Prince's Fire (14 page)

She frowned at the papers on her bed. Challenging as the cipher was, it was easier to lose herself in a complex problem than it was to open her heart to all these messy emotions. In mathematics and cryptanalysis, she either solved a problem or didn't. There was no betrayal, no confusion, no heartbreak. Just a stepwise process. “We've got assassins to track down.”

“That will not occupy your every waking minute.”

“Actually, it will. This ciphertext is the only lead we have.”

“What if I stay and help you with the cipher? After all, it's my life at stake.”

Celeste hesitated. She craved his company, but Rayn was a distraction. Not that he tried to be. It was just that with a body like his, he couldn't help it. “You don't know how to break ciphers.”

“There's rote work, isn't there?” He picked up one of her frequency lists. “Counting up letters and whatnot?”

“Yes . . .”

“Give me the rote jobs, then. Save the hard stuff for yourself.” He smiled. “And when you get tense, I can help you relax.”

Don't tempt me.
The thought of his hands on her body again, his magical heat flowing through her . . .

She was going to stay focused. But it made sense to let him help with the cipher. “All right. You can help.”

B
y evening, Celeste was ready to throw down her quill in frustration. Frequency analysis was getting her nowhere. She'd tried it using every language she knew: Riorcan, Kjallan, Inyan, even Mosari. But nothing had yielded results. Now the letters blurred before her eyes, and she couldn't concentrate. She sank into the sheets, defeated. “There's no getting around it,” she said. “This is a homophonic cipher.”

Rayn eyed her. “What does that mean?”

“A nonhomophonic substitution cipher is where you substitute one letter for another. Say you replace the Riorcan letter
vert
with the letter
hinan
everywhere it appears. Each letter in the alphabet is mapped to some other letter, and that letter replaces it in the cipher. That sort of cipher can be broken by frequency analysis. See here.” She sat up and grabbed one of her papers. The bed looked messy, but she knew exactly what each paper was and what purpose it served. “In the Riorcan language—or any other language—some letters appear more commonly than others. For example,
olov
, a common letter, represents eight percent of all letters in written Riorcan. In the ciphertext, if
hinan
appeared twenty times, that would be eight percent of the total letters. So I would guess that
hinan
is the mapping for
olov
.”

“But it's just a guess. Right?”

“An educated guess. It may be wrong, certainly—as it turns out, in this case it is wrong—but if it failed, I could try the letter
yertia
, which represents seven percent of all Riorcan letters, or
riach
, which represents six percent. Essentially, I would make educated guesses and see what they yield.”

“But the other two didn't work.”

“No, and in fact no character in this cipher appears twenty times.” Celeste sighed. “We're dealing with a more sophisticated cipher.”

“A homophonic cipher?”

She nodded. “A cipher designed to defeat frequency analysis. I suspected it was homophonic when I saw how many symbols it used. See, instead of assigning just one symbol to a high-frequency letter like
olov
, the cipher creator assigns it several different symbols and uses them all in turn. That means no letter appears much more frequently than any other, and I can't tell
olov
apart from a low-frequency letter.”

“Are you saying it can't be solved?”

“No.” She bit her lip. “There are ways to break homophonic ciphers. But it's harder, and I can't guarantee success.”

“How do you break a homophonic cipher?”

“I look for patterns. Letter combinations. For example, in Kjallan you often see the letter combination
kj
, but you never see the reverse,
jk
.”

“I see.” His brow wrinkled. “Looking for those patterns sounds like tedious work. Especially if you have to attempt it in multiple languages.”

“Indeed.” She flopped backward on the bed, closing her eyes. “But it will be worth it if I can get this decoded.”

“I think you need a break,
karamasi
.”

That word again. “I need to get back to work. Those assassins are still out there.”

“Not as many as there were before,” said Rayn. “And you've been working on this for hours. Your mind needs rest. Come here and let me relax you.”

She hesitated, uncertain of his intentions and also still drawn to the cipher. She
had
to break it. She'd worked on it all afternoon and accomplished nothing except to determine that it was immune to frequency analysis. And yet Rayn was right. Her mind was blurry and unfocused, like her eyes upon awakening in the morning.

The bed sank beside her, and she felt the warmth of Rayn's huge body. “Here,” he said. “I insist.” He pulled her onto his lap.

She tried to straighten herself out, untangle her rag-doll limbs, but he placed her where he wanted her, in the crook of his thighs, and massaged her shoulders. His magic began to flow, a gentle breath of heat, warming and unknotting tense muscles. She groaned and leaned into his hands. Bliss.

“You need this,” he said.

“I can't imagine why I'm so sore. I've been sitting on the bed all afternoon.”

“You need to take breaks,” said Rayn. “Maybe take a walk with me every few hours.”

She sighed. A walk sounded nice, but the sun had surely gone down by now, and she needed to stay focused on the cipher. Anyway, they couldn't walk freely around Denmor with assassins at large.

“Tell me something,” said Rayn. “When you were in Cassian's power, was he cruel to you?”

She shivered. “I told you. He beat me.”

“Was there more?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you shudder when I mention his name.” Rayn shifted to the tender muscles of her neck, working out the knots with warmth and gentle pressure.

Ugly girl.
“Cassian hated me. Hated my brother, really, but he couldn't get to Lucien because Vitala had stolen him away. He took his frustrations out on me.”

“How did he take out these frustrations?”

If you weren't a princess, you'd be nobody, girl. Do you think a man would want you, with a body like that?
She swallowed. “Sometimes he locked me in a cold room overnight.”

Rayn's hands stiffened. “A cold room? You mean a larder?”

“It was a prison cell,” said Celeste. “He had one set aside for me. In the Imperial Palace, the prison cells aren't served by the hypocaust, and if no heat-glows are provided, they get cold, especially at night. Our interrogators use the cold cell as a means of softening prisoners up. Cassian would throw me in there with only my shift to wear, and I'd shiver all night long.”

He was silent for a moment. “Is it true you killed Cassian?”

“Not really,” said Celeste. “Vitala and Ista killed him. I helped.”

“Ista? The assembly representative?”

Celeste nodded. “That's her.”

“I wish I could kill him again for you. He likes to freeze his political enemies? I'd watch him burn.” Rayn's magic intensified, and she felt a surge of warmth. “You'll never be cold with me.”

“I wouldn't ask you to be my personal heat-glow,” said Celeste.

“
Karamasi
, I'm better than a heat-glow.” He turned her, lifted her chin, and tilted her mouth toward his.

She could not help herself. She parted her lips in silent invitation, and he kissed them. It astonished her that a man as big as Rayn, with so much muscle and power, could be this gentle. She'd experienced his roughness too, at the pool in the forest, and liked it. But now he held her, stroked her, and kissed her as softly and lovingly as if she were made of glass.

This was not the primal passion they'd experienced in the Riorcan wilds. It was something quieter, something deeper. And Rayn was right—no heat-glow could compare.

•   •   •

Two days into the decoding work, Rayn was getting the hang of things. Deciphering a coded message was a puzzle, essentially—an extraordinarily difficult puzzle requiring a great deal of tedious work. It was one-third mathematics, one-third linguistics, and one-third intuition. Also three-thirds patience. Whenever Celeste became fatigued or frustrated, he took her in his arms, warmed her, rubbed the knots out of her shoulders, and kissed her senseless.

He loved warming her with his magic. He'd warmed other people before—friends, family members. Usually there were no sexual overtones. But Celeste enjoyed it so much more than anyone else he'd plied his magic upon, perhaps because of what she'd been through with Cassian. For her, heat was comfort. While she worked on the cipher, he settled himself behind her, pulling her against his chest. “Pay no attention to me,” he murmured. “You concentrate.” He laid hands on her, warming her from the core first and working his way to her extremities, avoiding the erogenous zones. Her neck and shoulders began to unclench.

His cock, shoved up against her through several layers of clothing, was like iron. But for now he wasn't going to do anything about that. He realized now that he'd slept with her too soon. Some women leapt right into bed, and it didn't matter what kind of relationship you had with them. But Celeste wasn't that way. What they'd done at the beach had been impulsive, a desperate coupling born of a harrowing experience in the ocean. The pool had been more or less the same thing. But they hadn't been ready; at least Celeste hadn't. There was something deeply vulnerable about her. Perhaps it was the fault of Cassian or that mathematician fellow. Or it could be just her nature—tough as she was on the outside, she had a soft inner core.

He'd broken her trust, and he needed to rebuild it, strand by strand. What they had between them was fragile, a weaving too delicate yet to take off the loom. For now, he would help her with the cipher and court her gently.

Celeste had tried all her deciphering techniques, beginning with the assumption that the destination message was in Riorcan. When that hadn't yielded fruit, she'd tried the same techniques assuming that the message was Kjallan. Then Inyan. No luck with either. Now she was trying Mosari as the destination language.

Rayn couldn't help her with the mathematical work, but he had some linguistic gifts. He spoke all the languages they'd tried except Riorcan. He spoke Mosari better than Celeste did, and that was potentially helpful.

“Gods.” Celeste flung a piece of paper across the bed. “I'm getting nowhere.”

“The
na
prefix isn't working?”

“No. If it's in there, I can't isolate it.”

“Try the
alhe
pronoun,” he suggested. “It's a common word in Mosari, and the
lh
combination should be frequent while the reverse
hl
is not found at all.”

“I'll try.” With a sigh, she took a fresh sheet of paper and laid it on the bed in front of her. “I've got the gods-cursed ciphertext memorized now.”

“You're not the only one,” said Rayn. “I think I'll be dreaming about it.”

Celeste stared at the cipher. Her eyes glazed over, as they often did when she was thinking. Then she set the paper aside. “Rayn, what are we doing?”

“Breaking the cipher,” he said.

“No—you and me.”

“I'm courting you,” said Rayn.

She let out a shaky breath. “I thought you weren't interested in a Kjallan alliance.”

“I've changed my mind.”

“Didn't you say the trade agreement was horrible for Inya?”

He paused. “I'm not wild about sending brimstone to Kjall. But you say it's for peaceful reasons. Surely if we talk it over, we can work something out.” He ran a hand down her side. “Perhaps I am enchanted by your beauty and no longer care about brimstone.”

She melted into his arms. “Look, the brimstone is because of Sardos.”

“Your brother's going to war with Sardos?”

“Gods, why would he want that? No, there's been a series of assassinations within the First Family. They've been hushed up, but Lucien thinks someone is maneuvering for the position of First Heir.”

“I know,” he said. “My people are following the situation.”

“Before the current First Heir rose to power, Sardos behaved aggressively toward Kjall. The First Heir is a strong ruler. He's kept his country peaceful for decades, but if the man is assassinated, there's no telling what could happen. Lucien has reduced the size of our military, but not by much, because the threat of Sardos looms. That's why he wants brimstone. An attack could come quickly if the First Heir dies, and we have to be prepared.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you for telling me the reason for the brimstone. It gives me some peace of mind.”

Celeste picked up her quill and began to write.

“You know what we need in Tiasa, our capital city?” Rayn continued. “A mathematical society. You could found one—and open it to women.”

Celeste straightened, obviously intrigued. “I like that idea. You know, I've been interested in this marriage from the beginning. But I don't have the power to negotiate the treaty. That's between you and Lucien.”

“Are you always this pragmatic?” asked Rayn.

She swallowed. “I have to be. What I do affects my country. My life is not my own, nor will it ever be.”

“I believe you think a great deal about how to please your brother,” said Rayn.

“I owe everything to him and the empress.”

Rayn lowered his head to her shoulder and spoke quietly into her ear. “Do you spend as much time thinking about what pleases you?”

She squirmed within his arms. “I think about that some. But like I said—”

“Your life is your own,” said Rayn, “imperial princess or not. I think you are not quite so pragmatic as you claim. Inside, you want love. You want passion.”

Her cheeks colored. She swallowed hard, picked up her quill with trembling fingers, and began to write.

Too soon. He lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck. He held her as she worked, and gradually she relaxed in his arms.

Suddenly her body stiffened and became electrified. Her quill scratched rapidly on the paper, filling in letters above the ciphertext. “Three gods,” she said. “I think I've got something.”