He kept his face smooth and unconcerned,
even though his mind lurched. Keldar, yes, the place of dragons, poisoned
sands, and savages. He glanced down and noted the rough black garb he wore, the
curved blade on the sand beside him, covered in dried blood. Lightly, he
touched his head, trying to remember how he’d killed the dragon. “The dragon
must have knocked me unconscious. I’m afraid I don’t remember much at all.
What’s my name?”
The trader inched backward, his hands
smoothing the fine linen of his shirt. “Mykal.”
A dull black ring on the man’s right
hand sucked at the brutal sunlight, a black hole of evil that made him narrow
his gaze in recognition. Odd, wasn’t it, that he recognized a ring but not his
supposed name?
“You’re Mykal
tal
’Mamba.”
Ah, it was beginning to come back to
him.
Tal
, chief, he knew, of the
tribe of Mambas. Appropriately named, to be sure, for the mamba was the
deadliest snake in all the desert. Before the thought had even crystallized in
his mind, his body exploded up with the curved blade in his hand. He knocked
the young man to his back and planted a knee on his throat. “I’ll uphold this
bargain,
munakur
, else the sands
swallow me for all time.”
Wheezing, the man flailed at him with
the knife, but Mykal effortlessly blocked the blade with his own. This man had
never been skilled with a blade; he knew that, now, as he also knew that he
himself could Dance the Blades with any warrior on the sands and best him.
Cocking his head, he let his gaze travel down the man’s fancy clothing to fine
leather boots and back up.
His gaze stopped on the ring. He stared
a moment, and then deliberately examined the dragon corpse. Its left front paw
had been hacked, its claw missing. “I believe you took something that belongs
to me.”
Babbling choked entreaties, the man’s
cries rose to a wail as the scimitar cut through his pinky. Mykal picked up one
of the leaking sacs and dropped it into the man’s wounded hand. He howled,
heels drumming on the sands, but the fluid cauterized the bleeding stump.
“Go to Shanhasson.” Mykal claimed both
sacs for himself and shook the severed finger from the ring. Closing his eyes,
he slipped it onto his left hand. The ring fit his finger perfectly, as he
expected. Sands shifted within him, settling, filling up the empty spots of his
memory. Without opening his eyes, he unhooked the leather packet—which he now
remembered preparing with his own hands—from his belt and dropped it onto the
trader’s chest. “Trade my oil to Her Majesty.”
He let the young man scramble away,
cradling his wounded hand to his chest. His pretty white shirt was ruined,
stained by blood and burned by the dragon musk.
Raising his voice, Mykal yelled after
the fleeing trader. “Tell Shannari dal’Dainari that soon I’ll soar over her
Shining Walls!” He rubbed his thumb over the ring and dropped his voice to a
whisper. “I have a purpose.”
CHAPTER
ONE
BLESSED LADY ABOVE, IF
THESE VIPERS ARE MY ALLIES, THEN I AM ALREADY DOOMED TO SHADOW.
Masking her disgust and impatience,
Shannari struggled to keep silent while her advisers argued. After three years
of ruling afar from the Plains, she felt less the High Queen than ever.
She watched the tells her father had
trained her to notice: the tiny glances between King Phillip of Maston and
Royce, the new Duke of Pella who’d replaced Stephan after his own peasants
revolted; the deference every single one of these arguing idiots paid to King
Challon, who sat silently at the opposite end of the table; and the utter
disregard for her presence.
Her father, King Valche of Allandor, met
her gaze and gave her a brief nod of encouragement.
Silently, she stood. The raised voices
continued about her, the majority of her Council oblivious to her displeasure.
King Challon noticed her signal but did nothing to alert the other men at the
table, confirming his power at this table and his silent refusal to assist her.
It’d been a mistake to include him on her Council. She knew that now. The
others were powerful men in their own right but not threats.
King Challon appeared to be one of her
closest allies—and had saved her life years ago when Theo would have murdered
her outright—but she could sense the silent, invisible undercurrents eddying
about him. He had his finger in the current and knew exactly which way the
waters flowed, and it certainly wasn’t to the High Queen, Rose Crown or not.
Refusing to give any sign of her
displeasure, she waited in silence until the elderly King Methos of Taza
noticed that she stood. Of an age that had long ago passed, the man she’d
envisioned as a pirate when she was a child feebly pushed to his feet in
respect. “Your Majesty!”
The raised voices slowly tapered off
into an awkward silence. Royce, a very young cousin of Stephan’s and so a
distant nephew to King Challon, actually blushed. Phillip refused to meet her
gaze, but he’d possessed a rather weak stomach with respect to her ever since
he’d seen how she opened the Gates of Shanhasson with the help of her Blood.
At the thought of them, their bonds
suddenly filled her mind, gleaming so brightly that her vision tinged red.
As always, Dharman stood behind her, one
hand on her person nearly every minute of the day. Most of the time, she
honestly forgot his presence, until some small thought made her realize how
close he was, how attached and attentive. Nothing passed him; no one approached
her but through him.
Sal and Jorah crouched on either side of
her. She’d tried to persuade them to stand, or at least allow her to provide
them with chairs, but they both refused. They wanted to be ready to grab her
and carry her to the floor beneath them at a moment’s notice. Each of them
occasionally touched her, just a brush of a hand, their shoulder against her
hip, some small assurance that she was well and they were near. It had become
so constant and engrained that she forgot them.
Until they purposely reminded her.
:Let
us clear this room for you, Khul’lanna.:
Sal purred in her
mind, the rich pelt and smug arrogance of an adored cat winding through her
mind.
:Allow me to slice off that one’s
ears and the rest will listen to you.:
She knew he meant Phillip, the King of
Maston. As if the man knew they were thinking of him, he flushed a dull red and
averted his gaze. Sal gave a little rub with his head, a quick feline brush
against her waist, begging not for attention, but for permission to gut the
outlander who’d insulted her years ago.
Her stomach fluttered, an uneasy and
unwanted response to the glide of that incredible auburn hair gliding across
her. She couldn’t feel the soft heaviness of Sal’s hair through her armor, but
she knew its weight and texture, and especially its scent. Sal smelled like one
yummy gingerbread cookie that simply begged to be devoured.
She’d managed to avoid devouring him for
years—a feat indeed.
He rumbled softly, very much a purr of
satisfaction. The damned bond told them all entirely too much. Keeping a secret
from one of them was next to impossible.
:You
keep secrets only from yourself, Khul’lanna.:
Dharman’s
mental voice was slow, thick and sweet, the dark amber of honey. He might smell
sweet and innocent like honeycakes, but over the years, he’d managed to lose
most of his innocence.
Thanks
to me.
The thought pained her. The Blood had killed
numerous times to protect her, and the body counts always increased when they
were in the Green Lands. Her own countrymen made the Death Rider assassins
appear lazy. A Plains assassin hadn’t tried for her in over a year.
Forcing her attention back to the table
of expectant men, she let a small smile curve her lips. Benton, the Steward of
Far Illione who had proven instrumental in Allandor’s acquisition of swift
Keldari mounts for her army, immediately relaxed and smiled in return. The poor
man was inept at politics, hence his post in the very far reaches of her
kingdom. The others thought little of him, but she’d placed him on her Council
for a reason.
She never forgot a favor or a gesture of
good faith. That trust had been ill placed in King Challon. Hopefully Benton
was more worthy of her trust.
She reached up to remove the gold crown
from her head and placed it on the gleaming mahogany table before her.
Intricately carved roses wound about the crown with long spiked thorns sharp
enough to make her scalp bleed if she didn’t place the crown carefully.
Silence deepened in the room. The nobles
stared at the symbol of her right to rule this land as if it were the deadliest
serpent.
Keeping her voice low, soft, and
pleasant, she said, “Would any of you like to wear this crown?”
Royce made a small sound very much like
a whimper, Benton blanched, averting his gaze and shaking his head so hard he
lost his quizzing glass, while Phillip turned green as though he might vomit
beneath the table.
“It’s very heavy,” she continued,
keeping her manner casual. “Every day that I’m here in Shanhasson, I hesitate
before putting it on my head. You see, when I’m here so very close to the Great
Seal,
He
stirs.”
She didn’t mention His name, but every
Green Lander in the room shuddered and muttered a quick prayer to Our Blessed
Lady.
Lygon, the Blackest Heart of Darkness,
had walked her Dreams for years, trying night after night to lure her into
Shadow. She didn’t try to hide the quiver in her voice or the dread thickening
her voice.
Dharman pressed fully against her back
and dropped both hands to her shoulders. He held her against him, the heat of
his body solid and protective.
“He knows when I’m here and strains
harder to break free of His prison. Each day the chains weaken and thin. Each
year, He touches the world easier. Someday He will stretch out his hand…” She
met King Challon’s light blue gaze, so similar to his dead nephew’s eyes. “…And
simply throttle us all.”
“Not unless you die, Your Majesty,” King
Challon replied, thoroughly unruffled by her grim prediction. “As long as you
live, your blood bars Him away from Our Blessed Lady’s Green and Beautiful
Lands.”
Somehow, she thought he meant those
words as a curse instead of a blessing. “So why are there so many attempts on
my life each time I return to Shanhasson?”
None of them dared answer. Even King
Challon broke and glanced down, avoiding the question. Someone in this room
wanted her dead very badly.
Perhaps all of them.
:You
know that is far from the truth.:
Sal touched her again,
deliberately nudging her thigh harder, a playful attempt to distract her from
such grim thoughts.
:I want something
very badly, and I assure you, Khul’lanna, it is not your death.:
Heat crept across her cheeks, but she
carefully kept her gaze up instead of looking down at the young man rubbing
himself against her side. At least most of what he did was hidden beneath the
table so her Council didn’t know.
“Enough.” Directed at Sal, the word came
out harsher than she intended. King Challon’s gaze jerked back to her face,
narrowed in consideration. If a sharper tone got her Council’s attention, all
the better. “Am I High Queen? Do you want my protection against Lygon’s
foulness, or shall I allow His Shadow to taint you all until Our Lady’s Green
Lands are destroyed utterly?”
They hesitated. They actually had to
think about it.
She was losing them. Inch by inch, day
by day, her Council plotted more openly against her. She lost another acre of
her country to Shadow. She couldn’t be here every single day. Lady help her,
the few days she managed to travel such distance from the Plains was already
difficult enough. She and Rhaekhar both had extensive responsibilities to the
Nine Camps of the Sha’Kae al’Dan. At least they treated her with some amount of
respect.
Most
of them
, she amended. Even after three years, not all of
her husband’s people welcomed an outlander in their midst.
I’m
losing
, she thought sadly, shaking her head.
Blessed Lady, forgive me for failing you.
Sadness and guilt, regret and heartache,
another brick stacked on her heart, another weight she had to carry. So many
deaths lay along her path to the Rose Crown and the High Throne of the Green
Lands, only to be mistrusted, doubted, and betrayed. The unfairness of it
strangled her.
Without another glance, she turned away
and strode toward the door. Dharman glided at her back, Sal and Jorah each at
her side without a single command from her. They knew her thoughts before she
did. Two Blood proceeded her; the rest trailed to protect her back from the
roomful of outlanders they knew would eliminate her without a second glance.
“Your Majesty! Your Crown!”
Bitterly, she replied over her shoulder,
“Wear it if you dare.”
Her threat carried little weight. No one
would touch it. Legends said that any man who dared lay a single finger on Our
Blessed Lady’s Rose Crown would instantly fall dead. If only her enemies would
dare such a foolhardy attempt then they’d all be eliminated effortlessly.