Praise for national bestselling author
SUSAN GRANT

SUREBLOOD

“Grant’s skill at rounding out all her characters always makes her story sing!”

—RT Book Reviews

THE WARLORD’S DAUGHTER

“Her latest Tale of the Borderlands…is passion and adventure as only Grant can provide.”

—RT Book Reviews

MOONSTRUCK

“A gripping, sexy new series! I could not put it down!”

—New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter

“This is a can’t-put-down read that draws you in from the first page and doesn’t let go until the tension-filled final chapters. Moonstruck is terrific. I highly recommend it.”

—Linnea Sinclair, RITA® Award-winning author of The Down Home Zombie Blues

HOW TO LOSE AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL IN 10 DAYS

“For readers who want strong heroines and sexy alien hunks, [Susan Grant] is definitely still the go-to author.”

—The Romance Reader

MY FAVORITE EARTHLING

“Susan Grant writes heroes to die for!”

—USA TODAY bestselling author Susan Kearney

“I loved this book! I can’t rave about this novel enough. From an arranged marriage to royal espionage to saving Earth, this is not a book to be missed!”

—Sylvia Day, bestselling author of Pleasures of the Night

YOUR PLANET OR MINE?

“One of the best books of the year!”

—New York Times bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson

“Wow! This book just has everything and I found myself laughing out loud; [Susan Grant has] a real gift for comedy.”

—USA TODAY bestselling author Lindsay McKenna

“The pacing is so effortless and the humor awesome! But most of all? [Susan Grant] has the romance totally nailed. I love their chemistry, and there’s something very sweet about them, even though it’s totally hot, too.”

—Deidre Knight, bestselling author of Parallel Heat

THE SCARLET EMPRESS

“Exhilarating…adrenaline-filled…shocking twists and turns keep readers enthralled.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The Scarlet Empress offers a thrillingly pointed reminder of the cost of freedom and the continuing sacrifices required of those who value liberty.”

—Booklist (boxed, starred review)

THE STAR PRINCESS

“Witty dialog, well-developed characters, and insightful explorations of cultural and class differences and political intricacies abound in this funny, sexy story.”

—Library Journal

The Last Warrior
Susan Grant

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I couldn’t create my stories without the help

of all the wonderful and generous people in my life.

Big thanks to Caro, aka Midnight Line Editor, Corey Collins

for the horse help, Donna-Marie for early reads

and the use of her lovely mountain home,

my editor Tracy Martin, my agent Ethan Ellenberg,

George Meyer for all the brainstorming and loving support,

and, as always, my two wonderful kids, Connor and Courtney.

For Caroline Phipps,

with gratitude, for helping guide me back to the joy of writing.

THE LAST WARRIOR

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

PROLOGUE

SHEER TERROR PROPELLED Elsabeth through a gauntlet of reaching, sympathetic hands as the people of the Kurel ghetto spilled out of their houses, into the alleys and streets. “The king sent soldiers,” someone called out to her. “Talking sense into them, your mother and father are.”

No. A moan of fear rose up in her throat. No one could talk sense into Tassagon soldiers, thickheaded ax-wielding thugs. Not even her parents, the shining stars of Kurel Town.

Her famous-physician father turned no one away from his clinic, not even Tassagons desperate enough for cures to risk setting foot inside the ghetto walls. Her beautiful mother, “the healer’s angel,” ably assisted him. Elsabeth feared they’d be confident enough, and crazy enough, to try talking peace to a people who did not know the meaning of the word.

“Are soldiers inside the gates?” Elsabeth cried to those she passed. Sweat and frightened tears streamed down her cheeks as she gulped air, breath after breath, step after step.

“Yes,” came the answers, with hands upturned, helpless.

Soldiers, here. It had never happened before. Superstitious beliefs kept Tassagons from venturing inside Kurel Town, an overcrowded but orderly warren of row houses and shops. Most were certain they’d fall victim to the wizardry and charlatanry that allegedly occurred inside the walls, and left them alone. Both peoples had shared the capital peacefully, until King Xim had ascended to the throne. A few short months after being crowned, his deep distrust of her people was culminating in this: soldiers inside the ghetto.

At the gates, a crowd had gathered. Between the bodies, she caught glimpses of bright blue-and-white military uniforms, but no sign of her mother’s shining blond curls or the tall, lean frame of her father, his long auburn hair always neatly tied at the back of his neck.

She knew now what she’d find. She knew.

“Beth, no. Don’t go closer.” Some tried to hold her back, but she broke free. No stopping her from her destination. A gut-deep dark knowledge of what she’d find had taken over many streets ago, driving her through the crowd to a scene she could not absorb, let alone believe.

Her boots scraped to a halt over the gravel in the road. For a moment the world went silent. Then a steady sound like a metronome arose as she took in the sight of her mother lying on her back in a pool of blood, her limbs flung crazily.

Like a discarded rag doll, stuck in paint. In those seconds, Elsabeth was oddly detached as she turned her disbelieving eyes to her father, who lay on his stomach, two arrows in his back, his outstretched arms forever frozen in the act of leaping to shield his wife from the arrow that had lodged in her throat.

The metronome was her heartbeat, and it surged in volume and speed until it was drowned out by a howl of unimaginable grief.

Hers.

“They’re dead,” the others were telling her, hands stroking, holding, trying to soothe what was utterly inconsolable. “Dead…”

The loss was incomprehensible—not only to her but to all in the ghetto. Her mother and father’s blazing personalities had eclipsed all who encountered them, including their own daughter. She’d grown up in their shadows, content with her place there, assisting by logging supplies and organizing shelves, working for hours. Tucked away in the hushed peace of the medical storage room, she’d wondered how two people whom everyone noticed could have had a child as invisible as she, whose only adventures were confined to the storybooks she read.

And now they were gone, taken suddenly and brutally, leaving her reeling in a world she’d never imagined facing on her own.

Beside the burning bonfires of their funeral pyres, she rocked on her knees, weeping. King Xim had done this, a madman sitting on a throne. The memory of his soldiers’ uniforms danced like flames behind her eyes. Could the wearing of those uniforms legitimize crimes committed in the king’s name? Never. She’d not let the slaughter of her parents be forgotten. She’d not let their deaths be in vain.

She stared into the blaze until the searing heat dried her tears and cauterized her grief. Then she lifted her gaze, following the trail of glowing ashes skyward, her parents’ final journey. She, too, was reborn, finding new purpose in a vow forged by the heat of their funeral pyres.

By the holy arks of Uhrth, if it took her the rest of her life, she’d see the king responsible for the deaths of her parents and for violence against a peaceful people removed from the throne. Xim and all his cronies banished, forever and ever.

CHAPTER ONE

THROUGH A SPYGLASS, General Uhr-Tao peered at a row of lookout towers whose sentries surely were looking back at him. The spires of the palace they protected glowed like newly forged spearheads in the glare of two suns. Four full cycles had passed since he’d last ridden inside those massive fortified walls to attend the wedding of his sister to the man who was now king. Then, he’d been in the company of only a few horsemen. Today, it was the thousands he’d earned the right to lead.

Though well defended, the eastern walls were not as thick or tall as the other three. He’d plan his breech there. Once inside, his army would overwhelm the home guard. The gates would open, and the city would fall.

But of course, none of that would be necessary. Tao lowered the spyglass, holding it to his chest. Satisfaction filled him knowing he’d never have to fight such a battle, and he reveled in it, realizing he could finally put away the mental trappings of war.

The spyglass went back in his saddlebag, perhaps for good. Even at this distance he could smell the city. Scents of incense and roasting meat mixed with the dust churned up by the men and beasts surrounding him. He breathed deep, remembering. Then, faintly, above the grinding and clanking of his army, shrill horns of welcome pierced the air, signaling the opening of the gates.

Home.

All told, he’d spent more than half his life away in the Hinterlands, battling the Gorr, going out on his first campaign before he’d shaved his first whisker. He’d never dreamed he’d see this day, his triumphant return home for good; he’d never allowed the fantasy of it to tempt him for fear it would have distracted him with hope in the face of impossible odds. But here he was, in one piece, all his limbs attached and working, a fate he owed as much to being in the right place at the right time as he did to blood and sweat. Or, he well knew, to not being in the wrong place as so many others were.

Thank you, Tao thought as the moment hit him, for sparing my life when so many others perished.

Uhrth rest their souls.

Then, a slow smile as he lifted his head. “Gentlemen!” he belted out. Blinding sunlight struck his helmet and leather armor as he raised a gloved fist high. “Today, we will bask in glory. Our victory, our peace. Final, decisive, hard-won. This is the last march of the last war, and we are the last warriors!”

The men’s whoops and howls made his heart pump with joy. Their grins blazed beneath the shadows of countless helmets. Tao laughed out loud as Chiron pranced and blew, sensing the fever of celebration, long overdue. It had been a grueling slog from the blood-soaked killing fields of the Hinterlands, the days dusty and monotonous and the nights interrupted by tortured dreams. Not all battle scars were visible. Survival, however sweet, came with a cost.

Along the way, the army’s depleted state had left them vulnerable to not only roving bands of Gorr stragglers but to the Sea Scourge as well. Burned in his mind was the memory of the Scourge’s shadowy ships mirroring the progress of his army across the southernmost land-bridge. Part human, part Gorr, the treacherous pirates were the offspring of humans who’d mated with the “Furs”—by choice or by force, no one knew. Human at first glance, they were said to have inherited Gorish eyes capable of charming a man’s soul right out of his body, if he was careless enough to stare.

Sea Scourge pirates kept the waters off-limits. This time, however, they’d stood down and let the Tassagons pass. Did they fear him, or did they approve of what he’d done to the Gorr? Perhaps it was a little of both.

Even after entering human territory, Tao had been forced to keep up his guard. The Riders of the sweeping central plains considered the grasslands theirs. They saw nothing wrong with stealing horses and leaving a careless Tassagon without boots or a mount on the open plains.

And then, there were the Kurel. The people living in self-imposed exile in the Barrier Peaks had allowed his army to use the passes through their mountainous home, saving many weeks of travel, yet they’d never once lifted a hand—and certainly never a weapon—to help stave off the Gorr. Not since their scientist ancestors in the days of the Old Colony had caused the near extinction of human civilization. Not scientists. Sorcerers. Dabblers in the banned dark arts of science and technology. Many emigrated to the capital to live, serving his countrymen through teaching, tallying figures and writing, the tedious chores Tassagons either didn’t want to do or couldn’t do for themselves. But, they wouldn’t join the army. Conscientious objectors? More like cowardly freeloaders. The Kurel accepted the benefits of the peace Tassagons won without being willing to pay. What did they want for that sham? A halo, claiming they were Uhrth’s favored children.

Privately, Tao wondered if it were true. After all, the fever that had killed so many in the capital had spared everyone in K-Town, even those who’d sickened. Uhrth rest their souls. He made the circular sign of Uhrth over his armored chest plate in memory of his parents, victims of the plague. It would soon be ten years since they had passed on to the other side.

He lifted his gaze to the brutal glare of morning once more. No matter the differences between the Tassagon, Riders and Kurel, they shared the most fundamental bond of all: they were of Uhrth. They were human. Any discord between them could cause their own downfall. The complete extermination of the human race had always been the goal of the Gorr. The furred muscular bodies, rows of needle-sharp teeth, the strange pale slitted eyes, designed to “charm” and then kill… Tao braced himself against an onslaught of unwelcome images. How many nights had he heard the Furs’ eerie caterwauls upon their taste of first blood? How much sleep had he lost, wondering how many of his men would be killed in the attack? The idea of the Furs emerging from hiding to strike at the heartland chilled him to the core.

Tao set his jaw. They will not. I have defeated them.

Pounding hooves dragged his attention to a group of horsemen galloping to meet them. The leader brought his horse to a graceful and expert stop, raising his visor to reveal a relieved, if disbelieving, smile. It was as if Tao’s very presence and the circumstances surrounding it were a wish that not even the most optimistic of Tassagons had expected.

“General, Tassagonia welcomes you. I welcome you.” Field-Colonel Markam seemed to hunt for the exact words he wanted, then finally shook his head, laughing. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

Tao chuckled at the man’s wondering expression. “Back from the dead, I am.”

“And to a welcome worthy of your miraculous return. Wait until you see, Tao. It’s completely spontaneous.”

“That’s the best kind of celebration.”

“Most of the time.” Markam turned his horse to head back toward the city with Tao. “Xim wanted to declare a national holiday—for next week—centered on him. Him giving speeches, him handing out a medal or two to you and your officers, him granting awards of land for your men, out in the countryside, where they can be put out to pasture with wives…but the citizens made their own plans, as you’ll soon see. Xim’s been stewing about it all morning.”

When their beloved monarch, King Orion, had died unexpectedly three years earlier, leaving control of the realm to Crown-Prince Xim, Tao hadn’t hesitated to give his fealty to the new ruler, his brother-in-law, despite his inner doubts about the man. It was his duty, his calling as an Uhr-warrior, to do no less. Still, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine the king’s petulant expression at not getting his way. Tao had seen it many times before on the younger, smallish boy he and Markam had known as children. But they were men now, the leaders of their people. Above such childish reactions. Or so they ought to be.

“I won him a war, Markam. The war. If he finds no pleasure in that, I can’t help him.” Tao shook his head, muttering, “Already I miss the no-nonsense laws of the battlefield, where a man says what he means, and there is no time for hurt feelings.”

Markam’s dark eyes twinkled as he rode at his side. “You haven’t changed a bit. You still have no patience for politics.”

“Never will!” Tao turned his focus toward the city. “Politics is the pastime for men who can’t fight.”

The rumble emanating from behind the walls became a wild roar of cheering as his army’s point guard preceded him through the gates. Tao sat taller in the saddle. Pride swelled in his chest as he marched his army into their beloved capital city to the boisterous love of the crowds—and soon, he was certain, despite everything Markam had said, the thanks of the king himself.

“UHR-TAO, UHR-TAO…”

The incessant chanting. It had been going on since before sunrise. Elsabeth had dressed for her job as royal tutor while listening to it, the distant sound carrying into her parent’s tidy row house next to their old clinic in the center of Kurel Town. The chanting had persisted like distant thunder all through her solitary breakfast, keeping her from concentrating on the book she’d intended to read with her morning tea.

At her front door, she stopped to sling a messenger bag over her shoulder and fill it with storybooks she’d purchased for the prince and princess: Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales; Green Eggs and Ham; The Starry Ark. As soon as she arrived in the nursery classroom, she’d lock them away as always. Having such things in the palace was her secret, and the queen’s. Queen Aza had been adamant that Elsabeth not breathe a word of it to anyone.

Anyone meant Xim. In the capital, adopting Kurel ways could get a person killed by order of the king. No one was safe anymore. Not even his wife. “Uhr-Tao…Uhr-Tao…Uhr-Tao…”

Before leaving, Elsabeth reached for a chunk of charred wood she’d kept on a shelf since saving it from her parent’s funeral. Worn smooth over the years, the piece sat clutched in her hand for longer than usual. Today, especially, on General Uhr-Tao’s homecoming, it paid to remind herself of her vow. Now that the general had spent himself slaughtering Gorr, would he cast about in search of new prey? What if Xim unleashed Tao to finish what he’d begun—the violence, the raids, the Kurel arrested and never seen again?

I will not fear. I will never give up.

She replaced the piece of wood and left.

“Uhr-Tao…Uhr-Tao…Uhr-Tao…” The chanting grew louder the closer she got to the ghetto exit, where her usual morning routine would intersect quite inconveniently with the general’s long-awaited arrival. The streets outside Kurel Town were packed. Never had she seen so many people gathered at once. The army kept pouring in from beyond the walls, thousands of soldiers. The city seemed too small to hold them all. Leading their slow, measured advance was General Uhr-Tao himself.

She slowed to see. For all his alleged exploits, he looked far younger than she’d expected, and storybook handsome. She had to agree with the Tassagons that the man fulfilled every expectation of what a legend should look like: his bare, golden arms corded with sinew and muscle, his thighs thick as tree trunks as they gripped the sides of his mount. Even the armor he wore across his shoulders and torso somehow fit him better than it did other, mere mortal men.

Look at him, so high and mighty on his horse, a man celebrated for the lives he’s taken. Elsabeth wrenched her attention away. She’d been fully prepared to not like Uhr-Tao. Nothing about his flashy return changed her mind.

With the bag of books snug against her hip, she walked briskly out the ghetto gates and into the crowded streets of the capital.

ADORING CITIZENS LINED the road as far as Tao could see. The faces and voices extended in all directions, filling and overflowing the main square. A band of minstrels cavorted alongside him, singing ballads in his honor. Tao waved, soaking in the moment: the spontaneous celebrations, the music, the flowers and confetti flying, all under a sky empty of burning arrows and smoke.

A world finally without war.

A flower sailed up to him, thrown from a group of pretty women. He caught it and stuck the stem in his armor, causing them to shriek with glee. One tried to climb up to Tao’s lap to kiss him. He laughed, making sure she landed safely back on the road. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed, as if his mere touch were magic.

“It is safe to say you have reached god status, my friend,” Markam said, grinning. Tao followed the sweep of his friend’s hand across the throngs lining the road for the celebration of his victorious return. “Why, today even Uhrth himself would stand and offer you his chair.”

Tao snorted. “Blasphemy!”

“The truth! Look at them. They worship you.”

“They’re celebrating our victory.”

“Your victory, Tao. You’re the most successful military commander of all time, a hero of mythical proportions.”

“Mythical,” Tao spat. “Ask my ass if it feels mythical after weeks spent in a saddle.”

“They love you, Tao, and not their king. Just say the word, and the Tassagonian throne is yours.”

The throne? Tao looked at Markam askance. The conversation had pitched off course as abruptly and perilously as a wagon with a broken wheel. “Your mouth is moving, but only nonsense is coming out of it.”

“Are you sure of that? You have what Xim doesn’t—the people’s love and the army’s respect. Two keys to lasting power.”

“Legitimacy being the other key—the missing key.” The implication that he’d use the momentum of victory to launch a coup was disquieting. Tao couldn’t overlook the fact that Markam was Xim’s chief adviser for palace security. To remain in such a position took Xim’s trust—a slippery fish of a thing, Tao imagined—but it wasn’t inconceivable that Xim had put Markam up to seeing what Tao’s intentions were. “I can’t tell if this is a joke, a test or a warning.”

“Perhaps,” Markam said, “it is a little of each.”

A prickle of unease crawled down Tao’s neck. He might not care much for politics, but he recognized its dangers. Tread carefully. Everything he said could go right back to the king. “No one need gauge my ambition. Once I’ve had my fill of feasts and parties, I’m stepping out of the public eye for good.”

Tao conjured a favorite, infinitely pleasant dream of tending the ancient vines on his family’s estate in the hills, and the simple satisfaction of adding his own vintage to the rows of dusty bottles in the wine cellar, a task he couldn’t wait to steal from the hands of estate caretakers. He would grow old with his family around him. It was the kind of life his military father and grandfather had dreamed of but never lived long enough to realize. A life no one seemed to believe he desired. “I’ll retire as soon as the king grants me permission.”

“General Uhr-Tao—retiree? At twenty-eight?” Markam threw back his head and laughed.

“My officers had the same reaction. I’ll remind you as I did them that a soldier’s life ends in only two ways. Retirement is a far better fate than the alternative.”

“Don’t be so sure. Retirement requires a wife. If that’s not life-ending, I don’t know what is.”

Just like that, they fell back into their usual banter in the way of men who’d been friends since practically infancy, as if four years hadn’t passed since they’d last spoken.

As if he didn’t just offer me the throne on a platter, Tao thought, squinting in the glare of the suns. “Life-ending? Only if one doesn’t go about the process of selection properly. I simply won’t settle for a female incompatible with my desires.”

“The process of selection?” Markam lifted a skeptical brow. “Courtship you mean.”

“That is how some describe it, yes.”

Markam’s teeth shone in the sun. “Since when did you become an expert on the subject, General?”

“Courtship requires a sensible plan and the discipline to stick to it. I’ll acquire a wife the same way I’ve conducted my military campaigns—with logic, careful consideration and without emotion getting in the way.”

Markam laughed. “Good luck.”

A flash of long, bright coppery hair caught Tao’s eye. A pretty young woman navigated her way through the crowds, a blue skirt flapping around her ankle boots, a bag slung over one shoulder. Kurel, he thought in the next instant, watching her devote more attention, and certainly no less distaste, to the steaming mounds of horse manure in her path than she did to him and his army.

Well, that’s one female I can comfortably remove from any list of potential mates, he thought with an inner laugh.

As he rode past the simple Kurel gates, more of her kind emerged from the ghetto, their faces just as cold, wary, even downright hostile. K-Town was a city within a city, stretching out to the distant southern wall, a teeming warren of people and buildings that had for generations served as a haven for immigrants from the Barrier Peaks.

A people as frosty as their cuisine was hot, it was said. The biting spice of their cooking hovered in the air, a tantalizing whiff of foods he’d never tasted and likely never would, just as he and that woman would never speak. He’d visited nearly every corner of the known world, but he’d never once set foot inside K-Town. No Tassagon in his right mind would, lest they fall under a spell.

Shouts dragged his attention back to the streets. A pair of home guards on patrol blocked the redheaded woman’s path. One was swaggering a bit as if to flirt with her while the other guard pulled open her bag for inspection, spilling a book as he rifled through the contents. She crouched to retrieve it, brushing off the cover as if the thing were more precious than gold.

More Kurel formed a bottleneck behind her. Their agitation made the air crackle with sudden tension, a needless escalation of the situation. Tao put his fingers to his mouth and blew out a quick, sharp whistle. The home guards jerked their focus to him, and he shook his head, motioning at them to move on. They had better things to do than pick on Kurel women, especially today, his homecoming.

The redhead’s slender arms hugged the bag closely and protectively. Her cheekbones turned pink enough to cover freckles that were a scant shade darker than her skin. Tao gave her a jaunty wave in advance of her gratitude at his aid. But the look she gave him contradicted all delicacy in her appearance. Those contemptuous blue eyes could have ignited stone.

“Are you all right?” he called.

She blanched at his attention and wheeled away without a word. Chiron clip-clopped along the same path, but the redhead kept walking, her attention fixed straight ahead as if he were a stray, possibly vicious dog she mustn’t provoke.

He pulled Chiron back, setting the horse to prancing on the cobblestones, their enormous shadow looming over the other ghetto dwellers who had gathered around. As soon as they saw him looking their way, they, too, averted their eyes—as if afraid he’d single out one of them next. Ridiculous. He wasn’t going to hurt them. Nor would his men. The idea of their thinking so annoyed him even more.

“The Gorr are the monsters, but in Kurel eyes I’m a monster,” he snarled at Markam. “Distaste, I’d expect, but fear? Guards stopping innocents in the streets? That’s not the way it was when I left.”

Markam’s gloves tightened around the reins. “Xim initiated a crackdown on K-Town as soon as King Orion was buried and you were back to the front.”

“Your messengers mentioned nothing of the sort. Why?”

“Distract you when you held the fate of all humanity in your hands? I refused.”

“Do you think I would have gotten this far if I didn’t know how to prioritize?”

They glared at one another. Markam broke ranks first. “Xim fell ill, a fever. He refused treatment by a Kurel physician, fearing sorcery, and relied on a Tassagon healer. In his delirium, he fretted that the Kurel thought him weak, that they liked his father more and had therefore created a spell to make him sicken and die like so many did in the epidemic.”

Tao clamped his jaw against an image of his parents’ fevered suffering. “Go on.”

“When Xim recovered, he said the current laws against sorcery were too vague and too lenient. He had the Forbiddance redone to his liking.”

“The entire oral code?”

“Yes, all of it. He had everything transcribed into writing by Kurel and for them. Orders were given to shoot on sight any Kurel practicing the dark arts. Uhr-Beck’s regiment was given the job of enforcement.”

Old one-eyed Beck. Tao had sent him home five years ago, gravely wounded, never expecting he’d walk out of the Barracks for Maimed Veterans. But Beck had regained sight in one eye. Sidelined ever since, the old warrior chafed at having to serve inside Tassagonia’s walls, training recruits instead of fighting at the front. It was a valuable contribution to the war effort in Tao’s view, but not Beck’s apparently. He acted as if Tao had sentenced him to the worst kind of hell. The Uhr’s resentment had turned into an obsession to prove he was still a potent warrior. Xim’s handing Beck an order to quell Kurel would have been like pouring fuel on a long-smoldering torch.

“A few violent incidents occurred inside the ghetto gates,” Markam continued.

“He sent his men inside?” Aghast, Tao wondered how Beck had convinced his green recruits to dare it. Even experienced soldiers were leery of risking a sorcerer’s curse.

“Not very far inside, I assure you. A few Kurel came forth to reason with them. Stories vary. We’ll never be sure what happened, but at the end of it, there were casualties. I did what I could to restore calm. There hasn’t been a repeat, but the Kurel haven’t forgotten.”

The redhead’s reaction to his homecoming confirmed it. Xim wasn’t the man his sire was, anyone would agree, but it seemed the kingdom had fallen into the hands of a boy who didn’t ponder the consequences of his deeds. Tao was only a few years older, but he’d acquired a lifetime of experience compared with the king. It was clear Xim needed support and guidance in a more sensible direction, but it would have to be done tactfully. Markam’s insinuation that Xim had lost the respect of the public was a warning that others might see Tao as a candidate to usurp the king.

Politics. Was there no escaping it here in the kingdom?

“Ah, no frowning, my friend,” Markam cried. “Not today. Look at the people. Feel the love. This is your day!”

Tao couldn’t fault Markam for changing the subject. This moment of triumph had been many hundreds of years in the making. He was once again aware of the crowd crying out for him, but his thoughts inevitably returned to the angry Kurel woman and Markam’s words. Had he returned from battle only to find war brewing in his own backyard?

CHAPTER TWO

“UHR-TAO, UHR-TAO…”

Chanting for the general chased Elsabeth all the way across the moat bridge and into the coolness of the palace, where servants hurried this way and that, carrying enormous trays of breads and fruits to tables already groaning under the weight of food set out for the banquet.

Her heartbeat hadn’t slowed since the home guards had harassed her. She hadn’t been afraid for herself. She’d been too worried that the books in her bag would be traced to Queen Aza. The Home Guard reported to Colonel Uhr-Beck, who reported to King Xim.

She worked to calm herself, lest she encounter anyone who’d notice her agitation. Her role in the palace was safe only because of her ability to keep from being noticed. Any nervousness on her part could very well be translated as guilt, and then it would be over for her.

“What’s your hurry, Kurel?” the guards had demanded, wanting to search her bag—and more, had she not given them the reasonable expectation of a good fight if they dared try—all because she’d drawn attention to herself by failing to fawn over Uhr-Tao.

“Show the general some respect!”

Respect, when soldiers like Uhr-Tao won acclaim for wielding swords but wouldn’t have the first idea what to do with a book or a pen, let alone proper eating utensils, or anything else associated with civilized human behavior. Respect, when every time she looked at a Tassagon Army uniform, she relived her horrifying race through the ghetto, only to discover she was too late, because her parents had already been shot like animals for no more crime than standing in the street. Respect, when the soldiers responsible for killing them walked free, rewarded for their actions.

Even now, three years later, her heart clutched with the memory of her parents’ murders, and her vow to oust Xim for the crime was no less determined. She wasn’t arrogant enough to believe she’d have gotten this far, spending her days within an arm’s reach of the man, if not for discovering friends amongst her enemies. Some Tassagons were just as disillusioned as she was with King Xim, including the mutineer chief of his palace guards.

“There you are, Elsabeth.” As if bursting from her very thoughts, Field-Colonel Markam stood in the entrance to the nursery, wearing dress blue-and-whites and gleaming boots. His features were too strong for him to be considered handsome, his nose too long and his chin too sharp, but with his sheer intensity and unfailing self-confidence, he attracted willing women by the droves. He gave them little notice, so devoted was he to his career.

Elsabeth planted two fists on her hips. “You couldn’t have called off those battle-ax-wielding thugs yourself? General Tao had to do it?”

“It was the perfect way to introduce you as someone I wouldn’t go out of my way to help. Just another Kurel.”

Not one shred of apology accompanied his simple explanation, nor was the reasoning behind it something she could argue. No one must guess they were working together, or for what purpose.

Like a hawk folding its wings, he placed his hands behind his back and strolled the nursery, perusing toys and the other evidence of children with the same neutral observation she’d seen him use when inspecting troops passing in review. But it wasn’t reflective of his true feelings. Whenever she saw his eyes light up at the sight of Aza, she knew that he cared for the queen and the children as much as she did.

He turned to her, grim. “He’s afraid. Xim is. Thousands of soldiers have entered the city, loyal to their general, and none familiar with their king. I’m going to try my damnedest to reassure him, but this kingdom won’t be big enough for the two of them.”

“Would it be too optimistic to hope King Xim is the one who moves out?”

“If only it could be that simple.” The tendons in his lean jaw worked. She searched his face, looking for clues. Any unrest would surely translate to action against her people. “Beck wants to take over as general of the army.”

She swung to him. “You can’t let him—”

Markam cracked a smile. “Oh, ye of little faith. Tao has confided his interest in retiring. I’ll leave that to him to tell the king, but I’ve already suggested to Xim that the soldiers not be garrisoned in the capital proper. There’s a region outside the western wall where they can settle, take on wives and farm. Xim likes the idea, but Beck, well, he won’t want anything to do with that sort of life.”

“His ambition would rust from disuse,” she muttered. Markam seemed to have stabilized matters. Still, Uhr-Beck wanting to jump into Tao’s place was worrisome.

“Until all this is settled, Tao must tread carefully. I need you to keep your ears and eyes open for any hints his safety is in jeopardy.”

“Helping the man who never helped us.” She found it hard to show sympathy for the general who ran the army that had murdered her parents. “He was off doing the king’s bidding like a favored hunting dog. You’re the hero, Markam. You stopped the violence in Kurel Town, not General Tao.”

Markam spread his hands. “Tassagons see Tao differently than you do, Elsabeth. I see him differently.”

A legend. A hero. Had he not proved it by shooing away her tormentors, a couple of thick-skulled bullies, in the midst of his homecoming parade, and doing it with a single flick of his hand? It had been a generous, unexpected deed.

You should have thanked him. The acknowledgment of her rudeness to the general came with a pang of guilt. Her parents wouldn’t have approved of her behavior. They’d raised her to be tolerant, their silly liberal views preaching unity and acceptance, but every time she glimpsed a Tassagon Army uniform, she remembered her parents’ brutalized bodies. If she scratched the surface, would Tao be any different from the rest of the thickheaded ax-throwers who populated the Tassagon Army?

Markam ignored her stubborn expression, his voice firm but patient. “We can use Tao. Turn him to our side.”

“There’s no guarantee of that.”

“Perhaps not. But without Tao alive as a counterbalance, Xim will gain even more power. His ambition will know no bounds. He’ll find excuses to send the army to destroy the Riders and Kurel. With Tao dead, the Gorr will no longer be afraid to regroup and attack. We’ll be too weak to defend ourselves because we’ll be warring human against human, blind to the coming danger, as is warned in the Log of Uhrth.”

“I know what the prophecy says.” She shuddered every time an elder read that passage from the precious volume. “If humans turn on each other, darkness will consume us and we will be lost to Uhrth forever,” she whispered and narrowed her eyes at the spectacle outside.

Markam wanted her to help keep General Tao safe. Of all the Tassagons, he understood most what this promise would cost her. Inside these walls, the chief of the Palace Guard knew everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. He had to. His life depended on it.

As now did so many others in the palace.

A glove belonging to Aza lay on a table. Elsabeth picked it up, savoring its softness between her thumb and index finger. Thick, sumptuous satin, such luxurious fabric was never seen in the ghetto. It held the woman’s perfume, a whiff of fresh flowers. In the palace, the queen’s presence was colorful and unexpected, like a beautiful, fragile flower poking up between the cold, hard slabs of a fortress.

Elsabeth turned Aza’s glove over and over in her hands, then crushed it to her chest. “Damn it, Markam, if I’m caught doing anything that appears to protect Uhr-Tao, if he suspects anything, Xim will blame Aza. He’ll say she put me up to it, and he’ll—”

“I know,” Markam cut in bleakly, and with real pain. If he thought his unrequited love for Aza was a secret, he was a fool. He ran a finger along the inside of his collar. Beads of perspiration glittered on his furrowed brow as he regarded her. It was warm in the palace, but not that warm. He was nervous, a condition unprecedented for him that she could recall. “Can I count on you, Elsabeth? Will you put aside personal feelings about the general and stand ready to help if necessary, for all the reasons we’ve pledged ourselves to?”

To keep the darkness at bay…

She wiped suddenly cold hands on her skirt. “Yes. You can count on me.”

A quick nod, a squeeze of her arm, and Markam strode away to complete more secret meetings with other collaborators, all of them treasonous by definition, and all of them at risk of discovery and capture with General Uhr-Tao’s unexpected, utterly complicating return.

CHAPTER THREE

“UHR-TAO, UHR-TAO…”

The cheering was thunderous as the army entered Palace Square. Tao looked up in reverence. He could see this sight every day and never tire of it. The palace was a visual masterpiece, a fantastical creation built in much darker times, perhaps as a testament to the power of hope, or a way to show the Gorr that it wasn’t as easy as they might think to kill the human spirit. Balconies festooned in carved stone ringed the lowest floors, the entire building narrowing to four towers where blue-and-white flags of the kingdom fluttered. Underneath, invisible to all, was an elaborate system of drainage pipes, many wider than a man was tall, to divert the deluge from the yearly monsoon. They emptied into the vast expanse of the moat, home to a pod of voracious, deadly tassagators, reptilian water creatures native to this world. The moat was the palace’s best defense against Furs and humans alike. If a human were to actually survive a tassagator attack, the venom would kill, slowly and excruciatingly. There was no known antidote. No need for one, really. Anyone who fell in the moat was presumed eaten for dinner.

Before he’d been taken to train as an Uhr-warrior at age twelve, he, Markam and even Aza would explore the pipes on dares as children. They’d toss stones and the occasional dead rodent into the moat to attract the terrifying interest of the gators, then run, shrieking, into the deeper safety of the pipes. The humid and slightly sour air arising from the waters sparked memories of those carefree days.

My past, my present and my future, all meeting here and now.

He raised his hand to halt the army. As the men spent long moments soaking in their deserved acclaim, the royal family and various dignitaries awaited him across the drawbridge spanning the moat.

He let out a soft laugh of joy when he recognized his sister, her slender frame swollen with child, her bright gaze longing and urgent. Aza. A dazzling smile lit up her face when their eyes met, hers the vivid pure green of their mother’s in contrast to his, the more hazel green of their father’s.

Tao’s combat-hardened heart softened at the sight of her. Too few moments in recent years had been spent together. That was about to change.

He dismounted and stroked a hand down Chiron’s muscular neck. The great horse dipped his head, blowing softly. “Being put out to pasture won’t be so bad, Chi,” he told the beast. “You’ll see.”

He handed the reins to an aide. His armor was removed by his master-at-arms, Pirelli, his helmet given to yet another officer, his second-in-command, Mandalay.

“Sir, it’s been an honor,” Mandalay said, emotion in his eyes.

Tao glanced from Mandalay to a clearly moved Pirelli. “The honor’s mine, gentlemen.”

With emotion of his own swelling in his chest, he squared his shoulders. Standing tall, he strode across the drawbridge to the palace steps where the blessing ceremony would take place.

Although Aza smiled with love and pride and was as lovely as ever, up close he saw details he hadn’t expected. Too-pale skin, lines where there hadn’t been any before, tired shadows under her eyes. Where was the carefree girl he remembered? Palace life seemed to have sucked the spirit out of her as thoroughly as a Gorrish bloodsucker emptied a corpse. Two small children and another on the way—clearly his sister was exhausted. He imagined Xim was not an easy man to live with.

But it was Aza’s duty to do so. Their family had always served the royals, from supplying commanders to lead their armies to providing beautiful wives for their princes.

Tao sought his brother-in-law’s eyes and nodded. Pouting, as Markam had predicted, the man looked as though he’d swallowed a melon before finally acknowledging Tao with a reluctant lift of his brows.

Look within my soul, Xim, and you will see I have no interest in your throne.

As Tao approached the waiting priests, he tried to clear his mind of doubts, of hostile Kurel, weary sisters and impetuous kings, for he wanted to remember this moment for what it was. With all resentment purged from his heart and only the humility of a servant of the realm, he plunged to one knee.

The crowds grew hushed in anticipation. The hot breeze felt cool as it ruffled his hair. The picture of deference, he lowered his head in anticipation of Uhrth’s blessing.

A priest sang as he dribbled holy water over Tao’s head and neck. Liquid spattered and pooled like gemstones on the marble, a fitting nod to Uhrth’s angels.

Born on their watery world beyond the sky, they journeyed across the mystical ocean of stars in great arks to the chosen lands of Tassagonia, thriving until the arrival of Gorr invaders. The two sides fought to near-extinction, until all the arks were destroyed on both sides, stranding the two enemies on Tassagonia forevermore.

They’d been fighting ever since.

Each shivering droplet reflected the sky. The holy water used in the ceremony came from the only artifact to survive from the days of the Old Colony: the Seeing Bowl. It was said that within its waters the rightful ruler of Tassagonia could be viewed and the future revealed. Tao couldn’t help but wonder what Xim saw when he stared into its depths.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT to do, Elsabeth.” The queen was pacing nervously after returning to her private apartments to change clothing for the banquet. Several handmaidens waited in her chambers next door for her to return, but she’d sought out Elsabeth in the adjacent nursery classroom as soon as the blessing was over.

The room was darkened with thick curtains, the children playing with their toys as naptime approached. “Xim is so jealous of Tao,” Aza said. “He’s always been. Since they were boys. Tao was always stronger, better at everything, but my brother is Uhr-born and bred, you see. Born to do battle.” She swallowed hard, whispering, “Born to die for us, Elsabeth. But Xim, he was born for another path. Only, he’s never been able to value what qualities are his alone.”

“Hush, now. Sit.” Elsabeth helped Aza onto a chair as a maid bustled around the room, pretending not to eavesdrop. The servant was Tassagon and not to be trusted.

“There.” Elsabeth moved the queen’s hand to her rounded belly. “Reach deep for calm. Being upset isn’t good for the baby.”

Aza nodded, trying to slow her gulps of air. She took Elsabeth’s hand and briefly squeezed it in hers. Once, years ago, it would have been an overly familiar, inappropriate gesture. By now it was automatic. They were friends across classes, across cultures, Kurel and Tassagon. But would Aza feel the same if she learned her children’s tutor was a Kurel rebel with the goal of seeing her husband deposed?

“Miss Elsabeth. Pick me up!” Prince Maxim held out his chubby hands, and Elsabeth pulled him up to her hip. Drowsily, Max snuggled close, smelling of powder and milk. Little Princess Sofia climbed onto the queen’s lap, to play with a strand of enormous pearls the color of her skin. Oblivious to the danger swirling around them all, Elsabeth thought, envying the babe’s utter innocence. The maid left, but Elsabeth still could not relax.

“I didn’t know the depth of my husband’s jealousy at first,” Aza said, absently stroking Sofia’s golden hair. “One day, not long before King Orion died, Xim was in an awful rage. He told me that the king, his own father, loved Tao more. He recited a dozen incidents he thought proved it. At the funeral, he showed no grief, none at all. He seemed…” Aza’s gaze drifted away, darkening. “Victorious. It was so odd, even horrifying, as if by dying, his father had lost and Xim had won. I wept that day for Orion, and I wept for my husband. I weep every day for him, Elsabeth. Hate is rotting his soul, Uhrth help me. It’s putrefying his humanity like a dead body left out in the sun. I fear he’ll do harm to my brother, and he’ll do it without a care.”

Elsabeth crouched next to her. “Please. The baby. Go, get dressed for your party, laugh with your brother. Don’t worry about anything. Others will make sure the general is safe.”

“Others will? Who?”

Wrenching hope glowed in the queen’s anguished stare, making Elsabeth regret the words that had just spilled from her lips. She had to be careful or Markam would be executed, Tao would be captured or killed, the ghetto burned and Tassagonia would be no closer to ridding itself of its parasite king.

Elsabeth tried to keep her voice and words as neutral as possible. “Everything will work out, My Queen. You’ll see.”

Their eyes met, and a sort of understanding passed between them. Aza’s shoulders lost some tension, and she drew her daughter closer. Whatever the queen had gleaned from Elsabeth’s gaze was enough.

Elsabeth hoped the knowledge didn’t kill the woman.

“Don’t forget to come fetch me from dinner before the night nurse arrives. I want to see the children before bedtime.”

“I will,” Elsabeth promised.

The queen started to leave, then stopped. “And Elsabeth…?”

“Yes, My Queen?”

“You’re a love for listening to me.”

A pang of guilt. Everything Aza confided went straight to Markam.

The queen left to change gowns and prepare for the banquet. The children were carried away for their naps. Elsabeth remained in the classroom, pulling out a forbidden book and cracking it open to read, as she did many a quiet afternoon in the palace. After all, the children were still too young to endure long hours of learning. Often Aza would find her and ask for a lesson in reading, but always when Xim was far from her chambers. Elsabeth would fill the rest of the boring hours with her nose in storybooks, getting lost in other people’s adventures.

Can I count on you, Elsabeth?

She closed the book and flattened her hand on the cover. The memory of Markam’s request for help ended all hopes of reading. She should be living a safe life as a nice Kurel accountant’s wife, spending the afternoon curled up in a cozy cottage with a favorite book and a cup of honey-tea. Instead she was biding time in a stone fortress, at risk of getting caught in a crime that could see her executed for treason.

At least she’d give them a reason for her execution. Her parents had given them none.

Yes, you can count on me.

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER WASHING THE ROAD dust from his skin and changing into his formal uniform, Tao arrived in the banquet hall. The bracing days of winter seemed a long way off with such intense light and heat pouring through the windows. Servants had drawn heavy drapes against the suns, blocking out the light but holding in the dense air. A veritable army of other servants perspired as they operated giant cogs and wheels to spin ornate fans overhead, creating a much-needed breeze.

Savory scents made Tao’s belly grumble and his mouth water. He’d eaten reasonably well in the encampments in the Hinterlands—plentiful game, fruits, nuts and vegetables—but it was a soldier’s diet prepared by his men or one of the female camp followers, not palace chefs who’d outdone themselves preparing a boggling array of delicacies. Snatching a piece of pastry-encased roasted meat off an offered tray, he popped it in his mouth, chewing contentedly. Aza was at his side, cheerfully filling him in on the passage of time, the children, her hobbies, yet only the barest details of her marriage, keeping her arm linked with his in the endless crush of well-wishers at the party.

“Savior of us all…”

“Thank you, good sir.”

Dancers spun close. “Warm your bed tonight, sir?” offered a dulcet voice.

“A scented-oil massage,” tempted another with a glimpse of kohl-lined dark eyes.

“I expected gratitude,” Tao confided to his sister, “but they’re treating me like a demigod, for Uhrth’s sake.”

Markam overheard and chuckled. “I told you, Tao, but you wouldn’t believe me.” With a nod at Aza, he turned to leave them. “I will see you later, Tao.”

“You can’t escape, Markam,” Tao said. “Not if I can’t.”

“Some of us still need to work for a living. You, however, are on vacation.”

“Get back here and help me through this.”

Aza pretended to be indignant. “You make my parties sound no better than going to the dentist.”

“Both are a necessary pain, my dear sister.”

Aza pushed at him playfully, her laughter sweet. It did his heart good to see her this way. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but she seemed more relaxed than earlier. “Not to worry,” he assured her. “I’m enjoying myself immensely.”

Markam nodded at Aza, his smile for her gentle, then he strode away, careful to circumvent a troupe of musicians. The singers were belting out a ballad about Tao’s exploits.

They were escorted to a table seating hundreds, Xim at the head, Aza at his right and Tao to the left. Down each side were Xim’s loyalists. The banquet commenced, a circus of food and drink, marred by shallow conversation, overly long stories and competition for the king’s favor amongst those retainers already favored enough to be seated in the hall. Platter after platter was presented, picked over and stuffed into hungry mouths. Limbs from roasted and smoked carcasses were ripped apart and slathered with gravy, and washed down with ale and wine. The pointless excess of palace life, Tao thought, while pretending to enjoy the event for his sister’s sake.

Aza was in her element, making everyone laugh, while Xim alternately tore at his food and studied Tao. Hunting for malice in every word, every action, Tao was sure. As the evening wound down and the amount of wine consumed went up, the king grew more talkative. Out of the blue, he rested his weight on his arms and leaned forward. “Tell me, Tao. You’ve accomplished at twenty-eight Uhrth years what most men haven’t at eighty. What does a man do when he reaches the zenith of his life at such a young age?”

Tao almost choked on the wine he’d just sipped. “I would hope my life is anything but over. While the days of racking up military victories are behind me, the years ahead promise much to look forward to.”

“Like what?” Xim leaned back in his seat, his index finger curving under his chin. “You’ve driven back the Gorr and won me all the lands of the realm. What is left for you to do?”

“I’ll settle on my family’s ancestral lands outside the city.”

“In the hills,” Aza murmured, nodding. “We spent our summers there as children, to escape the monsoon. So lovely.”

Xim scoffed at Tao as if Aza hadn’t spoken. “I can’t see you farming.”

“My focus will be on the vineyards, overseeing the production of wine.”

“And heirs,” his sister put in with a wink. “I want many nieces and nephews to spoil. But first we’ll have to find you a wife.” She squeezed his arm lovingly. Her perfume enveloped them. “There is no shortage of lovelies in the kingdom, but how will I find one to enchant you long enough to commit?”

“I’ve already had this talk once today,” Tao said. “Markam cautioned me against the hazards of marriage.”

“Did he?” A funny look came over her. She shifted her attention to pushing food around on her plate with a crust of bread. She’d hardly touched her meal. “What does Markam know of that?”

Xim watched them like a brooding hawk. “A wine-maker,” he sneered. “The Butcher of the Hinterlands, of all people.”

Tao bristled at the slur as Xim lifted his goblet to the light of a chandelier to study the burgundy liquid. “I wonder, will your wine be sweet…or taste like vinegar?” He narrowed his eyes at Tao.

“My estate will never be able to produce anything to compete with what your sommelier has served us tonight, Your Highness. That is a certainty. Your wine is like silk on the tongue. In a word, magnificent.” Tao lifted his goblet in a toast.

“Hmmph,” Xim said.

Eyeing each other warily, the two men emptied their glasses. Tao’s didn’t have a chance to land on the tablecloth before it was refilled. He waited for Xim’s to be poured before he reached for his. An intricate game, politics was, but in a tedious, manipulative, unfulfilling way. Tao preferred battlefield planning, where the aim was for the greater good, not to further one man’s ambitions.

With dessert, the dancers returned to entertain them. Barely a shred of clothing covered their gyrating bodies. A curvaceous dancer, with her jeweled skin glistening and her eyes glowing with erotic promise, came spinning into his lap and kissed him.

Perhaps some bed sport was what he needed to reacclimatize to Tassagonia. Indeed, followed by a long soak in a hot tub, a massage and the remains of a good bottle of wine, all to be enjoyed without having to worry about Gorr slipping past the defenses to strike while he wasn’t looking.

Tao murmured in the dancer’s ear, “Find me after dessert,” and sent her away with a playful swat on her backside.

He stretched and leaned back in his seat, determined to enjoy himself. As he inhaled, he detected a new scent wafting over him, as fresh as dawn dew, in contrast to the spicy aroma of the entertainer. He twisted in his chair to see a woman with distinctive copper-colored hair walk up to the king and queen.

Well, well. She who thinks me a monster.

She stopped in front of the royal couple, hiking up her skirt hem to curtsy, revealing a few inches of white stockings. As she dipped low, the bodice of her dress gaped just enough for him to glimpse the swell of her breasts cradled in filmy white cotton.

That modest peek did more to fan his desire than any of the dancers in their provocative, barely there costumes. He was utterly aware of this female, who alone amongst the guests in attendance paid him no regard at all, who treated him as if he were as compelling as an ant.

That was the Kurel for you.

She rose and released her skirt, ending Tao’s casual appraisal of what was a very nice set of slender ankles.

“Ah, Elsabeth,” Aza said excitedly. “I want to introduce you to my brother, General Tao.”

Elsabeth’s focus shifted to him. The expression on her face was typically Kurel, as impenetrable as a Barrier Peaks ice cave in winter.

“Hello, Elsabeth,” Tao said dryly, with a hint of a conspiratorial smile. She’d be forced to interact with him now.

“He won’t bite,” Aza teased with obvious affection for the silent girl, “though sometimes he acts it.” Her warning glance at Tao clearly said, Be nice. “Miss Elsabeth is the royal tutor. An extraordinary one at that.”

“I believe it, Aza. We’ve actually met, this morning while Miss Elsabeth was on her way to work.”

“Wonderful!” Aza clapped her hands together.

“Elsabeth was in a hurry. There was no time to stop and talk. But,” he said dryly. “I hope I kept her from being late.”

Everyone was listening now. Elsabeth’s blue eyes bored into his for one brief, dismayed moment. And then she actually blushed. When was the last time any woman turned red around him? The camp followers certainly hadn’t seemed capable, no matter what feats his fellow officers suggested they perform.

Elsabeth explained to the queen, “I was stopped on my way to the palace for a random security inspection. The general graciously shortened the process.” She faced him. “General Uhr-Tao, please forgive my belated thanks. My gratitude is genuine.”

Her cool eyes told a different story.

She returned her regard to Aza, and her expression warmed considerably. “Your Highness, I have come to inform you of the night nurse’s arrival.”

Aza started to rise. Xim’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist to jerk her back into her seat. His sister’s swift, frightened gasp almost had Tao on his feet, ready to intercede, when her quick glance warned him not to. It’s all right, her eyes said.

Tao’s muscles remained coiled. It was not all right.

“Leaving, Aza?” Xim’s smile was at odds with the tautness of his body. “The party isn’t over.”

“It will soon be time for Elsabeth to go home. I wanted to check on the children before the night nurse takes over.”

“That worthless Kurel will go when you tell her to go.”

Elsabeth stood with her eyes meekly downcast, but Tao wagered they were filled with fear and venom. What terror had Xim roused in his own kingdom? What hatred?

“There’s a sunset-to-sunrise curfew for Kurel-Town,” Aza said quietly, “which you imposed, Your Highness. She cannot be out after dark.”

Xim made a disdainful sound. “I suppose if we let one of them circumvent the rules, they’ll all want to.” He waved irritably. “Go then.”

When Xim made no move to help his pregnant wife to her feet, Tao stood and moved behind the king’s chair to reach his sister’s, but Elsabeth had started to assist the queen at the same time. Aza waved him away. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

“You’re lying,” he whispered back.

Stubbornly, she pressed her lips together, appearing more embarrassed by Xim’s treatment of her than afraid. As a little girl, she’d been fearless. She still was, it seemed.

“I’ll see you on the morrow, dear brother. Go, enjoy the wine.” Her gaze darted to the entertainers. “And maybe a dancer or two.” She bent down to Xim, taking his startled face in her hands, and kissed him on the mouth until his resistance melted into passion. To the delighted applause of those at the table, she smiled down at him. “Thank you, my husband, for this wonderful feast and for welcoming my brother with such generosity.”

Her eyes flicked to Tao, willing him to remain, then she walked away, holding on to Elsabeth’s offered arm. Astounded, Tao watched her go. It seemed his sister was better at politics than he was, by far.

Aza’s departure stole all the levity from the meal, and certainly from Tao.

“Help me up,” Xim demanded of those who seemed to have no more purpose in life than to hover in the vicinity of their king. Aides who had ignored the queen now hastened to pull back his chair and brush crumbs from his clothes.

The king was unsteady on his feet as Tao followed him and the other revelers to the ballroom, scouring the area for Markam. First, violence in K-Town. Now, Aza’s welfare. What else was his old friend keeping secret out of some misguided need to protect him?

Politics, Tao thought with renewed distaste. Too many shades of gray here in the capital.

On the battlefield, life was simple. Everything was black and white. Yes, and red. Memories rippled through his mind, the night shattered by screams…the stench of death, and of the Gorr…

Someone tugged at his sleeve, startling him. “General! I thank you. All in my home thank you.”

A paper-wrapped cake was pushed into his hands as he blinked away the waking nightmare. Peacetime would take some getting used to.

“If not for you, General, where would we be?”

“Dead, I tell you,” said another.

Adoring fans clustered around him, all hoping for a private word or simply a chance to touch his uniform. They pressed him for war stories, tales of heroism and combat with the Furs. What few questions he answered terrified them and only made them insatiable for more. A few even offered their daughters’ hands in marriage, which would have pleased Aza and amused Markam, all while Xim alternately conferred with his cronies and glowered at him. In that moment, Tao would have traded life in the city for one more night under the stars in a Hinterlands encampment.

Firmly declining further pleas for his attention, he escaped the ballroom’s thick, oppressive murk of perfume, sweat and smoky oil lamps, and went in search of fresh air.

ELSABETH CLOSED THE DOOR to the nursery behind her, pausing for a moment to search the shadows and gather her thoughts before leaving for the ghetto. The queen had acted both sad and determined, leaving Elsabeth certain her intent was to lure Xim into her bed tonight to distract him, insurance against potential harm to her brother.

Maybe it wasn’t necessary. Tao wouldn’t be alone tonight. The giggling dancer he’d played with on his lap would be playing in his bed before too long. Many more females would frolic on his lap and between his sheets tonight and in the nights to come. It was rumored Uhr-warriors had sexual appetites as voracious as those of the beasts in the animal kingdom.

They couldn’t help themselves, supposedly. It was how they were bred and trained. Their lives were destined to be short, men cut down in battle before they had the chance to make a union proper, legal or permanent.

She pressed her lips together. Why on Uhrth was she even thinking about Tao in that way? Her curiosity about the matter was disturbing.

The sound of men’s voices approaching stopped her cold. King Xim was striding toward the queen’s chambers, his hands behind his back, the half-blind Colonel Uhr-Beck at his side, a gaggle of cronies following in his trail. It would not have been a sight for a second thought, until she saw the expression on the king’s face.

Markam’s warning echoed in her mind. “Until all this is settled, Tao must tread carefully. I need you to keep your ears and eyes open for any hints his safety is in jeopardy.”

She dove into an alcove outside the light of the torches, flat up against the wall, holding her breath, her pulse drumming in her ears.

The men paused outside Aza’s chambers, so close, but unaware of her presence. “Your Highness,” Beck said, “I don’t blame you for not wanting to leave the ballroom tonight. All the fuss. You’d think the man would show a little humbleness, but he’s lapping it all up like a kitt given a bowl of sweet cream.”

Elsabeth strained to eavesdrop, as she’d so often done over the years.

Xim’s expression wavered between uncertainty and annoyance. “He gets all the credit, when I funded everything.”

“If only your subjects would see that.”

Tinged with fear, Xim’s frown made his young face look old. Beck’s one eye narrowed, missing none of the king’s unease. “More worrisome are all those soldiers, loyal to him. A dangerous thing, Your Highness.”

“It’s my army, not his!” Xim blurted this out in an indignant whisper.

“Yes, My Liege. But, beware. While the army may legitimately be your weapon, as long as Tao’s hand is wrapped around the hilt, it’s aimed at your heart.”

OUTSIDE, BIG LUME WAS nearly out of sight, Little Lume following obediently in its showier companion’s path, like two egg yolks dropped in soup. The first stars had already appeared. A half hour remained, no more, before all the Kurel would have to return to the ghetto, according to the new Forbiddance. Tao hadn’t had time to hear the new code in its entirety, but confining all capital-dwelling Kurel every night was one of the more dramatic changes.

He found a vantage point by an open window to look out over the city, including K-Town. The ghetto, as always, took on a strange, soft glow at night that didn’t seem to flicker like typical candlelight, or lanterns. It was one more reason Tassagons were fearful of the place—and the people. Then there were the windmills, clusters of the spindly things, catching the stiff breezes coming off the plains. Also odd. What was life like behind those walls, where Elsabeth would soon return?

Woefully deprived of his company, poor girl.

Bah, she wouldn’t know what to do with a man like him.

But perhaps he could venture across the cultural divide to teach her, spoiling her for all other lovers once she’d had a warrior in her bed. She wouldn’t want to go back to her own pacifistic, intellectual kind once she’d tasted real Tassagon passion.

Behind him, purposeful steps on the polished stone floor ended in abrupt silence. He turned. Elsabeth was in the midst of catching herself from approaching any closer.

She backed away so swiftly and with such dismay that he wondered if she’d somehow seen his thoughts. His bravado of only moments ago turned into bashfulness, making him want to offer apology for the carnal direction of his thoughts. Was it a spell?

She must have come directly from his sister’s quarters. “Aza,” he began to say, walking toward Elsabeth, consciously controlling his stride so that it didn’t appear he was chasing her down before she could escape—although he was. “How is she?”

“The queen is as well as can be. I left her with the children, and under the care of the night nurse.” Clutching her blue skirt, she hiked it up to reveal her pointy, laced shoes, a clear sign she was about to run.

“Wait.” She had information he needed. As exasperating as she was, he was determined to get it. He was also damn curious about her. In twenty-eight years alive, these were the most words in a row he’d exchanged with any of her kind. “My sister trusts you, and seems to very much like you. I want to know about her health and her state of mind, both of which you seem to care about more than her husband does.”

Her lips parted slightly at his apparent criticism of Xim, her wary gaze sweeping the alcove for eavesdroppers before she answered him. “She needs to rest. The pregnancy has been hard on Her Highness.”

“And King Xim? Has he been hard on her, too?”

“It’s not my place to say, General.”

She didn’t want to forfeit her job, he realized, but her expression told him his answer. He wanted to squeeze Xim’s scrawny neck in his hands. He’d come home expecting a quieter existence. It didn’t seem he’d get his wish any time soon.

The drunken laughter of a large group of men echoed from nearby. The tutor’s jaw was tight. “General, I cannot stay here.”

“We’ll finish this in private,” he decided. “My quarters. I myself have had enough wine tonight, but I can certainly offer you a glass.” Fascinated, he watched her peach-colored freckles disappear one by one as a deep blush spread over her cheeks. Did Kurel drink? He didn’t know.

“Or tea,” he offered.

“General—” she tried.

“Tao is my given name. Both of us serve the realm, we may address each other as equals.”

Her gaze flickered, that hooded, supercilious Kurel regard. He was the commander of a vast legion, and she just a Kurel girl; he was Uhr-born and bred, and she a daughter of sorcerers from the ghetto. Yet, it was clear that she considered herself the superior one, not the other way around, and certainly not his equal.

Hiding his irritation, he gestured for her to come with him. “This way.”

“No. General—Tao—the curfew begins at nightfall. This means I must leave the premises.” She enunciated each word with perfect diction, as if he were slow to comprehend. He was a general, damn her, the best strategist in generations, yet she treated him like her preschool charges.

“Do you think I’m so stupid that I don’t recognize you can’t be out after dark—?” He caught himself midbellow, dragging a hand over his face. No sense feeding her impression about Tassagon soldiers. “I’ll see you escorted safely home afterward. Personally.”

She shook her head. “It’s against the law.”

A shield had come down over her expression, but it failed to completely hide her stubbornness—and something else. Apprehension? He understood her dismay at missing the curfew, but he was the highest-ranking soldier in the kingdom; didn’t she trust him to keep her safe?

Or, does she see you as the danger?

Of course, that was it.

The Gorr are the monsters, but in this woman’s eyes I am a monster.

Frustration threatened to swamp him. For what had he fought so hard, when the peace he’d won meant so little to the rest of humanity? They were all on the same side. Couldn’t they see? He’d barely gotten his army back from the Hinterlands intact. Men had died along the way, Uhrth rest their souls. Even those few survivors who didn’t bear physical scars suffered from invisible ones that would haunt them the rest of their lives. And this Elsabeth, this Kurel, this mere tutor to children, dismissed all of it by dismissing him.

“Impossible is expecting your assistance, even after asking for help. Impossible is expecting help from any Kurel. Go on, run along, so you can sleep in peace night after night without any appreciation for the soldiers whose sacrifices are why your kind can lead safe lives in the first place.”

“Safe.” She spat the word as much as said it. Her fists closed in her skirt’s blue folds. “Life for the Kurel in this kingdom is no longer safe. There are random raids by the Home Guard. People jailed and never seen again. Senseless killings.” Her voice was low and passionate, and it echoed in Tao’s ears. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard.”

“Until today, I hadn’t.”

Her eyes were dark, her jaw firm. “If you were as smart and capable as everyone says you are, you would have known what was happening.”

“My hands were full battling the Gorr—”

“Chasing glory on a faraway battlefield—”

“Saving the human races from extinction. It wasn’t my choice to be kept in the dark. I was being protected, apparently. By Markam. Away in the Hinterlands, I was dependent on messengers for my information.”

“Even so.”

They glared at each other, and he gave his head an uncomprehending shake. “Even so? Even so what? That I sent our mortal enemy running, tails tucked between their hindquarters?” Dumbfounded, he couldn’t fathom how she could dismiss such a thing.

“By your own choice or someone else’s you were insulated against atrocities at home. I have no patience for men who bury their heads in the sand, Kurel or Tassagon. That kind of ignorance killed my parents.” Her anguished eyes misted over, and she turned her head.

“Elsabeth,” he started, in his shock unsure of what to say.

“They went out to the gates to reason with the soldiers,” she whispered. “I tried to get there as soon as I heard. I knew what would happen. But I was too late. Your army got to them first.”

Bloody hell. “Those weren’t my men. They were Beck’s.”

She shook her head. “I have to go.”

“Wait.” The pain of losing one’s parents he understood. He almost reached for her, but her glare stopped him. She wanted no sympathy from him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“What do Uhr-warriors know of loss? Your role on this planet is to destroy life, not create it.”

Wincing, Elsabeth pressed her lips together, but the hateful words were already out, her Tassagonian blood once again overtaking her hard-won Kurel composure.

The general’s face had turned hard. He wore the veneer of good manners very well for a Tassagon, but she saw how formidable he could be, if he ever loosed the outrage he seemed to keep in check so well.

He spoke quietly. “Have you smelled the stench after a Gorr attack, human corpses completely emptied of blood? Have you ever tried to sleep after hearing the Furs’ unholy jackal screams in the night, or the cries of your men being ripped apart?” His eyes narrowed against some inner agony. “No, you wouldn’t know. Or of losing three brothers on the battlefield, one by one. Then my parents were taken right here in Tassagonia by a swift and stealthy enemy no weapons could fight off.”

The plague. She wondered if he blamed her people for the epidemic as King Xim did.

“I thank Uhrth for my sister. She’s all I have left.”

Elsabeth forced herself to meet his eyes, seeing for the first time the man behind them. How could she possibly share anything in common with this Uhr-warrior, this Butcher of the Hinterlands? But she did. His family had been decimated, too.

“I would never have supported nor carried out atrocities against other humans,” he finished.

He told the truth. She heard it in his voice. She saw it in his eyes.

She pushed loose hair off her face. “Markam told me that you had nothing to do with the violence. I want to believe him. I…want to believe you,” she added grudgingly.

The general’s hackles went down somewhat, but a powerful heartbeat pulsed in his throat.

“I apologize for implying Kurel own the rights to loss,” she said.

“Grief and anger are close companions. Both have a way of overtaking reason. You are my sister’s children’s tutor. It says a lot about you if Aza trusts you. As for the actions against the Kurel, I will get to the bottom of this insanity, I swear to you.”

The sound of beads tinkling and the swish of slippers cut short their tense standoff. The dancer from dinner swayed toward him, flicking a dismissive glance at Elsabeth. Her breasts strained against filmy netting that barely contained them. She’d applied fresh perfume, a come-hither musk, and it filled the air. Dark, painted lashes fluttered at Tao, her full lips curving as she dragged her finger across the bottom of his chin. “Good Sir, I do believe it is time for your dessert.”

Elsabeth hoisted her skirt, her focus shifting to the dancer. “Stay with him until morning.” The remark came as much to the woman’s surprise as Tao’s, making the dancer smile like a kitt that had just been thrown a whole fish.

It wasn’t until Elsabeth turned to him that Tao saw she was serious. She stepped up to him, her voice a whisper. “Don’t let down your guard tonight, even with her.” She backed away from him quickly.

He swiveled his head to keep her in sight. “Explain.”

“Just…do as I say.” She took off in a dead run.

“Elsabeth!”

“Let her go.” The dancer circled behind him and slid her arms around his waist. Even as he felt his body react to her seductive touch, he took hold of her wrists and untangled her.

“You wish a Kurel over me?” She sounded stung.

It was true that he’d imagined teaching Aza’s tutor a few lessons of his own, but she’d just revealed that he had unfinished business to attend to. Amorous play of any sort would have to wait. He pressed his chamber key into the dancer’s hennaed hand. “I wish you in my bed, sweetling. Wait for me.”

Tao strode after the tutor, but reaching a confluence of several corridors, he couldn’t be sure which path she’d taken. Likely out the first exit and to K-Town.

Don’t let down his guard? Why?

He suspected that no one had given him the full story since he’d returned home. How serious was the Kurel unrest in the ghetto? What drove his sister’s unhappiness in her marriage? How likely was Xim to grant Tao’s men land and wives when he seemed to view them as a threat? Or was only Tao the threat?

It was time he found out the truth.

CHAPTER FIVE

“DAMN THAT ONE-EYED bastard,” Markam hissed.

As he escorted her to the palace exit, they spoke in low tones, their manner casual to anyone who would have observed, the routine of chatting at day’s end no different from what they’d done for years, no matter that her heart was kicking so hard it felt as if it would leap out of her rib cage and draw attention to her treasonous deeds.

“Beck was very nearly mortally wounded at the front, left blinded in both eyes. But the hotheaded fool survived—and regained sight in one eye. Tao should have let the man fall on his sword when he became useless on the battlefield, the way it was always done.”

Never had such open anger roughened Markam’s voice. His temper was always under tight control.

“Always done?” Appalled, Elsabeth glanced sideways at him. “Where is mercy in all this?”

“To an Uhr, the circumstances of his death are as important as his deeds in life. A warrior must die honorably, even if that end is hastened at the hand of his fellow soldiers to speed the boarding of the angels’ arks. But, Tao had Beck sent home to the Barracks for Maimed Veterans.”

“Tao being Tao?” she prompted.

“His personal sense of honor is so great, he sometimes neglects to believe the lack of it in others.”

“As in Beck…”

“Yes. Beck blames Tao for stealing his warrior’s death.”

“But Uhr-Tao saved him.”

“Of course. But to Beck, Tao dishonored him in the worst possible way. Beck recovered enough sight to train recruits here in the capital, yes, but he doesn’t see himself as serving a useful purpose—he sees himself as an object of shame, and Tao as the one responsible for his plight. Tao allowed a fellow Uhr the chance to resume being an essential part of the Tassagon army, but all he did was create a bitter enemy.”

Tao being Tao. “Because his personal sense of honor is so great, he sometimes neglects to believe the lack of it in others,” she said under her breath. Now she could see why Markam had described his friend that way. Her confrontation with the general had led to this conversation, and to something she hadn’t expected: a revelation.

At the exit, Markam stopped, his heels clicking crisply together as he wished her good-night. “Thank you for your help, Elsabeth.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I always do. Talk sense into young Xim and steer him clear of Beck’s influence.” Markam nodded pleasantly to a passing guard, then his expression turned serious again. “And hope I’m not too late.”

MARKAM OWED HIM SOME answers.

At the guard barracks, Tao found a party in progress. The majority of his officers filled a balcony, whooping it up. The women hanging on their arms were just as inebriated. Uniforms were half undone, if they were on at all, and the pungent odor of alcoholic spirits was eye watering in the muggy air. Some sort of drinking game was under way that involved belting out awful songs.

Good on them. After all they’d suffered and lost, his men deserved a bit of fun.

“General! Why are you standing out there?” Mandalay cried. “Join us.”

Sandoval, his armory captain, waved his arm so vigorously he almost lost his balance. “Surely you’re not thinking of abandoning us for—” he belched “—royalty, are you, sir? Or better yet a willing wench. Not yet at any rate.”

“We’ve whiskey aplenty here,” Pirelli, his master-at-arms, called to him. “And I dare say a much better party than those stuffy upper-crusters.”

They were right in that regard. This gathering beat the one he’d just suffered through. Tao joined the crowd on the balcony. A good number of the palace guards were there. “Field-Colonel Markam… Have you seen the man?”

“He’s out on some business for the king,” someone answered. “That’s all he’d say.” The man wore the trousers of a palace guard and a plain white jersey on top.

“Find him for me. Tell him I wish his counsel.”

With an unsteady gait, the off-duty guard left to fetch his boss.

“Sir! Have a glass of ale, at least while you wait,” Sandoval offered, thrusting a glass into his hands.

Tao took a long draught of the ale. It was ice cold and slightly sweet, refreshing and welcome in the stuffy heat of a summer that had overstayed its visit to the capital and seemed to have lodged inside the palace walls as a permanent resident. For a moment Tao forgot his worries, too glad to see his men acting without a care. They had won the chance to pursue a civilian life and, perhaps, even grow old.

“General Uhr-Tao!”

Tao tensed instinctively. He’d know that raspy voice anywhere. “Colonel Uhr-Beck,” he greeted the one-eyed warrior.

The sleeves of Beck’s uniform shirt were rolled up, revealing arms that, like the rest of him, were thick and solid without an ounce of fat. Tao knew Beck drilled his basic recruits without mercy, accepting no excuses for less-than-stellar performance. That quality hardened boys into men who could match the fierceness of the Gorr, a quality that Tao had welcomed at the front. It was a less desirable trait when training men to deal with their fellow humans, Kurel included.

Beck wasted no time with pleasantries. “They can’t be gathered here, General Tao. Your men. It’s the law.”

“I know of no such law.”

“As of tonight, sir, there is one.” Shiny pale skin covered the socket of Beck’s blind eye like a leather tarp stretched over a trapdoor. His good eye dared Tao to challenge him.

Tao was in no mood to bicker with the man. “Ah, let them be. They’re enjoying themselves and causing no harm.”

“Congregating of army soldiers in groups greater than three inside the capital is prohibited—by order of the king.”

“Three?” Tao almost laughed. “How does the king expect to raise and maintain an army if no more than a trio of soldiers can be together at any one time?”

Tao’s men snickered at that, winning a deadly look from Beck. “Not other soldiers, General. It’s your men he’s got a problem with. Your army.”

So. There it was again, the insinuation that the army was somehow his to use for nefarious reasons. He was no longer in the Hinterlands where his decision was all that mattered. At home, the commander of the army couldn’t give the appearance of ignoring the king’s orders, however nonsensical they were.

He turned to the officers. “As reluctant as I am to end the party, we’ll have to break it up.”

Sandoval and Mandalay nodded. “It’s all right, sir. We don’t want to cause you any trouble. We’ll tell the men.” Yet, neither looked eager to do so at the height of the party.

Tao couldn’t blame them. “Gentlemen, if there were another other option, I’d take it, but there isn’t. I’ll see to this utterly insane law being struck out first thing in the morning.”

“Utterly insane, is it? Is that what you think of my lawmaking, brother-in-law?”

Xim. Hell and damnation. The king stood at the entrance to the balcony, surrounded by his cronies and, at long last, Markam.

You’ve done it now, his friend’s unhappy face said.

“Your Highness,” Tao greeted, dipping his head, cursing his timing. If this were the battlefield, he’d be dead.

“It’s not comforting to know my top military commander holds such a low opinion of my judgment. Not only that, you’ve just encouraged your entire army to have the same attitude.”

“Your Highness, my choice of words was poor. My aim was only to advocate a more lenient policy concerning my men—”

“I already know what your aim is, Tao. You’ve revealed your true colors. You declared your intent to overturn my law. Field-Colonel!” Xim scowled over his shoulder at Markam. “Arrest this man for treason.”

CHAPTER SIX

MARKAM MARCHED TAO DOWN a curving staircase, through one fortified doorway and then another, leaving a pair of hulking guards by each, until it was just the two of them climbing down the stairs. The lower they went, the denser, colder, damper the air became.

I am descending into hell.

“Put me on house arrest and we’ll revisit this in the morning when everyone’s sober.” Tao thought of the dancer waiting for him in the luxurious bedchamber he’d hardly visited since arriving. “Confinement to quarters works for me.”

“You’re to be held in the dungeon three days, after which the king plans on killing you.”

Tao coughed out a derisive laugh. “Why three days? Why not just do it now?”

“He needs time for a trial with false witnesses and testimony.” Markam’s voice dropped. “Xim’s not stupid. He knows the reason for your arrest is weak. He’ll simply find a stronger one, with the help of torture and truth serums.”

True. Drugged, a man could be made to say most anything. “This is madness. Yes, I should have watched my tongue in front of my officers. I knew better. But treason? I gave Xim peace on a silver platter.” Asking nothing for himself but the chance to fade away into the fabric of the precious lands he’d defended. “In thanks I get a death sentence.” The aftertaste of betrayal was bitter indeed. “You can’t let him go through with this.”

“What can I do?”

Come on, Markam, think outside the box. Maybe there was a reason his friend had stayed behind with the Palace Guard and Tao had gone off to fight in the Hinterlands battlefields, where thinking unconventionally was a requirement for survival. “Help me escape.”

“You’ll end up living like an animal on the run, Tao.”

“So be it. I have the survival skills. I’ll go back to the Hinterlands. I’ll disappear.”

“And I’ll be hanged for my role in it, leaving the madman in charge of the asylum. I can’t, Tao.”

Bleakly, Tao walked down the stairs, trying to think his way out of a dead end. He’d rather take his chances in the wild lands than wait for a mock trial, but he couldn’t leave his best friend to be tortured and killed.

“Don’t worry,” Markam said. “By tomorrow, it will be as if you never existed.”

Tao jerked his head up. “I thought I had three days.”

The dungeon stank of rat feces and decay, the smell of hopelessness. Markam steered him into a cell and locked him in. Although it was arguably the best of the lot, inside the tang of urine was downright eye-watering. “Be patient, and you will see.”

Tao gripped the bars. “You try being patient from inside a dungeon cell.”

“Too many lives hang in the balance to tell you more. People I care about greatly. If things were to go wrong now, and you were hauled in for an interrogation, and you revealed…” Markam stopped himself. His angular face took on the appearance of stone, his eyes full of secrets.

“You want protection for your men.” By Uhrth, Markam must have been thinking outside the box for years while Tao was away, if he had a network to protect. “In that case, I want protection for my men, also. Their service to the kingdom has been beyond the call. Beyond any crime blamed on me in a charade of a trial.”

“Xim will need to placate them after getting rid of their general. There’s enough land to go around, and a fair share of women, lonely from too many years of losing men to war. Knowing the alternative, they’ll let Xim buy them out, I suspect.”

Tao knew this was the unfortunate truth of a large fighting force. The average soldier didn’t know him, the general, personally; they received their orders through the chain of command. His officers were the ones most at risk in this. Their loyalty and honor to him ran blood deep. Yet, if they moved to defend him, they’d be hanged for mutiny.

Weary, Tao gripped the bars. “I trust you’ll look after Aza.”

“Always,” he said, his tone somber, his gaze flickering with something that gave Tao pause. It was more than just childhood friendship talking; Markam had feelings for Aza that transcended a palace guard protecting his queen.

I have indeed been gone from home too long. If Aza shared Markam’s feelings, Tao prayed the pair knew enough not to take any chances and reveal it to Xim, and that a pointless dream of star-crossed love wasn’t the motivation behind Markam’s desire to undermine the king. But he bit back the urge to demand the truth. Any such knowledge could be wrested out of him and be used to hurt Aza.

Tao let his hands slide off the bars. “You’d better go.” There was nothing more to be said, nothing more to do. Everything he cared about existed outside these prison walls. He was locked in a dungeon, and by tomorrow, according to Markam, it would be as if he’d never existed. We shall see.

“Good luck, my friend,” Markam said. “To both of us, actually.”

Then his oldest friend walked out, slamming the thick door closed behind him. The thunder echoed off the dungeon walls, the sound of boots hitting stone quickly faded and Tao was left alone with a chest thick with disbelief and a mind racing through a dwindling arsenal of options.

THE SUNS HADN’T YET peeked above the horizon when Elsabeth gave up trying to sleep and climbed up to the eaves to feed the pigeons. Her mother had always been the one to care for the messenger birds whose journeys could take them as far as the Barrier Peaks. Elsabeth had, by necessity, handed the running of the clinic over to others, but the aviary was hers to keep, in memory of her mother.

The interior of the roost was a simmering, cooing mass of gray and rainbow-hued feathers, bobbing heads, clawed feet and pecking beaks. “Hello, my friends.”

Cuh-choo-coo, cuh-choo-coo—their melody greeted. She shook a tin can of dried beans, calling them to breakfast. As they ate their feed, she filled the water dishes and trough and added grit to the floor of the pen.

A loud fluttering of wings erupted at the landing outside. The flock scattered, noisily reacting, as a large blue male strutted inside, immediately committing himself to breakfast. “Prometheus! If you stay out all night carousing, you do it at the risk of being dinner for an alley kitt.”

The bird strutted by, wearing a slender tube tied to its leg. A message.

A jolt went though her, sweeping her grogginess away. Her eyes opened wide. For most of the night she’d tossed and turned, suffering bursts of disjointed dreams, or had lain awake, worrying about Beck’s treachery, Markam’s plans, Aza’s fears and Tao’s return. Now, this message promised action.

“What do you have for me, little one?” She carefully unfastened the rolled paper and unfurled it. It was blank, and green.

“The green flag,” she whispered. She’d been the one to think up the way Markam should alert her to an emergency so she would not be caught unawares. Red meant stay at home, and green—she crushed the paper in her hand—come to the palace as soon as feasible.

In her gut, she knew why: if Markam had summoned her, General Tao was in danger, if not already dead. She didn’t want to analyze why she desperately hoped it wasn’t the latter.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE WEATHER HAD TURNED during the night, summer to autumn, the thick, humid heat of the past week replaced by the crackling air of harvest season. From the hooks behind the door she snatched a wool wrap and yanked it around her shoulders. She burst out her front door and ran around back to the medical clinic, where the current practitioner, Chun, slept with his family. The young physician, once mentored by her father, was trying to button a shirt with one hand as he answered her furious knocking at the door.

“Green flag,” she said. “Don’t know more. Tell Navi. Be at the Kurel canteen when Little Lume is straight up.” The young accountant, Navi, also worked at the palace. At high noon in the mess hall, no one would think anything strange about the royal tutor deep in conversation with the palace accountant and guest healer.

A nod from Chun assured her he knew what to do.

She waited at the ghetto gates until the suns lifted above the horizon, slowly, like two old men climbing out of bed. Then she darted toward the palace, her mind considering a multitude of possibilities for the summons. The streets were quiet, most windows still shuttered after the festivities had gone on late into the night. The streets stank of stale liquor, manure and urine. On the palace grounds, General Tao’s soldiers lay sleeping here and there, some with empty bottles clutched in their hands, others with women in their arms.

She hurried past them, her heart skittering, instinct calling out danger. Crossing the bustling upper bailey, she nodded to the regular staff, all the while pretending the green piece of paper hadn’t been balled in her fist only a short time ago. A guard stood at the workers’ entrance. Only his mouth was visible below the shadow of his helmet. Alarm twanged like the first pluck of a taut string. The entrance had always been unguarded before.

He waved her through. The only thing she could think to do next was to report to the classroom as normal and await contact from Markam. Before she’d traveled more than halfway across the grand foyer, Markam fell in step with her, his hands clasped behind his back. Shadows under his eyes proved he’d had no more rest than she.

“How do you do that,” she half scolded, “appearing out of thin air?”

“You’re simply not observant enough, Elsabeth. I was here the entire time.” Very subtly, he scanned the area to be sure no one was listening. “It’s begun. Xim arrested Tao last night. For treason.”

Her heart dropped like a stone down a well. She’d cautioned the general not to let down his guard, fearing she’d revealed too much. Instead it carelessly had been too little. He hadn’t retired to his chambers with that dancer; instead, he must have gone to seek answers after she’d refused to give him any.

Markam quickly summed up the events leading to Tao’s arrest and the planned trial, the assured guilty verdict and the inevitable hanging. “Opportunity coincided with intent. A single moment, a slip of the tongue and Xim pounced.”

Poor Aza. “Is there no hope the king will grant clemency? The general’s his brother-in-law.”

“None. Xim must follow through. If he blinks, Tao looks all the more powerful.”

“General Tao is a hero. Xim will have to convince the people the man they cheered yesterday isn’t one, after all.”

“Torture and truth potions will extract any confession Xim desires, all in front of so-called neutral observers and witness-scribes who will provide the testimony to the people. A death sentence will swiftly follow, before any real protests can form.”

He sounded so certain. She blurted out, “You can’t leave him to die.”

“Of course not. He’ll have been freed by then. Getting him off palace grounds isn’t the problem. It’s stowing the man where Xim can’t find him.”

Suddenly she didn’t like the expression on Markam’s face. “No.” She shook her head. “Not Kurel Town.”

“There’s no safer place, Elsabeth. You know this.”

“Tao’s estate lands. He owns countless acres.”

“Too predictable.”

“In the countryside, then. The wilds. Not as far as the Plains or the Peaks, but far enough away from here.”

“True, he could probably survive out there, for a time, while the weather is mild, but when winter comes where will he go? A hunter’s cabin? A shepherd’s hut?”

“The snows are months away. We have time.”

“And if Riders find him? They’ve roamed wide since the drought. They’ll steal his horse and leave him out to dry like a piece of jerky. Or, worse, enslave him.”

Few in the capital had ever laid eyes on the elusive plainsmen, but evidence of their existence surfaced when livestock would go missing, especially in the late-summer months when the Riders occasionally raided Tassagon herds to pad their winter coffers. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for the general to be abducted by the Riders. They were said to be a mix of Tassagon savagery and Kurel scholarship, and fiercely independent. But they could kill the general as easily as they could spare him and, in either case, he might never be heard from again. Her mind analyzed every alternative, even as she swallowed the realization that Markam was right. There was no safer place to hide Tao but where few Tassagons dared tread.

But General Uhr-Tao in the ghetto?

Dread coursed through her with the sense that this was a rash, even suicidal move. For centuries, only the Kurel had kept the fires of science and technology burning. Many of the precious, secret volumes that other humans had long forgotten, the last existing links to the origins of the founders of their world, were hidden within the ghetto. Within the Log of Uhrth was the very prophecy that directed her actions now. Yet, could she justify bringing a Tassagon Uhr-warrior within reach of that precious book?

She felt as if she were sliding toward a cliff, grasping for a way to stop her fall, but finding no way to keep from plunging over the edge.

“Let’s not be rash.” She made fists behind her back as if that would somehow contain her anxiousness. “The army and also the common people love him. This could cause a spontaneous uprising. There could be violence in the streets, Tassagonian against Tassagonian, not just against Kurel.” While she wanted Xim deposed, her Kurel sensibilities had always insisted a new king gain the throne in a nonviolent fashion. A peaceful revolution. The events now spinning out of control made her palms sweat with the dread of having to explain her role in any violence to the Kurel elders. “We need to be in charge of when and how Xim is removed from the throne.”

Markam agreed with a firm nod. “Tao’s escape will give the people hope. It will tide them over, and buy us time.”

“And make Uhr-Tao a folk hero. Xim won’t like it.”

“Precisely. He’ll focus on Tao instead of the army left in his possession. This buys us time, as well.”

“All this buying of time,” she snapped. “We’re racking up quite a debt. At some point, we’re going to have to pay what we owe.”

“One always has to pay, Elsabeth. One way or the other.” A chill ran through her with the fatalistic turn to his voice.

“An Uhr-warrior in the ghetto…” A hunter let loose in the midst of the flock. Her heart drummed a warning. Swallowing, she stared straight down the hallway to the classroom and pretended she didn’t hear it. Remember your vow. “I’ll have to let the elders know. If I’m caught harboring the king’s number-one fugitive, there will be severe consequences, including banishment. And when I tell them, they may order him to leave.”

“You’ll advocate for him.”

“It’ll take more than that. He’ll have to fit in. His commitment to following our ways will have to advocate for him.” Elsabeth groaned silently, imagining the training this would require.

“Tao will cooperate,” Markam assured her. “He’ll understand the reasoning behind his asylum.”

“In my home. He’ll have to live with me.” No other option existed. She had to be the one to take him in. By Uhrth, she would be personally responsible when she brought the Butcher of the Hinterlands to live amongst her people.

A Kurel bookworm sheltering a Tassagon Uhr-warrior.

Mercy.

Remember what you’re fighting for, what all of us are fighting for. The fate of humanity seemed to be falling more and more squarely on her shoulders with every word they spoke. She took a steadying breath and turned to Markam. “I assume you’ve thought of the best way to get him out without anyone noticing.”

Markam’s eyes glinted craftily. “With a little polishing, yes.” Together, they cobbled together the plan to free the kingdom’s most important prisoner. It was outrageous, the idea of sneaking him out under everyone’s noses—madly so—and it just might work.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TAO SAT HUNCHED OVER on the floor, his ears alert for the opening of the dungeon door as he hammered a metal button torn from his uniform with a chunk of stone. His fingers were bloodied, his concentration intense, as he fashioned a key.

He held the flattened piece of metal up to the pitiful light of a smoky torch. The button was relatively malleable, but it had taken hours to craft the correct shape. This was his second attempt, after having nearly broken the key by rushing. Spotting the bent seam, he went back to work, crouched in the play of torchlight on the filthy floor, dashing away the sweat dribbling in his eyes with the back of his arm.

He’d unlock the cell door, but leave it closed, and wait for a guard to come check on him. He’d surprise and disarm the guard, leave him hog-tied and make his way up to the next level’s sealed door wait for a guard to open it, overcome the man, go to the next door and repeat. The part where he got out of the palace was still vague, but had a lot to do with changing into a guard’s uniform and running like hell. Not the best-laid plan, but it beat sitting here until someone else figured out what to do. No matter what Markam promised, one didn’t advance by waiting on the actions of others. Men made their own destinies.

After some chipping away at the edges, Tao deemed the sliver of metal ready for another test. He limped to the cell door on stiff legs, stretched his arm through the bars and contorted his wrist toward the lock, then slipped the key in and jiggled, trying to play it just right to unhinge the crude mechanism inside.

A scrabbling sound came from deep within the shadows at the opposite end of the dungeon from the door. Rats. Were they coming back to see if he’d been served dinner yet? “A waste of time, fellows,” he said, hearing hoarseness in his voice. “No one’s been by all day.” No food, no water.

No Markam.

Tao worked the key, taking care not to snap the delicate piece. He wiggled the key the rest of the way into the lock and turned. The clank when the mechanism gave way was just about the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

A distant sound like a heavy metal grate dragging over stone yanked his attention back outside the cell. That was no rodent. The twang of a bow took him by surprise. Before he could fully process what had happened, a wet rag had soared past on an arrowhead and doused the torch nearest him. Two more arrows extinguished the rest, plunging the dungeon into darkness.

With the memory of the Furs’ eerie howls preceding an attack in his mind, Tao scoured the blackness for enemies. If these people had a way in, they had a way out. As soon as they came close enough for him to see how many he was dealing with, he’d make his move to take them. He’d have to be accurate, and quick. If he was captured and dragged back here, he was going to hang. Of that he was certain.

“Friendly, not hostile,” a female voice assured him tersely, as any soldier would do coming unexpectedly upon another squad. “We’ll get you out—if you’re still interested.”

“I sure as hell don’t plan on staying here until judgment day.” Blindly, he grabbed the bars. “If you’ve got a torch, light it.”

“There’s a certain way we have to handle this, General, and you being in charge isn’t it. We’ll get you out, but you must do exactly as I tell you to do.”

He’d never taken orders from a woman before.

She apparently mistook his silence. “You must do exactly as I tell you,” she repeated.

“Do you think me mad, woman? I will do as you say.”

A lantern sparked to life. Two faces floated in front of him. Tao squinted, trying to make out these strangers dressed in simple workers’ clothing—driver’s ware, roughly woven baggy trousers and shirts covered by black cloaks. One was a male, young, not much more than a boy, with dark gold skin and shaggy black hair. The other, most definitely female, with a pale oval face. Hair the color of a copper coin peeked out from under her cap. Like Elsabeth’s hair.

Exactly like Elsabeth’s. The tutor. “You do more than teach children,” he observed.

“My job description is expanding daily.” A key in her hand caught the light as she reached for the door.

“It’s open.” He walked forward and pushed on it. The two Kurel gaped at him, and he held out an open hand with the key resting on his palm. “Uhrth helps those who help themselves.”

A small nod from Elsabeth, the tiniest glint of admiration. “We’re going out through the spillway pipes,” she said. “No guard will think we’re that suicidal, to use what drains into the moat, and the tassagators. We’ll end up at the loading docks. There we’ll board a covered wagon. You’ll hide in back. Now, come. Hurry.”

They set off running. Running for his life—with two Kurel running for theirs as well. For his sake.

CHAPTER NINE

THE KUREL LED TAO INTO a passage that led from the dungeons to the very bowels of the palace, where the air was so dense he imagined it could be sliced with a blade. There was barely enough light to see the pair with their black cloaks as they sprinted and then crawled through the ever-narrowing passageway. Here the scent of dampness was strong, and yet familiar. The odor brought him back to childhood, when danger was excitedly imagined, never imminent.

Pipes, dead ahead.

The boy unlatched a heavy iron grate, lowering it carefully. Torn spider webs draped the opening. Light from the lantern penetrated the tunnel only as deep as the length of a man. Tao helped the boy replace the grate after they slipped through the opening. Then they were on their way, the lantern flickering as it swung from the boy’s hand. The silence was as heavy as the air at this depth, the entire palace atop them, floor upon floor. The very thought threatened to turn him claustrophobic.

Inside, their footsteps echoed unimaginably loudly after all their stealthy silence. “It’s slippery,” Elsabeth warned. “The muck is like ice.” She and the boy hesitated at a confluence of pipes, the boy holding the lantern high until Elsabeth found a marker they’d left and snatched it off the dank wall.

“Keep to the right.” Tao knew the labyrinths of the drainage pipes as well as any formerly mischievous child raised in one of the noble families could. It had been years, but racing through the darkened passages, it came back as if it were yesterday. “I know the pipes well.”

“That’s what Markam said.”

“So, you’re in on his plan to free me. A Markam loyalist.”

Her disdainful gaze sought him out in the gloom. “Markam is helping me—us. The Kurel. Any enemy of this king is an ally of ours. That’s why I’m helping you.” She looked him up and down, as if finding it difficult to absorb the very concept. “I also promised Markam.” She seemed no more pleased with that promise than she did helping him to hurt the king. “I’m going to hide you where no one will look,” she said. “The ghetto.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.