Perhaps Bazir was even more clever than she’d believed, though, hiding a dark purpose behind his indolent mask. And now he sat on the alliance council. What better place to weaken them all?
“Not Bazir,” Vela said, as if hearing Yvenne’s thoughts. “The wrong brother is not yours, but mine. It was Enam’s power that raised those revenants, and whose poison I sense within the young warrior.”
Horror gripped her throat. “Aezil courts the sun god? As the Destroyer did?”
No answer again did Vela give. Yet again their journey gave answer enough.
Aezil had raised a whiptail. They had known such a feat required more power than a priest of Stranik’s Fang had. Yet they’d assumed her brother’s blessed bloodline had strengthened him.
Yet he courted Enam. And meant to assist the Destroyer.
“I accept your task,” Yvenne said, her voice as raw as her heart. She’d already meant to see her father and brother dead. She’d known they were monsters among men. She’d not known this.
Turning his hand, Maddek interlaced his fingers with hers. A gentle squeeze gave a silent promise of support. But of course he would support her in this. Of all people, the Parsatheans knew that to defeat a monster, they must stand together.
Vela glanced at their linked hands, then crooked a finger at Maddek. “Bend your head nearer to mine, warrior, so you may better hear what I have to tell you.”
Something the goddess wanted no one else to hear. Vela leaned near enough that, as she spoke, every breath passing through her veil was a cold breeze over Yvenne’s cheeks. But not a whisper of sound came to her ears.
Maddek began to shake his head, as if in denial. Then he became absolutely still, body rigid with tension. A few more words from Vela wound that tension so tight that his great form quaked with the force of it, sinews and tendons taut as steel, clenched muscles of his jaw twitching.
He lifted his head as Vela drew back, and Yvenne knew not what she saw in his face then. Fury seemed not hot enough. Determination seemed not iron enough. Denial seemed not arrogant enough.
Only clear was his rejection of everything the goddess had said.
Again Yvenne slapped her palm over his mouth. Yet this time she was not so certain he meant to speak. The way his volcanic stare burned as he looked at Vela, she thought the goddess must be hearing every word he did not utter.
“You had best continue your lessons, then,” said Vela now, with light amusement. In a sweep of billowing black robes and frigid air, the goddess bent to retrieve a small clay pot from the ground—the jar the cockmonger had dropped when she’d prostrated herself. Opening the lid, Vela stirred the milky oil with her shining finger, then breathed in the scent before closing it again.
To Maddek, she held out the jar. “And you will likely have need of this.”
His mouth flattened and a dull flush climbed his cheeks. Sick tension gripped Yvenne’s heart, for even she recognized the insult the goddess gave.
But Maddek was not a fool. And only a fool would refuse a goddess’s gift.
He did not let go of Yvenne, but using the arm he braced beneath her legs, he opened the hand that had been gripping her thigh.
Vela placed the jar in his palm. As soon as his fingers curled around it, she looked to Yvenne. “You came to me for a blessing before your moon night, and with these words, a blessing I give to you: you are stronger than you know,” she said. “Whatever strength you imagine you have, it is as you imagined the sea. You’ll find it is so much more than you believed.”
Yvenne’s throat closed. “Thank you, my lady,” she whispered.
The goddess smiled, and her cold stone fingers drifted down Yvenne’s cheek. With her voice of icy steel, Vela commanded, “Now look to the northern gate.”
The glow vanished from the priestess’s skin. Black veil concealed her face. Warm palm cupped Yvenne’s cheek. Vela’s silent presence again filled the back of her mind.
Immediately she looked to the north. They were not near enough to the edge of the bridge. From the center of the square, the wide Ageras river was in view, but not the city walls or gates.
“To the horses,” Maddek commanded.
As one, the warriors rose—as did their mounts. With swift strides, Maddek crossed the distance and lifted Yvenne into the saddle before springing up behind her. He turned the horse north, carefully weaving through the bodies still kneeling and prostrate. The clatter of hooves across cobblestones joined the rising voices of the astonished crowd. Some ran after the Parsatheans, as if also following Vela’s instruction to look north—or desperate to see what the goddess wanted them to look for.
Yet Yvenne knew. Even before they reached the edge of the bridge, where the Ageras sparkled below, and peered toward the northern shore. She knew what came.
“It is too far,” muttered Kelir, shading his eyes from Enam’s glaring sun. “I see the wall but not the gate. Danoh?”
Who had the keenest vision of all the warriors. “I see the gate,” she said in hard frustration. “But only the shape.”
Not the people who passed through it? “I see a merchant in yellow robes leading a wagon into the city.” But not the soldiers Yvenne thought to see, unless they’d already come through the gate and were out of sight behind a building. She turned her gaze beyond the gates and her heart froze. “Soldiers approach on the northern road.”
“How many?” Maddek’s voice was grim and unsurprised.
They rode four abreast. She counted the rows. “Two full companies flying the alliance council banner, followed by eight horsemen wearing the seal of the Rugusian royal guard.”
Maddek’s body stiffened behind her.
“Only two hundred mounted soldiers to retrieve a stolen bride?” Kelir scoffed. “The council must have thought Maddek was alone when he captured you.”
His joking lifted Yvenne’s heart only slightly. “My brother Bazir rides at their head.”
Sudden astonishment arched Kelir’s brows but it was Danoh who exclaimed, “You can see that?”
They could not? She looked in hope for Tyzen, too, but if her younger brother was among their number, he was not in her view. She returned her gaze to Bazir—and the man who rode beside him.
The shape of his beard marked him as hailing from Toleh. “Does the council minister Gareth have blue eyes and a scar upon his left cheek, and a scorpion sigil on an opal ring?”
“He does,” Maddek said.
“Then the Tolehi minister also rides with them.” Which might act as a curb on her brother, but only until Bazir found his way around the other minister. So how could she find her way around Bazir? Her mind raced even as Maddek turned to the others.