Queen in Exile Read online

  Grappling with her desire to hate him for his unforgivable actions, and her realization that she couldn’t really blame him, she stared, unable to formulate a reply. Her shoulders slumped in resignation.

  He grasped a crumpled leaf caught in her hair, his hands sliding down a long, dark ringlet before the leaf fell into his hand.

  Startled by his familiarity, Jeniah took another step back from the stranger. Even more startling, she did not find the contact distasteful. More unsettled by her reaction to his touch than the touch itself, she began brushing leaves and bits of twigs off her gown and cloak, her actions stiff and jerky, and tried to fortify her self-control.

  “Egan!”

  Her duocorn came through the trees, but shied from the maimed body on the ground. The warrior’s silver duocorn nickered. To her surprise, Egan answered, approaching the unknown steed. After a few huffs and flicks of their tails, they touched noses in greeting as if old friends.

  The war duocorn, as heavily muscled as his master, stood several hand spans taller than Egan, and his horns had been sharpened for use as weapons. Egan’s mane and featherings grew long and shinning from careful brushing, but the silver stallion’s hair was clipped ruthlessly short.

  The stranger extended a hand to Egan and crooned softly. Her normally shy mount came to him and nuzzled his palm. “Traitor,” Jeniah muttered.

  After he stroked Egan’s head, the warrior moved soundlessly upon the dried leaves to his own beast. The swordsman examined his duocorn for injuries, but to Jeniah, the wound on his flank looked superficial. The warrior appeared to agree, and he patted his duocorn and turned back to her.

  “Egan, come.” Jeniah glanced back at her chayim’s motionless body. She hated to leave him there as food for carrion. It seemed too ignoble an end.

  Approaching tentatively, she went to him, fearful of the sight. Even battered and lifeless, he exuded beauty, greatness, magic. Magic couldn’t all be bad if her chayim possessed it, could it?

  Kneeling next to him, Jeniah stroked his fur and whispered, “Home and sweet meat to you, my friend.” She pulled a few hairs from the crown of her head, wincing slightly from the sting, and laid them over her chayim’s chest. “May the god of the moons welcome you.”

  She ran her fingers through his mane until a few loose hairs fell into her hand. After twisting the hair into a knot, she tucked it into her bodice next to her heart. “May the god of the moons give me peace without you.” She bowed her head, her heart cold and empty.

  The wind gusted, bringing in the late afternoon fog. Her guards would be returning any moment. Swallowing hard, she stood. Purposely refraining from looking at the warrior standing motionless next to his duocorn, she used a rock as a step to mount Egan and settled in the saddle.

  “My lady, I must insist upon accompanying you to ensure your safety.” Somehow he managed to sound both deferential and condescending.

  Despite his earlier plea for forgiveness and her insight into his motives, Jeniah’s anger returned and gave venom to her words. She lifted her head with all the regal haughtiness of the queen mother and looked down upon him. The effect was not as dramatic as she had hoped, since, even in the saddle, she sat only slightly above eye level with him.

  “You are a stranger, and you have killed a revered animal. Two very good reasons not to trust you with both my virtue and my life.”

  He winced. “My lady, I give you my word as a knight, I mean you no harm. I’m honor-bound to protect and defend the innocent.”

  “Unless they come in the form of chayims, apparently.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Shame sent warmth up her neck to her face. Such petty viciousness should be beneath her, but she seemed to have lost control over her emotions.

  His face grew tight and unyielding. “Be grateful I’m a man of honor, or you would already be my victim.”

  Jeniah’s mouth dropped. “A true man of honor would not say such a thing.”

  “I’m trying to protect you,” he ground out.

  “I’ve but to return to the road where I left my guards and they will see me home, as they would have protected me had I been in any real danger.”

  He glanced about, and she could almost hear him wondering where her guards were, and why they had not intervened.

  Unwilling to enlighten him, Jeniah flicked the reins and headed toward the highway.

  “My lady.”

  Impatiently, she reined and glanced over her shoulder.

  “Please, tell me your name.”

  She clenched her teeth, loath to give him any favor he sought, and prayed she’d never be forced to see him again. Without replying, she urged Egan into a canter.

  As she rode, the wind whipped her hair and brought the scent of growing things mingled with the smells of the ocean. The woodland trees thickened, reducing the sunlight to glimmering shafts streaming through the leaves, while the duocorn deftly bounded his way around trees, mossy rocks, and fallen logs.

  Her mother did not approve of her riding at such a pace. She often said it wasn’t befitting a princess, especially since Jeniah would soon be of age and could no longer use youth as an excuse for a lack of decorum.

  Heartache urged Jeniah to a reckless speed. She tightened her legs around Egan’s sleek body and bent over his neck. She felt rather than heard Breneg and Ciath fall in with her, but they remained respectfully behind. She wanted to rail against them for failing her when she needed them, but they were blameless, since she had blurred purposely to hide from them. No doubt they wanted to chastise her for losing them. Again.

  After ducking under a branch that came threateningly close to her face, she broke through the trees and out onto the wide, sandy beach. She cantered along the shore, heading farther away from the castle of Arden. At a rock formation blocking her path on the beach, she reined and absently rubbed Egan’s long, curved horns. Her emotions alternated between sorrow, anger, and despair. No tutor had instructed her on how to deal with realizing, and then losing, a hope she’d nurtured all her days, or a friend she’d instantly loved above her own life. Desolation crept across her heart and settled in.

  “Your Highness.”

  Jeniah jumped. She’d been so tightly wrapped in her cocoon of grief that she hadn’t heard Breneg approach.

  “Forgive me, Your Highness, but it grows late.”

  Jeniah drew a deep breath and wiped tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed. The shadows had grown long, and darkness loomed. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her. One moon hung suspended, already high in the sky, its silvery glow dim next to the drowsy sun. The second moon hovered large and orange at the horizon.

  Breneg sidled up to her, his face lined in concern as he took a long look at her. “Are you all right?”

  Jeniah nodded, touched that he cared beyond his duty as her guard, and relieved that he did not demand an explanation for her absence. “Just thinking.”

  He didn’t press her for answers, though he clearly knew she was troubled. She rode beside him, leaving the shore and climbing the rise to the highway. As they guided their mounts toward the castle, Ciath rode further ahead.

  Jeniah breathed in the damp, salty air. In a long exhale, she released her turmoil, her anger, and her sadness. Fog drifted in slowly and sometimes in bursts as the wind gusted. Her heart resumed its normal rhythm and the tension in her shoulders eased. Her senses filled with the motion of riding, with Egan’s warm body, the rhythm of his hooves, the crashing of the waves, the chill wind, and the smells of the ocean.

  As she walked Egan, with Breneg riding next to her, she again thought of the stranger. His clothing and his accent proved he was not Ardeene, and she suspected he’d come from Govia or Darbor.

  If the man were the knight of honor he claimed to be, he surely would not have killed a revered animal if he had understood the chayim’s significance—unless she underestimated a warrior’s need to kill. She could not hope to understand the mind of a man who trained for the express purpos
e of making war.

  She felt Breneg’s curious gaze upon her but did not meet it. With all her dreams shattered, she’d have to face her destiny. It was time to hold up her head and accept her fate. In two moon cycles, she’d be nineteen, and then she’d marry the man of her father’s choosing to forge an alliance for the benefit of Arden. Duty could be a heavy burden.

  Perhaps she should stop using her magic. Her ability to blur had been her secret since she discovered the ability as a young adolescent. Her chayim had assured her that she would one day reveal her power, but now that she’d lost her chayim, that time might never come.

  “We must make haste, Your Highness.”

  Breneg was right, of course. Darkness brought danger.

  They urged their mounts to a canter. The road darkened as it wound through the forest. Trees leaned across the road toward its opposite side like lovers longing for a forbidden touch. Insects sang as darkness grew. Night had nearly spread over the land when Jeniah heard a mournful howl that chilled her blood. Wyrwolves.

  She had complete faith in Breneg and Ciath, but two knights against a full pack of wyrwolves would not be sufficient. If the wyrwolves attacked, blurring would only protect her from being seen; she doubted it would hide her scent from the carnivores.

  Worse, her guards would pay for her carelessness. Fear coiled in her stomach. The three riders urged their mounts to a full run, their hooves clattering on the road in a cadence that kept time with Jeniah’s heartbeat. As they rounded the bend in the road, Arden City and the safety of its walls came into view.

  Egan’s neck stretched out as he ran with all his strength. Her heart thundering in her ears, Jeniah glanced behind her. The shadowed road lay empty. Wyrwolves called again, so close that she expected to see them beside her.

  Perspiration froze like droplets of ice on her face in the bitter wind. She leaned forward over Egan’s neck as he somehow ran even faster. Breneg remained close and Ciath fell back to ride protectively on her other side.

  With the crashing of brush, the wyrwolves came at them from the trees. She dared a glance backward.

  On the road behind them, terrifyingly close, raced the nightmarish carnivores. Their oddly humanlike faces turned toward her with hideous, hungry grins. Nearly as tall as a duocorn, their shaggy bodies loped toward her with alarming speed. Leaning low over Egan’s neck, Jeniah focused on Arden Castle ahead, but she feared they might not reach it in time.

  Her breath came in sharp gasps. With throbbing pulse, she spoke to Egan, urging him to keep going, but he needed no more encouragement than the beasts at his heels. With the howling creatures only inches away, Egan and the other duocorns fairly flew toward the outer city gates.

  The city gates opened, spitting out a full regiment of armed guards. Carrying torches, yelling and brandishing their weapons, the men charged at the hungry pursuers. A brief melee ensued while men’s steel clashed with beasts’ teeth. Three wyrwolves fell dead on the road. Snarling, the few remaining wyrwolves turned and slunk back into the darkness.

  Safely inside the city walls with the gate firmly closed behind her, Jeniah sat frozen on her heaving duocorn. She struggled to breathe and to battle her tears. By staying out too late, she’d endangered her own life. Worse, she had endangered the lives of not only Breneg and Ciath, but the men who rushed to save her. Shame, sharper than fear, knifed through her. Afraid she might see wounded among the soldiers, she eyed them, but none appeared to be injured.

  Breneg leaned over and pried her shaking hands from the reins. “Your Highness.”

  She dared a look at him, expecting reproach on his face, but saw only concern.

  “We’re safe now, Princess.”

  She nodded, fighting her tears. “Thank you,” she said to all within hearing. “I’m sorry I put you all in danger.”

  Murmurs of acknowledgement, and even words brushing off her self-recrimination, came in reply. The sentries put away their weapons and melted back into the shadows.

  Taking her emotions in hand, she locked them away and raised her chin. Flanked by Breneg and Ciath, she rode through Arden City toward the castle, her relief mingled with melancholy. Filled with the new self-awareness her chayim had given her, she drove away her hopelessness. She straightened her posture, lifted her chin, and rode forward to meet her destiny.

  Chapter Two

  Kai stood at attention as he faced Captain Tarvok inside the guard tower of Arden castle’s wall. With the door directly behind him and a sentry posted on each side, Kai remained alert, his muscles tense, lest anyone attempt to sneak up on him. Darbor and Arden were allied countries, but Kai wouldn’t be surprised if the captain of the guard staged some sort of test. If their roles had been reversed, Kai would have done so. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades.

  Captain Tarvok pinned him with an assessing, hostile stare. “You’re Kai Darkwood of Darbor? I expected a Sauraii master of your reputation to be older.” The clipped Ardeene accent sounded strange to Kai, but he had no trouble understanding Arden’s captain of the guard.

  “I hear that often,” Kai replied evenly.

  “I’m told you were one of the youngest students ever to have earned that title.” Tarvok folded his arms and eyed him with open mistrust.

  Normally, Kai did not share details of his private life, but he suspected the captain already knew and was determining if he was truly who he claimed to be. “When I completed the final task, I was fourteen.”

  Tarvok snorted but looked unsurprised. “Impossible.” “My father did, too.”

  The captain remained watchful. They stood almost the same height, and while Tarvok appeared several years older, and leaner, Kai recognized in his every movement the lethal force of a skilled warrior.

  Kai knew the captain required further proof before he would admit a stranger into Arden’s castle gates, and he secretly approved of such cautiousness. Kai removed his left riding glove and pulled up his sleeve to reveal the unmistakable sign of the Sauraii on the underside of his forearm, a snake coiled around a dagger. It hadn’t faded in the twelve years since he’d received it. He tapped the center of the coiled snake with his right index finger, and the snake’s body moved, wrapping itself around the dagger in a slow, sinuous motion. Though some had tried, no one could replicate the mark.

  Kai knew that as a seasoned knight, Tarvok had mastered his expressions well, but he saw the lines around the older man’s eyes relax. Behind Kai, one of the guards shifted his weight. Kai tensed, prepared to drop into a defensive stance, his hand automatically moving to the pommel of his sword. There were only three people in the room, but he had no way of knowing how many others waited outside.

  A corner of Tarvok’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Your orders, Captain Darkwood?”

  Alert for signs of an ambush, Kai retrieved an intricately folded parchment bearing the king of Darbor’s seal and handed it over.

  After breaking the seal and reading the missive, Tarvok folded the document and tucked it away. “I’ll assign a squire to you and have someone show you to your quarters. You’ve been offered accommodations in the castle.”

  “I’ll stay in the officers’ barracks,” Kai said without hesitation.

  Tarvok raised a brow. “You’re the king’s honored guest.”

  Kai chose his words carefully. “I don’t know your customs, Captain, and I mean no insult to the king, but I came here to train knights, not fraternize with courtiers.”

  Tarvok eyed him with a calculated stare, but Kai thought he saw a flicker of approval. “I can’t speak for the king, but I doubt he’ll be insulted by your decision. Very well. Officers’quarters it is. I’m going to the training arena. Do you wish to come observe the knights train? Or are you too tired from your travels?”

  Kai wasn’t sure if there was a challenge in that question or not. With the long journey barely behind him, he wanted nothing better than a hot meal, a bath, and a bed.

  Instead, he replied, “It would help me to determine where
I should begin their instruction if I could see them in motion.”

  Tarvok nodded, and Kai had the impression he’d passed yet another test. Kai followed Captain Tarvok outside the guard tower. Two sentries stepped aside to let them pass. Outside, Kai caught the aroma of cooking food, underscored by the musty smells of men and animals. Voices made a low murmur, punctuated by the smith’s hammer. A pair of knights laughed raucously as they strode across the yard. A two-wheeled wagon clattered toward the gate, drawn by a bent old man.

  Braygo remained where Kai had left him—in the care of a boy who gripped the duocorn’s reins as if he might fall without them.

  Tarvok caught the direction of Kai’s stare. “Don’t worry about your duocorn. The stable lads will take care of him, and I’ll have your gear brought to your quarters.”

  “He’s wounded.” Kai gestured to the long scratches on Braygo’s flank made by the fearsome beast he’d battled only an hour ago.

  Tarvok halted. “Trouble on the way here?”

  Kai managed a casual shrug. “It’s minor. I cleaned up the scratches and applied some salve I carry with me, but I’d like the head stable master to treat him.”

  He groaned inwardly as he recalled that disaster. He’d risked his king’s relationship with a trusted ally by killing a rare and honored animal. His untimely appearance and wrong assumptions had brought disaster upon a girl who was, at the very least, a nobleman’s daughter. And worse, he’d made her cry. Not the tears of a spoiled child who’d been denied her petty desires, but the tears of someone who’d lost everything. He’d never felt like such a cad. By the moons, today already had proven not one of his proudest days.

  Captain Tarvok made a quick gesture to the boy who held the duocorn’s reins. The lad nodded and led Braygo away. Kai kept pace with Tarvok through the castle grounds, amazed by the graceful architecture and expansive gardens. Everywhere he looked, he beheld fragile beauty.