Empire of Night (Age of Legends 2)

His tone was clipped and cool, as it'd been when he'd objected to this excursion into the dungeons. An odd tone for a son to use with his father, but that was Gavril. Blunt-spoken. Ill-tempered. Coldly polite to everyone except those he honored with the sharp side of his tongue. Good humor with Gavril was a droll comment, a quick-witted exchange, a teasing insult, a half smile. He was as mercurial and unpredictable as a summer storm. And as invigorating. To weather the storm and catch the flashes of sunlight no one else saw had made her feel . . .

She inhaled softly, air hissing through her teeth.

"What's she doing here?" Gavril said.

"A gift," his father said. "For you."

Confusion crinkled Gavril's forehead. Then something flitted through his gaze. A moment of unguarded expression, as when he'd first seen her. He hid it just as quickly.

"I don't understand," he said, his words brittle. "Why would I want--?"

"I'm asking myself the same thing," his father cut in. "It's not as if there are a lack of women here. Beautiful women, eager to catch the eye of my son. But you pay them no heed."

"Because I have no time for such frivolities. We are preparing for war."

"All the more reason to indulge in pretty distractions. Yet you snap and you snarl and you send the poor girls scattering. That's hardly the behavior of a healthy young man."

Gavril's eyes flashed. "Whatever you are implying--"

"I'm implying that they do not distract you because you are already distracted. By thoughts of a girl you left behind."

"Moria?" Gavril looked at her as one might gaze on a pile of offal. "I ignore the women in camp because I am focused on my goal--on our goal. To decide I'm mooning over some mewling chit of a Keeper? Believe me, Father, after our five days in the Wastes together, I'd be quite happy if I never saw her again."

"Is that right?" His father's voice was deceptively soft.

Gavril looked his father in the eye. "Yes. Now, if you'll excuse me. I have an appointment with--"

"You reject my gift?"

Gavril went still then. When he spoke, a veneer of courtesy coated his words. "I apologize if you thought I wished such a gift, though I am at a loss to understand why you would. However, I concede that you no longer know me as well as we'd both like. Perhaps you presume that, after my many days alone with the Keeper, something transpired between us. I can assure you, it did not. I have little patience for such distractions, but even if I made an exception, my tastes would run . . ." A curl of his lip as he looked at Moria. "Elsewhere. She's uncultured and headstrong. Not terribly bright either. The empire should exempt Northerners from holding such high positions."

His father laughed. "Agreed. But a lack of intelligence isn't a bad thing in a bedmate, my son. Your mother may be one of the loveliest women in the empire, but she's as empty-headed as her dolls."

Gavril stiffened.

His father patted him on the back. "Don't take offense, boy. You may have gotten your handsome face from her, but the mind behind it comes from me, ancestors be praised. As for the girl, she's your responsibility now. Take her to your bedchamber. You cannot have spent all those nights in her company and never wondered what it would be like to have her."

"No," Gavril said sharply. "Perhaps we do not share the same opinions on such matters, but I'll not soil myself in such a way."

"Oh-ho." His father laughed and turned to Moria. "Did you hear that, child? Are you not offended?"

She was too shocked to take offense. Not shocked by the insults, but by Alvar's words. She wasn't Ashyn, blushing at any mention of relations between men and women. That was a natural part of life. But telling Gavril to bed her as if . . . Well, as if to say, "You're hungry; here's food." She'd grown up in a garrisoned village where girls were raised to understand that no man should lay a hand on you without your permission and the penalties for transgressions were severe.

As a captive, she lost her rights and privileges. She understood that. But to treat her as spoils of war . . . ? Was that something men did?

But Alvar Kitsune was no mere man. He had set shadow stalkers on two villages to slaughter every woman and enslave every man. He was a monster. Did she truly need more proof of that?

She'd still hoped . . . She did not know what she'd hoped. To learn that Alvar Kitsune had been . . . duped? Enslaved? Betrayed by someone he trusted and forced to raise shadow stalkers against his will?

Moria and Ashyn had thought they'd been spared because whoever raised those shadow stalkers was a pious man who didn't dare harm a Seeker and Keeper. She saw their mistake now. They'd been spared because they'd been useful.

You are a child and a fool, Keeper.

As she looked at Gavril's face, she swore she could hear those words. She turned her face away so he wouldn't catch the pain and the grief there.

"What shall I do with your gift, then?" Alvar asked his son. "Kill her?"

Gavril's face remained blank, his eyes empty. "You could, but I can't see how that would help our cause. She's a Keeper and little more than a child. The people would be outraged."