Mirianna hoped she hadn’t been too brusque, but she truly didn’t have the presence of mind to attempt unpacking things she had no idea where to put, and she especially didn’t want the boy to know how her insides quaked every time she thought about where she was and with whom. In the bright light of day, her situation looked no less terrifying than it had when the Shadow Man had clutched her to his chest.
She was indentured to a nightmare. Whatever name he chose to call himself, he certainly was not human. And this sprawling ruin was his home. Did he live among the stones, a shadow melding into shadows? Or did he thrive in the dark recesses that lurked behind fragmented doors hanging on blackened frames? Where in the name of the Dragon was he? And just where did he expect this poor blind boy to take up residence?
Perhaps if she roused enough indignation at Gareth’s situation, it would keep fear of her own tamped down. She ate a haunch of rabbit without tasting it, chewed dry-cake, and washed both down with sulfur-flavored water, then stood. If the Shadow Man wouldn’t show himself, she’d just have to find him.
****
Beneath the fortress, in a pool where one of the tunnels opened into a chamber, Durren floated, arms spread, eyes closed, the water gently bearing him up. All his aches had drained into it, even the bruise from the Krad-thrown rock. When he finished soaking, he would be clean again, purified from the temptations he’d faced down in Ar-Deneth. He opened his eyes, sighed, and touched bottom. A phosphorescent swirl showed where he’d stirred the water, but no other light touched his eyes.
He didn’t need light to know precisely where he was, how far from the bottomless part of the pool where the hot water welled up, how near the ledge where his clothes lay, in what direction the tunnel led upward to the broken ruin that was Drakkonwehr. If he’d slept, he was not aware. A man could float asleep in the warm, salty water and open his eyes hours later to see nothing but darkness. It should be full day above ground. He’d left the rabbit slowly roasting. The woman and boy should be capable of caring for themselves while he eased his soul.
He splashed water over his face, watching phosphorescence swirl between his hands. He’d once more purged the effects of Ar-Deneth, but he couldn’t so easily purge himself of what had happened since. Not while a flesh-and-blood reminder waited for him above ground. At the thought of the woman, his body tightened. With an oath, he dove, pulling himself hand-over-hand along stones at the bottom until his lungs burned and he broke the surface. He sucked in air, then swam to the ledge and climbed out. This flesh had brought her here. Or was it the Shadow?
Perhaps both, said the Voice in his head.
Throughout these fourteen long years, after each necessary foray into the world of men, the pool had never failed to restore his equanimity. Until now. Durren cast a glance upward, as if he could see through solid rock. She was up there, most likely walking among the ruins in that homespun riding skirt he’d seen flowing about her ankles when she’d begged him to save her—and the men with her—from the Krad. He’d glimpsed her bare thigh when he held her astride his hip, and that image had burned into his brain. She smelled of lilacs, wood smoke, and...woman.
Durren broke out in a sweat. This body—his damned body!—knew what it wanted, what it thought it needed after he’d once more refused to slake its appetite in Ar-Deneth.
It was your choice to punish yourself again, the Voice in his head said. And for what—to atone for one night of selfish pleasure years ago? How do you know a few hours’ delay made the difference? Who’s to say Errek wouldn’t have died anyway? The mage was expecting you.
Go to Beggeth! He had enough on his mind without the damned voice adding to it. Somehow, he would have to find a way to deal with her presence. Grabbing his clothes, he threw them on, letting them dry his skin. With the Sword of Drakkonwehr in his belt, he followed the tunnel upward.
He should’ve guessed he’d find the woman already in the passage. She’d gone as far as the last glimmer of outside light penetrated, and there she stood as if stymied, hand clutching the hewn-rock wall, face white enough to illuminate his way to her.
“What are you doing here?” Durren said, making her start.
Don’t be harsh, the Voice in his head said. She doesn’t know any better.
She still shouldn’t have come into the darkness alone. Not here. Not so close to the heart of Drakkonwehr.
“Why did you just go off and leave us?” she said as her gaze located him among the tunnel shadows.
Her question irked him. He had every right to do as he pleased in his own home, to attend to his own compelling needs. “I left you food.” Durren strode past her, indicating she should follow. “Did you eat?”
“Thank you, yes, but—”
“Where’s the boy?”
“Sleeping. He has a fever—”
He stopped and she stumbled to a halt beside him.
See. He’s ill already. You should never have brought him.
Though his gut clenched, Durren ignored the voice in his head and focused on the woman. He saw the flash of her look before her gaze skittered to the rubble littering the floor.
You’re scaring her. Is that what you want?
They’d come out into an anteroom. Through the archway ahead, long rays of afternoon sun beat down into the roofless Great Hall and illuminated their feet. Rock scuffs and pine pitch speckled her boots, and over one toe dangled a narrow strip of fabric rent from her skirt. Wondering if he’d been responsible for that, and hoping he hadn’t, he modified his tone. “What have you done for him?”
“I found your herbs and made him some tea.”
She’d attempted to tame her hair into a knot, but thick curls still spiraled alongside her face, drawing his attention to the delicate shell of her ear and the turquoise earring studding the lobe. Durren braced himself against the rush of desire scorching his skin, but all he could think was how that lobe would feel on his tongue, the fine fuzz of her skin and the cool satin of the stone. By Kiros!
Over the hum of his blood, he realized she was speaking. “I trust you have someplace better than an open courtyard for him to sleep in tonight.”
Willing his mind into the present time and place, he recognized she’d said nothing of herself, of the fear clearly written on her face moments ago. No, she’d raised her chin and focused on the boy’s needs.
You admire that in her, don’t you? said the Voice in his head.
What if I do? To the woman, he said, “You’ll have better accommodations tonight, if you’ll help prepare them.”
“Gladly.” Head high, she strode across the rubble of the Great Hall, through the broken double door into the courtyard—and froze.
With an oath, Durren sprang, shoving her behind his body and drawing the Sword while spinning to face whatever caused the blood to drain from her face.
In the shade near the pile of gear, the shelion lay stretched out alongside the sleeping boy, head raised over the boy’s head, twin yellow-green eyes fixed on them. Blood stained her muzzle, and her tongue slid over it.
Durren’s fingers convulsed on the Sword before he saw the fresh carcass of a deer lying near the fire. “Don’t make any sudden moves,” he told the woman. “I don’t think the lion means to harm Gareth, but I’m not sure what she’ll do to us.” He stole a glance at the bloodstone embedded in the Sword, but it showed him nothing.
“You mean...you didn’t send her?” Despite its pallor, the woman’s face in the full sun looked more confused than frightened.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“She brought me to you. She saved me from the Krad. And from Rees. I thought...”
She saved you, too, the Voice in his head said.
Be still!
“If you didn’t send her,” the woman said, “then who did?”
Yes, who? the Voice in his head said.
Durren clenched his jaw so tight his teeth ached. “No one! She’s just a Wehrland lion, nothing more.”
The lion licked th
e last of the blood from her muzzle with a rasp that jittered his nerves. The yellow-green gaze pulled at him, but he focused between the woman and the cat so he could watch both of them.
Hands on hips, the woman said, “She spoke to me. Twice. I saw myself through her eyes. If that’s not magic, I don’t know—”
“You don’t know! How could you? You’re just—”
“What? A woman? Is that what you were about to say?” Her chin thrust out, but her lips trembled. “Fine! Keep your bloody Wehrland, and your big black cloak, and your disappearances in the night, and those filthy, disgusting Krad and—and...think what you want! I don’t know what in the Dragon’s name is going on or why in the world I’m here, but I know one thing. That lion spoke to me. She may want to do you harm, but she’s not going to do the least bit of harm to me!” She spun away and, head high, strode toward the she-cat before he could stop her.
Frozen in place, he watched while the lion rose, stretched, and exposed long, curving claws. Then the big cat sauntered to the woman, who’d faltered to a stop by the fire-pit, and twined its sinuous body around the woman’s legs like a housecat asking for cream. After the second turn, the lion paused and, with half-lidded eyes, smiled at Durren.
****
Despite her bravado, Mirianna quivered every time the shelion yawned, stretched, or even twitched an ear. Up close, the creature was huge, longer from whiskered snout to the black tip of her tail than Gareth was tall, and undoubtedly heavier. Even though Mirianna’s heart told her she was safe in the cat’s presence, her mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around the idea, and she understood why the Shadow Man kept his distance. While the lion oozed tranquility and confidence, the Shadow Man regarded the beast with suspicion and something like animosity. The conflicting auras pulled at her all afternoon until she thought her nerves would fray.
Helping the Shadow Man skin the deer carcass, cut it up, and set it to smoking in a stone hut he apparently kept for the purpose, left her jangling with his unease as he constantly looked across the courtyard at the lion. When Mirianna returned to check Gareth, who continued to sleep while the lion watched over him, the lion’s deep-throated purr soothed her. Later the Shadow Man took her into the main building and showed her a chamber with an intact roof and door where she and Gareth could lay their bedding.
When she’d been looking for the Shadow Man earlier, she’d found another such door nearby, but it refused to open. She’d thought it merely blocked or jammed, but now she wondered if behind that door was a chamber where he lodged. Clearly, he hadn’t spent the night on the paving stones with her and the boy.
While she wondered whether he lodged above ground or below, Mirianna uncovered a broom behind the chamber door and shook cobwebs from it. She was sweeping when the Shadow Man brought her two short benches and a table with uneven legs.
“I hadn’t planned on company,” he said as she rocked the table under her hand.
Flattening her palm on the scarred surface, she digested his unspoken message. He’d lived for more than a dozen years, alone, in this wreck of a fortress. By necessity he avoided people. Something had changed that, and he’d acquired the blind boy, a useful servant for a being who couldn’t be looked upon without consequence. Then, for reasons she preferred not to consider just yet, he had acquired her. Was the Shadow Man implying he’d made these acquisitions on impulse? That he had no clear idea how to deal with either or both of them? The idea shook her although the evidence had been building all day. Did that mean he wasn’t quite the creature she’d imagined?
When she raised her head to look askance at the Shadow Man, he said, “You’re welcome to comb through the buildings for anything you can use, but be careful where you walk. Not everything is as stable as it might appear.”
“You do realize—” She cleared dust from her throat and collected her wits. “Gareth won’t be able to see the dangers.”
He nodded, the movement stirring the fabric of his hood. “I’ll mark pathways for him. For now, keep the boy close to you. And stay out of the tunnels.”
Mirianna was gratified he took her concern seriously, but his warning about the tunnels sounded as if he didn’t want her intruding on his privacy—as if she actually wished to go farther into pitch darkness than she already had—and the high-handed way he’d dismissed her faith in the lion still rankled. “How do you know the lion won’t harm him?”
The Shadow Man gave no indication of being startled by her question, but he said nothing for so long, she bent to look for a bit of flat stone to level the table. “She saved him from some Krad. Shortly before you arrived.”
Straightening, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. Framed in the late afternoon glow of the doorway, he looked less like shadow and more like silhouetted substance. In the close quarters, Mirianna was acutely aware of sun-warmed wool, of the faint, oily scent of human hair, of the raw, clean smell of masculine exertion. Emboldened, she ventured, “The Krad don’t seem to fear you.”
“The Krad aren’t human. You are. Remember that.”
He hadn’t moved, yet everything had somehow shifted and she was more aware than ever of the blank hood where his face should have been. She swallowed and forced herself to speak anyway. “And the lion? What is she? Why are you afraid of her?”
When his gloved hand curled around the hilt of the broken sword in his belt, and his thumb rubbed the stone in the crosspiece, Mirianna worried she’d pressed too much. Yet the gesture didn’t seem threatening, and she thought she’d seen him perform it before. She was wondering about its significance when he crossed his arms and startled her with the force of his scrutiny. “You said the lion spoke to you. What did she say?”
“I—she said ‘Come,’ and—and ‘Not all of the beasts.’ Twice.”
“‘Not all of the beasts’? When did she say that?”
Mirianna flushed. Enduring Rees’s assault had been humiliating enough without having to relive it for this cold column of blackness bent on interrogating her. She wished she hadn’t started the process by trying to get answers from him. Answers he hadn’t yet deigned to give. Scowling, she muttered, “Rees—uh—one night Rees tried to—he wanted—”
“The bastard forced himself on you?” She detected anger in the harsh, clipped words. “And the lion attacked him?”
“No—I mean—yes, Rees tried, but the lion didn’t attack. She screamed. And then I saw her eyes. And she spoke to me.”
“‘Not all of the beasts.’ And you took it to mean...?”
She shrugged. “Rees. The Krad. Anything living in the Wehrland. Rees had just said our fire would keep the beasts at bay, but she seemed to be telling me...”
“That there are beasts in the Wehrland that aren’t afraid of fire? Beasts, perhaps, like me?”
Her gaze shot to his hood, then dodged the empty blackness. She trusted the lion, and the lion had brought her to the Shadow Man, so she ought to trust him—whatever he was—if the lion did so. “No. She brought me to you. She saved me from the Krad and brought me straight to you.” Mirianna licked her lips. “Who or what is she?”
She thought he wouldn’t answer as he stood with arms crossed and hood tilted toward the floor while dust motes her broom had stirred floated on the air.
Finally, he sucked in a breath that pulled at the fabric of his hood. “My sister. Perhaps.” And he walked out.
Chapter Seventeen
When Durren returned to the courtyard, the lion was sauntering toward the outer gate. The beast paused at the sound of his boot kicking a pebble and looked over her shoulder.
What do you want from me? his mind messaged.
What I’ve always wanted, Durren. But you’re not ready to give it. Yet. She flicked her tail, and the black-lined lips curved. Enjoy my gifts. Both of them. Then she faded into thickening shadows.
Durren kicked another, bigger stone. He wanted to throw it, but he knew the lion would evade his best effort, and an emphatic kick at least gave him the satisfaction of t
humping something. Besides, in the unlikely probability the lion were truly Ayliss, she would do as she damned well pleased regardless of what he thought, wanted, or said. Just as she’d always done since they were children and she’d watched his training with cool emerald eyes...
“That sword should be mine,” Ayliss was saying as she looked over the top of the scroll she’d been studying. “I’m the firstborn by more than a year.”
“Don’t be daft.” Durren hefted the Sword of Drakkonwehr once more, enjoying a balance so perfect he could imagine himself easily fending off the mage-spawn of Beggeth even though the weapon wouldn’t come to him until his sixteenth birthday. Four long years. He sighed and replaced the weapon in its sheath over the mantel. “Koronolan gave it to his sons. His sons, Ayliss.”
“Can you recite the Deeds of Kiros? In Shadowspeech? I can.”
“I’ll know it when I have to. I need to learn the ways of a warrior first. I can’t spend all day reading Owender’s History—”
“No,” she said with a look he couldn’t decipher, “you’ve better things to do, training to protect the world and all that.”
“Look, I didn’t choose when to be born, and I don’t make the rules—”
“Rules? Or traditions?” Ayliss tossed aside the scroll and stood. At thirteen, she was already as tall as a young willow, and he had to look up at her. Durren couldn’t wait for the growth spurt his feet promised was coming. Then she would see what it felt like to look up to him for a change. But Ayliss was already speaking. “Did you ever think—isn’t it possible that one person can’t possibly know everything? I mean, have you any idea what’s in these scrolls? There are spells and chants here and—”
“Father will teach me everything.”
Her eyes flashed with more heat than he’d ever seen in them. “Yes, everything he knows. Listen, I could help you. We could work together and—”
“You?” He stared at her, aghast at the idea she could have any part in his training. She was just jealous, as always, wishing she hadn’t been born a woman.
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