She took the goblet from him with shaking hands and searched for the right words that wouldn’t excoriate Secmis too badly. “I’ll take two,” she replied and offered a feeble smile at his chuckle. “Do you want a dram of wine?” Brishen held a goblet in one hand and a pitcher in the other. Just like the rest, she’d have to sleep with one eye open, in fear of Secmis. He opened the door, revealing a spacious chamber, lavishly furnished with a large bed, wardrobe, chests and a table and chairs set near a hearth in which a low-burning fire flickered.īrishen led her to one of the chairs. He’d held her close, his praise of her bravery the only thing that kept her upright as he led her up a flight of stairs and down two corridors to a door decorated with fanciful strap hinges. Ildiko had collapsed in Brishen’s arm, lightheaded at her recklessness.
Only after they’d escaped the throne room had her courage, fueled by anger, deserted her. The horrified gasps from the Kai nobles and Brishen’s hand on his sword as she challenged Secmis’s contempt alerted Ildiko that she already antagonized his malevolent mother to a dangerous point without insults to enflame the confrontation. In her rebuttal of the queen’s comments, Ildiko had been tempted to ask if Secmis might find it more comfortable if she were coiled around her throne instead of perched upon it. Her silver hair was coiffed and decorated with jewels that winked dully in the low light. She sat on the throne, slender and garbed in a heavily embroidered gown that cascaded over the chair and pooled at her feet. The queen had stared at her with eyes that gleamed red at the rims and a mouth that curled into a sneer. That indignation bubbled into a seething anger when Secmis addressed her in the Common tongue. His insults had done a fine job of eroding her fear and replacing it with indignation.
Her fluency in the Kai speech was adequate enough that she understood a portion of his remarks regarding the ugliness of human women. Brishen’s body against her back had been the only thing that kept her from bolting out of the throne room when the king flashed his black-fanged smile at her. King Djedor was a man stitched of nightmares, a lich not yet completely rotted to bones. Anhuset’s armored breastplate would offer Ildiko no protection on that battleground.įamiliarity with court etiquette and strategy offered some comfort as she knelt at the lowest step before her new husband’s parents. She’d known the moment the doors to the throne room opened and she and Brishen crossed the threshold, they’d pass through a gauntlet of curious hounds eager for the scent of new blood. If she disregarded their physical appearances, Ildiko determined that the Kai courtiers were much like the Gauri ones-ambitious, gossip-mongering, and highly skilled at surviving the savage intrigues of court life.
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