Rowan gasped. “He didn’t!”
“I don’t know whether he did it himself, but it was done. The queen was angry that he disposed of the body before her return, but he told her that he’d had enough, that even a king’s last wife deserved a decent burial, and he wasn’t going to have her present to make a mockery of it. She was still the queen after that, but I don’t know if he ever spoke to her again except for official business.”
“You say all of this like it’s nothing to you.”
“It was something at the time. No one told me what my father had done, of course. I didn’t learn that until just a few years ago, not long before he disappeared. I knew she was gone, though. I barely remember it now, but I was heartbroken. I cried. I behaved badly. I slept little, and when I did, I had nightmares and screamed for her. Things like that aren’t allowed to go on for long in my family. It’s weakness.”
I almost felt something then, almost remembered the pain, but I didn’t have any tears left—not for myself, for my dead mother, or for anything that came after.
Someone did, though. I felt wetness soaking into the sleeve of my shirt. “Are you crying for me, or for her?” I asked. “I’m fine.”
“For her, a bit. Mostly for that little boy who wasn’t allowed to love his own mother.” She sniffled, and I put my arm around her shoulders. Her hair smelled like the lake, fresh and clean. I rested my head on hers, just for a moment.
“I was fortunate, really. When my mother was in Luid, she chose loyal servants for herself who became her friends. Most of them left after she died, but her maid Mona stayed, and Mona’s husband John, who was a healer. They cared for me, and I’m fortunate that they did. My father wanted nothing to do with me. I think I reminded him too much of her. My mother had a house on this lake, a gift from my father, and they brought me here every summer.”
“To this house?”
“No, it’s on the other side of the lake. I thought Severn might think to look there. This house belonged to Mrs. Pritchen, a friend of Mona’s. I wanted to stay here because it has smokestone-lined chimneys. So we were here at the lake every summer, and I met Kel and the others when I was eight years old.”
“And you came here until you were…”
“Sixteen. That was a good summer.”
“And then what?”
“You know, I should go check the fire.” I tried to sit up, but Rowan dug her fingers into my arm and held on.
This part was harder. I didn’t remember my mother, but I remembered Mona and John. “I wanted to come alone that summer. Mona and John spent some time elsewhere. They were arrested as soon as they returned to the city without me, sentenced to death, and the sentence carried out before I knew anything about it.”
Rowan let go of me and sat up. “What? Why?”
“The official documents say they were convicted of abducting a member of the royal family, and that it was suspected they’d killed me. My father wasn’t pleased. The charges were obviously false, and it made him look foolish. I believed Severn was responsible, but couldn’t prove it. He told me to let it go, that I was too old to need them. He was right about that. I wasn’t a child anymore. But they were like family to me, and John was a good teacher. Too good. He helped me develop my magic enough to make Severn realize that he could use me.
“Severn oversaw my training after they died. I hated him, but had no choice but to do what he wanted. In time, I learned to set my resentment aside and forget—Ouch.” Rowan had grabbed onto my wrist, and was gripping so hard that her nails bit into my skin.
“I’m sorry. It’s just… is your entire family evil?”
“No. Power-hungry, certainly, and proud, and used to getting what we want. I did come back to the lake once after that, briefly, to tell the merfolk that I would stay away. We were at odds by then over my magic, and I wasn’t exactly welcome. The situation with Severn just made that decision easier.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone I’d ever cared about got hurt. My mother, Mona and John. There was a little girl I used to play with when I was a child, and she just disappeared around the same time as my mother, no explanation. Even people I didn’t care about weren’t safe. There was a theologian in Luid who I asked about the things my brothers and I did to people. I wanted to know whether our souls were lost, and I asked whether there was a hell, and if we were going there. He answered me, and when Severn found out, he had the man killed so that no one would learn about my doubts. I think Severn thought he was protecting me. That was long after I stopped coming to the lake, though.”
“What did he say?”
“Who?”
“The priest guy. What was his answer?”
It wasn’t hard to remember. I heard the words in my mind every time I thought about going against my brother. “He said that my duty in this world was to be loyal to my family, and that I would be rewarded for it. That if it was damnation I sought, I would find it ‘surely and quickly’ by defying those who had authority over me. I’ve certainly done that. I guess I’ll have to wait and see if he was right.”
Rowan was silent for a minute. Her body was still tucked in close to mine, but to me it felt like a chasm had opened between us. Words didn’t exist that could make her understand all of it.
I was about to leave when she pushed herself higher on the bed and whispered, “I’m sorry.” She kissed me high on my cheekbone.
I drew in a quick breath. It wasn’t often that someone surprised me. She pulled away and lay back on her pillow, dark hair spread out behind her, glowing in the lamplight. Wetness still reflected in her eyes, but she was calm, and seemed more at peace than I’d seen her before.
“Sorry for what?” I asked, and looked away. She was too much.
“For everything that happened. For making you talk about it.”
I hoped my story wasn’t going to give her unpleasant dreams. “I’ve had good times in my life, too. They were just less significant things. And don’t be sorry for asking. Maybe hearing all of that will help you understand why I am what I am.”
She closed her eyes. “I think it does, a little. Sleep well.”
I went to the door and turned back to say goodnight, but she was already asleep.
Chapter XXV
Rowan
WE WERE BACK IN THE cupboard at the inn, though now there was enough light that I could just see Aren’s face when I looked up. I knew it was a dream, but some things seemed clearer than they had when I was awake. The questions that never stopped clamoring for attention in my waking mind became insignificant, and there was nothing outside of that space that mattered.
I stretched up on my toes and clasped my hands behind his neck. “Kiss me,” I whispered.
He didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer, and then his lips were on mine. A bolt of warm energy shot through me, and I was suddenly aware of how our bodies were forced together in that small space. I hadn’t noticed before how my breasts were pressed against his ribs, but I felt it now, and tried to pull him closer, to eliminate every bit of space between our bodies. I felt him smile, and he reached up to touch my face, to wind his fingers through my hair as our kiss deepened. His other hand traced the line of my shoulder, then trailed across my collarbone and slipped inside my open jacket, teasing me through the thin fabric of my shirt. His tongue—
A crashing noise jerked me from my dreams, and I found myself sitting up in bed, heart pounding. The room was dark, my headache was gone, and I was alone. I pulled the heavy blankets tight around me, as though they would protect me from danger as they did from the room’s frozen air.
There were no more noises. No wind outside, no crashes, no creak of the bed saying that Aren was up to check on things. I leaned out of bed, retrieved the socks that I’d kicked off in my sleep, and left the safety of my room. I paused at the top of the stairs, listening, then crept down and through the sitting room. Nothing seemed out of place.
The door to the littl
e room off of the kitchen creaked when I opened it. Aren shifted in the larger bed. “’S a book,” he mumbled. “Knocked over a thing. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”
I would have asked how he knew that, but he seemed to be asleep again, and enjoying a more restful night than I was. He lay on his stomach with the blankets pushed almost down to his waist. Though it was warmer in that room than it had been upstairs, there was still a chill in the air. I reached out to pull the blankets up.
I paused with my hand in mid-air, and squinted. How did I not see that before?
A massive scar covered half his back—or at least, I thought that’s what it was. The center of it, just beneath his right shoulder blade, looked like the remains of a badly-healed wound, a rippled mess of pale skin. Fainter scars branched out from it, spreading across his shoulder and ribs, silver in the dim moonlight that filtered through the curtains. They reminded me of the patterns that show on a window after a frost, or vines climbing a wall. I felt terrible for prying information from him earlier, but I knew I’d be asking about this in the morning.
I pulled the blankets up, and my cold fingers brushed over the unmarked skin of his arm. He shivered, and I wondered what dreams I might have disturbed.
I climbed into the cot and pulled the quilt over me. It was too cold to go back upstairs. As I drifted off, I hoped my dreams wouldn’t pick up where they’d left off. Pleasant as they’d been, I didn’t want him to see them.
As it turned out, I worried for nothing. I woke alone in the room with a faint pounding behind my eyes and a vague memory of dreaming about something burning. Though I felt relief that Aren hadn’t showed up in my mind, I was disappointed to have not found out where the first dream had been going. But what did that dream say about me?
Maybe I could blame it on the heartleaf.
I stretched and rolled out of bed. Aren was already dressed and sitting at the table. I muttered “good morning” as I passed him on my way upstairs. I shed the nightgown and pulled on a pair of warm pants and a thin sweater from the closet, then raced back to the warmth downstairs. I went to look outside. Snow had drifted halfway up the window overnight, and I couldn’t see over it. I supposed being snowed in wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to us. The horses were snug in the stable, and we had enough food.
Aren joined me at the window, and I tried not to notice how close he was standing. “Can you see anything?” I asked.
“Yes. Snow.”
“Thank you.”
“Any time.” I held my breath until he turned and went to add wood to the stove. “Were you too cold upstairs?” he asked.
“Yes. I was fine until I woke up, but you were right. It’s warmer down here. Um, if you don’t mind me asking, I noticed on your back…”
He grimaced. “The scar?”
I nodded.
“I think I mentioned Severn trying to kill me when I was younger. That’s what he left me with. He attacked me with pure magic. I would have died if John hadn’t been there to heal me, or if Mona hadn’t looked after me in the months it took for me to recover. No big story for that one.”
“So the magic made it all fancy?”
He smiled, and the memory of my dream hit me, the way that smile felt against my lips.
“I suppose,” he said.
“Can I see it again?”
He gave me a strange look, but shrugged. He sat facing backward on a dining chair and pulled off his sweater and the shirt beneath. In the bright light of morning the patterns were less visible, white against his already pale skin and showing only a hint of the silver color that the moonlight had brought out. I rested a hand on his shoulder, barely touching him. His skin felt almost feverish in its warmth.
“Do you mind?” I whispered.
“No.”
I traced my finger over the scar, brushing over the uneven skin in the center and trailing down to where the curves ended at the bottom of his ribcage, then around and up to his shoulder, over muscles that were hard and tense beneath his skin. The tendrils continued up, and I brushed his hair aside so I could see where they ended on his neck, curled like a fiddlehead fern behind his ear.
A faint tremor ran over his back. I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding, whether he felt what I did.
Aren reached up and wrapped his hand gently around mine. “Rowan, I don’t think—”
A knock at the door interrupted him, and a look of panic crossed his face as he turned. I stepped back, and he walked to the window with long, fluid strides, appearing ready for whatever might be out there.
“It’s all right,” he said, and pulled his sweater back on. He unlocked the door and Kel shuffled in, carrying a large silver-brown fish by the tail. He wore the pants and shirt he’d borrowed the day before, and nothing on his snow-covered feet.
“Thanks,” he said. “So, what’s happening? Everyone have a good night?”
“Good enough,” Aren said, and went to put the kettle on.
Kel flopped into a chair. “Aren, Cassia says hello. She didn’t want to come up, said snow makes her skin itch.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Oh, Cassia’s my sister. She and Aren used to—” he glanced at Aren. “They were friends.”
“I see.” I looked at the fish, which now hung from Kel’s hand with its face resting on the floor, flat eyes staring at nothing. “So, about that trout?”
Kel seemed to have forgotten about it. “Oh, breakfast, if you haven’t eaten yet. I can clean it.”
“I’ve got it.” Aren took the fish and grabbed a slim knife from a kitchen drawer. “I was going to let the horses out, anyway. Might as well do this outside.”
Kel settled back into his chair and wiped his hands on the leg of his pants. “Decent sort of chap, isn’t he?”
“Seems to be, sometimes. Can I ask you something?”
“I assume so.”
I sat on the table in front of him and leaned in. “You and Aren haven’t seen each other in years, and I’m sure you have some idea of what he’s been up to during that time.”
“Hmm, I see what you mean. Disappointing, but not surprising given what and where he came from.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“Bother me? No, it’s his life, not mine. I have no say in it. My people and I wished things could have been different, but he did what he thought he had to do, and he had the decency to keep us out of it. But I think what you’re wondering is why I’m not more cautious of him now.”
“Yes.”
“You seem comfortable with what you know about him so far, which is at least enough to make you ask these questions, so…” He spread his hands before him. “I don’t know why you’re so attached to him, but that’s between the two of you. As for me, my people are excellent judges of character, and we don’t second-guess our instincts.” Kel’s brown eyes grew distant. “I remember the last time I saw Aren before this. He was becoming so cold. Not cruel yet, but hard and empty. I was very surprised to see him yesterday, and you with him. He’s changed again. Not back to the person he was when he was younger, but he’s certainly not who I thought he’d become. I should tell you that I have no way of knowing whether this is permanent. You humans change like the tides. But for now, he’s someone I’m happy to call a friend. Good enough?”
I sighed, relieved. I hardly knew Kel, but I still trusted his judgment more than my own where Aren was concerned. “Yes, thank you.”
After breakfast, Kel asked if he could have a few minutes alone with Aren. “Of course,” I said. “I’m going to make a cup of heartleaf and lie down.”
Aren followed me to the kitchen. “Not too strong, though.” He looked like he was holding back laughter.
“I know.” I thought back to the evening before. I remembered what he’d told be about himself and his family, but what else? I didn’t recall much about going to bed, except… Oh, no. My face grew warm.
“Did I tell you you were pretty last night?” I whispered.
&
nbsp; That damned smile again. “You did.”
“Oh.” I pinched bark into a cup—about a third of the amount I’d used the night before—and added the water. The strong dose had kept the pain away for longer than I was accustomed to, but I didn’t even want to think about what I’d tell him if I tried it again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I bet you’re fun when you’re drunk.”
I took my tea to the little bedroom and closed the door behind me. I drank it as it cooled, and fell asleep to the muffled, comforting sound of their voices.
I didn’t sleep long, and didn’t dream. I did wake thinking about Callum, though. That was over for me. No matter what happened, no matter what he knew about magic and whether I found a cure for my problem or not, I wasn’t going back.
But he didn’t know any of this. Was he still looking for me? I’d intended to send him a letter when we stopped in a town, but hadn’t had a chance to do it. I would have to find a way. I’d tell him I was safe, and tell him what I’d learned about magic. My parents and uncle Ches, too. I wasn’t going to be coming home any time soon, and I didn’t want them to worry any more than they had to.
Kel and Aren didn’t turn when the door opened. Kel lounged with one leg up on the sofa. A large sheet of paper was rolled up on the table, next to my dragon scale. “An eagle, though?” Kel asked Aren. “Really? You couldn’t have gone with something aquatic? It’s so much more fun.”
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 166
