by Gwynn White
TWENTY-SEVEN
Aurora
Aurora stirred her potion. Another couple of turns, and it would be ready for Lord Lardel. Exhaustion had claimed Keahr, and Aurora had insisted that Zandor take her back to her apartment. She and Niing were alone in the burrow, which was as she wanted it—to be alone with her tutor to discuss Raith.
But first she had to pluck up the courage to expose her inexplicable weakness for the man.
She put down the stirrer and grimaced at him. “I can’t believe someone died. That trial was supposed to be so simple. All they had to do was step inside the gate, see the flower, pick it, and return. Why are men so obdurate?”
Niing’s eyebrows bushed. “Obdurate, my princess? All men? That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”
She smiled at him as she pulled the flask off the burner. “It seems you were right about Jorah. He either knows about flowers, or he’s very observant.” She gulped; Jorah was another person she wanted this alone time with Niing to discuss. “He unsettles me. He keeps making strange comments about weird things. Tell me again how you know him.”
Niing wiped the table down with the cloth. “I’m more concerned about Raith. You seem to have taken a definite liking to him.”
She tapped impatient fingers against the table. Why did Niing keep dodging the Jorah question? But he had brought up Raith. That wasn’t something she could ignore when he seemed to have as many questions about the strange, beautiful man as she did.
She frowned as she poured Lord Lardel’s remedy into a vial, plugged it with a stopper, and set it to cool in a wooden stand. “Niing, don’t think I’m going to let you get away with hiding things about Jorah. But as it happens, I also wanted to talk to you about Raith.” She tucked her hands into her sleeves and faced him. “At times, Raith makes me feel—”
She writhed. It all seemed so crazy. She had fallen so completely for a man she knew so little about. The same man Keahr had pointed out had cheated in the first trial; the same man who may or may not have lied about the flower.
When she was away from Raith, she could see him clearly—and alarm bells sounded. But when she was with him, he drugged her with his dark eyes, his smoky voice, and his overwhelming charm until she lost herself in him.
The insanity of it flew in the face of logic.
Staring at Niing, she waited for answers to questions she was too embarrassed to ask. She cursed her sheltered upbringing that had limited her exposure to boys, and then men, of her own age. Zandor and Lazard really didn’t count.
Every time she stepped into the circle of her suitors, she was aware of how naïve and innocent she was, and how easy it would be for them to take advantage of her—especially as they were here with monetary motives in mind. They weren’t looking for love as she was.
When he said nothing, she mumbled, “Raith makes me feel loved, but uncomfortable at the same time. Can you explain that? Or is it more men being . . .” Her voice trailed off because she didn’t know how to describe Raith’s behavior.
“I fear that Raith is not an honorable man.” Niing’s creased face scrunched up with concern. “My princess, what is it about Jorah that troubles you?”
Aurora frowned at Niing. “How can you ask that when he has another woman he’s in love with?”
Niing slopped his cloth down onto the table. “You worry too much. I told you, Lila is dead. Send some smiles Jorah’s way, as you do with Raith, and Jorah’s heart will soon be yours.”
“I’m not sure I want a man who’s that fickle. And I can’t see Jorah falling for something so shallow either. He strikes me as being far smarter than that.”
“Jorah is smart. And it’s time he used some of those brains to see the truth. Lila has been dead for a year now. It’s not healthy for him—or for you—to continue dwelling on her.”
She tapped her fingers on her arm. “What did she look like?”
Niing tsked. “I have just said not to focus on her.”
She frowned her disapproval at his brush-off.
“She was lovely,” he added softly. “Blond, like Jorah, but with eyes that fired and sparkled with life. Everyone who saw her considered her a beauty.”
Her face fell. How could she ever compare with a woman like that?
“But you are lovely, too,” Niing said quickly. He must have realized his mistake. “Never forget, you have much to offer a man like Jorah.”
She sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what I think. He’s winning. Regardless of what I look like, I will no doubt end up with him.”
The idea gave her no satisfaction. She leaned against the table and glared at Niing. “Now, tell me where you know Jorah—and Lila—from?”
“Perhaps I can answer that question.”
She spun toward the stairs leading into the burrow.
Tall, handsome, aloof, Jorah stood at the bottom of them. She hadn’t heard him coming. How much of the conversation had he heard?
Her cheeks hot, she opened her mouth to answer as he walked closer, but Niing bolted from the table and darted across the room to intercept him. He held up a hand. “This is quite improper. Jorah, either you must leave, or I must ask Princess Aurora to go.”
Both she and Jorah gaped at him.
“Why, in all the creation of whatnots, should either of us leave?” she asked.
Niing glared at her. “Do you intend to spend time alone with each of your suitors?”
The thought of spending a moment alone with Lord Mahlon made her grimace.
“Indeed,” Niing said, clearly reading her intent. “Unless you are willing to spend equal amounts of time with each of them, this meeting could be construed as cheating.”
“That sounds like an excuse, Niing.” Head stooped against the low ceiling, Jorah strode over to the little man. “Aurora has asked some questions, and I think it only fair that we answer them—all of them.”
She walked to stand on the other side of Niing. “I agree.”
Niing’s beady eyes darted first to her and then to Jorah. “And I, who am older and wiser than both of you combined, say that this meeting is not only improper, it is rash and will lead to no good. At least in the short term.”
She wanted to hit him. “Improper, maybe. But why rash?” She steeled herself and added, “If Jorah wins, he and I will be married. There will be no secrets then.”
“I don’t want any secrets now.” Jorah’s voice was icy, but firm. “Aurora and members of her entourage are in danger. They need to know what they face and exactly where those threats are coming from.”
So he knew about Artemis and the Intelligentsia.
That gave her comfort. She looked up at him through heavy lashes. “Having your help in defending myself would be much appreciated. It’s one of the reasons why I’m looking for a consort. I plan to remove the Guardians when I come to power, and that will cause serious problems for me. I need to know that the man I marry has my back.”
The clarity of Jorah’s searching gaze made her wriggle like a child.
He finally said, “You have my sword.” He gestured to the sofa in front of the pot-bellied stove. “Perhaps we can sit and talk. It seems we have much to discuss.”
She smiled her gratitude even though a thousand moths seemed to have taken up residence in her bloodstream. They made her heart patter in a way she’d never before experienced—even when she gazed into Raith’s face. “Of course.”
“Aurora,” Niing said before she could take a step, “allow me to call a servant to set up a similar meeting with Mahlon.”
She glared at him. “This is hardly the same, and you know it.” Niing kept pushing her to marry Jorah, but when she wanted to spend a few minutes getting answers from the scarily beautiful man, he objected? That wasn’t fair.
“I know nothing other than the fact that you summoned a group of men to Ryferia to die for your hand in marriage. Giving Jorah an advantage is not right. And you know it.”
“And I changed the rules so men don’t need t
o die,” she snapped back. Niing, of all people, was guilting her into doing what he wanted?
“And a man still died today. Tomorrow’s trial is just as dangerous. Who knows what might happen?” Niing glowered at Jorah. “The trial is set at this very bench”—a hand wave at the shelves and cabinets filled with ingredients—“using these very items. Do you want people to say you had advantages the others didn’t?”
Jorah stopped in his tracks. Eyes almost reptilian in their iciness gazed at Niing. “I will not have people say that I cheated. It was your choice to move the trials to a place I’m familiar with. Beyond that, I have had—and will have—no hand in deceiving people.”
How could Jorah possibly be familiar with this place? Niing seemed supremely unrepentant at that startling claim, but it couldn’t be, could it?
“Good,” Niing replied. “Then leave before I start sending for servants.”
Jorah ran a scarred hand through his hair. “Let us go somewhere else and speak, because speak we must.” His head tilted, and he sighed. “It seems we are too late. Someone is coming. Lardel, by the sounds of it.” He raked her with those impossibly sharp eyes. “Must be after his potion. Those blisters looked like hell.”
Her eyebrows rose. She had heard nothing to suggest that Lord Lardel—or anyone else—was coming.
Even more astonishing, Jorah squeezed her hand. “Hearing from your own lips that you plan to remove the Guardians has won my favor and my highest regard. I will do all I can to protect you now and after the trials are over, but in the meantime, tell your maid—Keahr—that she must not go out alone. Niing and Zandor must be guarded, too. I wish I could tell you more right now, but Jorah Thalyn is no cheat, and I will have no man call me such.”
And then he was gone . . . into one of the tunnels that led into the gardens.
She held her tingling hand to her chest. “And that?” she asked Niing. “Please explain.”
Niing shrugged. “Like all of his kind, he will not have his good name sullied.”
“All of his kind?” She slumped down onto the sofa. “Niing, what aren’t you telling me?”
Niing turned to the stairs just as boots scraped on stone. Was she to have no uninterrupted conversations tonight?
As Jorah had predicted, Lord Lardel stepped into the room. He bobbed a bow. “Forgive the interruption, Aurora, but these blisters are spreading. It seems each time one bursts, another forms next to it.”
With a suppressed sigh, she pulled herself up and walked over to the alchemy bench. “I have your potion here. I was just waiting for it to cool.”
“I’ll take it scalding, if it works.” Lord Lardel cast a dubious eye around the room. “Brewing is something I know nothing about.” A grunt. “Same as flowers.”
A veiled accusation?
She chose to ignore it and held out the vial. “Apply a drop to each blister. You will be astounded at how quickly they vanish.”
Lord Lardel took the potion and tapped the vial against his fingernail. “You aren’t planning on setting us to potion-making, are you?”
“That would be telling,” she said. But Jorah was privy to the information she withheld from Lord Lardel . . . a double standard.
Maybe Niing had a point.
She turned to smile at her tutor—only to find that he had vanished.
That irked. Clearly, he was avoiding speaking to her about Jorah. And she would never find him in his maze of tunnels unless he wanted to be found. She said to Lord Lardel, “I was just finishing up. Would you care to walk with me back to the palazzo?”
“It would be my pleasure, ma’am.”
Once at the top of the stairs, Lord Lardel offered her his arm.
Surprised by his gallantry, she slipped her hand under his elbow. To make conversation, she said, “So tell me, Lord Lardel, what made you decide to fight for me?”
He snorted—perhaps at her lack of tact? “I enjoy a physical challenge. Also, I had heard rumors about the splendor of Ryferia. It was too good an opportunity to miss.”
She was grateful for his honesty. But it left little else to discuss, so they walked in silence the rest of the way to the palazzo.
They had almost crossed the piazza to reach the doorway to her villa when she spotted Raith and his brother.
The two men stopped.
Raith’s perfect eyebrow shot up as he took in her hand resting on Lord Lardel’s arm. “And this? Private trysts? When’s my turn?”
Her entire body burned.
The side of her brain that didn’t trust Raith was ready to snap out a sharp retort. Sadly, the other part, which turned her to mush in his presence, said, “As soon as you’re ready, we can go.”
On some level, she was aware of her rudeness as she pulled her hand away from Lord Lardel. But even his scowl of displeasure couldn’t wrench her away from Raith’s gaze.
Raith took her arm. She melted into his side. But before leading her away, he said to his brother, “Don’t forget what you promised.”
A toothy smile sent a shiver of something unimaginably horrible down Aurora’s spine. “You have just given me the gap I need,” Raith’s brother said.
Before she could challenge it, Raith started to walk, pulling her along with him. “I noticed a charming catwalk along the canal. Perhaps we can take a turn there.”
At the sound of his voice, all fears about him and his brother vanished. She beamed up at him. “The moonlight on the water will be lovely.”
“Almost as lovely as you,” Raith crooned as they crossed the piazza.
Someone calling her name—sharply—gave her pause. She looked back over her shoulder.
Zandor stood at the doorway to her villa. He must have dropped Keahr off and been on the way back to fetch her.
Raith—and thus she, too—strode away from him.
Jorah’s warning rang in her mind, and a tiny niggle deep in her psyche said she wasn’t safe alone with Raith. She bit her lip. Even as much as she craved Raith’s company, his attention, his hands on her body, touching her in places no one had ever been . . .
Raith’s face softened with concern. “You wish Zandor to accompany us?”
She flushed, both at his kindness and her dirty thoughts; it seemed silly to say yes to having Zandor with them when she had been alone with Lord Lardel just moments before.
She shook her head.
Raith smiled at her—a kind one that heated her from the tip of her head to the ends of her toenails. “Let’s wait for him to join us.”
She gnawed her lip as disappointment warred with relief. Disappointment won.
As Zandor trotted over to meet them, she scowled.
“Why don’t you stay with Keahr?” she called.
A flicker of concern flashed across Raith’s face. It was gone before she could decode it. Then Raith laughed low in his throat. The burbling sound drove away all her objections to Zandor’s presence.
Zandor stopped in front of her. Hard eyes nailed her. “Should you be going out alone, Aurora?”
“I’m not alone. I’m with Raith.” Even to her ears, her voice sounded detached. Dreamy.
Raith bobbed a bow at Zandor. “You are free to follow at a respectable distance.” Ignoring Zandor’s dark, brooding expression, Raith started walking to the archway that led to the canal.
Much to her annoyance, Zandor trailed about a foot away from her heels. Only today, she didn’t want Zandor with her. The only person she needed in the whole world—the universe, were it inhabited by other life forms—was Raith.
Raith pulled her closer to him and bent down to her ear. “With me as your consort, you won’t need a bodyguard.”
A snort from Zandor.
Her head spun. How had her bodyguard heard that comment? Had everyone in Ryferia—except her—suddenly developed superhuman hearing?
On some level, she wanted to set Raith straight—Zandor wasn’t just a servant, he was one of her best friends—but the warmth radiating from Raith’s body pressed to hers, c
ombined with his musky smell, drove all reason from her head.
She leaned into him, wanting to lose her body in his. They crossed under the archway onto the deserted canal path.
And then someone screamed. The yell echoed down the piazza and rang out on the water.
It sounded just like Keahr.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jorah
Jorah listened to Aurora and Lardel leave the burrow. When silence settled again, he stepped out of his tunnel, back into Niing’s comfortable home.
It was empty. That didn’t fool him; he’d heard Niing scuttle off to avoid Aurora’s probing.
He called out, “Are you going to hide in the shadows all night, or are we going to discuss what desperately needs discussing?”
Niing sighed, then shambled out of another dark tunnel. “What would you have me do, Jorah? We’ve been over and over and over the problem.”
“The incubus is killing the Magical to make a potion that will give him immunity to the Guardians. I just watched him and his oaf of a brother gloating over a bag of body parts beyond the broken giant.”
When Niing gasped, Jorah narrowed his eyes with satisfaction. “He needs the blood of five of the noble Magical lines. He already has a minotaur. He’s after Keahr, you, Aurora, and Zandor.” Niing paled and collapsed onto his sofa. “And you still think Aurora doesn’t need to be told?”
Niing stoked his pipe like his life depended on it. “No. Of course not. This changes everything.” He took a puff and billowed the sweet-smelling pipeweed smoke Jorah’s way. “But what about Artemis and the Intelligentsia?”
Jorah breathed deeply, reveling in the tiny flutter of magic that filtered through his veins with the smoke. Then he fixed Niing with a stern eye. “I don’t claim to know Aurora well, but while she may speak her mind a bit too freely, she is not a stupid woman. I would go so far as to call her canny. She will not compromise us. In fact, perhaps if you stopped seeing her as a pupil and saw her as I see her, you would have told her months ago.”
Niing’s dark eyes glinted. “So how do you see her?”
