uncovered breasts, her small, supple waist, her rounded hips,
even if they were made of marble, not flesh. The stone felt warm
to his hand.
His thumb played softly over the statue. Round, high breasts,
hips flaring from that slender waist. The little goddess bore a
striking resemblance to—he almost dropped the precious
antique in his hurry to put it down.
It was a damned good thing that Sera was well on the way
to recovery. He grew more demented by the day. With a bit of
snooping by his agents, he might be closer to what he needed to
know about her. He turned and walked into the dacha and down
the long corridor to her room. His steps were swift as he traveled
the hall, and his knock on her door sounded impatient to his
own ears. In a low, musical voice she bade him enter.
Sera tilted her head to look at him as she sat at the bay
window, wearing a soft gown of yellow linen. Her long hair
rippled in curls down her back. The sun limned her body,
outlining her breasts and her hips, turning all of her to gold.
Her face had a soft, pink glow like the blush of a rose. Nicholas
felt the now familiar tug at his chest as he crossed the room and
stood close to her, his back resting against a heavy carved pillar
of the bed.
“The doctor was just here with good news,” she said to
him. “I may travel in a day. I wish to thank you for your kindness,
both in saving me from the slave harem in Jehanna and in
bringing me here to regain my strength. I owe you a great debt.
When I return to my homeland, I shall try very hard to repay
you.”
“You may repay me by being happy and safe in
Montanyard,” said Nicholas. He waited, watching the small
crease of puzzlement appear between her arched brows
“But Montanyard is in Laurentia,” she said.
“Exactly,” said Nicholas. He would give orders. While he
had her watched for any surreptitious activity, Sera would learn
court etiquette, proper court dress, all the necessary foolishness
that a lady-in-waiting to a princess was expected to know. She
was intelligent. That much he knew from his conversations with
her. Until he found out just what Sera was, his sister Katherine
would benefit from this arrangement.
“But I am not going to Laurentia. I must return to the Hills.”
She was holding her hands tightly in her lap, looking up at him
with wide eyes. He could see just the beginning of a stubborn
set to her rounded jaw.
“Sera,” he said, trying to keep his voice reasonable. “A
woman, especially one who looks like you, cannot travel these
lands alone. Look what happened to you recently. That, or worse,
will happen again if you ride off alone.”
She rose to her feet and folded her arms in front of her
chest. “I made a bad mistake last time, that is all. I promise not
to do so again.”
Nicholas sighed in exasperation. “I made a promise to you,
as well, just a se’nnight ago, as I watched you fight the spell of
the laudanum. I promised to keep you safe, and I’ll not break
that vow any time soon. So you will not ride off alone on that
costly stallion.”
Her face flushed, and she tapped her foot. “I do not recall
you making any promise like that.”
“Of course not! You were half out of your mind and raving
at the time. Still, I made it.”
She stared up at him with wide eyes. Her face grew pale in
an instant. “What did I say?” she asked so low that he had to
bend over her to hear.
“Something about a terrible punishment—your parents
locked you in a closet, apparently. I must say, they sounded like
the sort of people I’d put in prison for life.”
“Was that all I said?”
Nicholas saw that she was actually shaking. “Yes. But I
told you I’d keep you safe, and I shall. Why in God’s name do
you wish to traipse about the countryside, prey to any villain
who sees you?”
“There is something I must do.”
He waited for more, but Sera just stood before him, her
head down, her hands clasped in front of her.
Nicholas threw his hands up. “You must do something?
And that is explanation enough for me to send you off, not
knowing where you’ll wind up, or if you’re alive or dead by the
side of the road?” God! Which was she—spy or innocent?
Sera shrank back against the wall at this last, and Nicholas
came to the realization that he must have been shouting rather
loudly. When she raised her head to look at him, her eyes were
clouded, but she shook her head and that luscious, stubborn
lower lip jutted out.
“First of all, I am not your responsibility, nor your subject.
I need not explain anything to you. There are others involved,
and my duty lies with them, King, not with you. I can tell you I
wish you and your people no harm. My greatest desire is to
return to my home and never leave it again. And that is all I can
say.”
“You will not ride this country alone.” Nicholas felt the
anger rising in him, hot and potent. He watched her as she
blanched and stood straighter.
“You have no right to keep me, Outlander.”
“I have every right,” he said, working against the heat to
keep his voice low and steady. “I own you. Would you like to
see the papers?”
She gasped in outrage. “I saved your life!”
“And I plan to return the compliment. Be ready to ride by
dawn tomorrow. And don’t try to escape tonight. There will be
guards at your door and beneath your window, should you be
foolish enough to attempt a climb down to the ground.”
She had gone from shock to fury to calculation in only
seconds. No, Sera couldn’t be a spy, Nicholas thought. She was
too transparent to last a day.
“Don’t even try to think how you might outwit the guards,”
he told her firmly. “Even if you could get past them, I’d simply
ride after you and bring you back. I’m the finest tracker in the
three lands, Sera. That’s not an idle boast.”
She had that helpless look of resentment he had seen before
on the faces of his adversaries—the understanding that she had
just lost everything and hated the man who was taking it from
her.
He turned his back on her and heard his own inarticulate
growl. Heaven protect him from emotional women! She’d see
the rightness of his decision in time. When he was convinced
of her innocence, he would tear up the hateful papers of
ownership and free her.
He could almost feel her eyes burning a hole in his back.
“Soon you’ll understand, Sera, and you’ll be glad,” he said
to the window.
Then he turned and walked to the door. Perhaps time alone
would make her see sense.
He had his hand on the knob and was halfway out the room
when she spoke.
“Barbarian,” Sera said, and all the scorn in the world was
in
that word.
***
Anatole Galerien, king of Beaureve, sat in his opulent study,
staring into the fire. He stifled the terrible urge to chew his nails,
smoothing the pure white gloves he wore over his ravaged
fingers. A servant carrying a coal bucket scuttled across the room
to the fireplace and knelt before it. The hod slipped a bit and hit
the floor with a loud thump as the man began to set it down.
“Fool!” barked Galerien. “Have a care or you’ll be down
in the mines bringing the damned stuff up rather than warm and
well fed in my palace.”
The man rose swiftly, keeping his eyes on the Persian carpet
at his feet, mumbling his apology and bowing his way out of
the room.
Galerien pulled off his gloves and stared at his hands for a
moment. They were cracked and reddened with the rash that
had tormented him for the last eighteen years. He scratched at
the flaking skin, reached into the hidden cabinet in his parquetry
desk and pulled out a brown glass bottle. His hands trembled as
he unstopped the cork and poured the lotion from the latest
quack on the backs and palms of his hands. The itching subsided
a bit, and he sat back in the gold inlaid chair, gnawing at his
fingernails.
Someone rapped hesitantly at the door. “Wait,” Galerien
called. When his gloves were safely on his hands again, he said,
“Enter.”
A soldier, smartly turned out in parade dress, opened the
door. “Count Laslow requests an audience,” he said, standing
tall but pale with uncertainty and just a hint of fear in his face.
Good, thought Galerien. He wanted their fear, their
immediate obedience.
In a swirl of black, Laslow entered and gave him a bow
somehow ironic, although correct.
“Well? What news? Of the thief—of the girl?”
Laslow pulled off his black gloves and cloak. He crossed
the room to the fire and stood, his back to Galerien, holding his
hands toward the warm coals. Even from behind, his tall, slim
body looked slightly sinister.
“We have searched the hills and questioned the peasants
who live in their shadow. There is no sign of the thief. Anyone
who had knowledge of him would gladly have given it up to us
when we were done with them.”
He turned, crossing the room with his long, catlike strides
until he stood before Galerien. He seemed to loom over the
desk, his face still half-hidden, despite the light of the chandelier.
“But the girl is still alive. We tracked her to Hadar’s palace,
where servants told us of a slave woman with golden hair, newly
arrived. The Nantal had sold her to Hadar only a few days before.
She was being groomed for Nicholas Rostov.”
Galerien slammed his fist down on the inlaid writing desk.
“Why did you not take them in one blow?”
“I couldn’t. Hadar had agreed only to a small force, should
anything go wrong. If she had been sleeping in his bed, we
would have dispensed with them both, but either Rostov has
scruples or he is a eunuch. She was reputed to be quite beautiful.”
“The witch was beautiful, too,” murmured Galerien.
“At any rate, Hadar’s man waited and watched outside the
door. The girl sounded a warning and threw herself on Juseph.
Of all the men lost in that attempt, I shall miss Juseph the most.
He was a genius with a knife.” He shook his head, a puzzled
expression crossing his normally frozen features. “The girl has
actually made me feel . . . something, if only annoyance.”
“However,” continued Laslow, settling into the brocade
library chair Galerien silently pointed to, “I believe she has gone
to Laurentia with Rostov. Whether he has taken her under his
wing permanently or has merely given her safe passage is yet
to be seen. I shall send men into Laurentia to ascertain if she
lives beneath the king’s protection.”
Galerien clutched the edges of the inlaid desk. He thought
he might actually crack off the piece of molding with the
intensity of his grip. “You know my need, Laslow. The thief I
hired escaped with Arkadia’s secrets and its treasure. Find him
and the Heart of Fire. Torture the location of the cliffs and the
waterfall from him. At least a week before the twenty-first of
December, the girl and the ruby must be mine.”
“Why the twenty-first?” Laslow fixed him with a curious
look.
“The witch once told me that the waterfall froze by that
date, and that the cliffs were then visible to the world. Without
the Heart of Fire to act as a key to the cliffs, Aestron or his
council will seal them shut forever. I need the information and
the key before the gates close. See to it, and smartly!”
Only with the power and wealth of Arkadia could he hope
to take what ought to be his. Galerien closed his eyes and laid
his head against the back of the chair. The skin covering the
backs of his hands itched as though fire ants were feeding upon
it.
“I must have it all before Napoleon leads his troops hence,”
he muttered. “I’ll be a force to fear in this world.” There was
utter silence in the room, so profound as to make him believe
that Laslow, spectre-like, had slipped away. He could hear the
ticking of the French clock on the mantel, the hiss of coals on
the grate.
“What is this madness?” Laslow’s voice, cold,
contemptuous, sliced through Galerien’s thoughts.
“No madness. An order. From your king.”
“I can guarantee you victory over Laurentia by spring, for
your young men flock to our training camps, selling their souls
for a chance to put food into their family’s bellies. But there
isn’t enough time to train them for an all-out assault on Arkadia
or any other country before the solstice. Aestron has powers
that can render us helpless, even if we breach the cliffs protecting
Arkadia.”
Anatole waved his hand impatiently. “I never truly believed
what the witch told me about Aestron’s abilities, and besides, it
was so many years ago. The man’s old. He may be dead by now
for all I know, and with him, whatever power he had. Get me
the ruby. And bring the girl here. I wish to witness her death.”
“I shall prepare my best men to invade Laurentia. By week’s
end they’ll find the thief and bring me news of the girl,” said
the count.
“Good.” Galerien waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.
The count gave him a look of utter contempt and a bow so
perfunctory that from any other man, Galerien would have
punished it with death. But he needed Laslow and his desperate
martyrs until he satisfied the hunger that roiled in his belly—
for Arkadia, for Laurentia, for respect.
***
In the Mage’s palace, Jacob Augustus stared at the fading
figures in the scrying glass, his breath coming so fast he had to
concentrate on slowing his diaphragm’s movements to their
normal, unhu
rried state. He must not give way to emotion. Doing
so was deadly, both for him and the Outlander enemy. When he
felt more in control, he looked across the desk into his
grandfather’s eyes. He saw an ocean of calm, more than he ever
thought he could manage, himself. And pain showed, too,
beneath the serenity.
“I shall go into Laurentia and bring her home,” he said
quietly.
“No,” said Emmanuel Aestron. He placed a velvet cloth
over the glass and sat back in his chair. “Give her time to find
the thief and return on her own. Perhaps she will find more
than the ruby in the Outlander world.”
Was his grandfather finally aging and slowly losing his
excellent judgment? Jacob hastily put that fear away to
concentrate on the problem facing them now.
“She has no Hill cloak. Even if she finds the thief and the
Heart of Fire, she will never get past the animals that hunt her,
or past filth like the Nantal and Hadar who will see her as a
prize for some man’s lust.”
“Perhaps there are some who will protect her, even to their
last breath.”
“Outlanders?” Jacob gave a dry laugh. “They will happily
rape her and bind her into slavery, but they won’t lift a finger to
help her.”
His grandfather held him on a long, steady look. “Jacob, I
do not make this decision lightly. You were too young to
understand what happened all those years ago. Perhaps it is
time you knew.”
Jacob stared at Emmanuel in rapt attention. At last, he was
going to learn about those terrible events that had ripped Sera’s
world apart.
“I shall never forgive myself,” Emmanuel said with quiet
agony. “I trusted that all was well with Marissa and Stephan.
Their people loved them. The Brotherhood was a small group
of fanatics no one took seriously. I thought it was safe for me to
retreat to the summit of Mount Joy for the summer solstice, to
rededicate and purify myself as I am required to do each year.
In accordance with tradition, I took no Hill cloak to ease my
journey, so, like any Outlander, I toiled up the mountain. After
my fast and rituals, I journeyed homeward, becoming more and
more uneasy with every step.”
The look on his grandfather’s face tore at Jacob’s heart, but
the old man continued in the same quiet tones.
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