Page 28 of The Castle & the Cloister

Ariana could not look at him. His words were sacrilege, but there was a forbidden sweetness to them all the same.

Orden Inver was silent for a time, seemingly waiting for Ariana to speak. At last, she summoned the courage to glance up at him and found a war of emotions playing out across his handsome face. Meeting her gaze, he mastered himself. Honoria’s king shook his head.

“You ask me what I would claim from you in payment for my service. I want nothing,” he lied, and they both knew the words to be false. “Only to take my men and go home.”

At his command, the remaining soldiers stood. Ariana stayed as she was, on her knees, watching while Orden ushered his convalescent men out of the tent. He turned back, as she’d known he would, and fixed her with a lingering look. She felt flushed and aching with fever once more, as if the Inver king’s shadow had briefly warded illness off and now it had returned.

It was only his power that made her lightheaded in his presence, shehad told herself then and every day after. It was only his protection that left her empty and anxious when they were apart. Nothing more and nothing less, for what greater feeling could exist between a warlord and a daughter of the stars?

“I remember you,” Afon said to Ariana in his rough, dry voice. The last time they’d met, she’d thought it must be the aftermath of exposure to witchsmoke that made him sound so. But it was, as far as she could tell, only his natural tone. “I knew we’d meet again someday the moment I heard Orden had chosen a star bitch for himself. You refused to beg for your own life seven years ago, but you were happy enough to beg for another. So I’ve brought a sacrifice for your gods, to gut on one of your altars unless you intervene. I came here for one purpose only, Ariana Inver, and that is to see you plead. I’ve a powerful hunger to know why Orden likes it so much when you cower.”

“Enough!” Gileta snapped, and Orden strode forward hotly. Ariana was closer, though, and reached Afon with floating steps before Orden was halfway across the room.

“I did not cower this morning,” she said. “Nor for several days past. I was fighting for something every king desires, and as you can see, I won my war.”

She shifted the baby in her arms so that Afon would see him better. All of the Hand knew that Afon had bedded and butchered a dozen women in the vain hope that one of them would get his successor. Two mistresses without an heir might be a coincidence. Three, and people began talking. But Afon’s dozen had left no doubt in anyone’s mind—potent though he might be on the battlefield, Afon was not so in the bedchamber. Ariana knew it as well as anyone else, and in this moment, the knowledge was a weapon in her hand.

Forgive me, she pleaded silently to Lyria.Forgive my poison tongue.

Afon stepped closer, and Ariana found herself beyond fear. Having quailed before him once and discovered the burning star at her heart, she would never falter again. He still smelled of woodsmoke and steel and horse, and his nearness as he surveyed the little prince was a strange andfascinating thing. She wanted to examine him, as she had looked over the body of the mountain cat Silith’s servant had once dispatched. To memorize his form, his strengths, his weaknesses. To decide for herself how he could best be vanquished. Afon seemed to sense her interest and lifted his pitch-dark gaze to hers. All she saw there was the yawning hunger he had spoken of, to dominate, to possess, to break.

With a lift of her chin, Ariana turned aside as if the foreign king was nothing. She found Orden immediately behind her, a looming and threatening presence at her back. As was her practice, she sank sweetly to her knees before him. For the briefest moment, she found displeasure in his gaze. But she shifted the bundle in her arms, and the small prince woke.

“My lord,” Ariana said, her eyes steadfast on Orden’s face. “I bring you your son and heir. Does he please you?”

Immense satisfaction replaced all else in Orden, and he reached out a hand, settling it on the crown of Ariana’s head.

“I see the hearth goddess has kept you safe through your childbearing,” the king said, his voice warm and pitched to carry. “Our son is a blessing, and it gladdens me to find you well. I’ve ordered torches to be lit for you in the sanctuary, and before council ends, we’ll dedicate the prince to Honoria and name him before our gods.”

Ariana let out the slightest sigh of relief as he took the prince from her, cradling the baby in his arms. With great care, she stood. Dull pain still twisted within her, and her linens were sodden now. As she got to her feet, she felt another rush of blood, and the slick slip of it as it began to trickle down the insides of her legs. Schooling her face into a mask of serenity, she moved to the open center of the audience hall and held her hands out, one to the retinue from Song Royale and one to the ambassador from Caervallion.

“I’m afraid you’ll both have to meet me here,” Ariana said. “An Inver trial by fire is a wearying undertaking, and I’ve little strength left in me at present, having come directly from mine.”

No one moved. The hush in the audience hall grew absolute as Ariana waited, hands outstretched, nothing about her revealing the sudden fear lodged in the pit of her stomach. Afon had not made her afraid, but this moment, this choice—oh, she feared it greatly.

At a nod from Afon, the Caervallin ambassador stalked forward.Gileta’s retinue pulled back, and Song Royale’s empress swept over to Ariana as well.

Once again, the queen sank to her knees, this time before the Imperatrice and the ambassador. Beyond them, she could see a shadow cross Orden’s face at the sight of her kneeling for others. But she could not afford to falter, or to doubt the course she’d chosen.

“Imperatrice Gileta,” Ariana said, taking both the empress’s hands in her own. “You honor us with your presence.”

“Little Ari,” Gileta said, and it gladdened Ariana to hear affection in her voice. Lyria only knew she’d worked hard enough over the years to soften the indomitable Imperatrice. “It is Song Royale’s honor to witness the arrival of your son.”

Ariana looked to the Caervallin diplomat, encompassing the formidable woman in the circle of goodwill that extended between herself and Gileta.

“Ambassador Gwylen. It is our pleasure to have you with us, and to welcome your master as well.”

The Caervallin ambassador shifted restlessly, but when Ariana turned away from Gileta and held out her hands again, the woman took them. Ariana smiled, but even as she did so, pain echoed within her and she bled, and bled.

“Let us have peace, and no more talk of blood sacrifices,” Ariana said with a bow of her dark head, heart hammering within her chest. She could not help but glance at Orden, who was still watching her with a faint frown. For seven years she’d never chanced his disapproval. She’d never once invoked the goddesses she formerly served. But today was a day for risks taken.

“Blood is Silith’s element,” Afon rasped from where he still stood by the southern windows. Ariana had known he would not give in. “If Honoria’s queen refuses to intercede and sate Silith with her prayers, I insist that the moon be honored in the way of my people. To that end, I’ve brought something special for the goddess—the very last of my Honorian prisoners of war.”

Ariana saw Orden set his jaw and grow livid. Caervallion had sent assurances that all Honoria’s people had perished or been returned years ago. She did not recognize the emaciated figure in shackles who wassuddenly marched through a doorway by guards in Caervallin dress, but it was clear that Orden did. His gaze on the prisoner flared so hot, Ariana was afraid she would burn.

Before her king could speak, Ariana clasped one of Gileta’s hands without letting go of Gwylen, joining herself to both the Caervallin ambassador and Song Royale’s Imperatrice. Gileta’s expression was nearly as grim as Orden’s at the sight of the prisoner, and the news that Caervallion had broken faith in that regard.

“The Beloved Three shine on the hour of our meeting,” Ariana said. “May Silith bless us, lending her strength to our joint purposes and her light to all we undertake together in the days to come. Let her guide us to peace without violence in its begetting, as there has been no violence in obtaining the blood I offer.”