“But I don’t understand! The gardeners could remove these!” She stepped forward, gripping a large, gnarled vine. Dark against her white, it trembled in her grip, creaking and straining to maintain its hold on the pockmarked stone. With obvious effort, she yanked the vine away. She did not look back at him; he knew he was forgotten in the sudden urgency of her labor. She mouthed something and reached to her side. Her hands fluttered there uselessly.
Lord Darclan watched her intently. He made no move to interfere. She stopped her scramble for something that didn’t exist and turned once again to the vines. She yanked another free, threw it aside, and began on a new tendril. Sun glinted off the sweat of her brow as she worked herself into a frenzy. The well was large, and the stranglehold of the foliage was complete, so she chose to clear off one section completely.
Bitterly, Lord Darclan noted which area she fought to free. It faced his castle, and cleared, it might even be visible from the window of his study. Twice he caught himself when the urge to stop her caused him to start forward. He kept his hands at his sides, and his mouth in a clamped, grim line.
What do you see, Lady? Does memory guide you in this, or instinct alone? How can it still compel your obedience?
But he said nothing. This woman, not the child who had run free in his garden, was one he knew well.
She worked for two hours; the sun marked the passage of time. He spoke only once in that time, moved only once, touched her stark face only once. She shrugged him off, in a silence heavy with determination and motion. He was left standing, the tears in his hand catching the breeze.
At the close of two hours, her dress was scored with multiple tears and rips; her hands torn and blistered. She turned glazed green eyes to him and spoke in an old, dead language—line language; the heritage of the Light that had faded. “Help me. ”
He stepped quickly forward and caught her in his arms as she staggered forward, shaking his head.
“Help me, please. ”
He gazed at her with shuttered eyes, not certain to whom she thought she spoke. “I cannot, Sara.” His voice was more rigid than his arms. “I cannot touch it.”
He heard the low rumbling in the back of her throat, half snarl, half whimper. “Come, lady. Come and rest. Tomorrow—”
“Too late!”
“Yes.”
Her knees crumpled. He gathered her up; she felt weightless. He knew a moment of panic when her eyes suddenly widened; when the sun’s rays seemed to pass through her as if she were translucent. He turned away from the burning orb, shielding her from its light, his grip tight and defiant. Then the moment passed, her eyelids closed, and sleep eased the pain from her features.
Oh, Sarillom, he thought. Will the time never come? Will you never be free?
He shivered, knowing the mortal answer.
No. No, I spared you that.
But what had he truly spared her? Even in Rennath she had never come to this frenzied pass.
You will know peace, Lady. And I shall share in it. Tenderly, with infinite care, he brushed her tangled hair aside and kissed her forehead.
chapter nine
He carried Sara in from the garden. The castle was conspicuous in its severe and sudden silence; if any saw him enter, they did not trouble him with even the sight of their frightened faces. He strode through the main hall, up the stairs, and down the corridor to his room—Sara’s room. He stopped outside of the wood of her door, bowed his head briefly, and cursed beneath his breath.
The door swung open, and in the center of the room that was to be his much needed privacy sat the slave that Sara had named. For a moment the lord wanted to kill the boy for daring to be present to see his lady in such a state. And it would be easy—just a word, the briefest of gestures, and the boy would be gone. His eyes wore his intent openly as he glared, his anger too deep for words.
Why don’t you run?
Darin asked himself the same question as he met his lord’s dark gaze. He saw clearly what was in that gaze; had seen it before in the service of House Damion. Each time, someone had graced the altars and the stones. It had not been turned on him.
But he saw, as well, the bruised and bleeding form of Lady Sara as she lay unconscious in the arms of his lord. He couldn’t breathe. He could only wonder if his decision to accompany her in the morning had brought her to this.
Kerren’s screams echoed clearly in the air all around—Kerren’s screams, and the price he had paid for the last time that Darin had named himself in the presence of nobles.
But Kerren was a slave. The lady was of the nobility—the lord had said so himself. Nobles didn’t die because a slave was named.
Did they?
He remembered the last time he had defied the command of nobility. His arm ached, his cheeks flushed with anger, with shame. His hands were red with the blood of the stones. But he had not died. And he had never questioned again; the pain had been too great, too final.
At least, it had been when he was eight summers.
He knew the rule well. There can be no friendship among slaves. And he had followed it, followed it so dearly to avoid feeling again the loss and pain and guilt of Kerren’s death. Lady Sara was truly the first person, since the death of Kerren, that he had allowed himself to care about, because his mistake could never cost her life. Or so he had thought.
Maybe the beating of the slavemaster had dimmed with the years. Maybe physical pain just couldn’t be remembered that clearly. Or maybe the fear of losing this friendship was just too much.
Too much? If the lord intended to kill her, what could he do? He was as powerless without her friendship as he had been four years ago.
No, not as powerless. For he wasn’t bound; his arms and legs were free; the chair and the gallery did not contain him. With a cry that carried across four years, he launched himself at his lord, his small fists balled and flailing.
Lord Darclan reacted more quickly than even the Swords of the high priest. His hand lashed out, a controlled, even movement that sent Darin sprawling dizzily into the wall.
His head struck, hard enough to stun him, but not enough to silence his cry. “What have you done to her?”
Lord Darclan met the pale face of young Darin with a bitter, chill smile. At the boy’s words, with their mixture of rage, fear, and defiance, the edge of his anger vanished. Am I not, after all, the cause of this, Sara? Would his loss, his disappearance, not put a deeper wedge between us?
This, he thought, this is what I saw in the slave. If his light is weak, it is still alive.
He made no answer, but Darin could see the change that came over his eyes. It was confusing.
“The lady has suffered an accident.”
Darin did not move, although the wall at his back was cold and hard. White lips opened twice, but words would not come.
“Darin.” Lord Darclan nodded to the bed.
Darin felt shock cut through the haze of pain and anger that held him motionless.
Darin.
Lord Darclan spoke deliberately. “Darin.”
This time Darin gained his feet. He did not know what to think. But hope came, hope that the accident was only that: an accident. He scrambled to the bed and turned the covers down.
Lord Darclan moved past him and with consummate care laid Sara down on the bed. His fingers traced the line of her jaw. He knew that the boy still watched, but he was weary.
What of it, then? Let the slave watch. The boy, after all, had no true idea of who, or what, his lord was. Leaning over, Lord Darclan brushed Sara’s hair aside, and again his lips brushed her forehead. She was so still ...
“Sara.”
That one word told Darin all he needed to know.
“I will go and get water, lord.”
Lord Darclan shook his head briefly, clearing his eyes. “Please,” he said softly. “Do that.”
“Will you stay with her? If she wakes, she might be afraid.”
“I will stay,” he murmured. “I will stay.
”
Darin walked to the door and then looked back. Lord Darclan was bent over Sara, his hands clutching her shoulders gently but firmly, as if to hold her. As if to keep her.
The two on the bed seemed bound by the same stillness, the same sorrow. Darin couldn’t understand all of what he saw, but he felt an age about them, and a sense of Lord Darclan’s bitter hopelessness, and love.
Darin. He called me Darin.
For the sake of Sara. Or because Darin loved her, too. The boy wasn’t sure which, but either way, he knew that House Darclan was about to change. And he knew, from the name and the gestures, that Lord Darclan would allow it.
Hope bit him sharply as he went for water.
The fire burned merrily in the grate, to protect the room against the lingering chill of night. Soon it wouldn’t matter, but this was as much of winter as the southern castle received.
Lady Sara, dressed in clean bed clothing, slept soundly between thick feather quilting and bed. Darin sat by her side, content to watch over her, as he had watched before.
But this time, the gentle rise and fall of her breath and the softness of her face meant more than a daydream. When she wakened, he knew who she would be.
Their two shadows, trapped by the flickering flame, moved rapidly in contrast to their stillness.
Lord Darclan watched the sculpture they formed, apart from it, but a part of it.
“Darin,” he said softly. The boy shifted in his seat. “I believe the worst is over.”
“I think so.” The color had not returned to her face, but her breath was not so shallow as it had been.
Lord Darclan could see the question in the boy’s eyes. Concern for Lady Sara had robbed him of fear for himself.
Darin, she called you. And I. He knew that he could forbid the boy to speak of the day’s events, forbid him to ask of his lady what had transpired—if indeed she woke remembering any of it. He opened his mouth to do so, but the words did not come.
Meeting his eyes, Darin realized that he could ask what had happened, without fear of reprisal. He, too, opened his mouth, but found that the question would not address itself to the wary man—man now, not lord alone. His gaze fell back to Sara.
“Lord,” he said, almost timidly, “I know that you’d never hurt her.”
At the same moment, unbidden, the lord said, “Darin, I would never willingly allow harm to come to my lady.”
The same faltering smile touched their lips, and who it surprised more, neither could say. It was gone from sight in an instant, but it remained, taking strength in the roots of memory.
Lord Darclan walked to the door, paused, and then bowed very formally to his young slave. Darin accepted the bow and returned it, knowing what it acknowledged, and what it could not say in words.
“I will tell the rest of my household to attend your words; she is your charge, and you are now responsible for seeing that no harm comes to her. Is that clear? ” I am trusting you with my existence, child. Sara, Sara. If she could have seen how she still wrought changes, in spite of all his best plans, she would have smiled.
And that smile would have paid several times for the inconvenience these changes made.
“Yes, lord,” Darin said softly, an echo of any other time he had said it.
Lord Darclan walked out of the room and into the corridor. As he walked its length, he realized that the youth trusted him.
For her sake, yes, but nonetheless ... Darin was only the second person in history to so gift him. He walked to his study, musing over this.
Darkness swirled around her, catching and closing her eyes with long, red nails. She felt the touch of it across her exposed cheek, fingers so cold that they burned. She reached for a hand, or something that could support her against it. Fingers closed on ice that split the hand to the bone.
She was alone.
Shuddering, she forced her eyes open, then snapped them shut again, and cried out something—a name?—that the darkness swallowed. Teetering uncertainly, she spun around, trying to see beyond the blackness that held her. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders.
She was alone. In desperation, she cried out for the one person she could remember.
Darin!
Her cry had brought him once before, but now something else responded to it. A ghost of a man, tall and gaunt, made itself visible through the darkness.
He is not here. The words were as thin, as cold, as the man. He raised one long arm and held his hand out, palm up. But I am. Along his arm, like a fine tracery of lace, cut a deep red line through the blackness.
Then, from nowhere, a ring of light surrounded Sara. The man grimaced and stepped backward slowly. Without thought, she took an involuntary step forward, toward him. The light grew tight around her, offering slight warmth. It would not allow her to pass.
Darin! Lord—Lord Darclan!
These are not for you, not now. Come, little one. He smiled. I will wait.
Because the castle was usually silent and somber, the sound of raised voices, or in this case one raised voice and one quiet one, carried more clearly than it might have. The mood that had lingered with Lord Darclan upon quitting Sara and Darin was shattered; his steps lost the subtle spring that had carried him this far.
“—and in matters of the Church, you are not privileged to speak with Lord Darclan’s voice, regardless of what he has told you.”
A heated voice responded to the condescension in the smooth one. “May I remind you, Priest—”
“You will be respectful. Nobility does not treat servants of the Church in that tone; it is certainly not fitting for one who is mere steps above slavery!”
There was a choked silence, and the louder voice, more controlled, began to speak again. “May I respectfully suggest that, regardless of your stature, you are in the domain of the Lord Darclan, and here his word is law. I have been given dispensation to deal with unexpected visitors, regardless of rank or affiliation. You have no right to contest the lord’s command in his own land!”
“Malthan does not recognize political dominion.”
Lord Darclan stepped, unnoticed, into the confrontation. “Nor,” he said softly, “it seems, does his Church.” He turned to face Gervin, noting the angry red lines of his face. “You have done well, old friend.”
Gervin wore his years well, but they showed in the steely flint of his eyes—eyes that had seen much, and little enough of it good.
It has been nearly forty years, Darclan thought, with a shade of approval. You have been good to your word, and I to mine.
He looked more carefully at his slavemaster, at his right hand in House Darclan. He dressed not according to his full station; his clothing was plain, common really, but fully functional. It housed two visible pockets and a plethora of concealed ones. If Lord Darclan had ordered an uninvited guest disposed of, the man, along with his grating demands, would have died with one foot halfway over the door.
Looking now at the slightly arrogant young priest, Darclan regretted that he had not. This one wore the formal regalia of the priesthood: dark black robes, lined with gray and gold. His posture, likewise, was that of a priest: the dichotomy of energetic indolence.
“If your missive is so urgent that you attempt to undermine my commands in my domain, perhaps we should retire to my study to more quickly discuss it.” Without waiting for a response, Darclan turned and walked into the room.
The priest stood back for a few moments, a flash of annoyance skirting his face. Then he shook his head and followed. Darclan gestured briefly at a chair in front of his desk, and the priest took it.
“You may begin.”
The priest raised an eyebrow. “May I introduce myself, as you did not leave your servant time to announce my presence.”
“I am not concerned with the particulars of what you are called. You are one of too many priests of the Dark Heart. You may state your business, and I will listen. But do it quickly and leave.”
The priest blushed, a deep cri
mson color.
Fool. Darclan had never suffered this lack of grace well. And the priests were always the worst. Mere curtness could be used to bait them endlessly.
The priest took control of himself slowly; Darclan noted this with sardonic amusement.
“Very well. You know that the ceremony of renewal is to take place in the third quarter.”
“Well enough,” Lord Darclan said, “to need no reminders.”
The priest gave a measured nod. His ringed hands gripped the edge of the chair on which he was seated, but his face betrayed nothing.
“Lord ... Darclan,” the priest began, knowing his irony was not lost, “while you are setting up a house for reasons which do not concern us, we are worried about—”
“Much that does not concern you.” Several times Darclan had considered crushing the priesthood. Each time it was harder to ignore the desire, and he had forgotten in the years of battle with the lines just how strong this urge could be. “I am aware of the ceremony. It is petty and the province of the half-blooded. I do not believe you have anything else to say.” Leaning slightly forward, he added, “And I am not one who has patience with those who would waste my time.”
“My Lord”—the voice was now free from irony—“if you wish it so, then your desire is, of course, our command. It is your Empire, and we have followed your wishes in regards to this house. I will not waste further words on unnecessary politeness.” His voice became sharper. “We have noted a disturbance of late. It is faint, but not inconsiderable.”
Darclan leaned back into his chair; his arms rested on the desk, his hands came up to form a precise steeple. “Go on.”
“As you desire, Lord. It has come to the attention of the High Priest Vellen that you have a guest. A young woman.”
The words seemed to have no effect. After allowing the silence to lengthen, the young priest began again.
“Her name is, oddly enough, Sara Laren. Lady Sara Laren.
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