“By all that’s holy, tell me you have a tub!”
When she didn’t answer, he looked up to find her hand over her mouth and her shoulders shaking as she laughed at him.
“Woman, don’t make me cry again. Because this time I promise you mucus.”
She laughed a little more freely now. “Reason’s defender, please no more of the crying.”
Gwenvael rubbed his tired eyes, yawned. “Reason’s defender? I haven’t heard that expression since the time of Aoibhell.”
“You’ve heard of Aoibhell? So you have read a book.”
“I’ve read at least two, but I actually knew her.”
“You knew Aoibhell the Learned? The philosopher?” She stepped closer. “You?”
“Don’t you mean Aoibhell the Heretic?” Arms behind him, palms flat against the bed, Gwenvael stretched his legs out in front of him. She was close enough that if he wanted to, he could run his foot up the inside of her leg. Well … He did want to, but he feared what might be waiting inside her skirt to snap his toes off. “Do you really not have a tub?”
“I have a tub. And heretic was an unfair title. So what was she like?”
“Like?” He shrugged. “She was nice enough. But she debated about absolutely everything. Do you really not believe in the gods?”
Dagmar kept her hands loosely clasped in front of her. To all outward appearances she seemed the perfect royal spinster daughter. Demure, well spoken, knowledgeable of etiquette, and just smart enough to hold conversation with those around her. But he already knew better. Only the brilliant and the brave followed Aoibhell’s teachings. To openly dispute others’ beliefs in the gods was risking a lot.
“There is nothing in Aoibhell’s teachings to suggest gods do not exist. But like her, I don’t worship them.”
Gwenvael smiled, remembering the passionate discussion he’d had with Aoibhell the Learned about the gods and her belief that reason and logic were all that was necessary to successfully and happily get through life. And it wasn’t that Gwenvael had disagreed with her at the time, but he could tell she liked to argue.
“Don’t you worry you’ll need a god one day?”
“No. They can’t be relied upon. One is better off standing on her feet, relying on herself rather than falling on her knees praying to gods who will not listen.”
He chuckled. “She would have liked you.”
“Would she?”
“She liked thinkers. ‘Those who think beyond their day-to-day cage,’ she’d say.”
“You really have met her. I’ve only read that phrase in some letters of hers a friend gave to me. Never in her books. Were you there when she passed?”
“No.” He winced at the memory. “We stopped speaking when she caught me in bed with one of her daughters. She was so mad. Came after me with a pitchfork.”
Her demure pose ended when her hands rested haughtily on her hips. “You defiled her daughter?”
“I didn’t defile anyone. Her daughter was a young widow. I was merely helping her back into life.”
“How altruistic of you.”
He grinned. “I thought so.” Gwenvael dropped his arms out at his sides and fell back on the bed. “Tub! Or I start stomping my feet and crying.”
“Please do. My father looked moments from throwing you out anyway.”
“He did, didn’t he?”
“A good crying fit should toss him right over the edge.”
“That would be a shame now, wouldn’t it?”
“Would it?”
“It would. Annwyl’s a powerful queen. An alliance with her would be wise.”
“You can broker an alliance for the queen?” she asked carefully.
“Of course.”
“So the Blood Queen sends you as an emissary and you think it’s a good idea to laugh at the Only Daughter of The Reinholdt in front of his sons and troops?”
Gwenvael flinched. She got a direct hit with that one.
He forced himself to sit back up. “All right. I’ll admit that was not my best moment. I know this. But you need to understand that for the entire long trip here I kept hearing about The Beast. The Beast, The Beast, The Beast! The scary, frightening Beast. The size of a bear with the cunning battle skills and fangs of a jungle cat. And then you walk out. And you’re … you’re …”
“Plain, boring, and fangless?”
“I was going to say dainty.”
“ ‘Dainty’? Me?”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Compared to the women I know, you’re as dainty as an air fairy.” He gestured at her body. “Look at you. Your feet are small, your hands delicate, your neck long and lithe, and there’s not a scar on you. Not that I have a problem with scars. They can be quite alluring. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen a woman who didn’t have at least a few.” He pointed at her spectacles. “And being nearly blind only makes you appear more innocent and vulnerable.”
“I am not nearly blind. And it is believed in the north that a woman who has scars other than those from her typical daily chores, does not have a male in her life who takes very good care of her.”
“And the women I know don’t need a man to take care of them.”
“That doesn’t repulse you? Women like that?”
“Hardly. But my brothers keep finding them first and then they won’t let them go. Even for a night.”
Her lips began to bow into a smile, but she managed to stop before it got out of hand. “I do have a tub you can use. I’ll have it moved in here. It might take a bit, though. It’s heavy.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll just come to your room.”
It was only a smirk, but it was lethal. “Oh, will you?”
“Don’t you trust me, my innocent Lady Dagmar?”
That cold gaze scrutinized him for a long time. “I trust no one,” she finally admitted with what Gwenvael instinctively knew to be complete honesty. Complete honesty he doubted she practiced most days.
“My room is five doors down, on the right,” she said. “I have to tend to my dogs now that you’ve frightened the life from them, so it will be empty until after tonight’s dinner.”
“Thank you, Lady Dagmar.”
She walked back across the room and pulled open the door. That thing she called a dog stood there, waiting for her. His head lowered and he bared his fangs at Gwenvael.
“Canute. Out.” She never raised her voice, and apparently she didn’t have to because the dog stopped immediately.
“That reminds me,” he said, standing up. He knew if he lay back down, he wouldn’t get up again for hours.
“And what is that?”
He took a long look at the dog before smiling at Dagmar. “I’m starving. Anything to … snack on before dinner?”
Her eyes narrowed and she made a quick motion with her hands. The dog immediately walked off. “I’ll have some cheese and bread sent up to you.”
“Cheese and bread? Don’t you have anything with a little more mea—”
“Cheese and bread, Southlander. Be happy you’re getting that. And stay away from my dogs.”
She walked out, and Gwenvael yelled after her, “Someone is not taking very good care of me!”
Chapter 7
“We have a problem.”
Briec glanced up from the book he was reading and into the face of Brastias, general of Annwyl’s armies and one of the few male humans Briec could tolerate.
Closing his book, he asked, “What did Gwenvael do now? Do I need to contact my mother? Are we already in war, or is it simply heading our way?”
Brastias, whose scarred face looked grim at the best of times, smiled. “Any time I start a conversation that way, all of you ask me the same questions.”
“My brother starts trouble the way horses shit when they walk. And we all know that.”
“It’s nothing like that, I’m afraid. And you might prefer that it were a problem with Gwenvael instead.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You need to see. Telling you will reveal nothing.”
Brastias led him out to the training fields. As Annwyl’s armies had grown, so had the multiple areas used specifically for training. The one Brastias took him to was the one they used for the new trainees. Briec’s daughter was one of those trainees. She spent most days with her training unit, but came and went from the castle as she felt the need. And although her mother—his dear, sweet, quiet Talaith—waited impatiently for Izzy to lose all interest in being a warrior, Briec feared that day would never come, for Izzy talked and dreamed constantly of being in battle, of being a warrior.
Yet every time Briec saw his Izzy she had a new bruise or cut or some part of her was swollen to twice its normal size. When she did join them all for dinner, she’d come in with a scowl that could terrify the gods, limping or with her arm in a splint or bandages wrapped around a nasty head wound. While eating she’d fall asleep at the table, and Talaith and Briec would take her to her room so she could sleep in her own bed. By morning she was gone, back out with her unit for more training, more bruises, more pain.
To say it drove his Talaith mad would be a grave understatement. For sixteen years she’d done all she could to protect a daughter she’d never held in her arms. Izzy had been brutally taken from her by those who worshipped a goddess hell-bent on revenge. They’d used Izzy’s life as the yoke that kept Talaith in line, training her to one day kill on order. When mother and daughter finally met, all was wonderful. Until Izzy decided she wanted to be part of Annwyl’s army. After so many years of trying to protect her daughter, of doing things she’d never be proud of to keep her daughter safe, Talaith now had to worry her precious and only child would be killed on the battlefield. It was a concern any parent of warriors might have, but Talaith simply refused to accept that this was what Izzy wanted. At least for now.
Talaith clung to the hope that Izzy, who had a tendency to walk into walls or trip over her own large feet, would bore of this like she seemed to bore of most things. And although he’d never admit it out loud, part of him hoped the same thing. Izzy may not be his by blood, but she was his daughter in every other way. He didn’t want to see her harmed or put at risk any more than her mother did. In truth, Talaith and Izzy were the few beings he had any tolerance for. Even when they annoyed him, it never entered his head to blast them with flame—and dust the remaining ashes from his life. There were few about whom he could say the same.
Briec leaned against the wood fence surrounding the arena, briefly regarding the other army officers and some of Annwyl’s Elite Guard standing around with him. “Now what?”
Brastias rested his arms against the top of the fence and let out a sigh before he began. “When we took Izzy in, it was with the understanding that if she failed, she’d have to go. Not only for her safety, but for the safety of those in battle with her.”