Harshini

people stopped working and pushed forward to see him, waving and calling out to Damin, who returned their greetings with a grin, obviously delighted by the warmth of this welcome. Adrina rode behind him, with R'shiel at her side, unaccountably put out by his popularity. The demon child was looking about her with wide-eyed wonder. She could be utterly ruthless when the need arose, but she still showed traces of the young girl underneath when it was least expected.

“Well, the peasants seem fond of him,” Adrina remarked sourly.

R'shiel laughed. “You really are determined to make this as difficult as possible, aren't you?”

“I'm making things difficult? Don't try blaming me, R'shiel. This was your idea, not mine.”

“He adores you, you know.”

Adrina looked at Damin's back and scowled. He was waving to the people, calling out a greeting to a familiar face in the crowd. “Damin loves himself, R'shiel,” she retorted. “And his horse. He would probably be upset if anything happened to Almodavar, but that's about as far as it goes. He likes you because you are the demon child and your friendship will help him claim his throne. His only interest in me is political.”

R'shiel raised her brow with a quizzical expression. “Is that what those noises coming from your tent were? Political negotiations?”

Adrina frowned, trying to think of some cutting rejoinder. Then the silliness of the conversation struck her and she smiled reluctantly. “All right, I admit I've been... negotiating... more than is wise, but there wasn't much else to do for entertainment, was there?”

“I'm sure you could have found something a little less dangerous if you wanted to, Your Highness. Honestly, you're as bad as Damin. I should wave my arm and do something Harshini to make you both see sense.”

“Why don't you?” she said aloud, but she had wondered before why the demon child had not simply called on her power to bend them to her will.

“Just between you and me, I don't know how.”

“But you're the demon child! Doesn't that make you omnipotent?”

“Omnipotent, maybe, but it doesn't mean I know very much about my powers. Brak says I lack finesse.”

“R'shiel, can I give you some advice?”

“If you think it will do any good.”

“When you've turned someone's life upside-down, killed their husband, ordered them to marry an enemy Prince and told them to risk their life by announcing the fact to the entire world, please don't tell them you don't know what you're doing. It's very unsettling.”

R'shiel smiled, but did not answer as they rode under the portcullis of the second ring.

* * *

The ride through the central ring took even longer. The crowd had grown so large that troops had been sent out from the palace to hold the crowd back so that Damin's party could have a clear path. The palace guards surprised Adrina. Unlike the Raiders Damin had with him on the border, these men were uniformed in dark-red leather breastplates embossed with a large hawk.

“Captain?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder at Almodavar. “Why is the palace guard wearing a hawk? I thought Damin's emblem was a wolf?”

“It is, Your Highness. The hawk is the emblem of Elasapine. They are Lord Hawksword's men.”

R'shiel laughed aloud when she heard. “I don't believe it! Zegarnald actually did what I told him!”

“You told the God of War what to do?”

R'shiel nodded, looking inordinately pleased with herself. “I wasn't really sure that he would. I asked him to turn Damin's brother back, in case we didn't make it here before your father tried invading Hythria.”

“His brother? Dear gods, you mean there's more of them?”

“It's his half-brother. Don't worry, Adrina. If Damin dies, I won't make you marry him.”

“I'll hold you to that,” Adrina promised.

As they rode on towards the inner wall, Adrina looked around, surprised at the affluence of the city and the people. Even the beggars in the streets of the outer ring had looked quite healthy under their rags and their professional air of misery. Here in the residential district, mothers held up their babies for Damin's blessing, plump slaves fanned their masters and mistresses as they leaned over their balconies, and more than a few young ladies, noblewomen, peasants and court'esa alike, called out quite preposterous proposals, which Damin acknowledged with a laugh. One woman standing on the balcony of a very elegant, red-brick house, bared her breast and called out a suggestion that made even Adrina blush. Somewhat to her chagrin, Damin actually responded with a promise to take her up on her offer some other time.

“The man has no morals,” she muttered.

“That's a bit rich, coming from you,” R'shiel remarked with a grin.

“You'd never catch me making a public spectacle of myself like that.”

“Of course not. You prefer to negotiate, don't you.”

Adrina was feeling sufficiently put out that she did not deign to answer as they rode through the massive iron-reinforced gates into the inner city.

The noise of the crowd behind them faded as they rode forward, the clatter of the horses' hoofs loud on the cobbled pavement. The road opened out into a vast courtyard, surrounded on three sides by impressive buildings. To the left and right of the square were the government buildings, three storeys high, gracefully symmetrical and uniform. In front of them lay the sweeping steps of the palace itself, lined with troops wearing the silver tabard- and-diamond symbol of the Sorcerers' Collective.

Damin slowed his horse and glanced around, taking in the troops lining the steps and then looking up at the walls, which were lined with as many men wearing the hawk emblem of Elasapine as there were the wolf of Krakandar.

“R'shiel.”

The demon child rode up beside him. “Is something wrong?”

“I don't know. Are you ready to be the demon child? I have a feeling I might need her.”

“No, but don't let that stop you.”

He treated her to a faint smile then turned to Adrina. “How about you? Are you ready to face the High Arrion?”

“The High Arrion!”

“Her guard wouldn't be here without her,” Damin pointed out. “If we're going to do this, we might as well make it look plausible.”

Adrina opened her mouth to make some sarcastic comment, then suddenly thought better of it. Damin considered her intelligent. Perhaps his sister, arguably the most powerful woman in Hythria, would think the same thing. It would be a nice change.

“I'm ready.”

She urged her horse forward until she rode on his left. R'shiel unconsciously sat a little taller in the saddle on Damin's right, as if the girl who had gaped at the sights of Krakandar a short while ago had been put aside, and the demon child had taken over. It was interesting, Adrina thought, and more than a little disturbing, the way she did that.

Three figures appeared at the top of the palace steps as they approached. Adrina knew the woman on the left. They had met before, on her only other visit to Hythria. Dressed in black, the diamond-shaped symbol of her office winking in the sunlight, Adrina recognised her as Kalan, High Arrion of the Sorcerers' Collective, Damin's half-sister. The man on the left looked sufficiently like Kalan to be her twin, so she guessed this was Narvell Hawksword, the Warlord of Elasapine, although his gold-chased breastplate, with its swooping hawk, would have given away his identity.

She did not recognise the woman in the middle. She was shorter than the man and woman who flanked her, but carried herself as if the world lay at her feet, waiting for her command. Adrina envied her poise, while wondering who she was. Her fair hair was flecked with silver but her skin was unlined. She studied Damin and the two women who rode beside him with dark, watchful eyes.