Lennox, Mary - Heart of Fire.txt
Page 41
hurt the body. But perhaps I could interest you in a bout of
fisticuffs.”
The golden bastard gave him a mild look. “Count Lironsky,
you do me and your king a disservice. I am unmarried at present,
and intend to remain so for quite some time. I came only because
I believe that Sera and Nicholas Rostov may have made a grave
miscalculation—one in which I played a part. But I must see
with my own eyes if he suffers in any way as greatly as she
does from this separation. Knowing that, will you allow me to
pass, or do you wish me gone?”
Andre blinked and lowered his fists. He could think of
nothing to say or do other than step aside. The man gave him a
curt nod. “My name is Jacob Augustus. If you would announce
me to your king, I shall complete my task as quickly as possible.”
***
Nicholas looked up from the book he had been trying to
read for the past hour. “I am very busy, Andre,” he said upon
seeing his friend at the door. “Perhaps I’ll see you tonight.” He
was growing more and more impatient with Andre’s constant
hovering.
Recently, Andre and Katherine had made it their sole
responsibility to watch over him, interrupting the little time he
had to himself to seek reassurance that he wasn’t—what?
Contemplating suicide?
All of their worry was utter nonsense, of course. A man
didn’t die for want of love. He simply no longer cared about
living, which made sense when all about one was barren and
gray as a landscape in Purgatory.
What he contemplated was worse. For months, he had
ignored what was in his heart, telling himself he mustn’t ever
look at it closely, for fear it would weaken him. But living
without Sera had shown him his own soul. Whether he admitted
it to himself or not, he loved her, and he would love her forever.
And out of fear, he had thrown it all away.
Too late, he’d discovered that strength came not from
denying love, but from accepting it, and giving it back for every
moment love was granted him. Oh, he would survive, and he
would even be a good king. He was too duty bound not to.
Survival without Sera, however, wasn’t really living.
Nicholas stared blindly at the book, willing Andre to leave.
In the silence, he could hear the sounds of an army unit drilling
to music outside his window.
Andre didn’t leave. He was too stubborn to get Nicholas’s
not very subtle message. He stood at the door looking… actually
quite strange, and much too thoughtful, as though he had just
been told that the moon really was made of green cheese, or
that dragons did exist.
“A man wishes to see you, Nikki. His name is Jacob
Augustus. I believe you’d better grant him an audience.”
Nicholas sighed. The last thing he wanted to face was
another courtier from Beaureve today. “My schedule is full.
Perhaps you could see him in my stead.”
Andre cleared his throat in a curious manner. “He needs to
speak to you. It’s rather urgent, Nikki.”
Nicholas rubbed his eyes. “Very well. Send him in if you
must.”
Andre opened the door and spoke to this Jacob Augustus in
a low voice. Nicholas rose and walked to the window, composing
his expression. He heard the door shut and turned to speak to
the man who waited before it.
Nicholas froze in place, his whole being caught in a flash
of pain. He didn’t know how long the two of them looked at
each other, measuring, wondering. Finally, he felt he could
control his voice enough to speak.
“Sera, she is well?” he asked, indicating a seat as he walked
to his desk.
This Jacob Augustus shook his head and remained standing.
“I do not believe so.”
Nicholas felt all the blood drain from his heart and grabbed
at the desk to remain upright. “She is not recovered?” he asked,
remembering her deadly pallor in the abbey at Constanza.
The man nodded solemnly. “In a way of speaking. She is
physically well, just as you are.”
Just as he was, thought Nicholas. He was a mess. “But soon
she will marry. And you will be good to her, I know.” He looked
down at his hands. “Else she would never agree to….” He
couldn’t go on.
“Marry me?” asked Jacob Augustus in an incredulous voice.
“Nicholas Rostov, I am her brother, not her betrothed.”
The sounds beyond the window dimmed in Nicholas’s ears.
“Her brother?” he repeated numbly.
“You have a sister, do you not?”
Nicholas slowly loosened his hold on the side of the desk.
“Katherine. She is very dear to me.”
“As Sera is to me. And that is why I am here. Sera told me
quite recently that she was now certain you had no wish to see
her again, that you would never change your mind. In the prayer
house, she was too busy and too tense to see anything in your
face but what she thought was a final rejection. And I—well, I
admit it. I gave in to anger and judged you to be like all the rest
of them, in spite of what I saw in your expression when she
appeared and you fought to reach her. You looked like a man
desperate to protect his woman.
“I acted wrongly,” the Hillman continued, “and knew I must
make restitution. So I made her listen to my observations.
Although she is not at all convinced that I am correct concerning
your—what do you Outlanders call them?— intentions toward
Sera, I have come to place the choice once more before you.”
Jacob Augustus reached into a pouch that hung by his side
and placed something wrapped in velvet on the desk before
Nicholas. He picked it up and unrolled the wrapping. The
betrothal necklace he had given Sera the night of the ball lay in
his hand. The ruby was gone. Instead, a great sapphire, as deep
a blue as Sera’s eyes, hung from the chain of diamonds and
rubies.
Beside the necklace sat a man’s large gold ring, fashioned
by a master goldsmith. Nicholas’s breath caught as he looked
at the crowned lion, rearing. The royal seal of Beaureve lay
before him.
“I must warn you. Sera knows nothing of my journey or its
purpose. I also “borrowed” the ring without her knowledge. If
you choose it, wear it, and return the necklace to her. That is the
way of your betrothals, is it not?”
Nicholas felt the first stirring of hope deep in his chest. He
touched the ring with one finger, feeling the warmth of the metal
as a promise. Carefully, he slipped it on the third finger of his
left hand. It was a perfect fit.
Jacob smiled and nodded as he picked up the necklace and
stowed it back in his pouch. “I shall return this to my sister
straightaway. Sera told me you can track a mouse through a
forest. Is that true?”
Nicholas’s lips quirked in a small grimace of irony. “Your
sister thinks more highly of my talents than she should, but yes,
I’m a good hunter.”
Jacob nodded and looked past Nicholas to the window,
where the sun was breaking through the clouds. “It promises to
be a fine, warm day,” he said speculatively. “I believe I shall
ride home without raising my hood.” Without another word, he
turned and walked out the door.
Nicholas stared at the betrothal ring on his finger. A slow
grin spread across his face and through his whole body. He lifted
his head as warmth and energy filled him, and he ran out the
open door into the corridor.
“Which way did he go?” he shouted to Andre.
“To the left,” said Andre, loping after him. “What’s going
on?”
Nicholas sprinted for the stairs. “You and Katherine are co-
regents until I return.”
“Good God, Nikki. Just like that?”
Nicholas yelled to a passing footman. “My horse and a pack
of provisions. Immediately.” He ran on, shouting orders,
grabbing a warm cloak and gloves from a footman who raced
to meet him as he made for the great stairway.
“Andre, you’re slowing me down.” Nicholas threw on the
cloak as he took the stairs two at a time.
Andre grabbed his arm. “This is folly. You cannot go alone.”
Nicholas easily broke his grip and turned to face his friend.
“I’m following a dream, Andre, and it’s getting a head start.”
He threw his arms around Andre and gave him a bear hug.
Andre grunted. And grinned. After all, what else was there
to do?
The guard held Nicholas’s horse for him. The bay pranced,
as though he had caught his master’s eagerness. “Farewell,”
called Nicholas. He felt giddy and light as air. As soon as he
touched his legs to the horse’s flanks, they sprang forward and
cantered from the yard.
***
The snow whirled around Nicholas as he continued his
ascent of the tallest mountain in the Arkadian range. He had
been riding for three days and slowly climbing upward for two.
Damned if Jacob Augustus wasn’t a far better woodsman than
his sister. Nicholas had to backtrack twice to find the man’s
trail. This cost him valuable time, but luckily, the snow hadn’t
begun until quite recently, when he hit the base of Mount Joy.
He wondered at the irony of the name.
An hour ago, Nicholas had left the horse with a crofter who
promised to take care of it. The peasant seemed to be the only
man to live among these isolated, bare cliffs. Nicholas knew
why. He was cold and wet clear through. His lungs began to
burn with each breath, but he couldn’t tell whether this was
because of the double-damned pneumonia or the lack of oxygen
as he climbed ever upward.
A storm had begun an hour before. Through the swirling
snow, he could make out a horse and rider high above him.
Amazing what those Hill horses could do, he thought with a
twinge of envy. Hell, if he lived, which he bloody well planned
to do, he wanted to ride one of those magical beasts. Provided
Sera didn’t throw him back out into the blizzard.
During the ascent, he felt curiously detached from his own
body, his own mind. But as soon as he became aware of his
laboring breath, all of his fears and doubts gained ascendancy.
Jacob had said nothing reassuring about Sera’s frame of mind.
She was probably furious and hurt and far beyond his feeble
attempts to convince her of his love. What trick could he use to
move her when she had told him in every possible way that she
loved him and he had never once said those words to her?
Nicholas clung to the mountainside and heaved himself upward.
Suddenly, it was abundantly clear that there was only one thing
that mattered. It was in her hands to accept or reject him. It was
in his to tell her what she meant to him.
Each breath seared his lungs. He stopped, giving himself a
little time to rest. Sweat bathed his body and drained the heat
from him. A deep, bone rattling cold sliced through his boots,
his gloves, his wet cloak. Icy pain gripped his limbs. His energy
seeped from his body with its heat, and his own moisture chilled
him.
Cold shuddered through him. He pushed down the fear that
surfaced with the cold—the panic that he would fail to reach
Sera at all—and began to climb again. He’d make it, step by
grueling step. He had to.
“In order to tell her,” he whispered against the howling
wind.
With grim determination, he bent against the storm. It
screamed in his ears, howling a vengeful dissonance. He climbed
on, stopping occasionally to look upward and gauge where Jacob
Augustus was on the mountainside. One last time, he scanned
the heights, his eyes narrowed against the wind and the snow.
Jacob and his horse stood before a frozen waterfall. A flash of
light and a fiery red burst from behind the fall pierced the
gathering darkness, and Jacob. . . disappeared.
Nicholas marked the spot in his mind and trudged upward
with renewed purpose, furious with his clumsy steps, his
stumbles over rock on the narrow path. His boots slipped. Sleet
stung his face with a thousand needles. And still he climbed.
The light began to fade completely as he hit the last hundred
feet. Each breath he took felt like fire. His legs were numb,
almost useless. He couldn’t suck enough air into his lungs. He
fell to his knees, and shook his head against the dizziness that
threatened to engulf him. And he crawled toward the waterfall,
measuring his progress in inches. Fending off the dark spots
before his eyes, he gritted his teeth and struggled forward. With
every foot he gained, he thought, Behind that wall of frozen
water, Sera is waiting.
How long had he been climbing? he thought wearily.
Forever? The waterfall stood before him, all its tumultuous
power frozen in time and place. Slowly, painfully, he staggered
to his feet, searching for the door behind the falls. He found
only sheer, solid cliff wall.
Ah, God. His breath came out in a painful sob of frustration.
Along with his muscle and sinew, his mind had turned to
porridge in the last hours. How could Jacob Augustus have
disappeared behind this wall of rock? He had seen it, the flash
of fire, and the man no longer visible.
The flash of fire.…
Nicholas carefully explored the rock with hands almost too
frozen to feel. He forced his sleet-encrusted eyelids open and
studied the pillars of rock to the left and the right of the falls.
Think, he silently screamed at his sluggish brain. All right. Jacob
Augustus still sat astride his horse when he disappeared. That
meant the key to the door was high enough for a rider on a
seventeen-hand mount to reach with ease.
Nicholas tore off his gloves and blew into his hands. As
soon as his sense of touch began to return, he ran his bare hands
up along an icy crevice in the pillars. He felt something solid,
many faceted, on the right hand co
lumn, and it was warm to the
touch. In the midst of this frozen world, it felt as warm as the
ruby he had bought from the merchant, he thought muzzily.
And at his touch, the cliff wall split and slid open, as silently
and cleanly as a pocket door in the palace. Through the swirling
snow, he caught the rosy glow that emanated from the open
cliffs. It bathed him in a warm radiance. He raised a foot and
took a faltering step toward the light. It was suddenly very
important that he walk upright through the gate.
Nicholas squinted against the light of the setting sun as he
slowly walked into a large square. He tried to make out the
dark silhouetted figures that stood waiting at the square’s
perimeter. Against the rose hues of sunset, one, a small, delicate
shadow, stood frozen in place beside a larger shadow.
He thought he heard her say, “For the gods’ sake, get him a
cloak,” but his storm-deafened ears couldn’t make out the words
clearly. He knew only that the voice was dear to him. On
stumbling legs he made his way slowly toward her. He had to
tell her.
A tall, upright figure stepped into his path, and Nicholas
stopped as abruptly as a dog reaching the end of a strong leash.
Try as he might, he could not break past the invisible boundary
that hemmed him in. Nicholas half shut his eyes against the last
rays of light and peered at the man who blocked his path by
will alone. He could just make out blue eyes deep as an ocean
in a face lined but powerful.
“What do you wish, Outlander?” asked the man who stood
before him. Nicholas recognized his voice. He had heard it
recently, on a battlefield in Beaureve.
Nicholas stood straighter and tried to swallow, but his throat
burned like fire. He ran his tongue over his lips, but even his
tongue was dry.
“I am Nicholas Andreyevitch Rostov,” he said through a
voice that cracked as his lungs strained for breath to speak. “I
must speak to Catherine Elizabeth Seraphina Galerien.”
“Say what you will to her in the presence of this company,”
said the older man.
A mass of shadows moved forward, surrounding Nicholas.
He swayed, took a step forward, and hit the invisible wall
hemming him in. He blinked and felt along the boundaries of
his prison. His numb fingers traced out a flat, smooth surface,