Again that cool tone. Danner frowned.
“No, I never danced with Deeta,” he said. “I was going to, but then you showed up and I didn’t have to.”
“Well, I’m sorry for dragging you away,” she said.
Danner looked at her in confusion, but Alicia turned away to look off into the distance. Her tone had been cool before, but now it was just plain frigid, and Danner couldn’t understand why. He hadn’t, to his knowledge, done anything to upset Alicia, but his lack of experience with girls left Danner franticly confused.
Before Danner could ask if anything was wrong, Maran appeared suddenly at his side. From the look on the elf’s face, he’d been there for some time and had already seen what a miserable job Danner was doing with Alicia.
“Why, Amarilla, look who’s here,” Maran said, guiding the cook forward. She stepped into the light and smiled at the sight of Danner and Alicia leaning on the railing. Danner realized they were rather close to each other and flushed, but he didn’t move.
“Alicia, how are you?” the cook asked happily. “I must say, you look splendid in that dress. Mo was right when she said she’d picked a good one for you.”
Alicia turned and smiled pleasantly, but Danner could tell she really wasn’t paying attention to the compliment. He couldn’t tell what she was dwelling on, though, and he looked helplessly at Maran.
Smoothly, the elf stepped forward and lightly gripped Alicia’s shoulder, turning her back toward the railing. He pointed with his free hand at the night sky.
“Do you know what the elves call those stars there, young lady?” he asked, his voice typically soft. Alicia shook her head, and Maran smiled.
“The Dancing Lovers,” he replied. “Our legends tell us that when San rides higher than those stars, those who look for love are sure to find it.”
Unbidden, Danner’s eyes darted toward the sky, and he noticed without surprise that the moon was, in fact, higher than the stars Maran had indicated. Of course, Danner also knew the elf was lying through his teeth. The constellation was called the Dancing Lovers, and there were myths concerning the stellar couple, but they had nothing to do with the position of the moon. Maran spun his tale, apparently improvising as he described a hapless couple, cursed by both their families as they indulged a forbidden love.
More important than the lie Maran was weaving was what his hand had been doing in the meantime. With one hand still indicating the stars, Maran’s other hand had slipped free of Alicia’s shoulder and was busy manipulating the ties on the side of her dress. With a delicate elven touch, Maran untied each one, loosened it, and retied it without Alicia ever being the wiser. Only Danner was in a position to notice the sly adjustments, but when he opened his mouth to demand to know what the elf thought he was doing, Maran threw him a warning, amused glance, and Danner remained sullenly silent.
He shook his head and wondered at just how sneaky his mentor could be.
“I’m sure it’s just a legend,” Maran was saying, “but then all legends have a grain of truth in them, if you can but find it.” Maran paused, then turned away.
“But how rude of me, standing here talking to you and neglecting my date even as I cheat my to’vala of his own,” Maran said, his eyes dancing as he looked at Danner. “Forgive my intrusion, Danner.”
Danner waved him off, shaking his head as Maran and the plump cook disappeared. It wasn’t until a moment later that the elf’s duplicity bore full fruit, and he appreciated Maran’s efforts on his behalf. An unseasonably cool breeze blew past them and slipped into the widened space where Alicia’s dress was tied together, and she was no longer able to suppress a shiver. Without asking, Danner removed his coat and gently laid it across her shoulders.
“Here,” he said gently, “take this. It’s unusually chilly tonight.”
Or at least, that’s what he tried to say. He got as far as “He…” before Alicia felt his hands on her shoulders and turned, her hand delivering a stinging slap across his face. Danner’s coat fell from his stunned fingers. Alicia’s flashing chestnut eyes followed the garment to the floor, and for a moment Danner saw chagrin register on her face. Then she turned and ran away, either not hearing or ignoring Danner’s pleas for her to stop.
Danner picked up his jacket and slipped it back over his tunic, shaking his head.
“Okay, now I’m really confused.”
- 4 -
Birch glanced at her sleeping form, and the stylus in his hand quivered for a moment. With an effort, he jerked his attention back to the letter he was writing. He wished he’d had the chance to tell Moreen everything in it, but even now he knew he hadn’t the strength to tell her. Not yet.
He really didn’t think it was fair, what he was saying to her in the still-wet ink, but Birch felt she at least had the right to know what was in his heart. The possibilities of what might yet be… or of what could never be. His heart clearly told him one thing, but his duty and devotion led him down another path. The war inside Birch was still being waged, despite the decade he’d had added to his life in which he could have found a resolution. Birch just hoped one day he’d be able to make it up to Moreen.
With a quick scratch of the stylus, Birch finished the letter and carefully blew on the ink to dry it more quickly. He folded the paper and wrote Moreen’s name on the outside flap, then left it lying on the pillow next to her. The pillow he had, until recently, been sleeping on.
After Moreen had put an end to their conversation, she’d said her goodbyes to the guests and retired to her room. Birch was already there, and the two of them had spent the rest of the evening lying side by side, each wrapped silently in their own thoughts.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, Birch kissed his fingers and placed them gently on Moreen’s lips. She stirred slightly, but didn’t wake. He left the room in silence, taking his bundle of extra clothing with him.
It only took him a few minutes to reach Maran and Danner’s room, where he found the elf sitting quietly. They exchanged a minimum of words, and soon they collected a sad and confused Danner from outside, gathered their belongings, and left the Dragoenix Inn.
Behind them, in a room in the farthest corner of the inn, a pair of curtains twitched. The unseen observer hissed in satisfaction and vanished from the window.
Chapter 16
Is there anything so vile, so wretched and debased, that Satan himself would recoil?
- Violet Paladin Timothy Weatherstone,
“The Nature of Evil” (78 AM)
- 1 -
Sal smiled as he slipped across the room. With the paladin gone, there was no one in the inn who posed a threat. And where there was no threat, there was potential.
Potential for confusion. Potential for chaos.
Potential for fear.
Posing as a regular patron of the inn, Sal had been able to gain some limited observation of the paladin and his party, but only when the human had been too distracted by his own grief to notice the palpable presence the demon would have inevitably exuded. Few paladins this side of the Merging would have recognized the feeling, and most probably would not have even felt it. But this one… This one man would recognize the feeling like no other could.
Whatever inner pain he’d been suffering from had apparently been enough to distract him, and Sal had remained unobserved. When not watching the paladin, the demon had amused himself by studying the human’s companions. The elf hadn’t proven much of a distraction, but the young boy was another matter. There was something unsettling about that one, something Sal could not quite place, and it irked him. It was through that boy, therefore, that Sal’s immediate hopes of terror would come.
Without thinking, Sal updated himself on his brothers’ progress. Min was playing a dangerous game posing as Rathamik, living in the heart of the paladin chapterhouse. No doubt some of the holy warriors felt the very unease that could have given Sal away to his quarry, but thus far it seemed Min remained safely ensconced in his role. Several of the paladins
around him were slowly coming under his control, and an unexpected discovery had increased the potential for his control. Ran was meeting with similar success, although his was a façade of only slightly less prominence. The country of Merishank was slowly being guided toward its role in the war to come, and soon enough it would be time to unleash their might upon their fellow mortals.
And when Sal was finished with the evening’s entertainment, he would hunt down the paladin and the ones with him and destroy them all.
Sal smiled and felt his brothers do the same. The Unholy Trinity was of one mind, and he felt his brothers’ approval for his plan. Both might have been envious, save that they, too, would savor the terror and exquisite agony. The Three were, as always, one.
With a thought, smooth, bark-like skin gave way to human flesh. Sal turned the doorknob and went in search of the young barmaid.
Alicia.
- 2 -
Alicia attacked the stain on the table with uncharacteristic vehemence, her face a fixed expression of self-anger. No matter how she played it out in her head, the incident always came back to how she’d acted and reacted, which funneled her anger inward.
Not for the first time, she tried to shift the blame away from herself.
“It was really his fault,” she muttered, scrubbing the wine-soaked spot. “Things would have turned out differently if he’d… Well, if he’d stayed away from Deeta, I wouldn’t have been upset, and it never would have happened. He should have kept clear of the blonde trollop. He shouldn’t have touched me, giving me his coat. He really shouldn’t have been such a gentleman.”
Alicia shied away from that thought, scrubbing all the harder as though her exertion could erase its presence from her mind.
When she’d gone running to the extra room, which she knew Moreen had closed off for the night, Alicia had just wanted to be alone to think. Seeing a glass of wine left on a table and another overturned, however, with wine slowly pooling on the floor below, she’d immediately changed into trousers and a spare tunic and set to work on the stain.
A single lantern shone on the table above her, rocking slowly on an invisible breeze as its feeble light strained toward the farthest corners of the small room.
“He shouldn’t have been such a…”
Alicia stopped scrubbing, her back slumped in defeat.
There it was again. No matter how she tried to turn it about, there was no way she could lay the blame on any other shoulders than her own. Even Deeta was innocent, at least as to how Alicia had treated Danner. She certainly couldn’t blame him for talking with Deeta before Alicia had even gotten there. Perhaps he would have stayed with her and away from Deeta had Alicia not gotten there so late, or been so distant with him before the dance.
And why?
Because he was a gentleman, and because he did treat Alicia with respect. Because he hadn’t treated her as an object or a conquest, but rather as a person. As a woman. It was something so foreign to Alicia that she rejected it on a deep level of inner hurt. It wasn’t fair that someone so obviously caring and courteous should simply slip into her life and slip out again, so wasn’t it easier if Alicia helped him do the slipping? Keep him at a distance and hurry him out at the first moment before she had a chance to see just how good he might be. As long as she couldn’t see it, she could continue to not believe in its existence.
So much easier, but so much more painful. Was this what Moreen had gone through with Birch? Except she’d done just the opposite of Alicia. Every time Birch came passing into her life, she clung to him with a desperation born of a love too long denied, and every time he left her, it ripped anew the wounds in her heart.
At least Moreen had opened her heart to someone. At least she’d had the strength. Yes, it had hurt, and hurt deeply, but the depth of that hurt was only an indication of how deep of a love pulsed through her. That love healed her heart anew at every new glimpse of the paladin, and was, perhaps, strong enough to outweigh the hurt he’d caused her.
To have a love that strong… Alicia could only dream.
Perhaps Danner was the sort who might show her that love, but not now. Perhaps never, given how she’d treated him and driven him away. If not him, perhaps someone, but she’d never know if she never tried. Had she that evening to do over, Alicia vowed she would do things differently. She would give him that chance, and let Fate play the cards where she may.[32]
San, what was she thinking? She barely knew him! How was she to know if Danner was the love of her life or a homeless vagabond who preyed on impressionable women?
Still…
A soft step on the wood behind her caused Alicia to turn, and she drew in a sharp breath. Fate had apparently been listening to her thoughts, and was supplying her with that second chance.
“Danner,” she said softly.
He came toward her slowly, showing none of the hesitance she’d seen in him before. The light from the single lantern didn’t quite illuminate his face, but still it reflected from his eyes, and she recognized him nonetheless. He wore a toothless smile that looked almost cruel, but that had to be a trick of the shadows that surrounded his face. Cruelty just wasn’t a trait she could associate with Danner.
He stepped around tables and chairs without so much as a glance, never taking his eyes from Alicia’s. His gaze was compelling and seemed to burn with an inner desire that made Alicia shiver. In the back of her mind, she recognized it as a chill of fear, but the thought was banished by the intensity of his stare. His eyes robbed her of her will, and it wasn’t until she gasped that she realized she hadn’t been breathing.
“Danner,” she repeated, this time a bit breathlessly. Still he said nothing – his eyes were saying plenty. Alicia just couldn’t decipher what it was they were telling her. They burned their silent message across the slowly decreasing distance between them, and Alicia’s hands began to tremble unnoticed.
As he reached the far side of the table, Danner stopped and leaned forward against the wood. Wordlessly, he reached up and turned down the flame on the lantern, filling the room with even more shadows. He left just enough light for Alicia to make out his features as he walked silently around the table. With a slow, determined motion, he plucked the rag from her numb fingers and squeezed a stream of reddened water onto the floor.
Alicia shook at the soft sound of water, her eyes still fixed on his. Danner’s eyes flickered with reflected light and bored into her mercilessly, demanding her attention. No, demanding her!
Too late, Alicia broke free of the spell of his eyes and started to back away. With a swift motion, Danner rushed forward and gripped the back of her hair, jerking her head back sharply. Alicia opened her mouth to scream and found it suddenly filled with the harsh moistness of the wine- and water-soaked rag. The cloying sickness of the rag filled her nose and choked her throat, and it was only through a force of will she was able to breathe at all.
Please, God! she screamed silently. Danner, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?
Alicia cast about with her hands, fingers locked into claws, but Danner caught both wrists and tucked them effortlessly into one hand. Unbelievably strong fingers wrapped around her wrists, holding her hands as surely as if they were caught in manacles of steel. Then Alicia’s feet were swept out from beneath her, and she crashed to the floor with a muffled thud.
Before she could think, Danner’s knee was in the middle of her back, and Alicia’s arms were yanked behind her. Something, a thin piece of leather perhaps, was wrapped tightly around her wrists, and she felt a harsh jerk as it was tied off. With swift, sure motions, Danner wrapped the rest of the rag around her head and knotted it behind her.
Alicia screamed into the rag, trying desperately to fight through the terror mounting within her.
This is a nightmare! she thought frantically. I’ll wake up any moment, shaking, but free.
“No, you won’t wake up,” Danner said softly, his voice filled with menace. Alicia shivered, no longer trying to hide
her fear. She wished he hadn’t spoken. Before, in his silence, there was still something she could have fought against to make believe this wasn’t happening. That it wasn’t real.
“This is not a dream, I assure you,” he said, his lips brushing her ear. Then he bit the lobe of her ear, his sharp teeth easily piercing her skin as warm blood trickled down her neck. With a callous jerk, he flipped Alicia over onto her back as she screamed into the rag in pain. He stared down at her, his face all but lost in the shadows. Still his eyes gleamed in the lamp light, burning with twisted desire and a lust for far more than her body. In one hand he held a short, thin-bladed knife.
“I’m sure you already wish it was, though, my lovely Alicia,” he said. Then he laughed. It was a cruel, terrifying sound, made all the more sinister by its soft, liquid tones. It enveloped her, drowning out the screams in her mind.
The laugh followed her as Danner ripped her tunic from neck to midriff and taunted her with evil promises as he cut her trousers free. Alicia shuddered involuntarily as he began to caress the flesh of her legs. Somehow, mimicking the gentle touch of an earnest lover made it that much more horrid, and his laugh chased her screaming into darkness.
- 3 -
Moreen sat before the small fireplace in her room, her eyes alternating between the flames and the leaf of parchment in her hand. Red firelight danced behind the page, leaving the letters silhouetted against the soft glow. Birch’s familiar handwriting was scrawled in lines that were almost, but not quite, straight on the page. Each line had a slant that curved upward ever so slightly, save for a few that arched downward as he tried to compensate for the other curved lines.
It was the style and the handwriting that told her who’d written it long before she read a single word on the page. With an effort, she forced herself to read the letter once more.
My Love,
I feel a rush of shame just at writing those words, for I know all too well how little I deserve the right to call you such. I know something of the pain I have caused you, and I know, too, there is no way I can ever truly make it up to you, Moreen.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 18
