Nothing would she have of Maddek then. Nothing at all.
Voice ragged, she told him, “Do not do this.”
“It is done,” her father said, and slurped more soup from his spoon. “Take heart, daughter. I have never heard what happens when a man takes the half-moon milk. But I am about to find out. And at least we will be suffering together.”
Not enough suffering for him. Too much for Yvenne.
Oh, Vela. She was not strong enough for this.
The first cramp ripped through her belly. Then another, tearing open her rage and pain that had been together for so long, tearing open a heart that was already battered and bloodied, tearing a scream from her lungs and throat and soul.
And when she stopped screaming, her hope was gone.
CHAPTER 43
MADDEK
Awakening as a brainless beast whose only thought was of Yvenne felt no different than any other of Maddek’s recent awakenings. Except that he still felt weak. And hungry.
“He stirs,” Ardyl said in a hushed voice. “Take care. We can’t be certain until he speaks.”
“Yvenne,” he rasped, his mouth and lips so dry that the word felt as if it cracked his tongue. Above him stretched a hide tent. The familiar comfort of piled furs lay beneath him.
“They left the outpost two days past, riding hard for Syssia and surrounded by Rugusian soldiers,” Fassad answered.
“Seri?”
Toric told him, “The scout did not see her leave the outpost with the others, but Kelir and Nami have taken warriors to follow.”
So would Maddek next. His head swam as he sat up. “Banek?”
Danoh silently shook her head.
Grief gripped his heart. “And at the hollow and the Scourge?”
“Fifty-three warriors lost.”
In addition to one hundred Syssian soldiers who would have been loyal to Yvenne. Voice thick, he asked, “How long has it been?”
“You have been sleeping four days.”
But he shouldn’t have woken at all. “How did I live?”
“I tried to remind you,” Ardyl said, crouching beside his furs with a small pot in her hand. “Vela said that you might have need of this. We weren’t sure whether to rub it on your cock or into the poisoned wound or make you drink it. So we did all three.”
The cockmonger’s oil. A potion that the goddess had stirred with her glowing finger, Maddek remembered.
And he remembered what else she’d said. That Yvenne would suffer at Zhalen’s hands.
He tossed back the furs and stood. Unsteady and weak, but only because he’d been abed so long. None of the poison’s weakness lingered. “Bring to me a horse.”
The journey to Syssia would take a full turn of the moon. Too long. Far too long.
“We will ride with you,” Ardyl told him. “All is prepared. But you must delay for a moment. There is something that needs doing.”
There was nothing that needed doing except going after Yvenne. His linens and belt hung from a nearby hook. By the time Maddek dragged on his boots, he was steadier.
He emerged from the tent into the bright sunlight and with all of Parsathe gathered before him. No longer was he at the hollow, or the camp, but where Ran Bantik had stood when he’d united the tribes. As far as he could see were Parsathean warriors, their voices lifting and lifting into a roar that was his name.
Ran Maddek.
“The vote was cast while you slept.” From his left came the familiar voice of Nayil, the council minister who had served as advisor to Maddek’s parents—and had tried to serve as a fine advisor to him. The old man’s eyes were bright as he came forward on his withered step. “We had already been of one voice. But your felling the Scourge sealed it.”
“It was not the Scourge,” Maddek said, voice hoarse with emotion. “Merely a sorcerer.”
“A monster is a monster,” the old warrior said. “Will you lead us? Will you speak for us?”
Heart swelling, he looked out over the gathered warriors. Maddek knew not if he deserved this honor, but he would try to do right by them.
“I will.”
The roar of voices lifted again, accompanied by the pounding of feet, the gleam of raised swords.
“We know you intend to ride for your bride, Ran Maddek. We will keep the ceremony and feast for when that is done,” Nayil told him. “But first the council would also speak with Parsathe’s new Ran.”
Maddek nodded, then looked beyond him. The alliance council stood near, lacking only Bazir, whose tongue he’d torn from his mouth and whose head he’d given to Yvenne. He was glad to see Gareth among them, for it meant that there was little explanation to give. They knew what Zhalen was, what Aezil had been.
“I would have a strong alliance,” he said to them. “But it cannot stand strong if you coddle corruption such as Zhalen’s and Aezil’s. The council will say what they wish, and I will listen, but no argument will sway me. I will storm the walls of Syssia. I will have Zhalen’s head. Not for vengeance, but for my bride and for her people.”
Pella stepped forward, the gold at her wrists and ankles clinking. “Ran Maddek, we are not here to forbid you from marching against Syssia. Instead we would ask you to lead the alliance army against Zhalen, and to help root out any of Aezil’s remaining corruption around the Rugusian throne.”
He looked to Rugus’s minister, not even in his bearded age, and the moonstone eyes so much like his sister’s that Maddek’s need for her crushed his heart. The boy regarded him with a wary gaze, as if facing a drepa—perhaps because Maddek had killed two of his brothers, and next would kill his father.
But not all of the House of Nyset were corrupt. And the boy had given Maddek no reason to view him as such. “Yvenne trusts your word. And so will I. Do you ride with us, Tyzen?”
The boy nodded, surprise and emotion rushing over his face, ending with pride and determination. “I will.”
“Then make ready, brother.”
For the young man would be his. Now the boy gave him a wry glance. “Yvenne’s brother is a dangerous thing to be. It is likely safer to be yours.”
Maddek grinned. “So it is.”
He turned toward his Dragon, then back as a commotion stirred through the gathered warriors, as three riders sped through the crowd. His heart jolted against his ribs.
It was Seri. The girl was flanked by two scouts, her young face pale with fatigue. She reined in her mount in front of him.