Broken Lords: Book Two of the Broken Mirrors Duology

by A. F. Dery

  He met Thane’s eye and winked, causing the younger man to flush angrily.

  Malachi made a helpless gesture. “You should be flattered, Eladria. You’re the one we want to save our bacon.”

  “You know what I do with bacon,” Thane growled.

  Malachi couldn’t quite suppress an answering grin.

  When at last they parted for the night, messengers rushing from the building, Malachi went to see his wife. He had received word from Graunt while awaiting the arrival of the conclave that Margaret and their son had been moved back to the rooms they had occupied before, now that the immediate danger to them had passed.

  The note the strange creature had sent him was brief, but encouraging, ending on the words, “The girl will be fine, and your son will live.”

  He did not allow himself to question how she could possibly know such a thing. He knew well the faith Eladria placed in her, and that was good enough for him, even if the creature herself made his skin crawl. He couldn’t forget the feeling of her eyes on him, looking at him as though she was evaluating how much meat was on his bones, down to the ounce.

  It went without saying that she had always viewed his replacement arm with open distaste.

  He swallowed down a sudden lump in his throat when he saw an Eladrian guarding the entrance to their rooms. Eladrian paranoia at its finest, he thought gruffly. But he nodded briefly to the man as he passed.

  There was something oddly comforting about over six feet of brainwashed muscle standing outside the only entrance to his wife.

  Inside the bedroom, Margaret was tucked into bed with a tiny red infant at one breast. She was awake, as apparently the babe was, and gently stroking the fine downy fluff on his head with her fingertips, a soft smile on her face and a light in her eyes that took his breath away.

  He watched them silently for several moments from the doorway. All of this, for that, he thought wearily as he eyed the tiny child, but there was no longer the vehemence behind the thought that there once had been. He makes her happy, and he’ll live. That’s all that matters now.

  He cleared his throat a little and Margaret looked up at once, concern making the smile vanish from her lips. But it returned in full force when she saw who it was, and Malachi felt something inside of him relax.

  “Ah, there’s where home is,” he said thoughtfully, smiling back at her in spite of himself.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Margaret said quietly. “We missed you.”

  “How is my heir?” Malachi went up to the bed, seating himself gently on the other side of Margaret from the babe. “Some things in common with his old man already, I see.”

  Margaret blushed, widening his smile still further. “He’s doing well. He breathes easier by the day, and…um…that…lady…” her voice became very unsure indeed.

  “You must mean Graunt,” he supplied.

  “She seems to think he’ll make it.”

  “She told me the same.”

  Margaret’s eyes searched his face. “Do you think she’s right?”

  “I do, Maggie. Don’t fret another moment about it.” He gently squeezed her shoulder.

  “Do you think…we can go home soon?” Margaret’s voice was barely a whisper now.

  Malachi grimaced slightly. “Not quite yet. And when we do…I will have to return, fairly often at first. The trouble with Lyntara isn’t resolved, that will probably take some time. But Maggie, you needn’t return with me if you don’t want to. I understand why this place would not be comfortable for you, and the High Lord’s opinion…well, it’s no longer of any concern.” At her curious look, he added, “I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise.”

  “Edmund, wherever you go, I go,” she said simply. “You’re my husband.”

  “I know Maggie, but I also know you’ve never been entirely at ease with your position as my Lady. If there is no need to make you suffer anymore…”

  “I do not suffer as your Lady, Edmund.” Margaret met his eyes and smiled again. “I still have a lot to learn, and I do worry about reflecting poorly on you and on our country while I do, but…we belong together. Gods only know how many people you’d melt down for fuel if I wasn’t around.”

  At that, Malachi had to laugh. “You’re quite right, my Lady.” He leaned down and kissed her on top of her head. “Quite right indeed.”

  “Have you given any thought to what we should name him?” Margaret looked back down at the babe in her arms, who appeared to have fallen asleep mid-snack, a little dribble of milk slipping down his cheek.

  “Anything but Edmund,” Malachi groaned. “The world has had far too many of those already.”

  “Let’s name him Ben,” she suggested.

  Malachi chuckled. “After the horse? Really? I did put him back together for you, you know.”

  “I know. But really, that Ben’s time has passed. Progress, you know.”

  At her husband’s incredulous look, Margaret began to laugh.

  It was nearly dawn before Thane trudged, exhausted beyond words, back to his own tower. Since he’d been appointed by his peers to run things until a new High Lord could be chosen, he had of course made the effort to better arrange the Western Range’s current defenses until the new reinforcements could arrive from all over the Union. He less-than-diplomatically selected from among the remaining Eladrian troops to oversee these various efforts, but to no one’s surprise, there were no complaints.

  Everyone knew what Eladrians did best, and they were content to leave them to it.

  Even more than Thane longed for sleep, he longed to see Kesara again, to reassure himself that she’d made it through that ordeal unscathed. The memory of the screams that had surrounded him was fresh; it had rattled him to his bones, hearing them but not being able to see Kesara, not knowing if she was truly all right or suffering along with them.

  He still didn’t know the answer to that. He wasn’t sure he could bear it if he did.

  Thane turned his attention to their bond, and he sensed fatigue from it that nearly matched his own, and a loneliness that hastened his dragging steps. As quickly as he could, he went to her room.

  His heart stopped when he saw the bed standing empty.

  “Relax, my boy. I put her in your room,” a sly voice said from behind him. He leaned against the door frame for a moment, trying to steady his breathing. He had begun to hyperventilate without realizing it.

  “Not funny, old mother,” he said tightly.

  “Maybe not from where you’re standing,” Graunt answered lightly.

  “Thank you for staying with her. I could have trusted no one else, after all that’s happened.”

  “Just take an old woman’s advice for once, Thane.” Graunt’s beady little eyes bore into his. “Let yourself be happy. None of us know how long we have, or what the future truly holds. But this, this is your chance. Don’t screw it up now out of some stupid Eladrian pride.”

  Thane eyed her suspiciously. “You know what I’m going to say to her,” he said, unsurprised.

  “I do. And I think I know what she will say. Accept what you can get, for her sake, if you won’t do it for your own.”

  “Don’t worry about us, old mother,” he said tiredly. He bowed to her, then clasped her pointy fingered hand and pressed it to his cheek.

  She immediately pinched that cheek with sharp fingertips, drawing a bead of blood and his startled gaze. “Accept what you can get,” she repeated firmly, then pulled her hand away and moved back into the outer room without another word.

  He watched her go, momentarily unsettled.

  But in his heart, he knew what he had to do.

  Thane went to his bedroom door and rapped lightly on it, then opened it. Kesara laid curled up in the bed, the small fireplace along one wall limning her in orange light. Dawn just starting to break outside the window, sending streams of grayish light in through the crack in their heavy dark curtains that did not quite reach her.

  As soon as he stepped inside,
she sat up, blinking sleepily at him. His chest warmed at the sight of her, and she smiled.

  “It must have gone well, if you’re smiling like that,” she told him, rubbing at her eyes. Immediately he covered his misshapen mouth with his hand: he was smiling.

  He dropped his hand again, through sheer force of will. “I don’t know how you can stand the sight of me doing that,” he said quietly, “but I know I need to accept it.” He went to her side, and sat down a little more heavily than necessary, causing her to roll into him.

  Unlike the last time he had tried that trick, she did not try to move away. Instead she shifted her position and rested her head on his knee. Her dark hair spilled like a curtain of black silk over his leg, and as if compelled, he lowered a hand to run his fingers through it, feeling the long strands slip between them.

  He suddenly felt more awake than he had in many hours.

  “Kes, we need to talk,” he said gently. His heart had begun to hammer anxiously in his chest; he could not quite rid his mind of Graunt’s words out in the hall, despite his best efforts to push them away.

  “Have you changed your mind about me?” Kesara asked in a small voice, not moving from where she lay. “Now that you’ve seen what I can do…just how broken I really am?”

  He barely managed to restrain himself from frowning. “No, of course not. The very thought is ridiculous. It doesn’t matter to me how ‘broken’ you are, if you want to call it that. You’re mine, and I…I love you.” He felt his face heat and added gruffly, “You know that. You’re a good woman, and this thing you can do, it doesn’t change that.”

  “I don’t feel good for doing it,” she said after a moment. “All I wanted was to save you, and I don’t regret doing that…but I don’t feel good about it, either. Even as angry as I was…I never wanted to do that to anyone else.”

  “Kes.” Thane’s hand stilled in her hair. “You’re not supposed to feel good about doing it. Do you think I feel good about bringing down an enemy on the battlefield? Of course not. They are still men, doing their duty, just as my men and I are doing ours, no matter where they are from or whose orders they are following. It’s good that you don’t enjoy it, it lessens the temptation to misuse it. It means it hasn’t taken over you, that you are still in control.”

  “I didn’t feel in control, either.” Her voice had gone quieter still.

  “But you were. You stopped when they stopped coming. You came to me.” He resumed stroking her hair and she let out a shuddering sigh.

  “I did. I’ll always come to you, Thane,” she said. “But if you didn’t want to talk to me about that…then what?”

  He was quiet for a moment, nerving himself up. Finally he said, “I’m not really sure how to do this, Kes. I never thought I’d ever be in a position to need to do it.”

  Kesara lifted her head, looking him in the eyes. She smiled softly, reaching up to caress his cheek with her fingertips. “Don’t worry, Thane,” she murmured throatily. “I’m sure we can figure it out together.”

  He took her meaning at once and felt like his face must be glowing red even in the dim light. Heat flooded his face, neck, and just about everything else. “N-no, no, I didn’t mean that. I have a good idea about that- no, more than a good idea,” he stammered quickly. “No, no concerns there, Kes, none.”

  Her hand fell away and she tilted her head, looking up at him from the corners of her eyes, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “What then?”

  He cleared his throat, his embarrassment forgotten once more in the face of his nerves. “Kes, I…what you must understand is…do you remember what I told you about my father?”

  Kesara nodded, still looking perplexed. He went on hurriedly, “After his example…well, I never want to follow his example. He wouldn’t have known how to be faithful if he’d named a chasm after it and fell into it headfirst. I..I know this may not be important to you. We’re already bound to each other for as long as you live, after all, and I know this isn’t something Mirrors usually do-”

  Kesara sat up abruptly, staring at him with wide eyes. “What are you saying?” she asked, sounding distinctly uneasy.

  Thane swallowed hard, finding it difficult not to look away, but forcing himself to keep looking at her. “Kesara,” he said, forcing his clumsy tongue to cooperate as well as possible. “I love you, but I can’t have an affair with you. You’re worth more than that to me, and to do it that way…it reminds me too much of what I least want to be. I know you will think that would not happen, that I’m not like that, and I don’t disagree…but still. If we are to be…lovers…and you must know that’s what I want, very much…we have to do this the right way, the honorable way.” He swallowed again, his heart racing and his mouth totally dry. “I want you to be my Lady. I want to bind myself to you by my solemn vow, given freely, not just by a bond that had to be made lest you die. I want to give you all of myself, as you have already given me yourself. If you’ll have me.”

  In the firelight, Kesara looked very pale, her eyes scarcely blinking as she stared at him. After several minutes, he began to worry that she’d gone into shock, or possibly that she had forgotten to keep breathing. Graunt’s words from the corridor echoed in his head, and he felt seized with a most un-warlord-like fear that she would indeed reject him, that he was asking too much of someone who had already given him so much.

  He was just about to open his mouth and blurt out something in panic in an effort to undo whatever he’d just done before he lost her forever (he had no idea what) when Kesara threw herself at him, nearly knocking him backwards off the bed.

  She clung to him trembling, hiding her face in his neck and starting to cry.

  He put his arms around her tenderly. “Oh gods, is that a no?” he asked the top of her head anxiously.

  She made an awful strangled noise, and he felt her shake her head against him.

  “Is it a yes then?”

  He thought he felt her shrug. She pulled away after a moment, wiping at her eyes with her hands. “I understand why you’re asking, Thane, but you can’t imagine how outlandish such a request is. I suppose I should have expected it, I know how you are, but…”

  “But you didn’t,” he said, watching her intently. She shook her head.

  “I really didn’t.”

  “If you’re worried about having to bear me an heir-” he began, but she held up a hand quickly and shook her head again.

  “I’m not worried about that, Thane. You just…you can’t imagine what it’s like, going your entire life never expecting anyone would ever choose you in that way, or for that reason. Only being wanted for what you can do, rather than for who you are.”

  Thane raised an eyebrow. “Really? I can’t?”

  Kesara reddened. “Thane, really…I think if you gave it more effort, any woman who got to know you as well as I have-”

  “Would have run screaming off a cliff a long time ago,” Thane finished for her. “You think I’ve never looked into an actual mirror before? Just because I don’t care to have them all around the place doesn’t mean I’ve never seen one. I surpass ugly, and I can barely even say ‘surpass.’ Gods only know if you understood that one either time. But even if that were true…no other woman is you. You add to my days, and you make me…better. Better than I am on my own.” He paused awkwardly. Finding the right words seemed like an impossible task. “I’m really not good at this,” he admitted. “But please tell me if any of it is making sense?”

  She gave him a tremulous smile. “It is, Thane. It does. But what about your people? Wouldn’t they be outraged at their Lord marrying a foreigner? I know what they’re like about the foreigner thing, perhaps even better than you do, having been on the receiving end.”

  “Kes, they are not the ones who want to marry you,” he said gently. “I am. But if you want to know the truth…I think they will be happy that I am happy. And what’s more, if you do become my Lady, you become an Eladrian as well. They will accept that. I’m not trying to tell y
ou that they will make it easy for you. But that is no different from if you were simply my lover. Or even remained my Mirror only. You do intend to return to Eladria with me, right?” A sudden anxiety pierced through him. He had not considered that she might not want to stay with him.

  But she returned to his lap, putting her arms around his neck. “Of course,” she said simply. “Where else would I go? You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Thane, in every possible way.” She kissed his mouth, lightly, and pulled back to look into his eyes again before he could respond to it. “If you’re sure this is what you want, then…then I’ll do it. I’ll be your Lady. I told you I’d do anything for you, didn’t I? How much harder is this than anything?”

  “But…but don’t you want me, too?” he asked weakly, too startled by her choice of words to rejoice at her acceptance.

  She smiled at him. “Of course I do. But I already have all I could want. I don’t need a second bond to make me happy. But you do, and I understand that. Tell me, if I hadn’t needed the bond to live, would you have felt any real need for it yourself?”

  Thane considered that a moment, then shook his head mutely.

  “Yet…I’d like to think you’d still have agreed to it, eventually, once you realized I needed it. Even if it wasn’t a life-or-death kind of choice. And if you had, it would have meant no less to me.” Kesara kissed him again, this time on the tip of his nose. “The bond will never mean to you what it means to me. I don’t think it possibly could, you don’t experience it the same way. You don’t need it to live. And maybe marriage won’t quite mean the same thing to me as it does to you, as I can’t understand how I can possibly be bound to you any more closely or permanently than I already am…but if it works like that for you, of course I want you to have it. There’s no part of me that hasn’t been yours since we bonded, Thane. I am…eager…to receive all the rest of you.”

  She smiled as he flushed again, but it quickly faded as a thought seemed to occur to her.