by Sharon Green
I turned away from his very patient sigh that rubbed my own patience raw and bloody, and gave my attention to a Veslin who was standing quietly and simply listening after having put the pitcher down. The man obviously considered himself no more than a concerned spectator, but I was prepared to change that considerably.
''It appears I need a place to sleep tonight, Veslin,'' I said moving a full step closer to him while letting our gazes meet. "If you have no other plans of your own, I'd appreciate the chance to … get to know you better."
A woman among men learns to know just how much interest the men around her happen to be feeling, and by that standard I knew at once that Veslin was anything but reluctant. A faint smile turned his lips that was echoed in his eyes, and the way he looked at me said he would be more than happy to oblige. I waited for the words, beginning to realize that the time would turn out to be more than just an escape from an unpleasant situation, but the words that came weren't from him.
''You can’t do that,'' I heard from behind me, the shadow of a growl back in his voice. ''As your betrothed I have the right to share a room and a bed with you; no one else has that same right. You can't go with anyone else."
"As a Blade I can do anything I damned well please," I said without turning, closing my fists against the hurt I could hear in him. He had no right to be hurt, no right at all, not when he was an enemy! Why couldn't he be like other enemies, and simply not care at all? "I told you what Blades were like, but apparently you didn't believe me. Now you’ll be able to see for yourself how a Blade takes care of seeing to her needs."
"That's absolutely it," he said as I raised a hand to stroke Veslin's face, and then there were fingers on my arm, keeping my hand from its intended destination. I was pulled around hard to face a very angry enemy, and then sight of him was gone and I was up on his shoulder! I screamed in outrage and tried to struggle free, but his furious strength refused to allow it.
"I trust you remember where your room is," Veslin said with an infuriating calm as the beast turned away from him and began striding toward the door. ''And I hope the rest of the night turns out to be quieter and more pleasant for both of you."
That neither of us answered him didn't seem to bother him in the least, and the last glimpse I had was of him chuckling and reaching for the pitcher of wine. After that we were out the door and back in the narrow hall, and all the kicking and fighting I did accomplished nothing at all. I was carried along like a sack of oats, back to the front of the house and up to the second floor.
While I'd been spending my time in Indris's sitting room, Kylin had apparently been given a tour of the house. I was carried up the stairs and past neatly whitewashed walls to a room he approached without hesitation, taken inside, and then turned so the door might be closed behind us. A small lamp on a bedside table made the neat room look welcoming and homey, its white and brown and pink and blue and yellow all softened to gentle shadows and easy color. I got no more than a glimpse of that before it was out of my range of vision again, and then the closed door was retreating behind still-angry strides. I pounded again at the back under my fists, continuing to draw nothing in the way of response, and then yelped as I was suddenly dropped. Landing on my back on the soft bed was almost as disconcerting as landing on the hard floor would have been, and by the time I struggled up the monster was sitting beside me on the bed to my left.
''You had no right to embarrass our host just because you have an argument with me,'' I was told in a very flat way, anger flickering behind dark-light eyes. ''It’s time you learned what to expect if you ever try something like that again."
I tried to avoid the big hands that came to my arms, tried to fight them when they closed on me despite my efforts, but it was all a waste of strength. I was drawn face down across his lap, held in place by my right arm, and then he actually began to spank me! I suddenly remembered the time Jak had done the same thing to me, right after a fight in which I'd done something extremely stupid, his anger too great to be relieved by mere yelling. It had been pure luck that I hadn't been killed in the fight, and he'd taken my leathers down and whacked me rosy, to teach me in the most unforgettable way possible not to do the same again. As Kylin's big hand rose and fell, landing hard every time it landed, I couldn't get rid of the feeling that it was happening again, that I was being punished for doing something really bad. I twisted silently in deep humiliation, hating him for doing that to me, but also hating myself for thinking I somehow deserved it. I hadn't done anything to deserve it, all I'd done was hurt an enemy!
When Jak had done the spanking it hadn't ended for quite some time, but possibly he'd been angrier than Kylin was now. After a dozen or so smacks it was abruptly over, and I was pulled up to kneel straight on the bed beside him.
''If I ever have to do that again, I won't be nearly as gentle as I was this time," he said, a ghost of the growl still in his voice and eyes. ''Now get out of your clothes and into that bed.''
"I won't - '' I began, rubbing at what the full skirt of my dress hadn't really protected me from, just short of trembling with everything I was feeling. I didn't want to do anything he was involved with or cared to suggest, but the two words were all I was able to get out.
''But you will," he interrupted at once, turning to look at me after having risen from the bed. "You were the one who didn't want to talk, so we won't be doing any talking. If you make me repeat myself, you won't like the way I do it.''
He turned away again to continue circling the bed, and I suddenly found that I couldn't do anything but lower my head and begin opening my dress. For the first time in many years I felt like putting my face in my hands and crying, but that was the one victory I’d die before giving him.
It didn't take very long to get out of the dress and unlace my sandals, and then I simply lay down on top of the very soft quilts the bed was covered with. My back was to the man I could hear moving around on the far side of the bed, had been to him the whole time, and then the lamp was blown dark and another body was lying down behind me.
''Since you have needs to be taken care of, it's my duty to see that it's done,'' he said, and a hand was suddenly on my middle, an arm resting on mine. ''I'll try harder this time to do the job right, but if it doesn't work you're to tell me. The least a woman in your position deserves is a man who can satisfy her in bed - especially when he can't seem to manage it outside of one. If it still turns out not to be any good for you, I'll - try talking to someone to see what it is I'm doing wrong."
I didn't move at the touch of that warm, gentle hand on me, but I suddenly realized there were tears streaming down my face, tears only the dark around me could see. It wasn't fair, it wasn't, and it hurt so much I wanted to die of the pain. But dying was the easy way, a path only the common-born were allowed to tread, a path denied to those who were noble. Noble. When my body began to shudder with the sobs I couldn't hold in he moved closer and held me tight in gentle arms, and that made it all a thousand times worse, a thousand times more painful. I deserved that pain, I knew I did, and also knew I'd never find a way to make it stop.
* * *
When Indris heard the sound of footsteps going upstairs, she left what few dishes and things she hadn't yet put away and went hurriedly to her father's study. In the past it had been a habit with her to stop and look around whenever she entered the study, but tonight she was too excited to indulge in the usual.
"Father, tell me quickly, I'm dying to know," she said as soon as she was through the door, keeping her voice down but unable to keep the excitement out of it. "I knew it had to be one of them as soon as I saw them, but which one was it?"
Her father had been standing with a cup of wine in his hand, staring sightlessly at the wall, most certainly not staring at what was on the wall. He knew his collection of shields so well he could see them even when they weren't in front of him, so she knew he had to have been staring at something else entirely. He smiled when he heard her question, more amused than she thought he
'd be, but she had to admit she was sounding a good deal younger than she thought she would.
"Would you believe, daughter mine, that both of them were chosen?'' he asked, turning his head to look at her with sparkling blue eyes. "When I opened the box to show them the bracers, we found two single ones of different sizes. It was all I could do to conceal my surprise."
''Both of them,'' Indris said, walking more slowly forward to a chair near her father before sitting rather heavily. "I hadn't known that could happen, hadn't even thought about it. Now…What are they going to do?"
''They'll answer the summons just as they're supposed to," her father replied, moving close to put a gentle hand to her hair. "I know it would have been easier on them if only one had been chosen, but the decision wasn’t ours. And that girl almost broke through part of the deflection aura, asking questions about something she was supposed to have forgotten as soon as it was on her and the subject was changed. I'm hoping it was just her desperation to avoid talking to Kylin and about their relationship, but I'm afraid it might be one of the reasons she was chosen. She may have some … extra ability of some sort, that will play a key part in what inevitably must follow."
"The battles behind the war," Indris said with a sigh, leaning back in her chair. "Battles that will certainly be worse than the open war itself. Now they'll undoubtedly be separated, sent in different directions to serve different purposes. I'm sure the thought of that would make Sofaltis happy, but I wonder if it really will.''
''Don't be so sure they'll be separated,'' her father answered, pouring a cup of wine for her before sitting in a chair with his own. ''I told them the story of the legend, of course, but I gave them the version everyone's familiar with rather than the true one. Evon didn't make a full panoply, remember, he made only the right half of everything. The left half appeared as a mirror image come to life, a gleaming reflection of the silver which is the symbol of his purity of purpose. Once it was done no one could tell the difference in the reality of one side as opposed to the other, but I've always felt there was a particular reason he did that. Those bracers are linked in some way, one inseparably to the other, so Sofaltis may not be as free of Kylin as you believe."
"Or as she thinks she wants to be,'' Indris said with a nod, still concerned as she sipped her wine but nevertheless faintly relieved. ''Were you able to find out what the trouble is between them, the real problem that poor girl keeps skirting around? I tried during her bath, but her mind slid away to examine it alone, leaving me behind a slammed-closed door."
''I was hoping I might have the opportunity, but it didn't turn out that way,'' Veslin said, shaking his head with faint frustration. ''Sofaltis thought she could avoid having to share Kylin's accommodations by offering to share mine, but she doesn't seem to know much about the man she's bound to. If I'd agreed I probably would have had to fight him, he's feeling that insecure about her. I'm convinced her absolute refusal has something to do with the covert war flowing around us, and if I could have spoken to her I might have been able to resolve the problem."
''Is that all you would have done with her?'' Indris asked, her expression very carefully innocent. ''Spoken with her?"
''She's an infant, you hellion, even more so than you,'' Veslin answered with a snort, then shifted to a grin. "But she's an infant with an instinct about men, and wouldn’t have been surprised by anything that happened. When a man holds a woman in his arms after they've blended souls, she's much more likely to tell him things she wouldn't have spoken of under other circumstances." His amusement had been fading, and by now it was gone. ''She has to be feeling much, much more for Kylin than she'll admit even to herself. It wasn't disgust that made her avoid even the touch of his hand, far from it, and I wish I could have done something. I'm certain they’re suffering for no real reason, except as victims of the war.''
''Maybe … maybe it's part of the hidden war,'' Indris said slowly, distress returning to her as she leaned forward to look at her father. ''Maybe it's happened because they were meant to be summoned. If that's true, they haven't any chance together at all."
''Indris, child, the hidden war is being fought to preserve decency, not destroy it or make it just another tool for the users,'' Veslin said, his words assured despite the faint doubt that had crept into his eyes. ''We have to believe that so low a thing would not be done to two innocent children, or the war will already have been lost - by us."
"Unless there's a special purpose we haven't been allowed to see," Indris returned, finding more comfort in the depths of the silver wine than in her father's words. "I hope with everything in me that you're right, Father, but there are too many things happening that we can't see. I don't have to tell you how many lives are ruined by even the most well-intentioned wars; theirs just might be two of them."
Indris waited to hear Veslin disagree with her, but the silver wine had absorbed two pairs of eyes, and nothing further came but deeper silence.
Chapter 12
When my eyes opened to the light of a new day, I was relieved to find that I wasn't comfortable despite the soft bed, and I hadn't forgotten anything of what went on before I slept. It's more than disconcerting to wake up happy only to discover you have nothing to be happy about, but hopefully those days were over. I woke up as miserable as I'd been before I slept, which is a hell of a thing to feel pleased with.
I moved around under the quilt in the cool morning air, also relieved to discover that I was alone. My bedmate of the night before was gone along with his clothes, having left so quietly I hadn't heard him go. Not that it really mattered if he was there or not, I was sure he hadn't gone far. He wouldn't have gone far, not after what had happened between us before we slept, not after I'd ruined everything I'd been trying to accomplish. I brought a hand up to my mouth quickly, holding in the moan of pain, refusing to let it free. If it escaped I knew I would be crying again, just the way I'd cried in the dark during the night. As if crying would solve anything, or make what I'd done go away, or turn me back into a decent human being from the sickening thing I'd become. I was useless and worthless, without any trace of honor or shred of decency, and my father had been right to laugh at the idea of naming me his heir.
I turned under the quilt to bury my face in the pillow, wishing I could stay that way long enough to smother and die. He was an enemy, for Evon's sake, committed to doing harm to my family and everything we cared about, but when he held me in his arms all I wanted was to give myself to him without reservation, without criticism, without restraint. I could still feel the strength in his arms and shoulders and body, the warmth in his lips, the unending pleasure of his lovemaking. He used me more completely than any man I'd ever known, but never tried to keep most of the pleasure for himself. From first to last his intention was to share, but the moment he entered me I knew I was his, whether I cared to be or not, whether he shared or not. It was totally beyond me to refuse -
But he was my enemy!
The moan forced its way free at last, but was absorbed by the pillow just before I had to turn my head and breathe. Every time I tried to hurt him all I did was hurt myself more, and after last night I'd never again be able to tell him he couldn't satisfy me. He would have had to have died in order to miss it, and I could testify to the fact that he hadn't died. I was so terribly, horribly disgusted with myself, to let an enemy reach me like that, to be so pliable that I would betray everything I loved in exchange for nothing but the satisfaction of my body.
Like a small, mindless female, good for nothing but giving men rides and having their babies. Not a woman, who at least had her pride no matter what she found it necessary - or desirable - to do.
Female, low, stinking, squirming, totally useless female!
The self-hatred and loathing stirred me a short way out of the misery, but not nearly far enough. I turned onto my left side with a sigh, looking at the bright, cheerful sunshine pouring in through the window, incapable of sharing its warmth and happiness. I knew I was looking at the
sunshine of the day I'd be getting home, and was so depressed I almost couldn't bear it. The only thing I could do when I did get home was tell my father everything, leaving it to him to decide what was to be done. It would be the most humiliating thing I'd ever had to face, but I couldn't say I hadn't earned humiliation at the very least. I owed it to my father to tell him everything, and then do exactly what he wanted me to do.
I lay there for another few moments with the thought, even more depressed but in no way reluctant, and then got up to begin dressing. If there was one thing I'd learned to be good at during my life, it was facing up to the consequences of the things I'd done. For some reason I'd never developed the habit of making excuses, of trying to show my actions in a better, more acceptable light. I'd spent a good part of my childhood suffering through lectures because of that trait, and now was facing considerably more than a lecture. I sighed again, wishing for once that I could make excuses, then shook my head as I finished tying my sandals. In order to make excuses you have to be able to think of them, and in that particular situation finding an excuse would be like chipping down an entire mountain range with a palm dagger.
I left the pleasant room I'd barely looked at and made my way downstairs, letting a lethargy of spirit slow my steps to an unenthusiastic dragging of feet. I had no interest in seeing or talking to anyone, only in being on my way, but you don't thank people for their hospitality by disappearing without a word of good-bye. Indris and Veslin were entitled to a face to face thank-you, and I would see that they got it.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs for a moment to orient myself, then went toward where the kitchen should be. That really was a very big house for so small a village, but if Indris's husband had been that popular an armorer he probably could have built one twice the size and not worried about the cost. As I neared the kitchen I could tell Indris was in the middle of cooking things from the delicious smells coming out to meet me, but as enticing as the overall aroma was it did nothing to raise an appetite in me. My mood was in no mood to be hungry, so to speak, a statement of disinterest I couldn't have agreed with more.