Talis shook his head. ‘I am not concerned about your health,’ he said, wondering if she doubted his power to minister to her. ‘I am a full Guardian and able to monitor the growth of the child —’
‘No. That’s not —’ She stopped, as though collecting her thoughts. ‘Another man’s baby is growing inside of me. Does that affect… us?’
Talis simply stared, her question lost in the back of his mind. Us. She had spoken of them as part of a whole. Such an upwelling of love came to him then that he found it hard to breathe.
‘You’re looking at me strangely again.’
‘It is love.’
‘So you’ve said.’ Her gaze moved over his face, settling finally on his lips. ‘Then I guess that answers my question.’ Talis watched her head drift nearer. ‘You know, there’s a step you take …’ she said faintly, as though her thoughts were elsewhere. ‘… between friendship, and —’
‘Love.’ How plump with promise the word now tasted on his lips.
She came closer still and Talis held his breath.
‘But I don’t want to confuse myself.’ A small frown of hesitation creased her brow. ‘I don’t want to confuse friendship and love —’
Talis could not stop the small movement that brought his lips to hers. Although he did nothing more, for she needed no further prompting to kiss him. Indeed, a faint sigh of satisfaction fled her lips as they met his, and what tormenting pleasure was in that touch.
The softness of her lips, the scent of her nearness and the sweetness of her breath created feelings in Talis of not the foamy fantasies he’d constructed in his mind, but the deep-swelling surge of an ocean wave. Yet his hands lay by his sides and he made no move to overwhelm her with this rush of desire. Instead, he let her kiss him sweetly, a lingering kiss she seemed reluctant to end. Then she pulled back, and though Talis was sorely distracted by his own thundering heart, he did see in her eyes that she appeared bewildered, or perhaps dazed, and hope soared within him.
‘Well …’ She paused to lick her lips. ‘That “something more� feeling I was telling you about… it’s stronger now.’
Talis could not help smiling. Joy lit a bonfire in his heart.
Her eyes strayed as far as his chest before returning to his face. ‘I guess you feel …’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
She pushed at his chest and sat up. Talis sat too, with some difficulty in the circumstances.
‘Should I have done that?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it didn’t tell me anything.’ Yet she touched her fingers to her lips as though they tingled still.
‘Your kiss spoke to me,’ he said.
Her eyebrows rose with the corners of her mouth. ‘And what did my kiss say?’
‘That you love me truly.’
‘Pretty sure of yourself all of a sudden,’ she said, but he could see no offence lay in her words.
Still, they reproved him. He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. ‘I should not try to teach your heart on its own desires,’ he said. ‘But this something more of which you speak is love. I feel it inside myself. The time will come when you feel it too.’
‘Time. That’s what I need,’ she said, and when he lowered her hand and made to release it she twined her fingers with his own, her smile more shy than awkward. ‘I want to fall in love with you, Talis. You’re so good for me.’
He kissed her hand again then rose to leave, honouring her wish to have time to think. ‘I will see to our evening meal. I must also ensure that Pagan has not insulted our hosts and found a blade between his bones.’
‘Pagan is here?’ Khatrene appeared startled. Frightened? ‘Is there anyone else here?’ she asked.
‘Only my persistent cousin who has followed us,’ Talis replied, ‘He brought you safely from the caves to my care, with Lae as his guide.’
Khatrene’s gaze became guarded. ‘You’ve seen Lae.’
‘Who has in kindness and honour released me from my betrothal vow.’
Khatrene put a hand to her chest, looked down a moment. ‘I feel so relieved. The moment you mentioned her name I thought …’ She glanced up and caught his eye. ‘Maybe I was jealous.’ She shook her head as though to rid the thought but Talis hugged it to his breast. Then she added, ‘So Pagan’s here?’
Talis nodded. ‘If he is still alive. The fool, thinking to impress Noorinya, told her that Lae was the daughter of The Dark.’ He shook his head at this apparent stupidity. ‘Noorinya would have killed her and she was furious to discover she had forfeited that chance.’
‘He always did have a big mouth. Still, if he saved my life I’ll have to remember to thank him.’
‘But not with a kiss.’
Her smile was slow to come. ‘So being in love is about jealousy?’
‘It need not be,’ Talis said, then louder, ‘It will not be,’ but then he sighed, ‘and yet I fear it is, because I can scarcely make myself believe what I want you to know.’
‘That I am in love with you?’
‘I know it is true,’ Talis said, his expression set to earnest lines, ‘yet you do not, and I fear …
‘That I’ll get confused and kiss the wrong guy?’ Her smile grew wide. ‘You’re the only one I’m kissing currently, Talis. Rest easy.’
‘Then, Pagan —’
‘May be tall, dark and handsome but I’d rather kiss a … what was that tree I hurt my hand on?’
Talis laughed out loud. ‘Your point is well made,’ he said. ‘I will attempt to curb my jealousy.’
‘Does Pagan know?’ she asked. ‘About us?’
Talis could not move at first, but simply stood where her words had struck him. Then when he could breathe again he came back to her, to crouch in front of her and take her hand. ‘When you speak to me of “us�, it is as though your heart speaks directly to mine. Can you not hear the love invested in this small word?’
She could not hold his tender glance for long. ‘I’ll bet Pagan is loving this,’ she said, her bantering tone a warning to Talis that she felt awkward with their newfound intimacy. ‘His sensible cousin in love with an unsuitable woman.’
‘I think it is I who am unsuitable,’ he told her and kissed her hand softly before rising to give her the comfort of some distance between them.
‘Could we forget all that?’ she said. ‘About me being The Light, or another man’s wife, or your King’s sister. Let’s just be Talis and Khatrene. That way I can see if you love me for what I am, not who I am, and you can see if I love you.’
Talis knew her heart, and knew also that time would reveal it to her.
‘I have often scolded Pagan for his recklessness,’ he said. ‘We shall see now who has the more patient heart.’
‘I’ve never thought of you as being reckless,’ she said, and measured him with a glance. ‘I think I’d like to see that.’
The smile that accompanied these words stayed with him for the rest of the day.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
‘If you do not speak to me now,’ Lae hissed, ‘I swear to you, Mooraz, I will … I will slit my own throat.’ And here she snatched for the dagger in his boot.
Mooraz easily intercepted her hand, an action which infuriated Lae further.
‘No-one can hear us. Why do
you not speak?’ Lae jerked back her band, ‘You did not speak to me all the long way back. Am I to be treated as a child? Explain yourself.’ This last was almost a shout, for indeed Lae felt so angry and confused that Mooraz with his damnable silence was more than she could bear. Even poor, frightened Hush, whom Mooraz had forced to guide him, had received no sympathy from her friend.
‘I will speak,’ he said, and gestured towards her window table.
Lae marched to it and sat, only to find Mooraz towering over her. ‘Sit down,’ she ordered and pointed to the chair opposite. ‘Do you play sagea?’ She wrenched open a drawer and banged the pieces onto the table. ‘We shall pretend to be playing if you wish to conceal our conversation.’
Mooraz watched her slamming the pieces down. ‘I would wait for your temper to ease,’ he said quietly, ‘if I believed it might ever happen.’
Lae’s hand became still. She looked up at Mooraz. ‘Are you insulting me in my own rooms now?’ she demanded, ‘First you follow me and call me child?’ Lae spat the word. ‘Then you pour wine over me and tell my father you found me drinking with that detestable Guardian son …’ Lae could not even bring herself to speak the name ‘… whom you then alibi with some story of a drunken leave-taking to return to the Volcastle.’ Lae paused to drag in a breath.
‘All of which ensured your safety —’
‘My safety? How dare you blame —’
‘And ensured,’ Mooraz went on, seating himself across from her, ‘the concealing of deeds your father would not forgive.’
Lae glared at Mooraz but would not break the conspiracy of silence that had grown around their separate realisations that The Dark could not see all that lay in men’s hearts. That was too blasphemous to discuss. However, she could certainly denounce Mooraz’s assumptions about her.
‘My father loves me!’ she shouted. ‘I know he loves me.’ She stared at Mooraz as though expecting him to deny the claim, yet he merely gazed at her with the unchanging expression she had seen him wear all her life.
They continued to stare at each other and after an unsteady breath she added, ‘Or if he does not …’ She hiccupped a breath and said more softly, ‘… I am loved by no-one.’ And saying this brought on the rush of tears she had been fighting since the moment she had seen Talis take Khatter into his arms. Tears of grief, self-pity and wretchedness. ‘Am I so unlovable?’ she wailed.
Mooraz, whom she had so recently insulted, was slow to reply. ‘To be loved by a multitude is common,’ he said. ‘To be loved by one alone is rare and precious.’
Lae sniffed, her breath still coming in hiccups. ‘I don’t understand these words. Are you trying to insult me again?’
For a flickering moment Lae was sure she saw a change of expression come over Mooraz: a softening of his eyes, an upturn of the lips. Then the moment was gone. He looked at the table between them. ‘I am not talented at sagea,’ he told her.
Lae looked down to the board. It was wet with her tears. She rubbed a sleeve over it and replaced the pieces. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then I shall win.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
‘You want to … join with Mooraz?’ Khatrene repeated, watching Noorinya pick at her teeth with a knife that looked big enough to skin crocodiles. How the woman managed to extricate the strands of coarse ort and not cut her gums to ribbons was a mystery to Khatrene.
‘Yes.’ Noorinya laid the weapon aside and cast an arrogant glance at her lover, Breehan, who sat across the fire from them thinning bark to make parchment. ‘It is exciting to bed a man who desires your death,’ she said.
Some around the fire laughed. Breehan merely smiled to himself.
Khatrene shifted her attention to the glowing coals. ‘So much for safe sex,’ she murmured. Being accepted into the Plainsman camp hadn’t diminished her fear of them, but she was damned if she’d let Noorinya know that.
The night around them was clear, and despite the starless sky Khatrene was glad to be in the mountains rather than among the mists where danger was more difficult to anticipate. She’d been with the Plainsmen for three days, forced to wear a heavy cloak in daylight to avoid any show of her aura, a cumbersome burden in an already uncomfortable existence. That Noorinya called it a ‘shroud’ irked her further.
Tonight was her first evening by the fire. The other two she’d spent in conversation with Talis, discovering more of his life than she’d been able to as his Lady. They hadn’t touched again but the memory of that kiss was between them and each time they were together Khatrene felt the blossom of something exciting. Knowing he slept right outside her tent made her restless at night, and she looked at him differently now. At his hands, his eyes, his lips …
‘I joined with your Champion,’ Noorinya said abruptly, ‘when he first brought you to us. That day he wanted me dead.’
Khatrene felt her happy introspection turn slowly sour. She suddenly understood why one woman would want to scratch another’s eyes out. ‘He was quite reluctant as I recall,’ she said, letting her voice do the clawing for her while she kept her gaze on the odd bronze-coloured flames that characterised fire on Ennae. If she looked at Noorinya she’d want to say a whole lot more.
‘If he had not been carrying you,’ Noorinya continued to recall, ‘he would have fought me with his sword instead of words and I would not have had him in my bed.’
‘Lucky you.’ As though Khatrene wouldn’t remember that. As though she hadn’t remembered and dissected every single detail of that afternoon since she’d been living in Noorinya’s tribe. She’d already been watching Talis nervously to see if there were any strange glances between himself and Noorinya, wondering if the Plainswoman had placed conditions on Khatrene’s inclusion in the tribe. It wouldn’t be the first time Noorinya had coerced Talis into her bed with a threat against his Princess. And just when Khatrene had convinced herself there was nothing going on, the wretched Plainswoman had to go and remind her of it — stir her up all over again.
‘It was a fierce bedding,’ Noorinya said.
Khatrene raised her eyes to find Noorinya chewing raw edges off her fingernails.
‘Though likely he will be gentle with his precious Princess,’ the Plainswoman added, and spat a piece of nail into the fire.
White-hot fury built inside Khatrene. Talis had warned her not to insult their host but he was with Pagan on perimeter duty and Noorinya was well past the boundary of good manners. Khatrene’s shoulders went back. ‘I might not be a Neanderthal, sword-wielding … nail-spitter, but that doesn’t mean —’
‘A fainting, crying shroud is better?’ Noorinya spat another piece of nail out of the side of her mouth and it flew unerringly into the fire. Khatrene wanted to throw her in after it. ‘If he bothers to take you at all it will only be out of pity,’ Noorinya added.
Pity?
REMEMBER YOU ARE A PRINCESS.
You shut up!
‘You can talk,’ Khatrene shouted, scrambling to her feet. ‘You had to blackmail him. That doesn’t say much for your sex appeal, does it?’
Noorinya’s smile widened and Khatrene’s anger increased exponentially. The Plainswoman made a fluttering movement with one hand that raised a few stifled chuckles from her tribe, then the silence around them grew deafening. Khatrene realised that everyone around the fire was looking at her. She was putting on a good show for them and the moment she left they’d probably burst out laughing.
It cost her, but she raised her chin and said with dignity, ‘Iâ€
™m going to bed.’
‘Alone.’ Noorinya shook her head in mock sadness. ‘Fool.’ She raised a filthy finger and pointed at Khatrene. The wise women say I must protect your child, but while you live among us what you own belongs to the tribe. If you do not bed the Guardian soon, I will.’
Khatrene didn’t trust herself to say a thing. She turned on her heel and stormed off to her tent.
Noorinya laughed and looked back to the fire.
Breehan shook his head. ‘You are cruel,’ he told her. The others laughed.
‘And you are too kind,’ Noorinya replied. ‘The child of our joining will be a good mix of the two.’
Breehan would not be deflected. ‘They will fight now.’ He nodded after the White Princess.
‘The better to make up,’ Noorinya replied. ‘If they do not join soon, we will none of us get any sleep because of the Champion’s wretched nightly pacing.’
Breehan made a noise of dissatisfaction, then looked back to his parchments. For a time he said nothing, then asked, ‘You do not wish to bed him after all?’
He did not have the courage to add a glance to this question, and Noorinya took her time answering. ‘I will not take what belongs to another,’ she said at last, yet before the smile could settle too firmly on her lover’s lips, she added, ‘Although, Mooraz …’
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
‘I have not visited your Hold before, Verdan,’ Bhoo said. ‘I find it intrigues me.’
‘We are honoured by the presence of so important a guest. You are welcome to stay,’ Barrion replied expansively, gesturing at the reception chamber they now inhabited which had been carved from bare earth, and beyond to the labyrinth of chambers his ancestors had created — the Verdan Hold.
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