Oria's Gambit Read online

  He considered the torrent of information, as overwhelming as heavy rain on parched earth. When she decided to confide, she did so full out, something that put him in mind of her restless, energetic stride.

  “So your solution is to marry ahead of him and be crowned before he returns,” Lonen summarized for them both. A solid plan, but what had been her intention before he turned up at Bára’s gates only hours ago? She had to have had something else in mind. “Why doesn’t he marry a Báran girl—priestess, that is? Or the same for you—if time is of the essence, that would be easier and faster. You claimed you didn’t have another man lined up to marry. Did you withhold information there also?” A not-so-surprising twinge of possessiveness at that thought. Though he’d never truly contemplated having Oria for himself, not beyond those plaguing dreams and the occasional fantasy, not until she proposed it.

  “No—that’s the full truth. I don’t have anyone to marry because it’s not that easy.” She tucked her hands in the small of her back, pacing fast enough to make the crimson silk billow around her legs. “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “Try,” he suggested in a dry tone, and her mask flashed as she glanced at him.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid or ignorant. But I do know you’re skeptical about certain elements of magic and how it works.”

  “Acknowledged.” He poured the rest of the honey over another hunk of bread, scraped the dregs with a piece of cheese and piled several more on. A slice of meat and it would be a decent sandwich. As it was, he might never stop eating.

  “The temple matches us with our spouses. In the best of all possible worlds, we find a … good fit and make a temple-blessed marriage.”

  “An arranged marriage.”

  “More than that—there’s complex testing that involves magic.” She waved that off as yet another thing he wouldn’t understand. Probably he wouldn’t, but it rankled nonetheless. “Sufficeto say Yar did not find a match in Bára. With so many of our priestesses lost in the battle with, well, with your people…” She took a breath, and he understood the feeling. The memories of that night pained him, too. He’d been the one to kill most of those priestesses, and their blood still soaked his nightmares. Oria had seen him with that blood on his hands. No wonder she didn’t want them and those stains of murder on her unsullied skin.

  “There are far fewer candidate priestesses in Bára now, and none satisfied the requirements for Yar, so he’s casting his net wider,” Oria said more briskly. “I’ve received my mask recently, so I’ve only just begun testing, but I face the same scarcity with so many of our priests fallen in battle. So far the results are not promising, which surprises nobody at all even with a reduced pool, because I’m …”

  “A princess?” He filled in, when she didn’t—but she shook her head.

  “Unusually sensitive, let’s say.” A wealth of feeling crawled beneath her dry tone. Interesting.

  “But even if Yar is counting on that,” he said when she didn’t continue, “on you taking longer to find a match, why risk it if the throne is at stake, something he clearly does have his ambitions set on? Why not settle for the second- or third-best pick?” As Oria was doing in proposing to him, it suddenly hit him. A far less savory realization. The honey wasn’t enough to keep the bread from going dry in his mouth.

  Oria stopped in front of him, twisting her fingers together again, and he viciously wished he could see her face, read her expression. Although he supposed he didn’t need to see her to know he wouldn’t like her answer. “Just tell me, Oria. Truth is best.”

  Though he wasn’t entirely sure of that.

  “A mate who’s a good fit is … ideal.” She settled on the word with a frustrated lifting of her hands. “A temple-blessed marriage trumps one that isn’t. Were Yar and I both to marry, whichever of us has the best suited partnership—as the temple evaluates such things—would be crowned.”

  “So not only do you need to be married first, you need to be married and crowned before Yar can return with a supposedly better marriage.”

  “Yes, exactly.” She sounded relieved that he understood—and maybe that she’d gotten away with not telling him everything about why the Bárans sought these purportedly perfect matches. Knowing them, it had to do with power and status. And magic, more than likely. Something he did not and would never have.

  He pondered letting it lie there. Couldn’t. “Why haven’t you stepped up your own search, gone to these other cities to find your match?”

  “I was considering it,” she admitted, “before you arrived. But in the first place it’s much easier for men to go beyond the walls than it is for women, for complex reasons I can’t explain, but they’re the same ones that would make it difficult for me to go to Dru. That same … syndrome will also cause Yar delays in bringing a bride back to Bára from her home city, so that gives me breathing room.”

  “And in the second place?”

  “I don’t have the influence he does. Because I refuse to be part of trafficking stolen water.”

  She said it simply, but the bald integrity of her statement touched him in an odd way—more than any of Natly’s declarations of love had. It hadn’t been that long ago that Lonen had sat on Oria’s rooftop terrace and scorned her for not knowing whose life’s blood kept her lush garden alive.

  “Thank you for that,” he told her gravely, meaning it. She might be playing a game of omission and half-truths, but he could count on that about her, at least.

  She shrugged that off, pacing away and seeming uncomfortable. He wanted to ask more about what an ideal mate for her would be, but likely it would only cause him pain to hear all the things he could not be to her. Words like that could never be unheard and would lie between them. After years of marriage, such small resentments festered and became mortal wounds. He’d seen enough of that between his own mother and father to want to avoid the same in his own marriage, if at all possible. His idealism at work again—to be contemplating a loveless, sexless marriage of state and still hoping for happiness between them. And yet perhaps it wasn’t entirely blind optimism that made him think Oria pushed to marry him instead of Arnon.

  “So you call your reasons self-serving because you’ll get to be queen, which makes little sense since you don’t really want the power or the glory.”

  He had the impression that she grimaced. “That—and because being queen will give me access to the highest level of temple secrets. Which will let me discover how Yar summoned the Trom, so I can do likewise. That’s how I’ll wrest power from Yar and relieve Dru from the Trom’s incursions.”

  “How did Yar get access to these secrets if he’s not yet king?”

  She ticked a finger at him. “You’re good at this. I didn’t think to ask that question for some time. I’m not certain, but I think High Priestess Febe broke sacred law and gave the spell to him. Or she gave it to Nat and Nat gave it to him.”

  “Your brother Nat was king following your father’s death, so why was that breaking sacred law?”

  “Because he wasn’t king.” She made a disgusted noise and waved her hands in the air. “They told the Destrye that, but Nat wasn’t married either, so the rites couldn’t be performed. But Febe and the head of the non-magical side of the council, Folcwita Lapo?”

  “I remember him,” Lonen said with grim distaste for the overblown man.

  “They both heavily favored bringing in the Trom once it became clear the city had fallen to the Destrye.”

  “And they now support Yar’s bid for the throne.”

  “Not coincidentally, yes.”

  “So, marrying me is the expedient choice, I can see that, but how likely are they to support your claim? Why wouldn’t they delay a decision for Yar’s return?”

  “A potential pitfall to be sure, but I have some people on my side, too. My mother, formerly queen, may have been relieved of her mask and crown, but she still holds a great deal of sway on the council, in the temple, and in the hearts of the people of
Bára. Also the city guard supports her and me, which helps enormously. For example, that’s how you came to be personally escorted to me without anyone else knowing you’re here. Something I’d like to keep from public notice as long as possible, another reason to have this conversation here, where no one can overhear. Finally, though you declined taking a role in governing Bára when we set terms for our surrender . . .”

  Her voice wavered a bit on that word, just as she’d been unsettled when he’d said it to her earlier, about having surrendered to him. She wasn’t nearly as unaffected by him as she pretended to be. Perhaps he stood a chance of wearing her down on the sexless marriage concept. Surely there must be ways for their women to be touched, or there would never be babies. He might not be a Báran man, or a priest, but he knew how to pleasure a woman. If nothing else, Natly with her bold demands and sensuous nature had taught him that much.

  Oria had found her composure again, her stride more measured as she paced. “The treaty might say that you did not care to exact governorship of Bára in any way, but you are king of the Destrye and you did conquer Bára. They won’t like it, and I might have a fight on my hands, but they’ll have to acknowledge that Bára, and everything and everyone in it, belongs to you, by right of the ancient laws.”

  A heady thought, that Oria already belonged to him. Had he been one of his rougher ancestors, he likely would have already dragged Oria back to Dru with him as a war prize, his to do with as he pleased. The lustful fantasy aroused him profoundly, appealing to some base instinct even though the more civilized part of himself stood back in horror. It made him recall fragments of those old tales though…

  “There are stories,” he said, pulling on the memories to bring them out, “of foreign, pale-skinned women brought home to be wives and concubines of Destrye warriors, who inexplicably faded and died. As if they starved for food none could provide. Is that what would happen to you?”

  She stopped, the abrupt change in topic derailing her stride along with her thoughts, a strange cant to her body, almost as if she were in pain. Chuffta sat up higher, wings mantling as his sinuous neck moved in a sort of question. A good insight, that he reacted to Oria’s thoughts and moods. Another way to puzzle her out.

  “I didn’t know that,” she finally breathed, strain in it. “We have no such stories.”

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t.” He kept his voice soothing, nearly regretting that he’d brought it up, except that it had garnered such a telling emotional response from her. “If the women were taken away and died without returning home…”

  “Yes. No one would have known what happened to them. Tell me—were they … used?”

  He nearly choked at the euphemism, especially on the heels of his brutish fantasies, then wrestled with the chagrin at having to answer, to own up to what kind of people the Destrye had been before they settled in Dru, tamed by Arill’s gentle hand. Maybe there was no possible way to explain. For the first time he understood what she meant, that she could give him answers, but that he wouldn’t necessarily understand them. He tried to couch it gently. “If you mean, did the men who captured the women take them to bed in the marriage sense, the answer is assuredly yes.”

  “Of course that’s what I mean,” she replied in a tart tone, far better than the pained one, and amusing him that he’d tried to be delicate. “And how can you be so sure—do the stories say so?”

  “Not exactly, but—” He had to clear his throat. “Why else take them?”

  Her mask faced him as he answered, seeing far too much in him. “That would have contributed, too. The sex,” she clarified unnecessarily, “just as it would damage me if you gave into those … impulses like you imagined just then.”

  Stung, he pushed to his feet. “I wouldn’t,” he said far too loudly, and he was further abashed when she flinched and took several steps back. He had to take a steadying breath to lower his voice. “It’s not fair, Oria, that you judge me based on fleeting thoughts and emotions. People think and feel many things they don’t act on. That’s part of learning to be a decent human being—knowing that there are dark yearnings in your heart and being strong enough to recognize them as such and exert control. Maybe your mind is this perfect, serene place and you don’t understand the human struggle to be a better person, but I’m only a man and a flawed one at that.”

  She swayed, seeming shocked. “I am human, Lonen.”

  “You don’t always seem like it.”

  “No?” She sounded surprised and … weary. Sad and weary. “Regardless, I understand that struggle all too well. Being flawed.”

  “Maybe I’d know that if I could read your mind, too. But if you couldn’t see so easily into my head, you would have never known I harbored any such thoughts, however temporary, to judge me so harshly for them.”

  She nodded, folding her hands. “I apologize for any offense. I did not mean to sit in judgment. I sense enough of you to know your better nature. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have taken this gambit. Still… this conversation has revealed much and I’m growing more certain that it would not be a good idea for us to marry.”

  “Because of my sexual feelings for you?” Might as well lay it all out there.

  “All right, yes. That’s one reason. I’m concerned by your insistence that you would not take other lovers. I know men have … needs. It’s become obvious to me that yours are quite strong.” She paused, a little breathless, as if flustered. “You must understand that I’ll never be able to satisfy them for you.”

  He took the risk of moving closer to her, fascinated that she continued with a conversation that clearly discomfited her. She lifted her chin as he approached and visibly steeled herself not to step back, so he stopped where he was. “Women have needs, too, Oria.”

  She tilted her head. “Do they? I’m not sure it’s the same. Or perhaps it’s a difference between Báran and Destrye.”

  He couldn’t believe that. “You’ve never felt anything at all sexual? Nothing—never wanted to be with a man or a woman? Never have been with either?” He wasn’t sure if she was playing coy, dumb, or was truly that innocent. Or alien, part of him cautioned.

  “Same sex unions are frowned on in Bára—it puts the magic balance off. And no.” Her voice sounded faint and he imagined a blush stained her high, delicate cheekbones. “A Báran priestess lies only with her husband.”

  “And I will be your husband,” he couldn’t help saying, edging closer, halting when she raised her palms.

  “Not like that. If you can’t agree to that part of the marriage, then we have to call it off.”

  “And do what?” He curled his hands into fists of frustration. “I need your help for Dru, you need to be married and made queen to do it.”

  “I could marry your brother,” she insisted. “He would have the same freedom I offered you. I would never impose on him or interfere with his life.”

  “He’s not here, which thwarts your need for speedy action.”

  “A marriage by proxy then. You could command it and the council and temple will abide. The ritual magic knows no physical distance.”

  He rather enjoyed debating with her, especially when she forgot to be poised and starting sounding fierce. He’d never be able to step aside and let Arnon have her. Or any man. “Same distance problem in getting him to agree, however. How could I send and receive messages in a short time? It might take considerable explanation and debate.”

  She flung up a hand. “I don’t know. Can’t you simply do it and tell him later? You’re the king.”

  He could, yes, though Arnon would make the rest of his days a misery. “Not happening,” he said, instead. “There is no way I’m standing by while you marry another man. You proposed to me and I accepted. I won’t allow you to back out.”

  “You won’t allow me.” Her voice had gone lethally chill. Something swirled in the air around him that reminded him of the sorcerer’s magic on the battlefield. Her slim body had gone tense as a plucked bow string and he wondered, f
ar from the first time, what form her magic took. Shards of ice, perhaps, instead of fireballs. “How, exactly, do you plan to enforce that edict?” She asked softly, in clear warning.

  He leaned in. She was scary, all right, but he found her impossibly titillating at the same time. He’d totally lost his mind, but it seemed to matter less and less. “By invoking right of ancient law. As you noted, Bára and everything in it belongs to me.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed.

  “I won’t have to,” he returned, “because you’re far too intelligent, noble, and rational to be stubborn for the wrong reasons. I’m right here, willing and able to marry you, I’ll agree to a marriage in name only, with the caveat that we’ll revisit if you change your mind about that aspect in the future. The rest is details. Done.”

  ~ 4 ~

  Oria struggled to find a reply to that, but she’d dug herself too deep into a dune and the sands of cascading reactions showered down on her, threatening to bury her in her own conniving.

  She was too new at this maneuvering—in politics and with a man. Particularly this man.

  “I warned you he would not be easily led.” Chuffta’s mind-voice at least held a note of concern. Any smugness to his ‘I told you so’ might have pushed her over the edge. As it was, the male grien magic she shouldn’t possess—except in a quiet ladylike seed—thrummed with the need to escape, preferably to knock the cocksure Destrye warrior off his feet. Allow her, indeed.