Chapter Five
The third test was a test of endurance, and Penli had a sinking feeling he was going to lose it. He was good at many things, but his skills had been carved with snow and ice and towering mountains. Extreme heat was his nemesis.
Tishasanti, on the other hand, was looking relaxed—even comfortable, as he stood at the starting line.
Their respective, parallel trails through the desert to the finish line were clearly marked, an exhausting stretch of dips, rises, twists, and turns, where they were expected to grab flags at various points to prove they’d overcome each obstacle.
Though Penli made it to the finish line, that was about all he could say for his performance. Out of the twelve flags he’d been expected to grab, he managed nine.
Tishasanti, of course, had all twelve.
When Tishasanti was announced the winner, Penli bowed in acknowledgement, thanked Their Majesties for providing the challenge, and waved off Shanna when she started forward to comfort him.
He’d known this loss was coming. All he had to do was win the next two challenges and he’d be fine. He could afford one loss, and this was it.
Somehow, the reassurances—and years of accepting losses far worse than this—did not improve his mood by even a smidge.
He trudged through the palace, yawning, eyes watering, enjoying the rare silence of an empty hallway while the majority of the palace inhabitants were still talking and feasting—or cleaning up after them.
Exhaustion and misery were the only excuses he had for his sloppy behavior, the way he missed the aberrant shadows until too late.
Six large, looming men attacked him all at once, wielding fists either dressed with knuckle rings or heavy with weights. Penli went down hard after the third blow, blood pouring from his broken nose and his back throbbing from the double hit inflicted upon it. On top of the agony his body was already enduring from the long, grueling day, a small part of him wanted to stay right there on the floor, curl up in a ball, and cry.
But the greater part of him knew going down easily would make his assailants sloppy, and as they relaxed in the aftermath of such an easy opening assault, Penli kicked his legs out hard, knocking two of them to the ground. He surged up into another, slamming him into a nearby column so hard the crack of his head made the others startle.
As that one slumped, momentarily dazed, Penli stole the dagger at his hip, pivoted neatly, and gutted the man nearest him. By that point, the others had gotten their senses back, but armed now with two daggers, against a group that clearly thought numbers guaranteed an easy fight, there was no contest.
He dropped and knocked one of them off his feet again, sliced the dagger across the leg of another, then toppled the third man and slit his throat. The fourth tried to get him from behind, but only managed in slicing a minor wound across Penli’s upper arm.
Penli gained his feet just in time to dodge another thrust of the man’s dagger, and they danced briefly around each other in a short, ugly knife fight that ended with one of Penli’s daggers buried in the side of the man’s throat.
The remaining men rushed him, instead of showing sense and running. Their stupidity got them several good blows and a few more slices to Penli’s arms and legs, even one along his side. But they also got two broken necks and another fatal gut wound.
Penli wiped blood from his hands and face with his ruined jacket—his poor, beautiful, sunset pink jacket—and then yanked out a handkerchief and pressed it to his nose to help staunch the blood that was still trickling. Just wonderful, he was going to spend the rest of the competition and some days afterward with a crooked nose and black eyes, and that wasn’t including the rest of the damage.
He looked over the carnage, mouth pinched flat, and felt tired in a way he’d thought—hoped—he’d left behind when he’d retired. If Tishasanti’s aim had been to remind everyone Penli was a professional killer, he’d succeeded.
“P-Penli?”
He snapped around at the fear-soaked voice, and his heart fractured a bit to see the fear and horror in Teia’s face. The cold, closed expression on Sendaar’s face.
Before he could say anything, more people appeared, drawn by the ruckus, including royal guards. Penli didn’t protest as they hauled him away, too exhausted and sick at heart to bother.
Though he wasn’t so upset he’d failed to notice that the only person glaringly absent from the mess was Tishasanti.
Shanna cried out as he was dragged into Adnan’s private office. “Penli!” She ran over to him and started delicately touching him. Kallaar and Ahmla hovered nearby, faces drawn, mouths in tight lines. Penli hissed as Shanna touched a sore spot on his ribs and grabbed her hands—then promptly let go when he saw the blood he’d left smeared all over them. She looked at him with wet eyes. “Are you all right? More or less?”
“More or less,” Penli said with a bare smile. “This was nothing, sugar biscuit, and well you know it.” He gently nudged when her frown only deepened. “It looks worse than it is. Minor injuries look severe, and major injuries look like nothing, all too often. The more awful I look, the better I am.”
Shanna still looked far from convinced even as she nodded, caressing him gently and muttering to herself as she fussed and fretted.
“What is going on?” Adnan demanded. “Why am I being told six men are dead in the middle of my palace? You look like you’ve been in a war.”
“That tends to be the result when six men jump me in a hallway,” Penli snapped. “If they wanted to survive doing such a stupid thing, they should have either done a better job or brought more men.” And wasn’t it all the more wonderfully irritating that his words came out distorted because of his broken nose. “Majesty.”
He was only slightly mollified by Adnan’s contriteness. “My apologies, that wasn’t what I meant. I should not have spoken so poorly. I meant, why were you so severely attacked? I cannot think even someone as angry and brash as Lord Tishasanti would resort to this.”
“Lord Tishasanti once got so incensed at an ex-lover laughing in his face he killed the woman’s cat by setting a half-feral dog on it. That being said, I have no proof he did this, no matter how obvious it seems to all of us. Honestly, as many enemies as I made in my military days, this could have been unusual timing as much as Tishasanti being a cheating bastard.”
Adnan made a face. “Get to a healer, Lord Penli. I’ll deal with this matter, and extract the truth from Tishasanti if I have to start breaking his bones.”
“I’d much rather you didn’t,” Penli replied. “If you accuse him of cheating—or worse, successfully charge him with it—then the challenge is thrown out.”
“Which would automatically negate the marriage contract,” Kallaar said, “and isn’t that our ultimate goal?”
“Tishasanti would never simply walk away from something like that—he needs the money, and his reputation would never recover,” Shanna replied. “That might sound ideal, but I fear how he would react. And given how unhappy he and Teia’s parents are by this whole matter, there’s no telling what they might do once everything quieted down.”
Kallaar made a face. “I would not put it past him to somehow spin the tale to make it sound like Penli framed him for cheating. Or something equally despicable. The point is, declaring he’s a cheater would not work to our favor, and the bastard knows it.”
Penli’s mouth flattened. Teia should not be chained to his family, but it was hardly an uncommon practice. Too often people saw their children as play pieces for their own ambitions, and the best way to keep a piece where you wanted was to make certain it had no choice but to stay. He’d been fortunate in that he’d had just enough independence that he’d been able to strengthen and increase it—and ultimately leave. He might not be quite as powerful as he’d once been, but he had nothing to really fear provided he stayed out of Remnien until Shanna took her throne. “It does not surprise me in the least that Tishasanti is going with a ‘me or no one’ tactic. Do not accuse him of anything. I can handle Tishasanti and whatever goons he hires.”
“I think you may be giving him too much credit,” Adnan said. “I will heed your words, but the next two tests are physically demanding. He could have done this simply to see you fail them.”
“I’ve done more difficult things in worse shape,” Penli said. “Shanna, help me to the healers. I’m officially tired of standing here bleeding and talking.”
Immediately returning to his side, Shanna got an arm around his waist and one of his across her shoulders, and with Kallaar and Ahmla close by, helped him through the palace and across the yard to the building that belonged to the healers.
Despite her determination to stay and fuss over him, Penli and the healers and her lovers eventually coaxed Shanna into leaving so he could succumb to the healers’ tonics and sleep.
And if he woke up later, groggy and distraught, haunted by the terrible expressions on the faces of his lovers as they saw him standing amidst a pile of bodies…
Well, this time he preferred no one be around to see his misery, not even Shanna.
Thankfully, there were two days of rest before the next challenge. He was surprised, actually, that Tishasanti hadn’t waited longer to send the men after him, just to guarantee Penli would be in the worst shape possible for competition.
Penli was released from the healers the morning after the attack, with the admonition that he get more rest and not do too much activity over the next couple of days. He dragged himself to his rooms, where he called for a bath and food. Once those matters were tended, and his wounds had been freshly treated, he crawled into bed and fell promptly asleep.
He felt moderately better when he woke several hours later, if sore and stiff from the combination of too much activity followed by too much stillness. He tended his wounds again and then sat down to eat the cold meal somebody had left for him. There was a note from Shanna, but no one else.
Stifling his disappointment, Penli forced himself to eat every bite of food on the plate and chased it with the dreadful herbal tea—probably Shanna’s doing.
Abandoning the table, he shuffled over to the settee and made himself as comfortable as possible. On the little table next to it was the book Teia and Sendaar had read to him the previous day. Penli picked it up, fingers clenching as their expressions came again to his mind: the horror, the dismay, the coldness.
Tishasanti’s hateful words, so obviously a veiled threat in retrospect, played over and over again in Penli’s mind.
“Does that worthless whore you’ve been fucking behind my back know what kind of bastard you are, Penlington? Because you might think I’m stupid, but I see and hear more than anyone credits, and I’ve heard plenty about the foppish pretty boy who murdered and destroyed and stole for the late queen.”
That’s what he deserved for getting cocky and sloppy.
That’s what he deserved for forgetting his own damned rules. He’d broken one too many by becoming Shanna’s friend. Lovers? Married life? Who was he fooling.
Fragile dreams of marrying Teia and settling down someday with him and Sendaar broke like seafoam on sharp-edged rocks. Better to keep to his original plan: get Teia and Sendaar free of the marriage to Tishasanti, then slip away so they were free of him too. It would cause a scandal, but having lost the challenge, Tishasanti wouldn’t be allowed to try marrying Teia a second time.
Penli threw the book across the room, drew up the blanket that had fallen to the floor, and fell into a restless sleep.
He woke to another note from Shanna, ordering him to come to dinner on pain of “or else.”
Penli summoned a servant and penned a reply saying he would be taking the “or else,” thank you very much. The last thing he wanted was to sit through an agonizing dinner, stuck in a chair that acerbated his wounds while the men he was fighting for did their best to avoid looking at or talking to him.
“Or else” came three hours later, announcing itself by way of thunderous pounding on the door and his name strung together with several choice epithets a queen-in-waiting shouldn’t say, let alone bellow. Penli heaved a sigh and pulled the door open.
“You’re lucky you’re already wounded.” Shanna blazed into the room, resplendent in scarlet and gold, a jeweled hoop gleaming where she’d pierced her stomach, and rounded on him as he shut the door. “Why are you sulking in here?”
“I do not sulk,” Penli said stiffly. “I’m in pain, exhausted, and humiliated. I think I am allowed an evening of solitude.”
Shanna tossed her head in that effortlessly imperious way none but a woman in charge would ever master. “Tishasanti was spreading his glory far and wide tonight—and by glory I mean misery. We all wanted to kill him, and your boys looked as though they were ready to throw themselves off a bridge rather than spend one more hour in his presence. They kept looking toward the doors every time someone came through them.”
Penli’s heart hurt. “Probably afraid I would show up and compound the misery.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“Have they not said?” Penli laughed bitterly. “They were the first ones to find me. I would guess from the looks on their faces that they witnessed some of the violence and murder. Whatever they first believed about me, reality has wiped away their fanciful thoughts.” And that had probably been Tishasanti’s true goal; that he might be incapable of competing was only a bonus. So much for being anyone’s champion; Teia was probably frantically looking for a way to be rid of him right alongside Tishasanti now.
Shanna shook her head. “I saw how much they were hoping and hoping you would be at dinner. I—”
“I saw their faces as they stared at me covered in blood and surrounded by dead men. I know the look of people horrified by my behavior, if not my very existence,” Penli said flatly, meeting her gaze, and whatever she saw in his caused her to snap her mouth shut. “Let us be real, my darling: most of the time people are correct to be horrified. I am no Queen’s Champion. I am a retired professional killer. I never should have gotten involved in this ridiculous affair.”
“Penli—”
“I love you dearly, my sweet, I do.” Penli held her shoulders and then hugged her tightly before stepping away. “But right now, I really do want and need to be alone.”
Shanna didn’t look remotely happy, but said, “Of course, I’m sorry for barging in. But Penli, take some advice from someone who already made the same stupid mistake you’re making and talk to them before you make any decisions. I nearly lost Kallaar and Ahmla because I made a stupid assumption and ran away instead of facing my fears and asking a few simple questions.”
“I won’t have much choice, but your advice is heard and heeded, honeydrop.” He kissed her cheek and hugged her again, then watched heavy-hearted as she left with a last worried glance at him.
When he was finally alone again, he retrieved the book he’d thrown and made a futile attempt to smooth out the crumpled pages. He tried not to think about how pleasant it had been to lie there between them, lazing and sleeping, no fears or worries for that brief span of time. How breathtakingly easy it had been to trust them, to know he could sleep, be at his most vulnerable, without fear.
Then again, he was never the one who had to be afraid. He was the one people were terrified of the moment they saw past his endearments and frippery.
But oh, how sweet the dream had been while it had lasted. He’d indulged in a lark and let two beautiful, endearing young men past his defenses and now he was paying the price. Old enough to know better, but not old enough, it seemed, to heed his own advice.
Penli snapped the book shut and slammed it down on a table before striding across the room to help himself to the contents of the bar he’d set up within days of arrival. Pouring a generous glass of almond liquor, he took it with him back to the settee, mixed it with another tonic, and read a different book until sleep overtook him once more.
When he woke again, he was feeling moderately better, if still unbearably sore, achy, and stiff.
He called for a hot bath and read one of his books while he soaked, though by the time he climbed out of cooled water he couldn’t remember more than a dozen words of what he’d read.
Sick of remaining in his room, he dressed in relatively plain clothes—for him, anyway—and went for a walk around the quiet, late-night palace.
He was strolling along the mezzanine over a small, semi-secluded courtyard when two figures entered it—Teia and Sendaar. They were, as usual—well, the usual his limited experience knew—quiet, moving together in that way Kallaar and Ahmla share. Like they shared a heartbeat and rarely needed words to communicate.
Watching them as they sat on a bench and curled into each other, speaking in words too soft to catch, Penli felt a deep, cutting ache. He shouldn’t be so attached already; it had only been a matter of days. What was he doing?
But it had only taken a moment for Shanna to become a friend he would die for. And watching the figures below, all he wanted was to join them. He wanted to see them every day, see what they could build between the three of them. He wanted to kiss them breathless and fuck them senseless. Spoil them rotten and see to it they never again had to fear being torn apart. Join them in wandering the world, and return home to rest a time before venturing out again.
He wanted to be good to them, and for them, and that wasn’t something a professional killer—even a retired one—was meant to do. He was good for making corpses, and making people do whatever it took to avoid becoming one.
Tishasanti wasn’t often right, but he was right about that. Nobody wanted to cozy up to a killer any more than they wanted to cozy up to a bully.
Turning away from temptation, Penli walked on until the sound of soft footsteps—footsteps meant to be heard, but only just—made him turn sharply around, reaching for the daggers strapped to his back beneath his jacket.
He relaxed as he saw it was Ahmla. “Good evening. You’re not one I expected to see wandering alone at this hour.”
“I locked them in and promised severe punishment if they dared to leave the room before I returned,” Ahmla said. “I was restless and wanted a walk; the past few days have been particularly stressful.”
Penli winced. “I am sorry. I am still trying to figure out how all of this happened. It’s not…” He shrugged.
Ahmla smiled faintly. “I know a bit about acting out of character when someone unexpected is thrown into your path.”
“Yes, Shanna has that effect.”
“So does Kallaar,” Ahmla said wryly. “Sometimes I envy bloodgivers like Omar and Sendaar, who are sworn to obedient lords with sense in their heads.”
Penli laughed. “I think you would be unbearably bored.”
“Probably.” Ahmla sighed. “It’s a brave thing you do, challenging Lord Tishasanti, especially as he’s proven he’s willing to use the foulest means to ensure you lose.”
“I’m not really any better, at the end of the day. Tishasanti and I hate each other most because we’re not all that different when the frippery is stripped away.”
“That’s ridiculous, though I will concede you are both stubborn and dangerous. But Tishasanti would only work this hard for himself, and you have nothing to gain from challenging him.”
Penli thought of Teia and Sendaar curled together on the bench. Stretched out on either side of him, reading to him, or Sendaar softly singing. “That is not true,” he said softly. “I am confounded that even Tishasanti cannot see the good thing he nearly had. I am even more confounded he would want to split them up.” He frowned. “Especially since his proposed replacement, Master Omar, made it sound as though there was no significant difference, in terms of bloodgivers, between him and Sendaar.”
Ahmla snorted, and leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his broad chest. “In lineage, I guess there is no significant difference. One peasant is much like another to people around here. A bloodgiver with noble blood is somehow better, even though that makes no difference in how well I swing a sword. No, Lord Tishasanti does not particularly care who replaces Sendaar, only that someone does. Though at that, Master Omar is quietly known to be a highly skilled bloodgiver.”
“Oh?”
“I doubt he is aware. Like Master Sendaar, he has been made to be too aware he is not of noble birth, and so tends to only hear the bad things said about him. It’s a shame. I hope his new sworn is worthy of him, and not another old, spoiled noble who thinks a bloodgiver his due.”
Penli nodded. “That actually provokes another question: why does Tishasanti not have a bloodgiver? Meat too foul for a vulture he may be, but he’s powerful and influential enough to merit one, I’d think.”
Ahmla’s expression turned cold. “He did have one. The man was killed protecting him—a situation that would not have occurred if Tishasanti had done as instructed. He was given another anyway, and that man was nearly killed as well. Our commander withdrew him and refused to assign anyone else. We cannot protect those who refuse to be protected, and are cavalier with our lives.”
“I see,” Penli replied quietly. “I am sorry.”
“If only Lord Tishasanti was,” Ahmla said with a sigh. “You might not have wanted this fight, my lord, but there are many hoping you will win it.”
“I’ll win or go down hard trying,” Penli replied. “And do my best to take Tishasanti with me.”
Ahmla smiled faintly. “I have every faith. Now if you will excuse me, I have lingered overlong and do not trust my charges have remained where I put them. They’re bad enough on their own, and impossible when they combine forces.”
“Good luck,” Penli said with a laugh, and after Ahmla had vanished from sight, he went in search of his own bed.
He needed all the rest he could get; tomorrow would be filled with desperation, rage, and blood.