Whether it was Nutesh’s surprisingly rather un-noble-like personality, or the fact she just didn’t feel as trapped by circumstance as she had a few days ago, or merely the knowledge that she and Tirigan were fated to become mates, Asharru felt happy for the first time since her brother’s death.
There was a little spike of guilt at that realization until she reminded herself that her reasons for happiness would also allow her to carry out some of her brother’s legacy.
She was making headway with her plans at last.
This morning, just as dawn was brightening the sky, she, Tirigan, Bashaa, Laliya, and a full company of trusted guards took to the air in a flight to Uruk.
The flight had special meaning for Asharru since it was the first time Tirigan had flown on the back of a gryphon. She’d insisted her gryphon had wanted to be the one to carry him, which was true, but really Asharru didn’t trust him in anyone else’s care.
He’d been hesitant at first, saying a future queen shouldn’t have to carry anyone, but he’d relented when she reminded him monarchs had been carrying their Blades since the first King of the Gryphons had taken flight with his.
Tirigan had soon come to love flying and she’d promised him they’d find time for pleasure flights in between their other duties.
Shortly after they’d arrived on the island, Asharru gathered together the senior most priests and priestesses and told them that Ishtar and Tammuz had appeared and announced their choices for High Priest and Priestess.
This caused some stir, but their own ability to read omens and visions sent by the gods confirmed great change was coming. And if a few of the shrewd elders narrowed their eyes with speculation as they gazed upon Tirigan, Asharru hadn’t said anything to confirm or deny their suspicions.
While she’d wanted to believe all who served Ishtar could be trusted with the knowledge Tirigan was her Blade, she wouldn’t risk his life by sharing that news until after the third Blooding Ceremony.
Once the priests and priestesses had settled into the knowledge that the gods had made their choices, Asharru had begun the ceremony to surrender her claim to the title of High Priestess and at last embrace her destiny as a Queen of the Gryphons.
Laliya had then taken up the mantle of High Priestess as the rest of the great temple’s citizens looked on, joining in the chanting and spells and prayers that would awaken the power of Ishtar in Laliya and Tammuz in Bashaa.
There was still a great deal to do to stabilize her empire, but that could wait for another day. This one was warm and bright. The lure of a free afternoon calling her to sun herself along the beach was irresistible. After all, the court didn’t know how long the ritual naming of a new High Priest and Priestess might take.
Now that the rituals were over, she felt no need to fly back to her palace or her court just yet.
It had been close to three months since Asharru had last had an afternoon off.
Even a ruler of the ten city-states should get a day off every so often, she reasoned. With that in mind, Asharru felt no guilt in leaving the temple to go walking along the beach.
Tirigan walked beside her, his gaze searching the sky and the ocean for danger, but other than that, he seemed more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. Perhaps someone else needed a break far more than her?
She would work excuses into her schedule just to come here so her Blade could unwind and rest once or twice a moon cycle.
“You seem deep in thought,” he said, drawing her gaze back to him.
He stood with his hand on the hilt of one of his swords. He carried two now since he needed to keep the crystalline sword close but didn’t want to draw it in public where anyone with eyes would recognize what it was and that Tirigan was a Blade.
If there were a threat, he’d reveal who he was, but for practice and training sessions, he still only used his old sword.
Presently, Tirigan’s right hand rested on the hilt of his crystalline sword. Though to an onlooker, it would look much like any other sword with its golden hilt wrapped in leather. A bright red silk scarf was tied around the cross pieces and left to flutter in the wind to help hide some of the shimmering opulence. To an onlooker, the sword would look more ornamental than practical.
Though in private, Asharru had already witnessed the sword’s deadly power. It was far from ornamental. She’d seen it slice through other swords like they were made of water.
When Kuri grew tired of seeing perfectly good swords get destroyed, the guardswoman had switched to wooden practice swords and then sticks, and at last, she’d started lobbing whole melons at Tirigan in exasperation. The sword had vaporized each one. He hadn’t even gotten so much as a splattering of juice on himself.
Kuri had finally growled at him to sheath his new toy before it started wanting blood and souls.
Tirigan had laughed in agreement and turned his focus upon controlling his other gifts. He’d said it was strange because he had the power and the knowledge of how to use it, but he lacked the control and muscle memory.
But as he practiced calling magic every time they had a bit of privacy, he improved and could now call fiery balls of power and make them dance and circle around his hands as if they were pet birds.
Yesterday, she’d been too busy to watch his practice and now wondered what new skill he’d mastered.
“How goes your practice?”
“Well enough I suppose, but I have no one to test my skills against, not until…” he glanced around, then lowered his voice until even her gryphon hearing had trouble making out his words over the waves. “Until I’m tested by an Anunnaki.”
“We’ve faced and won a battle against them before. I have every confidence you will make quick work on them should they attack again.”
“They haven’t attacked again. That’s what worries me,” Tirigan admitted. “They must be planning something else, but I don’t know what and I don’t like it.”
“Nor I,” Asharru agreed. “But there is nothing we can do about it right now is there?”
He grunted his agreement.
“Than I say we allow ourselves this one afternoon for rest and play.”
Asharru untied her sandals, kicked them off and then began pulling off the rest of her outfit.
She laughed when Tirigan barked out an order for the other guards to turn their eyes away.
Still laughing, Asharru started to run towards the water, stopping only long enough to shift to her gryphon form before running out into the surf. Hunzuu and a few others of her personal guard soon followed, shifting to their gryphon forms as well. Tirigan had created that rule himself.
If Asharru was in gryphon form than some of her guards must be as well in case she took to the air. The guards of her unit needed to always be ready, Tirigan had claimed.
Asharru didn’t care about any of that now, though. She just wanted to play in the ocean’s waves with her Blade. It took some urging on her part, but eventually, she convinced him by tugging on his belt, half dragging him toward the waves until he admitted defeat and stripped down to his loincloth to swim and play in the surf with her.
Kuri just folded her arms, rolled her eyes and stood guard over the discarded sacred crystalline sword.
Asharru swam and played and even screeched in delight when Tirigan tried to wrestle her off her feet. Then on a second try, with the aid of a powerful wave, he succeeded.
It was the first perfect day she’d had since before her brother’s death.
But perfect never lasted.
Chapter 36
Asharru was lounging on the beach, sipping a cold drink and nibbling on a plate of cheese, flat cakes, and grapes when she watched a ship sail around the curve of the island. The boat was too far out to be coming into the harbor. It must be making for Nineveh. Perhaps even carrying another of the governors or officials from one noble house or another.
With her coronation fast approaching, Nineveh’s population was growing daily as half the other city-states seemed to be pac
king up to make the trip to the capital city.
Beside her, Tirigan had been laying in the sand, watching as the fluffy white clouds raced by. Suddenly he sat up.
Bashaa and Laliya fell silent, their conversation forgotten.
Together the three of them walked to the water’s edge to get a closer look at the ship. Asharru rose and marched to join them.
“What is it that you sense?”
“Not sense,” Bashaa said with an unhappy little flourish. “You should have asked what flag do we see?”
Asharru looked back toward the ship, her heart sinking. “Ugurnaszir?”
“One of his ships,” Tirigan said, his tone low and menacing.
“He has many ships,” Laliya added. “He might not be on it.”
“Not that one, no.” Tirigan didn’t sound at all happy even though he’d encouraged her to summon Ugurnaszir. “But with the coronation coming, he’ll be on another.”
And just like that, Asharru’s perfect afternoon was soured by the thought of how she’d soon have to co-exist in the same room with the man who had abused her Blade for years. Her gryphon wanted to tear him to shreds, and Asharru wasn’t sure if she shouldn’t indulge the beast this one time.
They stayed on the beach until the sun was lower in the sky, but they didn’t laugh, play, or joke again. As the breeze shifted with the coming evening, Asharru ordered her guards to make ready and then she shifted to gryphon form.
Tirigan mounted her, grumbling about her not wearing a harness. While he was situating himself, Bashaa and Laliya mounted Kuri and Hunzuu who’d also taken on their gryphon forms.
Then together Asharru and Tirigan and all their entourage took to the air, returning to Nineveh. If Ugurnaszir were there when they returned, they’d deal with him then.
Chapter 37
Hashur-Nutesh sat in an ornate chair to the left of the throne. It was a place of honor reserved for someone hand-tied to the future monarch of New Sumer. Though, strictly speaking, no law required a ruler to share such honor or rank with a potential consort.
If it had pleased the Crown Princess, she could have seated him among the tables below with the other high-ranking nobles, and he’d have had no choice but to smile, nod, and sit.
Not that Hashur cared about such trappings of rank and state. Or, come to think of it, any thing of a similar sort that were rendered void at the end of life. Given a choice, he’d have preferred to be down among the other nobles, discovering the court’s newest little gossips and dramas. They were much more entertaining than whatever current grievance a noble was bringing before Asharru for her to solve.
Though, as he turned to gaze up at the stern-faced Crown Princess, he admitted he was a little pleased that she’d come to respect him enough to honor him with his own seat. What they felt wasn’t romantic on either of their parts. It was respect and, or so he liked to tell himself, the beginnings of deepening friendship.
He’d found he liked Asharru. Even her untalkative Blade was growing on him.
After casting a glance at the empty chair to Asharru’s right—Tirigan’s seat—Hashur looked toward the nearest window. By the sun’s position, it was late afternoon. The Blade should be finishing up his training session with the new recruits.
Strictly speaking, Nutesh wasn’t supposed to know that little detail. The official word was that Captain Tirigan was sick in bed from some minor ailment. But the truth was that the new Captain was training a few of his recruits in the catacombs below the palace.
There were many old storage rooms down there that the Blade had converted into temporary chambers for his soldiers.
He was keeping them secret for now. Presumably, until there were enough of them to form their own units, by which time, they would then be introduced to the public.
Hashur had discovered the secret training units during one of the times he’d left Nutesh’s body sleeping in his bed and gone spying in his true form. He was limited to short trips since the body would expire without his energy to keep it breathing, but those excursions were enough to learn fascinating tidbits.
Perhaps tonight he’d take another such trip and discover if Asharru and Tirigan had advanced their relationship to the point where Hashur could, in good conscience, give up the courtship without going back on his word to Ereshkigal.
After all, it wasn’t his fault if Asharru and her Blade were already in love and became mates.
Asharru’s new happiness since her return from the island of Uruk wasn’t lost on Hashur. Tirigan was the most likely cause, which didn’t upset him in the least. Hashur briefly wondered when he’d given up his quest to seduce the Crown Princess and his mission?
He thought it might have been the first time Asharru laughed with him over some trivial bit of nonsense an aristocrat had told him as he’d shared the story with her. Her laughter, her genuine willingness to sit and talk with him—it was the first time in his existence that someone hadn’t feared him, even a little.
Even Ereshkigal had a healthy respect for his power and knowledge.
As oldest of the nine judges of the Underworld, tasked with judging and destroying evil souls, it was rare beyond measure to have someone simply share a bit of warm camaraderie with him.
Perhaps he’d stay on in the living plain even after his mission failed. One of the other Anunnaki could continue to take up his duties in the Underworld for one short lifetime.
He’d just finished thinking that happy thought when Asharru called for a break in the afternoon’s proceedings. Servants carrying trays of food and pitchers of wine entered from the great hall’s side doors.
Hashur was looking forward to the novelty of eating—he never got bored with feeding his host body—when he spotted a familiar face that was entirely out of place. He sat up a little straighter.
Priestess Nuannin was walking forward with a tray of food. Dressed in the simple clothing of a servant and projecting a meek demeanor, she blended in with the other palace staff serving the food and drink.
No one would have guessed her to be a noble-born lady, his host’s sister, or a High Priestess of Ereshkigal. Not at this moment anyway. Her mannerisms spot on, she handed off her tray to guardswoman Kuri with a deep bow.
Kuri didn’t give Nuannin a second look and turned to bring the tray to Asharru.
With downcast eyes and another meek little bow, Nuannin backed away and took her place along the wall with the other servants. Kuri, in turn, handed the tray to Nasir, who it had been discovered, had the sharpest senses of anyone in the gryphon guard. After Nasir tasted a bit of everything, he handed it to Asharru with a nod.
It was common now after Asharru’s brother and the other councilors had been poisoned. One or another of the pureblood gryphon guards acted as taste testers with the hope of detecting anything amiss with the food.
But if Hashur weren’t mistaken, he’d bet there was an undetectable spell woven into one of those items to hide the taste of whatever drug had been used to spike the food and drink. It didn’t take any great intellect to guess just which drug had been used.
Rage flickered to life in his soul.
His bargain with Ereshkigal was contingent on him winning Asharru’s affections fairly. Having his host’s sister drug Crown Princess Asharru while her Blade was away training was not ‘winning’ her by fair means.
Though, if he pointed out the suspiciousness of Nuannin dressed as a servant or the reason he thought the wine was drugged, then Kuri and Tirigan would be swift to interrogate Council Ekurzakir, Nuannin, and Nutesh at sword point.
If Nutesh were executed, Hashur would be forced to return to the spirit world with his soul. That, regrettably, would effectively end his little adventure in the world of the living.
Not a desirable outcome.
Tapping a finger against his thigh, Hashur studied the other servants along the wall.
Ah! What if he pointed out a different one?
Nuannin could escape in the confusion, and later Nutesh could c
laim he was mistaken as to which servant it was. He’d heard nobles claim the servants all looked and acted the same. Which was rubbish. All souls were unique.
But if a little bigotry helped hide his secret…
Bolting from his seat, Hashur-Nutesh whirled around to face the throne where Asharru was just raising her goblet to her lips.
“Wait!” Hashur shouted as he rushed forward.
His sudden move had Kuri drawing her sword and advancing on him. He halted so fast his sandals squeaked against the tiles. Arms spread wide and hands up to show them empty of weapons, he remained perfectly still.
The entire hall might have frozen in silence as well. The only thing he could hear was the rushing of blood in his host’s ears.
“I mean Crown Princess Asharru no harm. I think a servant, or someone dressed as a servant, put something in her food or drink.” He slowly moved his right hand until he was pointing somewhere along the east wall. “The assassin? Whatever her purpose, I spotted her remove something from her pocket when her back was turned and then later slide it back in, real slow, like she didn’t want to draw attention. I don’t know her intentions. Maybe she was just using a handkerchief to wipe up a small spill. But what if it was something more sinister?”
Kuri glanced from him to the wall and back to him. “You. Go sit back down in that chair.”
“As the lady demands.” Nutesh gingerly backed away from her sword’s tip and seated himself with as much dignity as he could.
“Guards!” Kuri snarled out. “Search all the servants. Nobles too. No one leaves until everyone has been searched.”
Asharru came to her feet and set aside the tray, cautious not to touch the contents. Once she’d set it down, she turned to him. “Thank you for your keen eyes, Nutesh.”
“The future queen of the gryphons has my loyalty.” Grinning, he gave her a half bow from his chair. “Besides, I have very few friends. I’ll protect them if I can.”
“Friends. I’d like that.” Asharru nodded in acknowledgment and then her queen’s mask was back in place as she looked out at the room.
Blade's Destiny (Ishtar's Legacy Book 3) Page 21
