There was no trace of the grieving widow who had knelt beside her husband’s sarcophagus mere hours ago. Ansaraki was a stateswoman armed with courtesy.

  “Hard to say.” Zula thought back to her conversation with Demtran. “I expect it and have ordered the army to prepare. My scouts tell me there is movement in the enemy camp, but it’s hard to know why.”

  “We heard that there were groups beginning to leave, is that true?”

  Zula hesitated. “That has been rumored, yes. As for how true it is, I don’t know.”

  “You think it unlikely?”

  “We’re weakened as best they know. Why would they leave now?”

  Ansaraki’s mouth pressed into a stern line as if she had come to the same conclusion already. “No word of Fansaras?”

  “That is all I know for sure at the moment, yes.”

  Ansaraki made a sound to indicate she was thinking, delicate brows furrowing as she bit her lip. “I have much to consider.”

  Zula bowed, surveying the guards around the megaron. One of them might be the traitor. “I will report back to you when I have more news.”

  Ansaraki inclined her head in understanding. “Thank you, sister.”

  The title hit Zula’s ears again like a whiplash.

  Chapter Three

  “You were supposed to be resting,” Zula said.

  Tadrakka started, glancing up from his work. “Here to spy on me?”

  Zula folded her arms across her chest. “Has Ansaraki spoken to you?”

  Tadrakka grimaced. “She told me about the spy. Chizoba?”

  “I’ve assigned ten of my own guards to watch him and the ensaak.” She leaned against the wall, studying the ceiling of Tadrakka’s receiving room. “Though at this rate, I expect we should be protecting him from his grandfather.”

  “My father loves Chizoba,” Tadrakka said, not looking up.

  “The way he loved Hekdan?” Zula squeezed her arms across her chest. She’d left the ensaak and the little ensaadi with a nursemaid as well as the ten Ilian guards and five more Malsi soldiers.

  Paakna had barely even acknowledged her presence. Chizoba had played on the rug with his nursemaid and a collection of wooden animals while the ensaak looked on. The old man had nodded when she addressed him, then gone back to staring at his grandson.

  He was so far from the fierce and unforgiving tyrant she’d known her whole life. She caught herself wondered if he was the same man.

  The general stepped away from the wall. “What are you doing?”

  Tadrakka shifted to let Zula have a better view of the contents on his work bench. “Piecing together a less taxing way of making fire.”

  Spread over the work bench was a collection and odds and ends—crystals, wires, flint, and dark black powder along with pestle, mortar, and various tools.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do to protect Chizoba?”

  “I have,” Tadrakka said. “He has a gauntlet of wards and spells around him to make an abduction difficult, but…aside from turning the nursery into a death trap, there isn’t much I can do.”

  “Hmm.” Zula nodded back to the contents of the worktable. “That could have its uses. I’m sure The High Magister would enjoy getting to know you back in Ilios.” Zula folded her arms across her chest, abruptly uncomfortable. “I suppose it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

  Tadrakka returned his attention to his work a little too quickly. “Have you spoken with my father? Since this morning?”

  “No.” Zula looked down. “You didn’t tell him I was barren, did you?”

  Tadrakka exhaled, not looking up.

  Zula came closer, hovering at his shoulder. “If you think you’re ignoring me, then you’ve got another thing coming.”

  Tadrakka might have smiled, it was hard to be sure. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Your father?”

  “Malsi is in no position to refuse allies. I made him aware of that.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What more is there?”

  “Ansaraki says you fought.” And so soon after the burial of his brother, too. Zula wouldn’t have though Tadrakka the kind to force an issue like this while the family was still in mourning.

  “There was no time to accommodate his pride. I hope the Lonely God can forgive me.”

  Zula let off a huff. “I would’ve helped you. Malsi, I mean. Even without the treaty. Under the circumstances, I know Talitha would understand.”

  Tadrakka let off a long breath. “Not this again.”

  “You are the last of your father’s line. If anything happens to Chizoba—”

  “It won’t!” Tadrakka spun on her. “My father will live for many years yet and Chizoba will live a long and stout life after him and beget more heirs than he knows what to do with. I’m not needed here, Zula, so stop pretending that I am.”

  “Without you, Chizoba—”

  “Has Ansaraki. As soon as the war is over, my sister in law is more than capable of running these lands. Her dowry has built up this city, but her leadership could do so much more.” Tadrakka stood, frowning. “I don’t think even Hekdan realized how capable she is.”

  “Then marry Ansaraki,” Zula said. “That way, Chizoba’s younger siblings will also be heirs to Malsi.”

  Tadrakka’s eyes widened.

  “What? It’s common enough practice. Marry your brother’s widow and—”

  Tadrakka’s fist slammed on his table. “Will you shut up?”

  Zula, despite herself, jumped.

  “There’s a binding contract between us—you and I. My father ratified it.” Tadrakka stood, facing her square with his feet shoulder width apart like he was ready to fight. “Now if you want out, say so, but if not, I never want to hear another word about this. Do you understand?”

  “Tadrakka—”

  “What?”

  “I can’t—” She shook her head. “I don’t—” Zula darted for the door.

  “Zula!”

  She stopped at the threshold, one hand pressed against the door, the other clenched at her side. She wanted to leave. She wanted to stay. She wanted to run away. She wanted to run back.

  Tadrakka stopped just a few steps away. “I—” He exhaled. “You’re free to go. If you want to leave, this is the last I’ll ever speak of it, but…” He made a frustrated sound and she heard him shuffle uncomfortably. “I want you. No matter the cost.”

  “No matter the cost?” Zula’s brows rose. He already knew the cost—cost of heirs, cost of family, cost of living in his own homeland.

  “Yes,” Tadrakka said.

  “What if the cost is too high?”

  “No cost is too high. Not for you.”

  Zula stared out the door—back the way she’d come. Back the way to freedom far from the ensaa and his words and his gentleness and all the things she should love but, in that moment, couldn’t stand. “Tadrakka—” She closed her eyes.

  Tadrakka stood there, waiting. He would let her go, that much was clear enough. He’d chased her and wooed her and beckoned her, but he wouldn’t beg. He would be patient and he would be persistent, but he wouldn’t entrap her.

  Zula grasped the handle of the door and felt Tadrakka tense at her back.

  She released the handle before she quite knew what she was doing. She turned around and for just an instant, she faced Tadrakka. He searched her face, hands loose at his sides, eyes locked on her with an intensity that made her shiver.

  Zula threw herself at him and Tadrakka barely caught himself. Something knocked off the table and crashed to the floor. Tadrakka caught her face in his hands, kissing her back like it was the only way to breathe.

  Zula wrapped her arms around his neck and every sense flooded with the taste of him, the touch of him, the sound of his hungry growl—him. Tadrakka’s hands locked on her waist and he shoved her back, pinning her against the wall.

  “I love you,” Tadrakka panted. “I love you, Zula.”

  She kissed him, cutting him off. Too many words had passed between them. She ached for something simple, something they could both understand.

  Zula grabbed the buckle of his belt and he jerked back, catching her hands and yanking them up to eye level.

  “Not like this.” He clenched his eyes shut, voice a husky rasp. “Not like this.”

  Zula froze, blinking at him. “I don’t understand.” She stiffened in his grip. Her heart still raced, but she could feel a cold wall locking around it.

  “Not in secret. Not out of wedlock.”

  Zula yanked her wrists away and shoved him back even as he put a step between them. “That only matters if—” She cut herself off. “I already told you that I can’t.”

  “But you might.”

  “If you’re still clinging to that hope, don’t you want to know now? Before?”

  Tadrakka took another step away, locking his arms across his chest and turning his back. “I want to do this right, Zula. You deserve that much.”

  “Paakna has ratified the contract. It’s as good as—”

  “You know it’s not.”

  Zula opened and closed her mouth several times, words fleeing before she could catch them. When she found her voice, it was that hard tone she usually saved for slacking youngsters. “We have work to do.” Zula drew her shoulders back. “I should change the guards over Chizoba.”

  Tadrakka turned. “I want you whether we can bind in samahu or not. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “I believe you.”

  Tadrakka’s eyes narrowed just a bit.

  Zula wasn’t given to blushing, but she felt her cheeks heat at his stare.

  “Maybe.”

  “What difference does it make if we’re disappointed now or later?”

  “You said that no one has been willing to marry you without seeing if you could bond first. That your first husband left you because of it.” Tadrakka shook his head. “Even if you don’t need proof, I still want to prove myself to you.”

  “You’re proving yourself an unrealistic fool is all that you’re—”

  A knock preceded a soprano voice from the other room. “Ensaa Tadrakka? General Zula? Are you here?”

  Zula stifled a sigh of relief. “Yes, Jadiana.” She moved past Tadrakka as quickly as she could, careful not to touch him.

  “This isn’t over,” Tadrakka said before he followed her into the receiving area.

  “General.” Jadiana paused for just a split second, taking in the general and the mussed ensaa at her back. “Ensaa.” She remembered herself an instant later, offering an intrepid bow. “I—it’s Lady Ansaraki. She’s disappeared.”

  “What do you mean—disappeared?” Zula cursed.

  “They don’t know where she is or where she went. She’s just gone.”

  “Chizoba?”

  “Yes, he’s fine. But her ladyship retired and when the servants went to serve her, she was missing. They can’t find her anywhere.”

  Zula shook her head. “That makes no sense. No one saw her leave the palace?”

  “No.”

  “They’re sure she’s not still inside the palace?”

  “Yes, my lady. They’ve nearly torn it apart.”

  Zula looked to Tadrakka. The magian flicked his gaze between Jadiana and her.

  “Who knows?” Zula asked.

  “Just the palace guard and the royal family,” Jadiana said.

  “Good. What else do you know?”

  “Nothing, my lady. I—”

  “What about temples?” Zula pressed. “Have they searched—?”

  “I don’t know! All I know is that we can’t find her.”

  “No sign of a struggle?” Tadrakka stepped closer to Jadiana. “Has there been a ransom demand? Anything?”

  “No,” Jadiana said. “Nothing.”

  Zula’s promise to Hekdan burned in the back of her mind, loud and echoing through her like the toll funerary bells. “Women don’t just—vanish.”

  Tadrakka smeared a hand over his face. “Damn it.”

  Zula looked up to the darkened sky. “She’s not…she wouldn’t have left Chizoba.”

  “No,” Tadrakka agreed. “Not willingly.”

  Zula and Tadrakka’s eyes met for a lengthy moment that lasted for a long set of heartbeats. “You think they took her.”

  “What else could have happened? She wouldn’t have left her son.” Tadrakka’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “She’s no longer bound.”

  That thought had crossed Zula’s mind as well. Ansaraki’s bond with Hekdan had been severed the moment he died. She would be free to bond with another man—or forced to bond.

  Zula frowned. Ansaraki’s dowry was in the city, but if a warlord had managed to get her into his bed…the general didn’t know enough of these tribal politics in the south. It might be that the Kreshkal tribe would honor an abduction as a valid alliance.

  The general’s thoughts moved hundreds of ideas per second. “Who is organizing the search?”

  “The head of the palace guard.”

  “Take us to him. Now.” Tadrakka wasn’t going to wait.

  “This way.” Jadiana took the lead,

  Zula couldn’t help but hear Hekdan’s final request in her own ears. Protect Ansaraki. Keep her and Chizoba safe.

  Perhaps the dead ensaadi had known something she hadn’t.

  “They couldn’t have…” Zula pinched the bridge of her nose. In all her time as a guard, she had learned every secret exit and entrance throughout this city. There were several passages and escape routes that were intended to serve the royal family in case of emergencies. She and Hekdan had used them many times to sneak in and out of the palace walls undetected.

  But they were all barred from the inside. There was no way to force one’s way in.

  Zula looked up, her mind whirring as the chaos of the search churned around them. “What if her abductors were invited in?”

  “What?” Tadrakka said the word thoughtfully, slowly.

  “Yes. What if they were invited in and whoever took her had access?”

  “That occurred to me,” Tadrakka agreed. “How else would they have gotten in?”

  “Could it have been someone she trusted enough to go with them?”

  “I don’t know.” Tadrakka shook his head. “I don’t know enough about her family or her friends in Kreshkal.”

  It occurred to Zula that while she had kept much of her past life hidden when she started over in Ilios, perhaps Ansaraki had done much the same when she started over in Malsi.

  “Do you have any way to track her?” It was a slim hope, but Zula dared venture it. “I need—”

  “I don’t have the power,” Tadrakka said. “Neither do any of the magians in Malsi. Even if we did, I don’t think we could narrow the search to more than a few hundred paces.”

  Zula had been incredibly spoiled in having Kasrei as head magian in Ilios. “Kasrei will have to train you,” the general said.

  Tadrakka didn’t reply, but his mouth quirked despite everything. Zula realized she’d implied he would be coming to Ilios, but there was no time to berate herself for that. They had a noblewoman to find and a city to save.

  Jadiana led them in the direction of the main courtyard. Zula recognized the way even by the flickering light of torches. She caught the low hubbub of voices—the forewarning of a panic.

  They were two or three halls away when a young man with the spear and armor of a palace guard noticed them. “Ensaa! You’re here.”

  “Yes.” Tadrakka looked past the soldier. “Where is the lieutenant on duty?”

  “In the courtyard, my lord.”

  “Thank you. Send someone to see that my father is well and bring me a report.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The young man bowed. “I’ll see to him. He was in the mausoleum, last I heard.”

  Paakna keeping a night vigil at the side of his son’s grave? Now that was something she hadn’t expected.

  A boom rocked the city, louder than anything Zula had ever heard. The ground bucked and Zula went to her knees with a ringing in her ears, head spinning and heart pounding.

  Color and torchlight and motion swirled around her. Like she was coming out from under water, muffled voices chattered, growing louder and louder until the screams and shouts took over so intense she thought she might go deaf.

  A shape hovered at the corner of her vision and strong hands caught her arms. A face materialized in front of her, mouth moving. “Zula!”

  “Tadrakka.” Zula squeezed him back, shaking her head to clear it. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine. Are you?”

  “Fine.” Zula pulled away from him and snapped around, facing the city outside the palace. A crack and snap followed by a roar shook the ground again.

  “What’s happening?” Tadrakka shouted to a guard atop the wall. The soldiers along the walls of the palace watched in mute horror as battle raged outside.

  Dozens of them pointed and several broke rank, fleeing their positions along the way. Anger at their cowardice was tempered by Zula’s sinking dread.

  “The walls, my lord. They’re collapsing.”

  “How—?”

  “The buildings, too, sir!” Another guard pointed to the city. Even with the distance between them and even with the dark and the fifty or so paces between them and the guard, the general was sure she saw the whites of the other woman’s eyes.

  Zula cursed. The enemy bastards had stolen Demtran’s idea. “The copper mines. The old shafts.”

  Tadrakka looked to Zula like she’d gone mad. “The copper mines are—how could they have found a way in? How could they have found a way this far past our soldiers? Past our—”

  A crackle and snap followed by a hideous roar shook the earth. Zula froze. Not since they’d been crossing the moisture fields of Keshmar had she heard that sound. It had cost Zula ten good soldiers and no less than two dozen had been wounded.

  “Doomworms.” At least three, possibly more, from the sound of it. “How—?”

  First a jowlbeast and now this? How—?

  “Doomworms!” Came the confirming cry from all around the courtyard and throughout the city.

 

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