Mystic Warrior

by Patricia Rice

  But the agony of her refusal to believe him after Luther’s death, followed by her furious judgment resulting in his banishment, stood in the way of his mourning. That, and her rejection of his birth mother, although that was an ancient argument, one that proved they’d never truly understood each other. He’d always been no more than another responsibility for the Oracle.

  But Dylys had at least recognized his abilities and tried to teach him, and for that, he was grateful. He said a prayer to the gods for the Oracle’s soul and hoped Dylys had found a happier place—and more grateful students—in the next world. Her absence left a void in his world as well as Aelynn’s. He was starting to grasp Lis’s desperation.

  And if he acknowledged Lis’s faith in her gods, and him, then he had to consider the compelling beliefs that came with her: the meaning of the blue spirit flame’s presence, the truth of his powers, and his responsibility to channel them . . . responsibly.

  He shuddered at the enormity of what she asked.

  “Swat me again,” he muttered. “Swat me a half dozen times and clear the cobwebs from my wretched brain.”

  She cast him a startled look, deservedly so. Wrapped in defiance, he’d denied the full import of Lis’s arrival until now. She had come here to see if he could replace her mother.

  He handed her the reins so he could drive his fingers into his hair.

  “Your head hurts again?” she asked cautiously.

  “A headache would be easier,” he countered. “Believe me, right now, I’d rather you just chopped off my head than Heal it.”

  “The opportunity might yet arrive,” she said with a careless shrug.

  He snorted. “You never had any delusions of my grandeur.”

  But hearing the confident Lis he remembered, Murdoch couldn’t resist reassuring her with a hug as he used to do.

  She sat stiffly and didn’t relent when he squeezed her shoulders. “No, I never had any delusions about you,” she agreed. “Don’t think anything has changed.”

  But she was wrong. Things had changed drastically. He just didn’t know what to make of them yet.

  Her clothing prevented him from feeling the heat of her flesh, but the simple touch eased his isolation, and he rubbed her arm just for the solace of her softness. For four years he’d been without her. Knowing she wanted him and not taking advantage of it was the hardest task he’d ever been set.

  Rather than disclose all the shattered, confusing emotions he’d let in, Murdoch changed the subject. “Do you know anything about the port where you landed?” He hadn’t considered their destination, but it made sense that she had disembarked where she had friends, and this road led to Pouchay, where Trystan had once lived.

  “Very little. I was limited in my movements when I finally escaped the ship. I know Trystan and his wife have a house nearby, but I have not seen it.”

  “I know the village.” He and Trystan had not parted as friends, but Trystan hadn’t rejected the refugees Murdoch had sent to him, even though helping them escape France went against the Aelynn dictate of not interfering. He wondered how Trystan had justified his actions. “If I’m correct, his house is distant enough from town that we shouldn’t be noticed immediately.”

  “Trystan is no longer there,” she reminded him. “If he had servants, they could report our presence.”

  “And persuading servants to stay silent is a problem for you?” He lifted his eyebrows and gazed at her quizzically.

  “No, it’s not a problem,” she agreed. “I simply don’t like playing with the minds of Others.” Coolly, she handed him back the reins.

  “It’s better than hacking off their heads,” he informed her.

  And he regretted the sarcasm as soon as it left his tongue.

  He remembered the horror of the king’s head rolling in Paris. Hacking off heads had become the popular new sport in France. Anyone without documentation—as they were—was considered a threat to the new republic.

  And now he was taking Lis to the very town from which Trystan and his family had fled to avoid capture by the Tribunal’s spies.

  Thirteen

  Twilight settled over the coast as Lissandra guided the mare down the path that Murdoch had indicated led to Trystan’s home—right before he’d abruptly drawn his sword, leapt from the cart, and disappeared to scout the area.

  She took in great lungfuls of sea air and longed for the warm shores of home, where one had no reason to suspect danger around every bush.

  As one of Aelynn’s leading citizens, Trystan would have a heated bath even in his Other World home. That was all she required right now. A bath and a bed. She was no warrior, prepared to trek across the countryside night and day, living on the edge of terror.

  Like Murdoch.

  If nothing else proved the differences between them, his appearance as he emerged from the hedgerow did. Now that he had his weapons, his dangerous energies were no longer banked. He even looked larger and more superhuman, although all he wore was a muslin shirt, cotton trousers, and makeshift sandals. He’d be formidable in the full dress she’d seen on other men here. He showed no sign of the stress she felt.

  Wordlessly, he took the horse’s bridle and led the cart into the yard. “The house is empty. Trystan has left it guarded by an Aelynn barrier. We should be safe enough.” He began unbuckling the horse’s harness.

  “Trystan shouldn’t be able to keep up a barrier for any length of time, this far from home,” she protested, climbing down from the cart without his aid.

  “Tell that to our Guardian when you see him,” Murdoch replied in the familiar tone with which he’d always referred to the man who had once been his rival for Lissandra’s hand. “I’ve a little of his ability and have strengthened the barrier. Maybe that’s what he hopes will happen—that someone will renew it regularly. It’s more pure energy than his moon shield around the island.”

  The gray stone house loomed tall against the western sky. It wasn’t a pretty house, although someone had planted climbing roses along the walls to brighten it. The Guardian’s energy shield shimmered slightly in the slanting sunlight. Normally, it couldn’t be seen at all.

  “I didn’t realize he could create a shield to divert strangers,” she mused aloud.

  “If Ian was here, they would have worked on it together. Ian has the knowledge, if not the full extent of Trystan’s ability.”

  There was so much she didn’t know—about the Outside World, about her own brother.

  “We don’t need these things on Aelynn,” Murdoch reminded her. “We learn and grow from our experiences here.”

  Which said it all—Murdoch had grown apart from her here. Once he understood the extent of her ignorance, would he still desire her?

  Foolish question. The desire part had been with them since adolescence. If all she’d wanted was their physical connection, she could have had it at any time. Perhaps she should settle for mere physical coupling, but the shackles of amacara bonding held her back—for both their sakes.

  They fed and watered the loyal mare before advancing on the silent house from the rear. Aelynn people went in and out of one another’s homes with regularity. Even the hearth witches and hedge wizards wandered freely through the abodes of the more skilled classes. For that reason, it did not seem extraordinary to enter Trystan’s home uninvited.

  But for all that, this Other World house was strange to Lissandra. Aelynn houses did not have towering walls of thick stone, or floors of rooms built one on top of another. They entered through the kitchen, and Lissandra gazed around Trystan and Mariel’s low-ceilinged room with interest, identifying familiar objects like fireplaces, kettles, and cupboards, before stepping into the airless, dark chambers beyond.

  More comfortable with his surroundings, Murdoch lit candles and lanterns and set a fire to burn merrily in the kitchen grate. By the time Lissandra followed him to the larger rooms, they did not seem so gloomy. The sea wind beat against the glass, blowing up a storm, and she was grateful for th
e shelter.

  “Mariel told me this was once her father’s house,” she said, just to hear a voice in the stale air.

  “Her mother was a Crossbreed with a large dowry.” Murdoch closed the draperies so the lantern light wouldn’t be visible when the sun dipped below the horizon. “I thought it interesting that her mother seemed to have a form of Sight. Either there is a stray strain of that gift in our blood, or she is related to your family.”

  Lissandra had thought the same. That Murdoch’s Sight equaled Ian’s seemed to indicate that the gods chose whom they willed without consideration of family name—although most Aelynners would disagree with her theory. Perhaps they all possessed some degree of all talents but through family tradition acknowledged and honed only one or two.

  “I’m glad Trystan and his family escaped before the Tribunal established a strong footing here,” he continued. “Mariel’s father was an aristocrat, and her brother-in-law is on the losing side of politics in Paris these days. I trust he had the sense to leave the country with Trystan.”

  “Trystan’s in-laws were with him when he left.” She longed to stand beside Murdoch in the glow of his lantern but resisted. She looked around for a hall that might lead to the bath.

  He nodded toward the front entrance. “Try taking those stairs. I sense water below us.”

  “There’s an ocean below the cliff—of course you sense water. Have you been here before?”

  “I’ve not been inside.” He followed her to the stairs, holding up his lantern. “I know you will not believe me, but just before I was waylaid in the village, I was on my way to warn Trystan that the Tribunal was sending soldiers here.”

  “I have no reason not to believe you. Trystan was once your friend.” She lifted her skirt and followed the stone stairs down. “The warning had reached Trystan when I arrived. Perhaps your escaped prisoners carried it.”

  “I’d like to believe they made it here safely after all the trouble I took to get them out.” Murdoch held up the lantern at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s a warren down here.”

  Lissandra followed her nose and found the bathing room.

  They stood in the doorway and admired Trystan’s grotto. The old cellar room had been transformed into a wonder of limestone tile the sandy color of the beach below, with a bathing pool that reflected the ocean’s blues. The corners had been walled off to form an octagonal room, and padded benches and Roman niches holding oil lamps had been built into them.

  “Trystan never struck me as a sybarite,” Murdoch said as he turned the spigot of a dolphin fountain and steaming water poured from the sea creature’s mouth.

  “Trystan has three children and a fourth on the way. I think he’s found someone to share his secret sensuality.” Lissandra supposed she ought to be embarrassed to say such a thought aloud, but she envied Trystan’s relationship with Mariel.

  Slipping off her shoe, she tested the warm water with her toe. “It’s perfect. Almost like the hot spring at home.”

  “Food first, while the tub fills.” Murdoch caught her elbow to steer her from temptation.

  So many temptations . . . food, the lovely bath, the firm grip of Murdoch’s hand, the combination of all three . . .

  Panicking at the strength of her desire, she jerked free. “I’m not hungry. Leave me here.” She wanted him gone—now—before she was foolish enough to let down her shield and act on the lust simmering between them. If he so much as looked at her wrong . . .

  “Don’t be foolish. You need food, and the bath takes time—”

  She whirled and glared at him. “Don’t start telling me what to do, LeDroit. I found you on my own, and I can leave you anytime I want. I don’t need you to take care of me. I don’t need anyone to take care of me, and it’s time people realized that.”

  He stared at her, as he had every right to do. She should have said those things long, long ago. She wasn’t the fair-haired princess who must be sheltered from reality. She was simply a woman who wanted her own life, without everyone hovering.

  “We want to take care of you,” he said flatly. “We cherish and worship you and would lay down our lives for you. And you walk on our backs as if we were doormats.”

  Tears rimmed her eyes, but with head held high, she would not let them fall. “I thought you, of all people, would understand. Go upstairs, Murdoch. Leave me be.”

  Murdoch left. It was either leave or take her in his arms and ravish her, and she would no doubt neuter him if he tried the latter, no matter how much they both wanted—needed—the physical joining. It was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the craving, but he summoned his will and turned his thoughts elsewhere.

  What was he failing to understand? Lis had everything anyone could ever want. Everything he had ever wanted. Was he supposed to feel sorry for her?

  There was no understanding women, and he had too many puzzles of his own without starting on hers.

  Murdoch tried not to think of Lis undressing and stepping naked into the steaming water. He was walking around in a permanent state of arousal as it was. Instead of food, perhaps he ought to look for a woman.

  But the woman he wanted was just below, and no substitute would suffice. Grumbling, still puzzling over her words despite his vow not to, he searched Trystan’s larder for aged cheese and smoked meats. He munched on those while taking a large chopping knife and relieving his frustration by whacking into mincemeat vegetables he’d found in the root cellar. He’d learned to cook over campfires these past years. This was a feast compared with what he’d eaten then.

  Maybe he should have accumulated wealth instead of whatever in hell he thought he’d been doing lately. An expensive fortress like this one would make an excellent safe house for transporting those who would avoid the guillotine. . . .

  The soup was bubbling by the time a lilac scent indicated Lissandra’s approach. Mariel must have left her bath powders behind.

  Murdoch tried to rein in his lust as he had these past days, but that had been before he’d revealed his weakness. Before he’d blasted the barriers in his head. He’d been a fool as a youth to deny them the final bond of lovemaking for the sake of a few words spoken over an altar.

  At the time, he thought he’d been protecting her.

  He rolled his eyes as her earlier words returned. She hadn’t wanted his protection. She’d once wanted him to court her, to make love to her. She had seen his refusal to do so without vows as a form of blackmail, an effort to bind her to him and claim his right as Council Leader.

  And maybe she’d been half-right.

  Examining his behavior from the distance of time was a damned painful business. He glanced up at her entrance. She’d washed her hair and bound it tightly in a braid but donned only her lightweight Aelynn garb. He closed his eyes against the strong image of his hand cupping her unfettered breast and gestured at the table with his knife. “I’ve set out bowls. Help yourself.”

  “Have you eaten?” she asked stiffly.

  Sensing her discomfort with the sexual tension between them, Murdoch set down his knife. “Not yet. I think I will bathe first, too.” He kept the table between them until he left the room.

  He felt as if he were ripping his soul into a hundred different puzzle bits and now had to piece himself back together again in a different order before he could know how to act.

  Fourteen

  Having barely tasted a bite of Murdoch’s meal, Lissandra cleaned up the mess he’d made of the kitchen, then wandered through the house rather than wait for him to return from his bath. Upstairs, she paused to admire the nursery. If she’d married, would she have babies now?

  She fought the itch under her skin that was her awareness of Murdoch in the bath, simmering with desire—for her.

  Growing up surrounded by an island full of powerful, bullheaded males, she ought to be accustomed to their blustering lusts. But Murdoch’s acute intellect and overt sexuality made him more desirable than any male she knew. She was amazed he didn’t te
rrify mere mortals. He must use his illusions to hide his considerable . . . virility.

  If she wanted to discover who she really was, what she was truly meant to be, she had to be honest. Everything she’d ever learned told her that the gods intended Murdoch to be her amacara. She didn’t think there could be any other reason for her heightened awareness of him to the exclusion of all other men.

  But she could not submit to an eternal bond with an unpredictable menace. Perhaps the gods meant for her to suffer. Two strong, independent-minded individuals would likely kill each other with their passions if they did not agree. Murdoch’s warlike temper and her need to avoid conflict would put them constantly at odds.

  Other Worlders prized virginity in their spiritual leaders. Perhaps she should learn from them.

  She ran her fingers along the rocking cradle that loving hands had fashioned for Mariel’s babies, and her own womb ached at the lack. She’d never given real thought to children except as the Olympus heirs Aelynn required. If she wasn’t meant to be Oracle, would her children matter to anyone but herself? Would she still want them?

  How could she consider children when she hadn’t experienced lovemaking? She simply knew that she felt empty and unfulfilled, but that could be because she no longer felt needed or valuable to anyone. She had sufficient understanding to recognize that children shouldn’t be used to fill her own lack.

  Impatient with useless fantasies, she chose the nursery cot so much like her own, and began preparing for bed. How could she even think of touching Murdoch’s emotions to help him stabilize his erratic powers when an entire three floors between them didn’t smother their smoldering desire? Just because she couldn’t hear Murdoch roaming the house didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of him. She’d been aware of him for four years when he hadn’t even been in the same country.