For Want of a Fiend Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Katya

  Chapter Two: Starbride

  Chapter Three: Katya

  Chapter Four: Starbride

  Chapter Five: Katya

  Chapter Six: Starbride

  Chapter Seven: Katya

  Chapter Eight: Starbride

  Chapter Nine: Katya

  Chapter Ten: Starbride

  Chapter Eleven: Katya

  Chapter Twelve: Starbride

  Chapter Thirteen: Katya

  Chapter Fourteen: Starbride

  Chapter Fifteen: Katya

  Chapter Sixteen: Starbride

  Chapter Seventeen: Katya

  Chapter Eighteen: Starbride

  Chapter Nineteen: Katya

  Chapter Twenty: Starbride

  Chapter Twenty-one: Katya

  Chapter Twenty-two: Starbride

  Chapter Twenty-three: Katya

  Chapter Twenty-four: Starbride

  Chapter Twenty-five: Katya

  Chapter Twenty-six: Starbride

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Katya

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Starbride

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Katya

  Chapter Thirty: Starbride

  Chapter Thirty-one: Katya

  Chapter Thirty-two: Starbride

  Chapter Thirty-three: Katya

  Chapter Thirty-four: Starbride

  Chapter Thirty-five: Katya

  Chapter Thirty-six: Starbride

  Chapter Thirty-seven: Katya

  Chapter Thirty-eight: Starbride

  Chapter Thirty-nine: Katya

  Chapter Forty: Starbride

  Chapter Forty-one: Katya

  Chapter Forty-two: Starbride

  Chapter Forty-three: Katya

  Chapter Forty-four: Starbride

  Chapter Forty-five: Katya

  About the Author

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Princess Katya Nar Umbriel’s uncle Roland rose from the grave, kidnapped her cousin, and stripped her of her greatest weapon—her Fiendish power. Without her Fiend, Katya doubts her ability to weather the storm her uncle is brewing. When she lacks what even the children in her family possess, can she even call herself an Umbriel?

  In only a short time, Starbride has become the princess consort, a pyradisté, and a member of a secret order in charge of protecting the crown. Even steeped in responsibility, she’s still an outsider. While wading through court intrigue and resisting schemes to break her bond with Katya, Starbride must prepare for a covert war. Roland is waiting, watching, ready for any chink in their armor, and he doesn't care who knows their secrets.

  For Want of a Fiend

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  For Want of a Fiend

  © 2013 By Barbara Ann Wright. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-912-1

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: May 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  The Pyramid Waltz

  For Want of a Fiend

  Acknowledgments

  Just as before, this book would never have been possible without the love and support of so many people. First, my husband Ross and my mom Linda Dunn. You both keep me going. And thanks again to my Houston writing group, Writer’s Ink: Nia George, Erin Kennemer, Janet Mallard, Trakena Prevost, and Sarah Warburton. You always rise to the occasion. New thanks to my Austin writing group with Matt Borgard, Jim Reader, and Jeb Seibel. Not only are your critiquing skills top-notch, you also saved me from quite a bit of hate mail. Special thanks to my staunch defender Pattie Lawler.

  Thanks to Radclyffe and Bold Strokes for continuing on this journey with me, and thanks to Cindy Cresap and Stacia Seaman for their wonderful editing work. And thank you to CenTex writers, Abusing the Universe, Ladies-in-Writing, and the Austin Speed-Writers for welcoming me into your wonderful groups. I’m having the time of my life.

  A last thank you to my wonderful pets. You’ve never minded that I talk to myself.

  Dedication

  For Pattie. Feelings at you.

  Chapter One: Katya

  Katya crouched in the bushes, the backs of the unsuspecting highwaymen not fifty feet in front of her. Six of them lay in wait for her decoy, the carriage that rattled toward them down the dirt road. As the jingle of the harness and the clatter of the wheels drifted forward on the wind, the highwaymen stiffened. Katya braced herself to charge. Beside her, Brother Brutal did the same, gripping his overlarge mace.

  The carriage rounded the corner, a hooded Pennynail driving it; the highwaymen wouldn’t see his mask under the hood. The highwaymen leapt from cover and waved their arms to drive the horses off the road. Katya waited a heartbeat, long enough for a crystal pyramid the size of a child’s fist to come sailing from the other direction. It cracked between the highwaymen and the carriage in a burst of light. When Pennynail threw off the hood, revealing the rosy cheeks and long nose of his laughing Jack mask, Katya and Brutal leapt from cover. A red-fletched arrow struck the shoulder of one highwayman and spun him around but didn’t drop him.

  Brutal slammed his mace into the back of one man, who pitched forward onto the road and lay unmoving. Katya’s opponent turned. She slashed at him, and he backpedaled into one of his fellows. Both of them toppled, so Katya turned her attention to another who aimed his sword at her ribs. He wore a fur mantle around his neck, and his creased face seemed nervous but determined. Katya blocked the thrust, and threw Fur Mantle’s sword wide. When he was open, she kicked and made him stagger into the other two who were climbing to their feet.

  A body slammed into Katya from the side. She went with the force, rolled along the road, and came up to face the man with the arrow in his shoulder. The other three were getting up, all glaring at her with hatred in their eyes.

  A knife thudded into the back of Arrow Man’s head, and he fell. An arrow skimmed by one of the standing three and clipped one on the shoulder. When he shied to the left, Katya lunged and sank her sword into his chest. Fur Mantle and his friend thrust at her with short swords; one grated along her chain shirt and drew a line of pain across her ribs.

  Katya drew back, knocked the sword out of the way, and tried to keep both men at bay. Brutal slammed his mace into Fur Mantle’s head with a nauseating crunch.

  The other pitched forward, an arrow in his back, the last of the highwaymen to fall. Brutal rested his huge mace on the ground and straightened his red robe. Katya felt along her ribs. Torn cloth poked through the nicked rings of her chainmail, and her bruised flesh ached.

  Averie dropped from a tree beside the carriage, her bow slung around her middle. She tossed her long brown brai
d over her shoulder where it blended with the browns and greens of her leather hunting outfit. “I’m sorry,” she said to Katya. “I’m not used to shooting from trees.”

  Katya nodded but focused on trying to see if any of the links of her chain shirt had actually broken, if she’d been cut at all. “You did fine, Averie.” But she missed her young cousin Maia. Katya had to swallow as she thought of Maia in the grip of her murderous Fiendish uncle Roland.

  “What was that?” Brutal whispered in her ear.

  Katya didn’t look at him. Instead, she watched past his shoulder as Starbride climbed out of the tree beside Averie. As the only Allusian member of their party, Starbride’s red/brown skin and black hair stood out, though she dressed in the same hardwearing leather as the rest of them. Hers was borrowed, though. Katya preferred her in silk.

  She glanced at Katya’s torn shirt with concern plain in her dark eyes. Katya smiled and fought not to wince. She glanced at Brutal. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Talking about you taking on three at once instead of waiting for help.” He prodded the bent chain links, making Katya hiss. “I’m talking about this.”

  Katya stared hard into the baby face that contrasted so much with his tall, muscled frame. “Are you going to help me patch myself up or not?”

  He frowned, and his eyes slid to the side as Starbride joined them, a look that promised there would be words between them later. He lifted her chain shirt. “You’ll have a nice bruise as a reminder.”

  Averie let out a slow breath, clearly relieved. She wasn’t the crack shot Maia had been, and she knew it. Still was, Katya reminded herself, the shot that Maia still was.

  “Are you all right?” Starbride asked.

  “It’s just a bruise. You did very well.”

  Starbride beamed. “The flash bomb is the only destruction pyramid I’m really good with. Sorry I didn’t bring anything bigger.”

  “It’s all right.” Another loss. Crowe couldn’t come with them into the field anymore, not with the wound given him by Roland; it still pained him. The king’s pyradisté had to be content with waiting at home, even though he could have brought many pyramids to the fight.

  “Do you need me to see into any of their minds?” Starbride asked. “I think one or two are still alive.”

  Katya shook her head. “They’re just regular robbers, not conspirators.”

  Starbride nodded, but Katya could see the question in her eyes: Why was the Order of Vestra out in the woods fighting robbers? Katya didn’t know how to answer, just like she didn’t really know the answer to Brutal’s question. She supposed that if she couldn’t find Roland and Maia, thwarting robbers was the best she could hope for.

  They loaded the bodies and two wounded prisoners into the empty carriage, collected their horses, and began the ride back to Marienne, mostly in silence, all lost in their own thoughts. Pennynail split from them before they came within sight of the stone walls, taking the carriage and two prisoners with him. The rest of them rode past fields and country homes and then, along the main thoroughfare into the city itself.

  As it always did, the sight of the palace proper, a series of long rectangles with the occasional turret or tower rising out of the jumble, made her both anxious and relieved. Relieved to be home again with all her party safe, anxious at having to assume her role as numbskull princess again, a woman reported to love weapon-craft and hunting and not have many brains in her head. It was a good cover for the leader of the Order of Vestra, a good place from which to protect her family from traitors to the crown.

  Well, that was until a member of her own family turned out to be the biggest traitor of them all. Roland knew the palace as well as she did, another reason for the place to make her anxious.

  As she passed the statues of the ten spirits that lined the wide passage into the courtyard, Katya let her glance linger on Ellias and Elody, twins of love and beauty. She gave them a small salute. They’d brought Starbride into her life and let her leave behind one piece of her court persona: the rake. There was that sense of relief again, a sense of wholeness that only love could bring.

  Brutal saluted Best and Berth, twins of strength and courage, the patron spirits of his brotherhood. Katya made sure to honor Matter and Marla as well, needing their sharp intellects and wisdom to stay one step ahead of her uncle.

  Averie saluted Jack and Jan, twins of skill and deftness, much as Pennynail would have, but he wouldn’t have sported her guilty expression. Katya held in a sigh. Averie seemed to have adopted Maia’s insecurity along with their position. Everyone saluted Fah and Fay, spirits of luck, the twin statues perched precariously atop a stone egg. They’d need all the luck they could get.

  When they left their horses in the royal stable, Brutal pulled Katya aside. “Well?” he asked.

  “I’d really like to get back to my quarters and spend some time with Starbride.”

  He kept pace with her into the hallways, past the stable area where bare floors gave way to sumptuous carpets, statues, and paintings. Starbride’s brow was drawn in curiosity, but she kept her distance and pulled Averie back as well.

  “I know why you took three of them on,” Brutal said.

  “Could it be Maia?”

  “I miss her, too, Katya, but what you did wasn’t about her, and you know it.”

  “What do I know?”

  “It’s about you not having a Fiend.”

  Katya nearly faltered. “I don’t want to talk about—”

  “We’re going to talk about it if you keep pulling stupid stunts like launching yourself at three opponents at once.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Let me finish, or you’ll be hearing this from Crowe.”

  Katya clenched her teeth on her response. Crowe was too weak to be yelling at anyone.

  “You lost your Fiend, and now you’re trying to prove you’re as strong as when you had it.”

  “Why is that bad?”

  “If you’ll just remember, you used your Fiend exactly twice, and that was when there was no other choice.”

  “And what do I do if there’s no choice now?” She clipped the words when she wanted to scream them.

  “You don’t need to prove yourself, Fiend or no Fiend. If Roland comes again, we’ll think of something.”

  Katya nodded, and Brutal fell silent, but her insides were in turmoil. She could’ve beaten three men, even without the others, but as the pain in her side proved, she wouldn’t have come away unscathed. But it had been her Fiend as much as her that had thwarted Roland, and even then, she’d only succeeded in driving him off. If he came at them again, if he used Maia against them, how could she hope to defeat him without the strength of the Fiend?

  Brutal left her before she reached the royal apartments, past the guards and the guardian pyramids that glittered in the walls. Katya felt a light touch on her shoulder and turned to Starbride’s caring face. Even after a month of having the title of princess consort, she hadn’t learned to keep her expressions carefully neutral. That or she didn’t care what anyone else thought, another reason to love her.

  “Am I coming with you or are you coming with me?” Starbride asked.

  Katya grinned, happy that one or the other was a given. “Averie will want to check my bruise or she’ll fret herself to death.”

  “I’ll get changed, say hello to Dawnmother, and meet you in your room.”

  Katya leaned in for a kiss. “Perfect.”

  Alone, it wasn’t as perfect as she imagined. Katya sat in her private sitting room and stared at the domed ceiling painted in the colors of rose tinted dawn. Not it, nor the comfortable settees, divans, and carpets or the fully stocked drinks cabinet could distract her for long. She couldn’t keep her mind off the emptiness inside her, the place the Fiend had resided.

  “I’m sorry you were wounded,” Averie said. She had changed into the high-necked blue dress that was her livery. Her fingers twitched at the crest embroidered at her hip
, Katya’s hawk and rose, as if she were nervous she might have to pluck the emblem out.

  “You’ve been out with us so many times, Averie, why are you so nervous?”

  “I’m not as good as Maia. I can’t shoot from just anywhere, and people are a lot harder to shoot than deer. When I…” She swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment. “When I went with you in the past and didn’t split off to hunt, I could always count on Maia to outshoot me. I was happy watching the horses; I knew I wouldn’t have to shoot anyone and that nothing bad would come of it if I missed my target.”

  “No one’s asking you to replace Maia, but we do need an archer, and you’re stupendous, Averie. I made a stupid mistake.”

  “Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “Ask Brutal if you don’t believe me. You’re not only a first-rate archer, you’re a world-class lady-in-waiting. Starbride will be here soon.”

  “I’ll fetch you something. With refreshment, I know exactly where I am.”

  There was one person squared away; only scores to go. Like Maia. Was she with her father, and if so, what was he doing to her? How was he poisoning her mind? Had he found some way to bring on her Aspect, let her Fiend out, without her having to Waltz?