Brihanni sighed as she looked up from the bodice she was embellishing to watch dusk streak the sky. The sunsets were amazing here when the winds swirled the sand toward the horizon. Ralic gifted her with rooms where she could see the shifting colors each evening after she arrived with Kalie and Borcon. He’d visited her often before his ungrateful child ran away. Ralic hadn’t left his office since, and her bed was cold and empty.
She lit the lamp and continued her work by its flickering light. Would she need this dress if the girl wasn’t found? Kalie’s disappearance necessitated her own. Now with the Princess dead, she and Ralic couldn’t marry openly unless he was successful.
Absorbed in her thoughts, Brihanni lost track of the needle and buried it in her finger. Pain seared through her hand, and blood splattered the dress she’d spent the last three weeks sewing. She cursed and threw it from her lap.
“Such temper.”
Brihanni turned from her seat by the window to find Ralic leaning against her door. She loved and hated his ability to move without sound. He tisked with amusement lifting the corners of his mouth. Ralic crossed to her and raised her hand to examine the injured finger, causing her heart to leap and speed up.
The wound no longer bled, and he pressed a kiss to it. Her heart skipped a beat. With him standing so close, her world shrunk to the two of them. His warmth and the smell of wine mixed with smoke and spice was all she knew.
“You mustn’t punish the dress for the sins of the needle.” He caressed her cheek, and she thrilled to see his eyes take in every detail of her countenance. “Perhaps I’ve left you alone too long?”
“You’ve been concerned for your daughter,” Brihanni replied. “Have you found her?”
“Not yet.” Ralic sighed, and her heart ached for his pain. “A new team is searching.”
His hand moved to the back of her neck, and his fingers tangled in her hair. Ralic pulled her to him and enveloped her in his embrace. She felt possessed of him, and she reveled in the sensation.
“How may I help you, my lord?” she asked.
“Love me,” he answered as he lowered his lips to hers in a crushing kiss.
Brihanni’s heart leapt, and she returned his passion with her own, showing her love for him with sighs and caresses.
He broke the kiss, nipping along her jaw, and pleaded, “Comfort me.”
Valiance resented only receiving this assignment after the Diurnals’ failure. He hated being ordered about by that glorified bird almost as much as he loathed the instinctive fear he felt of him. It was degrading. Still, an evening sifting through warm sand was preferable to patrolling the mines or catacombs. The cold stone leached the warmth from him night after night during his regular patrols.
Jadrick scurried half a kilometer to the right, giving Snow and him both a wide berth and watching them with a wary eye. It was too funny. The genetic material Ralic used to “create” them may have been from predators of rodents, but they wouldn’t attack the rat. The knowledge they were all once Terran muted the instinct.
A shadow passed overhead. Valiance looked skyward to see Snow soaring on the evening breeze. The moonlight flashed off her talons, and he shivered. Jadrick’s caution may be unneeded, but it was understandable.
He tasted the air. The breeze was free of the girl’s scent, and his heat sensors picked up nothing but Jadrick and Snow. Maybe Falcon was right, and the brat was dead and buried beneath the dunes.
Snow screeched and wheeled over a spot just ahead. Valiance doubled his speed, half hoping she’d found the girl’s body. It would seal Falcon’s fate, though finding her alive would put the self-righteous bird in his place as well.
No body was visible when he topped the dune. Snow had found signs of passage. It wasn’t much, but it was something. From what he could tell, there had been a confrontation. Someone had fallen down the dune, and another followed on foot. Then both sets of footprints headed northwest.
“Was she here?” Snow asked as she landed.
“Give me a moment,” he hissed.
Snow snapped her beak, and her feathers rose in annoyance as she waited. Valiance tasted the air, but the wind shifted and filled his mouth with Jadrick’s scent. He lowered his head close to the ground and tried again.
“She was here,” he said.
“What about the other one?” Jadrick asked.
“Unknown,” Valiance answered and tasted around the prints again. “Good leather though.” He looked at Snow. “A noble?”
Snow considered the prints, turning her head from one side to the other for a better view. “Noblewoman or a boy by the look of it,” she said. “They’re too small for a man.”
Valiance was about to suggest they hurry to follow the prints when Snow straightened and turned south. Her body was rigid and tense, and she turned her head side to side as if searching for something on the edge of her senses. Her head snapped back in his direction, and he coiled. No one should be able to look straight behind themselves.
“We must move,” she said. “The trail is cold, and a sandstorm approaches.”
“We should take shelter,” said Jadrick. He crouched low to the ground with his tail twined around his hind legs and trembling as he spoke. “There are caves to the west. We can wait it out there and continue once they pass.”
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Valiance understood why the avians hated sandstorms. They crippled them like the cold crippled him. He huffed and rolled his eyes at Jadrick’s eagerness to leave. The rat didn’t want sand in his fur. Valiance rather enjoyed the scratching of a sandstorm if he could keep the sand out of his eyes and nostrils. “No. We continue,” he hissed. “We don’t want our prey to get away.”
They rushed on, but the sandstorm was faster. They’d made it a klick before Snow screeched a warning and both Valiance and Jadrick tensed. Valiance’s heart pounded in his chest, and his blood ran cold as Snow landed in front of Jadrick and him. Her descent had been so sudden he'd felt a flash of instinctive terror.
“It’s caught us,” she said. “We must bed down.”
“Not when we’re so close,” Valiance hissed, rearing to his full height and bearing his fangs in anger.
“The trail continues toward Reiont,” Snow answered. “She’s already arrived unless she lost herself in that pitiful forest.”
“Then we may as well let the storm take us,” Valiance said. “We’ll be dead once the report reaches Ralic.”
“N-not if we turn this in our favor,” Jadrick said. He trembled under the stares of two predators, but added, “I’ll go on to Reiont and spy on them.” His whiskers twitched. “Ralic will find information on his enemies useful.”
Snow and Valiance regarded each other. The rodent had a point. They couldn’t slip into Reiont unnoticed, but he could. Returning empty-handed was begging for trouble with Ralic’s nerves on edge. Jadrick was a coward, but he had a knack for slipping through tight spaces unseen. Plus, he had a memory few could match.
Valiance nodded his assent to Jadrick’s suggestion. Snow let out an uncertain warble but jerked her head in assent as the first howling of the storm rose around them.
Valiance coiled flat against the dune as Snow crouched and Jadrick burrowed down. The serpent chuckled to himself as he closed both eyelids and nostrils against the choking sand. He was careful to only open his nostrils to catch a quick breath before closing them again. He was never more pleased Ralic removed the burden of tender skin and hair from him as a babe considering the weakness they caused his companions.
Ralic stroked Brihanni’s hair. She’d served as a distraction for a while, but sleep evaded him, and thought returned. His traitorous daughter’s flight and Maya's visit played on his nerves. Why had his father named him secondary successor after so many years removed from the line? Did he think it would placate him? Did Aligh mean to draw him out, or was it a taunt?
If Chantal made her way to Reiont, the papers she stole would give them all the proof they needed to arrest him. Where would he be then? The mines had finally produced the materials he needed, but building the weapons would take time. If Maya’s visit today meant anything, it was that time was the one thing he didn’t have. Even his contingency plan required more time. The dragon would have made a devastating weapon in his arsenal, but the control protocol was proving a failure.
He looked down at the woman curled against him and sneered. His seduction of Brihanni had been predictable and easy. She was ambitious and frustrated with her position as Kalie’s maid. A few words of love and the promise of power, and she betrayed her friend and charge.
He stroked up the curve of Brihanni’s shoulder and neck, then lifted her chin and pressed his lips to hers. He kept his kisses soft, just enough to wake her without distracting himself again. She responded with sleep-fogged sighs and a lazy stretch.
“Brihanni,” he whispered.
She hummed.
“You know Grand Lady Maya?” he asked, ceasing his kisses in favor of stroking her hair away from her face.
She nodded and looked up at him with the watery, amber eyes he hated. His mind revolted whenever he saw them, screaming that they should be gray. “Kalie often met with the girl.”
“Tell me. Is Maya one of the talented?”
“She’s a weather watcher,” Brihanni answered with a shrug.
“No telepathic abilities?” he asked.
Brihanni’s brow furrowed for a moment.
“She does have some empathic ability,” she conceded. “It’s why she was chosen as Lanre’s match. Her senses are weak, but her shielding is strong. Lanre taps into her shields to supplement his. It’s what has kept him healthy.”
Ralic felt a chill down his spine. So he hadn’t imagined a pressure on his mind when he spoke with the girl. She was there to feel him out, and he’d missed the opportunity to cripple his nephew.
“Why the sudden interest in the grand lady?” Brihanni asked. He looked down to find her gazing up at him.
“I met her today,” he answered. Brihanni jerked back as if slapped, and he rubbed small circles on her back. “She came to tell me Aligh has restored my place in the line of succession.”
Brihanni giggled. He usually found her laughter irritating, but this evening it was infectious. Soon he was laughing with her. He pressed a kiss to her brow and rose from the bed as their mirth settled.
“Won’t you stay?” she asked as he pulled on his trousers.
“I wish I could,” he answered. “But I have a few more matters to attend.”
Brihanni pouted, but she rose and retrieved his shirt for him as he laced his boots. She held it out for him, and he allowed her to help him into it. He didn’t understand her fascination with dressing him, but it was an indulgence he was willing to give her. It was nice watching her head bowed over nimble fingers as she worked the buttons. Without those cursed amber eyes looking up at him, he could almost imagine she was Valera. She secured the final button and urged him to sit on the edge of the bed so she could pull on his boots. He chuckled.
“Why do you laugh?”
“I am capable of dressing myself,” he answered.
“But I get so few chances to serve you, my love,” Brihanni said and began tugging the laces snug with the efficiency of a lady’s maid. “You deny me the chance to take over the lady’s duties, so you must forgive me this.” Once she finished with his boots, she kissed his temple and stepped back to let him stand.
“Does it mean so much to you?” Ralic ran his fingers through the hair he loved so much.
“Yes,” said Brihanni. She ran her hands down his chest to smooth his tunic. “I’m meant to help you, and if you will not allow me to share the workload, I will at least aid you in this.”
“Then I will consider the matter again and have an answer for you in the morning.”
Brihanni smiled and pulled him down for a kiss. “Thank you, love. Success and sweet rest to you.”
“And you,” he answered.
He held the simpering expression he wore for her benefit until he’d turned from her. It’d be so much easier to toss her in the dungeon now that she’d served to deliver Borcon and Kalie to him, but she was good for a diversion. Besides, he would need a queen to produce an heir once he’d taken the throne, and she was easily manipulated.
Eugrin waited in the hall with the guard assigned to watch Brihanni. The young man fell in step as Ralic passed. He felt a pang of remorse seeing the gash above his steward’s eye. The boy was imperfect, but he was all that remained of Valera save memory.
“Send word to General Renard to step up preparations,” Ralic ordered. “Then go to Wesnov, and have him divert two-thirds of the miners to the furnaces and begin building the weapons.”
