Please note: the cliffhangers will continue unless I hear feedback that they are unappreciated. Consider this your warning for this chapter's ending.

Lady Lioness: Chapter Thirteen

Alanna had been stunned to hear that King Roald was dead, after so little warning and with no whisper of intent, but Duke Roger was not done surprising her. When she arrived to their afternoon tea, wearing her second-best black dress and carrying George's lucky throwing knife in her reticule, they were not alone. The table was set for three, and her brother was sitting in the third chair.

"Good afternoon, your Grace," Alanna said with a perfect curtsy, keeping to better manners this time. Roger would not get the better of her again. "Good afternoon, brother."

Thom looked very much as if he wanted to be anywhere else, which only firmed her resolve to be the ideal guest for such a small gathering. Her opinion wasn't helped by the rich color of Thom's tunic, a sharp departure from mourning. "Hello, sister dear. Let's not draw this out, please." He gestured toward her chair. Duke Roger had risen to his feet on Alanna's entrance to his opulent sitting room, and sat only after Alanna had swept her skirts around her chair.

"Thom sees little need for our games, my lady," Roger said regretfully. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to pour the tea?"

"Of course, your grace," Alanna replied sweetly, following his lead easily. They did understand each other, at least, and she was almost fond of him as an enemy. Whatever evils he might wreak, the man had style. She poured the tea without spilling a drop, and furthermore every action had been carried out with a casual grace that would make Sister Emmarie sigh in contentment. "I am sorry you don't enjoy our little discussions, brother. I have always found them very illuminating."

"Roger agreed that I should be the one to tell you, sister, so I'll do it my way." There was a sulky inflection to 'sister' that she didn't like, but Thom left her no room to interrupt. "You know that Father won't be around for much longer, and that Father wants to see you married. My lord seems to think that you'd like being a queen."

"I am very sorry to hear of the king's demise," Alanna said carefully, her eyes locked on Roger's. George's description of a snake had never seemed more apt. Roger was waiting calmly, for all the world like he hadn't just allowed his student and squire to make a proposal on Roger's behalf. "I do congratulate your grace on your likely ascension to the throne, but I have no such ambitions. I plan to finish my year of mourning before courting." Her mother's death might be the only thing that could entirely protect her from Roger's plan without a wedding of her own.

"I would be prepared to wait for such a gem as yourself, Alanna."

If he would be so informal, then she would respond in kind. "I could not possibly accept, Roger. I haven't the temperament to be a queen." It was a relief to set their usual games aside and speak directly. Perhaps that was Thom's influence.

"I do not require an answer today, Alanna, but I will ask again at my coronation." Roger's voice was smooth as poured honey, but there was malice beneath the words for any with the mind to listen. "I suggest you strongly consider my offer. Your friends would be quite safe with you as their vanguard."

"I am sure that I do not comprehend your meaning, your grace. I thank you for the tea." Alanna rose, feeling foreboding raising the hairs on the nape of her neck. Something was very wrong, from the glimmer of dark mischief in Roger's eyes, and it would not be something that would hurt him. "Brother, I am pleased to see you well." Let Roger look at the tension between her and her sibling and accept that as his token for the day. Let Roger think that Thom was the wedge that would bring her closer to him.

"Consider my offer, Alanna," Roger warned.

Any earlier half-approving thoughts about Roger's style had vanished in face of the fear that he would hurt her friends. Eleni had done nothing wrong, and Myles was harmless to Roger's goals. Knight that he was, Myles would be hard-pressed to act against his future king. Arram was a boy, still, but the whispers knew that Roger destroyed the young mages not marching under his banner.

"I would appreciate a mage of your strength to bear my children, as well as a woman of such vibrant spirit and allies." Roger turned even that compliment into a subtle threat. "Your friends are lucky to have you."

Thom, at least, did not understand the new undercurrent. He looked to his knightmaster for the answer, but Roger was waiting for Alanna's reply.

"I feel that the opposite is true, your grace. I have been lucky in my friends."

"They all would be safe under your protection, Alanna." Roger's promises were terrible. "Even your pet thief. With a pardon and a paltry little oath in his blood, he would be allowed to serve as your personal guard."

George. Roger had done something to George, when the thief had been staying in the palace to watch over her. "I must consider your offer." For the first time, Alanna was in danger of losing her composure with Roger there to watch her.

"Of course, milady." Roger rose again, as if he would escort her to the door, and his mask fell. If she had not already been afraid for George, that expression would have dropped all of her defenses at once. Somehow, despite all of her plots and all of her plans, she had forgotten that Roger was not just a power-hungry noble. Roger just might be evil.

Roger's voice was still pleasant, for all that he was a monster. "I would think that such an offer would merit a return to your chambers to consider such a weighty proposal. I have left a gift for your perusal."

Alanna sprinted through the hallway, propriety forgotten in face of the new threat. Halfway to her rooms, Faithful met her at a run. She followed her yowling cat to her rooms, for once sure that Faithful was speaking to her. He needs you! Faithful said, as if Alanna hadn't known. Alanna threw open the door to her room, leaving Salma to hastily lock her chambers behind her.

George was a mess of wounds, cuts, and blood, but he was alive. He was also alert enough to look irritated and embarrassed all at once. "They were careful to not cut away too much. I'd been in the stables to find Stefan, and there were a dozen men in close quarters," he explained as Alanna unleashed a flood of violet magic. She clutched at her ember pendant as she worked, following the small trace of orange rapidly disappearing from his feet.

"Roger was tracking you," Alanna said absently, following the last of the cuts until they healed without scars. Not one of the wounds had been meant as a fatal blow, but all of them together might have crippled him. Several deep cuts had traveled all too close to nerves that never took well to healing. "How did you get back to my rooms?"

"I wasn't followed, and clever to ask." George flexed his left hand carefully. The back of it had been sliced badly enough that he has nearly lost the smallest finger. "Sarge was on-hand. He smuggled me in on some pretense, Kyprioth knows what he said to get his hands on that laundry cart."

Salma said nothing, but she and George had a silent exchange in that next moment. The maid had been looking on for the entire healing, and she was the one to move a chair behind Alanna's knees and firmly push her to a sitting position. "I'll get you something to eat, Alanna, and you'll stay put until you've had something. I also should tell Myles to go visit his lady, I'd think? Mistress Cooper should know."

"Thank you, Salma." Alanna was too tired to muster the necessary gratefulness, but Salma cared little for such formalities. "George, we have more to think about than Roger giving me an object lesson. He proposed to me."

George scowled, but didn't look surprised. "You're a powerful mage, lass, and he'd think that your brother could be a strong attraction. I imagine he promised safety to all if you would?"

"He made some offer of keeping you as a personal guard… if you would sign a blood oath."

"Figured as much." George still looked put out to have been caught, even if it had been twelve unexpected men in Stefan's stables. "Stefan is well, at least, but Roger near lamed a horse to keep the man away. Sarge was expecting some manner of trickery, and the man said it's payback for my little help in his self-exile."

"Roger hurt you." Alanna would wash her hands free of the blood later, because she had far more important things to consider. "Roger made his point, George. There's no reason for our side to hold back when he's ready to attack anyone under his own terms. We let him have his coronation, as he'll expect interference and be ready to defend himself, but we start a campaign now to undermine him." She was speaking out loud as she thought, and took heart from George's approving nod. "I have an alternative candidate in mind. Gareth of Naxen has nearly the same credentials, and he's quite the mature fellow of late. He and Lady Cythera are a good match, and Roger does have the weakness there.

"Roger still thinks he can bully me into being his queen, and he does need a queen. People know the throne is unstable, now, and they'll want heirs as soon as humanly possible."

"None of us would tell you to take that option." George's laughing eyes were entirely solemn. "I'd die first, lass, before I saw you shackled to that man. Don't think any of your friends are much changed from me."

Alanna's eyes were starting to water, but her hands were bloody enough that it wasn't worth wiping away the excess moisture. George was the one to reach over and blot the tears away with clean bandaging. "Thanks," she whispered, and it wasn't for the improvised handkerchief.

"Anytime," George promised.

Alanna allowed herself one more sniffle for the close call before drawing herself up to her full height. It wasn't much, but it was what she had to work with. "Faithful?" she called. The cat leapt neatly into her lap, for all that he would spend hours later grooming the tacky blood out from his fur. Salma wasn't back yet with a meal, and she trusted George as much as she trusted herself. Alanna scratched behind the cat's ears with her cleanest two fingers.

Faithful purred against her hand, letting her calm down from the shock of seeing George so hurt. None of the wounds had been serious, but any one of them could have drawn an infection.

"I'm glad that it was all things that I could help, George." Somehow, it had seemed easier to shift over beside him on the couch, and a little more blood hardly hurt when he put his arm around her shoulders. She certainly wouldn't wear the dress again after Roger's unexpected proposal.

Of everything, even with King Roald's death and George's injuries, Thom's last betrayal hurt the most. He couldn't be entirely innocent to Roger's plans, she was sure.

Alanna was right.

On the other side of the castle, Roger demonstrated a spell for the final time. A small flick of his wrist resulted in the barely-perceptible sound of a knife grating against stone. A moment later, a shred of cloth fell from the edge of Thom's sleeve.

"It's quite easy, Thom." Roger caught the shred of cloth easily to show its clean edges. "It cuts human hair just as well, and you know women. She'll come to line when she's presented with a properly romantic token."

Thom studied his sleeve as a pretense to avoid eye contact. Roger always seemed to know what he was thinking, and Thom was starting to think it was no coincidence, and that several of their 'academic' exercises had been nothing of the sort. Even now, he could feel the dull pressure to obey that went far beyond loyalty to a knightmaster.

Thom made the motion slowly, watching as the strip of cloth separated from the rest. When he was sure of his technique, he repeated the trick several times until the feel of it was natural. When Thom's small cantrip suited even Roger's exacting standards, he retired to his room on the pretense of finishing an potential article.

Instead, he sat at his desk with his head in his hands and wondered just when he had become his sister's worst enemy.