“I—uh—took off your face cloth, sir,” Gareth said. “I know I wasn’t supposed to touch you, but I figured since I’d already sponged you once, and I was afraid you were going to die, I wanted to—you know—remember you, sir.”
Durren swallowed past the lump in his throat. Anyone could’ve seen him during the battle if his hood had shifted. He could’ve killed them all—if he still bore the curse. Only the fabric he’d lived so long beneath separated him from a life he hadn’t known in years.
Was he worthy?
With trembling hands he held his breath and pulled back his hood.
At first he could barely see for the brightness of the fire. It shone like the sun into eyes not used to direct light of any kind. Still, no one gasped. No one fell down in shock, so he slowly raised his head.
Ayliss smiled at him, and Gareth peered in his general direction. The old man tilted his head like a curious bird. Rees stood with crossed arms and glowered from the edge of the group. The fat man kissed his charm, gaze darting between the Dragon and Durren as though unsure what posed more of a threat. Not one of them died—or screamed—so the curse must truly be lifted.
What in Beggeth did he look like now? He could barely remember the image he’d paid so little attention to in the mirror so long ago. He’d thought it passable then, but now… Dear Koronolan! Baring his face to the judgment of the woman he loved was more terrifying than anything he’d ever done. Heart rattling his ribs, he turned toward Mirianna.
****
Mirianna dreamed the same dream again, just before morning. Her lover leaned over her, as he always did, with his strong shoulders blocking the light and his face nothing but a glimmer of eyes. Sometimes he touched her lips, but when she woke to the contact, it was her own fingers tracing the shape of her mouth, as they did now, while she looked at the man of her dreams.
All these years she’d searched for him among the men she’d met, waited for him to come, and here he was, standing before her in the firelight, his form, his figure everything she’d come to know over the last days. But his face? In all the times she’d feared seeing him unveiled, in all the nightmares and daydreams, she’d never once considered what he might look like other than being appealing to look upon. Down in the pool, her fingers had told her he had a straight nose, thick brows, strong cheekbones, and fine scars crisscrossing his skin with a deeper one scoring one eyebrow. And his hair? Thick, like hers. Straight, not like hers. And definitely in need of a trim.
She saw his eyes first, eyes she’d longed to see, to read, to understand the soul behind them. They glimmered, she realized, as they always had, the same green as his sister’s, and she breathed. So that was why her heart knew that color, and trusted it.
“Do you—do you find me…pleasing, Mirianna?” Durren asked.
Cocking her head, she stepped closer. From here she could discern the straight nose, the strong cheekbones, the thick brows. And his hair, loose—and definitely too long—framing his pale face with a surprising ebony contrast. She’d never expected dark hair, but perhaps she should have, considering her dream image.
She took another step, and the particulars of his face took shape. The scars, fine silver lines her fingers had discovered, gleamed subtly everywhere, and the bigger one ran down from his hairline like a silver cord to split one raven eyebrow. He was whole now, and these fine scars showed her how his once broken body and soul had been knit back together, piece by tiny piece. She’d helped with that, she and Ayliss and Gareth and the Beast that had lived inside him. But he’d taken this last step himself, throwing off his fears, his burdens, all that he’d been for so long, to open himself to her.
“Do I find you pleasing, Durren?” she said as he looked at her with hope in his eyes. “How could I ever find you otherwise? I’ve loved you since I first met you—in our dream.” She flung herself into his arms and rained kisses on his face.
Chapter Thirty-Five
When they’d piled the Krad bodies on a pyre outside the fortress gates, the Dragon blasted the heap with flame. A fresh breeze arose with the dawn and blew the stinking black smoke away into the Wehrland.
“That should warn off the rest of the Krad,” Rees proclaimed. He untied his horse from the well’s trough while sunlight warmed the courtyard. “We should have safe passage all the way to Nolar.”
Mirianna handed him his sword. “I’m not going back.”
He eyed Durren, standing beside her. “I thought as much.”
“I’m not going either,” said Tolbert from where he sat sipping hot water beside the coals of the fire he’d tended all through the night.
“Are you sure, Papa?” Mirianna said, even as her heart swelled. “What about our house? Your tools?”
He waved his hand. “We have all summer to think about settling our affairs and fetching our goods. The point is you need me here now. This place is a wreck. You and the Sha—Durren need someone with an eye for how things fit together.” He flushed when Mirianna bent to kiss the top of his head.
“I’m not going either,” said Pumble. He drew himself up to all the height he could manage. “I know I’m not good with a bow like Rees, but you’re going to need someone to go for supplies to rebuild this place, and I know the way through the Wehrland as well as anybody.” He scuffed a toe through the dirt. “Besides, this is the greatest story to come out of the land in two lifetimes, and I’d like to be the one to tell it.”
Rees shook his head. “You can have your stories. And that Beast of Beggeth, too.” He nodded at the Dragon perched on the highest rampart, sunning its wings. “There’s too much darkness here for my taste.”
“Perhaps it feeds your own shadows,” Durren said.
Rees snorted. “Spoken by the man of shadows himself.” He handed the sword back to Mirianna. “Keep it. You’re good with it, and I like my bow better anyway. Besides, something tells me you’re going to need it. This place is too damned close to Beggeth, and you’ve stirred the nest over there.”
“You could stay, too,” Pumble said. “Who knows what’s happened in Nolar since that mage gave up our master’s shape. You could be in trouble.”
“I’ll take my chances. I can handle anything human.” He swung into the saddle and turned his horse toward the gate. “Good luck. If I see any of you again, it’ll be too soon.”
As Rees rode out of sight, Pumble wiped his nose. “He’ll be back. Did you see how he looked at the lion lady?”
Mirianna nodded. If she correctly read the muscle twitching in Durren’s jaw, his feelings on that possibility matched hers. “I don’t think Ayliss shares his interest.”
Pumble shrugged and sat down beside Tolbert. “Just as well. I don’t think he knows she used to be a lion.”
Tolbert chuckled and Gareth grinned while he polished the Sword of Drakkonwehr, but Ayliss sat half-turned toward the ramparts with a faraway look in her eyes.
Mirianna glanced at Durren. The thick brows she was beginning to know with her eyes as well as her hands knit into a frown. Understanding the direction of his thoughts, she laced her fingers through his, flesh to flesh in the open at last. “She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”
“Perhaps.” He exhaled. “Syryk can wait, for now. There’s something else that can’t.” Walking around the fire pit, he drew Mirianna to a stop before Ayliss and the boy. “I need to know,” he said to Ayliss, “about the Sword.”
She turned and the green eyes focused on the here and now. “You mean, why Gareth could wield what only a Drakkonwehr can wield?”
“He’s my son, isn’t he?”
Ayliss smiled, a full blooming smile. “You’ve known it from the moment you saw him, didn’t you? Your heart told you. You just didn’t think it possible you could’ve conceived a child with the woman you visited at Ulerroth’s that night before everything fell apart.”
“I—but…my mother had a husband…” Gareth gaped at them.
Ayliss hugged him. “Your mother wed the first kind man who offer
ed to take her away from Ulerroth’s. In my lion form I followed her when she left Ar-Deneth, and I watched you grow after he died. I knew who you were from the moment you were conceived.”
“You mean…I’m part of your family?”
“Oh, Gareth!” Mirianna said as his face lit up. She wanted to clasp him to her heart, but this move was not hers. This was between Durren and Gareth, and what the man she loved said next was all that mattered.
“You are our family.” Durren reached toward the boy’s shoulder, but Gareth dropped the Sword with a clatter, leaped to his feet, and flung his arms around the man who used to be a shadow.
****
Durren’s arms crept around the boy as Gareth’s hair tickled his cheek. He stood, shivering, while his gut burned as it had one night not so very long ago, when he’d been someone else entirely. That someone had longed for the tunnels, the caves, the deep silent blackness beneath Drakkonwehr. That someone feared his own Shadow, the darkness and guilt staining his soul. He’d almost lost himself to that Shadow, but now he knew it for what it was, the part of him that taught him what was truly worth living for, what he dared not lose again.
The Shadow Man had no knowledge of how it felt to touch and be touched, yet here he was, Durren at last, hugging his son. “My son,” he choked.
He threaded fingers through the boy’s hair, savoring the fine strands between his bare fingers, absorbing the warmth flowing from Gareth’s body into his own, holding close what he’d never dreamed to have. He reached out and seized Mirianna, drawing her into the embrace. “Ayliss thinks she made the magic, but you’re the one who really broke the curse. You loved me when I wasn’t worth loving.”
“You were always worth loving,” she said, smiling through glistening eyes. “You just forgot that for a while. And I didn’t break the curse, our hearts did.”
Durren planted a kiss on her lips. Maybe the little he’d remembered of Owender’s History had been enough after all.
A word about the author...
Helen C. Johannes lives in the Midwest with her husband and grown children. Growing up, she read fairy tales, Tolkien, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, and Ayn Rand, an unusual mix that undoubtedly explains why the themes, characters, and locales in her writing play out in tales of love and adventure.
A member of Romance Writers of America, she credits the friends she has made and the critiques she's received from her chapter members for encouraging her to achieve her dream of publication.
When not working on her next writing project, she teaches English, reads all kinds of fiction, enjoys walks, and travels as often as possible.
Helen is the author of The Prince of Val-Feyridge, also published by The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
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