Domita Lombard was late. Pressing her cheek close to her mount’s sweating neck, she urged him onwards, inhaling the familiar, damp warmth of his silken coat as his pace increased to a gallop.

 

The sheep-cropped moorland rising around the Castle of Air surrounded her in every direction. The last wisps of night evaporated beneath the morning sun, bleeding light over the jagged, rosy peaks. Its warmth kissed her skin, stirring the ever-present heat in her veins. Her magic rose to meet it. Tingling in her fingers, fizzing in her blood.

 

Behind her, Queen Petronella’s banners flapped idly atop the stronghold’s battlements, stirred by a rare southern breeze. Ahead lay the abandoned shepherd’s hut, and its pile of sheepskin rugs. And reclining gracefully, expectant and alluring, golden-haired and green-eyed, Alora de Vimes. Her latest conquest. Domita’s breath tightened in anticipation.

 

The stallion’s hooves pounded as he rounded a bend, clattering along the narrow path trodden mostly by sheep. A slim tendril of smoke drifted in the light breeze. Her attention snared briefly on the soaring flight of a peregrine falcon, launched from a falconer’s fist, somewhere on a neighbouring hillside. Dominic Skinner, if she was any judge. Already up, and as restless as herself. Her lip curled in a small smile. Dominic sought solitude. Time away from the busy castle and its gossiping nest of inhabitants.

 

Sitting up, she slowed her steed to a trot as the tumbledown rooftop of the old hut came into view, sheltered by a wind-tossed stand of trees. Heart pounding, exhilarated by the wild ride, she brushed a strand of copper from her cheek. Tugging the laces at the neck of her shirt, she leapt from the saddle and tossed the stallion’s reins around a hitching post. He snorted as she ran a hand through his tangled mane. She stooped to loosen his saddle.

 

Away in the distance, a small troop of riders was making steady progress towards the castle. She squinted, shading her eyes against the glare. Impossible to see who they were from this distance, but something flickered against her magical senses. Familiarity. Who were they? Battonians? She frowned. Surely not. Battonia was hundreds of miles away. Nothing to do with her now, thank the Gods. A chill crept over her at the memory, momentarily dragging at her thoughts. But then the battered door creaked open.

 

Alora leaned against it. One long, slender leg extended, her green eyes rich with desire. Her naked skin was touched with shades of rose and gold. Drawing a deep breath, Domita closed the distance between them. All thought of her native land thankfully vanished beneath the familiar pull of lust. She strode into the dim recesses of the hut, locking the door securely behind her. Domita was happy in a crowd. But she preferred her love life conducted in privacy.

 

Alora wound her dainty fingers in the laces of Domita’s shirt and pulled. “You took your time,” she whispered, moving closer as Domita grinned, resisting her, enjoying the tease. Over Alora’s shoulder, she raised an eyebrow at the tumble of sheepskin, the half-full goblet of Oceanian blue wine.

 

“Looks like you started without me,” she said, brushing Alora’s hair from her face. She nudged the girl’s legs apart with a slender, well-muscled thigh. Alora’s face softened into a blur of desire as Domita pulled her in, raising her lips for a kiss.

 

Domita turned her head aside at the last second. “Nay,” she breathed. “This is for you. Just for you.”

 

Her heart tightened in her chest at Alora’s muffled moan of protest, quickly subsumed by one of pleasure. Alora’s hands roamed her back. Clinging. Greedy. Seeking bare flesh under the fine cambric of Domita’s shirt.

 

“You’re so hot,” Alora said, her breath tickling Domita’s ear.

 

Domita’s lips curved into a smile. Peeling Alora’s clutching hands from her waist, she lifted the girl from her feet and tumbled with her into the bed of sheepskin.“Oh, my lady,” she murmured, tracking her fingers down Alora’s neck to her rounded breasts. “You have no idea.”

 

***

Two hours later, caught in the afterglow of sated desire, Alora nestled against her, heavy-lidded, ready for sleep.

 

Domita untangled herself and stood, scraping her hair back from her face, conscious of the ever-present need for action. For freedom.

 

“You’re leaving?” Alora pouted. Deprived of Domita’s warmth, she sat up, clutching a sheepskin to her chest like a child’s comforter.

 

“I have duties,” Domita said, closing her shirt. “The Queen needs me. I will prepare your mount. You can leave after me.”

 

Her lover scowled and hooked the near-empty decanter towards her with a decisive jerk of her wrist.

​

“You can saddle her, if you will,” She buried her frown in her cup. “I will go when I wish.”

 

“As you command,” Domita said airily. “I’ll see you later.”

 

Alora stared at her. “I don’t understand you.”

 

Domita shrugged. “What would you have of me? You wished for pleasure. I have given it.”

​

“But…”

 

Domita held up a quelling hand. “There is no but,” she whispered, before Alora could say what was on her mind. “Don’t wish for it. I cannot give you what you want.”

 

She paused, searching Alora’s emerald gaze. The woman was beautiful. Perfect, in fact. But there was no way Domita could allow herself to become involved. Not with her. Not with anyone.

 

“We can meet here, whenever you wish,” she said, her voice hoarse with regret. “But I cannot declare myself to you in front of all. ‘Tis impossible.”

 

“You cannot declare yourself to me,” Alora murmured. “You won’t even let me touch you.” She dropped her eyes, but not before Domita caught the hurt in them.

 

She sighed. Love after love ended like this. In a welter of pain and thwarted longing. Alora was not the first.

 

“Am I another notch on your bedpost, Domita Lombard?” Alora dropped the comforter and stood naked and proud, her face hard. “Am I not good enough for you, daughter of Battonia?”

 

“Tis not that…” Domita protested, hearing the weakness in her answer. Hating herself for it. “You are more than good enough. Even for a king, let alone a Lombard.”

 

Alora raised a delicate eyebrow. “But I can’t be,” she said. “Or you would let me in. What threat am I to you, Domita? Do you think I want to hurt you?”

 

She took a step, reached to touch Domita’s flushed, freckled cheek. Domita shied like a startled horse. Alora stared at her, stunned and wounded in equal measure. “Not even that much?” She whispered, almost to herself. “Domita…”

 

Speechless, Domita shook her head. She backed up to the door, palms raised. “Pax, Alora,” she breathed. “I can’t explain. Not even to myself. Please try to understand.”

 

Mouth dry, she fumbled for the ancient lock, frantic to escape. The meanness of their surroundings blazed to the forefront of her senses. Low-wattled walls and a smoke-stained ceiling. The grubby tangle of sheepskins.

 

Under her searching fingers, the lock gave way, and she ducked out, heaving fresh air into her lungs, gasping for breath as if she’d run a race over the scorching sands of Battonia. The dryness tickled her throat. Disappointment and threat. Loss and longing. Soul-deep and bitter.

 

It was the work of an instant to tighten her mount’s saddle and fling herself aloft. She tried to close her ears, but the echo of Alora’s shout as she rushed to the door blazed in her mind.

 

“If you ever decide to stop running, Domita Lombard, you know where to find me.”

 

Mouth clenched in a snarl, Domita pressed her face to her horse’s neck and mopped her tears in his tangled mane as he cantered down the track. She didn’t look back.

​

​

CHAPTER TWO

​

Teeth gritted against the hard lump in her chest, Domita straightened in her saddle as she careered down the last dusty slope. The north-facing battlements of the Castle of Air ranged in front of her like a row of blunt teeth. Members of the Queen’s Guard paced the narrow walkways, their plumed helmets ruffled in the breeze. Ever watchful against the threat of rebellion that still smouldered beneath the industrious activity of Epera’s Citizen workers.

 

Blotting the last of her tears with the edge of her lace-trimmed sleeve, Domita joined the well-trodden track leading to the northern gate, jogging past a creaking cart stinking of fish bound for the castle kitchens.

​

She plucked at her shirt, easing it from her perspiring flesh. The guards acknowledged her arrival with a casual nod, waving her through past a sweating merchant, who argued his case as he presented his credentials. She could feel his envious scowl on her narrow back as she passed momentarily into the shade of the gate. The northern courtyard thronged with the usual motley assembly of servants, Citizens, and nobles. Waving away the attentions of her groom, who moved forward to take her horse, she vaulted smoothly to the ground.

​

“Nay, Berrick, I’ll see to him,” she gathered the reins in a practised fist. “You go on. ‘Tis nigh on time to eat.”

​

“Aye, M’lady. Sir Dominic Skinner were looking for ‘ee.” Berrick sketched a hasty bow and disappeared to his quarters.

 

Domita sniffed the air. Pottage and bread. The familiar aroma wafted to her from the huge kitchen doors, standing open against the summer heat, fighting a battle against the grassy stench of horse dung and the putrid smell of rotting debris from the castle middens. Her stomach rumbled, proclaiming hunger. Domita clenched her jaw and led her horse to the coolness of the castle mews.

​

The lofty royal stable block loomed solidly in front of her, the busy courtyard gradually clearing of people as the castle temple bells rang for noon. Her throat had clenched against the tangle of emotion twisting in her gut. A complicated mixture of thwarted desire, anger, and shame.

​

“Always the same,” she muttered, loosening the saddle and throwing it atop a saddle block. Her horse, a fine Battonian stallion named Blackthorn for his fine ebony coat, blew at her as she turned him into his stall. She sniffed approvingly. Berrick had been busy mucking out. The air smelled of fresh straw. Clean water in the bucket. A fragrant helping of sweet hay in the manger. Despite her inner turmoil, a half-smile tugged at her mouth.

 

She smoothed Blackthorne’s mane. “We’ll have Berrick groom you after the noonday meal, my brave heart,” she whispered. “I’m late. As usual.” Blackthorn snorted and dropped his head to the water.

 

Domita patted his flank and hoisted his kit onto her shoulder, intent on taking her equipment to the nearby tack room and returning to her chambers. She hoped her maid had prepared a bath. Her mouth thinned as she strode across the quiet courtyard to the tack room. Carefully labelled with the badge of each noble house, hooks and saddle horses laden with costly leather dominated the space.​

​

Domita inhaled the smell of wax and bear fat blooming from the ordered ranks of embellished bridles and heavy Eperan-design saddles. She sighed as she hooked her tack onto the Lombard space. The chances of a bath were slim. Unlike Berrick, her maid, Lolita, had no love or regard for Domita and spent as little time working for her mistress as she could.

​

Distracted by her thoughts, the familiar colours of her native land warming the embroidered edges of a saddle blanket folded on a shelf near the door almost passed her by. She turned on the threshold, her mouth dry, and reached a hand to it.

 

Her blood chilled. The Spicer family emblem—two spice sacks and two pestles joined by a crossbar of wands, foursquare on the fine linen. Alarmed, heart racing, her gaze snapped to its neighbour. The Lombard crest, four racing horses, black against the blaze of amber gold, struck her like a fist. Her hand flew to her mouth. Her instincts had been right.

 

Battonians. Here.

 

Doubt and dread raced each other through her veins. “No, surely not…” she murmured, backing away. Step by step. As if the innocent banners of the two mighty rival dynasties of Battonia could sense her presence. “Our retainers and theirs would never travel together. Surely…” She turned the edge of the Spicer blanket and moved closer, squinting in the dim light. “No…”

​

Another crest winked at her. Embroidered in gold. Her heart sank to her dusty boots. Not just a delegation, then. No simple messengers, these. She had a sudden vision of the jaws of a trap closing around her. Snapping shut.

 

Overhead, the last temple bell calling the castle inhabitants for their meal clanged in her ears and then faded away. It left a somnolent silence behind it, broken only by the ever-present chatter of sleepy starlings and the gentle coo of pigeons in the castle dovecotes. Someone in the distance shouted a question. Another voice answered.

 

Dust motes dancing in front of her eyes, she turned like a sleepwalker to the sunlit courtyard. The Magister had sent these people. That was his standard. The flamboyant letter ‘M’ flanked by two batons. Already low, her spirit dipped, bowing its head under the onslaught of her thoughts.

 

Her lip curled. The Magister. Usurper King and everyday tyrant. Ancient patriarch of the Spicer family, Battonia’s despot ruler, and still alive, somehow. No-one knew how old he was. Rumours abounded. He drank the blood of virgins, gathered at the full moon. The ancient devil, Prystolatis, had cursed him to serve out his days for as long as the sun shone on Battonia. To some, he was a god. A saviour.

​

Domita’s stride increased. By the time she reached the gathered, watchful cool of the Castle of Air, she was scurrying for the safety of her familiar chambers in the South wing. Throwing decorum to the wind, she ran. Left behind the scent of warm bread and Argentian wine, the laughter of the court she had made her own, as it wafted from the Great Hall.

​

The Magister had sent someone here. To the far north of Arcanis. Her breath hissed between her teeth as she took the stairs to her apartments two at a time, trying to quell her fear. It couldn’t be for her. She had lived in Epera for ten years. Served her friend, the Queen, as the First Lady of her household. People liked her here, if you discounted her many jilted lovers.

 

The polished metal handle burned warm under her touch as her magic ignited, driven by the fire of emotion beating at her centre. Breathing heavily, she all but fell through the door, locking it securely behind her. Crossed to the window, and closed it, taking a moment to scan the bare wall beneath and above it.

 

A bath of cold water lay waiting to be heated in front of the unlit fireplace. A tidy court costume lay like a stricken corpse across her mattress. Domita took a few moments to scan the furthest corners of her abode. Checked under her bed and in the enormous trunk that footed it. Stacked untidily within, the unopened pile of letters from her mother slid apart like a pack of playing cards as she lifted the lid, releasing a waft of cinnamon. The space was easily enough to conceal a man. Her mouth was dry, and her mother’s familiar crest, stamped into the saffron-coloured wax, caught her eye. A single stallion reared against a backdrop of flame. Her magic flickered in her fist at the sight of it. She had stopped reading her mother’s missives years ago.

 

Her fingers crept towards the latest parchment. The wax stallion’s edges appeared slightly more defined. As if her mother’s temper, always controlled, never on show, had ignited momentarily into a jab of irritation as she sealed the page. Her fingers hovered, grazing the paper. The imprint pressed deep, solid beneath her thumb. If she lifted it now, if she read what lay beneath... But no. There was no fighting her internal resistance. The hard stone wall of her anger. Swallowing hard, she let the lid of the trunk slam shut.

​

Heating her bath was the work of moments. She released the triumph of her flames and heat into the water, judging the temperature by the rising steam. It rose gracefully into the still air, softer than flame.

 

Naked and standing with one foot in the tub, Domita let the steam glide over her body, shivering at its lingering caress. Steam curled against her throat, warm fingers against the pulse of her rage. Her body ached from holding too much inside. Heat, power, hunger. But the water was safe. The water would take it.

 

She sank into the copper tub, grateful for a safe release of her tension. The subtle settling of banked rage in her blood. Her head fell back with a sigh of relief as her muscles relaxed, little by little.

 

If only she could stay here, lulled and soothed by the yielding weight of water. Her antidote. Her peace. There were various sources of water dotted at intervals throughout Domita’s suite of rooms. She ordered them full and fresh every morning. A lesson learned long ago when she claimed the source of the Lombards’ link to the eternal sacred flame. It was that or risk her unfettered energy setting her surroundings ablaze. Nowadays, Domita prided herself on her control of her Gods-blessed gifts, and the water was just a precaution. Now she was glad of it.

​

Too agitated to linger, she leapt from her bath, conjured a quick blast of warm air with which to dry herself, and fumbled her way into the simplified version of a court gown that had little need for the ministrations of a maid.

 

Her jaw tightened as she cinched the constrictive corset around her already narrow waist and placed a headdress fashioned of gold and topaz around her brow. The spotted mirror, rubbed free of condensation, displayed a young woman, forehead creased with an irritated frown, olive-skinned, her hair a mass of tumbled curls wound carelessly into a loose pile. Her freckles stood out against her skin. Her brown eyes blazed with heat. She smoothed the copper folds of her gown with a hand she forced not to tremble and raised her chin.

​

She would attend the meal as her duties dictated. Perhaps these visitors were only a delegation from Battonia, with a request for more Eperan metal goods. She would watch. Listen. Learn.

​

Locking her door behind her, she hurried back along the empty passageways, one hand clenched around her eating knife, the other curved possessively around a twist of flame, ready to protect herself.

 

Outwardly composed, her thoughts were a twisted mass of confusion and anger. No matter how she tried to frame it, her instincts were rarely wrong. Her time of freedom from Battonia’s twisted religion and endless politics was over. If she breathed deeply, she could almost smell it. The spiced desert wind, rich with roast goat and ginger. The opulent, exotic perfumes and the clash and clatter of the crowded bazaars. Blinking, she refocused on the heavy grey stone. This was Epera. They were feasting the Battonian arrivals. Honouring their presence with a taste of their southern fare. A diplomatic touch only Petronella would have ordered.

 

Her heart heavy, Domita nodded at the guards as they ushered her into the Great Hall.

 

Eyes turned her way. Many eyes. Including those of the Battonian contingent. Raising her chin, she dipped a court curtsey to Petronella and Joran, engaged in conversation with their exotic guests. The walk down the Great Hall to the royal dais seemed to take forever.

 

The Battonians watched her, the light of battle in their rich brown eyes. She held their gaze as long as she could, her brow furrowing. Heavily bearded and almost hidden in his complicated robes, she could have sworn she knew one of them. There was a smirk in his eyes before he nodded coolly at her. Waiting for her to realise the inevitable.

 

But she knew. Oh, she knew.

 

The flesh on the back of her neck prickled with tension. In her mind, the trap sprang shut. Her hands were shaking as she took her seat. She had to pass the older of the two Battonians to reach it. His murmur, scented with tobacco, touched her shrinking ear. “Suhar matronis venat.” She shuddered.

Old Battonian. “Your mother sends her regards.”

 

Her eyes dropped to her platter, already heaped with a slice of spiced goat. Her fingers tightened on her knife, but she was no longer hungry.

​

It had come for her.

​

Battonia had come for her.