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  “And contact the city leaders. Five days of mourning. On the fourth day, the sending.”

  The guard waited a few moments, then bowed again and left. The Paran pushed away from his desk. “I will be in the arena.”

  * * *

  Sharana clamped her jaw. “Murderer!” she hissed through her teeth.

  The Monral sent the guards out of her quarters with a gesture and a look of warning. “Have a care, Sharana.”

  “The Paran’s heir parented a first-bond child! You murdered a child!” She would have given a great deal to see him flinch, but he did not. Narrowing her eyes, she thrust at him with an empathic probe. “You knew. You knew.”

  He glared at her for the intrusion. “I could not be certain.”

  “Is that what you tell yourself to justify your actions?”

  “It is the truth!”

  “You cannot lie to me. Not to me.”

  The Monral winced at her fury. “Beloved—”

  “Do not call me that.” Ice took root in her heart. She saw realization dawn in the Monral’s eyes as he sensed the cold.

  Shock softened his tone. “What would you have me do?”

  “Admit your crime to your caste.”

  His eyes narrowed. “They would demand my death. Do you wish to die? You are too sensitive to survive it if I walked into the dark.”

  She spun to turn her back on him and hugged herself. Is that what I wish? She sucked in a breath. It might be better than being trapped in a pair-bond with a murderer.

  “What do you intend to do?” he asked.

  “I will keep silent,” she said, unable to keep the quiver from her voice. She needed time to think. “For now.”

  His hand touched her shoulder.

  She whirled on him and took a step back. “Do not touch me!” Her voice rose almost to a scream. “Get out!”

  “Sharana—”

  “Guards!” She swept past the Monral and into the corridor. “The Monral is no longer welcome in my quarters,” she told the guards who came running. “Escort him out.”

  Hurt pierced her heart. His hurt.

  “Sharana—”

  Two guards entered her sitting room and approached the Monral. “High one,” one of them said, bowing and gesturing toward the door. “Forgive us, but you must leave.”

  * * *

  Laura wandered down to the arena in the stronghold basement when the Paran didn’t come up for the evening meal. The agony of grief she felt in him had settled into a steady thrum. As she descended the stairs and came into range, his exhaustion and physical pain washed through her.

  The head guard met her at the bottom of the steps, face pinched with her own grief, black eyes liquid with concern. “Artist, you must stay back. He is dangerous.”

  Laura’s gaze went to the Paran, who was attacking a padded training pell, one of many arranged in a circle around him in a sandy-floored sparring area. A pile of destroyed pells lay in the corner. He flew at the one before him with savage ferocity. The padding began to fly off in chunks.

  “He won’t hurt me,” she said.

  “Artist—”

  “He won’t hurt me.”

  The guard took a breath as if to protest once more, but let it out and stepped aside. Laura went past her, into the sparring area the Paran occupied. He continued to batter the pell in front him while she stood beside the next one, waiting.

  The last of the padding fell apart. The Paran turned to the one she stood near and stopped, his brows squeezed together. She held her ground, chin lifted, arms crossed. He was disheveled, robe soaked with sweat and covered with bits of padding, his hands and peds raw and bleeding. He shook his head as if coming out of a trance and blinked at her.

  She closed the space between them. “Beloved,” she said, her voice soft.

  His arms went around her, shaking, holding her too tight. She sensed rather than saw his eyes filling from the haze of grief and physical pain. “My daughter—” he said, his voice breaking.

  “I know,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She shifted in his grip to lessen the discomfort of his too-tight hold on her, while he fell into deep, wracking sobs.

  Relief shot around the room, and tension eased among the guards. Her own mind fogged with the haze of pain radiating from him, so when he loosened his grip after several minutes and she could take a deep breath, she sagged.

  “Forgive me, beloved,” he said, his voice hoarse and his tone bleak. He straightened a little and looked down at her. “I hurt you.”

  She reached up to brush the tears from his face. “No. You only made it... a challenge to breathe.”

  He wiped at his face with one hand. She caught the hand and examined it.

  “You made a mess of this.” She nodded at a nearby guard. “His healer,” she said in Paranian. She hoped.

  The man bowed and disappeared.

  “Come on,” she said, pulling the Paran down by the arm onto the sand-covered floor of the sparring area. “Sit.”

  “Beloved—”

  “Don’t argue with me.” She tugged again. He landed beside her in the sand, his hands and peds bright shards of pain. “If you’re not going to eat, and I know you’re not, then you’re going to take a break from destroying your guards’ training equipment. Along with your hands and peds.”

  “Did no one teach you the deference due a Tolari ruler?” he muttered in a dark voice.

  “I’m not Tolari, so no, no one did.”

  A spark of amusement lightened his mood, and he wrapped his arms around her. Then, a moment later, his face darkened again. He swallowed. “I must hurt you as a result of this.”

  She knitted her eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

  “A pair-bonded ruler without an heir is vulnerable. I must engender another heir, quickly, and I know how the Marann felt about the mere possibility of the Sural’s activity in that regard. It will hurt you, will it not?”

  “Oh.” A hammer slammed into the pit of her stomach. Yes. Yes it would. She gulped for air. “Do what you have to do.”

  Meilyn’s arrival interrupted them. The apothecary lowered himself onto the sand beside the Paran and caught the nearest hand, examining it with a frown. Digging a scanner out of his pockets, he ran it over the Paran from head to ped, muttering in Paranian. The Paran snapped back, his voice sharp with irritation.

  “What’s he saying?” Laura asked.

  “He scolds me for the damage I did to myself,” the Paran replied.

  Someone has to. She didn’t say it, allowing the healer to take the raw edge of his temper. Meilyn called out an order and pulled one of the Paran’s peds into his lap, peeling the ruined and bloody slipper from it. Laura watched, fascinated, while Meilyn kept the Paran’s attention on his ped and probed him at the same time without attracting notice. A grudging admiration for the masterful display of skill began to mitigate her distaste for the man.

  “We aren’t—I mean, humans aren’t able to heal injuries so easily,” she said, to aid in the distraction.

  “We were not advanced enough to save Vondra.” The Paran’s shoulders slumped. She winced at the sharp stab of his grief.

  The apothecary gave him a sharp glance and said something soft.

  The Paran coughed a laugh. “Now he tells me I must allow you to comfort me.”

  “Is that such a terrible thing?”

  He expelled a sigh and leaned his head against hers. His mood shifted to something gentler. “Perhaps not.”

  Another yellow-robed man joined them, carrying a basin of steaming water. An aide, she thought, but she wasn’t sure. With his assistance, Meilyn set about washing the ped in his lap. The Paran didn’t wince, but her own feet squirmed in sympathy. She could sense it hurt. A lot.

  “I’m here,” she murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Farric kicked his heels on the rocky outcrop until his slippers went flying into the deepening shadows of the ravine below. To the west, heav
y cloud cover smothered the sunset. Gray above, dark below, darkness all around—and darkness had taken Parania’s heir. He had enjoyed their many lively debates, even if he had never convinced her to change her position. She had been a good friend. Vondra. In death, she would keep her name, and never have it taken away, never come to power as the Parania.

  He took a deep breath to quell the ache in his chest.

  The news of Parania’s loss had ended his diplomatic mission and sent him hurrying home. If he had entertained any notion that Father bore no responsibility for the accident that took Vondra’s life, it turned to ash the moment he sensed Father’s presence. Outwardly, the Monral observed the proper forms expected when an ally experienced such a crushing loss. Inwardly, he exuded satisfaction, which only deepened as the time for the sending approached.

  After the evening meal, Farric had fled the stronghold and hiked up into the hills. Between his own grief and the turmoil Father’s estrangement from Sharana had created among the staff, he needed solitude to gather his wits. Tradition demanded he attend Vondra’s sending. To get through it, when he suspected his own father of murdering her, would be… a challenge.

  Perhaps his satisfaction is circumstantial. After all, Father harbored considerable ill-will toward Parania. To see the Paran lose such a remarkable heir might gratify anyone wronged by the Paranian ruler.

  He kicked the outcrop again, with his bare heels, and the rock bit into his skin. But if Father is responsible, we could all die.

  Soon or late, someone would discover who did it, and the ruling caste would either execute the guilty party or force him to walk into the dark. But if it was a bonded ruler—

  Farric shuddered and stared up into the rapidly darkening clouds. A ruler’s dishonor spread through the ruling bond to the entire province. A few would decide to live with it. They would cut their hair and take refuge in an outcaste sanctuary.

  The rest would walk into the dark, by their hundreds of thousands.

  It had happened twice, early in history. But the third time had occurred in the spring of this year, when Detralar’s ruler defied the Jorann’s order of protection and tried to assassinate Marianne Woolsey. All but a few Detrali had walked into the dark.

  And if Father had done what Farric feared he had done, it could happen to Monralar.

  * * *

  “Did you learn English from Smitty Russell?” Laura asked.

  “Damn sh-shtraight,” the Paran slurred.

  Her beloved stood swaying in the middle of his sitting room, a bottle of spirits in one hand and a shotglass-sized cup in the other. And he’d been like that, almost without interruption, for three days.

  How had he learned so much English profanity?

  She stared at the crimson robe he wore. Red flowed everywhere in the stronghold, arranged over every door and bleeding across every wall. Every member of the staff had deep red sashes tied around their waists. She too wore a crimson robe. Dark crimson—the color, she had learned, of untimely death.

  “Join me.” He waved the bottle.

  “No, beloved, I can’t. I’m pregnant, remember? I don’t want to harm the baby.”

  He shrugged like a human, with both shoulders, and took a long drink from the bottle. “Then I will drink for both of us,” he said with exaggerated care. He tilted the bottle up again and lost his balance, stumbling backward with an English curse, pulling red drapes down from the wall.

  “That’s not a nice word,” she said.

  He shook with drunken titters. “I know.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down on top of him. “I want to fu—”

  She stopped him by placing a finger over his lips. “That’s an even worse one.”

  Another drunken giggle. He tried to kiss her and missed.

  “Come to bed, beloved. Sleep it off. I’ll stay with you.”

  “Will you let me stick my yin in your yang?”

  “You have it backward. I’m yin. You’re yang.”

  “I am the Paran.”

  “You’re drunk. Come to bed?”

  “Sleep right here.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  He belched.

  She expelled a long sigh. “Come on, let’s get you to bed before you pass out. Guard!”

  The guard by the door dropped his camouflage.

  “Help me get the Paran to his sleeping mat.”

  The guard called another to help, and between the two, they got the staggering and protesting Paran onto his mat. Once there, her sotted beloved promptly fell asleep.

  It seemed best to not to disturb him by trying to get him out of his robe. Laura covered him with a blanket and sat next to the mat, brushing the hair away from his eyes. Even in sleep, his brow creased from the grief haunting him. She sighed, about to disrobe and get under the blanket, when a soft buzz came from her tablet.

  Scrambling up off the floor, she went into the sitting room, pulling her tablet out of its pocket as she walked. It could only be Marianne. Trying to remember the last time she spoke with her friend, Laura propped the tablet on the Paran’s writing desk and touched the blinking sigil.

  Marianne’s face appeared, pinched around the eyes. “I hope you don’t mind a call,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

  Laura nodded and took a deep breath. “As much as I can be, considering.”

  “I’m so, so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you. We’re all pretty shocked here. A tunnel collapsed on Vondra’s transport pod.”

  Marianne blinked. “I wanted to mention that. You know it’s—Laura, do you know anything about the transport tunnel system? They were built to last—I mean really last. And engineers monitor them constantly. It’s not possible for one to just collapse without warning, especially not with a pod traveling through it. The pods know when a tunnel is safe or not.”

  A chill settled in Laura’s stomach. Marianne couldn’t mean what it sounded like she meant. “I suppose it couldn’t have collapsed if it weren’t damaged in some way,” she said, picking her words with care.

  Her friend’s expression turned grave. “Is the Paran looking into the possibility of sabotage?”

  Laura bit her cheek. She couldn’t think about that—not yet. “The Paran is looking into the inside of his eyelids. The guards tried to talk to him a couple of times today, but he kept himself pretty well sauced. He’s passed out right now.”

  “Drunk?”

  “Three sheets to the wind.”

  “Well.” Marianne blinked a few times. “It’s not like they can’t get drunk, but I wouldn’t have thought...” She trailed off.

  “I didn’t know, myself. But think about it. He’s a bonded ruler. He’s not just dealing with his own grief. The reflected grief from his people started coming back at him through his ruling bond. It’s—” she paused to swallow hard “—overwhelming.”

  “Are you all right? It hasn’t been very long since your own loss.”

  “I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but there’s something to be said for taking care of someone else to keep your own problems at bay. There’ll be time enough for me to fall apart later.”

  “I am so, so sorry, Laura.”

  “Thank you.” She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them and set her jaw. “And thank you for calling. I do appreciate it. I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch with you sooner.”

  “Don’t worry about us, we’re fine. I understand completely. You just take care of yourself and your Paran. Like the Tolari say, my heart grieves for his pain.”

  Laura nodded and cut the connection. With a sigh, she pushed herself away from the desk. On the mat in the sleeping room, the Paran had turned into a log, but he still needed her, even so. Weary beyond thinking, she shed her robe and dropped onto the blanket beside him.

  * * *

  Laura woke to the sound of water in the bathing area. Outside the windows, clouds loomed gray and dripping—on the day of Vondra’s sending, even the sky wept.
She stumbled off the mat to join the Paran.

  “Stay by me today,” he said, when she joined him in the spray. He kept his face carefully blank, but grief surrounded him like a cloud.

  Thousands of people will attend the funeral. Tens of thousands. Fantasies of isolated ice caves drifted through her imagination. “An army couldn’t keep me away,” she said.

  He answered with a wan smile.

  He knows what your feelings mean, Laura. Still, he said nothing and accepted it when she glued herself to his side through the preparations. He met with… servants, mostly the stronghold seneschal and a woman she’d never seen before, with black embroidery on the cuffs and collar of her black robe, which turned out to be an indication of her rank as leader of the servant caste. Ambassadors from other provinces began to arrive, and he closeted himself with one of them, the heir to Brialar—Vondra’s lover, and Veryth’s father. No, the man who had fathered him. Underneath the Briali’s grim exterior, his heart was torn in a way Laura recognized.

  Finally, after what felt like forever but was more likely two or three hours, they stood before the great doors of the stronghold, which had been thrown open, facing a crimson-draped bier and a gathering crowd. The lowering clouds had stopped raining, and a cool wind blew.

  Two men wearing deep red carried a litter filled with flowers out of the keep, and a burst of anguish from the Paran rent Laura’s heart in two. She slipped an arm around his waist and looked again. At one end of the litter, the blooms framed Vondra’s battered face.

  The air left Laura in a rush. Tolari didn’t do more than wash their dead.

  The Paran’s arm settled around her shoulder and squeezed, and she clung to him, taking deep breaths, while the two men placed the litter on the bier. To the sound of weeping from the growing throng, they lifted Vondra’s broken body with loving gentleness, positioning it on its side in the middle of the square platform, knees pulled up in almost a fetal position. Servants came forward to arrange the flowers and weave them into Vondra’s hair, and then… and then a woman in deep red walked through the great doors, cradling Veryth’s still form, and laid him in the circle of his mother’s arms.

  Weeping swelled like a wave, rolling down the people standing on each side of the road that led to the city. Laura sobbed. The Paran, his eyes red, squeezed her shoulder again.