"Wait here, Brother, until we are summoned into her presence."
Logan glimpsed a pair of wooden swords leaning on a nearby bench. "What are those for?"
"Practice matches," Dylan said offhandedly, then a smile cracked his face. "You say you're the greatest warrior alive?"
"I don't," Logan corrected. "Everyone else does."
"Then, how about you show me." Dylan gestured toward the practice swords in the side garden.
"All right." Logan entered the garden-benches circled around an elaborate white fountain, with sculpted shrubs standing sentry over beds of flowers. "Nice spot for sparring."
Dylan lifted one of the wooden swords and used the blade to hoist the other, flinging it to Logan.
Logan caught the sword and took some practice swings. "I'm used to a war hammer."
"You would be." Dylan bowed regally. "Pounding things. All power, no finesse."
Logan bowed likewise.
Dylan lunged, his sword striking Logan's breastplate.
Logan staggered. "I wasn't ready."
"You bowed." Dylan followed the first stroke with an overhand blow.
Logan dodged, letting the sword swing past, then elbowed his brother out of the way. Spinning, Logan retreated. "In the arena, we don't bow."
Dylan pivoted. "Yes. I've seen what you do in the arena. You fight like a charr."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment. And that last shot of yours didn't count. We're fighting with swords, not with elbows." Dylan charged again, sword jabbing.
Parrying the blow, Logan stepped behind one of the benches.
"Out of bounds," Dylan called. "That's a second point for me."
Glowering, Logan whacked Dylan's blade out of the way and stepped back into the garden. "Is that how it's played here? Battling for points?"
"That's the civilized way."
Logan was about to respond when he spotted a figure on a balcony high above the garden. It was she, the queen-Jennah.
His heart pounded.
Dylan lunged, his sword ramming Logan's breastplate. "That's another touch. Three points."
"That wasn't fair! I was looking at the queen."
"She is mesmerizing you," Dylan said, grinning. "I'm beating you three points to zero."
Logan huffed. "Of course you can beat me if this is a parlor game. But I thought it was a duel."
"It is a duel."
"Then let's forget about touches and out of bounds. The one who wins is the one who stands over the other."
"Fine with me."
Smiling, Logan flipped the practice sword over in his hand, catching the narrow end and swinging the crosspiece as if it were a hammerhead. Dylan ducked back and glared. Logan laughed. "That's more like it."
With a snarl, Dylan rushed forward, sword stabbing.
Logan's hammer cracked the blade to one side, and he bulled through to ram Dylan backward, causing him to sit down on a garden bench.
Distant laughter drifted down from the balcony.
Logan stepped back, giving his brother room.
"That counts for nothing," Dylan said. "I didn't go out of bounds, and you used your shoulder."
"It counts for me knocking you on your ass."
Dylan roared murderously, swinging his sword to brain his brother.
Logan sidestepped.
Dylan's blade struck a stone bench and rattled stingingly. "Why, you-"
Laughing, Logan scurried away.
Dylan followed with sword swinging.
Logan bounded onto a bench and leaped to the next and the next while Dylan's sword swiped impotently at his heels.
"Stand and face me!"
"This is how we do it in the arena."
"What, run away? Stand and face me!"
Logan planted his feet on the grass and raised his hammer. "Here's my face."
"Almost as ugly as the other side," Dylan noted as his sword jabbed.
Logan's hammer bashed the blade, entangled it, and yanked it free, flinging it behind him.
Shrieking in frustration, Dylan head-butted his brother.
Crack!
Both men staggered back. Logan shook his head, trying to get the multiple images of Dylan to coalesce. His brother meanwhile shambled backward, eyes crossed and hands flailing for balance. Logan's vision cleared just in time to see his brother stumble back into the fountain and sprawl into the water. He thrashed ridiculously for a moment, but then sat back against the central figure. It was a mermaid spitting water, which rolled down his face. "I hate you."
Logan bowed. "I love you, too, Brother." He rubbed his forehead, wondering if his skull was cracked. When he dropped his hand, though, he saw the queen on her balcony, beckoning to him. "I must go. Our sovereign calls."
Straightening his clothes, Logan strode from the garden toward the royal residence. He held his summons up before him, and the first Seraph he encountered led him up a broad stairway. At the top, they reached a high chamber with columns on either side and a thick red carpet down the center. Courtiers in samite and silk lined the carpet, turning to see this rough-and-tumble gladiator in their midst. They watched him, eyes narrowing and mouths curling in smiles of disdain.
Logan didn't care what they thought. The queen had summoned him, and he had come.
She awaited him, sitting at the end of the red carpet, on a throne of gold.
Logan strode toward the queen of Kryta.
Pallid-faced guards dressed in blue and gold-the Shining Blade-stepped up protectively around her throne.
Logan flashed them a smile and then went to his knee, bowing. "Greetings, Your Majesty."
"Rise," she commanded.
Logan got to his feet and stared wonderingly at her. She was more beautiful than before-her brown hair pulled back from her neck, her dark eyes locking with his, her lips a red to match the rich robes that mantled her. He almost forgot the words he'd been practicing: "Your Majesty, I came the moment I received your summons."
She smiled dazzlingly. "You must have. I sent it just this morning."
"I am at your command."
"Then I command you to stand with me." The queen rose from her throne. Logan stood there numbly as his queen stepped up next to him. She grasped his hand-her fingers soft but strong-and turned him outward to face the roomful of courtiers. She lifted their hands together. "Friends, senators, courtiers-" She looked pointedly at a proud bald man with a long goatee, and said in an almost growl, "Minister Caudecus-I want to introduce this young man to you. He is a warrior of a new stripe-a gladiator who slew a minion of Primordus in my honor. This is Logan Thackeray."
The courtiers nodded politely, donning smiles and clapping gloved hands in a muffled ovation.
"He fights for me," the queen went on, "as certainly as his brother fights for me. Yes, I have champions beyond the Seraph and the Shining Blade. I have champions such as this warrior. I said he was of a new stripe, but in fact, he is of a very old stripe. He is a hero, like Rurik of old."
Again came the muted applause, the supercilious smiles.
Logan blushed as the queen lowered his hand and squeezed his fingers. She leaned toward him and murmured into his ear, "Thank you for answering my summons."
He squeezed her hand in return. "I will always answer your summons."
"Will you?" she replied in a voice of sudden steel. Turning toward him, she pinioned him on her gaze. "Then you will be bonded to me." She lifted her hand as if in blessing, but then reached out to lay her palm on his forehead and lace her fingers into his hair.
Power poured through her touch.
It roared into Logan.
The queen's mind entered his own mind like a thief through a window. But he welcomed this thief. He took her hand and led her deep within and showed her vistas of memory.
They walked together at the height of the Blazeridge Gap as stones buried the charr.
They swam together through the depths of the underground river.
They fought side by side in the meadow against the destroyers.
They stood hand in hand on the arena sands before the Killers.
Logan showed her every moment: when he was a boy clapping his hands red as his brother was inducted into the Seraph; when he was a young man leading his first scouting party to escape a wildfire; when he was first blooded, slaying a centaur raider and taking the creature's war hammer; when he was most proud, using that hammer to destroy a minion of Primordus in the name of his queen…