24. Chapter 24

Chapter twenty-four

They were silent for a time. Tomas wasn’t driving the horse hard, which Tsaria could understand as he was carrying double, but then the terrain became rocky and Tsaria knew they were above the cliffs near the Market of All Souls. Tsaria knew he should say something to Tomas, but he didn’t know what.

“Did you know we aren’t blood-brothers?”

Tsaria jerked so hard, if Tomas hadn’t had his arms wrapped around him, he would have fallen off. “What?” he whispered, and would have doubted Tomas even heard him above the noise of the hooves if he hadn’t answered.

“I don’t think Alain remembers, but your ma came to the farm when you were a newborn.” Tsaria could barely do more than shake his head. “She was a slave from one of the bigger houses, cast out because she got pregnant. When Father found her she was half frozen, curled around you in the barn. My own mother had left for a better life not long after Alain was born. Father was cruel even then, and a band of troupers came through. Ma could sing and she just left.”

Tsaria wanted to ask, “Without you?” but that would have been cruel, so he kept his mouth closed. “Father grew more bitter every day, but when your ma arrived, it seemed to give him a second chance. I was convinced he loved her. She could cook like a dream with barely anything and she always smiled.” Tomas was silent for a moment, and Tsaria didn’t break it. “You were toddling and into everything, and Father, Alain, and I were in the fields. Not sure exactly what happened, but the door was left open, and you got out. She’d put you down for a nap and was making bread and didn’t know you were up until she went to wake you and you’d gone.”

Tomas hesitated while the horse picked his way through a pile of rocks before they hit a smoother track.

“She found you just as you reached the creek. We heard her screams but couldn’t get there fast enough. She couldn’t swim, but she still threw herself in after you. Father got to you just as you both reached the big bend. He reached out and managed to grab you but couldn’t get to her. She slipped away because of the fast current. He found her dead two miles away, and even though it wasn’t your fault—”

“He blamed me,” Tsaria finished. It explained so much.

“Father changed again, and…I’m sorry, but I blamed you as well. We were always poor, but when we lost your ma, it was like we lost Father all over again. I tried for so long to make him listen to my ideas for the farm, but then one day he came back from the market and said he’d found a way of getting us through the bad harvest.”

“The day he took me to Ishmael,” Tsaria said quietly.

“I’m just as much to blame. I was a horrible brother.”

Tsaria took a deep breath and let his resentment go. “No, you were a child as well. Obviously, Father influenced you. You were just trying to do what you thought was best.”

“I hated myself for it. Hated the rich. Hated those that would buy children, but hated those that would sell them even more. I had a massive fight with Father and told Alain I was going to visit Ishmael and see what I could do to get you back. I had a little money from extra work saved that Father didn’t know about and told Alain. I was always good with horses and could train them to the plow for others. We agreed to go the next day, but when I got home Alain had told Father and he had found the coins, and what I was going to use it for. He beat me so I could barely stand and took all the money. I left and joined the army three days later.” He was silent for a long moment. “I was always going to come for you, and I’ll never forgive myself for not doing so.”

But Tsaria had. He’d forgiven him, and haltingly, he told him about Alain.

“I wish I was surprised,” Tomas said. “I went back three summers ago. The land had been sold. Father and Alain were living in the house. Alain was bitter. Blamed me for not sticking around, but he was always lazy. I let it go because he was my younger brother, but at his age I was working twice as hard for Father and training the plow horses. Alain said he found enough seasonal work to keep them both, but from what I could see that was in ale, not food. I offered to find him non-military work with the regiment, but he sneered at me and told me I wasn’t wanted. I left them some money and never went back.”

Tsaria breathed out. It had all been a lie. He doubted if there had even been a wife.

They travelled in silence for another bell, and at another rocky part, Tomas jumped down and led the horse because it was dark, before he mounted again. “So, you’re bonded then?”

Tsaria paused. “Bonded?” He hadn’t heard the term.

“A shifter bonding,” Tomas clarified.

“I don’t know what that is,” Tsaria admitted, feeling foolish.

“I don’t know much, but my sergeant had a wolf and would tell shifter lore to those that were interested. But I suppose you aren’t bonded, as you’re not sick.”

Now Tsaria was really confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The omega gets sick if his alpha is apart from him for too long in the first few days after they are first bonded.”

Tsaria swallowed heavily. “Doesn’t that apply to just shifters, though? I don’t have a wolf.” Or a dragon.

Tomas seemed to consider that. “Maybe, but then we never knew who your father was.”

“She never said?”

“Not as far as I know, but she’d hardly tell me if she did,” Tomas pointed out. “I do know from my sergeant that if shifter blood is diluted enough, they may carry the gene to pass onto children but are not able to shift themselves.”

“I can’t shift.”

“No, but many omegas can’t.”

Tsaria smiled a little to himself. Not in humor but remembering the conversation with everyone that meant Kamir was the omega, not him, because Kamir could only shift with him. Not that he blamed his brother for the assumption, but he definitely wasn’t about to share. That was private, or as private as it could remain.

“We need to talk about what I can do to get you inside,” Tomas said. Tsaria agreed. They were passing through the outskirts of Rajpur now and would be at the palace in less than a bell.

“I’m worried I’ll still fail,” he blurted out, knowing it wasn’t getting inside that worried him, but not being able to change Kamir into his dragon.

Tomas was silent for a while, but then he asked, “Tell me how you met.” So Tsaria did.

“And you went with Alain because you didn’t trust Kamir? Because Alain played you?” Shame burned through Tsaria.

“He doesn’t know how I feel,” he whispered, feeling his cheeks heat.

“Well, I don’t know about dragons, but I’ve spent the last seven-plus summers with horses and the one thing I know about them is that a horse has to trust you to be able to train them to do anything. And some of them can be buggers until they do. They act all lordly and in charge but really, it’s because they don’t have any confidence in you. They’re skittish until you prove yourself. All them times you touched Kamir, did he trust you?”

Tsaria opened his mouth, but then paused. “He didn’t know me. Of course, he didn’t trust me.”

“He didn’t know you the first time, though, and he changed then,” Tomas pointed out. “What was different?”

Love. Tsaria nearly spoke the word aloud. It had been instant, before all the politics and who they were had gotten in the way. He’d felt such utter peace the first time they had touched, and then every other time it had been veiled in either suspicion or distrust on his part. Every time, he thought Kamir had an ulterior motive. The times they had touched, Tsaria had been protecting himself or unconscious, so he assumed that didn’t count.

“You really think Kamir’s dragon can sense my moods?”

“I don’t know,” Tomas admitted. “I’m just saying horses definitely can, and that’s the animal I have experience with. Hush,” Tomas bent down over Tsaria as they rode past an ale house that had many customers hanging around outside. Tsaria recognized where they were. They weren’t far from the pleasure house. He’d been so caught up in Tomas’s words, he hadn’t noticed.

“What’s the plan?” Tsaria whispered.

“I can get in with my credentials. I have a good track record with the army’s horses. Many generals send for me. I’m going to tell them I was summoned in case the dragon comes forth.”

“Really?” Tsaria squeaked out in an embarrassingly high-pitched voice.

“It’s the only way I can get in,” Tomas said. “Desperate measures, but they’re used to me and won’t question whether I’ve been summoned.” He paused. “My skill isn’t with dragons, obviously, but I’m the closest they have. None of the Rakar beast-masters from the mountains can get here in time.”

It made sense. The Rakars were huge mammals. A cross between a mountain bear and a water-horse, they could travel for days carrying huge weights, with little water to drink, but were hard to manage.

“But I don’t understand how you will get me into the assembly?”

Tomas huffed. “Either tell ‘em you’re my little brother, or well, it will depend on if I recognize the sergeant or not.”

They rode up to the gatehouse. The sergeant examined Tomas’s papers, but it was clear he knew him. Tomas leaned forward conspiratorially. “’Course, I’m hoping it was a bad batch of flanx berries in the wine, but orders is orders.”

The sergeant chuckled, then glanced around to make sure he wasn’t overheard. “Strange going-on though. I saw some of the bodies.”

Tomas sighed and nodded sagely. “I heard there was a sighting of a wild yakish near the base of the pass.”

The sergeant’s eyes widened. “It’d explain it scaling the walls, but strange one would come this close.” He looked around as if expecting the wild lizard-type creature to slither under his desk. “Don’t envy your job.”

“Between you and me?” Tomas whispered. “I was hoping at least one of the Rakar beast-masters could get here.”

The sergeant glanced at Tsaria, who was trying his best to be invisible. “A bit small, isn’t he for managing one of them?”

Tomas took a step away from Tsaria and the sergeant followed him. Tomas mouthed the word “bait” and tapped his nose.

The sergeant nodded sagely and handed Tomas his papers back. “Good hunting.” And they both were let into the throne room.

Kamir stood as his wrists were shackled by the guards. It wasn’t done to restrain him, as there were fifteen guards accompanying him, but to shame him, to enforce he was a prisoner. That, along with his collar, marked him as such.

Not that Kamir cared about status. In fact, he wished to get the whole thing over and done with. He knew he was going to die. He looked up as they entered the throne room and noted the nine remaining ruling assembly members sitting on the dais, and remembered they had been the ones that had looked at him with contempt before. It saddened him, because he knew that meant the ones who had viewed him with an open mind had all been killed in the attack. Elainore and Gabar had been very specific in their kills.

The room was packed with guards, unsurprisingly. Damatrious was standing in the middle of the room, in full uniform, looking every inch the emir he hoped to be. His gaze roamed over the witnesses. Gabar stood alongside Elainore, unsurprisingly, but Gabar seemed less somehow. Not the powerhouse his uncle had always been. Elainore just looked frustrated. She clearly hadn’t managed to gain access to Damatrious, but she would probably try later.

For a moment Kamir felt even more shame. Not for himself, but for the people he had failed to protect. Even if he saved a hundred children today, how many more would die from poverty?

Barely hearing the clerk repeat the list of his sins, his eyes roamed over the crowd of people here to witness his death. In his imagination, Tsaria was standing there, light-brown skin almost luminescent in the light from the multitude of sconces. His beautiful hair flowing down his back and rippled like water. The sun-burnt copper undertones when the light caught it, and those tear-laden silver-gray eyes stunning in their intensity.

Kamir blinked in shock.

“What say you?” Damatrious snapped.

Kamir glanced at his cousin, then back again, as if searching for the same image, even if it was an illusion. The image had been so real, but all he could see now was a sea of guards. Which was good. He might wish in his heart for one last chance to see his beloved, but he knew that wasn’t possible. He would never want Tsaria to be in that much danger, and he knew he was safely back in Cadmeera.

“Are you so craven you don’t even have a defense?” Damatrious thundered, clearly abhorring Kamir’s lack of focus.

Kamir sighed and gave his cousin and the assembly his full attention. “Your minds are already set, and nothing I could say would sway them. All I will add is that I love the people of Rajpur with my whole heart and wish for a better future for them.”

Damatrious scoffed. “With the exception of those you slaughtered.”

Kamir didn’t bother arguing. His dragon hadn’t slaughtered anyone. The same something stirred inside him as before. Kamir tried to focus but the feeling slipped away.

“Assembly,” Damatrious commanded. “You have heard the accused has no defense. As acting emir, I demand your ruling.”

Kamir didn’t bother looking at their faces. He was too busy dreaming of a pair of silver-gray eyes. The only thing that would keep him sane enough to go to his death with dignity.

He saw the assembly members discuss something between them, but their attempt at swathing his death in such gravitas was pathetic, as he knew full well they had already made up their minds.

The leader of the assembly cleared his throat. “The people of Rajpur”—now that was silly. The assembly didn’t speak for the people, they only pretended they did—“find that his holiness, Prince Kamir, has failed to answer the accusations and it is our solemn duty to find the accused guilty and subject to the traditional purifying rite.” The leader of the assembly stared directly at Kamir. “Do you have any final words?”

No, no, he didn’t.

The leader waited a heartbeat for Kamir to answer, but when he didn’t, he looked up at the assembled people. “Then it is the will of the people of Rajpur that Prince Kamir be taken immediately from this place and tied to the purification stone and be absolved of his sin in front of all witnesses gathered.”

Kamir closed his eyes briefly as he felt hands clasp his arms in case he was unwilling to move. He kept his eyes closed as rough hands pushed him forward, having no intention of opening them. Closed, he could still imagine the silver-gray eyes were staring at him, and he had no desire to find out that was yet another fanciful illusion.