A Cold Wind Read online

  A Cold Wind

  C. J. Brightley

  Egia, LLC

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by C. J. Brightley

  Dedication

  1. Riona

  2. Kemen

  3. Riona

  4. Kemen

  5. Riona

  6. Kemen

  7. Riona

  8. Kemen

  9. Riona

  10. Kemen

  11. Riona

  12. Kemen

  13. Riona

  14. Kemen

  15. Riona

  16. Kemen

  17. Riona

  18. Kemen

  19. Riona

  20. Kemen

  21. Riona

  22. Kemen

  23. Riona

  24. Kemen

  25. Riona

  26. Kemen

  27. Riona

  28. Kemen

  29. Riona

  30. Kemen

  31. Riona

  32. Kemen

  33. Riona

  34. Kemen

  35. Riona

  36. Kemen

  37. Riona

  38. Kemen

  39. Riona

  40. Kemen

  Epilogue

  Epilogue 2

  Afterword

  Sneak Peak

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  A COLD WIND. Copyright 2013 by C. J. Brightley. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information contact [email protected].

  Also by C. J. Brightley

  Erdemen Honor

  A Cold Wind

  Honor’s Heir

  * * *

  Erdemen Tales

  Street Fox

  Heroes

  Color

  Heroes and Other Stories

  * * *

  A Long-Forgotten Song

  Things Unseen

  The Dragon’s Tongue

  The Beginning of Wisdom

  * * *

  Fairy King

  A Fairy King

  A Fairy Promise

  * * *

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  For Stephen

  1

  Riona

  Lani came running to me when I was folding sheets with Sayen out in the courtyard. “Ria, come see him, if you want to see him alive. Saraid says he won’t last the afternoon.”

  She’s much younger than I am, my cousin, though we could hardly be more different. She was fourteen then, and even the prospect of a hero’s death couldn’t sober her for too long. She’d been assigned to bring the dying soldier his meals, though he’d eaten none of them yet. He’d spent the last day and a half out of his mind with fever.

  I followed her through the halls to the door of his room. Saraid rolled her eyes at Lani and me when we entered. “Have you no decency? The man’s dying.” She was trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to spoon honeyed wine between his lips.

  I’d never seen a Dari before, and I stepped closer for a better look. His skin was very dark, the color of olives, with the same rich greenish undertone. His face was different from Tuyet faces, with a straighter jaw and a slightly narrower nose, all hard flat planes rather than the long elegant curves of a masculine Tuyet face. Not my conception of beauty, but not as monstrous as I’d expected.

  His lips were open, and he gasped slightly with each quick breath. Sweat beaded on his forehead. When Saraid spooned the wine into his mouth, he swallowed convulsively, but choked on it and struggled for a long moment before the next breath. Regardless of looks, I pitied him.

  Saraid sat back and her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what else to do.” She sounded totally defeated. She rubbed her hands hard over her face and closed her eyes a moment.

  “He still lives. You can’t give up now.” I’m no healer and I really had no idea if he had a chance, but I guess I thought that while he breathed, there was hope.

  “He’s taken two, maybe three good swallows. Since yesterday, mind. The fever’s only gotten worse. I’ve never seen a fever so hot, not in anyone that lived. Here, feel.” She put my hand on his forehead, slippery with sweat. It was burning hot, and he twitched at my touch, eyes fluttering open briefly before closing again.

  I jerked back in surprise. “His eyes are green!” Green as grass, glittering with fever and oddly bright against his dark skin.

  She snapped, “Yes, and you’re standing there not working. Get on with you, and let the man die in peace.”

  I scurried out, not hurt in the least. Saraid is very kind-hearted; that’s why she became a healer. Her anger was born of worry and frustration, not a quick temper.

  I finished my work that night wondering whether the soldier had lived through the day. Saraid sent Lani to the kitchen to fetch her dinner because she didn’t want to leave him. I brought it to her instead, because I wanted another look at the soldier. Saraid looked tired, and she nodded when I asked if I could tend him for a bit so she could rest.

  The usurper Taisto was a vicious man. He had a smooth tongue and a pretty face, but we all knew Tibi and his wife and Anath the cook had nothing to do with the plot against the prince. They were in Taisto’s way, so he eliminated them. Until the prince and his soldier friend arrived, we’d all thought we might be next. But where could we go? Asking to leave would only draw attention, and Taisto’s attention was deadly. Anyone who removed him was already someone I was glad to serve.

  If anything, the soldier was worse than before, his breaths quick and shallow. He shook with fever, his hands clenching restlessly at times. He choked and gasped when I spooned wine into him and finally I gave it up, though I did wipe his face with a damp cloth to cool the fever.

  His eyes opened sometimes for a minute or two, but he wasn’t really aware of anything. Each time I flinched away because the brilliant green was startling and a little eerie. I felt guilty for it though. A man deserves compassion in his last hours, especially a man like him, who’d done so much for Erdem. I pitied him, and I wondered what it would be like when the quick fevered breaths slowed and stopped.

  He was shirtless, with only a thin sheet to cover him sometimes, and despite the strange, ugly tone of his skin I couldn’t help admiring a little. I thought if he were Tuyet, he’d be beyond gorgeous, lean and hard and richly muscled. A soldier, not a nobleman, but I was hardly one to be looking at noblemen anyway. He had scars, and I wondered what their stories were. An old one, a long faint line across his ribs on the left, a newer circle on his chest below his collarbone, a larger ragged oval on his back at the bottom of one shoulder. A fresh scar on his right arm near his shoulder that nearly disappeared under a bandage for a newer wound. And others. I wondered if he’d received them all in the king’s service.

  Most would have come in the time of the old king. It saddened me to think of a man so brave serving such a coward. The old king was a disgrace to his royal name, but we’d waited for the day when his son the young prince would take the throne. No one had been more anxious than those of us in the palace who saw the prince’s potential. Not that we’d hurried along the king’s death, of course, but we had hoped, both for ourselves and for Erdem, that the prince would be different than his father. Somehow it encouraged me that this brave soldier had also believed in him.

  Saraid and I changed the sheets when she returned. The sheets were almost dripping with s
weat, and she said the dampness would chill him and worsen the fever. He didn’t awaken as we rolled him carefully to one side and then the other while we wrestled with the fabric beneath him. He moaned once, when we first rolled him to his right side, a low quiet sound that made me cringe.

  I helped her change the bandage on his shoulder. It covered an ugly gash, but the wound wasn’t infected. Someone had stitched it, and done a good job of it too, though it hadn’t had much time to heal. Saraid said the fever was from Taisto’s poisoned blade, which had scratched his arm. I wondered how he’d gotten the wound on his shoulder, and whether that was why he’d moaned. Whether it hurt even through the fever, or whether he was hurt in other ways.

  I asked if I should come back in the morning, but she said no. She didn’t expect him to last the night. But I could send Lani with her breakfast and one for the soldier if by some chance he was still alive.

  Lani was nearly bursting with excitement at lunch the next day. “I saw him! He lives, and I took him to the prince’s office. He’s nice, Ria. I felt so bad. I was so excited I walked too fast, and I think he nearly fainted.” She’s always in trouble for walking too fast and even running in the palace, but she has a willing heart and does her duties quickly and well. She sounded a little upset.

  “I hope you slowed down.” I can barely keep up with her sometimes and I haven’t been nearly killed by poison.

  “Of course I did. He ate some breakfast too.”

  I didn’t see him until the next morning, when Lani took me with her to bring him his breakfast. We were very quiet and didn’t wake him. He slept on his back, one long muscular arm over his face shielding his eyes from the morning light. His breathing was easier, but even sleeping he looked drawn, tired, a slight catch remaining in each breath. Still, it was amazing he was alive at all. I wondered if it was scandalous of me to be so curious about him. Probably it was.

  I saw him in the hallway the day before the coronation. We were busy preparing for it, and I’d scarcely thought about him at all for two days. He was tremendously tall, shoulders broader than I’d realized, and I squeaked out a polite greeting as I curtsied and scurried out of his way. He inclined his head more courteously than he probably should have, since I was only a serving girl. He didn’t recognize me, of course, and it startled me that I wished he had.

  I looked after him as he walked down the hall, but he didn’t turn around. Despite his color, he wasn’t really a bad looking man. As ill as he had been so recently, and probably still felt, his strides were long and easy and he moved with a taut grace most men could only envy. Not handsome, certainly, but his deeds more than made up for that.

  Kemen Sendoa. We had received instructions to treat him as the most honored guest ever to grace the palace. It was hardly surprising. By the wild rumors sweeping the palace and out through the city, he’d saved the prince’s life many times over, negotiated a temporary peace treaty with Rikuto, and almost single-handedly regained the crown for the young prince Hakan Ithel. The poison that had almost killed him was meant for the prince, but Sendoa had taken the blade instead. Of course, it was something of an accident and hardly much of a wound aside from the poison, but the rumors and the king’s regard left no doubt of his courage or his faithful service. There were even whispers that he’d been offered the crown, but had rejected it in favor of the prince. True or not, it only added to his air of mystery.

  Isn’t every girl fascinated by heroism and mystery? I wasn’t the only one, even within the palace, who watched him a little more closely than was strictly necessary at the banquet following the coronation. He smiled more than I imagined was usual for him; he didn’t have the lines of smiles in his face. His teeth stood out very white against his dark skin. I thought he should smile more often; it softened his serious, intense look. He didn’t eat as much as I would have expected for a man of his size, and I wondered if he was still ill. He looked tired. It wouldn’t have surprised me.

  When I refilled his wine glass, I let my sleeve brush his shoulder slightly. He smiled and nodded his thanks, not really paying attention. My mother would have been scandalized, of course. Good girls like me don’t do such things, especially not with honored guests of the king. I didn’t really mean anything by it, nothing scandalous. I just wanted to see his green eyes again. I’d heard green eyes in Dari are about as common as grey eyes in Tuyets; roughly a quarter of the population has them. But never having seen a Dari at all before, I thought they were fascinating. Eerie, but fascinating nonetheless.

  In the next weeks, I saw him sometimes in the mornings, in the grey dawn when only a few of the servants were awake. I passed him in the hallways and saw him in the courtyard where he exercised. The first time I stopped and stared, my mouth open in awe. The kicks and flips, the pure and perfect energy, were breathtaking. It was beautiful in a wild and furious way, the same way a running horse or a thunderstorm is beautiful.

  He finished a set of moves and rested a moment, leaning over to put his hands on his knees. He must have seen me out of the corner of his eye, for he suddenly straightened, his eyes on me. My ears burning, I curtsied, but I couldn’t help sneaking a glance back at him again as I hurried away. He smiled slightly and inclined his head, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think it was more than courtesy.

  After that I was careful to watch him, the few times I did, from the windows. Though later I felt more for him, I can honestly say that then it was still purely curiosity, and I was terribly embarrassed to imagine that he might have thought I felt more. He gave no sign of anything more than proper courtesy when he saw me next, and I was glad he hadn’t misinterpreted my interest.

  After the coronation, we fell back into something resembling the routine of the palace. Things were changing a lot then. The young king Hakan Ithel had Noriso, the palace administrator, rehire many of the servants who had been let go during Vidar’s and then Taisto’s brief reigns. I was lucky not to lose my position too during that time, but Noriso knew I had nowhere to go and no family to help me. I was grateful to him for it.

  To tell the truth, I should have been married by then. My mother had arranged it; I was to be married at the age of seventeen to a small fabric merchant in Stonehaven. I didn’t mind him, and he liked me enough I think, but it was a marriage of convenience. I’d already been working in the palace for a few years by that time. When my mother died, we were going to go through with it, because he still needed an heir and it isn’t good for a woman to be alone and unprotected.

  A month before the wedding, he came to me and begged leave to break the engagement. He’d met a woman, and they were in love. I released him, though I didn’t have to since the papers had been signed already. But what is the use of being married to a man who pines for someone else? There is no security and certainly no joy in that, and I wouldn’t, couldn’t, have expected him to remain faithful to me forever. Instead, he was happy and she was happy and I was quietly disappointed but far from heartbroken. It was better for me too, at least as long as I kept my job.

  But the months and then years wore on and I had no other suitors. I didn’t have a way to meet men, working as I did in the palace, a closed environment where everyone knows everyone else. It breeds deep friendships and lasting enmity, but once you’ve figured out where you stand with everyone, it’s set for years. Vidar and Taisto had shaken that up, but it quickly settled down again. There were no particularly good prospects in the few new people Noriso hired, though there were some who might become friends. I didn’t have anyone to take care of the arrangements for me, though Lani’s mother tried a few times.

  It’s an odd business, this way that men and women dance around each other. They want our bodies and we want their protection and really, deep inside, I think what we all want most is friendship and understanding. But how do you find that amid the awkwardness and the halting words?

  Not long before the king Hakan Ithel was crowned, I met a man in the market. I was twenty-six then, well past the age at which most gi
rls are married, though I hadn’t given up hope. His name was Riulono, and he was a footman in the house of Lord Kalyano. He smiled at me as he wove through the crowd, and I blushed and pretended I hadn’t noticed. I saw him again when Lord Kalyano attended a banquet at the palace. With the other footmen, he stayed in the servants’ quarters, laughing and waiting for their masters to finish. He smiled at me, and I smiled at him. He had curly golden hair and laughing eyes, and I didn’t mind when he swept his eyes over me and smiled a little more. It made my heart beat a little faster to think I’d pleased a man. I, mousey little Riona, pleased a man! He noticed me, and I appreciated it more than even I had expected. He sent a letter of intent, properly worded and polite. I didn’t have parents to handle it for me, so I answered it myself.

  Riulono made me laugh, and he was dashingly handsome. It bothered me a bit that the one time he’d come to visit, bringing a bouquet of bright daisies from the market, he spent almost as much time looking at Tanith and Sinta as he did looking at me. But I wasn’t sure what I could expect. I was twenty six, after all, and hardly the most eligible woman in Stonehaven. I was used to being invisible. He scattered compliments around with careless generosity.

  Once I met him in the market for the afternoon on my off day. He smiled and kissed me on the cheek, told me I was beautiful. He smelled of ale, soap, horse sweat, and leather, masculine smells that made my breath come a little short. He bought me grilled tomatoes and peppers on a skewer for lunch, and sticky rice with sweet beans afterward, and took me on a tour all around the most exciting part of the market, the jewelry stands. The jewels glittered with brilliant color in the sunlight. Sayen said later he should have bought me something, even if it was small, but I didn’t expect him to; a footman isn’t rich, and jewels are frivolous anyway.