“What’s going on?” Sasha asked, her eyes dancing from the carefully manicured shrubs to the waiting subjects, who eyed her as curiously as she eyed them. As they’d approached, she’d removed her veil to gaze at the parapets and the domed fortress of Jeru castle, and her hair rippled around her shoulders, blazing in the pink glow of the setting sun.
“Once a week the King and Queen see their subjects, resolve disputes, and give rulings on complaints brought before them. It is incredibly tedious, and they’ve been at it since dawn. Judging from the length of the line, it’s been an especially long day.” As Kjell spoke, a trumpet sounded, indicating the end of the day, and the people still waiting for a hearing began to disperse, grumbling as they were turned away, forced to come back the following week.
“Beckett,” Kjell called to the groom who was ushering the guard into the stables, a grin across his weathered cheeks.
“Welcome home, Captain!” Beckett cried, hands outstretched, his eyes immediately drawn to the horse. “Hello, Lucian. We’ve missed you, boy.”
Kjell stepped down from the stallion and raised his hands to Sasha, lifting her from Lucian’s back and letting her legs adjust before he dropped his hands from her waist. They’d been riding since dawn with very few breaks.
Beckett had suddenly forgotten the horse entirely, his eyes on the pretty maid, his mouth hanging open.
He bobbed and ducked, smiling shyly, and Kjell dismissed him with more patience than he felt.
“Take Lucian and make sure he is well-rewarded, Beckett. Check his right flank. He’s been favoring it since our last run in with the Volgar.”
“Yes, Captain,” Beckett said, bowing to Sasha again, tipping a hat he wasn’t wearing, before awkwardly turning and leading the stallion toward the stables.
“Come, Sasha.” There was no time like the present. Now that he was home, Sasha in tow, he didn’t know what to do with her. He could present her to Mistress Lorena, the housekeeper, and demand that she be given a room and a hot meal . . . and then what? He didn’t give orders to the royal staff. He would have to present her to his brother before long, and knowing Sasha, she would demand to be given work. He would present her now, corner his brother and the queen in the Great Hall, and be done with it.
He took Sasha’s hand and marched toward the gardens, pulling her behind him without any explanation, bypassing the wide eastern entrance for the private entrance, feeling self-conscious and oddly anxious. His nerves made him angry, and when Sasha pled with him to tell her where they were going, he barked at her and walked faster.
He strode into the Great Hall and veered toward the dais where King Tiras and Queen Lark sat conferring with the King’s Council.
Kjell, you are dragging the poor woman like she has committed a crime and you are bringing her before the court.
Kjell winced and slowed, hearing Lark’s voice in his head, her ability to communicate through thoughts still as jarring as it had ever been. He continued toward the throne, though he moderated his pace. Sasha was a reluctant weight pulling against him as he blazed ahead.
“I’m home, brother,” he thundered, his voice unnecessarily loud, his heartbeat unpleasantly fast. He hated the Great Hall, the throne that had once belonged to his father, the traditions it housed, and the tapestries interwoven with a history that excluded him.
Tiras rose—sleek black hair and dark skin, lean height and long muscles—cutting off his council without a word. Where Tiras was dark-skinned and finely chiseled, Kjell was pale-eyed and roughly hewn. Where Tiras was restrained power, Kjell was brute force, and where Tiras was wise, Kjell was merely shrewd.
Kjell would rather be like Tiras—wise and powerful—but wisdom and power were not things a man could simply choose. Kjell didn’t mind their differences—he was incredibly proud of his younger brother—he just recognized that he was the lesser man and wished it weren’t true.
Tiras stepped down from the dais with the grace of a jungle cat, and greeted Kjell with outstretched arms and unabashed relief that his brother had returned. Tiras was the person Kjell had always loved most in the world, and he let go of Sasha’s hand and let Tiras embrace him, enduring the affection, though he struggled to return it with the King’s Council looking on.
Beside him, Sasha dropped into a curtsy so deep and demure, her head nearly kissed her knees.
“Majesties,” she breathed, her long tresses falling around her, brushing the marble floors. Tiras extended a hand, helping her rise, and he smiled at her with obvious speculation.
Kjell rushed to explain before Tiras drew his own conclusions.
“Tiras, Queen Lark, this is Sasha. Of Quondoon. Of . . . Kilmorda.” Kjell bit back a curse at his clumsy introduction and continued with more care. “I have promised her a position here in the castle. I would view it as a personal favor if she could remain here. For the time being. For the near future.” He ceased talking.
“We have been traveling for a long time, Highness. Forgive me for my appearance,” Sasha stammered, blushing.
Kjell thought she looked beautiful and didn’t understand the wide, incredulous look she tossed his way before curtseying again.
“You will forgive my brother,” Tiras said. “Kjell has so few friends. We welcome you.” Tiras grinned wickedly, his eyes calculating, his words smooth.
Lark rose from her throne and joined her husband, extending a hand to Sasha as she summoned her lady in waiting, who hovered nearby. “I will have Pia escort you to Mistress Lorena,” she said. “She will take good care of you. If employment is what you seek, we will see to that as well. But for now you will rest. It was not so very long ago I was dragged from Corvyn by one of Kjell’s closest friends. I had to be carried from the horse. I am impressed by your stamina.”
The king’s eyes gleamed at his queen’s tart reference, but this was not what Kjell had intended. He had not planned for Sasha to be taken away and “seen to.” He watched Pia escort her from the room, quelling the urge to keep her in his sights. She’d barely left his side since Solemn. Four weeks and three days since he’d found her near death at the base of a cliff. Since then she’d ridden in his arms, slept by his side, and crept inside his walls.
The King’s Council observed with craning necks and prying eyes, and Kjell sneered at them, jutting his chin and tossing his head toward the wide doors.
“Go and do no harm,” Tiras dismissed them, and waited until they gathered their scrolls and scuttled from the hall, bowing repeatedly to him and the queen before taking themselves away.
“You look good, brother,” Lark said to Kjell, her eyes affectionate, her voice kind. “We’ve missed you.”
“He looks like a great, dusty, bristling bear,” Tiras laughed. “And yes, we’ve missed you. Now tell us about the girl.”
“She was a slave in Solemn, in the province of Quondoon. The people tried to kill her because she was Gifted. They ran her from the town and forced her off a cliff at the end of their spears. I healed her,” Kjell offered awkwardly.
The queen blanched and Tiras hissed. He held himself responsible for every injustice, and Kjell had no doubt there would be emissaries sent to Quondoon in the near future.
“What is her gift?” Tiras asked, eyes flat, hands clenched.
“She is a Seer. She tried to warn the people when she saw harm. They harmed her instead.”
“You called her Sasha,” Lark said, her brows raised in question.
“Yes. That is what she’s called. I feel like I’m insulting her every time I say her name,” Kjell admitted.
“She doesn’t comport herself like a slave,” Tiras mused, his jaw still tight. He’d abandoned his teasing grin and his cutting remarks.
“She was sold in Firi and indentured by an elder of Solemn and a delegate of Lord Quondoon. It is believed she was once a servant in the house of Lord Kilmorda before the province fell. I wonder if perhaps she was something more.”