Oria's Gambit Read online

  A woman rose from a chair by that window, dressed more richly than the common women who strolled the paths of Bára, but not in the crimson priestess robes or even as grandly as Oria had for state occasions on his previous visit. She also wore no mask, her eyes a deep enough brown to contrast with her golden hair, but neither as spectacular a color as Oria’s. Their kinship shone clear, however, in the widely set eyes framed by delicate brows and arched cheekbones, fine lines accenting her fair skin, and in her slight, willowy build. She looked as his wife would decades from now, a strange glimpse of the future. If he ever saw Oria’s face again.

  The intensity of her gaze had Lonen forcing himself to continue forward, despite the uncanny prickling of his scalp. Had his neck not been freshly shaved, those hairs would be standing up, too.

  “What is this about, Oria?” The woman’s eyes flashed with hatred that seemed to crawl across his skin like fireants, but she drew her daughter into a gentle embrace, holding her a moment before releasing her and facing Lonen. Without waiting for Oria’s explanation, she launched her attack. “Destrye. I can’t imagine what brings you back to Bára—surely you’ve pillaged enough. We have nothing more to sacrifice to your bloodthirsty lusts.”

  If she only knew about those lusts.

  “Mother,” Oria inserted herself between them. “You did not have the opportunity to meet before. This is King Lonen of the Destrye—not the king who led their armies to Bára. He’s a good man and an honorable ruler, doing his best as we are, to salvage something for the future from this terrible conflict. He’s come here in peace, to ask for our help.”

  A pretty speech and not entirely accurate—as he was far from good and honorable—but he wouldn’t object even silently as Oria calling him that made up for any bending of the truth. He did send a mental apology to his father, however, for not defending his honor. As the former queen’s hard gaze came back to him, he tried to look like a good and honorable king, and not a giddy lad flattered by a pretty girl’s sweet words.

  “King Lonen”—Oria inclined her head—“my mother, Rihanna, former queen and priestess of Bára.”

  No title for the woman now, apparently, but he bowed to her anyway. “I greet you, lady mother of Bára, and thank you for your hospitality under such trying circumstances.”

  “What do you want of us?” The former queen’s face remained still and remote as a carved statue, but her dark eyes held dread. “We have nothing left to give.”

  “Mother.” Oria took her mother’s hands, skin to skin, Lonen noted. So it could be done. “The Trom have attacked Dru and again stolen water.”

  Though pale as ice already, the former queen blanched, then eased herself into a chair. “Oh, Yar,” she whispered.

  “It has to be.” Oria went with her, keeping her hand and kneeling at her mother’s knee. “There’s only one path left to us. I must become queen as soon as possible, both to hold the throne against him and find a way to … take control myself.”

  Oria didn’t look his way, but her mother did, gaze flicking to ascertain how much he understood. “Yourself? You can’t mean you propose to try to summon them?”

  “I do. I see no other way. As queen, I’ll have access to all the temple secrets. I have to try this.”

  “And if you break?” Cagily, Oria’s mother looked at him and away again. “We need to discuss your plan without this barbarian present.”

  “I’ve proposed to King Lonen that we wed,” Oria interrupted. “And he’s agreed. If you’ll support my choice with the temple we can marry tonight and petition the council tomorrow.”

  The former queen’s expression didn’t falter from its smooth serenity, but Lonen didn’t miss how her knuckles whitened as she gripped Oria’s hands. “This extremity is not what I had in mind when we discussed the necessity of a marriage for you, my daughter.” The words seemed to hold a wealth of subtext, enough to fuel a furious urge in him to lay about with his axe and cut through all the stultifying politics. They discussed marriage to him, not a death sentence, though you wouldn’t know it from the former queen’s dire expression.

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  The former queen shook her head. “I don’t know that you do. Are you doing this out of some misplaced guilt?”

  Oria’s slim shoulders moved in a shimmy of discomfort. “It seems someone here should be shouldering that very well placed guilt.”

  “Becoming my honored wife and queen of the Destrye is hardly a punishment,” Lonen grated out, harshly enough to startle both women out of their communion.

  Oria stood hastily and brushed a slim hand over her immaculate braids, as if caught with a hair out of place. “My apologies, King Lonen. We intended no insult. I am indeed honored to wed you and become your queen, as Bára is privileged to claim you as king.”

  A pretty speech—she was good at those—but her mother’s mouth tightened over unspoken words. “This is why we should discuss this in private, Oria.” She raised meaningful brows.

  “No.” Oria straightened her shoulders and moved to align herself beside him. Not touching him, naturally, but close enough that he could if he forgot himself and tried. “King Lonen is part of this. He’s aware that some temple mysteries will remain secrets from him, so speak as you will.”

  “Is that so?” Rhianna gestured at him with a languid hand, but her eyes bored into him dark and hard as a rare moonless winter night. “Then is he aware that he can never bed you? Their barbarian race thinks nothing of rape.”

  Oria moved slightly in front of him at his growl, forestalling his retort. “We’ve discussed it. Barbarians they may be, but the Destrye are also a race of disciplined warriors. He will not harm me. He has agreed to a marriage in name only.”

  “Until he loses self-control.” Rhianna’s gaze bored into him, as if he’d already defiled her daughter in truth, rather than only in fantasy. “You are innocent of many of the harsher realities of the world outside our walls, Oria. You cannot risk this. Not for any reason.”

  “The Destrye have a long and bloody history, it’s true,” Lonen told her, unwilling to remain silent on the topic any longer. “As do your people—something I’m sure must be as well-documented in your texts as in ours. We also have a tradition of protecting women, who are sacred to the goddess Arill. I would allow no one to harm my wife—not even myself.”

  Oria didn’t turn his way, but something about the softening of her posture made him think she paid close attention. Perhaps she mentally read the truth in his words, so he strengthened that sentiment, pushing it towards her.

  “Protecting women?” Rhianna’s lip curled, emotion cracking her visage. “Is that why you murdered defenseless priestesses in cold blood, one after another, like the animals you slaughter without care?”

  Lonen didn’t physically flinch, but only through dint of great will. That night, the first priestess he’d killed—the way her wondering eyes went dark with death—had reminded him of the first doe he’d shot. Murder. Yes, it had felt that way, had gone against everything he believed in. Nothing like the fair fight of the battlefield. He’d done it out of extremity, yes, but how to defend an indefensible act?

  “I am—”

  “You don’t deserve a treasure like my daughter,” Rhianna spat. “You have no idea what she proposes to do and worse, you mind-dead brute, you won’t be able to help her when she needs it most. You’ll destroy her instead, like the monster you are.”

  ~ 5 ~

  Struck hard by the wave of guilt and remorse from Lonen—along with a vivid memory image of a dying doe and blood on his hands—and with surprising, strong protective feelings of her own, Oria wrestled the potent emotions. He’d meant every word of what he’d said about not harming her, and about holding the female sacred—a fascinating and foreign image in his mind of a fertile goddess bestowing blessings. The truth resonated in him regardless of the rest.

  She deeply regretted bringing him to this meeting.

  Once a model of hwil, the f
ormer queen had become like the bay beyond Bára, her emotional state as unpredictable as the bore tides, and as lethal in their ability to swamp the unwary.

  “Enough, Mother,” Oria said, venting some of the emotional tension with some judicious grien that took the form of a dust devil swirling past the window, briefly whipping the sheer silk curtains that hung limply by the sides. “We’ve all committed grave sins in the name of war. You and I may not have held the knife blades, but we’ve drunk the water bought with the blood of Destrye children. Something you confessed you knew was happening and that you did nothing to stop. None of us are innocent.”

  She caught a flash of surprised gratitude from Lonen, glad then that she’d stood up for him in that rare moment of weakness. He seemed so strong, so fierce—even brutal in his anger at times—but he possessed a tender heart under that muscled chest.

  “Something you detected in him all along, hmm?”

  Ignoring Chuffta’s too-smug observation, she forged on. “You’ve left this to me, Mother. Unless you wish to reclaim your mask and your crown, in which case I’ll gladly step aside for you, I need you to support me in this decision.”

  “So much of this is my fault, the result of my many failures to act…” The former queen nearly chanted the words, sounding like those prematurely aged out of sanity. Oria put a finger to her temple, in lieu of putting her face in her hands. Sometimes her mother seemed like her old self, her mind as incisive as ever, then suddenly…

  Lonen brushed the sleeve of her robe, carefully not touching her skin, but putting her on alert regardless. He had an inquiring feel to him and an image formed of a person tending to her mother. Was he silently asking if the former queen needed a healer? She shook her head minutely, just in case. Her mother was beyond help.

  “Then don’t fail to act now.” She said it crisply, as her mother might once have prodded her, adding a nudge of grien. “You promised to help me. This is how you can. I need you to do this.”

  Rhianna lifted a tear-streaked face, her sgath hanging about her like tattered rags. “I wanted so much more for you, my beautiful and powerful daughter. You should have an ideal match, a man who will treasure you and know you as you deserve to be known, give life to your magic, bring you wealth and glory, and provide you children. No one less than the most powerful of Báran kings deserves you, not this mind-dead—”

  “Will you intervene with the temple or not?” Oria cut her off as she should have done much earlier. No anger wafted off Lonen, however—at least, not more than the dark, brooding fury that seemed to underlie most of his thoughts. Had he always been of that nature or had the war done that to him? An intensely curious interest prowled over her that tasted distinctly of him. No doubt he’d have more questions for her. Joy.

  Then disappointment crushed her relatively minor aggravation.

  “I won’t do it.” Her mother lifted her chin, an echo of the proud queen she’d been. “I won’t cooperate in sending you to your doom. Not even to save Bára. The sacrifice is too great.”

  “This is my marriage, my decision, my life.”

  “Don’t ask me to help you ruin it. I love you too much.” Her mother fulminated with dark sgath, much of it reaching towards Lonen like the shadowy tentacles of the wyrms that lurked in the damp cellars of Bára. Time to get him away from her. No telling what her unstable magic could do, even as passively as sgath typically worked. Oria had seen her mother blur those lines, too.

  She set her teeth, keeping the flawless façade of hwil. “I won’t ask it then. But I will marry him and petition the council for the crown tomorrow. Will you support me then?”

  Rhianna turned her face to the window, face once again remote, seeing only the past. “I am not well.” Her voice wobbled and she swallowed hard.

  “I know, Mother.” Oria’s heart thudded dully with the pain of seeing her like this. For a while it had seemed she’d recover, but lately she only seemed to fall further into the depths of her mind, her sanity fracturing more with every descent. “Don’t fret. I’ll visit you in the morning and we can talk.”

  Her mother didn’t reply, so Oria beckoned to Chuffta, who flew to her shoulder. The winding of his long tail around her arm gave her comfort.

  “It was a bad day. Perhaps she’ll be more lucid tomorrow,” he said as they withdrew. Lonen paced stoically at her side, his emotions tightly reined, thoughts unusually opaque.

  “She was lucid enough for a while there—enough to recognize what a terrible idea this is.”

  “I don’t think it’s a terrible idea.”

  “You don’t?” Her toe caught the hem of her robe in her moment of inattention. “But you said that—”

  “That the Destrye king would not be easily led. I think he is a good mate for you.”

  She rolled her eyes behind the mask. “Like you’d know.”

  He gave her the mental equivalent of a shrug. “You like him. The rest can be overcome.”

  “Now you sound like him.”

  “Attempting to summon the Trom yourself, however,” he continued, turning severe, “that is a terrible idea. Even your mother retains enough wit to know that. You run the risk of—”

  She bumped her shoulder to interrupt the lecture, making her Familiar spread his wings for balance. “I’m not discussing this right now.”

  “You could be having this conversation with me, you know,” Lonen commented.

  They emerged into the servants’ corridor and Oria paused, both undecided about the direction they should take and chagrined at Lonen’s remark. “I apologize.” She made herself face him. “I’m in the habit of being with Chuffta and talking to him, not with…”

  “Another human being?” he supplied, a ripple of humor beneath it.

  Why that made her blush, she had no idea. His body heat, perhaps, like a coal brazier in the narrow, enclosed hall. “Right,” she replied, determined to leave it at that.

  “What happened to her?” Lonen asked, with so much gentle concern it nearly undid her.

  “I explained already. My father’s death damaged her.”

  “You said because of this ideal mate business.”

  “Yes.” She braced herself for a barrage of more questions.

  He pondered, however, hand stroking thoughtfully over his beard. “It seems to me that if I make guesses, then you’re not technically telling me secrets.”

  “Lonen…” She hated the helpless sound in her voice, but she didn’t know what she could possibly say to explain any of it. The encounter with her damaged mother had left her wrung dry and facing High Priestess Febe felt beyond her. They should go to the temple and do that next, but she couldn’t quite find the impetus to leave the stuffy, shadowed corridor. Perhaps all of it had been a stupid, hopeless plan. She was so tired of fighting.

  “Give me some rope here and see if I can climb on my own.” Lonen leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles, still stroking his beard as he studied her. She didn’t object because at least she could hide a little longer. “Your mother called me ‘mind-dead,’ which I assume refers to my not being a sorcerer.”

  “I’m really sorry about that,” she whispered in furious embarrassment. “She’s—”

  “You apologize too much. I’m not offended, though I gather that’s an insult. I know as well as you do that I don’t have magic. I don’t consider this a failing. I don’t want it, except maybe to help build aqueducts.”

  Bemused, she parsed the word. “Build what?”

  “Never mind. An idle thought, and something we can discuss later, when you come with me to Dru.”

  “Which I can’t promise that—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Never mind that, either. What’s important at the moment is that I gather that is this ideal mate thing would connect you mentally to your husband, and there’s some sort of magical component, too. Which your mother and father had and she’s distressed to the point of refusing to help you marry me because she places such a high value on wanting that for you.�
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  “It’s not really that—”

  “‘The sacrifice is too great’—her exact words.”

  “Stop interrupting me!” She nearly stamped her foot with the frustration at both the Destrye and Chuffta snickering in her head.

  “Then stop saying things that don’t matter,” he fired back, shocking her. “This is an important conversation.”

  “That we’re having in a servant’s corridor,” she pointed out.

  He chuckled at that, that welcome sunny humor of his dispersing some of her emotional gloom. “When we celebrate our two decades’ anniversary, we can recapitulate this day and meet each other entirely in baths and hallways.”

  “We did talk on my rooftop terrace earlier, as well, when I proposed marriage.” Which seemed like days ago, not hours.

  “Good point. I’m adding rooftop terraces to the list, though if we’re in Dru we might have to substitute a treehouse.”

  “A house in a tree?” Something that had never occurred to her, partly because she’d never seen a tree big enough to hold an entire house. But the image in his head showed a forest of enormous trees, the leaves so dense they blocked the sun, and a structure of wood in the crux of a network of branches. The image changed so it seemed she stood inside it, looking out, the forest floor as far below as the streets of Bára from her terrace. It struck her that he’d changed the ‘view’ deliberately, to show her another angle.

  “Are you doing that on purpose?”

  “What—picturing things for you to see in my mind? Yeah. I figure if you’re going to read my thoughts anyway, I might as well take advantage of it. It could be a handy secret weapon for us.”

  A laugh escaped her, lessening the tightness of grief and despair. “You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”

  “Good.” He grinned, but under it a surge of possessive lust intensified the simple approval. “As I’m the only husband you’ll ever have, mind-dead and unable to give life to your magic as I might be, I’ll have to make it up in other ways.”