Dance With the Enemy
Dance
Wi
th The Enemy
By Linda Boulanger
©2013 Linda Boulanger
All rights reserved.
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and/or the publisher of this book, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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Published by TreasureLine Publishing
To my sister, Leigh Bridges, and my brother, Dean Gamble, who both lost their lives to cancer during the writing of this book. I love you two and thank you for always being there for me.
Leaning against the railing, her honeyed-cinnamon curls whipping loose from their tie, Elenya breathed deeply, eyes closed as she enjoyed the misty sea spray against her face. She felt at home aboard the King’s vessel sent to retrieve her from the shores of Aleone, though it was finer than any she’d seen in her eighteen years of life.
She looked up at the stars sprinkled across the sky and smiled. Without concern that anyone would see her in the dim light, she pulled the corked bottle from beneath her cloak and stared at the rolled parchment inside. She recited the words she’d written on the page before flinging the bottle as far from the bow as was possible for her slight form.
For a brief moment, hope won out over fear and she allowed herself to look forward to her new life, to believe in the dream she’d asked for through her penned words. With one last glance at the stars above she turned, ready to sneak back to her chamber to prepare for the moment when she would fulfill the very reason she was born.
Prologue
The wooden gavel fell against the square slate, cracking through the already heavy atmosphere. The King brought it down three more times before the crowd could be quieted after the reading of the guilty verdict.
“Because of the crimes you have committed,” he continued, “you shall be hanged at daybreak in the Centrehead Square, a sentence that is irrevocable. Further, since your crime was inflicted directly upon the King’s family, your Drille shall be exiled, sent to the far Eastern shores of Riandus.”
The King’s steely gaze softened only slightly as it shifted from the accused criminal to his mother - the daughter of his oldest sister. He’d been about to make the exile permanent as well, though the depth of sheer anguish on the woman’s face caused him to reconsider. He had to give her hope.
Ah, Damalenya
, he thought. Even more so than his own children, this woman he loved as dearly as a daughter possessed a spirit closer to his own. Her will to have everything go her way, regardless of the rules mandated by those in authority, seemed to have been passed down to her children. And her beauty that far surpassed all others made everyone fall over themselves to fulfill her wishes. Even him.
As she sat on the Diaz wrapping a strand of her long hair about her finger, the old King was struck with inspiration. “Your Drille shall remain there, in exile, until a sign is received. A sign recognizable to all.” Damalenya sat up taller, her hands falling to her lap, her neck stretched taut as she listened. “The sign shall be a daughter, born with eyes the color of a perfect rock spring emerald and hair the exact same coloring as Damalenya’s.”
The crowd gasped. Though the green eyes had been seen on occasion throughout the years, never since the princess’ birth had another possessed hair in such a rich shade of honeyed-cinnamon. Damalenya dropped her chin, her shoulders slumping in the same direction. Only those close to her recognized the change in the position of her hands as she clasped them together and closed her eyes while she offered up a soundless plea for divine intervention.
Mordin Andorak watched in silent fascination. A boy of eight, a grandson of the King, just like the accused man only of higher ranking, he would have been considered too young to attend the proceedings had he been anyone other than the future king.
Young Andorak had no idea the part he would play in seeing the sentence come to pass. Though the day they told him the child had been born – a baby girl with hair the exact color of Damalenya’s and eyes that showed promise of changing to a beautiful emerald green – he thought of the courtroom and his cousin who had given his life in the name of love some seventy years earlier. Had it been worth it? He wouldn’t know. His love had been chosen for him, coming in the form of a bond forged by the marking in a marriage arranged by the Masters.
Taking off his crown, Mordin ran a hand through still thick, though no longer dark hair as he continued to think. If he was being honest, he’d have to say he’d loved his chosen well enough -- the sharing of blood assured some feelings beyond simple lust. After all, there was something about having ones blood running through the veins of another that demanded at least a modicum of bonding. For a man, it created possessiveness as well as a drive.
But the heart?
He’d found love once – a love orchestrated by life, not the mingling of blood when he’d fallen for one of the Daughters of Damalenya just weeks before the Dremis that brought his chosen. Had his father, the King’s oldest son, not recognized the signs and stepped in, he might have found himself in the same situation as the Zanak man who sent Aleone into exile – a man who compromised a woman marked with the blood of another man, all in the name of love.
Young and naïve, Mordin had thought he would dissolve the ritual of marking when the time came for him to take the throne. Yet there he stood, crown in hand, having effected no change whatsoever.
He thrust his guilt aside, instead taking up his quill and sending a note to the Masters urging them to act diligently and to wield wisdom in choosing the blood serum they would administer to the Aleone child. He had no say in the markings, could only hope that his request would be used as a guide and that somehow, someday, all wrongs would be made right.