The Lost Princess Returns Read online

  “My… toes?” I echoed, sounding like an idiot. Their Common Tongue was the second language I’d learned—after I discovered the greater world didn’t speak Dasnarian—and I hadn’t spoken it long before I’d begun to learn the Nyamburan tongue. Ochieng was fluent in both, plus several other languages, and had taught our children, but I tended to be obstinate about practicing. The metaphors, in particular, evaded me.

  “The boundaries of your responsibilities, Imperial Princess Jenna,” Ursula said, pointedly using my old name and title.

  “Jenna died long ago,” I replied. “I am Ivariel now.”

  “That’s not who you’ll be when you return to the Imperial Palace,” Ursula replied, rather ruthlessly cutting through the polite niceties.

  She was correct, of course, but it didn’t make it any easier to contemplate.

  “This will be a difficult mission for you,” Ursula continued, watching me keenly, “on a number of levels. I think Ochieng, your children, and your niece, won’t understand just how painful this might be.”

  I lifted my chin. “Do you doubt my ability to stand up to my former family?”

  “Not at all,” she answered immediately, surprising me. She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “You have an admirable strength of character. I expected that, from what Harlan told me of you, but you’re even more than I imagined.”

  Harlan had told her about me. From the stark look on her face, he’d told her everything—all the terrible, shameful things that happened back then. I should’ve expected that, but I’d gone so long among people who knew almost nothing of poor Jenna and what had happened to her that I’d grown accustomed to that being secret. Only Ochieng knew it all.

  And Harlan. And now Harlan’s wife.

  ~ 2 ~

  “You don’t know me,” I spat, and though suitably defiant, my voice came out ragged. Not cool, contained Ivariel, but stupid, pitiful, wounded Jenna. Exposed and humiliated—and in front of this tough, composed woman I’d wanted to think well of me—I felt tears perilously close to the surface. I hadn’t felt this way for what seemed like a lifetime, and I hated it.

  Ursula held up her hands as if pacifying an attacker, and I realized I’d drawn my daggers again. I might as well have reverted to that panicked young girl Kaja had found aboard the Valeria. I could almost hear her snorting in derision at my loss of control. At least Kaja’s voice in my head was a welcome one. Pulling my poise around me like a shield, I sheathed the daggers again.

  “I apologize,” Ursula said, sounding truly chagrined. “I bungled that badly.”

  “No,” I replied as coolly as I could under the circumstances. “I should have realized Harlan would have told you all about…” My voice cracked, Danu take me. “Me,” I finished lamely.

  Ursula lowered her hands, dropping one to the hilt of her sword, not to draw, but to rub a thumb over the cabochon ruby there, as if to soothe herself. “He hasn’t,” she said, very seriously. “He told me, no one else, and he only spoke of it to me because he needed to talk about it.” She blew out a breath and looked up at the sky briefly, maybe asking Danu for patience. “That’s not entirely true. I do believe it was good for him to talk about it, but he only told me because I forced him into it.”

  “Forced?” I doubted she could’ve said anything to surprise—or anger—me more. “What did you do to him?”

  Unexpectedly, she grinned. “You sound so fierce and ready to protect him. That’s good,” she added hastily. “I love him, too, so I can appreciate that. What happened was that I found out about your existence from Jepp—who learned it from your sisters Inga and Helva when she was in the Imperial Palace—and I was angry with him. Harlan had never so much as mentioned he had sisters.”

  “Oh,” I said, for lack of anything else. Kaja’s daughter had gone to the Imperial Palace? And had met with my sisters. So much I wanted to ask.

  “That he’d kept secrets from me was upsetting to me both because I’d thought we had no secrets between us and because those secrets had to do with Dasnaria, an aggressive empire poised to swallow my smaller realm. I was…” She raked a hand through her hair, disordering the untidy tufts already curling in the sea air. “I was also jealous,” she admitted, “and worried that he placed his loyalty to you above his love for me.”

  I gazed back at her in some astonishment, my own pain temporarily numbed by this confession. Where I came from, no woman would admit to such things to someone she barely knew—certainly not to someone she’d just as easily confessed to seeing as a rival in power.

  “No one else knows,” she repeated. “Except for Jepp, and she knows only the outlines. As far as everyone else is concerned, you’re Harlan’s long-lost sister who fled Dasnaria for obvious reasons.”

  Much more composed now, I raised a brow at that.

  “Because Dasnaria pretty much sucks for women,” she explained, “so far as any of us can tell. I’m amazed there hasn’t been a mass exodus.”

  I surprised myself yet again by laughing—and she smiled crookedly, and with relief. “They might if we equipped them with enough shoes and taught them to manage money on their own.”

  “That would be a good start,” she agreed gravely. Behind her, I spotted Ochieng and the children—all right, yes, they were all adults by Nyamburan measures except for my youngest, Helvalesa, but they were all still children to me—bringing the elephants down to the water. Ursula followed my gaze, turning to watch the spectacle as the elephants waded into the surf with enthusiasm. Efe, one of the smallest but with an outsized heart, scampered in at top speed.

  “It’s salt water,” Ursula cautioned as Efe plunged her trunk into the water.

  “They’re not stupid,” I retorted. And then Efe stuck her trunk in her mouth, drank—and spectacularly spit it out again from both mouth and trunk. I groaned. “Or maybe they are.”

  Ursula burst out laughing, a loud and hearty sound, and one that made her face come alight with such personality that I mentally corrected all of my uncharitable thoughts about her lack of beauty. It reminded me of Ochieng’s laugh, which now echoed over the water as he waded out to soothe Efe’s wounded pride. Violet, matriarch of the herd, complacently sucked up sea water and showered herself with it, very clearly showing Efe how wise elephants handled the ocean. Ochieng spotted us and waved—then went under when a petulant Efe took advantage of his distraction to dunk him.

  Ursula turned sparkling eyes on me. “They’re extraordinary. The elephants, I mean. Though your family is, too.”

  “They are,” I agreed, pride welling up in me as my family—human and elephant—engaged in a game of dunking and dodging. Then I leveled a serious look on this new heart-sister of mine. “You owe me nothing, but I would appreciate it if… you would keep my secrets. Ochieng knows, but the children don’t.”

  She considered me, all humor fleeing her face, fully the monarch again. “I have three things to say to that. First of all, your secrets, and Harlan’s, are not mine to share. Second, I do owe you a great deal since your timely arrival made all the difference between us winning the battle against Deyrr. Finally, I wouldn’t betray my worst enemy on such a thing.” Her eyes went opaque and she gazed off into some middle distance. “You and I share another sort of sisterhood—one far more painful.”

  I caught my breath, beyond surprised now. I couldn’t imagine her as the helpless prey that innocent Jenna had been. Besides, once I’d fled Dasnaria, I hadn’t met another woman who’d suffered what I had. Back in the seraglio, sexual encounters regularly caused wounds—physical and otherwise—but in Nyambura, such things were virtually unheard of. The extended family groups taught their boys better, and dealt sternly with offenders. No family would tolerate the shame of having a predator like my late ex-husband in their midst.

  I’d forgotten that other parts of the world weren’t like that, and that what I’d gone through wasn’t limited to a Dasnarian seraglio.

  Ursula seemed to take my stunned silence for offense, because she
added, “I don’t mean to compare myself. What happened to me was nothing compared to what you went through.”

  “I’m not sure these things have relative scales of measurement,” I said slowly. “I’m sorry for your pain.” It was a translation of a Nyamburan phrase that conveyed much more in that tongue, but she took it the right way.

  “I appreciate that and return the sentiment.” She cast her gaze down, toeing a rock with her boot. “This is not … something I normally discuss. As in, I don’t talk about it with people, ever. If I can help it.”

  “I’m quite surprised you are,” I admitted, recovering my wits enough to realize that a queen like this wouldn’t have made a special point to talk with me alone just to chat about our feelings. I suspected we were getting to the crux of why she’d cornered me.

  “Yes, well.” She winced. “You can blame Harlan for the fact that I speak of it at all.”

  I grimaced in sympathy. “Ochieng is much the same.”

  She tilted her head with a wry nod. “The only reason I’m putting us both through this very uncomfortable conversation is I realize going back there will be difficult for you. It will take a great deal of courage.”

  “I’m not afraid,” I replied, though not as sharply as I might have, given what else she’d confessed to me.

  “That’s good,” she replied wryly, “because I would be, in your place.”

  I sagged a little, inside the shell of my bravado. “Ochieng is worried,” I told her, and she nodded with perfect understanding. Oddly, as different as I’d thought Ursula and I were, she might understand better than anyone.

  “Harlan is worried, too, though he won’t say so.” She paused, considering. “That’s why I wanted to speak to you privately. I think you should take Harlan with you.”

  I pretended to watch the elephants while I collected my thoughts. She and Harlan had already discussed, not just in my hearing, but in front of everyone, that they’d be returning to the seat of the High Throne at Ordnung. “But you would not being going to Dasnaria with us.”

  “No.” She sounded drily amused. “I have responsibilities here, and as much as it would be interesting to adventure to Harlan’s homeland, my visit would be tantamount to a foreign invasion.”

  She had a point. Still. “It wouldn’t be any easier for Harlan to return to that place, to our former family.”

  “True, and I’m glad you recognize that. To be perfectly honest, I don’t want him to go.”

  I transferred my attention back to her face. “He already declared his place is with you. Even if he hadn’t, the Elskathorrl demands it. You have that vow and, as his wife, you do own his primary loyalty—far more than a nearly forgotten sister.”

  She shook her head sharply. “Harlan never forgot you. He’ll go if you ask him to, if you tell him you need him with you.”

  “You want me to test if his loyalty to me outweighs his to you?”

  “Not at all. He’d choose me, for all the reasons you cite. But if you convince him of your need, then I can be the better person and agree.” She cracked a thin and cagey smile.

  I found myself stroking the scars on my wrist, the ridges a permanent reminder of my late ex-husband and all the scars he put on me, outside and in. “I don’t know that I need him with me.”

  “Maybe not.” She inclined her head, acknowledging that. “But I do know that it will tear him apart to worry about you going on your own. Even if you think you don’t need him, he needs to go, for his own sake as well as yours.”

  I considered her with new respect—and a growing appreciation. She seemed like a hard woman, sharp-edged as her sword, but she clearly loved Harlan with the selflessness he deserved. “I’ll consider your words,” I said.

  She dipped a nod. “That’s all I ask. Well, not all,” she amended. “I’d prefer if you didn’t tell him I asked this of you, for obvious reasons.”

  I grinned, understanding her perfectly. “Is he still that obstinate?”

  Groaning, she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what he was like then, but I’m going to say he’s only gotten worse.”

  “He was a fourteen-year-old boy who defied our family of tyrannical monsters and the customs of an empire to set me free,” I said simply. “Once Harlan sets his mind to something, he never wavers.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she muttered, making me wonder exactly how their unconventional relationship had come to be.

  “Speaking of,” I nodded to the beach over her shoulder, “here he comes now.”

  She turned, standing beside me, and we both watched as Harlan picked his way along the uneven and rocky path along the top of the breakwater. He’d grown so much bigger over the years. Of course he had, since he’d been an adolescent then and fully a man now. But he’d also broadened more than I expected. Since our parting—and since our family stripped him of his rank as Imperial Prince of Dasnaria, disowned and exiled him—he’d been making his living in the world as a mercenary. His physique showed it, with an exceptionally large and sculpted muscular chest, arms and shoulders. His massive thighs carried his bulk easily and he moved with light grace. With some surprise, I recognized my own dancer’s lithe skills in him.

  “You look alike,” Ursula murmured, watching also. “Which sounds odd, since you’re obviously very different, but…”

  “But we look alike,” I agreed. I’d gained muscle, too, over the years of training in Danu’s arts, dancing, and sometimes defending our home from aggressors. Working with the elephants required strength, if you didn’t want to spend half your day knocked on your ass. Still, I’d always remained slender, especially compared to the Nyamburan women, who tended to be more solidly built. So some of that feeling of being slight came from comparison to them, but even Helvalesa, who was no older than my baby sister Helva when I left Dasnaria, already outweighed me.

  I’d grown so used to being among Ochieng’s people that I’d forgotten what it was like to see my own features on someone else. Harlan and I shared the same wide cheekbones, the high Konyngrr forehead, and our smiles were the same. We shared the taciturn Dasnarian tendency to look grim at rest, so we grimaced more than smiled. Or maybe that was our shitty upbringing.

  “You were gone when I awoke,” Harlan called out as he drew near.

  “He hates that I can slip out without waking him,” Ursula confided quietly, then raised her voice. “You were sleeping so soundly, and I knew you needed the rest. How’s the injury?”

  He rotated the arm on the side that had been wounded in the battle, demonstrating the ease of movement. “Nothing like Tala healing. Good morning, Jen—Ivariel, I mean.” He grimaced ruefully. “I’m still getting used to that.”

  “It’s all right,” I told him.

  He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “No, it’s not. You changed your name for a reason and I need to respect that.”

  “Well, at first I changed it so they couldn’t find me,” I explained, to both of them, as Ursula seemed to be listening with interest. “Then…” How to explain? “Ivariel was everything Jenna wasn’t. It was easier to embrace the new me than fix the old one.”

  Harlan looked angry. “There was nothing about you that needed fixing.”

  “No, I know. I meant that…” I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “It’s difficult to explain and something I’d prefer not to dwell on.”

  “Of course.” He nodded, then looked between us. “What were you two talking about?”

  “Did you think I’d eat your sister for breakfast?” Ursula asked mildly, but with a steel edge beneath it.

  He considered her, then grinned. “No, but only because Ivariel is as good with a blade as you are.”

  She snorted inelegantly, nothing regal in it. “You joke, but she just might be. I’ll leave you two to talk.”

  “You don’t want to spar?” he asked, cocking his head and reading her intently.

  Laying a hand on his cheek, she softened, smiling at him. “Spend some time with your sister. I’m
fine. And I have things to do.”

  “A raft of messages arrived for you,” he admitted.

  She sighed in resignation. “Of course they did. I’ll see you later.” With that she strode off, silvery coat streaming like a banner around her long form.

  ~ 3 ~

  “What do you think of her?” Harlan asked me, sounding a bit shy, even tentative.

  “I think you wouldn’t have pledged Elskathorrl to someone unworthy of you,” I replied.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. They’d darkened over the years, the boyish dove-gray flintier now, just as everything about him had hardened and toughened. It made my heart ache a little for that boy who’d once shone with such enthusiasm for life. He’d always been the softest of us, except for maybe Helva, who was his full sister. Their mother, Jilliya, had possessed a kindness, also—far more so than my own mother—and Jilliya had suffered for it.

  So, I shouldn’t be sorry that Harlan had grown so flinty over the years. Softness equaled weakness—I’d learned that lesson well—and weakness brought only pain.

  “That was a graceful non-answer,” Harlan commented. “Have you learned diplomatic dancing over the years?”

  “I learned those skills at my mother’s knee,” I replied gently. “It’s just that, during the time we spent together, I had no ability to wield those weapons.” The stark memory of those days rushed back as if it had been only weeks ago. The terrible pain I’d been in from where my late ex-husband had ripped into me. That excruciatingly cold flight through the mountains, the bitter fear of discovery a metallic taste in my mouth.

  From the haunted cast to Harlan’s face, he was recalling the same events, and I regretted my words. “I do like Ursula,” I said, realizing as I spoke the words that I meant them. “She is somewhat prickly, and not at all elegant or refined—not the kind of woman I would have expected you to marry—but I can see why she appeals to you.”