Queen's Gambit

by Karen Chance

  “A problem?”

  “The col de mort, as you call it, did not work on our friend Sokkwi. It killed him, but he has died many times. The wood, I am afraid, was no different to him than any other stab wound.”

  “You mean, he could come back?” I said, already halfway out of my chair.

  Hassani made a calming motion. “He could have. Not now.” He chuckled again and swept the ashes of the little bag into a garbage can by his desk.

  “Why not now?”

  “Oh, let’s just say, I sent him off to enjoy his endless rebirths with someone who could appreciate his unusual talent.”

  And then he’d cackled again.

  Louis-Cesare and I had gotten out of there as soon as possible, because seriously? Diplomacy has limits. Although, I thought now, relaxing back into my husband’s arms, it had its perks, too.

  “I’m getting one of these pool tubs when we get back,” I told him.

  “And put it where?” he murmured, against my hair. “It would be more than half as large as your room at Claire’s.”

  I sighed. I didn’t want to do this now. I didn’t want to do anything now, except appropriate honeymoon activities.

  But I guessed we had to.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he told me.

  I turned around. “Did you just read my mind?”

  “No. I just think I have harangued you enough.”

  I lifted an eyebrow, dislodging some water that trickled down my face. He moved closer, to kiss it off, but I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Wait. Does this mean no more freak outs? No more knight in shining armor bullshit? No more talk of locking me up to keep me safe?”

  He winced slightly at that, which he damned well should have.

  I pressed my advantage, and pressed myself against him at the same time, because it felt good.

  “No more ‘oh, no, my weak little wife is in danger’? No more, ‘I married a dhampir, but I wanted a Christine’?”

  “That’s unfair. I never wanted Christine.”

  “And me?”

  “I wanted you from the first moment I set eyes on you, however I may have acted at the time. This wasn’t about you.”

  “Then what was it about? And why the change?”

  He looked like he was struggling, so I pushed him around to soap up his back. And to give him some time. He took it; that was the cleanest back ever by the time he finally spoke.

  “I’ll start with when it changed.”

  “Which was?”

  “When I saw him with Efridis. When I saw the man who had captured me, had humiliated me, had hurt my family and had threatened . . . who I thought had threatened . . .” he trailed off, but I didn’t need the help.

  “To rape you.” I finally said the words that we’d been dancing around for a while now.

  Louis-Cesare didn’t say them himself, but his head nodded. “It happened before, not with him, but when I was a boy . . .”

  “You don’t have to tell me about that.” I already knew the story. Not in detail, but enough. He’d been a captive; his jailer had done what jailers sometimes do, him and some friends. It had left deep scars that still surfaced occasionally.

  Like with Jonathan, I assumed.

  “You thought it was going to happen again.”

  He nodded. “He had me utterly in his power. I could not have resisted him. And he kept touching me, talking about wanting my body . . . what else was I to think?”

  “Not that he meant it literally,” I said. “The man was insane.”

  “But brilliant, and intelligent, and strong . . . or so I thought.”

  “Until you saw him groveling at Efridis’ feet.”

  “Yes. It changed everything. I had been so afraid of him, for so long, and so ashamed of myself for it. Everyone always talked about how strong I was, but if they could have seen me with him . . . they would not have thought so.”

  “Then they’re fools,” I said, brushing damp hair off his forehead. “You went to him the first time to save Christine; you were going back this time for me. How is that not strong?”

  He looked surprised at that, which pissed me off, although not at him. Jonathan was dead, killed by the fey before we could get to him, and so yet again, Louis-Cesare had been denied his revenge. He deserved it, like he deserved to not have to feel like this.

  “You knew he might capture you again. You knew, if he did capture you, what might happen. But you went back anyway, because he had Dorina’s location and you needed that information. Not for you, but for me. You were willing to risk so much, for me . . .”

  “You are a part of me,” he said hoarsely, his Adam’s apple working. “So, it was for me as well.”

  I kissed him then, because a girl can only take so much.

  But then I drew back, because I still didn’t get one thing. “Why the overprotective father bit? Was it just about the leg? Or were you afraid that Jonathan would get his claws in me, too? Or does battling would-be gods give you as much of a headache as it does me?”

  He sighed, and sagged back against the tub. “All of the above. And . . . more. So much more.”

  I stopped and I waited, because getting him to talk was rare, while I talked all the time. The least I could do is be silent for once, while he had his chance. So I was, and it worked.

  After a moment, he sighed and then spoke again. “So much has happened recently. So much change. Some of it bad, with the war and the constant fighting. But much of it, for me personally, has been good. And some of that has been beyond good. I was afraid, no, I was sure, that the other shoe was soon to drop.

  “My life has always been a rollercoaster, one with far more lows than highs. I suppose I have gotten into the habit of assuming that it will always be so, and that any high is begging for a correction. And meeting you, all that we are together, all that we could become—”

  “Is a hell of a high.” I felt a little dizzy with it myself, half the time.

  He nodded. “I don’t doubt your abilities—yours, apart from Dorina. I was simply afraid, and I did not know what to do about it. I wanted to protect the most important person in my life, but . . . I acted badly.”

  “I forgive you.”

  He quirked a brow. “That was fast. You should make me work for it a little more. I am, after all, rarely wrong.”

  I managed not to roll my eyes—just. “I intend to,” I said. “We’re going to get Dorina back so you can bite me and I can stop having idiots like Tomas ask if we’re ‘really married’.”

  He smiled.

  “But, since that may be a while, I think you owe me a little down payment.”

  He looked slightly wary. “In the form of?”

  I smiled and put my arms around his neck. “We can start with what you heard in that room at Lily’s.”

  Dorina, Faerie

  The crab was as large as a car, but mottled green and brown, which was why it could not easily be seen among the treetops. It had been fitted with two seats in front and a long, bench type one in back. Ray and I were on the back one, with ropes across our laps to help us keep our seats. Our guide, who occupied one of the front seats, had informed us that these creatures could climb up completely perpendicular trunks as easily as they could skitter through the forest canopy above, so we would have to hold on.

  The camp was a flurry of activity, as everyone packed up their substitute for horses. The group of fey we had met with were hunters, on a food-finding trip for a larger gathering—much larger, from what I understood. And now we were going back.

  “How are the legs?” Ray asked, looking at the bright green leggings I had acquired.

  “They are well.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I know you’ve been walking around and all, but can you run? Fight?”

  I looked at him curiously. “I have been quite active all week. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just . . . we don’t know what we’ll find at this new camp, okay? We need to be ready for anything.” />
  “Did the fey say something to upset you?” I could not talk to them as yet, but Ray had been working hard to learn the local language. It had some things in common with a widespread trade dialect that he had used before, although not as much as he would have liked.

  “I can’t be sure, since I get all of one word in ten,” he said fretfully.

  “But?”

  “But it sounded like . . .” He repeated a word in their tongue that I didn’t know. “It means ‘similar’, or ‘like you’,” he explained. “They said we were going to meet someone like us.”

  Now I was the one frowning. “That could be either good or bad.”

  “Yes! Yes, it could. So be ready.”

  I nodded, and then said no more, as our unusual ride suddenly rose from a crouch to its full height. And immediately took off for the trunk of a very large tree. Our guide said something in their language, and Ray gripped the side of the seat.

  “What did he say?” I asked, as the pincers gripped the wood.

  “He said hold on!”

  And then we were climbing. It was so fast that I barely realized what was happening before we were bursting out above the tree line. It was a beautiful view, with vividly colored trees—green and yellow and orange and deep purple—spreading out all around us and thick with leaves, like the most luxurious of carpets. Some startled birds—vividly blue with a yellow chest and long, trailing tails—added to the scene, flying up and then off at our appearance, into the perfect cerulean of the sky.

  The voyage took the better part of a day, despite the fact that the crabs were extremely fast. They explained the strange rustlings I’d seen in the treetops, shortly after we’d arrived. The common folk seemed to use them in these parts like horses, and the trees like highways, allowing them to swiftly travel across long distances.

  I found the trip quite pleasant, and quite easy. There was nothing to impede us here, no mountains to climb or enemies to avoid. I saw a dragon in the distance once, fiery red and easily visible against the pale blue of the sky. But our ride dipped below the leafy canopy for a little while, and when we emerged again, it was gone.

  We finally reached our destination in early afternoon, with the climb backwards down another great trunk a new pleasure. In no time, we were on the ground, amid a huge forest of a different kind. Silver gray bark, blue skies and bright yellow leaves, many of the latter swirling down around us as we gazed about in wonder.

  “Have you ever seen the like?” I asked Ray.

  He just shook his head.

  Our guide took us forward. He was the same old man we’d met on the riverbank, and he seemed to have developed a fondness for us. He beckoned us along, while the rest of the party hugged family and friends, and chatted—about the hunt, I presumed—while unloading their beasts.

  The forest was a wonder, but I did not have long to marvel at the height of the trees, or the thickness of their trunks, or at the size of their leaves, which were feet across in some cases. Or at the many tents that had been set up beneath them, some on the forest floor and some further up, on branches so broad that they could be used as additional “stories.” Some of the tents were hide, but many more were in colorful fabrics that added to the festive nature of things.

  Ray did not seem so impressed, looking around suspiciously as we moved ahead, watching the people so closely that he did not even bother to swear at the size of the roots we often had to clamber over or pass under, or the floor covering of massive, decomposing leaves that we waded through in places, up to our thighs.

  Everything was so beautiful, but so alien . . .

  Almost.

  I paused at the edge of a small clearing. There were no tents here. Instead, a small group of thatched huts clustered closely together, around a central fire. A handful of women, one of them gray haired, were bustling about, fixing a meal. The smell of roasting meat hit my nose, as well as that of some strange vegetables bubbling away in a pot of soup and an open container of hoppy beer.

  The beer was more or less familiar, although it wasn’t what had me pausing again, half way to the fire, to sniff the air.

  Ray noticed the same time I did, and his face flushed. “No. No, no, no, no, no!”

  “Ray—”

  “I won’t have it, do you understand?” he yelled, causing the people to pause and look at him oddly. But I didn’t think he was talking to them. “I’ve been ripped to pieces,” he raged. “I’ve been kidnapped, thrown all over a ley line, and almost stomped to death by a dragon! And that was before being shot full of arrows and practically drowned—”

  “You can’t drown,” I said, but he wasn’t listening.

  “I have put up with it all, but this—I will not do this. Fuck it, I’m done.”

  And I supposed he meant it, because he sat right down in the dirt, arms crossed, face mulish, and refused to go another step.

  “Raymond?” A familiar male voice carried from somewhere inside one of the huts. “Raymond Lu? Is that you?”

  “Not doing it,” Ray muttered, hands going over his ears. “La la la, can’t hear you.”

  The old man was looking from me to Ray and back again, as if he was starting to regret bringing us here. I couldn’t really blame him. And then the voice came again. It was slightly muffled, but was nonetheless perfectly understandable.

  “Damn it! Stop horsing around and get over here!”

  I went over there. He turned out to be in the third hut I peered into, which should have been the first since it was the only one with guards outside the door. They crossed spears when I approached, and I did not attempt to remove them.

  We were guests.

  It would have been rude.

  It was gloomy in the hut, especially when standing outside, but my eyes adjusted after a moment. This allowed me to see the figure of a man, lashed against the central pole of the structure. I assumed there must also be some magic involved, because otherwise, the flimsy ropes would not have held him for an instant. Because he wasn’t just a man, he was a vampire, one with curly hair and a familiar scent in my nose.

  “Oh, god damn it!” he said, catching sight of me. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  It was Kit Marlowe, the consul’s chief spy. It did not appear that his spying was going very well, if that was indeed, why he was here. “I could ask the same of you,” I pointed out, only to have the usually brown eyes flash fire.

  “I’m looking for your damned father! He ran off without a word and we’re running out of ways to cover for him. Now get me out!”

  I did not point out the obvious fact that I had no way to do that. Instead, I focused on the main issue. “Father is here?”

  “Yes, father is here,” Marlowe said sarcastically.

  “Why?” Unless . . . could he possibly be here for me? The thought flashed across my mind—foolishly, because I knew better. But then Marlowe said something even more amazing.

  “Why? He’s looking for your mother, that’s why! And he’s likely to start another war in the process, if we don’t stop him!”

  “My mother?”

  “Damn it, Dory! We can talk about this later. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

  I stared at him for a long moment, until he began to look slightly nervous. But I could not seem to help it. In the space of a few days, my life had gone from almost completely shut down to dizzyingly, wondrously open, and now I learned . . .

  I could not take it in.

  Marlowe swallowed, loudly enough that I could hear it. “You’re . . . not Dory. Are you?”

  “No. I am Dorina.” I smiled at him, and he reared back slightly for some reason. “And I will help you.”

  Dorina Basarab Series

  Midnight’s Daughter

  Death’s Mistress

  Fury’s Kiss

  Shadow’s Bane

  Queen’s Gambit

  Cassandra Palmer Series

  (same universe)

  Touch the Dark

  Claimed by S
hadow

  Embrace the Night

  Curse the Dawn

  Hunt the Moon

  Tempt the Stars

  Reap the Wind

  Ride the Storm

  Brave the Tempest

  Shatter the Earth

  Author’s Website

  KarenChance.com/Books