A Heart of Blood and Ashes Read online

  The elegant creature was not sturdy enough to carry a Parsathean soldier for a full turn of the moon, but Nyset’s heir must only weigh a feather.

  Her skinned and bloodless corpse would weigh even less.

  The soldiers looked to Yvenne, who nodded. Hastily they began unharnessing the horses.

  “Now, Jeppen—I suggest you take the advice my brother did not, and flee. Without me!” she said sharply when the soldier reached for her, as if to swing her up onto the horse behind him. “I stay with the Parsatheans willingly. Tell the council that, as well. Though they likely will not believe it, hold to that truth. And I will return for you and the others as queen, Jeppen.” Her voice softened now. “Tell them all that I will come. My father’s rule will end.”

  “Yes, my lady,” he said thickly.

  Her pale gaze returned to Maddek, but she still spoke to the soldier. “Go now. Directly to the council. Stop for nothing.”

  Immediately they complied, with Cezan’s body draped over the back of the last horse. She did not turn to watch them leave. As the sound of their pounding hooves retreated down the hill, she tossed the jeweled dagger to the ground and stood with her arms dangling loosely in front of her, long blue sleeves concealing her bound and bloodied hands.

  “I am yours to do with what you will, Ran Maddek,” she said.

  What you will. That will was vengeance. But although Maddek still rode that purpose, his anger seemed unseated—completely thrown by this woman.

  Nor was it only he. When Maddek glanced back, his warriors appeared in turns bemused and bewildered, looking at each other as if to confirm what they’d seen had indeed just happened before their eyes.

  She waited silently.

  His gaze upon her again, Maddek dismounted and approached her. “You throw yourself upon my mercy?”

  “Do you have any?”

  “No.” Not for her.

  That seemed not to disturb her. She held out her bound hands. “Will you free me?”

  “No.” So easily had she plunged a dagger into her brother’s back that Maddek would not soon trust those hands, bound or not.

  “Perhaps for the best.” Her sudden grin revealed straight white teeth. “I am treacherous and foul and ugly.”

  Treacherous, yes. Foul, he knew not. And though not ugly as her brother had claimed, she was a thin and sickly-looking thing, with a yellow tinge to her brown skin. Not just sallow but dull, as if never touched by the sun’s glow. Despite her natural color she was as pale as the children who lived beneath the shadow of Ephorn’s wall.

  And those eyes. Maddek wanted to look away from her eerie, piercing gaze but could not. Both the desire and his inability irritated him.

  She had no similar trouble, however. Easily she glanced away, turning toward the carriage and sweeping aside the curtain.

  Maddek’s sword in her path stopped her from reaching inside.

  “No threat lies within,” she told him. “Only a satchel that holds my wedding robes.”

  “You will have no need for clothes.”

  Her dark eyebrows arched, eyes widening. Her head tilted back as she gave him a searching look. “Perhaps I will not,” she finally said. “But these raiments have been passed through a line of Syssian queens. Should they fall into the hands of travelers who happen upon this carriage, and those travelers wear them, my father might recognize the robes and punish them for theft—or try to create a story in which I was set upon by bandits, and use it as an excuse to raze innocent homes and villages. Just as he used a false story to justify killing your father.”

  Fierce elation gripped his heart. “A false story?”

  Her pale gaze locked to his. “Your father did not touch me or any other woman within the house.”

  “Tell the council.”

  “To what purpose?” She gave the blade in front of her a significant glance. “Anything I say will be doubted. They will believe that you threatened my life and forced me to lie. Only one of Justice’s swords could confirm my truth—and when have you ever seen Chaliq’s judges in Ephorn? Can you imagine one in Muda’s court?”

  No. Chaliq’s wandering judges did not often venture into Muda’s cities, because the entire world trembled when Law and Justice were in discord.

  The world should be trembling now. It should tremble until his queen and king had been avenged.

  And Maddek was finding his anger again.

  Perhaps Yvenne saw it. Carefully stepping back from the carriage, she asked him, “You came for me, Ran Maddek. With what intention, if not marriage?”

  Marriage to a woman who had lured his parents to their murders? Everything within him revolted at the thought.

  “I have no intention,” he spat. “I will visit my wrath upon you.” Sheathing his sword, he stepped closer until his height forced her head back, her pale gaze never leaving his. “I would have my vengeance upon your father and brothers all, but on this day I will settle for you. My queen and king traveled to Syssia at your request. Is that true?”

  On a deep breath, she inclined her head before meeting his eyes again.

  Though her gaze did not waver, a tremor shook her when Maddek gripped her bound wrists and raised her fisted hands to his mouth. “Then perhaps I shall start by biting off the fingers that wrote the treacherous message.”

  “And finish what my father began?”

  That was not the response he expected. Frowning, he glanced at her hands as she unrolled her fists and spread her fingers.

  Two were missing from her right hand—the first and second fingers, leaving only her thumb and two weakest fingers. The stumps appeared evenly matched, as if they’d been severed above the knuckle with a single blade.

  “Your mother did not kill my brother Lazen when she attempted to escape,” she said. “Though it was with the bow she made that I killed him, while trying to help her flee. My father made certain I could never draw a bowstring again.”

  That was what a treacherous liar would say to save herself. But there would be no escape for her, just as there had not been for his mother.

  His gaze on hers, Maddek suckled her brother’s lifeblood from her remaining fingers, then licked between the stumps and down her bloodied palm. Her breath shuddered, clammy perspiration dotting her upper lip. His tongue pressed against her inner wrist, above the crimson-drenched ropes. Her pulse thundered through her veins.

  Her blood raced as quickly as his did. But soon hers would spill onto the ground.

  She swallowed thickly before telling him, “If you intend to kill me, I only beg that you do it quickly. My life has been a torment. I pray my death will not be.”

  The fear in her voice did not please him as much as the taste of her brother’s blood did. The fear should have pleased him, for she had been the reason his parents had entered that drepa’s nest, and so she was the reason he had to speak the words, “Was my mother’s death quick?”

  Shadows passed through her pale eyes. “No.”

  Anger speared through him anew. “A beheading is not quick?”

  “That was how it ended.” A heavy rasp deepened her reply. “But that was not how her death began.”

  She was fool enough to tell him this? Did she hope her words would spur him to rage, to a quick end? She would not have that wish.

  “And so it will be for you,” he said. “Very long, very slow, and all the pain that was visited upon my mother and father will be visited upon you.” Releasing her wrists, he gripped her slender neck in one hand, the silver claw at his thumb pressing into the vulnerable flesh beneath her jaw. “Now I only have to decide where to start.”

  In a voice strained by the pressure upon her throat, she told him, “By taking me as your wife.”

  Maddek laughed.

  Her laborious swallow worked the muscles of her throat against his fingers. Her moonstone eyes were ste
ady on his. “If you truly wish to destroy my father and brothers, take me as your wife. Nyset’s line passes through the female and I can claim the throne when I have reached a queen’s age—or when I bear a child.”

  His laugh fell silent, his body still.

  “As my husband, you could take everything of value to my father. And when Zhalen is not a regent king, who will care if you claim his head? When I remove my brother Bazir from his position as council minister, who will care if you kill him? Not I. I would do it myself if I could.”

  His gaze skimmed down her trembling form. “I could simply rut upon you until you bear a child.”

  “You could. But without marriage, you have no claim on the child. Without marriage, you cannot share my throne.”

  “What do I care of your throne?”

  “Because as long as my father sits upon it, you will have a weak and rotted state at Parsathe’s southwestern border. If the Destroyer comes, my father would turn against the alliance in an attempt to save himself, my brother Aezil would join him, and together they would strike at your people first.”

  Or perhaps they would not wait for the Destroyer. Zhalen and his son ruled the two realms on Parsathe’s southern border, so perhaps they believed the Burning Plains might be easily taken.

  And perhaps that was why Zhalen’s daughter wished to be Maddek’s bride. She would wait until his back was turned and bury her dagger between his ribs.

  Even if she killed him, never would her family conquer his people. “All of the realms could band together and still they would not defeat our warriors.”

  “This I know.” Again her throat worked, her voice hoarsened by the pressure of his fingers. “Just as I know that it would be my people who would suffer because of my father’s ambitions. Better peace and a strong alliance than war between Syssia and Parsathe.”

  As his parents would have wanted. But they deserved more than peace. And they deserved better than a son who would ally himself with the woman who’d conspired against them. “You only hope to save yourself now that you will not marry Toleh’s king and spread your father’s poison there. But you will not have Parsathe.”

  “I do not want Toleh’s throne. I want my own. But I cannot take it alone, for my father and brothers will not easily let it go. I need your strength and seed to claim it.” Her breath wheezed harshly through her lips but her gaze still held his. “And it would be more painful for my father to see you seated upon Syssia’s throne. He despises the Parsatheans. He has never forgiven the raids that weakened his family’s holdings in Rugus before the alliance was established. It is your people he blames for not being directly in line for the Rugusian crown, and for having to marry a Syssian to secure the power he believes he deserves. If a Parsathean took that power from him now . . .”

  It would be humiliation on top of vengeance. Against her father. Against her brothers. Maddek’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you take part in this?”

  Sudden fury burned in her gaze. “Because I hate my father more than you ever could. My brothers, too—except for the youngest. You wish for vengeance? It is nothing compared to my wish. I will not rest until they are dead.”

  Then she had made a fine start by killing her brother. But although her anger spoke to his, Maddek did not trust it. His hand tightened. “Yet you lured my mother and father so that your regent could kill them?”

  “I did not beg them to come for my father’s sake. I begged them to come for mine.” The force of the word vibrated through the silver claws at his fingertips. “I wrote to them that an alliance between us would be beneficial to both our peoples but I needed help to escape Zhalen. I did not know my messenger had been found out until too late.”

  His gaze searched her face for truth. He knew not if he saw it but the pressure of his fingers softened.

  She dragged in a long breath to say, “That is why my father killed your parents—to stop a marriage between us. Your parents came to see if I could earn their approval. And I would have. But my father wanted me to marry Toleh’s king because that old man is more easily controlled. Never could my father control you.”

  The last was truth but Maddek could not believe the rest. “You lie now to save your life. My mother would never approve of such as you.” Even if this woman genuinely had sought an alliance, she was not what his mother would have chosen. “You are not strong enough to be a Parsathean queen.”

  Now her breath shuddered and pain flittered through her eyes. “She did say that upon meeting me.”

  “Is that why you conspired in their murder—her rejection pricked your vanity?”

  “What vanity?” A laugh shook through her. “I know my strength is nothing. I am small. My muscles are soft. Yet I could lie beneath a man even of your size and bear his children, and that is all I need to do. That is all my father would have me do. But I could be more for you.” Her amusement faded with every word and now she looked at him solemnly. “And your mother said that I was not strong enough upon meeting me. She believed differently after knowing me.”

  Only during a short time could his mother have known her. “During her captivity? While she was interrogated and tortured?” Rage came upon him full again. “You will never speak of her. Your lies defile her memory.”

  “I would not lie to you,” she immediately returned. “Your mother told me that as your intended bride, I can never speak with a sly tongue or break an oath.”

  She would use these words against him, too? She would claim that his queen and mother had loved this treacherous woman enough to give her to Maddek as a bride? The woman’s own bloodied fingers betrayed her lies, for his mother’s silver crest did not sit upon her thumb.

  His heart a ragged and gaping wound, he grated out, “Do you ever speak of my mother again without my asking you, I will rip out your lying tongue. I vow it.”

  Instantly her expression froze. Her gaze searched his for a long moment before she said thickly, “As you say.”

  He let go of her throat, then immediately dragged her closer. With his hand wrapped around the back of her neck, he lowered his fierce gaze to hers. “If I take you to wife, your life will be as a dog’s. All you will know is pain and you will wish yourself dead.”

  Equally fierce, she said, “All I have ever known is pain. So use me to avenge your queen and king, if you must. Through your vengeance I will also have mine. To see my people freed, to see my father and brothers destroyed, I will bear anything.”

  So would Maddek. But marrying her would not be a burden only he would bear. A Parsathean married but once, and those vows were never taken lightly.

  And if he was named Ran, she would be queen.

  He could hear the echo of her voice telling the soldier that she would return. Her promise that her father’s rule would end. That was the voice of a woman who cared for her people. But would she care for his?

  As if reading his doubts upon his face, she boldly claimed, “I will be a strong queen. I come from a line of strong queens.”

  That was true. “But they were warrior-queens,” he said, and could not stop the mocking curl of his lips. “You are not.”

  Her gaze did not falter. “Wars are not won with swords.”

  “Are they won in throne rooms?” His bitter laugh sounded between them. “They are won with swords and you are a fool to believe anything else.”

  Yvenne regarded him without response for many breaths—in the same way Maddek might study a fractious mount while deciding how best to make it settle: a firm voice, a gentle touch, or a sweet bribe.

  She must have chosen the bribe, for she said, “Our children will be born of the legendary warriors of your line and mine. The blood of Nyset runs in my veins. Do you think your people will not be proud to see Vela’s pearled moon in our children’s eyes? To claim such blessed ancestry for their own?”

  They would be. And when he looked at her, even in anger a
nd hatred and knowing the manipulative lies upon her tongue, he saw not how scrawny and sickly she was. He saw a woman shrewd and bold. He saw a queen.

  A queen who would be his.

  With that knowledge, his loins tightened when he looked upon those eerie eyes. Goddesses were beyond his ken but he could not deny the strength of her bloodline—a strength that would mingle with his own.

  He wanted that strength. That blood.

  His fingers tightened on the back of her neck. “Then lie upon the ground. I will take you to wife, but only after you are bred.”

  It would all be for naught if they married and he discovered she was barren.

  Her breath caught, eyes flaring wide. “You would have me now?”

  “Now.” Because the need was urgent and hot upon him. Dragging her closer, he let her feel the rise of hot steel.

  Let this be vengeance. For now.

  Though it did her no good, her bound hands shoved against his chest. “You court the wrath of Vela.”

  Because the goddess had been forced by her brother Enam, the sun god. During that rape, the twins Law and Justice were conceived, and now Vela cursed those who forced themselves on another.

  Maddek had no intention of forcing her. He intended for her to submit. “You have already consented to be the vessel for my seed.”

  “And I would consent to lie beneath you now. But I have not yet had my moon night.”

  The goddess Vela demanded a virgin’s blood as her due, and so both men and women took their first lovers beneath Vela’s full, shining face. On his own moon night, Maddek had shed a crimson drop for the goddess with the prick of a silver claw against the base of his throat.

  “You never have taken another to your bed?” If true, it would be a tennight before she could take him.

  But that would be for the best, too. If he fucked her in haste, Maddek could not be certain any child was his.

  “No.” A laugh shook her body against the heated length of his. “Zhalen guarded my cunt more closely than his horde of gold. I only needed a child to take the throne from him.”