Lonen's War (27 page)

Perhaps that had happened already, and that
was why Lonen no longer felt as he once had for Natly. Why it was
Oria who prowled through his dreams. Why he looked forward to
seeing her again with an almost savage glee that gnawed at his
heart—though that came from hatred. All through the counting of the
dead, the damage to the precious crops, the senseless destruction,
he’d fumed over Oria’s betrayal and relished the moment he’d
confront her.

In his saner moments, he told himself that
he desired answers. Or revenge. That the fiery longing to wrap his
hands around her throat came from the need to choke the pretty lies
from her, not the burning need to feel her skin under his
hands.

In his less sane moments, he knew only that
he had no choice.

He would journey back to Bára alone and do
what he could to save the Destrye.

“You’ll be a good king,” he told Arnon,
handing him their father’s sword, hilt first, aware of the relief
of giving it up unworn. He started to lift the wreath from his
head, but his brother stopped him.

“No,” he said, with a firm shake of his
head. “Wear it. Make those cursed Bárans see you for the king you
are, not they barbarian they name us.”

“You’ll need it, if I don’t return.”

“If you don’t return,” Arnon replied with
grim conviction, “none of us will need anything ever again.”

“O
ria?” Juli bowed her head
in unusually somber grace, grave concern wafting off her—though the
red curls springing out from behind her mask added a note of
irreverence. Seeing with sgath instead of one’s eyes changed the
way colors appeared. The mask forced Oria into seeing more of the
resonance of light on objects, with the wavelengths of the sun very
different from the rays reflected by Sgatha or Grienon. But Juli’s
hair was a particularly impudent shade of orange, which matched her
unruly character, so Oria always saw it that way in her mind.

“Come sit, Juli. Give me your news.”
Focusing on her task, Oria finished working seed oil into Chuffta’s
hide while Juli crossed the rooftop terrace. Simple tasks like
that, ones she’d done so often that she could accomplish them with
her eyes closed, made for good practice. She had to consciously
concentrate on “seeing” her work, looking for the spots she’d
missed, rather than feeling them. Working on Chuffta added an extra
layer of difficulty, as he radiated magic on another spectrum
entirely.

Amazing how much she hadn’t seen before.

“Captain Ercole wishes to speak with you.”
Juli didn’t sit, instead gesturing to the inner chambers. “He waits
at your door. I wasn’t sure of your equanimity today.”

In all truth, she felt amazingly good.
Tired, yes, from all the practicing and studying, but the morning
sun soothed and relaxed her, so that she felt as oiled and supple
as Chuffta. “Send him in. It must be important news for him to
bring it himself.” Or secret news.

“I hope not. We’ve had enough grave news to
last several lifetimes,” Juli tossed over her shoulder, already on
her way to admit the Captain of the City Guard.

Oria watched him approach while seeming not
to. Another aspect of the mask she’d never understood, that it
allowed her perception to move out in every direction. Where her
eyes pointed wasn’t necessarily where she looked, at all. Ercole
had survived the Siege of the Destrye, as the poets had come to
call it, where so many had not, and she gave him credit for giving
her the backing of the city guard, though he’d never admit to it.
His usually vital energy thrummed with nerves. Oh yes, something
had him gravely concerned.

He crossed the terrace and knelt, removing
his helm and bowing his head. “Your Highness.”

She managed to restrain the impulse to
correct him. She wasn’t queen, not yet, despite all her progress.
But, finally masked, she at least stood in the way of Yar taking
the throne of Bára—an effective obstacle despite the machinations
of Lapo and Febe. Though she and Yar raced each other in a bizarre
competition to acquire ideal mates, neither of them had yet located
such a person. Having gone through the priestesses of Bára—even
testing those not yet masked—Yar had departed for the sister cities
to search for a bride. So far Oria had not found a priest whose
touch she could abide, but as Yar’s senior, she outranked him,
barely. Not queen, but as close as anyone in Bára came to the
status, so she allowed the fiction.

“
What people believe becomes real.”
Chuffta’s mind-voice hummed in relaxed tones.

“Captain Ercole,” she acknowledged. “What a
pleasant surprise.”

“Not so much, I’m afraid, Your Highness. I
bring unwelcome news.”

Oria allowed the sudden tension to flow
through and out, keeping her attention on the task of oiling
Chuffta inch by inch. Needlework, sitting still, and
meditating—none of that worked for her yet, but she continued to
find for herself the things that did.

“Oh?” she asked.

“A man at the gates claiming to be the King
of the Destrye seeks an audience with you.”

That took her aback. “Claiming? You should
recall King Lonen’s face well enough, Captain Ercole. Unless they
have a new king?” The thought stabbed at her with surprising force.
Lonen’s fate shouldn’t matter to her, though it seemed to. An
emotion to set aside and examine later. Another trick she’d
learned—to delay her emotional responses for private venting.

“I should say that the man appears to be
Lonen, but he shows no sign of being the Destrye king,” Ercole
allowed. “He is entirely alone and without any badge of office. I’m
afraid he has demanded an audience with you, formal or informal,
and said to remind you that you made him a promise.”

Aha.

“I advise against receiving him, Your
Highness,” Ercole continued. “The man seems angry to the point of
derangement. He has no forces to back his demands. If you shut the
gates against him, he’ll have no recourse.”

“Except that I did make a promise,” she said
gently, working her way down the soft membrane of Chuffta’s wing.
“I will receive him. Make certain he’s given safe passage through
Bára. Does anyone else know of this visit?”

Ercole glanced up at her and away. Those who
didn’t wear masks were discomfited by them. Sometimes that worked
to her advantage. Other times…she wasn’t sure. “No, my men brought
the news directly to me and have kept him out of sight in the
guardroom.”

“Thank you. Commend them for me.”

“His arrival will become common knowledge
once he enters the audience chambers.”

“Which is why I won’t receive him
there.”

“Not the old council chambers?” Ercole
sounded aghast, uneasy concern rippling off him. Though she’d never
made it an official edict, she’d avoided using that room since the
day of the Trom’s arrival. Showing his bravado, Yar used it on
occasion, for his “private meetings,” but she discerned from his
chaotic energy afterwards that he liked it no more than she did.
Clearly the rest of the council felt the same way, because they’d
started using a different room, never once complaining, though it
was smaller and tended to swelter in the afternoon sun.

“I’ll see him here. And if you would
personally escort him, I would appreciate that.” Which meant that
he would keep Lonen out of sight of curious eyes.

Ercole hesitated. “Your Highness—I don’t
mean to question you, but—”

“If you don’t wish to make the climb a
second time, I understand.” She deliberately misunderstood him. “I
trust whoever you send as escort.”

“I’ll do it, Your Highness,” he grumbled,
knees creaking as he stood.

She smiled to herself, letting the amusement
mingle with the piercing sorrow of missing her father, and setting
to oiling Chuffta’s other wing, working at seeing each fine tarsal
bone while also observing the garden. The jewelbirds zipped about
in the waxing heat, visiting the heavy-headed lilies. Soon the
blossoms would be gone and then where would the birds go?

“
They can fly away, to find other sources
of nectar.”

“If only the Bárans could do the same.”

Slowly, carefully, like easing herself into
an overly hot bath, she let her thoughts move to the anticipation
of seeing Lonen. Emotions tumbled up, ready to swamp her thoughts
with dread, terror, a curious tingle of excitement, and that sexual
heat he’d evoked. Mostly, however, she braced herself to make good
decisions.

Because Lonen could only be in Bára for one
reason.

“
What will you do?”

“Keep my promise,” she replied absently,
spreading the delicate membrane between the final two tarsals, so
thin light shone through, the blood vessels hot within the skin and
bone, flowing with native magic.

“
That may require much of you.”

“I have no choice.” She wryly acknowledged
to herself the irony of saying the very thing she’d chided Lonen
for. As another exercise in concentration, Oria extended her
perception beyond the tower. Because she expected Lonen, and via
the stairs to the tower, she allowed herself the cheat of sensing
in that direction only. Soon enough he impinged on her awareness, a
seething sun of virulent anger, fantasies of revenge, and
determination. The exuberance of his masculine energy momentarily
overwhelmed her, and Chuffta wrapped the slim tip of his tail
around her wrist, which felt something like a failure.

“
It’s not wrong to need my help. That’s
why I’m your Familiar.”

“And I’m grateful.”

The impact of Lonen’s forceful personality
diminished, as she allowed it to filter away, venting it through
Chuffta and back into the magic below Bára. It would be a good day
when she could figure out something useful to do with it, but at
least by the time the King of the Destrye stepped onto her terrace,
she’d regained much of her calm.

“Your Highness,” Ercole intoned with more
than his usual gravity, “as you requested, King Lonen of the
Destrye.”

“Thank you, Captain. You may go.”

His rebellious need to refuse, to stay and
protect her, punched out and was snuffed just as quickly. With a
bow, Ercole withdrew, and Oria indulged in transferring the bulk of
her attention to examining Lonen.

He felt different than before, though that
burning vitality hadn’t changed. If anything, he waxed brighter and
stronger, vivid with frustrated impatience, threaded through with
dark desire. It was like a complex bubble surrounding him,
ever-shifting, confusing her newly won perceptions. To give her
sgath a rest, she backed off her focus, to observe more of his
surface. He’d traded his furs and cloak for lighter leathers,
anticipating the climate of Bára this time, she imagined, and wore
the dust of the journey.

Oddly, she wanted to pull off the mask, to
look on him again with her eyes, to compare that visual with what
she recalled from weeks before, when she’d been an entirely
different person.

Lonen cleared his throat and she realized he
thought she hadn’t noticed him. Out of courtesy, she turned her
mask in his direction. “King Lonen. I did not expect to meet with
you on my terrace ever again.”

The bubble of energy surrounding him popped,
spewing entirely rage and betrayed grief. “Then you shouldn’t have
sent your creatures after us.”

Giving Chuffta a last pat, she asked him to
go to the balustrade to observe from a distance more comfortable
for the Destrye. She wiped the oil off her hands, then poured juice
for him into the crystal goblet she’d used when they’d met before.
“I didn’t.”

He swore, something vile-sounding in a
dialect not their common trade tongue. She needed no translation,
however, given the feeling behind it. “So you deny that—”

She cut him off. “Come and sit. Take
refreshment after your long journey. You can tell me what happened,
so that I may confirm or deny from knowledge rather than
ignorance.”

He paused at that, shifting his weight, the
blankness of surprise canceling out the stronger emotions for the
moment. Then his decision clicked into place and he moved
forward—nothing shocking there, as Lonen always seemed to surge
ahead once he decided on a course of action—and he closed the
distance between them in several strides. Oria steeled herself not
to flinch away from the force of his physical proximity.

He stopped short of actually touching her,
reeling back the impulse with palpable force of will, then sat on
the bench cornered to her, with a huff of breath that sounded very
like a laugh, though his face remained stony.

“You’re wearing one of those masks,” he
said, not at all what she expected.

She handed him the glass of juice. “Yes. A
mark of my new rank.”

“As queen?”

“Very nearly.” She didn’t elaborate more,
knowing he wouldn’t like hearing that she’d advanced as a
sorceress. And the Báran legalities that intertwined marriage,
magic, and the throne would be too difficult to explain to an
outsider. “As we discussed before, such things are more complicated
in Bára.”

“Isn’t everything?”

She sighed for the truth of that, though
those complications at least kept the current power struggle
between her and Yar at a détente.

Lonen drank deeply of the cooled juice, a
ripple of pleasure in him further dampening the sharper emotions,
then held up the glass to the sun. “I have thought about these
goblets, made of such a strange substance.”

“We call it glass. Made from sand.”

“Surely that’s not so. It looks nothing like
sand.”

She waved a hand at the surrounding desert.
“One resource we have in ample supply. It changes when melted. The
golems were made in a similar way, with some changes.”

The Destrye barked out a laugh. “
Some
changes indeed. Only foul magic such as you have here could create
a something so obscene.”