By the time she finally reached the door leading back into the first level of the palace, Linsha was trembling with exhaustion again. The therapeutic effects of her nap and her dream with the dragon had vanished. All she wanted was a bath and a bed. As soon as she entered the hall, she veered away to escape down the hall to her quarters.
Lanther caught her arm. “Come with me. We must talk.”
Talking to Lanther was the second-to-the-last thing she wanted to do with him. “Now?” she snapped. She made no effort to hide her antagonism and irritation. “I am tired beyond measure. I had to fight a useless duel, then you dragged me to a cave to watch you torture a dragon, cremate my enemy, and kill a dragonlet you had promised to me. I have nothing to say to you.”
Ignoring her, he removed his golden mask, handed it to an attendant, then took her elbow and propelled her down the hall and out a small door that opened into a beautifully manicured garden. The storm had passed, leaving the air cool and damp, and the moon spilled milky light over the trees and flowerbeds. All around them, tree frogs croaked an endless chorus in the darkness.
“I have some things to say to you,” he said and pushed her down onto a stone bench.
Linsha winced. The cold wet stone made an uncomfortable seat when all one wore was a scrap of loincloth. She pulled her elbow out of his grasp, laid her head in her hands, and groaned. Would this night ever end?
“You fought well tonight,” he said, pacing slowly in front of her. “It is a shame Malawaitha had to press her suit.”
Linsha did not bother to reply. She hadn’t had the time or the peace to think about Malawaitha and her needless death.
He went on. “Fortunately the Emperor is impressed with you. He has finally given me his blessing to marry you, and he made arrangements with the High Priest to hold the ceremony in five days.”
Linsha sat upright, aghast. Five days. Oh, gods, come back now and blast me where I sit, she thought.
Lanther stopped pacing and glanced up at the full moon. He took a deep breath. “The ships will be provisioned within the next week,” he said rather hurriedly. “I intend to sail for the Missing City before the next new moon.”
Linsha froze in a deluge of fear, anger, and disbelief. Had he meant what she thought he had just said? Surely he wouldn’t do that to her. “You said, ‘I.’ You do mean ‘we.’ We’re going back to Ansalon together.” She spoke more in desperate hope than conviction.
Lanther crossed his arms and continued to stare at the moon. “Take you back to war and deprivation? I think not. No, no. You will stay here where I know you are safe and respected, and where you cannot find a way to slip through my grasp. You will stay here and await my return.”
It was only with the greatest self-control that Linsha was able to stop herself from leaping off the bench and ripping his eyes out with her dirty fingernails. “I would prefer to go with you,” she forced herself to say rather than give voice to the shriek that banged at the back of her throat.
“I’m sure you would,” he said.
“You wanted me to stay by your side, fight with you. You asked me to be the Empress of the Plains. Now you want to leave me here like some second rate concubine?”
“It would be better,” he agreed.
“What about the dragon eggs? They are my bridal gift. I want to see them.” There was a note of rising hysteria in her voice that she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t believe what he was saying, couldn’t accept it. To be left here on this island, in this prison of women. Married and possibly pregnant. With no one but Callista to keep her company. She would never see her home again, never see her family. She would never have a chance to find Crucible and Varia.
“The eggs will be well cared for,” he assured her.
Linsha’s fragile self-control broke and she sprang to her feet. “Like you cared for the last one?” she yelled through her dry and aching throat. “No! I don’t believe you. I have to go back to the Missing City. You can’t leave me here!”
“I can and I will. You are my betrothed, and in five days you will be my wife. You will remain on Ithin’carthia to bear my son.” His final words boomed like a death knell in her ears.
9
Preparations
Linsha had to admit the Tarmaks knew how to treat a battered body. No sooner had she returned to the Akeelawasee than she was met by the Empress. Callista hovered in the background, her eyes huge with worry and consternation. Behind her waited Afec, looking cool and inscrutable, and several attendants.
Uncertain of the Empress’s reaction to Malawaitha’s death, Linsha clasped her hands and bowed low. “I apologize for killing a daughter of the royal family,” she said in a low voice.
The matriarch snorted indelicately. She looked Linsha over carefully from head to blue toes, nodded a few times, and replied in her difficult Common, “She accepted a challenge and lost. Do not apologize.” With a snap of her fingers, she held out her hand for a glass of dodgagd juice, which a servant swiftly handed to her. She passed it to Linsha. “I am told you marry in five days. You will stay here when Akkad-Dar leave.”
Linsha heard Callista’s gasp of dismay over the subdued noises in the room. She barely nodded an affirmative and drank the juice. For once its strange taste did not repel her, and the cool liquid was a welcome relief to her sore throat and overworked body.
The Empress clapped her hands and Linsha found herself surrounded by Callista, Afec, and the two female slaves. The women bustled her to the bathhouse where they scrubbed the blue paint from her body, massaged her aching limbs, and treated her bruises with cool water. Fortunately she remembered the brass dragon scale in time and slipped it out of her leather battle harness before anyone noticed. As soon as they were finished, Afec gave her a cold compress for her swollen eye, washed her superficial wounds with the stinging liquid and rubbed the thick unguent into the cut on her palm and the long laceration on her stomach. Callista brought her more juice and a bowl of soup. Linsha thanked them all, gave Callista an encouraging smile, and returned to the comparative peace of her tiny room. Although she wanted to talk to Callista and Afec, she gave in to the demands of her body and lay down on her pallet. Sleep found her before the blanket settled over her.
“Would you be able to get your hands on some dark green clothes or fabric in the next day or two? Dark gray would also work.” Linsha lay flat on her pallet, trying to stretch her muscles back into some semblance of working order. She cocked her good eye at the courtesan to see if she caught the significance.
Callista didn’t. The only subterfuge she knew involved the arts of her profession. Her fair face looked down at Linsha in confusion. “I suppose so. Why do you need such a thing?”
“An assassin I once knew told me dark green is a better color to wear when you are sneaking around in the dark. It is much harder to see than black, which tends to stand out in shadows.”
The two women were alone in the sleeping quarters that morning, for the Empress had excused Linsha from the dawn run. It was a good thing she had, Linsha decided, because she wasn’t entirely sure she could stay on her feet. Running was out of the question.
“Are you planning to sneak somewhere?” Callista asked with a slight smile.
Although they probably were alone in the sleeping rooms, Linsha lowered her voice to a murmur and told Callista about the dragon in the cavern beneath the palace. “I want to talk to her without a pack of Tarmaks gathering around—and without the High Priest. He and Lanther have a power over her that will be hard to break.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No. But Afec may be able to help me.”