Adrian

by Heather Grothaus

  But the flame was already extinguished, the wick sending up a curl of black smoke.

  A draft caused by swiftly opening the door had blown it out.

  No.

  For the first time since arriving on Wyldonna, Adrian applied the logic of the island: He was finished in the library, he was taking the only book it contained, so there was no need for the flame. It had ceased to exist because it was unnecessary.

  What else might cease to exist once its usefulness had been met?

  The drawings of the ever-diminishing castles contained in the book beneath his arm came to mind.

  Maighread, d.

  Not if the Painted Man could help it.

  Maisie swept her hand beneath the murky surface of the warm water of her bath, watching the ripples as they broke against her knees and chest. The fragrant steam soothed her as much as anything could. The fire in her hearth crackled, and Dragon rested in her usual place, as still as the stones that she so resembled. Maisie’s chamber should have been peaceful to her.

  But beneath the curls piled atop her head, Maisie’s mind was a whirlwind.

  Adrian Hailsworth was still somewhere in the castle, of that she was certain. But what he intended to do since they had made love hours ago she did not know, and it was that uncertainty that caused her unease.

  Her chamber door opened then, without even the small courtesy of a warning knock, and he appeared as if she had summoned him by mere thought. Which wasn’t true, because she had thought of nothing but him since he’d left her on his bed, and she’d not managed to catch sight of him the rest of the day. It was late now; everyone else had retired. He closed the door behind him and stood there looking at her in the bath, her nakedness concealed by the water, Wyldonna’s book cradled in one elbow, a roll of parchment in his other hand.

  “Good evening,” he said at last.

  “Good evening,” she returned. Her eyes went to the unknown documents he held. “I see Reid was able to supply you with what you needed. He told me before supper that you had requested his assistance.”

  “The afternhangers destroyed your plans,” he said, motioning with the parchment. “I had need to redraw them as best I could.”

  She waved her hand through the water again, continuing to watch him.

  “Thank you for the shirt.”

  “You’re welcome to it.” Maisie let a little smile come over her mouth. “Although I prefer you without it, I fear I would soon be without female servants of any sort were I to allow you about the castle unclothed.”

  He returned her smile, and Maisie’s heart skipped a beat.

  “The marks disconcert them.”

  She chuckled. “I doona think it’s the marks that disconcert them but the chest that bears them. I canna blame them when I am so affected by it myself.”

  Adrian’s jaw clenched. “Would that you refrain from such talk until I have told you what I came here for. The sight of you so bare has me already at my limits.”

  “You didna come here just for me?” Maisie smiled at him. “State your intentions then, so that we might converse quickly and have it over with.”

  He walked to her bed and put down the items he carried, and Maisie heard the scrape of Dragon as she rose from her post. Maisie couldn’t see the long, low creature beneath the high sides of her tub, but she could guess at her location by the way Adrian’s eyes tracked along the floor. She was going under the bed.

  He seemed to struggle with something for a moment, as if debating what he would next say and how he would say it. “How old is it?” Adrian asked at last.

  “She,” Maisie clarified. “Verra old.”

  “Older than you?”

  Maisie laughed. “Older than anything living today, I’d wager. Dragon is the last of her tribe as well.”

  “I’ve seen creatures somewhat like it—her,” he corrected. “During my travels through Egypt. They live in the rivers there.”

  “Piece bloods,” Maisie said, fishing her rag from the bottom of the tub and feeling for the slippery cake of soap she’d forgotten. “Perhaps of her line, long ago. It’s why they have taken up residence near such wealth.”

  “Dragon,” Adrian mused. “From below and above the earth. Guardian of treasure, particularly of gold.”

  Maisie was not surprised. She had guessed what had kept him hidden from her sight the remainder of the day. “You’ve been reading.” She swiped the soap across her collarbone and followed it with the rag.

  “Yes. Have you thought that it—she—is perhaps the guardian of Wyldonna’s lost fortune?”

  “Of course.” Maisie moved to wash her arms, turning her wrists to watch the firelight gleam over her wet skin. “Each generation makes an attempt to turn this chamber over, seeking that which is nae here. Nothing has ever been found of course. Besides, unlike her ancestors, Dragon is small. If Wyldonna’s treasure is as vast as the tales tell, she couldna hide it verra well, could she? Just because dragons have guarded fortunes in the past doesna mean that they must.”

  Adrian hummed, neither in agreement nor argument.

  “Why did you seize the throne from Malcolm?”

  Maisie stilled in her ministrations, her eyes falling on the folds of the sudsy rag in her hand. “I had to. He would bring Man’s war to Wyldonna.” She looked up at him. “One day it will all be gone, but it has been left to me to preserve it for as long as possible.”

  “Even if that means sacrificing yourself?”

  He had been reading. “Without Wyldonna, I would cease to exist any matter.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Adrian said, perching on the edge of her mattress. “You could have stayed in Melk. Or even Scotland. Your brother thought you would.”

  “Malcolm hoped I would, aye,” Maisie said, lifting her right foot and washing from her knee over her shin. “But I wouldna have survived long. A lone woman who appears one day from nowhere, with no mundane skills of any good use, no pedigree to recommend her.” She had learned that lesson the hard way.

  “What about your . . . magic? Surely you could use it to support yourself, gain yourself what you needed.”

  She glanced at him as her stomach lurched. “And be burned alive when my abilities were discovered by the wrong person? Or attacked by a vengeful piece blood or exile who would know me?” She attended her left leg now, trying very hard to avoid his gaze even as she longed to look at him again. “Any matter, magic doesna exist, according to Adrian Hailsworth.”

  Adrian hummed again. Then he asked, “How are you to die? Am I to kill you?”

  Maisie shrugged. “You, Glayer Felsteppe, the afternhangers. Perhaps the island itself shall swallow me up, or the sirens shall seize me and drag me down.”

  “I would never harm you, Maisie. Surely you understand that after . . . after this afternoon.”

  “I understand that Glayer Felsteppe was your priority in coming here. You made that verra clear. He is a dangerous man who threatens nae only you and your friends but also Wyldonna, which is the source of all magic for the entire world.” She dropped her foot back into the water with a little splash and looked at him again. “I would hope that destroying him means more to you now than ever before.”

  “I don’t see why you have to die in order to stop him,” Adrian said.

  Maisie wanted to hope, with every fiber of her being, that he was right. But he still didn’t fully understand, and so she said nothing.

  “If Wyldonna’s fortune cannot be found, we must fight him.”

  “How?” Maisie demanded. “We canna use the island against him on the equinox.”

  “No, but the folk of this place—the giants, the afternhangers, especially—they possess great skills by the nature of their very existence. Size and strength and teeth and claw.”

  “You speak as Malcolm,” she scoffed.

  “He has a plan,” Adrian pressed. “He and the folk are building machines of war, perhaps the likes of which I have seen used and could help engineer.”

>   She shook her head and rose to her feet in the tub, water sluicing down her body as she began to wash her torso, uncaring that Adrian watched her boldly. He had already seen her in the most intimate setting possible. Let him watch her wash the last traces of him from her skin before he replaced them.

  “Nay. I willna have Wyldonna’s people killed in a futile attempt to save my own life and then the island be destroyed all the same. Adrian, I took a vow, and nae a light one: For the good of all living things—”

  “Both in spirit and in flesh,” he finished. “I know. But you brought me here, and so you have to trust me.”

  She let the rag drop into the water. “I brought you here to trade your life for Wyldonna’s survival.”

  He rose from the bed, his brows lowered. “It matters not to me what promise you made. The only way I would accompany Glayer Felsteppe anywhere without protest is if I was nothing more than a dead body.”

  Her fists clenched. “I’m certain that is a possibility!”

  He shrugged, his gaze running over her body like the droplets of water that raced down her skin. “I’ll begin searching the castle again on the morrow. And I shall seek this fortune your book tells of for a fortnight. If I should not find it by then, I must go to the village. To see Malcolm,” he clarified. “Perhaps you will be more receptive to his plans if my search is unsuccessful.”

  “I doona care to hear of his foolish scheme,” she said. “Nae now. Nae ever.”

  He picked up the toweling from the end of her bed and began walking toward the tub. “I could convince you to listen, I’m certain.”

  She raised her arms to his neck as he swirled the towel around her body and pulled her to him.

  “Do what you will,” she said against his mouth. “I doona wish to talk anymore tonight.”

  He kissed her and then pulled away. “Oh, we’ve finished talking.” He lifted her from the tub and she wrapped her dripping legs around his waist. His hands went to the still tender flesh beneath the edge of the towel.

  “Good,” she said, nipping at his neck. “Then take off that damned shirt.”

  Chapter 16

  A fortnight passes very quickly when mind and body are well-occupied, Adrian soon realized.

  Each day of his interment at Melk had seemed a month. Endless, never-changing routines of waking and reading and drinking enough to be numbed to his misery so that he might sleep without nightmares.

  But the fortnight at Wyldonna—it passed with the swiftness of a smile and a wink. Adrian would rise from his bed, break his fast, and spend the days combing the corridors and dank chambers of the castle, often with the giant Reid at his side. They would partake of the noon meal in the company of the island’s beautiful queen, during which the trio would discuss what had—or had not—been discovered during the morning efforts. And then Adrian and the queen would retire to her chamber for an hour or two’s deeper, wordless investigation. The search would then happily commence until supper, when Maisie would subsequently accompany Adrian to his room until the black sky beyond his window was the darkest it could become.

  During those fleeting days, he had discovered walled cells of old bones, trapdoors leading beneath the castle where secret springs flowed. One chamber contained nothing but a battered-looking golden chalice resting on a stone pedestal in the center of the room. Adrian had stared at it for a very long time with a queer ache in his heart before finally closing the door gently and carefully repositioning the tapestry that hid it.

  Forgotten halls; a corridor filled to the ceiling with what appeared to be twisted stubs of horn, which threatened to avalanche on Adrian when Reid had wrenched the old door open. Try as he may, Adrian could never locate the far end of that particular corridor.

  One of the towers Maisie had explained to him as inaccessible turned out to be nothing but a tall, echoing cylinder, empty to the very top of its conical roof; the other had been filled solid with mortared stone.

  Adrian found a pelt fashioned with sleeves at the bottom of an ancient crate. He found an enameled pin Maisie had misplaced when she was a girl. He found a pair of Reid’s enormous braies airing on the windowsill of an unused chamber, and also found that giants could run remarkably fast when pursuing a man who waved them like a flag through the main hall. He had discovered ancient tapestries; primitive carvings; long lengths of exotic silk.

  But he had found no treasure.

  Lying in his bed with Maisie on the last evening of the fortnight, he reminded her of his promise to seek out Malcolm. She did not deny him, but neither did she encourage him, instead choosing to pull his naked body atop hers once again.

  Adrian did not resist. Choosing to ignore, for at least a while longer, that the equinox would arrive in two days.

  He had no trouble finding the correct path that led into the village the next morning, and felt a tinge of pride that he had refused Reid’s courteous offer of escort. In fact, Adrian didn’t hesitate at all when he came to the edge of the wood, walking between the trees and into the deeper dark of the forest as if he had gone that way a hundred times before. And although he was immediately surrounded by sounds that were both foreign and familiar—the calls of birds, but no birds he’d heard before—rather than becoming anxious at what might be watching him from the safety of the trees and underbrush, he was alert and curious, training his eyes to scan the murky shadows for a glimpse at whatever strange creatures resided there. He wasn’t afraid.

  He’d left his shirt at the castle. He wasn’t certain he needed to put his marks on display after nearly all the folk had seen him, but the attack of the afternhanger had only been stopped at the sight of the black designs, and although Adrian felt a heady increase in confidence as his long falling strides ate up the steep downward path through the wood and the mist kissed his bare skin, he wasn’t foolish.

  Any matter, he found he was growing quite fond of glancing down and seeing the evidence of his survival tattooed on his skin; the lines seemed crisper somehow, darker, a primal part of him now. Adrian didn’t know if that was due to the fact that the wounds from Song’s art were at last completely healed or if the air of Wyldonna emboldened them.

  Were they magic?

  Was he?

  After the past fortnight he’d spent with Maisie Lindsey, he was inclined to at least entertain the idea, if only humorously. They’d made love a score of times, and Adrian had to admit his stamina had not lagged in the least. In fact, it seemed that each time he took her, his desire for her grew tenfold. Even as they lay in each other’s arms at the verge of each dawn, Maisie dosing easily with her head on his chest, Adrian already anticipated the coming night.

  And likely the afternoon as well.

  He hadn’t thought about what the future would hold once he left Wyldonna. There had been no declarations of tender feelings between himself and Maisie, no promises of devotion. They were certainly no longer at odds with each other. Indeed, their uneasy relationship had seemed to grow into something akin to friendship, stewarded by the hours they spent in each other’s beds. Adrian told himself that was tenderness enough for him, and by the way Maisie had flown from his chamber before Reid could discover them that morning, the arrangement suited her as well.

  The only instances that had perplexed him from their encounters were the glimpses of Dragon he’d caught when in Maisie’s chamber. The creature always seemed fast to hide herself away at his arrival, and then, at his departure, she’d once more take up her post as seemingly part of the hearth.

  Did the beast not trust him? Was it because he was a stranger, Man? Or was it the marks on his body perhaps? Dragon had never growled at him, if that was something she was actually wont to do; the bestiary wasn’t explicit on that account. But she had certainly kept herself hidden away from him.

  Likely as not, being such an old creature, she simply didn’t have the patience for his foolishness with her young queen.

  Or perhaps she was simply a modest dragon.

  Adrian grinned to hi
mself as he came out of the wood and onto the wider dirt path between the cottages. As if he’d been waiting for Adrian, the little boy he’d first encountered the day he’d followed Malcolm to the village was sitting in the middle of the road, arranging a circle of stones and sticks. He looked up with a gap-toothed grin as Adrian emerged, and Adrian noticed his golden hair had been put to rights at some point.

  “Good day, Man!” the boy said, scrambling to his feet with nearly a hop of exuberance.

  “Good day,” Adrian returned, unable to help his grin. The child’s happy appearance was infectious.

  “Have you come to battle the afternhanger?” He scrabbled at the air with his fingers hooked like claws and gave a mewling roar before dropping his arms back down with an exaggerated flap. “I know where they be this time of day.”

  “Not today,” Adrian said, walking past the boy. “Thank you for the offer, though.”

  The boy turned and fell in step with Adrian, craning his head to look up into Adrian’s face. “My name’s Edel.” He gave a little leap that turned him to face Adrian, and now he walked backward. “Well, my true name is Edel, but me mam oft calls me Eddy.”

  “Because it’s shorter?” Adrian teased.

  The boy gave Adrian an indulgent grin much like when he’d informed him that everyone was magic. “It isn’t shorter, Man.”

  “I jest,” Adrian allowed. “My name is Adrian, not Man.”

  “Are you nae a man?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the Painted Man.”

  “Some say that.”

  “You’re a man and you’re painted. You must be the Painted Man.”

  “Perhaps I’m a painted man. Not necessarily the painted man.”

  “Hmm.” Edel considered this. “Where are you going then, if not to battle the afternhanger?”

  “I’ve come to see the king. Do you know where he is?”

  “Same place as the afternhangers—in the mountain. He’s always in the mountain.” Another little hop brought the lad to walk alongside Adrian once more, but this time on his right side. “I can take you, if you like. Les geants will hardly let you pass on your own.”