The Last Warrior Read online

  “You will be my conduit of communication with the palace. Between Markam and I. Also Aza. Bring back everything you hear. Everything you see.”

  She only lifted a brow at his thinly disguised orders.

  “No different from what I’ve been doing for the past three years. I give information to Markam, and he does the same for me.” She paused to contemplate him as he emptied his cup, holding it out for her to pour another.

  “How long have you worked with him?” he asked.

  “Since the day I accepted the position as royal tutor.” The candle on the table sputtered. She straightened the wick with deft fingers, her expression growing sober. “Something he set in motion before I ever knew of him—because he knew of me. After my parents were slaughtered, I tried keeping their clinic open in defiance of the violence, just as I’d vowed at their funeral. So they’d know they didn’t die in vain.” The candle flame danced in her darkened eyes. For the first time he could see the full measure of her grief. Like him, she kept the pain of loss hidden. It could be misconstrued, after all, as a weakness.

  “But for all their brilliance in medicine,” she said, “they overlooked their financial matters. They’d spent all their coins on the clinic, leaving me with nothing. If not for donations from the neighbors, I wouldn’t have been able to eat, let alone run a clinic. How could I restock medicine if I couldn’t afford enough tubers to fill a pot? I had no aptitude for medicine, no real skills to speak of—aside from a love of books, a knack for organization and an unfettered imagination.” She cracked a self-deprecatory smile. “If one can consider that a skill and not a liability. I let it be known I needed employment, but the only offers that came my way were of marriage.”

  “And you couldn’t decide amongst the many men?”

  “Actually,” she replied, a hint of pink tinting her cheeks, “when I thought of the depth of love I saw in my parents’ relationship, I decided none of the men who came forward had even a trace of that potential. Accepting any of their offers was out of the question.”

  “Not even to improve your circumstances?”

  “Especially not for that reason. I knew I’d achieve my goal another way.”

  “But you would have married, if you’d found your so-called true love?”

  “Yes. I would have.”

  Sighing, he shook his head. “Love will get you only so far.”

  “Don’t you ever plan to marry?”

  “Of course. But I’ll expect whomever I choose to be able to ease my retirement, to work at the vineyards with me, providing womanly comforts, bearing my children. That will take a deliberate effort more than it will love.”

  She almost choked on the tea she’d just sipped. “You want to grow old with a woman who sees being with you as a deliberate effort?”

  “I hope she’ll enjoy my company, but yes. Much like a successful battle strategy, marriage requires endurance.”

  “But not love.”

  “Correct.”

  She wore the same expression of revulsion as when he’d told her about the Gorr. As if his beliefs on such things as love and marriage were equally horrifying, and distressing. “Is that how it was between your parents, Tao?”

  “My father was gone at the front more than he was at home. My mother raised us. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company when he was there, they treated each other with respect, but the point of the matter is that she was the right mate for him. My father chose her because she’d be strong and loyal. And independent. A warrior’s woman, not a weak-willed female afraid to face life alone. When it comes time, I’ll find an equally compatible female using the same logical, carefully considered methods with which I’ve conducted my military campaigns. Emotion will play no part in it, this flighty idea of ‘true love.’”

  Her luminous blue gaze radiated at turns abject pity, intense curiosity and flat-out doubt. She started gathering their cups to put away.

  “What?” he said. She’d gone silent, but not for the lack of an opinion. It was suddenly important he know what it was.

  She spun to face him. “I hope, for your sake, you find a woman who’ll love you so powerfully, so completely, that she’ll render every ridiculous belief you just expressed completely and irrevocably wrong.”

  He fell back against the pillows. Gooseflesh tingled on his arms, as if a window to his soul had been thrown open to let in a fresh and bracing breeze—which threatened to blow all his carefully arranged viewpoints off the table.

  He slammed that window shut. He’d spent the past fifteen years plotting out the remainder of his life, should he ever get to have a remainder of his life. No one’s whimsies would disrupt his carefully made plans, especially not a Kurel’s—although her skeptical reaction did bring to mind Markam’s comment from the homecoming: good luck. But then, his friend had always given too much weight to Aza’s fantasies of true love.

  Elsabeth carried the empty cups to the kitchen. Gruffly, he said, “You were telling me how you came to work with Markam. Finish the story.” He blamed the healer’s potions for allowing the tutor to sway him so far off course. The wizardry was as dangerous to his judgment as a Gorr’s eyes, fooling him into letting down his guard.

  She appeared entertained by his discomposure as she pumped water into a basin. “As the clinic was failing, the palace announced there was an opening for a royal tutor. Just like that, out of the blue, when nothing else was going right. It was the perfect job at the perfect time, and I was the perfect applicant. Coincidence?” She shook her head. “That opening was meant for me alone. Markam masterminded my hiring to get me in the palace. He convinced Aza of the need for a tutor even though the children were too young for one. Xim, of course, wouldn’t have seen the need for a tutor at any age. But I was the poor orphan of the first two casualties of the crackdown. The two people who were probably the best friends you Tassagons had in this ghetto.” She pressed her lips together, her expression darker. “Markam never said so, but he must have known my bitterness would make me eager to work against Xim. He was right.”

  She started scrubbing dishes as if she could just as easily wash away the anguish and anger of her past.

  “So, I came to work at the palace, and did just as Markam hoped—I became attached to the queen and the little ones. I grew to love my job. I grew to love them, Tao. Teaching the prince and princess while working for their sire’s overthrow, it tears me in two. But Markam must have banked on this, too, when he hired me. He’d wagered that the loyalty I’d develop for the queen and the children would keep me from endangering them unnecessarily. Markam wants their fates considered separately from Xim’s. He wants to see them safe. And so far he has.”

  “You don’t resent the manipulation?”

  “I don’t fault him for any of it. He may have lured me here for his own purposes, but he gave me the means to fulfill my vow to my parents.”

  “To oust Xim,” he said with a snarl, shifting position to ease the pull of his stitches. “You have no idea what you risk by doing this.”

  “I know what we risk in doing nothing,” she said with quiet certainty. From where she stood, a rebel positioned incongruously in a kitchen, she met his hard stare with determination, but he could also see the exhaustion in her face, the residual fear. “Xim wishes to force all human tribes under his rule. In our scriptures, the Log of Uhrth, it’s warned that if we humans turn on each other, darkness will consume us and we will be lost to Uhrth forever.”

  “No one needs scripture to tell us the mistake in fighting each other,” Tao snapped. “Our weakness emboldens the Gorr. Division amongst us will lure them out of hiding. And back to war we’ll be.”

  “You can stop a future war, Tao. You can stop Xim.”

  He recognized the look in her face and folded his arms over his chest. “No, Elsabeth. No more campaigning for me to be king. The throne isn’t mine to take. I’m not in the line of succession. My nephew is the legitimate heir. By the arks, what am I saying? Xim is still the le
gitimate king!” He paused. Keep your head. “If not the ideal king,” he qualified.

  “He is more than a less-than-ideal king, Tao. He’s treacherous, demonstrating it with his cruel deeds. You could rule until Crown-Prince Maxim comes of age. Use King Martin as your model. He was the one who invited the Kurel to immigrate here, to the capital.”

  “But he forced you to live apart.”

  “That was our choice,” Elsabeth said. “Just as we chose to leave the Old Colony.”

  She was rewriting history as he sat there, listening to her rubbish. He’d long believed the Kurel were lost in their own little world; this proved it. “The Kurel were exiled to the Barrier Peaks for crimes of sorcery.”

  “We left on our own.” Wiping her hands, she walked closer, standing above him, her skin fragranced with the sweet, fresh scent he’d come to associate with her. He could detect it even with the heavy spice of the cooking in the air, much the way her appearance had stood out on that crowded street the day of his homecoming. “General Arakelian wasn’t yet king of Tassagonia when he first called science a crime, blaming us for the bad end to the war. We may have made the glove, yes, but ours wasn’t the fist that was in it when it threw the punch.”

  Tao blinked at the play of words. He’d never thought of it that way.

  “Arakelian and his warriors needed someone to blame after they’d destroyed everything they had in their arsenal, everything they threw at the Gorr. The Gorr weren’t any better off, but he couldn’t see it, or he refused to. No different from now, with King Xim blaming us—Kurel Town—for his woes. So the Kurel left, a great exodus to save civilization. We were the teachers and researchers, the scientists, physicians and writers, the drivers and mechanics of the arks. We took the knowledge from our birth-world beyond the stars with us for safekeeping. If not for our daring, the legacy of Uhrth would have been lost. Both our people’s legacies, Tao, and the Riders’, too.”

  He took a moment to absorb the vast amount of information she’d divulged. “How can you possibly know all this?”

  “It is written,” she said.

  Written, he thought. In books he could not decipher.

  “Where are these books and what do they say?” How did he know this so-called Log of Uhrth wasn’t a fable, meant to teach the Kurel the virtues of being passive? Even if it was a description of actual events that happened so long ago, without being able to see it, he could not tell for himself.

  “Only the elders know,” she said mysteriously. “But they exist. I’ve seen the Log,” she trembled, “when I was a little girl. At my Reckoning.”

  “What Reckoning?”

  “It’s when we learn where we came from. All of us. When we’re told the story I’m telling you now.”

  “Story. See? Not real. A fairy tale.”

  She shook her head. “No. I saw it—the Log. I saw what it was. It’s the one copy left of the original in the Barrier Peaks.”

  “A log… A book?”

  “And more.” She turned her back on him to resume her work in the kitchen.

  He exhaled. There would be no more Kurel secrets revealed.

  According to Elsabeth, the Kurel had left the Old Colony on their own accord rather than dig in and defend their beliefs, their science. Why? Because they thought they’d lose? What happened to taking a risk for an uncertain reward? That leap of faith was the spice of life for him. Or did their voluntary exodus demonstrate exactly that—a leap of faith? A grand risk. If preserving Uhrth’s legacy had indeed rested on their shoulders, then they’d managed something extraordinary. They’d given up their personal safety, their home, for the greater good. Altruism was one of the basic values of the Uhr ideology.

  He’d long thought the Kurel incapable of such grand deeds, and had pitied them for it. They were wizards who practiced the dark arts and thus belonged behind the walls of this ghetto. But what if there were more to their pacifism than cowardice or convenient morality? What if as the guardians of knowledge they held the last links to Uhrth in their safekeeping? Whether or not the rest of humanity agreed with it, they’d put that responsibility above all else.

  And thought themselves superior for it. Uhrth’s favored children.

  Perhaps deservedly so.

  He gathered his folded arms close.

  “Are you going to share the reason behind that frown?” Elsabeth asked.

  He managed a smile at her probing, though a small one. “I can’t help think of Tassagonia’s shunning of the technology you claim you saved. A knee-jerk reaction based on a war gone bad? A weak leader looking for a scapegoat? If so, we followed such teachings blindly for all the centuries since, never questioning.” He thought of the plague, all the deaths. Could they have been preventable? “Did my parents die for nothing?”

  Are we Tassagons really as ignorant as the Kurel think?

  “We have to hope they didn’t, any more than mine didn’t die for no reason,” she said quietly. “We have to hope we can conquer the ignorance that led to their deaths.”

  Starting with those who perpetuated it.

  Xim.

  Tao dragged his hands over his hair and exhaled with weariness. “I returned home believing I led the last warriors, that ours was the last march of the last war. I believed, truly, that I’d won peace. But there can be no peace unless a king understands the consequences of war. Xim is too rash. Too selfish. Shortsighted. I was too long out on campaign to realize the extent of his failings as a ruler.”

  She tipped her head down, her expression as soft and kind as he’d ever seen it. He had the oddest thought of cupping that sweet face in his hands to kiss her. “Do you know what Markam told me about you?” she asked, quieter. “He said your personal sense of honor is so great you sometimes neglect to believe the lack of it in others.”

  “An oversight all the same,” he said gruffly. He couldn’t afford any more mistakes like that. “But am I Xim’s replacement? No. No more campaigning for me to be king. There’s another way, and we will find it.”

  We. The word might be misconstrued as evidence he was throwing support to the rebels. But these humans were playing a very dangerous game. Aligning himself with them was premature.

  “Oh, dear.” She threw a worried glance outside at the coming dawn. At least she shared the same concerns of what might happen in the palace as soon as the empty dungeon was discovered. “I have to get ready.”

  She quickly went into the one adjoining room. He listened to the sounds of a woman dressing for the day, familiar from his youth, unfamiliar from his years at war. In minutes, she returned with her hair pinned up, wearing a blue skirt much like the one she’d worn on the day he’d first seen her—one, no, two days ago. By Uhrth, had he spotted her during his homecoming parade only the day before yesterday? She knew more about him now than any other woman, including his sister.

  She spoke quickly, hurrying about as she tidied up, putting the entire room back in order in a dizzyingly short amount of time, finally slowing down enough to pick up her messenger bag. “No one will much be in the mood for learning, and I’m in no mind to teach, but my absence will be more noticeable than my presence.”

  He caught her wrist in his hand. “If the truth of my situation emerges while you’re there, you won’t be allowed to leave. You can be sure two escapes in a row through the spillway won’t happen.”

  She looked away from him. “At least I would be confined with Queen Aza and the children.”

  Tao didn’t like that option, either. He hated that Aza was in danger, but if Elsabeth were there, too, then damn it to hell, she’d also be in danger. The tutor was courageous but she was no trained warrior; she could not protect his sister and the children. She would only share in whatever fate befell them.

  Of course, harboring him in her tiny home put her in danger. She risked banishment, or worse, simply for helping him. The idea rubbed like a pebble in a boot. He, known as humanity’s greatest warrior, was endangering a woman. Not for a minute longer than n
ecessary, he vowed to himself.

  Cuh-choo-coo. Cuh-choo. The sound of pigeons suddenly swelled in volume. Then a commotion of bird wings came from the roof. “Prometheus is here,” Elsabeth announced.

  She hurried away from the front door. Tao tensed and looked for anything in his reach that could be used as a weapon. The crutches could make decent clubs. “Who is Prometheus?”

  “A messenger,” she said. “With news from the palace.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ELSABETH TOOK HOLD OF one of the rungs on the ladder up to the aviary. Her hands shook. A message, just as it was getting light. She’d have to see it before she left, which was no doubt Markam’s intent.

  Something has happened at the palace.

  Tao stumbled out of bed, grabbing a crutch on his way, and hobbled after her, bare-chested, tugging on the waistband of a pair of baggy black pajama pants.

  She gave her silent thanks to Chun for his consideration in not leaving her with an entirely naked man. “Tao. Get back in bed.”

  “I will hear the news.”

  “There won’t be anything to hear. Prometheus is a pigeon. He will have carried a message back. I have to go up and get it.”

  He almost dropped the crutch. Swearing, he tucked it more firmly under his arm, trying to pretend his freshly stitched wounds didn’t hurt as she knew they must. Yet he was eyeing where the ladder ended above his head as if he were actually considering the climb.

  “You’re not coming. Back under the blankets.”

  “It’s better for healing that I stretch my legs. I’ll wait here.” He leaned jauntily on the crutch.

  He might think she didn’t notice the tightening of his abdominal muscles to brace against the discomfort of his wounds, but she did, and frowned at him. “Your legs will swell.”

  “You’ll work your Kurel magic and fix them.”

  “Medicine can’t fix everything. That’s why it’s not really magic, or sorcery, like you Tassagons think.”