Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1)(75)

Two hours later, Brishen breathed a sigh of relief as Secmis and company disappeared into the horizon. The journey would be hard-going for the riders. The queen would shelter in a wagon shielded from the sun by dark curtains. Her escort would have to ride hooded and squinting for several hours before they found relief. He didn’t envy them.

He found Ildiko still dressed in her finery and standing at one of the windows in their room. She turned to greet him with a smile. “She chose not to stay? Thank the gods!” She literally skipped into his welcoming arms. “I will never believe you are that woman’s son, bred and born.”

Unfortunately he was, but he’d succeeded in his endeavor to be nothing like her when others expressed their disbelief that they were in any way related. His skin crawled again at the memory of her words. “Too bad you’re my son. You would have made a magnificent consort.”

“I’ve called for a bath,” he said. “I need a good scrubbing. Will you join me?”

Ildiko nodded eagerly and spied the box he held. “What is that?”

“She said she came here to bring me this.”

Ildiko backed away from him. “Maybe you should don your armor before you open it.”

He had a notion of what might be inside. Secmis’s idea of humor was usually someone else’s idea of horror. “I’ll open it later.”

Unfortunately, his wife’s curiosity couldn’t be quelled. “Won’t you let me see?”

He sighed. “I don’t think it will be pleasant, Ildiko.”

She frowned at him. “Then you should definitely not open it alone.”

She had stood beside him through events far grimmer than opening a gift from Secmis and held her own. She’d do so again.

Ildiko did wobble when Brishen opened the lid to reveal the box’s contents, and she clutched his arm. “That bitch,” she breathed. “That vile, horrible bitch. She came all this way to sink a knife.”

Brishen had guessed correctly and didn’t flinch when he saw what lay inside Secmis’s gift box. His eye, shriveled to a withered, ocherous orb, rolled back and forth inside the box like the carved pebble in a child’s game of Heckle Stones. He put the lid back on the box and threw the entire thing into the fire built in the hearth. Flames devoured the container, shooting hungry sparks against the grate.

“She must have been bored in Haradis.”

Ildiko scowled at him, her tone waspish. “How can you not be angry? I want to punch her in her smirking face.” She fisted her left hand and smacked the palm of her right hand with a hard thwack.

Brishen turned her so that she fully faced him. The silk sleeves of her shirt rode smooth under his hands as he stroked her arms in a soothing gesture. “Because she’s predictable. She has yet to do anything I didn’t expect.”

Tears turned Ildiko’s eyes glossy, and she blinked hard. “She would have let you die. Perched on that throne like some great bloated spider and let them kill you!”

“Remember, wife. I’m the spare of no value.”

She lunged for him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her soft breasts pressed against his chest as she hugged him as hard as she could. “You are of great value to me,” she said into his tunic. She raised her head, her eyes narrowed and still teary. “I wish I could kill them again, Brishen. I wish I could kill her.”

He threaded her hair through his clawless fingers before bending to kiss her forehead. “I love you, my blood-thirsty hag.”

Ildiko sniffed and offered him a watery smile. “That’s a good thing, because you’ll have to suffer through dinner later. I thought your mother would be here another night, so I ordered potatoes to be served.”

Brishen threw back his head and laughed. He lifted Ildiko off her feet to spin her around.

She was breathless when he put her down and managed to wiggle out of his embrace with a dizzy stumble. “I have something for you as well,” she said. “And it isn’t a body part.” She retrieved a velvet pouch from the chest at the end of their bed and handed it to him. “The jeweler from Halmatus township delivered it along with my necklace while you were healing. I’d forgotten about it until Sinhue and I were checking the wardrobes for hidden scarpatine.”

Brishen opened the satchel and upended its contents into his palm. His breath caught at the sight of a cabochon half the size to the one Ildiko’s mother had given her. This one was cut from citrine quartz and as bright as a Kai’s gaze at midnight. A spark of deeper orange pulsed within the stone’s depths. A recolligere. Ildiko had managed to find a memory jewel. He glanced at her. “How did he come by one of these?”

Ildiko shrugged. “He said they were rare.”

“They are.” If this stone held what he thought it did, he was going to revisit Halmatus township and the visit wouldn’t be friendly. “Ildiko, the spell used to make these work is dangerous, unpredictable. You didn’t...” She nodded, confirming his fear. “I’m going to kill that jeweler.”

Ildiko huffed. “It was perfectly safe for me. Memory madness only affects the Kai, and I’m not Kai. Neither one of us thought the spell would work. I think he was as surprised as I was that it did.”

Her fingers drifted over his, over the stone, hesitant, unsure. Her strange eyes pleaded with him to accept her gift. “If I die before you, I have no mortem light for you to carry to Emlek. That recolligere holds one of my memories. You can take that instead—a paler light.”