They traveled for two days without incident—no Volgar, no snakes, no naked women appearing on the edge of camp. But it was not unclothed phantoms or birdmen that concerned Kjell. He tripled the nightly watch and put a guard near Sasha while she slept. His men didn’t question him—Isak had shared his account of the black adder and his sighting of the tribal woman, carefully omitting any mention of Sasha and mistaken identity in his retelling.
“This was not like the snakes in the cave. This snake was aggressive. It spit like a cat and rose straight up into the air,” Isak marveled.
“They don’t like the herds. They shake the ground and make the snakes nervous. They don’t want to be trampled. Our horses are probably to blame for the adder’s irritability,” Jerick mused.
“Adders are deadly, but the captain could have healed you,” Peter chimed in, still awed by his own curing at the captain’s hands.
“Yes, but who will heal the captain?” Sasha rebuked gently.
Kjell’s men shifted in their saddles, chagrined, and Kjell sighed, wrapping Sasha’s thick braid in his hand and tweaking it gently. “You will cease trying to protect me, Sasha,” he murmured, speaking directly into her ear so he wouldn’t have to chastise her in front of his men.
“I will not,” she whispered, but raised her voice to include the guard, evading him and turning their thoughts from their captain’s vulnerabilities. “I know a tale about a snake . . . would you like to hear it?”
The men agreed heartily, but Kjell did not release her braid.
“There was a place, a land of great beauty, where the flowers grew endlessly and the air was soft and mild. Where the seas were fat with fish and the people flush with happiness. There was a good king and a young queen who ruled over the land. The king built his wife a beautiful garden and filled it with every kind of tree. But there was one tree whose fruit was more desirable than all the others. The fruit was white and sweet, but the man told his wife she could not eat that fruit. He told her she could eat the bounty from every tree in the garden, but not that one. She was forbidden to even go near it. Every day the woman would look at the tree, longing for a piece of the fruit, because it was the one fruit she could not have.
“The king knew that the queen desired the fruit from the forbidden tree, but instead he brought her grapes from the vines, firm and dripping with juice. He brought her apples and pears of every color. He peeled oranges and fed them to her with his fingers, trying to distract her from the fruit of the one tree she wanted.
“But one day, the young queen went to the garden alone, and she found herself drawn to the tree again, hungry for the fruit. She got closer than she had ever been, so close that she could see a snake, glittering and gilded with gold, wrapped around one of the branches. To her surprise, the snake began to talk to her. He hissed a promise to the woman, ‘If you eat this fruit, you will see all things. The king doesn’t want you to eat it, because you will be all-knowing and all-powerful, and you will leave him.’
“The queen scoffed at the snake. She would never leave the king. She just wanted to taste a perfect, white pear. She moved closer to the tree. Too close. She reached out her hand to pluck a piece of the fruit, and the snake struck, sinking his fangs into her arm.
“When the king found the queen, she lay next to the tree, dying, a piece of the white fruit still clutched in her hand. She never even got to taste it. The king realized that he’d forbidden her to eat the fruit but he’d never warned her about the snake.”
“The snake tricked her,” Gibbous whispered, shocked. Some of the men shared smirks at his outrage.
“Yes. But he hadn’t lied about everything. The queen did leave the king. She died,” Sasha said, her gaze solemn. The smirks disappeared, and the men grew reflective. Kjell stared at the landscape ahead, wishing he’d never heard that particular story.
In the days that followed no one shirked his duty or fell asleep on his watch. No one wanted to be the cause of the captain leaving them.
They did not continue in a straight line along the Jandarian Plain, paralleling the cliffs that dropped into the Takei Sea. Kjell had intended to travel to the city of Janda, just east of the sea, to confer with the lord of the province. But every step toward Janda took them further from the City of Jeru, and Kjell was eager—for the first time in his life—for the cover and safety of the castle walls. He saw danger around every rock, trouble around every bend, and an attack from every direction.
He kept his concerns to himself, driving his men hard, their horses harder, and veering north instead of east, heading for the mountainous pass that cut through the hills that bordered the southern edge of Degn. It would have been less strenuous to go around, but foregoing the journey to Janda and cutting through the mountains of Degn shortened their journey by two weeks.
Sasha showed no signs of fear or fatigue. She seemed to enjoy the journey, perched before him on Lucian, taking in the scenery and keeping them all from wearing too badly on each other’s nerves. In the evenings, surrounded by the King’s Guard, she told stories, in the day she made conversation, and each night she slipped her hand into Kjell’s as she fell asleep. He didn’t kiss her again, didn’t look for moments to steal her away and take what his body increasingly yearned for, but each day, she sectioned off another piece of his heart, and his impatience for Jeru became anticipation for something he hardly dared hope for. He could only pray his growing obsession with having the fruit would not blind him to the snakes.
The sun was just beginning to lower over the ancient seabed beyond Nivea when Kjell, Sasha, and the guard began to descend into the city of Jeru. Light dappled the ground and pinked the sky, and the walls of Jeru gleamed with black brilliance in the distance.
“She is the most beautiful city in the world,” Kjell said softly, and Sasha could only stare. Green flags beat the rosy sky and sentries sounded their horns. Even a mile off, the sound carried on the wind. They’d been seen.
“Are you sure you aren’t a prince?”
“I am a brother,” Kjell said. “And that is infinitely better.”
The people of Jeru gathered and tossed greetings and glad tidings, waving and running alongside the small contingent of the King’s Guard as they made their way through the city gates, down the wide streets, and climbed the hill to the castle itself. The battle with the Volgar within the castle walls had made Kjell a bit of a legend, but few Jeruvians had actually seen what he’d done. He’d made himself scarce in the years since Zoltev and the birdmen had been defeated, since Tiras had escaped the curse that had bound him, and since Jeru City had begun the long road of integration and tolerance toward the Gifted among them.
But people loved to talk—as evidenced by the fact that Kjell’s story had traveled to the villages of outer Quondoon, to a dusty hamlet like Solemn, and to the knowledge of a fire-haired female with a love of tales. Sasha’s face was wreathed in smiles, and she waved back at the children and clapped at the excitement of the citizens, welcoming the king’s brother home.
“They love you, Kjell!” she cried, her eyes wide and her face flushed.
“They do not love me. They love King Tiras. They love his queen. They love Princess Wren. It has nothing to do with me.”
The guard was trained to allow no separations between each horse as they moved in formation through a crowd, but as they neared the base of the hill leading up to the castle and the cathedral beyond, a man pushed his way through the throng that lined the thoroughfare and broke out into the street just ahead of the mounted procession.
The man was heavily bearded—the growth covering what little Kjell could see of his face. His forehead and eyes were shrouded by the deep cowl of the cloth he wore banded around his head. His clothes were dusty, his feet sandaled, his back bent over a staff, but he stood in the path of the horses and made no move to get out of the road. He reached out a hand as if to bid them halt.
“Move aside, sir,” Jerick called, inching forward to clear the path. But the man side-stepped him, his eyes on Sasha, his hand still raised.
“Saoirse?”
The word that hissed from his lips sounded like Sasha’s name, but not. It curled around the man’s tongue, hooking on the r before he released it with a sigh. It felt ominous, like the man had spoken a curse in a different language. Sasha stared at him, eyebrows drawn low over her ebony eyes. Then she raised her face to Kjell’s, confusion coloring her expression. The guard had come to a complete stop, the man causing a bottleneck in the narrowing street. Kjell lowered his lance, wary of the stooped stranger who had obviously mistaken Sasha for someone else.
“Step aside, man,” Kjell demanded, startling him. The man looked around, clearly unaware of the attention he was drawing.
“Forgive me, Captain,” he said, bowing so low his head was level with his knees. Then he stepped out of the way, sending a furtive glance over his shoulder as he melded into the crowd.
Sasha sat frozen in front of Kjell, her head tipped to the side, listening the way she was prone to do, seeing something no one else could see.
“Saoirse,” she murmured, drawing the sound out slowly—Seer-sha—and Kjell found that his mind was repeating the word as well. He resisted saying it aloud, ever cautious, ever suspicious.
“Did you recognize that man?” he asked.
“No,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “No. But he seemed to know me.”
“Jerick!” Kjell called, straightening his lance. “Follow him. I want to know who he is.”
Jerick nodded once, needing no further instruction. He took Isak and Gibbous and peeled off the main procession in pursuit of the man who had already disappeared into the well-wishers. Maybe the man had simply been curious. He wasn’t the only one ogling the red-haired woman seated in front of the captain of the King’s Guard. Kjell groaned. He’d been foolish to enter the city this way. He was drawing too much attention and speculation. The last time the guard had brought a woman home from a Volgar crusade, she had become Queen of Jeru.
Three years before, King Tiras had returned from the first battle in Kilmorda with a female captive from Corvyn. He’d locked Lady Lark in a tower room—a means to control her treacherous father—and proceeded to become her prisoner. Now all of Jeru bowed at her feet.
Kjell had no desire to deposit Sasha in a room and put her under armed guard. But he wanted to keep her, and he had no idea how to go about doing so. Now the whole city would be making assumptions about the woman in the company of the captain. Before long, he would have to make his claim, just like he’d done with Jerick, and he instantly resented the entire, inquisitive, meddlesome population.
They didn’t proceed to the courtyard, like they would have done if they accompanied the king. Instead, they crossed the wide drawbridge, entered beneath the enormous portcullis, and turned left toward the king’s stables. Lucian’s ears were pinned forward, his gait quickening for grain and the end of his journey.
It was hearing day, Kjell realized belatedly, the line from the Great Hall spilled out from the east entrance and blocked the way to the stables.
“What’s going on?” Sasha asked, her eyes dancing from the carefully manicured shrubs to the waiting subjects, who eyed her as curiously as she eyed them. As they’d approached, she’d removed her veil to gaze at the parapets and the domed fortress of Jeru castle, and her hair rippled around her shoulders, blazing in the pink glow of the setting sun.
“Once a week the King and Queen see their subjects, resolve disputes, and give rulings on complaints brought before them. It is incredibly tedious, and they’ve been at it since dawn. Judging from the length of the line, it’s been an especially long day.” As Kjell spoke, a trumpet sounded, indicating the end of the day, and the people still waiting for a hearing began to disperse, grumbling as they were turned away, forced to come back the following week.
“Beckett,” Kjell called to the groom who was ushering the guard into the stables, a grin across his weathered cheeks.
“Welcome home, Captain!” Beckett cried, hands outstretched, his eyes immediately drawn to the horse. “Hello, Lucian. We’ve missed you, boy.”
Kjell stepped down from the stallion and raised his hands to Sasha, lifting her from Lucian’s back and letting her legs adjust before he dropped his hands from her waist. They’d been riding since dawn with very few breaks.
Beckett had suddenly forgotten the horse entirely, his eyes on the pretty maid, his mouth hanging open.
He bobbed and ducked, smiling shyly, and Kjell dismissed him with more patience than he felt.
“Take Lucian and make sure he is well-rewarded, Beckett. Check his right flank. He’s been favoring it since our last run in with the Volgar.”
“Yes, Captain,” Beckett said, bowing to Sasha again, tipping a hat he wasn’t wearing, before awkwardly turning and leading the stallion toward the stables.
“Come, Sasha.” There was no time like the present. Now that he was home, Sasha in tow, he didn’t know what to do with her. He could present her to Mistress Lorena, the housekeeper, and demand that she be given a room and a hot meal . . . and then what? He didn’t give orders to the royal staff. He would have to present her to his brother before long, and knowing Sasha, she would demand to be given work. He would present her now, corner his brother and the queen in the Great Hall, and be done with it.
He took Sasha’s hand and marched toward the gardens, pulling her behind him without any explanation, bypassing the wide eastern entrance for the private entrance, feeling self-conscious and oddly anxious. His nerves made him angry, and when Sasha pled with him to tell her where they were going, he barked at her and walked faster.
He strode into the Great Hall and veered toward the dais where King Tiras and Queen Lark sat conferring with the King’s Council.
Kjell, you are dragging the poor woman like she has committed a crime and you are bringing her before the court.
Kjell winced and slowed, hearing Lark’s voice in his head, her ability to communicate through thoughts still as jarring as it had ever been. He continued toward the throne, though he moderated his pace. Sasha was a reluctant weight pulling against him as he blazed ahead.
“I’m home, brother,” he thundered, his voice unnecessarily loud, his heartbeat unpleasantly fast. He hated the Great Hall, the throne that had once belonged to his father, the traditions it housed, and the tapestries interwoven with a history that excluded him.
Tiras rose—sleek black hair and dark skin, lean height and long muscles—cutting off his council without a word. Where Tiras was dark-skinned and finely chiseled, Kjell was pale-eyed and roughly hewn. Where Tiras was restrained power, Kjell was brute force, and where Tiras was wise, Kjell was merely shrewd.
Kjell would rather be like Tiras—wise and powerful—but wisdom and power were not things a man could simply choose. Kjell didn’t mind their differences—he was incredibly proud of his younger brother—he just recognized that he was the lesser man and wished it weren’t true.
Tiras stepped down from the dais with the grace of a jungle cat, and greeted Kjell with outstretched arms and unabashed relief that his brother had returned. Tiras was the person Kjell had always loved most in the world, and he let go of Sasha’s hand and let Tiras embrace him, enduring the affection, though he struggled to return it with the King’s Council looking on.
Beside him, Sasha dropped into a curtsy so deep and demure, her head nearly kissed her knees.
“Majesties,” she breathed, her long tresses falling around her, brushing the marble floors. Tiras extended a hand, helping her rise, and he smiled at her with obvious speculation.
Kjell rushed to explain before Tiras drew his own conclusions.
“Tiras, Queen Lark, this is Sasha. Of Quondoon. Of . . . Kilmorda.” Kjell bit back a curse at his clumsy introduction and continued with more care. “I have promised her a position here in the castle. I would view it as a personal favor if she could remain here. For the time being. For the near future.” He ceased talking.
“We have been traveling for a long time, Highness. Forgive me for my appearance,” Sasha stammered, blushing.
Kjell thought she looked beautiful and didn’t understand the wide, incredulous look she tossed his way before curtseying again.
“You will forgive my brother,” Tiras said. “Kjell has so few friends. We welcome you.” Tiras grinned wickedly, his eyes calculating, his words smooth.
Lark rose from her throne and joined her husband, extending a hand to Sasha as she summoned her lady in waiting, who hovered nearby. “I will have Pia escort you to Mistress Lorena,” she said. “She will take good care of you. If employment is what you seek, we will see to that as well. But for now you will rest. It was not so very long ago I was dragged from Corvyn by one of Kjell’s closest friends. I had to be carried from the horse. I am impressed by your stamina.”
The king’s eyes gleamed at his queen’s tart reference, but this was not what Kjell had intended. He had not planned for Sasha to be taken away and “seen to.” He watched Pia escort her from the room, quelling the urge to keep her in his sights. She’d barely left his side since Solemn. Four weeks and three days since he’d found her near death at the base of a cliff. Since then she’d ridden in his arms, slept by his side, and crept inside his walls.
The King’s Council observed with craning necks and prying eyes, and Kjell sneered at them, jutting his chin and tossing his head toward the wide doors.
“Go and do no harm,” Tiras dismissed them, and waited until they gathered their scrolls and scuttled from the hall, bowing repeatedly to him and the queen before taking themselves away.
“You look good, brother,” Lark said to Kjell, her eyes affectionate, her voice kind. “We’ve missed you.”
“He looks like a great, dusty, bristling bear,” Tiras laughed. “And yes, we’ve missed you. Now tell us about the girl.”
“She was a slave in Solemn, in the province of Quondoon. The people tried to kill her because she was Gifted. They ran her from the town and forced her off a cliff at the end of their spears. I healed her,” Kjell offered awkwardly.
The queen blanched and Tiras hissed. He held himself responsible for every injustice, and Kjell had no doubt there would be emissaries sent to Quondoon in the near future.
“What is her gift?” Tiras asked, eyes flat, hands clenched.
“She is a Seer. She tried to warn the people when she saw harm. They harmed her instead.”
“You called her Sasha,” Lark said, her brows raised in question.
“Yes. That is what she’s called. I feel like I’m insulting her every time I say her name,” Kjell admitted.
“She doesn’t comport herself like a slave,” Tiras mused, his jaw still tight. He’d abandoned his teasing grin and his cutting remarks.
“She was sold in Firi and indentured by an elder of Solemn and a delegate of Lord Quondoon. It is believed she was once a servant in the house of Lord Kilmorda before the province fell. I wonder if perhaps she was something more.”
“It is believed?” Tiras asked, incredulous.
“She doesn’t remember.” Kjell shrugged.
“She is familiar to me,” Lark said, her brows furrowed above luminous eyes, her small pointed chin cradled in her palm.
“It is the hair,” Tiras remarked, his eyes trained beyond Kjell where Sasha had been, turning pages in his head, trying to find something he’d once seen.
“I’ve never seen hair like hers,” Kjell interjected, and felt a wash of embarrassment at the awe in his voice.
“No. Not as deep a red,” Tiras said. His eyes were troubled.
“Lady Sareca of Kilmorda had hair like that. She was a friend of my mother’s. She came once to Corvyn before my mother’s death and several times after. My father considered Lord Kilmorda an ally. Surely there is someone from Kilmorda who would remember a girl like Sasha in the lord’s house,” Lark ruminated.
“Zoltev was convinced the lordship in Kilmorda gave refuge to the Gifted, and he put a great deal of pressure on the lord of the province to continually prove his innocence,” Tiras said.
“Or maybe he wanted to control the ports and the wealth in Kilmorda,” Kjell said. “I was old enough to accompany the guard to and from Kilmorda several times before Zoltev disappeared and you became king, Tiras. Kilmorda was the richest province in Jeru, even richer than Degn. Lord Kilmorda had close relationships with the lands to the north, conducting trade that did not involve the oversight of the kingdom. Zoltev didn’t like that.”
“It was no coincidence that Kilmorda was the land he most completely destroyed,” Tiras agreed.
“And no coincidence that the lord of the province and his family did not survive the attacks,” Kjell added.
For a moment the conversation lulled, the king, the queen, and Kjell all lost in their own memories of what Kilmorda had endured.
“Sasha will be our guest, and she will be safe here,” Lark promised. “We will see to it, and we will do our best to find someone who might be able to identify her.”