Captive Heart (Pride of Uttor) by Tali Spencer

Author:Tali Spencer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

A few days later, blessed by favorable winds, the flotilla of a hundred ships carrying two of Gaspar’s four corps of soldiers and the first of the spoils of war sailed into Uttor’s fabled natural harbor. The ships passed a rocky island where they fell beneath the gazes of Uttor’s Guardians—a giant statue of a man holding a spear in one hand, the other resting on the back of a huge snarling lioness. The man was of marble embellished with gold, but the lioness was of purest gold. Goran Mar, ancestor of the Leonntes, and the goddess Chasca. Both gleamed bright as the sun.

Even from the water, the cheers of Uttoran sailors and homecoming soldiers had swelled from the ships to fill the air with noise. With the Sebboyan royal women looking on, Adora had stood at the prow of their carrack and performed a ceremony. Taking two white doves, she had used a small knife to cut off the head of one, using its blood to anoint the head of the other. She’d held the dove to her breast and invoked some goddess named Sarra before releasing the bird. Sailors on each ship opened cages, each releasing scores of white doves to fly before the ships as they entered home waters.

To either side of the large harbor rose hills dotted by partially obscured villas. The city of Uttor was likewise built upon hills, its blue-roofed temples gleaming with white pillars and gold, its buildings proud and reeking of prosperity. Flags streamed from its walls and waterfront dwellings. Upon spying the ships, horns blared in greeting.

Only some of the ships made for the port. The rest diverted to a point just north of the city, where other docks received them. Upon berthing, the women of Sebboy’s royal family had been ushered by wagon to an isolated dwelling. For the past three days, they had listened to the cacophony of preparation for Gaspar Leonnte’s formal entrance into his city.

The single window of their room in the small house outside the city of Uttor was narrow and barred, but it looked out over the city’s harbor and afforded enough diversion from her sisters that Julissa had staked it out for her own. All morning long, she had soaked in the sight of ships loading and unloading, men working at the seemingly endless job of conveying Sebboy’s treasure into the city. She’d watched ship after ship disgorging statues of gold or marble, prize horses, fat cattle, thousands of crates of packed goods, gold or wine—and people, unloaded by the hundreds, headed for slave markets. According to her now lamented, and possibly never to be seen again, Agatha, Uttor’s wars were generally waged for profit. Had she not known firsthand that Lorant’s kidnapping of Adora amounted to a different scheme, Julissa would have pronounced her country’s subjugation as having been an incredibly profitable adventure.

She had not seen Gaspar at all since leaving Sebboy. His ship had preceded theirs out of the bay and stayed ahead.

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