by R. J. Price
“Yes, a magic tea.”
Av grimaced. “I probably should have thought of that before, but it was the furthest from my mind. Aren is susceptible to magic.”
“Oh dear,” Wena said, paling slightly. The woman gave herself a shake after a moment. “No matter—it simply means she needs very little in the way of the tea. Though she had very little to begin with.”
“May I at least see her?” he asked.
“I suppose, but if she threatens to cripple you, do not attempt to blame me. I’ve given you fair warning. And no starting a fight over her condition either. Again, I’ve given you fair warning as to her temperament this afternoon.”
“I understand,” he sighed. The woman simply glared at him. “I also understand that if I attempt to start a fight you will find someplace on my person to place these flowers.”
“Well, I do believe we’ve reached an agreement we can both concede to. This way.”
He followed her into the rooms, close behind, but not so close that when she came to a sudden stop he ran into her. She moved around him and closed the door, then moved silently to the hearth.
The room was warmer than the rest of the palace, warmer than it had been the last time he had visited. Yet Aren was still wrapped in a blanket as she sat before the fire. She almost looked content, but there was a wariness as he approached. He couldn’t help but wonder why she still looked so uneasy.
Then the moment passed and she smiled weakly at him.
“Come to threaten and prod me into bed?”
“No, I brought you flowers,” he said, holding the flowers out.
Aren stared at them dimly, probably not quite aware what they were. There was a dopey look to her eyes as she smiled again. The throne was not working its way through her. This was just Aren with a bit too much healer magic easing her pain.
“But perhaps I might suggest just one nap,” he said cautiously. “Obviously the tea was too strong for you.”
“I think you may be right,” she said and groaned before she slid sideways and down in the seat. Curled around herself, she pulled a pillow from down the side of the chair and dropped her head onto it with a small moan.
“When you awake, hopefully the effects will be all but gone,” he said.
Av turned and handed a startled Wena the flowers. She looked at them, then frowned up at him, questioning him silently. He put a finger to his lips. Aren was likely almost asleep as it was.
Turning back, he reached under the queen as she groaned. Aren stirred, but did not wake as Av picked her up and carried her to the bed. She turned into his arms when he tried to set her down, but he didn’t give in to the desire to climb into the bed beside her. She had laid down the rules and he would abide by them.
For now.
He left the bed and found Wena by the door. The flowers were already in a vase and looked as if they had been carefully selected. She had rearranged them to look prettier.
Wena ushered him out of the rooms and closed the door behind the two of them.
“Her magic is flowing across the palace, as a queen’s magic tends to do when given this sort of tea,” Wena said quickly. “Lords and ladies used to bother Em at this time because they knew they could more easily get their way. She’d never recall what she had said, once all was said and done.”
“Aren will be fine.”
“Lord Av, I am trying to hint at something,” Wena said sternly.
“And you should know that your lady doesn’t appreciate hinting at things.”
“As someone who spent a great deal of time at court, I would think that you would know this,” she responded.
“Yet I have no idea how, or if I’m even able, to ask for a formal audience with Aren.”
“What do you want a formal audience for?” Wena demanded.
“I don’t know. To talk?”
“Oh, you want to socialize with her? Give her three days and then come visit after lunch. You can walk her through the gardens if it is nice out, and if it is raining you may walk her to the treasury room and look through the ancient treasures. Maybe something will catch her eye.”
“Do all queens just—”
“Yes, even your mother. They like to add the art pieces from there, to their rooms. It comforts them. Or so Lady Telm tells me.”
“Good, I’ll come back in three days.” Av turned to leave, but the woman grabbed his arm.
When he turned back, Wena shifted back and away from him. Suddenly skittish. Av had to wonder why touching him would make her skitter back like that.
“What I was trying to say before was that the lords and ladies, despite this being the queen’s rooms, have been bothering to see Lady Aren since her return. I managed excuses, but once she started training and word got around, they are demanding and even threatening me. Once they realize why the ladies and the servants are on that edge, there will be no stopping them.”
“You didn’t want me out here because you think Aren should rest?” he asked, surprised.
“Goodness no, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop her from going to training tomorrow morning, and I don’t blame her. Movement makes it easier, it’s just getting moving that hurts. No… I don’t feel those at court respect my position, let alone Lady Aren’s privacy. I cannot, by law, deny any of them entrance if Lady Aren is willing to be up and about, but I know she is not willing to listen to another lord drivel on about how dare she threaten to cut off his lights because he pays so much in taxes.”
“Which one said that?”
“Lord Baffer.”
“I’ll be sure to make my stance clear.”
Wena winced.
“What?” he asked.
“Until she’s mated, by law, no warrior is able to deny a lord the right to see her. Nor is he able to question why anyone at court wishes to see her because by law she must be open to any and all audiences that are important.”
“You want me to do the scary, angry warrior looking-for-a-fight thing, don’t you?”
Wena nodded quickly. “With what happened in the hallway and with the servant, they should be sufficiently scared to stay away. It will alert the ranks, who may try something, but you can either explain to them, or mash their faces into something. That is the current fashion of threat, is it not?”
“It is, mashing a face into something sounds amusing and yet unpleasant at the same time,” he said. “What will you tell Aren about the sudden quiet?”
“I will tell her that if one more lord attempts to take entrance, I will become violent. Perhaps she and I can use the time to speak of boundaries. I haven’t known her long enough to know what I should do, or whether she would protect or help me.”
“I think she would help you. She likes you, Wena.”
The woman blushed. She was silent a while before she met his eyes.
“There is one other thing you could do, but not for a few days,” she said quietly, shifting even farther away from him. “You could go to court and ask for a date for her mating ceremony. Lady Mar and Lady Telm have had all winter to think about it, but both appear to be quite busy and have forgotten that the ceremony must have an approved date so that the lords have time to get their clothing freshened up, or created, as the case may be.”
“Who needs brand new clothing for a mating ceremony?”
“For the one who sits the throne?” Wena asked. “Any items purchased through the trades room places coin in the treasury for the palace's benefit. We want them to spend their coin here and give them time to think about it and gossip amongst themselves and spend more.”
“But what if they purchase something more impressive than what Aren will be wearing?” he whined out.
“You wait until after the ceremony and rip it up,” Wena said with a shrug and a headshake. “You wouldn't be the first warrior to bring a competitor down a peg or two.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Url walked into Danya's room with his mother following close behind. Olea sat in the corner, in th
e guest chair, as Url moved in front of Danya and leaned against the wall. His mother had told him about his relation to both Telm and Danya, and he felt shaky still. His mother had rarely spoken about his grandmother, but Url had understood that there had been bad blood between the two of them.
To hear the full story? It was devastating and gave Url a whole new view of what appeared to be a young woman sitting on the bed.
“Lady Danya Ulthernol, I asked my son to introduce the pair of us.”
“Lady?” Danya asked. “Ulthernol? Who are you to be so cruel as to pretend that I have title?”
“My name is Lady Olea Marilton, mate to the baron of the North—”
“Why do I care?” Danya demanded.
The woman had never shown a temper during her talks with him. Url glanced to his mother, who met his gaze but then looked back to Danya.
“Please let me continue and it will become clear as to why I'm being very clear as to my relations,” his mother said calmly. “Lord Er Marilton has several brothers and sisters, one of which is on palace grounds—Ervam Marilton. He mated Mirmae Hue, and the two of them had two children together—Av Marilton and Jer Hue. You know Av Marilton, yes?”
“Due to be mated to Aren,” Danya said. “That means that your nephew, Url's cousin, is bound to mate the one who sits the throne. What would that make her? You share your mate's bloodline.”
“She would become a Marilton as is the way of the North.”
“Then why is Jer a Hue?” Danya asked.
Url almost smiled, but the young woman turned suddenly to him. She seemed to try to look at his mother, then back to him, a frown creasing her brow.
“Jer shares the Marilton bloodline, but not that of Ervam,” Danya said. “He is not Ervam's son. Whose son is he, then?” The woman lifted her face towards the ceiling and was silent a moment. “The previous baron.”
“How do you do that?” Olea asked.
“That’s my secret,” Danya said. “Don't worry, I won't tell Jer.” The woman was quiet once more, studying her own lap. “Though I feel you should know that Jer knows, or at the very least suspects. This makes him highly unstable, not because he believes there is anything wrong with himself, but that he cannot believe how lucky he is, to have someone love him enough to lie about something so devastating.”
“And how did you know that?” Url asked.
“There are many things bothering those at court. Of the brothers, however, Jer is an open book. He wants so desperately to sink into something normal that his mind is out there to read, if one knows how to see. As if he is thinking at others in the hopes that they hear his silent voice.”
“Now,” Olea said with a sigh, then paused as Danya turned slowly towards her, “Jer was mated to a woman named Em. They had a daughter—”
“But she didn't know about it until recently, her name is Mar,” Danya said. “Aren told me that part. Why do you wish to be so detailed in your family… No, bloodline?”
“My mother goes by a different name than she once did. And Url wants to draw you into court life, as is your right as a companion of Aren. Once you're in the court, you can visit her in her rooms, or she can visit you in yours instead of trying to make it to the healer hall only to be called away by an angry rank.”
“Why is your mother important to me, let alone to my entering court?”
“Uh, my mother goes by the name of Telm, now.”
“That Telm?” Danya asked, smiling. “I've yet to meet the woman, but Aren speaks very highly of her.”
“Before I mated, my name was Olea Ulthernol.”
Danya went deathly still. The woman didn't appear to breathe for far too long before she turned to Url. Her face was directed at him, her eyes about chest level. He felt as if she were asking a silent question.
“Your slow aging also affected your mother, and of course she thought you dead,” Url said quietly. “I was just told myself.”
“That would make you my aunt,” Danya said. The room was silent a moment before the woman chuckled. “I mean, that would make you my nephew.”
“That would also make you a queen,” his mother said quietly.
“I'm a healer,” Danya said.
Url protested. “She's a commoner!”
The room went awkwardly silent once more. His mother sucked in a breath, as she often did before she lectured someone on how stupid they had been. Url winced but tried not to pull away.
“Telm was a great deal of things when I was a child, but wrong about the rank of a babe yet to be born is not one of them. She could tell three months into the pregnancy what a woman carried in her belly. When she went to that village, she carried a queen. There is no way for a queen to become a healer and, frankly, my dear, I've never heard of a blind healer before.”
“Something about living in the spell for my entire life and now I'm blinded by the non-magic,” Danya said.
“Have you ever healed anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Outside of the village,” Url said. “Since, let's face it, the laws of nature did not apply in the village itself.”
“I haven't much magic, but what I do have is being used to see,” Danya said, turning to Olea. “On that topic, dear sister, you're just an invisible blackness in the middle of everything else. What are you hiding?”
“You can't see me?” Olea asked.
“I can hear you just fine,” Danya snarled. “I don't like not being able to see. It's not queens that I cannot see, because I could see Aren when she visited.”
“That's not really important,” Url groaned. “That's social talk. We aren't here today for social talk and if this is becoming social, I have other things I could be doing.”
“Then go do them!” two suddenly angry women shouted at him at the same time.
“Fine, I'll go, then,” he shouted back at them before he left the room and closed the door firmly behind him.
Just outside stood a healer with raised eyebrows and an annoyed look. Her arms were not folded across her chest as palace healers tended to do when he visited. She did not set her weight back on one hip, nor did she make a pouting face.
Her hands were at her sides, her feet spread and the look on her face clearly indicated that he had upset her ward. Url looked the woman up and down, making absolutely certain not to hesitate on the curve of her hips or the swell of her chest. When he met her eyes and found the annoyance had shifted to an expected exasperation, he looked down again and took the time to appreciate the form.
“I'm here at Lord Av's invite,” the healer said.
Yes, it was the healer. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a tight braid, her green eyes alive with a fire. She should have had red hair, since at least then her look would match that anger.
She still didn't shift her weight. Her hands did not move from her sides. Url moved around the healer and watched as she didn't even stiffen. She stayed loose, turning her head only enough to catch his gaze from out the corner of her eye.
“I'm Lord Av's cousin, Url Marilton,” he murmured.
He was on the floor before he knew what happened. While he expected that she had been trained, considering how she had been standing, he didn't understand what he had done to provoke her anger. The woman's fingers wrapped around his neck. She was almost straddling him as she leaned down. Her free hand had lifted slightly off the floor, ready to strike.
“So you thought you'd come take a tumble because he's decided I'm riled?” she demanded.
Url's heart pounded in his chest. “He's not mentioned a healer he brought to court because she was riled. He should have.”
There was no way that he was telling her that everyone knew she was riled, and that it had nothing to do with what Av had told them.
There was definitely no way he was about to tell her that there were numerous other warriors at court who were haunting the hallways, looking for the annoyed rank. Let alone that, if they found her, they would tumble her, or at the very least poke her until
she struck out at them.
“Why?” she said through gritted teeth, her fingers tightening around his throat.
He sucked a breath through his teeth as his neck began tingling. Riled indeed, the healer was so frustrated that she was using magic on him even though she was trying to express herself physically. If she hadn't been taught to fight, she might have flayed his flesh off before she realized what she was doing.
“I would have challenged you to fight,” he said.
But not before he told his father what he was doing, and after he made certain there was a spare, empty room nearby. It seemed every healer he met had a special desire to beat a warrior in combat and then drag him off to the closest bed.
Certainly, he'd have a mess to clean up in the morning and she'd probably never speak to him again, but it was a wildly good time nonetheless.
“Every other man who's met me has tried to grab me,” she said, suspicious that he was lying.
“Why grab you when I know that if we fought, the chances of you going to bed with me are a great deal higher?” Url asked. “Plus, your hand on my throat tells me you've been trained by someone proper, so you'd be a right challenge. Might even win.”
“Lord Ervam taught me.”
“Nope, no—I take it back,” he said, pushing her off of him. He moved away, putting distance between them. “No, I know better than that. He doesn't... He probably… You've... no.”
“Lord Av almost held his own against me,” the healer said with a small smile. “What? Has all your fight run away? Shouldn't you be eager for a challenge?”
If only she knew the allure of hearing those words, and how much it hurt to resist the urge.
“Challenge or not, a riled healer who knows how to take down a warrior is not something to be trifled with,” he said.
“Fine, I'll find another man to fight me,” she said, moving past him.
He grabbed her and slammed her into the wall, pinning her there. She squeaked out, startled by the sudden change in temperament. As startled as Url was that he had the healer pinned against the wall, her wrists held by his hands—when had he grabbed his wrists?
