To Seduce An Assassin (The Omaja Series Book 2)(2)
“I have a sword, and I can swing it almost as well as you.”
“Almost,” Yavi returned coolly, “but not quite.”
Yajna frowned. “We were trained to work together, brother. I’m as eager to track down that missing caravan as you are, and I’m not going back to the palace without you.”
Yavi shook his head, then covered it with his hood. “All right, you stubborn bastard, let’s go then.”
§
Graciella Stovy peeked in the parlor into check on her brother. Elio was sitting at the desk in the corner going over farm ledgers by candlelight.
“Elio.”
He looked up, his blue eyes strained.
“Haven’t you figured out how we’ll pay for the new wine barrels yet? It’s late; you’re exhausted.”
Elio sighed. “Jiandra was so much better at managing the books than I am.”
Graciella pressed her lips together. “I miss her. And Rafe.”
“Me too.”
She swallowed down a painful lump that formed in her throat, then forced a smile. “Well, I’m off to bed. See you in the morning.”
“Good night, sister. I’m spending the day with Solange tomorrow, by the way. I’m expected at the castle by ten. Should be home for dinner.”
“All right. Give the queen my love.”
“I will.”
“Good night.” Graciella climbed the stairs and popped her head into the first bedroom, where their housekeeper, Shirali, was busy brushing through her daughter’s long platinum-blond hair.
Shirali looked up. “You off to bed, Miss Grace?”
“Yes, unless you need any help with the children.”
“No, Miss, everything is under control here.”
“I’ll bid you good night, then.”
“Good night, Miss.”
Graciella went into her own room and closed the door. She washed up for bed, slipped into her long nightgown, and knelt by the bed to say a prayer. It was a habit from her childhood, something Jiandra had done with her when she was little, after their parents were killed. After the quick prayer, she reached under the bed to retrieve her carved wooden strong box, set it on the mattress, and opened it to count her coin. She’d saved up almost fifty silver from baking bread and selling it in the market square over the years, money she intended to use to buy her own bakery shop someday.
She closed and latched the box, replaced it under the bed, and blew out her candle. Stretching out under the covers, she settled her head into her feather pillow and stared at the swath of moonlight on her bedroom ceiling. She replayed in her head for the millionth time the last time she’d seen Yavi of the Zulfikars.
Yavi, her tall, handsome brother-in-law, her sister’s husband’s twin.
He’d been dressed in wedding attire from Jiandra and Yajna’s wedding, wearing a gray waistcoat over an open-necked white shirt that revealed just a hint of his chest muscles and black leather breeches tucked into tall black boots. Graciella had easily and perfectly memorized his expressions, his gestures, and the lines of his muscular physique because she had stared at him all evening. He was more serious than she’d ever seen him before, a hollow look of weariness etched into his silvery eyes, a grimness set into the line of his sexy lips. Of course, he’d lost his father in the battle with Emperor Thakur only a few months prior and had been hailed alongside Yajna as the new joint-emperor of Nandala. As the elder twin, Yavi was the one who bore the primary responsibility for ruling his suffering, destitute nation, and the heaviness of that responsibility had begun to show.
Graciella knew from Jiandra’s letters and yearly visits to their family farm in Villeleia that progress in rebuilding Nandala had been slow, that the palace’s first few crops had failed, and that Nandala’s wintery curse from the Old Gods had not started to show signs of lifting yet. The twins carried much weight on their shoulders, and though it was obvious they were born to fulfill the role of rulers, still, it was a burden.
Graciella had been bold enough to ask her new brother-in-law to dance the night of the wedding banquet. He had accepted, smiling kindly as one would smile at a child, for she was a child in his eyes, only fourteen at the time. But being near him made her feel like a woman in every fiber of her being; from the moment Jiandra had first brought him to Stovy farm, Graciella’s heart had beat madly for Yavi of the Zulfikars.
Their dance lasted only a few moments. Precious scarce moments with her small, trembling hands held securely in his large, strong ones. When the music ended, he had thanked her and bowed his head, and soon after retired from the banquet hall for the night.
And she had not seen him since. Only his twin, when Yajna accompanied Jiandra to visit the farm.
Graciella sighed and rolled over, fluffing her pillow a bit before sinking her head into it again. Jiandra hadn’t yet answered her most recent letter, in which Graciella had asked, as she always did, how Yajna and Yavi were. Knowing her younger sister’s infatuation all too well, Jiandra usually put in at least a short note specifically about Yavi. He’d been spending a lot of time with his sparring partner, honing his sword-skills. Or he’d been happy, along with his brother and Jiandra, to see the cabbage seedlings emerge in their cabbage fields. Or he and Yajna had been cleaning out and restoring various buildings on the palace grounds. Once Jiandra wrote that she’d caught Yavi practicing climbing on the side of a tower of the White Palace with his grappling hooks, and when she’d scolded him for doing something so dangerous, he’d done a back flip into a swan dive and landed in a haystack on the ground. Jiandra wrote that she’d screamed in alarm as he fell, and that Yavi had laughed a good long while about it. It was rare to hear him laugh like that of late, Jiandra had said.