The Skull Throne

“You are carrying a child,” Amanvah said. “I want to know if it is my father’s.”

And just like that, the peace was gone. So, too, was Leesha’s weariness and frustration. Adrenaline flooded her, every sense on alert. If Amanvah dared make the slightest threat to her child …

“I don’t know what you’re talking …”

Amanvah held up her hora pouch. “Do not lie, mistress. The dice have already confirmed it.”

“But not whose it is?” Leesha asked. “Curious things, these dice. Fickle, it seems. Unreliable.”

“That you are with child, there is no doubt,” Amanvah said. “To know more, I would require blood.”

She looked at Leesha pointedly. “Just a drop or two, and I could tell the father, the sex, even the very future of the child.”

“Even if I was, what business of yours is any of that?” Leesha asked.

Amanvah gave a rare bow. “If child is my half sibling, blood of the Deliverer, it is my duty to protect it. Few know better than I how many assassins a child of Shar’Dama Ka will draw.”

It was a tempting offer. The sex of the child might mean a difference of years in the coming war with Krasia, and Leesha desperately wished to know the path to keep the child safe.

But she did not hesitate to shake her head. Giving Amanvah even a drop of blood would let her cast a foretelling that could lay out Leesha’s every weakness. No dama’ting would ever have the nerve to so bluntly ask another hora user for her blood. It was an insult that could create enmity to last generations.

Leesha turned her voice to a lash. “You forget yourself, daughter of Ahmann. That, or you think me a fool. Begone from my sight. Now, before I lose patience with you completely.”

Amanvah blinked, but Leesha’s stare was hard, her words sincere. Leesha was in her place of power. Everyone in the Hollow would turn on Amanvah if she so much as raised a finger. Most of them were waiting eagerly for the day.

The young priestess kept her dignity as she rose. Her quick strides to the door were not quite a scurry.

As the latch clicked shut, Leesha put her head back in her hands.

Amanvah had a queer look about her as she climbed into the motley coach. Rojer had become accustomed to her moods, reading them in her eyes and bearing as easily as he did with the corelings.

But no empathy could tell him what Amanvah was thinking now. Her manner was unprecedented, showing nothing of her usual haughtiness. She seemed almost shaken.

Rojer reached for her hand. “Are you all right, my love?”

Amanvah returned the squeeze. “All is well, husband. I am simply frustrated.”

Rojer nodded, though he knew how frustration looked on Amanvah, and this wasn’t it.

“Mum still won’t see reason?” Kendall asked.

“Surely Mistress Leesha has convinced her,” Sikvah said.

“Wouldn’t count on that,” Rojer said. “She may not openly oppose it, but Leesha ent thrilled about the idea, either.”

“It remains to be seen,” Amanvah said. “Mistress Leesha appears willing to mediate the contract, but I am not convinced she is impartial. She may drive the dower beyond our ability to pay.”

“Don’t care about any dower,” Kendall said. “Let me talk to her …”

Amanvah shook her head. “Absolutely not. It is not proper for you to involve yourself in these proceedings, little sister.”

“Ay, so everyone gets a say in my marriage but me?” Kendall said.

Rojer had to laugh at that. “Had more say than me. Wasn’t even asked if I wanted it.” When Kendall stared at him, he quickly added, “Though of course I do. Sooner, the better.”

“This is exactly why both of you must be kept above the debate,” Amanvah said. “You will both see the contract before you are asked to sign, but hearing your flaws laid bare as the haggling continues can only do harm. As it is written in the Evejah, The cold of negotiating a marriage can douse the fires in which it must burn.”

Kendall sighed. “Just tired of having to sleep at my mum’s. Don’t care about some piece of paper.”

Rojer walked in the naked night, his warded cloak thrown back despite the chill air. He breathed deep, filling his lungs with winter’s bite. He had suffocated in that cloak for too long.

Rojer and Kendall played an easy melody on their fiddles, subtly nudging corelings in the area away, while Amanvah and Sikvah sang a harmony to make them invisible to demon senses.

There were five of them in all. Kendall and Sikvah at the rear, joined in their music like lovers. He and Amanvah were similarly linked. He could feel her voice resonating inside him, more intimate than the touch of their sexes. All four played the same piece, but Amanvah’s voice was led by Rojer’s fiddle, while Sikvah followed Kendall’s. This allowed them to break in two as needed, the blend of strings and voice enhancing each other’s power. Ahead strode Coliv, vigilant, shield and spear at the ready.

They carried no light—the world lit by magic. Rojer and Kendall wore motley warded masks Amanvah and Sikvah had made, allowing them to see its glow. The princesses wore delicate gold nets in their hair, dangling warded coins that offered the same power. Amanvah had sewn the sight wards into Coliv’s turban and veil that he might accompany them.

They walked until they found their favorite practice spot, a wide knoll that let them see far in every direction. Coliv was atop it in an instant, surveying the land. He gave sign all was clear, and the others followed.

When they were in position, Rojer lifted bow from string, his fiddle and Amanvah’s voice falling silent as one.

Kendall nodded, changing the easy melody that kept the demons at bay to a call that reached far into the night, drawing corelings to them with promise of easy prey. Sikvah kept singing, her voice still masking their presence.

Wind demons were the first to reach them, two of the creatures circling down from above. Kendall drew them close, and then her music suddenly shifted. Sikvah smoothly dropped her masking spell, joining her voice to Kendall’s music, and the demons shifted in midflight, colliding with one another and falling from the sky in a jumble of snapping beaks and slashing talons. They struck the ground so heavily Rojer almost could hear their hollow bones shattering.

He and Amanvah applauded, and Kendall and Sikvah bowed as he had taught them.

“Field demons to the west,” Coliv called. The reap was small, only five of the beasts, but five field demons could rend them to pieces in seconds.

Both women were calm as they turned to regard the approaching threat. Already Sikvah had resumed her song of unsight, masking the five humans atop the hill from the demons’ senses as surely as a warded cloak.

As the reap came in, pulled by Kendall’s insistent call, she knit her brow and layered another melody over the first, wracking them with pain. Sikvah layered a harmony to match, keeping them hidden even as she added power to Kendall’s attack.

Rojer’s hand clenched on the neck of his fiddle as the demons closed, remembering the night she had been cored because of his failing.

But Kendall had been out in the naked night without him many times since, and it was time to stop coddling her.

“Too easy,” he called, as Kendall set the corelings fighting. “Any two-klat Jongleur with one of my music sheets can make demons fight each other.” It wasn’t entirely true, but Kendall was still being timid in her harmony with Sikvah. She needed to push herself.