The Chosen

by Thea Harrison

  After walking a few blocks, he said, “Most of the town’s population is on the island, I take it.”

  “Yes, Commander.” She turned businesslike. “The town council urged everyone to evacuate, but a few refused.”

  “Who remains?”

  “There are two brothels who anticipate earning some of your men’s money, along with a couple of inns that remain open to any travelers who may desire a warm bed under a roof as a change from the hardship of a winter camp.” She paused, then said evenly, “The rest of us are simply hoping you don’t abuse the women, loot or ransack the businesses, or requisition everyone’s homes without their permission.”

  He stopped walking, abruptly angry with the townsfolk cowering on the island, angry with their blasted Chosen who had decided to play this roundabout game instead of meeting with him openly, and angry with everything else about the miserable, freezing day.

  Hold on to your temper, Wulf, Jermaine said. This isn’t her fault.

  Pivoting, he glared at the other man. Then he strode back to the shop that had the jars of caviar in the window, his long legs making short work of the distance. Stripping off his gauntlets, he dug into his pocket for tools and picked the lock on the shop door.

  Lily had followed him, her posture stiff with outrage, but she said nothing when he thrust open the door and strode into the shadowy interior.

  By the door, Jermaine sighed. “You might as well step inside too, my lady. This might take a few minutes.”

  “The shop is not open,” she bit out.

  “No,” he agreed. “But there is also no reason to stand outside in this wind until we absolutely must.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped inside, and Jermaine and Gordon followed.

  Wulfgar ignored them. There were twenty small jars of caviar along with a couple of different kinds of salt bread. He swept all the jars together and dumped them on the counter.

  He preferred the salt bread made in Ys to the kind he had sampled from Earth, and he grabbed several packets to toss them beside the caviar, then selected a couple of bottles of wine. He had always wondered what chocolate might taste like, so he grabbed some packages, and then a strange metal container nearby caught his attention.

  Picking it up, he frowned at the graphic and sounded out the strange words written in English. “Ch-ef Bouy…”

  Lily snapped, “It’s called Chef Boyardee. The shop stocks it especially for the Chosen, who gets a hankering for it sometimes.”

  “Well then. If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me.” He added a can to the pile. “Gordon, Jermaine, is there anything you want from in here?”

  “Not at the moment, Commander. Perhaps later.” Gordon spoke politely while Jermaine just looked at him in exasperation.

  “Fine.” He said to Gordon, “Tally up the cost, and leave the coin in a jar behind the counter. When you’re done, take everything back to my tent.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  While Gordon busied himself, Wulf turned to Lily, who stared at him with wide eyes. She had pushed her hood back. The friction caused fine strands of dark hair to float around her head in a delicate nimbus.

  “No matter how long I remain camped in Calles, that coin will remain untouched behind the counter.” With an effort, he kept his voice quiet and even, but his anger still burned through. “The shopkeeper may choose to remain on the island, but presumably he or she would still like to earn a living. If any of my troops want to buy anything, they will add their coin to mine. There will be no looting. Under my command, the punishment for rape is death. Since embarking on this campaign, I haven’t had to carry out that sentence once.”

  “I see,” she said, her voice quiet.

  “While we are at it, I also did not assassinate the lord of Braugne. That act was committed by someone else.” His gaze burned with a steady, banked rage. “He was not only my half brother, he was my closest friend, and I will avenge his death if it takes me the rest of my life.”

  As he had spoken, pink color had washed over her cheeks. Clearly floundering, she opened her mouth and closed it again. When she finally spoke, her voice was subdued. “We have heard tales of other things.”

  “I’m all too aware of the stories being told,” he said between his teeth. “I’ve also seen the bodies left butchered in homesteads, and the burned fields. None of those atrocities have been committed by me or my men.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” Her reply was even softer than before.

  This time he refused to let remorse get a foothold. “Now, if that will be all, I’ve got other things to attend to.” He looked at Gordon. “Take her back to camp with you.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Lily decided she wasn’t going to get offended at being taken back to camp along with the commander’s purchases as if she were another of his possessions. She’d already caused enough trouble for one afternoon.

  Retreating into the shelter of her hood, she walked to the encampment beside Gordon. He was taciturn, and she made no attempt to break the silence.

  Every passionate word the Wolf had spoken had rung with truth. He shouldn’t have broken into the shop of course, but she suspected he had done it in part because he had lost his temper. When he had left her, he and Jermaine had headed toward the closest inn where golden light gleamed in the windows, shining brightly in the frigid, sullen day.

  She chewed her lip. What were they doing, and why had he sent her ahead to the camp instead of keeping her with him?

  Maybe they were securing rooms for the night. Maybe they were hiring women, and her presence would have been, well, cumbersome.

  At that thought, she pulled a face. All in all, it was best she hadn’t joined them. The gods only knew, every time she opened her mouth, she threatened to let out something she shouldn’t. The less opportunity she had for creating more headaches for everyone, the better.

  Cook fires dotted the landscape of tents that covered the valley up to the edge of the forest. It was a sobering sight. There must be thousands of troops. She didn’t see any cattle, which puzzled her at first, but when she heard a whinny from the direction of the trees, she realized they were using the forest for the shelter it offered their animals from the wind.

  Among the orderly rows, the commander’s tent was unmistakable, larger than the others with two guards at the flaps. She swiftly scanned the encampment but could find no hint of the weather magic which had died down a while ago.

  Once at the commander’s tent, Gordon lifted a flap and gestured for her to precede him. Uncomfortable and fascinated at once, she stepped through the opening to discover a pleasant surprise.

  The interior was filled with light and warmth. Thick rugs covered the ground, and woolen hangings around the tent walls provided relief from the winter chill. Braziers warmed the interior and provided the light.

  To one side a sitting area was made up of chairs constructed of leather stretched on wooden frames. A large table of planks set on wooden blocks dominated the other side. There were papers strewn over the top, along with maps.

  Aside from the colors woven into the patterned rugs and hangings, it was all very plain, but overall the interior was much more comfortable than she had expected and much less intimate than she had feared. A woolen hanging separated the tent into two spaces. It had been tied back, and just visible on the other side was the edge of a neatly made bed.

  Inside, she quickly grew overheated and removed her cloak. Gordon unloaded the bag of purchases and stacked everything neatly at one end of the table. She hovered nearby.

  The maps and the papers beckoned her. She wanted to rifle through them, but Gordon positioned himself near the tent opening where he watched her steadily with an impassive expression.

  His psyche was another matter. When she gave Gordon a polite smile, the shadowy figure over his head glared at her with unmistakable enmity.

  There was just no making friends with some people. She had learned a long time a
go to mask her reactions to the psyches around her… mostly.

  She asked, “Might the commander have something I could look at while I wait?”

  After a moment, the soldier nodded to a pile of books that were stacked on a wooden stump by one of the chairs in the sitting area. Wandering over, she picked up the books.

  One was a history of Camaeline Abbey. Another was a set of biographies following the lineage of the Chosens. The Wolf of Braugne had done his homework before arriving.

  Flipping through the biographies, she saw the last penned entry was about Raella Fleurise and made no mention of the new Chosen. She wasn’t surprised. The date at the beginning of the book meant it had been created before Raella’s death in the spring.

  Unexpected tears pricked Lily’s eyes. Raella had been elderly, and she had died peacefully of natural causes, her husband and family by her side. One couldn’t ask for a better ending, but in many ways, she had been the mother Lily’d never had, and she thought she would feel Raella’s absence for the rest of her life.

  Closing the book, she set it back on the stack with the others. Then, selecting a chair at random, she settled and prepared to wait for the commander to finish his business in town.

  He wasn’t gone long.

  She had untied the fastenings of her quilted jacket and drifted into a doze when voices sounded outside the tent. As she jerked awake, the flap lifted, bringing a blast of cold air along with the Wolf. Jermaine followed at his heels.

  Instantly, the interior of the spacious tent felt much smaller—too small, in fact, and far more intimate than it had a few moments ago. As Lily stirred, Wulfgar’s sharp eyes took in everything at a single glance, her position near one of the braziers, Gordon’s stolid presence, the neat stack of store-bought goods.

  As his attention lingered on the maps and papers at the other end of the table, the devil took hold of Lily’s mouth.

  “Curiosity is a sin,” she said, keeping her tone pious. “Of course I wanted to read all of it.”

  His dark gaze snapped back to her, and he laughed. She wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised by it.

  Smiling, Jermaine collected the papers and rolled up the maps. Wulfgar unbuckled his sword belt and laid the sword on the table. As Gordon took his cloak, breastplate, and gauntlets, he ordered, “Bring us some mulled wine.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bowing his head, Gordon stepped out, followed by Jermaine.

  With no one else present to buffer the impact of Wulfgar’s personality, the interior of the tent shrank even farther in size.

  Underneath the breastplate he had worn leather padding, and he undid the fastenings as he strode toward the brazier beside her. As he pulled the padding off and tossed it onto a chair, she saw that he wore a black linen shirt that was open at the strong column of his tanned throat.

  Power coursed through the air. The power of his personality, the goddess’s Power.

  She fought the urge to back away, fought to stand steady in the face of it.

  His psyche… his psyche was the shadow of a wolf, huge in size, and it crouched as if preparing to spring, its attention unwaveringly on her.

  This was unmistakably one of the two men she had seen in visions for the past several years. She had known he was coming to Calles for some time, but now that he was here, she felt utterly at a loss as to what to do about him.

  Holding his scarred hands over the glowing coals of the fire, he said, pleasantly enough, “I presume you have assessed the encampment. That is one of the reasons why you agreed to come, is it not?”

  Cautiously, she said, “It is, and yes, I have.”

  “Did you learn what you wanted to know?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” she admitted. “We at the abbey have a lot of disparate pieces of information, and I don’t understand how it all fits together.”

  He turned to face her fully. It was a simple shift in posture, but the tiny hairs at the back of her neck rose in response.

  Perhaps unwisely, she added, “I didn’t sense any weather mages in your camp.”

  Destiny was like a golden river, sweeping them all to an unknown shore. Visions crowded at the edge of her eyesight until she wasn’t sure what she might say or do.

  Margot was right to be terrified of letting her loose from the abbey. Lily wasn’t fit to go anywhere by herself.

  His hard mouth drew tight. “That’s because there aren’t any. Did you really believe I might be behind the intensification of this early winter?”

  Forcing herself to stay anchored in the here and now, she lifted a shoulder. “Try to imagine things from our point of view. You know the terrible things we’ve heard about your approaching army. An invading force that would torch farms and execute people might also use the weather as a weapon to subdue a populace.”

  He shook his head with a snort. “A decision like that would cripple my troops as much as it would anyone else around me. No general in their right mind launches a campaign in the dead of winter—and right now it has turned so unseasonably cold, that is, in effect, what we’re facing if those weather mages are not stopped. They are trying to force me to halt.”

  As she listened, she pressed the knuckles of her folded hands against her lower lip. What he said made undeniable sense. “Do you have witches in your army?”

  “None with the kind of skills that the Camaeline priestesses have,” he growled. “Why do you think I came with gifts of manuscripts and gold? If I made a habit of giving away large sums of wealth to everyone I met, I’d have no funds left to pay for my army. My witches have been fending off the weather attacks as best they can, but there are too few of them. They’re exhausted, and we’re still camped in the open.”

  The fine skin around her eyes crinkled as she winced. “You need shelter.”

  “Yes. That’s why I stayed in town. I met with the inn owners and brothel keepers to negotiate terms so my troops can take time inside in rotation. Tomorrow Jermaine and I are going to hunt for our poisoner among the soldiers who were on the barge this afternoon. I also want to negotiate with Calles’s townsfolk for the rental of their homes. You can take the details of my offer back to the abbey in the morning.”

  She frowned. “I can try.”

  His expression turned impatient. “Since they’re hiding on the island anyway, there’s no reason they can’t make good coin while they’re at it. My gold is as good as any other.”

  “You have a point, but it’s more complicated than the townsfolk just collecting rent while they’re absent from their houses.” Pinching the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger, she tried to think through the issue like Margot would. “I sympathize with the position you are in, but it’s similar to how it would look if the Chosen had accepted your gifts. There’s the politics of it, the appearance of support. Calles would, in effect, be declaring sides.”

  “Calles is going to have to pick a side,” he said bluntly. “Guerlan or Braugne. There is no question of that.”

  As he spoke, Lily felt a breath of air along her skin, as though she were being brushed by the cloak of someone immense walking by, and she knew the goddess was near.

  He was right, of course. She had seen this coming since she was a child.

  Like the rocks and sand that shifted on the shore with the tide, the visions had varied over the years, until recently they had become fixed into a pattern of unshifting dichotomy.

  A bitter winter after a lean harvest. The kingdoms of Ys filled with unrest.

  A darkening over the land, like the sun dying. The clash of swords.

  Two men, a wolf and a tiger, slamming together in mortal combat. One of them had an insatiable hunger that would grind Ys to dust.

  And the fall of Calles. In every shifting vision, that was the one part that remained immutable.

  “No,” she whispered, her heart aching. “We can’t remain neutral, can we? Even though we might wish it.”

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She forced the i
mages away and plastered a smile on her face. “No ghosts here, only an uncertain path to the future.”

  His gaze was too discerning for comfort. Then, deliberately, he lightened the mood. “The future is going to have to wait for a few hours. I haven’t had lunch and I’m starving.”

  Pivoting, he strode back to the table, picked up a jar of caviar, and twisted off the lid. Tearing open a packet of salt bread, he unsheathed the knife at his waist, scooped some of the caviar onto the flat wafer, and popped it in his mouth. Closing his eyes briefly, he chewed, pleasure evident in his strong features.

  Watching him consume the delicacy with such sensual enjoyment made her skin tingle. It was… erotic. Heat washed over her skin at the word.

  “Have you ever tasted caviar?” he asked.

  “No.” She looked at the fire in the brazier. “I haven’t tried most things in that shop. Imports from Earth are expensive.”

  His broad hand appeared in her line of vision, holding out a wafer with caviar. “Here.”

  Surprise flared. Her gaze flew to his face. “Oh… thank you! But I couldn’t.”

  He frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. Take it.”

  “I…” As his frown grew fierce, her protest died. Accepting the wafer from his long fingers, she nibbled at it curiously. Briny pearls of flavor and salted crunch filled her mouth.

  A gleam of amusement sparked in his dark eyes. “You have an expressive face, but I can’t read what it is saying right now. What do you think?”

  She swallowed before she replied. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t have much of a taste for fishy flavors. It’s very interesting. Intense.”

  “It’s fabulous. Have more. No? The chocolate then.” Before she could protest, he tore open one of the chocolate bars, broke it into pieces, and offered one to her. As she wavered, his expression turned suddenly wise. “You’ve had chocolate before, and you like it.”

  “I love it,” she said on a little moan.

  She felt agonized with indecision. Was it appropriate for her to accept it? She wasn’t a reliable source on what was appropriate at the best of times.