limbs.
“It’s nothing to worry about, my Lady,” Cratyn assured Pacifica, not wishing to make an issue of it. “Your Highness, this is my cousin, Drendyn, Earl of Tiler’s Pass. Drendyn, this is Her Serene Highness, Princess Adrina of Fardohnya.”
The young Earl bowed inelegantly, smiling like a child confronted with a new and exotic toy. Adrina took an instant liking to him. He was the first Karien she had met who did not feel the need to mope about as if they were perpetually in mourning.
“Welcome to Karien!” he gushed. “I do hope you’ll be happy here. After the wedding, you should come to Tiler’s Pass. We have the best wines in Karien and the hunting is just marvellous. You do hunt, don’t you?”
“Every chance I can get. I shall look forward to your hospitality, my Lord.”
“This way, your Highness,” Pacifica interrupted stiffly, with a frown at the Earl. She did not seem to like the idea of Adrina getting too friendly with him.
“If you will excuse me, my Lord, Prince Cretin.” She curtsied gracefully and followed her ladies-in-waiting into the hall.
As the door closed behind them she stopped and called the women to her. They all turned to face her expectantly. Pacifica was tall and plain, with protruding pale eyes and pockmarked skin. Hope was a pleasant looking girl with rich brown hair and a vacant expression. Grace was a plump brunette with a button nose and a receding chin. Chastity was pale and fair and by far the beauty of the group. “Ladies, I’d like to make sure we understand each other.”
“Your Highness?” Pacifica asked, still a little put out, she thought, by Drendyn’s enthusiastic welcome.
“As my ladies-in-waiting, your actions reflect on me. If I ever see
Pacifica turned a brilliant shade of red. Chastity burst into tears. Grace and Hope simply stood there, dumbstruck. Adrina marched on ahead, not waiting for them to catch up. That way, they couldn’t see her laughing.
Chapter 12
The Harshini were the strangest creatures R’shiel had ever encountered. All she had been taught to believe about them, since her earliest childhood, was proving to be wrong. They were not evil or wicked or even particularly threatening. They were a gentle, happy people who seemed to want nothing more than the same happiness for all living things.
For R’shiel, raised in an atmosphere of political intrigue and ambition, she found it hard to believe that the Harshini could be so innocent. She questioned them constantly, looking for the crack in their serene complacency, but found none. In fact, she suspected there were even some of the Harshini who deliberately avoided her, for fear of being asked questions they simply didn’t understand. They had no ambition beyond that which the gods had created them for. They were the guardians of the gods’ power. That was all they needed to know.
The demons were a different matter, however, and R’shiel found herself enjoying their company much more than the placid Harshini. Lord Dranymire was a bit of a bore, but she supposed that came from being older than time itself. The other demons, the younger ones, were much more interesting.
Korandellan had tried to explain the bond between the Harshini and the demons in some depth, but R’shiel understood so little about the gods that she had trouble grasping the concept. She could feel the bond, though, like an invisible cord that tied her to the demons. She only needed to think of them, and they were there, eager to show her Sanctuary, or have her tell them something of the outside world. Their hunger for new things was insatiable, particularly in the younger demons, although “young” was a relative term among the demonkind. “Young”, when compared to Lord Dranymire, the prime demon in the brethren bonded to the te Ortyn family, might be anything less than a thousand years.
“We are all one,” Korandellan explained patiently. “The gods, the Harshini and the demons. We are all made of the same stuff.”
“Then why aren’t the Harshini gods?” she asked.
“We are a part of the gods.”
“And the demons?”
“They are also a part of the gods.”
“So gods created the Harshini and the demons, right?”
“That is correct.”
“Why?”
“Because they feared that without some way of limiting their power, they would destroy each other.”
“So the gods gave you their power? That’s a pretty dumb thing to do. What happens if they want to use it?”
Korandellan sighed. “They did not give us their power, R’shiel, they share it. The power you feel is the same source of power that the gods draw on.”
“Then that makes you gods, too, doesn’t it?”
“Think of it as a rope made up of many strands,” the King said, trying to put his explanation into words she could grasp. “Each of the Primal gods has divinity over a different aspect of life. Each god draws on their own strand. Depending on what is happening in the world, the strands grow thicker and stronger, or weaker and thinner.”
R’shiel thought on that for a moment. “You mean if everyone started stealing, then Dacendaran’s strand would grow and the others would diminish, because he’s the God of Thieves?”
Korandellan nodded happily. “Yes! Now you are beginning to understand!”
“Don’t count on it,” she warned.
“The Harshini use the gods’ power, R’shiel; they use it constantly.”
“So they drain off the excess?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“But how can that work? You can’t abide violence, so you would only draw on the power of some of the gods, wouldn’t you?”
“That is what the demons are for,” he replied. “To maintain the balance.”
She nodded as it finally began to make sense. The demons were childlike and innocent and took thousands of years to reach maturity. They embodied all the violence, mischief and destructive capabilities of the power the Harshini could not draw on, but their childlike innocence and their blood bond to the gentle Harshini prevented them from causing harm.
“And only the te Ortyn family can draw on all the power at once, can’t they? That’s what makes me so dangerous?”
The King smiled, as he usually did when she asked such blunt questions. Then again, he would probably smile if someone chopped his leg off. No wonder Brak spent so much time out in the human world. Eternal happiness could be rather wearing at times.
“Your human blood allows you to circumvent our instincts against violence, yes,” he agreed.
“Is that why they call me the demon child? Because I’m human, with the same ability for causing violence as a demon?”
This time the King laughed out loud. “I never really thought of it like that, R’shiel. The name ‘demon child’ is a human one, but now that you mention it, yes, I suppose that’s exactly what you are.”
It made sense now. She wasn’t sure she actually believed it, but it did make sense.
“So tell me about Xaphista? How did he get to be a god?”
For the first time since she met him, Korandellan’s smile faded. “Xaphista learnt too much, too quickly, I fear. The family he was bonded to were travellers. They roamed the world seeking knowledge, and in time too
