Janel rose to her feet, looking shaky.
The duke tilted his head toward his undead wife. “They’re all yours.” The two continued to speak, while various courtiers looked upset or uncomfortable.
Janel rejoined Qown.
“Are you all right?” Qown leaned toward her.
“Ask me again later,” Janel said. “Why was everyone staring at me?”
“Because you’re the first woman to ever be given that particular honor,” Thurvishar D’Lorus said. “My apologies. I couldn’t help but hear the question.”
Janel started to respond, then stopped and blinked. “I remember you from the banquet. D’Lorus, yes? The Academy?”
“The same,” Thurvishar responded. He started to say more but paused and looked toward the duke instead.
At that moment, Duke Kaen turned his attention back to Janel and gestured toward Sir Oreth. “And what about this one? Shall you plead mercy in his case as well?”
Sir Oreth blinked. “Me? Wait, I thought we’d agreed it was the women—”
“Be quiet,” Duke Kaen ordered. “Do you want him to live?”
“Him?” She raised an eyebrow, incredulous.
Sir Oreth’s eyes widened. “Janel, please—”
“Three times,” she told Oreth. “Three times you have moved against me. The first time, you tried to force me to be your mare. The second time, you took my lands. The third time, you tried to take my life.”
“Janel, damn it, it wasn’t like that! Would you just listen to me? I did nothing wrong. I had nothing to do with this! This is ridiculous!”
She turned back to the duke. Only Brother Qown could see the tremor—rage—moving through her fingers. “No mercy from me. Do with him as you wish, Your Grace.”
The duke nodded. “He’s all yours, Xivan.”
“What? No!” Sir Oreth pulled out his sword, pointing it in the undead woman’s direction as she approached.
“I agree. It’s better to go to your death with a sword in your hands.” Xivan Kaen unsheathed her own sword. She used a curved Khorveshan blade, very different from Oreth’s straight sword.
Brother Qown looked away. “I can’t watch this.”
As it happened, he didn’t have to. No sooner had he averted his gaze than metal hit the ground followed by a grunting noise. When Qown glanced back, shocked, he saw Sir Oreth had been disarmed. Xivan Kaen held him by the throat. He writhed and tried to break her grip, without success.
And a glowing light trailed from his eyes and mouth to the duchess while the entire hall watched in silence.
It took seconds or an eternity, depending on how one measured such things. When Xivan finished, she dropped his corpse to the ground. Xivan looked haler already; her skin didn’t appear so blue, her cheeks had filled out. She almost passed for someone alive.
“We’re done here,” the duke announced.
45: THE SPURNED
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Kihrin’s story ended … for a little while
Kihrin pointed toward the rings in Janel’s hair. “Are those—?”
She shook her head quickly. “No. And my loyalty to Duke Kaen—well, it was always under false pretenses, wasn’t it?” Janel stared into her coffee cup. “False pretenses on both sides. Azhen Kaen knew I was a candidate to fit the prophecies for the Hellwarrior, so he wanted to keep me under his eye. Make sure I never usurped the role he wanted for himself. And if he turned my loyalty to him in the meantime, I was much more likely to go along with his plans concerning General Milligreest. Can you imagine the look on the high general’s face if Kaen were to show up for a meeting with me at his side?”
“I don’t think I like this Duke Kaen fellow,” Dorna said.
Janel sighed. “He had his moments. Unfortunately, he then had all those other moments.”
Kihrin fought back a yawn and grabbed for his coffee cup. If they kept this up, they would end up staying up straight through the night. On the other hand, he’d rather be awake but tired than sleeping when Relos Var arrived. “Yeah, but Xivan’s the more dangerous one.”
Ninavis chuckled. “You have good instincts about people.”
“You’d think so,” Kihrin said.
Janel shrugged. “Yes, I admit I have a problem with Xivan.”
“Which is?” Kihrin asked.
Janel sighed. “I really like her.”
Janel’s Turn. The Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.
I was numb when I returned to the wives’ quarters.
No one noticed, but only because everyone else was equally dazed. Xivan stayed with Kaen. Qown and I were separated. I don’t know what had happened to Talea. Guards escorted all the other women, myself included, back to our rooms. No one spoke.
I hadn’t realized … I hadn’t been prepared.
That scene in the great hall had cost me in ways I’d never expected. I had known it would come to this. I had known this was the price I’d have to pay. And yet when the bill came due, I was shocked to find the coin so dear.
How much of my self-worth, my self-image, was predicated on this idea of being a proper noble, an honorable person? Good for my word. Loyal to the empire and my gods. And now that couldn’t be true, could it? Either I was a liar or a traitor.
It didn’t matter that this was the whole reason I’d wanted to go to Yor. I had wanted to infiltrate Duke Kaen’s house, wanted to lie to him and gain his trust in order to steal the magic spear Khoreval. If I needed that spear to slay Aeyan’arric and stop her rampage through Jorat, then it followed I would do whatever it took to claim the weapon as my own.
The whole point had been to betray Kaen. Right?
Except if my new status—whatever that status was—meant I could convince Kaen not to unleash Aeyan’arric on Jorat at all, then … did I even need the spear?
I could gain everything I wanted by betraying everything I was.
I touched the rings now woven into my laevos while women slid past me in the great room. They silently fanned out again through the rooms. I found myself reminded of the survivors of Mereina—all those people in too much shock to do anything but stare at nothing. A wife sat down on one of the couches and began weeping.
Across the room, out on one of those balconies, a motion caught my eyes. I realized Wyrga was out there, feeding scraps of something to her little polar bear cub. She caught my eye, gave me her feral grin, and winked at me. She put a finger to her lips and made a shushing motion.
I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed her, but when I glanced back, Wyrga was gone. And there was no place for her to have gone—the only exit from that area was either into the main room or … or a thousand foot drop onto freezing ice.
A tension settled over the room. I thought Wyrga had entered from another doorway, but as I turned around, I realized the pressure had a different cause.
Veixizhau had arrived.
She crossed her arms and scanned the room. “What are you bitches looking at?”
The woman who’d first greeted me, Bikeinoh, rolled her eyes. “Seriously? After the shit you just pulled? You’re lucky we don’t kill you ourselves.”