The room stank of sickness. The sour smell of whatever he’d sweated out still lingered. Nor had he allowed the servants to clean. The room looked like a pigsty. Clothes lay strewn about. He had hazy memories of getting up a few times, meaning to dress, then tossing his clothing aside when it seemed too much effort. Half-eaten plates of food sat wherever he’d left them on the floor, chairs, and tables.
It was a wonder the room didn’t smell worse than it did.
Linden slumped down onto the bed as Maurynna surveyed the room. The excitement of her presence faded. He retreated into his misery and stared at the floor.
Her voice came sharp as a dagger and cut as deeply. “Haven’t you had enough wallowing in self-pity?” she said.
“Aren’t you bored yet with feeling sorry for yourself? Look at you! You couldn’t get a berth on a fifth-rate cattle scow.”
His head came up at that. He stared at her in disbelief; he hadn’t thought her the sort to kick a man when he was down.
She stood, arms folded, glowering at him. Then she spun on one heel and strode to the nearest window. She pushed aside the hangings. The sudden brightness made Linden’s eyes water. After a brief struggle with the catch she opened the window.
Maurynna came back. “For the sake of the gods, isn’t it time you stopped playing the coward?”
White-hot anger burned in him for a moment, then died. “You don’t understand,” he said, despairing.
“Understand what?” she yelled. “I understand that you’re behaving like a child!”
He said sullenly, “I can’t tell you—”
“Bah! Can’t tell me what? I think you’re in the doldrums because a truehuman got the best of you—you, a Dragonlord!” she said. “Whoever they were caught you by the balls good and proper, didn’t they? And you feel like a fool, don’t you? Isn’t that what this is all about?”
Linden leaped up. The anger was back and burning beyond white-hot this time. A tiny voice inside him dared to say she might be right. He ignored it.
He clenched his fists and yelled, “How dare you? You don’t understand at all! I’m a Dragonlord! I can’t make a mistake like—”
“Oh, really? Dragonlords can’t make mistakes, is it?” Maurynna planted both hands against his chest and shoved.
He fell back to sprawl across the bed and lay blinking up at her in surprise.
Maurynna slashed a hand through the air. “And since when is Dragonlord spelled g-o-d? Tell me that, Linden! Face it—even a Dragonlord can be tricked. Even a Dragonlord can make mistakes. It could have happened to Kief Shaeldar or Tarlna Aurianne—or any other Dragonlord. Maybe not the same way, but tricked they could have been. And yes, you were made a fool of—but it can’t be helped now. Accept that and get on with your life, damn it, or are you too much of a coward to live with your mistakes? All the rest of us have to.”
To his horror, Linden felt hot tears slide down his cheeks. “You despise me, don’t you?”
She sat beside him and caught his hand in hers. “Never,” she said. “Nor pity, you either; you would hate that even more, I think. I just hate to see you like this.” Her lips trembled.
The shell of his numbing misery cracked. Linden pulled Maurynna to him. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. Her fingers clutched at his back.
Her voice muffled, Maurynna said, “Please, Linden. Otter denied it, but … You almost died, didn’t you?”
Linden nodded, his cheek pressed against her head. He felt her breath catch in a sob as he stroked her hair. And in comforting her he found the strength to banish the last of the greyness. He longed for the day he could claim her as his soultwin.
Maurynna continued, “I know you’ve been ill, but you’ve got to try to go on, Linden. Please, it hurts so.”
The pain in her words wrenched him. “I will, love,” he whispered, shaken that she could already be so entwined with him. “For you, I will.”
He tilted her chin back and kissed her.
It was a mistake. He knew it the instant he surrendered himself to the kiss. Maurynna pressed herself to him, answering him with a rising passion. Her hands stroked his bare back. Their touch woke a fire in him. Too late he remembered Kief’s warning: She will need you as much as you need her.
And gods, how he needed her. A moment more, he told himself, only a moment, and then—
Rathan seized that instant of weakness with the lightning strike of a hawk sinking talons into its prey. The fire became an inferno as his dragonsoul sought the other half of itself.
No! Linden cried out in his mind. No! You’ll destroy us all!
But Rathan would no longer be denied. Against his human will, Linden slid his hands beneath Maurynna’s tunic. Her skin was soft and warm. She moaned with pleasure.
It was his undoing. Had she protested, he might have found the will to resist Rathan. But Maurynna knew nothing of the danger and, weakened from his illness, Linden hadn’t the strength for both of them.
Caught in Rathan’s desires, Linden eased Maurynna’s tunic off. She helped him; then her hands slid down his chest to tug at the ties of his breeches.
He tried to say “No,” but her lips covered his. Instead he wriggled out of his breeches and pulled off Maurynna’s.
He rolled her onto her back. She welcomed him with a soft, glad cry. At first it was pure joy, this joining with the other half of himself. Within him Rathan silently roared in triumph.
Then the pain and terror began. He fell into a maelstrom of strange images, feelings, sensations. They sucked him down and tore him apart. Vertigo seized him as he was tossed about like a leaf in a storm-ridden sea of lurid colors. As alien visions overwhelmed him his mind screamed that he would be lost forever.
Pain racked him. His flesh was melting from his bones. He heard Maurynna cry out. The terror in her voice was worse than any agony of his body.
He tried to pull free. But Rathan drove him to consummate the union with his soultwin, heedless of the consequences.
A ghostly memory of his words to Otter returned to haunt him: “It sometimes happens that two Dragonlords—two full Dragonlords—will destroy each other when they join.”
And Maurynna had not yet Changed. They would die—were dying. It was the only way this torment could end. The forces they’d released would devour them—
Something inside him snapped, shifted, wrenched itself free with a final burst of agony. Then his release took him in a rush of pleasure so sharp it was pain.
He had only enough strength to fall to one side of Maurynna. He lay gasping, fighting the darkness that threatened him.
A thought slid through the whirlwind in his mind: he was alive. He nearly wept with relief.
But what about Maurynna? Linden struggled to raise himself onto one elbow and leaned over her.
She lay still—too still. Her face was grey under the tan. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
“Maurynna?” he whispered. “Maurynna-love, can you hear me?” Frightened, he touched her cheek.
Her head fell slackly to one side.
Fifty-seven
“Maurynna?” Linden whispered again. He gathered her up, cradling her against his chest. She lay limply in his arms. He panicked. Then he saw her breast move.
Relief flooded him—Maurynna was alive. But what if she guessed now what she was? And how to wake her from her faint? A thought came to him.
He carried her into the bathing room. The bathing pool was still filled with water. He stepped into it.
Kneeling, he gasped as the water slid over his stomach. He hadn’t thought it would get so cold. Setting his teeth, he dunked Maurynna into the water.
Her eyes flew open; she squealed in outrage and swung at him.
Her fist caught him squarely on the ear. Startled, he fell backward and dropped her. She disappeared under the water. Faster than he would have believed possible, Maurynna surfaced again and surged to her feet, dripping and shivering, arms clutched across h
er breasts. Linden tore his gaze from her long, slender thighs and looked up.
“Are you trying to drown me?” she yelled. “Or freeze me? That water is cold, blast you! And stop looking at me like that.”
He grinned. “Why?” he asked. “You’re beautiful.”
She blushed and looked away for a moment. Then she snapped, “And how do Dragonlords ever get anyone to bed them a second time if that’s what it’s like?”
Linden leaned back, nearly hysterical with relief. He stopped worrying she’d try forcing an early First Change. She had no idea of what had just happened.
“Stop laughing!” She kicked water at him.
He dodged and stood up. “Oh, love—it won’t be like that the next time,” he said, catching her in his arms. After a heartbeat or two, she relaxed. He held her, exulting in the feel of her body against his, running his fingers through the long black hair clinging wet and heavy to her back.
“Linden,” she said. “The water really is cold, you know.”
“Mmmm.” He bent and dipped a hand into the water, muttering a short spell under his breath. Moments later the water steamed gently as if it had just come from the heating cauldrons.
Maurynna gasped.
“Is this too hot?” he asked.
“No,” she said, then, with only the faintest tremor in her voice, “You heat-spelled it, didn’t you?”
“Yes; any Dragonlord can do it. When y—” he began, then stopped in horror. Gods, if he couldn’t watch his tongue any better than that! … He looked for a way to distract her before she could ask the question he saw in her eyes.
His gaze fell on the soap. He grabbed it.
“Shall I wash your back?” he asked.
Maurynna smiled and took the soap. “Why don’t I do yours?” she said. She slipped behind him. Her hand on his shoulder bade him kneel.
Linden sighed happily as a short time later Maurynna’s strong fingers kneaded his soapy back.
At long last he was one with his soultwin. For the first time in his life he felt truly complete.
As Linden ran a hand along his freshly shaven jaw, he remembered Maurynna’s earlier words. “What’s this ‘surprise’ you mentioned before?” he asked. He sat down on the bed and pulled on clean linen stockings.
Maurynna clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. Then she jumped for the rest of her clothes. “Oh, gods—I forgot all about him!” She struggled into her tunic and pulled on her own stockings. “Linden—hurry! Get dressed; he must be furious at waiting so long.”
Linden tossed her her breeches and slipped into his own. “Who?”
Maurynna swore briefly as the legs tangled. She straightened them out and said, “Shan!”
Linden stared at her, not sure he’d heard correctly. “What? He can’t be! How?” He shook his head. “I don’t believe I said that; this is Shan. Chailen will kill me.” He shoved his feet into his boots. “Come on; we’d best get to the stables.”
“Who’s Chailen?” Maurynna asked.
“Tell you later,” Linden said. He scooped up a tunic, pulling it on as he ran from the room.
As he raced down the hall, he knew he was grinning like an idiot. He didn’t care. Maurynna was right; he’d been tricked—the thought that he might have betrayed his fellow Dragonlords still burned—but it was time to go on.
And now they were Sealed to each other. He wanted to Change and trumpet his joy to the world. But the most he could do was pretend his happiness was caused solely by Shan.
Not that he wasn’t happy to see his idiot horse. Linden whooped and jumped the last few stairs, Maurynna laughing behind him. He threw the door open before the steward could get to it. Once outside, he waited for Maurynna to catch up, then caught her hand in his. They raced toward the stable side by side.
“You sorry excuse for crowbait,” Linden yelled. “Where are you?”
A stallion’s ringing neigh, then the thunder of hooves, and Shan burst through the open doors of the stable.
Linden stopped and waited. Maurynna ducked behind him as Shan charged headlong. The stallion stopped just short of trampling them.
For a moment Linden simply looked at Shan, realizing how much he’d missed the Llysanyin. Then he threw his arms around Shan’s neck. The stallion’s big head dropped over Linden’s shoulder as Shan returned the hug.
After a moment Linden noticed the odd sounds Shan was making, tiny snorts and whickers. They had a worried, almost frantic tone to them as Shan snuffled him.
He pulled back enough to look the stallion in the eye. “You knew, then, that I’ve been ill?”
Shan nodded. He made another queer, very unhorselike sound.
“Otter told him,” Maurynna said from behind him, “when we ran across him in the city. He took Shan off to one side and talked to him. Then I rode him here.”
There was a catch in her voice. When Linden looked around at her, she was studying the woods in the distance.
“Ah,” Linden said quietly. He scratched Shan’s cheeks. No doubt Shan knew who Maurynna was, then; the stallion did not allow just anyone to ride him.
Linden rubbed Shan’s nose, thinking.
Maurynna swallowed against the tears pricking her eyes. The big stallion’s devotion to his rider moved her. Whatever happened between her and Linden after this, she was glad that she had been the one to reunite them. She sneaked a look from the corner of her eye.
Linden was rubbing Shan’s face, leaning now against the stallion’s shoulder; from the slight trembling of his legs, Maurynna guessed that the exertion of their lovemaking and the mad dash down the stairs had taken its toll. The stallion braced his legs to take the weight and stood with eyes half-closed, lipping at the front of Linden’s tunic, no longer worried.
And Linden himself seemed different. Though still weak from his sickbed, he was more relaxed than Maurynna had ever seen him, as if a tenseness she’d not recognized before was now gone.
She drew a deep breath and realized she felt at peace as she hadn’t since meeting Linden on the dock.
As if, as if—
Before she could catch the thought, Linden said, “Would you like to ride with me? Shan can carry both of us easily.”
She nodded. “But are you well enough for it?”
“A gentle ride, yes.”
She saw him look up at the windows of the house. Then he took a deep breath and vaulted to Shan’s back. As he held his hand down to her, she noticed it trembled. She looked up at him in concern; he smiled ruefully at her and she understood—no doubt every servant in the place had watched that extravagant gesture. The word would soon go round of the remarkable recuperative powers of Dragonlords.
She took his hand, raised her foot to the instep of his braced foot and stepped up. It was a little awkward, but she managed to get onto Shan’s back without sliding off the other side.
“Settled? Then hold on.”
She wrapped her arms around Linden’s waist as they started off. The unbound hair of his still-damp clan braid was cool on her skin as she rested her cheek against his broad back.
For a long time neither spoke as they rode through the sun-dappled woods and across small, grassy clearings. She could feel the strength flowing back into his body with the sunshine and the clean, sweet air of the forest.
Maurynna had never felt so deeply content in her life. This was worth all the earlier pain and terror. She wondered at it, then wondered if he’d spoken the truth when he said the next time would be different.
The next time. It sounded as if he wasn’t planning to cast her off—at least not yet. True, this idyll would have to end when she—or he—left Cassori, but there should be time for a “next time.” Her cheeks burned at the thought. She wished they could stop in one of the glades; the grass looked soft enough …
Stop that, or you’ll be dragging him off this horse in another minute—and can you imagine the look on Shan’s face? She snickered at the image.
He looked over his shoulder at h
er, one eyebrow raised. “And what was that for?”
“Nothing,” she said, and hoped she wasn’t blushing. “Linden, why are you called the Last Dragonlord? Hasn’t there ever been such a long time between Dragonlords before?”
To her surprise, Linden said, “Longer—sometimes much longer—between Dragonlords coming to maturity with First Change. But always before the truedragons and some of the oldest Dragonlords have sensed the birth of potential Dragonlords between those times. Sometimes as many as five or six in a year, though nothing comes of it. Yet I was the last they sensed.” Now he sounded distracted, as though some thought nagged at him.
“Potential?” Maurynna asked in surprise. “I thought the joining of the dragon and human souls happened before birth.”
“It does. But not every Dragonlord lives until First Change,” he said. His voice was quiet and sad. “Childhood accidents, war, plague—even the illnesses any child goes through can kill us; we tend to be a sickly lot as younglings. That ends for male Dragonlords about the time we can grow beards. For the women, when their first courses start.”
Maurynna closed her eyes. So many Dragonlords whose lives had ended before they’d truly begun. And nothing since Linden was born. He would never have a soultwin. The thought saddened her.
He went on, “I daresay you were a … healthy little youngling, weren’t you?”
“How did you know? I was hardly ever ill,” Maurynna said.
“Wha—really?” A pause, then a puzzled-sounding “Oh” that she could make neither heads nor tails of. Perhaps someday she’d understand.
Then a tiny hope flared in her heart. She knew it was foolish; she shouldn’t say anything.
But it was best to know now. “Could …” She faltered, then tried again, her voice the barest whisper. “Could you ever fall in love with a truehuman?”
He was silent for so long she feared she’d offended him. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. As she inhaled again she noticed for the first time the faint scent of his skin, like sandalwood and myrrh mixed.
The Last Dragonlord Page 38
