Branded

by Clare London

  “I’ll find my place, Kiel, you don’t need to worry.”

  “But I do!” he cried, startling me. “I promised him I’d watch you, to let him know if there was sudden danger, any new threat from the Queen—”

  I grasped him by the collar of his tunic, hauling his face up to mine, his knees scrabbling on the floor behind him as he tried to keep his balance. “Who are you talking about?” I growled.

  His eyes rolled with fright. He had difficulty speaking because of my grip at his throat. “Uhh…. Maen, let go! It was Hann. Hann asked me to be on watch, that’s all. I tried to tell you, he hasn’t forgotten you—”

  I dropped the youngster abruptly and he fell back on his ass, his arms flung out to try to catch his fall. Several books behind him fell from their heaps, thudding into the dust. He glanced over to where he’d placed the lamp, checking his precious books and papers were safe from the threat of fire.

  “I told you not to seek the camp again!” I snapped. “It’s too dangerous for us all, not just you. You will be the one who puts us in mortal danger, not the Exiles. Do you care nothing for that?”

  Kiel flushed. “I’ve only been once”—he caught my eye—“twice,” he squeaked. “Mistress Flora uses that beacon on the hill, we have a code, and there was a change in the uppermost pile of rocks, so I knew she needed me. Yet when I went there at night, he was there instead.”

  I felt suddenly nauseated. The danger of Dax being that close to the city—of being in contact with a servant of the Queen! How long did he think he’d get away with it? And not only that, he’d been talking to Kiel, had actively sought him out.

  “How dare you!” I turned on Kiel as he cowered on the floor at my feet. “To interfere with something you cannot possibly understand. To act against my express orders.”

  He was terrified of me; his body shook. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Maen. In Devotions’ name, I thought I might help you, that’s all. He wanted to know about you, to know how you were placed in the city. He wanted to know how you were.”

  I stood up abruptly, my head brushing perilously close to one of the lower ceiling beams. I couldn’t breathe properly, full of anger and fear and pain. “He mustn’t have anything to do with me. He knows that. He wished that! She’ll kill him if she knows, if he’s found. She’ll kill us all.”

  “He wanted to know about you,” Kiel repeated doggedly. “He said he needed to know you were safe. I was to tell him, and to alert him if things changed and you were in danger.”

  “He doesn’t need to know about me.” I wasn’t the important one.

  “Yes, you,” Kiel countered, surprisingly brave. “He cares for you, Maen, just like he always did. Yes, he’s angry at you and angry at the Queen, or so Mistress Flora has told me when she can so kindly afford some of her time in explanation. But he can’t forget you.”

  “A soldier isn’t allowed a personal relationship.” I raised my face to the ceiling, my eyes clouding over and the pressure in my head suddenly very acute. My voice sounded alien to me, hoarse and bitter. I didn’t know whether I was talking about Dax or myself.

  Kiel’s voice came back much stronger, and now he was angry too. “You’re being an idiot! Such a strong man, yet so weak when it comes to yourself. What does it matter whether it’s allowed or not, if it still happens? You can’t deny it, and if you do, you show him disrespect as well as yourself. It’s dishonest to us all. Seems to me you’re neither one thing nor the other, Maen, neither soldier nor citizen, neither the Queen’s man nor your own!”

  Sudden, shocked silence fell in the dusty little room.

  I took a step toward Kiel and he flinched, but held his ground. I stopped.

  “I’m his,” I said wonderingly, speaking more to myself than to Kiel, who looked back at me nervously. “I always have been, and nothing here has ever held me as strongly as that. She was right about my loyalty. About my true choice.”

  Kiel frowned, maybe at my perceived disrespect to the Queen and my Mistress. But when he looked back up at me, his eyes were bright with tears. “Go and meet him. He’ll be there, he told me so, every other night. That’s tonight.”

  I shook my head, but slowly. Kiel scrabbled up onto his knees, and I bent down to help him to his feet.

  “He gave me this, to give to you.” Kiel fumbled under his tunic and brought out a small fabric purse. He slid it into my hand and closed my fingers over it. “You’re to send it back to him if there’s danger. If you need him. He said you’d understand what it means.”

  Kiel watched as I opened the bag and tipped its contents onto my palm. He peered over, as curious as ever, his fear forgotten. In the candle’s pale light, it glinted against my skin. “It’s an earring. It’s gold.” His tone was awed, for Remainders rarely saw jewelry up close, let alone handled or wore it. “But wasn’t he only a Bronzeman? Did he steal it? I thought only Gold Warriors could wear the earring, like Zander has—”

  “It’s mine,” I said softly.

  Kiel made a soft, sympathetic noise beside me and brushed his hand against mine.

  “As he is,” I whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I DIDN’T need Kiel’s help to find the Exile camp again, because the route was sharply etched in my memory. Everything was sharp; everything was vivid. The smell of the open air, the harsh, rugged rocks beneath my boots, the sound of small animals and birds that never ventured nearer the city.

  Kiel came with me as far as the walls, yet again directing me to the best place to leave unnoticed. No one saw us leave the Library, nor make our way around the back of the central courtyard and out past the stables and grain barn on the outskirts of the city. Kiel explained it was the most reliable route he knew, as the only inhabitants around there were the servants who slept every free moment they had, and had little interest at the best of times in the politics of the Household. Even so, I felt clumsy and too obvious as I crept around behind him. Kiel moved swiftly and almost silently, as if he could switch off the vibrancy and energy of his character at will and slip back into an inconspicuous gray shadow of a man in the darkness of the night. I knew that if I hadn’t met him personally, I would never have noticed him moving around. I wondered how often I’d passed him in the city without realizing it, before I chanced on him that day in the Library.

  “Maen?” He tugged gently at my sleeve. I’d come straight from the Library, so I had no cloak or coat—and unfortunately no weapon either. “You must go when the Guard is at the farthest end of its march. Are you ready?”

  I nodded. My gaze was already far out toward the horizon.

  “Be careful,” he whispered. When I turned one last time to look at him, he looked close to tears.

  “What is it?”

  “You’re leaving the city, aren’t you? Like I thought you would. For good. You have a strange look on your face, and it scares me. Won’t they come after you? The Queen will know you’ve gone, she won’t allow anyone to leave without her authorization, and you are very close to her.”

  “Don’t concern yourself.” I tried to sound reassuring, quieting him. “She’s busy with many other things. I’ll be all right.”

  “I’m not sure I will be,” he said urgently. “I know I can’t ask you to come back, I know I’m nothing important to you, and that’s how it should be.” He drew a quick, extra breath. “Promise me I’ll see you again some time?”

  I stared at him, then reached down and drew him against me in a quick, rather clumsy hold. “You are important to me, Kiel, and to the city as well. I’ll make sure you’re safe, and I’ll see you again soon. I promise.” Then I stepped quickly away from him and through the gap in the ancient brickwork.

  I SAW Dax before he saw me.

  I clambered up to the cairn that Kiel and Mistress Flora used as their means of contacting each other. It had been a landmark for my previous journey to the Exile camp, but now I saw it as far more important. The ground here was scrub, like everywhere else in this area, and the wind bit
cruelly through the air. The lengthening shadows of the night colored the ground in multitudinous shades of gray; small clusters of trees and tall bushes were distorted into dark, swelling silhouettes: the only places offering temporary shelter and concealment for the secret messenger and his Mistress.

  Or for soldiers, looking to meet outside of their respective worlds.

  Dax had obviously drawn back under the cover of the foliage for protection in case the Exile message system had been discovered or betrayed, but as soon as I came within sight of the tumbled pile of rocks, I knew his position. Maybe I was attuned to him, as I’d once been in my daily life, but maybe it was the strength of my impatience and my gnawing desire to see him that led me there. I reached the perimeter of the farthest copse and then stopped, leaning against an overhanging branch and peering in under its shadow until I saw him. He sat against one of the broad, gnarled trunks, but he hadn’t moved as I approached. Was he asleep? The hour was very late. I wondered how long he’d sat there today, and whether he truly did come to wait here every second night, as he’d told Kiel, for news on life in the city, or… for me.

  I stared at him, at the shape of his body, at his pale hair contrasted against the dark shade of the trees. He’d always be of slimmer build, a lithe and athletic figure, but the harsh life outside the city had strengthened him. His coarse tunic stretched tightly across his shoulders, and where he’d drawn his legs up to his chest, I could see the leather ties that bound the legs of his trousers tightening around his muscled calves. He’d clasped his arms around his knees, and his head had fallen forward, hiding his face from me.

  My heart hammered fiercely against my chest; my mouth was dry. I was a little out of breath from the climb, but that didn’t account for the ache throughout my whole body. I wanted to call out to him, but something stuck in my throat. I’d never felt fear like this before. Our last meeting had been such a shock to me, such an agony of fierce, reawakened emotion. Yet he’d made it very clear to me his life had moved on without me, and that he harbored resentment not only against the city but against me as well.

  Yet he was here tonight. Waiting.

  And then he looked up, straight at me.

  The world fell silent around me in that second. I heard nothing above the thudding of my own heart, not even the sound of a bird nor the wind in the creak of the branches above me.

  “Maen.” His voice was low, but it carried clearly in the night air, breaking the tension. “You came.”

  I stepped toward him, ducking in under one of the lower boughs. “Kiel brought me the message.”

  “The earring.”

  I nodded. It was the sign of what bound us, and always would. Dax stood up slowly as if stiff from having sat for a long time. I watched the way his muscles bunched across his thighs, and the expansion of his chest. My feet suddenly awkward, I took several more steps forward. I held out my hand, the fabric bag in my palm, but he didn’t move to take it back.

  “It was the mark of your rank,” he said softly. “The man you were then.”

  “I’m no longer that man.” My voice sounded hoarse.

  His eyes shone with the reflected moonlight, his face half-shadowed, his skin dappled with the pattern of the bushes around us. “We’ve both changed.”

  I couldn’t be sure about his tone, though his voice was steady. “You’ve found a new life here.”

  He nodded. I could see his face more clearly now; his expression was fierce. “And you have your place in the city.”

  “Dax—”

  He held up a hand, making me pause. “We both have a new life, with responsibilities and duties and people who depend on us, who live with us.” He looked at me swiftly, perhaps trying to gauge my reaction.

  “Yes,” I said, fighting to keep my voice still. “And yet none of it has been any good, not for me.”

  His eyes widened. “None of it can compare, I think.”

  I nodded. “True. Because none of it is as rewarding, as satisfying. None of it soothes the ache inside me. None of it calms the turmoil of my needs. Of my desire.”

  “Maen.” He walked over to me now. He lifted his hand and touched my shoulder. His expression was still set firm, but there were tears in his eyes. “When you came back the other day… I tried to say things then, but it was too difficult. Besides, I persuaded myself I had no right to disturb the paths we’d taken on our own. I’ve learned to live with the pain you left me. I had no need for you, no forgiveness within me for your preferred loyalty to the city.”

  I reached up and grasped his hand, pulling it to my chest. “I have no excuse. You’ve every right to resent me. I was wrong when I thought you’d be better served away from me.”

  “So very wrong.” His voice was so low that I had to dip my head to hear him. “We both were. When I escaped from the city, I was lost for a long time.” His expression twisted as if he were struggling with painful memories. “Not physically, for I found shelter quickly and easily. But I think I was insane for a while. I’d have been happy for the Exiles to have killed me. Some of them wanted to at first, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t think of living any other life—I didn’t want to. How could you believe I’d want to live without you?”

  His breath on my cheek was sharper and fresher than the night air. I’d forgotten the reality of his passion, of his energy, even though he channeled it now into anger against me. “Dax, I was arrogant. I was naive. I don’t know what I was, but believe me, I’ve reconsidered that decision every day since. I thought I’d be able to live with the promise of your safety as comfort, that my own life could still continue with purpose and meaning.”

  “You’re a fool,” he murmured.

  Startled, I stared into his eyes.

  “I’ve had no real peace since I parted from you, so why should you be any different?” There was something deeper in his eyes, not just the sadness, the anguish, the regret. “And then you appeared again, disturbing it all anew, and I find my whole life with the Exiles has been a sham. Nothing but a mask, Maen, a game I’ve played, as if I were genuinely satisfied with the people and the power in my new life. I can’t maintain that now. I can’t pretend it ever compensated.”

  “Nothing can!” I cried out from my own emotion.

  “We’re both fools.” He smiled again, and this time I reached forward and captured his mouth with mine.

  I swallowed his gasp—tasting the soft dryness of his lips. He bent back his head and I bore down over him. He slipped an arm around my waist and turned me, pushing us both to the nearest tree trunk, my back landing flat against its smooth bark. His strength excited me; he matched me in many ways now.

  “You were wrong,” he whispered. “You are still that man who wore the earring, now as then. In all the ways that matter. The man I knew and wanted—the one I always will.”

  “Dax….”

  “Quiet.” He nipped at my lower lip, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. He pushed his knee between my legs, forcing them farther apart, nudging his groin against mine. I only had cloth trousers on and my arousal was straining against the front of them. Suddenly I didn’t care about restraining myself anymore. All I wanted to do was to hold, taste, and smell him. The wind rose briefly, hissing through the trees and lifting my hair, wafting the smell of sap and soil up under my nose. I gripped Dax tightly and pressed back into his kiss, rubbing myself against him.

  “Your men?” I gasped.

  He shook his head, panting heavily. “No one knows I’m here. They know I patrol the camp at night, and it’s just been a matter of making my way up here when I’m out of sight of the late fires.”

  “How often?” I whispered, my mouth close to his ear, tasting the skin of his neck.

  He laughed sadly, his chest shaking gently against me. “When I first escaped, I used to sit up here every night, wondering if I’d see you.” I pulled back from him, shocked. “No”—he shook his head—“listen to me, I don’t need pity. I don’t mean to anger or distress you. I knew I wouldn�
��t see you again, I knew I’d lost you. But this was as far as I dared go, out of my exile, yet still to be in contact somehow with the city. With you. After a while….” He sighed, and tightened his hands on my waist. “After a while I stopped coming.”

  “And yet you continued to use this as a contact place?”

  He nodded. “I know Flora’s been using it to keep in touch with her allies in the city and with her messenger Kiel. I’ve tolerated that as long as there was no danger to the camp. Kiel’s a resourceful young man. He’s obviously managed to move between here and the city without anyone following him.”

  I tensed slightly, wondering if that were entirely true, but the scent of Dax’s skin was in my nostrils and his legs were pushing against my thighs, and I couldn’t think clearly. “I thought you were dead.” My voice sounded broken, even to my own ears. “They told me they’d killed you in that raid. I accepted it as truth. When I saw you again, the shock disturbed everything I wanted to say, to do.”

  He raised his head again and kissed my face, his mouth fierce and hungry on my skin. “You were as good as dead to me, the day I left, and maybe I didn’t want to know any different. It was as much a shock to me, to find you still living, still within my reach.”

  “No more shock.” The passion inside me burst out as a growl. “We’re far from dead men. Feel it!” I scrabbled for the belt around his waist and tugged the clasp open, reaching under his tunic, pushing the fabric roughly up under his arms, desperate to touch him. His skin was taut across the muscles of his torso, chilled in the night air, but his pulse was warm under my palms. I ran my fingers over his nipple and twisted it. He sucked in a sharp breath.

  “I couldn’t bear it, Maen. To see you return… and then to let you go again. When I kissed you—”

  “No,” I said hoarsely. “No more words.”

  His mouth covered mine and we swallowed whatever sounds we made, sounds of pleasure and sudden, consuming need. He ground up against me, his cock swollen and hard under his trousers, rubbing against mine, the friction causing both frustration and joy. His laughter rumbled in his chest, his breath shortening. The smell of him was intoxicating; his gasps were in my head, making me dizzy.