He succeeded in chasing away her frown. “You are teasing me again.” She opened the pouch of mint leaves.
“Nay,” he insisted with a straight face. “I rather like it. Though it is not poetic enough. Mayhap, ‘Here lies Royce Saint-Michel, who forsooth attended the spewing of a princess’s breakfast.’ ”
Her grin widened. “Stop that.”
“Or mayhap, ‘Here lies Royce Saint-Michel, who had the honor of being present when a member of the royal family blew beets.’ ”
She laughed so hard that she winced. “One more and you will be in need of an epitaph!” She rubbed at her temples.
He grinned. “Now you are teasing me, milady.”
She met his gaze with an expression of surprise, as if making a jest were a new experience for her. “Only because you are being a featherwit.” Still smiling, she took another sip of water and chewed on a leaf, looking as if she already felt better. “You are also being kind. Just as you were when you presented me with Hera this morning. It was a very pleasant surprise.” Her voice was warm, soft. “Thank you.”
He shrugged, glad that he had been able to ease both her suffering and her somber mood. “There is no need to thank me for seeing to your comfort, milady. The fault is mine that you are ill. If I had been with you last night...”
He left the sentence unfinished, cursed himself for opening the topic he would have preferred to leave closed.
She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes, her smile fading. “You were with me last night,” she whispered.
Unable to hold her gaze, Royce stood and turned his back, wishing the wind that raked through his hair and tunic could pass through his heart as well—and erase all memory of that reckless kiss. He could not lie and claim that it had not affected him. He had no skill at concealing his emotions.
“I apologize for my behavior last night,” he said with cool formality, hoping to end the matter quickly, painlessly. “I took advantage of you when you were impaired, Princess. It will not happen again.”
For a moment, the wind whirling through the snowy pass made the only sound.
“I cannot allow you to take all the blame,” she said quietly. “I was quite within my senses. At least as much as it is possible for me to be within my senses when I am near you.”
He suddenly could not breathe. God’s blood, what was she saying?
“Royce? I—I only meant there is no need for you to apologize. I felt the same as... I wanted you to—”
“The fault was mine, Your Highness,” he said harshly. “What happened last night was a mistake.”
“Oh.” She sounded hurt. “I see.”
He clenched his fists, damned himself to whatever black pit of Hell would have him. Now he was making her feel rejected, unwanted. Was there no way to untangle himself from the mess he had created? “Nay, milady, I do not think you see at—”
“There is no need to explain. I am the one who should apologize.” Her voice had become thin. “It seems I made more than one error last night.”
“Ciara—”
“I thought when you said that...” Her words were almost lost on the wind. “I thought you felt the same as I do. I thought that you—”
“By nails and blood, woman.” He spun toward her, unable to stand any more, unwilling to hear the word cared. “I had no right! Can you not understand that? I have no right to touch you or kiss you or”—he swore vividly—“or want you the way I do.”
Her lips parted on a gasp, her eyes widening in astonishment.
“What happened last night cannot happen again,” he said roughly. “It cannot. It will not. Your father has promised you to Prince Daemon. Thousands of lives depend on you carrying out your duty. On both of us carrying out our duty.”
She turned her face into the wind. “Of course, you are right.”
The pain in her expression contradicted the mildness of her tone—and both were like blades in his heart. “God’s breath, Ciara.” He refused to let himself go to her, forced himself to remain standing where he was. “Do you know how much I have come to hate this damnable duty I agreed to? Your father has betrothed you to that foul whoreson, but I am the one delivering you into his hands.” His voice became sharp. “Do you know how that makes me feel? Do you know what it does to me to think of you as Daemon’s wife, in his bed?”
She shivered visibly, wrapped her arms around her waist.
And he felt as if he were being crushed between the walls of ice that surrounded them. “Do you think I want to give you to him, Ciara? Do you know how much that bastard has already taken from me?”
She turned to look at him, her gaze searching. “Nay, I do not understand. What did he take from you?”
As their eyes met, he could not keep the words from spilling out. “Everything. Everyone I loved. My parents, my younger brothers. My little sisters. They were not yet ten years old when one of his commanders slit their throats.”
“Oh, dear God.” Her eyes filled with pain. “Your entire family. But how... when...”
“On the day the war began. My family’s lands are—were in these mountains.” He looked at the horizon. “Just to the south. On the border.” His voice choked out.
“And when the Thuringians came...” she whispered. “Oh, Royce, thank God you survived—”
“I only survived because I was not there to help them,” he said bitterly. “I was at the palace, in your father’s service.”
He turned away, struggling to hold his emotions in check, failing. The rest of the painful details poured out. “But the Thuringian bastard who killed them paid with his life. Four years ago, during the first peace negotiations. Your father sent me as one of his emissaries—and the man who had shown no mercy to my family was there, as one of Daemon’s military advisers. And he had the audacity to taunt me about it, about how easy it was, how much he enjoyed...” A haze of fury and anguish stole his breath. “I ran him through right there at the table during the negotiations.”
Ciara gasped a wordless exclamation of shock.
“If I had it to do over again, I would,” he said. “Without a second’s hesitation.”
To his astonishment, her voice remained gentle, filled not with accusations but with sorrow. “And that was when you left Châlons—”
“I did not leave voluntarily. Your father exiled me because I had broken my word. I had sworn to him that I would put the cause of peace before my own desire for vengeance.” He turned to face her. “Do you understand, Ciara? I vowed that I would put my duty before my feelings.”
Their gazes held for a long moment, burning across the distance that separated them.
Until he looked away, to Mount Ravensbruk, looming in the distance. “Daemon’s men murdered my family, and your father took the rest. He stripped me of my spurs, my title and position—”
“So you are a nobleman.”
“Was,” he corrected. “After my father was killed, I became baron of Ferrano, and Aldric allowed me to keep the title even though the Ferrano holdings had been lost to Thuringia. He knew it was the only legacy I had left of my family. The only thing that still mattered to me.” His voice hardened. “Then he took even that away.”
“Oh, Royce.” She exhaled a low sound of pain. “How furious you must have been with him.”
“We were furious with each other.” He looked toward her, remembering, knowing that some of the fault had been his own. “Too furious to listen, or forgive.” He shook his head. “I spent a long time hating him while I tried to survive as a commoner with no money and no name. I wandered through Milan, Castile, Navarre—wherever a mercenary could earn a little coin. Then I was fortunate to meet Sir Gaston de Varennes, a Frenchman who offered me a position as captain of his guards. It was hardly the high rank I was born to, but it meant a comfortable place to live, among friends.” The memory made him smile. “Some of the best I have ever known.”
A light of understanding dawned in Ciara’s eyes. “And now my father has given you the chan
ce to reclaim all you once had. All that you are.” Her gaze traced over his face, searching. “You said that you cared about naught but the reward, but that is not true. You did not agree to serve as my escort out of greed, but out of honor. You want to make up for what happened four years ago.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You want peace to succeed this time. And you want to come home.”
He clenched his jaw, unable to speak, both pained and more touched than he dared say that she could know his heart so well. “Aye. But there is one problem, milady,” he said hotly. “I also want you.”
His declaration brought a rush of color to her cheeks. Longing shone in her eyes. “Royce—”
“But if I act on that wish,” he continued quickly, “your father and your betrothed will be drawing lots to see which one wins the privilege of cutting my heart out.”
She flinched, shut her eyes, “Nay, I would never allow anyone to—”
“You would have precious little say in the matter, Ciara.”
There was no point in discussing it further, in trying to deny the inevitable. Unable to bear looking at her any longer, he turned his back, glancing up at the clouds—and a flash of silver on the slope high above them caught his eye. Made him freeze.
“Royce—”
He held up a hand to cut her off, a chill skidding down his spine. The flash might have been sunlight glinting off the ice.
Or the polished steel of a sword.
He searched the cliffs around them, suddenly aware of how vulnerable their position was, directly in the middle of the pass. If riders came at them from either end, they would be trapped.
His heart pounded against his ribs. In seeing to Ciara’s comfort, he had neglected her safety. “It is time to ride on, milady.” He kept his voice even, trying not to alarm her.
She made a sound of frustration. “Why must you always—”
He closed the distance between them and scooped her into his arms, giving her no further chance to protest. “My apologies, Princess, but there is no time to explain.” He carried her toward his destrier, still studying the peak above them, certain he had seen something. Someone.
Ciara pushed at his chest. “You are the most maddening person I have ever met in my life.”
Royce ignored her, swiftly reaching Anteros’s side and lifting her into the saddle. Hera was growling in her basket and yapping nervously.
Only then did he hear the rumble.
Distant. Oddly familiar. Like thunder, or the hoofbeats of a hundred horses charging into battle.
Some instinct, some memory made him look up. Not at the open ends of the pass, but up. Just in time to see a sight that made him freeze where he stood for one second of paralyzed horror.
Ciara followed his gaze, and her voice was hollow with terror. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”
The entire top of the mountain seemed to be sliding toward them, lethal tons of snow raining down.
Avalanche.
He had no time to think, to save himself—only to strike Anteros’s flank, hard.
And send Ciara out of harm’s way.
Chapter Ten
* * *
SOME INSTINCT MADE him drop to the ground instead of vainly trying to run. He could hear the avalanche thundering down toward him, drew his arms and legs close, protected his head with both hands—and felt the snow hit him like an explosion.
It swallowed him whole. But instead of crushing him into the ground, it shot him forward as if he were a ball in a child’s game. Swept him helplessly toward the open end of the pass.
It was then he tasted the fear. Black, raw fear that made him strike out and fight wildly for his life. He battled against the snow as he would a drowning current, but the river of white was too strong, smashing everything in its path, filling the air with an unearthly roar as if the mountain had come to enraged life.
The force of it pushed him through the opening of the pass and down the slope beyond, carrying him like a leaf caught in a rushing waterfall. He struggled for breath, for consciousness, battered by chunks of ice, rocks, branches. The world tumbled insanely around him until sky and sun disappeared, until earth and mountain vanished, swallowed by the cold, smothering sea of white.
And then it all stopped. As suddenly as it had begun, the pounding flood slowed, then calmed. He slid to a halt, hovering on the edge of consciousness, aware only that he was no longer moving.
With an immense effort, he managed to pry his eyelids open, found himself surrounded by darkness. He could not see or hear. Or breathe. His limbs were weighed down. Pinned beneath a killing weight of snow.
He had been buried alive.
Fear slithered through him, followed hard and fast by a vicious shot of fury. He would not die. Not like this. Murdered by traitors. Spineless cowards who sought to bury him on a mountainside, to kill—
Ciara. He had to get to Ciara. If she had escaped the avalanche, they would be after her. He had to get free, help her. Protect her. Twisting his head, he found a small pocket of air, just enough to allow him to draw breath.
He began to move. First his hands, then his feet. Arching his body, clawing, kicking, he pushed and fought to clear a tunnel through his freezing tomb. Using all his strength, he struggled upward. At least he hoped it was upward. He had been tumbled and turned so much he could not tell.
Desperate for more air, he shoved aside handfuls, then armfuls of snow. It clung to him, heavy, wet, like cold armor, holding him down. But he filled his mind with an image of Ciara’s face, her eyes, her smile.
Lungs burning, he broke into daylight at last, stuck his head through the opening, and gasped a mouthful of frosty air. It seared his throat, leaving him coughing as he pushed himself up and out, like a moth emerging from a cocoon. Shuddering, weak, he collapsed atop the snow, sprawled on his stomach, unable to move.
Only now did he feel the pain—from cuts across his chest, his ribs, his back. From dozens of bruises. His tunic and leggings had been shredded by sharp edges of ice and rocks. He felt the cold against his bare skin, felt his blood seeping into the snow. And agony in his left leg. The muscles hurt as if his limb had almost been twisted off. And his sword was gone, the belt and sheath ripped from his waist.
Choking out a curse, he opened his eyes, aware of the silence surrounding him, strange and eerie after the avalanche’s deafening thunder.
Gentle flakes of fresh white drifted down from the clouds. The craggy peaks soaring above appeared the same, the sky unchanged. It was as if nature had failed to notice the chaos on the mountainside.
Failed to care whether the human beings below survived.
Ciara. He lifted his head, thought to call out for her—then stopped himself. Looking up the slope, he sought any trace of the rebel he suspected had caused the avalanche, or accomplices the bastard might have had. He saw no one.
No doubt they had fled to a place of safety after starting it, confident that the snow would do their lethal work for them. He dared not call out and alert them that their treacherous plan had failed.
His lips twisted in a snarl as the desire for retribution heated his blood. From some deep reserve, he found the strength to push to his feet.
Half dazed, he turned fully around, trying to orient himself. He had been carried out the western end of the pass and halfway down the slope. He was standing on ground that he and Ciara had covered earlier, little more than an hour ago, as they rode up the mountainside.
Except that now, the easily followed path had been transformed into an expanse of deep drifts.
And Ciara would be on the opposite side of the mountain. When the avalanche struck, Anteros had been carrying her away from him, toward the east.
He started moving upward, as fast as he could, whispering a prayer that his swift destrier had had time to get her out of the pass before the torrent of snow reached them. If not—
Nay, he would not think of the possibilities. His heart filled his throat at the idea of Ciara—slender, delicate Ciara, who weighe
d no more than one of her silk veils—buried as he had been. She would not have the strength to get free.
He kept his eyes on the summit, forcing his way through the drifts, ignoring his wounds, the blood, the pain. Hampered by the shifting snows beneath him, he made frustratingly slow progress back to the top.
It took what felt like an hour to reach the place where he had seen her last, in the middle of the silent, empty pass between the towering cliffs—the very spot where he had joked with her about his epitaph.
Despite the fact that he was already chilled to the bone, the memory sent a fresh shudder through him.
Finally he reached the opposite end of the gap, where the eastern opening spilled into a long, gentle slope.
But as he stood there, breathing hard, staring out across the smooth expanse of white, he saw no sign of her.
Anywhere.
“Ciara!” Her name tore from him before he could hold it in, and echoed back from the cliffs, as if the empty valley below were mocking him.
She was gone.
He clenched his fists, shaking his head in denial, fury. Guilt. He never should have stopped in this place. Should have been thinking of her safety rather than her comfort. God’s blood, he was her guardian, her protector, and he had failed her.
He staggered forward a step, then another, glaring out over the blinding field of smooth, unmarked snow—with no idea where to start looking for her. If she was trapped beneath the drifts, he would have only minutes to... only minutes...
Nay, she would already be dead. In the time it had taken him to get back to the top of the pass, she would have suffocated.
He sank to his knees, unprepared for the force of the anguish that hit him at the thought that Ciara was lost forever. He lifted his face to the heavens, furious that he had been spared while she...
“Nay!” he shouted, the word booming into the slate-gray sky.
Again the icy cliffs sent his own voice echoing back to him. But this time, he also heard another sound. Soft, distant. Familiar.
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