Tapestry Lion (The Landers Saga Book 2)

by Nilsen, Karen

“Many of the old ones had sought the secret of fire, but only Mahalalel had the courage to climb the burning mountain. There he crawled around, his skin blistered and cracked from the heat, the water from his flask turning to steam before it could touch his parched lips. All the while he heard an eerie high-pitched singing that he first thought was the wind whistling in the crevices. When he reached the crest of the mountain and peered over the edge of the crater, the singing grew louder. He saw then that no wind made the mysterious sound, but a woman, a woman of flame who swam in the molten lava at the mountain’s core. She climbed up on a ledge inside the crater, her skin glowing bluish-white, the heart of the flames surrounding her entire body. She tossed her hair, liquid copper, and glanced up at him. Her eyes gleamed darkly, sharp as obsidian cutting across the distance between them. He blinked, but she was still there, staring up at him from her ledge, as shocked to see him as he was to see her. A violent heat rose inside him, a white hot pain that burned him from the inside. Love for the flame woman. He shut his eyes to shield himself from her brilliance and pulled forth the diamond flask he had brought. His hands trembling, he secured a chain carved from stone around the neck of the flask and lowered it to the sputtering lava below. He had promised to bring back fire to his people, not a fire wife for himself. Once the diamond flask was full of lava, he raised it on its stone chain. The chain and flask scorched welts on his skin, and he cursed. Then he forgot his pain as he saw the liquid fire sparking through the facets of the diamond, a thousand tiny suns in his hands.

  ‘“That will blind you if you gape at it, Mahalalel,”’ said a woman’s voice beside him, a rich, warm voice that melted the words as she spoke them.

  He looked up and saw the fire woman standing close beside him. No flames danced over her skin, but he knew it was her by the shimmering depths of her obsidian eyes. The air crackled around her as if on fire, blue sparks tingling against his face. He ran his hand down her arm, and she sighed and shut her eyes. She seemed almost in pain.

  ‘“Why does it not burn me to touch you?”’ Mahalalel asked.

  ‘“You have captured my flames in your flask,”’ she replied as if forced to it. ‘“I am yours.”’

  ‘“But I only took a flask full from that great fiery lake.”’

  ‘“A drop is all that is needed to bind me to you.”’

  He stood and kissed her, blue and red sparks exploding between them. He felt her fire flowing through his veins. She cried out shrilly as he caressed her, and he retreated.

  ‘“Have I hurt you?”’ he asked.

  ‘“You’ve made me your prisoner forever now.”’

  ‘“I never meant you harm--here.”’ He tried to hand her the flask, but she struck it from his hand, and it tumbled to the ground. The lava flowed out and hardened into rock. The rock held the image of the curved shape of a flame woman, imprisoned forever in stone.

  ‘“The instant you took the lava, you bound me to you as long as you held the flask,”’ she said. ‘“Then when you kissed me, you captured my fire in your veins and made me yours whether you held the flask or not.”’

  ‘“Then I claim you for my wife.”’ He led her down the mountain . . .”

  I trailed off and took a sip of water--all the words about fire and parched lips had made me thirsty. I glanced at Falken over the edge of the tumbler. His eyes gleamed with a dark merriment.

  “Is that how Merius found you?” he asked in Sarns.

  I snorted. “If he had a flask made of diamond and I could shoot flames with my eyes, do you think we’d be in this predicament now?”

  He laughed. “I want to see Jazmene’s face when you torch her throne room.”

  “Ha.” Quickly I glanced back down at the text. “When I think of Cormalen in the winter, covered with snow, it seems odd to think there were fiery mountains there, even so long ago.”

  “That’s how some islands form, from volcanoes erupting underwater. Cormalen is an island--is it so odd to think it once had a volcano?” Falken said, abruptly serious.

  “Volcano? Erupting underwater? There is no such thing,” I retorted.

  “I used to think there was no such thing as a fire selkie, until I met you.” His voice deepened, still serious. I glanced at him, wanting the merry Falken back. He watched me, no trace of laughter to lighten the air around us.

  “Falken, I’m not a fire selkie. I’m only an ordinary woman, of frail flesh and bone like any other woman,” I said, my words clumsy under his scrutiny.

  He touched my hair, so sudden that I didn’t react at first. I froze, his fingertips tingling against my scalp. We stared at each other for a long moment. “No, Selkie,” he whispered finally, “if you were an ordinary woman, you would have long since been in my arms, your husband forgotten.”

  I jerked to my feet, his hand sliding down the length of my hair as I lumbered away from the table. Away from him. “Falken, perhaps you should leave now.”

  He barked a laugh and pushed his chair back. “Never fear,” he said, his eyes lingering overlong like the rude vagabond peddler I had first thought him to be. “I know Merius has bottled your spirit. I want my own fire selkie. Perhaps you have a sister?”

  “She’s very proper and would think you wicked. Besides, she’s married too.”

  “Ah.” He stepped around the table, and I stepped back, a dance of distance. “Just one thing before I leave . . . listen, Safire,” he said, reaching for me as I backed into the bedpost and almost lost my balance. I cast behind me with trembling hands and lowered myself on the bed.

  I hugged the baby. “I don’t need your help.”

  “You needed it yesterday. Silly Selkie--you glare like a mother cat in an alley, all eyes and belly.”

  “If this is a seduction, it’s going badly, Falken.”

  “Remember that you said seduction first, not me.” He leaned against the bedpost, his teeth flashing in a grin.

  I inched down to the foot of the bed, continuing our distant dance. “You’re ridiculous. I’m almost eight months gone with another man’s child, for God’s sake.”

  “Forgive me. It’s just I know Merius may not let me see you again after what happened yesterday with Kelzar, and I didn’t want any doubt on your part why I helped you. It isn’t because I’ve secretly conspired with the queen and Toscar, like you hinted yesterday. It’s because I like you. And I believe you like me too, more than a married woman ought perhaps.”

  “Oh.” I was quiet for a moment, my mind a haze. “I do like you, Falken--I won’t deny it. You remind me of Merius sometimes.”

  “Selkie, you’ve an evil tongue--you give me hope and then slay me. You like me only because I remind you of him?”

  “It’s the truth. And Merius is my husband, not my jailor. Don’t blame him if I never see you again. That‘s my decision.”

  “Is it?”

  I glared at him again. “I told you to leave.”

  “Just answer one question for me first.”

  “No. Leave, Falken.”

  He ignored me. “Are you really returning to Cormalen?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “But they burn selkies in Cormalen. Why would you return there?”

  “Because it’s my home, Merius’s home. It’s the only place where I’m at ease with myself,” I stammered. Damn Falken, for raising the vague doubts and fears I had managed to forget in the midst of our troubles with Jazmene and Toscar.

  “You want your children born there? What if they’re selkies too? Have you and Merius thought about that?” He was relentless.

  “What choice do we have?” I snapped. “The queen and her ilk would keep me in a gilded cage if we stayed here. At least in Cormalen I know how to hide my witch talents.”

  “Would that make you content? Living half your life in the dark?”

  “We all live half our lives in the dark, Falken. What about you? Are you content hiding out with these quarrelsome rebels, waiting for scraps of power from Jazmene’s table? At least I
can be myself fully with Merius. You can’t take your mask completely off for anyone, can you?”

  He laughed sharply, whetting the air. “Merius is more fortunate than he knows. It‘s good for him that I respect him and know him to be honor bound.” Without warning, he leaned down and planted a kiss on my cheek. His mouth felt warm and cunning, the mouth of a man who had known many women. “Good-bye, Selkie. I will see you again, whether you want me to or not.”

  “Good bye, Falken.” I clasped his hand and gazed at him for a moment, his golden brown aura that shifted like a sealskin in sunlit water. “Thank you.”

  He waved his hand, dismissing my thanks, and then he was suddenly gone, quick as smoke in the wind. I stared at the door, my eyes burning.

  The rest of the day passed quietly enough. I worked on the painting of Toscar and the queen, adding detail to the floor tiles and balcony railing, then took a nap in the late afternoon to make up for my lack of sleep the night before. I overslept, lost in a long, confusing dream of Merius and me in the forest, fleeing the Landers hounds. More of a nightmare, really, and rather a stupid one--the Landers had hunting hounds, but the ones they had were nothing like the ones in my dream, huge and black with glowing eyes and teeth that never stopped growing. Merius finally hid me in a tree, and I clung to a branch, the hounds growling and jumping under me. One snagged my skirt with his teeth, and I screamed, my fingers slipping off the branch, and then I was falling . . . falling . . . I awoke with a start. The chamber was dim, lit only by the glow of the fireplace (had I lit the fire before I dozed off? How careless of me . . .) and a candle or two perhaps. I couldn’t have lit those--they would have burned down by now if I had.

  I tried to turn over, then realized that my narrow bed was much narrower than usual, being more than half taken up with Merius. “Oh, you’re here.” I yawned and stretched, smiling blearily. “You should have woken me.”

  “I didn’t want to disturb you--you were sleeping so deeply.” Our mouths met then, and we kissed for a long moment, part greeting, part easy familiarity, and part promise of our mutual desire, stoked by too many lonely nights.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “A half hour maybe.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “That depends.” He propped himself up on his elbow, trailing his fingers down the side of my face and under my jaw. “We need to talk, sweetheart.”

  “Falken told you?”

  “Yes. You can’t stay here anymore.” His voice was quiet when I had expected him to be swearing and pacing around the chamber. Quiet--that was worse. Quiet for Merius meant implacable--it meant he’d already gone through the malleable heat of his considerable passion and rage, and his anger had been forged into the cool iron of determination. Stubborn determination, the same determination that had lured me to his bed against all my better instincts, the same determination that had stood up to Mordric. Damn Falken for telling him--if I could have caught him in his initial shock and upset, I might have been able to reason with him. As it was, he was past that point.

  “Where else can I stay?”

  “I have a plan.”

  Oh no. “A plan?”

  “I can sneak you back to our rooms tonight.”

  I stiffened. “Merius, that’s insane--the guards are watching you all the time.”

  “No, listen, we can sneak in there tonight, if we wear our cloaks and I cover my sword. They’re not expecting to see a pregnant woman--no one at court knows you’re with child except Korigann. The guards will think we’re some couple who need the apothecary for the baby.”

  “And when we never come back out?”

  “They won’t know that, because they’ll be following me during the day.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t go back to our rooms--they’ll look for me there . . .”

  “That’s the last place they’ll look for you, with how closely they’ve been watching me. They’d never suspect that I managed to sneak you back in there.”

  “I’m not doing it, dear heart. It’s too risky.”

  “It’s too risky for you to stay here.” His hand tightened on my shoulder.

  “Falken can move me somewhere else tomorrow.”

  “Safire, I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

  “You can’t watch me all the time, no matter where I am.”

  “I know that, but at least I can watch you at night. I’ll know these damned rebels can’t come after you again. I’ll know you’re all right.”

  “What about when the baby comes?”

  “I’m going to get you out of the city before then, back to Cormalen.”

  “How?”

  "Father's in Sarneth," he said, his voice stiff. "He'll help us, if I ask him."

  No wonder his aura had lost its silvery sparkle in the last couple of weeks. "Why?"

  "He's here on official business--supposedly."

  "Has he approached you?"

  "We've only brushed past each other at court once."

  "Did he say anything?"

  "He nodded."

  "Nodded? That's all?"

  "A nod is a thousand words from Father."

  I bit my lip, having the unholy urge to laugh and then cry. "I thought you didn't want him involved, that you didn't want him knowing about the baby."

  "I don't--I don't trust him. But I don't know what else to do."

  I turned over and kissed him softly. "Why do you have to do anything?"

  "We've been over this." His arms tightened around me. "You're not safe here, Safire. You need to go back to Cormalen."

  "Without you?"

  "My term of service here will be up in another six months--then I'll join you."

  "I'm not leaving you, Merius."

  "You have to--I can't protect you here."

  "Love, you've managed to hide me from one of the most powerful monarchs in the world for two months--in her own palace city no less. Give yourself some credit."

  "But it hasn't been enough."

  "What are you talking about? She hasn't found me, hasn't even come close."

  "But she knows I'm hiding you. It's only a matter of time before she makes the connection between Falken and me."

  "You can't know that for certain."

  "I dare not take a chance on being wrong."

  "Merius, I'm scared to leave this place. This city is crawling with guards--if I come out now, her men are certain to find me."

  "And if you stay here, the rebels are certain to find you. Father will help us."

  "Your father can't do any more or any better than you have. You know, your aura's darkened, just with him being in this city," I stammered. "I don't want you hurt anymore."

  “What would hurt me most is if something happened to you.” He traced my mouth with his finger tip. “Let me worry about Father. I’m not a boy anymore--I can meet him on equal terms now, man to man.”

  “So things will be different with him? Better?”

  “I think so.” His lips brushed the crown of my head, and he cupped my body with his, the endless warmth of him soaking into my bones. The cold corpse in my chamber was already a distant chill, lost in the near comfort of my love. The lines of a verse Merius had written for me drifted through my mind:

  If woman rules the night

  as man so rules the day

  And you the moon

  And I the sun

  There’d be no night or day

  for we would dance

  Across the sky to join together

  An eternal eclipse

  over all the lands and seas forever

  Chapter Thirteen--Merius

  Safire and I made it safely back to our rooms at two in the morning and immediately went to bed. My sleep had been disturbed by dark dreams during Safire's and my separation, and I had barely slept at all since Father’s appearance in Midmarch. I awoke at five in the morning, my customary rising time, confused for an instant before I felt Safire curled beside me and remembered that I
didn’t have to report to the embassy at six. Rankin had granted me the day off so that I could accompany him to the palace tonight. I sank back on to the feather tick, a rare contentment subduing my restless spirit. Safire, still asleep, murmured my name, and I drew her closer, burying my face in the sweetness of her hair before I slipped back into oblivion.

  At three o’clock, I reluctantly left Safire and reported to the embassy, by-passing my fellow guardsmen and climbing the steps two at a time to Rankin’s study. He had given me the special assignment for this evening as his personal guard to the queen’s famous yearly salon of all the Sarneth writers and painters of note. It was a huge affair, larger than any ball, gathering courtiers and ambassadors from as far away as the Isle of Krytos, and plots and counterplots thickened the air long past midnight, all under the guise of sparkling conversational wit.

  Rankin was standing near the fire with his wife Narie, a tall, thin woman with piles of wispy grayish blond hair and aristocratic features softened by a gentle, unpretentious nature. Safire had said once she’d have to be unpretentious to live with Rankin--he would have driven an ambitious woman mad.

  “Come here, lad,” Rankin said, motioning me over to a box on his study table. “Narie has something for you.”

  It was a new tunic, much finer then the one I wore, Cormalen’s golden stag embroidered on the front with metallic thread, the slits in the sleeves edged with the same gold thread. I glanced at Rankin and Narie and marveled at their generous natures.

  “Thank you both for your great kindness to me. I don't deserve this. This is fine, certainly too fine to wear everyday,” I said after a long moment, running my fingers over the stitching. I almost said Safire will be pleased before I bit my tongue--it was so difficult sometimes, keeping so many secrets from people I considered my friends. Everyone at the embassy believed Safire was really missing, and although I suspected Rankin knew better, I dared not say anything.

  Rankin cleared his throat. “Narie thought you should have a new one.”

  “’Narie thought you should have a new one,’” she mocked. “It‘s a disgrace--he saved your life and you let him go around in a mended tunic for months. Come here, Merius.”