Chapter 6

Three Years Later...

“Where is Sharn, you stupid cunt?” Ceilia demanded, her imperious voice echoing off of the marble walls of the rotunda of the Palace of the Council, as she practically spat the name in her youngest sister’s face. “He was your responsibility today, Goddess damn him! I will not allow your soft-heartedness towards him make our House look foolish before our enemies!”

The finely dressed women waiting with their own sons and daughters for their turn before the Council of the Goddess had begun staring at the deeply green flushed Ceilia in her immaculate finery, even whilst trying to ignore the foul mouth of the heiress to the Lady of the Council. Ceilia’s sisters were as finely dressed this most unexpected day. Shayla was sure that their mother and Ceilia would have managed to kill Sharn before he arrived on this sacred day. Samantia was trying to hide her shame and guilt even as she withstood the verbal assault from her sister. Samantia was of the opinion that House Jenni’s enemies would make sure that Ceilia would never sit in their mother’s chair, if only because she was a crude and malicious bitch. The fact that her negative qualities far exceeded simply having the mouth of a sailor and the disposition of a Zondron warlord was well-known, though not by the one person to whom it should have mattered. Lady Shiena.

“Sharn has not been my responsibility since the day I was ordered to dump him in the Warehouse District in the hopes that he would either wander into the cavalry compound and get trampled by a horse or that he would be kidnapped by the thugs that inhabit that area, dear sister,” Samantia fired back in a voice that, though it did not carry as well as Ceilia’s, was nonetheless audible to some of the other House groupings near them. “You placed him in my care at age seven and you just as abruptly took him away to certain death when I was ten, and he was only three. He was, for all intents and purposes, my son for three years, you malicious hag, and you had me help in his murder! That the Goddess saw fit to answer my prayers and protect him merely justifies the path I forced mother to allow me to take, even if it did ruin her chance to seal an alliance with House Jeandahl and block House Ellagaunt. Neither she nor you can now try to place blame for our missing brother on me. The Goddess and the High Priestess of Cealie will protect me against you both, now.”

Ceilia ground her teeth and stepped up to her youngest sister. “Do not think that because you are a priestess it will protect you from my wrath should that ball of flesh you name your son not be here in the next five minutes. Lady’s Bane will also feel my fury if he embarrasses us this day!”

“My name, you stupid twit, actually means Pestilence of Women, according to men who actually speak Gnathar,” a voice cracking with adolescence said scathingly. Samantia looked over Ceilia’s shoulder and gasped, love and shock warring on her beautiful face. Sharn was dressed in what almost looked like a cavalryman’s uniform, accept there were no insignia or silver buttons or buckles that accentuated the dashing dress uniform of the Tran Kor Cavalry. The linen blouse was tight to his developing torso and showed a lean, whipcord musculature beneath and had flowing sleeves that flared out only to be brought back in by tight cuffs flashing with emerald cuff links the exact shade of the linen shirt and showed strong but sword-scarred hands. The pants were silk and shimmered emerald in the light of the sun streaming down from the iris of crystal that capped the dome of the rotunda. They hugged his hips and muscular thighs before disappearing into knee-high black leather boots whose shine was so bright they were practically reflective. And at his waist was a wide belt of the same leather to which was attached a cavalryman’s sabre. Sharn looked too comfortable with the weapon’s placement for it to be mere decoration.

Whispering a prayer of thanks to Cealie, Samantia walked over to her brother and hugged his stiff body. Pulling back, she mourned once more the lost love between her brother and her, though she did see a softening of his eyes and mouth when he looked up at her.

“Still beautiful, sister dearest,” he whispered, reaching his hands up to caress her face and bring her head down to him so he could kiss her forehead. “Thank you, and I am sorry. You should not have ruined your life because fate ruined mine.”

Samantia smiled brightly and shook her head, combing her fingers through his carelessly brushed hair. “He was not a good match for me, simply a male from the correct House for mother’s scheming and Game-playing. Once you were gone and I realized what I had done to lose your love, mother no longer scared me. The Goddess called and the High Priestess was happy to have me. And it seems she answered my prayers. You have arrived here, on this day, unharmed and healthy, if not exactly happy.”

Sharn smiled then, lighting up the rotunda for Samantia. There were echoes of the little boy he had been a horrible day more than a decade ago as he shook his head. “Wrong Goddess, dear Samantia, wrong Goddess,” he told her before pulling a silver and gold medallion out of his blouse, showing her the stylized stag that was the symbol of the Goddess Nultra. “According to friends and a priestess, I have, it seems, been blessed by a divine gift. The reason horses so enchanted me the first time I saw them was my gift to be able to bond with horses, not unlike Gnathar and Gnaths, though not limited to one animal. You should see my Raisa, Sammy, she is beautiful and stubborn and terrible in her anger. She was my protector when they made you give up that job and she has done almost as well as you could. Well, with some help from friends.”

“This is so touching I could vomit,” Ceilia said nastily as she came around to stand in front of Samantia, her eyes raking him from head to toe and tightening at the sight of the sabre. “Where did you get these clothes and what is that on your belt?”

Sharn shook his head and smiled brightly. “You really are too stupid to have been born from someone as smart as mother. Either that or the man claiming to be your father is not,” the boy stated, looking up into the fuming face of his persistent tormentor. “Zallar is far too brilliant to have contributed to you. As for where I got the clothes, why do you care, as long as I am presentable and don’t embarrass the House? And you know damn well what this is on my belt, imbecile!”

Ceilia was so dark a shade of green now that her skin was nearly black. She was inhaling to retort when the doors to the Council of the Goddess opened and a yellow-green haired girl in a shimmering pale golden silk gown from Lady Shiena’s eldest sister’s line exited with a happy look on her face as she went to her elder cousins. “I am to be wed into House Jeandahl and be schooled to advise the Council, Cousin Shayla! Isn’t that great!”

“We are very proud of you Lyla! Well, done. Did they want Sharn next?” Shayla asked quickly, before Ceilia could say something unfortunate.

The girl looked over at Sharn and nodded with wide, green-ringed yellow eyes that were glued to the sabre. “The Matriarch said to send him in immediately.”

Ceilia came over to him, visibly fighting the urge to grab him, and hissed, “Get in there and don’t you dare embarrass this House or so help me Goddess I will do what mother should have thirteen years ago myself. With my bare hands! Now get in there!”

Sharn looked up at his sister and smiled. “Try to lay one hand on me or my sister and you will find out what I have been doing with the last ten years,” he told her evenly, his face not changing from the pleasant smile but Ceilia backed away nonetheless at the cold, hard hatred in this tone. “Normally I would keep my own council on my feelings towards someone, but you are stupid enough to take that as meekness and submission to your will. As such is the case, I will be plain and I will use small, easy words so you will not mistake me. You will stop speaking to me or Samantia in any way other than civilly and you will keep those times limited to urgent situations. Am I clear?”