by S J Hartland
He knows the dance well. A master swaggerer, then.
Gaping, Azenor watched swords weave and cut, hew and thrust. The air rang with clamouring, battering steel, with sharp breath, with the odours of blood and sweat.
The wounded man staggered to his feet and circled.
“Behind you.”
The black-haired warrior already whirled. Bone crunched. The wounded man dropped. He coughed a woman’s name and died.
Enraged, the last Venivan unleashed a stream of vindictive curses. His heavy blows clapped like thunder. The stranger parried with blue-sparked metal. The ground shook as they pummelled each other with whistling, shrieking, clanging blades. Deflections answered ferocious thrusts. The two lunged, swept, jabbed, retreated, circled.
Until her brother’s sword sang a vicious song. A deceptive feint, a parry a heartbeat too late, a blade humming as it parted air then mutilated flesh. Blood pulsed in dark-red spurts.
The Venivan clutched at his groin, trying to clamp the flow. He collapsed to his knees.
The black-haired stranger stood over him. He lifted Aric’s sword. As it cleaved bone, Azenor thought a shape rose at his back like a cape fanned by wind. Gooseflesh rose along her arms. She blinked, yet saw nothing. Her imagination, surely.
The man rushed back to her, hair damp, his tunic, face and neck splattered red. He shoved Aric’s sword into his belt beside the knife.
“We must move. Others will look for them, for us too. Unpleasant sort these Venivans.”
“They’re the raiders my brother—” She dug teeth into her lips, uncertain it was wise to reveal who she was. But he did not react. “My horse. I must go back.”
“Too dangerous. Three against one is no matter. But they have horses on that cursed ship. If five or six or more ride us down, I don’t know if I can keep you safe.”
Azenor bristled. The arrogance of the man. Like Aric, like every swaggering dancer. “I didn’t ask you to keep me safe. Just point me to the road, give me my sword and I’ll go.”
“Your sword? Doubtful. Your brother’s perhaps.”
Azenor glared. “How do you know that?”
He whipped out the blade and held the hilt close to his face. “Chiselled iron, encrusted with niello. A shape inlaid in the metal, a broken crown. An Isles sword for certain.”
“How clever. Finding an Isles sword in the Isles. I’m shocked.”
His eyes held amusement. Their unusual colour, an otherworldly glimmer, drew her shiver. But she didn’t fear him. Not a conceited, swaggering dancer.
“I’ve more to tell you. Seithin steel, so a lord’s sword. The broken crown dates it to Queen Devarsi’s rule. I’d guess Ryol Caelan, the king who never was, owned this blade. Or one of his Serravan warriors. Though, given it’s your brother’s, I’m certain Ryol carried it.”
“So you know about swords. But who is this brother you throw at me?”
The heavy, dark-blue gaze held hers.
“Ryol’s descendant, Aric Caelan. The young Commander of the Isles.”
“Ha,” she said.
“Which makes you either a thief—and a good one if you took this blade from Aric—or his sister, Azenor. And that is who you are. Even with knotted hair, the blood and mud all over you, anyone can tell you have Caelan blood.”
His face softened. Boldly he spread his gaze, let it linger. Aware of clinging wet clothes, Azenor’s cheeks heated. She backed up a step.
That gaze flattered her. Unlike most of Caelan’s descendants, her face was far from perfect. Her lips were too large, her teeth not quite straight, her hair always unruly.
What did it matter what he thought? Who was he anyway? A dancer, that’s all. Tide’s End was full of handsome, brazen warriors. Azenor had grown up around bladesmen and she had their measure. They were all the same.
The man reached to steady her. “You’re cold and we must tend to that wound. Come. I’ll have a fire started before you know it. Food, too.”
“Come where? I don’t know who you are.”
“Enough time for questions later. You’re exhausted, child.”
“I’m not a child.” Her legs collapsed. She cried out as pain again lanced her chest.
The man tucked Aric’s blade in his belt and scooped her into his arms. Muscles shifted in his breast and shoulders. Hands about his neck, she breathed in an exotic but male scent.
“I’ve never been stabbed before. Wait until I show Aric this wound. He’ll be jealous. He and Pairas always boast about their scars.”
“Hush.” He carried her through grass whipped by blistering wind, across bulging streams.
He stopped only once to slow his breath and peer at far-away peaks. “It rains hard in the mountains. It’ll flood these lush Isles meadows soon enough. Such a soft land, the Isles; a soft land that produces hard men and women. But not as hard as they’ll need to be.”
Azenor murmured unintelligent sounds. The rhythm of his strides as he bore her into a green-leafed forest soothed. She watched the treetops moving against the grey sky, eyelids heavy. And as fat, steamed drops of rain fell, she plunged into darkness.
Azenor wandered through the hall at Tide’s End. The same, yet …
Seizing a torch from an iron bracket she studied the wood-beamed roof, the high windows and walls bright with murals. In the flickering flame, sea serpents twitched; a painted warrior, tall and broad, stared back, a bow and quiver of arrows slung over a shoulder.
Not the mural she knew on the walls. Why were they different in her dream?
Fear boiled up. She ran, crashing through wooden doors into the council chamber where the Isles lords met. No sign of the long table and her father’s seat at its head. Bare stone walls, not whitewashed, surrounded her.
“Azenor? Child?”
Azenor whirled. Her dead mother sat beside the window, hands folded in her lap. An older man at her shoulder wore a black-work cloak. A lord’s silver chain draped his neck.
“Mother?”
The woman smiled, but her knuckles whitened. “You shouldn’t be here, child. Not yet.”
Frightened, disorientated, Azenor quivered. What was happening to her? Was this a dream? She brushed a hand down a pillar, its marble smooth and tangible.
“Are you real? Please be real. Where are we?”
Her mother’s gaze flew to the doorway. “No,” she whispered. “Not you. Not this.”
“Mother? I don’t understand.” Panicked, Azenor backed up. She turned. The man with the sapphire ring stood behind her, those blue-black eyes hard.
Her mother dropped her face into cradled hands. “Destiny shadows you, seer. But it’s too cruel,” she sobbed. “Must it be this way? Oh, Azenor. Aric. My children. How is their fate entwined with yours? And that boy with desert eyes. Oh too cruel. Too cruel.”
“It can only be this way,” the man said. “This foul god must fall.”
Azenor reeled, frightened. A dream, she thought wildly. That was it. A fever dream.
The man pulled her to him.
Her mother shot to her feet. “No. Please, seer. Choose another path.”
“The dead should stay silent,” he said.
Hand on the nape of Azenor’s neck, he bent his head and kissed her. Outraged at his daring, she beat fists against his chest. But an ache of longing, sweet and powerful, flamed.
His scent, the weight of his firm body against her, his sensual lips all so heady; she wanted to touch his breast, to tangle fingers through wavy hair. Her hands fell away. She closed her eyes, breathed him in—and woke on a bed of fur.
Only a dream. Sadness shook her. How she wanted her mother to be real. And that unsettling kiss? Did she want that, too, to be real?
Azenor scrunched fur in her hand, bewildered, embarrassed by the heat beneath her skin.
The man, at least, was real. Wasn’t he? He brought her here … wherever here was.
Blinking, she let shadows take shape. Flames writhed on cracked rock. Rain still drummed. Scents of wet earth
and stone mingled with wood smoke.
A cave. How did she get here? Uneasy, she shifted on the bed, thinking back.
Grey skies, flashing steel, a desperate face. Pain. Such pain. Yes, a Venivan raider had stabbed her. She groped at her breast, touched fingertips to a rough mound like a scar, hardly there at all. Except …
Azenor nearly shredded the fur. From the light, the rain, she had slept a very short time. Not long enough for a wound to heal. What was happening here?
Alarmed, she jerked upright and saw—him.
Her breath escaped as a gasp, her pulse chaotic. She remembered that kiss, its mystery, its sweetness. Her face flushed. Curse her hot Caelan blood. Now she longed for another kiss.
Through her confusion, she realised the man sang, a beautiful, sorrowful melody that seeped into her mind as the sun might soak warmth into her limbs. Her fear fell away. There was only the caress of his voice, that mesmerising beat of rain, his song.
It carried her to the cliffs at Tide’s End. A winter wind burned her cheeks and ears. The sea frosted and gurgled over rocks below. Helmed men moved about her. Their long-bladed swords flashed in pale sunlight.
The man was there, covered in iron. His hand rested on his hilt, that dark-blue gaze searching the horizon. “The seas are restless,” he said grimly.
Azenor touched his arm. He did not feel it. Nor did he look at her, only at the white-crested waves.
The song broke off. The cliffs and sea disappeared. The cave’s stone surrounded her once again. In dim light and wispy smoke, the stranger stripped off blood-soaked garments.
In front of her? Did he have no shame? Not afraid any more, only indignant, she snapped: “What do you think you’re doing?”
He turned, revealing all.
She shouldn’t look. Why not? She was an Isles woman after all.
She swept her eyes over a warrior’s body, from the breadth of muscular shoulders to narrow hips and long legs. A tattoo swirled across his breast. Another ringed an arm in an inked bracelet, its whorled tentacles writhing up his shoulder.
Isles men often tattooed their bodies with depictions of sea serpents, ships or anchors, even swords, but nothing like these patterned sigils.
“I thought you were sleeping,” he said, his tone unapologetic. “I stripped to wash the blood off in the rain. You should do the same.”
By The Three, did he wink? “I’ll do no such thing.”
“Then at least take off those damp clothes. You’ll catch a fever.”
She frowned. Her clothes could not be damp if she’d slept long enough for her wound to heal. “I will,” Azenor replied carefully. “When you’re not here.”
He nodded, his smile subtly teasing. “I left a tunic on the bed.”
Without him there, the cave became empty and frightening. Azenor almost called him back. Not just for the comfort of his presence but for another kiss, like the one in her dream.
She laughed at her own nonsense. First she dreamed this stranger kissed her, now she wanted his arms around her, his lips on hers.
“I can’t decide if your Caelan blood is a curse or a blessing,” Ethne often said when Azenor took a new lover. “Life is more than conquest and pursuing pleasure.”
“In the hedonistic Isles? Silly Ethne,” she teased.
The new tunic reached her knees. She smoothed cloth against her breast, feeling only a tiny bump on her chest. A chill iced her neck. Did she imagine the raider had stabbed her?
The man returned and moved to the fire with a bladesman’s grace. Yet that body looked anything but soft. Corded muscles strained across his naked shoulders and back as he dried off with a cloth. This time Azenor averted her eyes.
“Isles women these days. So prudish,” he said. “Once they bathed naked in the sea on summer’s eves. Now if a man so much as shows his ankle, they blush and giggle.”
Azenor took up his challenge. “I don’t blush and giggle at the sight of male flesh.” Openly, boldly, she stared.
He possessed that dark beauty bards and poets attributed to Isles men; his cheekbones angular, his body all shadowed muscle, powerful legs and wide, strong shoulders. Raven hair fell in wild, wet curls about a haughty face. Firelight danced on his glistening skin, sun-brown and smooth beneath scars.
Yet the dark-blue hue of his long-lashed, mocking eyes did not belong to the Isles. Belonged nowhere in Telor.
“I don’t even know your name.” She sounded breathless. His fault for standing unclothed before her.
“Is my name important? You learnt more in that leer right now than my name will tell you.” His eyes whipped with mischief as he wrapped a cloth about his waist.
Now he was laughing at her. Curse him.
“If you won’t tell me who you are, then tell me this. That Venivan stabbed me.” She traced the scar. “The wound healed. How is that possible?”
“Hard to explain. It comes down to a kiss. Simpler to answer your first question.”
“So I didn’t dream that kiss. That’s twice you’ve brazenly kissed me.”
“I apologise for my bold behaviour, Azenor Caelan.” He bowed, a lock of hair falling over one eye. “And I suppose if I can kiss you, I should offer my name. I’m Roaran.”
Roaran? Indeed. Eagerly Azenor seized the chance to tease, to create something ordinary between them, like banter about a name.
“No wonder you didn’t wish to tell me. You’re ashamed your parents punished you so.”
“What?”
“I knew a Roaran. The son of our steward. Children tormented him, accused him of pretentiousness. No one calls their sons Roaran.”
“Why? Because it was the name of a king?”
“A dangerous king. People still whisper of him in awe. As for these stupid cultists—”
Roaran looked hard at her. “Are you certain they’re stupid, Azenor?”
“My brother explained it. They’re traitors to their king—whether you believe it’s that boy king in Dal-Kanu or my father. If they accept a dead king as liege lord, what’s stopping them rebelling or not paying taxes? Or refusing to take up arms when their real king goes to war.”
“That boy king,” Roaran said, “is twenty-seven. Besides.” He smiled. “No one ever teased me.”
She could well believe that. Every part of him was muscled. And he was as tall as Aric. Not even Pairas was as tall or as powerful as Aric.
“So—Roaran. Is that all you’ll reveal?”
“Actually, I think I’ve revealed a lot.”
“Except now you’re wearing an evil cloth. Since you’re shy, I’ll tell you who you are, just as you reasoned my name from my brother’s sword. To begin with, you know the song of swords well, so you’re a warrior. And you look every bit an Isles man.”
“Every bit?” He released that mischievous grin. An ache kicked hard in her chest. Her breath caught in surprise, then slowly freed.
I want him. A dangerous, exciting thought. Not the first time she seduced a stranger for no reason except she found him pleasing to look upon. Or because her Caelan blood heated.
“I’d like another eyeful. Why is that cloth there?”
One last fling. When she returned to Tide’s End, she would wed Sherrin. No more Pairas. No more enticing handsome guards to her bedchamber.
Roaran laughed. She already liked his laugh. It pleased like a summer breeze on her skin.
“By The Three, girl, you’re bold. No one could doubt you’re an Isles lass.”
“My brother says I’m shameless.”
“Well, shameless one.” Roaran slipped a shirt over his head and laced it carelessly. “Should we eat? There’s fish. Hunger and fish in the river drew me out in the first place.”
Azenor sniffed. Whatever he cooked smelt good. She settled beside him near the fire.
“You’ve dressed. That’s sad. If I were a Quisnaf warrior and you belonged to me, I’d keep you naked.”
Roaran shoved a crudely cut wooden plate at her. “Eat, shameless girl.”
They ate in a hush both companionable and tense. Azenor deliberately listened to the thudding rain, the crackling fire. All familiar. Ordinary.
Yet the air shimmered with tension as though a storm whipped in. What did she see at his back when he plunged his sword into the raider’s chest? A shadow? Wings?
“Why is an Isles warrior in this snake valley?” she asked. “Do the king’s sheriffs hunt you? Are you hiding out in your special cave? I take it this is your special cave?”
“It is.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What makes this cave special?”
Roaran did not answer at once, only traced a circle in the dirt with a twig. Azenor’s neck prickled. She glanced behind. Nothing stirred in the gloom.
“Answer me this,” Roaran said. “Do you want the truth or something else?”
I want to hear waves crashing against rocks below Tide’s End, she thought. I want to hear my brother arguing with Pairas. I want to sit and just look at you.
“I want the truth,” she said.
He hesitated. Carefully he put down his plate. “The truth then. The cave is a gateway.”
“Gateway? What does that mean?”
Roaran sighed and stretched. Muscles rippled beneath his shirt.
“A gateway.” He pressed tongue to teeth. “To the Enarae.”
Azenor poked a stick at the fire, her heart breaking into an uneven beat. She wasn’t ready for what this truth might mean. No, in fact, she refused to think about it.
“Azenor, did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Say something.”
“You smell nice.”
Roaran shot out a breath. “You know about the ancient gateways?”
“Am I uneducated? Of course I know about gateways. And I want you.”
“What?”
“I want you.”
“Gateways,” Roaran repeated, a breathless edge to his voice. “Heavily protected with blood magic. There’s one at Tide’s End, one in Dal-Kanu. The most dangerous at Vraymorg. Caelan Gods-son—your ancestor—built fortresses at these places to protect these gateways.”
Azenor pressed a finger to his lips. “Stop talking.”
He tilted a brow, smiled faintly. Yet a silence grew about her words.