Their first outing had been a strained affair. Damin was still angry with her and she was in no mood to put up with such an unpredictable brute. Three hours in the saddle had done much to ease the tension. Horses were a safe subject and Damin appeared genuinely impressed by her ability. They had finished the day not quite friends, but at least on speaking terms.
Since then Damin had taken her out every day, and for the most part he was tolerable company. He usually allowed her to accompany him as he did a round of the vast camp, taking care of the myriad problems that cropped up in the course of the day with remarkable patience. Twice Tarja had accompanied them for part of their ride. He treated Adrina with respect but kept glancing at Damin as if something amused him greatly. It was proving onerous to be civil to Damin Wolfblade on a continuing basis. Tarja was a much more likely prospect.
Mindful of her need to learn as much as possible about him, she decided to question Damin. Her tactful and entirely innocent question regarding Tarja’s marital status had Damin roaring with laughter.
“Don’t waste your time even thinking about it!”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she declared loftily.
“Oh yes you do! I know exactly what you’re thinking. He’s young and good looking, in a position of authority, and you think he’ll be no match for your
“I thought no such thing!”
“Trust me, Adrina, nothing you could offer Tarja Tenragan could compare with what he’s already got.”
“You think I couldn’t steal him away from some rustic Medalonian peasant girl?” Adrina was insulted at the mere thought.
“I think you couldn’t steal him away from the Harshini demon child, your Highness.”
Adrina stared at him. “
“In the flesh. And rather nice looking flesh it is too.”
“I don’t believe you! The Harshini are gone. The demon child is just a legend!”
“The demon child is very real, Adrina. Her name is R’shiel te Ortyn, and she left the camp the same day you arrived. She’ll be back in a few weeks. You should find it an enlightening experience, meeting someone who is not in awe of you.”
Adrina was tempted to comment that he didn’t seem to be particularly in awe of her, either. But she held her tongue and wondered why, if the Harshini really had returned, the demon child would be fighting on the side of atheist Medalon.
Her plans for Tarja having met an unexpected hitch, Adrina turned her attention, somewhat reluctantly, to Damin Wolfblade. The more she saw of him, the more she realised she had misjudged him badly, a fact she found worrying.
He was not a younger version of his uncle. Nor was he a spoilt, figurehead Warlord. He was intelligent, surprisingly well educated, far too astute for her liking, and obviously enjoyed the respect of his men and the Defenders in equal measure. Not a man to underestimate. She needed to learn as much as she could about the Hythrun prince. She needed to discover what he liked, what he loathed, whom he admired and whom he despised, and, more importantly, why he was angry with her.
That she had done something to enrage him was obvious. The day he came to her room to announce she was to be given the freedom of the camp, he had come close to killing her. Her snide remarks had not been enough to provoke such a reaction. She had seen enough of him since that day to know that he was generally even- tempered, at least around everybody else. But nothing she had done since her capture warranted the anger she felt simmering in him, even when he was making an effort to be civil. It puzzled her. Until she discovered its source, she had no hope of escaping this place.
They rode far south of the camp, toward a distant line of trees. She wondered what would happen if she turned her horse and tried to make a break for it, then glanced at Damin. He would run her down in a heartbeat and the fragile trust she had fostered among her captors would be destroyed. She sighed and let her mare follow Damin’s stallion.
They slowed to a walk as they entered the small copse of thin poplars. There were stumps littered about, the crude result of the Defenders’ need for shelter for their horses. The thick carpet of fallen leaves muffled their horses’ hooves and the sound of running water was the only thing that disturbed the silence. Adrina rode up beside Damin, assuming an air of nonchalance. It was time to start working out what made this man who he was, and she was never going to do that arguing with him.
“It must be hard for you, being Lernen’s Heir.”
He shrugged. “It can be a little trying.”
“You’re not much like him.”
He turned and looked at her. “Gods! Was that a compliment?”
She smiled. “Actually, I think it was. I must be slipping.”
Damin laughed. The first genuine laugh she had heard from him since their embarrassing conversation about Tarja. “Don’t worry Adrina, we’re alone. I won’t tell if you don’t.”
His laugh was infectious. She began to understand what others saw in him. He was very hard to dislike in this mood. It made him doubly dangerous.
“Do you miss your family? So far from home?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted, which surprised her a little. “Medalon can be... trying at times, too.”
“I miss my family.” Perhaps empathy would work where sarcasm had failed.
“From what I hear, there’s quite a lot of them to miss.”
“My father is prolific, if nothing else. Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“In abundance. Although not quite as many as you can claim. You met my half-sister in Greenharbour, I believe.”
“Did I?”
“She’s the High Arrion.”
“Kalan is your sister?” She wondered why that nosy little toad, Lecter Turon, had never mentioned that the leader of the powerful Hythrun Sorcerers’ Collective was the High Prince’s niece. “I didn’t know.”
“She’s a couple of years younger than me. My father was killed in a border raid when I was only a year old, and my mother remarried with something close to indecent haste. Even more indecent when you count the months from the wedding date until Kalan’s and Narvell’s arrival,” he added with a grin.
“Narvell?”
“Kalan and Narvell are twins.”
“You mean your mother had a lover while she was married to your father?” The idea did not shock her – many noblewomen took lovers – but she was a little surprised that Damin seemed so complacent.
“She probably had several. It was an arranged marriage – Lernen’s idea – and there was little affection between them.”
“My father made an offer for the Princess Marla once.”
“I know. I think that’s why he married her to my father, just to annoy Hablet.”
“My father still hasn’t forgiven Lernen for that,” Adrina remarked.
“And you wonder why I don’t trust you?”
She was sorry she ever brought the subject up. Now was not the time to remind Damin of the conflict between their monarchs. She ignored the remark and smiled brightly. “You were telling me about your sister.”
Damin looked at her oddly for a moment then continued his tale. “Kalan’s father was the Warlord of Elasapine’s son. He and mother returned to Elasapine after they married, leaving Kalan, Narvell and me in Krakandar. He died a couple of years later. But Marla kept finding husbands – and losing them. Every few years she would breeze in, introduce us to our latest stepbrother or stepsister, then vanish again for years at a time. I think Almodavar raised us more than Marla did.”
“That’s dreadful!”
“On the contrary, I had a wonderful childhood. We had a whole palace to play in, no parents to interfere and a staff that we chose ourselves for the most part.”
“
“It was more a process of elimination,” he laughed. “If we didn’t like somebody we had ways of getting rid of them. Half a dozen children can be very inventive when the need arises.”
With a twinge of envy, Adrina recalled her own closely guarded childhood in the nursery of Hablet’s court in
