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ADORING CITIZENS LINED the road as far as Tao could see. The faces and voices extended in all directions, filling and overflowing the main square. A band of minstrels cavorted alongside him, singing ballads in his honor. Tao waved, soaking in the moment: the spontaneous celebrations, the music, the flowers and confetti flying, all under a sky empty of burning arrows and smoke.
A world finally without war.
A flower sailed up to him, thrown from a group of pretty women. He caught it and stuck the stem in his armor, causing them to shriek with glee. One tried to climb up to Tao’s lap to kiss him. He laughed, making sure she landed safely back on the road. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed, as if his mere touch were magic.
“It is safe to say you have reached god status, my friend,” Markam said, grinning. Tao followed the sweep of his friend’s hand across the throngs lining the road for the celebration of his victorious return. “Why, today even Uhrth himself would stand and offer you his chair.”
Tao snorted. “Blasphemy!”
“The truth! Look at them. They worship you.”
“They’re celebrating our victory.”
“Your victory, Tao. You’re the most successful military commander of all time, a hero of mythical proportions.”
“Mythical,” Tao spat. “Ask my ass if it feels mythical after weeks spent in a saddle.”
“They love you, Tao, and not their king. Just say the word, and the Tassagonian throne is yours.”
The throne? Tao looked at Markam askance. The conversation had pitched off course as abruptly and perilously as a wagon with a broken wheel. “Your mouth is moving, but only nonsense is coming out of it.”
“Are you sure of that? You have what Xim doesn’t—the people’s love and the army’s respect. Two keys to lasting power.”
“Legitimacy being the other key—the missing key.” The implication that he’d use the momentum of victory to launch a coup was disquieting. Tao couldn’t overlook the fact that Markam was Xim’s chief adviser for palace security. To remain in such a position took Xim’s trust—a slippery fish of a thing, Tao imagined—but it wasn’t inconceivable that Xim had put Markam up to seeing what Tao’s intentions were. “I can’t tell if this is a joke, a test or a warning.”
“Perhaps,” Markam said, “it is a little of each.”
A prickle of unease crawled down Tao’s neck. He might not care much for politics, but he recognized its dangers. Tread carefully. Everything he said could go right back to the king. “No one need gauge my ambition. Once I’ve had my fill of feasts and parties, I’m stepping out of the public eye for good.”
Tao conjured a favorite, infinitely pleasant dream of tending the ancient vines on his family’s estate in the hills, and the simple satisfaction of adding his own vintage to the rows of dusty bottles in the wine cellar, a task he couldn’t wait to steal from the hands of estate caretakers. He would grow old with his family around him. It was the kind of life his military father and grandfather had dreamed of but never lived long enough to realize. A life no one seemed to believe he desired. “I’ll retire as soon as the king grants me permission.”
“General Uhr-Tao—retiree? At twenty-eight?” Markam threw back his head and laughed.
“My officers had the same reaction. I’ll remind you as I did them that a soldier’s life ends in only two ways. Retirement is a far better fate than the alternative.”
“Don’t be so sure. Retirement requires a wife. If that’s not life-ending, I don’t know what is.”
Just like that, they fell back into their usual banter in the way of men who’d been friends since practically infancy, as if four years hadn’t passed since they’d last spoken.
As if he didn’t just offer me the throne on a platter, Tao thought, squinting in the glare of the suns. “Life-ending? Only if one doesn’t go about the process of selection properly. I simply won’t settle for a female incompatible with my desires.”
“The process of selection?” Markam lifted a skeptical brow. “Courtship you mean.”
“That is how some describe it, yes.”
Markam’s teeth shone in the sun. “Since when did you become an expert on the subject, General?”
“Courtship requires a sensible plan and the discipline to stick to it. I’ll acquire a wife the same way I’ve conducted my military campaigns—with logic, careful consideration and without emotion getting in the way.”
Markam laughed. “Good luck.”
A flash of long, bright coppery hair caught Tao’s eye. A pretty young woman navigated her way through the crowds, a blue skirt flapping around her ankle boots, a bag slung over one shoulder. Kurel, he thought in the next instant, watching her devote more attention, and certainly no less distaste, to the steaming mounds of horse manure in her path than she did to him and his army.
Well, that’s one female I can comfortably remove from any list of potential mates, he thought with an inner laugh.
As he rode past the simple Kurel gates, more of her kind emerged from the ghetto, their faces just as cold, wary, even downright hostile. K-Town was a city within a city, stretching out to the distant southern wall, a teeming warren of people and buildings that had for generations served as a haven for immigrants from the Barrier Peaks.
A people as frosty as their cuisine was hot, it was said. The biting spice of their cooking hovered in the air, a tantalizing whiff of foods he’d never tasted and likely never would, just as he and that woman would never speak. He’d visited nearly every corner of the known world, but he’d never once set foot inside K-Town. No Tassagon in his right mind would, lest they fall under a spell.
Shouts dragged his attention back to the streets. A pair of home guards on patrol blocked the redheaded woman’s path. One was swaggering a bit as if to flirt with her while the other guard pulled open her bag for inspection, spilling a book as he rifled through the contents. She crouched to retrieve it, brushing off the cover as if the thing were more precious than gold.
More Kurel formed a bottleneck behind her. Their agitation made the air crackle with sudden tension, a needless escalation of the situation. Tao put his fingers to his mouth and blew out a quick, sharp whistle. The home guards jerked their focus to him, and he shook his head, motioning at them to move on. They had better things to do than pick on Kurel women, especially today, his homecoming.
The redhead’s slender arms hugged the bag closely and protectively. Her cheekbones turned pink enough to cover freckles that were a scant shade darker than her skin. Tao gave her a jaunty wave in advance of her gratitude at his aid. But the look she gave him contradicted all delicacy in her appearance. Those contemptuous blue eyes could have ignited stone.
“Are you all right?” he called.
She blanched at his attention and wheeled away without a word. Chiron clip-clopped along the same path, but the redhead kept walking, her attention fixed straight ahead as if he were a stray, possibly vicious dog she mustn’t provoke.
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