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  "You should stay safe, so that when I find him, I will be able to tell him you are safe. You've done enough—more than. It takes great bravery and fortitude to do as you did, traveling here alone knowing your life must be as in danger as Symaia's."

  Astira muttered something—curses and complaints, likely—but gave a terse nod.

  Omar bowed to the king and queen again, and at their gesture, departed.

  He headed quickly for his room, where he changed into loose pants that gathered close at the ankles, sturdy boots to which he could attach greaves if necessary, and a sleeveless tunic that folded across the front and was secured with a wide green sash. Over that he pulled a quilted tunic, which in turn was covered by heavy leather armor; the metal between the leather layers was capable of taking arrows and repelling most knives and even some swords.

  Finally he braided his hair back, starting at the sides and then merging them at the back, securing the end with a heavy comb that could be a weapon all its own if that became necessary.

  Next, he went to work on weapons: his short sword, a long sword to keep on his horse, various daggers, and his longbow, though that would mostly be used for hunting. He tucked other odds and ends into the pouches fastened to his belt: healing ointments and other such supplies, and a small case of poisons that could prove useful when sneaking about wherever they were holding Symaia.

  Finally, he packed a bag with spare clothes and other small supplies, attached his bedroll and a spare cloak.

  When he was finished, he pulled a heavy gold chain from his small jewelry box. From it dangled two identical rings—and he wore the third. Young, hopeful, and pathetic, he'd commissioned the rings with dreams of bestowing one on his sworn. He'd wanted so hard to form the sort of bond that he'd read about in histories and stories a hundred times.

  The bond that Prince Kallaar had with his bloodgiver, Ahmla. A bond they further shared with Princess Shanna. That was so rare, even back in the days when bloodgivers had been more highly regarded than they were now, it was practically legend.

  He'd never truly believed he'd have a use for the third ring, but he'd had it made all the same. Trying, after all, offered some chance of success. Never trying at all was a guaranteed failure.

  But he'd never even managed to offer one ring, let alone two.

  Sighing at himself, he pulled the chain over his head and tucked it beneath his various layers so the metal warmed rapidly against his skin.

  Grabbing his buckler and a heavy cloak on his way, for Cormiana would be nothing but snow and ice this time of year, Omar headed out.

  His horse was already waiting for him, saddle bags full of provisions and a quiver of arrows. A servant stepped forward and handed him a heavy purse, and a piece of paper that Omar signed. Approaching the horse, a beautiful roan mare that he'd bought himself as a gift for completing his training, Omar secured the rest of his belongings, and made to mount up when he heard his name.

  Turning, he just barely caught Astira before she tumbled headlong into him. Without thinking, he reached up to tuck back the strands of hair that were sticking to her flushed face. "Did you remember something else?"

  "What? No, I came to wish you well. I am sorry you are being put in danger for a matter that has nothing to do with you—"

  "The problems of the kingdom and its allies are my problems, and I am more than happy to help Symaia in any way I can. He was a friend to me when no one else would be. I promise I will return him to you, my lady, or die trying."

  She scowled. "I do not want anyone dying—well, Mercen I would like to see pitched into the sea, or a roaring fire, but I'd like everyone else to live. Thank you, again." She leaned in and kissed his cheek, smelling of summer sun and wildflowers. "Goddess watch you over."

  "Thank you, my lady. May the divine continue to protect you."

  Face still flushed, she smiled at him and stepped back.

  It should not have been so difficult to tear himself away, but there was no denying doing so took effort. Swinging up into the saddle, Omar bid Astira a final farewell, wheeled his horse around, and rode away from the palace bound for Cormiana.

  Chapter Two

  Omar had just bitten into fresh roasted hare when he heard noise in the woods that was decidedly not animal.

  He ignored it, hoping he was wrong. He had a strong suspicion that his uninvited visitor was not a bandit, but someone far more headstrong and dangerous.

  The noise came again several minutes later, followed almost immediately by what sounded like someone desperately trying to smother a sneeze.

  He was almost impressed it had taken three whole weeks for her to catch up. Setting his dinner aside, Omar fixed a second plate and called out in Cormian, "You may as well come out, Lady Astira. If you make me come find you, I won't be sharing my supper."

  Colorful swearing came from a dense copse of bushes at the far end of the clearing, then she pushed through the foliage and strode toward him like a princess in a throne room. The impression was in no way lessened by her dirty travel clothes or the ragged state of her braided and bound hair.

  Definitely far more dangerous than any bandit.

  "I thought I was doing so well," she said sourly, plopping down next to him with all the casualness of a long-time acquaintance.

  "You're damned lucky you did not cross paths with any bandits."

  She gave him a look that would have made Omar's old weapons master proud. "I know I look as though I'm made of snow and silk, but I promise you I know how to use the knives I carry."

  "It's less a matter of skill and more a matter of numbers. Even I am not likely to win the day against several bandits." He handed her a plate of food. "Why did you follow me? Did you tell anyone you were sneaking out, or did you leave them all to be surprised? How did you evade your bloodgiver?"

  "Him." Scorn spilled from the word like water rushing over a cliff. She tossed her head, as though to throw back the hair that was bound tightly at the back of her head. "Ahmla distracted him, and Shanna and I slipped away, and that was that."

  Omar's lip curled, but he only said, "I see."

  Astira giggled. "Yes, that was my thought. He is acclaimed to be one of the best of you lifesworn, but I was not very impressed. I do not think he would have noticed me as quickly as you, if at all."

  "I'm certain he had good reason. He has always been accounted an excellent… lifesworn, is that the term you used? I had not heard it."

  "That's the term Shanna uses in her letters. It's from a mostly-forgotten Remnien tradition."

  "I see. It certainly suits." Omar finished eating all the meat on the bone he held, then broke it in half to suck out the marrow. Lifesworn. He liked it. Not quite the same as bloodgiver, and all that term implied and conveyed, but for explaining himself to foreigners it would make everything a good deal easier. "You should not have evaded your lifesworn, and you certainly should not be here."

  She jutted her chin out. "I'm not going to sit around and do nothing while someone else rescues the man I love. What would he think of me, twiddling my thumbs and letting other people do all the work?"

  "He would think the woman he loved was safe, and not suffering because of him," Omar said, not quite snapping the words out. "He would think you considered more than your own ego in running off like a fool."

  Astira jerked as though slapped and glared at him in the next breath. "My ego? My ego has nothing to do with—"

  "You are nobility. A diplomat, if I recall correctly. Perhaps you know how to use your daggers, but what experience do you have in tracking? In combat? What would you do if you were the one kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured? Do you know the proper actions to take if you are poisoned? Stabbed? Garroted? If this relatively mild winter turned into a sudden blizzard—"

  "I do know snow," Astira snapped, then said more glumly, "but I take your point on the rest. I am a diplomat, and while I have been in a fight or two, I don't know if it would qualify as combat. My skill is in talking my way into a
nd out of things, not fighting. But I am not very good at standing by and doing nothing, either." Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them rapidly away. "You do not understand all that I and Symaia have been through to be together. He was stolen from me while I sat in his home embroidering and talking about our wedding!" She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Calling himself an ass, Omar moved to sit beside her, curling an arm around her waist, gently urging her to rest her head on his shoulder. She still smelled of summer sun and wildflowers, beneath pine and sweat. It did not surprise Omar that Symaia had found such a beautiful, strong, and capable person to bind himself to in this life and every other. "You are not to blame for his kidnapping, my lady."

  "Don't call me that," Astira said, sniffling. "It makes you sound like one of the tiresome nobles I must deal with day after day. It reminds me of when Symaia addressed me so formally. I hated it then, and I hate it now. You're his friend, which makes you my friend. You should call me Astira, or Rara; that's what Symaia calls me."

  Omar chuckled. "Rara?"

  Looking up, wiping the tears from her face, Astira pouted and said, "I know it sounds childish—"

  "No, not at all. That's not it. 'Rara' in Morentian means 'bunny.' Did he never tell you that?"

  Her mouth dropped open, and then a scowl overtook her face. "No, he did not tell me that. He—I—that scamp!"

  "It's a fairly common term of endearment in Morentia. Sort of the way your people use 'honey' and 'darling'. If I called someone 'honey' back home, they would wonder if I took a knock to the head. It's a peculiar term to use on a person."

  "No stranger than calling someone 'bunny'," Astira replied, and they shared a brief smile before she moved away and picked at her food. "Do you think he is alive?"

  "I do not want to give you false hope…" At the tearful look that overtook her face again, Omar hastened to add, "but if I were going to kidnap such a powerful man, I would keep him alive. He has information, wealth, and connections to much more of both. The longer they keep him alive, the more they can get out of him—and if they kidnapped him to stop or delay his armies, then killing him will only make that more difficult. An army with a dead leader finds a new leader. An army with a missing leader is left adrift, and an army without aim or purpose is little more than—" He broke off before he said one of the cruder things he would have said to his peers. "Dead."

  Astira gave him a wry look but did not remark on the slip. "Not terribly comforting, but I appreciate your honesty and will take what reassurance I can get. But he always said your honesty was one of the things he admired most about you."

  "Oh, did he?" Omar asked dryly. "Because I remember more than a few times where he did not enjoy my honesty at all."

  Giggling, Astira eventually managed to say, "He did admit there were times he did not take your opinion or advice gracefully."

  "I believe he called me as stubborn as the oxen I once used on the farms," Omar replied. "I believe that was the time I told him his proposal for… oh, I hardly recall the details now, it was some alteration to a minor law. He was pleased with it, and wanted me to read it, and was not happy with what I told him. But a few days later he came back with something I liked a great deal more. It was meant to only be one of his school assignments, but it was so well done it wound up being submitted and instituted."

  Astira smiled. "It was a change to a county tax law that, if changed the way he'd initially proposed, would have had farmers, ranchers, and tradesmen paying nearly double, while not really affecting the merchants it was meant to curtail. Your suggestions wound up helping the farmers et al and got rid of the loophole that merchants were abusing. Symaia said he got much better at such things after your reprimand."

  "He would have gotten there on his own. At worst, the professor would have failed him, and he'd have to do it over again."

  She jabbed him in the side. "Do not dismiss yourself so. Symaia thinks the world of you, and so far I see no reason he shouldn't. There was also the time you saved him from a bar fight."

  "Oh, there was more than one of those," Omar said, rolling his eyes. "Symaia is quite typically noble in that everything must come to a fight if honor or whatnot is impugned. He did not like I often made him walk away and drop the matter. Very few things are genuinely worth violence."

  "He's gotten much better about that, though there has been a time or two I've had to distract him—or literally drag him away."

  "And he says I'm the stubborn ox."

  "I think you're both stubborn in your ways, and they balance each other out." She smiled at him, though it turned a bit wobbly as she said, "I utterly detest the circumstances, but I am so very happy I finally got to meet you."

  Omar swallowed. "I am happy to meet the woman he loves." Even if it felt like there was a knife permanently lodged in his heart.

  "So how do you propose to find him?"

  "The easiest path to information in such matters is to go to the people who did the actual kidnapping; they typically are hired locally and hand off the target to the people who hired them. They are rarely involved in the actual matter that provoked the kidnapping." They were also not infrequently killed once the job was done, but that was a problem Omar would handle if it came up. He was hoping they were still alive and could be persuaded—one way or another—to give him information on their employers. "If I can find them, which shouldn't be hard, then I can learn the next step, and go from there."

  "You make it sound so simple," Astira said quietly. "How does a bodyguard know so much about kidnappers and… stuff. I just assumed Ahmla went above and beyond because he loves Kallaar and Shanna."

  Omar chuckled. "That is one aspect of being a lifesworn. We give our lives to protect, serve, advise and more. That is why we are called thus. In Morentian, the word for blood used in bloodgiver translates more like 'life blood'. It's not the same word used for say, a bleeding cut or monthly bleeding. We are givers of our lifeblood. Our beating hearts. We live for our sworns. It is our duty to do and be whatever they want, and more importantly, what they need. 'Be a bloodgiver' is a saying in our country. It means that when someone needs to be told a hard truth, or made to do something difficult, you should have the courage and decency to tell them so if they do not see it themselves. We do what is required, regardless of the personal cost."

  "I see," Astira said quietly. "We have a similar saying: the smartest man in the kingdom is the one who will punch the king. These days, anyone who punched His Majesty would find themselves in jail, or in the executioner's yard. But once, such advisors were highly valued and appreciated." She sighed and picked up a stick, twisting and turning it between her fingers.

  The firelight licked at her skin like a lover and set her hair to glowing like embers. Omar itched to free it, comb it, and rebind it for her, as he'd done for his mother so many times as a boy, when her hands were too sore from working to do it herself.

  There were other things he would have liked to do to Astira, if they were not completely impossible. But they were, and so he tucked the illicit daydreams deep into the recesses of his mind where they belonged. "Do you have a horse?"

  Astira nodded awkwardly as she yawned. "Yes, I'll go get her now. She's not far." She stood before Omar could reply and slipped away like a shadow chased by the dark. Omar ate the last few bits of hare and cleaned up. He'd just started to set out his bedroll when she returned. After settling her horse, she carried her own bedroll over and laid it down right next to his. She deftly tied them together down the middle, then spread out their blankets.

  As she started to remove her boots, Omar opened his mouth, closed it again, and shook his head as he went to tend the fire. Soon, they would be traveling through areas where he'd have to leave traps—or he supposed with two of them they could take turns on watch—but for now they were still in relatively safe territory. Most bandits wouldn't be out now that it was getting so much colder; they kept to the day and early evening.

  Returning to Ast
ira, who'd let down her hair and pulled it into a simple braid, he sat and removed his own boots. "I hope you don't snore; I will kick you out and take the whole bed to myself."

  Astira laughed. "I don't snore, not to my knowledge." She suddenly looked chagrined. "I'm sorry, is this all right? It's such a habit, I didn't even think it may not be something acceptable in your country."

  "Certainly it would be looked at askance between two people who are neither related nor in a firm relationship," Omar replied. "But I have been informally assigned as Symaia's lifesworn; if I cannot be trusted to sleep next to his betrothed, I should not have been granted the duty."

  If the gods saw fit to indulge him, perhaps he'd get to protect them both for a long time to come. That might be more torture than pleasure, but at least he would be sworn to a man who appreciated him, people who would not treat him like furniture or a tiresome chore. Maybe Symaia would never view him romantically, but Omar would be happy to be his friend again.

  "Informally assigned?" Astira asked. "In my experience commands from the king are pretty final."

  Omar smiled briefly. "Generally. But a lifesworn cannot be forced upon anyone. Those we are bid to protect have the right to refuse, and though it's exceedingly rare, we do have the right to refuse to protect someone. That has not happened in… at least half a century, I think." He pulled his boots off, folded the soft tops over to lessen the chance of something getting in them, and set his sword nearby before crawling under the blankets.

  Normally he would have fallen immediately to sleep; traveling was exhausting, all the more so in the cold. But it was hard to ignore the presence at his side, the small touches as she shifted and settled, the hint of sunshine and wildflowers. He could not honestly remember the last time he'd shared a bed; so much of his life was spent alone. With the first man he'd protected, Omar had slept on the floor at the foot of the bed every night. The second man had provided a cot, when Omar had refused to sleep in a separate room.