Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series)

by Luiken, Nicole

  “We should stay together from now on,” she said.

  “Yes.” Lance squeezed Sara’s hand. “We’ll arrange things better next time.” He released her hand—and her fingers tightened.

  Lance grinned like a fool, his joy out of proportion to the act, but he didn’t care. Sara’s soul was returning, bringing back the woman he loved. He just had to encourage her to connect to her emotions. He cleared his throat. “Did Bertramus frighten you?”

  “No.”

  “Did he make you angry?”

  Sara pondered for a moment, then said, “He was very stupid.”

  “Yes,” Lance growled. He’d warned Bertramus what would happen if he tried anything with Sara. But Bertramus must have been used to dealing with women who were powerless. He hadn’t believed a woman would dare attack him—and he’d thought himself safe from Lance, too. That either Sara wouldn’t dare complain of her ill treatment or Lance wouldn’t dare abuse Bertramus because he was their link to the rebels—

  Lance swore. Rhiain cocked one ear, and Sara looked at him.

  “I just realized, without Bertramus we don’t even know where to search for the rebels.” Lance wracked his brains. Bertramus had loved to talk about “Chief Fitch.” “Do either of you remember him mentioning a place more specific than ‘Eastern Gotia’?”

  “He told the legionnaires he was Bertramus of Tolium,” Sara said.

  A trickle of relief slid down Lance’s spine. “Do you know where Tolium is?”

  “I’ve never been there,” she said after a pause. “I’ve seen the name on a map.”

  Lance held his breath. “Can you remember where on the map it was? Or better yet redraw the map?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a start then.” Lance deliberately ignored the problem of how they would contact the rebels when they arrived and just how he would break the news to Chief Fitch that they’d killed his cousin. They needed the rebellion in Gotia to succeed to keep Kandrith safe, so they would just have to manage somehow.

  * * *

  The sound of drumming roused Lance at dawn. It was time.

  Since they’d completed their part of the plan, freeing Hiram and the other slaves, the wiser course might have been for them to leave under cover of darkness, but Lance felt compelled to see the whole affair through. To stand as witness while his mother made her last Gift.

  The four of them concealed themselves in the scrubby stand of pine at the foot of the cliff. Because of her size Rhiain had to lurk farther back, but her hearing was better than theirs.

  The legionnaires had given up the hunt for Rhiain hours before and retired behind their palisade walls, but the dawn drumming brought them boiling out: five neat files of eight men each, half the camp’s strength come to reinforce the three-man gate guard.

  They marched to the Gate with shields and armour glinting.

  The drumming thundered to a conclusion, and Marcus came through wearing a legionnaire breastplate, but holding an iron pole with a key topping it. Lance swallowed an amused snort. Kandrith had never bothered with a standard before, and he suspected the fact they had one now was due to Marcus’s insistence. Though Lance admitted the choice of a key as a symbol was apt; many Kandrithans melted down their slavechains into a key.

  Marcus ignored the two crossbows pointed at him. “Attention!” he bawled. “The leader of Kandrith requests parley!”

  The tall captain shouldered his way forward. “And why should I speak with a deserter?”

  Marcus tensed, but didn’t rise to the bait. “Will you parley?”

  The captain sneered again, but acceded.

  Marcus stepped smartly aside, and Wenda emerged from the Gate. She wore robes of blood red. Her sightless gaze swept over the legionnaires with cool disdain, then paused on Lance’s hiding spot. She lifted her handless arm—and the manacle clamped to Lance’s wrist fell open. Hiram must have Farspoken to tell her where they would be.

  Another wave of her hand shoved back the front row of legionnaires. They grunted in surprise.

  “I have a message for Primus Pallax. Tell him to send you home.”

  The captain laughed. “That’s your message?”

  “I also have a message for you, Captain. Your mission is to blockade the Gate. You have eighty men to do it. Do you think they are enough?”

  He threw out his chest. “We are legionnaires. Twenty would be enough to hold this Gate.”

  “What if I told you a single person could defeat you?”

  “You’d be wrong,” the captain said with absolute confidence. “Man or beast. You’ll fail.”

  So he suspected Rhiain was more than she seemed. Lance supposed stupidity was a little too much to be hoped for.

  Wenda showed no reaction to the captain’s mention of the shandy. “Watch and witness for your Primus then. Behold Kandrith’s champion.”

  With a theatrical flourish, Wenda stepped aside and Lance’s mother came through the Gate. His heart pinched to see her in the red robes she’d worn as Protector. She threw back her hood, showing short dark hair with silver streaks.

  “What’s this?” The captain released the pommel of his sword. “Your great warrior is an old woman?” He chuckled and the other legionnaires joined in the laughter, relaxing.

  But to Lance his mother looked too young. A widow, yes, with new lines carved by grief added to the crow’s feet around her eyes, but decades younger than the stooped and aged great-grandmothers and grandfathers like Hiram who wanted to give their children one last gift before they died.

  “You know nothing.” Her scathing voice silenced the legionnaires’ nervous mirth. “Behold the power of an old woman.”

  Lance bit his lip to keep from protesting as she lifted her arms, but he did her the honour of watching.

  “Goddess of Mercy, receive my Lifegift!” A heartfelt cry.

  Lance sensed the Goddess, breathed in the scent of wildflowers, and then his mother collapsed, lifeless, her gift accepted. Tears burned his eyes, and he had to look away and concentrate on breathing silently. On not jumping up and running to heal her. A dozen memories ran through his head: of her baking his favourite meal, tousling his hair when he was boy, starting to scold him over some small mischief and then bursting out laughing...

  He ought to have told her more often that he loved her, and not slipped into petty arguments.

  He reached for Sara’s hand, and the Goddess opened into him. Sara had several bruises. The injury was minor, but the Goddess lingered and spoke to Lance. “Your family is extraordinary in its willingness to sacrifice for others. I promise that I will cherish your parents and you and your sister when your turn comes.”

  Thank you. Her presence faded, leaving only the lingering scent of new grass.

  The legionnaire captain cleared his throat. “Your champion appears to be dead.” He tried to sneer, but he shifted uneasily.

  Wenda didn’t deign to answer, her blind eyes staring past him. “You may continue to guard this Gate if you wish, but you’ll be wasting your time. Marcus, show him.”

  His expression stoic—Marcus hadn’t been Protector long enough to become accustomed to magic—he laid his hand on the cliff-face five yards away from the Gate. The mountain groaned as if in pain, a deep grinding noise that had the legionnaires backing up even farther. It sounded as if the whole mountain might fall on them, but only a few pebbles tumbled down as the original gate closed and another fissure opened up.

  Marcus entered the new Gate, disappearing into the deep shadows.

  “Enough.”

  Marcus came forward again at Wenda’s command. More horrid groaning and shifting of tons of rock as the passage closed.

  Then Wenda laid hands on the cliff-face and stepped into the new Gate that formed. She vanished from sight for a moment before
reappearing.

  The legionnaires murmured amongst themselves, eyes wide and spooked. They unconsciously moved several steps back from the cliff. Only the tall captain held his ground, though he too, appeared pale.

  “It’s some sort of barbarian trick,” he said weakly.

  “You may test it, if you wish.” Wenda’s voice held indifference. “The whole length of the Red Mountains has now become a gate for those fleeing slavery. But beware. Judgment awaits any Republican who dares enter. Go home and report your failure.”

  She raised a hand, and in tandem she and Marcus walked backward into separate newly opened gateways. Soon after they vanished from sight the fissures closed, leaving the cliff-face blank.

  * * *

  For the next three weeks, Sara stuck tight to Lance’s side like a burr.

  Since leaving the Gate, he had spoken and smiled less. Rhiain claimed that Lance behaved this way because he missed his mother, but Sara didn’t understand why he should miss his mother more when she was dead than he had when she lived but was absent.

  They travelled cross-country through field, vineyard, orchard, and forest, daring the road only at night or to bridge a river. During the worst of Lance’s illnesses, they rode on Rhiain’s back, his touch making her tireless. On better days, they walked while Rhiain scouted ahead or hunted, but Sara only left Lance’s side when he assigned her small errands.

  Coming back from one of these side trips to gather firewood, she almost walked right into a beehive hanging from a low tree branch.

  She avoided the hive, but a shiver passed through her as she imagined what could have happened.

  Sara’s steps slowed. Turning back, she used a stout stick to strike the hive. It swung on the branch but didn’t fall. An angry buzzing filled her ears, and a swarm of bees erupted from the hive.

  They flew at her face and body, attacking. Some settled on her clothing, some crawled in her hair, but where they found skin, they stung.

  Sara stood still and waited. When they finished, she had twenty-nine stings. Eleven on her neck and face, including one at the corner of her eye, five in her hair, eight on her hands and arms, and five more bees had crawled under her clothes, scattering bites on her legs and torso. Each sting turned red, swelled, burned.

  “Sara?” Lance called from their campsite.

  She brushed the remaining bees from her hair and clothing, collecting two more stings in the process, then followed his voice. Both her eyelids had swollen until she could barely see, and her eyes watered.

  “Loma’s mercy.” He hurried toward her as soon as she entered the clearing. “What happened?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he laid hands on her. Soothing coolness flowed into her. The swellings and red, itchy hives receded. “Sara?”

  “I almost walked into a beehive.”

  His frowned and turned her head so he could look her in the eye. “What do you mean ‘almost’? If you didn’t walk into the hive, why did the bees attack you?”

  “I hit it with a stick.”

  “What?” He yelled at her.

  She suddenly found it hard to look at Lance. She studied the ground instead, noting some rabbit scat, until Lance tipped up her chin.

  The flush had faded from his cheeks, though his brows still drew together. “Why, Sara? Why did you do this?” He winced. “Have I not been paying enough attention to you? I know I’ve been preoccupied since Mother made her gift.”

  “That isn’t why.” Lance had talked and smiled less, but he’d touched her more, which was just as good.

  Lance waited.

  Sara struggled to explain. “When I first saw the beehive I pulled away. Not because you don’t want me to hurt myself, but because thinking about the pain made me...” The word eluded her. “I shivered and my heartbeat and breathing sped up.”

  Lance’s eyebrows lifted. “That sounds like fear.”

  Fear. Sara examined the word from all sides. Sara-who-had-a-soul had feared pain. And disappointing her father. And the dark and many other silly things.

  Her greatest fear had been that her father would be forced to give her to Nir, the high priest of the God of War, to pay a debt. Nir had been cruel to his female slaves, whipping and raping them.

  “It wasn’t that strong. It was...dislike? Reluctance?”

  “Either way this is good news.” His lips curved up. Smiling meant he was pleased. “Don’t you see, Sara? If you’re starting to feel emotions again, your soul must be reconnecting with your body.” He paused. “But instead of fear you should seek happiness. Is there anything that makes you want to smile?”

  “No.”

  Lance exhaled loudly. “Perhaps happiness was aiming too high. Is there anything you like or prefer? Something you feel anticipation for? I look forward to supper, to resting and talking and eating.”

  Sara thought. Eating usually meant chewing roasted meat with a little salt along with whatever wild fruits and plants they gathered along the way. Tastes could be interesting, but so was hunger. She enjoyed Lance’s voice more than what he said. She and Rhiain seldom felt fatigue because Lance healed them of it with a casual touch.

  She used to anticipate the times when he brushed her hair, but lately it left her feeling...unsatisfied in some nebulous way.

  “Sara?”

  “None of those things are as interesting as pain.” She shivered again, remembering the intensity of the bee stings. What would one feel like on her lip?

  Lance went very still, like Rhiain did before pouncing. “You’re going to do it again, aren’t you? Hurt yourself.”

  It wasn’t quite a question, but Sara answered anyway. “Yes.” Sooner or later she would give in to the temptation.

  “No. I won’t accept that.” Lance put his hands on her shoulders. His thumbs stroked her throat. His eyelids dropped halfway down, and his voice smoothed out from its earlier snarl, though it was still deeper than usual. “I’ll just have to give you something to look forward to.”

  His fingers moved into her hair, both cradling her head and tilting it up. “How about now, Sara? Is your heartbeat speeding up now?”

  “Yes.” Her voice sounded breathy and faint.

  “But not with fear?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” And then his lips slanted across hers. Opened hers. A brief brush of tongue, then he drew back, studying her expression. His chest moved as if he’d been running, colour burning along his cheekbones. “Did you like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want another kiss?”

  Sara licked her lower lip, trying to replicate the sensation of his mouth and failing. “Yes.”

  “Then step closer and take it from me.” He stood still, hands at his side, his face shadowed.

  Yes. Her eyes focused on his lips. He had something she wanted.

  He didn’t bend so she stood on tiptoe and plastered her mouth against his. She kissed him, but his mouth stayed closed.

  Take what you want.

  She nipped at his lower lip and then, finally, his mouth opened to her. More than that. His hands clamped on her hips, lifting her against his chest while his tongue thrust into her mouth. Their bodies fit together so tightly she could feel the seam of his vest against her breasts. He cupped her buttocks, pressing his stiffened penis against her mound.

  The layers of dress and trousers and underthings frustrated her. Sara wanted the barriers gone. She reached down—

  He instantly set her away from him. He caught her hands and held them. “You liked that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to kiss me again?” His eyes glittered.

  “Yes.” She leaned forward.

  “Good. Now let’s talk about what I want. I want you to Stop. Hurting. Yourself.” His voice grew louder
with each word.

  He was...angry. Had maybe even been angry the whole time. She didn’t like the thought of him being angry while they were kissing, though she couldn’t have explained why.

  “So let’s make a bargain,” Lance continued, lips barely moving. “At the end of every day, if you haven’t hurt yourself, I’ll let you kiss me for a few moments.”

  Something about the way he’d phrased the bargain bothered Sara, but her objection slipped away when he leaned forward and kissed her again, tongue stroking deep. She tried to analyze his taste, smoky and male.

  “Well? Do we have a deal?”

  Sara blinked. “Yes.”

  * * *

  Any minute now Lance was going to burst into flames. Goddess have mercy, what had possessed him to make such a bargain with Sara? Their nightly kissing sessions were testing his will to the limits.

  Stopping each time before clothing was removed felt like tearing off his own skin. He wanted her. Desperately. And if her passionate response was anything to go by, she wanted him, too.

  So take her, the voice in the back of his mind whispered. She was already straddling him. It would be so easy to pull up her skirt, push down his trousers and thrust home...

  Sara wasn’t the doll-like being she’d started out as three months ago. She smiled and frowned now, though mildly. She had some faint sense of emotions. Her new soul was growing, and pleasure might even be helping.

  But he had yet to hear her laugh. She seldom spoke and never argued.

  He was still waiting for the woman he loved to return. Coaxing her back was proving to be a slow process, but he could wait. He was determined not to take advantage of her while she was still in this vulnerable in-between state. When they made love again, he wanted her to be fully aware.

  So, with regret, knowing his body would make him pay for his restraint later, he lifted his lips from Sara’s swollen ones and moved her off his aching lap. “That’s enough for tonight,” he rasped.

  The cutest frown wrinkled her forehead. “No,” she said abruptly.

  “What?”

  “I want more.”

  Not as much as I do. “No,” he said firmly. More would kill him.