“What’s wrong, Talon? No quick retort? Didn’t Zander sufficiently coach you? But I do believe you on one point,” she smiled. “That is when you say you’d be able to spot undesirables. After all, it takes one to know one.”
Talon took two deep breaths, and then he took two more. Yes, he knew very well his place in this world, but that didn’t mean he had to like it or sit quietly in it. Instead, he did what he hadn’t allowed himself to do in years. The one thing Zander had warned him not to do. The whole reason there was even a promise that needed fulfilling in the first place. He completely lost his temper.
“You, you self-important little…” He took another deep breath. “As if I, let alone any man in his right mind, would willingly want to spend his life shackled to the likes of you. Trust me, princess, no throne is worth that sorry fate. It makes me glad, giddy even, that I’m distantly related to a traitor and therefore unworthy to vie for the seat next to your high-and-mighty little arse. As a matter of fact, when I leave here, I think I’ll go visit great, great, whatever grandfather’s grave and thank him for soiling our name.”
Mia stood, her face devoid of all color. “God Draka, how I despise you. I didn’t ask for your help in the first place, and I wouldn’t take it now even if you begged me to.”
Talon leapt from his seat. “No, you didn’t ask for my help. As a matter of fact, you didn’t ask for anything. What you did, is demand I fuck you. And if I remember correctly, it was you, and not me, who was doing the begging before we were through. But don’t worry yourself, princess. Just because I did that duty willingly once, doesn’t mean you’ll have to worry about fighting me off along with every other barbarian male old enough to piss standing up. I’m not interested in scratching any more of your royal itches. The experience really wasn’t that special.”
She threw her cup right at his head.
He ducked, and it missed him by a hair.
“Leave this instant, you…you sorry excuse for a pile of Alarian water buffalo dung,” she screeched. “If I ever have the misfortune of laying eyes on you again, it’ll be too soon.”
He was in the process of turning and doing as Mia had demanded when the sound of the king’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Well, then, if you two have gotten the petty bickering out of your systems, perhaps we can all sit down like adults and discuss how Mia’s quest to hold her throne is going to proceed.”
Talon stopped mid-stride, turned, and slowly retook his seat, but Mia remained standing, her face red and her eyes shooting daggers in his direction. “How many times must I say it? I don’t need his help, Father. As a matter of fact, I’d rather not be queen if it means I’m forced to accept assistance from the likes of him.”
King Adan Hammerstrike rose. “Well, then, I suppose that settles it. All this talk of attempting Queen Adrina’s Challenge can finally be laid to rest and forgotten. I’m glad you’ve come to your senses, daughter.” He turned toward his wife and offered her his hand. “Shall we once more retire, my dear?”
Queen Lizbeth smiled and stood.
Mia sputtered. “Wa—wait, what are you doing?”
The king smiled. “Going back to bed, daughter. After all, it is still the middle of the night.”
For a moment Talon really thought Mia was going to let her parents walk out without another word, and his grievous task would be accomplished. But before they could take their first step toward the door, she stomped her foot and shouted. “Wait.”
What was she going to do? She didn’t want Talon’s help. Especially not after the block-headed barbarian had thrown what’d been the most magical and beautiful experience of her entire life right back in her face. And he’d done it right in front of her parents no less. How embarrassing. But she wasn’t willing to give up the chance to rule by not being allowed to at least try Queen Adrina’s Challenge because her feelings were hurt, either.
Slowly, she took her seat, calmed the pounding of her heart, laced her fingers together, and placed her joined hands upon the table top to prevent them from shaking. Taking a deep steadying breath, she cleared her throat. “Perhaps I’ve spoken out of turn. What I meant to say is that I don’t see the necessity of having Tal—Sir. Starkweather’s assistance. I’m sure he’s a very busy man and has better things to do with his time than babysit his friend’s little sister. I’ve studied every aspect of Queen Adrina’s Challenge, and I feel confident I can complete each of the three quests all on my own.”
Talon scoffed, and she wanted to throw something else at him. She didn’t, however. She didn’t even act as if she’d heard him. Instead, she simply waited as her parents retook their seats.
Her father sighed. “Just because you’ve studied the challenges our ancestor Adrina completed long ago doesn’t make you ready to face what awaits you, my precious daughter. And especially not alone. I won’t allow it.”
His eyes bored right into her soul, and she couldn’t look away. His gaze was filled with such tenderness, caring, and love, the sight humbled her. She gulped.
“It doesn’t matter what she’s studied,” Talon interjected. “The council gets to pick what her quests will be, and I’ll guarantee they’ll be different from Queen Adrina’s original ones. They aren’t stupid. They won’t do anything that’ll make it easy in any way for a…a female, any female, to rule from the barbarian throne once you no longer do.”
Mia turned on him then, her calm evaporating. “How would you know what the council will say?” Her voice shook. “And why would they bother to change the quests? The three Adrina did were certainly hard enough that no other person has successfully repeated all of them, at least not at the same time. So what if they’re known? So what if how to solve them has been documented? They are all still VoT hard.”
She expected Talon to answer her question, but it was her mother who spoke.
“And that, my dear daughter, is precisely why the council will change them on you. Because they have been mastered, and the how to complete them has been documented and studied. Talon is right. There’s no way of knowing what quests the council will ask of you until you face them. And once you do stand before that all male barbarian council and declare your right to take up Queen Adrina’s Challenge, there can be no backing down and retain your honor. No matter what they may ask of you.”
Mia’s eyes burned with unshed tears as her mother reached across the table and took her hand. “No one will think less of you if you decide to forget all about this silly challenge and simply choose a man to rule in your place someday. I know your father and I certainly won’t. Why put yourself through all this danger and turmoil for possibly nothing? You, my dear, are a pampered princess, not a rogue like Kitrina. Why do this to yourself? You’re still a very young woman, Mia. Enjoy your youth and forget for the time being the burdens that have been thrust upon your small shoulders. There’ll be plenty of time for the problems associated with the duties of ruling a kingdom when you are older and wiser.”
Mia swallowed back her tears. Her mother meant well, but there was no way to make her understand why she simply must follow the course she’d decided upon. She wasn’t contemplating doing the challenge for her own sake or for womanhood or even for honor. She wasn’t yet sure she’d even make a decent queen if she did happen to succeed. What she did know, however, was there wasn’t another barbarian, be they male or female, in all the land who loved their people any more than she did. And not only loved them, but would lay down her very life for them if it was asked of her.
Instead of saying any of that to her parents, however, Mia rose and faced them. “I’ve made my decision, and I stand by it. I don’t wish to worry either of you, but I’m going to attempt Queen Adrina’s Challenge no matter what quests the council may task me with. If I fail, I fail. But if I don’t fail, then someday, hopefully very, very far into the future, I will sit upon the barbarian throne here in Alaria, and I will rule over our people.”
She glanced at Talon and sighed. “And since it will make my fath
er feel better about what I’ve decided, and it may ease my mother’s worries at least a little, I’d be honored to accept any help or advice you, Leeky, or Cousin Wally may have to offer along the way.”
Talon awarded her a smile. “Then, princess, I suggest you get packed. We have a busy day ahead of us.”
Her father cleared his throat. “Not so fast there, young man. As this is the last day her mother and I will have Mia all to ourselves for the foreseeable future, we will have this entire day. The two of you may travel on to The Academy tomorrow, but not a moment sooner.”
Talon looked at first as if he were about to argue the point, but in the end, he simply nodded.
Though antsy to be underway now that the decision to do Queen Adrina’s Challenge had not only been made, voiced, and thereby now set in stone, Mia was still glad to have this one last day to spend with her family. This one last day to gather memories that would have to sustain her through the coming trials. This one last day to be herself, a young woman, and not a future queen. And this one last day to pray endlessly to God Draka that she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life.
They were all headed toward the door when her mother suddenly stopped, looked at her father, and clasped her hands to her chest. “Adan,” she whispered, though it was loud enough Mia could easily hear. “There was vulgar conversation and angry words spoken during the meeting we just had and the room permitted it. How can that be?”
Her father chuckled. “Perhaps the magic has finally worn off the paint, my love. Though it certainly came in handy at the time, it has been many years since we first applied it. And considering the fact that my mother hasn’t stepped foot inside this castle since the day we did, we really have no need of its powers any longer.”
Her mother smiled brightly and clapped her hands. “Just think, we’ll no longer have to go outside in the cold when we feel the need to throw a decent fit or have a good ole fashioned barbaric, yelling, screaming match.”
Her father sighed. “Aw, but think how much better all those hot make up sessions were after coming in from that freezing cold.” He chuckled. “I for one will miss that.”
His queen laughed. “Well, nothing says we can’t still take our arguments outside once and a while if we wish, for old time’s sake, that is. After all, you are the king.”
Mia rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t prevent her lips from turning up at the corners. Parents, there wasn’t much you could do but love them.
****
Talon stood alone on the battlement of the Alarian castle and gazed out as a layer of ice-fog covered the city. His breath huffed out in a small white cloud, and he drew the warm fur of his cloak closer around himself. The day had been long, the sun beginning to set, and he was anxious to be on his way in the morning. He didn’t enjoy being in the barbarian capital city, never had, not even as a very small child when his father allowed him to tag along on one of his trips to take a knee and re-swear his allegiance to his king.
Alaria wasn’t a warm welcoming place to the descendants of a traitor, not even more than nine-hundred years after the fact. Though his father, a leader in his own city, held his head high and ignored the whispers, Talon hadn’t been able to. They had gone right through him like a sharp dagger to the heart. Things like, “That one’s a Starkweather. You can smell their kind coming from miles away.” and “Once a traitor always a traitor. Blood is as blood does.”
No, Alaria wasn’t a warm place at all. Especially if your name happened to be Starkweather. It was just as cold as its far northern frosty landscape of snow covered mountains and frozen lakes appeared to be. But then, where else would a true barbarian feel at home except where the land demanded he tame it before it would welcome him as one of its own?
Home. Talon sighed. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been home let alone allowed himself a passing thought about it. The city of Bane, who along with Alaria, Halla, and Madra formed the barbarian commonwealth and was situated at the very top of the world. A never ending desert of ice and half-frozen ocean, it was cold, barren, and as unforgiving as the men who first thought it a good spot to exile those they never wanted to see or hear from again. But then, what had started out as a place to banish the guilty, had become a thriving community, and the single biggest exporter of meat and fur for the entire barbarian race.
Alaria might well have its share of mountain goats and sheep, Halla their water buffalo and bison, and Madra their pheasant, their salmon, and deep sea halibut, but it was the Bane Bear that had been keeping barbarians warm and well fed through the never ending winters, and they’d been doing it for centuries now.
Subconsciously, Talon rubbed the old scar that traversed the width of his right thigh. A left over memento from a long ago bear hunt when he’d ventured a little to close too soon and his father had paid the ultimate price for his son’s mistake. His breath left him, and he pushed that too painful memory away.
Bane, where the bears were big, fifteen feet tall if they were an inch, and mean as a winter night. So mean, no man had ever been able to get within a paw’s reach of a live Bane Bear without suffering the consequences. They had claws as long as a man’s arm and as razor sharp as finely honed sabers. They were fast as lightning on the ice, and even faster in the water. Their fur was pure white in color, and they were almost impossible to spot against the snow-white backdrop of the ice desert.
It took the spears and arrows of at least ten men to bring one down, but when accomplished, the meat from a single Bane Bear could feed a village full of people for an entire season. And they were abundant.
The Bane Bear thrived within the ice-desert and on the half-frozen waters of the Alarian Ocean where everything from small snow rabbits to huge deep sea bass filled their bellies and kept them reproducing at astounding rates. If the barbarians of Bane could manage to harvest even one a day for the rest of time, they’d be hard pressed to put a dent in their population. As it was, they were lucky to bring one down and process it in a week.
And it wasn’t just their meat that was valuable either. The bigger bones were fashioned into all manner of things, eating utensils, bowls, platters, art work, even jewelry, while the smaller ones were ground into bone-meal or used in fertilizer for crops farther south.
The pure white fur of the Bane Bear was the softest material known to mankind, and a coat or coverlet made from it could easily withstand the coldest temperatures found in all of Albrath, even those at the most southern point of the planet, in the village of Vile.
Talon shuddered, glad he was at this end of the world and not that one. Vile was as it was named, a place of unspeakable horror, a place filled with evil. It was in Vile where the creatures who had escaped from the Valley of Torment took up residence. It was a place so cold the scorching heat of VoT couldn’t begin to penetrate its barriers. It was a place rumored to be filled with ice dragons and creatures with many heads. And it was a place where it was said the soul could become so alone, so lost, that without a strong reason to hold onto and pull it back from the brink of despair, the soul might never again find its way home. It was a place Talon never wished to visit.
A cold wind suddenly blew, and chills skittered down his spine like an ominous warning. Something was coming. He could feel it and had for a while now. Something…
He’d thought it was the situation at Castle Kuropkat with Kitrina and Zander, but that was completely resolved now. Marquart, the troll was dead, the threat was past, and everyone, even the dragons, had moved on. Still, the unmistakable sensation that his life was about to change forever, and possibly not in ways that could all be described as for the good, filled him.
He didn’t want a change. He liked his life the way it had been. He liked having no real responsibilities other than watching Zander’s back and teaching a class when the mood struck him. But now, it was Mia whose back he’d promised to watch. Mia he’d promised to deceive if need be. The same Mia who’d yelled at him with fire in her eyes and threw objects
and didn’t back down even for a minute.
God Draka, she’d been magnificent, glorious even, and if he wasn’t careful, he could easily lose his heart to the likes of a woman like her. And that was a chance he couldn’t afford to take.
What had he been thinking when he’d agreed to be joined to her hip for the duration of an entire semester? He wouldn’t be able to get out of her sight long enough to take a piss in peace, let alone begin to build up a guard against the feel of her in his arms, the smell of her, the taste.
His mouth watered.
Shaking off his unwanted thoughts, Talon headed back inside the castle and toward the chamber allotted to him. He was tired and needed sleep. After all, he’d spent a good part of the night before pleasuring the princess and most of the day going over strategy with her father.
His body ached and his mind was weary. But still, his cock hardened and his balls ached at the memory of Mia’s soft sighs and her sensual parted thighs. He did an about face and headed toward her chamber instead of his own. He’d start protecting his heart tomorrow, really he would. And tomorrow he’d decide how best to go about stopping the pretty little princess from getting herself killed, and he’d do it without her knowledge.
But as far as tonight was concerned, Mia Hammerstrike was probably in a much better mood than she had been earlier, and she was only a couple of floors down and all alone.
Talon decided, fuck sleep. Sleep was for pussies. There’d be plenty of time for sleep when he was dead.
Chapter Four
What the VoT was wrong with the wretched man this morning? Mia glanced at Talon for at least the tenth time since the servants had begun loading her trunks upon the royal carriage, and he still hadn’t looked in her direction even once.
What possible reason did he have for not being happy to see her this morning? If anyone had reason to be irritated, it was her. She hadn’t bothered him, she hadn’t argued with him, she hadn’t asked anything of him. As a matter of fact, she’d spent the entire night in her mother’s chamber to make sure she wouldn’t disturb the blasted man. The last thing she’d wanted was to start their forced time together at odds, and he was ruining it. God Draka, how she despised him.
Tested by the Night Page 4
