Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 27

Persius had been meeting with several of his advisors concerning the Amalite menace. He now looked at the Kartik man standing before him. The man was still out of breath from what Persius assumed was a dash from his horse to the throne room, probably with Persius's own stupid herald and half a dozen others chasing after him telling him he couldn't just see the king, that he was breaking protocol.

"A message," he said in heavily accented Jethrikian, trying to catch his breath, "from my Sovereign Queen," he caught his breath again, "Hestia, Ruler of the whole Kartik. To be delivered into the hand of the King of the Jethrik." He handed Persius a roll of parchment with the queen's wax seal prominent on it.

"Concerning what?" Persius's herald asked and the Kartik soldier—who had in the herald's

opinion broken about every rule of protocol that could be broken—looked at him like he was nothing more than a piece of irritating fluff. Persius could not have agreed more.

"Concerning the Amalite scum," he spit on the throne room floor before continuing, "that have been raiding your territory and your country."

Persius smiled looking at the spit on his floor which had the herald and most of his advisors all puffed up with irritation. Then he opened the parchment carefully and was pleased to see that the Kartik Queen actually knew Jethrikian.

"Read it aloud so that we all may know her words." He held it out toward his herald who wasted several seconds not understanding that Persius was talking to him. When he realized all eyes were on him he stepped forward nervously and took the parchment from Persius's hand. "Do you just never pay any attention unless things of no importance are annoying you?" Persius asked, glaring down at the herald.

"Sorry sire," he said, bowing.

"Look at this man, out of breath and red in the face from hurrying to serve his queen. Why can I not command such respect, such competency from my own subjects?"

"I don't know sire," the herald said.

"Just read the missive dammit!"

"From Queen Hestia, Ruler of all the Kartik, Herald of the Dawn, Daughter of the Moon . . . "

"Skip the nonsense and read the message!" Persius was thinking more and more that this guy didn't need his head since he never seemed to use it any way.

"Tarius and I have met and are in agreement that we must send troops to help you kill the Amalite horde that threatens all our peace, for Tarius has seen that there are a great multitude of them. For my part I am sending five hundred men and one hundres horses which have made berth at Port Sagal.

"When did you dock?" Persius asked the man.

He held up four fingers which was good because he then said, "six days ago and five horses changed." And then he held up three fingers. He obviously had mixed up his Jethrikian numbers.

Persius waited for the herald to start reading again which he didn't until Persius screamed, "Dammit man, are you just trying to see how much you can get away with before I have your head removed from your shoulders? Read on!" At Persius's shoulder Hellibolt chuckled and Persius ignored him.

"Tarius the Black, the Great Leader of the Katabull people, will dock there a day or two after our forces with two hundred fifty men and fifty horses. Most of the Marching Night plus one hundred twenty other Katabull. She will be commanding all of our troops in the territories. She wishes to meet with you at Port Sagal and discuss strategy.

"I have met your daughter, Kasiria. She's a lovely girl and seems to have healed well after her ordeal, thanks in no small part to Tarius's impeccable timing and my own daughter's aid . . . "

"Wait, wait," Persius held up his hand and worked at coming to terms with what he'd just learned. Hestia was a shrewd woman. She no doubt told him this to make him more pliable to what she and Tarius wanted, and maybe to hint at the possibility of a ransom of sorts with them returning Kasiria safe only if he agreed to their terms regarding the impending battle. Of course 'til she'd told him in her letter Persius had no idea Kasiria was even hurt, no doubt because everyone who worked for him was an incompetent fool, which Hestia would have no way of knowing. "You imbeciles, you got the messages wrong, Kasiria was the one that was hurt not some Katabull. They rushed to the Kartik with Kasiria because she was injured. Did you know this Hellibolt?"

"I had my suspicions," Hellibolt said simply.

"And yet you said nothing."

"What would have been the point, sire? Kasiria was already in the Kartik when we got the information that she had gone there. What could you have done? Gone to the Kartik? By the time you got there and if you could find her she would have already either been healed or dead." He was right of course. What could Persius have really done? He could worry but that never really helped anything and there was nothing constructive he could have done. Hellibolt continued. "Besides she was in good hands. Tarius would never let anything happen to the girl if she could help it."

Persius didn't really understand that. Why should Tarius care what happened to Kasiria? Was Hellibolt saying Tarius had forgiven him completely now, that she'd saved his daughter for the sake of their old friendship? Persius had just been happy that Tarius didn't hate him anymore; that she didn't sit and pray to her strange god for his slow and painful death. What other reason could she have for taking care of Kasiria? Concerning war Tarius never did anything without good reason. Perhaps she had saved Kasiria only to use her as leverage now, but even that didn't make sense. Persius had gone against Tarius's battle strategies before and the results had been tragic for his country. Surely she must know that he'd never resist her ideas concerning battle now. It made him wonder just what she might have planned if she thought she needed this sort of leverage. "Read on," he ordered.

"I hope that you will come to the meeting and that you will gather as many troops as we have and send them to the rendezvous point which Tarius says should be Pearson Garrison. Signed by my hand thi . . . "

"Go to general Orion at once, tell him I need at least seven hundred men and as many horses at Pearson Garrison as soon as possible. Tell the valet to pack my things and get my personal guard ready. We will leave immediately."

"But sire, it will be dark soon and . . . "

"Hellibolt will go with us and cast some spell so that we can see." Persius ignored all the cringing and outright animosity of his advisors. His people didn't like or trust witchcraft. That Hellibolt had served the kingdom as long as they had recorded history only made them distrust and fear him all the more. Had he been mortal he would have been dead many times over. Persius had no time for their superstitious idiocy. "We must not waste time, our allies come from over the sea to help us and I can't . . . I won't have them thinking that I have less concern for my own people than they do. Take this man and get him something to eat, he will ride with us."

And then they all just stood around looking at him. "Surely you can all see the urgency of this matter. Must I sit and make lists as to who should do what? Can none of you think for yourselves? Are you not supposed to be here only to advise me and if you can't take matters into your own hands and make simple decisions on your own then why would I ever need your council? I need men of action around me, not just mindless figureheads. Go now all of you and make yourselves useful for a change. Hellibolt you remain, I must speak with you in private." Then addressing the rest of the group again he said, "The sooner we leave the better and if we aren't on the road before nightfall heads will roll."

In seconds the throne room was empty save for himself, Hellibolt, and his personal guard who stood by the door and pretended not to listen as he always did. He was a constant and so Persius hardly even knew he was present most of the time.

Persius stood up and started pacing, thinking a dozen things at once, and it was Hellibolt who broke the silence with his words so softly spoken Persius barely heard him, "So, do you move so quickly because of the urgency of the matter or because you will see her again?"

"The matter is most urgent. I'm sure they already see me as having been asleep at my post, but of course I want to see my daughter to see for myself that Kasiria is well . . . "

"I was speaking of Tarius the Black."

Persius stopped pacing and spun on the wizard. He was about to spit out an angry retort when it died on his lips, his shoulders sagged and he sighed and asked, "Is it such an awful thing Hellibolt?"

Hellibolt smiled. "No, I was just wondering. Many things have changed over the years Persius, but many have not."

Persius ran his hands through his thinning hair and glared at Hellibolt. "What does that mean?"

"Many of the old wounds are closed, but many are still open and new ones have surfaced. Even after all these many years I do not believe you are as prepared for this meeting as you think you are. I do not believe you will leave this meeting the same man who arrived," Hellibolt said.

Persius took a minute to go over what Hellibolt had said then glared at him and said, "That is more confusing than what you said before. Why can't you simply answer my question?"

"Because I'm a wizard not a soothsayer. Sometimes I get a glimpse of what might happen in the future. I have no answers because I've had no such vision and even if I had there is no knowing what will happen for a certainty because the future can always be changed until it's the past. What I do know for a certainty is that you still harbor within you a desire for Tarius that has never been shared and will never be fulfilled. Tarius doesn't still hate you, but she does still hate what you did, and she thinks you a weak leader driven only by what things look like not what they truly are. She doesn't respect you. Jena's wound is as fresh as it was on the day that you cut it into Tarius's flesh. And Kasiria—their battles have become hers and she has chosen a path different than any you could have foreseen for her and one you will likely never fully understand."

"With every word you say you confound me more,"Persius said.

Hellibolt frowned. "That's because you hear, but do not listen."

"Arrr! Come on let's just go. And speak to me no more unless you can tell me something that might help me." Persius stormed out of the throne room mumbling and Hellibolt followed. "Nothing you have said helps me to know how I should conduct myself at this summit. I need to be advised as to what to expect at this meeting and . . . "

"That is precisely what I told you," Hellibolt interrupted, and yet that wasn't at all what Persius had heard.

* * *

They had gotten off the boat and it was only as he watched the crew unloading their horses that he finally started to miss Lex and he felt guilty.

He felt Kasiria's hand take his. "What's wrong?" she asked.
He looked down at her. "I was just remembering poor Lex. I loved that horse, Kasiria. He was a good horse, a good friend, and I hadn't even really thought about him being dead 'til right now. It's like everything I thought was important isn't, everything has changed since the last time we landed and I stepped foot on this soil for the first time. It's only been months but it seems like it was years ago that I came here with Jestia, Ufalla and Tarius seeking adventure, to fight our parent's enemies, because we didn't have our own enemies when we came here. I stood very near where I am right now and I watched them unload the horses so worried that something would happen to Lex because at the time I thought he was as important to me as any of my friends. Master Richard met us here. He went out of his way to make us feel like we belonged. He was a good man, now he's as dead as Lex. Lex got off the boat just fine, but he never got back on because I had to kill him to put him out of his misery, and since that time I haven't had time to even think about him or Richard . . . any of them. Everything has changed for all of us, and for you most of all. When we left Pearson Garrison none of us had ever been in love and now we are all bound to someone. None of us had ever been in battle and now all of us bear scars. You almost died. I used to spend hours with my friends just talking, playing, practicing. We, Tarius and Ufalla and I, we spent nearly every waking moment together from our births and now . . . Well when we were in the Kartik I'd go several days without seeing either of them and yet now we're so much closer than we ever where when we were always in each others' pockets. Everything that seemed so important to us now seems so frivolous. I loved my horse and now he's dead and the only thing that's really changed is that I no longer want to learn to unload horses from the boats."

"I'm sorry, Jabone," Kasiria said.

"Just a horse." He smiled at her, remembering a story his father Dustan had told him, a story he'd never really understood 'til now. "How can I morn for Lex? I almost lost you, Kasiria. When I think about that . . . I loved him but he was just a horse. I'll become attached to my new horse and that gap will be easily filled, but this new horse will never be as important to me as Lex was because I've changed. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think I do. I think what I miss most is my ignorance. People will talk about losing their innocence but that's not really right because if we were truly innocent we wouldn't have had any desire to go do battle and kill people. Tiny children are innocent and none of us were tiny children, but we were all ignorant, and now we aren't. I hate knowing what it's like to be nearly stomped to death by my own horse, what it's like to slice through a man, what it feels like to be shot with a arrow, to know the smell of blood and bowel and brain. Most of all I hate knowing how it feels to watch the life drain from a friend and have to leave them there for the Amalites to feed on or be just as dead.

"You are right. Everything has changed; we've all changed. When we were still on the boat and I could first see land I thought I'd feel a sense of home coming but I didn't. Then when we docked I thought, surely now I'll feel like I'm home. Then when we stepped off the gang plank I was sure I would feel something, but even now with the dirt of the shores around my feet . . . Well, I'd like to think that it's because we're in the territories—still not really in the Jethrik—but I don't think if I was in the castle sitting at my father's feet I would feel any sense of homecoming. I don't belong here, Jabone, I'm not sure I ever did. Looking back now I can't remember a single time in my life in the Jethrik that I felt like I belonged. I'm the Katabull but it's not just that. Like Jena my soul always yearned for everything I wasn't supposed to have. Hellibolt says it's because I'm the child born to my father when he was under Tarius's curse."

Jabone bent down to kiss her gently on the lips. "You are no one's curse."

"We'll see if that's what my father thinks when he sees me like this," she said, indicating her armor.

Jabone nodded silently. He was worried about this meeting. He hadn't told anyone because he didn't dare to speak it aloud, but he was afraid that everything Kasiria thought she wanted now might change when she saw her father. What if she wanted to stay in her country with her people after all? It was easy to forget about home when you were separated from your people and in a strange land. What would she really be feeling when she saw Persius?

Persius, how would she feel if she knew that many of their people spit when they spoke his name just like they did when they spoke of the Amalites?

What was he going to do if she wanted to go back to her country, go back to being a princess? What if, forced to choose between her father and him, she chose her father? His mind raced, thinking things he'd tried to get it not to think. What if when all is done and said, she's the great love of my life and I'm just a fling—someone of her race thrown together with her and it's not real love, not for her.

Kasiria sighed, thinking she knew what he was thinking. "I know you hate my father, Jabone."

"I hate what he did to my mothers," he said simply. He started to say nothing and then realized he really was more like Jena than he wished sometimes because he found himself speaking from his heart. "I will hate him if you decide you'd rather go home with him than be with me. If you decide you need to be with your people."

Kasiria laughed and her grip on his hand tightened. "Jabone, did you not hear what I just said? I'm with my people now, and I could never in a million years leave you. Before we left the Kartik I knew that we'd be going back. I made my peace with that. Maybe that's why the Jethrik doesn't feel like home anymore, because now the Kartik is my home." She moved to wrap her arms around his waist and he embraced her and relaxed. Even a few weeks ago she wouldn't have been able to show him this much affection in public, so maybe she had embraced their ways.

Jabone kissed her gently on the lips and she kissed him back and any fear he'd had that she didn't really love him was gone as well.

* * *

When Persius and his entourage pulled into Port Sagal it was obvious that Tarius the Black had already been there several days. They had made camp just outside the town, a vast sea of colorful Kartik tents. Soldiers and Katabulls, in their beast form were milling around.

They were met by a Kartik soldier who stopped them and asked who they were, though Persius was sure he knew. After showing credentials they were led into the camp.

A young Katabull ran up to him and of course he did not bow. "The Great Leader asks that you be taken immediately to the war room."

The "war room" turned out to be a huge tent in the middle of the camp. As the flaps were held open he stopped, his face had gone flush his heart was pounding. He took a deep breath. Inside, just inside, was Tarius the Black, whom he hadn't seen in over twenty years and yet it seemed like only yesterday.

"Sire, are you all right?" his aide asked at his shoulder.

"I'm fine just . . . Nothing." He walked in the tent and there she stood bent over a table on which a map was drawn. Her black hair was braided in two small braids on either side of her head as the rest was just allowed to fly around her head. It was the same armor—or at least the very same make—that she'd been wearing when he'd last seen her, and to him it seemed like time had stood still for her. When she looked up at him and smiled he actually felt like his heart stopped for a moment.

"Persius, we weren't expecting you so soon," she said, and her voice was the same as well, strongly purposeful with a hint of mirth in it.

"I . . . I didn't want you to think that I didn't understand the enormity of this problem." Then he saw Jena not an arm's breadth from Tarius. She hadn't changed much, either. In fact, the burning hate she looked at him with was exactly the same as it had been when last he'd seen her. Harris was still with her as well, and he also gave Persius a look of total disdain. Jena and Harris were also wearing armor—the same armor Tarius wore with the skulls on the knee cops and palderons.

The way they looked at him made him feel stripped, but Tarius looked at him again and smiled and he was put at ease.

"We've still got much time. The Amalites," she spit on the dirt of the tent floor, even as all the Kartiks did, "in the hive will still be busy preparing their spoils."

"This hive, what exactly is it? I have seen them in my mind swarming and when you sent word . . . What is this hive?" Hellibolt asked as he walked into the tent.

Tarius ran up to Hellibolt, embraced him, and kissed him on both cheeks. "My dear friend," she called him, and held him for quite awhile before she released him stood back laughed and said, "You might have the decency to age like the rest of us."

"So says the Katabull goddess for whom time has almost stood still."

"Flattery!" Tarius laughed. "I think I'm touched."

"How good it is to see you again." Jena walked forward and hugged him as well, and suddenly Persius knew what Hellibolt had meant. Jena hates me as much today as she did all those years ago, and Tarius, she really has forgiven me but not what I did. Jena won't so much as look at me and while Tarius will smile at me, she will not embrace me, she won't kiss me on the cheek or announce to anyone in hearing that I'm her dear friend. That's what Hellibolt meant. He wasn't talking just of my desires as a man, he was talking about my very real desire that somehow she and everyone else would have magically forgotten what I did to her. That she would embrace me as an old friend.

Jena finally released Hellibolt, who shook Harris's hand. Then he turned to Tarius and asked again, "What is the hive?"

Tarius walked back to the map which was a very rough drawing on the back of a cow hide. "We believe they are in a system of caves in this area. This is how they have lived so long undetected."

Hellibolt nodded as if this explained everything.

"You are road weary and I imagine hungry. Go get a bath and I'll have a meal prepared. We can discuss this all after we've eaten. Yurri, please show Persius and his people where the baths are and then when they have finished bring them around to the mess tent."

"Yes Great Leader." He didn't bow to her, and yet he showed her more respect with his words than Persius ever felt from his subjects. As Yurri walked past Persius and his entourage it was obvious that he expected them to follow without being told.

Persius reached out and touched the man's shoulder. "One moment."

Persius turned to look at Tarius who was already leaned over the map again. "Tarius, where is my daughter?"

Tarius looked up at Jena. "Honey, where are the children?"

"I don't know. In camp, maybe in town, maybe back on the ship," Jena said, and he got the impression she wouldn't say if she did know.

"Is she well?" Persius asked carefully.

Tarius looked at him and nodded. "Oh aye, well enough to run around with the rest of the youngsters getting into mischief no doubt."

"Tarius . . . Jena, thank you for taking care of Kasiria."

"Persius among the Marching Night we have a saying, if one falls then all may fall. Had Kasiria not been with them we probably would have lost our children. She's a brave girl, strong, you should be very proud."

And of course Tarius the Black would think that he should be proud of his warrior daughter. He nodded and said, "Thank you, all the same."

Tarius just nodded and went back to whatever she was doing with the charcoal in her hand on that cow hide.

* * *

"You didn't tell him," Jena said, and Tarius didn't need to ask what she was talking about she knew.

"It's not my place to tell him. Kasiria should tell him when and what she wants."

"What if he orders her back to the castle?"

"She is our son's mate, he wouldn't dare. Even if he did . . . I get the feeling she's never really listened to him and with the whole of the Marching Night behind her he wouldn't dare to anger me. Not now, not concerning my children," Tarius said. She turned back to the rough map she was drawing from what she'd seen herself, what information she'd been able to pull from the children, and the image Jestia had produced. She smiled then and said looking at Harris, "I guess we'll have to stop thinking of and calling them children some time soon."

"I don't plan to," Harris said with a smile. Then he laughed. "You know I had thought I had forgotten my Jethrikian ways. But I've actually worked very hard at not knowing about my children's—and especially Ufalla's—couplings, because well," he looked at Jena then, "in the Jethrik no girl is ever allowed to act on her sexual feelings without a marriage."

Jena nodded.

"They do have the most ridiculous rules," Tarius said, once again looking at her map drawing on it some more but still listening to Harris.

"I sort of knew that Ufalla was like you Tarius, more like you than like Jena," Harris said. She knew what he meant and took no offense. "But . . . Well did you know that she and the queen's daughter . . . "

"Yes," Tarius said with a laugh. "I assumed you knew. How could you not, Harris? They are always on each other."

"They've always been very close, and well like I said, I didn't really want to know that she was . . . well doing anything actually." He turned bright red then and said, "and surely not doing those things in places where her father might walk in and see her doing it."

Tarius could no longer concentrate on her map making. She started laughing riotously as she saw the look on her friend's face.

He smiled red faced and shrugged. "At least they look like they belong together every time I see my son with his woman . . . " He laughed. "Well, let's just say I hope I never walk in on them because the picture I've got of their coupling in my head . . . " He made a face, and Tarius laughed still harder. Jena laughed, too, now having seemingly forgotten that she was pissed off just because Persius was on the same planet as they were.

"You had to say it." Jena laughed at Harris. "Now I'm going to have nightmares."

"Like a goat mounting a horse," Tarius laughed. Then she stopped and looked at the map and muttered. "A goat mounting a horse."

Jena and Harris both knew her so well that they quit laughing and asked at the same moment. "What is it?"

"A goat mounting a horse." She pointed to a spot on her map where she had drawn a hill according to what the "children" had described and she remembered. "It's this hill here." She indicated a large mound with a smaller one connected to it. "This one that looks sort of like a goat mounting a horse. This is where the cave is. This is the hive. I'm sure of it." Suddenly the spot on the map had an ominous feel to it and she knew that she was right.

* * *

The Kartiks had confiscated one of the town's bathhouses for their use. When Persius stepped out of the building clean and freshly dressed Kasiria was standing there though it took a moment for him to recognize her because she was dressed exactly like one of Tarius's people, in the clothing and the armor of the Marching Night. She embraced him and he hugged her back, not really aware of his tears 'til they parted. He wiped his eyes and nose quickly on a handkerchief his aide handed him. Then looked at her she smiled at him. His daughter, his favorite yet so changed, not a girl any more but a woman.

"Kasiria," his voice caught and he cleared his throat before he continued. "Are you well?"

She said something in Kartik then grabbed her throat and looked perturbed. He could see her eyes also swimming with tears but she didn't shed them.

Hellibolt laughed. "She says she is fine."

Kasiria said something else in Kartik and Hellibolt laughed more and said, "The witch Jestia put a spell on her so that she could speak Kartik and apparently she can't speak Jethrikian now."

Persius just looked at her. There was a small scar on her chin, one that would probably go away in time and a haunted look deep in her eyes that probably wouldn't. Battle did that to you, made the whole world look different. My child, and yet she seems like a stranger to me, she looks foreign, she sounds foreign.

The fellow who had brought him to the bathhouse ran up and announced, "Dinner is ready, please follow me." Persius was a bit surprised because he wasn't curt as he had been earlier. Persius wondered what had changed his manner and then he knew. His feelings towards me haven't changed. He still has only contempt for me. It's Kasiria whom he respects. To her he shows courtesy, not for me, but why?

"Never tell the Katabull to do anything. Always ask them," Hellibolt whispered in his ear. Persius started to growl an angry retort at him and stopped. No, everything he says has meaning, is a warning, I just have to wait 'til it makes sense.

Kasiria said something else he couldn't understand and Hellibolt said, "She says she has much to tell you and she will as soon as Jestia restores her Jethrik."

"I'm sure you do." Persius smiled and took her hands in his and held them. He tried to catch her eyes but she was staring past him at something behind him. He released her hands and turned to see what she was looking at and there he was. The man glared at Persius with black hate but even if he hadn't he would have known who he was. Persius nodded his head in the direction of the man and said more than asked Kasiria, "That is Tarius's son."

"Jabone," Kasiria answered with a huge smile, nodding.

"He looks so much like her," Persius said.

Jabone walked up to them then and looked down at Persius. He was huge, this son of Tarius's. He said something to Kasiria in Kartik and she said something back.

Jabone nodded then looked at Persius and said in rather good Jethrikian, "My madra has forgiven you because your actions saved her and her pack, but I still hold you in contempt for what you did to my family. However, for my madra and Kasiria's sake I will be cordial." His words didn't match the expression on his face. In fact, Persius was sure that what he really meant was that the only reason he wasn't going to kill Persius was because his "madra" wouldn't allow it and it might upset Kasiria.

"If I lived for a hundred years and daily did some good service towards your family I would not expect to be forgiven by you or your people," Persius said, picking his words carefully.

Then the boy was past him very quickly. So much so that he cringed thinking he'd said the wrong thing and was about to be killed. Then as he turned he saw that the boy was hugging Hellibolt and whispering things to him in Kartik. Hellibolt gave the boy an exuberant hug and said something back to him in Kartik and Persius wished for the thousandth time that he'd paid more attention to his language lessons.

The boy finally released Hellibolt and then he grabbed Kasiria's hand. Without another word he started to drag her away towards the mess tent. Persius thought this was odd but then Kasiria turned looked at Persius, a helpless smile on her face, and shrugged as she followed Jabone, and Persius remembered that Kartiks tended to be a physically demonstrative people.

"What did the boy say to you?" Persius demanded of Hellibolt as they started following the Kartik fellow to the mess tent again.

"He thanked me for his madra's life," Hellibolt said.

"You . . . But Hellibolt you never saved her life."

Hellibolt shrugged and said, "Who told you that your hour of redemption was at hand?" Persius knew there was more to it than that but didn't have a chance to pursue it because they had arrived at the mess tent then.

Several big tables surrounded by chairs that he guessed correctly had been taken from a Port Segal inn were scattered around in no particular order. Tarius sat at one of these, Jena on her right, her son on her left. Kasiria sat next to Jabone where she was arguing in a whisper with a girl who looked like a younger, better-looking version of Queen Hestia so he didn't have to ask who she was. Tarius indicated two chairs across the table from her and he and Hellibolt sat down. Kasiria looked up at him and smiled, perhaps knowing he needed the support being basically surrounded by people who hated him.

"The rest of you may sit wherever you like," Tarius said to his men with a wave of her hand. He nodded his head at them to indicate that they should do as they were told. Then Tarius turned her attention to the argument down the table. "Jestia, can you not just give her back her Jethrik?"

The girl sighed heavily as if deeply grieved and said to him in his language, "Did none of you people learn any language but your own? She annoys us when she yells at us and mangles our tongue." To Tarius she said, "I can't just give her Jethrik back. I had to turn her Jethrik into Kartik, so I'll have to now turn her Kartik into Jethrik. You can't make something from nothing you know."

"Then change it for now and change it back later," Tarius said.

"There will be no need to change it back later," Persius said with a laugh. "She is here now among her people." His daughter shook her head violently and his stomach rolled and not from hunger.

"Jestia," Tarius stood up, leaned her weight on her hands and looked over at the girl. "Just give her Jethrik back now."

"Oh very well, Tarius but I have to tell you from experience that with royal parents she's much better off if he can't understand a word she says. They never listen anyway," she said. Then she swept her hand in the air and muttered something incoherent.

"I don't understand why she can understand Jethrik if she can't speak it," Jena said conversationally.

"Because she had gotten to the point where she could understand a certain amount of Kartik but still couldn't speak it," Jestia explained.

The food was brought and Persius noticed they were getting the same beans and bread that everyone else was.

Tarius had sat back down and was just eating. They were all just eating with their horrid Kartik manners and when he looked at his daughter she was eating with only slightly better manners than they were. Were they not in the middle of a conversation? He was sure the witch had already cast a spell so why wasn't Kasiria talking? Because she's chosen a path I never would have foreseen and I'll never understand. She wants to be one of them. That's what Hellibolt meant. Kasiria wants to be part of the Marching Night.

He glared across the table at Tarius. "Tarius, Kasiria is my daughter, my flesh, my blood. She was nearly killed. Kasiria will be going back to the palace where she belongs and play war no more."

Jabone growled at him and started to get up, but Tarius stayed him with a hand on his arm saying something to him in Kartik.

"No I won't," Kasiria said, but she looked not at him but at her plate.

"Persius," Tarius said in a calm tone. "Kasiria will do what Kasiria wishes to do, and while I breathe no one will order her to do otherwise."

"What treachery is this? Do you bring me here to tell me that you mean to steal my child?"

Jabone jumped from his chair, growled again and then spat words at Persius in Kartik that made the hair stand up on the back of Persius's neck even though he had no idea what he was saying. Again Tarius's hand was on Jabone's arm. She whispered calming words to him and he sat down but he didn't stop glaring at Persius and he didn't stop growling.

"I came here to deal with the Amalite horde. To once again put myself and all I hold dear on the line to fight in your land. A person can not steal what belongs to no one," Tarius said.

Persius looked at Kasiria. He couldn't fight with Tarius and win, not with words and certainly not with weapons. "Kasiria, what is this? You have a duty to our country."

"I'm fighting for our country, and what other duties would you have me perform? A princess in a country that sees women as nothing more important than dirt. There is nothing for me here."

"You will go home. I've had enough of your sword-slinging dream."

Jestia sighed and said, "See? I told you. she was better off not being able to talk to him. It's ruining what was going to be a barely eatable meal as it was."

Persius glared at her and was surprised when Tarius actually laughed. She looked at him and said in a voice barely above a whisper. "A word to the wise. Angering Jabone is enough of a folly, but don't piss off the little witch. She has much power, is fiercely loyal to her friends, and has a very bad and very short temper." Then Tarius just went on eating as if nothing were happening.

Persius took a deep breath, calmed himself, and then tried a different approach. "Kasiria, I just want you to be safe. I just want . . . "

"What about what she wants!" Jena screamed across the table at him. "She's a woman not a toad. You've got a hell of a nerve Persius to demand anyone do anything when you are seated at our table."

Tarius actually grinned at the confounded woman as if she'd just done something incredibly cute, and she said nothing. Because she's already told me where she stands. So she's done, and as far as she's concerned any more talk is just a waste of time.

"Tread gently, Persius," Hellibolt whispered in his ear. When Persius looked around him every eye was on him and all but Tarius had stopped eating.

"Why Kasiria?" Persius asked. Kasiria was hopelessly quiet as if trying to find an answer he might understand.

"Because," it was Jestia again, "you're not her people. She's with her people now idiot."

"Jestia," Tarius said harshly, and then spit something in Kartik at the younger woman. Who just shrugged as if to say she didn't care about incurring the wrath of the Great Leader but she fell silent.

"What is going on?" Persius asked Tarius.

"It's not for me to tell you," she said.

Kasiria took a deep breath and looked at him. "Father, I . . . Jabone and I, he is my husband."

Persius shook his head as if trying to make what he'd just heard stick somewhere.

"I love him, he loves me, and my place is with him, with his pack. My pack."

Persius looked from Kasiria to Jabone and back again. So many things were going through his brain. What did it mean, what did any of it mean? Tarius's son, his daughter, husband and wife. It just couldn't be.

"Tarius, what did you say about this? Did you condone, encourage, it?"

"There are things more powerful at work here than you or I. They had bound themselves together before we even found them and fallen in love without knowing their connection to each other. So how dare you or I or anyone else say anything regarding their coupling? They were raised on different continents an ocean apart and yet they found each other. That can't just be coincidence. Their souls wanted each other."

He looked at Kasiria. She was looking at him, obviously expecting more orders and thunder from him and readying herself for it. If he tried to get her to bend to his will she would fight him and she'd win. He looked at Jabone. He was still growling and his very expression dared Persius to cross him. And he remembered everything that Hellibolt had told him and now it all made perfect sense. He looked from Jabone to Kasiria and back again. They are one person broken in two and only whole when they are together, like Tarius and Jena. I have never known that in my lifetime because the only person I ever loved like that I could never have. Even if I could make Kasiria bend to my will I couldn't do it. I couldn't bear to see her broken. Hellibolt told me those things for a reason. I have to let her go.

"This is what you truly want, Kasiria?"

"Yes. It's all I want, to be with Jabone, to be part of the pack of the Marching Night."

Persius nodded then looked at Tarius, "And you will take her into battle with you and then take her back to the Kartik with you when you go?"

Tarius nodded.

Persius looked at Jabone. "This would be easier if you didn't hate me."

"Some things shouldn't be easy," Jabone said with a hiss, and Persius was reminded of how his mother had cursed him on the day he'd shot her through.

"He doesn't hate you," Kasiria assured Persius.

Persius nodded and thought. No he doesn't hate me. he hates what I did which is mostly the same thing, but if I were him I would hate me too so I can't fault him for that. The same loyalty he shows to his mother he will show to my daughter, the same respect . . . They all show her respect. That's why she has no qualms about leaving her own country, because among the Kartiks she is respected. Among the Katabull . . . He is their Great Leader's son, he is a prince among his people and . . . He spun quickly to look at Hellibolt who just grinned an all-knowing grin, and you said Kasiria was destined to rule. You know far more about the future than you ever disclose.

"I think you'll be happy, Kasiria, and when all things are considered, what could be more important than that? I will miss you." Persius smiled and he didn't have to work at it. Hellibolt's wrong about one thing. I will have what I desire. These two will have children and when they do my blood and Tarius's will be mingled, our legacies will be forever sealed together, we will finally be one.

* * *

After the meal Tarius suggested that Kasiria talk to her father in private while their food settled and before they discussed the Amalite hive in detail.

Jabone wasn't happy, but Kasiria hadn't expected him to be. "It will be fine," she told him and kissed him on the cheek.

"I do not trust him," Jabone said. "He will try to poison you against me."

"But you trust me right?" Jabone nodded. "I don't think he's going to try to talk me into anything but even if he does I'm still going home with you."

He nodded and smiled a roguish smile and said, "Even if I have to tie you up," he assured her.

She laughed and walked in the direction of Persius's camp. She was more than a little surprised to find him just standing in the middle of the chaos staring off into the distance apparently at the tree tops. She walked up to his back.

"Father, I'm sorry but . . . "

He didn't turn to face her. "There is no need to apologize Kasiria, I understand. If I could have had what I most wanted in this world I would have gladly given up my title and lived in a hovel."

"Did you love her then, father?" Kasiria asked softly.

"Who?"

"Tarius the Black."

"Where did you get that idea?"

"Hellibolt told me a long time ago."

"That old fool," Persius muttered. Then he looked at her smiled and shrugged. "Did I love her? I still love her. I loved her when I tried to kill her. Don't make me explain it, Kasiria, because I can't, not and have it make sense to anyone."

"He said the only other woman you came close to loving as much was my mother."

"It's true. I was at my very lowest in the midst of Tarius's curse and your mother . . . She was the only one who could make me forget my troubles for even a little while."

Kasiria took a deep breath and thought about not telling him at all. "My mother was the Katabull."

He stared at her in confusion. "What?"

"My mother, she was the Katabull."

"That's impossible," her father said, shaking his head.

"Are you Katabull?"

"Of course not."

"Then she had to be, because . . . " She took another deep breath. "She had to be because I am. Father, that's what Jestia meant when she said I am among my people now."

"I don't understand," he said, shaking his head again. "You aren't Katabull, Kasiria. You are living among them now, I assume your husband is one, but you aren't. You can't be."

"But I am," Kasiria said. She had no intention of telling him of her mother's and grandparents' plot to put a Katabull on the throne. What good could that do anyone now? "I didn't know. The first time I was in real danger I just changed and Hellibolt told me. I can't just change—call on the night—not like the others, but I am the Katabull. I wasn't going to tell you. I thought, well what's the purpose of you knowing? Then I thought maybe it would make you understand why I belong with them, with Jabone. You don't need to worry about me because I'm one of them."

"I doubt I will ever worry less about you since you choose a way of life which will constantly put you right in the middle of danger. My mind races, Kasiria," he said. She couldn't be sure what he was thinking. "You were the Katabull that was injured then?"

"Yes. An arrow."

"That is why Hellibolt asked the sex of the Katabull. How he knew you were injured." He looked at her then as if trying to peel away the layers and see the beast within. He laughed then and shook his head. "Oh Kasiria, no wonder you were always my favorite child." He hugged her then and she hugged him back. He seemed to notice her sword for the first time then. He jumped back and took both her hands, checking them over.

"It's my sword but not my finger," Kasiria assured him, smiling, "It was Jabone's sword . . . Well not my Jabone. It was Tarius's father's sword."

"She gave you Jabone the Breaker's sword?" Persius asked, curious

"She said the sword wanted me," Kasiria said with a shrug.

Her father shuddered then and said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I shot Tarius in the belly with an arrow and she nearly died. Then you were shot in the belly with an arrow and you would have died had it not been for her."

"I was actually shot in the lung and if it wasn't for all of them I'd be dead. Jestia especially, and don't think she doesn't rub that in every chance she gets." Kasiria laughed and then she was just telling him all about everything that had happened since she had left the academy. About Derek giving her the Kartik unit. All about Jabone, and the Kartik, and Ufalla and Jestia, and Eric and young Tarius.

"Now Tarius, he's the one you should be hearing all this from. He can weave a tale better than the greatest of the palace bards, though he's still not as good as Tarius the Black."

"You glow," her father said.

"What?" Kasiria asked.

"When you tell me of him and of your friends and your adventures together you glow," he smiled.

"They are my friends. I never really had that before. It feels good, the way I know them, the way they know me."

Her father nodded. "Even when you tell of the bad parts there is a passion to your voice, Kasiria. I haven't felt that in a very long time. Hang on to that passion, Kasiria, cherish it, saver it, and never forget what it's like. It will serve you well when the years grow long and the nights cold."

She just nodded her head.

Jabone ran up to them then. "Madra is ready to talk of the battle now."

Kasiria nodded thinking that Jabone was happy to have any excuse to come and get her before her father could spirit her away. She took his hand and allowed herself to be dragged along after him.

"So," her father asked following her. "Do the Katabull ever walk at an ordinary pace?"

"Not much," Kasiria answered with a smile.

"Now I think about it, your mother never did. Always in such a hurry to get where she was going. I feel like such an idiot. I know why she didn't tell me—because of what I did to Tarius. She was afraid I'd reject her."
Kasiria thanked the gods for her father's ego. She imaged it had served him well, sparing him from the many truths he'd rather not know. If Tarius had been a great lover of men she never would have found him a suitable match. How much comfort he must take from his idea that she was only lost to him because of her peculiar affection for her own gender. Kasiria looked at him, he seemed smaller to her now, as if her own personal growth had cost him size. I still love him because he is my father, but he is the man in those stories. Short sighted, egotistical, he almost killed Tarius only because he couldn't have her. That's not in the stories but I know it because now I see him as he really is. Not some god on a pedestal just a manand not even a particularly good one.

This was yet another thing Kasiria wished she didn't know.

 

Back | Next
Framed