Path of Honor (25 page)

She had been so reserved, with everyone but Kaval, because he smiled at her and made her feel special for being allowed a sliver of his attention. And she had licked it up. Kaval had seen how little she valued herself and set out to take advantage of her.

~You were not very kind
, Esper repeated in that slow, dry tone.

~I wanted her to be strong
, Juhrnus insisted. And it was true, but there had been more to it than that. He had been . . . jealous. He flushed in the dimness of the entryway, and he hugged Esper against his chest like a shield.

~She needs you now,
Esper said, his mindvoice a complex blend of sympathy, warning and affection.

~She doesn’t need you to change her path,
Esper said, an impatient bite in his voice.

Juhrnus made a frustrated sound.
~So what do you want me to do about that?

“Quit beating around the bush! Tell me what it is you want me to do!” Juhrnus’s voice rang from the blank stone walls, and he flinched, looking about to see if anyone had heard. He heard a sudden gabbling of voices up the corridor like the sound of geese. He made his way in the other direction to a set of stairs leading back into the interior of the palace.

~You are worse than Sodur or Reisil, I swear to the Lady. Can’t get a straight answer out of any of you,
he fumed as he climbed, suddenly feeling the clinging, cold damp of his clothing, the burning ache in his knee, and the beginning of a headache.

Juhrnus stumbled to a halt, his attention snagging on Esper’s abrupt questions like skin on rusty nails.
~I serve the Lady. Her enemies are my enemies
.

Esper did not reply for a long moment.
~I don’t think it will be so easy to know them.

~I will decide,
Juhrnus repeated.

~Yes.
Esper waited a heartbeat. Two.
And then whose side will you fight on?

Whose side will
you
fight on
. Not
we,
but
you
. Juhrnus remembered Upsakes’s weirmart, the little creature’s misery at her
ahalad-kaaslane’s
choices. In the end, she had freed Reisil and Juhrnus from their bonds so that Reisil could save Esper. She had known what was right, what the Lady demanded, even when her
ahalad-kaaslane
had not. Juhrnus looked down into Esper’s unblinking yellow eyes.

It wasn’t enough. Esper continued to stare, curiously reserved, as though wanting Juhrnus to make up his mind alone, uninfluenced. But make his mind up to what? Juhrnus frowned, sorting through their conversation. Esper had said that Reisil needed him. That he must choose sides. Understanding broke over him like a frigid ocean wave: Esper was asking him to pledge his allegiance. Certainly Juhrnus served the Blessed Lady with all his heart, but Upsakes had committed unspeakable acts in the Lady’s name. And now the Lady had withdrawn from Kodu Riik. So this wasn’t just about answering Her call; it was also about figuring out what She would want and doing it. Or believing enough in someone to let that person show him the way.

Reisil. Reisil? He almost laughed. She was as confused as he was. He almost said so, but the flare of ire in Esper’s gaze made him mute.

Reisil.

She was the one whom the Lady had chosen—tark and
ahalad-kaaslane
. A pairing not heard of since the legendary Talis and Galt. And then the Lady had granted Reisil power enough to destroy a hundred wizards in a single blow. How could he laugh? Reisil
was
confused, disillusioned and scared too. But she was looking for answers, even in the wrong places. And when she found them . . . what then?

Juhrnus’s mind roved over myriad possibilities, spiraling around and around until he was tangled in place by the only thing he could know for certain: the Lady had bestowed such a power on Reisil with care and for a purpose. Reisil was to be the Lady’s champion.

He touched Esper lightly on the head.
~Reisil. I choose Reisil. She is the Lady’s beacon.

“
H
mmm?” Vertina Emelovi murmured absently, her attention roving across the impatient guests. Neither the sorcerers nor her suitor from Patverseme had yet arrived. She suppressed a frown of irritation and nodded to Lord Marshal Vare, who paused to return her greeting, the bow done to just the right degree for first-tier nobility to the Iisand’s eldest offspring, though not his heir. The distinction was unmistakable. He walked on, halting a moment as he encountered his son. Metyein cas Vare scanned the woman on his father’s arm up and down and stood aside, his face contemptuous. The Lord Marshal said something Emelovi couldn’t hear, and Metyein snapped back as if slapped. Then he spun around and walked away.

“I said, I heard they sleep all mounded together in one bed like a litter of kittens, and that they wear nothing at all beneath their robes!” The Preili’s high voice cut across Emelovi’s musings, sounding both scandalized and enthralled.

Emelovi flicked a glance at the middle-aged woman. “Indeed. I had not heard that.”

“Oh, yes, and it’s said that—”

“I think,” Emelovi began, and then stopped. Aare did not like her saying what she thought. “I thought I saw the Ueles waving, Dajam Kerimal.” The other woman gave a little squawk and spun around, standing on tiptoe to peer over the crowd. Seeing her husband engrossed in a conversation, she began to step away, and then turned back, her face flushing.

“Oh! Won’t you please excuse me, Dazien. My husband is a most impatient man.” Emelovi nodded a gracious dismissal and the Preili scurried off into the throng. Emelovi breathed out a soft sigh and retreated to the royal dais. She signaled the steward standing nearby that she did not want to be disturbed, and turned her attention back to watching the guests.

The Great Hall and its reception rooms were groaning at the seams, and it was becoming uncomfortably hot. Every single member of Koduteel’s local nobility had turned out, despite the inclement weather. Many
ahalad-kaaslane
were in attendance as well. Astonishingly enough, the two groups were not engaging in open warfare—rather they clumped in startling collections, united in their vitriolic suspicion of the sorcerers. Aare presided over one group made up of a dozen of the most powerful and influential Kajes and Dajames in the three tiers, and several of the most prestigious and respected
ahalad-kaaslane.

Emelovi blinked astonishment. Kijal Prentin, a crony of the Lord Marshal, rarely deigned to wait on her brother. But it appeared the coming of the sorcerers had given Aare the lever he needed to gain the Kijal’s favor. It was no secret that Aare didn’t trust the sorcerers any more than he trusted the wizards, any more than he trusted that
ahalad-kaaslane
, Reisiltark. And the rest of the court knew it. If the furious nobles thought Aare would send the sorcerers away once he was made regent, they would rally to his banner. The situation couldn’t have worked better had he invited the Scallacians himself. Not that the Lord Marshal would have permitted him into those discussions. He held the reins of Kodu Riik while her father was in retirement, and he had no intention of allowing Aare any foothold into power. Though bringing the sorcerers here could do exactly that.

Watching Aare, Emelovi felt a thrill of pride for him, and beneath it, a familiar apprehension. His face flamed with charismatic energy, his gray eyes and patrician features so like their father’s.
How I’ve missed him!
Aare’s hair fell loose in crisp gold waves down to his shoulders. Emelovi shared her brother’s gray eyes, but her hair was a limp, dark brown, which she rinsed in a dark mahogany henna to lend it life. They both wore the midnight blue of the royal Varakamber house, the necks and sleeves edged with tiny gold gryphons. A none-too-subtle reminder of their rank, that sooner or later, Aare
would
inherit the throne.

Emelovi felt a flutter of cold down her spine. He was her brother, and she owed him her support. She’d always known he’d inherit the throne someday. She’d never thought it could come so soon. She thought she’d be safely married and away from him. But now—

Long ago Emelovi had learned to appease Aare, obeying his demands without question. Even as a boy he had been ruthless. Her breath caught in remembered pain and fury. She had had a puppy. Her father had given it to her as a Nasadh gift when she was eleven, three years before the war had begun with Patverseme. The poor thing hadn’t lived long enough for her to name it.

Aare had wanted her to dance with the nephew of Ueles Prensik—some sort of payment for a bet he’d lost. She had refused. The boy was older than she and had hot, sticky fingers and bad breath. Aare had not said anything, but had scooped up the puppy and locked her door as he left. Ten minutes later he reopened the door, his face cold and unsmiling. Footmen found the puppy at the bottom of the main stairs, his neck broken from the fall. Emelovi had not cried, and she had refused her father’s offer of another animal. Instead, she had danced with the nephew of Ueles Prensik. She had even endured his hot, groping touch and the soft, slimy thrust of his tongue when he hauled her behind a curtain to kiss her. Aare had watched, his face remote and pitiless. He did not accept anything less than total submission—not then, not now.

“Your pardon, Dazien. May I offer you some chilled wine?”

Emelovi started and began an automatic smile. But her face stiffened and froze as she recognized the speaker. Like a ghost out of her nightmare.

“Kaj Prensik. Thank you.” She took the glass he held out to her, casting a sidelong glance at the steward. His attention was absorbed by the man dangling from his arm. Kai Halvasti grasped the steward’s liveried sleeve, speaking so quickly that flecks of spit flew from his mouth. Emelovi looked back at Ueles Prensik, and he smiled, that same smug, oily smile he had given her just before he kissed her nine years ago. Very well planned and executed, she fumed. Halvasti was a menace.

“You look well, Kaj Prensik. How is your mother?” She kept her voice cool and distant.

He gave a dismissive shrug. “Well enough, I suppose. She did not come with me to town this winter. Still decked out in her widow’s weeds.”

“Losing your father has been a trial for her, I am sure.”

“Been almost six months.”

“An eternity,” Emelovi agreed sardonically, rolling the stem of her glass in her fingers. “I’m sure my father would agree.”

Prensik reddened. “It’s not as if they got along. Hadn’t had a civil word to say to each other for years,” he said. “That won’t happen to me. Woman I marry is going to know her place.” The smile he gave her was suggestive, and Emelovi affected not to understand.

“Really? How very fortunate for you to find such a paragon.”

Unmindful of her scorn, Prensik blundered on. “Woman I want will have been raised to obey her husband, serve him properly. Mine’s going to give me a passel of children. Going to have a mob of heirs, not like my uncle, passing the title to my father.”

Emelovi couldn’t help the flush that heated her cheeks, remembering how she had bent to Aare and let this worm rub himself against her.

Prensik’s leer broadened as if he read her mind. He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue and leaned forward, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “Don’t need to worry about this Patverseme fellow. Your brother’s not going to let the likes of him put his filthy hands on such a prize as you. He’d rather slit his own throat.”

“I am sure I don’t understand you,” Emelovi said in a suddenly strident voice as she stepped back, bumping against a low divan within the sheltering wing curtains.

Prensik followed her, his voice low. “Aare said you were too innocent to know what was going on. But don’t be frightened. It’s the way marriages happen. The Patversemese boy is nothing but
skraa
,” he said crudely. “Aare won’t waste you on such a limp prick.”

“I see,” she said, and she did see. That Aare needed Prensik’s support and was dangling her like bait. Just whom did he really want to take it? Her lips pinched together. She doubted that he knew. His choice for her husband depended entirely on which direction his plans went. She was on the board, but the game was too young to commit her anywhere.

Emelovi could feel herself turning pale and clammy beneath her powder and rouge, and wanted nothing more than to find a chamber pot to retch into. Prensik noted her distress and slid a proprietary hand under her elbow to support her as she swayed. She wanted to jerk away, but was conscious of Aare’s rebuking stare drilling her from across the room. She could hear him as if he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. He would not forgive her if she caused a spectacle, if she interfered with his plans. He was not above giving her to Prensik merely as a punishment.