Winter's Fallen (The Conquest of Kelemir Book 1)

by A. F. Dery

  Hadrian imagined he could feel Rupert’s eyes on him, much as he could sense his gaze when he’d been in wolf form.

  “There will be no trouble from me,” he said firmly. “So if anything happens, you’ll know who is to blame.”

  “Nothing will happen, unless Grace allows it,” the other man hissed back.

  “And Grace doesn’t, so please calm down,” she said impatiently. “I don’t think the two of you should be alone together. Can we agree on that right now? If we are all in the same room together and I leave, then one of you has to go somewhere else, too. It doesn’t have to be with me, but there’s the bedroom, the work room and the kitchen that are all habitable. There’s no reason why you both should be alone together when you have trouble getting along.”

  “Agreed,” he said tersely. The thought of her alone with Rupert and his uncontrolled magic made his stomach turn, and he tried to push it away.

  “Agreed,” Rupert repeated, not sounding much happier than Hadrian had.

  “Good,” Grace said, the only one who seemed pleased. “Now, I need to go prepare something for dinner. Who’s leaving?”

  “I’ll come with you,” Hadrian said immediately. He really didn’t like the idea of the wolf-man following her. “Rupert surely needs time to rest.”

  “After all the time I’ve spent drugged, the last thing I need…is more rest right now,” Rupert shot back. “I’ll go with you, Grace. I haven’t eaten…in a while.”

  “Oh, no, you haven’t, had you?” Grace sounded distressed, and Hadrian groaned inwardly. He could hardly argue it now without sounding heartless.

  “Fine,” Hadrian said through gritted teeth. “We’ll all go down to the kitchen, then.”

  “Really? You hardly ever come downstairs if you don’t have to.” He could hear the skepticism in Grace’s voice. “You’re not just doing this out of some misguided effort to ‘protect’ me from Rupert, are you? We’re never going to make it through the winter if both of you feel the need to follow me around all the time.”

  “Of course not,” Hadrian said shortly. “It’s just been a while since I’ve been to the kitchen, and I’m hungry too.” He didn’t like to think of it as a lie, but in truth, eating was the last thing he felt like doing. He just knew she wouldn’t argue about it.

  And indeed, she didn’t. “Oh…well…that’s good to hear,” she stammered, obviously thrown off, as he knew she would be. “Let’s get going then, before anyone starves.” She hesitated. “Do you…want my help? Getting downstairs?”

  He wanted to say yes, just to be close to her again, even for such an innocuous reason, but before he could even open his mouth, Rupert said, “I can help him, Grace. You…go on and take the lantern. I still…see better in the dark…than most, even as a man.”

  Grace was silent a moment, and Hadrian was sure she would point out what a bad idea this was, considering that she’d only just noted herself that they didn’t get along. But instead, she said, “Thank you, Rupert,” and he heard her picking up what had to be the lantern from the table near him.

  A large hand suddenly gripped his left arm near the elbow, the grasp painfully tight. Hadrian suppressed a wince.

  “Let’s go,” Rupert said, in a voice just shy of a growl.

  Hadrian thought it was certainly going to be an interesting meal. He was proved all too correct when, an hour or so later, they were all seated in the kitchen around a table he had forgotten was even in there before steaming bowls of venison stew. There was no bread, of course; what grain they had needed to be carefully rationed, and Grace had only prepared bread once a week or so since she’d taken over the cooking duties.

  It was delicious, as everything she cooked was. She’ll make a good wife for someone one day, he thought, gripping his spoon a little too tightly.

  No one had spoken since they’d gone downstairs, and the silence in the room was awkward. Grace didn’t seem to know what to say, and perhaps had no wish to speak. Hadrian recalled far more comfortable silences with her in the past, and it was all he could do to even pretend to eat.

  Finally he said, “Have the two of you decided what we will be doing next?” He cringed a little on the inside at how abrupt and accusatory the words sounded. He really hadn’t meant them that way.

  “I thought we agreed to continue working on your research,” Grace said in a hurt tone. “That hasn’t changed, unless you’ve changed your mind about trying again.”

  “Or about how important this supposed cure is,” Rupert put in, a little slyly, Hadrian thought.

  He glowered somewhere in the direction of his stew. “Of course it’s important. We can keep trying, if you want to, Grace. I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to help.”

  “I told you I would,” she said, sounding irritated. “And I will.”

  They finished the meal in silence. Grace cleared the table when they were all finished, and went to wash their bowls in a tub of melted snow by the fire.

  Hadrian stayed at the table, and Rupert did too.

  He did his best to pretend the other man wasn’t there, but then Rupert spoke suddenly. “How long have you been here, mu-mage?”

  Hadrian frowned a little, suspicious of what he’d been about to say.

  “It’s been…seven years in all, I think,” Hadrian mumbled. “I haven’t left this place at all in five.”

  “Seven years,” Rupert repeated, emphasizing each word as if they possessed some hidden significance. “And how many had passed…when you lost your sight?”

  “Rupert,” Grace said, with a tone of warning.

  “Is it a secret?” Rupert wondered.

  “No secret…it’s been a couple of winters,” Hadrian said stiffly. Beneath the table, he clenched his fists in his lap.

  “A couple of winters.” Once again the other man echoed him. “So you haven’t been able to work…all that time…on your cure?”

  “No.” He wondered where the wolf-man was trying to go with this.

  “So you’ve just been ambling around here, blind. For two years or so.”

  “Do you have a point, Rupert?” He tried to keep his tone polite, aware that Grace was listening, but his dislike of the other man was increasing exponentially by the minute. I have no right to be aggravated with him, I killed his brother. I deserve his annoying behavior, he reminded himself sternly.

  But his hands stayed clenched into fists under the table.

  “Grace said you’re depressed, but how bad can it be…if you’ve been two years this way?”

  “Rupert, stop. Please. This isn’t doing anyone any good,” Grace said miserably, from over by the fireplace.

  “It took me a while to give up hope that my eyes might recover,” Hadrian said, his jaw tight. “But I’m not sure I’d describe myself as depressed. I just see no point in putting off justice any longer if there’s no way I can atone for what I did.”

  “Justice,” Rupert huffed. “You do not have to bury your victims…or face their families…you can just end it…and call it justice instead of what it is…cowardice.”

  “Rupert!” Grace cried.

  But both men ignored her.

  “I would think you of all people would want to see me dead, whatever it took.” Hadrian’s nails dug painfully into his palms.

  “It’s not your death that would bother me. It’s that you get to choose. You’ve always gotten to choose. Did my brother get a choice?” Rupert’s voice ended on a growl, deep in his throat.

  “So you’re just upset that you’re not the one who would kill me? Well, don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time for you to lose your temper over some trifle and blow us all up,” Hadrian snapped, his patience at its limit. “Then we can call it an ‘accident’ instead of what it really is-”

  Hadrian’s head snapped back as something collided with his face.

  “Get out,” Grace hissed. He felt a gust of cold, wet air and realized dimly she must have opened the back door.

  Hadrian’s hand went to his
face, feeling the stickiness of blood on his fingers as he rose unsteadily.

  But something brushed past him none too gently, knocking into his arm, and he heard Rupert say, “Grace, I’m sorry-”

  “Get out. Don’t come back until you’re under control. Whatever that takes,” Grace’s voice was like steel. “You lied to me. You said you wouldn’t harm him.”

  Rupert said nothing else, but Hadrian had to assume he’d left as ordered when he heard the door creak shut, and the scrape of the latch being fastened.

  A moment later, he felt something cloth being pressed into his hand. “Your nose is bleeding,” Grace said quietly. “You should sit back down.”

  “Grace-”

  “You didn’t have to goad him back, you know,” she said sharply. “I don’t think he should have been poking at you, but you of all people should have known better than to sink to that level. Your temper is as likely to get us killed as his is! You lose yours, and he loses his. How is it that you need this explained to you? Honestly, for a man who is supposedly smart enough to have studied as a mage, you’re being an idiot. You’re so worried about my safety that you don’t mind provoking him right in front of me, knowing full well that he could explode! Literally!”

  Hadrian was speechless. He yearned to defend himself, but…she was right.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice barely audible. “You’re right. I let him get to me, and I should have known better.”

  He clutched at the cloth she’d given him, twisting it in his hands anxiously. The full realization of what he’d just done so thoughtlessly felt crushing, and somehow his mind had gone blank in its wake.

  He felt the cloth being pried out of his hand and then being pressed against his face. Very gently she cleaned the blood from him, the cloth feeling like a caress against his skin. He held his breath as she gingerly dabbed at his upper lip, tracing its counter with a finger swathed in cloth.

  “Grace,” he murmured, his voice husky. His heart raced and he brought up a trembling hand until he felt her arm, warm and soft. He ran his fingers lightly down to her bare wrist, his chest aching with the need to make things right between them. He moistened his suddenly dry lips with his tongue. “Grace, I-”

  The back door rattled loudly. He felt Grace jump at the sound, the cloth falling from her hand as she moved away. A moment later, he heard the latch being unfastened and the door swing open on another gust of wind. He listened, dry mouthed, as she shut the door and latched it again, then heard the unmistakable sound of a dog shaking off wet fur, followed by a sad whine.

  “I’m glad you came back so quickly. I would have worried,” Grace said after a moment, but he was sure he wasn’t imagining the breathlessness in her voice, not quite justified by merely opening and closing a door. “What just happened, it can’t happen again.”

  He wasn’t entirely sure if she was speaking to the wolf, or to him, but his chest tightened as he suspected it was both.

  The following morning, the “research” resumed.

  Rupert lay by the small fireplace in the work room, where he had spent the night, at Grace’s direction. The meager fire was barely enough to take the edge from the chill in the air, but thickly furred now, he did not feel it the same way he had before. Hadrian had stayed in the kitchen, refusing to take the bedroom when Grace had offered it to him, so she had slept there instead. Though unhappy to be unable to watch over her directly, and worried that the nightmares that had once plagued her would continue to return, Rupert was forced to content himself with listening for any sounds on the stairway, of which, more happily, there were none.

  Now that he was the wolf again, human thoughts bled into wolf thoughts in a way they had not done for some time. He was no longer purely wolf, and such a thing, if he had truly ever achieved it in the first place, would not be happening again anytime soon if he continued to transform regularly.

  And not doing so simply wasn’t possible. The wolf could not speak to Grace, not really. And he thought both she and the Murderer had been a little odd when he had returned, even though he had not been gone long. The Murderer had looked flushed while Grace had looked unusually pale.

  He could not ask any questions or voice any suspicions as a wolf, of course, so he did his best to simply act remorseful. It wasn’t entirely an act; he wasn’t sorry for what he’d said to the Murderer, but he was very sorry he’d hit him, if only because it had upset Grace. Part of him had been tempted to protest that what he’d really meant before was that he wouldn’t kill the other man, but he hadn’t been a wolf so long that he was unable to immediately recognize the stupidity of actually saying such a thing to her. He was just pleased that she had accepted him back inside the tower so readily.

  So now he sat and watched, alert for any signs of subterfuge or deception on the Murderer’s part that he could relate to Grace later. So far, the Murderer just seemed to be concerned with various combinations of medicinal herbs. He said something to Grace about a particular combination being the most promising when he’d last left off “researching,” but he supposedly couldn’t quite remember the correct proportions of each, and Grace could not make out his notes on the subject.

  The two of them were quiet as they worked, Grace mostly just standing by until the Murderer asked her for something. There was a tension in the air that Rupert could sense even as a wolf, and he could not help but notice how very careful Grace was being to keep her distance from the Murderer. It both pleased and alarmed him. Just what did happen when I was outside?

  Several days passed in much the same manner, and it did not appear much, if any, progress was being made. Several times, Hadrian would start to speak, but he never made it far enough for Rupert to be able to guess at what he had been going to say: the moment Grace seemed to realize it was not related to their work, she interrupted him, making a suggestion of how to proceed (not all of them bad ones, either, he had to say; Grace was certainly a very quick study) or suddenly remembering something she needed to do somewhere else.

  Rupert would follow her out when she left the room, per their agreement that he and Hadrian not stay alone together, and though she said nothing at these times, he could tell she was very upset when they happened. Her body was rigid, her movements quicker than usual and also unusually clumsy, her lips pressed into a thin, determined line.

  Those were the times he longed to transform and speak to her, whether he had anything of his own to share or not. Rupert, both in his wolf thoughts and his human ones, was deeply concerned about this change in her. Why would she be acting this way unless something bad happened? Did he hurt her somehow when I was outside that day?

  He quelled a whine of anxiety as he thought about these things from his customary place by the fire in the workroom one day, but to his surprise, Grace, who was standing by Hadrian as usual as he fumbled with his herbs, noticed it anyway.

  She looked over at him with a small frown, her eyebrows pulling together. “Are you all right, Rupert?”

  He laid his chin on his paws, unsure of how to answer that one. She came over and hesitantly knelt down beside him. She started to reach out as if to pat his head as she’d once done, but stopped herself, quickly bringing her hand back.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “I forgot for a moment. I don’t know how you do it. You act very wolfy as a wolf, I mean, not like a person pretending to be a wolf.”

  He wanted to say, I am a wolf when I’m a wolf, why is this so hard to believe? But of course, even he realized it wasn’t exactly true. Not anymore, anyway. Those were man thoughts, not wolf thoughts. The wolf thought in images, smells, sounds. The man pondered in words.

  “You look sad,” she continued in a low voice. “Am I imagining that? I know this has to be hard for you. Being around him, I mean, because of your brother.”

  He lifted his head.

  “I really don’t mind if you go somewhere else for a while, like you used to. I mean, I’d understand. I’m sure you can see there’s nothing going on t
hat needs your attention.”

  He huffed, narrowing his eyes a little. That’s not happening. If that changed, how would I know if I’m off somewhere else?

  Grace shrugged a little. “I thought that’s how you’d feel about it. But I also thought it was worth offering.” She moved as if to get up, but he quickly moved forward and laid his head on her knee. He felt better with her near him, and not the Murderer.

  She didn’t seem to know how to react, holding very still at first. Then after a moment, her hand hovered somewhere by his head (he could see it from the corner of one eye), but stopped before touching him. He peered up at her and saw the indecision on her face, her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Then on a sigh, she started petting him, like she used to do.

  He let out a sigh of his own. He felt like his bones were melting, the tension draining from his body. His eyes drifted closed in contentment, and he breathed in her scent deeply. Everything was warmth and light.

  “I hear that thumping again,” came the Murderer’s voice, with an odd tone to it. “Please tell me you’re not…petting…him.”

  The hand in his fur froze. He cracked open one eye and saw Grace looking decidedly guilty, her gaze not quite able to find a place to come to rest. “Well…” she said tentatively. “He is a wolf again.”

  “He’s also a man,” the Murderer said tersely. “You don’t think there’s anything the least bit strange or, perhaps, inappropriate about rubbing your hands all over a naked man?”

  “That’s not fair!” Grace protested hotly, but he felt the weight of her hand disappear. Both eyes opened and he worked hard to suppress a growl for the Murderer. “Clearly he is not a naked man at the moment but a furry wolf,” she went on indignantly. “And when he’s the wolf, he thinks like a wolf, he told me so. A-and wolves are furry…and furry things like to be petted. It’s innocent.” He could hear her struggling to work through her own logic as she spoke, which under other circumstances, would have amused him a little.

  But given what she was trying to defend and why and to whom, he was finding it very difficult to stay calm. He left his head where it was though.