“I am fine,” she whispered.
“You did that for me. You went through that, and now I am supposed to renounce you. I’m supposed to pretend that you don’t carry my heart and soul with you when you leave me.”
“It is only fair. You hold mine as well,” Shannen said. All she wanted to do was stay with him, rest with him. Be there for him during what she knew was the worst time of his life. “I am sorry about your brother and father. Baerne was one of my favorites,” she said.
Daarik squeezed her. “Thank you. He liked you as well.”
“How did it happen?”
He took a breath. “The ale and wine started flowing. The were celebrating,” he said. “Baerne thought he was among friends and brothers. They got him drunk, so drunk that he would be too slow to fight back. And they killed him. Without my brother to defend him, my father fell. Jarvik killed him himself.”
Tears pricked Shannen’s eyes, and she was reminded again of how important it was for him to win this. A world where Jarvik ruled the Maarlai was one in which her own people would see their end. And a world in which Edwell remained ruler of the humans was just as bleak. She patted Daarik’s arm. “I need to go.”
“Stay a while,” he said, holding her tighter.
“It is quiet now,” she said. “I need to get away without any of them seeing me. It’s night, and it’s still so hot outside that they are resting. But I can already feel it getting cooler. Can’t you?”
He did not answer. Finally, he let her go, and she stood up. She gritted her teeth against the pain in her arm and grabbed the pack she’d readied while waiting with Janara.
The look he gave her was one of resignation, fear, anger. But there was more there, too. Pride. And something she never thought she would see, from anyone. Something she was too cowardly to name. After several long moments, he gave her a small nod.
“Let us go, then, wife. We’ll get you away safely, so you can come back to me.”
Shannen nodded and swallowed around the lump in her throat. After taking a deep breath, she opened the door to their suite and they started walking through the corridors.
Shannen stalked quickly through the shadowy corridors, Daarik’s heavy footsteps echoing her own lighter ones. She could feel his eyes on her back, knew, without a doubt, that if she turned around she would be undone by a look from him.
So she walked.
Once they were out of the palace, he took her arm in his hand and pulled her, quickly, to the left of the palace and behind it, to the stables. “If you’re insisting on this, then at least take a horse so you can move more quickly,” he growled.
She didn’t argue. He quickly bridled the horse, constantly glancing around, and she knew he was keeping an eye out for any of Jarvik’s people. He led her, not toward the front of the barn and the exit, but to the back of the barn. She looked at him questioningly and he lifted up a large section of the floor that blended perfectly with the rest of the graying wood. Beneath it, a rectangular tunnel sloped gently underground.
“Clever,” she said quietly.
“It was a way to quickly deal with the humans if they got too close. This leads out to the edge of the forest.” He held the horse’s reins in one hand and took her arm in the other, escorting both of them through the tunnel. At the exit, he motioned for her to wait while he checked around. Once he was satisfied that it was clear, he gestured to her and she led the horse forward, out into the night. When they came out the other side of the short tunnel, they were surrounded by silent, dark forest.
Shannen made herself look up at Daarik. He deserved that much, and, she could admit to herself, at least, that she wanted to see his eyes, his mouth, the strong line of his jaw one last time, in case it did not all work out as she planned.
He put his hands on her hips and pulled her roughly, tightly to his body, and she knew that he was memorizing the way it felt to hold her, just as she was memorizing the way it felt to be held.
They stayed, probably longer than they should have, eyes locked, Daarik’s strong hands holding her hips, trapping her body against his.
“I will return for what is mine,” she whispered, reiterating her promise from earlier. “And you are mine, Daarik.”
“Is that a promise, my wayward wife?” he asked.
“It is. And when I make my way back to you, nothing will divide us again. There will be no other for me. Ever.”
His gaze softened at that, and he lowered his face to hers. He gently rested his forehead against hers, and Shannen closed her eyes. “How am I going to live without you?” he asked quietly. “It already feels like part of me has been torn out.”
“You will fight. And I will fight. And someday, we will fight our way back to one another. This separation is not forever.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, claiming her lips in one last needy, angry, possessive kiss, trapping her body against his as he told her, without words, what this was doing to him, and what she meant to him. She kissed him back hungrily, desperately, knowing that it would likely be a very long time before she felt this again. Part of her, the part Daarik held in his hand, already felt dormant. He pulled away and rested his forehead against hers again.
“This is not forever,” she repeated, as much for herself as for him.
“Unless one of us ends up dead,” he said, and she was grateful for that old familiar wry tone as she backed away a bit.
“Well. You had better make sure you stay alive, then,” she said. He held the reins as she climbed into the saddle, then handed her pack up to her. Once it was secured on her back, she looked down at him, determined to memorize every line, every curve, every muscle of the alien warrior she knew was nothing less than the other half of herself.
“I have no intention of dying,” he said.
“Good. Neither do I.” She met his eyes again. “Be well, Daarik Goreblood.”
He stood a little taller and gave her a small bow. “Be well, Shannen of House Lyon. And make your way back to me.” And then he murmured a few quiet words in Maarlai, and she cursed herself for not learning faster. He gave her another long look.
“When you come back, I’ll tell you what those words meant,” he said.
Shannen nodded, meeting his eyes one more time, then she gently nudged the sides of the horse with her feet and started on the trail that would take her around the edge of the forest and toward some of the outer, more forgotten human villages.
Away from him.
She did not look back.
Epilogue
Four weeks later…
Shannen tethered the warhorse Daarik had given to her and looked up at the rundown inn. Its sign hung crookedly, and its windows were yellowed with smoke and grime. She could hear the raucous shouts and laughs of the men inside.
She turned to see the warriors she had already gathered. They were not, in the end, who she had expected to recruit. So far, “Lyon’s Army,” as they had begun calling it, was made up almost entirely of women. Women who’d toiled away on farms and in factories while having their husbands and sons torn away from them to serve Edwell, women who had been deemed too young, or too old, or too frail to fight. Women who, for the first time in their lives, were given a choice about what their role would be.
And these, at least, had chosen to fight. Shannen loved each and every one of them for it.
All she could hope, at this point, was to overwhelm Edwell’s army with numbers. She would take anyone who would join her, and they would work together. What they lacked in training, they more than made up for in hatred of Edwell.
Shannen gently rubbed the underside of her arm, where she could just feel Daarik’s name, spelled in flowing metal on her skin. She wondered, more than anything, how he fared. She hoped his life was easier with her gone.
“Could be promising,” her second-in-command, a forty-something woman named Camille, said as they studied the inn. “Won’t find any fans of Edwell here, that’s for certain.”
“Will
they fight for a woman, though?” Shannen asked.
Camille smiled. “These ones? They’ll fight for anyone trying to give Edwell a bad day. Ask them about their mines and farms, and how Edwell stole them out from under them to support his failing war. Ask them about their families starving to death while Edwell sat in his palace. Ask them about all they gave up for Edwell, and all they lost in return.”
Shannen started walking up the creaky wooden steps. “Camille, have I told you lately that I adore you?”
Camille laughed, and then she and the rest of Shannen’s women followed Shannen into the inn. The smell of woodsmoke and moonshine hit Shannen, and she was reminded of her wedding night, of getting drunk with her husband to avoid feeling anything when they were together. She steeled herself and looked around.
“I am Shannen of House Lyon,” she said, and the men quieted around her, staring at her in surprise. They knew who she was. That reputation of hers was coming in handy once again. It was time, once again, to put it to work against her uncle.
“Who wants to help me take Edwell’s throne away from him?”
THE END
Shannen and Daarik return in Riven: Exile Book Two available now at Amazon.com. Thanks for reading!
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Note from Colleen
Thank you so much for reading the first book in what has already been an amazingly fun series to write! I hope you’ll keep up with Shannen and Daarik’s story (which you can read by subscribing to my newsletter) and, if you enjoyed this book, I hope you’ll consider leaving a review so others can find out about it as well.
Exile was first published as a web serial on my blog. I wanted to try something a little different. I wanted to play with fantasy romance with a little bit of a science fiction twist. I wanted an atypical, unlikable heroine. I wanted to tell an epic story while keeping the action turned up. I was not at all sure if anyone other than me would be interested. I am grateful for the early support the web serial gained from several of my readers. Those of you who commented on the blog and on Facebook, telling me you were waiting for more: this series is for you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you, as always, to my husband for his support and all of the work he puts into my books and websites. If things work and look good while working, that is thanks to him. And if I’m at all sane by the time I reach the end of a book… that’s thanks to him as well.
Thank you to my lovely author friends Elizabeth Hunter and Grace Draven, who make it easy to laugh through the stress. You both make me strive to be a better writer, and I am so thankful to have gotten to know you.
Thank you, finally, to the late, great Sara Douglass, who wrote the kind of fantasy that turned me into a lifelong lover of the genre. Her work was raw, heartbreaking, visceral, and unforgettable. If you have not read her Troy Game series, you should give it a try. Fair warning: I gained my love of a high body count from her. :) Thank you, Ms. Douglass, for the stories.
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For backstory material, news, and upcoming events be sure to check out http://www.colleenvanderlinden.com
About the Author
Colleen Vanderlinden is the author of the Hidden and Soulhunter urban fantasy series, as well as the Copper Falls paranormal romance series and the StrikeForce Sci-Fi/Romance series. The third Hidden novel, Home, was a finalist for RT Book Reviews’ Editors Choice Awards for best self-published urban fantasy novel of 2014. Her books have consistently received positive reviews, and RT Book Reviews has called her storytelling “electrifying.” She lives in the Detroit area with her husband, kids, demonic Basset hound, and two lazy cats. You can find out more about Colleen’s books at colleenvanderlinden.com, or follow her on Facebook, or on Twitter, where she’s @C_Vanderlinden.
Books by
Colleen Vanderlinden
The Exile Series
Exile
Riven
The Hidden Series
Book One: Lost Girl
Book Two: Broken
Book Three: Home
Book Four: Strife
Book Five: Nether
Hidden Series Novellas
Forever Night
Earth Bound Demons of Christmas Past
Hidden: Soulhunter Series
Guardian
Betrayer
Zealot
The StrikeForce Series
A New Day
One More Day
Darkest Day
Day’s End
The Copper Falls Series
Shadow Witch Rising
Shadow Sworn
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Exile Page 19
