Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series)

by Luiken, Nicole

  “And what does that mean?” Sara asked carefully.

  “It means that if war breaks out you’ll be executed,” Wenda said.

  “Executed? Even though I won’t have done anything wrong?”

  “Yes,” Lance said. “And no, it won’t be fair or just. It’s not supposed to be. You’re innocent, and the innocent die in wars.”

  Sara started to protest—accidental deaths were hardly the same as an execution—but Lance shook his head sternly. “Be quiet and listen. What do you think war is about?”

  “The conquest of one country over another for the gain of lands or riches or for revenge,” she defined irritably.

  “You’re wrong.” Lance stared at her as if trying to burn his opinion into her. “War is about death. It’s about people killing other people to gain lands or riches. You nobles have forgotten that. After all,” Lance said bitterly, “it costs the Primus nothing to go to war. He has legionnaires to fight for him. His friends and relatives don’t die. The war always takes place in some distant country the Primus may never even have set foot in. The Republic’s towns aren’t burned, their citizens aren’t slaughtered, their crops and homes aren’t destroyed, leaving them to starve.”

  Was that why Lord Favonius’s estate had been burned? To show the Republic what war could bring?

  “Too often in the past the Republic has invaded Kandrith on a whim,” Lance continued. “The Child of Peace sets some small price on war. The death of one innocent.” The fire faded from his eyes, replaced by kindness. “If your father loves you, you have nothing to fear.”

  Sara knew her father loved her, and yet she did fear. Lance didn’t understand how unstable her father’s Primacy was. If Claude’s father, General Pallax, used his Legions to take power, he wouldn’t care a whit for Sara’s life.

  “Your father should’ve told you all this before we left.” Lance looked angry on her behalf.

  Sara shook her head. “He doesn’t know either. Primus Vidor died unexpectedly without heirs. He didn’t tell him. Unless you did?” Had her father thought she would refuse to go if he told her the truth? The possibility ate at her gut.

  “No, I was denied an audience. I left a number of messages with various undersecretaries.” Lance paused to cough. “Frankly, I was surprised when I was told that I and the new Child of Peace would be leaving so suddenly.”

  Her father never would have sent her if not for the Favonius massacre.

  Fear chilled her. As an ambassador she’d felt she had some power, some ability to do good, but a hostage had no power. She was just a lever to ensure her father’s good behavior.

  “Lady Sarathena?” Marcus made her name a question. If she but said the word he would fight.

  Sara briefly closed her eyes, ignoring the Gatekeeper hovering at her elbow. What she’d learned hadn’t truly changed anything. Ambassadors always bore the risk of being held hostage; she’d known from the beginning that the same might happen to her. The threat of another massacre like the one that had occurred at Lord Favonius’s estate still hung in the air. She and Julen still needed to discover the secret of slave magic and to do so she must enter Kandrith.

  And perhaps having her as a hostage, so close to hand, would make Sylvanus safer.

  “Very well then,” she said with strained composure. “I will pass through the Gate voluntarily.”

  The tension eased from the air.

  “May I ask how long will I remain your country’s guest? A year? Two?”

  Lance dashed that faint hope. “Until your father is no longer Primus. Unless there’s someone you can trade off with, like Wenda and I do.”

  “I have a brother, but he is too young yet.” Sara took a deep breath. Five years, minimum. It felt like a jail sentence.

  A sudden shout attracted her attention.

  “She’s escaping!” Lord Giles raised his arm and pointed. While they were talking, Felicia had drifted closer to the Gate. Her head came up in panic. She lifted her skirts and started to run the last twenty feet.

  Sara glared at Lance. When he’d put his hands on her shoulders so tenderly, he’d turned her so that her back faced the Gate.

  “Shoot her! Shoot her!” Lord Giles urged.

  The outrider closest to him lifted his crossbow. He shot, but the bolt went high over Felicia’s head, thwacking into the mountainside.

  “Stop!” Lance roared and charged the legionnaire while he was reloading. Suddenly two other crossbows pointed at Lance.

  “No! Everyone hold your fire!” Sara grabbed Marcus’s arm. She groped for a threat severe enough to stop him from doing his duty.

  “Stand down!” Marcus barked, and the crossbows were lowered with alacrity. Most of the legionnaires had spent the past two weeks flirting with Felicia.

  “I said, ‘Shoot her!’” Lord Giles grabbed the nearest loaded crossbow. The outrider made a move to check him, then stopped, helpless. He could not touch a noble without earning a whipping or worse.

  Sara was under no such constraint. When Lord Giles lifted and aimed the crossbow with an easy motion that spoke of Legion training, Sara placed herself in front of him. She wanted to slap his face, but she made herself smile bewitchingly instead. “Please don’t. I ordered Felicia to pretend to escape so that I might have both her and Julen to serve me in Kandrith,” she lied.

  Felicia vanished inside the Gate.

  Lord Giles sighed and looked superior. “She’ll betray you. You should’ve let me shoot her.”

  Just how a dead cuorelle was supposed to be better than an escaped one, Sara didn’t understand. But she didn’t argue. Always agree with a man, Aunt Evina had taught her. Sara plastered a worried frown on her face. “Oh, dear, do you think so?” She leaned forward and let him see more cleavage.

  The arrowhead dug into her flesh. If this fool accidentally shot her, she was going to haunt Felicia. Lord Giles stared at her breasts, mesmerized.

  Then Lance reached them. He pushed Sara back with one hand and forced the crossbow up with the other.

  “Let go,” Lord Giles demanded. His face turned red.

  “No.” Lance jerked the crossbow free and tossed it to its owner.

  Lord Giles began to scream abuse. “Barbarian! I’ll have you arrested! I’ll have you flogged!”

  Lance listened to the threats, unmoved. Sara noticed that Lord Giles didn’t make any attempt to hit Lance. A wise decision on his part. Lance was obviously itching to pound him into the dirt.

  “So it was just an act then.”

  Sara looked up and saw Wenda. “What?”

  “Your order not to shoot. You just wanted to make sure your property wasn’t damaged.”

  Rage choked Sara. “Felicia is like a sister to me.”

  Wenda snorted.

  Sara clenched her hands into fists. “Think what you will.”

  She walked away and beckoned Marcus close. She repeated her lie about Felicia’s escape being on her orders and added, “You will tell my father this. Felicia’s family has only two links left on their slavechain. I do not want them punished for this.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Marcus promised quietly.

  “Thank you.”

  Lord Giles was still ranting when Lance simply walked away.

  “It’s time to go.” He hugged Wenda one more time, then turned to Sara and Julen. “Which of you would like to go first?”

  The words were perfectly polite, but it was clear to Sara that Lance meant to be last. He likely did not trust her to go at all otherwise.

  Her chin lifted, but before she could prove him wrong, Julen caught her arm and pulled her aside, his expression grim. “I mislike this, Lady Sarathena. It smells like a trap, but I can think of no excuse to refuse. I’ll go before you, to spring the trap if I can. Flee at my cry. The outriders will protect you.”

  Sara’s throat felt tight as Julen disappeared into the darkness. She was reluctantly impressed with his bravery. For once, there had been no mockery or flirtation in his voice.
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br />   Sara strained her ears for the next several minutes, but heard nothing. All she saw was the dark opening and the looming mountain that seemed to shut out all possibility of escape.

  At least, she tried to tell herself, the Qiph would have equal trouble following her into Kandrith.

  The gatekeeper cleared his throat. “It’s your turn.”

  Sara stared around wildly. Lance waited with his arms folded. She felt a strong aversion to entering the Gate, especially without an armed escort. She seized on an excuse. “What about my trunks? I need someone to carry them.”

  “You’ll have to leave them behind,” Wenda said. “They’re too wide.”

  Sara didn’t believe her, but Lord Giles nodded. “I had to leave all of mine behind.”

  “It would be better to buy new on the other side,” Lance said.

  Sara turned stubborn. “I refuse to enter a strange country with only the clothes on my back.” She marched over to the carriage and commanded one of the outriders to unload her trunks.

  The gatekeeper fussed and fumed, and Lance shifted from foot to foot, but Sara ignored them as she rummaged through the trunks for necessities. Underwear, several silk dresses, and a nightgown. Some jewelry, a cloak that she slipped over her shoulders. She was a Remillus: She would not go begging.

  Sara demanded a bag and stuffed everything inside it. Her fear had fallen away from her, replaced by anger. The Kandrithans were obviously trying to humiliate her.

  At the last second Sara remembered Felicia also had no luggage and filled a second bag with a set of clothes for her too.

  Lance watched silently, his eyes narrowed, as if ready to chase her down if she bolted.

  “Ready now?” the gatekeeper asked.

  Sara didn’t answer, just walked up to the Gate, head high.

  The shadowed gorge put her in mind of a gaping mouth. And now it was her turn to be swallowed.

  Three steps into the gorge and the tall walls shut off the sunlight. Sara waited a moment to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Ahead of her, the pathway twisted and turned.

  “Julen? Can you hear me?” She paused. The mountain seemed to devour her words.

  Picking her way carefully over the uneven ground, Sara walked further into the fissure. Her shoulders brushed against the narrow walls, so she put out her hand as a guide. The rock left behind an unpleasant chalky residue, but better on her fingers than on her clothes. No wonder Lord Giles and Wenda had both looked so unkempt.

  She glanced back—and could no longer see the way out. Stone ahead and stone behind, stone walls stretching up and up so that the sky was a mere ribbon of blue above… She felt enfolded. Smothered.

  There was nothing to do but go on, so Sara did. Perhaps if she hurried she could catch up with Julen. It was measure of how much things had changed that she could admit she would appreciate his company.

  She hoped every twist and turn of the passage would be the last, but the gorge seemed to go on forever. And then it narrowed. Two people could no longer have passed side by side; Lance, with his broad shoulders, would be forced to walk sideways. A fat man would have had to crawl—the passage was slightly wider at the bottom.

  The trapped feeling grew. She imagined that the mountains were pressing in on her, that the crack might close at any time and crush her. Her breathing fractured. Sara began to hurry, and her bundles of clothes became a nuisance, bumping against her legs.

  She heard a noise behind her like pebbles rubbing together. “Lance?” she called, but got no answer.

  She turned her head—and banged it on a rocky overhang hard enough to make her gasp. The careful hairstyle Felicia had achieved that morning slipped loose from its pins and fell in her sweaty face.

  Up ahead the two sides of the gorge almost met. She was going to have to walk stooped over. She wouldn’t be able to see the sky anymore. What if it got worse? What if the gorge narrowed to a tunnel? The thought pinned her in place.

  She tried to get herself moving again by reminding herself that Julen had come this way already. And Wenda going the other direction. Could a Remillus do less?

  Still, she hesitated—until something furry rubbed against her hand.

  She almost screamed before she saw the refetti. He’d followed her. Tears pricked her eyes at his loyalty. She felt a rush of shame that she’d forgotten all about him—Felicia usually saw to the creature whenever they stopped.

  “Good boy.” She stroked his furry little head, and somehow he gave her the courage to do what had to be done. She didn’t want to risk stepping on him so she put him in the pocket of her cloak, where he curled up happily. But she worried that he would get banged against the stone wall, so she tossed her bags ahead of her, and used both hands to protect the refetti.

  She moved at a slow shuffle, stooped over to keep from banging her head, and forced to push the cursed bags of clothes ahead of her before each step. She scraped her knee, and blood trickled down her leg.

  She stopped being surprised that Lance hadn’t caught up with her yet and started being surprised he’d dared enter at all.

  She grimly kept on, cursing under her breath—and bumped her head again. She was going give herself a goose egg soon.

  And then, finally, she saw a shaft of sunlight up ahead.

  Unfortunately, the last turn looked too narrow to squeeze through. Comforting herself once again with the thought of Lance’s broad shoulders, Sara kicked the loathsome bags ahead of her and squirmed sideways into the crack.

  She shuffled forward, only to almost trip on the first bag of clothes. She kicked at it, but it wouldn’t move forward, and when she tried to bend down to reach it her breasts scraped against the stone. There wasn’t enough space.

  Fine. Gritting her teeth, Sara backed up out of the crack to the wider spot before. Perhaps if she crawled? It wasn’t like her dress could get any dirtier.

  She draped her cloak with the refetti up around her neck, then got down on her hands and knees, hiked up her dress and started forward again. And got stuck.

  * * *

  Lance came around the corner and stopped short. For a second he stared in disbelief at the feminine rump blocking the passageway ahead.

  A moment ago he’d been mad at Sara. Hadn’t he? Yes, he had. But now, looking at her ass, Lance felt quite mellow.

  It was a very shapely ass, molded by the pink silk of her skirt…her very short skirt. The material had bunched up so that he could see almost to the tops of her thighs.

  As he watched, dry-mouthed, the ass in question wiggled, the hips tilted up as if in invitation, and Lance suddenly had trouble thinking as all his blood rushed to his loins.

  His hand clenched into a fist against the urge to pull up that last bit of pink silk and caress—

  “Vez’s Malice,” Sara swore.

  The sound of her voice pulled him back from the brink.

  Lance wanted to swear too. Why him? He cleared his throat to announce his presence, and a thick silence descended.

  Lance swallowed and tried to sound like he still possessed his mind. “Sara? Do you need some help?” Please say no.

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

  * * *

  How humiliating. Sara’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. At least Lance couldn’t see them, but considering what he could see…

  “Should I, ah, push or pull?” he asked.

  He sounded half-choked. Was he laughing at her? “Try pushing,” Sara said through gritted teeth. She took refuge in a quick spurt of anger. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself. This is your fault.”

  A pause. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re the King’s son. This is not a proper gate! It ought to have been widened years ago. What kind of crazed—”

  Her tirade crashed to a halt the moment his palms touched her rump. She squeaked; she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t realized how sensitive her bottom was.

  Lance kept his hands in place, but didn’t immediately start to push. “You kn
ow,” he said thoughtfully, “I wanted to give you a spanking earlier.”

  She tensed. He wouldn’t, would he? “What?”

  “I was mad at you for naming Julen your companion when we both know you can hardly stand him.” He cupped each ass cheek, the kneading motion eliciting a wave of heat. A moan escaped her. Her cheeks flamed. Had he heard her?

  “If you’d just chosen Felicia like you were supposed to she wouldn’t have had to risk her life—and you wouldn’t have had any excuse to step in front of that idiot’s crossbow.” His voice dropped into a dangerous growl. “You definitely deserve to be spanked for that stunt.”

  But instead of a stinging slap, one thumb traced the cleft between her buttocks, going so low her breath clogged in her lungs, and she felt an embarrassing rush of liquid desire. She waited in agony for him to touch her there, in the place where she was wet, but he stopped short.

  “Well, what do you say in your defense?”

  Indignation filled Sara. “Oh! At least I knew Lord Giles wouldn’t dare shoot me. You charged a legionnaire, who’s been trained to respond to threats with killing force. Maybe you should be punished for risking your life.”

  Silence behind her, then Lance gave a short laugh. “You never do or say what I expect.” He gave her a strong push.

  Sara heard a tearing sound as her dress ripped, but she could suddenly move again. And did, all but scurrying away from the touch of Lance’s hands. From temptation.

  She lacked the room to stand up so she kept crawling forward. She reached the spot where she’d dropped the bags of clothes and laboriously shoved them forward, into the pool of sunshine she’d seen earlier, then she followed. A protruding bit of rock scraped down her back, but she finally squirmed free.

  She emerged into a bowl-shaped cul de sac with high, yellow stone walls. Another trap for an invading army. Sara registered that fact only dimly.

  She inspected the rip in her dress; thankfully it had split along a seam and could probably be repaired. Still, her gown and hair were covered with dirt, her face was flushed and she was trembling from both the ordeal of the passage and the aftershocks of Lance’s intimate touch.