Children of Enchantment
Page 33
Roderic nodded and helped Annandale to her feet, drawing her close beside him. He drew a deep breath. “We’ll take him back to Ahga. He will answer to us all, if he wakes. But I’d say his state is like a living death.” He pressed Annandale hard against his side. “Come, lady. Let’s leave this accursed place. The forest is cleaner.”
Silently, they turned away and walked out of Minnis, arm in arm.
Epilogue
The night was cool. The silver light of the crescent moon filtered through the dark leaves of the great trees and the insects whined in the stillness. Annandale heard Roderic give the orders for the watch and listen to the final reports of the duty officer for the day.
She had bathed in the clear water of the nearest lake, and her hair was still damp. It lay coiled in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and the thin chemise she wore was one of Tavia’s. It was too big, but it didn’t matter, for the thought of putting on anything which had been inside Minnis made her flesh crawl.
She sat on the low pile of blankets, spread with linens, which would serve them as a bed. He was shy with her, she knew; he had sensed the changes in her. She stared at her hands, smooth skinned and rosy tipped as always. She was different. Amanander had shown her things she had not wanted to believe existed. And part of her wanted to scream with Tavia to kill him. But the other part, the part of her that was stronger and better, the part that all the suffering and pain had strengthened, knew that such an act would have been wrong, would have violated some deep sense of right and would have changed Roderic forever, even if he had not raised the sword to do the deed himself.
It had never occurred to Amanander that he had unwittingly strengthened her, that the very suffering he had forced her to endure again and again had only toughened her, tempered her will like forged steel, even as her body weakened with the pain.
The tent flap opened and Roderic slipped inside. It was the first time they had been alone together in months. He paused, looked as if he might say something, and then he flung himself into her arms. He wrapped his arms around her, clutching her close, his head buried in her bosom. “Forgive me,” he murmured again and again. “I should never have left you. I was a fool not to see his trap—it’s what he wanted, surely.”
“I don’t think he knew what he wanted,” she said, raising his head and gazing into his eyes. “Amanander only knew he wanted power, wanted me because he saw me as the means to that power, wanted you dead because he thought you stood in his way. But it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that we are together.”
“I promised I’d keep you safe. I didn’t live up to my promise.”
“That’s not a promise you can keep.” She stroked his face, smoothing back the lock of hair off his brow. “We cannot keep each other safe. We can only love each other.”
He drew her close to him, his gray eyes dark in the dim light, and kissed her, his mouth searching and warm. “I won’t let you go,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’ll keep you with me, and I’ll die myself before anything happens to you.”
She let him pull the chemise off her shoulders, let him lay her down on the cool clean linen sheets, let him feast upon her body, pulling him closer and deeper until they were once again one flesh. But in her mother’s dying moment, she had seen the prophecy, had seen the faces of the three women who would die to give him his throne. Peregrine, and Nydia … and hers had been the last.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Children of Enchantment follows Daughter of Prophecy in the Power and the Pattern series by Anne Kelleher Bush. She holds a degree in medieval studies from Johns Hopkins University. She lives with her four children in Bethlehem, PA.
“INTRIGUING… BUSH DISPLAYS A VIVID IMAGINATION.”—Publishers Weekly
“FASCINATING.”—Marion Zimmer Bradley
“OUTSTANDING.”—Andre Norton
In a shattered land of warring nobles and forbidden lore, age-old magic directs a fratricidal struggle for the crown, and two young strangers discover that their destinies were decreed the night they were both conceived …
A KING’S SINS SET THE FIRE
A PRINCE’S TREASON WILL FUEL THE FLAME
PRINCE RODERIC RIDENAU: Thrust into power by his father’s disappearance, he must seize a legacy of royal rivalries, family conspiracies, decades-old secrets, and a sorcerous deathtrap …
ANNANDALE FARHALLEN: Daughter of the Tower Witch, she is blessed with a godlike power to heal— and cursed with a power that can destroy the world…
The two have never met, but their love must come to pass. Yet when it does, the murderous magic will turn brother against brother, lover against lover, and an empire against itself.
The sequel to the acclaimed novel
Daughter of Prophecy