Any Price by Gail Faulkner

his head.
    “In the queen’s room. We should hurry, my lord.”
    Lore sighed deeply as he struggled to gather some calm for Kenna. “Your rooms are right through that connecting door.” He indicated a cleverly concealed door in his wall. “I’ll be here and I am sure Thomas is outside your door. It’ll be all right. We’ll figure this out.”
    “Good God, Lore. I think they just told us I’m another species. Something not quite human.” Kenna’s face was pale. She appeared fragile as she pulled out of his arms.
    “They told us that a lot of people know you are the rightful queen to both thrones. I’m not sure they can prove it but that is the most pressing danger,” Lore answered as he remained seated, looking up at her with a sad smile. He knew she was aware of that but its significance hadn’t dawned on her yet.
    “I don’t want a throne, your throne. I don’t know what being a Keeper is.”
    “I know. This situation is complicated. Sometimes things happen. Others decide to do things that we might not want done.” Lore looked at Yuri. “Will your people want to put Kenna on the thrones? Is there going to be an uprising?” he questioned flatly.
    “We could never do this, my lord!” Yuri denied vehemently. “To do that we would endanger our first daughter and kill you. You are her One who makes us whole. If you were to die, she would follow you. Only if there were a child would she stay behind. And even then, the light would have gone out in her.
    “We guard you with our lives and our children’s lives. There is nothing the Keepers would not do to protect you and our first daughter. We rejoice in your union. If it were up to us, you would not go to the feast tonight. Your joining is the greatest gift you could bestow.”
    Lore ran a hand down his face. “Stop, neither of us is ready to hear what happens then.”
    Standing, he focused on Kenna. Trailing his knuckles down her pale cheek, he gave her a half smile. “Go on, baby. It’s less than an hour to the feast. Can we just get through it? Then sift through all this?”
    “Yes, I, ah, I don’t know what to think. It’s overwhelming.” Kenna reached up on tiptoe to kiss Lore in an absentminded fashion then turned to follow Julianna through the connecting door.
    Her mind was taken up with what Grandmother had left her in New York. Nothing was what it seemed and now she had a sick suspicion there was more there than Grandmother had told her.

Chapter Five
     
    When the king and his guest appeared in the great room, a ripple of intense reaction was felt by both of them. This crowd could not go wild like the throng at the joust. Here, those who could connect with the Keeper royal couple were surrounded by others unaware of exactly who stood before them.
    Lore and Kenna smiled and nodded while taking their seats at the head of the tables, which was the signal to start the medieval feast. Lore handed Kenna into the chair on his left. A stone-faced Gregory took the chair on his right. Thomas stood directly behind Kenna’s chair and Yuri behind Lore’s.
    Gregory glanced back and grimaced at the two large, chain-mail encrusted, sword-carrying guards. “What’s with all the protection, my lord? Are you expecting trouble? Something you failed to mention?”
    Kenna had been able to read people’s strong emotions all her life. The recent magnification of that ability would not have been needed to read Gregory right now. Angry resentment emanated from his very being. His thoughts were a staccato list of objections. Listening to them for only a moment, she attempted to block him.
    In his eyes, a guard behind her chair while none stood behind his placed her importance above his own. It was a public insult that cut his pride to the bone. All this after her appearance had ejected him from this afternoon’s events.
    Lore answered Gregory’s tense question with seemingly detached calm, hoping the dismissive attitude would discourage further discussion of