Cursed by Fire

by Jacquelyn Frank

  Yet her mind was drifting into that particular sky. He wore a tanned leather vest and no shirt, leaving his powerful arms and defined chest and belly bare for all to see. The fact that his arms bore the scars of burns meant very little. It was impossible to notice the scars when there was so much beautiful flesh to see everywhere else.

  He looked hard and capable, and Selinda wondered what it would feel like to be held up against such an undeniably powerful and male body. What would it mean to be a woman in that man’s arms? A real woman. One with the luxury to indulge in such a very real sort of man.

  Apparently everyone agreed with her stunned surprise at his appearance, for a deadened silence fell over the room, the sound of movement and action ceasing. All were seeing him for the first time, save for Selinda and Grannish, but Grannish looked just as shocked as she must have. Instantly that gave her pleasure. Grannish no doubt had been certain she would be humiliated by the presence of the mud farmer. It would explain why the only chair left empty was the one by her side, instead of one farther down and closer to the end of table where those of lower rank would sit.

  One of the dinner stewards brought the tidied-up man to the seat beside her and she watched with obvious amazement as he came to the chair, nodded his head to her, and then sat down as though there was nothing at all unusual about the situation. As though he sat at the table of the grand all the time. If Grannish had been hoping the man would be awkward and out of his element, he was being rudely divested of the notion.

  “Sor,” she heard herself saying, marveling within herself that she had found the wherewithal to speak. “I was so rude as to not ask your name earlier. Now I do not know how to address you.”

  “My name is Dethan,” he said carefully, almost as though he weren’t sure he wanted to share the information. She found herself feeling honored that he had.

  “Sor Dethan, this is my father, Luzien, the grand of Hexis. He welcomes you to his house and table.”

  “Indeed I do!” the grand spoke up, surprising Selinda. She had thought him too wrapped up in Gwynn to have even taken notice, but how silly she was to think anyone in that room had not taken notice of Dethan. “My jenden tells me you defeated the city’s champion two years running at the shivov fights!”

  “If you wish to call it a shivov match. Where I come from, the shivov is a fight to the death. With real weapons.”

  “And where is it you come from?” Luzien asked.

  There was a slight hesitation. “I was born in Toren.”

  “Toren! That is at the very southern edge of the Black Continent! That is very far from here. Two deserts and an ocean away. The Grinder Mountains stand in between as well. How is it you come so far over such treacherous territory?”

  “Just traveling the continent, sor,” Dethan said.

  “ ‘My lord,’ ” Selinda corrected him gently. “Here men of rank are referred to as lords or your lordship. Men without titles are sors.”

  “And women?”

  “Women of no rank are called ‘sora’; women of rank are ‘lady’ or ‘my lady’ or ‘her ladyship,’ ” she informed with a smile. She felt everyone’s riveted interest at their end of the table and she nervously tugged her veil into place, though it had not moved an inch. He reached out and took her hand, pulling it away from the nervous gesture. The whole table audibly drew in its breath. It was not allowed for anyone to touch a member of the royal family without his or her express permission. She could have been utterly offended, could have called him out on it, could have—

  “Do not do that,” Dethan scolded her with a grim frown. “There is nothing for you to hide, unless you seek to hide your beauty from this table of unsuspecting men, lest they all fall in love with their grandina.”

  The idea was so ludicrous that she laughed out loud in a startled burst. The entire table tittered in response. She flushed at that, knowing it was mocking, just as his words must be mocking her. But it had not felt as though he were being cruel. The words had felt … serious.

  “Is there some reason you should not believe me?” he asked, divining her thoughts.

  “You mean other than the fact that you are the only one who thinks so?” she asked in a low voice, a touch of temper to the words. She was being embarrassed … She was being paid attention to and she did not like it. She withdrew her hand from his, dropping it into her lap. He frowned but did not press the matter.

  “It is a wonder you were able to come here at all, what with the Redoe. You certainly will not be leaving anytime soon unless you know of any tricks that we do not,” the grand said.

  This brought a stiffness to Dethan’s spine, his whole body tense and taut as a bowstring. “Redoe?” he asked slowly. Carefully. As if he needed to make himself perfectly clear.

  “Yes. The enemy at our walls. The Redoe have always been a thorn in our side, but with this latest siege, they are proving to be heartier and more serious than ever before.”

  “The city is under siege?” he asked. Again, very carefully.

  “Why, yes. How can you be here and not know that?” Selinda asked him, genuine curiosity in her features.

  “I have only … just arrived.”

  “But surely you passed the Redoe at the gates of the city. They have been camped there for ages.”

  “I came from … the other direction.”

  “The other … You mean the Death Mountains?” The jenden scoffed. “No one comes in from the Death Mountains. He is a liar.”

  Dethan shot the jenden a look. He did not take kindly to being called a liar, but he did not press the matter. Mainly because in a way it was a lie. He had come from that direction, but not necessarily from the mountains themselves.

  “You are very brave and a warrior besides. Perhaps a skilled fighter such as yourself has an idea of how to fight back these Redoe,” the grand said.

  Dethan frowned. “I would begin by not having a fair in the middle of a war,” he said darkly.

  The entire table went quiet.

  “But the harvest fair is a tradition,” the grand argued. “We always …”

  “And apparently the Redoe laying siege is a tradition as well. If you want to be free of your enemy, you must defeat them once and for all. And defeat them soundly to relieve any other enemies of the notion you are weak and vulnerable. You might start by moving the heart of your city to the plateau at the leading edge of the Death Mountains. It would give you the high ground and leave you naturally defended on three sides. A good sound wall on the fourth will make it nearly impossible for the fortress to be penetrated. I would create a series of walls …” He stood and reached to the center of the table, grabbed up a candle and blew it out, then turned it upside down. He used the softened, colored wax to draw on the white linen tablecloth a rough sketch of the city. It was a circle, with the mountains on one side, the city wall on the other, and the city between. “A wall here, here, and here,” he said, bisecting the city and then splitting those halves in half again, “and you will buffer the entire city. Should your enemy breach one of the walls, you could pull the inhabitants and resources of the city behind the next wall … and then the next. This will exhaust the enemy’s energy and supplies as they try to get at you again and again. If you must be on the defensive, make certain you have a defense in the first place.”

  Dethan dropped the candle onto the table, sat back down, and began to grab food off the serving plates in front of him. He ate as though he had not had a meal in decades. He savored it all, ate it all. And all the while he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was being stared at.

  “I say …” the grand said after several minutes. “Were you … How do you, a simple mud farmer, know how to do something like that?”

  “Who said I was a mud farmer?” Dethan asked, his brow lifting. The grand looked at his jenden acidly.

  “You are not a mud farmer?”

  “No, your lordship.”

  “Then … what are you?”

  “My trade yo
u mean? I am a general. I once commanded a great army.”

  Grannish scoffed. “You barely had clothes on your back and you expect us to believe—”

  “I do not expect you to believe anything, nor do I care if you do. I do care if you call me a liar once more, Jenden Grannish, so I would use caution if I were you.”

  The jenden paled and grew angry all in the same breath. Selinda opened her mouth to say something to diffuse the situation but she was disrupted when Gwynn suddenly leaned toward her, her buxom chest nearly dumping into Selinda’s lap as she leaned eagerly toward Dethan.

  “So you are used to commanding leagues of men? Are they all as powerful as you?” She practically oozed the word “powerful,” leading everyone to believe she meant something else entirely.

  “Yes, but I have been on my own for some time,” he said carefully. “I have taken a sabbatical for some years. I will be returning to Toren as soon as possible, though. I must lead my armies once more.”

  “Armies?” Selinda asked, marking the plural.

  He seemed to catch himself. “I misspoke. I will lead one army. One is enough.”

  Selinda believed him. She believed without a doubt that all it would take was one army for this man to conquer worlds. Apparently her father did as well.

  “You must advise my general of the army. Perhaps your ideas can end this conflict with the Redoe.”

  There was a choked sound from down the table. Firru, a relatively short, stockily built man with a curling, grizzled beard and no moustache, clearly took offense at the idea of a stranger giving him military advice.

  “Your most honorable,” Firru sputtered, “the matter is clearly in hand. We are weeks away from a solution. You know the Redoe. They will tire of this nonsense outside the walls and they will retire to their nomad tents, content to have stolen a few supplies for the winter days. The temperature will soon drop and they will be gone.”

  “Only to return again next spring,” Selinda said with a scoffing sound. “And again. And again. Until one day they finally make it beyond the walls and win the city for themselves.”

  “I will never let that day come,” Jenden Grannish said.

  It was clear to Dethan that Selinda wanted to say something, something very bitter tasting, but for some reason she bit her tongue and backed down from the jenden’s claim. It was also clear, however, that she had no faith in his abilities to back up that claim. So if she outranked him, if she did not believe him, why would she not call him out on it? Dethan wondered. She had seemed so strong earlier. So able to take control of a situation. But now she was deferring. Now she was hiding behind her veil as if she were something to be ashamed of.

  “And what will you do to stop them?” Dethan queried, his tone hard and dark. He didn’t like what he was seeing. He liked what he was feeling even less. None of this should matter to him. None of it did matter to him, he insisted in his own head. “Because once they get beyond the walls, the end of your city follows quickly after, and no doubt your lives.”

  The observation cast a grim pall down the length of the table.

  “Well,” Gwynn said brightly, “I daresay this isn’t the topic for proper dinner conversation. You’ve put us all off our meals. Come, tell us a funny little story to chase away this doom and gloom.”

  “Why tell a different story when this one is already so humorous,” Dethan said, his frown anything but amused. “You sit here dining, joking, going to the fair, posturing, and preening, and all the while the beasts outside are whittling away at your defenses. I have hardly heard of anything funnier.” Dethan moved to get to his feet, disgusted with the lot of them. “I’ll take my leave before your barbarians make it to the dinner table,” he said.

  “No!” To everyone’s shock, the grandina came out of her seat and grabbed on to his arm. She leaned so much of her weight into her grasp that his biceps bulged to a heftily rounded mass of muscle. “Please do not give up on us. We are not as ignorant as we seem. Surely we are not as unworthy. Please, I beg of you to stay.”

  “Selinda!” Grannish snapped, his tone appalled and his expression aghast. “A grandina does not beg anything from such common filth!”

  “Quiet!” she hissed at him, that defiant fire Dethan had seen earlier rearing its head with a vengeance. It raced over her features beneath the veil, causing every muscle in her body to stiffen. It was as though it took every ounce of the energy in her body to stand up to that man. Because it obviously cost her so much, Dethan let himself be detained. He looked through the crosshatching of her veil down into her eyes, their vivid teal so full of her desperation. It was such a powerful thing. She made it a powerful thing. As though her entire life hinged on him staying. Him. A stranger of no fame and no fortune, only the words on his lips to recommend him, and yet she was willing to throw weight behind him. “He has spoken more truth in these past minutes than has been spoken at this table in years,” she said fiercely. “Father, if you do not see the wisdom of his words, then … then … then you are not the grand I thought you were.”

  “Sit down!” Grannish spat out, leaping to his feet and leaning across the table as though he wanted to grab hold of the grandina and shove her into her seat. “You are making a spectacle of yourself!” For some reason this made the redhead on Selinda’s left snort out a laugh, as if to say, What do you expect from her.

  “Daughter, he is a stranger,” the grand said, but it was with a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. His daughter seized hold of the hope to be found in that fleeting expression.

  “Perhaps we need a stranger to look at this from the outside. Perhaps we have been sitting in the middle of it for so long that we no longer can think of a new way of dealing with the situation.”

  “Selinda. Please.” The grand gestured to her chair, and after a moment with her jaw set in resistance, she slowly regained her seat. A pointed look from the grand put Grannish back in his seat as well. “It will do none of us any good to become hot tempered about this business. If we tear one another to shreds, it will make it all the easier for the Redoe to pick over our remains. Sor, if you would be so kind as to confer with my general on the morrow, perhaps you can lend insight to—”

  “No. I cannot.”

  The grand’s last word hung suspended on his lips even as his eyes widened a little at the understanding that he had been both interrupted and denied.

  “You cannot?” the grand echoed.

  “I have pressing business and have no time to waste,” Dethan explained, though he did not know why he was making excuses. He had never done so before. He saw a thing, wanted a thing, and he took that thing. He did all of this with little regard for the collateral damage it would cause. And even now, he saw no reason to be concerned with any other details … save one.

  He did not know why, but the undercurrent to the way the grandina was being treated, to the way she was regarded with so little respect, irritated him. Perhaps it was because where he came from women were strong and powerful. They had to be to give birth to sons and then send them off to be trained as warriors. There had also been those women who had become warriors themselves, standing shoulder to shoulder with the sons of other women, all of whom looked up to them, knowing just how hard they had had to work in order to be considered the equal of a man, often being tested twice as hard as the men simply because they bore breasts and bore children. Some men thought this made them weaker. Dethan knew better. It made them lighter. Made them faster. Made them more cunning than their male counterparts. They compensated in wits for what they were short of in strength.

  Dethan saw these strengths in the grandina. And yet he saw weakness in her as well. He saw vulnerability. Why that should matter to him, he did not know. It simply … did. Perhaps, he thought, it was a test. Perhaps his commitment to his goal was being tested by this distraction. Or perhaps she was a test of his honor. Had he learned humility and respect as he had burned in the hells? Had he learned to think of others before himself? Weysa was the guardian of wome
n.

  No. He would think himself into circles trying to figure out the wishes and whims of the gods. He had been given a clear assignment and he must stick to that plan.

  But perhaps gaining the grand’s respect could secure him an advantage. Perhaps it could also secure him resources. Both of which, he thought with an internal grimace, he was apparently going to need if he was going to get past the Redoe.

  “Your most honorable,” Grannish began in protest, “it is not worth your time to deal with the disrespect of this mud farmer. Allow me to purge him from this fortress entirely and—”

  “It would require all your substandard army to achieve such a thing if I do not wish to go,” Dethan said softly. Dangerously.

  Then the strangest thing happened. The grandina’s hand, which had dropped beneath the tablecloth, reached to lie atop his thigh. She very gently squeezed the muscles of his legs. It was a message of some sort, though he could not understand if she was warning him to tread carefully or supporting him in delight for his strength in standing up to Grannish.

  But it wasn’t either of those things that mattered to him. What mattered was the way it felt. It felt like … like … like something he had not felt in so long he was afraid to even consider it. Did her warm, strong hand on his thigh actually make him feel … aroused? As a woman arouses a man? It could not be, he thought with all due haste. It should not be. His body was not his own to give. It was not allowed to feel the heat that bled insidiously up the inside of his thigh and into the seat of his groin.