But we blocked their way.
The White Monk held up his hands in a gesture for me to dismount. So pressed together were we on the narrow trail that it forced our bodies into contact. Despite my tense nerves—or maybe because of them—that frenzied desire for him, complete with dark fantasies, leapt through me. I stepped away as fast as possible, but took the hand he held out, following him past the horses, smashing myself against the snowy stones to ease past the soldiers’ mounts.
We reached the clear space just past them and the White Monk pressed his blade into my hand. “Use it if you have to,” he said. Moving fast, he returned to our horses and, as near as I could see, moved his ahead of mine, nodding for Marin to slide hers behind his, pressed tight against the cliff wall. She’d been too stout to slide past as we had.
Freed, the soldiers trotted past in single file. Too fast, and perilously close to the cliff’s edge, for one horse’s hoof slid off the uneven rocks, unbalancing them both. For a heart-stopping moment, they hung there, teetering on the brink. Then, with twin shrieks of terror, they fell together, horse and soldier, plummeting down to the far canyon below.
I cried out with them, taking an involuntary step forward, as if I could somehow catch them. The White Monk clamped me against him, hand over my mouth. I sobbed, tearlessly, of course. He pressed his cheek against mine. Not in remonstration, I realized, but in mute sympathy. Dampness made them slide together and I looked at him to see silent tears running down his face. Marin had her hands clamped over her eyes, as if she, too, wished she could unsee what had just occurred.
The White Monk released me and urged us down the trail to a place where we would be less likely to be knocked off into the crevasse.
We waited. I opened my mouth once to ask what the plan was, but the White Monk made that gesture of silence again. I didn’t see why. By his own estimation, the Tala already knew we were here. We’d been talking until the attack, so it made no sense for us not to talk at all now.
Still, I followed along. Do you trust me? he’d asked, and for no good reason, I did.
After a while, the White Monk stood and, taking his blade from me and motioning for us to stay put, crept up the trail again. I nearly protested. We hadn’t heard any sounds, not even those odd, soft grunts, for quite some time. He returned fairly quickly.
“They’re all gone,” he told us without preamble, crouching in front of me, “even the horses. You need to make a decision.”
“What does ‘gone’ mean? Dead? Did they all go over the edge of the cliff, too?”
He shook his head. “Vanished. The snow is scuffed, but there’s no sign of the men or the horses. No bodies. Just gone.”
I assimilated that, feeling the weight of things. “You think we should go back.”
“Is that what you want to do?” His unnatural eyes were intent but deliberately neutral. I couldn’t read what he thought was the right decision. But I smelled his anxiety, his driving desire to go forward, as hot as midsummer sunshine. “This is your mission. You’re the one who was invited.”
“Then why did you spirit me away from the fight? Maybe the Tala wouldn’t have . . . done what they did, if they’d seen me with the soldiers.”
He blew out a breath and studied his gloved hands, knotted between his knees. “I don’t think it works that way.”
“How does it work?”
“I think we’re dealing with the equivalent of . . . guard dogs, if you will. They respond to certain cues. Smarter than dogs, but not exactly rational beings you can reason with, either.”
“How do you know so much?”
He gave me a wry look through his unkempt brows. “Let’s say I’ve studied a lot.”
“So the princess will be allowed to pass, but no one else—is that how it works?” Marin nodded. “Then, if you go on, I’ll head down the trail to the last cabin and wait for you there.”
“Can you do that?” I kind of gaped at her. I didn’t think I could walk that far, and going by myself would be daunting.
“I’ve done that much and more, missy,” she answered, not unkindly. “I’d rather do that than be scooped off the mountainside by yon magical guard dogs.”
“We could all go back.” The White Monk regarded me with that neutral expression. “There’s no shame in a retreat when facing unfavorable odds.”
I didn’t like that he’d laid the decision so firmly in my hands. He was doing it on purpose, too. Making me take responsibility. Testing my resolve? Taking me seriously.
“I want to go on. If you think my invitation will protect me—after all, I have the babe to think of—then I’ll continue.” I didn’t like the idea of going alone, but I couldn’t place him in jeopardy, either. That’s how a good queen would decide, wasn’t it? “You and Marin can go to the cabin and wait for me there.”
He laughed, that soundless, under-the-breath one. “You’re not going alone. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“But what if they come after you?”
“I can take care of myself.” And his eyes glittered again, with that odd joy I’d glimpsed before. He wanted to come with me. More than he cared for his continued safety. This was why he’d wormed his way into being my priest confessor and bodyguard. He wanted to see Annfwn.
He gave his pack to Marin. Now I understood why he kept it tied to his back instead of his horse, as the rest of us had. A rush of relief poured through me that I hadn’t had the doll with me after all. It would be vanished with my horse, who was maybe broken at the bottom of a ravine. I hated to think of that fate for her. She’d been a good steed and the guilt ate at me that I might have brought her to her death.
We said good-bye to Marin, watching her steady, surefooted march down the trail. Then we headed up. This time I led the way, the White Monk at my back, by unspoken agreement. If I was the key to passage, then I should be in front.
When we reached the place where the soldier and horse had gone over, I couldn’t help but look, more than a little afraid of what I’d see, but unable to stop the horrid desire to find out. The White Monk put his hand on my arm. “Don’t look,” he said in my ear.
“Did . . . did they all go over?” I had to know.
“No. Only the pair we saw, I think. I have no idea where the others are.”
Of course, he had looked. Even though he’d shed the tears I’d wanted to at their sudden, wrenching demise, he’d had the stomach to see. Nevertheless, I was glad he’d stopped me, even if it meant I lacked his courage.
We continued around the bend to where Graves and the other men had been attacked. The trail widened into a clearing here, and a vast circle of disrupted snow bore silent witness to the strange battle that had occurred. Mud scuffed up from beneath stained the snow in patches, but no blood.
Still, something about the clearing felt odd. I stared around it, trying to discern why my nerves hummed and my grief, always in the background like a faithful hunting dog, descended, leaden and impenetrable in the corners of my vision.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Something.”
He waited patiently. I wandered through the clearing. No strange shadows prowled the perimeter, validating the White Monk’s theory that my presence gave us passage. Not sure what I was looking for, I spotted a clear patch that held, of all things, a spot of green. Bright, acid green, like the White Monk’s eyes when he was most amused—or most hateful.
Kicked-up snow mounded around it, but now melted, sliding off and making a damp, muddy ring. A patch of grass, incongruous in the frozen landscape, with a flower inside. A forget-me-not, but larger than it should be, the vivid summer-sky blue of Hugh’s eyes.
My heart clutched, the painful ball in my throat spinning. The White Monk crouched beside me. “What do you see?”
“I think—” My voice croaked and broke. I swallowed down the cursed ball of thorns. “I think this is where Hugh died.”
“I don’t see anything—just snow.”
>
“It’s like a little hothouse. Living grass and a forget-me-not, but the biggest, most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. It’s not possible that it’s here.”
His breath sighed out. “Then this is a memorial. An eternal blossom. Created and preserved by magic.”
I nodded, unable to say more.
“Only one person that I know of could do such a thing—and would want to.”
Andi. I tried to conjure up that image I’d nursed, of her fierce and corrupted joy as she plunged the knife into Hugh’s breast. Instead I saw her here, planting this blossom and making a little dome of eternal summer around it. I pulled off my glove and reached in, my hand passing into the moist warmth, the petals velvety and vibrantly alive.
I said a prayer, wordless, a formless burst of love, sorrow, gratitude, and remorse.
When I drew my hand away, the cold stung my skin, a reminder of what was real.
“May I try?”
I wasn’t sure why he asked my permission, but I nodded. The White Monk yanked off his glove and reached out as I had, but his fingers stopped in midair, as if encountering glass. He ran his hand over it, forming an invisible dome in the air.
“As the border will be,” I breathed out the revelation.
He seemed disappointed, a tinge of bitterness in the air. Then he took my hand and searched my face. “Will you try something with me?” The simplicity of the question belied the deep, emotional earnestness in his gaze. This mattered greatly to him.
“Yes.”
His scarred lip twitched into a smile and he opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and tugged off my glove, gently, finger by finger. With a rush, the fantasy of him ripping off my clothes hit me again, and I had to bite my lip against it—and to stave off the black guilt that followed. Here I knelt at the spot where Hugh had given up his life only months before, possessed by this insane lust for another man. If the White Monk knew, he gave no clue, but he did cradle my naked hand in his, our skin touching in some deep communication. With our fingers laced together, he lowered our hands toward the blossom.
Seamlessly our hands slid inside, penetrating the perfect slice of summer together.
“I see it!” He turned his head and grinned at me, a smile so broad even the scar didn’t distort it, the greatest expression of pure happiness I’d ever seen on him. It made the thorns inside me prick with envy.
Nothing could ever make me that happy again.
17
As if he sensed my shift in mood, his smile dimmed. Suddenly
I was sorry to have ruined the moment for him. I created a smile, the party one that usually charmed everyone, but it was too late. Besides, he always seemed to see through me. He pulled our hands out and handed me my glove.
“Do you want some time here?”
Ever considerate of me and my hair shirt of grief.
“No.” I stood, pulling on my glove and adjusting my cloak. I couldn’t explain my irrational anger at Hugh. At Andi for first killing him and then making this memorial, as if that changed anything at all. But I could walk away for now. “Let’s move on. Surely the border isn’t far from here.”
It wasn’t. We’d barely gone the distance it would take to cross Ordnung’s great courtyard before the snow, which had been growing thin, melted completely into mud. Ahead, the same tall evergreen trees marched on in their great columns, but beneath, on the forest floor, grass and riotous wildflowers grew in a rampant tapestry of color.
Paradise.
With a breath of wonder, I reached down and plucked a scarlet blossom. It was exotic and fragrant, unlike anything I’d ever seen.
“Princess?”
I looked back, and the White Monk stood an arm’s length away, as if stopped by a wall, his gaze unfocused into the distance.
“Ami!” he called, with greater urgency.
“Right here,” I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me. I went to him and the near panic in his face changed to relief. He seemed about to embrace me in a rush of emotion but stopped himself. “Couldn’t you see me?”
“No. It was as if you disappeared. Like you vanished into that blizzard.” He gestured at the summer landscape beyond.
“You see a blizzard there?”
“You don’t?”
“No.” I felt a bit of the happiness that I’d longed for only a few minutes before seep into my limbs, like a draught of good wine, warming and relaxing, diffusing the anger. “I see paradise.”
We practiced with the barrier for a bit. The White Monk said he didn’t wish to leave any important bits of himself behind. Turned out it was much more difficult to move two bodies in tandem than it had been our interlaced hands. When our bodies grew too far apart, say, where our forearms diverged due to the angle of our elbows, he’d begin to feel a burning, repellent sensation.
He tried tossing a rock through, but it ricocheted. The same happened when I tried. But I could carry that rock over. Wryly, he remarked that it would be best if I could carry him over, but I could never lift his weight. With rapt wonder, we watched as a flock of birds flew through.
“If only we hadn’t lost the horses,” he sighed. “I bet that would have worked.”
“You don’t have to go through, do you? I could go in and, um, look around a little.” Really, according to my assignment, we could leave. We knew I could cross the border. I sincerely doubted that I could bring Erich’s—or Uorsin’s—armies across, but that was a problem for another day. Something to think about later.
The White Monk stood, hands fisted on his lean hips, staring down at the snow as if it might give him the answers he sought. He looked up at me when I suggested he stay behind, the green dimmed, the bitter grit of frustration and disappointment in the air. He wanted this. There could be no doubt of that.
“What if you carry me?” I blurted out.
“We could try that.”
We both knew that the alternative would be for us to somehow plaster ourselves together. He came close to me and paused, oddly diffident in that moment, though he’d carried me before. Seeming unsure how to touch me, he stroked a hand down my back, barely touching.
“Ready?”
I stood on tiptoe and wound my arms around his neck, laying my cheek against his, rough with his scruffy beard and the ridged scars. He felt good. Hard and warm. I pushed the fantasies aside. “Like you did before. It’s fine.”
He bent his knees, scooping me up with easy strength. I pressed my face into his neck, as if the skin-to-skin contact would help, but shamelessly indulging myself, breathing in his scent, campfire smoke and man. He smelled nothing like Hugh had, and that helped immeasurably. I’d missed being touched. So, so much. This small thing meant nothing. Here and gone.
Taking a deep breath, he curled me tighter against his chest and stepped up to the barrier. Moving slowly, head bent tight over mine, he eased through. Under my ear, his heart pounded, echoing through his body, a drumbeat of fear—and wild excitement.
With a sensation of a bubble popping, we emerged into full summer. The White Monk looked around in unbelieving amazement, then down at me, the radiance of his joy as palpable as the welcoming sunshine. He let me down, then tossed his head back, whooping with a full-throated cry of celebration, much like a wolf baying at the full moon.
A laugh escaped me, released from its barbed prison by his sheer exuberance. He snapped his gaze down to me.
Then seized my face in his big hands and kissed me.
Shock held me still for a blink, and then all that yearning, that bottled-up longing, surged up to meet him. I opened my mouth, giving in to the hard, seductive strength of his. Just as in my lurid fantasies, he wasn’t gentle or sweet or reverent. He didn’t treat me like some fragile doll to be protected. He devoured me, drinking me in, and my entire body melted into a hot stream for him to consume.
He broke away from me and I staggered, momentarily unanchored and bewildered.
Moving away a few steps, eyes wild and panicked, he be
nt over, resting hands on knees and panting. I took a step toward him and he held up one hand, forbidding me to come closer.
Too hot—from the sun, nothing more—I busied myself with removing my winter outer garments, neatly folding the heavy cloak, my gloves and scarf. Already chagrined and more than a little humiliated by my response, I decided he’d already seen plenty of me, and it hardly mattered now, so I stripped off a few layers of pants and shirts, so I wore only a few light silk ones. They still covered me modestly enough to please Lady Zevondeth, but after wearing so many layers, I felt nearly naked.
When I finished, I found the White Monk regarding me with a deliberately opaque expression, one I recognized from early in our acquaintance.
“Forgive me my trespass, Princess.” He bowed, formal and deep. “I was overcome by the moment and forgot who you are. Inexcusable of me, nevertheless.”
Not exactly what a girl wants to hear from the man who just kissed her with more passion than she knew existed in the world. Tempted to fling myself against him and pound my fists against his chest, I nearly yelled that I wanted him to be overcome by me. By me and not the stupid moment.
But that was the old Ami. I ran a hand over my messily braided, likely knotted, and days-oily hair. I wore this odd assortment of patchwork garments and likely smelled to Glorianna’s bower and beyond. Of course he wasn’t overcome by me. Even at my best, the beauty that had always been my glory seemed to disgust and repel him.
He’d “forgotten” who I was. I supposed that was the only way he’d forget whatever it was that made him hate me so.
“We’ll forget it ever happened.” I tried to make it a crisp order from the offended but forgiving royal personage, but my voice sounded dull. What was wrong with me?
He lost the impassive expression and held out a hand toward me. “Ami—”
“Ami.”
The other voice overlapped his, an eerie almost echo. Andi.
The Tears of the Rose Page 17