Earthly Crown by Kate Elliott Page A

They hadn’t a chance, you know, when they brought out their pitiful army against Veselov’s ten thousand with my jahar and Mirsky’s jahar in reserve. After the first day they saw it was useless and negotiated a surrender. They would have done better to close their gates and try to wait out a siege. We weren’t very good at sieges that first year.”
    Tess chuckled. “You spent one year too many in Jeds, Dina. Are you sorry for them, now?”
    Nadine shrugged. “What the gods have brought them, they will have to endure. Still, it’s true enough. One year too many in Jeds marks you, just like any good jaran woman is marked for marriage.”
    “Like you aren’t.” Tess touched the scar that ran diagonally from cheekbone to jaw on her left cheek.
    Nadine smiled, unmarked. “Gods, it’s no wonder he married you. He would never have married a jaran woman, not after the years he spent in Jeds. Sonia and Yuri—that’s why they only spent a year there. They didn’t want to be changed. Or couldn’t be.”
    “Poor Yuri. It’s probably just as well he died. He would have hated this. Three years of war—one battle after the next. So much killing. He would have hated it.”
    Nadine examined Tess reflectively—the hair and eyes no color ever seen in jaran-born; a good rider, for a khaja; and she could fight, it was true. Nadine recalled the cousin she had last seen years before, that gentle boy Yuri. It was true he had hated fighting—could do it, but hated it. Tess was good, probably better than Yuri, had ever been, but she lacked the love of the art itself, she lacked the indifference to killing: and to be a truly good fighter one must have both of those traits in moderation, or one in excess. Good timing, and a fine eye for distance: those were Tess’s skills.
    Tess watched her, one lip quirked up in ironic salute. “Judged and found wanting?”
    “Your skills aren’t at issue, Tess. Just remember, there are only five women I know of in Bakhtiian’s army. Before you came, not one woman rode to battle. It’s no dishonor to you to choose not to ride now.”
    The set of Tess’s mouth tightened. “It’s not such a simple choice for me. It never was.”
    Nadine sighed. Poor Tess, always agonizing over what was the right thing to do. She changed the subject. “Would Yurinya have hated it? I never knew him that well. We weren’t of an age, and anyway, he was so quiet.”
    “Unlike you.”
    “Judged and found wanting?” retorted Nadine. Tess grinned. “The entire coast subject to his uncle’s authority? Half the southern kingdoms that border the plains? We ride into a town now that gives us tribute so that we’ll never again attack them. One more season of campaigning and we’ll either all be dead or we’ll see the other half recognize us as their kind protectors, and we’ll seal alliances with the Vidiyan Great King and the Habakar king, and—gods, Tess, and then we’ll be free to ride north and east along the Golden Road.”
    “Yuri would have hated it,” muttered Tess.
    “Ilya is a fool,” said Nadine. “He believes what he says, that it’s our duty to conquer them so that all jaran will be safe from the khaja forever. Gods, what nonsense.”
    “Are you going to tell him?”
    “Why bother? You’re the only person I know of who has the slightest chance of changing his mind—even my mother couldn’t have done it. We all know what happened to Vasil Veselov when he tried. But you could, Tess. Maybe. Are you going to try?”
    Tess looked away. “How can I?” she asked in a low voice. “This is what makes him what he is.”
    Nadine had long ago made a pact with herself not to think too deeply about her uncle. She loved him; how could she not? She hated him, because it was his fault that her mother and little brother had died. And in between, tangling it all up, the harness of duty that constrained her, her duty to her family, and the memory of her mother—the most wonderful person in all the