?” Hallakan asked Kalasa pointedly.

“That’s why I’m going with Arasa, shod and with weapons of my own,” Elrik stated. “I will not interfere, unless and until she is stung. If she is, I will catch her and carry her, until we are safe on hard rock, or until she revives. And if it is her sister who is stung, I will also—”

“—
I
will carry her,” Hallakan interrupted. “She is
my
betrothed. My place is at her side. I presume that we’ll be taking the shortcut through the canyons, the one not used by the caravans? That would cut three
selijm
off the way.”

“Of course,” Arasa agreed. “The important thing is to make the pilgrimage from the Womb to the Heart, to renew the Covenant by walking the Land; the exact path and its duration are not as important. Besides, even barefoot, it won’t take us more than eight or nine hours to make a normally seven-hour journey, but taking the caravan road would make it more than a reasonable day’s march. And I want this settled.”

“Then it will be settled,” Kalasa agreed, looking at the other two. “Tomorrow, we’ll gather our provisions for the trip, purify ourselves with prayer and a daylight fast, then eat well as soon as night falls, sleep deeply, and begin our trek from the Mother Temple to the Imperial Hall at first light, two days from now.”

From the subtle rolling of Hallakan’s eyes at the part about prayer and fasting, Arasa got the feeling he was definitely not a religious man. She rolled up the scroll and returned it to its place in the latticework holding the ancient texts. “I think we should send word to Father about what our solution is, so that he can be ready to welcome us upon our arrival. And we should mark down this solution in the more commonly referenced texts, in case this problem ever comes up again.”

“
After
we know it works,” Kalasa cautioned her, glancing briefly at her betrothed. “I sincerely hope it does.”

*   *   *

Riding
on a horse, Elrik decided, lifted one a couple of feet off the desert floor. Which lifted the traveler just high enough to dissipate some of the heat reflecting off that floor. Unfortunately, he wasn’t riding on a horse anymore. Mopping his face with a scrap of fabric drawn from his satchel, he grimaced against the glare coming from the sandy ground. For all this was midautumn, the sun was still high overhead, and the heat was becoming fierce.

Replacing the kerchief with his waterskin, he drank a couple of swallows to replace the sweat he had just shed, and envied the twin princesses. Hallakan was sweating the same amount as he, but the two women didn’t seem affected by the heat—in fact, they had chosen to forgo turbans and ponchos as well as footwear, leaving them clad in sleeveless cotton shirts and sashed trousers gathered and tied at midcalf. Their gaze was focused almost entirely on the ground, watching where they placed their tanned feet. This might be a sandy stretch, which carried the potential for a sand-demon or two, but it also had crumbled bits of rock, swept about by the strong storm-winds that sometimes wracked the desert.

Hallakan, striding to the right and a little bit behind his betrothed, was watching the rugged stone walls ahead of them. This was one of the open stretches where their path crossed the winding caravan route. There weren’t any burdened pack-animals, merchants, or guards in sight, but there were plenty of churned hoofprints in view. Sand-demons could be killed by crushing with a very heavy weight, like a horse’s hoof or a dromid’s tough-skinned foot. Unfortunately, most humans weren’t strong enough for the task, since sand-demons rarely left their soft soil home; sand-dunes just weren’t solid enough to effectively stomp against. But then, the nasty beasts wouldn’t stick around when a large caravan came by. The potential to be crushed was far greater than the chance to sting a victim.

Lifting his gaze away from the pale sand, Erik studied the next crevasse they had to enter. It was narrow, just big enough for someone to ride an Imperial Mare, but no bigger. If he tipped his head just right, his conical hat shaded his eyes from the glaring blue-white of the slightly hazy sky while still allowing him a view of the tops of the cliffs. The granite at this section was redder than it was back at Ijesh, and the darker color was easier on his eyes than the glare of the yellow-cream sand.

For a moment, he thought he saw something moving up there, and glanced at Hallakan to see if the other man had seen it, too. Hallakan shook his head, though. It was a slight movement, one that took a few moments to register. Not that it had happened, but that the man hadn’t been looking at Elrik at the time. Hadn’t known—
couldn’t
have known—that Elrik was curious whether he had seen that movement as well.

Something wasn’t right. Elrik knew he was being influenced by his impression of the other man: arrogant, condescending, proud, disdainful…suave, very charming, there was no denying that, but there was something more. That first morning, when Hallakan had argued about the strength of the Empire, he had backed off when Taje-tan Kalasa asserted herself, and then…he had ingratiated himself back into her good graces. Charmed her, soothed her ruffled feathers. Placated her.

Made sure she still considered him valuable enough to keep at her side.

Elrik didn’t know where that thought came from, but he knew he didn’t quite trust the man. Hallakan seemed ambitious, and very interested in settling the succession, even if he didn’t believe in religious texts or ancient agreements between mortals and gods. Elrik had to concede that he himself wasn’t overly religious either, but his was more a matter of agnosticism; he was merely a mortal man, relatively unimportant in the grand scheme, and unlikely to be visited by the Gods of either his father’s or his grandmother’s peoples. But he did believe they existed, with or without any fervent worship from him personally.

Hallakan murmured something, moving to get ahead of the women as they entered the crevasse. Elrik held himself back, taking up the rear position; there was just enough room to walk in pairs, but not comfortably. Surrounded by rock, the heat felt closer, yet cooler, mostly because the cliffs were close enough to cast a bit of shade despite the height of the sun. Lifting his waterskin again, Elrik drank. When he lowered it, he saw Hallakan looking up and shaking his head slightly a second time.

Odd. Surreptitiously, using the brim of his sun-hat to shield the direction of his gaze, Elrik searched the cliffs again. Now that they were crossing hard rock that was dusted with sand too shallowly for sand-demons to feel comfortable swimming through, he didn’t have to worry about one of the two women being stung.

It wasn’t until several minutes later that he thought he saw movement again. Someone was following them, up along the top of the ravine. Movement to the other side, a turbaned head clad in desert shades, told him more than one person was up there. Elrik wasn’t a fool. Two people, following and flanking their position, and one of their own party members shaking his head, suggested the staving-off of an ambush.

But why? Only a fool of a bandit would think their plainly dressed party had any money, since even Hallakan had for-gone colorful silks for plain, sturdy linen. Bandits wouldn’t stay their hand, but rather dump a small avalanche upon them to dig through the rubble and search all their bodies afterward. He’d seen the aftermath of similar tactics up in the Frost Wall passes.

But an avalanche would put Hallakan at risk, and he was still traveling close to his chosen princess.

A cold shiver raced up Elrik’s spine, widening his eyes. There
was
another way to guarantee which woman was firstborn. He wasn’t completely sure, since there was this Covenant thing and its Goddess-based magics entangled in the matter…but if one of the two women died, with no offspring to follow after her and cloud the issue…the survivor
automatically became firstborn.
At least, that was the commonly held law of the king-states down in Kumron.

The thought, stark and horrible, hurried his steps. Crowding behind Arasa, he made her close the small gap that had started to grow between her and her sister. So long as they were too close together to risk an avalanche, Hallakan would be forced to continue to shake his head in negation. Unsure of just how closely he himself was being watched, Elrik didn’t unclip his mage-staff from his belt, but he did grip it with his hand, focusing his inner energies into the crystal-studded shaft. A warding-sphere would prevent them from being attacked by falling rocks, flying daggers, or soaring arrows. It would also keep out charging swordsmen, if he could gather enough energy beforehand.

Nothing happened for several more minutes, just the four of them wending their way through the narrow defile, but he didn’t relax. It looked like the ravine widened up ahead into a small valley. Once they were free of a possible rock-fall, there would be other ways of being attacked. Unhooking his staff, Elrik held it close by his hip while he whispered under his breath, concentrating his magic. The Land might know and protect one of the women just ahead of him, but he didn’t know which one, and he couldn’t take the risk that it would protect only the firstborn of the two from its own dangers. Emperors and Empresses had been killed by the efforts of mere mortals in the past, though it was a rare thing.

With half his attention on Hallakan and half on the cliffs, he saw the moment when the turbaned lord nodded, ever so slightly. They were away from the rock walls, away from tumbled boulders that might have served as defensive shelter. Elrik snapped up his staff, releasing a rippling, spherical wave of air outward with the release of the prepared spell. It fluttered the folds of his garments, washed over the bodies of Arasa and Kalasa, tugged at Hallakan’s clothes, and stopped with a
thwack-thwack
as it encountered two small arrows, off to one side. Crossbow bolts, rather.

From the angle of them, he figured they had been meant for both Arasa and himself. With the mage in their midst as dead as the princess, there would be no witnesses, and the attack could be called the work of bandits without being contradicted. Arasa glanced between Elrik and the thickened air, confusion in her eyes. Her twin blinked and frowned at the rippling air, while Hallakan glared at the spell-stuck bolts.

Eyes narrowing, Hallakan spun to face Elrik.
“You!”