Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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fragility that reminded her of Megan. Ofcourse he's had that kind of wounding too … But he'd thrown
his arms wide when he came, as if to embrace something far greater than her, or himself, then lay so still
that she'd nudged him, wondering whether he was all right. "Just enjoying the stillness within," he'd
whispered.
"My food-taster," he said now. "You know the old story, about the emperor who trusts only fruit off the
tree to be safe, so his mad wife injects poison into them?"
She laughed, then quoted in the snarling gutturals of her own tongue, translating:
When I was a warrior, the kettle-drums they beat
The people scattered flowers before my horse's feet.
Now I am a mighty king, the people dog my track
Poison in the winecup, daggers at my back.
He laughed. "You should see the precautions they take to protect Kurkas. I can'twait to live that way…
if I live till then." She'd noticed that about him: while he always seemed certain of victory, he made no
assumptions about his own life's length, Immortal or not.
"No more fucking in the grass then, eh? Ia, the problem with having everything is that everyone wants to
take it away from you. I'll just settle for being rich, thank you; most of the perks a conquering king gets,
and not so many competitors out for the job. Sitting alone on a mountaintop makes you a better target."
"I wouldn't know about being a ruler or rich," he said. At first she thought it was a deadpanned joke;
then it came to her that, Yeoli political customs being what they were, he was sincere. "As for being a
conqueror, it certainly beats losing. We did enough of that, thank you."
"Nia, of course you wouldn't know about ruling
Invincible-Beloved-whose-orders-are-obeyed-with-quivering-eagerness, whether he likes it or not." That
drew a laugh out of him, then a shrugging sigh. "When I was young and stupid," she added, "I'd have
waded through fire to conquer a kingdom." She put a crone's quaver into her voice. "Now—once we've
got Lixand— I'll just sit by the fire, heh, heh."
"Probably for the best," he said. "You care only for those close to you, and a ruler whose love doesn't
spread to her people tends to bring suffering on them. But you're hardly old; you don't look any more
venerable than somewhere between twenty… on, seven, and thirty."
She frowned, holding up both hands and then glancing at her feet. "Twenty-and-nine… no. Thirty last
moon. About your age, nia?"
"Not quite," he said, with a laugh that was actually, delightfully, shy. "I'm a cub, to you. Twenty-three."
She snorted. "Twenty-three? That is a cub. I thought I'd lived hard—you've got scars on scars." She
traced a few of them, drawing happy sounds from deep in his throat. "And you've done all you've
done… Baiwun, you're not even really in yourprime yet."
"Early start, tight scheduling, and I only get to see my kids when the world feels like letting me—rarely,
that is." That was rattled off, obviously practiced. "By the time my prime comes, I hope, there'll be peace
andI'll be able to sit by the fire."