Domenic’s fingers close around my wrist, halting my attempt. He balances over me, throat bobbing as he swallows hard before pulling back. Back and away.
No. No. I scramble up after him, getting to my knees before I manage to grab a fistful of his shirt. My lips part in a whispered plea, but Domenic shakes his head, panting as if he’d run for miles.
“I won’t bed you,” he says, his voice strained. “I want… You deserve happiness, Nile. I won’t ruin your chance at it with Tamiath.”
Tamiath won’t mind. “Tamiath won’t know,” I say, all my willpower engaged just to keep myself still.
“You’ll know,” says Domenic. His hands press into my hips as he shifts me gently away from him. The moment my weight is stable and my hands no longer clutch his shirt, Domenic is up on his feet, his back toward me, his hands braced on his thighs as he draws slow deep breaths before straightening. In the mirror, Domenic’s palm rises to cover his face. His head drops. “I’m sorry,” he sighs. “That was… It won’t happen again.”
Before I can find my voice, Domenic leaves the room.
Chapter 36
We prepare to leave for Felielle the next morning. I walk in a daze toward the assembled soldiers, the memory of Domenic’s touch flooding my every breath. My face heats, and it’s an effort to assure myself that my thoughts are mine alone. Spotting Domenic at the edge of the waiting group, I stumble over flat ground, my mouth suddenly dry. My gaze scampers across the caravan’s wagons and horses, seeking out a place to hide until I can look at him without my body tightening.
“There you are,” Aaron appears from the crowd, leading a slender dapple-gray mare by the reins. The horse is already saddled, her wide nostrils snorting the crisp air. Long silky hair skirts her legs and feet majestically as she lifts one foot, then the other with a dignity more befitting a queen than a horse. The scents of hay, grain, and leather waft from her like odd perfume. My stomach tightens.
Perhaps I could walk to Felielle.
Aaron flips the reins over the mare’s neck and interlocks his fingers into a makeshift stirrup. “Give me your foot.”
I bring my boot up. The mare shifts her weight and dismisses me as someone unworthy of her concern.
“Your other foot, Nile.” Aaron’s voice drops. “Do you not know how to ride?”
“Do you not know how to rig a sail?” I hiss back.
“Do you want to ride in the wagon?”
Yes. “No.” I let out a slow breath and put my hand on the mare’s neck. “I’m not riding with the turnips.”
Aaron gives me a look similar to the one the mare had. “Oh, you’ll be a delight to speak with tomorrow after a day of riding. And the day after that even more so.”
I give him a vulgar gesture as he settles me into the saddle, which shifts precariously beneath me. Aaron eyes me dubiously but silently adjusts my stirrups. “Let me know if you change your mind about the wagon.”
“I will not—” I cut off with a gasp as the horse beneath me wanders off to munch on a trimmed hedge. “Turn starboard, stupid beast.” I dig my heels into her sides.
She snorts, raises her tail, and poops.
“Trouble?”
I bite my lip at the sound of Domenic’s smooth, low voice, my breath halting as he leans over from his own mount to grab my mare’s headstall and turn her toward the caravan. The sea-and-brine scent of him makes me dizzy. I bury my hands in the horse’s mane and refuse to meet the man’s eyes.
Recognizing a higher authority in Domenic’s touch, the bloody horse perks up her ears and trots behind Domenic like a pet. My fingers in her mane tighten to keep myself from being bounced right out of the saddle as my teeth click together. “Woahhhh,” I beg the mount. “Easy.”
Domenic slows to a walk without appearing to move a single muscle. He twists back, regarding me with a mix of surprise and worry. “She was going slow. Are you all right?” The many layers of the question turn my gut.
“Fine,” I say, my attention firmly on the horse’s ears. “Though Aaron foretells I’ll feel differently after a day of riding.”
“Riding and other training,” Quinn says, joining Domenic and me. Like Domenic, Quinn too sits competently atop his mount and watches me with some concern. “Did you never learn to ride?”
“My kingdom is a bloody peninsula,” I hiss. “I learned to sail. What is that?” I point to a set of dark eyes studying me from Domenic’s saddlebag.
“A dog,” Domenic says with a shrug of a muscled shoulder that brings my mind back into the bedroom faster than I can blink. I keep my focus trained on the dog, noting that Domenic appears to have none of my emotional jumpiness this morning. “He’s one of Clay’s pups,” Domenic continues. “The one who started barking right before… I’ve seen dogs predisposed to sense certain conditions before they occur. It is very possible this pup shares the talent. We will test it during the trip.”
First the horse, now the dog. I appear to be attracting a bloody menagerie.
“Might I suggest we discuss the training plan before Nile falls out of the saddle?” Quinn inquires, leading the three of us downwind of the waiting column to where our quiet words have little chance of carrying back to the soldiers.
Once settled, I fill the two men in on what I’ve learned about my magic so far, covering everything from the sail-setting analogy I use for control, to the Diante medicine woman’s words and Catsper’s exercises. It takes a full hour to lay out and order the facts, with Quinn asking thoughtful questions and suggesting hypotheses while Domenic and I pointedly avoid looking at each other.
“Are you two paying attention?” Quinn snaps with a voice reserved for wayward midshipmen, and I flush in realization that I, in fact, hadn’t been. Domenic gives no acknowledgment of having heard the reprimand, but the horse beneath him dances uncomfortably. “What I propose,” Quinn says, plainly not for the first time, “is to establish how much magic Nile can comfortably control while relaxed, then systematically increase the strain—physical, mental, and magical.”
Sounds delightful.
“And the convulsions?” Domenic says, nudging his horse to put himself between Quinn and me.
I sigh. “We let them happen and take them as they come.” It’s as far from ideal as it gets, but thus far we’ve found nothing to suggest the damn things can be managed.
The one good thing about the next two weeks—the only good thing—is that by the time Domenic, Quinn, and the damn horse are done with me each day, I fall into my bedroll too exhausted to fret about the undead captain. Each waking moment, I’m either meditating, destroying innocent branches with bursts of air, or clinging to my saddle while the horse decides she’s had enough of lugging me around. Despite his quiet bearing and careful words, Quinn turns out to be a relentless taskmaster, possibly because taming my magic is one of the few things the man can do without compromising his odd sense of loyalty to a nation that would execute him if given a chance.
Domenic, on the other hand, morphs into an overprotective wolf ready to go for Quinn’s jugular. “This isn’t the Republic,” Domenic hisses after Quinn’s instruction that I call a breeze to help my horse along ends with the mare rearing and me on the ground. “Killing a princess isn’t an acceptable outcome.”
“Killing anyone should be an unacceptable outcome,” Quinn replies with infuriating calm.
I groan and glare at the horse’s bridle. “Can we kill whichever sadist thought a six-inch bit in the mouth of a thousand-pound animal was a good idea?”
“The problem was with neither the horse nor her bridle,” Quinn says primly, too disciplined to point out that I was doing well enough until Domenic rode by and my attention snagged on him like cloth on a stray nail. “But let us try again.”
Being beside Domenic hour after hour, unable to touch him beyond an accidental brush of one body against another, is its own special kind of torment. At first, I try to make those accidental brushes a frequent affair, but Domenic catches on quickly enough and
gives me a silent withering look that has me keeping my hands to myself.
The puppy, whom Aaron names Bear in deference to his huge paws and tendency to steal food from closed saddlebags, indeed appears to sense my coming convulsions and enjoys announcing this fact to the world with ear-piercing yelps. Despite my nightly attempts to relocate Bear into one of the wagons, I wake up each morning with a warm black bundle the size of a travel pack snoring softly into the small of my back. After a week, I give up trying and even look forward to waking up with the pup’s soft snoring against me.
By the time we enter the Felielle capital city two weeks later, I’ve little skin left on the inside of my knees and thighs coupled with an intense hatred for saddles. I study my new home through a veil of ache and fatigue.
If the Ashing palace is a ship on land, the Felielle capital is a greenhouse. Flower beds, blooming trees, and stinging bees are everywhere. Instead of the neatly ordered and breezy streets that I’m used to, the city is stuffed with winding narrow alleys, rising stone dwellings, and uneven cobblestones—as if the planner had thrown paint onto canvas and let things fall as they may. Potted plants of all shapes hang from balcony windows, growing from flowers to herbs. Mixing with the aroma of pollen and greenery is the solid stench of manure—some of it left behind by my own mount—which fills the air as thickly as salt does at home. As for people, they are everywhere. Crowding, pushing, pointing.
“Third balcony of the red house,” Quinn murmurs, pulling his horse up beside mine. “Send a breeze to scatter the dandelions without breaking their stems.”
“Now?” We are approaching the stone walls of the palace, green grape vines climbing its sides a testament to the many years of service it granted. The thought of Tamiath’s family waiting inside makes nausea crawl up my throat. Like me, Tam is a younger child, not crown prince of the kingdom. Also like me, he little talks of his parents.
Quinn raises a brow.
I clear my mind, pushing thoughts of Tam’s family, of our great charade, of Rima’s letter into a void. When nothing but my magic remains in focus, I shift my attention to crafting my attack—calculating the distance, motion, natural wind, and everything that will affect the air current I call forth. The mathematics I’ve drilled for navigation and gun drill obediently lend their services to my new skill. Course thus charted, I release my magic with an exhale.
A breeze rustles the top of my collar and pushes against the balconies not ten paces from us. The flowers bend, white flakes of ripe dandelion soaring into the wind.
“If you two are done playing,” says Aaron, maneuvering his horse beside Quinn and me, “then Nile should come up to the front. It will look well if she and the prince enter the palace gates side by side.”
The crowd I’d pushed into the void while wielding my magic returns into focus with a vengeance. Watching. Staring. Waiting for me to trip. To the people of Felielle, my appearance in their midst is mostly entertaining drama. They know little of Ashing’s plight and care less. Of all the kingdoms Felielle touches, Ashing is the smallest. The Feliellies’ same ignorance extends to the specific lives and deaths that hang on this marriage—Domenic’s, Aaron’s, Tam’s, mine.
Ignoring the galloping of my heart, I nudge my mare to follow Aaron as we weave toward the front of the column. People’s voices rise and blend, calling everything from wishes of the Goddess’s love to worries over an Ashing savage in their genteel midst. As we approach the head of the procession, where Tamiath sits tall atop his black stallion, trumpets blare their tune across the square.
Ta-DA-DA. The music calls in a musical equivalent of a great gun salute. The crowd parts at once to leave an empty stretch of street between Tamiath and me. Even Aaron veers off to get behind my dapple mare. Ta-DA-DA.
Tam extends his hand toward me. With his lithe, tall body, rich brown hair cascading over a gray-and-gold embroidered tunic and a shining blade strapped comfortably along his back, Tam is every inch the warrior prince. Beside him, my blue woolen coat with a high collar, a thick waist belt, and black leggings—all picked out by Tam with more care than I’ve ever put into an outfit—are a flag of naval prowess. A union of land and sea that plays right into the Feliellies’ desire for show.
Ta-DA-DA the trumpet calls a third time, cuing Tam to raise our clasped hands into the air for all to see. As we do, the tension filling Tamiath’s body surges into me, the anxiety beneath his beaming smile a beacon in itself.
“What’s wrong?” I murmur out of the corner of my mouth, my own smile plastered in place.
Tam’s chin moves slightly, almost imperceptibly, to point toward a tall woman in a flowing crimson gown who frowns down at us from the palace balcony.
“My mother,” he says, circling our horses to let the whole court get a good view of our joined hands. “She is out for blood.”
“I thought your mother wanted you to get married?” I ask once the hostlers take our mounts and Tam and I climb the palace stairs to the tea parlor where Queen Leanna of Felielle would like to receive her younger son and his bride. If there is a place with more stairs and hills than Felielle, I’m having trouble picturing it. The palace itself is an exquisitely decorated aboveground dungeon, with stone walls and passages and staircases everywhere.
“She wanted to auction me off to a girl of her choice,” says Tam. “Politically speaking, Felielle is so centrally located on the continent that my father has greater swords to wield with other kingdoms than his younger son’s marriage bed. For Mother’s social power, however, my marriage carries greater influence. The only reason I was able to sideline her demands for as long as I had was that my father couldn’t care less if I decided to marry a cat, provided it didn’t pee on the rugs. But between the kingdom starting to murmur and Mother squinting at Aaron…” He lets the rest go unsaid as we near a hand-painted door with bright swirls and leaflike abstractions crawling along the hinges.
Inside, the parlor is surprisingly cozy. High-backed, softly padded chairs, velvet-swathed walls, candles in intricate holders, soft, warm light that plays off the browns and reds that accent the room. The woman from the balcony, Tam’s mother, Queen Leanna of Felielle, sits at the small round table, a porcelain cup of tea in her fragile hand. Her dark cold eyes are at odds with the warmth of the parlor. She looks me over as if appraising a filly, but her trained voice is perfectly gracious. “Nile, what a pleasure,” the queen says by way of greeting. “I look forward to learning all about the young woman who captured Tamiath’s ice-filled heart.”
“Ice filled?” I blink like a wide-eyed doe. Theatrics aside, what I say is honest. “If that Prince Tamiath exists, I have yet to meet him.”
She raises a brow and slides her gaze over to her son in question.
Tam’s face is stone, as if he faces a loaded broadside instead of his mother. He holds a chair out for me, pushing it in expertly before taking a seat beside mine. Beneath the tablecloth, I put my hand on his knee and brace myself for danger that remains hidden from my notice. When nothing in the vicinity explodes, I wonder if Tamiath’s worry over his mother is more family discord than real brewing trouble. While there is little warmth in Leanna’s eyes, there is also little of the keen intellect that Tam wears like a second skin.
“Well,” Leanna says smoothly, “let us not discuss the maidens who tried and failed to capture my son’s attention and focus on the one who did. I have read all about your ship’s adventures in the news, Nile. Thank the Goddess for your captain’s good sense. Tell me, did you know Captain Rima before joining his ship, or was it a fortunate coincidence?”
Tamiath stretches out his long arm and drapes it over my shoulders, a protective gesture made no less so by his playing absently with my earlobe. “Since when do you pay mind to military news, Mother?” he asks.
Leanna’s lips tighten. “Since you’ve brought home a girl from a kingdom that can’t seem to tell the difference between the male and female of the species, Tamiath. I thought you’d appreciate my welcoming Nile on he
r own terms.”
It takes me a moment to realize that Queen Leanna actually believes her own words.
“Your pardon, my lady.” A serving girl at the tea parlor interrupts with a cautious curtsy. “Your other guests are here. Shall I show them in?”
Tam’s eyes darken while Leanna’s face lights up into a smile. “Ah yes.” She inclines her head toward me, her musical voice genuine. “I thought some familiar faces might be welcome for us all.”
It is only my quarterdeck training that keeps the tea in my hands from spilling as Lady Madeline and Captain Rima stroll into the room.
Chapter 37
My first coherent thought, materializing through a haze of panic and suspicion, is to wonder how long it took the Lady Madeline to dress. Larger than Rima in all dimensions, Lady Madeline is nearly as tall as Tam and wears a flowing gown of sunflower yellow that complements her Eflian eyes. The pattern on the corset of her dress, cut in just enough of a V to reveal the tops of ample breasts, is embroidered with a design identical to the tattoos decorating Rima’s cheekbones.
Captain Rima, now in finely cut civilian garb and his left arm in a sling, is of a height with his wife’s bosom. Beside her, he seems almost insignificant, except for a cruel gleam I recognize all too easily behind his smiling lips.
Lady Madeline kisses Tam’s mother on both cheeks in a gesture of intimate friendship and receives the same greeting in return. “Oh, my most sincere congratulations to you all,” says Madeline, her low, melodic voice filling the room. “Your Majesty, might I present my husband, Captain Rima?”
Rima bows and kisses the queen’s hand before turning and bowing to Tam. “My prince Tamiath,” he says formally. As Rima straightens, he angles his body such that only Tam and I see the warning gleam in his eyes as he adds, “I do not believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”
Tamiath’s body tenses, his gaze ice cold. As Rima turns his attention to me, nausea rises in my throat. I touch Tam’s hand. Nothing. I remind us both. We’ve agreed to do nothing. To let Rima have his life and his games.