Ryn squeezed her hand. “So, we will go south to collect Sophie, and then west to Isadora?”
Juliet shook her head. “No. We will travel to Isadora first and then we’ll all head south to find Sophie. I know it isn’t the most logical course, but...” Her head pounded with knowledge. She would soon need to put an end to this vision, or it would bring on a headache and pounding heart that might not be good for the baby.
Sophie was distressed, but safe. She was surrounded by men who would die for her, if need be. No danger was near the youngest Fyne sister, at the moment. The eldest was another matter entirely.
“For the first time I can recall, Isadora needs me more than Sophie does. Much more.” Juliet looked up at her husband. His face was strong and beautiful in the moonlight, and having him beside her gave her strength. “My goodness, she’s about to do something incredibly foolish.”
Chapter Sixteen
All night and into the cool, crisp morning, Isadora tried to convince herself that Lucan had said something other than those horrible words. Unfortunately, he’d spoken much too clearly for her to make such a mistake.
The camp came alive slowly. Thayne and Lucan were already plotting the safest route to Tryfyn, and the empresses were anxious enough to be on their way. They wanted to get as far from Arthes, the palace, and Emperor Sebestyen as possible.
Isadora remained silent. She ate the tasteless tubers Franco collected and distributed. She combed her hair with her fingers and braided it snugly. She did her best not to look at Lucan as he made plans for travel.
She didn’t know how to tell Lucan that she wasn’t going with him.
It was a nice fantasy, to think that she could walk away from all her troubles for the easy life as Lucan Hern’s wife. But that’s all it was: fantasy. For a moment or two, when she’d first seen him in Level Thirteen, she’d actually believed that they could have some time together. Not a lifetime; maybe not even a year. But even that one imagined year of happiness was no more than fantasy.
The curse her father assured her could be ended was still powerful. It had taken one love from her; she would not allow it to take another.
As the group began their travels, hiking into the woods where they would be sheltered from view for much of the journey, Isadora hung back. She watched them walk away, all of them gladly headed for safety. The empresses would contact their families—families who believed them to be dead—after they were safely housed in Tryfyn. Thayne would make contact with the wizards of the Circle and perhaps join them. Franco and Lucan were ready to go home, and none of the former prisoners had anything left in Columbyana to keep them here.
Isadora took a few steps, acting as if she intended to follow, and then she stopped. She had never in her life felt as alone as she did as she watched one refugee after another disappear into the forest where last night Lucan had made love to her for the last time. Where he had said that he loved her.
It would not be so easy to separate herself from them, of course. Lucan looked back at her, frowned, and stopped. He lifted his hand and motioned for her to join him, and after a moment Isadora shook her head. He hurried back toward her, as the last of the travelers melted into the forest.
“Come,” Lucan said as he approached. “We don’t want to fall too far behind.”
“You go on,” she said.
He frowned, “Not without you.”
Isadora lifted her chin haughtily. “I’m not going to Tryfyn. If you will search your memory, you will realize that I never agreed to your proposal. Neither of them.” Wife or mistress...she had never promised him anything beyond the next encounter.
“What are you planning to do?” he snapped. “Go back into the palace?”
“Yes.”
His shocked expression was enough to tell her what he thought of her plan. “I won’t allow you to do such an imprudent thing.”
She had been accused of much in her life, but never imprudence. “I promised to protect Liane and her babies, and if I don’t go back to them, then I have failed miserably.”
“Liane and one baby are likely beyond saving,” Lucan said gently. “You know that.”
“Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps not.” No one knew, as she did, how much the emperor loved his wife. She’d been deeply affected by the Panwyr when he’d pushed her into Level Thirteen, but she remembered what she had seen on his face as he’d given her that final shove. Not anger...well, not entirely anger. She had seen the pain of betrayal in his eyes, not blind rage. It was possible...possible...that Liane and both babies were alive and well.
She expected Lucan to argue with her a while longer. She did not expect him to lift her off her feet and carry her toward the forest. “We shouldn’t fall too far behind.”
“Put me down!” she ordered.
“Not until you come to your senses,” he said in a logical tone of voice.
“I’m not the one who has lost my senses,” she grumbled.
“Apparently, you are. Going back into the palace,” he muttered beneath his breath.
She knew what would happen, sooner or later. Like it or not, she did love Lucan. Not as she had loved Will, with a girl’s idealistic romanticism, but as a woman loves a man. This love for Lucan was more real than what she’d felt for Will, in a way she was just beginning to understand. Given a chance, it could survive bad times and good, arguments and war and prophecies and stubbornness—his and hers.
It could not survive the curse, however, and she knew how this would end. Lucan would love her, she would love him, and eventually she would begin to believe that they could make what they had last. She could let loose the love she protected, giving him her heart and her soul. And then he would discover that she was a witch, and he’d despise her.
She would lose one love to death and the other to hate.
The longer she waited, the more she loved Lucan, the harder it would be. Were there varying degrees of heartbreak? Could she weather what was sure to come more easily now, when she had not yet fooled herself into thinking that the curse could be beaten? Her father assured her the curse could be broken, and though she did have hope, she did not yet believe.
“Stop,” she said calmly. “I have something to tell you.”
Lucan did as she asked. He stopped stalking after the others and swung her onto her feet so they were face-to-face. They had just entered the edge of the wood, and his face was partially lost in shadow. She could see clearly one half of a grim mouth, one steely eye, one half of a firmly set jaw.
Would this be easier for him if she confessed that she loved him? Or would it be best if he never knew?
“I cannot go with you because I am a witch.”
His expression did not change. “Yes,” he whispered. “I know.”
Isadora had expected many things to follow her confession. Horror. Denial. Laughter. Hatred. She had never expected such a calm response. “How do you know? You know nothing. You’re...you’re...” The explanation came to her, and it was as horrifying as the idea of watching him flee from her in horror. “You’re humoring me.” “Unfortunately, I am not.”
“Last night—”
“I already knew.”
“When you said—”
“I already knew.” He sighed and touched her face with a gentle hand. “I did not want to believe it was true, but deep inside I recognized the truth when I heard it. I wished once or twice that I might be wrong, but I realized it was a hollow wish. This is an obstacle I never thought to encounter, but when the choice is you as you are or nothing at all...I choose you.” His eyes narrowed. “Have you ever cast a spell on me?” he asked with only a trace of suspicion.
“No.”
The relief was evident on his face. “Good. Promise me that you won’t, not for good nor for harm, and I will set aside my fears to have you by my side, always.”
“I would never cast a spell to do you harm,” she said.
“Not for harm nor for good,” he insisted. “That is all I ask, Isadora
.”
She struggled with the answer. “What if you are in trouble, and I can help you with a—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Not even for that. What we have must remain free of magic, love. If you need to practice your craft on others in order to be happy, then do so. But I want what is between us to be natural and untainted. I want it to be real, always.”
He called her love, as he had on occasion, and she liked it very much. She had to get past that startling and heart-stopping moment to answer. “If that is what you want, then I give you my word you will have it.”
A half-smile crossed his face. “I never expected to find myself in love with a witch. It will complicate matters at home, I suspect.”
“You should allow me to leave you now,” she whispered.
“Perhaps I should, but I won’t.”
Tears filled her eyes. She hated to cry, to cave to emotion, but Lucan knew what she was, and still he loved her. Could such a love alone not break even the Fyne Curse?
“I have to go back,” she said. “I have to save Liane and the babies. They are my responsibility, and I can’t put my own well-being above theirs.”
He nodded once, and Isadora sighed. He might say he did not care that she was a witch, he might say he still loved her. But he would allow her to walk away from him, after all.
And then he leaned forward and kissed her lightly, his lips barely brushing hers. “You will not go alone.”
The warning that had frightened him of witches in the palace concerned the emperor’s witch Gadhra, Lucan decided. Isadora might practice the craft, but that did not make her the witch Zebulyn had warned him of. Besides, he had been nine years old when the old man had first whispered the words beware the witch, and the deep hatred that had grown from that warning was illogical and unnecessary.
Then again, perhaps it was not his life he had to protect from the witch, but his heart. Isadora had not yet said that she loved him, though he believed it to be true.
She was not happy that he refused to escort her immediately into the palace. If Liane and both babies still lived, then they would be safe for a while longer. If the emperor had killed them soon after tossing Isadora into Level Thirteen, then no amount of her protection would help them now.
He swung his sword up and knocked the one Isadora wielded out of her hand. It spun away and landed in the brush. A small brown bird was frightened by the resulting crash and flew up into a blue, cloudless sky.
“You cheated!” Isadora shouted indignantly.
He remained calm. “You left yourself wide open with that last thrust. If I were one of the emperor’s sentinels, I could have taken your heart.”
She pursed her lips but did not argue, since she recognized that he was right. “I will not learn to be a master swordsman in a matter of days,” she argued. “We are wasting valuable time.”
“You will be prepared before we go back into the emperor’s palace, love.”
“I am as prepared as I need to be,” she argued.
“In my opinion, you are not.”
“I can cast a spell, if necessary,” she continued. “I do not need a sword to find my way to Liane and the babies.”
“It is my wish that you are able to fight in both ways. With your magic, and with my sword.” He collected the sword in question from the brush and offered it to Isadora. “Indulge me.”
She took the sword and resumed her fighting stance. “I do not see why I should indulge you.” She swung, and he easily sidestepped her clumsy move.
“Perhaps because I indulge you in even your most dangerous obsessions.” He easily shifted her blade to the side with the tip of his own.
“It is not necessary that you accompany me. You are large and clumsy and will be difficult to conceal, since you insist that my magic not touch you.”
He easily defended the thrust she practiced. “I am not clumsy.”
“You will distract me, and there is no good reason for you to go back into the palace.” She was quickly getting breathless. While the sword he had given her was not heavy, working with it was arduous for someone unaccustomed to sword work. Their lessons to this point helped matters to some degree, but it was clear Isadora was not a swordsman.
He disarmed her again, whipping the sword from her grasp with a twist of his blade. “I was going back anyway, once I saw you to safety.”
This time she did not accuse him of cheating or go after the sword. She placed hands on slim hips and glared at him. “What are you talking about? You said Esmun and Elya escaped before you rescued me. Why on earth would you go back?”
Lucan sheathed his sword in the scabbard he wore at his side, and then he smoothed a strand of wayward hair from Isadora’s sweaty face. “The emperor possesses something I need.”
“What?”
“The ring you once wore upon your finger. Returning it to the Circle of Bacwyr assures my place as Prince of Swords.”
Her dark eyes went wide. “That is why you asked for me,” she said indignantly. “That is why you insisted that I—” She squealed when he lifted her in his arms. “You sneaky, despicable, lying—”
“I never lied,” he said as he held her close. She struggled, but not very much. “And while I began my pursuit in a quest for the Star of Bacwyr, I soon lost my heart and my good sense to you.”
She stopped struggling and smiled at him. “Whatever makes you think you ever possessed good sense?”
“Before I met you, love, I possessed an abundance.” He touched his lips to her throat, kissed there, made her shudder as he whispered against her skin. “Love causes surprising changes in a man. In a woman, too, I suppose, though of course I have no way of knowing such things.”
“You want me to tell you that I love you.”
He drew away so he could see her face; she was no longer smiling. “Yes.”
“What if I can’t?”
He would be hurt, if he did not see the depth of pain in her eyes. Lucan put Isadora on her feet, then guided her to a slope that overlooked a small, almost clear pond. It was a soothing view, one that belied the danger that lay ahead. Sitting there, he draped one arm around Isadora. When they were well settled, he asked, “What is stopping you?”
She hesitated, and he waited patiently. Waiting patiently had never been his strong suit, but he did his best and sat quietly until Isadora began to speak. “You don’t know everything about me.”
“I imagine not. There are many things you do not know about me. When there is time, we will discuss all these revelations, good and bad.”
“This one can’t wait. There’s a curse. It’s more than three hundred years old, it’s very powerful, and it killed my first husband.”
He turned his head to look down at her. She certainly didn’t look as if she were teasing him. Isadora’s face was stone-like, as if she’d put on a mask to conceal her emotions. “I don’t believe any curse can be more powerful than what I feel for you.”
She looked up and met his stare with one of her own. “The curse dooms any man who is unfortunate enough to be loved by a Fyne witch. Those hapless men who are younger than thirty do not live to see that year. Those who are older and perhaps wiser come to see the hideousness of the women who love them, and they flee as if the devil himself were on their tails. It is selfish of me, but I swear I would rather see you dead than watch you run away because you despise me.” She pursed her lips. “I thought that desertion would come when you found out that I was a witch, but it did not, so now I’m wondering when it will happen, and how, and I’m wondering if it will hurt as much as death, or more.”
He smiled down at her, and one hand crept into her mussed braid.
“I tell you my most dreaded secret, and you smile at me?”
“You love me,” he answered, his smile unwavering.
“I did not say such a thing.”
“No, but you said this curse befalls those men who are loved by Fyne witches, and then you professed your concern for me. It is a rather unro
mantic way of sharing your feelings, but I will accept it, nonetheless.”
She did not argue but leaned against him and turned her gaze toward the pond. “There is more,” she whispered.
“Tell me.” Nothing could dent his resolve where Isadora was concerned. Nothing.
“Your prophets say your first son will be born in your thirty-eighth year.”
“Yes.”
“Fyne women produce daughters. If the prophets are correct, another woman will bear your son.”
“I will not allow it.”
“Since your participation will be necessary, I imagine you will allow it, when the time comes.” She burrowed into his side more snugly. “Perhaps you will make another life, after you come to hate me.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Perhaps this time I will be the one to die.”
“I will not allow you to die,” he said gruffly.
“You are very insistent today about what you will and will not allow,” she answered without heat. “But what is to be will be, no matter what we do to change the course of time and fate.”
He laid Isadora in the grass and made her look at him once again. “I will not allow you to talk of death or parting or babies born of other women. I have seen who you are, Isadora. You are a witch, you are often disagreeable, you are a miserable swordsman, and a cantankerous woman determined to argue with me at every turn. You snore when you are very tired.”
“I do not snore!”
He ignored her argument. “And you are determined to risk your own life to rescue a woman who would not suffer the smallest inconvenience in order to save you. I know all that, and yet I love you deeply. There is nothing your curse can do to change my mind. You and I, we are stronger than any curse. We will defeat it together. Perhaps we already have. I will never leave you, Isadora, and I will not allow you to die.” He laid his body against hers, length to length, so she could feel that he wanted her. “You will be the mother of my son. I will accept no other.”
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