The Shadow Queen (10 page)

“I think he is very attractive. He looks like a man who knows how to rule,” Zagiri said. “I would not mind if they made me his wife.”

“You would have to leave Terah, and go to live in Hetar,” Marzina responded.

“Terah is quiet and dull,” Zagiri answered her younger sister. “Hetar, I think, would be exciting.” She took the little portrait back from Marzina. “Don’t tell anyone I have this. It is probably the closest I will ever get to Hetar,” she said with a sigh.

“You need to take a lover,” Marzina remarked wisely.

“I do not want a lover. I just want a husband,” Zagiri said.

“But if you don’t take a lover or two before you must wed then you will never know what other men are like,” Marzina said. “It is not forbidden to take lovers once we reach the age of fourteen. Don’t tell me you would go to your husband a virgin, Zagiri? If you have no experience, and do not know how to give and share pleasures you will disappoint him greatly. A woman should know how to offer pleasures, sister.”

“There are none who have attracted me,” Zagiri replied.
Until now,
she thought. “I should like to take pleasures with the Lord High Ruler of Hetar. I think he is probably the only man I should ever want.”

“Oh, you just think that because Mother says you can’t have him.” Marzina chuckled. Then she grew serious. “If our mother says this man is wicked, and not suitable, sister, then she is right. Remember Mother comes from Hetar. She knows these people, and we do not. If she believed this man was the right man for you, Zagiri, she would let you have him.”

“If I married this man I should be on an equal footing with Mother,” Zagiri said. “I should be the wife of a powerful ruler of a great kingdom. Indeed, Mother is merely the widow of a ruler, and parent to a Dominus. I should hold a higher position now.”

“Well, since you aren’t going to marry the Lord High Ruler of Hetar there is no need for us to have this discussion, is there?” Marzina said. She wasn’t sure she liked the attitude that her sister was suddenly taking.

“You will not tell anyone I have this miniature, will you?” Zagiri said.

“Nay, it is harmless enough, and if it amuses you…” Marzina answered.

During the nights that followed Zagiri began to dream of Jonah, the Lord High Ruler of Hetar. To Zagiri’s surprise she found herself upon the Dream Plain each night, and he was always there. The first night it happened she asked him, “How has this come to be, my lord Jonah?”

“Do you think your mother is the only one with magic at her command, my golden girl?” Jonah answered Zagiri.

“Do you have magic?” she asked him.

“I have it at my beck and call,” he told her, “but I am but mortal as you are.”

“But you brought me here tonight,” she reminded him.

“Aye, I did. I want to know you, Zagiri, and they will not allow it. But they do not know, shall not know, that we will meet upon the Dream Plain in the nights to come. And then you shall become my bride, my golden girl.”

“My mother says you are old,” she told him.

Jonah laughed. “I am not a youth,” he admitted. “But I am yet young enough to give you pleasures such as no other man can, and I can give you children.”

“She says you are wicked,” Zagiri continued.

“I prefer to believe that I have done what I must for Hetar,” he said. “I am a man who has never shirked from his duty to himself or his kingdom.”

“Why do you want me?” she asked softly.

“It was my dying wife, Vilia, who has chosen you for me. Vilia has always put my best interests first and foremost. She has been an excellent wife. She says you will take up where she leaves off. That you will put my interests first because you will love me as she has loved me. Is she right, Zagiri? Will you love me?” His coal-black eyes scanned her small face. Then he bent and gently kissed her lips. “Love me, my little golden girl,” he pleaded with her.
“Love me!”
His arms went around her.

“Oh, yes!” Zagiri whispered breathlessly. “Oh, yes, Jonah!” Her heart was hammering wildly. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She looked up into his stern face and was lost to him. This was a man! A real man. She sensed the danger about him, but was not afraid. He needed her, and she was going to be there for him. But then she remembered his wife, Lady Vilia. “Your wife?” she said, low.

“Will release her hold upon life as soon as she knows you will come to me,” he told her softly, and his hand caressed her face.

In the nights that followed Zagiri met Jonah upon the Dream Plain. He would kiss her, and he would caress her, but he would not take pleasures with her because she was a virgin.

“We shall have a wedding night like no other,” he promised her. “I shall have from you what no other man has ever had. And you will belong to me alone, my golden girl. You are mine.
Mine!
”

“But how can we wed?” Zagiri asked him. “My mother has forbidden it. Both my brother, the Dominus, and his council are in agreement that you shall not have me.”

Jonah smiled at her, and it was the first full smile she had ever seen him smile. His teeth were very white, she noted. “How brave are you, my Zagiri?”

“I do not know,” she answered him candidly. “I do not believe I have ever really had to be brave. What is it you are proposing?”

“Tomorrow night you will go to sleep in your own bed. You will join me upon the Dream Plain, but we shall not part. You will awaken in Hetar, my golden girl. I have the magic at my command to make it happen. Would you like that?” he asked her, and he dipped his head to kiss the nipple of her breast.

“Will we marry quickly?” she asked him. “My mother will swiftly realize what we have done. And if she does not her mentor Prince Kaliq surely will.”

“Vilia would speak with you before she dies, Zagiri. She would be certain that you will take her place in my life, and in our son’s life. Then she will die. I will mourn her publicly for nine days. And after that I will be free to wed you, and we shall marry. You will be titled the
First Lady of Hetar,
my golden girl. Will that please you?”

“How can you be certain that your wife will die after meeting me and satisfying herself that I am suitable?” Zagiri asked cleverly.

“You have told me yourself that your father clung to life with your mother’s help so he was able to dictate his final wishes,” Jonah said. “So Vilia, with the aid of magic, clings to life. She has told me herself that once she sees and speaks with you that her death is imminent. I believe her.” Leaning forward, Jonah kissed Zagiri’s lush mouth. “Will you come to me tomorrow night, my golden girl?”

“I will come,” Zagiri promised him. “And then I will be your wife, and we shall take pleasures together. I hope you are good at giving pleasures, for you shall be the only man I know. My appetites are great, for I am my mother’s daughter in that respect.”

“I will see you are well satisfied, Zagiri,” Jonah promised her. She would come to him tomorrow! The Darkling Ciarda would make it possible as she had made these visits to the Dream Plain possible. “Until tomorrow,” he told Zagiri and then she awoke.

Was it possible? Was it really possible that she could be transported to Hetar from the Dream Plain? Was it really possible that tomorrow night she would go to sleep in her own bed in her parents’ castle, and awaken in a bed in Hetar next to the man she had come to love? Zagiri knew her mother would be frantic, but it was to be hoped that by the time she discovered the whereabouts of her daughter Zagiri would be Jonah’s wife. Lara would be angry, of course, that Zagiri had flouted her wishes, but she would forgive Magnus Hauk’s eldest child. She would forgive her daughter. And Hetar would be bound to Terah by this marriage. She was really doing a great service for her kingdom, Zagiri decided. She was making a peace that would last between the two kingdoms.

The summer was upon them. It was the day Anoush would leave for the New Outlands. Lara had decided to go with her eldest daughter for a few days. They would take Lara’s great winged white stallion, Dasras. Dasras was eager to visit the many mares belonging to the Aghy Horse Lord, Roan. He had sired many a foal on Roan’s mares, and the Horse Lord was always happy to see him visiting although Roan’s breeding stallion was not.

Anoush was eager to leave the castle. Her heart had always been with her father’s people. This time she knew she would have to ask her mother to let her remain with the Fiacre clan family. No Terahn male had taken her fancy. Indeed most of the Terahn men were wary of the girl. Her gifts of healing and especially of sight frightened them. While they found her fair to look at, and gently spoken, she was not the sort of woman a Terahn man wanted for his wife despite her lofty connections.

And Lara knew she would lose this eldest daughter of hers to the Fiacre this summer. But she would not forbid it. She could not. She would see Anoush had her own fine stone house with a garden, and a herd of cattle to call her own. There were serving women eager to serve in the house of the daughter of the great Fiacre hero, Vartan. Anoush had family in the New Outlands. Her foster parents and their children, who were her blood kin, among others. And perhaps there would be a husband for Anoush among the Fiacre. A man who would dare to make this special girl his own.

“I will miss you very much,” Zagiri said to her eldest sister.

“You will come and visit in late summer with our siblings like you always do,” Anoush replied.

“Perhaps not this year,” Zagiri replied.

“And why not?” her mother wanted to know.

“Mayhap I shall have something else to do,” Zagiri answered.

Lara laughed. “I can see your sister is looking ahead to perhaps some young man to come courting her.”

Anoush said nothing, but she was suddenly troubled. Zagiri was hiding something, and that was not at all like her sister. Zagiri was usually an open book.

Lara’s children walked to the stables with her where Dasras was already saddled, and waiting for the two women. The Domina hugged her children, cautioning Taj not to make any decisions in the next few days without her. He grinned and agreed. “Now both of you, do not quarrel with each other, I beg you,” Lara said to Zagiri and Marzina.

“Would it be all right if I went and visited Grandmother?” Zagiri asked in innocent tones. “I have not seen her in several weeks, and I know she gets lonely.”

“That is most thoughtful of you, Zagiri,” Lara said. “Aye, go and visit Lady Persis if it would please you. It will please her, I know.”

Zagiri smiled sweetly, and secretly congratulated herself on being particularly clever. If everyone thought she was at her grandmother’s she would not be missed until her mother returned. By the time they sent for her and the word was returned that she had never been at her grandmother’s it would be too late. Vilia would be dead and mourned her nine days, and she would be Jonah’s new wife. Zagiri almost hugged herself with her delight.

Anoush looked at her sister strangely as she was helped up onto Dasras’s broad back. There was something wrong. She sensed it, but whatever it was her sister’s mind was such a jumble of thoughts Anoush could not get a grasp of it. Should she say something or was it just Zagiri’s usual racing thoughts? Finding herself seated upon the great horse, Anoush suddenly thought of the New Outlands, and how eager she was to get there. Putting her arms about her mother’s waist, she put everything from her mind but the happiness she felt at leaving the castle.

The great stallion unfolded his beautiful wings. He trotted from the stable yard beneath a stone arch, and then began to gallop across a long green meadow until finally his wings began to gracefully flap, lifting him and his passengers into the air. He turned, soaring over the castle and the fjord. Then, crossing the fjord, he set his direction toward the Emerald Mountains, and the New Outlands beyond.

Magnus Hauk’s three children watched them go.

“Anoush won’t come back except for a visit now and again,” Taj said.

“She’s happier with the Fiacre,” Zagiri remarked.

“We have to get back to our studies,” Marzina reminded them, and together the trio walked from the stable yard back into the castle.

That evening as they sat finishing their meal Taj noted, “It is odd without both Father and Mother, isn’t it?”

“They’ve both been away before,” Marzina said.

“But now Father isn’t coming back,” Taj said softly. “I miss him.”

“So do I,” Marzina admitted.

“It is the nature of things to change,” Zagiri told them. “Remember Dillon is gone, then Father, and now Anoush. I will leave you next. Then Marzina. Only Taj will remain here at the castle, for he is the Dominus.”

“You aren’t going anywhere for a long time,” Marzina said.

“She’s going to Grandmother’s tomorrow,” Taj noted.

“But only for a few days,” his twin quickly responded.

“And you and I shall be left alone,” Taj said.

“We shared our mother’s womb. I think we can share a castle without getting into too much trouble,” Marzina said mischievously. “My behavior must remain above reproach for Mother has promised me that if I don’t get into any trouble I shall go to the Forest Kingdom to our queenly grandmother for training in magic soon.”

“I have noticed,” her brother teased, “that you haven’t turned any of the servants into frogs, butterflies and birds of late.”

“I always turned them back,” Marzina said defensively.

“You and your magic are so childish,” Zagiri said. “When are you going to grow up, little sister? Men do not like women who are too clever.”

“Father liked our mother well enough,” Marzina said pertly. “I doubt I shall ever wed a mortal man. I will need a man who understands my great talents.”

“You will need a miracle, then,” Zagiri said and Taj laughed aloud.

Marzina’s face darkened briefly but then she laughed, too. “I’m too young to wed, anyway. But you aren’t, Zagiri. I wonder what kind of husband they will find for you.”

“I will find my own husband,” Zagiri replied.

“Hah!” Her younger sister snorted derisively. “You know as well as I do that our mother must approve any match we make.”