Of Fire and Stars

by Audrey Coulthurst

  “But Lord Kriantz doesn’t love you!” she sputtered.

  “And you love my brother? How is that any different?”

  “It’s you I love. I’ll think of something before the wedding. Give me more time, please. I need this,” she pleaded. “I need you.”

  She stood up and then knelt in front of me.

  “Please,” she said, taking my hands in her own. “Please stay with me tonight.”

  A war raged in my heart.

  She kissed the backs of my hands.

  I shouldn’t stay.

  She put her hand on my knee and ran it slowly up my thigh until I took a sharp breath.

  I needed to leave.

  She crawled forward, pulling herself up into my lap, and then touched my cheek, soft as a feather, sending goose bumps clear up into my hairline.

  I licked my lips.

  She put her mouth to my neck, placing a soft kiss where my pulse throbbed beneath my skin.

  I stopped being able to think.

  “We shouldn’t do this,” I whispered.

  “I know.”

  She led me to her bed and laid me down beside her. I let her hands wander over me, losing myself in the patterns she traced over my skin. When she brought her lips to mine, we kissed until we could barely breathe, until I couldn’t resist sliding my hand up her thigh, hiking the nightdress over her hips, her smooth skin like warm silk beneath my fingers.

  Denna grew bold with my touch, finding her way beneath my shirt until she slipped the fabric over my head. Her mouth moved over my exposed skin, awkwardness quickly blooming into desire. When she put her hand between my legs, the last of my shyness vanished. The confidence in her touch left no question that she craved every inch of me, and I couldn’t get enough.

  “I’ve wanted you so long,” she whispered.

  I could have wept with the force of what those words made me feel. This—this—was what I had waited for. She was what I had always needed. I pulled the nightgown over her head so that our bare skin could meet, entranced by the way her gentle, insistent fingers were building an unstoppable feeling inside me.

  Denna kissed my neck and trailed her lips over my shoulder as my body flooded with pleasure so total that I felt nothing else. She held me close until the intensity subsided and I finally caught my breath. As soon as my limbs worked again, I reached for her, eager to reciprocate. She pressed against me hungrily, slick against my fingers. She exhaled in my ear, a soft unself-conscious sound, and my own body filled with desire all over again as she cried out and clenched her thighs around my hand.

  After we found our clothes and she finally fell asleep, I lay awake, pressed against her, trying to memorize the way she fitted so perfectly against me. I needed her more than I’d ever needed anyone. She softened my harsh edges. She made me better—she made me less who I was and more the person I wanted to become. The only trouble was that she had never been meant to be mine. Her breath rose and fell steadily, the only accompaniment to the occasional spark popping from the embers of the dying fire in her hearth.

  I closed my eyes, but sleep would not come. The image of my father’s burned body haunted me, and with every minute that passed I became more certain that the calls of the White Riders’ horns were only a breath away.

  But it wasn’t the White Riders that woke us.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Dennaleia

  THE DOOR OF MY BEDROOM BURST OPEN BEFORE DAWN, filling the room with lamplight. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, ready to dismiss Auna—until a face appeared.

  Thandi.

  He didn’t say anything, and somehow his silence was worse than any words.

  Behind me, Mare stirred, cold air replacing the warmth of her body as she sat up and unwrapped her arm from my waist. Without looking, I could feel the icy stare she leveled at her brother. But all of us knew who would win. His jaw clenched and unclenched over and over. I shrank into the covers, pulling them around me as though they could shield me.

  His eyes skated over me and landed on his sister, his gaze sharp as a drawn sword.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t believe you,” Thandi finally said to Mare. “I came looking for you to talk about Father, and this is what I find?”

  “She’s my friend, Thandi,” Mare said, crossing her arms.

  Though I had called her the same, hearing it from her lips stung. Friends kept each other company, always quick with a supportive word or an embrace. But friends did not kiss in a way that lit one’s whole body on fire. Friends didn’t undo one’s ability to think with a single touch, and they didn’t do what we’d done last night.

  But my future belonged to Thandi—if he would still have me.

  I would lose her no matter what.

  “We aren’t children anymore. You can’t keep doing what you want with no regard for the kingdom,” Thandi said. The lamplight darkened the circles under his eyes.

  “Did you ever stop to think that Denna isn’t a piece of property, Thandi? That she has her own desires and cares? Because if you did, you might have noticed that she’s twice as smart as either of us. You’ve hobbled her before even trying out her paces.”

  Thandi strode across the room toward her, the lantern in his hand swaying, light and shadow dancing across the room. Terror for her rose in my throat. I wanted to shove the words back into her mouth, to get her to leave while he still allowed her some dignity.

  “And have you been trying out the paces of my future wife?” he asked, venom in every word.

  “Unlike you, I listen to her,” Mare replied, her voice as cold as his.

  “She didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. I was the guilty one.

  “We can talk about this later,” he said to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Except that I wasn’t. And that only made me feel worse.

  “As for you, Mare, any choice you had about marrying Lord Kriantz is gone. I hope you enjoy your future in the middle of the desert,” he said.

  I wanted to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep, and wake up to a world where this was not happening. My emotions boiled over until the coals in the hearth glowed orange, and I clamped down on my feelings. If Thandi saw magic, he would have more than one reason to kill me.

  “You can’t make me do anything.” Mare stared at him, defiant.

  “Enough,” he said. “Guards!”

  Liegemen entered the room, faces impassive.

  “Please escort my sister to her rooms and see that she stays there. I want liegemen posted at all exits . . . including the windows,” Thandi instructed.

  Panic flickered across Mare’s face. The liegemen flanked her, driving her out of the room. She would be caged like an animal, and there would be no way for me to get to her. The door swung closed behind them, leaving me alone with Thandi. My heart smashed holes in my chest with every beat.

  Thandi approached my bedside. He bowed his head, undoubtedly searching for words of accusation. The worst part was that they would be true. He must hate me for my betrayal. Even if it hadn’t been spoken aloud, the way I looked at her had to be evidence enough. I clenched the covers to keep my hands from trembling. Many minutes passed before he finally spoke.

  “You know you promised, right? Promised yourself to me?” he asked, his voice breaking at the end of the question.

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “Did I do something wrong?” He looked up at me, his eyes searching my face, begging me to tell him something of which he could make sense.

  I didn’t know how to explain to him that my feelings for Mare had nothing to do with him. He didn’t hobble me—the rules of my life did. And it wasn’t his fault she lit me up like a midwinter parade, every color of the Six bright in my heart when I looked at her. It wasn’t his fault that she had done that almost since the first time we’d met, since the first time she’d touched me.

  “We have to do our duty,” he said. The resignation on his face made him look so much older.

  �
��I know,” I whispered again.

  “Mare has to do her duty too. War is coming.”

  I nodded, my eyes not focusing on anything at all. Without her, my future stretched before me like a yawning darkness. After this, it was inevitable that she would be taken from me.

  “I know you don’t have to love me, but I thought maybe you could. Someday,” Thandi said.

  Guilt poured over me in inescapable waves. I had wronged him, and in doing so had betrayed my kingdom.

  Worse, I knew that given the chance to do everything over again, I would willingly make the same mistakes twenty times over.

  There could not possibly be forgiveness in his heart. Maybe there shouldn’t be.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  The silence between us was broken by the discordant wail of hunting horns, the same mournful calls I’d heard when Casmiel passed.

  The new king hung his head and wept into my sheets.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Mare

  THE DISSONANT CALLS OF THE HORNS CRACKED ME IN two, and I fell to the floor as the hoofbeats of the White Riders took the city. My father was gone, and I’d never even had the chance to say good-bye. There would never be a chance to salvage our relationship, or for me to prove that I was anything other than useless. Thandi was king. Denna’s future held no place for me, and my brother would send me to Sonnenborne as promised. I could fight all I wanted, but under the king’s command I would be powerless.

  I lay on the stone floor until I shivered, past the breaking of dawn. When Sara found me there, she peeled me off the floor and guided me into bed.

  I woke only when someone sat down beside me and placed a familiar hand on my shoulder.

  “Heya,” Nils said.

  I opened my eyes halfway and squinted at him blearily, searching through my muddled brain for words.

  “Nils!” I choked out, and sat up.

  He folded me into his arms as he always had, rocking me as I fought tears. I clung to the familiar feel of him under my hands, his solid form and tidy livery the only things I could still count on.

  “How did you get in here?” I asked.

  Nils shrugged. “They said you can’t come out. Didn’t say anything about me coming in.”

  “Figures. Thandi’s always been shortsighted that way. You have to get me out of here.” I tugged at his shirtsleeve.

  “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “You know why. I answer to him now. What in the Six Hells did you do to get locked in your rooms, anyway?”

  “Thandi found me in Denna’s bedroom this morning.” The words tumbled out in a rush. Nils had told me a hundred tales of waking up in the wrong bed; I hoped he would understand without me spelling it out.

  Comprehension dawned in his eyes. “I see.”

  “I told her I loved her,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. I studied the patterns on my duvet, tracing an embroidered swirl with my finger, afraid to meet his eyes.

  “Well, that’s progress,” he said.

  The simple words filled me with gratitude. I fumbled to grasp his hand. Whichever of the Six Gods had gifted him to me could never be thanked enough.

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” I said softly.

  “We’ve been through a lot together. You’ve always been with me through the scandals and heartaches, and now it’s my turn.”

  I brought his warm hand to my cheek and turned to lightly kiss the familiar contours.

  “So does he know?” Nils asked.

  “He must.”

  “Did he catch you in a compromising position?” He smirked.

  My cheeks burned. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll marry him anyway. Duty clearly matters to her more than whatever this is between us. The crown comes first.”

  “Denna didn’t say anything in return when you said you loved her?”

  “Well . . . ,” I began hesitantly. “She kissed me. And then she said it back.” I almost didn’t want to tell him, because that was one thing I wanted to hold close—the way she’d taken me so by surprise and made me believe even for a moment that things could work out.

  Nils raised his eyebrows. “And last night?”

  “I couldn’t stand to leave her after the Gathering.” I pinched my arm to keep the tremor out of my voice. “I told her I’m considering marrying Lord Kriantz. But she won’t hear of it.”

  “Neither will I,” he snorted.

  “But his holdings are close to Zumorda. Maybe by going with him I could find out what’s truly going on. Or, once we got close to the border, I could make a run for it. Ride alone into Zumorda to warn the queen that her kingdom is being framed.”

  “You’re deflecting. This has nothing to do with that and you know it. Don’t run away from your feelings. And I’m not sure I like the idea of you riding alone into Zumorda any better than you going with Lord Kriantz.”

  “What other choices do I have? Even if it weren’t for Lord Kriantz, I’m not going to be sneaking through Denna’s window when she’s sharing a room with my brother. This was all a horrible mistake.”

  “But maybe if you hadn’t been caught, you would have had more time to make your case.”

  “What case?” I wailed. “I have no case. I have nothing to offer her. I barely know what I’m going to do with myself, which means I have nothing to give her, especially nothing on a par with being queen.”

  “Is being queen what she wants?”

  “It’s her duty. And her duty is the most important thing to her.” I turned my head back into the pillow. “Gods, I am stupid. Incredibly stupid. How did I get so stupid? You should have beaten the stupid out of me when you had the chance.”

  “You aren’t stupid,” he said, touching my head tenderly. “You’re in love.”

  I hated and loved him for being so right.

  “And now . . . now with my father . . . our time is gone,” I said, barely able to get the words out as I held back tears. “I can’t talk about this anymore. Can you stay and keep me company for a while?”

  “Why, so we can start a whole new set of rumors around here?” he teased.

  “I don’t want to be alone.” I could feel the grief waiting to swallow me again.

  “All right.” He stretched out on the bed and propped his head up on his elbow.

  I snuggled up beside him, though it didn’t close the wound where my heart had once been.

  “Tell me stupid liegeman stories,” I said. “Or better yet, stupid liegeman jokes. They know the best dirty jokes.”

  He laughed, and obliged, and eventually I fell into a fitful sleep.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Dennaleia

  I SAT ON THE DIRECTORATE FOR THE SECOND TIME two days after the death of the king. The windowless room at the heart of the castle where the Directors met was stifling even with a chilly wind blowing outside. Under any other circumstances, I might have held my head high to be at the table with the Directors, but I wasn’t at the meeting based on my own merits. Thandi had not let me out of his sight since the White Riders had called out the death of his father. Although I walked the palace with him, and had stood freely beside him as he knelt before his horse to accept the crown from the clerics of the Six, he had me as trapped as Mare. It was still too soon, but I longed for word from my family—some note of reassurance or advice about how to untangle the mess my life had become.

  From the moment of the king’s death, our faces, together, took the place of his. Each day, Auna dressed and bejeweled me in the most lavish finery I owned. But while the outside of me shone with perfection, inside I was shattered and lost. Everything depended on me keeping control, on holding myself together until I could find a way to get to Mare. I had less than a moon until the wedding to figure out a way to keep us together, to stop Lord Kriantz from taking her away, and to somehow find and get rid of the Recusant artifact before my Affinity could be discovered. The artifact had already unearthed one magic user at court, and though
he had never done anything but serve the crown, they still sent him to the dungeon screaming.

  The faces around the table were weary after two days of ceremonies and the accompanying administrative tasks. No time had been provided for anyone to grieve—none existed when an assault on Zumorda had become the top priority. Thandi’s coronation the day before had felt more like an addendum to the king’s funeral than an occasion in its own right. It was all obligation and little celebration. Even the wine we drank afterward was sour on our tongues.

  Now, we planned for war.

  “The Zumordan border will be most vulnerable near Sonnenborne,” Lord Kriantz explained, gesturing to the map spread out over the table. “Their cresthaven lies in the northern mountains, and my people can attack from our border in the south.”

  Thandi nodded, a crease between his eyebrows as he placed several glass counters on the map. “I think we can send in re-inforcements, but we’ll need to keep the bulk of our cavalry at our own border in the east. Perhaps build upon the existing cavalry we sent after the bandit attacks,” he said.

  “That should be fine, provided we time things correctly. Kartasha is Zumorda’s largest fortified city in the south. If you can take it once we’ve secured this area here, we’ll be positioned well,” Lord Kriantz said. “The queen will be hard-pressed to take back the land.”

  Thandi nodded again.

  Did he even know what he was agreeing to? Not all of his riders would return. They would sacrifice their lives for revenge—revenge that might not even be owed to them. But I saw what was behind it. Sadness could not hide the smoldering in Thandi’s eyes when he spoke of his father. I twisted my skirt anxiously under the table at the thought. If he found out about my Affinity and thought me to blame, his rage would burn brighter than any flame I could call.

  “And as we discussed, the lands south of Kartasha between the city and my borders will be added to Sonnenborne,” Lord Kriantz said, tacking a red string on the map to denote the new border.

  “Wait.” Captain Ryka spoke, crossing her arms. “I’m still not comfortable with attacking the southern part of the country when the seat of power is in the north. It doesn’t make sense to me.”