Warrior

by Jennifer Fallon

  The princess seemed disappointed by her outburst. “Very well, Luciena, if that’s how you feel, then you leave me no alternative. I know you won’t believe me, but I’m genuinely sorry it’s going to end like this. You had a great deal of potential.” Marla turned towards the door. “Captain!”

  Luciena stared at the princess, horrified to realise she meant to put an end to this immediately.

  Almodavar stepped into the solar, his expression grim. “Your highness?”

  “Miss Mariner is not in the mood to cooperate. You may proceed with her execution as soon as you’re ready.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Luciena accused, certain she must be dreaming. “You won’t hang me here in Krakandar. Not where your children can witness it.”

  Marla smiled grimly. “If you think I’d shy away from teaching my children a salient lesson about the best way to treat traitors, Luciena, then you don’t know me at all.”

  Almodavar took a step towards her and the true depth of Luciena’s dire predicament began to sink in. They’re going to kill me, she realised, suddenly feeling ill as she backed away from him. They’re really going to kill me. She shook her head, trying to deny the awful truth.

  Well, I’m not going without a fight, she decided. Kicking and screaming. All the way . . .

  Almodavar’s hand was resting on the hilt of his sword as he neared her. “Miss Mariner—”

  Suddenly, the door flew open and Xanda burst into the room. “Wait!”

  Luciena wanted to cry. Her first thought was that he’d come to save her, but he didn’t even look at her. By all the Primal Gods, not even Xanda wants to save me. Luciena looked down at her hands. She was shaking uncontrollably and the room was starting to spin.

  Marla turned to her nephew, clearly not pleased by the interruption. “I asked not to be disturbed, Xanda.”

  “But—”

  “Not now, Xanda.”

  “But, Aunt Marla, before you—”

  “Xanda!”

  “Wrayan Lightfinger’s here!” Xanda announced, refusing to be silenced. “And I know he’s supposed to be a great magician, but I doubt he’s all that good at communing with the dead, so perhaps we should get him to speak to Luciena before you hang her?”

  If Princess Marla said anything in reply to Xanda’s announcement, Luciena never heard it. The room was doing cartwheels in front of her eyes.

  Xanda’s suggestion that Princess Marla delay her hanging until she’d spoken to Wrayan Lightfinger was the last thing she remembered before she fainted.

  Chapter 37

  Luciena?” a voice whispered. “Can you hear me?”

  Luciena’s eyes fluttered open. Xanda was leaning over her. She smiled wanly. “I had this strange dream,” she told him sleepily. “I was in the solar and Princess Marla ordered Almodavar to take me away and then you burst in and said Wrayan Lightfinger was back . . .”She blinked again and looked around the room . . . everything was blue. It wasn’t her cell. In fact, it looked suspiciously like her old room in the palace.

  Anxiously, she struggled to sit up, but a firm hand pushed her back down. “Steady on there, old girl,” an unfamiliar voice warned. “You might want to wait a bit before you do anything too strenuous.”

  Luciena turned her head to look at the man who had spoken and then back at Xanda, suddenly filled with apprehension. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

  He shook his head.

  “My head hurts.”

  “Sorry about that.” The stranger looked down on her with a smile. To her intense relief, it was Wrayan Lightfinger. She didn’t know how long she’d been here, how long she’d been unconscious.

  Luciena certainly had no idea how she came to be back in her old room. These blank spots in her memory were developing into a disturbing trend. “Did you . . . I mean, were you able to tell . . . ?”

  “Oh, yes!” Wrayan agreed. “But you should be fine now. Alija’s heavy-handed attempt at coercion is no real match for a bit of Harshini-trained finesse. The headache should go away eventually.

  In an hour or so.”

  “So the High Arrion definitely did something to me?” she asked. It was rather aggravating, this notion that other people could rifle through her thoughts at will while she knew nothing about it. “Does this mean you’re satisfied I’m not a dangerous Patriot or a Fardohnyan spy burning with the need to bring the Wolfblades down?”

  Xanda sat on the bed beside her, taking her hand in his. “It helped that Wrayan arrived back in Krakandar with your magically gifted cousin in tow,” he told her with a smile. He seemed concerned, but it was hard to tell. “With proof that the letter from your uncle actually existed, I think we can safely assume you really aren’t a Fardohnyan spy. And now Wrayan’s been able to verify that your mind was tampered with, it shouldn’t be too hard to persuade Marla you’re not a dangerous criminal.”

  “But why would Lady Alija do something like that to me?”

  “Do you recall what happened when she came to see you in Greenharbour?” Wrayan asked.

  Luciena frowned. Her headache made it hard to remember. “We were talking about coming to Krakandar . . . she was asking what Princess Marla wanted of me . . . then she took my hands . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “The next thing I recall is Aleesha was standing over me, telling me I’d fainted.”

  “Welcome to the family,” Wrayan said.

  She frowned and then nodded as the memory came to her. “Yes, I kept thinking that. It was like a tune that gets stuck in your head and won’t go away.”

  “It was the uppermost thought in your mind,” Wrayan corrected. “Actually, now I come to think of it, it was the only thought in your mind. I should have realised what was going on the first time.”

  “You’ve done this to me before?”

  Wrayan nodded. “The day we first met. I just brushed over your thoughts that day at lunch. The phrase kept repeating itself, over and over, but I thought it was just you—you know, as if you told yourself the same thing often enough, eventually you’d come to believe it? It must have been the trigger.”

  Xanda looked up at Wrayan with a frown. “Are you saying that all it needed was for somebody to say those words to her?”

  Wrayan nodded. “And she’d turn into an assassin.”

  “Why didn’t you see it before?”

  The thief shrugged apologetically. “I wasn’t looking for it. There was no reason to think Luciena had ever met Alija, and she’s an Innate so she can’t impose her will on anybody unless she can touch them. Anyway, I’d arranged with Princess Marla to come back a few days later, to take a closer look at Luciena’s mind and then shield it. I would have picked up the interference then.”

  “So Alija filled Luciena with the desire to kill Damin and then pointed her at him like a loaded crossbow. All it needed to set her off was for someone to spare the girl a few kind words.”

  Wrayan nodded. “Do you remember anything else, Luciena?”

  “No.” She shook her head, despite the pain. It all seemed too incredu lous to be real. Then she sat bolt upright. “Hang on, did you say you had my magically gifted cousin in tow? Rory? You found him?”

  “It’s a long story,” Wrayan said, “and right now, I have to report to the princess.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Having the time of his life in the day nursery getting acquainted with his royal Hythrun cousins-by-marriage,” the thief told her with a grin. “You can see him in a little while. Will you be all right with Xanda until I get back?”

  Luciena turned her gaze on the young man. She wished she could tell what he was thinking. “I’ll be fine.”

  Wrayan nodded. “Then I’d better speak to Marla. Don’t let her get up for a while yet,” he added to Xanda, before heading for the door.

  With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Luciena watched the thief—or was it the sorcerer?

  She wasn’t really sure on that point—leave the room.

  “What do you think she
’ll do?” she asked Xanda anxiously.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, squeezing her hand with an encouraging smile. “But Wrayan says you’re no danger to anybody now, so that’s a good thing. And Aunt Marla listens to him, so you have a chance. Although, I understand she’s rather peeved with him for staying away for so long, so she might not be as amenable to his suggestions as she usually is.”

  Luciena sighed, wishing the pain would go away. Even the candles in the room were hurting her eyes. “I didn’t think I was a danger, Xanda. Not to anybody. Even before I apparently tried to stab your cousin.”

  Xanda smiled faintly. “Don’t worry too much about Damin. He can handle himself.”

  “I know,” Luciena agreed with feeling. “I had the bruises and the arm he just about wrenched out of its socket to prove it.”

  His smile faded. “I wish I could tell you what was going to happen to you, Luciena. Aunt Marla might decide you’re not worth the risk, or she might believe Wrayan and do what Ruxton is suggesting . .

  . I really don’t know.”

  She lay back against the soft pillows. The silk sheets and satin coverlet seemed strange after weeks of a straw-filled pallet and no pillow at all. But she felt dirty. Luciena wasn’t sure if she’d tried to kill Damin Wolfblade on purpose, but she was fairly certain that right at this moment, she’d cheerfully kill the whole Wolfblade clan if it meant getting a bath. Then something Xanda had said struck an odd note in her mind and she looked at him curiously. “What did Ruxton suggest?”

  “Something about acting as if nothing’s happened so Alija will think you’re still waiting for your chance at Damin.”

  “That sounds . . . precarious.”

  “I don’t know the details. I just heard them discussing it in passing.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them and looked around in alarm as something else occurred to her. She struggled to sit up again, although it made her quite light-headed.

  “Where’s Aleesha? What happened to my slave?”

  “She’s fine. She was reassigned to the laundry while you were . . . away.”

  “So poor Aleesha was punished for my crime, too?”

  Xanda pushed her back against the pillows, gently but firmly. “It was just a precaution, Luciena.

  She might have been your accomplice.”

  “Assuming I was actually plotting something.” Luciena sighed, wishing things had gone differently between them. Xanda had remained her one true friend through all of this. She studied his face in the candlelight, wondering what might have happened if she’d met him some other way. If his aunt wasn’t the High Prince’s sister. If I hadn’t tried to kill his cousin.

  “Do you think I’m a traitor, Xanda Taranger?”

  “No.”

  “Will you tell your aunt that?”

  “I already have. On several occasions.”

  “It didn’t get me out of jail.”

  “It stopped you from getting hanged, though,” he pointed out with a smile. He was still leaning over her, still holding her down.

  Don’t get any ideas about my nephew, she heard Marla say, the thought echoing somewhere through her aching head. Then another voice emerged through the throbbing pain. She just tells you one thing, Rielle Tirstone’s voice said, knowing full well you’ll probably go and do the exact opposite.

  The hell with you, Marla Wolfblade.

  Convinced she had nothing left to lose, Luciena slid her arms around Xanda’s neck and pulled him down to her. She kissed him, hungrily, desperately, and with little thought to the consequences. She didn’t care. Not any more. Neither did Xanda, if the way he kissed her back was anything to judge by. He kissed her like there was no tomorrow, which made her want to cry, because for Luciena, there probably wasn’t.

  But if she was going to die, she was determined to have one moment of happiness before they took her away. They always give the condemned one last wish, don’t they?

  “Well, I see you two aren’t wasting any time.”

  Xanda leapt off her in surprise as Luciena pushed herself up on her elbows to find Princess Marla and Wrayan Lightfinger standing at the foot of the bed. Her head was pounding and she could barely hear herself think for the rushing of blood through her ears. She cringed inwardly, waiting for Marla to explode with fury. By the look on Xanda’s face, he was expecting the same thing.

  But Marla didn’t get angry. She didn’t even seem annoyed.

  “Please,” she said coolly. “Don’t let us interrupt you.”

  “Aunt Marla,” Xanda began nervously. “It’s not what it looked like . . . we weren’t . . . I can explain . . .”

  “I’m court’esa trained, Xanda, and have given birth to three children. I don’t actually need an explanation.” She turned her regal gaze on Luciena, frowning at her grubby shift. “You and I have a great deal to sort out, young lady. But I imagine you’ll want to bathe before we talk. I’ll have Orleon reassign your slave so she can assist you, shall I? Or perhaps,” she added with a hint of amusement, “you’d rather have Xanda wash your back.”

  With that, the princess turned on her heel and left the room, Wrayan following in her wake.

  Luciena stared after her and then looked at Xanda, who appeared thoroughly bemused. And then she heard Rielle’s distant voice in her head again.

  Just when you think you’ve finally managed to get one over on Marla Wolfblade, she could hear the young woman saying, you discover you’ve done exactly what she wanted all along.

  Chapter 38

  Another summer almost done, Elezaar mused as he approached Marla’s private sitting room in a strangely reflective mood. Another year gone. Another year in which Alija Eaglespike has not paid for her crimes.

  Marla turned from the window as he opened the door. Her trunks were stacked in the corner waiting to be collected; the shelves were bare and only her small writing case remained unpacked.

  “She’s on her way,” he announced, waddling into the room, closing the door behind him.

  Taking a deep breath, the princess faced the door and braced herself for the inevitable confrontation with her daughter. Kalan had grown increasingly remote since the day she and her brothers had given their guards the slip in the marketplace. In fact, Kalan had barely had a civil word for her mother. Over the past few weeks, Elezaar had observed, their relationship had deteriorated to the point where mother and daughter were barely speaking.

  The painful thing for Marla, the dwarf knew, was that she understood her daughter’s dilemma.

  She remembered what it felt like to be negotiated over like a piece of prime beef because of whose sister she was. At ten, Kalan could already see the writing on the wall. Despite her sharp mind (or perhaps because of it), she knew she was doomed to the future Marla had avoided by the bare skin of her teeth and there was nothing her mother could do to save her from it.

  The real tragedy, however, in Elezaar’s mind, was that Kalan’s suggestion she should join the Sorcerers’ Collective was a brilliant idea. So brilliant, in fact, Elezaar wondered why he’d never thought of suggesting such a thing himself. To have someone in such a position of power some day; a member of the family.

  Someone who could challenge Alija.

  The idea was so seductive, Elezaar found himself running various scenar ios through his mind, trying to come up with a way to achieve it. It wasn’t easy. Marla already had Wrayan setting mind blocks on herself and her children to protect them. She’d relaxed her guard for a mere moment with the Mariner girl, and the next thing they knew, Luciena was attacking Damin. It had taken some very clever talking on Elezaar’s part before the princess could even bring herself to contemplate the notion of placing Kalan, or any other member of the family in such danger, regardless of any eventual benefit.

  Not everything his mistress had set in motion was proving so trying, though. Starros was dealing well with the extra lessons Elezaar had set for him, reinforcing his opinion the boy would make an excellent sene
schal some day. Ruxton had found a new tutor for the children, a former court’esa once belonging to the late Lady Jeryma at some time in the distant past. He was an old man now but reputedly had a mind as sharp as that of his charges and would brook no nonsense from them. The man was due to arrive in the next few days to take over the burden of the remaining children’s lessons.

  Elezaar was mightily relieved. He had feared all summer long that he would be left behind when Marla returned to Greenharbour.

  Rielle and Darvad had left the city, escorted back to Izcomdar by Rogan Bearbow and his entourage. Damin would follow in a few days, leaving Krakandar with Marla and Ruxton. They would return to the capital via Rogan’s stronghold at Natalandar, see Damin safely settled in his fosterage, and then continue south, arriving in Greenharbour just before the Feast of Zegarnald in the autumn.

  But that still left the problem of what to do with Kalan . . .

  A knock on the door distracted Elezaar. Marla called permission to enter. Kalan stepped into the study wearing her accustomed scowl. He had seen little else in the way of expression on Marla’s daughter’s face over the past two months.

  “Mother,” Kalan said, stopping before the princess with a barely respectful curtsey. She ignored Elezaar.

  “Kalan.”

  “Your slave said you wanted to see me.” That was her way of letting Elezaar know she still hadn’t forgiven him for telling her mother about their discussion.

  Marla ignored her daughter’s scathing tone. “I have come to a decision about your future, Kalan.

  As I’m leaving tomorrow, I thought you might like to know what it is.”

  The girl straightened her shoulders defiantly. “I will kill myself before I marry some sleazy old man just to seal a stupid treaty!”