Warrior (21 page)

“Don’t you?” Damin chuckled.

“Truthfully? I think you’re all quite mad. What if someone fell? We must be sixty feet off the ground here, probably more.”

“Nobody’s fallen yet,” Adham assured her.

“
Yet
being the operative word,” Rodja pointed out. “I’m with you, Luciena. This is utter insanity.

I tell them that every time we come out here.”

“Then why do you do it?” Adham asked his brother curiously.

Rodja grinned. “Because, secretly, I hope we
do
get caught out here. I want to see the look on Mahkas Damaran’s face when he realises his precious heir to the Hythrun throne has been dangling off the palace roof.”

“Precious heir, eh?” Damin said. “I’ll remember that tomorrow morning in the training yards, Rodja Tirstone. When we’re both armed.”

“You’re on!” Rodja agreed. “And you won’t get to lay a finger on me this time, your
highness
.

I’ve been working on a new tactic.”

“It’s called running away and hiding,” Adham announced loudly, which reduced the rest of them to fits of laughter.

“Keep it down!” another voice hissed loudly from the window. “I can damn near hear you in the hall!”

Luciena turned to find Travin Taranger climbing through the window to join them. Under his left arm, he carried something that looked suspiciously like a wineskin.

Wonderful
! she thought in alarm.
Let’s sit on the palace roof, sixty feet off the ground, against
the express orders of Krakandar’s senior captain, and then add alcohol to the mix. What a brilliant idea!

Travin walked across the sloped tiles as if he’d done it all his life, which was probably the case, Luciena decided. Travin and Xanda had been raised here in the palace and, like the toasts at dinner earlier this evening, this illicit gathering on the roof reeked of something so sacred it was almost a ritual in itself. Travin sat down on the other side of Luciena and offered her the wineskin.

“Ladies first?”

She accepted it warily. As she took her first gulp of the sweet berry wine, she wondered if perhaps she should have heeded Aleesha’s advice in Greenharbour, because at that moment, fighting off Ameel Parkesh might have been marginally less dangerous than her current predicament.

It was the early hours of the morning before Xanda led Luciena back through the slaveways to her room. By then the wineskin was empty and she was more than a little drunk. Had it not been for Xanda’s sure-footed aid, she was certain she would have plunged to her death when she tried to stand up and return to the palace through the open window in Damin’s room. The others seemed unaffected by either the dizzying heights or the potent wine. Perhaps it was just that they had more experience with both.

They reached the entrance to her room and Xanda slid it open for her, then blocked the way with his arm. “Will you be all right, Luciena?”

She nodded unsteadily. “I’ll be fine.”

“Sure you don’t want me to help you into bed?”

Luciena stared at him in shock. She wasn’t
that
drunk. “I beg your pardon?”

He smiled. “I thought you might need rescuing again.”

“I didn’t actually ask you to rescue me the first time,” she reminded him, acutely aware of how close he was. “That was my slave, remember?”

“You didn’t exactly refuse my help, though.”

His lips were only inches from hers, his breath smelled of the sweet berry wine and Luciena’s head was spinning.
Oh gods! He’s going to kiss me!

She couldn’t understand why the thought panicked her as much as it did. Luciena wasn’t an innocent. Her mother had made certain of that. Although she’d had to sell her
court’esa
along with the rest of her slaves, Luciena knew exactly what was going on here.
Just let him do it and then he’ll go
away
, she told herself. But another voice in her head chimed in, Princess Marla’s.
“Don’t get any ideas
about my nephew.”

Her fear of Marla Wolfblade’s wrath proved enough to give her the strength to resist. At the last moment, Luciena turned her face away. Xanda hesitated uncertainly, obviously wondering what he’d done to offend her.

“I’m sorry, Xanda,” she told him softly, with genuine regret. “It’s just . . .”

“Let me guess. My aunt warned you away from me?” he asked with a faint smile.

“How did you know?”

“Because she warned me away from you, too.”

That almost shocked Luciena back into sobriety. “You’re kidding! What did she say?”

“I believe her exact words were: ‘I know she’s young, rich and you think she’s very pretty, Xanda, but we will find a suitable wife for you when the time comes. Don’t presume to think your uncle or I will allow you to make such a decision for yourself.’ ”

Xanda thinks I’m pretty?

“That’s what she said to me. Almost word for word.”

“She might have been joking,” Xanda suggested, obviously not willing to give up without a fight.

“I’ve seen her joking face, Xanda. That wasn’t it.”

Xanda sighed with resignation as he lifted a stray strand of dark hair from her face. “Then I suppose this is good night?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I’m not scared of my aunt, you know.”

“I am.”

He smiled ruefully. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

She nodded, suddenly not trusting herself to speak.

This time, when Xanda bent his head to kiss her, he didn’t give her time to pull away. He pulled her close and kissed her until she was breathless and then fled without another word, leaving her alone in the torchlit slaveways, gasping.

It took a moment to get over the shock, but as soon as she was able to gather her wits, Luciena slammed the door in the panelling shut and hurried into the bedroom. She threw herself onto the bed, her head spinning, her heart thumping, her whole world suddenly turned on its ear. Desperately, she pulled one of the big fluffy pillows down over her head to drown out the cacophony of confusing emotions that swirled through her mind, wishing she had never left Greenharbour. Wishing she had never heard of the Wolfblades.

Wishing she’d invited Xanda to stay and to hell with Marla Wolfblade.

Welcome to the family
.

Luciena fell asleep with that thought uppermost in her mind and didn’t move again until the sound of Aleesha running her bath woke her the following morning.

The demon, Elarnymire, seemed to come and go as she pleased. Sometimes she waddled along beside Rory for hours. Other times, he didn’t see her for days.

As a guardian, the demon left a great deal to be desired. Although she claimed to be watching over him, her help was sporadic and unreliable at best. She’d warned him it was too dangerous to enter Acarnipoor, but a week later let him spend a whole night shivering and miserable in the lee of a narrow cliff when a particularly savage storm hit just before sunset one evening and he couldn’t find any other shelter. She’d appeared out of nowhere one morning and made him hide until a company of soldiers had ridden past, and then a few days later let him walk right into a whole company of guards from the Winter Palace in Qorinipor. He’d had to run for his life when one of them recognised him, and had been forced to hide in the long reeds on the edge of the lake for days, cold, wet and terrified. It was only after he finally emerged from his hiding place, faint with hunger and covered in insect bites, that the demon appeared again.

“I thought you said you were helping me?” Rory demanded of the creature when she popped up without warning on the road in front of him. He was dripping wet and shivering in the thin mountain air as the sun rapidly sank below the horizon, wondering where he was going to find food and shelter. He was used to being hungry, but born and bred in the humid warmth of Talabar, this lonely, frightening trek across Fardohnya to the dubious safety of Hythria was the first time in his life Rory had truly been cold.

“I said I was keeping an eye on you,” she corrected loftily. “That’s not the same thing.”

“You let me walk straight into those soldiers!”

“Don’t be such a crybaby,” Elarnymire shrugged. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Who
sent
you?” he asked for the hundredth time, as the demon turned and began to waddle away from him down the road. “You said you’d tell me!”

“I said I
might
tell you,” the demon replied.

“Was it my cousin?”

The demon shrugged without looking back. “I don’t know. Who’s your cousin?”

“Her name is Luciena Mariner. She lives in Greenharbour.”

The demon stopped abruptly and turned to look at Rory in surprise. “Your cousin is Luciena
Mariner
?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed excitedly, running to catch up. “Do you know her?”

“Of course not, I was just asking, that’s all.” The demon turned and walked on, leaving Rory white-knuckled with frustration. A few moments later, when she realised Rory wasn’t following, Elarnymire stopped and turned to look at him. “You coming, or are you just going to stand there dripping?”

“Why do you
do
that?” Rory was choking back tears, the fear, the cold, the gnawing hunger and the loneliness of his long journey finally catching up with him.

“Do what?” Elarnymire asked innocently.

“Torment me like that?” He wiped away a stray tear, determined not to let the creature see him bawling like a baby.

“I’m a demon.”

“That’s a terrible excuse.”

“Not where I come from.”

Rory wanted to scream at her. He wanted to cry. He wanted this to be over. He wanted to be home again with his father and his brothers and his grandpa. He’d been hungry all the time then, too, but at least he hadn’t been alone.

The demon, perhaps sensing his distress, waddled back to him and reached up for his hand. She smiled, her liquid black eyes full of compassion. “I really was sent to keep an eye on you, Rory, son of Drendik, but I can’t tell you who sent me because you weren’t even supposed to know I’m here. I’ve stopped you walking into the traps you had no hope of escaping, that’s all. Anything you were likely to survive, I had to let happen.”

“But why won’t you tell me who sent you?”

“Because it’s a secret.”

It was like arguing with a post, Rory decided angrily. He snatched his hand from the demon’s gentle grasp and crossed his arms defensively. “All right then, keep your stupid secrets. Just tell me one thing. Are you supposed to let me starve to death?”

“Not if I can help it. Why do you ask?”

“I haven’t eaten anything for three days.”

“Ah,” the demon said. “Then I suppose we should find you something to eat.”

“Don’t put yourself out on
my
account.”

Inexplicably, the demon laughed. “I can’t wait till we get to Westbrook and you meet . . . my friend.”

Rory stared at the demon. “Is that where we’re going? Westbrook?”

“If you’re planning to get to Hythria on this road, my lad, there’s no other place you
can
go.”

“And this person who sent you? He’ll be waiting for us there?”

The demon was silent for a moment. She closed her eyes and then opened them and nodded.

“More likely we’ll have to wait for him. As usual, he’s running late.”

“So it’s a man then, this person? Not a woman?” That was
something
. He’d not been able to get even that much out of the little demon before now.

“Yes, he’s a man. Sort of. And that’s all I’m going to tell you. If you keep questioning me, boy, I’ll leave you to find your own food.”

Rory nodded and fell in beside the demon, his shivering abating a little as his clothes began to dry. Maybe he wasn’t really alone. Elarnymire would help him find something to eat and apparently someone was coming to meet him in Westbrook. Maybe things were starting to look up for the first time since that anvil had burst through the tannery wall in Talabar.

When Rory finally reached Westbrook just over a week later, he stopped on the steep road and stared at the massive fortress with a deep sense of foreboding. The tall stone walls stood higher than he’d thought it possible to build and the twin castles flanked the road on either side like massive sentinels, ensuring nobody passed this way without the border guards knowing about it. It was really cold, too, this high in the mountains, and although it was officially summer, there were still patches of snow hiding in sheltered alcoves and nooks speckled across the slopes.

“Welcome to Westbrook.”

Rory looked down at the demon. He hadn’t seen her for two days. “Where have you been?”

“Around.”

“Am I supposed to meet your friend now?”

“In Westbrook?” the demon asked. “Not yet. My friend is still a couple of weeks away.”

Rory looked down at the demon in despair. “A couple of
weeks
? I can’t hang around a place like Westbrook for a couple of weeks!”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause it’s full of soldiers, for one thing,” he pointed out. “And there’s a price on my head. My description’s been sent to every outpost in Fardohnya. And even if they don’t recognise me on sight, where do I stay? What do I eat? I don’t have any money. Even if I could hide in the stables or a loft somewhere, that place is too small not to notice someone thieving on a regular basis. Then I’ll get caught, and thrown into gaol, and they’ll realise who I am and I’m right back where I started.”