Rapture: The Shadowdwellers

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Yes,” he replied carefully. “It was very important to me.” He cleared his throat for segue. “M’itisume, I do not believe you have met K’yan Daenaira as yet. She is my handmaiden.”

  Not new handmaiden, just handmaiden. The lack of distinction was, to Dae, in and of itself a distinction. It was the first time he had not tacked “new” in front of the description, and for some reason it pleased her a great deal. Meanwhile Tristan turned with surprise as he closed his robe, noticing her for the first time, apparently.

  “No, I have not. Greetings, K’yan.”

  “M’itisume,” she greeted him with a heart-touched bow of respect. And that was about the end of her abilities in royal protocol! She hoped to Drenna she wasn’t asked to do anything else other than stand there!

  “Killian told me you had joined with a new handmaiden, Magnus. She is every bit as lovely as she has to be to get Ajai Killian in so much trouble. Women, you see,” he directed to Dae, “are my head guard’s favorite pastime.”

  “Unlike yourself, of course, M’itisume,” she responded with a sly smile. And the instant she said it she recalled who she was talking to and her eyes shot to Magnus in despair.

  But Tristan laughed out loud, his bodyguard chuckling in the background. “Damn me, I must do something about my reputation,” he noted with amusement, his jet eyes glistening with humor. “I like her, Magnus. No shy little miss, this one. Honest. Speaks her mind. We could use more of that around here.”

  “Speaking of,” Magnus said, “was there something on your mind, Tristan?”

  “Yes,” he sighed, striking a hand back through the sleek black curls of his shoulder-length hair, “back to business, right?” He frowned, the expression creasing his handsome face so deeply that, for the first time, Daenaira became aware of the scar flawing his left temple near his brow. “M’jan, I believe my worst fears are about to come to pass.”

  “Worst?” Magnus quantified, a raised brow marking his opinion of the monarch’s drama.

  “Well, damn near bad as!” he exploded in sudden temper. “You and I both know they are just doing this to destroy this house! Enacting some archaic law over us! And me, knowing about it since I was warned at the end of the last Senate session, and I still haven’t grown the spine to tell her! Every time we walk in the Senate I am terrified that this will be the night. It’s getting to the point where I—I can’t make myself walk outside of this room. I know it is childish and cowardly, but she will not go without me, and they will not bring it up without us both being there.”

  “M’itisume, allow me to tell her. We have discussed this before. I am as close to your sister as you are, in the sense of her reliance on me. But you know she needs to hear this from one of us before she hears it in the Senate, because once they drop this demand on her, she will ask us both if we knew anything about it. Your behavior alone will make the answer obvious. She will feel betrayed when she realizes we left her out of our confidence. She will have to face enough as it is without that added weight.”

  “M’jan, they are going to force her to marry, and there is nothing either of us can do about it. Malaya is a woman who respects tradition and they know that. They are using that! They think to force a husband on her, tearing us apart and dividing our strength. Tell me this doesn’t reek of these traitors we seek! If they have the power to get a majority vote in the Senate, then you and I both know this means the corruption has reached a depth we may never recover from.”

  “I know nothing of the kind,” Magnus retorted evenly. “M’itisume, just because a small group is clever enough to talk a flock of traditionalists into agreeing does not mean all is lost. If anything, it will reflect the fact that there are still some tender egos left behind after the thrashing your sister and you gave them in the war. This is a power play. They want to see if you will cede to them on matters of tradition. This is where Trace will be best to advise you, or Rika, but you and your sister can discuss how far you are willing to let them take this.”

  “I am not letting them sell my sister like some kind of a regal prostitute for the sake of their campaign to ruin our standing! I am not going to ask her to marry for convenience. If she had wanted to join and breed babies, rather than focus on the needs of this society, than she goddamn well would have done it!”

  “M’itisume,” Dae scolded him softly.

  “Your pardon, K’yan Daenaira,” Tristan said irritably but with sincerity.

  Dae was unaware of how she had just shocked Magnus into total silence. Daenaira correcting someone’s use of language? It was all he could do not to burst into laughter. Somehow, he managed to control his countenance. However, the struggle left a silence she felt compelled to fill.

  “If I may say so,” she said politely, although Magnus could see she had begun to fold a repetitive crease into the fabric of her sari, a habit she had developed that signaled when her temper was roused. “K’yatsume Malaya is as powerful and as important as M’itisume is. Yet, because she is female, she is being held to an archaic chauvinism while your unmarried state is being ignored. They should either mind their business when it comes to your personal lives, or they should demand joinings of you both.”

  “Gods! Now that would be my worst fears come to pass!” Tristan choked, staring at Magnus as he pointed at the handmaiden. “Isn’t there something inherently contradictory about a handmaiden feminist?” he demanded.

  “One would think,” Magnus observed, the effort to keep his expression even completely foiled by the amusement in his golden eyes. “However, Dae has a unique way of asserting her desires for equality into the traditions of her role.”

  “Hmm.” Magnus could see Tristan’s mind dipping swiftly toward the licentious. “I could see the advantages in equality when it came to certain traditions,” he mused.

  “So can I,” Dae shot back, giving the ruler a cheeky wink that all but knocked Magnus back on his ass. Drenna, he absolutely was not going to blush! Not at his age and not because of a girl with two seconds of sexual experience!

  Gods, he couldn’t wait to get her back to Sanctuary.

  “This should be your action,” he said succinctly to the Chancellor. “You must tell your sister or have me tell her. Then you must tell Trace. Trace, Rika, and Malaya can join you as you sink your minds into how you will respond to this when and if it does come.”

  Tristan sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed.

  “I know. You said as much last time.”

  “I don’t understand your hesitation, Tristan. Nor is it like you to shy from your duties or your troubles. Might I also add that you’re driving my son mad every time you choose to speak with me rather than confide in him?” Magnus knew why this was, though. Tristan was trying to make an inside ally of him, knowing Magnus would be the first one his deeply religious sister would call on to help counsel her past her shock and any fallout of emotion she might have toward Tristan for keeping this from her for so long.

  “He is afraid she will agree to it.”

  Magnus saw Tristan jolt tellingly and knew Daenaira had hit it on the head when the royal narrowed a glare on her and said defensively, “I am not afraid of anything.”

  “Then you would be the first,” she observed dryly. “We all have fears. M’itisume knows his sister is a woman of tradition and respect, and you fear she will decide to take a husband who will find a place between your close relationship.” Dae stepped a little closer, though not much; just enough to hide her face from her male counterpart. “You are afraid of the change. Afraid she might forget you as she turns to the interests of a new family. Everyone knows how extraordinarily close you are to K’yatsume, how deeply you love her. My mother owned a tavern when I was young, and the soldiers I met there raised me on the stories of the war. I would hear about how like a ballet, a pas de deux, it was to watch you in battle together. It inspired and amazed battle-hardened men who would tell a starry-eyed girl that it was because you had such perfect love for each other. It was the l
oyalty, devotion, and love they themselves followed. And yes, you are worried that it will disrupt your power and position, but I think for the first time you are more afraid it will disrupt that perfect love.

  “So you are taking this time of hesitation to push her away first. Women. Amusement. Alcohol. Petulance. Behaviors she will frown on and, coincidentally, will force her to focus her attention onto you. But you’re foolish if you think she won’t see through you soon enough, and when she does she is going to be livid. No woman likes to have her emotions toyed with, or to be treated like she is too stupid to be informed fully about things that directly affect her life. Most of all, your lack of trust and faith in her is going to be devastating to her. It devastates me,” she said, laying her hand on her heart with passionate hurt, “because I am still at heart the little girl in that tavern who loves to believe in the brother and sister who are like one because they have perfect love in one another. But it isn’t even close to perfect if you can’t trust it to stand on its own merit. Not if you have to try and control it and play games to try and shape it to your will. This doesn’t save it, it destroys it. And it certainly does not protect or save you.”

  Daenaira wound down from her impassioned scolding of their king, and then, as if suddenly realizing where she was and who she was with, she lowered her eyes and stepped back awkwardly.

  “Excuse me, please,” she murmured softly, raising a hand to shield her expression as she hurried out the door.

  Magnus stared after her for a long, frowning moment, his instinct to follow her almost overwhelming him. But he forced himself to turn back to Tristan, who didn’t look any happier than Magnus felt.

  “Shit,” he groaned. “That was my mistake all along. I should have asked a woman!”

  “Yep.” Xenia finally spoke up, pushing away from the wall and walking toward the door as well. “Trouble with men is they spend so much time misusing our true potential that they just end up causing themselves twice the work and twice the grief in the long run. But lucky for you, we enjoy forgiving you for being a little dense. It reminds us we’re the superior sex and that you’d be lost boys without us.”

  “Spoken like a true Amazon,” Tristan shot after her as she exited the bedroom. “Aiya,” he sighed, “now she’s going to be smug for a week. Do you have any idea what it’s like having a smug woman around who can kick the shit out of you if you’re not careful?”

  “Umm.” It was Magnus’s turn to slyly smile. “I think I can conceive of that, yes.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Thank you for your help, Daenaira. You made a significant impact on Tristan’s situation.”

  “Did I?” she asked, sounding a bit distracted as she walked back to Sanctuary beside him without looking at him. “I’m glad if it helped. Has he decided what to do?”

  “Yes. He will tell her himself within the next twenty-four hours, which no doubt means we will be making this walk again very soon. Malaya depends on us greatly for guidance and religious clarity.”

  “I know. You’ve been to see her almost every day this week. But you did not take me then,” she noted.

  Magnus couldn’t decide if she was feeling slighted by that fact. She was being very unreadable at the moment. He didn’t understand what was bothering her. She should be proud of the progress she had achieved while helping a follower. Especially a follower of such significance to their society.

  “Malaya and I have always taken a private audience together. She prefers it that way. You are welcome to come, but you will only be left to wait alone while we converse.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to be your happy little joiner,” she said sharply. “Obviously you realized my time was better spent in Sanctuary. That’s all you had to say.”

  Magnus stopped short, holding out a hand to stay her since he didn’t want to touch her. “Would you please tell me what was so wrong with what I just said that you had to be so nasty?”

  She huffed a laugh and rolled her eyes. “It figures you’d have no clue.”

  “Apparently not! That is why I am asking. If I am ever to get back into your good graces, I need to figure out the things I am doing that so offend you!”

  “Okay then,” she shot out, her hands dropping onto her waist, “how about that you just treated me like a child again?”

  “I did no such thing!”

  She threw up her hands in exasperation and marched into Sanctuary. Magnus stepped quickly after her and stopped her sharply by stepping into her path.

  “Magnus!” she warned.

  “How? How did I treat you like a child?”

  She cocked her head, tapping her foot in temper for a moment. “Try this.” She pitched her voice softly and bent as if speaking to an imaginary child. “Aww, honey. I’m sorry, but you can’t come with Mommy. Mommy has to do grown-up things. If I take you with me, you’ll just be bored.” She stood up straight and cocked a brow at him.

  Light and damnation.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said with a frown.

  “Then you need to learn to say what you do mean, because at this rate we’re in big trouble.”

  She walked around him and continued on her way.

  For ten seconds. Then he was there again, this time crowding her a bit. “All right then, since we’re airing grievances. What in cold burning Light were you doing in Brendan’s relations lecture?”

  “That is self-explanatory.”

  “Why would you take the class from someone else knowing I teach the same thing later in the night?” He didn’t want to sound petulant, but he supposed he did. He looked around, but the corridor was fairly empty.

  “Again, self-explanatory. I didn’t want to take instruction from a man who pisses me off so damn much!”

  “You lied to me!” he accused with a hiss. “You said you were with Hera. Do you have any idea the trouble you could have caused yourself by going into that room without proper preparation?”

  “So I didn’t know a few rules. Big freaking deal.” She sniffed, the brush off making his blood boil.

  “Oh, it is a very big deal, K’yindara,” he promised her, leaning in close to engage her ear at a whisper but not touching her. “The way you were practically purring in my lap, it would have been so simple to reach around you and fill my hands with these luscious breasts of yours, and I guarantee you that you wouldn’t have reacted badly to it at all. And the very instant you moaned softly or your nipples contracted to beg for my attention, we would have been committed to performing in that bed, class or no class, for the educational benefit of all who wanted to watch.”

  “Without my permission?”

  “Permission is implied at that point, K’yindara. You agreed to come to the bed, you agreed to engage in foreplay, and you would have agreed to the eroticism of the touch of my hands. In that bed, you are an exhibitionist. You choose what to exhibit. Brendan had no idea you were so raw and uninformed. There are rules here, K’yindara, that are distinctive to Sanctuary, and rules distinctive to specific rooms of Sanctuary. Before you run around behind my back doing things half-cocked, I suggest you discuss it with me first so I can keep you from walking into things accidentally! This is why you should be training with me instead of those who do not understand where you’ve come from!”

  “Well, until you showed up, I didn’t have to worry because handmaidens can only sleep with their priests!” she snapped irritably, refusing to admit he might be right.

  “Or themselves!”

  Daenaira drew in a soft sound of surprise. Her face flared with color and heat as she searched his tempestuous golden eyes to judge his legitimacy. “That’s not possible,” she whispered fiercely. “I’m a girl.” She looked nervously up and down the corridor as she scrubbed at one of her blushing cheeks.

  Gods, she was raw. Worse, she was naïve and refused to admit it to anyone, including herself. He wanted to correct her misconception, one he was used to hearing from prepubescent girls, but he needed a moment to cool his
temper. He eased away from her, stretched out that incredibly tight knot that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his neck, and studied her for a long minute.

  “We need to have this conversation somewhere else. You can choose. Our rooms. A private tutoring room. Or my office.”

  Definitely not their rooms, Dae knew. Being alone with him in their rooms and talking about sex was not her idea of safe tactics. His office was totally his territory. She knew better than to meet her opponent on his territory.

  “A private tutoring room,” she responded, her chin up as she tried to prove to him she wasn’t afraid of him or the topic at hand. The truth was, she wasn’t exactly sure about any of it. She was shaken to hear about all of these weird rules. “Why would someone make up a rule like that?” she grumbled at him as he led the way.

  “It is meant to attract a certain kind of person, Dae. When we first opened these halls during the war, it was difficult to find models for classes. People were leery of each other, scuffling about trickling clan issues, disliking the idea of Sanctuary having been moved from the lowlands to here. That rule titillated those who were exhibitionists. It became a flirtation for others. It’s a form of foreplay all on its own. People are tempted to test themselves. There are three lecture halls here, and all share the same rules. We almost never lack for models, with or without class being officially scheduled. We have a servant who has only one job, and that is to change the bedding in these rooms as frequently as it is used. Even if it is just what you and I did.”

  He was walking past the lecture halls in question as he spoke, but then stopped and crossed the hall to one of the doors on the opposite side of the corridor. These were the only doors in Sanctuary with locks on them that weren’t residential rooms. She had never seen inside them and watched warily as he took a key from his pocket and opened the door. He gestured, and she preceded him into the dark space. He had already shut and locked the door, throwing an inside bolt as well, by the time she saw the bed.