“Your link to me is strongest,” he said. “Break that link first, and the rest will follow.”
“You’ve already broken it.”
“No, I have built a wall. Only you have the power to undo it.” He took her hand, the wall came down, and she knew that he would never harm her...
She yanked her hand away. “I can’t.”
“Your mind is going in too many directions at once,” he said calmly. “The City, The Heart, your father, your sisters...”
“So you’re psychic, too, now?” she snapped.
“No. I only feel you. Close your eyes.”
“What does that—”
“Close. Your. Eyes.”
She did, but only because she didn’t want to look at Ryn’s face any longer. Looking at him hurt her heart in a way she had never expected.
“Remember the lake where we camped?” he asked in an insanely calm voice.
“Yes, of course I do.”
“It was beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“See it now, Juliet. See the still waters, and the trees on the far bank. Feel the water against your skin and the sun on your face.”
Amazingly, she did. Her heart seemed to beat more steadily, and she was able to breathe deeper.
“Are you there?” Ryn whispered.
“Yes.”
“Good. Breathe in the scent of the water.”
She took a deep breath, and the scent of the lake filled her. “Run your fingers through the water and watch the ripples you create.”
She lifted her hand and made the motion.
“Take another deep breath.”
It was a breath that cleared her head and her soul.
“Find the tendril that connects your spirit to mine.”
The link was there, fatter and stronger and deeper than any other. It pulsed with life. It fed her spirit.
“It is not meant to be cut, it is never to be severed, but you can close it for a time.”
“It’s too strong.”
“You are stronger.”
Juliet concentrated on the pulsing, on the rush of life...and she made it slow just as her heartbeat had slowed. She tied off that cord, that link to Ryn, and when she did, it stopped pulsing altogether.
And he knew. The moment it happened, he knew. “Now, the others should be easy. Close them, shut them down. The power is yours, Juliet. You control the link; it does not control you.”
Even though her powers were stronger, more acute than ever before, she was able to shut them down. One link at a time.
Juliet opened her eyes and found Ryn standing close. He lifted his hand and reached out to touch the tip of her nose. She felt nothing but the warmth of his finger. Nothing at all. “Thank you,” she said as his hand fell away. It would be dangerous to sit here and talk to Ryn and let him touch her, so she jumped down with a newly found grace and started walking toward The City once again. Ryn remained behind her, silent and separate.
One aspect of the Anwyn blood that she did not mind was the warmth. She’d left her boots behind days ago, and had pulled her skirt up and bundled it so that her legs were free. She was not as near-naked as Ryn, but even if she were, she wouldn’t feel the winter cold. The strength was nice, too. She could move more quickly and surely, and she did not tire as she had in the early days.
Since she was no longer fighting the connection to all things, other abilities became sharper to her. Scents teased her nose, and in an intuitive way she knew those smells. Plants, Anwyn, small animals...Ryn. None of the smells were unpleasant. Instead they all seemed very natural to her. Very right.
When she left The City, would she leave all her newfound abilities behind? Probably so, but it was a fair enough trade. The heat and the strength and the other enhanced abilities came with the claws.
Not long after Juliet began to experience the invigorated power of her Anwyn senses, Ryn reached down and took her hand. Together they crested a sharp rise. Instead of letting go and moving on when she reached the top of the rise, he held her hand and pointed with the other. “It is there.”
Juliet followed the direction of his finger, but she saw nothing but more mountain. There was a valley of sorts, but it was all jagged stone. Maybe that was all that awaited her in The City. Maybe it wasn’t a city at all, but a collection of caves that would be easy enough to leave behind when the time came.
“I don’t see...” she began, but then Ryn tugged on her hand and pulled her forward, a single step, and the valley changed. A rock wall surrounded buildings, all made of stone. Some of the buildings beyond the wall were tall and impressive; others were no bigger or finer than the cabin she had called home for so long. In the rock face that climbed high behind the city, doors had been carved in the rock. The City was made of pink and gray and pale green stones, beautiful in a way wood could never be. Puzzled, she stepped back. Once again, The City disappeared from view, and it seemed that she was looking down into a barren valley.
“I don’t understand.”
“Anwyn have a magic of their own, wife.”
She looked at Ryn, her eyes sharp and her heart hardened. “I am not your wife, Ryn, and I won’t ever be.”
“I know,” he said in a lowered voice. He dropped her hand and loped ahead before she could answer, anxious to get home. She followed more slowly, not quite so anxious to face what awaited her in The City.
As they drew closer, The City became more real. It did not disappear, as it had at the top of the rise, but took shape and form. When they reached the lowest part of the road, they could no longer see beyond the wall that surrounded The City, but they could clearly see the wall itself. Even more, they could hear and smell the sounds of life beyond the wall. There were many happy sounds. Laughter, lively conversation, the soft cry of a small child that was quickly soothed. There was safety inside those walls. The people there were safe and warm and beautiful. She knew this as if she had been here before, as if she had lived here for a hundred years.
They were close. So close. She could actually hear the distant sounds of city life...sounds she should not have been able to hear from this distance, and yet they were clear to her. Laughter. Voices. The clink of metal on metal, and metal on stone. The path she and Ryn walked upon was wide and flat. There was nothing between them and their destination.
She stopped and Ryn, who walked before her, stopped a heartbeat later. Perhaps he heard her. Perhaps he just knew...
“What’s wrong?’ he asked, turning to face her.
“Will they know?” she asked softly. “When I walk through those gates and they see me...will everyone know that I’m like them?”
Ryn studied her critically for a moment before answering, “Yes.”
Her heart sank, and her anger began to grow all over again. “You knew all along, didn’t you? And you didn’t tell me until we were almost here and it was too late to turn back.”
“No. I did not realize that you were anything more than my mate until you began to change.”
“I have not changed!” she argued, even though she knew Ryn spoke the truth.
He stepped toward her, laid a hand on her face, and looked into her eyes. “You have had no looking glass to study the changes, but I see them well. You can let down your skirts and pretend to feel the chill like the other women who have been taken, and you can alter your step so that no one sees your strength. You can pretend that you don’t hear or smell what a human woman should not, and no one will get close enough to know that your heart beats too quickly. But you cannot hide your eyes.”
“What’s wrong with my eyes?” she whispered.
“Nothing,” he said sharply. “They are beautiful and intelligent and tender. But they are now more gold than brown. They won’t become completely gold until you take the vow, but—”
“I’m not taking any vow,” she said, reiterating the promise she had made in days past.
Ryn was not deterred. “You have Anwyn eyes, Juliet.” She could do as he’d sugg
ested and let down her skirts. Put her cloak over her shoulders and pretend to feel the cold. If she were very careful, she could walk slightly behind Ryn with her eyes downcast, and maybe no one would see that she had begun to change.
Or she could walk into The City with her head high and take what came.
In the end, it was no decision at all. She had been meek in the past, yes, but she did not hide from anything or anyone.
The gates to The City stood open, and the two guards who manned it were relaxed. They nodded to Ryn, but barely looked at Juliet. Ryn said it had been years since there had been any kind of major conflict here, that the Caradon were much more likely to attack those Anwyn who lived well beyond The City. Apparently the guards had become complacent. Or confident. If the men beyond that gate were anything like Ryn, only a fool would dare to attack.
Juliet walked into The City with Ryn beside her, her head high and her eyes on the wonders spread before her. From a distance, The City was beautiful, in a crude sort of way. The buildings were constructed of the most exquisite stone she had ever seen, many of them constructed in part of the mountain itself. The people who walked about on the stone streets were not dressed in primitive kilts, like Ryn. The women wore long, flowing frocks and furs to ward off the chill, and the men were dressed in snugly fitting trousers and loose shirts and fine boots. There was much laughter and many little boys who were dressed as miniatures of their fathers and ran and laughed and played.
There was a collection of lively shops spread along two main thoroughfares that met at a massive town square. Like the homes carved into the mountain, they were made of stone, and were plain and solid. People shopped and laughed and visited, many of them carrying large baskets filled with their purchases.
Juliet wanted to take Ryn’s hand as she walked down the street, but she didn’t want him or anyone else to think that she would easily accept what he called her destiny. So she did not reach for him, even though she very much wanted to.
Eventually a friend of Ryn’s spotted him and came their way to say hello and meet the woman Ryn had been gone so long to collect. The man’s hair was long, like Ryn’s, but was much darker and more well-restrained. His smile remained wide until he came close enough to get a good look at Juliet.
The man stopped on the street several feet away, and stared at Juliet. He swallowed hard and took a step back, and then he dropped to his knees and leaned forward, laying himself prostrate before her.
“Please get up,” Juliet insisted.
The man lifted his head and glanced upward, but did not rise.
“This is Kerymi,” Ryn said, gesturing to his friend. “Your very presence seems to have stolen his normally quick tongue.”
“Ryn,” Kerymi said beneath his breath. “She is...it is her.”
“Yes, I know.”
Again, the dark-haired man glanced suspiciously at Juliet. “You say you are going to fetch your mate, and you come home with a Queen. Not just any queen, mind you, but a red-haired queen.”
“I believe she instructed you to stand,” Ryn said with a tight smile.
Kerymi scrambled to his feet. Like Ryn, he was tall and well-built. The golden eyes looked rather odd since his coloring was so dark, but the combination was more striking than bizarre. She imagined when the moon was full he made a fine, black wolf.
He was also terrified of her. Perhaps awed was a better word. She thought it odd that he’d commented on her hair color. Perhaps there weren’t many red-haired Anwyn.
“You are to be the Queen’s consort,” Kerymi said with a half-smile. “Many men will envy you, Ryn.” Ryn’s answer was a low, unhappy grunt and after a moment Kerymi’s smile faded.
“Oh, I had forgotten that,” he said in a soft voice. “Maybe that part of the legend is wrong.” He did not sound convinced.
“Forgotten what?” Juliet asked. “And what legend does he speak of?”
“It is unimportant,” Ryn answered.
There was no time or opportunity to press the matter. Others had seen Kerymi bow to Juliet, and they came. One at a time, cautiously and curiously, they came. When they saw her eyes, a flash of realization crossed their faces, and like Kerymi they dropped down and pressed their foreheads to the ground. The men were Anwyn, but the woman—captives from Columbyana and perhaps beyond—came, too. Like their husbands, they recognized that the Queen they had been waiting for had come, and they fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground in a gesture of respect and honor. For every person Juliet ordered to stand, another came and fell to the ground, until she and Ryn were surrounded on all sides by people who considered themselves her subjects. Over and over again she heard “the red-haired Queen” whispered in hushed tones.
At first Ryn had seemed to be almost amused, but as the crowd grew, his smile faded and his eyes grew stormy. Juliet did not dare to unleash her powers, not even to learn what Ryn was feeling and thinking at this moment. Then again, after a moment of studying his face, she did not need to tap into her powers to understand.
She did not wish to be Queen.
Just as strongly, perhaps more so, Ryn did not wish to be the Queen’s consort.
Chapter Thirteen
Isadora fiddled nervously with the skirt of the blue gown that had been given to her when she’d finished bathing in a large, marble pool. She’d asked for black, but the girl who’d been assigned to help had merely laughed as she’d informed Isadora that there was no black on Level Three. Isadora requested that her own gown be returned, but again the servant had laughed. That rag had been disposed of as Isadora had been stepping into the pool. It was already gone. Apparently the laughing girl didn’t know that she was supposed to be afraid of the witch.
Damp hair hanging loose, blue frock clinging to a frame that had seen only black in more than five years, Isadora stood in the empress’ chambers on Level Five. Isadora did wonder why the level that had been devoted to the empress was two floors lower than the level where the concubines were housed, but she did not ask. In fact, she said nothing at all, as the empress examined her from the comfort of a fat blue chair a few feet away. A young twittering girl dressed in brown stood behind the empress, and so did one staunch sentinel. The sentinel was obviously devoted to his charge. He was a large, blond man with big hands and dark blue eyes. Intelligent eyes, unlike so many of the soldiers she had come to know in the past weeks.
“Don’t be afraid,” Empress Liane said in a voice that was soft and unforgiving at the same time.
“I’m not afraid,” Isadora said. The sentinel glared at her, and she added deferentially, “my lady.”
“I came to know your sister well,” the empress continued. “Are you very much like her?”
“Those who know us say not, my lady,” Isadora answered. Empress Liane smiled. She had the look of a woman who did not smile easily or often. The empress was beautiful, there was no denying that, but she also looked like a woman who’d led a hard life to this point. “Yes, I can see that the two of you are very different. You lack her sweetness.”
Isadora did not respond.
“However, she no longer lacks your strength.”
Isadora very much wanted to ask about Sophie and what had happened here, but she kept her questions to herself for the moment. Could she trust Empress Liane? The woman was in a position of great power, and her husband had ordered the kidnapping that had led to this moment...and to Juliet’s abduction. And yet, the woman had saved Isadora by requesting that she become her personal witch.
The empress studied Isadora with great interest, silent and thoughtful. After a moment she lifted her hand in a dismissive gesture that seemed to come naturally. “I’d like a word with the witch. Alone.”
The girl in brown scurried away, gratefully leaving her post at her mistress’ side and skirting around Isadora to make her way into a narrow hallway.
The sentinel was not so anxious to escape. “My lady,” he said in a respectful but strong voice. “You cannot be alone wit
h her.”
“She won’t hurt me, Ferghus,” Empress Liane insisted confidently. “She knows that if she dares to try, not only will she pay with her life, so will her sisters.” The empress looked Isadora in the eye as she delivered the promise. “And when that is done, every person who lives in the village near her home will pay the price. Shandley, I believe it’s called.”
Isadora’s heart lurched as she remembered how the soldiers had made innocents from the village near their camp pay for the death of the man who had threatened to kill her for a promised reward. Dead or alive, he had told her. She didn’t doubt that Empress Liane, with those cold eyes and that regal air, would do the same.
“The emperor commanded—”
“You are my sentinel, Ferghus,” the empress said confidently. “You obey my commands, not those of my husband.” An uneasy Ferghus leaned down and whispered something insistent into Empress Liane’s ear, and the woman dismissed him once again, with a sharp word and another wave of her hand. In frustration, he handed the empress the short sword that hung from his belt. She took the weapon as if she were quite familiar with it.
When the sentinel had stepped into the hallway and the two women were alone, the empress propped the sword at her side, where it was no longer a threat, but was close enough at hand for someone familiar with such weapons to make use of in the blink of an eye.
“I do not know that I can save you,” she said in a lowered voice.
Isadora bowed her head. “You already have, by my way of thinking.”
“It might not last. My husband is...” She searched for the right word.
Isadora came up with a few of her own. Cruel. Powerful. Unpredictable. Demented. She kept them to herself.
“Hotheaded,” the empress finally finished. “He has been known to make hasty decisions and regret them later, and I can’t guarantee that he won’t wake up tomorrow and decide you’re simply not worth the trouble it will be to keep you alive.” She laid a hand over her belly. “But he does listen to me, on occasion.” She leaned slightly forward. “Come closer, Isadora Fyne.”
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