She shook her head.
He nodded and turned to leave, only to stop again at the sound of her voice.
“Yes, lady?”
“Can you—do you think you could stay?”
He froze for an instant, his face a mask of ice. Twice before this, two others had made such a request, and twice before he’d had no choice but to—he cut the thought short, burying the memories. She saw this, could not help but see it. He saw her face pale; saw a flash of pain and loneliness quickly submerged as her expression came under control. With a wan, tight smile, she said, “I’m sorry. I’ll be fine.” She turned her head, and once again the dark of night caught her eye, almost freezing her in place. She drew the covers high around her chin and tried to settle back into bed. Her eyes were shadowed by more than the lamplight.
Darin was almost immediately sorry for his reaction. He knew that she wasn’t really aware of the reasons for it—she was barely aware at all.
He wanted to stay, then, and be of comfort. Something in her face brought back the sharp, bitter image of his first night as one among the nameless, listening to the footsteps of the Swords and holding Kerren’s hand as tightly as he dared.
Why, he thought, do you always bring memories? He turned abruptly to pull a chair closer to the bed.
Of course, he had been a slave that night. It had been different for him. Hadn’t it?
“No, really. I’m fine. I don’t have any right to ask you ...” She shivered. “I’m adult now.” But all around her, the darkness was growing. The child seemed to be the only source of warmth and light in the room.
Seeing the way her eyes widened, Darin sat down.
“I’ll stay. Sleep. I’ll keep the lamps burning.”
He held out a hand and she took it, her grip tight and fierce, just as his grip on Kerren’s hand had been. Just so.
He wondered what her life had been like, then, wondered if all of the free men and women really had a pleasant, easy time of things. But he stayed, and his presence brought her a measure of comfort.
He nodded off when sleep forced her to relax her grip on the blanket.
The high, fluting sound of laughter reverberated in the stark stillness of the hall; one low, rich voice blending in subtle harmony with a high soft one.
The lord could hear it as he made his way toward the chamber. It called out into the stillness, a beacon of such strength that he failed to notice the slaves as they scattered before the familiar sound of his footsteps, suddenly busy with their allotted tasks.
He paused before the closed door, drinking in the sound of her laughter. Then he gripped the door firmly and entered.
At once the room froze in a tableau before him. She sat in his bed, her auburn hair in a clumsy topknot, her deceptively delicate hands clutching the end of a feather pillow. Her green eyes, crinkled just so at the corners, were upon him. He glanced at the white translucence of her skin beneath the dark blue robe-he would have to see that she spent time in the sunlight; she had always loved the sun.
It was almost too much for him. To see her awake, to see her respond to life after so long—no other victory could come close to this.
Then he noticed the boy. His hair was a tousled mess, and his hands also clutched a pillow. This in itself would have been cause for severe discipline. Worse still, the child was standing—standing!—on the bed, the pillow over his head. His face was almost a death mask. Nerveless hands let the pillow fall to the bed. The soft thud it made was like thunder in the silence.
“Lord!” Darin croaked. His voice failed him, as did all else but fear. What had he been doing?
But the sound returned a semblance of motion to the room. Darin jumped off the bed and came to stand stiffly beside it. He couldn’t control the trembling in his limbs or the pallor of his face. The lady gently put her own pillow down. With a quick glance at Darin, she turned to face the man.
“My lord.” She inclined her head slightly.
“My lady.” Her eyes. He bowed. “I apologize for my rude interruption. Please forgive me. I had heard you were faring well and felt that I should make myself available to answer any questions you might have.”
“You’re very kind.” The sentiment did not quite reach her voice as she looked back at Darin.
Darin did not appear to notice.
Turning to the slave, Lord Darclan said, “You may go.”
Darin went.
It isn’t only me he’s afraid of. The lady looked coolly at the man who stood, resplendent in black, before her. She was angry; it had taken the better part of three days of quiet coaxing to get even the hint of a smile from her young companion, and with a few words, this lord had driven that away. From the sounds of the boy’s retreating footsteps, she wondered if she would have to start to form their tentative friendship all over again.
His pale, fear-taut face wavered before her.
“Do you wish me to leave?”
“What?”
“You seem discomfited, lady. If it is my presence that has accomplished this, I will leave you. I did not wish to... disturb your rest.” His dark eyes flickered to the disarray of the bed and the lopsided heap of two feather pillows.
Her silence was response enough for a moment. He knew the tightness of jaw and the clamp of lips well enough to know what she felt.
But beyond that, Lady? He did not ask; now was not the time.
“I am glad to see you are well. The physicians were not so certain of your health.”
“The child...” she said.
“Yes?”
“Why was he so afraid of you?”
The lord’s eyebrows raised a fraction, as if in surprise. “Do you not know this?”
“No.” Her answer came quickly, a short, terse word of frustration. She had always been this direct.
“Lady, how else should he react? He is, after all, a slave.”
Silence again. But this silence was colored by the sudden widening of the green of her eyes; the opening of her lips. He saw her brows furrow as she struggled with the information he had given her.
You cannot remember. The thought was a command.
“And I?” she asked woodenly.
“You, lady, are a noble of Veriloth. You are no one’s slave.”
“Oh.” She turned, her heels digging into carpet. Her fists clenched tight and then relaxed.
“I will do nothing to the child if he was following your wishes. He was purchased to serve you, and if you will, he is yours.”
She cringed at the last word. Shivered.
“Perhaps,” he offered, “we might speak of other things.”
She said nothing.
“Let me introduce myself. I am Lord Stefan of House Darclan.”
“Lord Stefan ...” Her hair tilted back as she raised her head. “House Darclan?”
“Indeed, lady.”
The curve of her shoulders dipped down, and she turned as if grudging him sight of her. “And I?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Ah. The physicians warned me that this might be the case. You do not remember?”
“No.”
“You are Lady Sara Laren. House Laren is located in Penderfield.” He took a step forward.
Penderfield. Laren. He saw her lips move slightly over the words. “This—this is not my house.”
“No, Lady.” He smiled. “And yes. It is properly my house, but I willingly give you the run of it.”
His smile changed his features; Lady Sara looked up at the curve of his lips. Her brows drew together, and she raised one hand. It stopped a few inches from his face, and then fell into her uncomfortable silence.
She turned again.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice spoke of frustration more than regret.
“None of this means anything to me.”
“It will come to, lady.”
Silence again. He wondered if she had ever before been this silent, although his perfect memory told him instantly that she had. It was not her silence that he w
anted. Nor the struggle that she seemed to be going through before she chose to speak anew.
“But you, Lord Darclan, you seem familiar. Have I seen you before?”
His chin tilted up, ever so slightly. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Yes, lady.”
“Were we friends?”
This time it was his turn for silence.
Ever aware, she caught it and turned.
He reached out and caught her hands. She started, but his grip, though gentle, was immovable. Silence deepened between them.
Lady Sara found that she could not meet the lord’s eyes. Instead, she looked at the way their hands twined together, and knew a sudden sense of rightness that she hadn’t felt since waking.
“What happened?” she asked, unwilling to look away from his hands, from hers.
“You were out boating with a few of the slaves in attendance. A summer storm caught you unprepared, lady. You hit your head when your boat capsized, and one of the slaves, who knew how to swim, pulled you to land.” His voice grew sharper. “You had taken in much water, there. We almost lost you. It was a very close thing.”
He could not keep the pain from his voice.
It was the only right thing that he did that day.
Her hands shook even as they relaxed just a little beneath his.
“Lord Darclan, was I important to you?”
“Was? That puts it in the past tense, lady.” On purpose, he made his voice lighter and more gallant. “You are more important to me than life itself.” As he watched the rising sheen of red take her cheeks, he acknowledged with a sharp, familiar pain that these words were the only completely truthful words he had yet spoken.
And he wondered for just a second if beginning with lies—to her, when truth was what she valued so—was any beginning at all.
But his concern lasted only for a second.
She was free of her memories, but he could not and would not part with his. And he remembered the dark, broken fury of eyes that no longer looked green.
So.
I came here from a thousand miles away—from the other end of the Empire. I came here to take residence in House Darclan because the climate suited me better. I came here because of Lord Darclan.
She walked the stretch of her room until she reached the wall and pivoted neatly on the carpet for perhaps the hundredth time.
I’m a noble of Veriloth. There’s a Church of the One here. There’s slavery, and I should be used to it.
She frowned, and her toes dug savagely into woolen pile.
No. That feels wrong.
She thought of the look on the boy’s face—the boy who was nameless, as slaves always were. Thought of the fear in his eyes that she disliked—hated—so much. Fear of her.
And no wonder. I couldn’t have had slaves. I could not have owned them. If the carpet hadn’t been so convenient a target, she would have kicked herself. I should have asked him right there and then.
But she hadn’t, and she knew why. It was obvious that the lord was worried for her; obvious that her near-death had hurt him deeply. She ground her teeth together.
He can’t be right.
But inside of her, curled in a tight knot, was the doubt of that conviction. She wasn’t a coward; she faced it squarely. Maybe she had been a part of this, this slavery, this ownership.
Maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t remember anything.
The next morning when Sara woke, she found that clothing had been laid out for her. Deeming its presence to be a request, she quickly rose and began to change. A small sound caught her attention and she wheeled around quickly, clutching the dress to her bosom.
The nameless slave stood warily in the door.
Sara smiled, a tentative, welcoming gesture.
He nodded stiffly in reply.
“What?” she said, keeping her voice light. “No breakfast this morn?” Her voice fell on the last word. She felt the walls around him, and they were pushing her away. She wondered if he would ever eat with her again, or relax enough to engage in a combat of feathers.
“No, lady. The lord says you are well enough to dine in the morning room with the guests if you’d like.”
“Oh.” She turned her back toward him and nimbly stepped into the soft, green folds of velvet dress. The front of it was paneled with a different material that shone and caught the light, turning it a deep, forest green. She liked it. What she didn’t like were the small, cloth-covered buttons that ran from neck to hip on the back of the dress.
She grimaced. Buttons like these, dainty little showpieces, she had never liked. She scrabbled at them, managed to catch one or two, and then stopped.
No, I never did like these. Did I wear them? Is this how I dress? While she stood, her left elbow nearly planted in her cheek, the boy moved forward. She felt the quick, light touch of his small fingers as he unfastened the buttons that she’d done up, and then refastened them correctly.
He worked in silence. Sara stood completely still, partly because she wished the dressing to be done with, and partly out of surprise. When he finished, she turned, half-expecting him to bolt at the sight of her. He didn’t.
Oh, the look on his face. I never owned slaves.
She knelt, although she did not stand much taller than the boy. His legs moved woodenly as he took a step back.
“I can’t just call you ‘boy’ or 'child.’ ”
Her breath stopped for a moment as she waited a reply. Please, she thought as she reached out a hand, this is important to both of us.
“You can call me whatever you like.”
A hint of memory touched her then; it was odd, but she felt she’d heard these words before. Only the tone was different; it was serious and dark.
His face bore her study stoically, its lines unmoved and unchanged. Then he opened his mouth and his eyes shifted.
“Why are you doing this to me?” The words were a whisper. But his eyes, as they caught hers, were full of longing, terror, and a hint of leashed fury.
“Because you’re afraid of me.” She lowered her head, and her hair, loose and long, obscured her face. “I can’t—it’s hard for me, to know that you fear me. I want you to understand that you don’t have to.” The pulse at her neck began to jump. An odd tingle ran along her spine, traveling to fill her arms, legs, and face.
She knew he would answer. And she knew, somehow, that the answer would be hard.
It was worse than she could have expected.
“Don’t you understand anything?” The young voice rose on the last word, and she looked up to see that all of his control had fied. “Or are you just playing with me? Are you trying to trap me?”
She closed her eyes.
“Well why don’t you have me beaten instead—or killed?” His voice was desperate and uneven. “It’s your right, lady, and it would be easier—easier than this.”
She looked up, then, as his hands spread outward in a gesture that encompassed the room. She said nothing; he was not yet finished.
“Why are you doing this? Why?” His face was white. “Why don’t you stop?”
Very slowly, she reached out and touched his cheek with an open palm. It was not the slap he expected, but he flinched as if she had struck with mailed fist.
The tingle that ran down her arms seemed to shoot out through her fingers.
“It would be easier,” he said, his voice once again a whisper.
“I wouldn’t have to worry about you anymore. I wouldn’t have to wonder if you really mean it all. It would just be over.”
She nodded.
He closed his mouth and said nothing as her hands continued to hold the strange territory of his desert face.
Sara wondered then how this person could eat with her, have pillow fights with her, and listen to her tales of misspent childhood. The wounds, invisible to the eye, went deep.
This at least she knew: She had never lived his life. But just the same, she felt oddly akin to him, as if some other pain, some other h
urt, found an answering echo in the words that he spoke.
“It’s no game,” she told him quietly. “No trap. You have been the only friend I have in these walls. Lord Darclan I might once have known, but I do not remember him. I remember you. When I was sick, you tended me. When I was afraid, you sat with me. When I was lonely, you ate with me.” Her fingers stroked his cheeks in a rhythmic movement.
“Lord Darclan told me a little about this land, but it doesn’t feel real to me. It doesn’t feel right.”
He watched her, dry-eyed. But he did not pull away.
“Maybe my house was different from this one. Maybe not. I can’t tell you for sure. But I do know what’s important to me now. I need a friend.”
She saw his eyes flutter.
“If I call you ‘boy,’ if I call you 'child’ or ‘slave,’ no matter for who’s sake, then I’m accepting that that’s what you are.”
“I am a slave.” His voice was quivering. “I have no name. I promised.”
His voice told her what that promise had cost, or how that promise had been made. In spite of herself, she shivered.
“Maybe, right now, that’s what you are to every other person in the castle. But don’t ask me to treat you as he does. Don’t ask that of me. Please.” She felt her stomach knot; she didn’t know why, but God, the words made crystal clear her feelings. It was so important that he not ask that, that she not be it.
“I have no name,” he repeated dully. “Call me whatever you like. I’ll still do what you tell me.”
It’s too late. I’m too late. She thought it for a moment, and the feeling of panic welled up, more strongly than before. Then: No. No. No.
“Then I will. I’ll give you a name, that we two can use. I’m Sara. And you ...” She closed her eyes. She felt suddenly weary.
“Darin.” As she said it, she felt a little flare of warmth ring the two of them, too subtle to be identified.
Darin. The word left her lips. He heard it as if it were a shout. It reverberated through him.
Darin. He could hear it clearly, as it had been spoken by anyone he’d lived with for the first eight years of his life. The Grandmother, with her patient exasperation, and her not-so-patient discipline; his mother, with her stem silences and the shadowed laughter that held all he knew of the future—and his year-mates, in the halls that he would never walk again.
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