“You mean Strayan?” Rodja asked, nodding his approval. “That’s an excellent idea. We were talking only the other day about what we should do with him now that both the girls are married. I’ll have him sent back to town immediately. What about a handmaiden?”
“I’ll have to think about that.” She turned to Rakaia again. “I’ll find you someone you can trust. And who knows how not to ruin silk. In fact, the Spice Traders’ Ball is next week. We can present you with your wedding gifts there, in a very public place, so there is no risk of Braun trying to make you refuse it.”
Darvad shook his head in amazement. “Gods. Selena, that’s almost devious enough for Marla to have thought of it.”
The trader’s wife smiled. It seemed even her own brother-in-law underestimated her.
Rakaia seemed genuinely grateful. “You’re too far kind, my lady.”
“Will you give me some idea how much this wedding circus is going to cost?” Rodja asked Darvad.
“I’ll send word as soon as I’ve worked it out.”
“Then we should get home,” he said, rising to his feet and offering Selena his hand to help her up. ”There is much to arrange.”
Adrina rose to her feet too in order to see them out. “I appreciate you coming. Both of you. And for your generous offer of help.”
“There is no price to be put on helping family,” Rodja promised her as he kissed her palm, adding with a grin, “which is a good thing, because this is going to cost me a fortune.”
ONCE THEY WERE gone, and Darvad had retired for the evening, Adrina turned to Rakaia, who was still sitting on the cushions sipping her wine. She seemed a little pale.
“Are you unwell, Rakaia?”
The young woman shook her head. “Just a little . . . I don’t know. It’s suddenly becoming very real. Is Frederak Branador really arriving tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She put her wine down and climbed to her feet. “Then I should get some sleep. I need to look my best to meet my new husband.”
Rakaia meant every word, which Adrina found quite astonishing. “What happened to you, Rakaia?”
“I don’t know what you mean. . . .”
“I wasn’t kidding, earlier. I really did think our father was sending me the tantrum terror when I learned it was you he chose to clinch this deal. But you’re nothing like the little monster I remember.”
“I’m not the same person I was in Talabar,” Rakaia told her.
On impulse, Adrina embraced her. “I suppose we all have to grow up, eventually,” she said. “Now go. Get some sleep. In the morning you can flutter your eyelids at Frederak and convince him the only way to make you happy is to give you want you want.”
“Do you really think that will work?”
“Of course it will work,” she assured her little sister. “I do it to Damin all the time.”
Chapter
54
R’SHIEL FOUND DAMIN trying to escape Sanctuary. She followed Mandah through the echoing halls in the direction of the sounds the older woman thought she’d heard periodically since waking here. When they found him, he was searching through the stacks of scrolls, littering the floor with them as he went, looking for something he clearly hadn’t located yet.
“I hope you’re going to clean this mess up,” she said, by way of announcing herself.
Damin looked up, his eyes widening in shock. “R’shiel?”
“In the flesh.”
“Thank the gods!” he cried, tossing aside the scroll he was holding. “It’s about time.” He crossed the distance between them in a few strides and crushed her in a bear hug for a moment. Then he spied Mandah standing behind her. “Mandah Tenragan? Gods, what are you doing here?”
“Same as you I suspect, your highness,” she replied. “I’m sure R’shiel can explain.”
Damin held R’shiel at arm’s length for a moment, studying her closely. “I swear you haven’t changed at all. Not since I saw you last before we lifted the siege on the Citadel. And then you just vanished.”
She might not have changed, but Damin had. He was older, a little heavier, perhaps, and there were the first flecks of gray at his temples.
“Xaphista was dead,” she said with a shrug. “My job was done.”
“You couldn’t even say goodbye? We were worried about you.”
“I can kill a god, Damin. What is there that can hurt me in the mortal realm?”
“What about the immortal realm?” Mandah asked. “That’s where we are, isn’t it? Caught in the realm between life and death?”
“Actually, we’re in Sanctuary,” she told them. She looked at the scattered scrolls on the floor. “What are you doing down here anyway, Damin? A library is the last place I thought I’d find you.”
“I was hoping I could find the plans to this place. I was going to try and locate a drain or a sewer I could escape through. Sanctuary, you say? I thought you destroyed it?”
She shook her head. “Brak and I threw it out of time.”
“And now it’s back?”
“Kalianah brought it back for me.”
“Why?” Mandah asked.
R’shiel glanced over her shoulder at Mandah. “Because I asked her to.”
“It doesn’t matter why,” Damin said, never one to question a fortuitous circumstance when it came his way. He headed for the door, satisfied he had found his escape route in R’shiel. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving just yet, Damin. In fact, I’m headed in the other direction.”
He turned to look her, frowning. “Gods, are you dead?”
“No.
“Am I? Is Mandah?”
“Not exactly.”
“What in the Founders name does not exactly mean?” Mandah demanded.
“I came here to find Brak.”
“I thought he was dead,” Damin said.
“He is,” she agreed. “But Death took his body and his soul . . .”
“Which means if he wanted to, Death can return Brak to a mortal life,” Mandah finished for her.
R’shiel nodded. “That’s right.”
“Then we find Brak and get the hell out of here,” Damin said. “No pun intended.”
“Brak isn’t here, Damin,” she explained. “He’s in one of the Seven Hells, and Death is not entirely convinced he wants to return to a mortal life.”
“Then find him, ask him, and I repeat, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“That’s the plan,” R’shiel agreed, glad Damin was so keen.
Mandah didn’t trust her, however. She never had. “What are you not telling us, R’shiel?”
“We can talk about this later,” Damin urged. “Let’s get this done.”
“Not until she tells us why we’re here,” Mandah said. “If R’shiel wants to find Brak, then all power to her, but why are we here? What have you and I got to do with her quest to find Brak?”
Damin turned to R’shiel. “She has a point.”
She knew that look. There was no getting out of an explanation. Not now. Not if she wanted Damin’s help.
“There are rules surrounding bringing people back from death,” R’shiel told them. “The first is that they have to want to come back. The second . . .”
“Is what?” Mandah asked impatiently.
R’shiel took a deep breath before she answered, fairly certain of Mandah’s reaction, at the very least. “A life for a life. Specifically, a life of equal value. That’s why Brak died in the first place. When Joyhinia ran that sword through me in Testra, Mandah, I should have died. Brak brought me here for the Harshini to heal and did a deal with Death when I wasn’t getting any better. “
Damin reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder in understanding. Perhaps he hadn’t figured the rest of it out yet. “He traded his life for yours, didn’t he?”
She nodded. “I didn’t know until Death took him after we defeated Xaphista.”
Mandah wasn’t nearly
so sympathetic. “So what have you done, R’shiel? Traded our lives for Brak’s?”
“No. It’s true I will have to trade his life for a life of equal value if he wants to come back, but I believe you’re here as a surety against the agreement because Death doesn’t trust me not to find a way to wheedle out of the bargain.”
Damin seemed to find that amusing. “Seriously? Death doesn’t trust you?”
“He knows you well then,” Mandah said, crossing her arms. “Are we dead?”
“No. Comatose probably, back in the mortal world, but not dead. Your physical bodies will come to no harm until I’ve found Brak.”
“And then one of us dies?”
“No!” she hurried to assure them. “The life I trade is yet to be decided—assuming Brak even wants to come back—and I wouldn’t trade either of your lives for his, in any case.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t nominate Damin Wolfblade,” Mandah agreed, not convinced at all by her assurances. “But you’ve always resented me, R’shiel. If I was out of the way, you could still have Tarja.”
R’shiel had to fight the urge not to slap Mandah where she stood. “If Brak comes back, Mandah, why would I want Tarja?”
“Just because you don’t want him, doesn’t mean you’re happy for me to have him.”
R’shiel rolled her eyes in despair. “Let it go, Mandah. It’s been a decade since I even saw him, and we certainly didn’t part friends. Tarja despises me because he thinks I made the gods put a geas on him to love me. You know that.” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Gods, you’re the mother of his children, for pity’s sake. Don’t you think that if I even tried to get back together with him, killing the woman who bore his children might pose something of a barrier to our happily ever after?”
“Don’t you think we can have this discussion some other time?” Damin asked. “I want to get home. I’m sure you do too, Mandah. So let’s find Brak and . . .”
“Get the hell out of here,” Mandah finished for him. “I get it.”
“Excellent.” He turned to R’shiel. “What do we have to do?”
“We have to enter the Seven Hells.”
“How?”
“Through the door in the cliff,” Mandah said, working it out before R’shiel had a chance to explain. “That’s the way in, isn’t it?”
R’shiel nodded. “Probably.”
“Can you come and go through the door as you please?” Damin asked.
“I’m the demon child,” she said. It explained everything.
“But we’re not,” Mandah pointed out. “The prince and I are mortal. If we step through that door, won’t it mean we’ve died in the mortal realm?”
“I don’t know,” R’shiel had to admit.
Mandah shook her head. “Then you go through it without me. I’ll wait here until you get back.”
R’shiel turned to Damin. “What about you? Mandah’s right, you know. If you come through with me, I may not be able to bring you back out again.”
Damin thought on it for a moment and then shrugged. “We all have to die of something, R’shiel, and I’d rather die doing something heroic, than rotting here in this library, looking for something that can never be found.”
“You’re a fool, Damin Wolfblade,” Mandah said.
“Aye,” he agreed, “I probably am. But at least I’ll be alive, right up until the moment I die, which is better than dying a little each day for fear of taking a chance.” He turned to R’shiel. “That’s a nice epithet, don’t you think?” he said. “Tell Adrina I want that carved on my tomb.”
“You won’t need a tomb if I can help it,” R’shiel promised, feeling a rush of affection for the big warlord and his refusal to take anything too seriously, even death.
“I intend to hold you to that promise,” he said with a grin. “Where is this wretched door?”
“Down near the amphitheater.”
“Then let’s go get Brak,” he said. “The sooner we find him, the sooner we can all go home.”
Chapter
55
IF YOU WEREN’T born with a title, then the social event of the year in Greenharbour was the Spice Traders’ Ball, hosted by Rodja and Selena Tirstone. As Kiam walked up the long, curved, torch-lit drive of the Tirstone mansion, with its line of carriages waiting to unload their passengers at the front door, he marveled at the wealth on display here. Hythria was a rich country, and here in the capital, where its merchants enjoyed a large port, a healthy shipping industry, and a High Prince who encouraged trade with as many nations as they could reach by sea or land, nowhere was that wealth more evident than here.
Kiam had not had to ask for an invitation to the ball. He was invited as a matter of course, as he always was. Even though Rodja was married to Selena and had a home of his own by the time Kiam’s father had married Princess Marla, the bond of the Wolfblade family was a close one. Despite his less than respectable profession, they had never treated him as anything other than one of their own.
It was a pity he was going to abuse that privilege tonight by removing Gidion Narn, but the setting was too perfect, the timing too convenient, to do anything else.
He had walked here for a reason. It gave him a chance to study the carriages, work out which one was Gidion’s, and ensure the door latch was broken by the time the merchant climbed into his carriage to visit his mistress, as he always did after a social occasion where he was required to make an appearance as a loving husband. His wife and daughter—if they did what they usually did after an event like this—would stay well beyond his departure and return home in the small hours of the morning in the carriage of a friend.
Kiam had been watching Gidion for a while now. He knew where the mistress lived, and the streets surrounding her house. He knew the man’s habits and his schedule. Elin was right. It rarely varied. He was so set in his ways, in fact, that Kiam wondered if his business partners had ordered him eliminated for his complete lack of imagination.
He spied the carriage he was after parked further down the curved drive, having already delivered its passengers to the ball. The horse was hobbled and munching happily on the contents of the feedbag hanging around his neck. The driver was nowhere to be seen, probably availing himself of the refreshments laid on for the drivers and coachmen in the tent set up for them on the lawn. Kiam kept walking, taking in everything as he did, knowing there was no more obvious way to look suspicious than to start looking around to see if anybody was watching.
He had deliberately entered the long, semicircular drive from the exit gate so he could walk past the parked carriages. As he neared the Narn vehicle, he did surreptitiously glance around to see if anyone was nearby, but everyone’s attention was on the front entrance of the house, where Rodja and Selena were greeting their guests. The royal carriage had just pulled up, which Kiam thought a little odd, because as a rule, Damin and Adrina stayed away from this ball in order to preserve the notion it was being held for the merchants of Greenharbour and not the landed gentry. Besides, with Damin incapacitated, he couldn’t imagine Adrina making a public appearance without him, which would do nothing but fuel the rumors about the High Prince’s condition.
He stopped and watched as the carriage door was opened and Princess Rakaia emerged, resplendent in a dark blue traditional Fardohnyan gown, which shimmered in the firelight from scores of torches lighting the entrance, and left her midriff bare from her hips to just under her breasts. She climbed the stairs gracefully, stopped at the top to greet Selena and Rodja, and then moved inside and out of sight.
It was only then that Kiam realized he was holding his breath, not to mention wasting precious time when everyone’s attention was diverted.
Annoyed at himself for being such a fool, Kiam balanced himself against the carriage, ostensibly to shake a stone out of his boot. What he shook out was actually a small sliver of metal—a broken locking pin, in fact, from a latch similar to that on Gidion Narn’s carriage.
It took him only
a few seconds to ease the door open, ram the sliver of metal into the workings of the lock, and close the door again, before he pulled his boot back on and made his way up the drive to greet his stepbrother and his wife on his way in to the Spice Traders’ Ball.
“DO YOU SUPPOSE there are any ugly ones?”
Kiam hadn’t realized he was staring at Rakaia until the voice jerked him back to reality. He turned to find Adham Tirstone, Rodja’s younger brother, standing beside him, also admiring the Fardohnyan princess, as she did a turn around the floor with Olivah Branador while her future husband sat slumped in a wheeled wicker chair on the edge of the dance floor with a rug over his knees.
“Adham! When did you get back?”
“Yesterday,” the trader replied. Adham spent most of his time in Denika these days, sourcing spices for his brother’s business. He didn’t return to Hythria often, and usually just long enough to plot his next exotic journey. Kiam remembered being entranced by the tales of Adham’s adventures when he was younger. “Rodja sent word as soon as Damin . . . well, you know . . .”
“I do,” Kiam agreed, aware this was not the place to discuss the condition of the High Prince. “Ugly what?”
“Oh! Fardohnyan princess. Never seen an ugly one yet.”
“I’ve only met two,” Kiam said. “They’re both . . . passable, I suppose.”
Adham laughed. “Passable, eh? Who are you trying to kid, Ky? Adrina is a veritable goddess made flesh, and I’d have made a play for her myself years ago, if I wasn’t so certain Damin would tear my throat out with his bare hands if I tried. And you . . . you’re standing here all but drooling over her younger sister.”
“I am not.”
“Of course you are. But no matter, she’s certainly drool-worthy. Quite a criminal waste marrying her to old Frederak, don’t you think?”
A complete travesty, Kiam thought, turning to watch her again as Rakaia smiled up at Olivah. She seemed to be having a good time. Perhaps she’d decided Olivah was a better prospect than his grandfather. The nights were long and cold in Highcastle. Maybe she’d already figured out a way to pass the time.
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