David Coe - Bonds of Vengeance

“I thought it was.”

“What’s changed?”

“Nothing. Nothing will change. Maybe that’s what bothers me. I’m not certain that replacing the Eandi courts with Qirsi courts is going to do much good, especially if the Qirsi nobles all answer to this Weaver Dusaan mentioned. How long do you think the Eandi will tolerate that before they rebel?”

“We’ll control the armies by then. We’ll control them with our magic.”

“There aren’t enough of us, Nitara. Think about it for a moment. There are ten Eandi for every Qirsi in the Forelands. Unless the Weaver intends to execute ten of thousands of them and imprison the rest, there’s no way we can hold the realms once we have them.”

“Maybe they won’t rebel.”

He frowned. “You can’t really believe that’s a possibility.”

“Of course I can. They might resist at first. But what if Qirsi rule brings better times for the Eandi as well? Not for the nobles, mind you, but for the commoners. What if the Qirsi end the kind of foolishness we were discussing today-the dispute in Grensyn? Don’t you think that might win their loyalty?”

“I think you’re asking an awful lot of Eandi commoners. And I don’t think you truly understand how much our people are hated throughout the land.” Kayiv shook his head, a look of despair in his golden eyes. “Our power would be based on fear-fear of our magic, fear of the Weaver, fear created by more executions than I care to imagine. That’s really the only way it would work.”

“So then you admit that it could work.”

He stared at her, as if unable to believe what he had just heard her say. “Yes, but at what cost?”

Nitara felt her anger rising, and when next she spoke it was with a passion she hadn’t known she possessed. “After the invasion failed, the Eandi killed all the Qirsi commanders, and all the Weavers as well! To this day, they’ve continued to kill every Weaver they could find! And you believe we should feel sorry for those who’ll have to die so that we can win our freedom?”

He actually looked afraid-afraid of her, she realized, a twisting pain in her chest. “It probably won’t come to that,” she went on a moment later, trying to sound more reasonable. “The high chancellor said there might be more Weavers than we thought. With a Weaver leading each realm, there’ll be little need for executions.”

She swung herself off the bed, stepping to his chair so that she could stand behind him and rub his shoulders. “Come now, love. We’ve spoken of this for too long for you to back away from it now. Besides, we’ve given Dusaan our word, and I certainly didn’t sense any deception in his voice when he spoke of killing us if we defied him.” She bent over and kissed the side of his neck. “We’re led by a Weaver,” she whispered in his ear. “We’re going to win this war. We can be nobles, rich, powerful. We can rule together. Surely you want that.”

He took hold of her hands, drawing one to his lips and then the other. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I do want that.”

She circled the chair, stopping in front of him. “Then quit your brooding,” she said, removing her ministerial robe and unbuttoning the dress she wore beneath it “We’re going to change the world together. We should be celebrating.”

She let the dress fall to the floor and, stepping out of it, took Kayiv’s hand and led him to her bed.

“It feels strange to celebrate a war,” he said.

Nitara smiled and kissed him lightly on the lips, as she began to remove his clothes. “We’re not. We’re celebrating victory.”

City of Kings, Eibithar

It was several days before Cresenne felt well enough to undertake any sort of journey, and several more before she admitted as much to Grinsa and the herbmaster. Grinsa came to see her and Bryntelle each day, and, after two more unsuccessful attempts to hold their baby, actually managed to have her fall asleep in his arms. The look of joy on his face as he carefully returned his daughter to Cresenne’s arms left no doubt in her mind that his love for the child was quickly becoming the most important consideration in his life.

Just as it was in hers.

She hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time since Bryntelle’s birth. The baby still was hungry almost all the time, her swaddling wet or soiled nearly as often. Never in her life had Cresenne worked so hard and had so little to show for the effort. Yet it was all she could do to remember to eat her own meals during the course of a day, so enamored was she of the girl, so willing, even eager, to pass her hours just staring at Bryntelle’s face and hands. She should have been thinking of ways to use Grinsa’s love of the girl to her advantage, but instead she was consumed with fear at the thought that he might do the same to her.

If you don’t do as I ask, I’ll have Bryntelle taken from you . He had threatened to have her placed in Glyndwr’s dungeon as well, but he needn’t have bothered. Cresenne’s fear of losing her daughter overmastered all other concerns. And she sensed that Grinsa knew this.

She and the gleaner were swordsmen in a duel that had proven all too evenly matched. Each had a blade at the other’s throat and a second pressed against the other’s heart. A word from her and he would be executed as were all Weavers. A single thought conveyed to the Weaver who led the conspiracy and assassins would descend upon them like locusts on a ripe crop. A word from him and the baby would be torn from her arms and she would be executed as a traitor, leaving Bryntelle without a mother. Fear of the other stayed their hands. Fear, and love, though neither of them would have admitted it.

Watching Grinsa as he held Bryntelle, Cresenne wondered if he could really follow through on his threats, just as she questioned whether she could bring herself to have him killed. How could she ever explain such a thing to Bryntelle? How could she justify lying to the child about her father’s death?

Still, though Cresenne doubted that Grinsa could harm her, she hadn’t the courage to test his resolve. She claimed as long as she could to be too weary and sore to journey, but when at last both Glyndwr’s healer and herbmaster pronounced her fit to leave the castle, she did not resist Grinsa’s demand that she travel north off the steppe to Eibithar’s City of Kings. She still had no intention of revealing to the king all she had done on the Weaver’s behalf. She may well have loved Grinsa. She may even have harbored hopes of reconciling with him, of finding some way to rediscover their love so that the three of them could be a family. But she owed nothing to Tavis of Curgh. She wasn’t about to risk the Weaver’s wrath merely to prove his innocence.

The journey, which was only twelve leagues, went slowly, mostly because Cresenne insisted on resting each time Bryntelle needed to nurse. Still, this did not delay them as much as she had hoped it would. It seemed the baby found the rocking motion of the mount comforting. She slept far more and ate far less than usual as they rode.

Grinsa spent most of the journey beside them, straight backed and alert atop his mount, as if expecting an assault at any moment. As his father had instructed, Kearney the Younger had given them leave to take as many soldiers as they desired. In the end, fearing that too large an escort might draw unwanted attention, Grinsa and Tavis asked for only eight, a small number given how many people in Eibithar wanted the Curgh boy dead. It only took Cresenne half a day to understand that the young noble feared Glyndwr’s men as much as he did road brigands or assassins from Kentigern. He rode alone much of the time, in front of Grinsa and Cresenne, but behind the first line of guards. He spoke to no one, and eyed the soldiers as one might rivals on the first day of a battle tournament. Cresenne could see the boy measuring himself against them, trying to determine if he could protect himself should they turn on him.