James West - Queen of the North

“But first we need to get through Ruan Breach,” Rathe said. The gorge was getting narrower by the hour, and the river swifter.

“Aye,” Ostre said again. “And that’s why I came to you. Nesaea has it that you’re a demon with a bow. A few good archers can keep our foes busy while my crew sails the Lamprey -once we’re in the gap, with the river surging, things can go wrong in a blink.”

“I’m a fair enough shot,” Rathe demurred. He had been the finest archer in the Ghosts of Ahnok. “As is Loro.”

“The more the better-long as your man can put the past behind him.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Rathe promised, but guessed there was no need. Loro was quick to anger, but quicker to smile. He had proven his point, if at Liamas’s expense. It was anyone’s guess if Fira would ever forgive her lover for making such a brutal and bloody scene.

Nesaea was forced to halt when the skinny cook bustled out of the galley carrying a steaming pot. When he glanced at her, her anger flared. “Don’t you have anything better to do than ogle every woman you happen across?”

The man’s eyes went wide. “Sorry, m’lady.”

“I’m not a lady, fool.”

“As you say,” he muttered, the contents of his pot sloshing as he squeezed by.

Shaking off her irritation, Nesaea continued to Loro and Fira’s cabin. She was about to open the door, but raised voices within gave her pause. Loro, it seemed, had come to apologize. Nesaea was sure he wouldn’t get any sympathy from Fira. He would be lucky to make it out with his skin intact.

She folded her arms and leaned against the wall, one foot tapping restlessly against the deck. That drumming tattoo ended abruptly when she realized the raised voices she heard were not spoken in anger. Are they laughing?

She could scarcely believe it. After Loro pummeled Liamas, and all but announced to everyone that he was done with Fira, how could they now be laughing together?

But they were. And then Fira’s voice lowered, becoming a seductive cooing, and Loro’s laughter took on a different note.

Nesaea cursed under her breath, shoving away from the wall. She battered the door with her fist, refusing to let her friend make as big a fool of herself as Loro had already proven to be.

Their voices cut off at once, followed by a moment of silence, then tittering laughter-and tittering it was, like a pair of young lovers.

Fira swung the door open. Her hair and clothes were disheveled, and her breath was coming too fast. “Nesaea? I thought you were sparring with Rathe?”

“I was, until he began acting the idiot. Now I find you doing the same.”

Fira abruptly shut door in her face. Loro said something within, and Fira answered. A moment later, the door swung wide again, framing Loro’s battered features. He searched Nesaea’s eyes, then turned back to Fira. “You’re right, they had a spat. I’ll leave you to it.”

Nesaea stood aside for him to pass, her mouth hanging open. After Loro vanished up the steps to the main deck, Fira dragged Nesaea into the cabin and shut the door.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Nesaea said acidly, plopping down on the edge of the bed. Fira had aired the cabin out and lit a few candles. Now instead of sickness, it smelled of mold, tar, and burning tallow.

“What did you two fight about?” Fira asked, sitting down and taking Nesaea’s hand, as if she needed comfort.

Wondering how Fira could know they had fought, Nesaea pried herself loose of Fira’s grasp. “ You , as it happens.”

Fira laughed. “That was a foolish waste.”

Nesaea gaped at her. “Last night you were ready to make a eunuch of Loro, and now I find you flirting with him, and you call me foolish?”

Fira put on a sly grin and shrugged off Nesaea’s consternation. “Until you interrupted, we were doing a fair bit more than flirting. As to cutting off Loro’s manhood, you know me better than most, and I shouldn’t have to explain my, ah, rages . As for as Loro and I, we fight and then we love.”

“What of Liamas?”

“What of him? I told you on the trip here looking for your father that he’s too pretty by far.” Fira shuddered. “Rather he was. Anyway, I could never love a man who thinks he’s more comely than me.”

“Loro almost killed him!” Nesaea protested, knowing full well that was not what was bothering her, but at the same time having no idea why she was angry.

“Did he?”

“You know he did. If Rathe hadn’t stopped him-”

“Then someone else would have,” Fira assured her. “If not, then Loro would’ve stopped … at least, I think so. Though, I must say, my kiss was a bit more costly for Liamas than I expected.” She grinned mischievously. “I hope he liked it. Either way, it has all turned out for the best.”

“Has it?” Nesaea asked, appalled, not sure she knew her friend half so well as she thought.

Fira gave her a guilty look. “I suppose not, if you and Rathe are fighting over my nonsense. But I have to wonder, were you really fighting over us at all?”

“Who else, if not you?”

Fira pulled her hair over one shoulder and fixed Nesaea with a level gaze. “You make a fine show of playing the highborn, and that act has earned you and the Maidens a fair bit of coin, but you’re not, and will never be, a true noblewoman.”

“I know that,” Nesaea said, though she felt a twinge of remorse at hearing it.

“Do you? Or, deep down, have you begun to believe you really are Lady Nesaea, and that Rathe is some handsome lord, come to take away your troubles?”

Nesaea’s mouth worked. “Most of my life I’ve done well enough on my own. I don’t need a lord’s help, or Rathe’s, for that matter.”

“Perhaps not,” Fira replied, “but is it such a poor thing to have someone to share your burdens with, now and again?”

Nesaea stood up and began pacing. The cabin felt stuffier than before, the air cloying. “What are you getting at?”

“You say you need no one, and as long as I’ve known you, that’s been true. But after Rathe pulled you out of Lord Sanouk’s catacombs, only to then leave you with Queen Erryn-”

“That jumped-up chit’s no queen,” Nesaea growled, remembering all too well the dismay and hurt she’d felt when Rathe abandoned her to guide Erryn, the same pretty slip of a girl who had all but begged Rathe to share her bed and become her king.

“She has the will and the wealth of any dozen kings,” Fira said. “And because of you, she has the beginnings of a fortress and an army of Prythian mercenaries to protect it and her. If those things don’t make her a queen, then there are a fair number of queens and kings who don’t deserve the title. But that’s not my point.”

“What is?”

“After we left Valdar, you headed in the same direction as Rathe and Loro.”

Nesaea scowled. “We’d already spent a season entertaining throughout Cerrikoth, and with winter coming, east into Qairennor was the only way to go. That Rathe and Loro went the same was happenstance.”

“Maybe,” Fira allowed. “But if you’d not heard of your father in Cliffbrook, we Maidens would have wintered along the shores of the Sea of Muika.”

“What difference does that make?” Nesaea demanded.

Fira looked at her as if she were daft. “Because that’s where Loro has always talked of going, and for certain you would’ve found Loro at Rathe’s side.”

“Are you saying I was chasing Rathe?”

Fira gave her a bland look.

“That’s absurd. I’ve never pursued a man, and I never will.”

“Is it so wrong to follow the one you love?”

Nesaea felt a pang. “I’ve never said I loved him, and he’s surely never said as much to me.”