Alanna turned her face into the night breeze flowing through the Star Chamber, trying to relax. In recent weeks she had spent many sleepless hours at the boundary to the women's quarters, distracting herself by studying the exquisite mosaic. Here a swordsman on a rearing horse was pierced by three arrows, one eerily close to the same spot where her own thigh had been punctured three months ago. Her muscles winced.
"He lived?" she asked softly, lifting her lamp higher, eyes travelling over the hordes of aggressors ranked behind the black dragon standard streaming above the swordsman's opponent. Over the last few weeks, having more time on her hands since the Tahl no longer interrupted her routine, she had also applied herself to her language lessons and 'progressed' to speaking fluent, if basic, Tahlm'ese. Slightly too swiftly for reality but hey, she was bored.
Her four guards all nodded and Malik elaborated, indicating the figure on the horse, "Goshta Tahl was crowned after his father was killed in the battle; he became the great grandfather of Xanir Tahl."
"Just as Paolo dek Drake was the grandfather of Justin dek Drake." Omar scowled at the opponent leading the ranks underneath the Sianese banner.
"But you said this battle ended the War of Seven Gods? There has been peace between Siane and the empire ever since?"
A soft sound of derision behind her, and Alanna spun, her heart leaping. Searing, miserable anger quenched the unruly excitement an instant later.
She blinked. It wasn't Xanir. Simmering black eyes scoured her from head to toe as a sinewy man twice her age emerged from the corridor leading to the chambers of the Tahl-Mat, the Queen Mother.
Another insomniac?
She let out a soft breath, shoulders drooping. The royal-blue trousers wrapped around his hips and the deep bows of her guards identified who this must be. Only males of the Royal Family or Zalmat would not be killed for passing beyond this room. This older, more slender version of her husband was neither dressed as a guard, nor carried himself like one.
Alanna's eyes fell from those of Haman the Scholar while she sank into her curtsy, mind whirring. The only surviving sibling of the Great Tahl was renowned for shunning court life, having categorically renounced all desire for the throne years ago, and removed himself to live as an ascetic hermit in his remote home in the far West, to stabilise the nation. Why was he here now?
"'There can be no true peace between dragons'," the prince quoted softly.
Rising from her bow, Alanna blinked under the piercing look Haman Zan pinned her with. She flushed. Part of the colour was private amusement at a private thought: she had just lost millions.
Shortly after the Tahl had returned and demanded tea, Helene had challenged her to a wager. That second evening, exasperated, her friend had bet that at least one of the males who waylaid their ruler's new bride each day would actually look at her face, greeting Alanna, the person. The bet had turned into a rollover. Over the ensuing weeks, Alanna had been slowly amassing a fortune, the sums having continued to rise despite the sharp drop-off in gratuitous male attention since the Tahl had turned his attention elsewhere -- refusing to summon her again until she apologised properly.
Now along came Haman Zan and she was a pauper. Huh.
The Scholar's brilliant black eyes crinkled as he tried to judge what had lifted the corners of his brother's bride's fascinating mouth. "My word, princess," he murmured in Kjell, stepping forward. "The poets have not done you justice. No wonder Xanir is entranced."
Her smile vanished.
Alanna's eyes dropped to the floor and she blinked fiercely to ward off the moisture engendered by the infuriating, unruly surge of longing at just that name. Her nipples were peaked in aching desire, brushing the soft material of her night wrap, and her stomach writhed in a cramp of lust and misery.
Her colour flared higher. The insomnia was humiliating, but worse was the soft binding of her wrists and hands when she slept, to prevent her unruly hands from straying in response to her dreams. The will of the Tahl -- he had tuned her body to yearn for pleasure, but none was now permitted until she apologised - in the most public, humiliating typical Tahlm'ese fashion. No way.
The tears wavered, but she beat them back with anger and memory, a little snarl twisting the side of her mouth. She could return home in less than nine months now. Her heart ached. She missed her home.
She missed Xanir, an unruly thought surfaced.
No.
Gathering her calm, Alanna lifted her head to belatedly respond, as evenly as she could. "That is not the word I would use."
Damn him. Whatever her blood whispered in her dreams, she was not going to disgrace the house of Kjell and apologise as he demanded -- the tales of Rihanna's shamelessly inventive apology in the great hall and the ensuing nightly orgies were feeding Xanir's ego enough already. Alanna's eyes were narrowed, stony chips.
Xanir's brother's eyes lit in response. "Such fire," he smiled. "So appropriate for my scrappy little brother: always in a fight, never sitting still." The black gaze was uncomfortably penetrating as he added coolly. "What word would you use, princess?"
"Bored," snapped Alanna without thought. This man reminded her of her cousin Glen, with his slight build and far-seeing eyes hiding formidable intellect. And she was sleepy and miserable and sexually frustrated, angry at herself for that longing, and tired of guarding her tongue. So what if Xanir had a new toy? Courtesy of Rihanne, who had taken along a lissom fellow-countrywoman to assist her with her apology. By all accounts Rihanne didn't mind sharing. Or being shared. Revelled in it.
Haman blinked at the passion behind the stormy blue eyes, his heart aching a little for her, too. "Did Bethesda not explain a true apology to you?" he asked softly. Watching the colour spread down her delicate neck while those stunning blue eyes flashed again, he added wryly, "I can see that she did."
His eyes travelled slowly, noting the clenched fists and the overly bright eyes. Some of their laws did need revising. Xanir was aching for this slender woman, yet refused to summon her and force her to submit to him before those who had witnessed her disobedience, as was required to demonstrate true penitence. Uncharacteristic behaviour for one trained from birth to put the empire first. Moreover, his brother had sworn to behead Em Feliz if he revealed whatever the girl had written privately to her grandmother following that last public punishment. The reason she was having nightmares.
But she had to apologise. Xanir had balked for over a month now, until Em Feliz had begged Haman to journey to the capital to try to talk some sense into his little brother.
Like that had ever worked.
And yet, there was hope here. Far more than her beauty, her keen intelligence and strong will enticed his brother as women rarely did. A hint of loyalty had been demonstrated, with the arrow, and the arrowhead in the tree. Expedient? Maybe. But he was, of necessity, less cynical than Xan, more willing to give people a chance.
Hope could only persist if he could get them back into the same bed.
"You know it is the law?" he asked. A sharp nod answered him, although her eyes didn't turn from the darkened window. "How much else do you know of our laws, princess?"
Slowly the blue gaze turned, the darkness mirroring his own heart, but easing slightly as her thoughts turned from the thoughts of the traditional Tahlm'ese demonstration of female submission. On her knees. Between his.
"The Tahl must beget sons to secure the succession -," Haman said quietly, flickering a glance from the guards grouped around their charge to the open windows and corridors. Obedient to the signal, the Zalmat moved to ensure no eavesdropping.
"He has a son!" Alanna interrupted. Her guards clicked their tongues softly in warning and dismay, but the prince ignored the discourtesy.
"Our father had four sons, and he was counted misfortunate. Xanir has but one, and our enemies circle closer. It is his duty to beget further heirs, his duty to bed you during your most fertile period each month." He continued despite her smothered, indignant exclamation. "But because he would not have you dragged by the hair before the Seat of Mikla to apologise before the court, he has for the first time in fifteen years neglected that duty. And so the whispers grow."
The princess's eyes were like ice. "Whispers of the penitence that Rihanne performed before that whole court, and the ensuing orgies -- yes, clearly he is missing his duty."
The black eyes grew derisive. "It must be pleasant to inhabit your mountain kingdom, princess, where the ruler is not a stud stallion watched eagerly by a whole empire." Face stony, without a single word more Haman walked away into the greater palace, leaving Alanna glaring after him with heaving bosom.
*
Much later, sitting in deep shadow on her terrace, sleep eluded Alanna for a different reason. Her mind was revolving over the sharp exchange of words, savouring them, despite the bitter aftertaste: the first real conversation she had had with anyone except Helene in this place, apart from the occasional little parries with Xanir. Slowly she was weaving the words together with the other whispers she and Helene had gathered since arrival. She didn't like the picture they made.
Xanir was a stud stallion. Because of the archaic Law of Terat, he had to repulse each of his unproductive brides after twelve months, he had no choice. Yet he also had to beget children. And so had to take another bride each year. She drew a long, shaky breath.
Xanir was trapped far worse than she. Furthermore, he was harried by the unrest she sensed in the groupings of courtiers, the furtive looks, the hastily suppressed movements in corners: because the empire had only one heir, a slender, brittle thread by which it held together. That shadowy, fabled figure who did not even live here: all princes were raised in the desert they must later rule.
Alanna's eyes were fixed on the hem of the robe she was picking at, dwelling on the suspicion that had been growing in her mind over the last month. She knew politics. The best way to counter the rumours whispered of barren brides, to stem the rising tide of suspicious unrest, was to faultlessly play the shining playboy prince, always pursuing the most beautiful women relentlessly, then spitting each out when the flavour began to pall. As he had done her. His glittering harem and scandalous orgies reinforced the fable of a man not ready yet to stop sampling his way through the beauties of the realms.
Yet the façade was beginning to crack.
Xanir would not force her to kneel before him to perform the toy for the playboy, neglecting his duty for the first time in his sixteen year reign. Her maids had told her this; they were astonished at his leniency, the only reason he had not summoned her by force could be apathy. Yet had boredom struck so quickly?
The hissing whispers were circling closer.
Alanna remembered the gentleness in his calloused hands and swallowed against her tight throat. A flush rose: she remembered also the times when his grip was urgent, harsh. Exciting.
This was not a land to be ruled by the gentle.
Her mind turned through the wavering politics of the lands in the far north, the brittle alliances all cemented by awe of the fabled, fearsome empire which held the southern continent , the stable lynchpin around which all their fortunes revolved. If the empire fell? How long would the peace in her own small country last?
Anger warred with the dread heavy in her stomach, the shiver on her skin. "Oh Gram," she whispered through dry lips. "Send me strength."
***
Alanna's stomach was fluttering when she followed Limaq through a network of unknown corridors the following night, having had to wait hours even after she had finally mustered her courage and sent her capitulation. The air was cool in the grey before dawn, silence reaching through the open casements to augment her rapid breaths when they stepped out onto a shadowy path leading across an expanse of garden towards a wall looming on the far side.
The knot in her stomach was tightening and she welcomed the darkness, where she could clench her fists to try to still their trembling. She was distracted by the rising excitement shortening her breath, eyes widening in fear, longing and bewilderment at the churning feelings. She hated that she had to do this. She hated being excited. Her anger grew, fostered against the helpless flutter inside.
The ring of steel on steel yanked her awareness ahead, beyond the shadowy wall where the clash of arms repeated at a harrowing pace until a ringing shout heralded the return of the silence which pressed against her ears, augmenting the thunder of her heart. Impatiently she dashed away a tear. That would not help.
A murmur of male voices rose sharply when Limaq stepped through the archway in the huge wall looming high above their heads, the sound cutting off sharply when Alanna's feet automatically followed, her glazed eyes glued to the lion emblem above where the swords crossed in the centre of her bodyguard's broad back. Her breath stopped, teeth clenched to hold back sudden tears when the treacherous anger evaporated in fear. She couldn't do this.
She was shivering when Limaq stepped aside, revealing a large oval arena where two dozen figures, shadowy in the grey pre-dawn light, ringed a pair of silhouettes on the sand. One was standing, a gleaming weapon held loosely in his grip, the second prone at his feet. The attention of all of the watchers arrowed to the small figure poised nervously in the archway, a whisper of excitement rising. Her women had outdone themselves on this occasion and Alanna's delicious figure was tantalisingly framed in a fluttering golden cloth which hinted mouth-wateringly at the creamy mounds and soft curves underneath. Ruthlessly the princess quelled the urge to retreat. It was too late; and she would only back into her other three guards.
Only one man was not devouring her with his eyes. The one standing with his back to her in the centre of the arena, shoulders rising as he took a long, deep breath. Without looking at her, Xanir strode away towards where his personal guards ringed the northern edge of the oval. His erstwhile opponent rolled to his feet and limped towards the opposite end, eager eyes burning over Alanna.
"Princess," said Limaq gruffly, indicating with a hand to where Xanir was now seated on the most ornate of the benches at the edge of the arena, towelling himself down. His guards loomed at his back, together with the four lords who had been present on that very first occasion. The audience was much smaller than she had been lead to believe by her women, a scant dozen or so, and she recognised the faces from that morning in the star chamber. Even so. Her eyes glazed with tears as she forced herself to walk to him: Xanir was sticking to the letter of the law exactly; only those who had witnessed her flight would be witness to this apology.
Her shivering increased while she concentrated on just walking, trying not to see, trying not to hear the crescendo of group lust as she neared that waiting figure. Flashbacks of the bright-eyed watchers closed her throat, her thoughts desperately latching to one incongruity: they were all dishevelled. Profoundly dishevelled; sweating, grazed with sand and bruises. Why?
Alanna's eyes flashed into focus and fastened for the first time on the bottomless black gaze awaiting her: he had fought them all. Her breath stopped, her feet with them, bewitched by the molten fire, a fire which ignited her own skin and ran a shiver along her cold limbs. The tiny glenam of warmth reached her heart when those eyes told her that he had missed her too.
"My bride," Xanir said dryly. She tore her eyes from his, and focussed on the slender sword he was holding, hilt first, towards her. Puzzled, her eyes lifted back to his.
"By law, these men may witness your apology," Xanir explained soberly. "They may also choose to leave. I have offered the Reignee choice, with the blade, but as my taste for public -- entertainment -- is well known, they do not believe I truly require their absence and have elected to remain after each yielding to my sword. I cannot kill or even blind them under Reignee. I can do no more."
Alanna had stiffened at his blatant avowal of delight in public orgies, but his eyes held hers with no hint of apology. The deep voice softened. "You, however, may be able to persuade them of your sincerity in preferring privacy. All those of the royal court have the right to demand Reignee."
It was the derisive laughter crossing the sand which clenched her hand around the hilt, and the fire in her blood rose sharply as her incredulous eyes leapt back to his, a private laugh hidden deep in the black depths. She was not allowed to ride a horse, not allowed to climb a tree, but allowed a sword?
"Do not maim or kill," Xanir warned quietly, mouth firm. She could sense the anger in him, underneath the calm façade, but it was directed at the men behind her. "That is very bad form." He let go of the blade and swept an inviting hand across to her opponents, mouth twitching, the gleam in his eyes surfacing again briefly. "We can only see if they prefer the shame of yielding to a woman to departing; they have already sworn to reveal to no-one what they see here, on pain of death."
Delight rose through the incredulity in Alanna, a brief flare of laughter returned. He had only fought her once, unarmed. And that had been a farce. Yet he knew. So the Tahl had tricked this baying, lustful audience. The eager watchers were expecting to have to conceal a very different form of humiliation. Her blood was rising in glee while she felt the weight of the weapon.
"I trust you will remain silent also."
Alanna smiled her first true smile in weeks, nodding on a wicked grin. There was no way the Tahl-maia was permitted to wield a sword. Yet in this private arena her husband was offering her this weapon. To guard her own right to privacy.
She leaned up on tiptoe, a hand resting on his bicep while she savoured the sweet tingle of his lips smiling under hers. Then she spun to face the taunting crowd, exulting.
As usual, they were not looking at her face.
More fool them.
***
She was panting harshly when she pursued the last of them through the southern archway. As his fleeing footfalls receded she spun, blade low, to verify the absence of remaining audience. Only the guards. And his four closest companions. She started across the sand toward Em Feliz, eyes aflame, and then Xanir was there, his sword ringing across hers as he blocked her.
"Oh no, that's unfair," he rebuked, laughing. "I invited them. They will only leave at my command."
She twisted to parry his blade and gasped when her own twisted out of her hand to skid across the sand. She hadn't been disarmed so casually since she was a child. Heart brimming, she leapt, hands twining around his neck, leg hooking into the back of his knee to overbalance him, eyes bright with glee as he stumbled. But he steadied, wrapping her in an unmoving embrace, nose to nose as he glared at her, snapping, "No."
Arms still around his neck, she strained her lips toward his ear and whispered, "Can't you get rid of them? I want to apologise."
His heart leapt.
A second later she was on her back, crushed under his bulk, arms pinned above her head, but she was too busy kissing him to care. A huge weight seemed to have lifted off her, and there were tears in her eyes: in an oblique, sneaky way which held his dignity intact, he had yet allowed her to keep hers. Her kisses were fluttering along neck, ears, cheek, chin; Xanir was laughing softly but withholding his lips, then sat upright with his weight holding her prone, palm to palm. "You owe me a proper apology."
She squirmed in his hold, growling, "Proper is not the word," but her efforts were fruitless and so she stilled, panting, the colour rushed into her cheeks. Her eyes darted around the arena, and she tried to whisper too low for the remaining men to hear: "I have also learned a dance for you, my lord. May I present it?"
Xanir's eyes watched the colour flare anew in her flushed cheeks, eyes darting shyly from his, and his blood surged with lust, realising which dance she meant. He had longed for this. His eyes dropped to her heaving chest, and the gleam was brighter, taunting when they lifted back to hers. "Outstanding." Bending close, he licked those panting lips, and thrust his tongue hard between them, before standing and pulling her to her feet.
"I will see you in the halmud for breakfast" he dismissed his friends absently, eyes entranced by his bride's heaving mounds as he urged her backwards towards the stone bench.
"Oh course, gracious Tahl," the chorus heralded their departure. Em Feliz shot, "Be of good cheer," cheekily over his shoulder while he followed the others beyond the wall.
Alanna's colour flared again when she realised that his and her guards, having followed the lords to the archways in the walls, had each halted under one arch. OK they were standing with their backs to the arena, but still: "Can we not go inside?" Her voice was breathless while he eased her onto her back on the cushions, those black eyes burning brighter and brighter. Why was she complaining? This was so much better than she had ever dreamed.
Xanir growled, low. "Would you deny me the glory of the sunrise on your naked skin?" His hands were impatient at her bodice, and his breath caught as he teased apart the neckline, revealing the deep, juicy cleavage. He groaned, dropping his head to nuzzle between them, tongue sweeping over the aching peaks shaped by urgent hands.
Her body was trembling uncontrollably a few moments later when Xanir moved to kneel over her, peeling her knees apart and folding them to either side of the bench. Alanna's mind swirled in the thundering fire: those hours of stretching were paying off. "I -- my apology -- your dance -," she breathed, eyes straying to the bead bag smothered under the silk pooled on the sand.
"Later," growled Xanir, opening his trousers and lifting her hips with urgent hands. "I need this first." Her undulating cry was swallowed by fierce lips when he surged inside, washing heat higher, the initial burn exploding into delight. At last. Her blood was rioting and she just couldn't come down, his fierce, insistent thrusts pushing her over the edge again, and again, and again, skin tightening and evaporating in the heat until she couldn't see, couldn't breathe. The exquisite feeling of him swelling within her had caught her breath, and he lunged again swiftly, brutally, exploding with a roar of pleasure that sang to her heart, the proud head thrown back and neck tendons straining against dark skin.
Her throat was hoarse and dry, moisture sparkling in the corners of her eyes when slowly his fingers relaxed their clench deep into her buttocks. Explain those bruises, flickered across her fluttering mind, and her lips curled up. Badge of pride.
Her breath eased when he shifted his weight, flattening himself beside her and tucking her inside his arm. She slanted a teasing look up at those lazily simmering black eyes and murmured, "Dance? Or apology?"