“It is not the Sinner’s Hereafter.” There was a hint of laughter in his tone, but it faded along with the smile. “Give me a chance to explain. Please.”
She met his eyes, captivated by those complex depths. Fear dwindled before the intensity of his gaze. The landscape lost importance. She let go of his wrists.
He leaned in as if to kiss her again then hesitated. She held her breath. Longing twisted in her chest. He did kiss her then. A voice in her head said to stop him. Engaged women didn’t behave this way. It was a small voice, however, and loyalty to Jayce was the least of her concerns if this was real and of no concern at all if it wasn’t. She returned the kiss, letting forbidden indulgence and the sting from her split lip ground her. When they parted, he looked pleased, and embarrassment rose hot in her cheeks.
He took her hand. “Follow me.”
CHAPTER THREE
After three tries that evening, Yiloch had almost walked away, but he decided to give it one last effort. She’d been there. He kissed her, not with premeditated intent, but because she was so beautiful and vulnerable, and because delight at her return overcame better judgment. The second kiss simply happened. The touch of her lips sent a barrage of neglected desires pounding through him. Her beauty, while a striking and welcome contrast to the hostile volcanic scenery, was very distracting.
When it looked like she might stay in spite of, or perhaps because of, his inappropriate advances, he took her hand and began a careful traverse across the hardened black crust. Active flow ran molten below the surface and the crust was fragile in places. His nerves, charged with excitement for the freedom she represented, crackled like lightning with the stress of navigating the dangerous terrain.
Her delicate hand started trembling in his. He spun to face her and she jerked back in surprise. Careless. He couldn’t afford to frighten her.
He looked her over, noticing more detail this time. Someone had struck her recently judging by her split and swollen lip. Acting on instinct, he brushed away a trace of drying blood below her lip and forced what he hoped was a comforting smile. “I won’t let you get hurt.”
Her slow nod was full of reservation. Fear showed plain in her pallor and the rapid pulse along her slender neck, yet she stayed. Somewhat drunk on gratitude, he turned away to hide a ridiculous grin and led the way on.
It took most of an hour to reach the nearest shelter, every second of which he expected her to disappear. The shelter was a chamber encased in cooled lava with an entrance small enough to keep out the monstrous hounds that roamed there. A natural skylight in the ceiling admitted enough light for him to guide her to the crude bed he had constructed, a weaving of flexible branches from berry bushes and scarce grasses over a shelf of hardened lava. The chamber exuded a musty smell, but he doubted she would notice after her fresh inundation in sulfur stench.
At his direction, she sat and watched him light a fire under the skylight. When he finished, he sat on a rock to one side, close enough to talk without being threatening.
“What is this place?”
Despite her extraordinary situation, she still spoke Lyran. That was an unexpected consideration.
“This is a prison, created specifically for me.” He held up a hand when she shifted away from him. “Don’t judge too hastily. I was organizing a rebellion against Emperor Rylan, but I was betrayed and now, here I am.”
“Here I am,” she echoed. A flicker of interest caught in her eyes. “You were trying to fight Raving Rylan?”
He crushed down a preposterous swell of defensiveness for his father. “Is that what the Caithin call him?”
“Some do. He claims to be immortal, at least that’s the gossip, and he sells his own people into slavery. That doesn’t seem especially rational.”
Her expression darkened and disapproval tightened her voice when she mentioned the slave trade. How encouraging. Her pulse still ran wild under the soft bronze skin of her throat and her hands trembled in her lap, but she was starting to look around. Then her vibrant blue eyes locked on him with commanding intensity.
“Who are you?”
“Lord Eldrian Seraff.” He had to give her a false name. If she knew much about his father, the ‘raving’ Lyran emperor, she would know about the ‘blood prince’ as well. Given the rather infamous past mistakes that earned him that hated nickname, telling her who he was could make securing her cooperation impossible.
“How…”
He held up a finger to silence her. She obliged and began to pick at her fingernails, making little clicking noises with them. Exhaling a soft laugh, he reached over and touched her hands to quiet them. It had been so long since he last laughed, he was surprised he could still do it.
“I’m sorry. Nervous habit.” She folded her hands in her lap. The light bronze of her skin deepened with a hint of rosy flush.
She was exquisite.
“I said I would explain.” He stared into the fire, struggling with a surge of longing. He’d prepared to face disbelief and fear in his subject. He hadn’t considered the possible complication of that subject being a beautiful woman. “This prison is a fabricated ascard environment. It exists everywhere and nowhere at once.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Have you heard of Symphanie Serroc?”
“Many times.”
Her wistful smile surprised him as much as her words did. It was a Lyran tale, not something he expected a Caithin woman to know. He nodded, encouraging her to continue, both to find out what she knew and to get her engaged in the conversation.
When she spoke, her voice took on the cadence of a storyteller, rhythmic and entrancing. “When she was born, Symphanie Serroc was the most beautiful child in all of Lyra and she grew to be the most beautiful woman. Her beauty was so great that her own father fell in love with her. Madness grew within him for want of her until one day he killed her mother and insisted that she marry him. When she refused, he commissioned a…”
She paused, searching for the right word in Lyran he suspected. Her fluency was impressive and he appreciated her using it with him. It showed consideration for others that seemed to come naturally to her. That too could work in his favor.
“He commissioned a…creator?” She met his eyes, continuing when he nodded at her choice of words. “…to make a special prison for her. The prison he created was an ascard fabrication as extraordinary as the woman it confined, a beautiful forest environment that she could never leave and only her father could enter. He swore to release her only if she would marry him, but she never consented, choosing instead to grow old and die alone in her prison.
“I see what you’re implying, but it’s only a story,” she added when she finished.
“How do you know it so well?”
“I had a Lyran tutor as a child. She told it to me whenever I got upset with my father to illustrate how much worse he could be.”
Although her response to him and her comfort with his language supported her claim, he found it hard to accept the idea. “It’s rather uncommon in Caithin, is it not, to let a Lyran slave tutor ones children?”
“She… My father…” She chewed at her lower lip for a few seconds then shrugged. “My family wasn’t typical.”
How he wanted to dig deeper, but there wasn’t time and it didn’t matter. Theirs wasn’t going to be a long relationship. “Do you know the rest of the story?”
“There is no rest of the story.” When she shook her head, some of her wavy, dark hair fell around her eyes. She brushed it back, her slender fingers tipped in neatly trimmed nails. Not a woman accustomed to physical labor.
“There is more. Symphanie didn’t die of old age. Before her father died he gave the secret of the prison to another.”
“If he was so jealous of his daughter why would he tell anyone?”
“Everyone has their price.” Her expression darkened, but she didn’t argue. “This man went into the prison. Symphanie was old, her beauty depleted by time and sorrow, but the man
wasn’t there for her. He’d been sent by another to study the prison. He couldn’t manipulate it with her inside so he killed Symphanie. Then he took the secret of the prison to a group of powerful creators and had others like it made. We are in one of those prisons.”
“You’re implying that Emperor Rylan took the secret of the prison.” She sat in contemplative silence for a minute, picking at a bit of grass in the woven bed, then asked, “Why didn’t he have you put to death if you were organizing a rebellion? Why go to this trouble?”
Because he’s my father and a fool. “I don’t know? They call him Raving Rylan for a reason.” He pressed on before she could question further. “I discovered faults in the prison, places where I can contact the outside world. That’s how I was able to appear to you in Demin.”
“But Andrea was with me the first time and she didn’t see you.”
She was trying to understand. He respected that, but too many questions and he was going to give away something he shouldn’t.
“Few people can. I’ve tried countless times.” The most success he’d had prior to her had been a Kudaness priest who tried to run him through with a spear when he appeared. Not the most encouraging encounter. “Perhaps you saw me because you were willing to. I don’t know, but you could see me and feel my touch even though I was never physically there. I can’t leave through the faults, but I was able to bring you here.”
“You were far more finely dressed by the fountain,” she remarked with a pointed glance at his tattered clothes.
“Illusion,” he countered, pleased by her increasing boldness. She was relaxing into a conversational tone, which he hoped meant she was satisfied with his explanations. “Would you have come with me if I looked like a vagrant?”
“Perhaps not. Why did you bring me here?” An amused smirk turned her lips. “For a romantic tryst the location lacks something.”
“You have me there.” He cracked a genuine smile. It felt awkward on lips that hadn’t done so in many months. Her fortitude and lack of prejudice were refreshing, precious rays of sunshine in a world of storm clouds. “A tryst with you sounds delightful, but I brought you here because you can help me escape. I have to resume my campaign against Emperor Rylan.”
Her gaze turned inward. Years of practice in politics gave him the poise to sit quiet, waiting to find out what thoughts churned behind her pensive frown. When she focused on him again, fiery determination burned in her blue eyes.
“What must I do?”
Tension lifted. Long bound muscles relaxed. She was willing to try. That was a victory unto itself.
“I’ve done my own research into these prisons. This place was created to hold one person. If you come to the gate with me, your presence should trigger a safeguard in the prison makeup that will allow me to leave. Then you can return home. The prison can’t hold you against your will because it wasn’t created for you.”
Her eyes widened a fraction. “So I could leave any time?”
Do I lie to her?
No. Some degree of trust was necessary. It had to be her choice to stay. If she didn’t understand that, she could pull herself out without meaning to. He nodded.
“And if this doesn’t work?”
“Then I remain imprisoned and you return home.”
“As easy as that?”
I hope so. He nodded.
Her gaze shifted to his arm and her nervous fidgeting stopped. “You’re hurt.”
Forgetting caution, she went around the fire and knelt beside him, reaching for the bloodstained tear in the arm of his shirt. He pulled away. She gave him a chastising look and took hold of the arm. With careful fingers, she removed the crude bandage and inspected the wound he’d gotten that morning in an altercation with one of the hounds. She placed a hand over the gash and closed her eyes, delicate furrows forming on her brow. The pain of flesh knitting back together brought understanding. She was a healer. The prison muted his connection to the ascard, but it appeared to have no such effect on hers. When she took her hands away, the wound had closed.
She met his gaze. “I hope that wasn’t too painful.”
“Not at all.” How wonderful she smelled, like warm spring and roses. He ached to touch her. Desire burned hot in his blood. It took substantial effort to bury that longing. “You’re a healer?”
“Student, actually.” She smiled, proud of her achievement. “We aren’t allowed to heal outside the academy until our third year, but I don’t imagine they’ll find out about this.”
“You’re injured as well.” He touched her lip.
She jerked away, her expression darkening. When she turned to return to her seat, he noticed the Caithin healer’s rose tattooed between her shoulder blades. Intrigued, he reached out to trace the stem with one finger. She gasped and spun, glaring an explicit warning at him.
“I apologize.” He tried to look repentant. Now that she knew she could leave of her own free will, he needed to be more cautious, but it was hard to resist an excuse to touch her.
The warning faded and she a sat back on the makeshift bed. Her fingers touched the split lip. “I think I’ll keep this for now.”
Such sorrow in her eyes. “I still don’t know your name.”
“Indigo. Lady Indigo Milan if you wish to be proper, though the situation doesn’t seem all that proper.”
She was nobility then. Not a surprise given her apparent education and the fine fabric of her dress, not to mention the expensive ring of promise she wore. The last name sounded familiar, but there was no chance they had met before.
“A pleasure to meet you, Lady Indigo.”
A fleeting smile touched her lips and her fingers picked at the thin fabric of her dress. “Where is this gate?”
“A little over a day’s walk east. We’ll leave in the morning.”
She glanced up through the skylight at roiling black clouds. “Does it brighten up at all?”
His chuckle was dry, devoid of real humor. “Marginally. Enough to make navigation easier.”
She dropped her gaze to her lap, making an effort to still her hands. “Normally, I would object at staying the night with a stranger, but since this can’t possibly be real…”
He moved to kneel before her and placed a hand on her cheek. She inhaled in surprise, her eyes widening as they met his, but she didn’t pull away. Surrendering to impulse, he kissed her again. She didn’t pull away from that either.
“Was that real enough?” His lips lingered close to hers. His pulse pounded so fierce that he could barely hear himself speak.
“Yes.”
He might have backed away, but her breathless reply shattered his will. For seven months, he had been without human contact. How could he resist such temptation? He kissed her harder and her mouth opened to him. Her response hinted at a need almost as strong as his. He ran one hand over the bare skin of her back and she shivered, pressing closer. Her hand slipped around the back of his neck, the light touch of her fingers fanning the flames. She offered no resistance when he pressed her back on the bed.
He gathered up the silky fabric of her dress and slid his hand under it up the inside of her thigh. Her muscles tensed and he stopped, drawing back enough to meet her eyes. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone, but there was one thing he wanted more. His freedom. This wasn’t worth driving her away.
Her other hand came up and hesitated inches from his face. Her gaze pulled him in, holding him there while she searched his eyes. Then her hand on the back of his neck tightened, drawing his mouth to hers. Her body relaxed. His hand resumed its path and he gave himself over to the hunger raging within.
Later, he lay on his side with her warm back pressed to his chest and his arms wrapped around her, feeling her heart beat in time with his. She trembled in his embrace and he brushed a finger over her cheek. It came away damp. What could he say to ease her sorrow without knowing its cause? Was it guilt over betraying whoever had given her the ring? Whatever prompted her to give herself
to him, he was grateful, so he kissed her head and held her until she fell asleep. It was no bother. She fit perfect against him.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Lord Caplin?” The tentative voice crept through the door, accompanied by a tentative knock.
Caplin rubbed his eyes. Was it time for the council meeting already?
He glanced at the window. The pale gray of predawn glowered back. It was barely morning. The meeting wouldn’t start until noon. There was no good reason not to sleep several more hours.
He rolled onto his side, putting his back to the door, and closed his eyes.
“My lord?” The voice was softer this time, more uncertain. “Lady Andrea is in the foyer.”
Caplin groaned.
Why now? Hadn’t they spent the prior day together? How much attention did the woman need?
Guilt poked at him through a fog of sleep and a stray thought tugged at his awareness. Wasn’t Andrea supposed to be in class at the academy? If she was here instead, something must be wrong.
Concern snapped him awake. Rolling out of bed, he went to the door and stuck his head out. He met the eyes of a grim looking portrait of his grandfather staring at him from the opposite wall of the hallway, a reminder that he came from a long line of important, grumpy men and that he should be forever thankful to have inherited his nose from his mother’s side. He looked down at the Lyran boy standing outside the door. The boy bowed his head.
Caplin opened his mouth to speak and his mother’s voice popped into his head.
“Calling someone by their name recognizes that they are a person. Remember that even the lowest man is still a man.”
He exhaled and searched his mind for the boy’s name.
“Sheyv?”
A faint head bob. That was confirmation enough.
“Tell Lady Andrea I shall be down momentarily and see that someone offers her tea.”
“Yes, my lord. Shall I send Durin to assist you, my lord?”
Dissident (Forbidden Things Book 1) Page 3
