by Nora Roberts
With two quick thrusts, he knocked Owen’s sword out of his hand, then pressed his own to his enemy’s belly. “I won’t kill you, as I wish you many years of life. Years of misery and humiliation. On your knees before your Majesty.”
“I will not kneel to you.”
“It is not to me you kneel. But to her.” He stepped aside, shifting his sword point to the back of Owen’s neck so the man could see Aurora standing among the fallen and the frightened.
“You are,” she said to Thane, “what I have always wished for. What I will always prize. In the midst of battle, when vengeance was your right, you chose honor.”
“Whore!” Owen shrieked it. “Drab. She lay on her back for me. She—”
Thane shifted his grip on the sword and slammed the hilt into the side of Owen’s head. When Owen fell unconscious, Thane booted him carelessly aside. “I’m not perfect,” he said with a flashing smile, and Aurora laughed.
“I believe you may be. The hour comes.” She could feel the power rising in her. “I almost wish it wouldn’t. That we could walk away, and live in a cottage in the woods or ramble across the world in a wagon. I almost wish it, but it comes and I have no choice.”
“A cottage, a world, a crown. It’s all the same to me, if I’m with you.”
“Stand with me, then.” She turned and faced Lorcan as he sprawled on the throne under the swords of her men. “Lower your swords, step back. Open the doors, the windows. Let the people in, let them know what happens here at the witching hour, at my hour. Lorcan, stand and face me as you did not face my father or my mother. I am Aurora. I am the Lady of the Light. I am the True One.”
She walked toward him as she spoke and flung out her arms. “Are there any here in this company, any here in the City of Stars, in the world, who will not pledge their loyalty to the True One? For they are free to leave this place, and to go in peace. There will not be blood or death.”
“You’re nothing but a woman, a whore, as my son has said. I am king. The True One is a myth babbled by madmen.”
“Behold the dragon!” She pointed toward the window, and the fire that lit the sky in the shape of a dragon.
“A witch’s trick.” He rose and, pushing out with his hand, shot a fierce wind through the hall. It blew her hair back, set her gown to billowing. The sharpness of it sliced her hand and drew blood. But she stood against it.
“You would match your power to mine?” She arched her brows. “Here is the world, stained by my blood, and the blood of my people.” She drew the crystal globe from her purse, threw it high so it spun near the ceiling and showered light and spilled out voices raised in song. “Take it if you dare. And here is the crown, the Crown of Stars.”
She reached in her purse again and flung the star. It flew in dizzying circles and exploded with light.
She stood, draped in billowing white, unarmed, and waited while the bells began to strike midnight. “And this is my hour, the hour of my birth and beginnings. The hour of life and death, of power and portent. The time between time when day meets day and night meets night.”
The crown circled, beamed light, and descended toward her head.
Lifting her arms, she accepted her destiny. “And in this hour, the reign of dark is ended and the reign of light begins. I am the True One, and this is my world to protect.”
The crown settled on her head, and every man and woman, every soldier and servant, fell to their knees.
Outside, the people who massed could be heard chanting her name like a prayer.
“I am Aurora, descendant of Draco, daughter of Gwynn and Rhys. I am queen of Twylia.”
On a roar, Lorcan grabbed the sword from a dazzled rebel and, raising it high, lunged toward Aurora. Murder was in his cry, madness was in his eyes.
And springing like a wolf, Thane leapt forward, spinning to shield her, and ran Lorcan through.
He fell at her feet with his blood splashing the white hem of her gown. With the stars still gleaming on her head, she looked down on him with a pity that was cold as winter.
“So . . . So it ends in death after all. He made his choice. The debt is paid. My father and yours.” She turned to Thane, held out her hand. “My mother and yours.”
The last bell struck, and the wind died. Her crown sparkled like stars.
“What was taken in blood is restored. In blood. Now let there be peace. Open the larders,” she ordered. “Feed the people of the city. No one goes hungry tonight.”
“My lady.” Gwayne knelt before her. “The people call for you. They call for their queen. Will you go out so they can see you?”
“I will. Only a moment first. A moment,” she repeated and turned to Thane. “It will be hard. After the joy, it will be hard. There will be work and sweat and time to restore faith, to bring order, to renew trust. There will be so much to do. I need you beside me.”
“I am the queen’s man, my lady.” He brought her hand to his lips. Then with a laugh born of freedom, he lifted her off her feet, and high above his head. “Beloved. Woman of my visions, mother of my son. My light. My life.”
She wrapped her arms around him, tipped her mouth to his for the warmth and power of his kiss as he spun her in circles. “Then there’s nothing I can’t do. Nothing we can’t be.”
“We’ll be happy.”
“Yes. Till the end of days.”
With her hand linked with his, she walked out to the cheers of the people of the world.
And they raised her up to be queen, Aurora, the Light.
WINTER ROSE
For the three roses,
Ruth, Marianne and Jan,
who’ve made this so much fun
1
THE world was white. And bitter, bitter cold. Exhausted, he drooped in the saddle, unable to do more than trust his horse to continue to trudge forward. Always forward. He knew that to stop, even for moments, in this cruel and keening wind would mean death.
The pain in his side was a freezing burn, and the only thing that kept him from sliding into oblivion.
He was lost in that white globe, blinded by the endless miles of it that covered hill and tree and sky, trapped in the frigid hell of vicious snow gone to icy shards in the whip of the gale. Though even the slow, monotonous movements of his horse brought him agony, he did not yield.
At first the cold had been a relief from the scorching yellow sun. It had, he thought, cooled the fever the wound had sent raging through him. The unblemished stretch of white had numbed his mind so that he’d no longer seen the blood staining the battleground. Or smelled the stench of death.
For a time, when the strength had drained out of him along with his blood, he’d thought he heard voices in the rising wind. Voices that had murmured his name, had whispered another.
Delirium, he’d told himself. For he didn’t believe the air could speak.
He’d lost track of how long he’d been traveling. Hours, days, weeks. His first hope had been to come across a cottage, a village where he could rest and have his wound treated. Now he simply wanted to find a decent place to die.
Perhaps he was dead already and hell was endless winter.
He no longer hungered, though the last time he’d eaten had been before the battle. The battle, he thought dimly, where he’d emerged victorious and unscathed. It had been foolish, carelessly foolish, of him to ride for home alone.
The trio of enemy soldiers had, he was sure, been trying to reach their own homes when they met him on that path in the forest. His first instinct was to let them go. The battle had been won and the invasion crushed. But war and death were still in their eyes, and when they charged him his sword was in his hand.
They would never see home now. Nor, he feared, would he.
As his mount plodded onward, he fought to remain conscious. And now he was in another forest, he thought dully as he struggled to focus. Though how he had come to it, how he had gotten lost when he knew his kingdom as intimately as a man knew a lover’s face, was a mystery to him.<
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He had never traveled here before. The trees looked dead to him, brittle and gray. He heard no bird, no brook, just the steady swish of his horse’s hooves in the snow.
Surely this was the land of the dead, or the dying.
When he saw the deer, it took several moments to register. It was the first living thing he’d seen since the flakes had begun to fall, and it watched him without fear.
Why not? he mused with a weak laugh. He hadn’t the strength to notch an arrow. When the stag bounded away, Kylar of Mrydon, prince and warrior, slumped over the neck of his horse.
When he came to again, the forest was at his back, and he faced a white, white sea. Or so it seemed. Just as it seemed, in the center of that sea, a silver island glittered. Through his hazy vision, he made out turrets and towers. On the topmost a flag flew in the wild wind. A red rose blooming full against a field of white.
He prayed for strength. Surely where there was a flag flying there were people. There was warmth. He would have given half a kingdom to spend the last hour of his life by a fire’s light and heat.
But his vision began to go dark at the edges and his head swam. Through the waves of fatigue and weakness he thought he saw the rose, red as blood, moving over that white sea toward him. Gritting his teeth, he urged his horse forward. If he couldn’t have the fire, he wanted the sweet scent of the rose before he died.
He lacked even the strength to curse fate as he slid once more into unconsciousness and tumbled from the saddle into the snow.
The fall shot pain through him, pushed him back to the surface, where he clung as if under a thin veil of ice. Through it, he saw a face leaning close to his. Lovely long-lidded eyes, green as the moss in the forests of his home, smooth skin of rose and cream. A soft, full mouth. He saw those pretty lips move, but couldn’t hear the words she spoke through the buzzing in his head.
The hood of her red cloak covered her hair, and he reached up to touch the cloth. “You’re not a flower after all.”
“No, my lord. Only a woman.”
“Well, it’s better to die warmed by a kiss than a fire.” He tugged on the hood, felt that soft, full mouth meet his—one sweet taste—before he passed out.
Men, Deirdre thought as she eased back, were such odd creatures. To steal a kiss at such a time was surely beyond folly. Shaking her head, she got to her feet and took in hand the horn that hung from the sash at her waist. She blew the signal for help, then removed her cloak to spread over him. Sitting again, she cradled him as best she could in her arms and waited for stronger hands to carry the unexpected guest into the castle.
THE cold had saved his life, but the fever might snatch it back again. On his side of the battle were his youth and his strength. And, Deirdre thought, herself. She would do all in her power to heal him. Twice, he’d regained consciousness during his transport to the bedchamber. And both times he’d struggled, weakly to be sure, but enough to start the blood flowing from his wound again once he was warm.
In her brisk, somewhat ruthless way, she’d ordered two of her men to hold him down while she doused him with a sleeping draught. The cleaning and closing of the wound would be painful for him if he should wake again. Deirdre was a woman who brooked no nonsense, but she disliked seeing anyone in pain.
She gathered her medicines and herbs, pushed up the sleeves of the rough tunic she wore. He lay naked on the bed, in the thin light of the pale gold sun that filtered through the narrow windows. She’d seen unclothed men before, just as she’d seen what a sword could do to flesh.
“He’s so handsome.” Cordelia, the servant Deirdre had ordered to assist her, nearly sighed.
“What he is, is dying.” Deirdre’s voice was sharp with command. “Put more pressure on that cloth. I’ll not have him bleed to death under my roof.”
She selected her medicines and, moving to the bed, concentrated only on the wound in his side. It ranged from an inch under his armpit down to his hip in one long, vicious slice. Sweat dewed on her brow as she focused, putting her mind into his body to search for damage. Her cheeks paled as she worked, but her hands were steady and quick.
So much blood, she thought as her breath came thick and ragged. So much pain. How could he have lived with this? Even with the cold slowing the flow of blood, he should have been long dead.
She paused once to rinse the blood from her hands in a bowl, to dry them. But when she picked up the needle, Cordelia blanched. “My lady . . .”
Absently, Deirdre glanced over. She’d nearly forgotten the girl was there. “You may go. You did well enough.”
Cordelia fled the room so quickly, Deirdre might have smiled. The girl never moved so fast when there was work to be done. Deirdre turned back to her patient and began carefully, skillfully, to sew the wound closed.
It would scar, she thought, but he had others. His was a warrior’s body, tough and hard and bearing the marks of battle. What was it, she wondered, that made men so eager to fight, to kill? What was it that lived inside them that they could find pride in both?
This one did, she was sure of it. It had taken strength and will, and pride, to keep him mounted and alive all the miles he’d traveled to her island. But how had he come, this dark warrior? And why?
She coated the stitched wound with a balm of her own making and bandaged it with her own hands. Then with the worse tended, she examined his body thoroughly for any lesser wounds.
She found a few nicks and cuts, and one more serious slice on the back of his shoulder. It had closed on its own and was already scabbed over. Whatever battle he’d fought, she calculated, had been two days ago, perhaps three.
To survive so long with such grievous hurts, to have traveled through the Forgotten to reach help, showed a strong will to live. That was good. He would need it.
When she was satisfied, she took a clean cloth and began to wash and cool the fever sweat from his skin.
He was handsome. She let herself study him now. He was tall, leanly muscled. His hair, black as midnight, spilled over the bed linens, away from a face that might have been carved from stone. It suited the warrior, she thought, that narrow face with the sharp jut of cheekbones over hollowed cheeks. His nose was long and straight, his mouth full and somewhat hard. His beard had begun to grow in, a shadow of stubble that made him appear wicked and dangerous even unconscious.
His brows were black slashes. She remembered his eyes were blue. Even dazed with pain, fever, fatigue, they had been bold and brilliantly blue.
If the gods willed it, they would open again.
She tucked him up warm, laid another log on the fire. Then she sat down to watch over him.
FOR two days and two nights the fever raged in him. At times he was delirious and had to be restrained lest his thrashing break open his wound again. At times he slept like a man dead, and she feared he would never rouse. Even her gifts couldn’t beat back the fire that burned in him.
She slept when she could in the chair beside his bed. And once, when the chills racked him, she crawled under the bedclothes with him to soothe him with her own body.
His eyes did open again, but they were blind and wild. The pity she tried to hold back when healing stirred inside her. Once when the night was dark and the cold rattled its bones against the windows, she held his hand and grieved for him.
Life was the most precious gift, and it seemed cruel that he should come so far from home only to lose his.
To busy her mind she sewed or she sang. When she trusted him to be quiet for a time, she left him in the care of one of her women and tended to the business of her home and her people.
On the last night of his fever, despair nearly broke her.
