by G. A. Aiken
“And he’ll be sending Laudaricus through the Western Mountains?” Annwyl asked.
Ren nodded. “From what I saw, Annwyl, that human has hundreds of legions at his command. But before any of that happens, Thracius hopes to get Keita on the throne.”
Keita’s sudden burst of laughter startled everyone in the room, and she quickly covered her mouth. “Sorry.”
Ragnar leaned down a bit and studied her. “What are you thinking?”
“According to everyone, I don’t think.”
He straightened up, understanding her far too well these days. “You can bloody well forget that idea!”
Keita looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware I’d entered a new plane of existence where I take someone’s orders other than my own!”
“Yell at me all you want, princess, you’re not doing it.”
“You are calling me prince-ass!”
“She’s not doing what?” Briec asked.
Keita raised her hands to calm everyone, but Ragnar would not be calm about this and let her wiggle her way through.
“It’s actually quite perfect,” she reasoned.
“You’ve lost your bloody mind.”
“Elestren has already done the work for me,” Keita explained. “My face is battered and bruised, I have these awful lacerations that may take entire weeks to heal, and bruises around my ribs. It’s perfect!”
“It’s insane.” And to Ragnar’s shock, that came from Ren. “You can’t really be considering going into Quintilian Province.”
“If I go there now, looking like this, Thracius will gladly take me in.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m sure you will. But then you’ll be trapped in the Provinces with his very pissed-off kin.”
“I’ve been in worse situations.”
“No, you haven’t, Keita.” Holding her sleeping grandchild, Queen Rhiannon walked around to face her daughter. “I know what the Sovereigns can do, and I’ve already lost a father to them—I’ll not lose a daughter.”
“Mum—”
“No.” And her voice was calm, severely controlled. The teasing, the humor, the nicknames all gone in this moment. “You may protect the throne, daughter, but I rule. You will not go into the Provinces.”
Frustrated, but most likely realizing there was no way around her mother for the moment, Keita relaxed back in her chair.
“Any chance you found out,” Ragnar asked Ren, “what or who Styrbjörn escorted to the Southland borders from his territories?”
“I did, actually,” Ren said. “And it was something rather surprising, although not nearly as surprising as what I discovered right after that.”
“Which was?” Ragnar asked.
Ren glanced around the room. “Esyld. I think I found Esyld.” And, with sorrowful eyes, he looked at Keita. “And she’s not in the Provinces.”
Keita frowned. “Then where the hells is she?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The gate to Castle Moor slowly opened, and Athol watched Keita the Viper limp toward him.
He didn’t trust her, but he was curious to see why she was back. She came alone this time, no strange dragon monks following her.
“My Lady Keita.”
She raised her head, pulling back her hood, and Athol gasped before he could stop himself.
“My gods, Keita.”
She fell into his arms then, clinging to him. “My own family did this to me, Athol. Even now they look for me. Can I stay here? Just for a little while?”
“Of course.” He helped her in, motioned to his guards to close the gates. “You’ll be safe here, my lady. I promise.”
Elder Gillivray caught up with Elder Lailoken. They were both in human form and were heading toward a paid carriage that would take them the rest of the way to the Outerplains. From there, they’d get another transport to Quintilian Provinces.
Together they’d left Dark Plains nearly two days ago, fleeing when word had spread about the attack on Princess Keita. She’d also disappeared, the princess’s Northland lover and his kin sent packing, and the queen in a rage few had seen before. So, for their own safety, worried that the Cadwaladrs would turn their attacks on them, the pair had headed off.
Overlord Thracius had guaranteed their safety, and they would take him up on it.
They hurried around a corner but froze, the light flooding from the open back door of a pub glinting off a battle ax resting on broad shoulders.
“My lords.”
“Who in all the hells are you?”
“Name’s Vigholf. The bloke behind ya is me cousin, Meinhard.” And the one behind them was bigger than the one in front. “Lord Bercelak asked us to do a favor.”
“And we love doing favors.”
“I’m surprised Ren’s not with you.”
Keita took the cup of tea Athol’s assistant handed her, but she didn’t drink from it, simply held it in a shaking hand.
“I don’t know where he is. Things have become so awful.”
“And Gwenvael?” The siblings had never been to his castle at the same time, but Athol knew they were related. He also knew what they were. He knew what everything was that entered his domain.
“Angry with me. They’re all angry with me. They think I betrayed my mother.”
Athol sat back. “Did you?”
“Of course not. I’d never take such a risk. You know well how she feels about me as it is.”
“True.” She stared into her cup, and Athol asked, “Why did you come here before?”
“I was looking for my aunt. I’d heard my mother was searching for her and…”
“You wanted to make sure she was safe.”
Keita suddenly placed her cup of tea on the side table, allowing her to begin wringing her hands. “You need to understand…I would never hurt Esyld. I simply needed to ensure that she’d say nothing to my mother that could create problems for me.” She licked her lips. “I just would have sent her someplace safe, where my mother couldn’t find her.” Keita winced, touched the wounds on her beautiful face gingerly. “Now I need to find someplace safe.”
“There’s no one who can help you?”
“The two Elders who were my allies in my mother’s court have gone missing.”
“You mean Gillivray and Lailoken?”
Keita’s head snapped up, her eyes wide in panic. “Gods!” she nearly screamed, jumping up, her chair falling backward and crashing to the floor. “You’re working with my mother!”
“No, no.” Athol quickly stood and caught her hands. “I promise you I’m not. Ease yourself.”
“Then how did you know about—”
“It’s all right. I promise.”
Athol closed his eyes, a voice calling to him. Bring her to me, Athol.
Putting his arm around Keita’s shoulders, he said, “Come, Keita. I want you to meet someone.”
Athol took her through a door in the back of his private rooms that led to a staircase. With his assistant behind him, he escorted Keita to the fourth floor—and to another set of rooms that she’d never been to during her time at Castle Moor.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“These are my private chambers for special guests.”
“I am in no mood for any of that, Athol,” Keita said, trying to pull away.
“Of course you’re not. That’s not what’s here.”
He led her through several rooms until he reached glass doors in the very back. He knocked once and opened them, stepping inside.
“Keita, it is my pleasure to introduce you to your mother’s cousin and Overlord Thracius’s wife—Lady Franseza.”
Keita had heard about Franseza. She, like many who’d feared Rhiannon’s reign, had fled when Keita’s mother took power. But no one had any idea Franseza had joined forces with Thracius and become his wife. Then again, no one had really cared about Franse
za at the time.
“My mother’s cousin?” she asked, making sure to sound appropriately confused.
“Hello, my dear.”
Franseza was dressed in the Quintilian fashion of a long, sleeveless tunic draped around her human frame, gold bangles on her wrists, gold earrings dangling from her ears, and a thick gold necklace around her throat. “I have waited so long to meet you, dearest cousin.”
“Meet me? Why?”
“We can discuss all that later.” Franseza held her arms out. “Come. Let me get a better look at you.”
Keita stepped forward, moving around a large bed. But she stopped, her gaze catching sight of the naked female lying on the floor, a thick collar around her neck, and the chain attached to it locking her to the bed.
“Esyld!” Keita ran to her aunt, carefully turning her over, and cradling her in her arms. “What have you done to her?”
Franseza cringed dramatically. “That was horrible of me, wasn’t it?” And the beauty of that statement was that it was said without even a trace of sarcasm. “I know. I know. On the surface it looks terrible, but she simply wouldn’t cooperate.”
Esyld’s eyes opened, and when she saw Keita’s face, she grabbed hold of her niece’s fur cape. “I said nothing,” she told Keita, hysterical. “I swear, Keita. I told her nothing!”
“Shh-shh. It’s all right, Esyld.”
“I don’t think she realized that was part of the problem. Not telling me things. If she’d only told me things, I wouldn’t have had to hurt her so. That was hard for me, you know? We are first cousins after all.”
Keita felt sick just hearing the female’s voice, but nothing had her more worried than the fact that her aunt was cold to the touch. She was a She-dragon of Dark Plains. She was made of fire. The last thing Esyld should ever feel was cold.
Hands clasped together, steepled forefingers pressed under her chin, Franseza asked, “Now, Keita, how would you like to one day rule the land of Dark Plains?”
“Rule? Dark Plains?” Keita had to work hard to keep the game up when she felt her aunt dying in her arms. But she knew this scenario for the test—and warning—that it was.
“I know it sounds impossible, my dear, but I promise you it’s not. You just have to trust me.”
Desperate, her aunt clung to her tighter, shaking her head. “Keita, please.”
“It’s all right, Esyld. Really.” She kissed her aunt’s forehead and carefully lowered her back to the floor. She petted Esyld’s cheek once, deciding then it was time to end this game. So Keita closed her eyes and sent out one thought: It’s time, Ragnar.
She stood and faced Franseza.
The She-dragon’s smile grew wider. “Are you about to challenge me, Keita the Viper? Don’t be foolish.”
“I’m never that.” Keita pointed at the plate of fresh fruit on the table beside Franseza. “Isn’t the fruit here delicious? I’ve always enjoyed it myself.”
“Yes. It’s very tasty. And so juicy, I’ve been picking some every day.”
“From the tree that hangs over Athol’s gate, yes?”
Athol took a step forward. “Keita?”
Keita giggled. “All right. I can’t lie…much. Honestly though, Franseza, I’ve been watching you for days. Every morning you’d come out, pick your fruit, and nibble on it throughout the day, between fresh cow carcasses that are delivered. And the servants don’t touch the fruit anymore because you already had a servant girl whipped who did. That is just like the Irons, isn’t it? Claiming everything as your own.”
“You little—”
“It wasn’t too bitter, was it? What I used? I do try to be so careful about taste and all.”
Her breath growing short, her hand on her stomach, Franseza asked, “Do you think I’m alone here, that I have no one to protect me?”
“I know you’re not alone.” Keita tossed her hair. “You know, the poison would be much less effective if you were dragoness. Too bad about Athol’s spell keeping you in human form.”
The Iron looked at Athol, but he only shook his head. “I can’t. If you can shift, so can she. And anyone else she has with her.”
“Too bad for you, eh, cousin?” Keita asked, unable to stop her smile.
“Kill her, Athol,” Franseza ordered, dropping to her knees.
Keita snorted, swiped a dismissive hand through the air. “He can barely move after what he’s been drinking.” Keita glanced back at Athol. “Did I mention your assistant hates you? Plus…he wants this place. All I had to do was promise him we’d fix the walls we’re about to destroy and he happily slipped that Banallan root right into your wine.” Keita clapped her hands together. “Isn’t this fun?”
The building around them rumbled, and the wall behind Franseza ripped away.
Athol stretched his arm out, terrifically weakened Magick flickering back and forth between his hands before he crashed to the floor. Ragnar and Ren made their way into the room through the space they’d created where that wall used to be.
Knowing that once they were inside Athol’s palace, their Magicks would be greatly diminished, they’d decided to tear the building apart from the other side of the gate first and left Morfyd outside to work on the next part of Keita’s plan.
With Ragnar and Ren managing Athol, Keita walked toward Franseza.
“So sorry there’s no one to rescue you,” Keita said, using the same tone Franseza had when discussing what she’d done to Esyld. “The guards who’d been with you are busy getting gutted by my brothers.”
“All you’re doing,” Franseza gasped out, “is bringing war to your weak queens, war that will tear this territory apart.”
“Perhaps,” Keita said. “And I must admit, I was fighting so hard to stop this war—even ready to come to your territory to try to work something out.” She crouched down and looked into Franseza’s bloating face as the poison took hold inside her human form. “But then I was told my aunt had been captured. And my friend, Ren, told me he sensed she was in some pain. After that, cousin, there was no going back. Not for anyone. Not for you.”
Keita stood again. “Although it has been said that sometimes war just can’t be avoided.” She smiled, making sure to use her prettiest one. “But don’t you worry, cousin. With the help of my friends and kin, I have come up with the loveliest idea to get everything started just right!”
The crowd roared as the two gladiators circled each other. It was the last day of the games, and now Vateria, eldest daughter of Overlord Thracius, was officially bored beyond anything she could remember. In fact, when she felt that slight earthquake under her feet, she hoped it might get bigger and open a chasm to swallow up all these boring beings tainting her and her father’s world. Anything to end the tedium.
Then she heard the gasps and saw her noble father lean forward in his chair. She focused again on the battle, but the gladiators had stumbled back. Not from each other’s blows, but from whatever had suddenly formed in the middle of the field.
A mystical doorway. She’d heard of this kind of Magick but had never met anyone who could actually perform it.
It was a small dragoness in human form who stepped out. A Southlander, from the look of her. She gazed up at the now-silent crowd until her eyes locked on Vateria’s father.
“Overlord Thracius,” she called out. “A gift from my queen, in honor of her father, my grandfather.”
Then she tossed something away from her, and it rolled and bumped along, until it came to an abrupt stop on the field.
Vateria’s father shot to his feet, but by then what had been thrown had changed from human to dragoness. Vateria recognized her mother even from this height.
Thracius gripped the railing, his gaze moving back to the Southlander.
“And this is a little something from me.”
She reached back into that doorway and yanked three males out. Two old dragons and an elf.
“If it’s war you want, Overlord,” the Southlander shouted up to him, “then war you s
hall have!”
Then she was gone. Leaving Vateria’s raging father, who’d just lost his mate, and three quaking foreigners in the middle of his gladiator ring.
Well, if nothing else, everything had just gotten a lot more interesting.
Annwyl waited in the war room, her rear resting against the table filled with maps and correspondence from her commanders, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Behind her stood Dagmar and Talaith.
Brastias opened the door and let in the two women.
“General Ásta and her second in command, Bryndís,” he announced. Once they were inside, he closed the door and came to stand close by Annwyl, big arms folded over his chest, his steady gaze on the ones who’d challenged his queen.
The second in command, Bryndís, dropped to one knee, her ax slamming into the floor, her head bowed. Ásta, however, merely bowed her head. But she kept it bowed, waiting for Annwyl to acknowledge her.
Before she did, Annwyl motioned Dagmar over and whispered in her ear, “Why can’t I get this kind of bowing and scraping from you lot?”
“Because you’d force us to kill you in your sleep if you tried,” her battle chief whispered back; then she winked.
Annwyl grinned, but cut it short, getting a good scowl in place before focusing her attention on the two women.
“So you’re here”—Ásta raised her head as Annwyl spoke—“to protect my twins.”
“That is the task we’ve been given. That is the task we’ll carry out.”
“And what if I tell you I don’t need you? What if I tell you to go?”
“Then we’ll go. Our orders are to follow your orders. That is what we’ll do.”
Annwyl briefly glanced back at a practically snarling Talaith, and asked, “We have a Nolwenn babe here as well. Will she be safe around you?”
“We have never harmed a Nolwenn not of age. We will not start now. We are not here to cause any harm, Queen Annwyl. Or take your children. You have met us in direct combat and have earned our respect. We will carry out our orders to the best of our abilities. We will protect your children with our lives. Our very souls if need be.”