Duality

by Renee Wildes

  She stiffened against him. “We gained many widows and orphans. Hengist’s coffers will be emptied at this rate.”

  He reached to embrace the darkness. “Nay, Dara. You lost someone close to you.” He shuddered at what he touched. Irredeemable. Murderer. Alone. She considered herself a murderer. But he had touched her soul. Dark, aye, dangerous for certain, but not evil. He would know. “You slew those men in my defense. That makes you not a murderer, else are all warriors guilty.”

  “Not them. I slew an unarmed man as he lay helpless.”

  The whole world shook in that one moment. “Who?”

  “My father.” She swayed against him.

  The images sliced through Loren. No one should go through such torment. She had eased a dying man’s passing, the last of her family. Now she had no one.

  By the Lady I swear, you shall never be alone again.

  “Not murder.” He drew her closer, cursed his clumsiness, arms stiff from the aftermath of speed-healing. “It was an honorable act. The warrior’s way, we call it. He loved you and you proved your love by not letting him suffer. Mourn him, Dara, but by the Lady I swear, your soul is clean.”

  He breathed in the warmth of the Goddess and Dara shivered in reaction. “Ssh, relax now.” He lay back, pulling her down onto the mattress aside him. “Let it go.”

  Half-sprawled across him, Dara sobbed against his shoulder. Her spirit lightened. Black self-condemnation receded until the only emotion left was grief.

  The storm subsided and she stiffened, raising her head up. “Sorry.” She hiccupped.

  “It is our way to comfort when needed.”

  Dara’s face fell. “I did naught to help you.”

  “Naught to help? You placed your body betwixt slayers and me. Shelter, warmth and protection you provided. You gave me your bed and slept on the floor.” His voice lowered. “A stranger you helped, though a stranger you fear.” He frowned. “Your fear, I like it not.”

  ***

  Dara trembled, realizing she sprawled across him like some tavern wench. Loren’s eyes blazed up at her from her pillow. The effort it took to meet his gaze… Fine brows slanted over wide, leaf-green eyes pupiled like a cat’s, set in a pale aristocratic face. She glanced down at his hands gripping her upper arms. Fine artisan’s hands with sword calluses, they held like bands of steel, but so gently ’twas almost a caress. The heat of his body ’twas impossible to ignore. She shifted. Unable to hold his gaze, hers dropped—to his mouth. She blushed.

  His lips curved in a wry smile. “Now you become shy?” White teeth flashed. “Your hands have already been all over my body.”

  Dara groaned and closed her eyes. Her cheeks flamed.

  “Look at me, Dara.” Loren’s voice was gentle, his hands gliding around her body.

  Her body tingled at his touch. Restless. Achy. “I can’t.” She hated the dizzy, breathless feeling. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop right now.” He was so warm. She feared making a fool of herself and melting against him. She’d heard the old wives whisper about faerie enchantments and wondered if ’twas happening here. She felt as if under a spell. She wasn’t some weak woman to go all soft over a man, as any villager could attest and lament. “You were much less intimidating flat on your back and weak as a kitten.”

  “Intimidating, you find me? Prefer me flat on my back in your bed? Well, you have me now.” He brought her braid around to his face and inhaled. “Sunshine and ferns, growing green and life.”

  Dara quivered deep inside at his words. Self-preservation urged her to stop him afore he did something neither of them could undo. “Loren—”

  “Know this, Dara Kahn Androcles. Protect me you did with your life’s blood. You are neither indestructible nor immortal. You might have been killed.” His hand, still wrapped with her hair, brushed under her chin, raising her face until her eyes met his. “You must look at me while these words are spoken.”

  Dara couldn’t tear her gaze away from his. The room spun and receded until all her world was him. “Loren, don’t look at me like that.” The weight behind his words crawled under her skin, into her mind.

  “My life I owe you. Life-debt. I bind myself to you. Whenever, whatever your need, I shall come to you. To you do I answer with sword or bow or blood. My life for yours. My soul to yours, ’til our last breath.”

  The world shifted. Deep as a prayer, more profound than a spell, his words settled within her. Dara couldn’t look away, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Her head buzzed. Her mind tried to wrench itself from the binding, recognizing it for what it was, but the rest of her trembled, in thrall to his eyes, to his voice. She had no idea how to stop him.

  Loren’s eyes gleamed up at hers. “Never again shall you be alone. You are mine, in this lifetime and the next. I shall ever be yours, for always. We are one.” He closed his eyes and, with agonizing slowness, pulled her mouth down to his.

  His kiss was shocking in its gentleness. As soft as morning dew, it implied, it coaxed, and she was lost. She melted into his heat and swooned against him. With a sigh, she yielded to his lips and returned his kiss. Warmth flooded her, filling an emptiness she’d not known she’d had until now. Loren had bound them in spirit until she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began. She sensed him hovering on the edge of her mind, in her heart, in her blood. A part of herself flowed into him with her surrender, with her very breath.

  He broke off the kiss. She raised her head and stared down at him. “What have you done?” she whispered.

  ***

  Whatever his answer, a loud shriek of equine anger and drumming hooves cut it off. Dara leaped up and spun toward the door. Loren groaned and closed his eyes while she opened it.

  A glowing white mare slid to a stop afore Dara. Nostrils flared as red as her eyes, curved ears pinned flat against her neck, she shoved right past the woman into the hut, shrinking the room to ridiculous proportions. She stopped a horse stride from Loren.

  “Hello, Hani`ena.” He grimaced up at her.

  “Hello? Hello? You needs do better than that.” Her haughty “voice” reverberated in his head.

  He cast a sidelong glance at Dara. “I can explain—”

  “Nay, you cannot. How could you leave me in that mortal pit and ride into battle without me?” She eyed him with contempt. “Look where it got you, elf-boy.”

  Elf-boy? Not warrior? Loren’s heart seized.

  “I felt it.” She shuddered and swished her tail, the long hairs lashing across Dara’s face.

  “What?”

  “Everything. Every cut, every blow. Pain. Fear. You left me behind. You almost died.”

  “I did not want you hurt. This enemy is—”

  “We are partners.” She struck out at him with a foreleg, barely missing his face. “I thought I signed on with a warrior, not a back-stabbing shrub of an elf-boy.”

  Dara’s eyes widened. “She talks to you?”

  “Stay out of this.” Hani`ena turned her head and snapped her teeth at Dara.

  Dara edged back farther into the woodwork of the doorway.

  “I expected her,” Loren answered Dara. Just not now. “I have this coming, tenfold.”

  “You left me.” Hani`ena shook with fury. “My right it is to leave you. If you honor not our pact, oathbreaker, why should I”?

  Iced lightning pierced his heart at the formal wording. War mares indeed renounced their riders in oathbreaking and chose another. Always it meant the death of the rejected. Unable to bear the disgrace, renounced ex-warriors faded away. Denied the Hall, they ceased to be as if they never were. “If I truly broke my oath, then go. Take my life with you and choose another. You know what it means for me.” He stared deep into stormy eyes. “Can you hate so, to wish me dead?”

  “You left me.” Hurt crept into Hani`ena’s rage.

  “They would have killed you, or worse.”

  “To die with my warrior is my choice to make, not yours to deny. That was our pact at choosing, elf-boy.”
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br />   “You are right. I am sorry. I was wrong.” Loren reached a trembling hand to her. If she pulled back, he lost. Everything. “Can you not feel the weight of the Destiny Hand behind Jalad’s invasion? Jalad was meant to do this.”

  “It was to protect you. I knew this beast. I could not bear your destruction.”

  “We face the Hand together. I protect you. Together we are not so easily taken down. Alone, see how you fare?” Hani`ena shoved him hard with her nose. “Never do that again. You need me…warrior.”

  Loren understood the warning. He wrapped his arms around her head. “I love you. Never again shall we part.”

  “Promise. Partners.”

  “I promise. Partners. ’Til the end.”

  “’Til the end. At least you kept Lorelei’s gift.”

  Loren’s fingers curled around the amulet. “She said I needed it.” He had ignored Dara long enough. “It is all right, Dara.” His voice was muffled by a mouthful of glistening white mane. “Come meet my partner.”

  Dara slipped alongside the mare. “She’s beautiful.”

  Hani`ena stamped, knocking her hock against the table. The vase of flowers rocked. She cocked an ear back toward Dara and arched her neck. “Observant girl.”

  “Vain creature,” Loren commented. “She is a war mare who chose me as her rider. Partners swear an oath never to separate in a fight, but I left her at Hengist’s and rode against Westmarche on a mortal charger. You saw the result.”

  “Stunning success,” Dara retorted. “You need a keeper.”

  Hani`ena snorted. Her amusement rippled in Loren’s mind. “Observant, and smart.” She pinned Loren with an incredulous look as Dara stroked her neck. “You bound yourself to this dark creature?”

  “There is no evil in her. She has none left to protect her. I swore life-debt to do so.”

  “What have you done?” Hani`ena glared. “Do you realize what she is? Earth and fire.”

  “Her life she risked, fighting off three Boars intent on my slaying when I lay wounded. She spilled blood on my behalf. Life-debt is sworn. That oath cannot be broken.”

  “What’s going on?” Dara crossed her arms. “Hani`ena, ’tis crowded. Could you back up?”

  Hani`ena backed out until just her head was inside. “I, too, would hear your explanation, warrior.”

  Loren staggered to his feet. Warmth and strength flowed into him. For a moment Hani`ena glowed with the Light. My thanks, wind-sister. “Dara, among my people is life-debt, a life for a life. You saved mine. I am bound to you to return the favor.”

  “I don’t need saving. I’ve done well all by myself. I didn’t save you. I’d no idea you could heal yourself.”

  “I am a born creature. I can be killed. The Boars would have obliged. As prisoner I would fare far worse. Save my life you did. With the passing of your father you are without a protector.” “Warrior’s way,” he sent Hani`ena. “I cannot leave you alone. I have an obligation to discharge.”

  Dara’s hands fisted against her hips. “I release you from your obligation. I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want it. I don’t need it.”

  “I cannot.”

  Gold eyes narrowed. “Take it back.”

  “You do not understand.” Loren raked his hands through his hair. “A Goddess-blessed spell of binding it was. Only the Lady of Light can break the vow. To your life, for the rest of your life am I bound, until death.”

  “Why would you do something like that? ’Tis madness.” Dara’s face reddened. “You don’t know me. How could you tie yourself so to a stranger?”

  “You need me.” Loren took her resisting body in his arms. “We were fated to meet. You shall need me in the future.”

  “We aren’t fated to anything, warrior. I choose my own fate.” Dara pulled away and he let her go, frowning at the sense of loss. She moved to the fireplace and stirred the soup.

  Hani`ena stepped back into the hut. “I have road clothing in your saddlebags. Get dressed afore you catch chill.”

  “I do not catch chills.”

  “Cover up anyway for her sake.” The white mare pawed the floor. “Shalt you ever take this gear off me?”

  “How did you get here?” Loren pulled out a pair of clean riding breeches, a velvety green tunic, clean hose and a fresh loincloth. He donned them while Dara’s back was turned.

  The mare tossed her head. Her long white forelock tangled over her eyes. “Hengist’s stable master is no idiot. When he found me pulling my saddle off the rack, he took the hint.”

  “Have you a shed in which Hani`ena may shelter?”

  “Nay. I’ve no animals.” Dara turned from the hearth. “I’ve no way with them.”

  Hani`ena snorted. “Not surprised.” She backed from the hut.

  What did she know that he was missing? Loren pulled on his boots and followed Hani`ena out into the yard where he stripped off the mare’s saddlebags. Inside were all his trail provisions and the other clean change of road clothing. He noticed his sword, bow and quiver of arrows hanging over the saddle.

  “Forget your weapons? What do you take me for, warrior?”

  “Better than I deserve.” He lifted his scabbard from the pommel and drew forth the curved toshi blade, gleaming burnished gold in the setting sun. Thrice stronger than true-iron or any mortal-wrought iron-blend, it held an edge better and did not rust. He caressed the runes for “justice” etched on the flat of the blade. Their pull had led him here, and here he would stay until he set this wrong right.

  Laying the weapon aside, he removed the saddle, brushed Hani`ena down and covered her with the saddle cloth. The mare sighed and lipped at his hair. “My thanks, warrior.” She moved off to graze on the thinning season-browned autumn grass, while Loren hauled his equipment in and stashed it beneath the table.

  Dara poured soup into bowls. “I’m hungry and you never finished.”

  “My thanks.” He took his bowl from her and sat in one of the straight-backed chairs. There was fresh herb butter, a loaf of heavy dark-grained bread, two fired-clay cups and a jug of—he sniffed—water.

  Dara grabbed two spoons and also sat. “I’ve never known a horse that talked.”

  “They mind-speak to anyone they want, although usually just their chosen rider. Hani`ena says what she thinks.” He took a mouthful of rich soup, chewing salty rondane root. Good for replacing lost blood-strength. “You breed strength and fighting spirit. Asides sentience and intelligence, we focus on agility, speed and endurance.”

  Dara sawed off the end of the loaf and buttered it. “I’ve never met an elder afore, though my mother bespoke your existence. You looked like a riever at first, but changed when I sense-cast to examine your injuries. Who are you, Loren?”

  Loren took a sip of water. Where to begin? “I am as you see me now. We can appear as whatever we are among. In this case human. For me, the seeming extends to Hani`ena and my weapons. But my injuries weakened me and your spell overcame the seeming, nullifying it.” How had she done that so easily?

  “And your family?”

  “My father is Cedric. I have an older brother, Deane, and a younger brother, Brannan. As Deane inherits I was free to choose the path of the warrior. Brannan is the scholar in the family.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “Her name was Ayala. She died when Brannan graduated from page to squire. My father never speaks of her.” His tone forbade further discussion.

  “What of Hani`ena?”

  “Upon my graduation from the academy she chose me as her rider. We have never separated until now. Lucky I am she forgave. Usually oathbreakers are repudiated, but good intentions must count for something.”

  Dara leaned toward him. “She loves you.”

  “It is more than that. We are partners for life. We know each other’s feelings almost afore our own. We think and move as one. In battle partners are formidable opponents because of our ability to communicate and react at the speed of thought. Separate, we are not so invincible.”
/>   “So noted. What are you doing in Riverhead?”

  Loren paused. What to tell her? Best not mention the ensorcelled sword’s influence. “Hengist and I have been friends for a long time. I knew of Jalad’s dissatisfaction with paying to use the waterway to transport his goods to the sea. My grandmother had a dream about this attack. I came to warn Hengist to gather his army, but someone had already beaten me to that.”

  “Rufus did.” Waves of sorrow warred with nebulous control.

  “Warriors do not leave on the eve of battle, so there was I in the thick of it.”

  “On a stupid mortal charger in ill-fitting armor with cheap weapons,” Hani`ena snapped. “I should have let you die. You are too stupid to live.”

  “We already covered this ground.”

  “I did what I could, but your chargers react to knee and rein too slowly for what needed doing. I was wounded and the mare killed.” He regretted her death. Strong and courageous within the limitations of her mortal body, she had tried to do his bidding. His needs had been more than she could provide. “I sought hazel aid. That is where you found me.”

  Dara nodded. “You saved many Eagles from the Boar. Rufus swore me to save you. I followed the power and there you were.”

  “Goddess power, the Lady of Light.” He frowned as he rubbed the lace tablecloth. “Where did you get this? Who made it?”

  “My grandmother. My mother said to treasure it always.”

  The “Kahn Androcles” name again stirred to sluggish life some hidden memory that refused to come forward. “Knowledge of Her is forbidden humans, by your own priests of the One Truth.”

  “I don’t follow a ‘forbidding’ that makes no sense. I’m not good at obeying men’s rules. Asides, my mother followed the Lady.”

  “What of your blood father?”

  Dara shrugged and sipped her water. Discomfort enveloped her like an almost tangible shroud. “Mother never told me his name.” Her gaze challenged his. “Does that bother you? Who knows what my lineage might be?”

  Loren could not imagine such a gap. Family and lineage were sacred to the eastdawn elves. Each of them traced their parentage back to the very founding of the lands.