“This is preposterous,” Ranalae insisted, her color already up as she continued on whatever argument she and Thratia had been having before the Hondings reappeared. “Dame Honding does not wish to relinquish control of her family’s holdings to you, Thratia. We all know this wedding is a farce. To the pits with your heir, Dame, this is an invasion – though a subtle one. Our fleet is well equipped. If Thratia wishes to claim your city, then let her try to take it from us.”
Dame Honding looked at Ranalae like she’d discovered a stray dog digging up her garden. “Hond Steading stays in the Honding family blood, and Detan is my only heir. Who he chooses to wed is his own business.”
“You wrote to our empress asking for protection from this woman, and now you spread your arms and welcome her to your family bosom?”
“Are you blind, or just stupid?” Detan said, keeping his voice level lest Aella get jumpy over him arguing with a whitecoat – with the whitecoat.
“Excuse me, boy?”
“Boy?” Detan snorted and pulled himself to his full height. All this bickering was beginning to wear on him. “I am heir to this city, Ranalae, while you are little more than its guest.”
“This city is defended.” She spread her arms to indicate the ships she’d brought with her, mingled in amongst Hond Steading’s regular fleet. It made him ill to see them there, the weapons of a monster arrayed like spike pits around the city he loved.
“By me.” Detan held up a hand, a casual gesture, and poised his fingers as if ready to snap them. “Would you care to do battle, Ranalae of the Bone Tower? You know what I am, let’s not forget that, and you know who’s been training me. Tell me, do you think your ships could answer your call before I dropped them all from the sky? You are correct – this negotiation is a polite farce. But it is a farce because we could wipe you from the sky without a thought, you dribbling sycophant.”
“You would destroy all those lives, just to prove a point?”
“Ranalae, I would burn the very ship I stand on now if I could be assured no trace of you or your forces would be left on this world.”
He turned, taking Thratia’s elbow firmly in hand as if he did so all the time, and called over his shoulder. “Make the dock ready, we will arrive before nightfall.”
When they were back on the heavy deck of the Dread Wind, Thratia extricated her arm from his grip and raised a brow at him. “Impressive performance, Honding. I almost believed you’d burn us all myself.”
He closed the space between them, set both palms against the cabin wall to either side of her face, and leaned down, over her. “That was no performance, lover. If I have a chance to burn that woman and all that would continue her work from the world, make no mistake: I will take it, no matter the cost.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Hond Steading buzzed with rumors under the shadows of the invading fleet. They pressed Ripka on all sides, fragments of whispers and declarations of doomsday following her down every street. Her only consolation was that Tibal, Enard, and Dranik looked just as wary as she did. Though she missed having Honey at her side, she was glad they’d left the injured woman with Latia to rest. The streets hummed with tension, and Ripka held no doubts that Honey would have itched to add to their song. She hoped Latia kept Honey well sedated while they were gone.
A beggar woman stepped into Ripka’s path. Rags impregnated with dust draped her body, and she clutched a paper-wrapped bouquet of hastily plucked pricklebrush flowers, their petals drooping and only half the thorns stripped from their stems.
“Flowers for the royal wedding?” she asked, shoving one hand forward with a cupped palm for grains.
Foul breath gusted against Ripka’s cheek, but she’d spent more than enough time working with the beggars of Aransa to be put off by such a simple thing. “What wedding?” she asked, digging in her pockets to make the woman linger.
“The only rumor that’s true!” the woman crowed. She glanced left and right, then leaned forward and brought a hand up to shield the side of her lips as she whispered. “The Lord Honding has returned and is to wed Thratia Ganal.”
Ripka froze. “That can’t be right.”
“Got it off the palace guards themselves.” She wiggled her hand, and Ripka deposited a copper grain into it mechanically. The woman moved to give her a flower, but she waved her off.
“For the information,” she said, and the woman gave her what might have been a sarcastic bow before trundling away to find her next mark.
For a moment, all four of them just stood there, contemplating the woman’s information, and Ripka was glad for the silence of her companions. Her gaze dragged across the dusty streets of the city and found the massive shape of Thratia’s new flagship, the Dread Wind, drifting with slow precision toward the towers of the Honding family palace. Her fleet remained on the edge of the city, poised for action, but not invading. Not yet. Why should they, when their mistress was prepared to marry the city’s heir and take the throne through legal means?
Clever bitch. She’d spent years positioning herself in Aransa to be elected to the Warden’s seat, nice and smooth, when the position finally opened up. Ripka had assumed she’d use Detan as a weapon, if she could force him to do her bidding. She had not considered that she might force him to her bed.
Nausea gripped her at the thought, and she shook it away. Detan was in a dire position, but he was not without teeth of his own. And yet…
He was her friend. Her friend was up there, on that ship, just out of reach. Being paraded around like a trophy. Subjected to… perhaps, well. Her stomach clenched. She could not form the word in her mind. Just thinking around its edges made her want to rally all of Hond Steading’s watchers and storm that ship, rip Detan from Thratia’s vile hands.
“We have to get word to him, somehow, that we can help…”
“Not exactly on friendly terms with the palace,” Tibal said.
“We’re not, no. But Pelkaia is.”
“Last she saw him, she looked willing to rip his face off, and I don’t think this news will smooth matters over much.”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t try?”
Tibal’s head dropped as he kicked at the ground and tugged his hat down to hide his eyes. “No, Captain. Just sayin’ we don’t know where his mind is.”
“You really think he’s skipping through fields of flowers hand-in-hand with Thratia?”
“No.” The word was harsh, bitter. “But I’m not sure us interfering would help him any, and we got our own troubles to manage.”
“You’re certain he doesn’t want her?” Dranik asked, a deep furrow between his brows. Ripka coughed over a laugh. Of course he wouldn’t know any better. None of the citizenry of Hond Steading had heard anything but wild rumor about their heir for the last few years, and none of it added up to make Detan look like a particularly stable individual. Marrying a bloodthirsty tyrant just might seem like a grand ole time to him, as far as they knew.
“There are few people in this world Detan hates more than Thratia, and I’m reasonably certain that the only reason she doesn’t return the sentiment is because she can’t be bothered mustering up the energy to care one way or another. He’s a tool for her to gain the throne legally, nothing more.”
“Why would he agree to such a match, then?”
Tibal snorted and stared pointedly at the heavy ships spread across the sky like ink stains. “Because he doesn’t want bloodshed in this city any more than we do. Damn fool is probably arrogant enough to think he’ll retain some control of his throne after he’s hitched himself off to her.”