LITMIR.BIZ

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It was a brittle, mirthless sound that set Tanzi’s teeth buzzing. She knew that laugh well. It had never boded well in her childhood. She didn’t imagine things had changed. Unexpectedly, he relaxed back into his seat.

      “My child, you are overwhelmed by the honor I have arranged for you. I should have foreseen this.” He rose, draping a deceptively casual arm about her shoulders. “Walk with me awhile.”

      They stepped through a set of double doors straight onto a sand-and-shingle beach. The entire island, known locally as the Silver Isle, seemed to be made up of sand. Even the ocher-hued cliffs looked ready to crumble into grit at the touch of a fingertip. Ferns, wild fennel and coarse bamboo grasses clung determinedly to soil that was a combination of granule and dust. Tanzi thought of her father’s palace, of the precisely laid-out gardens leading down to the elegant lake. She glanced back over her shoulder at the beachside villa they had just left. Sea breezes and salt water had taken their toll on its elegance so that it had a faded charm she doubted her father would acknowledge. In comparison with the soaring, white marble palace she had called “home” for all her life, it was a shack. Moncoya was as out of place here as a diamond in a dung heap.

      “You made sure no one followed you?” Moncoya withdrew his arm from about her shoulders as they walked along the water’s edge. Secrecy surrounded this hiding place. If he was discovered, he faced trial and inevitable execution.

      “Of course.” Tanzi was offended at the question. Would he have asked Vashti the same thing? She doubted it. Yet we both trained with the Valkyrie. We are equally astute when it comes to warfare and subterfuge. It came back to the same weary argument. The same reason Tanzi had been summoned to be the recipient of his latest piece of “good news” instead of her twin. Moncoya viewed Vashti as the son he had never had. Tanzi’s only value to her father was as a pawn in the marriage stakes. Not this marriage, Father. The sacrifice you are asking of me is too great.

      “Tell me what has been happening at the palace in my absence.” Three months had passed since the cataclysmic battle that had forced Moncoya into hiding. It felt like three years.

      “There is a peacekeeping council known as the Alliance in place. Each of the Otherworld dynasties has representation on it. The Alliance itself is led by Merlin Caledonius.”

      Moncoya’s expression hardened further at the name. “That half-blood cur will pay dearly for his part in this.”

      Merlin, the greatest sorcerer the world had ever known, was Moncoya’s half brother and the man who had brought about his exile. Cal, as he preferred to be called these days, had widened the existing gulf of hatred between the two men further by falling in love with and marrying the woman Moncoya had hoped to make his queen.

      Tanzi paused, looking out across the turquoise waters toward the horizon. She drew a deep breath. “My father, you wrong him. He is man of conscience who is doing a fine job of uniting the dynasties...” Moncoya’s growl of rage told her she had gone too far.

      “Am I, the greatest leader Otherworld has ever known, to be forced into hiding while he lives in luxury in my royal palace? Am I to endure the knowledge that he has stolen the necromancer star, the woman I chose as my own, from under my nose? Must I kick my heels in this backwater while you, my own daughter, take the seat that should be mine at this pathetic council table—” He broke off, his voice ragged. When he spoke again, his tone was softer, the words a caress. “But you know nothing of these things, my child. It is wrong of these men to ask you to involve yourself in their political machinations. They seek to trick you.”

      Tanzi bit her lip. How could she explain it to him when he insisted on viewing her as a helpless dupe? Being part of the Alliance had brought her new life. Oh, she had been regarded with suspicion initially by many of the council members. She was Moncoya’s daughter, after all. They saw her as the spoiled brat sidhe princess who had been his consort—his puppet—in the past. Together with Vashti, she had blindly carried out his wishes. But things had changed three months ago on that battlefield. She had changed.

      A pair of laughing Irish eyes came into her mind once more and she determinedly dismissed them. Cal and his wife, Stella, treated her as their equal, and with their help she was learning how to be the voice and conscience of her people. She was developing an understanding of compassion and democracy. Tanzi cast a sidelong glance at her father. She was learning that there was a way to rule other than Moncoya’s iron-fisted style.

      “Let us leave this talk of the mongrel sorcerer for another day. I look forward to dealing with him when the time comes. This marriage I have arranged for you is the highest distinction ever to be bestowed upon a woman. Through this union, I will not only be able to come out of this undignified hiding and return to my palace, I will be the undisputed ruler of all Otherworld.” Moncoya’s lips thinned into a smile. “There will be no need for their puny Alliance when that day dawns.”

      “And what of me, Father? While you become all powerful, what will I become?”

      He paused then, perhaps considering for the first time the true implications of what he was asking of her. Such was his arrogance, she might have known he would not allow her feelings to influence him for long. “You will be revered above all others.”

      She shook her head. “I will not do it.”

      His face was set. The silken note in his voice made the threat even more menacing. “You have no choice.”

      “By all the angels, Father, you cannot intend to force me into this!”

      Moncoya’s lips smiled but Tanzi’s heart quailed at the look in his eyes. “Given the bridegroom I have chosen for you, might I suggest you refrain from speaking of angels in the future?”

      * * *

      Lorcan Malone narrowed his eyes against the harsh blast of sand that swept off the golden beach. He was seated on a cliff top looking across the stretch of blue Mediterranean Sea from Tangier to Gibraltar and wondering what the hell he was doing there. He knew why he had come to Morocco. Of course he did. The same reason that led him anywhere had brought him to this place. But that had been two days ago. The job was done and yet he was still hanging around, waiting for... Well, what was he waiting for, exactly?

      “Damned if I know,” he muttered, kicking a pebble and watching it bounce down the steep slope.

      His sources had been insistent when they persuaded him of the need to stay on. There was more work for him here, they had maintained. There were others in danger, men who needed his help. All that urgency and secrecy. Then silence. He was beginning to suspect a trap. Moncoya might be out of action, but he wasn’t the only evil bastard in Otherworld. He certainly wasn’t the only one who would like to see the anti-Moncoya resistance movement wiped out.

      If it was a trap it meant Lorcan’s cover was blown. Someone had seen through the aimless veneer he worked so hard to preserve. The Irish wanderer guise had slipped somewhere along the way. Lorcan shrugged. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.

      A movement on the hillside caught his attention and he turned his head. A car so battered it looked as if it was held together with string and candle wax screeched to a halt, throwing up clouds of red dust in its wake. The head that thrust through the open driver’s window wore a battered fez and a grin as wide as the Strait of Gibraltar itself.

      “Taxi for Malone?”

      “Ali!” Lorcan sprang up from the scrubby grass. “Tell me it’s not yourself who has kept me kicking up my heels in this sorry place. Because if it is you’re a dead man, my friend.”

      “Get in and save your bluster for someone who cares.” Ali threw open the passenger door. Tossing his backpack in first, Lorcan slid into an interior that smelled of cheap tobacco and cheaper aftershave. Before he could even close the door, Ali screeched off again in the direction of the city. Lorcan had been in Tangier long enough to become acquainted with the rules of the road. There were no rules. There were no seat belts either. Not in this car, anyway.

      “Out with it. What’s going on?” If Ali was involved, at least Lorcan could be reasonably confident this wasn’t

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