“How could I walk away?” she asked, almost to herself. “I was raised to believe the nobles and royals have a duty to care for the people of this kingdom. The Elements gifted them…us, I guess, now…with Sensitivities so we could protect those who don’t have them. The King and Queen are not to be tyrants who only care what profit or gain they can get from the people. They are to serve the interests of the people, help them to achieve the best life they can have, provide them with opportunities to find happiness and fulfillment.”
When she’d finished speaking, all eyes in the room were on her. Kylan and Raulin glanced at each other, and Honoria approached Mariana.
“The Brotherhood of the Secret Hand is dedicated to protecting the kingdom. Our loyalty is to Valborough, not to any one sovereign. Should the Virtuous King or Queen act as you have described, the Brotherhood remains silent and secret. If we see, however, that the Ruler is not acting in a manner worthy of the title, the Brotherhood rises up. King Jonathan does not have the best interests of the people in his heart, and Kylan and others have verified his powers are waning.
“You, Mariana, have shown by your words, given freely and unprompted, you are worthy of the Crown. It is not enough that you be a strong Sensitive, which clearly you are. If you were cut from the same cloth as your father seems to be and were more concerned about grabbing the throne, we would be reluctant to support you.”
Raulin joined Honoria in front of Mariana. “My dear niece, the Brotherhood will stand with you when you challenge your father.”
“It won’t be easy,” Kylan said. “He will be angry and may even call out the army against you.”
She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She was a Princess of Valborough, and she had a duty to protect the people from unscrupulous men, even when that included one who was not only her father, but the King.
“I will challenge him. I will challenge the Virtuous King of Valborough for the throne.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
George Evan teamed up with Andreas Geindara, and the two Fauna Sensitives brought enough horses from the Sahdeer’s and a few other stables in the village so all the people traveling with Mariana would have a mount. The Abilities of the two men melded so the animals were calm and allowed even the most skittish riders to sit comfortably.
“You don’t all have to come,” Mariana said as she maneuvered her horse to allow her to face the company, many of whom she’d never met before that morning but considered friends now. “I’m sure my father will not be happy to see me, and I wouldn’t want all of you to be in danger.”
“I’m staying by your side,” Orlando said. “It’s where I belong.”
She reached over to touch his hands, wrapped around the reins to the horse. “I didn’t think you would abandon me.”
“This may be indelicate of me,” Raulin said, urging his mount to approach them. “Have the two of you actually bonded as you told Darius?”
Mariana felt herself blush, and Adindira cried, “Excuse me, sir. I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”
The King’s brother faced her. “It may actually be the entire kingdom’s business soon. Mariana may be strong enough to intimidate a man who was clearly not emotionally or mentally stable, but the King is a different matter entirely.
“My brother may be losing his powers, but he’s not stupid. No one has issued a challenge to the Virtuous Sovereign in several generations, because the penalty for a failed challenge is instant execution.”
He faced Mariana again. “I would hate to see you killed because you and your husband weren’t…fully married.”
“I think the Prog…Princess is quite strong on her own,” Kylan said.
“Do we know what the challenge will be?” Orlando asked.
No one spoke up for several tense moments. Mariana swallowed.
“I have to confront them, Mother and Father both. They lied to me and made me feel something was wrong with me. I was held up as an object of ridicule by the young nobles who lazed around at court. They all wanted to dance with me, taking me walking, even kiss me, but none felt I was good enough to marry, all because they believed I was an Insensitive. My own sister told me she would settle for…” Her voice trailed off when she realized she was about to insult George Evan. The heat rose to her face when she met his eyes.
“Ursula believed agreeing to marry me was settling.” He didn’t say it as a question, but as though it were something he’d known for some time. “She feared my offer was the only one she would get because of an Insensitive for a sister.”
“I’m sorry,” Mariana said. “I didn’t realize you knew.”
“Mariana, I love Ursula. I have since I was a child and saw her at your mother’s side at some royal charity benefit or gathering or something. She was so pretty and full of life, bouncing on her toes because she was too excited to stand still.”
He got a faraway look in his eyes. “Even saying all that, I knew she considered other single noblemen and judged whether she could make a better marriage and bonding to one of them. Several times, she canceled something we were supposed to do together to spend time with someone else.”
“Why did you stay with her?” Elnys asked. “I wouldn’t have stayed with a woman who clearly was more interested in my position than myself.”
George Evan shook his head. “I can’t explain it. I love her, even now. I only hope she will still agree to be my wife once this whole thing is all over.”
“Speaking of this whole thing,” Orlando said. “What are we going to do?”
“There is one obvious solution,” Raulin said. “You could bond with her.”
Mariana glanced at her husband and bit her lip. “We…um…Things are complicated, I guess, as far as that goes.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Kylan said. “Bonding would strengthen both of you, and if you are to challenge the King, you will need every advantage.”
“What do you suggest?” Orlando asked, sounding more annoyed than Mariana expected. “Should we just go into the house and do it, while you all wait out here?”
“Orlando!” his sister cried. “Don’t be so crude.”
“Well, isn’t that what they’re suggesting?” He waved his hands toward the monk and the Abilities Tester. “Mariana deserves to be Queen of Valborough, and from what I’m hearing, the only way to do that is if I take her to bed.”
“It isn’t the only way,” Kylan said, “but it would strengthen her position going in.”
Orlando snorted. “Chaos take it. This isn’t what I planned.”
Mariana’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t want to bond with me?” This had been part of their understanding from the beginning, and she shouldn’t have felt rejected by his words, but she did.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “You’re a beautiful woman. A man would have to be blind to not want to be with you.”
“But?”
“But we didn’t get married in the usual way. It was supposed to be a way to get Elnys out of the dungeon.”
“I see. You never anticipated actually…sharing my bed.” Mariana urged her horse around and kicked it into a gallop out of town.
****
She rode until Talla, and all the people, were far behind her. The royal forest stretched out on either side of her. Neither the palace nor the town was visible. If she tried, she could imagine being all alone in this peaceful place where none of the politics and lies could find her.
Reining the horse to a stop, she forced herself to take a few deep breaths and ignored the tears that rolled down her face. They had to be the result of the wind in her eyes and not because of any pain of another betrayal.
Mariana dismounted and loosely tied the reins to a nearby low branch. It probably would be safer if she moved off the road, but no one would be after her, at least not for a while, and she didn’t want to risk getting lost if she wandered too far into the trees.
As she sat on the slight rise next to the road
, she wondered how things had gotten so mixed up. At one point in her life, she would have been thrilled to have someone address her as Princess instead of the false-sounding Progenna.
Sometime in her childhood, she couldn’t even remember when or how old she’d been, she’d overheard two women talking in the dining room. Now she suspected it was only a couple of servants, but at the time, when she was young, she’d thought it was one of her mother’s ladies-in-waiting and a noblewoman. There must have been many people staying in the palace for some official event then for her to assume that.
Whoever they were, and she never found out exactly, they were talking about her. That’s why she stopped to listen, something she had been scolded about doing many times by her mother.
“She’s a cute little girl,” one of the women said. “She could make a good marriage one day if she shows any Abilities.”
“Well, you know that won’t happen. Something’s wrong with her. Most noble children show some sign of their developing Sensitivities by now. No, I think the King was right to keep her out of the line of succession. She’ll never fulfill the First Law.”
“I suppose you’re right. If the King and Queen thought she were a true Princess, they wouldn’t have made up a title for her.”
“That’s what I don’t understand. Why not just call her a Princess?”
“Princess is a title for those in the line, who will probably one day show a strong Sensitivity in something. Mariana never will, and Progenna just means she is their progeny, their child.”
“Oh, I understand now. I never knew that’s what the title meant.”
“First time in history it’s been used, and the Elements be merciful, the only time.”
Mariana heard the words again as though for the first time, and while back then, her little heart only knew she’d been somehow dismissed as not important, now she knew even the servants believed her to be nothing more than a mistake.
“You shouldn’t be out here all alone.”
Mariana saw Orlando dismount and tie his horse next to hers. She’d been so deep in thought she hadn’t heard him approach.
“I understand there are desperate rebels in these woods.” He sat down next to her.
“I don’t think the rebels want me,” she said, turning away so as not to look at him. “I think their leader is sorry he was saddled with me.”
“Saddled? I never said that.”
“No, you didn’t say the word, but your meaning was clear. You agreed to marry me to save Elnys, but now things have changed, and you’re having second thoughts.”
“Truth be told, Mari, I’ve had second, third, and fourth thoughts about this arrangement.”
“Oh.” She took a deep breath.
“I think you’re misunderstanding me.” He took her chin in his hand and made her face him. “At first, I did wonder what I’d gotten myself into. I mean, I knew you had Chaos Abilities immediately, and that can be dangerous, especially in someone who hasn’t been trained. You’re the King’s daughter, and you know he and I aren’t exactly best friends. I saw disaster written all over this marriage, but I went along with it because I didn’t want to see Elnys’s head on a pike at the entrance to town.”
“But now you’re stuck with me.”
“Stuck?” Orlando laughed. “I don’t consider myself stuck with you. In fact, I thank the Elements every day I found you in the woods. You have changed my life.”
He gathered her in his arms. She hadn’t noticed that tears had welled up in her eyes but as she closed them to enjoy the feel of his embrace, they slid down her cheeks. After he’d held her for a few moments, she pulled back.
“You didn’t want to take me to bed.” She couldn’t look at him while she said it because she knew she was blushing.
“That’s not what I said, Mari. I said it wasn’t what I planned because Kylan and Brother Raulin were making it sound like a chore or a duty, and when we finally do…bond, I want it to be special.” He nudged her face toward his again. “I want it to be because we both want it, not because it’s the best way to defeat your father or because it will strengthen your Abilities.”
He kissed her mouth deeply until she thought her insides had melted to warm pudding, then he pulled back.
“I want you to want me as much as those men want your father off the throne.”
Mariana touched his face with her fingertips. He hadn’t shaved since yesterday, and the stubble tickled her skin. “You are my husband,” she said. “I think it may be time for us to make that official.”
“You have no problem with this? I mean, I didn’t tell you about my Sensitivity before.”
“And you could have convinced me to bond with you without telling me. Then you would have had control of my powers.”
“And be no better than your father? Mariana, I see you as a woman, not as a political pawn. I want the bonding to happen because we both want it. I would never have let it happen without making sure you knew what you are.”
“Well, I know now.” She stood up and took his hand.
“What are we doing?” he asked, but she thought he knew.
“We’re going into the woods. I’m sure the leader of the rebels must know some hidden places where we can have some privacy.”
“I think I do.”
****
The sky was dark above them, but through the trees, Mariana could see the sun would soon appear on the horizon. She and Orlando had been together, in the woods, all night, and she was content.
Orlando slept next to her, his shirt missing, and she had no idea where it had gotten thrown in the midst of their lovemaking.
All her life, she’d heard servants giggling over what went on between men and women. She’d also known something more happened between Sensitives, but that was never a topic discussed in her hearing. Whether that was because she was supposed to be an Insensitive or because of her age, she couldn’t say, but she knew now it wouldn’t have mattered.
Nothing anyone could have told her would have prepared her for what bonding was like.
When she and Orlando joined their bodies, she felt her Abilities blossom inside her as though a hidden well deep within her soul was uncapped.
Fire and Water.
Air and Earth.
Flora and Fauna.
Metal and Blood.
All eight Sensitivities poured through her veins. She tasted and felt each one, saw colors in her mind she couldn’t put a name to, heard music so beautiful it made her weep, and smelled the fragrance of every flower and fruit that grew in the forest.
Every sensation happened at once, but she experienced them all as though time stopped.
An instant later, she felt her husband’s Ability wrap itself around her, taking her into his being so she could know him, know everything about him, his hurts, his joys, his regrets, his pleasure.
The intensity of her experience was mirrored and magnified by knowing he felt the same things, if to a lesser degree, as her Ability accepted him into her soul.
When their eyes met in the midst of that Elemental Celebration, she saw her entire world there and knew that never would they be apart.
How could they be when their souls were inseparably intertwined?
****
When it became clear to all those staying at the Geindara home that Orlando and Mariana were not returning for some time, Honoria instructed her servants to prepare rooms for the guests.
Kylan had fallen asleep on the sofa in Andreas’s library, and Honoria was content to leave him there. Her husband and George Evan went out to the stables to care for the horses.
She and Raulin sat in her private sitting room, each with a cup of tea.
“Mikael hasn’t come,” she said. They had shared a companionable silence as the house settled itself for the night.
“I am worried about that,” the monk said. “Thibault was to have sent word to the Brotherhood. It is unlike Mikael to shirk his duties.”
“As much as I find hi
s personal habits reprehensible, he is a good man and an excellent fighter. I suppose we should try not to worry until we know we have reason.”
“You are a wise woman, Honoria. I have always thought so.” He sipped his tea. “It is good you and your husband have reconciled.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You seem to know a lot of private information for a supposedly cloistered monk.”
He laughed. “I have my ways.”
Suddenly, the fire in the hearth sprang to life, but in spite of that, the temperature in the room dropped. The scent of apples and honey filled the air, and Raulin tilted his head.
“It seems our little Progenna has found her voice.”
“Voice, is it?” Honoria asked, taking a poker to the fireplace to arrange the embers. “Interesting choice of words.”
“I wonder if the palace noticed the change in the Elements when they bonded. As they are her family, I would think her newfound Abilities would make themselves known there, as Orlando’s did here.”
She asked, “That’s what this is? Orlando’s Abilities manifesting at his home?”
“I know it surprises you, but this house was his home for much of his life, wasn’t it? Perhaps the Elements know more about what his soul needs than he does.”
“Maybe the Elements have forgiven me for his exile from his home.” She set the poker in its place.
“Of course they have. If you had kept Orlando here and raised him to adulthood, do you think we’d be where we are? Do you think we’d be on the brink of seeing a strong, compassionate Chaos Sensitive on the throne of Valborough?”
“I pray you’re right,” she said.
Andreas and George Evan returned. “The horses are settled in for the night,” the Sahdeer said. “Any word from Mariana?”
Honoria and Raulin glanced at one another and laughed. “You might say that,” she said. “I believe they are fine and will be back here in the morning.” She slipped her arm through her husband’s.
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