Shattered Past

by Lindsay Buroker

  A soft clink sounded as he shifted his grip on the sword, and it bumped against rock.

  “The mother greeted me, her manner the same as before, reserved but polite. I didn’t feel like I was in danger, not from some woman in her forties.” His tone grew dry briefly when he added, “That was old to me then.”

  “I think the definition of old is always at least twenty years out from where you are.”

  He made an agreeable noise, but his humor faded as soon as he continued the story. “She gave me cookies and tea, both of which seemed perfectly normal. Then she took me down to a basement room that was full of—I don’t know what you’d call the equipment. Alchemy stuff, I thought, though I had a hard time imagining her as a home scientist. Then she locked the door behind me. From across the room. I distinctly remember her waving her hand and the lock thunking. I had never run into anyone who could use magic before, but I’d grown up hearing stories of witches, like most kids do.”

  Lilah thought he might ask if she’d grown up listening to similar stories, and she would have to say that her mother had simply supplied books on all manner of topics, often contradictory topics, so she’d learn that there were always at least two sides to every story. She probably had her mother to thank for her indifference to magic. She’d also never run into anyone who had done anything magical—and scary—to her. It sounded like Vann couldn’t say the same.

  “She said I wasn’t good enough for her daughter, that I was an animal who’d been taught to dress like a man. And besides, she had been planning Nia’s marriage for a long time. She had someone else in mind and wasn’t going to let me get in the way. If I did, she said she’d kill me. I scoffed, of course, and told her that Nia and I would marry. What could a little woman do to someone like me, who’d been trained to kill by the best men in the infantry? But she’d already drugged me with the tea, or the cookies. I don’t know. I’d had no reason not to eat them. I’d just assumed that my fiancée’s mother would be a normal person.” The word normal came out as a growl. He seemed more emotional about this story than he had been about the horrible death of his mother.

  “I tried to get out,” he continued, “but the door might as well have been made from steel. It was thick and stout, the hinges fresh and new. I couldn’t budge it, not with all of my strength.” His shoulders flexed behind her, as if in memory of pulling on that door. “She came up to me, and for some reason, I thought she was going to let me out. There was definitely an idea in my head that I couldn’t—shouldn’t—attack her. I later learned that witches are telepathic and can control you.”

  Another growl.

  “She laid her hand on my arm, and I saw her lifting a syringe with the other hand, but I was powerless to move away or to knock it away. She stabbed me with it. I don’t know if it was a sedative or some magical potion, but my legs went numb. I dropped to the floor. Then her husband came out of a side room. He reiterated that I wasn’t good enough for their daughter. He told me to break it off with Nia, or he’d have me killed. I couldn’t move most of my body, but I could still speak. I was too proud for my own good, and I told him to fuck himself. He proceeded to beat me until I was almost unconscious. His wife sat back and watched, smiling as if she was enjoying a good sporting event. I think she was even getting aroused. I wanted to club her in the head, but thanks to her damned magic, I couldn’t touch her. Eventually, the father chained me up, got some servant to help throw me in a wagon, and drove me to a cliff overlooking the ocean. The potion was starting to wear off by then, but I was careful not to show it. I was still pretty numb, so I doubted I could have overpowered them. The mother was there the whole time, watching, pleased. She said nothing as the men shoved me off the cliff.”

  “Seven gods, Vann,” Lilah whispered, her voice almost a croak. She’d listened in growing horror, hardly able to believe him, and she shifted to face him now, to rest her hand on his chest.

  “If I had hit one of the rocks down there, I would have been dead,” he went on, his tone dead now. Unemotional. “I landed in the water and immediately sank. I nearly twisted myself inside out—and I did dislocate a shoulder—trying to get out of the chains. Had that potion not mostly worn off by then, I never could have escaped, but through sheer desperation, I wriggled my way out. I made it to a beach, and it took me all night to walk the ten miles back to the city. I collapsed in front of the gates to the army fort and woke up in the infirmary two days later. I was there for a couple of weeks before I could return to active duty. My C.O. wanted to know what had happened. I told him everything. He scoffed. Witches? There’s no such thing as magic, and there certainly weren’t witches among the nobility. He ended up reporting that some of my father’s old mafia enemies had come after me. As if I couldn’t have fought off mere men,” he snarled, bitterness returning.

  “What did Nia say? Did she know about any of it?”

  “When she came to visit, my C.O. told her the mafia story. I was debating whether to tell her the truth, that her mother was a witch and an evil bitch at that, but she came in with tears in her eyes, took my hand, and said she couldn’t marry me. Her mother had arranged another marriage for her, and it was her duty as the eldest daughter to marry for status if she could. As it turned out, Angulus had lost his first wife and was willing to accept Nia as his next. Or rather, his father, who was king at the time, was willing to accept Nia for his son. I was too hurt to think straight, and only later did I realize that the mother had probably been setting things up for a long time, and that she might very well have been controlling Nia, at least in that moment. She acted strangely, not like the woman I’d come to know.”

  “Did you ever try to... You must have wanted revenge,” Lilah said.

  “By the time I got out of the infirmary, Nia was already married to Angulus. The capital was abuzz with how quickly everything had come about, but who would have suspected witchcraft?” His shoulders flexed again, with irritation and old anger. “Revenge, yes, I thought about that a great deal. I thought about sneaking out there and killing them both. If I’d been able to the day after it happened, I might have tried to do it. But by the time I recovered, knowing Nia was already married—and that no woman was going to divorce the future king—deflated me a lot. I still cared about her, too, and as I said, I don’t think she had any inkling of what her parents were capable of. If I’d killed her mother and father, she never would have forgiven me, and it would have been the end of my career, most likely the end of my life. You don’t just kill noblemen.”

  Lilah thought about pointing out that the laws had evolved and killing anyone wasn’t allowed these days, at least when it came to Iskandian subjects. But it didn’t matter. He hadn’t done it. She felt relieved, though it horrified her that the parents had nearly killed him and were presumably still walking the capital’s streets, having never been punished for the crime.

  “I was afraid too,” Vann whispered so softly that she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. “Of the mother. The witch. For a long time, I worried that she would come after me and finish what she and her husband had started. But after Nia was married, I guess they figured it didn’t matter that I had survived. They must not have seen me as a further threat. And they were right,” he said, his voice a growl again. “All my fighting skills, all my strength, and I was powerless against that woman.”

  No wonder he hated magic. It not only evened the odds in a battle, but it tipped the scales, emasculating him, making all of his training mean nothing.

  “Sardelle reminds me of her,” Vann said glumly.

  Lilah blinked in surprise. “Ridge’s Sardelle?”

  She couldn’t imagine her cousin falling in love with some woman with demonic tendencies, beauty or not. What was Vann implying? That Ridge didn’t know what she truly was? That she was controlling him?

  “Just the way she looks. Dark hair, freckles, polite. And reserved. Like you never quite know what she’s thinking.”

  “Do you think... I haven’t met her
. Is it just their looks that are similar?”

  “Yeah. Been hard to see that, to accept that she’s not evil. She even saved my life once. I had to go on a tracking mission with her a couple of months ago when Zirkander was presumed dead but was only missing—guess you heard about that.”

  “After the fact, yes.” Her aunt Fern had sent a letter to her mother, but by the time it had arrived, the newspapers had already announced Ridge’s glorious return. The requests for autographed undergarments had tripled that week.

  “It was just me and her out there. And her sword and dragon.” Vann snorted. “I kept having to remind myself that she’d saved my life and that I should feel grateful to her. Hells, sometimes I did, and I wanted to—well, she’s also a pretty woman. But more of the time, I was having to repeat to myself that she wasn’t Nia’s mother. But it was hard. Didn’t help that I had Kasandral, and the sword wanted me to kill her, because it hates all things magic.”

  “But you didn’t kill her,” Lilah said.

  “No. She had a dragon protecting her. And her sword warned me it could melt my balls off.”

  Lilah’s mouth gaped open at the idea of someone possessing such allies and even further at the notion of a sword that could think and talk, but she kept focused on what was important, what seemed to be haunting Vann.

  “Would you have killed her if they hadn’t been there?” she asked. “If you thought you could overpower her and get away with it?”

  He chewed on that question before answering it, and Lilah held her breath.

  “No,” he finally said. “Like I said, she saved my life. That’s not a debt you ignore.”

  “Good.” Lilah kept the word simple, not letting her relief seep into it. He probably sensed it, regardless. “You wondered if you would have accepted the assignment that your ancestor accepted—or took on for himself. I don’t believe you would have. You wouldn’t have shot a fellow officer in the back, and you wouldn’t have agreed to kill a mountain full of people that hadn’t proven themselves your enemies. And the Referatu weren’t enemies, were they? There were a few sorcerers who used their power for evil, as Nia’s mother did, but many more helped our nation stay free from the Cofah over the centuries. If you can find the books that survived the burnings, that’s in there. You wouldn’t have done it, Vann. You’re an honorable man.” She lifted her hand to the side of his face—he was standing very still as he listened to her, and she hoped her words mattered, maybe even helped. “You’re definitely not an animal.”

  “No?” he murmured, sliding his hand up her back. “Not at all?”

  “Well, I haven’t gotten to know you in all situations, yet.”

  “Hm.” Even in the darkness, he had no trouble finding her lips with his.

  Earlier, she had shivered when he had kissed her on the neck, but this was much better. She melted into him, some of her doubts about him fading, and her fears over their surroundings fading further—she’d forgotten about their predicament while he’d been telling his story.

  His kiss was gentler than she would have expected, and she sensed that he appreciated her being here with him, listening to him talk. It warmed her soul—and other parts as well. Long neglected desire awoke within her, and she slid her arms over his shoulders, wanting to mold herself to him, to keep him close as she enjoyed the attention of his mouth, his tongue. She had been attracted to him from the beginning, even when he had been scowling and yelling, and his touch did not disappoint. Some of the gentleness disappeared, replaced by hunger and need as his arm tightened around her back. She imagined him dropping his sword, forgetting everything except her, sweeping her up in both arms, and pressing her against the closest boulder to—

  Vann broke the kiss, his chest rising against hers as he took a deep, steadying breath. Disappointment surged through her, and her first instinct was to hold him tighter, to keep him from escaping. She could feel the tension in his body and knew he wanted to continue, that he might have boulders in mind too.

  But he cleared his throat and stepped back, lowering his arm.

  “We need to find Kaika and the others,” he said, “and there may be more of those wolves down here.”

  “Duty first?” she murmured, reluctantly releasing his shoulders.

  She wished they could have more time together, preferably time outside of this mountain, but time all the same. What would happen when she had to return to her work back home, and he remained here, hundreds of miles away? She resolved to get more than a kiss from him before that happened.

  “Survival first,” Vann said. “Right now, duty can suck a—”

  “Toe?”

  He snorted and rubbed her back. “Exactly.”

  Chapter 12

  Vann picked his way carefully up the nearly vertical wall, the cold rock jagged underneath his hands. Aware of the drop below him, he made himself focus on the climb and definitely not on the kiss he had shared with Lilah. Nor on the delightful feel of her breasts squeezed against his chest, her body warm and eager in his hands. Nor did his mind linger on the sympathetic way she had listened to his story, a story that he hated sharing since it revealed his weakness. But she hadn’t cared that he had been defeated by some witch woman. She’d kissed him back enthusiastically, wanting his touch as much as he had wanted hers.

  His hand slipped, and jagged rock scraped his knuckles as his weight shifted to compensate. He growled at the poor lighting—and his easily distracted mind—and continued upward. He wished there were some magic about so that Kasandral would glow. He’d found his lantern, but it hung from his belt since he needed both hands, and the warm glass was in danger of burning him through his clothing and leaving a new scar. He didn’t know how long he would have light, since a puncture in the cache was dribbling kerosene. The flame did not illuminate much, anyway. Too bad his rope was dangling from a tree along a destroyed goat trail.

  “Any luck?” Lilah called up, her voice echoing from the darkness below.

  The utter darkness. Since they had only been able to locate one dented lantern amid the rubble, she was down there without any light. He hoped she wasn’t worrying. Fortunately, her voice had calmed down and lacked that panicked edge now. Probably because she now believed he was some noble hero who would keep her safe. He would love to be her noble hero, and her faith did please him, but he wasn’t nearly as confident as she seemed that he wouldn’t have made some of the same choices as Major Therrik had, if he had been given his opportunity. Oh, he wouldn’t have shot the captain, but the witches? He was less certain about that. He’d meant it when he said he wouldn’t have hurt Sardelle, but she was different. He owed her a debt.

  “It looks like I’m almost to the chamber—where the chamber was,” he called back, continuing his climb.

  He squinted into the gloom above. This was definitely a natural cavern, nothing the witches had hollowed out. Higher up, however, the remains of a couple of those flat gray walls were visible, gray patches left behind over darker and rougher rock. In the shadows, he could make out the shapes of two tunnels, the mouths of both filled in with rubble. One was the one Kaika had collapsed to stop the wolves. The other was the one through which Vann had entered the chamber. They wouldn’t be getting out either way, not unless someone could blow the rubble clear. If Kaika or Bosmont applied explosives, Vann realized that it would be deadly for him and Lilah to be standing down below when that happened.

  “Captain Kaika?” Vann called as loudly as he could. “Bosmont? Can anyone hear me?”

  He leaned his forehead against the cool stone, listening for a response. Nothing but silence greeted his ears.

  He was surprised Kaika and Bosmont hadn’t found a way to communicate with them yet, if only by banging on a distant rock. Maybe that tunnel had collapsed all the way back to the exit. Or maybe something was keeping them busy out there? More wolves? The cursed fossils?

  Shaking his head, Vann started back down. The wall turned from vertical into a rough slope and back to vertical again
before he reached the ground. They had been lucky with the contours in the terrain, or they might have been hurt much more in the fall. They had dropped a good thirty feet. Vann’s leg ached where the wolf fangs had punctured it, but he hadn’t suffered any other major injuries.

  “We’ll have to find another way around,” he said when the weak light of his lantern shone upon Lilah.

  He thought she might be standing with her arms wrapped around herself, alarmed by the darkness, but he found her making a charcoal rubbing of something on a panel on that pedestal. Its surface was mangled and blackened, the symbols now indecipherable, but she must have found something scientifically interesting. She waved the paper.

  “Mind if I put this in your pack? I didn’t think to bring one into the tunnels.”

  “Go ahead.” Vann turned so she could stick it in a pouch.

  Dirt smudged her face, dust caked her hair, and scrapes covered her hands and one cheek, but he would happily go back to kissing if he weren’t worried that Kaika would plant explosives above them.

  The determined expression on her face did not suggest she had kisses in mind anymore. She must have been able to put her earlier fear behind her, as she grew accustomed to their situation.

  Once she had put away the paper, she picked up his rifle. She must have found it under the rubble while he had been climbing. Good.

  “Do you think there will be another way?” Lilah looked toward the lone tunnel that opened up from the rubble-filled chamber into which they had been deposited.

  The mouth was half-filled with boulders. He had no idea whether it went up or down or how much of these passages remained accessible.

  “At the least, we won’t want to be sitting here, under this hole—” Vann waved toward the former chamber above them, “—when the others start blowing things up. We’ll investigate the tunnel. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and it will connect to the one where the infiltration team blew their way in. If we can get to it, we can climb out that way.”