“If he does, we will once again see him bleed,” was Maddek’s vow, and it was echoed by each of his warriors.
A faint smile touched Banek’s mouth, his gaze slipping over to meet Yvenne’s again. “I was at the Syssian wall that day—when Queen Venys cleaved through his flesh, and when she fell before him. I saw your mother that day, too, and it was as if I were seeing Queen Venys again, for she was just as strong. Every sorcerer and warlord in your mother’s path fell before her sword. And she was as a raging storm when she tried to reach the queen’s body before the Destroyer reanimated her.”
“But was too late,” Yvenne murmured. “Yes, she spoke of that day often.”
So had Maddek’s mother and father, who had also been there—and who had retreated with everyone else when Queen Venys had risen again. They’d all fallen back, not away from the Destroyer, but from the demon who possessed the warrior-queen’s body.
In that retreat, the alliance had been formed. For the Destroyer moved on after crushing Syssia, but the demon-queen remained. So every remaining rider from Parsathe and every soldier from the southern realms had come together to defeat her, and it had been her own daughter who finally struck the killing blow.
“She was fierce, your mother.” Banek eyed Yvenne speculatively. “She must have been the same age then that you are today.”
“Near to it,” she replied. “She was six years shy of a queen’s age. I am but five years shy.”
“Is that why she married Zhalen?” Maddek asked her. “She was too young to take the crown without issue?”
Just as Yvenne was.
“She needed no husband to conceive a child—many Syssian queens never married. Nyset did not. Venys did not. The union with my father was only to strengthen the new alliance.” She cast an unreadable glance at Maddek. “She had sight beyond what was seen, but she did not look long enough to see what he truly was. Or perhaps he knew that she would observe him from a distance before offering for his hand, and he wore a false face until they were married.”
Gruffly Banek said, “I was sorry to hear of the illness that stole her strength. If not for that, no doubt she would have destroyed him when she realized what he was.”
A bitter smile twisted her mouth. “It was not an illness.”
Maddek frowned. “That is what has been said.”
“Zhalen said many things. He said that he loved her even as he poisoned her wine with a full measure of fellroot.”
The same poison that had withered the minister Nayil’s limbs—though it had been delivered by a blade, not ingested. Drinking fellroot should have killed her. But perhaps a strong, goddess-favored queen could survive it.
Goddess-favored, but not invincible. “She did not see him do that, either?”
Yvenne shook her head. “Nor did she know that it was he who poisoned her. Not to begin. While she was still fevered and suffering, Zhalen told her there was a conspiracy among the nobles—that they claimed she had been tainted by the same demon who possessed her mother, and had tried to kill her for it. And with that lie, my father purged every strong house that could have stood against him. By the time she discovered the truth . . . she hardly had the strength to hold a sword, let alone lift it. So he locked her in her chamber, visited her in her bed, and got his sons upon her.”
“And got you upon her,” Maddek bluntly said. “Is being born of her poisoned flesh why you are so much smaller and weaker than Nyset’s other heirs?”
Her shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. “My brothers seem unaffected. But I was born almost two full turns too early, so small that my mother said she could hold me in the palm of her hand. I should not have survived. So perhaps that is where all of my goddess-given strength went—it was spent keeping me alive as a babe. And it pleased my father that I was so frail. He believed my weakness and hunger would make me easier to control.”
Maddek’s bark of laughter drew her gaze to his again. “Your father is truly a fool,” he told her. “For I have only known you a short time and know you could never be easily controlled. So you need not worry your husband will make the same mistake.”
Her grin matched his, and she held his eyes for a long moment that heated his blood. Slowly her smile faded, though the intensity of her stare did not.
A soft frown puckered the skin between her eyebrows as she continued to study him. “You are much more handsome when you scowl.”
He laughed again. “Am I?”
“You are,” she said primly. “You should refrain from smiling, especially after we are married.”
“That will be no hardship. After we marry, I’ll have little reason to smile.”
“I will make sure of it. It is so much more pleasant to look upon your face when you are unhappy, I shall endeavor to make your life a misery.” She eyed the grin that broadened in response to that. “Already you deliberately displease me.” Looking to Kelir, who was shaking with mirth upon his horse, she said, “Remember this moment if ever anyone speaks of how bitterly contentious our marriage is. I only have one small request of my would-be husband—that he does not smile—and immediately he denies me.”
“I will remember it, my lady,” the warrior choked out.
“As I will,” Maddek said dryly.
She gave him such a slyly amused look in response that it seemed to Maddek the worst misery would come not after their marriage, but during these next seven days when he would not have her beneath him, and instead rode across Goge with his cock forged of molten steel.
Her eyebrows arched, head tilted as she regarded him. “Now you scowl at me. It pleases me that you are so easily trained. I have heard every good husband ought to be—though perhaps not one who will also be king.”
Laughter danced in her pale eyes when his scowl only deepened. But despite the ache in his loins, his mood was still light—and perhaps it was best to let her believe he could be easily led. So he didn’t respond but looked forward and said, “We will rest the horses at the head of the ruins.”
And rest the woman who would be his bride. For as soon as the moon rose full, she would not find sleep until his seed overfilled her sheath. But there would be no rest for Maddek here.
Until that night came, easy rest would not likely find him again.
CHAPTER 12
MADDEK
At a word from Fassad, his hounds bolted past Maddek’s mare. Their agile bodies cut through the ground-clinging mist as they raced for the ruins looming directly ahead. They scrambled up the steep mound of rubble and were lost from sight.
All was quiet except the plodding tread of the horses along the muddied road. The land surrounding the crossroads might have once been cultivated, but the fields lay fallow now, stubbled grasses growing in clumps around scattered boulders and broken stone. In the distance, a small herd of striped-legged antelope grazed near a copse of trees, pronghorn heads raised and alert to the warriors’ presence—but the Parsatheans would not be hunting them today.