But Maddek had not known her. It was not so surprising that he did not immediately trust her.
Yvenne would teach him who she was, then. Slowly. Carefully. If he realized that earning his trust was her purpose, he’d disbelieve her every word.
So tonight, she would not speak of anything that gave him reason to doubt. Let him become accustomed to hearing truth from her tongue—then he might not be so inclined to rip it out.
And let him discover that he and she were not so very different. “The warriors who travel with you—they are your Dragon?”
A slight hesitation. Then, “They are.”
Oh. How unexpected. She’d thought he would say they were not, because only a Ran was protected by a Dragon guard. So it was not strictly true that they served in such a capacity. Yet she also knew Maddek would not lie.
“Even though you have not yet been named Ran?”
“So I would have not yet called them my Dragon,” he replied—and that explained his hesitation, she realized. Just as what followed explained the response he’d given. “But it is what they would call themselves.”
In this matter, then, he would weigh his warriors’ voices more heavily than his own. Never would her father have done the same. Zhalen’s own opinion was the only one with any significance.
And for that reason, her father would never inspire the same loyalty that Maddek did. “I suspect that these warriors would serve as your Dragon even if you never became a Parsathean king.”
Maddek grunted.
Whether that reply was agreement or dissent, Yvenne couldn’t decide—but he did not seem displeased by her observation. “My mother once told me that no matter how many times the raiders from the Burning Plains invaded Syssia before the alliance, nothing the Parsatheans ever stole from us equaled the value of what Queen Nyset took from your people in return.”
Another grunt, but this one clearly dismissive. “You’ve heard false. Never did that warrior-queen lead a raid against Parsathe.”
“I said nothing of a raid. It was not silver or iron that Nyset took from your people, but something she saw with her moonstone eyes.”
Amusement and interest deepened his reply. “What of value could she take with those?”
“She watched Ran Antyl.” The successor to the thief-king, Ran Bantik, who had become a legendary queen in her own right. “And Nyset saw how much better it was to lead a people—as Parsathean queens and kings do—than to rule over them. So that is what Nyset did. That is what all my foremothers have done.”
“And is that what you will do, when you are queen?”
“It is.”
His hard laugh stirred the loose tendrils of her hair. “Leading means nothing if your people will not follow. Should they follow you because of your moonstone eyes? Your brothers’ eyes are the same color.”
“It would not matter. But for Tyzen, my brothers would not even attempt to lead. They would try to rule over them, as my father does.”
“And how will you inspire your people to follow you? Your mother and foremothers were warrior-queens. You cannot even sit a horse.”
“That hardly matters. If it meant freeing my people from my father’s rule, I would crawl upon the ground. Whatever I must do, I will do it. My people will see that, and they will know that every step I take is a better direction for us all.”
“If you wish to free them, better to raise a sword against your father than to crawl at his feet.”
“Certainly a sword is easier. That is why I would ally myself with you, to see your blade take my father’s head.” She glanced back, hoping for a glimpse of Maddek’s face, which revealed so many of his thoughts—but she had no good view, only shadows and the broad mountain of his shoulder. “Surely you do not believe that one must be able to hold a sword to lead. Would you not follow Nayil?”
That council minister would never hold a sword again, yet Yvenne knew how deeply all Parsatheans respected him.
“I would,” Maddek said, but instead of the solemn reply she’d expected, another laugh rumbled against her back. “Though I do not always listen to him as well as I should.”
“No?”
“He said that the ruling house of Syssia should be avoided. That everyone born of Zhalen’s blood was as cunning and vicious as a starving drepa.” Some of the humor leached from his voice. “Yet now I take Zhalen’s daughter as my bride.”
“Oh.” Yvenne would lose her tongue if she told Maddek that his mother had heard the same advice, yet would have given Zhalen’s daughter to him as a bride, anyway. So instead she offered another truth. “Nayil is not wrong. If I had not been born into my family, I would make great effort to avoid us, too.”
She thought he might have smiled at that, though she could not see his face. Because silence fell between them, but it was not uneasy or tense. Instead it was the comfortable quiet of two people in agreement.
Everyone of Zhalen’s blood was vicious and cunning.
But Zhalen’s blood alone did not pulse through her veins—or through her brothers’. Only Yvenne and Tyzen had been raised by their mother in their tower chamber, however. Her older brothers had not been so fortunate, and it was not just Zhalen’s blood that had poisoned their hearts. It had been every moment he’d spent with them.
She might have told Maddek so, but this time it was he who broke the silence.
“And what of your father’s personal guard?” The hardness of his voice told her that he was thinking of his mother’s rape. “Are they loyal to him, as a Dragon is?”
“Some are loyal to my father. Others are loyal to his gold.”
“They are not Syssian.” It was not a question, for Maddek must have seen how the Syssian soldiers responded to Yvenne. Never would a Syssian have kept Yvenne—or Queen Vyssen—imprisoned as her father’s guards had. A single word from either woman would have secured their freedom. But her father’s mercenaries cared nothing about Nyset’s heirs.
“Most are from Rugus,” Yvenne said. “Many fought with him at the Battle of Fourth Ridge, when he held the pass against the Destroyer’s warlords, and when he smote the Smiling Giant. Those soldiers came with him when he married my mother.”
“How many?”
“Fifty in my father’s personal guard, made up of his most loyal soldiers.” Before her death, Queen Vyssen had counted them each day—monitoring their movements, their conversations, always seeking a weakness in Zhalen’s security. “Two hundred more serve as the palace guard. There are no Syssian soldiers within the royal citadel. They are instead charged with protecting the city walls and the Syssian outlands.”