A Little Fate

by Nora Roberts

  HE’D never seen anything like the garden before. But then, Kylar had seen a great deal of the unexpected in Rose Castle in a short time. Such as a queen dressed in men’s clothing—trousers and a ragged tunic. The result was odd, and strangely alluring. Her hair was tied back, but not with anything so female as a ribbon. She’d knotted it with a thin leather strap, such as he did himself when doing some quick spot of manual labor.

  Her face was flushed from her work and as lovely as the flower he’d first taken her for. She did not look pleased to see him. Even as he watched, her eyes chilled.

  Behold the ice queen, he thought. A man would risk freezing off important parts of his body should he try to thaw her.

  “I see you’re feeling better, my lord.”

  “If you’d spared me five minutes of your time, you’d have seen so before.”

  “Will you pardon us, Orna.” She knelt and began to plant the long eyes of potatoes harvested earlier in the year. It was a distraction, one she needed. Seeing him again stirred her, in dangerous ways. “You’ll excuse me, my lord, if I continue with my task.”

  “Are there no servants to do such things?”

  “There are fifty-two of us in Rose Castle. We all have our places and our duties.”

  He squatted beside her, though it caused his side to weep. Taking her hand, he turned it over and examined the ridge of callus. “Then I would say, my lady, you have too many duties.”

  “It’s not for you to question me.”

  “You don’t give answers, so I must continue to question. You healed me. Why do you resent me?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know that I require both hands for this task.” When he released her, she continued to plant. “I’m unused to strangers,” she began. Surely that was it. She had never seen, much less healed, a stranger before. Wouldn’t that explain why, after looking into his mind, into his heart, she felt so drawn to him?

  And afraid of him.

  “Perhaps my manners are unpolished, so I will beg your pardon for any slight.”

  “They’re polished diamond-bright,” he corrected. “And stab at a man.”

  She smiled a little. “Some men, I imagine, are used to softer females. I thought Cordelia would suit your needs.”

  “She’s biddable enough, and pretty enough, which is why you have the dragon guarding her.”

  Her smile warmed fractionally. “Of course.”

  “I wonder why I prefer you to either of them.”

  “I couldn’t say.” She moved down the row, and when he started to move with her, he gasped. She cursed. “Stubborn.” She rose, reached down, and to his surprise, wrapped her arms around him. “Hold on to me. I’ll help you inside.”

  He simply buried his face in her hair. “Your scent,” he told her. “It haunts me.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I can’t get your face out of my head, even when I sleep.”

  Her stomach fluttered, alarming her. “Sir, I will not be trifled with.”

  “I’m too damn weak to trifle with you.” Hating the unsteadiness, he leaned heavily against her. “But you’re beautiful, and I’m not dead.” When he caught his breath, he eased away. “I should be. I’ve had time to think that through.” He stared hard into her eyes. “I’ve seen enough battle to know when a wound is mortal. Mine was. How did I cheat death, Deirdre? Are you a witch?”

  “Some would say.” Because his color concerned her, she unbent enough to put an arm around his waist. “You need to sit before you fall. Come back inside.”

  “Not to bed. I’ll go mad.”

  She’d tended enough of the sick and injured to know the truth of that. “To a chair. We’ll have tea.”

  “God spare me. Brandy?”

  She supposed he was entitled. She led him through a doorway, down a dim corridor away from the kitchen. She skirted the main hallway and moved down yet another corridor. The room where she took him was small, chilly, and lined floor to ceiling with books.

  She eased him into a chair in front of the cold fireplace, then went over to open the shutters and let in the light.

  “The days are still long,” she said conversationally as she walked to the fireplace. This one was framed in smooth green marble. “Planting needs to be finished while the sun can warm the seeds.”

  She crouched in front of the fire, set the logs to light. “Is there grass in your world? Fields of it?”

  “Yes.”

  She closed her eyes a moment. “And trees that go green in spring?”

  He felt a wrench in his gut. For home—and for her. “Yes.”

  “It must be like a miracle.” Then she stood, and her voice was brisk again. “I must wash, and see to your brandy. You’ll be warm by the fire. I won’t be long.”

  “My lady, have you never seen a field of grass?”

  “In books. In dreams.” She opened her mouth again, nearly asked him to tell her what it smelled like. But she wasn’t sure she could bear to know. “I won’t keep you waiting long, my lord.”

  She was true to her word. In ten minutes she was back, her hair loose again over the shoulders of a dark green dress. She carried the brandy herself.

  “Our wine cellars were well stocked once. My grandfather, I’m told, was shrewd in that area. And in this one,” she added, gesturing toward the books. “He enjoyed a glass of good wine and a good book.”

  “And you?”

  “The books often, the wine rarely.”

  When she glanced toward the door, he saw her smile, fully, warmly, for the first time. He could only stare at her as his throat went dry and his heart shuddered.

  “Thank you, Magda. I would have come for it.”

  “You’ve enough to do, my lady, without carting trays.” The woman seemed ancient to Kylar. Her face as withered as a winter apple, her body bowed as if she carried bricks on her back. But she set the tea tray on the sideboard and curtseyed with some grace. “Should I pour for you, my lady?”

  “I’ll see to it. How are your hands?”

  “They don’t trouble me overmuch.”

  Deirdre took them in her own. They were knotted and swollen at the joints. “You’re using the ointment I gave you?”

  “Yes, my lady, twice daily. It helps considerable.”

  Keeping her eyes on Magda’s, Deirdre rubbed her thumbs rhythmically over the gnarled knuckles. “I have a tea that will help. I’ll show you how to make it, and you’ll drink a cup three times a day.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” Magda curtseyed again before she left the room.

  Kylar saw Deirdre rub her own hands as if to ease a pain before she reached for the teapot. “I’ll answer your questions, Prince Kylar, and hope that you’ll answer some of mine in turn.” She brought him a small tray of cheese and biscuits, then settled into a chair with her tea.

  “How do you survive?”

  To the point, she thought. “We have the garden. Some chickens and goats for eggs and milk, and meat when meat is needed. There’s the forest for fuel and, if we’re lucky, for game. The young are trained in necessary skills. We live simply,” she said, sipping her tea. “And well enough.”

  “Why do you stay?”

  “Because this is my home. You risked your life in battle to protect yours.”

  “How do you know I didn’t risk it to take what belonged to someone else?”

  She watched him over the rim of her cup. Yes, he was handsome. His looks were only more striking now that he’d regained some of his strength. One of the servants had shaved him, and without the stubble of beard he looked younger. But little less dangerous. “Did you?”

  “You know I didn’t.” His gaze narrowed on her face. “You know. How is that, Deirdre of the Ice?” He reached out, clamped a hand on her arm. “What did you do to me during the fever?”

  “Healed you.”

  “With witchcraft?”

  “I have a gift for healing,” she said evenly. “Should I have used it, or let you die? There was no dark in it, an
d you are not bound to me for payment.”

  “Then why do I feel bound to you?”

  Her pulse jumped. His hand wasn’t gripping her arm now. It caressed. “I did nothing to tie you. I have neither desire nor the skill for it.” Cautiously, she moved out of reach. “You have my word. When you’re well enough to travel, you’re free to go.”

  “How?” It was bitter. “Where?”

  Pity stirred in her, swam into her eyes. She remembered the face of the woman in his mind, the love she’d felt flow between them. His mother, she thought. Even now watching for his return home.

  “It won’t be simple, nor without risk. But you have a horse, and we’ll give you provisions. One of my men will travel with you as far as possible. I can do no more than that.”

  He put it aside for now. When the time came, he would find his way home. “Tell me how this came to be. This place. I’ve heard stories—betrayal and witchcraft and cold spells over a land that was once fruitful and at peace.”

  “So I am told.” She rose again to stir the fire. “When my grandfather was king, there were farms and fields. The land was green and rich, the lake blue and thick with fish. Have you ever seen blue water?”

  “I have, yes.”

  “How can it be blue?” she asked as she turned. There was puzzlement on her face, and more, he thought. An eagerness he hadn’t seen before. It made her look very young.

  “I haven’t thought about it,” he admitted. “It seems to be blue, or green, or gray. It changes, as the sky changes.”

  “My sky never changes.” The eagerness vanished as she walked to the window. “Well,” she said, and straightened her shoulders. “Well. My grandfather had two daughters, twin-born. His wife died giving them life, and it’s said he grieved for her the rest of his days. The babes were named Ernia, who was my aunt, and Fiona, who was my mother, and on them he doted. Most parents dote on their children, don’t they, my lord?”

  “Most,” he agreed.

  “So he did. Like their mother, they were beautiful, and like their mother, they were gifted. Ernia could call the sun, the rain, the wind. Fiona could speak to the beasts and the birds. They were, I’m told, competitive, each vying for their father’s favor though he loved them both. Do you have siblings, my lord?”

  “A brother and a sister, both younger.”

  She glanced back. He had his mother’s eyes, she thought. But her hair had been light. Perhaps his father had that ink-black hair that looked so silky.

  “Do you love them, your brother and your sister?”

  “Very much.”

  “That is as it should be. But Ernia and Fiona could not love each other. Perhaps it was because they shared the same face, and each wanted her own. Who can say? They grew from girl to woman, and my grandfather grew old and ill. He wanted them married and settled before his death. Ernia he betrothed to a king in a land beyond the Elf Hills, and my mother he promised to a king whose lands marched with ours to the east. Rose Castle was to be my mother’s, and the Palace of Sighs, on the border of the Elf Hills, my aunt’s. In this way he divided his wealth and lands equally between them, for he was, I’m told, a wise and fair ruler and a loving father.”

  She came back to sit and sip at tea gone cold. “In the weeks before the weddings, a traveler came and was welcome here as all were in those days. He was handsome and clever, quick of tongue and smooth with charm. A minstrel by trade, it’s said he sang like an angel. But fair looks are no mirror of the heart, are they?”

  “A pleasant face is only a face.” Kylar lifted a shoulder. “Deeds make a man.”

  “Or woman,” she added. “So I have always believed, and so, in this case, it was. In secret, this handsome man courted and seduced both twins, and both fell blindly in love with him. He came to my mother’s bed, and to her sister’s, bearing a single red rose and promises never meant to be kept. Why do men lie when women love?”

  The question took him aback. “My lady . . . not all men are deceivers.”

  “Perhaps not.” Though she was far from convinced. “But he was. One evening the sisters, of the same mind, wandered to the rose garden. Each wanted to pluck a red rose for her lover. It was there the lies were discovered. Instead of comforting each other, instead of raging against the man who had deceived them both, they fought over him. She-wolves over an unworthy badger. Ernia’s temper called the wind and the hail, and Fiona’s had the beasts stalking out of the forest to snarl and howl.”

  “Jealousy is both a flawed and a lethal weapon.”

  She angled her head. Nodded. “Well said. My grandfather heard the clamor and roused himself from his sickbed. Neither marriage could take place now, as both his daughters were disgraced. The minstrel, who had not slipped away quickly enough, was locked in the dungeon until his punishment could be decided. There was weeping and wailing from the sisters, as that punishment would surely be banishment, if not death. But he was spared when it came to be known that my mother was with child. His child, for she had lain with no other.”

  “You were the child.”

  “Yes. So, by becoming, I saved my father’s life. The grief of this, the shame of this, ended my grandfather’s. Before he died, he ordered Ernia to the Palace of Sighs. Because of the child, he decreed that my mother would marry the minstrel. It was this that drove Ernia mad, and on the day the marriage took place, the day her own father died in despair, she cast her spell.

  “Winter, endless years of it. A sea of ice to lock Rose Castle away from the world. The rosebush where flowers had been plucked from lies would not bear bud. The child her sister carried would never feel the warmth of summer sun on her face, or walk in a meadow or see a tree bear fruit. One faithless man, three selfish hearts, destroyed a world. And so became the Isle of Winter in the Sea of Ice.”

  “My lady.” He laid a hand on hers. Her life, he thought, the whole of it had been spent without the simple comfort of sunlight. “A spell cast can be broken. You have power.”

  “My gift is of healing. I cannot heal the land.” Because she wanted to turn her hand over in his, link fingers, feel that connection, she drew away. “My father left my mother before I was born. Escaped. Later, as she watched her people starve, my mother sent messengers to the Palace of Sighs to ask for a truce. To beg for one. But they never came back. Perhaps they died, or lost their way. Or simply rode on into the warmth and the sun. No one who has left here has ever come back. Why would they?”

  “Ernia the Witch-Queen is dead.”

  “Dead?” Deirdre stared into the fire. “You’re sure of this?”

  “She was feared, and loathed. There was great celebration when she died. It was on the Winter Solstice, and I remember it well. She’s been dead for nearly ten years.”

  Deirdre closed her eyes. “As her sister has. So they died together. How odd, and how apt.” She rose again to walk to the window. “Ten years dead, and her spell holds like a clenched fist. How bitter her heart must have been.”

  And the faint and secret hope she’d kept flickering inside that upon her aunt’s death the spell would break, winked out. She drew herself up. “What we can’t change, we learn to be content with.” She stared out at the endless world of white. “There is beauty here.”

  “Yes.” It was Deirdre that Kylar watched. “Yes. There is beauty here.”

  4

  HE wanted to help her. More, Kylar thought, he wanted to save her. If there had been something tangible to fight—a man, a beast, an army—he would have drawn his sword and plunged into battle for her.

  She moved him, attracted him, fascinated him. Her steady composure in the face of her fate stirred in him both admiration and frustration. This was not a woman to weep on a man’s shoulder. It annoyed him to find himself wishing that she would, as long as the shoulder was his.

  She was an extraordinary creature. He wanted to fight for her. But how did a man wage war on magic?

  He’d never had any real experience with it. He was a soldier, and though he believe
d in luck, even in fate, he believed more in