Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  “And why should I give you that? All you’ve ever done with my time is insult or threaten me.”

  He heaved a deep breath as if the air were patience, something Merius sometimes did when I exasperated him. It was such an unexpected gesture from Peregrine that I found myself gaping, the caustic comment I had at the ready dissolving on my tongue with an acid taste.

  “I’m a powerful man,” he said, his hand hovering a inch or two from mine. “If you ever need help, I could be a powerful ally.”

  “Help?” I echoed.

  He looked around as if to assure himself there was no one within earshot. Then he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper. “The Landers--if you ever need help with the Landers, you could use an ally like me.”

  I gaped at him for a moment longer before I burst into giggles.

  “Damn it, Safire, I mean it.” Unable to help himself any longer apparently, assassins or no assassins, he grasped my wrist. Instantly, I floated in the rushing stream of his thoughts and emotions, a tingling warmth flowing between us. The ambergris stole the air with its heavy dark sweetness like decaying drift wood. My lungs burned as if I were drowning. I stared at him, too weak to twist my arm from his grip or even speak as his aura overtook me, his thoughts a barrage against the floodgates of my mind.

  *She’ll come to me yet, the witch. Whitten’s right--she’s fey as can be. Merius likely stumbled on her secret and used that to bind her to him. Bet he’s threatened to reveal her as a witch unless she stays with him. She should have accepted me when she had the chance, the little fool. I still can protect her. I will protect her--with Whitten’s help, I can bring down the Landers. Have to be careful though--Mordric’s cunning and these damned assassins are watching all the time. The last thing I want is her secret revealed to the wrong sorts, like Sullay--she could get hurt or worse. She's too great a prize to lose or damage. No, tread carefully, very carefully . . .

  At that instant, I caught a flicker of moving shadow in the recessed doorway of one of the houses as if the assassin there had shifted, likely to raise the blowgun with the poisoned dart to his lips.

  A burst of energy brought my muscles back to life. I wrenched my arm from Peregrine’s grip. “Don’t touch me again--you want another dose of the Bane?” I hissed as he tried to reclaim my arm.

  “You’re protecting me?” His tone mocked, but I noticed his eyes soften, the blue lightening to cerulean.

  “I’m protecting myself,” I snapped.

  “As well you should. I’ll protect you. I already have protected you, and you haven‘t thanked me, you ungrateful creature.”

  “Protected me? How?”

  “By not revealing the presence of your friends, of course,” he said airily. “Why do they guard you anyway? Some plot of your conniving father-in-law?”

  I shook my head. “Peregrine, one would think what happened to you before would be warning enough to a wise man. And I have a husband.” I held up my hand and wiggled my fingers, Merius’s rings flashing even in the shadows. “He protects me better than any other man ever could.”

  “That fool Merius? He doesn’t know the first thing about you. I should have been your husband.” His eyes gleamed, a lightning flash of deep sapphire, a dangerous color that reminded me of Queen Jazmene's and King Rainier‘s crowns. “That babe in your belly should have been my get.”

  My hand connected with his cheek, the slap splitting the heavy air. He laughed as I backed away.

  “I knew I’d get a rise out of you.” He rubbed his jaw.

  “You blackguard. Leave me alone.” I turned and strode back up the street.

  “You’ll come back to me before long, pet. Stubborn pride will only carry you so far,” he called after me.

  My pace hastened, and I hoped he couldn’t see how my limbs trembled. I rounded the corner of the street. A hand reached out from behind a stall, grasping my sleeve, and I screamed, my heart quivering in my chest. Then I realized the hand, plump and dimpled, belonged to a pale Elsa.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “I sent you after books . . .” I tried to maintain the tone of an imperious mistress upbraiding a misbehaving servant, but only got out two sentences before I slumped.

  “Did he hurt you, my lady? He’s a right scoundrel. Why did you meet him like that? Did he hurt you?” she repeated, gripping my arm.

  “Not here,” I said quietly, worried about curious onlookers. “Let’s go home.”

  “I knew you were up to no good when you sent me away for those books,” she muttered as she trailed after me. “You know, you’re like a child when you lie, transparent as crystal. As obvious as . . .”

  “Hush,” I said.

  “That might work on me, but it won’t work on Sir Merius,” she said with infuriating wisdom.

  As soon as we reached home, I went upstairs. I had intended to go back to the studio, but the sight of my easel and paints, usually a comfort, instead exhausted me. I backed out of the studio and headed for the bedchamber, thinking to lie down and rest. However, a half hour later found me sitting on the edge of the bed as I stared at the half open wardrobe door, the sleeve of one of Merius’s shirts hanging down on the floor where he’d dropped it this morning. Flashes of lightning from the still distant storm chased away the shadows every few minutes or so. A half dozen times I rose to fix the shirt but instead ended up back on the bed, my hands limp on my knees. Of course, I couldn’t tell Merius what had transpired with Peregrine, for to tell one piece of it would mean telling all of it, once his ready suspicions were roused. I would wait and tell Mordric what I’d sensed of Peregrine’s thoughts. But how could I get Mordric a message without Merius finding out?

  I chewed my lip and drew my legs and feet up on the bed so I could hug my knees. “You’ll soon be too big for me to do this,” I told Dominic as I rocked myself. He stirred, his movements rippling under my skin as if he woke and stretched at the sound of my voice. What if Merius and I fought? Would Dominic sense that and be upset? My arms tightened around my knees, as if I could somehow protect him that way.

  Some time had passed when I heard Merius’s quick footfalls, taking the steps two at a time. “Safire,” he called. “Safire?” He went to the studio, and all was quiet for a moment. Then there came his footfalls again, louder this time as he approached the chamber. I held my breath as he opened the door.

  “Safire?” He poked his head around the edge. “There you are--why didn’t you answer me, sweetheart? Cat got your tongue?” He entered the chamber, the scent of sandalwood all around him. He must have gone to practice and then the baths--his wet hair looked almost black in the shadows. It stuck out in spikes all over his head like a hedgehog--likely he’d rubbed his head with the towel and then forgotten to comb his hair back down. I choked over the sudden surge of affection rising in my throat. It had a bittersweet taste that broke loose in a sob. It just wasn’t fair--why did that ass Peregrine have to do this just as Merius and I were finally settling into our life together?

  “Safire, what’s wrong? Is the babe--is Dominic all right?” Merius stammered.

  “He’s fine. Merius, dear heart, I think Whit-Whitten is hiding with Peregrine. Peregrine knows I’m a witch,” I heard myself blurt out.

  A heavy stillness came over the chamber, as if the thunderhead had somehow settled directly overhead and now waited to unleash its fury. The airless warmth stifled me. Lightning struck, closer this time. Merius’s face leapt out of the shadows for an instant, drawn and unsmiling as if he concentrated very hard on a target far distant. His eyes glinted like blades.

  “How did you find this out, Safire?”

  “I can read Peregrine’s thoughts when he touches me.”

  “He touched you--when?” Merius was quiet, his voice the hiss of a sword being drawn from a scabbard.

  “Today on the arm.” I pulled Peregrine’s crinkled letter from my pocket and mutely held it out. As Merius snatched it from me and went over to the window so he could read it, t
hunder cracked close by. I started to shake in earnest, rocking back and forth as I hid my face against my knees.

  Chapter Ten--Merius

  Corcin, Eastern Cormalen

  July, 3 years ago

  I crumpled Peregrine’s letter and threw it in the grate, ashes from fires past floating up and turning the air acrid. I leaned against the mantel and inhaled the bitterness until I felt light-headed.

  “How does he know about the assassins?” I whispered finally. When she met my question with silence, I continued, my voice louder, "And what did he mean about your questionable behavior as a married woman?” I looked under my arm at her. She was so pale in the lightning-touched shadows she appeared brittle as ancient ivory. I straightened and strode toward the bed where she sat.

  “Merius?” she demanded. “Merius . . .”

  “Look at me, Safire.” I gripped her shoulder in one hand and grasped her chin in the other.

  “Let me go!” She strained against my grip. She knew what I wanted. She knew that with how upset we both felt, how raw and close to surface our emotions ran, that even she couldn’t block her thoughts from me if our eyes met.

  “Just look at me.” I finally held her gaze with mine, her eyes two glints in the shadows. A horrible vision of them together played across the stage of my mind like some ghastly rehearsal.

  She cringed. “No, no,” she moaned as if in pain, shaking her head. “Never. How could you think that?”

  “Maybe because you finally bothered to tell me you can read his thoughts--do you have a mind bond with him too?” My voice rose, and I choked. Scarlet sparks exploded against the backs of my eyelids--it felt like someone had punched me.

  Safire ran her hand down my side and around the small of my back, her fingers light and hesitant. Slowly, she began to move her fingertips in circles, kneading away the tension with her witch touch.

  “I can only sense his thoughts when he touches me, and he has no idea. He can’t read my thoughts. Does that sound like a mind bond to you?”

  “When did you discover this,” I paused. “talent?”

  Her eyes skipped away from mine, and I forced her head back around. She gulped, then said quickly, “Several months ago, when we first returned from Sarneth. Peregrine grabbed me during the party at Landers Hall. Your father chased him out.”

  “That raises more questions than it answers,” I said dryly, trying to rein in my anger. “Before we go any further, why Peregrine? Why can you read his thoughts? You can’t do that with anyone else, aside from me.”

  Her eyes locked with mine, lightning so bright I could see the clear peridot green for an instant. Guileless green--or so I had thought.

  “I don’t know, Merius. I wonder sometimes if I had married him willingly, perhaps he and I could have had a mind bond as well.” She shivered, her hand drawing tight against my back. “Thank God I don’t have a bond with him--his thoughts are ugly . . .” she trailed off, swallowing.

  "The idea of another man touching you, especially him . . ." I grimaced and trailed off. "Now you show me,” I continued. “Before we leave this chamber, you show me everything about Peregrine. I have to know, Safire--to guard you, our child, myself--I have to know everything.”

  She stayed still as I spoke. Then she nodded, her hand caressing my back. She needed to touch me, I realized, needed my presence to help her get through remembering what so obviously pained her. I knew then for certain she didn’t want him, that she had concealed this from me because she believed it was the only way to protect me.

  A barrage of images and thoughts followed, some long before I knew her. Safire at age fifteen perhaps, half girl, half woman as Peregrine grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back in the corner of some dark staircase landing, roughly kissing her. This kiss had lasted a moment or two before her curiosity gave way to fear at his roughness. Then she had yelled and slapped him. More forced kisses and fondling in odd corners, ending in enraged slaps on her part and chuckles on his part. He had lost his temper a few times and shaken her. Then there was a moment in the Long Marsh stable that he tried to put diamond studs in her ears and she threw the earrings in his face. One evening in the Long Marsh courtyard, Boltan brought out the carriage whip as a covert threat when Peregrine had backed Safire into another corner. Good man, Boltan. *A good man indeed--like you. That was only a few weeks before we met, dear heart Safire thought, her hand taut in my hair. A dark night in Calcors when Peregrine found her in a tavern and grabbed her arm, poking a dagger in her side when she tried to escape. He had dragged her from the tavern and down the street. The rancid greasy taste of fear was everywhere. Then . . .

  “Father rescued you that night?” I exclaimed. “When the hell did that happen?”

  “Right after I came out of my witch fit and found out I’d been married to Whitten, when you were on campaign. I ran away from the House of Landers, to Calcors. I was going to draw portraits on the docks for coin and wait for your return. I was such a little fool--Peregrine found me the first night. If Mordric hadn’t come and rescued me, I don’t know what would have happened.”

  “Damn it, Safire, why didn‘t you tell me this before?”

  “Because I knew you’d be upset, and I didn’t see what good it would do. I didn’t think Peregrine would dare touch me again after Mordric found us that night. Then when you and I were in Sarneth for so long, I was certain he‘d forgotten me. Then when he approached me again, after we returned, I thought I could handle him myself.”

  “You should have told me--the bastard’s been obsessed with you since you were fifteen, and you thought he would just go away, that you could handle him yourself?” I shook my head--her boldness and naivety knew no bounds. “You have to tell me these things, Safire--when are you going to learn that?”

  “I was afraid to tell you.”

  “Afraid? Why?"

  “I’m scared you’ll do harm to yourself just to avenge me, and I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you because some ass wrote me a scandalous letter . . .”

  “So you don’t trust me to have any self-control?”

  She blew her nose daintily with the handkerchief I offered. “Merius, I think you over-react sometimes.”

  “Well, maybe if you didn’t get in trouble so much, I wouldn’t have to overreact, as you call it.”

  “What?”

  “You heard what I said, sweetheart. I’ve never seen a woman who could get in as much trouble as you can. Good God, it’s been one thing after another.”

  Her eyes glittered dangerously. “You’ve been right there with me.”

  I settled on my side and cloaked my thoughts from her, my head propped on my palm as I gazed at her. “You know, Father was going to betroth me to some quiet, decorous girl from the House of Ewing. The king‘s niece, I believe. He thought she‘d be a calming influence on me.”

  “Wouldn‘t that have been nice?” Safire said, her tone cutting. “You could have napped in the afternoons while she embroidered the royal insignia on all your shirt collars. God knows, I don’t want to get you into any more trouble. In your own bed, no less.”

  "So what are you plotting with Father and Eden?”

  My sudden question caught her off guard, as I had intended. She stiffened, then said in a rush, “The night the assassins forced Ursula’s Bane on me, they gave Peregrine a dose as well. When he and I danced together, I got sick from his nasty aura and ran out to the gardens for some air. He followed me, and they shot him with a poisoned dart.”

  “You danced with him?” I demanded.

  A shiver ran through her, and I felt the heavy acid of disgust burn her insides. “I didn’t want to--as I said, his thoughts are ugly, nasty things, like wading through swamp slime. But I had to--dancing with him was the only acceptable way I could touch him long enough to read his thoughts and find out something useful.”

  “And what did you find out?”

  “He and Cyranea’s father are in league with the SerVerin Empire--his betrothal to C
yranea is a way to gain control of the Helles Isles for the SerVerin Empire, so the SerVerinese can more easily invade Cormalen when the time comes. Poor Cyranea,” Safire murmured, wiping her eyes with my handkerchief. "Peregrine and her father are just using her like a chess piece, and she has no power. I remember what it was like, thinking my father might force me to marry that scoundrel . . ."

  Good God--no wonder Father couldn’t help himself when it came to employing her talents for his intrigues. Not only was she a witch, but she was bright, intuitive, and looked and acted so innocent that no one would suspect. But she was also my wife. My pregnant wife. I could kill him. “Father put you up to this,” I stated flatly.

  “Don’t blame him, Merius. I offered to help--I want to bring Peregrine down as much as you and Mordric do.”

  “You should have told me.” I rose from the bed and began pacing between the windows and the door. “You endangered yourself, our unborn child, for some plot?!”

  “You endanger yourself every damned day and you dare lecture me?” she yelled. She flung herself from the bed and ran for the door. My hand circled her arm. “Let go of me, Merius.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out--I need some air.”

  “Fine, but I go with you.”

  Her eyes flared. “Alone--I need to be alone, away from you, away from everyone.”

  I shook my head. “Oh no, sweet--you’re never going out alone again.”

  She froze, staring at me. “What did you say?” Her voice was quiet.

  “Hell, you should be used to it, with the assassins following us everywhere.”

  “Exactly--we have the assassins. I’m never alone, not really--it’s enough to drive me mad. Now I’ll have you breathing down my neck too . . .”

  “So that’s how you really feel about me? Is that why you went chasing after that blackguard Peregrine?” As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have. Something in her face broke, her lips parting. My hands slid from her shoulders, and I backed away from her as we gazed at each other for what seemed like an eternity. She stepped toward me, her hand raised. Her palm connected with my jaw, her slap stinging more than I had expected. It burned my skin like fire, her witch touch perverted to hurt instead of heal. She turned away then and lay down on the bed, her heaving back to me.