Lonen's War (25 page)

“Exactly. And this you must do alone or not
at all.”

Chuffta had promised never to leave her.

“
And I won’t. I’ll be with you, in your
thoughts, in your heart.”

With care, she unwound Chuffta’s tail from
its loops around her arm. He leaned his head against her temple.
“If I don’t survive sane, promise me you’ll return to your
family.”

“
No promises, other than that I’ll wait
for you always.”

“All right,” she said, her voice barely
audible. “I’m ready.”

Her mother’s magic built again, like water
filling a tub, and a faint blue glow glimmered ahead. Growing
stronger, it outlined yet another doorway.

With an indigo blaze it opened, searing
Oria’s eyes and mind. She felt suddenly supremely unable to rise to
the task. Was that a shape within?

It was one thing to face her own death in
the abstract, to offer surrender to the Destrye prince, knowing she
might be struck down. Oddly, the memory of Lonen’s granite gaze
steadied her. He wouldn’t be afraid. Or rather, he might feel
fear—she’d sensed plenty of it in him—but he hadn’t let that stop
him. She could do no less.

She stepped over the threshold.

Freezing blue seized her with agonizing
brilliance, and she flailed, without reason or purchase. A bony
hand caressed her cheek as the Trom had done, another rising to
join it on the other side, framing her face. Something stared into
her. Black, unwinking eyes, full of intelligence and entirely
lacking in compassion.

She writhed mentally, her body no longer her
own.

“
Who?”

A mind-voice like Chuffta’s, yet entirely
unlike. Unforgiving, uncaring. It asked the question she couldn’t
answer.

And yet she did give an answer, her deepest
heart opening like a night-blooming blossom to the fruit bats that
plundered their nectar. It all poured out of her, the jealousy of
her proficient brothers, all the bitter restlessness, the shame of
failure and inadequacy, the rancor of her thoughts echoing in the
walls of her tower, the bitterness of breaking her word to
Lonen—and the eroding fear that he’d blame her if Yar sent the Trom
after the Destrye.

It shouldn’t be so important, but the
possibility of losing his good opinion festered in her heart and
poured out to this alien consciousness’s indifferent scrutiny. All
those princesses before her, also trapped by their own inability to
rise above, to live up to their vows.

She wanted out with fierce ambition. Not to
be forever subject to her little brother, to forswear herself
because she didn’t have the strength to back up her promises. She
wanted to live. To live and burn brightly.
She
would find a
way to save Bára.

The determination rose in her, strong and
vital, much like the frustrated impatience that had always plagued
her. It wanted to burst free, to release and whip about, as it had
when she faced off with Yar. And yes, as she’d felt trying to reach
her mother. Not only absorbing and calming, but also pushing out,
striking and hooking.

This is who I am.

“
Ponen,”
the being whispered.
“Ponen Trom. You are of us and we of you. Welcome.”

“W
hat we need,” Arnon said,
sitting down with a rolled-up parchment and an excited mien, “is a
better, faster way of getting water to the crops, if we have any
hope of one more harvest before winter.”

“The king is still eating his supper,” Natly
informed him, grabbing the wooden wine carafe before Arnon could
and pouring more for Lonen, and then for herself.

A measly meal it had been, too. Lonen almost
wished for Bára’s odd array of plants and grains over the stringy
meat from an aged animal he didn’t want to try to identify. He even
had a yen for that cheese of Oria’s, with that tangy-sweet honey
complementing the smoky rancid flavor—a contrary combination that
shouldn’t appeal but somehow lingered in his mind. Much as the
woman did.

“The king is done eating,” he said,
schooling his face not to return Arnon’s amused grin. Natly had a
short temper for such teasing and Arnon seemed to be entertained by
poking at her. One would think they’d have other things to worry
about, with all the problems on their plates—besides sparse and
unappealing food—but apparently not. “Better and faster water to
the crops would be excellent, but how?”

Arnon pushed aside the plates, Natly
protesting at his lack of manners, and spread out the parchment.
“Aqueducts,” he proclaimed.

Lonen studied the neat drawing. There was
Arill’s temple in the center, the squares of residences surrounding
it and the palace, then the rings of moats—all circumnavigated by
lines that reminded him of the old network of paths that had once
connected the cabins and compounds. Indeed, several followed along
historic roadways that led to the settlements farther down the
valley, where the forests had been cleared to make fields for
farming.

For the past weeks since he’d returned to
Dru, Lonen had thought about food night and day—how much they
needed, how little they had, even with the greatly reduced
population, how they could grow, barter, or buy more. Livestock
needed grain to eat, too. Slaughtering them all for meat instead of
feeding them apparently wouldn’t work because then they wouldn’t
have enough to make calves, kids, and what-have-yous in the spring.
Even chickens needed grain to lay eggs—both for eating and hatching
to grow into more chickens. The formerly abundant game in the
forests had moved with the water sources, so the hunters came back
empty-handed or with squirrels and rabbits that made for watery
stews. The fisheries had dried up with the drained lakes. They were
exploring harvesting fish from the sea, though the tides made that
a daunting and dangerous effort.

Lonen had learned more than he’d ever wanted
to about animal husbandry and population dynamics, not to mention
farming practices which turned out to be far more complicated than
planting seeds and cutting down the plants when they were ready. It
made him weary to contemplate the mountain of obstacles facing
them. By contrast, mowing down golems with his axe seemed far
simpler.

Perhaps one reason why men turned to war
when farming failed. A sobering thought.

“What am I looking at?”

“See, with Lake Scandamalion more than half
empty”—Arnon indicated on the map the closest remaining body of
fresh water a day’s journey away—“we need to access the more
distant lakes or we’ll just be facing the same problem again before
we know it. But that would take a lot of bodies and time, hauling
water from that far—bodies we need in the fields or here in the
city, patching up the treasure boxes for winter.”

He and Arnon had taken to referring to the
ramshackle collection of falling-down construction that made up the
refugee houses clustered around the temple—and now outside the
moats, too—as
treasure boxes
, for their own lackluster
creations when they’d been boys. With cold weather looming and what
little resources the Destrye still possessed concentrated around
the city, people stayed, throwing up whatever shelter they could
manage. Or fighting with their neighbors to take theirs.

“So we dig…ditches?”

“No—this is better. Jordan brought this idea
to me, from Arill’s teachings. We build big troughs, essentially,
on stilts and let the water roll downhill from, say, the Seven
Lakes here, all the way to where we need it.” He traced his finger
along the lines to the farmlands, then another to the city.

A rill of excitement burned through Lonen’s
fatigue. “We build them out of wood?”

“Exactly! A good thing that the sun here
doesn’t scorch as it does in Bára, or we’d have to put a cover on
it.” Arnon frowned at the plans. “Otherwise there’d be none left by
the time it reached its destination.”

“And good that we have no golems or
fire-breathing dragons to combat,” Lonen added, meaning it as a
joke, though it fell flat, Arnon wincing at the reminder.

“You and those tales of magic and dragons,”
Natly teased, slipping her arm through his. “I never know what to
believe anymore. Warrior’s stories, where the battles grow bolder
and more glorious with each telling.”

Out of habit, Lonen covered her hand with
his, smiling down at her as she expected. She’d begun to look more
like her old self, before the Trail of New Hope. No longer
careworn, her nails once again sparkled with jewels, her hair
elaborately coiled and gleaming with oil rather than hanging down
her back in tangles. The people needed hope and to look up to them,
she insisted, so they used water to bathe at least weekly. She
wanted to look the part of Queen of the Destrye, to make him proud,
though they’d made no plans to marry. She’d mentioned the midwinter
celebration as the perfect time. As that would be well after any
further efforts could be made to supplement the late harvest, Lonen
hadn’t objected outright.

Actually, he hadn’t said anything either
way. He’d teased her about marrying him long before the Battle of
Bára, and she’d always put him off. Now she behaved as if they’d
been engaged all along.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry
Natly, but it felt like a moot point if they were all bound to
starve. She didn’t understand his reticence to make plans, though,
and to press the issue she’d stopped warming his bed after the
first few nights. She claimed his nightmares kept her awake, with
his thrashing about and yelling, but she’d made it clear that a
wedding date would be sufficient to entice her back. Lonen,
however, was frankly relieved to sleep alone, and not only because
so many of those dreams that drove Natly away involved Oria.

Guilt and a level of mortification chewed at
him, that his fascination with the sorceress continued to plague
him, making him imagine the scent of night-blooming lilies even
with Natly’s qinn filling his head, with her supple body pleasuring
his. It made him irritable, which Natly put down to the pressures
of kingship. But her pride in him, and the delighted plans she made
to become queen, rankled more than the sand dunes of decisions that
piled up daily. She hadn’t been so enthusiastic to wed him before
he was king.

Something that proved as impossible as Oria
to forget.

“How long to build it?” he asked Arnon.

“That depends. There’s a number of options
and decisions to make on prioritizing.”

Of course there were. “All right, walk me
through it.”

“You’re not staying up all night talking
again,” Natly protested. When Arnon made a choking noise and Lonen
raised a brow at her, she folded her arms, pushing up her luscious
bosom. “You need your rest. And I thought perhaps we could…spend
some time together.”

She looked so disappointed that Lonen
regretted his uncharitable thoughts. Of course the nightmares
bothered her. She needed her sleep, too. He cupped her cheek and
kissed her, inhaling the qinn to remind himself that Natly was the
woman he craved. Was supposed to crave. “Perhaps tomorrow night. If
we’re to build these aqueducts to irrigate the late-season harvest
in time to keep our plantings from dying, Arnon is right that we
need to start right away. You go to bed.”

“All right.” She pushed out that lower lip
and gazed at him through lush black lashes. “But you know where to
find me. Don’t keep him up all night.” She pointed a jeweled nail
at Arnon and flounced off.

Lonen watched the sway of her hips that once
so beguiled him, missing that feeling and disliking the creeping
realization that Natly would make a terrible queen. She was nothing
like Oria, who would have wanted to learn about the aqueducts.
Which he needed to focus on, as thoughts of Oria being his queen
instead of Natly were not only impossibly distracting, but
impossible, full stop. He studied the aqueduct lines that went to
the farmlands. A longer distance, but more critical than getting
more water to a people already accustomed to rationing. “So, if we
build these first, then would—”

“Lonen.” Arnon put a hand over the map,
covering the lines and forcing Lonen to look at him. “You can’t
marry her.”

Lonen blinked at him, dragging his eager
thoughts from the logistics of building aqueducts. Had Arnon
somehow read his thoughts? “Who—Natly?”

Arnon gusted out an impatient breath. “Of
course Natly! Who else would I be talking about?”

Who indeed?
“I’m not marrying Natly.
Not anytime soon, anyway,” he amended.

“That’s not what she thinks. Nor what she
tells everyone.”

“I don’t control what she thinks and
does.”

“Exactly the problem. Natly does as she
pleases, always has and always will. She would have made a decent
princess, but she won’t make a good queen. Don’t do it, brother of
mine.”

“She’s strong as a horse, can bear many
children, understands and loves Dru and the Destrye—what’s the
problem?”

“The problem is that being queen means
not
doing as she pleases. It’s more than wearing pretty
dresses and sucking your cock, Lonen! These are dire times. Better
for you to lead our people alone than be distracted by her.”

The words prickled and Lonen burned to lob
back a few of his own. But Arnon had that much right—being king
meant not doing as he pleased, either. “I thought we were
discussing aqueducts and building schedules.”

Arnon held his gaze, then nodded, accepting
the truce. “Good. I’ve made a timetable.”

“Y
ou come before the temple
as a supplicant,” High Priestess Febe intoned, “sponsored by our
daughter, former priestess Rhianna. Do you, Princess Oria of Bára,
plead to be granted the mask of priestess yourself?”

“I do, High Priestess. You have tested my
hwil
and see that I am ready to wear the mask,” Oria
replied, her face serenely composed.