The Wolf of Oren-yaro (Annals of the Bitch Queen Book 1) Read online

  What was new to me was that they doubted Thanh. Perhaps all mothers find it hard to believe that others do not see their children the way they do. But he was not just my child—he was the Ikessar heir, just as much as he was of the Oren-yaro. If my birth had signalled peace, a momentary cessation of those tired old wars, his had promised a new beginning. Why couldn’t people see that?

  “I’m out of my element,” Khine chuckled, breaking my thoughts. “If this was a situation I could solve with a ruse, I’d have figured something out by now.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But it isn’t your problem to solve.” I stopped myself before I could say anything else—that legendary bluntness, rising to the surface. I meant nothing by it, but it was starting to occur to me that I was starting to care about what I made Khine feel. “Back in the tavern,” I said, trying to change the conversation. “They mentioned a woman.”

  He scratched his head sheepishly. “Drunk talk.”

  “Yet why else would a Xiaran risk the company of Jinseins? You were the only one I saw back there.” I lengthened my stride to match his. “Talk. I think you owe it to me.”

  “Why? We’re not friends, remember?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not until I saw the light in his eyes. “All right,” I said with a chuckle. “Perhaps not yet. But friends start by trading secrets, and I’ve already given you some of mine.”

  “Your fault.”

  “Khine…”

  “I don’t…” He paused, snorting. “I guess one of my sisters will tell you in time, anyway. There was a woman, back when I still a student. A Jinsein.”

  We walked in silence for several moments while he thought things through—filtering through all the things he felt he could or couldn’t say to me. I was so focused on waiting to see what he had to say that I almost didn’t notice the shuffle of a shadow in the alley beside us. I glanced sharply to the left, but whatever it had been was gone.

  I stared at the empty alley, my hand dropping to the hilt of my dagger. Five assassination attempts in the last few months had done wonders for my reflexes. I wished it had been a sword, but the one I had stolen from Lo Bahn’s man was back in Zorheng and I hadn’t been able to find another along the way. Thinking of confronting yet another assassin with only a dagger for protection kept me on the edge. I glanced behind me, eyes scanning the gutters, overflowing with congealed sewage, the rooftops, and the curtained windows of the narrow houses for anything amiss.

  “She was from Kai, she told me,” Khine continued, oblivious. “I know how you Jinseins like to know those sorts of things.”

  I didn’t want to alert him, which would inadvertently alert whoever was trailing us. I didn’t want them to try again when I had dropped my guard. I leaned closer to Khine, wrapping myself around his arm. He gave a surprised grunt. “Keep talking,” I said, glancing back at him with all the sweetness I could muster.

  “I’m not sure what else is there. We argued after I failed that year’s examinations the first time. I may have said things I didn’t mean. She may have taken them the wrong way.” His fingers twitched. “That was a long time ago. I was a different man, then…one full of anger and regrets. Now, only the regrets remain.”

  “Yet you still go to that tavern.”

  “It’s a bad habit. I’ve been trying to break out of it.”

  “Are you still hoping to see her?”

  “I think for a while, perhaps…” He shook his head. “No. I learned not long after that she joined a group looking to settle in Kyan Jang. By then, I had grown accustomed to the company and that beer.”

  “Really? That beer?”

  “What can I say, my queen? Love is blind, something you know all-too-well.”

  “I should’ve never trusted you with my secrets.”

  “Too late. I plan to sell them to the highest bidder as soon as I can make you let go of my arm.”

  “Are you giving me an incentive to clutch on to you like a monkey for life?”

  “You are a dangerous woman.”

  “At least you know.” I smiled up at him, drew my dagger, and threw myself at the man behind us.

  The houses were very close together in Dar Aso, even more so than in Shang Azi. I think the tight alleyway had confused my would-be assassin. Between the shadows, I saw the figure lumber to the side. He was a large man, and he moved like someone who had not been prepared for me to fight back. I shifted my feet, preparing to draw the dagger across his chest, when I saw the movement he used to prepare to block my attack.

  It was a movement they taught in the Oren-yaro military. But none of my guards were this size. I allowed to blade to skim over his garments, nicking him, before I stepped back into the sunlight. “Show your face!” I cried.

  The man didn’t even hesitate, striding after me and pulling his mask and cape off. I dropped the dagger in shock. Panting, I watched him drop to one knee. “My queen,” the man said. It was Agos’ voice, underneath a heavy black beard and hair so much longer than he used to wear it. Agos, my oldest friend, whom I had last seen the day Rayyel disappeared.

  I dropped to the ground with him and hid my face in his shoulder. I don’t remember if I cried or not. If I did, neither he nor Khine ever spoke about it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Queen’s Guard

  Agos was the son of the head cook at Oka Shto. He had an unnamed blacksmith father from Shirrokaru, a man who I assumed was either dead or missing. Before I was born, he had been the only young child in the newly built castle at Oka Shto, which caused the staff to dote on him. I’ve been told that even my own father would occasionally steal him from his nursemaids to ply him with sweets. The laughter of one single child had been enough to fill those empty halls. Oka Shto, which began as a memorial for the dead we lost to Rysaran’s dragon and the Ikessars’ attacks during the thick of the war, began to look more like a proper warlord’s place.

  It was such a simple thing, one difficult to understand unless you had been there and felt loss after loss the way the Oren-yaro did in those years. Even when my mother died at childbirth, so young and frail that it was common knowledge that a man of Yeshin’s age should have never married her, the shroud of mourning did not last long. My nursemaid had told me that the sight of me and Agos toddling after each other through the grounds was like a beacon of light, a sign from Akaterru that my fathers’ sins could be forgiven.

  Growing up, I didn’t really understand much of what that all meant. I knew that both Agos and I got away with so much; he occasionally got whipped for troubles I created, but I always felt that the staff did this half-heartedly, if only so they would have something to tell my father afterwards. He never got more than a welt or two, or a pinched ear most of the time. Later, other children arrived—mostly the servants’, although there was the occasional son or daughter a councillor would bring to visit—but we were always the children. If the kitchen staff asked if the children ate yet, or if the children were responsible for letting all the dogs loose in the garden right before Warlord Graiyo’s arrival, they meant Agos and me.

  Perhaps that was why I had always taken Agos’ constant presence for granted. Even as I grew older and I started spending more time with my studies, I always knew he would be there whenever I needed it. The last few years would’ve gone a lot better had he been around. Even the whole damned trip to Ziri-nar-Orxiaro wouldn’t have taken the turns it did if he had been still been the Captain of the Guard instead of Nor; one swipe from his blade would’ve finished off both assassins at The Silver Goose and maybe Zheshan too. He could’ve dragged Rai by the collar and we would all be home by now.

  I knew it was all wishful thinking—an echo of guilt, a tinge of regret, in the way I examined what his absence had caused in my life. I knew, too, that if it had been up to him, he would’ve never left. Faithful to the end, he had followed my order to disappear as simply as if I’d asked him to fetch my horse.

  To see him here, in Ziri-nar-Orxiaro after all of the
se years, was more than unexpected—it felt like something out of a dream. “How did you get here?” I found myself asking after I had gotten back to my feet.

  “I heard the rumours about your disappearance,” Agos said. “I just had to find out for myself. I learned you were here, that there were rumours that Magister Arro had been killed and you and your entire personal guard had disappeared, and no one was doing a damn thing about it. I couldn’t believe it.” He was a young man the last time I had seen him. He still was, I suppose, but there was a presence and weight to him now that hadn’t been there before. Time had taken those children and left behind these aging vessels, doomed to continue down the path of yesterday’s mistakes. His eyes flicked towards Khine.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “He’s a friend.”

  “Now he’s a friend,” Khine remarked.

  Agos didn’t look too happy. “He’s Xiaran.”

  “Zarojo. Let’s not insult what few friends we have…unless you have some of my soldiers with you, by any chance?”

  Agos shook his head. “I left the army and I haven’t talked to any of my soldier friends since…since that day. Like you told me to.”

  “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “Maybe not, but…” He was still staring at Khine. I remembered the way we had walked, when I thought I had been trying to draw the assassin out, and inadvertently felt my cheeks burn.

  “We can trust him, Agos. He knows everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “He knows enough. He hasn’t betrayed me yet. I don’t think he means to.”

  “How can you be sure? Have you tried knocking his teeth in?”

  To hear Agos question my decision three times in the last few minutes was a little disconcerting. The last five years had changed him, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint how or why. “We shouldn’t talk here,” I finally said.

  “I have a room in an inn nearby,” Agos said.

  “You can also go back to my home,” Khine offered. “Lo Bahn’s men have been busy with other things lately. I’m sure…”

  Agos’ lips curled into a half-snarl, causing Khine to fall silent abruptly.

  “I think…that I need to speak with Agos alone,” I murmured, touching Khine’s shoulder. “I have not forgotten what you and your family has done for me. I will pay you a visit later.”

  Khine didn’t protest, though he looked torn about leaving me alone with Agos. I couldn’t blame him. To the naked eye, Agos looked like any other scoundrel skulking through Shang Azi’s street, far from the decorated member of the Oren-yaro Royal Guard that he had been. But of course, Khine wasn’t one to say such a thing out loud, and even if he did, it only meant that Agos was in good company.

  We parted at the next street. I followed Agos, who puffed up his chest as soon as Khine was out of earshot. “Nor was your captain,” he said. He made the statement sound like an accusation.

  “I see you’ve been asking around.”

  “It was the first thing I learned. That you took your personal guard and Magister Arro off to some secret meeting in Anzhao City and that no one could agree exactly what for. Captain Nor. Who promoted her? As far as I’m concerned, this is her mess.”

  “Do you know where she is?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “But she was the first person I looked for when I arrived a few days ago. A captain of the guard doesn’t just lose her queen, especially not after Magister Arro’s body turned up and hers didn’t. I’ve heard of someone fitting her description walking around town and was on my way to make arrangements to meet her when I saw you leave the tavern with that man. Luck,” he said grimly, “is a fickle mistress.”

  “So she is,” I murmured. “You think Nor has anything to do with what happened?”

  “Finding you was my only concern,” Agos said. “I didn’t really think that far ahead. And now that you’re here…”

  “Yes, alone and abandoned by my personal guard, with a nation that doesn’t seem like it wants to send help for its queen any time soon all while being hunted by assassins from an unknown source.” I didn’t want to talk about Rayyel’s involvement in the whole thing, not to Agos. If he found out about the assassins, nothing would stop him from killing my husband. “I think I need to get to the bottom of this.”

  “I’ve heard,” Agos grumbled, “that the Oren-yaro lords knew exactly where you were.”

  I didn’t answer him. Who knew what my bannermen did or didn’t know? My advisers were asked to keep quiet, but clearly some hadn’t.

  “I’ve also heard,” Agos continued, “that even though they all know, they refuse to send aid. I rode up there when news of your disappearance broke out, you understand. Found Lord General Ozo first. Demanded why he isn’t sending out soldiers, why your lords aren’t doing a damn thing. He told me, ‘Dropping soldiers on lands already hostile to us—do you want war on our doorstep, boy?’ I begged him for men, that I would come find you myself and keep discreet, but he said he didn’t want to risk the other warlords learning he had done so under their noses, and what was I doing there anyway, what did I care? I gave up my position to Nor.”

  “You’re still angry about that,” I said.

  He shrugged. “You’re my queen. You can do whatever you want with me.”

  I didn’t want the conversation to go down that way, not so soon after our reunion, but it seemed like I wouldn’t have a choice on the matter. “Good for you to remember. I wonder if Nor does. Make those arrangements.”

  Agos opened his mouth to argue. I turned to face him.

  “Did you come here for your queen, Agos? Or was there something else?”

  He hesitated. He probably didn’t know it, but it was the most dangerous hesitation he had ever made his whole life. I was on the edge—I really didn’t know who to trust anymore—and his sudden appearance was more than I knew how to deal with. But before my thoughts could take me any further, he dropped his head and thumped his chest with his fist.

  “My queen,” he said. A simple phrase. I felt my insides unbuckle. Relief, but also grief, flooded me. I wondered if I could ever hear Agos’ voice again without those two emotions intertwining.

  ~~~

  The arrangements Agos spoke of involved an herb and tea shop, where a woman fitting Nor’s description was said to frequent, and a letter indicating that I would wait for her in the inn Agos was staying at.

  I questioned the sanity of such a bold move. What gain would there be in showing a potential enemy my hand far too soon? Agos’ response was the clink of the sword he carried on his belt. I leaned back on my chair and watched the motion with concern. This Agos, seething with barely contained fury, was not the Agos I had known in my youth. I watched him pace in front of the door like a caged beast, breathing through his mouth.

  “We don’t even know if she’ll come,” I said.

  “She will,” Agos grumbled, casting a quick glance at me. “Old bitch’s been looking for you, too.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention that?”

  He crossed the room to stand in front of me. “She lost you,” he said in a low voice. “As far as I’m concerned, the only thing left for her to do after she shows up is to kill herself in the most horrific manner in the courtyard in Oka Shto in front of all your guard to make them think twice about ever failing you again.” He paused long enough to let out a huff of air through his nostrils.

  “Please do not hurt her,” I said. “Not until I’ve talked to her, at least.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “Agos—”

  He placed his hands on my shoulders. “You are too gullible,” he said. “For all that you are the most intelligent woman I know.”

  “Thank you for that observation,” I said, irritated. “Now, if we’re done criticizing me…” I tried to push him away.

  “An entire guard, and you never thought to question any of them?”

  “Captain Nor and Magister Arro were there. I thought that was enough. Whe
n I learned Rayyel was—” I realized my mistake and closed my mouth, but it was too late. Agos’ eyes widened.

  “Rayyel,” he said, speaking the name like it was cursed. “He was here?”

  “You must have heard that this journey had something to do with him,” I said, glancing away.

  “Of course,” he grumbled. “It’s always been about him.”

  “Don’t give me that. He sent me a message. It was my responsibility to see it through.”

  “Tali…”

  “Queen Talyien.”

  “My queen,” he snarled. “There is a difference between trying to find information on a slippery eel and actually speaking with the cursed creature. Was he here? Did you actually see and speak with him? After everything he’s done to you?”

  I didn’t answer. I heard him groan. “You were ever the fool when it came to that man.”

  “Dragonlord or not, he is still your lord. I should have your head for this insolence.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “Do not test me, Agos.”

  He pressed his face close to mine. I thought he would kiss me.

  I heard three sharp knocks on the door and quickly turned my head. He pulled away, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword. I caught myself and got up to follow him. “Come in,” he said in a low voice.

  The door slid open. Captain Nor was there, as we expected—a thinner, paler version of her former self. But what struck me dumb was the woman behind her, one who I had last seen bellowing out orders for her men to capture me: Anya Kaz, wife of the leader of the Blue Rok Haize bandits.

  I went for my dagger. Agos, seeing the movement, drew his sword.

  Nor stumbled into the room and fell at my feet.

  I glanced at Anya. She had not moved a muscle the entire time. I turned back to Nor. “My queen,” she said without looking up. “Oh, my queen. I had given you up for dead.”

  “She almost didn’t believe she’d see you again,” Anya Kaz piped up.