The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  His hand covered hers briefly before he finished stepping away. “You were raised in secrecy and shame.”

  “For me, yes. Sinok took no shame in any of it. He enjoyed possessing those who were weaker. He enjoyed making them put a knife to their throat and use it.”

  Bistane’s mouth tightened, white lines about his lips. She knew he was remembering the death rate during her grandfather’s reign. “I’m surprised,” he noted finally, “that the Andredia kept her pact with him.”

  “The River Goddess is among the few elementals awake on Kerith, and I have no reference on how she dealt with him, only how she deals with me. The only reasoning I could find was that it was Vaelinars who came to grief under him, not those of Kerith.”

  “We only hurt ourselves, hmmm?” He took another step across the room. “That would make some sense of it. Thank you for telling me.”

  Lara stood up. “I’m not asking your forgiveness.”

  His eyebrow arched. “No?”

  “No. I’ve told you because I wanted you to know what—what you’re dealing with, when you deal with me.”

  “Did Jeredon know?”

  “Yes! Yes, he did. He anchored me on my . . . voyages, I suppose you’d call them. He’d guard my body. He would keep me safe till my mind could return. He didn’t have most of our abilities, but he could kick out a trespasser, if it came to that, and once or twice it did. He was my safety, my home, my rock.”

  Bistane asked quietly, “Was he your lover, too?”

  “Does incest run in the family, do you mean?” Lara gave a laugh that sounded bitter to her ears. “No. I loved him dearly, as my half-brother and protector, and I shall never stop missing him, but he wasn’t my lover. He had one love in his life and we all know her as Nutmeg Farbranch, as unfortunate as that was.” She sighed, and sank back into her chair, suddenly feeling as if not a bone in her body could hold her together. She added simply, “I’m tired, Bistane.”

  “Then you’ve got to rest. We’ll see to the Andredia and Larandaril tomorrow, as soon as you wake in the morning.”

  “You’ll be here?”

  “Nowhere else.” He smiled at her, and she thought to herself that it looked genuine.

  Then a thought kicked at the back of her mind. With a Vaelinar, who could tell?

  Chapter

  Eighteen

  NOT ALL SPRING MORNINGS, even those when one feels newly awakened and reborn, are sunny. This one dawned gray and misty, dew cloaking the ground heavily and clouds covering the sun with heavy veils that it might or might not burn through as the day wound on. She swung aboard the tashya being held for her, a young gelding, splashy in color and a little nervous for her tastes, but the fight had devastated her herds and he’d been in training this last year while she slept. He pawed the ground as she settled into the saddle, gathered her reins, and nodded at the stable lad, not a lad actually but a grizzled veteran she knew well, his left shoulder bunched up in a crippling injury from that same battle. Garlen let the gelding go and gave her a half-salute.

  “Good to see you up and about, my queen.”

  What was it she should say? Then she remembered what Bistane had told her. “Good to be seen,” she answered, but the veteran rewarded her feeble response with a hard squeeze to her booted foot.

  Bistane, swinging up on his large chestnut, flashed her a grin. “You look ready.”

  She did not feel ready. She’d bargained for this, so many walks, so many meals, so many naps (after all that sleep, why must she nap?) and now that she had the outing, she felt uncertain. The horse seemed bigger than she remembered. The ground farther away and hard-looking, even carpeted in lush spring growth. The air nipped sharper. The wind held a keener note to its howl off the hills. Larandaril seemed on edge and sinister.

  Her missing finger let out a lingering pulse of pain inside her glove. She rubbed it absently. Would the River Andredia call for an accounting when she came to its banks where the Vaelinars, the Kernans, the Dwellers, the Galdarkans, and the Raymy had fought? So much blood had already been shed there, but did it call for more, from those it blamed for the massacre?

  Did it want her blood?

  “Lara.”

  Her attention shot to Bistane. “What?”

  “You’re thinking.”

  “I might be. It’s better than dreaming, is it not?”

  “That would depend on what it is you’re thinking and dreaming, my queen.”

  “Bistane, you’re many things, but a mincer of words you’re not.” She lifted her hand and her splashy horse broke into a slow lope, rocking gently under her. Bistane put a heel to his and matched her speed quickly. Behind them, a handful rode in a rearguard, and the misty gray morning sped by them. She could feel her leg muscles quiver as she kept her seat. Her heels refused to stay in position, and the horse’s ears flicked forward and back on the confusing signals her body sent him. She, who had been riding since before her earliest memories, now had trouble.

  “You’re fighting yourself and Dhuran,” Bistane told her. He rode his horse close enough to her that their legs brushed, and his mount peeled back his lips to show Dhuran his teeth as the smaller, younger horse dared to crowd him. “Take a breath. Quit trying. Relax and let it come naturally. Your muscles are weak, but you don’t need to tell them what to do. You know how to ride.”

  She forced down a tight breath and let her hands drop. Dhuran took the opportunity to veer a half-length away from Bistane’s mount, and snorted as he did.

  “Little snot.”

  Bistane laughed. “He intends to dominate someday, when he’s full grown. One of the reasons we had to geld him. He was nigh untrainable otherwise.”

  “I think he’s forgotten that he was cut.”

  “Possibly.”

  She looked at the fiery chestnut splotched coat of his, realizing that his name, based on the Vaelinar God of Fire, seemed most apt. “He’s one of the last get of Banner High, is he not?”

  “Yes.”

  Lara bit back her response to that. The old stallion had been one of her favorites, just another part of her heritage lost to the Raymy attack.

  “We should probably buy from the ild Fallyn to rebuild the breeding herd.”

  Bistane’s face pulled. “I didn’t want to resort to that.”

  “We don’t want to inbreed.”

  “I was hoping for other options. I brought down a herd of my own younger mares, in foal to Falcon’s Lance and they’ve all dropped successfully and are carrying again.”

  “Yet we’re pressing immature stock into training.”

  “He doesn’t seem the worse for it.”

  Dhuran shook his head, bit and bridle rattling, his luxurious mane tossing about as he did.

  “True that,” Lara admitted. “He’s got a good gait.”

  “Neat hooves on that one. Nice legs. You might want to keep him around.”

  “I might.” Lara inhaled and exhaled gustily, realizing that as she had relaxed, both her body and the horse had stopped being quite so uncomfortable. She picked up a hank of Dhuran’s mane between her fingers as she held the reins. The last time she could remember crossing this terrain, she and her troops had been riding double-time as they realized that the enemy came to make a stand in Larandaril, rather than returning to Ashenbrook and Ravela Rivers as anticipated, and they were all that stood between the Raymy and total annihilation.

  Dhuran let out a nicker as her sudden tension sparked through him. He bent his head against the bridle, trying to lengthen his stride. She gently brought him back, all the while sweeping her lands with a keen gaze, looking at the overplay of the threads of its well-being that she could see with her Talents. She put one hand out to Bistane, signaling her desire to halt, and reined in her mount. She could see the hurt rising in Larandaril, like a haze over the fields and trees and while she could, she woul
d put to rights those little things she saw, that she knew inevitably added up to a much bigger whole. With her guard at her back and Bistane at her side, Lara took a deep breath and stretched out her feelings, her commitment, her love for her lands and the threads which bound it together. Tiny frays here and there she smoothed and strengthened. Gaps she darned as she would a hole in a sock, nipping her power in and out, over and across. She did not alter what she touched, for her skills did not lay in the making of ways, nor was she creating new works out of old. She was dusting away cobwebs and dust specks that ought not have landed in the pattern of her kingdom, mending rents here and there, filing down rough and jagged edges where they appeared. The wards gaped open as though wounded, but she hadn’t the strength to repair them, not yet. Those repairs would take a melding of her will as well as the Andredia’s.

  When she was finished, Lara closed her eyes, finding them suddenly dry and at the same time, ready to shed tears, and held them closed for a ragged breath or two. When she opened them, the gray morning had turned to a fitfully overcast and sunny day, shadows moving over them. Dhuran stood like a statue, only his ears moving.

  Bistane unhooked his water canteen and passed it over.

  She looked at him before realizing her mouth felt dry as sand and took it from his hands and first wet her mouth, and then swallowed two or three times in sudden thirst.

  “You’ve been mending for about two candlemarks,” he told her.

  “That long?”

  He nodded. “I had the guard dismount and rest their horses, but Dhuran would not give you up, so we stayed.”

  She passed the canteen back and then dropped the palm of her hand to the horse’s neck, where she rubbed him in praise. Bistane took a good pull before capping it and relacing it on his saddle.

  Lara ran fingers through her hair. “No sight of the squatters.”

  “They are there. Around the second bend, you should see the ramshackle buildings and tents they’ve raised. I run them out every season, but they filter back.”

  “To keep a watch on the portal.”

  “Yes. And the kingdom.”

  A thin-lipped smile rode her face. “They won’t be expecting me in person.”

  “Those who know you will. But they do not.”

  “All right, then.” Lara touched a heel to her horse’s flank, setting him back into brisk motion.

  There were banners up, around the bend, but not permanent flagpoles. Lariel held up at the sight of the tents and lean-tos, at the jagged edge their forays had torn into the forest shading the banks of the Andredia. Most of all, her eyes narrowed at the flags. These were traveling banners, and they bore Tressandre ild Fallyn’s proud insignia, a jade T against the Fortress flag of black and silver. Lara felt her lips curl at the sight and her jaw tighten.

  “How dare she,” Bistane muttered, an echo of her own thoughts.

  “Because she thinks she can, and should. I will give her that much; she thinks as many rulers do, in what she perceives as owed her.”

  “Do we truly think like that?”

  She glanced to Bistane. “Not you or I, I believe, but many a tyrant over a small patch of ground wishes that patch to be bigger—and more malleable.”

  “Hmmm. An imperceptible scratch that begs to be itched.”

  “Precisely. Let’s go stop her from satisfaction in my lands.” Lara lifted her reins.

  Black-and-silver–garbed men jumped to their feet outside a lavish, silken pavilion as they rode up, but their voices froze in their throats as they tried to call out both a greeting and a warning to their mistress. One managed to gulp down his astonishment and fall to one knee, even as the canopies around him stirred in great agitation and the inhabitants of the pavilion poured out into the open air.

  Tressandre ild Fallyn exited last, her hair of dark honey colors flowing down the back of her shoulders, her ebony pants tucked neatly into the tops of her calf-hugging boots, her silver-and-black–daggered blouse hugging her curves. “Well, and a blessed day,” she said smoothly. “Do I see our Warrior Queen not only awake but astride as well?” She tilted her head in curiosity, eyes wide but examining the scene closely, as if she expected that an imposter might ride in Lara’s place.

  “Awake, astride, and aware,” Lara answered, bringing Dhuran to a pawing halt. “The battle is over. My lands are closed.”

  “Closed?” Tressandre turned on one heel, twisting her body about smoothly, hands in the air. “But we’ve good people here, guarding the portal for you.”

  “She’s guards enough and these . . . people . . . have been warned about their trespass.” Bistane dismounted and drew his sword in one movement, though he held his weapon across his chest.

  “Trespass?” Tressandre repeated, with a slight pout of her full lips. “And we so quick to respond to the need for aid along the Andredia.”

  “Your brother died at my feet, his final act one of treason and attempted murder.” Lara felt the attention snap to her, all except for Tressandre who turned to face her with liquid poise.

  Although the ild Fallyn’s face had to look up to her, she did so in such a way that Lara felt their gazes met on an equal level. Disdain fell across Tressandre’s expression openly.

  “My brother was blasted while trying to protect you from a Kobrir assassin’s blade, an attack of extreme cowardice and surprise from a battlefield.”

  Lara felt the corner of her mouth curl up. “That assassin put his life in between mine and your brother, and foiled a slice from you as well, if I remember correctly. I may have fallen there, but I remember what I saw—and felt—as I went down. I did not die there, Tressandre ild Fallyn, nor did my memory. Alton died because my armor, studded with shards of the Jewel of Tomarq which has always stood against treachery and betrayal, flared out and caught him as he tried to remove my head from my shoulders. He failed, as did you. Do not think that because you and I are both Vaelinar that I have any love or consideration for you at all. Get off my lands. Stay off until and unless some twisted knot of diplomacy and circumstance forces me to treat with you.”

  Tressandre smiled briefly. “Royal courtesies are so uncommon and, obviously, difficult to deliver.” She beckoned to her guardsmen to begin to pack up. “I may go, but my . . . our people . . . might stay.”

  “Not with my permission.”

  “How can you deny them, Lara? They came to view Trevilara through this hole between the worlds. They pray for a sight back on the world that birthed all of us. To return, if the hole ever widens and the bridge returns. We are exiles here, Lariel Anderieon. How can you deny them passage back, indeed, how can you not promise them safe passage, if the bridge appears again? Why would you send such hopeful hearts away?”

  There were murmurs at her back, and they grew louder as Tressandre fell silent. Lara looked at them. Traders, farmers, a smith from the looks of him, a carpenter, at least one herbalist in the bunch as well as their sullen-faced partners and children. A few dozen, but she knew they had branches throughout the villages and cities of the First Home lands and what she did now would carry.

  “Elect two families amongst you to stay and watch. I will allow NO more to stay on my lands that are not from Larandaril. That is my word. My men will see to it that it is carried out, and my good ally and friend Bistane Vantane is here to assist me as he has stood by me and the needs of my lands for all these seasons. Do not mistake his even nature for one that can be duped or misled into unwarranted mercy.”

  Bistane nodded to her. “My Lady.”

  Tressandre stepped forward and offered her hand. “Fairly done,” she said, but ice gleamed in her eyes. She stripped her glove off, forcing Lara to do the same, bared skin to bared skin, as was customary.

  Tressandre’s power leaped through her hand to Lara, charging blunt into her, a brutal assault on Lara and she sat back in her saddle a bit to brace herself and, biting int
o her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, she brought her own strength up to meet Tressandre. All fell into quiet around them, their eyes locked, and Lara fighting the tremor of her grasp. She could not fail in this, or the ild Fallyn would run roughshod over her weakness. She shoved back and gained no ground on the forces pounding through their bodies, but neither did she lose any more. It was like, she thought at the back of her mind, two great bruising men at arm-wrestling, but this contest struggled in silence and unseen.

  Except she could see it. Could see Tressandre’s fair skin pale a touch. The lines at the corners of her eyes deepened as she summoned up more of her will. Lara felt the back of her throat go coppery in taste. Her jaw tightened and a tic hit the corner of her right eye, a rhythmic spasm that was ever so slight and very annoying.

  She could not give way. Lara reached out to the power of her lands, of the River Andredia, and felt her country answer her. Faintly. Sluggishly as if it had separated from her in her sleep and just now realized she’d awakened and so had their bond. She found a depth in her that the Andredia lent her, new strength, clean with new hope. She reached out to the wards which held the boundaries of her kingdom and touched them, fleetingly, retasking them and they answered. With a magical jolt, they told these invaders they were not welcome and that they would never be welcomed until Lariel herself let them pass. A feeling like fire ants would begin to swarm up their skin and grow ever more fervent until they left. The wards would harry and hound them to their deaths or Lara’s guards found them first.

  Tressandre’s eyes flashed, and she let go of Lara’s hand. She traded one last, appraising gaze with her.

  “Choose your representatives wisely,” she advised the Returnists at her heels. “I won’t be here often to give guidance and support as I have in the past.” She moved past Lara, her hair fairly crackling with energy as she did.

  Lara turned Dhuran about sharply. She did not know if she could stay in her saddle. “I will meet you at the manor,” she told Bistane, and set her mount toward home.

  He caught up with her not far from the manor, for she had lost all ability to ride except for the effort just to stay aboard, and Dhuran had taken the bit in his teeth and headed to the stable yard, good lad, looking for dinner.