Tzigana brought forth a folded green cloth. Unfurled, it revealed a leaping brown stag against a green background, all surrounded by a border of white interlocking knotwork. She handed it to Maleta. "Yours."
Maleta stared at the standard of Kunigonde, the symbol of her family, her father, clutched in her hands. A great yawning chasm of pain opened, and she dropped to her knees, burying her face in the stiff cloth. She fought tears. What use were they now? 'Twas a miracle anything of hers, of her family's, survived, and she was more grateful than she could ever express to Tzigana. Mayhaps Wolf alone understood the conflict in her heart. She might well have tried to hold back the sea as her own tears. She strangled on them until she could barely breathe.
A pair of hands clasped her shaking shoulders, pulling her back against a warm, masculine chest. Cianan, as always, offering his support and love despite her earlier rejection of him. She leaned back against him, accepting the comfort he gave as Tzigana and Wolf knelt afore her. "It deserves to fly over its own once more," Wolf stated. "Take it home, Van Marete. Fly it with pride and with honor in your family's name."
She raised her gaze to Wolf's. His eyes reflected her own pain and sorrow. "And you and yours?" she whispered hoarsely.
He nodded. "Aye, and me and mine." Tzigana slipped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. She looked up at Wolf, and their gazes met for a moment. They shared a gentle smile afore he turned his gaze back to Maleta. "At long last, we all fly free."
Maleta nodded. "We leave in the morning." Cianan helped her stagger to her feet. She wrapped the banner around her shoulders, like a hug from her father.
"Sunniva left a hundred men there, under the command of a single captain," Cianan told her.
"We can spare but forty guild to accompany you," Tzigana said. "I'll send Gayle, Mrow and Ain among them."
"Raven goes as well," Mother Kitta decreed. "And Jana and Hajnal to ride with Jovan."
Tzigana gave her a venomous look. "Jana belongs here, with her people. Safe."
Mother Kitta was unmoved. "She is needed in the south. She will prove helpful."
"Then Polkara and Dagonet go along with Jana," Wolf amended. "You can fly the guild standard and mine beneath your own."
"You and Raven will represent Hedda," Mother Kitta said.
"Well, if that does not scare the occupation into flight, nothing shall," Cianan remarked.
"What if they barricade themselves in against a siege?" Raven asked.
"Ask Jana," Mother Kitta replied. "Sister Raven, you're with me." She eyed Maleta with an odd mixture of emotions. "Until tomorrow, Hedda's Own." She and Raven left the room.
"We have much to do afore tomorrow," Cianan said. "Send Mrow, Ain, Gayle and Dagonet to Jovan's room. We shall make our plans there."
Tzigana nodded. "They'll be along in an hour or so."
Maleta clutched her father's standard around her as she and Cianan returned to Jovan's room. She didn't trust herself to speak. She stumbled through the doorway and struggled out of Hedda's trappings. She heard Cianan dismiss Hajnal, but she moved to Jovan's bed and draped Von Jereon's colors across the still form of his son. "We're going home, Jovan," she whispered. "We found father's stag. Kunigonde will rise again. Hold on. Just... hold on."
Cianan removed his own armor and weapons and strode to her side. "Benilo shall meet us there." He reached for her shoulders, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. "He says put Jovan in his childhood room, surround him with as many things from the time afore as you can find, and then call him. If we wake Jovan in a place of security and good memories, he might find the courage to come back."
"'The courage to come back,'" Maleta repeated. Courage she herself needed to find, to cling to. She stared at that stag. It seemed to stare back at her. She thought of what Cianan offered. "Dara and Loren are bonded, like you said?"
"Aye." He sat down aside her on the edge of Jovan's bed.
"Dara's human, like me?"
"She's half human and half dragon, but aye, she was raised in your world, not ours, if that is what you ask."
There he went again, flexing that uncanny awareness again. But Maleta did not allow it to distract her this time. "So they can feel what the other person feels, hear each other's thoughts? How do they not go mad?"
He closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again, he smiled at her, but his expression was serious. "When a neighbor invaded Dara's land, her pregnant stepmother Moira ran for her home, the very mountains your Kunigonde butts up against. Loren had made the vow with Dara never to leave her, to always be there for her. But against his wishes Dara sent him off to find Queen Moira and protect her – the fate of a kingdom, she said." He grinned for a moment. "Dara can be persuasive when she wishes to be."
He sobered. "After he left, the invaders took Dara captive, stripped her naked, branded her as a slave and chained her to Jalad's bed to await his attentions. Chained with iron shackles, a powerful poison against dragon kind. Bound, without power, and alone. But she was never truly alone. Loren was never apart from her, save in body. Everything she went through, he felt. Not being able to get to her nearly drove him mad. Were it not for his war mare Hani`ena and his own sense of duty, he would have lost his mind."
"This Jalad was the man who sold his soul to a demon? Who corrupted Tegan?"
He nodded. "Count Jalad of Westmarche, aye."
"How did Dara survive?"
"Our vertenya queen? She fought back like a cornered bear when he made a mistake. He got close enough for her to almost strangle him with her legs." He leaned forward. "Later, Loren's brother was badly wounded in a goblin attack. Loren was unable to save him. His guilt at that failure would have crippled him and endangered the entire elven kingdom, but Dara was there to support him through that guilt, his grief and his ascension to king. Because of the bond they share, neither faced these past challenges alone, and they shall be there for each other in future struggles. They are each individually stronger for it."
"But the thoughts? No privacy?"
"It does not happen all at once. That is what I was trying to tell you this morning. The vow itself enhances awareness, emotions and physical monitoring. Only when bonded life-mates join as one flesh do their minds and souls link as well."
Her face flamed at the thought of that joining – with love, not violence.
"But it would happen to both of us. I have never done this, either, elingrena. What I know of it comes from the testimony of many, men and women I trust. None of them have run mad. They all seem disgustingly happy." His eyes twinkled at her.
She grinned.
"In truth, I envy them," he confessed. "To never be alone, to be with the one person in the world you can trust with all, and never fear?" He reached out to cup her scarred cheek, brushed his thumb across her lips in a feathery caress. "To share your hopes and dreams with the other person, to have someone brace you through your fears, help strengthen your weakness? What is there to fear in that?"
All she felt was the warmth of his body, the touch of his hand. All she heard was the persuasiveness of his voice. It all sounded so reasonable... Her eyes closed as she swayed closer, enfolded in his wild, slightly fey masculine scent. She swore she could hear the blood rushing through his veins... or was it hers? She needed this, needed him. Only he could complete her... Only Cianan...
"Take the vow with me," he whispered against her lips. "Know how much I need you. Say aye, elingrena. Make us whole."
His kiss prevented her reply. His tongue stroked hers and scattered her thoughts. This kiss was new, different, desperate. She burned for him, ached for his touch. It wasn't enough, it would never be enough... She felt herself fall back, reached out to catch herself. Her hand brushed the green standard of Kunigonde, and the body of her brother beneath it. With a wild cry she tore herself free from Cianan's arms and leaped off the bed. Her heart pounded as she struggled to focus. "Stop it! What are you doing to me?"
His face was flushed
and his eyes glittered, but he took a deep, shuddering, breath. "What I do to you and what you do to me are becoming one and the same, elingrena." A trace of humor crept into his voice then he sobered and shook his head. "I do not think we shall be able to fight this much longer. The sooner we come together as mates, the better off we shall be."
"I can't do this now." Maleta rubbed her temples. "I'm already bound, to Shamar, to Hedda, to balance. I owe Hedda for everything, body and soul, and She takes that debt seriously. Until She releases me, I cannot be distracted. You saw what happened the last time I broke my oath. What if next time She makes it permanent?"
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Do you want this?" he demanded. "Do you want me?"
"Aye!" she cried, exasperated, frustrated. She froze, hearing her answer, feeling the depth of her own yearning. "Aye," she repeated softly. "More than my life, more than anything, I do want you. I want a future with you, none other."
"So be it." His gaze captured hers as he strode over to her, grasped her shoulders with his hands. "Maleta, Van Marete, Hedda's Own, I bind myself to you. Whenever, whatever your need, I shall come to you. To you do I answer with body or blood. My life for yours. My soul to yours, 'til our last breath. Never again shall you be alone. You are mine, in this lifetime and the next. I shall ever be yours, for always. We are now one." He closed his eyes and took her mouth with his.
She should have been shocked. She should have stopped him. She didn't move. She didn't want to move. She'd been lost from that first moment their eyes had met back in the Broken Blade. Yielding to the inevitability of fate, she melted into the heat of his kiss. If Hedda damned them both, so be it. Warmth flooded her, filling the emptiness. Cianan had bound them in spirit until she wasn't sure where she ended and he began. She sensed him hovering on the edge of her mind, in her heart, in her blood. A part of herself flowed into him with her surrender, with her very breath.
He broke off the kiss, and she could only gape at him. "What have we done?" she whispered.
Chapter Twenty-two
"What have you done?" Kikeona echoed.
"What we had to." Cianan took a deep breath and threw his head back, closing his eyes at the overwhelming flood of sensation, of emotion. Relief as his world righted. The gaping wound of envy in his soul, the slow bleeding into emptiness, was gone. Those were his. Aching, burning need for the woman now bound to him – that was definitely him.
Shock, fear of Hedda's reaction, a feeling of losing himself, of drowning – that was Maleta. He could feel her shaking, trying to pull back from the fire in his soul. She was so young in her feelings, they were so new to her, she had no experience at all to help her cope. With no escape, she began to panic.
He had but a moment afore her panic became his own. Using every bit of self-discipline he had developed over the centuries, he grabbed onto the sense of relief, of rightness, and superimposed it over the need, cooling the flame with the ice lurking deep within Maleta herself. He captured her gaze, held it through sheer force of will. "Maleta, look at me. Listen to my voice. Stay with me. No more emptiness, no more loneliness, can you feel that? Focus on that – the rightness, the relief." He felt her try, and when the heat receded, so did her panic. He felt her relax, and with that, the pressure eased.
Maleta clung to him. Her heart pounded. He felt her reach out to sift through the feeling, the emotion. "You have such an old soul," she murmured. Her voice shook. "I'm far too young for you, you know."
He felt the choppiness of her inexperience, but also her willingness to accept, to try. "You are perfect for me," he corrected her.
Her clarity of thought slowly returned. "I thought you said the vow had to be mutual."
He held her gaze. "It does."
"But I didn't – "
Cianan smiled. "Aye, you did. When I asked if you wanted this, if you wanted me, heart and soul you answered aye. That makes it mutual and binding. I have waited weeks for you to make up your mind about me. About time you took pity on me and put me out of my misery."
Maleta shied away from the desire again, but slid back to the beginning of his feelings. "Our first meeting?" Her jaw dropped. "How could you be so sure that soon?"
"You forget, I have known all along what to look for. It took but a split second, simple recognition." Cianan curled his hand to trail the backs of his fingers down the side of her neck. Her shiver was his own. "I think you felt it, also. That is why you ran. I was a threat to all you had been. Not a threat to the warrior, vertenya, or you would have run me through and been done with it. A threat to the woman, and you were not ready to face that. You had to get to know the person afore you could face the man."
"I had to get to know the woman first," Maleta whispered.
"And the woman standing afore me is a wondrous creature, indeed. I shall strive every day to prove worthy of the gift."
She searched his face. "Cianan, what am I supposed to do with you?"
He laughed outright at the disgruntled tone, as if he was a stray pup who had followed her home. He felt her uncertainty, her fear of the sensuality that was such a part of him. But she had fire in herself, as well – a fire she yielded to all too seldom in temper. Fire could easily turn to passion. Familiarity bred trust, and with trust came sharing. Sharing their hearts, their bodies and their souls. "We have years now for you to figure it out."
A knocking sounded at the door. Maleta pulled free. "Back to the real world."
"Time to go home," Cianan told her. "Come in," he called out.
Mrow marched in, sized them up with one quick glance. "Ye talked t' him. Good."
"What? Does everyone have an opinion about my personal life?" Maleta burst out.
Gayle grinned from behind Mrow. She carried a ceiling-high standard-bearing pole. Cianan saw a fleeting glimpse of sadness in her gaze, quickly masked. "When we're going into battle with the two of you, 'tis nice to know if you're going to save the enemy the trouble," she mocked. "I feel safer already."
"You need to clean that breastplate and weapons," Raven reproved. "Do you still stand for Hedda, you'd best look the part, Hedda's Own." Something was different about Raven, Cianan sensed. A distance, a coldness. Not Hedda's ice, not quite, but similar. Dark.
A shaky wave of sadness came from Maleta, a sense of loss, of fear. Every step she took toward the Light distanced her farther from the grey, from balance. Cianan was surprised Hedda thus far had no comment or reaction to their impulsive action. What was She waiting for?
"I will," Maleta promised. She strode over to her pack and settled in to do just that while they held their meeting.
"How far is Kunigonde?" Ain asked.
"Two days' hard march, afore dawn and past dusk," Maleta reported. "With the snow, with the wagon – " she glanced at Jovan, "no faster, possibly even three."
Gayle nodded, and rested the pole against the wall aside Maleta. "For your banner."
"Thank you."
"We have th' banners of raven an' guild under th' stag," Mrow said. "We'll be marchin' on Kunigonde as a united force, a united Shamar. Odds're greater than two t' one, but there's not a one in this room can't handle that, an' that goes for th' forty pros backing us up." He shook his head. "Ne'er thought I'd live t' see th' day. 'Bout fell over when I saw Von Berend back from th' dead."
"They shall barricade themselves in against a siege," Cianan said. "We cannot storm a castle with forty men."
"Nay, but we can sneak into one," Gayle commented.
Maleta scrubbed Sunniva's blood from Hedda's Sword. "Not how I'd planned my homecoming."
"That's why Jana's coming with us," Raven reminded them.
Cianan's temper rose. "She is but a child. She belongs in a schoolroom, not on a battlefield."
"She belongs to Orthia," Raven retorted. "She's a seer and a land-speaker."
Namula's tree flashed into Cianan's memory, and he felt Maleta start – she must have recalled the same thing. She looked at him, horror in her eyes, and a wave of crippling terror crashe
d over him, emanating from her. It had nothing to do with the tree. He held firm to his own sense of self, to offer her an anchor of equilibrium. "What is it?" he asked.
She struggled to grip his calm. "There's a tunnel leads from the outside to a secret room. It was our hiding place of last resort." Her voice shook. "They came at us from the inner hallway and the outer passage at the same time."
"Who knew of these passages?" he demanded.
She frowned in thought. "The family and Captain Tian, for certain. I don't know about anyone else."
The blood pounded in his temples. "You were betrayed."
"I've always thought so." She nodded. Her eyes narrowed, and pure rage replaced the terror. "I swear I will find out who – and why."
Women were emotional quicksilver, sliding from one emotion to the next with an intensity and a suddenness that left him gasping. The irony was not lost on him. She feared his lust? When all that intensity turned into passion, she would set the bed afire. He would never survive.
But he would die a happy man.
Kikeona snorted in the back of his mind. "Focus," she ordered.
Maleta's face blazed.
"So, there's a tunnel leadin' in," Mrow continued. "They for certain know of it. But after six years, how lax've they become? Do they still guard it, an' in what numbers?"
"How big's the tunnel and the corridor?" Gayle asked.
"Narrow," Maleta said. "We'll have to go single file."
Ain frowned. "That's quite a back-up with over forty goin' into a bottleneck."
"Under cover of darkness, it's possible," Gayle stated. "I'll go commandeer a couple wagons and see to supplies and horses."
"I think we're done here fer now," Mrow decided. "Th' rest can be figured out in camp 'long th' way." He rose, and led everyone out.
Cianan grabbed his gear and dropped to the floor aside Maleta as she labored to scrub Sunniva's blood off Hedda's neglected sword. "Can I borrow the oil?" he asked as he took a cloth from his pack. She slid the tiny pot over to him. They worked side by side in silence. She was a jumble of conflicting emotions and tension, all of it too fleeting for him to grasp. He let it swirl around and over him, and focused on staying still and steady within himself should she reach out to him.
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