The thunder rumbled almost constantly now, an ominous growl that made Yar's heart pound in his chest. It was like the storm was a great beast that was chasing them, ready to pounce at any moment. He found himself leaning forward in the saddle, his gaze flitting from one rock outcropping to the next. As they topped a rise, Aevver and Yarro found themselves in the middle of a flock of sheep. The dirty-white animals scattered, baaing their distress at having two horsemen suddenly riding through them. Yar looked for shepherds, but he didn't see any.
"There should be a sheepcote somewhere!" Aevver called back to him. The wind was rising. Yar had to strain to hear her.
"Full of sheep!" he protested, but either she didn't hear him or she didn't care. Her horse picked up the pace and Firefoot accelerated to keep up. Yar didn't know what a sheepcote would look like, but he assumed it was like a house for sheep. It ought to look like a building then, right? But the faster they went, the more attention he had to give to staying on Firefoot's back. He gave up on looking for shelter and worried only about following Aevver.
YOU MUST SEEK SHELTER, boomed a Voice in Yar's mind. It was the Wise Uncle Voice, and there was a note of command there that Yar hadn't heard in some time. THE STORM RISES, LITTLE BROTHER, AND YOU ARE VULNERABLE.
"We're looking for it now," he gasped, not caring that Aevver might hear him. It seemed unlikely, anyway, between the pounding of the horse's hooves and the rumble of thunder and the ever-present shriek of the wind.
NOW, LITTLE BROTHER!
But it was too late. The skies ripped open with a flash of lightning so bright it left Yar dazzled and blinking. In the aftermath of the lightning, the clouds let loose with their burden. Not as a slow drip and drop, but as sudden and hard as if someone had upended a bucket over their heads. Yar gasped and squinted as the thunder crashed over him, rattling his teeth and shivering his bones.
"Aevver!" he screamed.
She looked back and waved her arm. Her mouth opened, but he couldn't hear what she said. The rain was too loud. He kept following as she turned her gaze ahead of them again. He leaned low over Firefoot's neck, trying to keep his hood up to shield his eyes from the rain. It was a losing battle. Every time he got the hood tugged forward, it blew down again.
It seemed like forever before they reached whatever Aevver had been aiming for. She led them inside a building, ducking as she urged her horse into a dark opening in a dry-stone-walled building. Yar followed, wondering what had possessed him to trust her so blindly. As soon as they were through the arch, he pushed his hair back from his face, blinking the rain water out of his eyes and peering around in the sudden darkness.
"Where are we?" he demanded. His voice echoed in the stone chamber.
"A sheepcote," Aevver said. "I think. It'll do for now. At least we won't be drowned in here." He heard the shuffling of her horse's hooves and then a dull thud as Aevver must have dropped out of the saddle. He reached over his head until his fingers encountered a low stone roof. He wouldn't have room to sit up on Firefoot's back. He rolled off the horse's back and leaned against him as his knees threatened to give out.
He couldn't stop shivering. How had he gotten soaked to the skin in such a short time?
"Get out of those clothes." Aevver's voice was brisk. "I'm going to get a fire lit."
Yar struggled out of his cloak. It seemed to weigh ten times more than it had when he'd swung it around his shoulders this morning.
"We need a fire first, and to get dry. Then we can dry off the horses. They won't fare well if we catch our deaths of the cold first." Aevver kept up her monologue as she built the fire. Yar mostly ignored her. His attention was taken up with forcing buttons through holes that suddenly seemed too small for them, using fingers that were stiff with cold and slippery from the rain. He didn't care what she wanted done. He just wanted to get warm.
He was shocked when hands gripped his wrists and tugged them down from where he was struggling with the top button of his shirt.
"Let me do it. You're shaking too hard." Aevver's voice was cold. Yar let her undress him, thinking about how different this would be if it were Tish here with him instead of Aevver.
IT WOULD BE NO DIFFERENT. YOU JUST WISH IT WOULD, hissed the Sly Voice. Yar flinched. As much as he hated the thought, that was true. Tish had no time or interest for him.
"Hold still," Aevver snapped. "I'm not trying to hurt you. I just want you warm. If you don't get dry, you'll be ill. I don't suppose you want that."
Yar swallowed and held still.
Aevver's fingers were efficient as she tugged his shirt open and pushed it off his shoulders. "Can you untie your trousers yourself?" she asked. "Good. Get them off and get over by the fire. I'll get a blanket for you in a minute."
Yar did as he was told. He was huddled by the fire when a blanket settled over his shoulders. Almost at once he felt a change in the temperature as the blanket trapped the fire's heat around his body. He looked up.
Aevver was closer to naked than any woman he'd ever seen before. She was wearing some sort of cloth fastened around her bottom parts and a wrapping around her breasts, and aside from that, she was bare. With no leather armor or daggers, she seemed much less dangerous and more female. Yar stared at her.
That wasn't fair, really, he acknowledged. His sister had been dangerous and entirely female. Orya had never seemed like a man at all, so why would Aevver seem like a man simply because she was dangerous? After a while, Yarro decided that he simply hadn't thought of her as male or female because he had been so focused on her daggers. Without the sharp, pointy bits, he was able to think more about the rest of her.
"You could quit staring," she remarked. "You act like you've never seen a woman before. I didn't know boys could still be virgins when they got to be your age."
Yar gawped at her, eyes wide. It made her laugh.
"I'm teasing you, Yarro," she explained. "I don't care if you're a virgin or not. Isn't my business. But you ought to learn that it isn't polite to stare at a woman like that if you aren't romantically involved with her."
"It isn't my fault if you're practically bare in front of me!" he protested.
She cocked her head. "Really? You're practically bare in front of me, but somehow I'm resisting the urge to stare at you."
Yar felt his face get hot, and then the heat spread through his whole body. He probably wasn't much to look at. Why would she want to look at him? He was younger than she was, though he couldn't tell what age she really was. She seemed so mature and in-control that he had assumed she was much older, but her body was taut and firm, her face unwrinkled. She probably wasn't old at all. "Sorry," he muttered.
She was actually quite pretty. He didn't suppose he ought to be thinking that at all. She probably wouldn't like anyone to think about whether she was pretty or not. But absent the sword at her hip and all the daggers that had made her seem hard-edged, she was less frightening and more approachable. Maybe, he thought, that was why she carried so many blades.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Well enough," she replied. "You didn't know, but now you do. A woman's body is her own, just as your body is your own. If you make no claims towards mine, I'll make no claims towards yours." She was smiling, though there was a funny curve to it that made him think she was laughing at herself as much as at him.
"Orya never talked like that," he said. "I suppose she didn't really think of me as normal, either."
Aevver went still for a moment. "Orya was your sister?" she asked finally.
Yar nodded. "She was older than me. She's the one who picked my name. Our mother died when I was born, and our father was...away." Their father had been on an assignment somewhere else. Yar didn't remember where, because wherever it was, their father had never come back from it.
"Orya and Yarro," Aevver said. She smiled at him. "She must have loved you very much, to give you a name so like her own."
He blinked hard. His eyes were stinging. If Orya had loved him so much, she shoul
dn't have left him. "I suppose so," he mumbled. He didn't want to talk about Orya anymore. He shivered.
"You ought to be getting warmer," Aevver said. "Scoot closer to the fire and pull your blanket tighter. I should have put water on to boil." She turned away to do that, and Yar stared at the fire, listening to the rustle of her pack and the clink of the metal pot against the stone floor. He didn't want to think about Orya, either, but now he couldn't stop. She had often called him her little boy, but Yar had always thought she was teasing him. Maybe it had been because she had named him and raised him instead of their mother doing it.
One time, when he was quite small, he had fallen in the fountain in their private courtyard. Orya had folded a paper canal boat for him and told him they would play together when she got back from her lessons. But that seemed to be forever away, so Yar had slipped out of the nursery, away from the aged cousin who nodded off more than she watched over him. He had gone to the courtyard, where he had played in the fountain before. He remembered the Voices talking to him, but he didn't remember what they said to him.
He'd climbed up on the lip of the fountain, leaning far over the water to launch the boat. Then a sparkle on the water distracted him. He had reached for it, lost his balance, and tumbled in headfirst. He remembered struggling to get his head above water, trying to cry for help, and then blackness. When he woke up, Orya was hunched over him, her face whiter than the finest bleached silk. There were tears on her cheeks and in her eyes. Yarro had reached to her, crying because she was crying. Orya had clutched him close and whispered that she thought she'd lost her little boy.
"Here, drink this," Aevver said, thrusting a hot cup into his hands. She waited until he closed his grip before letting go of it and retreating to her own side of the fire.
Yar stared down at the steaming mug of tea.
"Are you all right?" Her voice was concerned. He flicked a glance up at her. With her jaw-length hair curling wetly around her face and the compassion in her golden eyes, she looked prettier than he'd ever seen her. Yar shrugged and looked back down at the tea. "Do you want to talk about it?" she persisted.
Yar shook his head.
"All right. But if you want to, I'll listen."
He shrugged again. He didn't want to talk about Orya. Talking about Orya with a stranger meant only talking about one part of her. One of the reasons Yar had loved her so much was that other side of her. He hated the killing, hated it if she came home smelling of blood. But he loved that she could do that and then come home to kiss the top of his head and tell him stories about dragons and minstrels and boys who learned how to fly.
"I'm sleepy," he told Aevver.
"Drink your tea first. And then you can sleep if you want. We'll stay here tonight, as late in the afternoon as it is. I'll fix something to eat later, but I can wake you when it's ready."
Yarro hunched his shoulders in and sipped obediently at the tea. It was a different kind than what she'd given him every morning. This had a tang of fruit and spice in it. He took another sip and smiled just a little.
Chapter 18
Arisanat Burojan had spent the past three years trying to hate Razem Corrone, thinking it would make it easier to do what he must to seize power. In the past three weeks, he had realized he was fundamentally unable to do so. It had been a bitter truth to swallow, and sometimes, when Arisanat looked at the prince, he found himself gulping hard against the bile that rose in his throat. But his disgust was just as much for himself as it was for Razem.
I grew up loving him. It makes sense that I wouldn't find it easy to hate him, he thought.
Then again, he had also grown up loving Venra, and his little brother had been more a part of his daily life. Razem had been someone who wandered into his life occasionally, when there was a royal visit to Burojan Manor or when the First Family was in the capital. Azmei had been there almost as often as Razem, but there had been times when, as a girl, she was preoccupied with something that didn't interest the boys. Well, and there had been that time Razem visited without Azmei because Arisanat's father was attempting to interest the prince in Arisanat's sister Rija.
Gods, that had been a horrible visit.
Arisanat stared down at his hands, loosely holding the reins. How he wished for problems as simple as trying to keep his cousin and his sister from falling in love.
Venra had howled about Azmei's being left out of the visit. Looking back now, Arisanat suspected his twelve-year-old brother had already harbored a secret passion for the princess. At the time, Arisanat had thought Venra was making a fuss over nothing, but he had thrown his support behind Venra because that was his role to play.
"What do you mean, Azmei isn't coming?" Venra had demanded, staring at their father. "He's so boring. At least Az knows all the old stories and how things ought to work."
"Don't you like Razem?" their father had asked. "I've always thought you were good friends. And he will be your ruler someday, after all. You ought to know him better."
"We know him well enough," Arisanat put in. "He's pleasant and just, but he's not Azmei."
Their father had sighed impatiently. "You aren't children any longer, Aris! You, of all people, ought to realize how important it is that your sister do well for herself. It's possible her position may influence yours. We would like her and Razem to become good friends."
Arisanat had understood his father at once; he was fifteen, after all, and they were already discussing his marriage prospects. But Rija was only ten, and Razem eleven, and Arisanat's first impulse was to shout that it wasn't time yet. Azmei herself was only nine, and Arisanat wouldn't have been surprised to hear that she was betrothed; she was a princess, after all. But Rija was of the First Family—important, certainly, and fourth in line to the throne, after Razem and Azmei and Arisanat, but fourth in line meant she ought to have more time.
Looking at the situation from fifteen years' perspective, Arisanat could see that his father had been trying to protect his children, to secure a future for them. At the time, however, it had simply seemed too soon for Rija to be betrothed, even to their beloved cousin.
A deep voice broke into his memories. "My Lord Burojan," said Emran Kho, "could you spare me a moment?"
Arisanat shook himself out of his reverie and looked over at the general. He liked Kho. The black-skinned man had broad shoulders and brown eyes that seemed to be always vigilant. It was a shame, really; Kho would almost certainly side with Razem, and that made him an enemy, however much Arisanat might wish otherwise.
"Of course, General. What do you need?"
Kho scratched at his jaw. Unlike the rest of the soldiers, he wore no headdress despite the sun. Arisanat wondered if it was because it made it too difficult to be vigilant; the man's eyes were constantly roaming the landscape. "My lord, your cousin is indisposed to an early stop this evening." He glanced away, and Arisanat followed his gaze to where Razem rode at the head of the column. "I am concerned about the men and horses both, but he insists we must carry on."
Arisanat nodded slowly. "And you believe the prince is wrong," he said. It hardly seemed possible that he could drive a wedge between the prince and his general—but he would be a fool not to try.
Kho looked down, and Arisanat wondered if a man with such deep color ever blushed. If so, Arisanat couldn't detect it. "My lord, I..." He cleared his throat. "Well, yes."
"Why come to me?"
"He'll listen to you, my lord." Arisanat stared at him, and Kho shrugged. "Well, sir, I'm just his advisor. You, he loves."
Arisanat clicked his tongue, thinking. If he helped Kho handle Razem, it might at least put the general off his guard where Arisanat was concerned. Perhaps he would believe Arisanat was trustworthy. Certainly he'd been unafraid to speak his criticism of the prince, however mild. There were some noblemen who would make a mountain out of that particular molehill.
"Very well," he said at last. "Do me a favor and find me some of that beer Razem's so fond of. The sun creates a powerful thir
st." He winked at Kho and urged his horse up alongside Razem's.
His cousin was drooping in the saddle. Arisanat could easily see that Razem was taking the heat worse than most, though some of that might be his general dispiritedness. Arisanat held in a sigh. He had no right to regret it, since it was entirely his doing.
"You look tired," he said.
Razem jerked upright. "I'm fine."
"No doubt you are," Arisanat said. He made his voice as dry as possible. "And yet I wonder if you aren't expecting a bit much of yourself. We can't cover in a week the distance it took the courier two weeks to travel."
"We aren't hampered by the merchants this time," Razem snapped. "And we have fewer soldiers."
Arisanat reached into the small pouch on his belt and pulled out a cinnamon sliver. "True, but you're still trying to push us almost forty miles a day. That simply isn't sustainable, Razem. And quite frankly," he admitted ruefully, "my arse can't take it."
Razem snorted in amusement, then looked ashamed of himself. "Gods, Aris," he muttered, smiling faintly down at the pommel of his saddle. "I can't just let my father—"
"You'll do your father no favors if you collapse trying to get to him," Arisanat pointed out. "Honestly, knowing your father, he'd rather you arrive too late than make yourself ill on the way."
Razem made a choking noise. Arisanat thought it was even odds whether it was another laugh or a sob. He sighed.
"Look, Raz, let's stop for the day. Give the soldiers a chance to cook a real meal for supper and spend enough time they all get a full night's sleep, even with the watches." He reached out and touched his cousin's elbow. "You and I have had little time to talk, these last few days on the road."
Razem grunted, but Arisanat could tell he was wavering. The prince was exhausted, there was no question of that. Arisanat told himself that even a fiend probably loved his father, but that didn't make him feel any better. Razem was young, impulsive, and angry, but he was no fiend.
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