Heart of the Wolf

by Saranne Dawson

  The Kassid, by contrast, were very indulgent with their children. Little ones scampered about among the adults playing games with abandon, and other than making certain they didn’t get hurt or over turn the heavily laden tables, the adults ignored their antics.

  "Daken," she said after watching all this, "I fear that you are going to hate my court very quickly.”

  “From all that you have told me about it, I wonder that you can tolerate it.”

  ‘I’ve never known anything else—until these past few months,” she pointed out.

  And she wondered if she would be able to tolerate it. She knew that she had changed greatly during her time here—and yet the court would have remained the same.

  As soon as the traditional toasts had been made

  and the songs sung, and after they had circulated through the crowd and complimented those who had worked so hard for this, Daken took her hand and leaned close to whisper that they could now make their escape.

  "But we’ve been here only an hour or so,” Jocelyn protested. They would never be able to get away with this at the palace.

  "They will enjoy themselves without us,” he said as he began to lead her away. "And they will forgive us for having other things on our minds.”

  As soon as Daken had opened the door into the suite, he swept her into his arms and strode down the hallway to his bedchamber. She gasped when she saw it.

  "Oh Daken, this is wonderful! But the winter garden must be bare of flowers now."

  Huge golden and silver vases had been filled with all the lovely flowers she’d seen in the winter garden. Their scent filled the large chamber. The fire had been lit, and on a low table near the hearth was a magnificent golden tray with jewelled edges, containing a gem-studded gold wine carafe and two tiny goblets.

  He set her down and she walked over to the hearth. "I’ve never seen this before. It’s .. . beautiful.” It was in fact the most exquisite thing she’d ever seen. Words simply could not describe it.

  “It belongs to us all,” he explained. "It’s very ancient. No one really knows its origins, so naturally there are those who say it too is a gift from the gods."

  "They may be right," she said, picking up the fragile goblet to peer at the tiny gems worked into intricate designs all over the cup and stem.

  He picked up the carafe and poured a dark golden liquid into both goblets. "This is a special wine, made in very small quantities because the berries are quite rare."

  He paused and smiled. "It is believed to have, ah, certain qualities that can prove beneficial on a wedding night."

  Jocelyn had been sniffing at it, and when he finished, she very dramatically set it down, then took his from his hand as well.

  "I think we had better forgo that tradition. There is such a thing as too much, Daken."

  But they did eventually drink the wine as they sat naked before the fire. Perhaps it made a difference. In any event, Jocelyn was proved wrong—there could never be too much for them.

  Chapter Nine

  For the first time since her arrival in the Dark Mountains, Jocelyn felt warm. Not even Daken’s warning that this was undoubtedly a false spring could dampen her pleasure at being outdoors again without so many layers of clothing. For two days now, they’d lived with the incessant sounds of melting snow dripping from the roofs and balconies of the fortress.

  They rode across the bridge behind the first hunting party to go out in several months. Both men and horses were clearly in high spirits. Jocelyn had wanted to exercise her horse, but Daken had insisted that she ride a Kassid horse because the trails would still be icy in places. Having seen the incredible agility of the ungainly animals, she’d acquiesced.

  The hunting party soon turned off onto another

  trail, leaving Daken and Jocelyn alone on the main trail. Because this part of the trail lay in sunshine most of the day, it was nearly bare, although deep snow still covered the steep slopes and hung in great, dripping clumps from the tall firs.

  They rode in a companionable silence, although they exchanged frequent glances. It seemed that they couldn't keep their eyes from each other for very long—as though each still doubted the other’s existence.

  Daken had become an extension of herself—the eternally mysterious, unknowable part. He was open and honest and willing to discuss his feelings, but the mystery remained. Most of the time, she simply ignored that mystery, but every so often, something would happen to threaten her peace of mind.

  Jocelyn thought about a conversation the day before with Tassa, as they'd both watched the men- at-arms practice in the courtyard. She was forcing herself to watch this now, knowing she must accept what almost certainly lay ahead.

  Tassa was normally a quiet woman, rarely exposing her feelings. But after a long silence, she had turned to Jocelyn with a proud gleam in her eyes.

  "Now I begin to understand what it means to be Kassid,” she said. "Always I have known who and what we are—but it seemed so much a part of the past. Now I can feel it. Do you feel the difference, Jocelyn?”

  Jocelyn acknowledged that she had and Tassa had gone on.

  "Something that has slept for centuries is now awakening. Perhaps it is the ancestors. Even though they've not yet been called to battle, their spirits know what is to come. I hate war—as we all do—but there is something good in this feeling.”

  As they rode along in the bright sunshine, Jocelyn cast a sidelong glance at Daken and continued to think about Tassa’s remarks. She did feel the difference, though not in the way Tassa had. She’d felt that differentness in the Kassid from the beginning, but the feeling had grown steadily stronger these past few weeks.

  She felt it most of all, of course, with Daken. From the beginning, she’d sensed his quiet pride, but now that pride seemed to come rather close to arrogance, as though it had been honed to a sharper edge. His behavior toward her and others hadn't changed—but something had changed.

  She broke the silence between them by relating to him that conversation with Tassa.

  He nodded. “She is right. Something has awakened in us. Our legends tell us that the old gods created the Kassid to defend their sacred mountains, and if that is true, then we were warriors from the very beginning. We’ve been at peace for a very long time now, so we have perhaps forgotten our purpose." He paused, then went on in a softer tone.

  "And may the gods grant us a long period of peace again, when this is over."

  Jocelyn, who tried to hold her tongue when he spoke of certain victory, didn’t succeed this time.

  "Hammad has fought and won many battles. In fact, he’s never lost. And yet I know that he cannot be this certain of victory."

  "Hammad is not Kassid," Daken said succinctly, with that trace of arrogance that she often heard in him now.

  As they lapsed into silence again, Jocelyn began to think about the long journey back to Ertria— back to a life that had grown very distant indeed. How would her court react to this army of proud warriors who would be descending upon them? Might they not fear the Kassid as much as they feared Arrat’s army? They wouldn't have the advantage she’d had of seeing these people in their normal lives. What they would see was an army of fierce, arrogant warriors, led by a man whose mere physical presence would be intimidating to them.

  And a man who was married to their empress, thereby gaining even greater stature and power. They might well believe that Daken had gotten what Arrat had once sought, and that one evil had been exchanged for another. Furthermore, if Daken showed his dislike of the way the court operated, some of them could well decide that they would be better off with their empress married to Arrat.

  She continued to think about that for a time, then reluctantly faced up to feelings that had been growing stealthily within her for some time. Didn’t she too fear that Daken would usurp her authority—not deliberately, but simply by being who and what he was? By marrying him, hadn’t she placed her right to rule in even greater danger?

  She hated the
se thoughts, because she loved the man. But they were the thoughts of an empress, not a woman, and she would soon become empress.

  While she lingered in her thoughts, Daken had led them off the main trail and onto another that was just barely discernible. Now those thoughts vanished beneath a rush of pleasure as they emerged from the thick woods.

  Before them lay a great meadow, a long, southfacing slope where the dark firs had given way to open land. The sun had melted away all the snow, and the field was ablaze with brilliant scarlet and purple flowers with long, feathery leaves. They rippled in the light breeze, creating a scene of such astonishing beauty that Jocelyn was totally entranced.

  “I had hoped they would be blooming," Daken said with satisfaction. "These flowers exist nowhere but in this meadow and a smaller one not far from here."

  He dismounted and tied his horse to a tree at the meadow's edge, then lifted her from her saddle. She stood there, still staring at the scene, thinking of nothing at all except that there was no place else she wanted to be. After a long winter when the outdoors was always black, gray, or white, these brilliant flowers beneath a blue sky seemed truly a miracle.

  Magic, she thought. Is it any wonder that the Kassid believe in it, living in such a place?

  After he had tethered her horse, Daken came up to her and took her hand, then began to wade through the flowers that were knee—high to him but reached nearly to her waist.

  She pulled them both to a halt. "Daken, we’re trampling the flowers."

  He laughed and waved his free hand around them. "There’s a whole field full of them. The few we trample will be back next year."

  She shrugged and gave in, although it still seemed wrong to her to mar the exquisite beauty of the place. They waded through the wonderfully sweet-smelling flowers until they had reached the very center of the meadow. Daken stopped and drew her into his arms.

  "I want to make love to you here. I’ve been thinking about this for days." His voice was low and husky as he buried his face in her unbound, wind- ruffled hair.

  "Here?" she gasped, already feeling the powerful pull of her never-ending need for him. "But . . .’’

  “We’re alone. If anyone else should come along the trail, they’ll see our horses and stay away.”

  Jocelyn felt both terribly exposed and strangely excited. Both emotions trembled through her as he pushed the cloak from her shoulders and began to undress her with fumbling fingers that betrayed his urgency.

  Freedom! She’d never felt such a wonderful, wild freedom. The warm breeze played over her bare skin and surrounded her with the lush fragrance of the flowers. Their brilliant colors added a rich sensuality to a scene that needed no more.

  Daken was much faster at casting off his own clothes. They embraced, her soft curves molding

  themselves easily to his hard angles. The flowers nodded their approval and a few feathery stems brushed against their naked skin.

  Then they fell onto the cloak he had spread, surrounded by the heady scent of the flowers and the deeper, darker aroma of rich, damp earth.

  There was a different, richer texture to their love- making this day—an urgency to match the perfection of the scene and a certainty that this was a moment to be captured in its uniqueness.

  The miraculous meadow became part of their shattering climax—brilliant flowers exploding against the blue sky as they offered up their own version of perfection.

  Afterward, they lay there with their bodies entangled and sated, simply staring up through the nodding scarlet and purple flowers to the heavens, saying nothing and, for the moment, wanting nothing. They lingered over long, slow kisses, intoxicated by the day, the place—and each other.

  Finally, he got to his feet, then helped her up. Once more aware of their vulnerability here, she reached for her scattered clothing. But he seized her hand and began to wade once more through the flowers, this time down a gentle slope.

  "Where are we going?” She asked, looking around them nervously.

  "Down here,” he replied. Ahead of them, the meadow ended abruptly where two steep slopes merged.

  She opened her mouth to protest, then stopped as the sound of rushing water became clearer, separating from the softer sigh of the breeze.

  It was a small waterfall—or rather, two water-

  falls, since one diverged above them and two fell into the pool several yards apart. A mist hovered over the pool and the breeze carried to her that faint, mineral scent.

  He sat down on the rocky ledge, then slid into the pool and lifted her down as well. The water reached nearly to her shoulders and was wonderfully warm.

  “We have company,” he said quietly, then began to turn slowly to face the rocky source of the waterfall.

  Jocelyn saw the wolf even before his words could have an effect on her. Her body stiffened. He turned back to her and began to stroke her back soothingly.

  "He won't hurt us."

  She stared up at the creature. It was too far away for her to see the color of its eyes, but not even Daken's soothing hands and words could quell her fear.

  “Is it one .. . one of you?"

  "No, it’s an ordinary wolf. But they never attack us—and you are safe because you're with me. It’s just curious about us, that’s all."

  The animal apparently had satisfied its curiosity, because a moment later, it began to descend from the rocks and then disappeared around the edge of the hill. Only then did it occur to her to question how he knew of its presence, when his back had been to it.

  He shrugged. “We can always tell when one is near—just as they know when we’re around. I just felt its presence."

  Jocelyn did not forget the beauty of the day, but that night as she lay in his arms, the wolf and the man once again merged into a nightmare. When she cried out and he woke her gently, she pretended she could not recall the dream—and wished that were true.

  Will I ever see this place again? I have learned so much here, and I have known such happiness. Jocelyn's eyes misted over with tears and her throat constricted painfully as she stared across the ravine at the great black fortress. It seemed another lifetime ago that she had come here believing herself to be the captive of a people whose very existence she had doubted.

  The long line of Kassid warriors in their dark garb stretched back to the bridge and beyond into the courtyard that wasn’t visible from this spot. Daken had called a brief halt as they both stared back at the ancient home of the Kassid.

  He reached over to cover her hand, and she tried to blink away the tears before turning to him. How could she explain them?

  “Nothing in life is certain, Jocelyn. But I believe we will both return one day. Otherwise, I’m not sure I could allow either of us to leave."

  She nodded and swallowed. "No matter what happens, my heart will always be here.”

  Paying no attention at all to the men behind them, Daken leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. "And mine will be with you."

  Then they urged their horses onward, and the long line of warriors followed. All through the gray,

  overcast day, the column wound its way down from the highest peaks. At times, Jocelyn could look up and see the rear of the line on the trail high above

  them. It was an impressive sight—one she wished their enemy could see.

  In the final weeks before their departure, that quiet certainty that the Kassid projected had become her certainty, too. She felt, as Tassa had put it, that awakening of ancient forces that had lain dormant in the Dark Mountains for centuries. She no longer doubted that victory would be theirs; she worried only about the cost of that victory for them all.

  She slanted a glance at Daken as they rode side by side on a downward-spiraling trail. The sun had broken through the clouds and now reflected off the crest sewn onto his heavy knit tunic. All the men wore this crest, and when she’d first seen it, she’d thought it vaguely familiar. He’d told her that it was the ancient symbol for their people. She hadn’t given it much tho
ught then, but when he turned to her and she saw it again, a memory suddenly stirred.

  She had seen it before—on the walls in that secret room at the palace. She was sure of it. Or was she? So many-years had passed, and she’d seen it only that one time. How could she possibly remember one symbol among so many on those walls? But

  then, hadn’t she already decided that the room had something to do with the Kassid?

  There is an explanation, she thought. When we get to the palace, I will have that wall tom down and

  then I will take Daken down there. But in the meantime, she continued to keep her secret.

  They made camp that night in the place where Jocelyn had first met Daken—and where her Guards had met their deaths at the hands of the Menoans. Daken had told her that the size of their force required them to make several camps, but this was the safest and he preferred to have her here.

  She nodded her agreement, but as the camp was set up, she wondered why he should be concerned about her safety here. It seemed more likely to her that he wanted her to come back here, to face up to both the past and the future.

  How could she not face the future, she thought, when everywhere she looked, she saw warriors? And so she did. The men were different. They were more disciplined and more intense, and even without the uniforms and weaponry, she would have felt that difference.

  The men slept in the open, in large sacks of oiled hide with the wool on the inside. They reminded Jocelyn of over-sized versions of the sacks babies were frequently put into for sleeping. By day, the sacks were rolled up and stored behind the men’s saddles.

  A tent had been brought along for her and Daken, and he had it set up slightly apart from the rest of the men to afford them some privacy. Night fell quickly, and after the evening meal, Jocelyn retired to the tent, while Daken remained for a time with his men.