Yet someone as frail as Yvenne . . . that fever killed most, no matter where the bite was. Perhaps she might have been spared death, just as her goddess-touched mother had survived a different poison that ought to have killed her. But Yvenne’s body had never been as strong as that warrior-queen’s.
It would have taken but one scratch. One bite. Yet she’d run toward danger instead of away.
She was well, but still Maddek’s chest ached. His bride had said he was adept at finding weaknesses. He could not ignore that she was becoming his. For he focused on a problem he didn’t face instead of the one he did.
“Will he have strength to ride tomorrow?” It mattered not if Toric could sit a horse after they reached Drahm and the ship that would carry them across the Boiling Sea. But it was still several days’ ride to that city.
Banek shook his head. “Perhaps the next.”
A full day lost—and with Syssian or Rugusian soldiers not far behind, if they’d taken the southern river road.
“I can stay with him while you ride ahead,” Banek suggested.
“No.” They were all stronger together. Even with Toric weakened. And if the soldiers had taken the northern road and reached Drahm before they did, better not to enter that city with fewer warriors at his side. “If they are on this road, this position is the most defensible.”
Kelir’s mouth twitched in amusement. “And you have a bride who can place an arrow through any approaching soldier’s eye.”
So she could. But not alone. And Maddek would not expose her to the soldiers, yet if an attack came, he would also be a fool not to use such a gift.
Nor would she let him leave it unused. By Temra’s fist, her stubbornness meant that if he denied her, she would only seek strength elsewhere.
That poisonous ache in his chest deepened.
He felt Kelir’s gaze upon him now before the other warrior said, “Are you in need of counsel, Ran Maddek?”
Though the warrior’s tone was light, it wasn’t all jest. Counsel and consultation was one of the Dragon’s duties. And whatever Maddek’s friend saw upon his face must have said he was in need of it.
But it was not counsel he needed. There was no help for what afflicted him.
“Not counsel. A promise.” But not from Kelir, though it was best that the warrior witnessed it. Maddek looked to Banek. Maddek’s guards did not have to obey him. But if the older warrior made that vow now, it would be near the same. “You serve as one of my Dragon guards—but foremost you will serve as my bride’s. And if she will not run from a threat we cannot defeat, you will take her away from it.”
Banek looked to Kelir. Maddek had no doubt the old man wanted to accept, yet this would be a decision made between the warriors, for it might mean Banek would abandon the Dragon—and Maddek—in a time of need.
The lightness had vanished from his friend’s expression. Kelir misliked the request, but he also saw the reason for it.
And he also knew Maddek’s own frustration at not having realized it sooner. “We saw what she was—every time she sensed foul magics, or when she looked at us with her moonstone eyes and we could not hold her gaze. She told us a goddess sees through her. We knew.” His mouth twisted in bitter humor. “Yet even the barmaid understood better than we, and that only on a glance.”
Just as so many things had been described to Yvenne, but she’d not truly understood until seeing them for herself. Kelir and Maddek had been similarly blinded, believing they knew what she was but having no true understanding of what they saw. Yet not every warrior had labored under the same misconceptions.
“Banek knew,” Maddek said to him. “He’d seen it before.”
In Yvenne’s mother and in her mother’s mother. But the old man shook his head. “I saw the goddess within her. But I was blind to more, because I also saw that she was not the warrior her mother was. And after the ruins, when she failed to run . . . I didn’t see how brave she was. I did not see that until today.”
Maddek had seen her courage. He’d seen it from the moment her brother had pulled her from the carriage, when she’d boldly lifted her chin and looked straight through him. Like a fool, he’d simply dismissed that courage. But now she was his weakness, and he could not let his weakness leave her vulnerable. “Will you protect her? Zhalen will never let her be. None of that family will.”
And Maddek had new reason to kill them all. Yvenne had claimed she was more valuable as a bride than a corpse, but he’d not fully understood what she meant. Even after recognizing how valuable she was as a queen. Her daughters would have legitimate claim to the Syssian throne, yet even that was not all her worth. For her daughters would also carry a goddess’s magic within her. And Zhalen and her brothers could not control Yvenne . . . but a young and powerful girl, without the influence of a queen like Yvenne’s mother? Perhaps they could. Perhaps the only reason it had not already been done to Yvenne was because of her frailty and weakness. If she’d been as strong as her mother had once been, Zhalen would have raised her as he did his sons. Now if Yvenne had a daughter, Zhalen would take the baby, kill the mother, then mold the child in the same image as he molded his sons. They hungered for power too much to ever relinquish a claim over her.
Little wonder Zhalen meant to marry her to the Tolehi king. Not only would her father have new claim to that throne, but the Tolehi king would not have fought when Zhalen took Yvenne’s female issue.
“Until her father and her brothers are dead, she will never be safe,” Banek agreed, then added solemnly, “If Nyset’s line ends or is corrupted by Zhalen . . . that would be a great loss not only to Syssia but to all who call themselves her allies. So I swear it. My first duty will be to Yvenne.”
Though Maddek was relieved by the vow, the ache in his chest didn’t vanish. A great loss. But not just losing Nyset’s line. Losing Yvenne herself would be a loss. And Yvenne’s children would be a gain for the Parsatheans. Maddek’s children.
Kelir’s eyes narrowed. “And we can do the same to you.”
Maddek grunted. He knew not what the other man meant.
“If you do not run from a threat we cannot defeat, we will make you go.”
The warrior looked smug, as if he’d won an argument Maddek hadn’t begun. But perhaps it only meant the argument had not been with him. This might have been discussed among the other members of the Dragon. Perhaps as soon as he had begun this quest for vengeance, they had argued about whether to save Maddek from himself if his rage and grief overwhelmed his sense.
He knew for certain his warriors must have questioned his sense when Banek asked, “Why do we not change course now that Zhalen must know our route north? They would not expect us to flee south to the Lave.”