The King of Forever (Scarlet and the White Wolf, #4) (24 page)

“If that is so, then that is how it must be, alas for her.” Ressanda toyed with the stem of his wine cup. Liall thought he might have looked ashamed. “She will obey you, and she will have her court and her ladies to keep her company, and children to return her love. Is that not enough?”

“That’s something you’ll have to take up with her.”

Ressanda shrugged. “Happy or not, she must carry on my line with a man worthy of her. She is a lady of the blood, sire, and it is her fate.”

Fate.

Liall pushed back his chair. As one, the hall stood. “My lord, the meeting is at an end,” he said, eyes sweeping the assembled. “I give you the freedom of Sul, baron. My people are at your disposal for the length of your stay, but I and my t’aishka depart the morning after next. The soldiers I have commanded from you should assemble at Starhold. They must be present and ready to depart north when I give the command, or I shall know I have lost an ally.”
And then the Shining Ones help you. You spoke true, Ressanda. I am a Camira-Druz. We do not forget our enemies.

Ressanda bowed. “My king is generous.”

Liall gave him a nod of dismissal and turned to go.

“But I think...”

Irritated, Liall turned back to him. “Yes?” he asked, an edge in his voice.

“But I think,” Ressanda began again, “that perhaps you do young ser Keriss an injustice. Even in Tebet, we have heard of his courage and wit. He has become accustomed to far stranger things than a mere wife. Look how he thrives here, among folk so alien to him.”

Liall grunted. He wouldn’t have said Scarlet was thriving, but neither would he tip Ressanda and his nobles off to that fact. He decided to let the baron have his say. “It is so. Ser Keriss is remarkable.”

“Your t’aishka may not like Ressilka at first, but she is prepared to be a friend to him, my lord. To be his family as you are his family, to show respect and affection, and hopefully one day have that affection returned. I can swear to you that she has no thoughts of maneuvering him from your household.”

“Good. She would fail, and would maneuver herself out of a crown as well. He’s the other half of my heart, and anyone who hopes to be included in my life had better get used to that.”

“There is one other matter, sire,” Ressanda said tactfully.

Gods, would this man never learn when he was dismissed? “Yes? Out with it.”

“There is a lady in my company who has requested a word with you. Will you grant it?

Braying barons, loving brides, and now tittering ladies-in-waiting. What an awful day. Liall shrugged. “Why not? She can find me lodged in Bleakwatch tower, waiting to see Tebet’s colors on the backs of the men you owe me. Good day, my lord.”

Liall turned and left abruptly. He had not given his promise to marry, but he’d not rejected Ressilka outright, either. He had left the matter open deliberately, left Tebet dangling in hope.

He strode to the stairs and took them two at a time, Alexyin following. He climbed the high stone steps until they curved sharply and opened up into a wide, low room with stone buttresses supporting the ceiling. An iron-banded door opened to the battlements, and Liall made for it. He felt the need for cleaner air.

Cannon lined the ramparts, well-oiled and gleaming black in the light. A brisk rush of salt air hit Liall’s face like a cold slap. The sun was low in the sky and gave no warmth, but after months of darkness, it was as good as a blazing day on the Nerit.

“Was that wise, my king?” Alexyin’s face was pinched.

Liall shrugged. “Wise or no, he will not press me further this year at least, and we can count on his soldiers.”

“And next year?”

“Next year can hang or fuck itself blind.” Liall gritted his teeth. “Is not one nobleman pushing me between a woman’s legs enough? I do not need you to remind me of my duty, ser. I drank in duty at my lady mother’s breast. In politics, one never says
no
outright. Much better to say
perhaps
, or
in the future
, or
another day
.
‘No’
gives them nowhere to turn, and no room for me to do some maneuvering of my own. I am the king of Rshan, not your student to scold. Those days are past.”

Alexyin bowed to him stiffly. “My lord king.”

“Oh, stop it.” Liall leaned his elbows on a parapet and looked down. Far below them, Ressanda’s retinue were assembling to depart Arrowgate, the baron striding before his guards like a bear on the trail of meat.

“If I don’t marry Ressilka,” Liall said, “I’ll have to be very careful in choosing a man for her. If I do marry her, I will have to watch her ambitious father very closely.” He saw that Alexyin relaxed at his words.

Because I said ‘if’. People hear only what they want to hear. Scarlet could have heard the lie in my words. He would have challenged me on it, and named me liar to my face if I hurt him. Well, I will not hurt him again, and I will not lose him. No matter what it costs me, he will not die.

Liall heard soft footsteps behind him, the whisper of silken skirts over stone. The lady-in-waiting. He turned, a courtesy already on his lips for her greeting, and stopped dead-still.

“You may go, Alexyin,” he commanded.

Alexyin was staring, but he bowed to Liall and to the lady before he hurriedly took his leave. Liall did not blame him.

She was wearing a gown in summer yellow and ivory with a starred veil over her breasts. Her hair was unbound and unadorned, falling nearly to her knees in a silken mass of pale gold. She was thinner. Her eyes, though, had not changed in the least. They were still the coldest eyes in Rshan.

Liall waited for her curtsy. She managed to make it look obedient.

“Lady Shikhoza. You travel with Baron Ressanda as his companion now?”

“My lord husband would not approve of that, would he?” Shikhoza smiled.

“What Eleferi would approve of is irrelevant, since you hold the purse-strings to his barony. Tell me, my lady, is that jingling sound his balls? How lonely they must be in your wallet, with only silver to clasp them and keep them warm.”

She had the grace to smile artfully and defer with another curtsy, and Liall saw that she was still a great beauty, though not as great as she had been. As a girl, Shikhoza had been able to reduce grown men to tears. She was younger than him by a few years, but now she looked older.

It must truly be as bad as they say in Uzna Minor. She looks pinched and frightened. What could frighten Shikhoza?

“I’m sorry to have displeased you, my king. Would—”

He cut through the rest of it. “Just tell me why you’re here. You’ve not come out of love for your king, certainly. What are you after?”

Shikhoza sighed. “I am here, my lord, because Baron Ressanda asked me to accompany his daughter to court, to act as her chaperone and advise her as a matron. A young girl hoping to wed has need of such advice.”

“Good gods,” he exclaimed. “A matron now, is it? Deva save the poor child if she takes advice from you. I don’t want you here. Tell your craven husband that when you return to him. He’ll weep with joy to have you back at his side.”

“Eleferi agreed that it was important I go.”

“To pressure me to make a girl once promised to my brother a queen of Rshan?”

Shikhoza’s smile turned cutting. “Lady Ressilka is three years older than your consort. If she is a child, what does that make him?”

He had walked right into that one. Why did he allow her so much ammunition? Was it guilt, still, after all these years?

“Careful, my lady. Scarlet is a grown man, as you well know.”

“Yes, but such a young one. So trusting, so naive. And so very fragile. Did you always lust for such delicate bedmates, or is that a taste you acquired among the
lenilyn?”

Her tone chilled him.
One quick shove,
he thought. She’d be over the wall and he’d be free of her venom. “Your games didn’t work on me when I was fifteen. I assure you that I’ve not grown softer in my prime. Have you grown nostalgic, I wonder? Did you come all this way just to bore me with your jealousy?”

She still had a musical laugh. “You think I’m jealous of an illiterate peasant boy?”

“You’re jealous of a man who has everything you ever wanted and could not attain. And yes, you hate him all the more because of what he is. Because of
who
he is. You wanted a crown. He will have it instead.”

Shikhoza stopped laughing. “You’d make a mockery of the bonds of marriage?”

“Lady, you pledged your hand to me but fucked my brother. You’re the queen of mockery.” Liall’s mouth curled. “No, I will not wed Scarlet. No mere marriage can equal the bond of t’aishka. Still, I have no intention of infuriating my people and dishonoring my lineage by mixing the blood of my ancestors with that of
Kalaslyn.”

Her lips parted in shock. “You speak of Lady Ressilka? She is a Camira-Druz.”

“In name only. She has as much Morturii blood as Rshani. There are other ladies from purer stock. Not so royal, true, but not so red, either. My children should
look
Rshani at least.” Liall wondered if Shikhoza would scramble to tell Ressanda that juicy tidbit first, or if she’d save it up for a rainy day. She wouldn’t think he was lying. Shikhoza was snob enough for ten kings and never hesitated to believe the same of others.

She thinks me unchanged,
Liall realized. She still saw him through the lens of those years when he was young and foolish, when it was just the three of them: Shikhoza and Nadei and himself, the second-born. He was prideful then, so very proud.

Shikhoza pressed a hand to her throat and was silent for several moments. “Perhaps...” she whispered with a backward glance at the door, “perhaps it is not wise to look for fruit so far from the tree.” She lifted her chin and her eyes met his. “It is a great pity we never had a child, you and I.”

“But we didn’t,” he retorted. Shikhoza’s eyes were so pale they were almost colorless
. Like chips of diamond,
he thought. Those were Scarlet’s words.

Shikhoza’s lips turned up like the petals of a flower. “Did we not?”

Liall forced himself not to take the bait, not to react, but his heart began to thump harder. “We did not. I would have known. The queen would have known.”

Shikhoza put her gloved hand on the stone battlement and glided a little nearer to him. “Your lady mother had just lost both of her sons, one to death and one to exile. It was a marvel she did not lose her mind, much less fail to notice the condition and whereabouts of a woman she despised.”

“The queen would have known,” Liall repeated. “And you are on the verge of committing a crime.”

“Of telling the king a truth he doesn’t want to hear?”

“There is
no
child,” Liall said through his teeth.

As fast as she had pressed, Shikhoza seemed to relent. She looked down and rearranged her starred veil. “If the king says there is not, then there is not. Nadei would have been overjoyed at the possibility.”

“Silence!”
Liall shouted. He clenched his fists, truly afraid of what he might do if she kept talking. It was one thing to play these games with him, but the phantom heir she conjured might as well have been a bolt aimed at Nadei.

She lied. The bitch lied. When did she ever tell me the truth?

He and Shikhoza had been promised to each other as children, but from the very beginning she had toyed with him like a cat with a mouse between her claws. It was a short game, for he would not play it. Luckily, most of his waking hours were consumed with training and study, and when he became a man her schemes lost their sting, becoming familiar and tiresome to him. He turned from her and sought more pleasurable company, allowing his name to become known in the brothels of Sul. It was that year that she turned her fangs on Nadei, seducing him, baiting him, wounding his pride, teasing him, setting brother against brother at every turn.

“When I won at swords,” he choked out, “you sneered and pretended to pity him. When he won a race, you told him I could have done better. You broke his heart a hundred times. You tortured him, and for what? I loved him and he never knew it. He would never believe it, all because of you. He’s gone and you have gained
nothing!
” A wolf-like growl surged up in his throat. His arm shot out and he wrapped his fingers around her throat. It was a supreme effort not to squeeze. He seized her by the back of her hair and pulled her so close he could see the silver flecks in her eyes, wide with sudden terror.

Liall bared his teeth. “Every breath from your mouth is poison.” Before true berserker rage could take over his mind, he shoved her so hard that her hip crashed against a parapet and she fell to her knees.

“Nazir,” she quavered, covering her throat with her hands. “My king. I’ve never told you. It was not what you believe with... with Nadei. I never wanted—”

“Shut up.” He stood over her, shaking. “On pain of death, never come into my presence again,” he commanded. “If I ever set eyes on you after today, I will kill you.”

In the hall, he pushed past Alexyin. “I’ve had enough of liars today. Seek me at the tower if I’m needed.”

Alexyin glanced at the iron-banded door, his brow creased with worry. “Sire, the lady—”

“I said enough!”

***

A
t the tower, Liall found Scarlet seated on the floor with a white bearskin around his shoulders, staring into the embers of the hearth. Liall strode to him and seized him by his arms, hauling him up.

“Liall?”

Liall’s mouth found Scarlet’s and his tongue thrust inside. He heard a door close in the hall. Margun had been ordered to stay nearby. Scarlet heard it, too.

Scarlet pulled away and pushed small hands against Liall’s chest. “They can hear... we shouldn’t...”

“I don’t give a damn what the guards hear,” Liall answered. “Let them hear. Let the whole bloody tower hear.”

He kissed Scarlet again hungrily, and his hands began pulling at Scarlet’s clothes, jerking at the laces in front of his breeches.

“Liall,” Scarlet protested, weaker than before, breathless, his eyes narrowed as he smiled. With a moan, he gave in, wrapping his arms around Liall and melting against him. Liall slid his hand through Scarlet’s silken hair and kissed him, holding him tight.