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“Humor me, Ildiko.” She might be fine; he was not and itched to quit the palace, the city and most definitely his dangerous family for the relative peace and safety of Saggara.

  She stared at him for a moment. “As you wish,” she said. “I’ll have Sinhue pull out my riding leathers.”

  He nodded and instructed the servant to pack as many of Ildiko’s things as she could and have the chests delivered to the stables.

  This time when he stormed through the palace corridors, he sought out his father in the council chambers. The king sat at the head of the council table, a conclave of ministers on either side of him as they reviewed and discussed the sea of documents spread across the table surface.

  Brishen genuflected. “Your Majesty, may I have a moment of your time?”

  Djedor waved his son to his feet and eyed him with a milky gaze. “Make it quick.”

  “I request permission to leave Haradis and return to Saggara in the next hour.”

  The king scowled. “Have you heard something about Belawat that I haven’t?”

  Brishen shook his head. “No, but I wish to return to my estate as soon as possible.” He offered no more explanation. Djedor might be old, but he was crafty and always informed about the goings-on in his castle. The palace was stuffed to the rafter with spies who reported back to him on every detail.

  “You don’t wish to bid your mother good-bye?”

  They played this game every time Brishen approached his father. Djedor usually came away disappointed by his younger son’s lack of reaction to his needling about Secmis. This time, still lightheaded with the urge to commit matricide, Brishen didn’t bother hiding his anger.

  “Unless I can skewer her with impunity, I don’t want anywhere near the bitch,” he stated shortly. As one, the ministers gasped, but the king only laughed. “She tried to kill my wife.”

  Djedor twirled a writing quill between his clawed fingers. “Is the Gauri girl still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Secmis didn’t try very hard.” He waved the quill at Brishen, his interest in his son’s actions quickly waning. “Go if you want. I’ll send a messenger with copies of the final shipping agreements. Thanks to your marriage, we’ve secured three ships dedicated to the transport of amaranthine to several kingdoms, not including Gaur. Try to keep your ugly wife alive long enough for us to obtain the last document sealing the agreement. After that, she’s welcome to drop dead any time.”

  Seething at his father’s indifference though he expected nothing more, Brishen bowed and left the council chamber. In all honesty, he was grateful for his father’s willing permission. He could have denied Brishen’s request and kept him and Ildiko trapped in Haradis indefinitely from sheer perversity. He wasn’t above such behavior.

  By the time Anhuset secured arrangements for horses, wagons, and a contingent of guards, midnight had waxed and waned. Brishen found Ildiko outside the stable gates next to the saddled mount she’d ridden from Pricid to Haradis. Anhuset stood next to her, alongside Sinhue also dressed for travel.

  Brishen bowed over Ildiko’s hand. “One handmaiden only?”

  She nodded toward Sinhue. “She wanted to come, and I only need one. Besides, Kirgipa’s mother needs her more than I do, especially now that Talumey is gone.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  This time he caught the slyness in her smile. “I did. A potato. It was delicious. We didn’t save you one.”

  Her teasing lightened his heart. Though she wasn’t easy on the eyes, she was easy on his soul. He kissed her forehead. “You’re a good wife, Ildiko.”

  “Yes I am,” she agreed. Her eyes slid toward their inner corners in a cross-eyed stare.

  He flinched and heard both Anhuset and Sinhue gasp. “Ildiko...”

  She uncrossed her eyes and winked. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

  Their party was a league out of the city before a messenger tracked them down. Brishen recognized his mother’s coat of arms on the rider’s livery. The messenger passed a scroll to Anhuset who delivered it to Brishen.

  Brishen barely glanced at it. He was familiar with his mother’s handwriting as well as her demands he return to Haradis at once. Ink blots marred the writing, and there were holes in the parchment where she’d obviously jabbed the quill tip through the paper as she wrote.

  He fished a document of his own out of one of the packs tied to his saddle. His father had only mumbled his irritation at Brishen’s insistence on written authorization of departure from court, stamped with the royal seal—in anticipation of Secmis doing exactly what he expected.

  “Give this to Her Majesty,” he instructed the messenger. “Then make yourself scarce afterwards if you want to live.” He watched the rider spur his horse in the direction of Haradis.

  “What did her message say?”

  Brishen glanced at Ildiko next to him. The moonlight had a way of changing her. It didn’t make her pretty by Kai standards, but the shadows it cast across her features hollowed her cheeks, bled the pink from her skin and the red from her hair. He liked the colors of night on her.

  “She commanded I return home.”

  Her puzzled expression grew easier to read each time she revealed it. “But why? I have a hard time believing she misses you.”

  Nearby, Anhuset snorted. Brishen turned to stare at the rider’s diminishing figure. “Hardly. That wasn’t a display of affection but of outrage. I didn’t ask her leave to depart Haradis.” He motioned to Anhuset. “Keep moving. Milling about in the middle of the road won’t get us to Saggara any faster.”

  They traveled for five nights after that without incident, riding across a wide plain covered in a sea of dropseed grass. Tall as a horse’s flanks, the grass stems swayed and caressed as they passed, whispering ghostly endearments in the darkness. In the distance, tussocks rose like static swales on the dropseed ocean, and Brishen pointed out a tor crowned by slender menhirs gleaming white in the moonlight.

  “Raised by one of the Elder races—the Gullperi, or so the legend goes. The last clan vanished from these lands five hundred years ago.”

  “You told me the Kai are one of the Elder races.” Ildiko’s blue eyes were silver in the darkness.

  “Yes, though our magic is but a fraction of what the Gullperi’s was. I’ve been to the crown on the tor. Power still breathes there.”

  He’d gone only once and returned home with the scent of magery heavy in his nostrils and strong on his skin. Anhuset swore he glowed in the dark for a fortnight following that foray.

  Brishen’s excitement grew as the miles flew behind them, and they drew closer to Saggara. A gentle slope on the plain rose, and the estate came into view. Fronted by young Solaris oaks planted by Kai gardeners decades earlier and flanked by a wild orchard of sour oranges, the sprawling fortress shone as pale under the moon as the menhirs on the tor. Once his grandfather’s summer palace, Saggara had passed to Brishen by Djedor’s edict, and he’d embraced it as his own.

  A pair of crows fluttered skyward out of the orchard, cawing their protests at being woken by the sound of horse’s hooves.

  Their party paused on the highest point of the low rise. Brishen turned to Ildiko whose gaze remained on the fortress. “Welcome to Saggara, wife; my home. And now yours.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After two months of not seeing a single human face except the one in her mirror, Ildiko almost fell down the stairs from the shock of spotting a human traverse the halls of Saggara.

  From her place on the steps, she watch as a man dressed in livery blazoned with an osprey clutching a fish was led past the stairwell and down the hallway where he disappeared beneath the ornately carved arch of a tympanum.

  Ildiko flew down the stairs, thankful she’d adopted the Kai dress of tunic and trousers that allowed her quick movement without the tangle of long skirts. A servant met her as she followed the visitor and his escort.

  The Kai bowed low. “Your Highness, I’ve been asked to fetch you.”

  Ildiko motioned for the servant to follow as she strode by, keeping her quarry in sight as they headed to the manor’s great hall. “Who’s our visitor?”

  “A messenger from High Salure.”

  She paused to stare at the servant. In the time she’d resided with Brishen at Saggara, Ildiko had taken pains to expand her knowledge not only of her adopted culture but of its geography.

  Brishen’s estate consisted of a summer palace turned fortress and a garrison town that supported the fortress with a body of Kai troops and their families. Saggara perched on a strip of the plains that bordered Beladine territory and protected a small population of Kai who farmed fresh-water mussels from a nearby lake and produced the highly prized amaranthine dye coveted by both the Gauri and the Beladine.

  After the attack on the trade road by Beladine mercenaries, Ildiko had shuddered at the idea of being so close and this vulnerable to any of Belawat’s borders. Brishen had been quick to reassure her.

  “We’re quite safe, wife. Despite Belawat’s attempt to break our alliance, there are factions friendly to us within its ranks. Serovek of House Pangion is one of those. His lands border mine, and his people benefit richly from us selling amaranthine to him for a good price. They resell it for a tidy profit to the aristocrats residing in the capital.”

  Ildiko still wasn’t quite convinced of their safety. “What’s to stop them from just invading and seizing control of the lake?”

  Brishen’s gold-coin eyes had glittered in the solar’s semi-darkness. “Because the loss of life and spilling of Beladine blood would be a lot more expensive than just buying the dye from us. That, and we’d poison the lake if necessary. I admire Serovek. He was a Master of the Horse to a Beladine general before he inherited his father’s lands. He understands strategy on both the battlefield and in trade negotiations. He won’t jeopardize his holdings unless forced to by a declaration of war from his king on mine.”

  “Your Highness, the herceges awaits.”

  The servant’s remark interrupted Ildiko’s recollection of that conversation, and this time it was she who followed him to the great hall where Brishen waited with the messenger from High Salure.

  She found him standing by the enormous hearth, holding an unrolled scroll. Candlelight lent a glossy blue sheen to his dark hair and highlighted the teal and coral undertones in his gray skin. He glanced up from reading and smiled as Ildiko drew near. Ildiko hid her own smile at the messenger’s wide-eyed stare as Brishen grasped her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Ildiko,” he said. “We’ve received an invitation from Lord Serovek to take supper with him tomorrow night at High Salure. Would you like to go?”

  Coming from any other man and the question would be rhetorical. In the game of diplomacy, which this invitation was, her wishes were not a consideration. Protocol demanded her presence. But Brishen was like no man Ildiko had ever know—Gauri or Kai. His question was meant sincerely, and he’d accept her answer, even if she chose to decline.

  “I’d love to go,” she said. It would be the first time since her marriage to Brishen that she’d actually had supper instead of breakfast or lunch at night or eaten with another person who wasn’t Kai. She hoped they might serve dishes familiar to her. She’d grown used to most of the Kai cuisine she tried, but she missed those dishes she’d grown up with in the Gauri court.

  Brishen took the scroll to a nearby writing table covered in maps and books. He signed the scroll and returned it to the High Salure messenger. “Tell his lordship we will see him shortly after twilight.”

  The messenger bowed, glanced briefly at Ildiko a second time and followed the Kai servants out of the hall.

  “I’ll wager this isn’t just a night to be spent between comrades catching up on the latest events.” Ildiko joined Brishen at the table and accepted the goblet of wine he poured for her.

  “I think it is partly.” Brishen tapped his goblet against hers in a toast. “Believe it or not, there has been the occasional union between a Kai soldier and a Beladine merchant’s daughter, but the marriage of Kai royalty to either Gauri or Beladine royalty has never occurred until now. We are an odd couple. People will be curious.”

  Ildiko sighed inwardly. Another long evening of even longer stares and furious whispers from those attending the dinner. Their roles would be reversed, with many wondering how Ildiko could stomach the sight of her feral-looking spouse. She knew to expect it, but the knowing didn’t make it any easier.

  “Serovek is a curious sort then?”

  Brishen led her to one of the comfortable couches set near the fireplace and sat down beside her. “Curious in that he believes knowledge is power. The more he knows the less likely he is to be unpleasantly surprised.”

  “A cautious man.”

  “An intelligent one.”

  Ildiko tilted her head to the side. “You like him.”

  Brishen nodded. “I do. He would make a valuable ally and a formidable enemy. Luckily for us both, we are amicable neighbors—for now.”

  They remained in the hall chatting of inconsequential things until Ildiko excused herself and rose. “I’m told two trade wagons have arrived from Haradis carrying food supplies. Your cook has stated one merchant’s scales are suspiciously inaccurate. I’m off to resolve the problem.”

  Brishen abandoned his seat as well and escorted her to the doors. “And I’m riding with a guard to the southeast perimeters. For all that Serovek is friendly to me, others are not. There have been raids into the pasture lands. Horses and cattle stolen. It could just be thieves, but I have my doubts.”

  A frisson of worry tightened Ildiko’s chest. She clasped Brishen’s arm. “You’ll be careful?” It was a silly thing to say. Brishen was an experienced soldier, as adept at fighting as any of the Kai under his command. She’d seen that for herself when he’d saved her from a Beladine raider. Still, she worried over him. He had become precious to her.

  Brishen twined a lock of her hair around his claws, letting it slide over his knuckles. “You would come to my rescue if I needed it?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “I’d be a terrible rescuer, but yes, I wouldn’t hesitate to come to your aid.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, wife. I’ve seen you wield an axe.”

  Ildiko stepped closer and slid her arms over his broad shoulders in a loose embrace. His hair tickled her nose where she laid her head against his neck. “I’m serious, Brishen. Promise me you’ll not get yourself killed or maimed out there.”

  His hands rested hot on her lower back, and he breathed gently against her before stepping away. He’d lost the smile, but there was a gentleness to his hard features. “I can’t make that promise, Ildiko, but I can swear to do my best to come back with all arms and legs attached.”

  She frowned. “Your head too, if you please.”

  Brishen laughed then. “My head too.”

  “When will you return?”

  “Just before midday if I leave now. Plenty of time to sleep before we must ready ourselves to attend Serovek’s supper.”

  Ildiko couldn’t care less about some Beladine noble’s supper gathering. She just wanted to make sure she was awake when Brishen returned home.

  They parted ways outside the great hall, she to the bailey and he to the barracks and stables. She ate lunch and dinner alone, seated on the balcony that led from her room and overlooked the wild orange grove that spread from the back of the estate’s main house to the edge of a bramble field.

  Brishen had given her a brief tour of the grove, or at least as much of a tour as the tangled undergrowth and a pair of slashing sickles allowed. The trees hung heavy with unpicked fruit and swarmed with wasps still flitting about in the encroaching twilight.

  Her husband had graciously braved a branch spiny with thorns and picked an orange for her. It was juicy and sour enough to make the back of her jaw clench and her eyes squinch closed. She loved it.

  Brishen had eyed her with a look of disgust. “Humans eat the most repulsive things.”

  Ildiko chose not to point out the many revolting aspects of baked scarpatine. Instead, she spat an orange seed in her hand and gave Brishen a sweet smile. “I’m guessing the Kai don’t like oranges.”

  “No, not at all.”

  Ildiko had surveyed the wild grove with a measuring eye. “We like oranges, even the sour ones; and the flowers make a lovely perfume and water coveted by women. While not as valuable as your amaranthine, oranges are a currency crop for farmers. It might be worth putting the labor into this grove and selling the produce.”

  He’d shown interest in her idea but hadn’t yet been convinced. Saggara’s labor force was split between its military presence and the civilians who made the amaranthine. He didn’t think he had enough population to spare for the grove, but he’d consider it.

  Ildiko admired the orange trees, their dark silhouettes gilded in silver from the moon’s light. Now and then a crow would shoot up from the canopy of leaves, circle the treetops only to disappear once more into the branches’ hidden sanctuary. The shadow of an owl flew past on silent wings, its eyes as bright as Brishen’s when he laughed at something she said.

  This was the first time they’d been parted from each other for more than an hour or two that wasn’t reserved for sleeping. She missed his presence—the smooth cadence of his voice, the graceful movement of his narrow hands with their lethal black claws, even the scent of his hair when he held her close, and she breathed him into her nostrils.

  She’d sensed the anger simmering inside him from the moment he’d witness her kill the scarpatine until they’d reached Saggara. He’d said nothing to her about the incident other than to inquire about her well-being, but it wasn’t a stretch to assume Secmis had something to do with the nasty insect hiding among Ildiko’s bed sheets. Pride had made her offer up a half-hearted argument against leaving for Saggara right away, but she’d been more than happy to acquiesce to Brishen’s insistence they leave that evening.

  Saggara was an austere place compared to Haradis and lacked many of its creature comforts. It also lacked Secmis which, for Ildiko, made it a place far superior to the Kai royal palace.

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