WindBeliever (7 page)

Steffensberg. Gleaming a soft, pale peach color in the fading day’s light, the high walls, bulbous towers roofed in what could only have been pure gold, the elaborate crenellations and elegant stained glass windows along the upper stories, the Palace of the Tzars rivaled Boreas Keep in both splendor and bulk.

“The Palace was built just after the final battle between Alel’s Force and the Domination troops here,” Yuri explained as he saw Conar staring with awe at the beauty before him.

Conar glanced at his companion. “I didn’t realize the perfidy of the Domination stretched this far east.”

Yuri smiled. “It seeped into every culture, I was taught. We have had no trouble with that evil for hundreds of years, though. They have all but vanished from the Outer Kingdom.”

A heavy frown crossed Conar’s face. “But they were here, in your culture?”

A small shrug hitched up Yuri’s right shoulder. “If they still are, they keep to themselves and cause us no trouble.”

When they entered the gates of the palace, Conar whistled softly beneath his breath.

Everywhere he looked in the courtyard there were people; people on the steps of the palace; people standing about the walls; people milling about under shade trees and canopies and peering out of doorways, leaning out of windows, perched on balcony rails. There was not an empty space anywhere that he could see that was not occupied by curious, staring people.

But they were perfectly silent.

“Why are they so quiet?” he asked Yuri, unnerved by the way the people were watching him and with their silence.

“Out of respect for you. They came to see you, but they know of your loss, Highness. They would not insult you by cheering unless they see it would not bother you.”

Conar looked about him, tentatively smiling at a group of older men along the cobblestone pathway to the front steps of the palace.

“Dosfatoni,” he said, politely greeting them in their own language.

“Dosfatoni,” one of the men replied, smiling.

“Dosfatoni!” several women called out, drawing Conar’s attention.

“It is a pleasure to be in your homeland,” he told them.

Yuri looked back at Boris. The people were speaking among themselves, waving to the Serenian, speaking to him as he passed. A few put out their hands in a shy salute.

Conar’s brow quirked. “They know the Raven’s sign here?”

Boris chuckled. “We know everything that happens in the Outlands, Highness.”

The Serenian turned to the men who had saluted him and returned their greeting, his right hand in a fist, thumb and little finger out and crooked inward.

“The Wind be at your back, Prince Conar!”

He turned in his saddle, searching for the person who had yelled out to him in his own native tongue, in the same soft drawl Conar, himself, spoke with. When he found a young man smiling broadly at him, jabbing a thumb at his chest in acknowledgment that it had been him who had spoken, Conar grinned.

“Where are you from, Serenian?”

“Danforth, Your Grace!” The young man stepped around several Outer Kingdom men. He gazed up at Conar. “I have not seen a fellow Serenian in eight years.”

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Bending down in the saddle, Conar extended his hand toward the young man who did not hesitate to grasp his Overlord’s wrist in a warm welcome. “What’s your name?

“Jordan, Your Grace,” the young man answered. “Jordan Knowles.”

“What in Alel’s name are you doing here?” Conar asked as he straightened on his horse’s back.

A slight flush crept over the young man’s cheeks. “I was pressed into the Domination’s service as a seaman aboard one of their prison transports. I jumped overboard near Nylanton Point and was rescued by an Outer Kingdom barkenteen. I’ve been here since before your brother, Lord Legion, took the throne.”

“Lucky for you,” Conar laughed.

“Aye,” Jordan said, nodding, misunderstanding what his Overlord had meant. “Else I’d have been shark bait before I’d have let them Domination sailors pull me back on board.”

“Tell Yuri where you live. I’d like to talk with you sometime. There’s been a lot that has happened in our homeland since you’ve been away.”

“I’d like that, Your Grace,” Jordan answered, stepping back.

Looking about him, at the people who were smiling back at him, Conar lifted his hand. “I appreciate your welcome!”

Cheers rang out over the courtyard and applause punctuated the warm greeting, but almost as soon as the noise began, it stopped and people began to drift away.

“Was it something I said?” Conar laughed.

“You met with their approval and they will go home to discuss their impressions of you.

Conar nodded toward the Palace. “Do you think we could go on in, now? I’m starving.”

A flicker of puzzlement slid over Yuri’s face, but then he shrugged. Who knew the ways of royalty, he thought with a grimace? The man had just been given the warmest welcome ever to an Outlander and the man could only think of his stomach.

Throwing his leg over his mount’s head, the Outer Kingdom warrior slid to the ground and tossed his reins to a waiting stable boy. “Her Highness will be in shortly, Sasha,” Yuri told the tow-headed lad. He lowered his voice. “And not in a very good mood, either.”

The boy glanced at the tall man standing beside Andreanova and nodded. “Another one?” he whispered.

Yuri sighed. “No, not this time.” He reached out to tousle the lad’s hair. “Take care, now.”

Conar, who had been looking up at the looming stone walls before him, had not missed the undercurrent of conversation between the two. As Yuri extended a hand for Conar to lead the way up the sweeping thick stone steps to the Palace’s entrance the Serenian prince turned cool blue eyes to his companion.

“Another

what?”

Yuri flinched. “Pardon Your Grace?”

Conar’s left brow crooked upward.

“Oh.” The stain on Yuri’s face deepened. “Her Highness has suitors who come nearly every day to ask for her hand, Your Grace,” he explained. “Little Sasha thought you might be another such visitor.”

Conar’s brow lowered to meet its twin across the bridge of his nose. “If it’s just the cow’s hoof they want, the poor buggers might not be so bad off. But if it’s the rest of her oversized carcass they’re seeking, they have my pity and sympathy.”

Yuri gasped. “Highness, please!”

Conar snorted, interrupting. “The only thing the bitch has going for her is her mouth. Maybe WINDBELIEVER

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some man could use that for his ....”

One moment Conar was standing at the base of the steps, his sardonic gaze raking Yuri’s shocked face, the next he was face down in the dirt, his forehead cracking hard against the bottom riser. “Oh, shit!” he heard Yuri moan just as the lights went out and he pitched into a bottomless well of silence.

He woke to a splitting headache, the room throbbing along with the pulse in his temples, a blinding pain in his right cheek as he stared up at the underside of an elaborate damask canopy which stretched above the lush bed on which he lay. His fingers dug into the satin sheets stretched out beneath him as he gingerly eased his head to first the right then left to view his surroundings, but the bed was so high off the floor, the foot posts so thick and massive, all he could see was a broad expanse of gilt crown mold, a splash of gold and red damask wallpaper and huge double oaken doors. He tried to lift his head upward, but the strain caused him to gasp with pain and he snapped his eyes shut, groaning.

“You won’t die,” he heard a sneering female voice shout into the agony that was his awakening. “Unfortunately,” she added with a clipped explosion of contempt.

“Go away!” he whispered, knowing instantly who is was that was torturing him with her grating voice.

“If I could, I would, believe me, you sorry jackass,” she hissed back, “but Father insisted since I was the cause of you being here, I was to be the one to care for you.” What she thought of such a notion was evident in her bored and scathing tone.

“Bitch,”

he

breathed.

“Bastard,”

she

retorted.

He heard the creak of a chair and then her heavy footsteps moved toward the bed. He knew she was hovering above him, staring down at him.

“Go annoy someone else,” he sighed. He tried to shift on the bed and found himself gasping as pain flared in his rump.

“You look like shit,” she informed him and sneered down into his face when he managed to glare up at her. “Are all Serenian’s so ugly?”

If he could have he would have shouted at her, but such an action was sure to have caused him even more intense pain, so he settled for clutching the sheets in an even harder grip. “Are all Outer Kingdom cows so fat?” he shot back, almost smiling as the expression on her face slid from contempt-filled triumph at the annoyance she had caused him to one of hurt. He felt a thrill of victory go through him that he had managed to score a direct hit on her pride. The bitch didn’t like her weight being commented upon. A nasty smile twitched at his lips as he added, “Or are you the exception?”

Catherine blinked, understanding the gleam of revenge that had flitted through the man’s dark eyes. He had gone for blood, and upon finding it, he plunged the dagger deeper, aiming for a mortal wound. Her chin came up, her face shut down.

“It’s too bad you didn’t break your neck when you fell,” she said in a thick, seething voice. “I would have had the pleasure of attending your funereal. I have a black gown I have yet to wear.”

His eyes, despite the massive pain stabbing into them with every breath he took, slid over her from head to waist to back again, before finally settling into a squint.

“Do they make gowns that big or did they cut a tent down to fit you?” he asked in a pleasant, cooing tone.

She dug her nails into the palms of her hand and just stared at him, not wanting him to see WINDBELIEVER

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how much pain his callous words were causing her. She was very conscious of her weight, even though several of her suitors, mostly men from the northern climes of her land, insisted they much admired her excess of body fat.

“You are as uncouth as you are ugly,” she replied. Her stare moved to the twin scars etched down his left cheek. “It must be difficult for a woman to let you touch her looking the way you do, but I suppose there are those women who will do anything for enough gold.”

A shaft of hurt stabbed through Conar’s heart at her words and his left hand lifted automatically to cover the ravages of his cheek. As her lips twitched at his motion, he knew she realized she’d managed to make a lethal jab at his pride. He jerked his hand down.

“Why don’t you go pull the wings off some flies?” he snapped.

Her lips twitched again then slowly slid into a smirking smile. “Any such pastime would be preferable to conversing with you.”

“Then, go do it!” he snarled.

Catherine cocked her head to one side. “You’re very aware of your disfigurement, aren’t you?”

“Get the fuck out of my room!” he shouted, his lids flickering with the agony such an action caused.

Her lips puckered into a pout. “My, my, my, my, my!,” she purred. “You are such an uncouth lout.”

“Get

out!|

Turning on her heel, Catherine sashayed from the bed. Her laughter was like a goad that stoked the fire of Conar’s fury and the raging repeat of his order caused her to fan the flames even higher as she stopped with her hand on the door’s handle.

“I’d rather be overweight than have my face all gouged up. At least I can LOSE the weight!”

A roar of fury swept through Conar and the bellow that pushed out of his mouth nearly ruptured his vocal chords. As it was, the pain the shout caused pitched him back into the light-swallowing darkness.

“Marie Catherine!” her mother, the Tzarina, sighed with displeasure. “Your conduct is not acceptable. Not acceptable, at all.”

“Not acceptable,” her father, the Tzar echoed. “At all.”

“Whatever were you thinking to do such a thing?” her mother asked. There was a stern expression, admonishment on her pretty ivory face.

“Such a thing,” her father said on a long, drawn out sigh, shaking his head as he did so.

“Prince Conar could have been seriously hurt,” the Tzarina reminded her.

“Seriously hurt,” the Tzar stressed.

“His head’s so thick it took a chip out of the step when he fell,” Catherine murmured. At her mother’s stony silence, she dared to glance up. “Honestly!” she said. “It did!”

“It did,” her father said, nodding.

A prim pursing of the Tzarina’s lips was all the answer Catherine received for her comment.

Catherine let out a long, put upon breath. “Mother,” she said in a rational, ‘let’s make sense of this’ voice, “the man is obnoxious. He’s uncouth, uncivilized and vulgar. I took exception to the things he was saying about me and I fear I let my temper get the best of me.”

“By shoving the poor man down in the dirt,” her mother snapped.

“In the dirt!” her father moaned, shaking his head.

The Tzarina turned to her husband, the love of her life, the bane of her existence, and her WINDBELIEVER

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companion of fifty-two years. “Thomas,
must
you repeat everything I say?”

The Tzar blushed. “No,” he answered. He looked away from his wife’s annoyed face. “I don’t suppose so.”

Laughter snagged at Catherine’s lip, but her mother’s grating tone wiped the humor from the young woman’s face.

“We won’t tell the poor man how you pushed him. We won’t tell him how you kicked him in the ....”

“Ass, Dearling,” her husband supplied. “She kicked him in the ass.”

Charlotte Steffenovitch’s eyes narrowed with warning at her husband’s bland expression.

“That will do, Thomas.”

“Yes, Love,” the Tzar mumbled. He glanced at his daughter and winked.

“This is not amusing!” the Tzarina declared, looking pointedly from father to daughter. “He could have been seriously hurt!”