Warrior

by Jennifer Fallon

  Welcome to the family . . .

  It was the last thing Luciena remembered until she woke some indeterminate time later to find a stranger leaning over her in the darkness, his hand over her mouth to stop her screaming.

  “Don’t be frightened!” a voice hissed in the darkness. “It’s only me!”

  Luciena struggled to sit up and, somewhat to her surprise, the intruder let her. She blinked owlishly, her heart pounding. “Xanda?”

  He grinned at her, his teeth white against the gloom. “Sorry about waking you like that. It’s just I wasn’t sure how you’d react to being startled and in this place it doesn’t pay to cry out in the middle of the night. Not unless you want every Raider in Krakandar swarming into your room, looking for assassins under the bed.”

  “Wha—what are you doing here?”

  “We’re all going out onto the roof,” he whispered. “I thought you might like to join us.”

  “We? Who is we?”

  “Me, Travin, Damin, Starros, Rielle, the Tirstone boys . . . it’s kind of a tradition around here. Did you want to come?”

  She looked around the darkened room, wondering what time it was. “It’s the middle of the night, Xanda.”

  “Well, there’s no fun doing this in daylight.”

  Luciena rubbed her eyes, forcing herself awake. “Is insanity a family trait, or just something you seem to be afflicted with?”

  “I think it’s something in the water here,” he replied with a grin. “You coming or not?”

  She hesitated for a moment and then nodded, wondering if he was right about there being something in the water that made one crazy in this place. It would explain why Aleesha had suddenly turned into a raving Royalist. And, possibly, why she allowed Xanda to lead her into the sitting room. He pushed on a raised part of the panelling near the fireplace and the wall slid open to reveal a torchlit tunnel beyond.

  “The infamous slaveways, I presume?”

  “Scared?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Not unless you don’t like confined spaces.”

  Glancing along the passage, Luciena took a step forward, then abruptly stopped. “Wait! I have to get my shoes.” She ran into the bedroom, felt about in the darkness for her shoes and then hurried back into the sitting room, hopping the last few steps on her left foot as she pulled the right shoe on.

  Xanda waited for her to finish and then smiled. “All set?”

  She nodded and let him take her hand and lead her into the passage.

  Despite the mental image she’d developed of dank passages carved from living rock draped with age-old cobwebs and dripping with condensation, the slaveways were obviously well used. And they didn’t have far to go. Their destination proved to be another sliding door only a few hundred paces from her room.

  This door, however, was locked. Xanda reached above the lintel, produced a heavy key which he used to unlock the door, and then replaced the key before standing aside to let her through.

  “This is Damin’s room,” he explained in answer to her questioning look. “Nobody leaves the slaveways entrance to his room unlocked.”

  “But the key’s right there on the lintel,” she pointed out. “Anybody could pick it up.”

  “Only if you know it’s there.”

  She shrugged, thinking there must be some sort of logic in there somewhere, and followed Xanda through the doorway. This one led into a large dressing room. Xanda closed the door, made sure it had locked behind them, and then took Luciena through into the bedroom beyond, which seemed about the same size as her room. The tall windows either side of the dresser were open and it was to one of these that they went. Xanda climbed through and then turned to help Luciena.

  Maybe this is their plan, a little voice in her head whispered. They’re going to lure you out here and then toss you off the roof.

  “It’s all right,” Xanda assured her. “I won’t let you fall.”

  Welcome to the family.

  She hesitated for a moment and then offered him her hand.

  Unlike the flat-roofed architecture common in both Hythria and Fardohnya, the Krakandar palace showed the influence of its northern neighbours. The roof was sloped and tiled, and three storeys up, the view, even by starlight, was spectacular. The city lay before them, dotted with pinpoints of warm yellow light, stretching away to the horizon so that it was hard to tell where the buildings stopped and the stars began. Behind them, the windows stretched up tall and symmetrical, topped by a series of smaller arched dormer windows above and another level of sloped red tiles.

  The vast palace roof reminded Luciena of a mountain range carved by some god with a love of sharp angles.

  Sitting on the tiles a few feet from where they had emerged were Damin Wolfblade, the fosterling Starros, both of the Tirstone boys and their sister Rielle. The younger children, Leila, Kalan and Narvell, were nowhere in sight. Neither was Xanda’s brother, Travin.

  Damin glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “See, she’s one of us now,” he told the others with a soft laugh.

  “What does he mean?” Luciena asked Xanda warily as he held her hand and pulled her through the window. She inched her way forward until she was near the others and then sat down, feeling much safer once her backside was in contact with the tiles.

  “Once you’ve been out here on the roof, you betray us at your peril,” Xanda explained, sitting down beside her.

  When it was clear Luciena didn’t understand, Starros added over his shoulder, “What he means is that Almodavar would kill us all with his bare hands if he caught us out here.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  Rielle smiled at Luciena’s obvious confusion. “It’s a Krakandar thing, Luciena,” she explained. “I remember being just as flummoxed when I first arrived. The logic works like this: Almodavar hates snitches even more than reckless fools, so if you told anyone we’ve been out on the roof he’d kill you first for telling, and then kill the rest of us for being here.”

  “Doesn’t anybody know about you coming out here?”

  “It used to be a lot harder when there was a guard in my room,” Damin admitted. “But we got very good at blackmail. You’d be amazed at what a Krakandar Raider is willing to turn a blind eye to if you’ve got reason to report him to Almodavar.”

  “And for even the slightest infraction,” Rielle chuckled. “We’re not the only ones frightened by the idea of incurring the wrath of Geri Almodavar.”

  Luciena looked around at them. “And you all think this is perfectly reasonable?”

  “Don’t you?” Damin chuckled.

  “Truthfully? I think you’re all quite mad. What if someone fell? We must be sixty feet off the ground here, probably more.”

  “Nobody’s fallen yet,” Adham assured her.

  “Yet being the operative word,” Rodja pointed out. “I’m with you, Luciena. This is utter insanity.

  I tell them that every time we come out here.”

  “Then why do you do it?” Adham asked his brother curiously.

  Rodja grinned. “Because, secretly, I hope we do get caught out here. I want to see the look on Mahkas Damaran’s face when he realises his precious heir to the Hythrun throne has been dangling off the palace roof.”

  “Precious heir, eh?” Damin said. “I’ll remember that tomorrow morning in the training yards, Rodja Tirstone. When we’re both armed.”

  “You’re on!” Rodja agreed. “And you won’t get to lay a finger on me this time, your highness.

  I’ve been working on a new tactic.”

  “It’s called running away and hiding,” Adham announced loudly, which reduced the rest of them to fits of laughter.

  “Keep it down!” another voice hissed loudly from the window. “I can damn near hear you in the hall!”

  Luciena turned to find Travin Taranger climbing through the window to join them. Under his left arm, he carried something that looked suspiciously like a wineskin.

  Wonderful! she though
t in alarm. Let’s sit on the palace roof, sixty feet off the ground, against the express orders of Krakandar’s senior captain, and then add alcohol to the mix. What a brilliant idea!

  Travin walked across the sloped tiles as if he’d done it all his life, which was probably the case, Luciena decided. Travin and Xanda had been raised here in the palace and, like the toasts at dinner earlier this evening, this illicit gathering on the roof reeked of something so sacred it was almost a ritual in itself. Travin sat down on the other side of Luciena and offered her the wineskin.

  “Ladies first?”

  She accepted it warily. As she took her first gulp of the sweet berry wine, she wondered if perhaps she should have heeded Aleesha’s advice in Greenharbour, because at that moment, fighting off Ameel Parkesh might have been marginally less dangerous than her current predicament.

  It was the early hours of the morning before Xanda led Luciena back through the slaveways to her room. By then the wineskin was empty and she was more than a little drunk. Had it not been for Xanda’s sure-footed aid, she was certain she would have plunged to her death when she tried to stand up and return to the palace through the open window in Damin’s room. The others seemed unaffected by either the dizzying heights or the potent wine. Perhaps it was just that they had more experience with both.

  They reached the entrance to her room and Xanda slid it open for her, then blocked the way with his arm. “Will you be all right, Luciena?”

  She nodded unsteadily. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Sure you don’t want me to help you into bed?”

  Luciena stared at him in shock. She wasn’t that drunk. “I beg your pardon?”

  He smiled. “I thought you might need rescuing again.”

  “I didn’t actually ask you to rescue me the first time,” she reminded him, acutely aware of how close he was. “That was my slave, remember?”

  “You didn’t exactly refuse my help, though.”

  His lips were only inches from hers, his breath smelled of the sweet berry wine and Luciena’s head was spinning. Oh gods! He’s going to kiss me!

  She couldn’t understand why the thought panicked her as much as it did. Luciena wasn’t an innocent. Her mother had made certain of that. Although she’d had to sell her court’esa along with the rest of her slaves, Luciena knew exactly what was going on here. Just let him do it and then he’ll go away, she told herself. But another voice in her head chimed in, Princess Marla’s. “Don’t get any ideas about my nephew.”

  Her fear of Marla Wolfblade’s wrath proved enough to give her the strength to resist. At the last moment, Luciena turned her face away. Xanda hesitated uncertainly, obviously wondering what he’d done to offend her.

  “I’m sorry, Xanda,” she told him softly, with genuine regret. “It’s just . . .”

  “Let me guess. My aunt warned you away from me?” he asked with a faint smile.

  “How did you know?”

  “Because she warned me away from you, too.”

  That almost shocked Luciena back into sobriety. “You’re kidding! What did she say?”

  “I believe her exact words were: ‘I know she’s young, rich and you think she’s very pretty, Xanda, but we will find a suitable wife for you when the time comes. Don’t presume to think your uncle or I will allow you to make such a decision for yourself.’ ”

  Xanda thinks I’m pretty?

  “That’s what she said to me. Almost word for word.”

  “She might have been joking,” Xanda suggested, obviously not willing to give up without a fight.

  “I’ve seen her joking face, Xanda. That wasn’t it.”

  Xanda sighed with resignation as he lifted a stray strand of dark hair from her face. “Then I suppose this is good night?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I’m not scared of my aunt, you know.”

  “I am.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

  She nodded, suddenly not trusting herself to speak.

  This time, when Xanda bent his head to kiss her, he didn’t give her time to pull away. He pulled her close and kissed her until she was breathless and then fled without another word, leaving her alone in the torchlit slaveways, gasping.

  It took a moment to get over the shock, but as soon as she was able to gather her wits, Luciena slammed the door in the panelling shut and hurried into the bedroom. She threw herself onto the bed, her head spinning, her heart thumping, her whole world suddenly turned on its ear. Desperately, she pulled one of the big fluffy pillows down over her head to drown out the cacophony of confusing emotions that swirled through her mind, wishing she had never left Greenharbour. Wishing she had never heard of the Wolfblades.

  Wishing she’d invited Xanda to stay and to hell with Marla Wolfblade.

  Welcome to the family.

  Luciena fell asleep with that thought uppermost in her mind and didn’t move again until the sound of Aleesha running her bath woke her the following morning.

  Chapter 18

  The demon, Elarnymire, seemed to come and go as she pleased. Sometimes she waddled along beside Rory for hours. Other times, he didn’t see her for days.

  As a guardian, the demon left a great deal to be desired. Although she claimed to be watching over him, her help was sporadic and unreliable at best. She’d warned him it was too dangerous to enter Acarnipoor, but a week later let him spend a whole night shivering and miserable in the lee of a narrow cliff when a particularly savage storm hit just before sunset one evening and he couldn’t find any other shelter. She’d appeared out of nowhere one morning and made him hide until a company of soldiers had ridden past, and then a few days later let him walk right into a whole company of guards from the Winter Palace in Qorinipor. He’d had to run for his life when one of them recognised him, and had been forced to hide in the long reeds on the edge of the lake for days, cold, wet and terrified. It was only after he finally emerged from his hiding place, faint with hunger and covered in insect bites, that the demon appeared again.

  “I thought you said you were helping me?” Rory demanded of the creature when she popped up without warning on the road in front of him. He was dripping wet and shivering in the thin mountain air as the sun rapidly sank below the horizon, wondering where he was going to find food and shelter. He was used to being hungry, but born and bred in the humid warmth of Talabar, this lonely, frightening trek across Fardohnya to the dubious safety of Hythria was the first time in his life Rory had truly been cold.

  “I said I was keeping an eye on you,” she corrected loftily. “That’s not the same thing.”

  “You let me walk straight into those soldiers!”

  “Don’t be such a crybaby,” Elarnymire shrugged. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  “Who sent you?” he asked for the hundredth time, as the demon turned and began to waddle away from him down the road. “You said you’d tell me!”

  “I said I might tell you,” the demon replied.

  “Was it my cousin?”

  The demon shrugged without looking back. “I don’t know. Who’s your cousin?”

  “Her name is Luciena Mariner. She lives in Greenharbour.”

  The demon stopped abruptly and turned to look at Rory in surprise. “Your cousin is Luciena Mariner?”

  “Yes!” he exclaimed excitedly, running to catch up. “Do you know her?”

  “Of course not, I was just asking, that’s all.” The demon turned and walked on, leaving Rory white-knuckled with frustration. A few moments later, when she realised Rory wasn’t following, Elarnymire stopped and turned to look at him. “You coming, or are you just going to stand there dripping?”

  “Why do you do that?” Rory was choking back tears, the fear, the cold, the gnawing hunger and the loneliness of his long journey finally catching up with him.

  “Do what?” Elarnymire asked innocently.

  “Torment me like that?” He wiped away a stray tear, determined not to let the creature
see him bawling like a baby.

  “I’m a demon.”

  “That’s a terrible excuse.”

  “Not where I come from.”

  Rory wanted to scream at her. He wanted to cry. He wanted this to be over. He wanted to be home again with his father and his brothers and his grandpa. He’d been hungry all the time then, too, but at least he hadn’t been alone.

  The demon, perhaps sensing his distress, waddled back to him and reached up for his hand. She smiled, her liquid black eyes full of compassion. “I really was sent to keep an eye on you, Rory, son of Drendik, but I can’t tell you who sent me because you weren’t even supposed to know I’m here. I’ve stopped you walking into the traps you had no hope of escaping, that’s all. Anything you were likely to survive, I had to let happen.”

  “But why won’t you tell me who sent you?”

  “Because it’s a secret.”

  It was like arguing with a post, Rory decided angrily. He snatched his hand from the demon’s gentle grasp and crossed his arms defensively. “All right then, keep your stupid secrets. Just tell me one thing. Are you supposed to let me starve to death?”

  “Not if I can help it. Why do you ask?”

  “I haven’t eaten anything for three days.”

  “Ah,” the demon said. “Then I suppose we should find you something to eat.”

  “Don’t put yourself out on my account.”

  Inexplicably, the demon laughed. “I can’t wait till we get to Westbrook and you meet . . . my friend.”

  Rory stared at the demon. “Is that where we’re going? Westbrook?”

  “If you’re planning to get to Hythria on this road, my lad, there’s no other place you can go.”

  “And this person who sent you? He’ll be waiting for us there?”