by Shea Godfrey
“I’ll let myself out.” He touched her arm. “Send for me if you have need.”
Jessa listened to his boots upon the stairs and took a step forward as she waited for Darry to look up. When Darry refused to meet her eyes, Jessa took another step. “Akasha?”
“I couldn’t stop it,” Darry whispered.
Jessa went instantly to her knees before her lover and raised Darry’s face with gentle hands. “My love, my love…” She pushed at Darry’s curls and saw the tears. “My heart, please don’t cry, please,” Jessa begged, and her own throat tightened. Darry’s eyes were bleak and haunted, empty of their familiar brightness. “You must tell me what happened.”
“I couldn’t stop it,” Darry repeated simply.
Jessa pushed upward and kissed her, her lips hungry for the flavor of Darry’s mouth, though hungrier still for the taste of her presence. “What happened, Akasha?” she asked in a whisper so soft that not even her gods would hear.
Darry’s eyes were heavy and Jessa could see that the passionflower syrup was already at work, Darry’s pupils larger than they should be, her expression filled with helplessness. “Did he…did he rape you?”
Jessa’s soul reeled in surprise at the words, her hands tender but firm as what was left of Darry’s strength began to fade. “Joaquin?”
Huge tears welled up in Darry’s eyes and then spilled over. “What good is all this Senesh…this Senesh threads, if I couldn’t keep you safe?”
Jessa kissed her, her heart full with an ache so terrible that she could barely breathe. Her blood ran hot and she could feel the burn beneath her skin like never before. Runes and spells suddenly raced unimpeded, and it took all her control to rein them in. She stood slowly and Darry’s head tipped back, Jessa’s hands deep within her lover’s wild, thick curls. Her lips brushed Darry’s ear. “He never touched me,” she said and her voice shook. She pulled back. “Did he say that he did?”
Darry’s eyes were filled with pain. “I should’ve been there, Jess.”
Jessa braced the back of Darry’s neck as she began to tip to the side, and Jessa guided her onto the softness of the bed. “He never touched me, Akasha, do you hear?” Darry’s eyes began to close. “Darry?”
When she received no answer, Jessa lifted Darry’s legs up and over, grabbed the quilt, and covered her as best as she could. Darry’s breathing was shallow but steady, and for a moment Jessa worried that Devon had given her too much.
Darry mumbled incoherently as her eyes fluttered closed and she slipped away.
“Hush.” Jessa turned her head as soft voices floated upward from the lower level. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she stepped back from the bed, though she was unable to accommodate the bone-deep anger she felt merely by making a fist.
She turned with a swirl of her skirts and made her way to the stairs, her hand upon the stones as she descended. Her eyes took in the room, but there was only one person who waited.
“Devon says she’ll be fine,” Owen offered, though she did not accept his words. He took a deep breath as he considered her fierce expression. “Perhaps I should…”
Jessa held her tongue, afraid to unleash her thoughts.
“When Cecelia has such a look about her, something usually gets broken.”
“Yes, and do you tell her to calm down?” Jessa asked, and her tone had bite.
“I usually give her something to break.”
Jessa stared at him for what seemed like a lifetime, and then quite against her will, she laughed. There was an edge to the sound, but it felt right and she let it out. She covered her mouth and looked away, all of her emotions tangled together like the thick, dark vines of the Tarsem tree.
“And then if I’m lucky,” Owen added, “she does not throw it at my head.”
“Darry gave me a plate not two days ago.” Jessa’s voice was tired but decidedly amused. She wiped absently at her eyes, surprised at the turn of her emotions and annoyed at the resulting exhaustion. “A rather lovely one with a fine blue glaze.”
“What did he say to her?”
Jessa held his gaze but did not reply.
“My daughter and I may not get along…and you needn’t tell me that it’s my fault. But I know her better than everyone thinks I do.”
“It does not matter,” Jessa answered, though she knew it was more relevant than most things. “He is dead now.”
“It mattered to her.”
Jessa leaned against the worktable and her body trembled with fatigue. It had become a familiar sensation as of late, to her displeasure. “I once told my Radha that my heart was of no use to anyone, and I believed it.”
Owen held out his hand. “Please, Jessa, come and sit.”
Jessa considered the offer and then accepted. She was not certain why he was here and not Cecelia, but he was, and it was an unexpected comfort to her. Owen took her elbow when she neared. He let her sit first upon the divan and then joined her, not too far away, and yet not so near that it would be improper.
“There was also a time, not long ago, when I thought I was free,” Jessa mused aloud. “But that’s not exactly true, either.”
Owen gave a sigh in agreement. “Love is not always what people think it is.”
“If he were not dead already, I would kill him for hurting her,” Jessa proclaimed and knew it for the truth. “And if hurting her were not crime enough, I would kill him for using me to do it.”
Owen glanced toward the stairs.
Jessa looked down at her hands. “I have eleven other brothers,” she whispered. “And she will try and protect me from all of them.”
“Of course she will.”
“I can’t allow her to do that.” She looked up to meet his gaze.
Owen smiled in a rueful manner. “You really don’t have a say in that.”
“Of course I do.”
Owen chuckled and then cleared his throat in politeness.
“You do not think I have a say in such things?” Jessa demanded as her anger rose to the surface once more.
Owen seemed to consider his response with care. “Part of my fear, concerning Darrius, has always been that she lives to the brim of her cup, as my mother used to say.” His shoulders eased back against the divan. “When she rushed the Fakir in the Great Hall, I could not have been more horrified, yet I knew she would do it before she did, most likely. She has very little fear about such things.” He glanced at her. “And this is not a comfortable feeling for a father to have. But what I always seem to forget is that her odds of walking out the other side always seem to support her decision to rush in.”
“That is not enough,” Jessa argued.
Owen chuckled. “Of course it isn’t, but it’s all I have at the moment.”
Jessa smiled against her better judgment. “That doesn’t do me a lot of good.”
“No, you’re right.”
“What is it about men that makes them feel they may take from a woman that which she will not give?” Jessa asked. It was a question she had never been able to voice before, feeling certain for the first time that she would receive a truthful answer.
“Do you speak of a particular woman?”
“I speak of all women, I suppose, who possess something a man might covet. A woman who possesses gold or power, or the advantages of both. A woman who has skills to match a man’s. Or one who is not considered beautiful by a man’s standards but is his equal in every way. A woman who will not do as she is told. All of these women are the same. They are considered a liability and thus held to a standard they are not allowed to meet. They are a threat.”
“Not all men feel that way.”
“No, I know this. But I cannot help thinking, what was I?” Jessa replied simply. “Nothing but a piece of meat, to be bartered off to the highest bidder. It is no matter that it was a Prince of the Blood who laid down his coin, your coin, I might add. Or to be brought out, as I was, and paraded before Bharjah’s allies like a prize they might win. To sing the songs of
my people, only to have them made into a prank by my father, the words that my mother once sang with all reverence and faith. And all the while, my love was here, trying in vain to win something she had no chance of winning. Always left wanting as she followed your rules but was not allowed to succeed. Always trying in vain to understand why she was an outcast.”
“I did not cast her out,” Owen said, and his voice was somewhat curt.
“Perhaps—but did you have the right to deny her the girl she loved?”
Owen did not respond.
“And it is no matter that you did me a tremendous favor in that,” Jessa added in a wry but slightly reluctant tone. “Had this Aidan girl had the chance to love my Darry free from fear, I would’ve had to wrestle the gods themselves, I’m sure, in order to win her away.”
Owen smiled at that.
“Would you have done the same if Darry were your son and he had loved a pretty young boy? Would you have stolen your son’s honor as easily as you did your daughter’s?”
Owen grimaced. “Do you always talk so plainly?”
“Radha always says that to do otherwise is a waste of everyone’s time.”
Owen let out a grudging laugh. “I’m surrounded by a whole bloody pack of you.”
“Answer the question, please.”
Owen’s brown eyes sparked, though he did not look displeased. “I don’t know.”
Jessa reached out and briefly touched his hand. “At least you answer honestly.”
“We’ve never found much common ground, Darry and I.”
Jessa allowed her surprise to show on her face. “But she follows in your footsteps,” she disagreed with conviction. “There is common ground between you everywhere you look. It is just not the ground you expected, or were hoping for.” She shook her head. “Your reasoning is not sound.”
Once again, Owen was silent.
“When she’s in pain,” Jessa whispered, and the tears came so easily she had no chance to stop them. “I wish to lay waste to every fikloche thing in my path.” She wiped at her nose with her sleeve and did not care.
Owen reached out. “It is the same with all lovers,” he whispered as he brushed away a tear.
Jessa looked up at him. “And I should probably add that knowing I could do just that? It does not seem to help in the least.”
Owen laughed softly and set his hand on the top of her head. “As to that one, my young Queen, you are most likely all on your own.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Darry stood at the end of the bed and watched Jessa sleep, her curls and braids scattered upon the pillow.
Jessa wore but a soft blue tunic that Darry had never seen before, and the faded color was quite lovely against the dark tone of Jessa’s beautiful skin, its color almost unbearably soft against the texture of the fabric. Even in sleep Jessa looked exhausted, and Darry felt some guilt in that, for she knew she had been a major cause of Jessa’s anxiety for the past few days. Her knack for finding trouble was not as amusing as it once had been, now that she had someone else to consider.
The sheet was tangled about Jessa’s legs, and Darry gave a tender smile at the skin that was exposed.
The relief she felt at Jessa’s words went to the very heart of her. The thought that Joaquin had abused Jessa in such a manner had thrown her utterly off balance, and it was a fear that she should have acknowledged sooner. There were many sons of Bharjah who, by their reputations alone, were considered quite vile, regardless of what the truth might actually be. That Jessa had come of age amongst them all, with very little authority that might have kept their desires and cruelty in check, was a hard fact.
While Senesh Akoata was a new concept to her, the fact that she had loved Jessa since before she had been born as Darrius Durand was not a revelation. It had always been Jessa, and though she had loved Aidan with the enthusiasm of youth, she had said what she meant the night that she and Jessa had first made love. Aidan had left because Jessa was coming, for Jessa was Darry’s truth. She always had been and she always would be.
Tannen Ahru of the Red-Tail Clan? If you’re in there somewhere, I hope you’re not overly disappointed in where you’ve landed.
Darry touched the covers of the bed for a long moment and then crossed the room. She stopped at the stairs and considered her sword as it hung upon the peg.
The Circle of Honor had been a strange place and not what she had expected. It had been clean and oddly quiet and her mind had cleared the moment she had faced Joaquin. Every lesson she had ever learned and every skill she had absorbed into her style throughout the years had all melted into a wonderfully cohesive force. Pure and without restraint, she had felt her strength and knowledge become a single entity. The Dance was a weapon she had not needed, and she knew it the instant the watchtower bell had tolled. It had not been pleasant, the knowledge that she would kill him, but it felt like justice. And who better to mete out that punishment than Jessa’s lover.
His words had tipped her balance, though, and a shiver moved up her spine as she recalled the flood of violence. The rush of her Cha-Diah blood and the instinct to kill her enemy had crushed everything in its path. It had been a fire that washed through her veins, and her senses had filled with the smell of his flesh. She could hear his heartbeat race and his heavy breathing had been a storm within her head. The rage had been absolutely pure.
She was surprised even now that she had been able to stop. That once Joaquin was dead, her temper had flowed from her soul like the last harsh wind of a spring storm upon the Sellen Sea. Though that is not enough, she thought and felt afraid. If I have no control over my own blood, what shall our fate be, should I stand before such rage again?
“Darry?” Bentley’s voice called softly from below. “Are you ready?”
Darry turned away from Zephyr Wind and slowly took the stairs without her weapon, her boots quiet as she trailed her hand along the stones for balance.
*
Darry walked through the dark corridor and did not mind the absence of light. Her eyes had adjusted quite well as she had walked through the maze, and even though she was less than fit, she had moved unseen through the solar doors. Though she did not employ her gift of stealth as Hinsa did, in the hunt for food, the skill had always provided an advantage when needed.
The entrance to the throne room was open, the right door pushed inward several feet as if to beckon her inside. She stopped at the threshold before she answered the invitation.
Her instincts were alive with the sense of danger and she did not question them. They were a part of her gift and her majik had never failed her. That its secret presence had set her apart had often been a burden, but no longer. When she had called Hinsa from the maze and their powers had finally been revealed, there had been a tremendous shift in her abilities. Her senses were deeper and more powerful, and though they were her own senses, they were now Hinsa’s, as well.
Each smell was more pungent and startling, or more aromatic and sweet. Each taste was more volatile on her tongue, sharp and rich with spices she had once been oblivious to, or bitter beyond what she had known before, as with her karrem in the morning, the hot liquid much too overwhelming for her now.
Her physical power was more intense, and she could feel the urge to push things to their limits, to learn what more she might be capable of. Movements that seemed slow to her before were now sleek and fluid, and she was beyond them before her thoughts could catch up. She needed to establish a secure rhythm and a new pace. She needed to find her tipping point before someone else did.
Joaquin found it easily enough, she thought, though without the consequences he was hoping for. He had set off her fury, but he had been clueless as to what that would actually mean for him.
With her new strength she would need to learn new boundaries. She had not expected the uncontrolled and brutal rush of her emotions, and she recognized that this would be the most difficult problem to solve in her search for balance. Her restraints had shifted, and what sh
e could once hide from others was perhaps vulnerable now to detection.
She could smell the rich earth of the Green Hills in the middle of the night, the fertile and heady loam of the earth and mud, as well as the tang of new foliage as it burst with life. The calls of the forest invaded her sleep, the movements in the undergrowth and the hum of the earth, the rubbing of a linnet’s wings as it settled upon a branch far above.
But that she could no longer gauge the rush of her anger when it arrived in full force was something else altogether.
She could not stop life as it moved forward, so she would have to adjust more quickly if at all possible. She was not sure if she would have the time to do otherwise.
Darry turned her head and listened for a moment, then smiled within a breath when she heard what she needed. She pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold.
Her pupils expanded and then tightened in a heartbeat as she took in the room.
Malcolm sat upon the Blackwood Throne, his leg thrown over the left arm as he lounged upon their father’s chair, but a single lamp lit above him.
Darry understood this would be the first real test of her control, and as she walked down the aisle she felt his eyes upon her.
“Well if it isn’t the hero of the realm,” Malcolm said in a quiet voice.
Darry made no comment as she approached, and after what seemed like a very long time, she came to a stop just beyond the edge of the dais.
“It’s good to see you survived your altercation intact.”
“Sorry about your little pet,” Darry returned in a dry tone. She could actually smell the threat he represented, and she tried to arrange the knowledge within her thoughts. He was more of a predator as he sat at his leisure than he had ever been before.
Malcolm’s right elbow did not leave the chair as he gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Not to worry, dear sister.”
“Why?” Darry asked. “Are there more where that one came from?”
Malcolm’s eyes flashed and he smiled. “Are you going to play at politics now?”
