Lonen's Reign

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Arnon’s lips twitched, the shadows lightening. “I don’t think that analogy plays very well.”

  “This is why I leave such things to you. I trust you to understand them.”

  Arnon sobered. “You really trust me—still? After everything?”

  Lonen leveled his full attention on his brother, giving up the tussle under the table with Oria. “I trust you more than ever, after everything,” he said with quiet emphasis. “We learn from our mistakes.”

  Arnon pressed his lips together, emotion shining bright in his eyes. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “All the times I pressed your face in the mud to get you to show your older brother some respect,” Lonen said with a growl, “and this is what it takes.”

  Arnon snorted, sounding a bit more like his old, irreverent self. “You’re much scarier now. And you have a super scary wife,” he added, dragging his plate back and spearing a piece of meat.

  Oria leaned over Lonen, eyes sparkling with mischief. “You have no idea, Arnon,” and slid her hand up to squeeze Lonen’s balls under the table.

  A perfectly timed attack, as he’d been drinking a deep swallow of wine—so he choked on it, nearly spewing it across the table. He glared at Oria, who only laughed, a bell-like sound of complete delight.

  “But not wife,” she corrected, with an innocent smile for Lonen as she squeezed hard enough to make him wince. “Not until Arill says so. Only then will I have him to—”

  “On that note,” he interrupted, taking her hand off him and keeping it in a firm grip as he tugged her to her feet. “I have an announcement.” The room quieted and Oria beamed up at him, mooning at him as if completely enraptured. Who knew that the minx would turn out to have such a mischievous sense of humor when she finally felt well? “The dowager Queen Vycayla, in her capacity as High Priestess of Arill, has determined the most auspicious date for the sorceress Oria, Princess of Bára, and I to wed.”

  Oria raised her brows at him for withholding that bit of information until now. He smiled at her easily, with lots of teeth, which he intended to use to torment her into shameless begging. The hall briefly buzzed with excitement, then fell quiet as everyone strained to hear.

  “In Arill’s Temple, as Sgatha rises full and Grienon briefly paces her tomorrow evening, Arill will set her hand as the final seal on our marriage, begun many months ago in Oria’s City of Bára.”

  Everyone cheered, the hall in an uproar of toasts and celebratory shouts.

  “Tomorrow night?” Oria practically squeaked, not only because of his arm tight around her. “I didn’t expect it so soon!”

  He looked down into her upturned face, her copper eyes glinting with gold in the torchlight. “Last chance for second thoughts,” he said quietly, cursing himself for a fool even as he said it. As if he’d be able to let her go. No. No, if she wanted out, he would let her go. He would be a better man, a better king than his barbarian ancestors.

  “You’re truly asking me that, Lonen?” Oria breathed, a straight light in her face.

  “Yes,” he answered gravely, his heart stuttering to a stop. “I’m asking you to marry me, Oria. And if the answer is no, I’ll respect that.”

  “Hmm…” She looked thoughtful, then burst out laughing. Reaching up, she wound her fingers in his hair, which he’d left loose because she liked it that way. Tugging his head down, she kissed him. “If you tried to get away,” she said against his lips, “I’d toss you over Buttercup’s back and keep you captive in the hills until you broke down and agreed to marry me. Again.”

  Deep inside, where the marriage bond connected to his heart and soul, heat and joy burned like the sun over Bára.

  ~ 4 ~

  Oria had thought that the temporary set of rooms they’d given her were far too spacious and extravagant, especially for one person, for a few short days. Now it seemed Vycayla had been prescient in suggesting Oria move into the suite the queen had lived in before she left Dru, because the considerable space teemed with women, most sewing or crafting something, all of them talking at high volume.

  Oria thanked Arill or whoever might be listening that she’d learned to shield effectively. There was a time this kind of crowd—and excited emotional energy—would’ve had her fainting within minutes. They’d swarmed her rooms at dawn with fabric, patterns, jewelry, and keen urgency just shy of panic. Barely an hour later, Oria had taken refuge in a large, thronelike chair that served to give her an island of space in the sea of giggling and chattering women, sipping the hot tea she finally had a moment to drink inside the dubious barricade of the heavy, ornate arms.

  “I could breathe some flame and chase them all away,” Chuffta offered, making her smile.

  “Thank you, but I’m fine. At least they’re all here to bring off the wedding in fine form. I’m grateful for the help.”

  “Oria.” Vycayla approached her chair with a determined lift to her chin, a swath of green silk the color of moss draped over her arms. “We should make your wedding dress from this. It’s the best choice. Once you agree, the seamstresses can start cutting.”

  They’d already taken her measurements—every part of her—in a dizzyingly fast examination. She’d been relieved to put on her dressing robe and escape their discussion of her body’s finest qualities, and what would be best concealed. The Destrye women were honest and frank in a way that Báran women were decidedly not. Only the knowledge that they didn’t mean to embarrass her, or insult her in any way, had salved her raw reactions. At least Lonen loved her body as it was.

  “So do I,” Chuffta pointed out.

  “Yes, but you don’t count.”

  “Hey!”

  “Oria.” Vycayla snapped impatient fingers. “All I need is a yes.”

  “It’s very pretty,” Oria offered. Behind Vycayla, Baeltya shook her head emphatically. “But…”

  “But?” Vycayla demanded.

  Oria looked to Baeltya for clues—and rescue.

  “I thought you might prefer this red,” Baeltya said smoothly, drawing up a young Destrye girl who nearly drowned in a pile of crimson velvet. “As is traditional for your people,” Baeltya added, with a glance at Vycayla.

  “Oria will be married in Arill’s Temple via her holiest rites,” Vycayla argued. “She should wear Arill’s colors.”

  “If I may,” Oria began, but both women ignored her.

  “Oria is not a priestess of Arill,” Baeltya countered. “And this wedding is a joining of Bára and Dru. Dress the king in Arill’s colors and Oria in Báran ones.”

  “Oria may not be a priestess of Arill, yet,” Vycayla countered, “but once she marries my son and is acknowledged Queen of the Destrye, then she will be expected to take up the mantle of serving Arill, which means she should begin as she means to go on, wearing Arill’s colors.” With a triumphant huff, she held out the fabric to Oria. “Yes.”

  Not a question at all, and Oria opened her mouth, hoping words would come to explain how she felt. A somewhat desperate hope, as she had trouble defining to herself what those feelings were.

  “You don’t have to capitulate to her, Oria,” Baeltya inserted, eyes flashing and dark curls tumbling as she shook her hair back behind her shoulders, thrusting forward the crimson cloth. “This is your wedding and you should be able to come to it as the person you are. Who you decide to be after this is your decision.”

  “I think—” Oria started to say.

  “Nonsense.” Vycayla leveled a fierce gray glare on the shorter healer, reminding Oria very much of Lonen in battle mode. “No queen—or princess—is wholly her own person. Oria never has been and she won’t be going forward. The Queen of Dru is always also the head healer and priestess of Arill.” Vycayla emphasized her words with the green silk.

  “Oria’s magic isn’t healing. She’s a powerful sorceress with skills not seen in Dru for centuries. She will carve her own path.” Baeltya shook the crimson velvet.

  “Ladies, I—” Once again, Oria got no further. With a s
igh, she set her teacup down.

  “Exactly,” Vycayla crowed in triumph. “Centuries of tradition. Therefore, she—”

  Oria sent a chilling gust of wind through the room and stood, letting the power glow from her. She might look silly, bundled into her dressing robe and warm socks, with her hair still a tumbled mess from sleep, but the room went silent, all the busy women stilled at their tasks, gaping at her.

  “Your Highness,” she said, not unkindly, inclining her head and smiling. “Healer Baeltya. I greatly appreciate your efforts to make this wedding truly spectacular, and I know Lonen does, too.” A blatant lie there as Lonen felt no such thing. As they parted after the feast the night before, he’d sent her an array of images of what he’d rather be doing than sleeping alone and muttered dire threats about his mother in Oria’s ear before Baeltya firmly tugged her away. It made a laugh rise in her heart to think of it, which only added to the warmth of her smile. “The sorcerers of my people make these decisions based on certain arcane messages,” she continued, embroidering on the lie shamelessly. “Perhaps if I could see the fabric choices, then the magic will indicate the most serendipitous choice for this most blessed ritual.”

  Vycayla studied her with a shrewd gaze, not really taken in by Oria’s story, but also unwilling to call her a liar in front of so many people. Baeltya suppressed a grin, turning it into a solemn nod. “Of course, Sorceress Oria. If you’ll step into the anteroom with me?”

  Oria nearly gasped aloud at the sight that greeted her in the next room. The spacious receiving room was positively stuffed with fabrics of all colors and textures. None of the heavy wooden furniture showed, as every surface had been draped with fabric.

  “Overwhelming, I know,” Vycayla commented dryly from behind her. “Thus I thought to spare you.”

  Oria gave her a radiant smile, mostly faked. It was that or say something unforgivable. “I dare say as Queen of Dru I’ll have to make more difficult decisions than this. I am beyond impressed to see such an array of fabrics,” she added to salve Vycayla’s irritation. “Are these all created by the Destrye?”

  “No.” Vycayla softened, and Baeltya tossed Oria an amused smile behind the dowager queen’s back as the tall, imposing woman moved into the room, her long fingers testing the various fabrics with tenderness. She’d braided her floor-length hair and left it in a tail down the middle of her back. Even braided, the tip of her hair brushed the hem of her skirts. “The Destrye enjoyed vibrant trade with the lands to the south back in the day.”

  Back before the Báran golems came, she meant. Before Oria’s people drained the lakes of Dru and drove the Destrye nearly to destruction.

  “The queen before me and the queen before her collected many of these, and as a young queen I continued in the same vein, seeking out the most beautiful fabrics from every ship and merchant train. They’ve been stored in chests of wood that banish insects, preserved all this time.” She sighed, no longer vibrating with ruthless determination, and waved a hand. “Choose whichever you like, Oria. It’s time we had a queen again who looks the part.”

  Oria hesitated, taking in the severe dowager queen, hair pulled back tightly from her face in that braid, her gown one she must have brought from the hermitage, an undyed woven cloth no doubt spun from crops they’d grown. “There are more seamstresses here than can possibly all work on one gown at the same time, Your Highness,” she said softly. “Perhaps the green silk should be made into one for you.”

  Vycayla looked surprised, glancing at the lengths of shimmering green she’d set aside, her fingers going to it and stroking with that same tenderness. “We’ll see,” she murmured. Then her gray gaze flashed to Oria’s with granite command. “Now choose. We can’t spend all morning dithering over this one decision.”

  Not when they had countless decisions to dither over for the rest of the day, Oria thought to herself, but circumspectly did not say aloud.

  “This is why derkesthai don’t wear clothes,” Chuffta said cheerfully, if a bit snidely. “So much time wasted on colors. Be the color you are naturally.”

  “I think even the Destrye would be shocked if I arrived at my wedding ceremony naked.” Oria wandered through the maze of fabrics, her eye unable to settle on one.

  “Lonen likes you naked. He—”

  “Stop! Don’t go there.”

  Chuffta snickered in her mind, well-pleased with himself. And her eye landed on a length of shimmering copper silk. “Ooh,” Chuffta crooned. “See? That one matches your coloring. Do that one.”

  She had to agree, picking up the fragile silk and stroking it, realizing as she did that she touched it with the same affectionate tenderness Vycayla had shown for the green silk. It was so sheer and smooth that it snagged infinitesimally on the skin of her fingers, though Oria would’ve sworn they were soft and free of blemishes. Metallic threads ran through the copper-dyed silk, giving the overall fabric a magical sparkle.

  “That one has been in the stores for as long as anyone can remember,” Vycayla said quietly, reaching out to touch it also. “It was old when I was a little girl.”

  Oria reluctantly let it go. “I’ll pick something else.”

  Vycayla raised her brows in an amused arch. “And save it for what? Perhaps our predecessor was guided by Arill to purchase the fabric for you, for when you came along.” She gestured to a patiently waiting seamstress. “This one.”

  “It really is perfect for you, Oria,” Baeltya said with a genuine smile of pleasure. “It could indeed have been chosen by the goddess for you.”

  “It seems to me that you all invoke Arill to support whatever outcome you’d like to see,” Oria muttered before she thought about how it would sound. “I mean—”

  But Vycayla laughed, and Baeltya grinned broadly. Vycayla put her hands on Oria’s shoulders and steered her back to the living area being used as the workroom. “Now you’re learning. I think you’ll do just fine as Queen of Dru.”

  A surprising flush of pleasure suffused her to have the good opinion of Lonen’s mother. Not many people in Oria’s life had expressed such confidence in her.

  “I think you’ll do very well, too,” Chuffta said, his mind-voice ever so slightly indignant.

  “You don’t count,” she reminded him with a mental laugh.

  “Hey!”

  “Because you love me and think I’m wonderful no matter what I do.”

  “Oh. Well that’s true.”

  Lonen adjusted the fit of his formal clothes. His tailor sprang forward with a chiding click of his teeth to put it back again. “It should hang thus, Your Highness,” he said, the deferential tone changing nothing.

  Sitting nearby with a mug of ale, Arnon smiled, tight-lipped, suppressing his laughter. Lonen gave him a dark look. “Laugh all you like, brother. You get to wear your usual clothing.”

  “True,” Arnon agreed cheerfully enough, “but then, I have decent clothing to wear. How did you end up entirely with fighting leathers and hunting gear?”

  “I’ve been busy,” Lonen muttered.

  “Still, I would’ve thought that Natly, at least… Ah.” Arnon hit the realization and closed his mouth over it.

  “Yes,” Lonen said, holding still as his man produced a cloak of deep forest green and fastened it around Lonen’s shoulders with a hammered metal clasp in the shape of a stylized tree. “I didn’t want to marry Oria wearing clothes chosen by another woman.”

  “Good thinking,” Arnon murmured. “And the green is a good choice. Honoring Arill. Peace and fertility, rather than war.”

  Looser fitting that what he normally wore, the silk trousers and shirt fell in crisp lines, in a green so dark it looked black until the light hit it just right. A thick leather belt decorated with hammered metal leaves cinched the shirt at his waist, and the sleeves billowed with so much extra fabric it would hamper him in a fight.

  But, as his tailor had retorted when he pointed that out, today was not for fighting. It gave Lonen pause to realize how much antici
pating conflict, the daily battles, had become ingrained in his thinking. One day he’d like to be a king who expected every day to be peaceful.

  A nice dream, anyway.

  “Is everything ready?” he asked Arnon.

  “Yes.” Arnon set the mug down and stood. “A temporary solution, but the structure should hold for the short time we need it. It will be a good test case for the long-term stress and stability of the final design.”

  Lonen paused, running those words back through his head. “Is that code for ‘it could come down at any time?’”

  “Oh no.” Arnon shook his head emphatically. “It’s code for ‘it could come down eventually, but not today.’ Which isn’t a concern, because we’ll dismantle the platform after the ceremony and reuse everything for the permanent structure.”

  “Hmm.” Lonen eyed his man as he approached with the wreath of Dru, his crown, now shining and cleaned of his brother’s blood, at least physically.

  “You said you trusted me,” Arnon said, a hint of doubt creeping into his voice.

  “What? No, not that. I absolutely trust that you wouldn’t want me crushed by logs on my wedding day. It’s that.” He waved a hand at the wreath and sighed, his man hesitating in trepidation.

  “It’s yours by right, and by Arill’s clear decision,” Arnon said quietly.

  “I keep seeing it covered in Nolan’s blood,” he told Arnon, trusting him with that, too. “I can’t get that image of my mind.”

  Arnon cocked his head thoughtfully. “He wore a crown he stole to a duel. It’s not a metaphor, not an omen. Anything you wear to a duel is going to get blood on it. That’s just biology.”