He was taller and stronger, sleeker and more lithe and most definitely bigger, than the average man. The way he moved, with an innate confidence and dexterity, was entirely new to her. Perhaps he truly was of another species. Surely he had not shaved before rejoining her this morning, not here in the wilderness, and yet there was no stubble on his face.
When they reached the rock wall, he climbed it easily, as if his bare feet had never known a misstep or a stumble. When she started to follow, he tossed the bearskin to the ground and reached down one long arm to assist her. She hesitated, and then clasped his hand tightly.
Yesterday she had sensed very little from the man when she’d touched him, and then her abilities had shut down entirely. But today was another matter entirely. While Ryn hauled her slowly and steadily upward, vivid images flashed through her mind.
The forest in shades of gray, flying past as if she flew low across the ground, zigging and zagging to avoid rocks and trees and thick brush.
The full moon bright and clear in an autumn sky, its rays shining down and lighting the night so that there were no secrets, no hidden shadows.
Her, sleeping on the bearskin.
Her, peeking over this very rock face.
Her, riding toward Arthes with the emperor’s soldiers all around.
A man who is not a man. A beast who is not a beast.
Ryn placed her on her feet, and she glared up at him. She really did have to look sharply up in order to gaze fully at his face. He did not turn away or present his back on her, but stared down at her intently. There were such magnificent and powerful flashes of gold in his eyes, she could not look away even if she wanted to. Heaven above, she knew those eyes.
“You are the wolf,” she said plainly.
He nodded. Once.
“You should have told me.”
“I believe I just did.” With that, he scooped up the bearskin bedroll and turned. He walked away from her, those strides again long and purposeful.
After a moment’s hesitation, Juliet followed. The creature who claimed to be her husband was a shape-shifter. She had heard of such creatures, in tales meant to frighten and even in old witches’ texts, but she had never known that they were real. According to legend, on the three nights in each cycle when the moon was at its zenith, such creatures changed. Ryn became a wolf. He became the large, blond wolf who had slept with her last night. A wolf by night, a man by day. A creature of nightmares and campfire tales, not a man. Not a man at all.
Juliet had been frightened of her captor, and she’d been angry. Last night she had been willing to risk her very life to get away from him, but at the moment she found him more fascinating than frightening. A shape-shifter.
She rushed to catch up with him, and at the sound of her footsteps he slowed his stride so she could join him. They had a short way to travel in which there were no rock faces or ledges to climb up or down. “I am quite talented with herbs and spells and such. Perhaps I can concoct a cure for you.”
He did not slow his stride, but he did look down at her. “A cure? For what?”
“Your affliction. With time and patience I believe I can construct a medicine which will keep the wolf at bay.” In her mind she compiled a list of possibly necessary ingredients. Oh, if only she had grabbed her satchel when Ryn had kidnapped her! Some of the herbs she needed were in that very bag.
“Why?”
It was a struggle to keep up with him, and she began to think that being carried wasn’t so bad after all. “Why?”
The question was unexpected. “Well, so you can be a normal man. So you can rid yourself of the wolf. If I can come up with a cure, you’ll be in control at all times.”
“No,” he said softly.
“But...”
“I don’t want a cure.”
“Of course you want a cure,” she insisted breathlessly. “Any man who was cursed with such an affliction would want—”
“The wolf is not a curse,” he snapped. Before she could argue with him, he continued, his stride increasing in length and speed. “The wolf is the essence of the Anwyn,” he said as he walked away from her. “It is wild and powerful and connected to the core of the earth in a way a man can never be. You should understand this, since you are connected to the earth in your own way.”
“I’m not actually connected to the earth,” Juliet argued. “I just have the ability to occasionally see what I should not.”
“All animals are connected to the earth, some more strongly than others. You have a rare ability, but you have not honed your skill. You fight it.”
“First of all, I’m not an animal,” Juliet said, almost indignantly.
“You are,” Ryn said, “as I am. As all creatures are.”
“And second,” she said, unwilling to continue that part of the conversation, “I do not fight my gift.”
“You fight. I see what you do not.”
“You don’t see anything where I’m concerned,” she said sharply, rushing to catch up with him. “And don’t change the subject. I simply offered to try to find a cure for your ailment.”
“If you take away the wolf, you take away my soul.”
She wanted to argue the point with him awhile longer, but he moved too far away too quickly. She’d have to shout to be heard, and since he was obviously in no mood to listen, she’d be wasting her breath, in any case.
Later, perhaps.
The Northern Palace of the Empire of Columbyana
* * *
The Northern Province was too cold for Sophie’s liking, but her rooms in the palace were warm enough, and her infant daughter Ariana was happy to sit on a rug near the fire in the parlor and play with the doll her grandfather had given her.
Her husband Kane was in his element, once again at Arik’s side. The rebel leader had been surprised but pleased to find that Kane Varden was not dead, as he had believed for such a long time. Kane had been worried about explaining to Arik how he’d lost more than a year of his life, but the man who claimed to be the rightful emperor of Columbyana had simply listened and nodded his head and welcomed Kane back into the fold.
The rebels could have killed the occupants of the palace when they’d taken it, but they had not. The lady of the Northern Palace was Emperor Sebestyen’s eldest sister—and the rebel leader Arik’s half-sister. Even though they were brother and sister, Lady Raye and Arik had never met. She was a legitimate offspring of the late Emperor Nechtyn and his empress, and Arik was the bastard son of the old emperor’s tryst with a favored concubine. Raye and her husband occupied the Northern Palace, collecting taxes and recruiting soldiers in this cold province. The lord and lady of this palace were presently under arrest, but Arik had allowed them to remain in their quarters, unlike the soldiers who had been killed in battle or tossed into the dungeon prison.
Sophie laid a hand over her slightly swollen belly. There were months still to carry this child before she was born, and she savored every day. Kane had missed her pregnancy with Ariana. He would not miss anything this time.
The knowledge of the curse that could ruin everything kept her from complete happiness. Kane’s thirtieth birthday would arrive with the end of summer. Sophie had not yet tried to break the curse that would likely take her husband from her shortly before that birthday arrived, but she had spent many hours researching and planning. Most days she was confident that she would be able to break the curse that had plagued the Fyne women and their men for three hundred years. Other days, she was gripped with the fear of burying the man she loved as Isadora had buried her husband, as countless Fyne witches had done in years past.
Maybe Kane would not die, but instead would desert her, disappearing like the morning dew without warning or explanation as some husbands and lovers of Fyne women had done in the past. Such a terrible happening would hurt, and she would forever wonder if he was coming back—but it would be preferable to his death. Unfortunately, she did not think the outcome was hers to choose.
Her fathe
r, Maddox Sulyen, sat with her on this cold afternoon, sharing the parlor in this suite of rooms that had been assigned to Kane and his family. While Kane had been welcomed with open arms, the Emperor Sebestyen’s Minister of Defense. . .former minister, she imagined...had been greeted with suspicion. He would be a great ally to the revolution, when the rebels finally embraced his defection.
Sophie had had only days in which to come to know her father, but her instincts told her that he was a good man. Not because he was powerful and intelligent and handsome, but because he had a good heart.
“I can’t believe how much you look like your mother,” he said softly.
Ariana glanced up at her grandfather and cooed, smiling widely. She had taken to him from the first moment she laid eyes upon him, and that was one of the reasons Sophie had no problems trusting her father. Ariana had good instincts where men were concerned.
“She always told me I looked like you.”
Maddox shrugged broad shoulders. “In coloring, yes. But the shape of your face is hers. When I look at you, the years roll back and...” He hesitated, and she understood why. His union with her mother had not been a romantic one, but one of sexual pleasure that had lasted just one night. He had been very young at that time...barely eighteen years old, by her figuring. Lucinda Fyne had gone to Sulyen knowing he would leave her with a child. He had known nothing, of course, but that a beautiful older woman offered herself to him.
It must’ve been an extraordinary night, for him to remember her so clearly after all these years.
“You have no other children?” Sophie asked.
He shook his head slowly. “None. I usually take great care to see that there are no...” Again, he stumbled.
“Consequences,” Sophie said as she rubbed her slightly rounded tummy.
“Yes.”
But that night with Lucinda Fyne had been different. She had not only seduced him, she’d charmed him into forgetting his usual caution. He had never even suspected that the woman who’d come to him had been a witch.
A grimace momentarily crossed his face. “I can’t believe I’m a grandfather. I’m not old enough to have a granddaughter.”
“Apparently you are,” Sophie said with a smile.
“I didn’t even get to be a father before...and now there’s not one but two.” He waved a large hand at Sophie’s stomach. “Or soon will be. You’re sure it will be another girl?”
“Positive. There hasn’t been a baby boy born to the Fyne line in...well, I don’t know how long.”
"This is the Varden line now, correct?” he said.
Such a decidedly male way of thinking. “No matter what I call myself, my daughters will be Fyne women. Fyne witches.”
Maddox wrinkled his nose. He had a lot more trouble accepting that Sophie was a witch than he had accepting that she was his child.
The door to the suite opened, and Sophie caught a glimpse of the guard that had been posted at the door. Kane stepped into the room. Her husband warmed her heart and her soul, and simply looking at him fed her spirit.
Like the other rebels, Kane wore a cloak embroidered with the shield of Arik, a sword he knew how to wield, and a sharp dagger. His long hair, that unique shade of brown with the liberal blond striations, was pulled back today, against the wind that howled beyond the palace walls. Heaven above, she hated the north. She wanted to go home to warmer climes and wildflowers.
And her sisters. They had not parted on the best of terms, but now that things with Kane were settled, she wanted to see them again. She needed to hug her sisters, tell them she forgave them, ask them to forgive her, tell them all was well, and then...
Isadora would help her sister find a way to break the curse. Juliet, too, but Isadora had always been the one to study and practice her craft. She had never been afraid of magic, and if she had truly believed that the curse would take her husband, she would have done something years ago. She might not have succeeded, but she certainly would have tried. Perhaps there were clues of some sort in the letters they had found after Willym’s death, letters from Fyne witches who had buried the men they loved over the years.
Sophie’s powers were at greater heights than she had imagined possible. With her sisters beside her, surely they could break the curse that had always robbed the Fyne women of love and lasting happiness. Once that was done, she would fight alongside Kane. Not with a sword, but with the talents she had discovered in the past year. Sophie Maddox Fyne Varden was a witch, and Arik took her counsel very much to heart. She was a lover of peace, and she did not want to see anyone harmed. But heaven above, the Emperor Sebestyen had to be ousted from his seat of power. He was not a nice man; he was not a just ruler.
Sophie had proven most useful thus far in advising Arik and his generals about the layout of the upper levels of the Palace in Arthes, as they planned for the future. She had been in the lift, seen the guards at the emperor’s door, noted the security measures that an invading force would need to be aware of. She would be useful in the days to come; of that she was certain.
Kane did not yet completely trust Maddox Sulyen, even though it had been his sister Liane who sent them north to warn the minister not to return to the palace in Arthes. He took Sophie’s arm as she rose to greet him, kissed her soundly, and then steered her into the hallway that led to the private bedchambers. Sophie asked her father to keep an eye on the baby as her husband pulled her away from the main parlor.
When they had traveled a few feet down the dim hallway, Kane spun Sophie around and pressed her against the wall, giving her a proper kiss. That done, he laid his hand on her belly and leaned in close. “Tomorrow we travel.”
“Where?” She held her breath as she awaited his answer.
“South.”
Sophie didn’t know whether to smile or cry. She wanted to go home, but Arik’s journey south meant war would finally visit her home province. “My father will travel with us?”
“Yes. We can’t afford to let him go, he’s too dangerous to leave behind, and Arik doesn’t want to kill him.”
The “yet” was unspoken, but hung in the air between them. “He could be a fine ally,” Sophie said.
“Or a dangerous enemy.”
“He only wants what is best for Columbyana,” she argued.
Kane brushed a strand of loose hair away from her face. “I do not want to talk about war tonight.”
“Neither do I.”
“We’ll put your father and the baby to bed early. This might be our last night on a soft mattress for weeks to come.”
“I don’t think anyone has put Maddox Sulyen to bed in a very long time,” she teased.
“We’ll give it a try.”
There was no way to know what they’d find on their journey. Maybe there would be sympathizers along the way who would share their homes and their beds. Then again, the rebels might be sleeping on the ground every night for the next month. Or more.
She laid a hand on Kane’s cheek. “I’m going home,” she whispered.
“You’re going home.”
Juliet had begun to wish to be carried hours ago, though she didn’t dare say such a thing to Ryn. Her legs ached, her feet were sore, and she’d torn her cape on sharp rocks so many times it was beginning to look more like a rag than a fine garment. The ache from the fall was sharper than it had been upon rising, but she didn’t dare complain. Ryn would only tell her that it was her own fault for trying to run away from him.
The good news was that in the near distance she saw trees again. She and Ryn had climbed up and down and around, always moving northward. She had begun to think she’d never see a tree again, or a creature other than Ryn and the occasional bird that passed overhead.
Directly ahead she saw evergreen trees that did not turn gold and yellow and blue like the trees at home, but maintained their green even in the dead of winter. This place would be beautiful when snow came, she imagined. Judging by the chill in the air, that snow would come soon.
Ryn
had taken offense at her suggestion that she cure him. He’d barely spoken three words to her all day. He led her onward and upward and across, occasionally slowing his pace in order to accommodate her, but there was no conversation to speak of. She had intended to gain his trust, and suggesting that the wolf which lived within him was an affliction was apparently not the best way to do that.
“How far?” she asked. If she’d had the strength, she would have hurried to catch up with Ryn, but she could barely walk and hurrying was out of the question.
“We will stop before dark.”
“I wasn’t asking about tonight,” she said. “How far is it to your home?”
He stopped and turned, waiting for her. His brow wrinkled as he watched her limp toward him. “Why did you not tell me that you hurt?”
“Don’t you hurt?”
“No.”
“For your information, those who are not of Anwyn blood are not accustomed to climbing mountains all day with barely a break to rest their sore legs. For goodness’ sake, Ryn. Bors treated the horses better than you treat me!”
He stood there until she reached him, and then without a word he lifted her off her feet.
Juliet’s head swam; her stomach roiled. But she did not tell Ryn to put her down.
“You had only to ask for assistance,” he said softly.
“I didn’t want to ask for assistance.” Juliet wrapped her arms around his neck, just to steady herself, and for a moment she held her breath. When she realized that she would not be assaulted with images of Ryn’s past and future, she relaxed.
“Because you are disgusted by my affliction,” he said, his deep voice all but rumbling.
“No!” Juliet shifted slightly. Even though Ryn now carried her, her feet and legs were still sore. The shoulders, too, she realized as she tried to find a comfortable position.
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