Chapter 3 #2
“We go where we wish,” Chieftess Shi said after exchanging looks with Tenilor.
She focused on Dolok instead of looking at Syla.
“We have come here because we received an invitation suggesting your kingdom is willing to give away some of your islands in exchange for the cessation of attacks from our people and our dragon allies.”
Dolok’s eyebrows flew up, and he swung a glare onto Syla. Well, at least someone was acknowledging her.
“I am Princess Syla Moonmark, and I am the one who sent a letter to you.” She raised her chin and did her best to look self-confident and regal, though that had always come much more easily to her mother and sisters.
She preferred a quiet room in the temple, healing people and avoiding public attention.
Surprisingly, as she willed her back straight and her fortitude to show itself, a tingle of power came from the quarter-moon birthmark on the back of her hand and ran through her nerves to her entire body.
“I am certain I did not in my letters offer up any of our islands, but I invited you to come and state what you seek to obtain from your attacks in case there is a possibility that we might be willing to barter and reach an agreement without further deaths. On either side.”
“There have been no deaths on our side,” one of the riders muttered with a scoff.
Jhiton looked at him, and the man snapped his mouth shut.
Vorik clasped his hands behind his back, watching Syla and his leaders while, she had no doubt, maintaining awareness of every potential enemy—and probably even chairs and vases—in the throne room.
“We’ve recovered from our initial surprise and are even now preparing a potent military offensive that you might find detrimental to your people.
” Syla lifted a finger to scratch her jaw while showing off the moon-mark.
Was it glowing faintly silver? Usually, it only did that when she was healing someone and needed to draw upon a great deal of her power.
The chief’s and chieftess’s eyebrows arched in skepticism.
“Very detrimental,” General Dolok said, though Syla hadn’t spoken to him of military matters beyond securing the tunnels below the castle and had no idea if he had plans to do more than defend the islands.
“Will these potent offensive attacks involve your people leaving the protection of the shields the gods made for you?” Chief Tenilor asked.
“We’ve gathered much intelligence on where your people’s cave camps are and when in the year you live in each,” Mosworth said.
“Impressive,” Shi said, “considering that your people never leave your islands except to scurry quickly across the sea between them, with your tails between your legs, fearing a dragon will flick a smoking nostril in your direction.”
Syla lowered her hand. They’d probably noticed the glow but been underwhelmed by it and her power.
They would know she was merely a healer, and they didn’t seem to respect her people in the least. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to earn that respect by standing there tossing insults back and forth.
Too bad none of them had arrived with venomous basilisk fangs stuck in their hands that she could have removed.
“We have all that we need here,” Syla said before Dolok, who had steam wafting from his ears, could speak again.
“More than we need. I understand food is scarce on the mainlands and other islands, places not protected from predators by the shields and where the climates were not magically modulated by the gods before they left.”
“There is enough out there to sustain people strong enough to obtain it and protect it,” Shi said.
From what Vorik had said, that wasn’t as true as it had once been.
“Then why are you stealing our crops from Harvest Island as we speak?” Syla asked.
“We are stealing nothing,” Chief Tenilor said. “The dragons are hunting there because they enjoy the prey that lives there.”
“You’re taking fruit, grains, and vegetables from the cultivated fields, orchards, and bog lands that our people work hard on throughout the year to ensure we have plentiful harvests.”
“Work hard.” Tenilor scoffed. “You gardeners haven’t the faintest idea what it is like to work while you forever watch the sky for predators who’ll kill you in seconds if you let your guard down.
When those predators strike, you must drop what you’re doing and grab your weapons to defend yourself against foes with all the power the mad god could infuse into them because it amused him to do so. ”
“Our people work very hard, I assure you.” Syla groped for something else to bring up, something that might intrigue them and get past their desire to throw insults, but the chiefs’ choice to do so made her believe they hadn’t come because they wanted to negotiate.
What did they want? She looked at Vorik, but he was keeping his face neutral now and didn’t signal her in any way.
As Fel had suggested, she would have to get him away from his people before he might reveal something.
“As I said, we often have a food surplus. In the past, the Kingdom has decreed that trade with stormers is forbidden and illegal for our people, so it’s existed only when skirting the law.
Since the world is changing, we must be willing to change.
We would be open to trading some of our food to you in exchange for the goods you make, the pelts you procure, and the valuable medicinal plants you forage from around the world and that are useful to our people. ”
“We’re not giving them food,” Dolok snapped without bothering to add Your Highness or any sign that he respected Syla. “Like godder zealots leaving out offerings on their knees in the hope that the deities will return one day.”
Syla gritted her teeth, more annoyed with him than with the stormers. Why couldn’t he make a show of being on her side, at least in front of them? Even if he didn’t support her, they needed to put up a united front.
“We have food that we could spare.” Syla smiled and reached out to pat Dolok on the shoulder, letting her hand linger and hoping that if she treated him like an ally—perhaps one she was disagreeing with at the moment—the stormers wouldn’t believe them divided.
“Were we to receive something in return, such as the cessation of hostilities you mentioned, we might also be talked into sharing some of our recipes or sending a few pies and cobblers along with the more practical staples.”
When she glanced at Vorik, she caught a wistful expression on his face.
“What’s a cobbler?" one of the younger Storm Guard troops whispered.
“A dessert,” Vorik murmured over his shoulder to the man. “Sugary and sweet with juices that run down your chin.”
General Jhiton looked at him with a quelling glare, the same as he’d given the other rider. Vorik grinned back at him, licked his lips, and rolled his eyes skyward. The glare hardened. Vorik sighed slightly and returned a neutral expression to his face, though he slipped in a wink toward Syla.
Warmth spread through her, and for some reason, it pleased her that Vorik’s cold general couldn’t quash his personality.
“Cobbler?” Dolok whispered harshly. Incredulously? “This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a farce. Princess.” He reached up to push her wrist away. “You lack experience. Let me handle this.”
Not wanting to be shoved away, Syla tightened her grip on his shoulder to keep it in place and looked him in the eye, willing her power to influence him.
Even if her magic hadn’t bound him in any way, wasn’t it possible he felt some shred of loyalty or gratefulness to her for healing him?
He’d had so many broken bones, it had looked like he’d fallen off a cliff.
“General, please be open to this discussion.” A zing of power flowed from her hand, down her arm, and into him.
His eyes widened with surprise. It surprised her as well.
She hadn’t hurt him—she was sure of that—but merely shared magical energy.
And maybe a touch of a warning? “It is our current relationship with the stormers that has prompted them to attack. Something must change. We must be open to bartering.”
“Bartering an island, not a dessert,” Chieftess Shi said.
“Multiple islands,” Chief Tenilor added.
Seething, General Dolok lifted a hand, as if he would shove Syla away, but he must have thought better of that.
Instead, he stepped back, which prompted her hand to fall.
She let it, wondering if she’d imagined the zing she’d believed she’d shared with him.
Though she could feel her magic tingling within her, she’d never learned to do more than heal with it.
No, that wasn’t true. In the past weeks, she’d managed to use it to hold on to a dragon, and she’d wrapped it around a captor’s heart, making him feel pain, enough that he’d released her.
She could do more than heal, but she didn’t want to threaten or harm her own military officers, especially not with stormers watching on.
But maybe she’d affected him in a small way because Dolok frowned and looked at her hand, the moon-mark still glowing a slight silver. A disturbed furrow creased his brow.
“We will not give up any islands,” Mosworth snapped when Dolok didn’t. “If that is what you came here to demand, you might as well leave now.”
Syla expected the stormers to agree and walk out, but the chieftess and chief glanced at each other, then looked at General Jhiton.
“Chief, Chieftess,” Jhiton said, his voice similar to Vorik’s baritone but cooler and clipped, “we might gain ground if I could speak with General Dolok and the other military leaders and properly convey the wisdom of working with us instead of against us. And Chieftess Shi might have a similar discussion with their female leader.” Jhiton tilted his head toward Syla without looking at her.
“Because we will naturally bond by discussing female matters?” Shi asked dryly. “Should I inquire about cycle lengths for gardeners and their methods of managing their menses?”
Syla’s jaw drooped in surprise, but she did think she would get further by speaking to one of their leaders in private.
So many of their responses, vitriol included, seemed for show.
Maybe the chiefs felt they had to remain strong in front of their troops.
Syla would, however, prefer to speak with Vorik. And not about menses management.
“If that would facilitate the acquisition of several islands for our people,” Jhiton said, deadpan, “it might be a worthwhile topic.”
“I have no interest in discussing that or other topics with a gardener female,” Shi said. “Send your brother to apply his tongue to her.”
If Syla had been shocked by the woman’s comments before, she almost fell over at that one. Belatedly, she realized Shi had to mean the tongue application would refer to words, not anything… physical.
“Hasn’t he a reputation for charming women?” Shi added.
“He does,” Jhiton said.
Vorik’s eyebrows had drifted up. Had he not been told they would send him off with Syla? She certainly hadn’t expected it. She’d longed for it, but she hadn’t known how she might make it happen without rousing suspicion, both among her people and his.
“General Jhiton. The colonel and I will speak with you.” Dolok extended a hand toward a table along one side of the room while flicking his other hand in dismissal toward Syla and then Vorik. “Woo her if you wish, Captain, but she doesn’t have the authority to give away islands. Or cobblers.”
“There will be no wooing. There may be cobblers.” Syla looked defiantly at Dolok, but he’d already turned his back on her, waving for Mosworth and Jhiton to follow him.
Vorik smiled slightly, but he masked his face again when Jhiton looked at him before strolling after Dolok. Was there some significance in that look they exchanged?
As Syla watched them, she couldn’t tell for certain, but her instincts told her this had been premeditated. For some reason, the stormers wanted Vorik to speak with Syla.
That worried her but not so much that she didn’t wave for him to follow her toward a private window in the back of the throne room. She would have preferred to take him to another room, but that would make tongues wag. They could speak quietly at the window.
Fel walked at her side, a reminder that she might not be able to arrange an entirely private meeting.
Her cousin watched as Syla and Vorik passed, and took out his pencil again. To write down notes that would be turned into a newspaper column the next day?
Before settling at the table with the other officers, General Dolok glowered darkly at Syla and Vorik.
His eyes suspicious, he looked like he wanted to put an end to their conversation before it started.
Then his gaze shifted toward the portraits of the royal family high on the wall opposite the windows, lingering on the one of Syla’s older sister, Venia.
With a flash of insight that rocked her, Syla realized why Dolok hadn’t wanted her here or involved with anything important.
He had to have figured out that Venia had been the one responsible for the original Castle Island shielder being destroyed and the protective barrier dropping.
As Syla had herself learned, her sister had been romantically involved with a stormer spy, one who’d used her to get to the shielder chamber and destroy the precious artifact inside.
Venia had paid for that mistake with her life, but as Dolok watched Syla with Vorik, he had to worry that she would also allow herself to be seduced and beguiled, to inadvertently betray her people.
No, Syla would not do that, but she now understood the general’s concern. She would do her best to ensure he and the other officers who knew of Venia’s betrayal wouldn’t have a reason to think Syla was a liability, but she feared that she had a lot to prove if she wanted them to trust her.