The Fire Mages' Daughter Page 9

  “Come,” I said to Ly-haam. “Let us go in.”

  I held out my hand to him. He stared at it, then registered that I still wore my riding gloves, and with a quick smile, allowed me to take his hand.

  ~~~~~

  The captain had paid for what must surely have been the best room the inn could offer. There was a huge sitting area, with sofas, a large table and chairs, bookcases and dressers, just like a house. Then, round a corner, a vast bed. There was a water bucket room and a room with its own bathing tub tucked away behind a door. Best of all, although it was on the second floor, it boasted a small balcony.

  Despite its capacious size, Ly-haam was shaking from top to toe. He stood in the centre of the room, as far as possible from the walls he found so oppressive, arms tightly folded, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet.

  One of the eagles was flying nearby. My mind had known of their presence the whole way out from Kingswell, but I hadn’t wanted Ly-haam to know that I was aware of them, and of his state of mind, too. But now I really needed to know what was in his head. I stretched my awareness to the eagle, and then onwards, to Ly-haam. Fear was the dominant emotion, but there was something else, too. Something he was fighting against, but it was there, stronger than his terror, barely under control.

  Desire. He wanted me. There were the flames again, just as I remembered. For me, it only happened when he touched me, but for him it was much more powerful. A compulsion that he couldn’t fight.

  I slipped out of his mind in less than a heartbeat, and he gave no sign that he’d noticed my presence. At least now I knew what I had to do. If I didn’t, he would be driven to jump on me at some odd moment, and that would be awkward for everyone. Demons, I’d hoped there would be no repeat of that strange coupling at the camp, but the gods were determined to throw us together, whether we wanted it or not. I don’t think he wanted it any more than I did, but he was compelled and I – I was the Drashona’s daughter, doing what was needful to ensure an important trading partner was kept happy.

  Since it was going to happen anyway, now was as good a time as any.

  “Captain, we shall need food – soup and bread, some fruit and, for the love of all the gods, the best wine you can find…”

  “The byan shar takes no wine, Highness. We tried him with it once.”

  “No, but I do. Some hot cake, if there is any to be had. All of that in one hour, no sooner. You understand?”

  “Perfectly, Highness.” His eyes slid to Ly-haam, then back to me, but he saluted smartly and vanished.

  Cryalla’s face was expressionless. “I shall be outside, Highness. Call if you need me.”

  And then we were alone.

  “Now,” I said, peeling off my gloves. “Let us get down to business.”

  He stood, shaking his head like a kishorn matriarch, as I approached. He was terrified of what I might do, but I don’t think he was capable of resisting me in any way. So he simply stood, waiting for his fate.

  All I had to do was to cup his face in my hands. Then it was there again, that fire swooping up to consume me, eating me alive, the feeling of falling, falling, falling, screaming with terror. This time, I retained some semblance of self-control, because I managed to get both of us more or less undressed first, and I even dragged him across to the bed. There’s a certain majestic drama in coupling with such urgency that you just can’t wait a heartbeat longer, but I felt certain that lying on something soft would improve the experience.

  The flames were just as all-consuming as the first time, and I suspect we could have been standing in the middle of the Drashona’s court, for all the awareness either of us had of our surroundings. At least this time I knew what to expect.

  Then, when it was all over, he curled up in my arms like a child and cried.

  I held him tight, and made soothing noises. The books told so many stories of the byan shar of the past, of the great victories, the lands conquered, the kings and empresses reduced to vassals. I tried to reconcile that image with the bundle of misery in my arms. I tried to imagine him riding gloriously to war aback a lion, spear in hand, but I could not. He was no war leader. He was no leader at all, just a boy bewildered and unhappy.

  After sniffling for a bit, he slithered away from me and got dressed, then sat on the floor, head low, in the middle of the room. I dressed myself too, resisting the temptation to view his mind through one of the eagles. It felt intrusive, somehow, to poke around his feelings without his permission or even awareness. So I left him to his own thoughts, but I rather hoped I could persuade him to confide in me.

  “We need to talk, you know,” I said, keeping my tone easily conversational so as not to alarm him

  He looked up at me with horror written on his face. “Talk?” he whispered.

  “About what happens between us. It is… not natural, and if you have an explanation for it, I would be most interested to hear it.”

  He seemed relieved. “Oh. Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that. What did you think I was talking about?”

  He stared at me for a moment, mouth twisting. Then he looked down. “I feared you may be pregnant.”

  Part of me wanted to reassure him on that question, but the Drashona’s training intervened. Push him harder, it whispered. The temptation was too great. “Would it be such a bad thing?”

  His head shot up. “Yes! Quite the worst! You cannot know… I am not supposed to… not with you, with any… I do not know the word. We call it unblooded.” I understood him, of course. “I must not share my seed with the unblooded. It is wrong, and I will be punished for it.”

  “Punished? Who will punish you?”

  “The gods who control my blood. It is a gift that I have, and the gift can be taken away.”

  I sat down on the floor facing him, legs crossed. He was hunched up like a spider, knees drawn to his chest and wrapped in his arms.

  “Byan shar, we—”

  A flash of anger ripped across his face. “Do not call me that! You have no idea what it means. No idea. Chosen one of the blood – ha! You cannot imagine…”

  I kept my tone level. “I apologise. I understood it to be an honorific. Clearly my advisors are misinformed. What then may I call you?”

  He exhaled slowly. “No, it is I who must apologise. You are right, it is an honour title. But… to me it is a curse. I had a good life, a happy life. And then… everything changed. I am supposed to be a great leader of my people. They expect it of me.”

  “Leadership is a great burden,” I said.

  “Yes! You understand. You are a leader too. You know what it is like when people have expectations.”

  I laughed at that. “I certainly do. The Drashona expects me to be leader after her. She is training me for it, and I am doing everything in my power to avoid the possibility.”

  “But you still have a choice,” he said sadly.

  I wasn’t sure about that. I still dreamed of an escape, but with every moon that passed I was being bound more and more tightly into the role Yannassia had defined for me. Even if, as I hoped, she were to choose Zandara as her heir, I might still find myself her second heir, just as committed, just as confined. I disliked walls around me as much as Ly-haam.

  “May I call you by your given name, then?” I said. “Ly-haam? Or something else? We often shorten names here.”

  “As we do also. I should like it if you call me Ly.”

  “Then you may call me Drina. And I am not pregnant, and have no intention to be so.”

  He smiled then, a great, wide smile that lit his face.

  I felt I was beginning to make some progress with him. When the trolley with our food arrived, bearing a mismatched assortment of dishes that would have had the Keep cooks fired instantly, he fell on it as if he hadn’t eaten in a moon. I was too wound up to eat much, but the captain had managed to dredge up a drinkable sort of wine. Although perhaps my need was such that I would have drunk moonrose juice if I’d had to.

  Cryalla put her h
ead round the door. “Anything you need, Highness?”

  “No, thank you. All is well here.”

  She glanced at Ly-haam, tucking into a bowl of stew with gusto, grunted and withdrew. Just as well she hadn’t seen him crying on my shoulder earlier.

  Half way through the stew, he pushed the bowl away and yawned cavernously. “So tired…” he murmured. I caught him before his head hit the floor, but he was barely awake. Fetching a pillow and his cloak, I made him as comfortable as I could on the floor and left him to sleep it off.

  It was a strange reaction, but I had no way to know if it was normal for him or his people, or whether it was caused by my influence, and the odd power which drew us together.

  For myself, I was exactly the opposite, fizzing with energy. I prowled around the room like a caged lion for a while, sipping the wine and nibbling a little of this, a little of that in a desultory fashion. When I heard the night guard arrive to relieve Cryalla, I deemed it time to go to bed.

  But not to sleep. Just like the last time, I lay wakefully in the dark, aware of the warmth in my belly and the energy flooding my veins, and wondering at it all.

  ~~~~~

  I walked every step of the way to Kingswell beside Ly-haam, to the ruination of my best riding boots and my feet. When the blisters got too bad, I borrowed boots and liners from one of the guards.

  Ly-haam was remarkably companionable on the road. The first morning he drooped like a moonrose past its bloom, creeping along and stopping often. Gradually he perked up, and then we got on quite fast. His fear and misery had lifted like summer mist, and he chatted easily, although he still avoided answering any questions about himself or his people. Instead he wanted to know about the Drashona and the court.

  It was surprisingly difficult to explain how it all worked, the way Yannassia’s role interleaved with the responsibilities of the Nobles’ Council. Then there was the matter of the choosing of heirs. He understood about kings and queens, and the inheritance of firstborns, and he also understood the idea of a dominant personality taking charge by force, as often happened in his own clans. But the subtle dance between Drashona and court was beyond him.

  “But why do you have two heirs?” he asked. “Is it not confusing?”

  “A primary heir and a secondary heir,” I said. “The second one is there in case anything happens to the first one.”

  “But then you would make a new heir, would you not?”

  I couldn’t find an answer that satisfied him.

  Another time he wanted to know what the word Drashona meant. “Because I cannot find how the word originated,” he said plaintively.

  “That’s because it’s an invented word,” I said. “When the kings were overthrown and the new system put in place, the nobles came up with meaningless words for all the titles. It avoids the weight of history.”

  But he shook his head, looking bewildered.

  I tried to suggest the idea of negotiating with the Drashona for what he wanted. He controlled many resources that we could use, and which might be bargaining pieces for the magical power he wanted.

  His answer was sharp. “The power to heal is a gift from the gods. It should not be withheld where there is need.”

  “A gift from the mages of the distant past, more like,” I muttered. But it wasn’t promising.

  We stayed overnight at wayside inns, small and unobtrusive. Ly-haam was quite content to share a room with me, although he still slept on the floor. His fear was largely gone, but if anything unexpected made him nervous, he liked to hold my hand, and that calmed him at once. He seemed to trust me implicitly. There was no fire now from our touch, and he made no attempt to go further than hand-holding. It was a strange journey altogether. I still had no idea what to make of him, and I was no closer to understanding the mysterious attraction between us.

  After three suns of travelling, the road at last curved round the base of Candle Mountain and the city slowly came into view. First the red mass of the Keep, then the low, dark buildings of the town surrounding it, and finally, set between the arms of the mountain, the golden walls and roofs of the Imperial City.

  He went very quiet, but to his credit he never once hesitated. I could scarcely imagine what it must be like to encounter such a great conglomeration of structures, sprawling over the land like an angry weal. He had never seen anything bigger than a clava, I assumed, and now he was about to enter the vast maw of the Keep.

  Yannassia sent an extra honour guard to accompany us, with drummers and pipers and a carriage containing Vhar-zhin. Ly-haam beamed with delight to see another familiar face, and her charm persuaded him to ride into the city beside her. I’d thought I might take to my horse the rest of the way, but when I suggested it, Ly-haam grabbed my hand in consternation.

  So the three of us rode in state in Yannassia’s finest carriage, with Ly-haam running his fingers in awe over the silk cushions and polished wooden fittings. Then he was mesmerised by the sights of the city, and seemed not to mind that every peasant and merchant’s runner ogled him in open curiosity as the carriage rattled over the cobbles.

  When we reached the smoother streets around the Keep, the wealthier citizens bowed respectfully as we passed by and rows of guards stood to attention at every junction, holding back the traffic for us. Finally we rolled under the archway of the Keep, the road circling the walls emptied especially for us, and swished round to Yannassia’s tower.

  She was there to meet us, standing on the lowest step, surrounded by guards and her waiting women and half the nobility. She wore gold, a stiff brocade that made her look like a gilt statue, even to the scrap of lace cap that covered her hair. Seeing her standing so straight, so dignified, as we stepped down from the carriage, and imagining how she must appear in Ly-haam’s eyes, it was no surprise when he took one look and dropped to his knees.

  “Queen majesty!” he said, touching his forehead with one finger. Then he grinned at her, and threw out his arms. “I am byan shar, and I am come to talk to you.”

  She inclined her head, murmuring the usual words, and gestured towards the steps. Her entourage parted like a flock of birds, and without a word or a backward glance, Ly-haam bounced up the steps beside her, chattering merrily. All of a sudden, the smiling, mischievous creature from the camp was back.

  Vhar-zhin and I exchanged glances. Everything was in harmony for the moment, but how long could it last?

  10: Diplomacy

  It took about half a minute for everything to unravel. Ly-haam got as far as the great wooden doors with their gleaming hinges, and stopped dead. First he looked up at the arch of the doorway far above his head. Then he spun round, and for a moment I was afraid he would simply run away.

  But no. “Princess?” he said, his eyes casting over the vast crowd following Yannassia, then lighting with relief when he spotted me. “Princess! May I…?”

  He held out his hand to me. When I took it, I was aware of something, a little burst of fire inside me. He felt it too, for he gazed at me with dismay on his face. Clearly the calming after-effects of our coupling were wearing off.

  “Most Powerful,” I said. “I believe our guest is exhausted by his long journey. I am sure he appreciates this wonderful reception, but perhaps a rest…?”

  She frowned, and I hoped she wasn’t going to make an issue of it. Clearly she was aware of all that had happened on the journey, for innumerable messages had flown back and forth by fast rider while Ly-haam and his escort had trudged at walking pace. She knew enough to understand that he brought a unique set of problems with him.

  After a moment, she nodded. “Very well, Axandrina. You may show our honoured guest to the King’s Chambers. We will meet again this evening, byan shar.”

  I got him through the endless corridors of the Keep as quickly as I dared, and left Cryalla to keep out the many curious onlookers who would have followed their unusual visitor wherever he went, if they were allowed. We went straight to the bedroom, and onto the bed. He wasn’t burning
up in quite the same way this time, but there was still a frightening urgency to it.

  I hated that feeling of being out of control, as if my body had a mind of its own and took no notice of my wishes or feelings. Ly-haam was not a man who would normally have attracted me at all. He was bone-thin, only a little taller than me, and not handsome in any masculine way. He seemed to me like a boy, not a man at all. Unless I touched him and lit the fires, I felt no desire for him, not like my sweet bodyguard, who drew me like a fly to honey. Nor was there even the comfortable companionship of shared history, as with Lathran.

  Ly-haam was unsettling in many different ways. I didn’t understand him or his people, and he was no more to me than a diplomatic problem to be solved. Yet when this horrible passion devoured us, I had no choice but to writhe around with him like an animal. It was deeply disturbing, and I had no idea what I could do about it.

  ~~~~~

  During his stay at the Keep, Ly-haam was treated like a visiting king, the nobles vying to entertain him, show him their estates and introduce him to their daughters, and their sons, too, in case his interests ran that way. Each morning, a grand carriage would arrive to whisk him away, drive him around the city or out into the countryside, feed him to bursting point, and return him, sated, late in the afternoon. Then there would be an hour or so of talk with Yannassia or the law scribes or mages. In the evening another feast in his honour, or a musical entertainment, or a dramatic reading.

  All the while, he smiled and nodded and watched, and his only comment, when pressed, was, “Very interesting.” I don’t suppose any of it made sense to him. What could our refined ways mean to a man who had grown up in a primitive hunting and fishing society? He couldn’t read or write, so how could he have any concept of history, or science, or numbers, or works of the imagination?

  Many people wondered at his fluency with the language, but he shrugged and said only that he’d been taught as a boy, because he had been destined to be a trader like his mother.