“Bartering anisland, not a dessert,” Chieftess Shi said.
“Multiple islands,” Chief Tenilor added.
Seething, General Dolok lifted a hand, as if he would shove Syla away, but he must have thought better of that. Instead, he stepped back, which prompted her hand to fall. She let it, wondering if she’d imagined the zing she’d believed she’d shared with him. Though she could feel her magic tingling within her, she’d never learned to do more than heal with it.
No, that wasn’t true. In the past weeks, she’d managed to use it to hold on to a dragon, and she’d wrapped it around a captor’sheart, making him feel pain, enough that he’d released her. She could do more than heal, but she didn’t want to threaten or harm her own military officers, especially not with stormers watching on.
But maybe she’d affected him in a small way because Dolok frowned and looked at her hand, the moon-mark still glowing a slight silver. A disturbed furrow creased his brow.
“We will not give up anyislands,” Mosworth snapped when Dolok didn’t. “If that is what you came here to demand, you might as well leave now.”
Syla expected the stormers to agree and walk out, but the chieftess and chief glanced at each other, then looked at General Jhiton.
“Chief, Chieftess,” Jhiton said, his voice similar to Vorik’s baritone but cooler and clipped, “we might gain ground if I could speak with General Dolok and the other military leaders and properly convey the wisdom of working with us instead of against us. And Chieftess Shi might have a similar discussion with their female leader.” Jhiton tilted his head toward Syla without looking at her.
“Because we will naturally bond by discussingfemalematters?” Shi asked dryly. “Should I inquire about cycle lengths for gardeners and their methods of managing their menses?”
Syla’s jaw drooped in surprise, but she did think she would get further by speaking to one of their leaders in private. So many of their responses, vitriol included, seemed for show. Maybe the chiefs felt they had to remain strong in front of their troops. Syla would, however, prefer to speak withVorik. And not about menses management.
“If that would facilitate the acquisition of several islands for our people,” Jhiton said, deadpan, “it might be a worthwhile topic.”
“I have no interest in discussing that or other topics with a gardener female,” Shi said. “Send your brother to apply his tongue to her.”
If Syla had been shocked by the woman’s comments before, she almost fell over at that one. Belatedly, she realized Shi had to mean the tongue application would refer towords, not anything… physical.
“Hasn’t he a reputation for charming women?” Shi added.
“He does,” Jhiton said.
Vorik’s eyebrows had drifted up. Had he not been told they would send him off with Syla? She certainly hadn’t expected it. She’dlongedfor it, but she hadn’t known how she might make it happen without rousing suspicion, both among her people and his.
“General Jhiton. The colonel and I will speak with you.” Dolok extended a hand toward a table along one side of the room while flicking his other hand in dismissal toward Syla and then Vorik. “Woo her if you wish, Captain, but she doesn’t have the authority to give away islands.Orcobblers.”
“There will be no wooing. There may be cobblers.” Syla looked defiantly at Dolok, but he’d already turned his back on her, waving for Mosworth and Jhiton to follow him.
Vorik smiled slightly, but he masked his face again when Jhiton looked at him before strolling after Dolok. Was there some significance in that look they exchanged?
As Syla watched them, she couldn’t tell for certain, but her instincts told her this had been premeditated. For some reason, the stormerswantedVorik to speak with Syla.
That worried her but not so much that she didn’t wave for him to follow her toward a private window in the back of the throne room. She would have preferred to take him to another room, but that would make tongues wag. They could speak quietly at the window.
Fel walked at her side, a reminder that she might not be able to arrange anentirelyprivate meeting.
Her cousin watched as Syla and Vorik passed, and took out his pencil again. To write down notes that would be turned into a newspaper column the next day?
Before settling at the table with the other officers, General Dolok glowered darkly at Syla and Vorik. His eyes suspicious, he looked like he wanted to put an end to their conversation before it started. Then his gaze shifted toward the portraits of the royal family high on the wall opposite the windows, lingering on the one of Syla’s older sister, Venia.
With a flash of insight that rocked her, Syla realized why Dolok hadn’t wanted her here or involved with anything important. He had to have figured out that Venia had been the one responsible for the original Castle Island shielder being destroyed and the protective barrier dropping. As Syla had herself learned, her sister had been romantically involved with a stormer spy, one who’d used her to get to the shielder chamber and destroy the precious artifact inside. Venia had paid for that mistake with her life, but as Dolok watched Syla with Vorik, he had to worry that she would also allow herself to be seduced and beguiled, to inadvertently betray her people.
No, Syla would not do that, but she now understood the general’s concern. She would do her best to ensure he and the other officers who knew of Venia’s betrayal wouldn’t have a reason to think Syla was a liability, but she feared that she had a lot to prove if she wanted them to trust her.
4
The windowin the back of the throne room overlooked a fountain in the courtyard, a past king raising a hoe and a sword as he stood upon a sphere depicting the full moon. Two weeks earlier, as much blood as water had filled the pool surrounding that marble moon, and bodies ravaged by scavenging wyverns had been draped around the fountain. Syla couldn’t let herself forget what the stormers had done—how many they’d killed. And she couldn’t forget that the man who stood beside her, his hands clasped behind his back, had been a part of that invasion.
Vorik hadn’t yet spoken, merely stopping to gaze out the window with her, but his face softened when she looked at him, her eyes doubtless full of questions.
Before speaking, Vorik glanced back at Fel, the only protector who’d followed Syla across the throne room, though numerous soldiers remained along the walls, and a server wandered nearby with a tray of beverages. Was he someone’s spy? Maybe so.
