The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  “Seven stayed back,” he told her, “but otherwise, consider them routed.”

  “Good.” She forced the word out through clamped teeth, set to keep from chattering like some snowbound idiot who did not know how to come in out of the cold. And cold? Why was it so blasted cold on this, a spring morning? Even one with hints of an evening rain?

  Dhuran turned into the stable yard with a snort and a toss of his head. She steeled herself and found no steel at all within her. She might as well be as boneless as an egg.

  She fell more than dismounted from her horse and took a staggering step before collapsing. Her body cramped into a tight knot, making her pant and gasp with the pain of it. She threw her arms over her head in defense and lay there, crumpled, her limbs turning back on themselves in agonizing knots.

  Bistane hit the ground beside her. “What is it?”

  “Cramps. Knots, everywhere.” She could hardly talk. Even her lungs squeezed tightly.

  “You’re depleted.” He swept her up, with a mutter that might have been “Fool woman.” Or not.

  Lara pressed her throbbing temple against his chest and tried not to feel the agony of her body. She felt the jolt in his body as he kicked the door open to the kitchen, shouting for juice as he made his way to the back stairs and took them, two at a time to her rooms. A figure darted in front of them to throw open her apartment and hastily pull the coverlet straight on the bed just before Bistane put her down on it. She stayed rolled on her side, intense spasms driving all thought but pain out of her head.

  “Help me get her boots off. And the shin guards, too.” Bistane’s strong hands tugged and drew on her feet and ankles until her boots gave way and she sank back with a sob. “Is that juice?”

  “For the breakfasts, aye, but what has happened?”

  “I’ll take that, and nothing you need know about.”

  A babble of voices, one of which she recognized as Gundrid, her chief cook, and Bistane thrust a glass into her hand and up to her lips. “Drink.”

  She could barely hold the vessel. More juice splashed onto her chin than through her lips, and he stepped close to hold it steady.

  “What’s wrong with her? What is it?”

  “She just overextended herself. Now get out and let me get this down her.”

  “Going, Lord Bistane, going. Call if you need anything else.”

  She could feel the sweet wetness going down her throat now, uncurling her lungs, her arms, but her legs stayed furiously cramped up as she let out a deep moan of hurt.

  He simply said, “I’m here” and tilted the last of the drink down her before moving to her legs. “Take deep breaths and listen to me.” He poured another round from the jug and fed her sips. “Too much, too soon—but you know that. I should let you rest, but I can’t. You burned out everything you had, even your Talent, and your body is going into shock. But you’ll recover. This time. You can’t show anyone else your weakness. It will get back to the ild Fallyn, it always does. So you’ll drink for me and bear the pain.”

  Lara gave a feeble nod. Her mind began to work properly again. She isolated and then shoved her pain down into her legs and prayed for survival. Her limbs twitched. His fingers found the knots in her muscles and bore into them, hurting keenly at first before forcing them to submit and loosen.

  “Why do you care?”

  His hands paused. Then began working away at her again. “The correct thing to say would be that you are my Warrior Queen.”

  “But that’s not why.”

  “No. Because . . . That was admirable,” Bistane told her, as he straightened her out and flexed his strong hands about her legs, patiently massaging away the cramps.

  It took her a moment to find her words. “How can you say that? I nearly got myself killed.”

  “But she didn’t know that. Only you and I know that.”

  “She does know she nearly had me.”

  “She’s nearly had you a dozen times in your life. But Tressandre only knows that she’s never been able to kill you, and that you have never tried to kill her, only defend. That’s got to hurt, in her small world.” He stopped talking for a moment, concentrating on one stubborn knot in her left leg, fingers working until her foot smoothed out and toes relaxed. “Take your victories where you can.”

  “Now you remind me of your father.”

  He kept working at sore spots in her lower limbs, making her kick feebly in protest every now and then as he hit a particularly troublesome area. “Would he have been wrong? Am I wrong?”

  Lara let out a soft, hissing sigh. “No. Neither of you.”

  “Nice to be acknowledged.”

  “Then why do you sound peeved?”

  Bistane drew his hands away from her and stood up. “Because you knew you weren’t ready. Because no advice I would have given you would even have been considered. Because you nearly got yourself killed.”

  She stretched one slender leg out, achingly free of cramps and knew it would be sore the rest of the day, but whole and flexible. “I thought we covered that already.”

  “Not entirely.” Bistane pulled up a stool and sat by the edge of the bed, his leathers creaking slightly as he did so. “You need to pick your battles wisely.”

  “I have done, mostly.”

  “What was it that drove this one?”

  She sat up and leaned over her other leg, rubbing where he had stopped. She wasn’t nearly as good at it as he was, but this way she didn’t have to look him in the eyes. “I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

  “I think you have a good idea. I’m asking, Lara, if it was your decision to go after Tressandre or if the Andredia asked it of you.”

  “The river.”

  “The river with which your family has a blood pact. The elemental of that river.”

  “You ask me things of which I cannot speak.” Lara spoke quietly as she worked on the arch of her right foot, her toes splayed uncomfortably. The pain of the cramping hurt far less than his words.

  “I’m not asking you to reveal the words of your sacred pact, damn it, Lariel. I am trying to understand what drove you to attack a formidable enemy when you had neither the ability nor the justification to do so.”

  “I thought you had my back.”

  “Always. I just have never had your trust or your love.” Bistane stopped abruptly, as did her hands working her foot and ankle.

  Lara found she could not quite breathe or swallow for a few moments. Then she looked up uncertainly. This time it was he who could not look at her. The silence stretched out until she had to break it. “I trust you.”

  “Let me amend that to—you’ve never trusted me as you did my father.”

  “He was an experienced warlord.”

  “True. And I rode at his side for most of those centuries, and now I have become the warlord. Most people do not bother to separate us in their considerations.”

  Her foot cramped harder, and they both reached at the same time as she curled in response to it, his warm hands over her cool ones. He brushed her fingers aside gently.

  “You’re right, of course.” She watched his hands as he worked at her sore points. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

  “Is it not?”

  “No. It’s that I’ve lost Gilgarran. Osten. Jeredon. Bistel. Tranta. Sevryn and Rivergrace are gone, and might be lost, no one knows for certain. All allies that I could, and did, lean on. I’m afraid to lean on anyone else, lest they be taken, too. It’s that simple. I can’t afford to lose any more trusted friends.”

  He cracked her foot gently and dropped it to the cushion before sliding up to work on her calf. “Loss and gain are part of life.”

  “Don’t wax philosophic at me. Half those I named died far before their time, and you miss them as much as I do.”

  “I miss them, yes, but that’s not
kept me from reaching out for others. My brother Verdayne and I are closer than ever. We have long lives and we avoid death as we can, but it comes to all of us, and none of us like it.” He tapped her ankle. “How do you feel?”

  “Bruised but no longer in spasms. Thank you.” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She took a deep breath. “I take your criticism that I acted rashly. My pact dictates that I owe the Andredia reparations, but never would the sacred river ask for more death. That was my choice. My wish. My desire. I hate Tressandre.” She sucked in a breath. “But I wasn’t ready and defeated myself as much as Tressandre did.”

  “Then train for it. You’ve been abed for years, Lara, and only up for a week. You’re in no shape to be the Warrior Queen you were.”

  She nodded. “I realize that. I will begin training again.”

  “To what end?”

  “To being better. To being prepared because Tressandre will try again, and she won’t stop until I stop her.”

  “No,” he agreed mildly, “She won’t stop. She is queen of a stony fortress built on rock and ice. Larandaril has always looked like a promised paradise to her, one that comes with power and respect. It’s no wonder she covets it.”

  “No wonder at all, but she doesn’t deserve it. She never has and never will.” Lara stood gingerly, one hand up to stay whatever aid Bistane might give. “About that other thing.”

  A shadow swept his face, disappearing. “Mmm. That other thing.”

  “I love you, too.”

  He watched her face. “But . . .”

  “I was always told that whenever I married, it would not be for love, but for the ties of alliance and compromise.”

  “Of course.”

  “Time hasn’t changed that.”

  He got to his feet as well, pushing the stool out of the way with a shove of his boot. “It won’t, when viewed that way.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  “When I am, will you tell me?” She reached out and put her hand on his forearm.

  “I intend to speak up loud and clear.”

  “Good.” She turned her back to him. “When you go out, tell the staff I don’t want to be disturbed.” She made a face which he could not see but heard in her voice. “I fear I have to take a nap.”

  “And when you wake, we’ll have to consider the import of this. One of the Returnists gave it to me.” He pulled bloody rags out, the garb of a Kobrir assassin, like those she’d last seen Sevryn Dardanon wearing.

  “Where did they come from?”

  “Once in a while, very rare occasions, something material comes through the portal. We have an ally amongst the camp of Returnists, and she took up this find and held it for me—for you—when next one of us would come check on them.”

  She stirred her hand through the rags. “They have to be Sevryn’s.”

  “But he is not wearing them.”

  The blood had dried, stiff and rusty brown, but unmistakable to anyone who had ever been around war and battle and injuries. “Not now.”

  “Perhaps there was a Kobrir among those who followed Quendius across.”

  She shook her head slowly. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Nor do I, but I am not fond of any other explanation.”

  She managed a deep breath. “If anyone can cheat death, it’s Sevryn. Was there anything else? Sign of Rivergrace?”

  He shook his head. Lara curled the rags to her chest. “I do have to sleep,” she told him. “But now I’m afraid I might dream.”

  He wrapped his arm about her shoulders. “Don’t be. The best dreams lie ahead of us. I’ll do whatever I can to make certain of that.”

  Chapter

  Nineteen

  TRESSANDRE ILD FALLYN brought her horse to a halt, taking in the small croft and its garden, and a somewhat bedraggled looking field beyond it. Her mouth thinned. Chased out of Larandaril by a woman barely off her deathbed who could hardly think. Yet Lara managed to hold her at bay. Her, the pride of ild Fallyn. A bitter taste ran down the back of her throat. If there had been no witnesses, she would have slipped her knife from its wrist sheath and put it deep into Lariel’s gut and twisted and twisted . . . Just as she should have been the one two moons ago to slit her throat while she was still locked in sleep. A multiple failure, that had been. Neither Lara nor her heir had been successfully terminated. She knew now that the assassin had no chance at the child, the filthy Dweller kind had been taken away but not out of harm. Calcort would be far easier to penetrate than the manor at Larandaril. She would reach in and squeeze the heart of the heir into death throes soon enough. If only she could have dispatched Lara.

  But she could not and had not and now she was barred from Larandaril, its legendary wards once again activated. The wards were not of Vaelinar Talent and magic, although it took a Vaelinar to activate them. No, they were part of a blood-and-flesh pledge made to the River Goddess of the River Andredia, a pledge that Tressandre had long considered how to corrupt and break. So far, her research and efforts had proved fruitless. The border wards, invisible but pervasive, walled in Larandaril successfully. She could get past it, but she would have to consider her options carefully, because when she entered the kingdom again, she wanted no alarm or warning. She would take Lara down.

  In the meantime, she faced this insignificant and scrubby collection of abodes. This was Kerith as it had been before her people had arrived and elevated the civilizations they found. Before their priceless contributions had been ladled out, like a life-giving soup. Tressandre wrinkled her nose at the backwater settlement. A hedge ran its borders rather than a fence and it did not look as though it had been terribly successful in keeping out pests, with frequent, gaping holes in its evergreen branches. The cottage fared little better, listing a bit to one side as if its builder had not known how to build on the square. A loose shingle or two flapped in the spring breeze. Even among the poorest on her stronghold estates, she’d seen nothing like this. The cottage would never have survived the harsh coastline of her territory or its windy winters. This was free man’s land, and what good did it do them? They barely existed at all. She set her heels down in her stirrups and waited for her man to emerge. If this were not the place she had been informed it was, there would be cold hell to pay. She would brook no more failures. Her fingers tightened on the reins.

  “What is taking so long? Either we have the right place, or we do not.” No one dared answer her.

  The wind circled about to tug on her hair, tangling the dark honey-colored strands that had escaped her riding scarf. It felt like it had tiny feet embedded in its touch, scribble-scrabbling across her skin wherever it could touch her. Annoying. Chiding.

  Tressandre stood in her saddle a moment to stretch her legs. It had been a long ride, and it had better not have been without results. The curve of her full mouth thinned more, along with her temper.

  “If he’s not out in three breaths, we ride off without him.”

  “Lady Tressandre, he’ll be outnumbered. Even with nothing but knives and hoes, the villagers could bring him down. We can’t leave him behind.”

  Her chin went out. “Then he does not deserve to be called ild Fallyn, and his end would be a just one.”

  “But we can’t just leave him here—”

  She turned in her saddle to look upon the man, Kreshalt, who paled as soon as she did. He clamped his lips shut.

  “The first bit of wisdom you’ve shown,” Tressandre remarked. She settled once again.

  A handful of similar cottages were scattered about this small settlement, and she’d no doubt there were noses pressed to the shutters, eyes fixed upon them. Unlike Kreshalt, however, she did not fear their numbers. All the better to crush them, as they would fumble in each other’s way, uncertain and untested in battle.

  Tressandre took a deep breat
h. If Alton were here, she would have no need to worry about the quality of the intelligence she was acting upon now, nor the ultimate result, or who would be warming her bed enthusiastically tonight. No worries at all. But her brother was dead and gone these two years, and her chest tightened at the memory of him. Half-blasted to a crisp and shriveled as if lightning-struck, the other half near sliced away from him by a blade. Fallen and dead far before his time, no matter that he was attempting to assassinate the Warrior Queen in the middle of battle. No matter that Alton had not been able to achieve the moment for which they had planned nearly their entire lives. No matter that that which others called betrayal they, the ild Fallyn, knew was only fulfillment of their destiny. The moment spent, blackened, dying and dead at her feet.

  She would kill Lara with her bare hands for that memory.

  The ragged wooden door to the croft banged open. A man, woman, and half-grown boy stumbled out, followed by Nikton, the man she’d sent in. His black-and-silver garments shone in the meager sun like the richly woven clothes they were, in brilliant contrast to the drab homespun wear of the other three. The man of the family went to his knees. “Mercy, Lady ild Fallyn. We have done nothing.”

  She could barely discern a recognizable face behind all the grime. Tress shifted her gaze to her man. “Are these the ones?”

  “Husband, sister, and son,” he answered. “I am certain.”

  “They are under your guardianship, then. You know where to take them. No need to let them gather any goods. The poorest of what we will give them will be the richest of anything they’ve had.”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  She pivoted her horse about and let her hand fall, hard, upon the horse’s shoulder, and let it take to its heels. She’d enough of stinking poverty for the day. There were things she had had to do and steps that still lay ahead of her to exact the vengeance she had in mind. Her horse threw up its head and nickered a challenge to the wind rushing at both of them, and she leaned lower in her saddle to urge it faster.