Lonen's War Read online

He gestured at the endless rise of stairs. “Making conversation. It looks like a long walk.”

  “I apologize for that. But it’s the best place for me to be for a number of reasons.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “No one will be able to interrupt or interfere with our conversation. I want a solution, not more arguing and delay.”

  “I meant, why won’t they be able to interrupt?”

  “It’s my tower.” She shrugged. “No one may enter without my permission, by sacred law.”

  “Interesting. To protect your virtue?” If so, he shouldn’t be alone with her. Certainly the thought shouldn’t give such a punch to his gut.

  He surprised a breathy laugh out of her. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Try me.”

  She threw him a repressive glance, all humor sapped from her expression. “None of it is relevant to our negotiations. To answer an easier question—no, I have no desire to be queen and there are…reasons I should not take that role. Suffice to say, we have a queen. My mother is alive and well. There will be decisions to make depending upon what you and I agree the Destrye role in our government will be.”

  He mulled over her words—both spoken and what she cagily withheld. When she’d first offered surrender, he’d proposed total subjugation because he’d been thinking in battle terms. Fighting made things simple. You won or you lost. Usually if you lost, you died. Or wished you had. But this would not be so straightforward. He had no desire to rule Bára from afar. During that interminable wrangling, his father had never gotten to the point of giving his vision for the future of the two peoples—one of many things Lonen would give a great deal to know that his father would never be able to relate.

  None of them had discussed what would happen if they managed to stop the golem incursions, other than a vague idea of going back to a way of life already thoroughly destroyed. But King Archimago had died in part because he’d taken responsibility for the innocent portion of the population of Bára. Rage at the injustice of it all boiled through Lonen. Against all odds, they’d triumphed…and yet, what had they won?

  Oria paused, putting a slim hand against the stone wall. She’d paled, her breathing labored.

  “Are you well?” he asked, though clearly she wasn’t. The dragonlet peered around her hair at him, the stare oddly accusing.

  She raised her eyes ruefully at the remaining stairs. “I am not in condition for extensive exercise, to my great chagrin. Also, as you observed, I’ve been unwell these past days.”

  Something told him that wasn’t the entire truth, but before he could question her further, she pushed away from the wall with a grim set to her jaw, gathering up her long skirts, and set to climbing again.

  “Why pick a place so far then, that takes so much effort?”

  “I’ll need to get up there eventually tonight, it might as well be now. And…I’ll be able to think better.” She hadn’t been looking at him, but did then with a slight grimace. “I should probably not admit such things to my enemy.”

  She was likely right, but for a few moments—to his own chagrin—he’d forgotten that about them. Also he wasn’t entirely sure what she’d admitted. “I could carry you,” he found himself offering, then regretted it instantly.

  Already shaking her head, she brushed him off. “Really it’s better if you don’t touch me.”

  Don’t touch me. Her desperate command of before still rankled. “I’d hardly rape you,” he replied, stiffly furious. “None of your Bárans have been bothered that way.”

  “I did not know that,” she said quietly, perhaps because she lacked the breath for more. “But that’s not what I meant. I intended no offense, King Lonen.”

  Feeling like he should apologize but unwilling to, he remained silent for the rest of the ascent. Better for her not to waste breath talking anyway. Finally, they reached the very top and she led him through a series of rooms to an open-air terrace full of flowering trees, blossoms luminous in the night, and the rustle of trailing vines. Oria lifted her face to the sky, Sgatha high and rose-colored, sighing in what could only be relief. No sign of Grienon, so he must be in his dark phase.

  Lonen wandered to the balustrade, struck by the view of Bára below, all falling away beneath her eyrie. Beyond the high city walls the Destrye camp blazed with campfires, the long dry plateau moonlit around them. Oria’s tower. It tugged some emotion from him, a strange tenderness that felt misplaced amid all the rage and grief.

  “You live up here, all the time, alone?”

  She joined him at the edge of the balcony, though still a good distance away, well out of touching range. As if he’d try after she’d sounded so horrified by the possibility. “I go down sometimes. And I’m not alone. I have—had—attendants, teachers. My mother, too, spends time with me here. A few others. Also, there’s always…”

  When she didn’t finish the thought, he turned his back on the staggering—and stomach-dropping—view. The torchlight made her hair even more coppery, if possible, and the moon gave a pinkish cast to her fair skin and the winged lizard’s white hide, both more otherworldly than ever. How she could both fascinate and repel him, he didn’t know. Unless she practiced sorcery on him as he suspected her brothers had been doing to his father. What he needed was to get away from her unnatural influence and this place of monsters and death.

  Superstitiously, he moved away from that dizzying drop. She might look fragile and become sickly climbing stairs, but he knew firsthand how powerful the Báran magic could be. He did not care to sample what a long fall that would be.

  “There’s always what? That lizardling you cart about everywhere?”

  “His name is Chuffta.” She sounded stiff. He’d annoyed her, insulting her pet. Good. Better than feeling that strange tenderness.

  “You don’t really believe you can talk to that thing, do you?”

  She gave him a long look, then went to a set of low chairs around a table with a freakish violet fire burning in the center of it. Pouring from a pitcher into two transparent goblets, she nudged one in his direction, then sat back, cupping the other and drinking deeply. She heaved such a sigh of relief that he couldn’t restrain his curiosity and went over to pick up his. The goblet was made of something very thin that felt as if it might shatter in his grip. He sniffed at the contents. Fruity and sweet. He tasted it. Juice, not wine. Figured.

  “Shall we get to the subject at hand?” she suggested in an even tone.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Because the answer doesn’t matter. What I do or do not believe has no bearing on our negotiations. We could argue all night about our differences and it seems both our peoples have wasted enough time doing that already. What terms do you propose?”

  “You don’t have an offer?”

  She actually made snorting noise, at odds with her regal poise. “No wonder you all spent so many days discussing. If I’m not mistaken, you’re in the position of power. It seems to me that this conversation should consist of you, the conqueror, giving terms to me, the conquered—at which point I attempt to weasel out whatever concessions I can.”

  Abruptly tired, he sat across from her, dangling the goblet between his knees, reminding himself to handle it gently. He felt strangely naked wearing the soft garb of the Báran men, the loose material of the shirt and trousers so thin he barely felt it on his skin, but also grateful for it in the overly warm night. Something about sitting there with her, with the softly burning fire—pretty, even in its strangeness—and the moonlight turning the night-blooming garden into an oasis in her stone city surrounded by an unforgiving desert, made all the war and politics feel far away. For a wild moment, he entertained what it might be like to be there under other circumstances, to be courting her as he would Natly, seeing if he could make her laugh and—

  He shook off the romantic notion. That was exhaustion getting to him, and being so long away from feminine company. Natly was waiting for him to return, a n
ormal, beautiful and spirited woman of his own people. One with a strong, lush figure and vitality to run and ride with the best of the Destrye. And he’d be returning as king, which should be enough to finally persuade her to marry him.

  “Mostly I just want this done.” His turn to be admitting to the enemy what he shouldn’t.

  “Why don’t we start with what you came here for—were you after the source of Báran magic?”

  “Arill, no!” The shock of her suggestion had him rejecting that foul notion too brusquely, because she physically flinched, making him feel absurdly guilty, as if he’d punched her. “No, we want nothing more than to keep clear of your magic,” he said more smoothly, rolling the fragile goblet between his palms. It reminded him of Oria, in a way—both easily crushed but also exotically lovely, unlike anything he’d seen or touched before. Not trusting himself not to shatter it carelessly, he set it aside.

  “Why did you attack us then?”

  Glancing up sharply, he opened his mouth to retort, but her expression, wide, wondering, and without guile made him pause. An act perhaps, but… “You attacked us first, Princess.”

  She shook back her hair, frowning. “How can that be true? Our peoples have battled in the past, I know, but the peace has lasted for centuries now. The Destrye live far from here. You came to Bára. We only defended ourselves.”

  It could be that she truly didn’t know, isolated in her manmade fancy of a garden. He gestured to the trees, the lavish vines with their hand-sized pearlescent blossoms, faces turned towards Sgatha and visited by pale-winged moths that hovered over them as they drank. “Where does the water come from for all of this?”

  Her frown deepened and she looked around, as if seeing it all for the first time. “Well, servants haul it up, but I gather that’s not the answer you mean. They bring it from stores, cisterns below the palace. All the city buildings have them, as reserves for dry weather.”

  He gazed out at the sere, moonlit plain. “Is it ever not dry weather?”

  “We have a monsoon season, though it’s been very light the last few years. When it does rain, we have roof cisterns to gather it. A good monsoon season gives us water to last until the next.”

  “And if it’s a bad monsoon season, very light, as in the last few years?”

  She shrugged. “Well, obviously we’ve had enough stores to be getting by. My trees aren’t dying so we haven’t run out.”

  “Or…” He held her gaze. “You’ve been sending those unnaturally puppeted golems of yours—only equipped with fangs and claws—to steal our water and kill any living creature that stands in their way. Mothers, children, livestock.” A bleakness washed over him at the memories.

  To his surprise, Oria’s expression echoed that.

  She looked horrified, even. “You mean, similar to the ones we used to defend the city when you attacked?”

  He barked out a laugh and swallowed some of the juice to salve his dry throat. Too sweet, but the flavor was growing on him. “They didn’t just look like them, Oria. They were the same. They’ve been attacking us for years, decimating our people and driving us out of our homeland. We tracked them back here to make it stop. We had no choice.”

  That last came out too forcefully, too defensive. She needed to know the truth, though. He ran his hands through his hair, remembering belatedly that he’d tied it back in an attempt to look more appropriate for a meeting with her in her lavish gown. Impatient with it, he tugged off the leather tie and tossed it on the table. She might find him brutish and unkempt, but what did he care?

  “Everyone has choices,” she said, as quiet as he’d been loud.

  “You have to understand, Princess of Bára. You—or maybe not you, I don’t know, but your people—you drove us to this. Yes, we had choices. We either had to stop you, die trying, or die by the claw of your golems.”

  “I see. A moment, please.” She rose, seeming restless, moving back to the balustrade and gazing out. The quiet murmur of her voice drifted on the night air like the heavy scent of the moon blossoms.

  She must be talking to that dragonlet. The absurdity annoyed him, but weariness softened the edges of the irritation. Oria was right that they’d argued enough to last years. Along the rim of the fire table, a series of animal figurines paraded, made of the same delicately transparent material as the goblets, catching and reflecting the violet firelight. He picked up one that reminded him of one of the forest cats of Dru. Amazingly lifelike, the cat seemed to be stalking something.

  The white lizard hopped off Oria’s shoulder, wings unfurling for balance and catching Lonen’s eye, then took a perch on the balustrade, green eyes glowing. Oria ran an affectionate caress down the thing’s neck with long, slender fingers that stirred Lonen in deep places that felt long forgotten. She turned her back to the drop, facing him with hands folded over her belly, chin high and steady. “So, if this is the case—and I know nothing of it, but have no reason to disbelieve you—then you’ve succeeded.”

  It took him a moment to drag his thoughts back and she tilted her head, with a wry smile. “Your men killed the sorcerer who created the vicious golems,” she explained. “That was a singular gift.”

  Anger burned through his stupidly besotted brain. Perhaps Ion had been right about his lack of judgement—and now Lonen could never tell him so. “A singular gift?” he snarled.

  She held up a hand, both fending him off—though he hadn’t moved toward her—and acknowledging his protest. “A poor choice of words, I apologize. That’s simply how we refer to the magic. Affinity might be a better word. At any rate, no more of those golems will be sent against you because the man who piloted them is gone.”

  “We’ve seen others of those golems around the city.”

  “Piloted by others with far less ability, as manual labor only, and…it’s something I cannot explain, but if they go too far, they lose their animation and collapse. I don’t know exactly how the late Priest Sisto was able to send the water-seeking golems all the way to Dru, but I do know—from conversations among us—that we have no one else in Bára who could. I can also assure you that we won’t launch attacks against you of any other kind, if you agree in turn to leave us alone.”

  He wanted nothing more. “How can you guarantee that?”

  “What else can I offer?” She held up her palms, copper eyebrows forking as she thought. “I’ll add a personal promise. If you are attacked by anyone or anything of Bára, I vow to do whatever it takes to protect the Destrye.”

  “A sweeping promise.”

  She smiled, ever so slightly. “Easy enough to make, as I can be sure Bára won’t attack you again. We have other problems than warring with the Destrye.”

  “And you…have the ability to protect the Destrye?” Seeing her in that violet and rosy light, he believed that perhaps she did.

  The brief moment of amusement fled. “I hope so, because Bára will need that, too. I can only promise that I’ll do my utmost for the Destrye, as I would for Bára.”

  “I’ll have to settle for that, then.”

  She nodded, crisply. “So that’s agreed. You say you have no inclination to govern us. What else do you want?”

  Nothing, he realized. His father, Ion, even Nolan might have sought to take more, but he himself would be hard pressed to simply put things back together again. Still… “You must agree to keep those other things away from us, too. The dragons and the monsters that rode them.”

  She folded her hands again, expression shadowed. “I have no control over the Trom, but I believe them to be our problem. They came at our call and have a long history with our people. I don’t think they have reason to pursue the Destrye in any way.”

  He nodded, wishing that made him feel better. The way that thing had caressed her cheek… “What did it say to you—and why didn’t its touch kill you?” he asked, unsure if he wanted to know for her sake or his.

  “I don’t know. It’s something I shall have to discover more about in the days to come.
” With her body silhouetted against the moon, the violet fire not quite enough to reveal her expression, he couldn’t read her reaction to his ill-advised question. Some tremor in her voice, though, made him think she was afraid.

  “You don’t know what it said, or why it didn’t kill you?”

  “Why it didn’t kill me. The words were…an old dialect, and were not important.”

  She was lying about that, which shouldn’t annoy him as much as it did. “Are you in danger from it?”

  She cocked her head slightly. “If so,” she said in a measured tone that revealed he’d pricked her pride, “that also would be my problem, not yours, King Lonen. Do you require anything else?”

  He searched for the words to express it. He wanted his youthful idealism back, to know that magic could be wonderful, the way he’d imagined it as a boy, the way it seemed possible in her enchanted garden. Not watered with the blood of countless Destrye dead. He wanted to be rid of the crushing grief, to rewind time so none of this had happened. Except that he would never have met Oria. Which didn’t matter anyway as this meeting sealed their goodbye. He’d return to Dru elevated in station but impoverished in heart and spirit.

  Nothing Oria could give him would change that.

  “No,” was all he said.

  “All right.” She scrubbed her hands briskly, as if shaking off dust. “Let’s write it down and end this terrible day.”

  He agreed. Though once again, the final victory felt lacking.

  ~ 21 ~

  Oria stood at the balustrade, the rising sun scalding her eyes as she watched the Destrye army decamp. Chuffta perched on her shoulder, similarly fascinated by the spectacle. She should be feeling a sense of triumph. She’d achieved what she’d wanted all those days ago, standing in that same spot, straining for any sign of the battle.

  Don’t put attention on a result you do not want.

  For the first time, the import of that lesson came clear. She’d wanted quite desperately to know more about the battle, to see and hear and experience it up close. She’d gotten exactly what she’d wanted, hadn’t she? And it had left her an empty shell, able only to feel grief and regret.