Brishen struggled not to grin or pull his wife into her arms. Skilled as any seasoned diplomat with her words but better than one because she spoke them with sincerity. She had just paid Anhuset the highest compliment by offering her trust in her ability to protect her in the future.
Anhuset’s haughty features flushed perse-blue with pleasure before she scowled into the distance. She returned the sword to its sheath and bowed low to both Brishen and Ildiko. “I’ll coordinate the rest of the camp set-up. By your leave, Highnesses.” At Brishen’s nod, she strode away, bellowing orders to get to work, remove the dead, raise tents and set up guard perimeters.
Brishen bent his head as Ildiko leaned close and whispered, “How badly did I muck that up?”
He turned to her fully. Exhaustion had painted the skin around her eyes a lovely dusky shade. Whether or not she was beautiful to humans and ugly to the Kai, she had a good mind and a spirit he was growing to admire with every passing second. “I think you missed your calling, wife. You would have made a fine ambassador.”
She blinked slowly. “I’m surprised I didn’t speak pure gibberish. I’m so sleepy, I can hardly talk.”
She gave a half-hearted protest when Brishen caught her at the back and knees and lifted her in his arms. “Be quiet,” he admonished her gently. “You’ve been awake too long. As have I.” He deposited her back on her tree stump and ordered a nearby soldier to bring a saddle and blanket. They had a comfortable backrest set up in no time. Ildiko reclined against it with an appreciative sigh. She was sound asleep before Brishen covered her in another light blanket.
He was tired as well. Except for a few minutes here and there, he hadn’t slept in Pricid since he arrived three days earlier. Luckily, Mertok’s cavalry had arrived—not only to help them vanquish their foes but also to offer relief so Brishen and his entourage could rest for a few hours.
The rising sun half blinded him, and he squinted as the cavalry captain approached, hooded and cloaked against the daylight. Mertok bowed. “Your Highness, I thought we agreed to meet you near this spot tomorrow. We didn’t think to find you this far down the road so soon.”
Brishen accepted the mild criticism. The trade road was a dangerous one. He had been sure the size of their party would deter any ragtag band of thieves intent on stealing trade goods. The odds grew even higher in the Kai’s favor now that Mertok’s horsemen had joined them to travel the rest of the journey together, swelling their numbers to a small army.
But Brishen had been eager to leave Pricid, and with Ildiko’s encouragement, they’d set out a day earlier than planned. “My wife wanted to see her new home as soon as possible, so we left right after the banquet.”
He glanced beyond Mertok’s shoulder, watching as the Kai dragged the dead bandits to a spot beyond the camp and piled them into a haphazard heap. Every one of their attackers had been human, but Brishen suspected none had been Gauri. He returned his attention to Mertok. “That was no flock of thieves who attacked us. Too many and too well armed and organized.”
Mertok reached into the depths of his cloak. “We started tracking them to the border two days ago. A raiding party with a message.” He held out a bauble, its metal flashing in the sun.
Brishen took it and growled. The royal insignia of Belawat. He wasn’t surprised; he was infuriated. The kingdom of Gaur had skirmished with the kingdom of Belawat since Brishen had been a child. The Beladine wanted the profitable Gauri seaports, and the Gauri had no intention of giving them up. Full scale war had seemed inevitable, but there was an obstacle—one that made the alliance with the Kai valuable to both sides.
The fastest way to move armies and avoid the treacherous mountains that divided the Gauri from the Beladine was through a narrow passage in Kai territory. Both human kingdoms knew better than to try and annex the heavily defended tract for themselves. The Kai had turned a blind eye at first to the smaller skirmishes between the two combatants. It was no concern of theirs if the humans slaughtered each other as long as they did so on their side of the border.
But Brishen’s father had grown alarmed when scouts reported an amassing of Beladine troops and whispered secrets of a large force preparing to invade Gaur, take its ports, and conquer the Bast-Haradis borderlands along the way.
The trade treaty and war alliance between the Kai and the Gauri had destroyed Belawat’s plans. They weren’t strong enough to fight two kingdoms allied together. The Beladine king had promised retribution for the Kai’s interference in human matters. This raiding party had been the first volley fired. Kill the younger Kai prince and his Gauri bride. Send the message that revenge was swift and merciless.
Brishen flipped the insignia in his hand before dropping it into the pouch at his belt. He eyed the mound of the dead. “Burn the bodies and all their gear. Save a jar of the ash. The Kai will send Belawat a response.”
Mertok gave a short bow. “Do you wish to perform a consecrative tonight for our dead?”
Brishen nodded. “Find out who’ll volunteer to serve as Neima’s and Kroshag’s mortem vessels. I’ll act as Talumey’s.”
Anhuset joined them, and the three made additional plans for the remainder of the journey, agreeing to double the guards during the day and increase their pace if at all possible so they cut their road time by a third. When they finished, Brishen discovered the tent reserved for him and Ildiko had been erected.
He carried the still sleeping Ildiko inside and laid her down on one of the two prepared pallets. She murmured softly but didn’t waken when he removed her shoes and unbuckled her out of Anhuset’s extra breastplate. Brishen didn’t think she’d appreciate him stripping off her clothes while she slept. He was too tired anyway to figure out the various lacings and knots complex enough to put a pit trap to shame.
She turned on her side away from him and snuggled beneath the blankets he pulled over her shoulder. Unlike her, Brishen couldn’t sleep in his clothes. Splattered in both human and Kai blood, he itched to get out of the armor and the gambeson beneath it.
Ildiko didn’t move when he stretched out on the pallet next to her. His eyelids felt as if someone had attached weights to them, and he soon fell asleep beside her, lulled into repose by his wife’s soft breathing and peaceful form next to him.
He awakened hours later to twilight’s dim haze and the touch of fingertips across his cheek. He opened one eye to discover Ildiko’s homely face close to his. She traced the bridge of his nose and the line of one cheekbone.
“You know, except for the gray skin, black nails and the one glowing eye looking at me, I could almost mistake you for Gauri.” He gave her a sleepy grin. She paled and frowned at him. “And then you smile,” she said. “Bursin’s wings, but that’s a blood-curdling sight to wake up to at any time of the day.”
Brishen chuckled between her fingers as she tried to press his lips closed. He grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles. “You won’t exactly be honored as the greatest beauty in all of Bast-Haradis, wife.” Her red hair haloed her head in a corona of tangles, and her eyes were even more grotesque—the whites threaded with thread-thin filaments of blood.
Her mouth curved upward. “Thank Bursin for that. I’ll happily pass the title onto someone else. Now, if you all want to name me the ugliest woman in the entire Kai kingdom, then I might have to preen a little.”
Brishen attempted to tame her hair by patting it down with one hand. “You’re considered a beauty by your people. Why weren’t you married sooner?”
She shrugged. “You were the most advantageous for a woman of my rank. My mother was Sangur’s sister. Had it been my father who was related to him, then I would have been a princess. But since I was born to the female line of the royal family, I was simply a noblewoman—too high-ranking to marry off to just anyone but not important enough to pawn off to an heir.”
“So they gave you to a spare.” Brishen said it without rancor. He was the younger of two sons, and his brother had insured the royal succession six times over and coun
ting with his heirs. Brishen’s importance for carrying the line had long ago been diminished. There wasn’t even any requirement that he beget children of his own. His Gauri bride had simply been a good faith exchange between kingdoms—the post script to a document of alliance.
Ildiko continued her exploration of the contours of his face. “There’s a lot to be said for a spare.” She drew a circle on his chin with her fingertip. “Your skin color reminds me of a dead eel I once saw on the beach.”
Brishen arched an eyebrow. “Flattering, I’m sure. I thought yours looked like a mollusk we boil to make amaranthine dye.”
She paused in touching him and stared at her hand. “I am very pink compared to you.”
“Just so, since I’m not pink at all.”
Ildiko’s eyebrows drew together. “Do you eat those mollusks?”
“No. They’ve a bitter taste, and their dye is too valuable to waste them in the kitchens.”
Her relieved exhalation caressed his throat. “That’s good to know. I’m not sure I’d like to be compared to something you ate for dinner.”
Brishen opened his mouth to retort but changed his mind. He hadn’t been completely truthful with her when he told her his people weren’t interested in eating the Gauri. The Kai were an ancient race; the humans a young one. Long ago, on the edges of ancestral memory, when the Kai were more feral and humans less savage, his kind had once hunted hers for food.
He hurried to change the subject. “Why are your eyes bloodied?”
Ildiko started and pressed her hands to her eyes. When her fingers came away unstained with blood, she frowned, obviously puzzled. Her expression cleared. “I think most humans suffer that when they first wake up. Our eyes feel dry and scratchy. It’s temporary.”
She cocked her head. “You and your people are bothered most by human eyes, aren’t you? I can see it in the way you react to some of our expressions. It’s equal to how frightening the Gauri find your teeth.”
No one could accuse his new wife of not being observant. Brishen carefully traced the outline of her cheekbone just below her left eye. “It’s the white part that makes them ghastly. It’s as if they’re attached on strings plucked by unseen hands or some kind of strange leeches that live as pairs inside your skulls.”
Ildiko’s expression pinched in disgust. “That’s horrible! No wonder no Kai will meet my gaze for more than a moment.”
“I meet it all the time. I’m meeting it now,” Brishen countered.
She acceded his point. “True, but I bet it takes the same effort it takes me not to jump every time you smile.”
“We’re growing used to each other. My kin will grow used to you and you to them as well.”
Ildiko sighed. “I hope so. An ugly stranger in a far land with people not of my blood or my kind.” She wrapped a strand of his hair around her finger and tugged gently. “I’ll need your guidance, husband.”
Brishen cupped one side of her face. “You have it, Ildiko. Along with my protection and my patience. I didn’t lie when I said we would manage together.”
Ildiko pressed her cheek into his palm for a moment. She pulled away, and her smile turned impish. “It’ll be hard not to tease your folk sometimes.”
Brishen couldn’t imagine how she might go about such a thing. He had no idea if the Kai and the Gauri even knew the same jokes or found the same things funny. “What do you mean?”
He almost leapt out of his skin when Ildiko stared at him as both of her eyes drifted slowly down and over until they seemed to meet together, separated only by the elegant bridge of her nose.
“Lover of thorns and holy gods!” he yelped and clapped one hand across her eyes to shut out the sight. “Stop that,” he ordered.
Ildiko laughed and pushed his hand away. She laughed even harder when she caught sight of his expression. “Wait,” she gasped on a giggle. “I can do better. Want to see me make one eye cross and have the other stay still?”
Brishen reared back. “No!” He grimaced. “Nightmarish. I’ll thank you to keep that particular talent to yourself, wife.”
She was still chuckling when he helped her rise from her pallet and left the tent to give her privacy to change and ready herself.
It was dark, and the moon hung low when he exited the tent and discovered several Kai staring curiously at him from their places around camp fires. No doubt they wondered how he’d found the courage to bed his hideous wife. No doubt bets had been placed and wagers exchanged over whether he took the easy way and bedded her when the sun was high and the light blinding or the more challenging and swived her as the gloaming rose.
They could wonder until they rotted. Brishen had no intention of revealing anything between him and Ildiko. Theirs was an agreement based on the beginnings of friendship, respect and an intuitive understanding of each other that still left him slack-jawed with amazement. He refused to taint that accord by inviting vulgar conjecture.
He made arrangements to have the travel rations packed by a Gauri cook delivered to the tent and met with Anhuset and Mertok to discuss the upcoming consecrative.
Ildiko found him a half hour later. She’d changed her clothes and tamed her hair into a braid. Anhuset’s breastplate hung across one arm. “Can you help me buckle this on again?”
He took it from her and set it against a nearby tree. “We’re not riding out just yet. We have three of our dead to attend to.”
Her features saddened. “I’m sorry for your loss, Brishen.”
Brishen squeezed her hand. “As am I. We’ll cleanse the bodies during the consecrative and return their mortem lights to their families to store in a sacred house.”
“What is a mortem light? And a consecrative?”
He stilled, wondering how best to explain Kai funerary rites or that to properly honor their fallen comrades, he and two other Kai would literally breathe in the memories of the dead to carry them home—hosts themselves to other entities.
With that realization, Brishen no longer saw Ildiko’s eyes as before, otherworldly and separate from her. They were human and still strange, but just eyes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The physical differences between human and Kai were obvious and in some ways, extreme. Ildiko had accepted that fact before she married Brishen. Her acceptance helped her look beyond his startling appearance to the man himself. She’d held tight to that philosophy: see past the surface to the tides below. In her very short time amongst his people, she observed many similarities to hers—a love of family, comradeship, loyalty to each other, grief over lost friends. Ildiko had no doubt there were many more she’d discover as she took her place amongst the Kai as wife to one of their princes.
The Gauri might share several of the same behaviors as the Kai when it came to the living, but in the matter of the dead, the two parted company.
Brishen retrieved a flask of wine and a blanket from their tent and made a place for her to sit at the entrance. He sat down beside her and passed the flask. “With every generation, the Kai lose a little of their magic. We are an Elder race, but we are fading. We hoard the sorcery we still possess until forced to use it. Though I’m as knowledgeable as my father in family spells and protections, his power is greater than mine and my brother’s. And my brother’s is greater than his children’s. However, the Kai are old, with long memories. The spirits of our dead leave this world but gift the living with their memories—what we call mortem lights. We keep those memories alive in a place called Emlek. They are our history, what defines us beyond how we look or the sorcery we’re losing.”
“Is Emlek a temple?” She passed him the flask after taking a swallow of sweet wine.
Brishen drank as well and let the flask dangle from his fingers. “Not really. It’s sacred, but we don’t worship there. Those who visit come to gain knowledge of past days or to find comfort in revisiting memories of those they lost.”
Ildiko’s heart contracted in her chest. Oh, what she would have given to have her parents’ memori
es with her. She refused his second offer of the flask. “I wish the Gauri had something like that.”
Brishen wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s a comfort to the living, especially when death is sudden, as for those who die in battle or childbirth, which I’m told is its own hard-fought war.” He kept his arm around her, and Ildiko savored his strength. “A dead Kai’s mortem light is a last gift to their loved ones.”
She envied this gift with a fervor that made her wish she’d been born Kai, teeth and all. “How do you bring them home? The mortem lights?”
Brishen took another drink from the flask. Ildiko was still learning the flickers of expression on his features, their nuances harder to capture without the ability to read his eyes, but she sensed an odd hesitation. He stiffened a little next to her and removed his arm from her shoulder. She missed its weight.
He paused for so long; Ildiko didn’t think he’d answer her. “Tonight we’ll perform a consecrative—a ritual to release the spirit and spark the mortem light.” He lifted one of her hands and laced his fingers through hers. The contrast of gray skin and black nails against hers emphasized their physical differences, yet sorrow was sorrow. The grief in his voice was the same as any Gauri who’d ever knelt at a grave and mourned. “I can explain the ritual and how we transport the mortem lights, but you’ll better understand it when you witness it.”
“May I participate?”
Brishen’s mouth curved upward. In a gesture growing more familiar to her and one she liked, he kissed her knuckles before rising to his feet and helping her stand. “I wish you could, but a consecrative can only be performed by the Kai. You’re welcome to watch; I’d be honored if you did.”
They spent the early part of the evening holding ad hoc court in a forest clearing. Ildiko had been too exhausted the dawn before to meet the new members of their entourage. That, and the aftermath of the bloody skirmish between the Kai and Beladine raiders had precluded any social introductions. Securing a safe camp and clearing the dead had taken up everyone’s time.