A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(86)

She didn’t have to think hard as to why that was.

She had been back home for a month and every day she wondered what he was doing. Had he healed? Was he missing her? Was he safe from his brother?

Was he coming after her?

They had ridden hard and long, the travel bleak and wearying on the way back. By the time they had arrived she was saddle-sore and bone weary. Mariah, who had never sat a horse, had fared little better.

As they had ridden home Dendri had told her of her sister’s maneuvering, how she had made moves that might threaten the Saren people with civil war. How hungry for power she was.

News of Ariana being alive and well had reached the Saren capitol in advance of her, but her sister had refused to believe the reports of a lone messenger. The message was almost two weeks old, she had said. For all she knew Ariana was dead since then at the hands of the barbarian raja.

Ariana had arrived in Capitol City shortly after. She had not even taken a moment to herself, to regain her strength after her hard journey. She had called her sister to her in front of Mason and Jutsin.

Gretha had been commanded to appear before the triumvirate without being told the reason why. When she arrived she saw Jutsin and Mason.

“I assume you have called me here so precipitously because you have come to realize recovering my sister is impossible? That it is time for me to take my seat among you as triumvir?”

“Triumvirate means three, Gretha. And we three are all here.”

Ariana had made the remark as she had stepped out of the shadows. Gretha had gasped and her eyes went wide in shock. Then color flushed over her, fury building in her eyes. It took a great, monumental effort, but Gretha got herself under control enough to say woodenly, “Sister! How good it is to see you! And you are unscathed. To be honest I had not thought it possible you would survive being the guest of that barbarian.”

“He is no more a barbarian than you are,” Ariana said icily.

Gretha took it as an insult.

“I am nothing like that beast! And look at you! You are thin and pale. You are certainly worse for wear since leaving here.” She said it as though leaving had been a conscious action for Ariana. “No doubt he ravaged you with his savage attentions. I am sorry to see you so abused, Sister.”

“I am not abused. In fact, I was quite well taken care of during my stay in the Kiltian court. If I am thin it is from traveling the hard road back.” She had not had much appetite since leaving Sin…not that they had had the luxury of stopping to take decent meals. Not until they had gotten closer to Capitol City.

“I am glad to hear that,” Gretha said, not sounding very glad at all.

“Well, you see I am alive and well before you. You have no further claims to your inheritance. And let me say this,” she said carefully. “If I ever think that you are doing anything that would serve this country ill, I will disinherit you.”

“You can’t do that!” Gretha exploded. “This is my right by blood and law!”

“Laws can be changed. I am triumvir. I make the laws,” Ariana said, her voice cold and final. “And my blood tie to you grown thinner by the second. You couldn’t wait to declare me dead and buried, making not even the slightest effort to recover me.”

“I knew Felone and Hittite were doing everything in their power to find you. Any efforts I made would have been superfluous. I was staying out of their way.”

“Very far out of their way,” Ariana said bitterly. “But that doesn’t matter now. Now that I have seen your true colors. I must consider carefully where I will leave my part of this triumvirate if indeed something should happen to me.”

“Ariana you cannot take my inheritance from me! It is my right!”

“As I said, I can do whatever I want,” Ariana said, her tone flat.

“I will fight you on this!”

“You will fail.”

“We’ll see if anyone wants to follow you now that you have been that Kiltian savage's whore!”

That brought Ariana’s temper up short. She gritted her teeth and stepped into her sister’s personal space.

“You say that as if you have personal knowledge of what has transpired between Raja Sin and myself.”

“She does,” Dendri Adiron said from the corner of the room he had been standing in. He was scruffy looking and just as weary from the journey as she was, but she had begged him to stay for her meeting with her sister before giving him leave to see his wife and child. And this was why. “She has had a report from the Kiltian court that you and Raja Sin were lovers. Voluntary lovers, rather than a victim of forced copulation. She knew you were alive and well before coming here. That you were, indeed, flourishing in the Kiltian court.”

“And yet you came here intent on taking my place as my heir as if I were dead. Your power mongering knows no bounds Gretha. I have heard enough. I know what action to take.”

“You can take no action! You have no other heirs. There is no one else!”

“For now. But perhaps it is time I took a mate and had a child. A child that would be heir to all that I have.”

“A mate.” Gretha scoffed. “Who will have you now that you’ve been sullied by that Kiltian beast?”

Ariana did not dignify her remarks with a response. She turned her back on her sister and waved a hand of dismissal. Two guards came and escorted Gretha from the building.