Starborn. Katie MacAlister

You have long been in her favor. Do you need food? We brought supplies as well as horses.”

      “What I would like is a hot bath and dry clothing,” he said with his usual straightforwardness. Israel didn’t suffer fools gladly and believed in saying what he thought without playing any of the verbal games that were common to other members of the Council of Four Armies. “If you can provide that, my men and I will be most appreciative.”

      She inclined her head and allowed him to assist her into the saddle. “Ilam is but an hour’s journey from here. If your horses are too tired to travel now, my men can remain with them—”

      “They have had a rest. We will push on together,” Israel said firmly. Although he had a long history with the Tribe of Jalas, not all of it was as amiable as in recent years, and he was loath to splinter his company, small as it was.

      It took closer to two hours for their tired mounts to wind their way through the mountain pass to Ilam, the city that sat pressed at the base of a craggy, snow-mantled peak, which was home to Jalas. Kiriah had seen fit to melt away all the clouds between the pass and Ilam, making their travel less fraught with peril, although Israel noted the clouds had begun to gather again behind them just as they approached the tall black iron gates.

      “And how does your father do?” Israel asked as they entered the keep. “The last I heard from him, he declared himself at death’s door.”

      Idril allowed three of her handmaidens to remove her long white woolen cloak, gloves, and the assorted outer garments that were intended to keep the cold from her fair skin. “He does like to believe himself mere seconds away from departing this world, but in truth, he seems well enough. He refuses to leave the keep, however, saying his limbs are weak and give him great pain. The doctors can find nothing wrong with him, but I can’t help think…” Her words trailed off as she looked across the great hall.

      A figure stood shadowed in an alcove, barely visible in the dim light of the hall. For a moment, Israel thought it was a statue, but as the flame from a lamp on a nearby table flickered, he saw the glint of eyes.

      Eyes that for a moment, he could have sworn regarded him with hostility so intense, it sent a pang of concern through him.

      Then the figure was in motion, and Israel dismissed his impression as a figment of his tired brain.

      “Lord Israel! My daughter did not tell me you were expected.” Jalas limped forward using a great hawthorn stick, his face gaunt and grey, with two red spots on his cheeks beneath the bristles of his braided copper-colored beard. “What madness has brought you out during this storm? Idril, my chair. No, I have changed my mind; the hall is too cold for my thin blood. Come to my chambers, my lord, and you shall tell me news of the world. Idril is too busy to spend time with her failing father.”

      Idril said nothing at the chastisement, but Israel noted the way her lips tightened. It was a telling point in a woman who had such extreme control over her emotions.

      A short while later, after seeing that his men and horses had been accommodated, Israel found himself in a large wooden chair pulled up to a fire that was almost uncomfortably hot. Across from him, Jalas allowed Idril to get him seated, several pillows having to be adjusted just so, in order to pamper his aching joints, before she poured out a huge flagon of ale for him, and a smaller one for Israel.

      “Now then, I believe I can bear sitting up long enough to hear why you’ve come to the High Lands,” Jalas said after taking a long pull on the ale, wiping his mouth with one hand before he leaned back, giving Israel a piercing look.

      “Do you wish me to remain or leave, Father?” Idril asked in her soft, placid voice.

      “Eh? You might as well stay,” Jalas said, then grimaced and added to Israel, “She will have control over the Tribe soon enough. Much good may she get from it when I am gone, since the clans are even now fighting amongst themselves, something Idril seems to be unable to stop.”

      Idril dismissed her handmaids, and sat in a chair next to the window, picking up an embroidery tambour, apparently uninterested in what her father was saying.

      Israel didn’t want to get into the politics of the Tribe members, but he didn’t care for the way Jalas so easily cast blame upon his daughter. Idril might be many things, but he knew from experience the lengths to which she was prepared to go in order to keep the peace. “The clans of the High Lands are known for their fierceness. I have no doubt they have tempers to match,” Israel said in what he hoped was a noncommittal tone. “It must be difficult to lead them without a good deal of experience. I’m sure Lady Idril does her best.”

      Jalas grunted, and drained half the flagon, belched, wiped the foam from his moustache, and asked again, “What news have you?”

      “Little enough that would interest you,” Israel said. “Hallow sent me a message saying that he is concerned about Darius, the Starborn steward.”

      “Hallow? Oh, the mad arcanist who was in your company?” Jalas finished his ale. “I heard a nasty rumor about him, that he tied himself to that pox-marked female who was tainted by your son.”

      “I doubt if even Deo could have tainted Allegria,” Israel said drily, but was aware of an uncomfortable feeling in his belly. Jalas hadn’t taken it well when he’d been told that rather than destroy his son, Israel had only banished him…for a second time. He didn’t want to get onto that subject again, so offered up information that would hopefully serve as a distraction. “And you are correct in that Hallow and Allegria were wed in late summer, at the temple where she’d served. Lady Sandorillan insisted they perform the ceremony there.”

      Jalas grunted and gestured for more ale. Idril rose, and without glancing at Israel, refilled their flagons before returning silently to her seat. “More fool he for binding himself to one who will likely try to kill him one of these days. What was it about Darius that concerned the arcanist?”

      “Evidently there are signs Darius feels he no longer needs to abide by the rules the Council has set down.”

      “The Council of Four Armies is disbanded,” Jalas said, and for a fleeting second, his expression was sly.

      Israel frowned. Perhaps Jalas was merely feeling the strain of his illness. “I wouldn’t use the term disbanded when ‘at peace’ is more appropriate.”

      “Oh?” Jalas’s eyes narrowed on him. “Do you maintain the army you had summoned for the battle with the Harborym?”

      “Not the full force,” Israel answered, a sense of something in the air—suspicion? Resentment?—making him wary. “But I always have need of a standing army. The Fireborn are, on the whole, a reasonable people, but it does not mean they are willing to live in complete harmony. You must know how important it is to remind your people of the repercussions should they cross you.”

      Jalas murmured it was so, drinking from the flagon as he did so.

      The next half hour left Israel with a definite idea that something was very wrong with Jalas. Although he expressed interest in Darius, he appeared distracted and didn’t once inquire what Hallow and his fellow arcanists were doing.

      It wasn’t until later that evening, when Idril had escorted him from her father’s chambers that he gave voice to the concern that most bothered him. “Your father is a changed man.”

      “Yes.” Idril stood in front of the fire in the great hall, her demeanor as mild as ever, although her shoulders rose in a slight shrug. “He did not take our divorce well.”

      “Considering he knew our marriage was one in name only, it was unrealistic of him to expect us to continue it.”

      “My father has ever been a man who follows his own counsel,” she said evenly, her gaze still on the fire. “Even when he knows he is in the wrong.”

      Israel frowned, remembering the thinly veiled barbs that the older man had cast at his daughter. “Does he maintain no control over the Tribe any longer?”

      “No.