And drawing herself up, turning away, she didn't see the delicate leaf struggling to live on a tiny green bud.
The world was wild, and the air itself roared like wolves. The storm sprang up like a demon, hurling ice and snow like frozen arrows. Night fell so fast that there was barely time to gather branches for fuel.
Wrapped in his cloak, Kylar brooded into the fire. The trees were thick here, tall as giants, dead as stones. They had gone beyond where Deirdre harvested trees and into what was called the Forgotten.
"When the storm passes, can you find your way back from here?" Kylar demanded.
Though they sat close to warm each other, he was forced to shout to be heard over the screaming storm.
Dilys's eyes, all that showed beneath the cloak and hood, blinked once. "Yes, my lord."
"Then when travel is possible again, you'll go back to Rose Castle."
"No, my lord."
It took Kylar a moment. "You will do as I bid. You have pledged your obedience to me."
"My queen charged me to see you safe. It was the last she said to me. I will see you safe, my lord."
"I'll travel more quickly without you."
"I don't think this is so," Dilys said in his slow and thoughtful way. "I will see you home, my lord. You cannot go back to her until you have reached home. My lady needs you to come back to her."
"She doesn't believe I will. Why do you?"
"Because you are meant to. You must sleep now. The road ahead is longer than the road behind."
The storm raged for hours. It was still dark, still brutal when Kylar awoke.
Snow covered him, turning his hair and cloak white, and even the fur did little to fight the canny cold.
He moved silently to his horse. It would take, he knew, minutes only to move far enough from camp that his trail would be lost. In such a hellish world, you could stand all but shoulder to shoulder with another and not see him beside you.
The man Dilys would have no choice but to return home when he woke and found himself alone.
But though he walked his horse soundlessly through the deep snow, he'd gone no more than fifty yards when Dilys was once more trudging beside him.
Brave of heart and loyal to the bone, Kylar thought. Deirdre had chosen her man well.
"You have ears like a bat," Kylar said, resigned now.
Dilys grinned. "I do."
Kylar stopped, jumped down from the horse. "Mount," he ordered. "If we're traveling through hell together, we'll take turns riding." When Dilys only stood and stared, Kylar swore. "Will you argue with me over everything or do as your lady commanded and I now bid?"
"I would not argue, my lord. But I don't know how to mount the horse."
Kylar stood in the swirling snow, cold to the marrow of his bones, and laughed until he thought he would burst from it.
Chapter 10
On the fourth day of the journey, the wind rose so fierce that they walked in blindness. Hoods, cloaks, even Cathmor's dark hide were white now. Snow coated
Dilys's eyebrows and the stubble of his beard, making him look like an old man rather than a youth not yet twenty.
Color, Kylar thought, was a stranger to this terrible world. Warmth was only a dim memory in the Forgotten.
When Dilys rode, Kylar waded through snow that reached his waist. At times he wondered if it would soon simply bury them both.
Fatigue stole through him and with it a driving urge just to lie down, to sleep his way to a quiet death. But each time he stumbled, he pulled himself upright again.
He had given her a pledge, and he would keep it. She had willed him to live, through pain and through magic. So he would live. And he would go back to her.
Walking or riding, he slipped into dreams. In dreams he sat with Deirdre on a jeweled bench in a garden alive with roses, brilliant with sunlight.
Her hands were warm in his.
So they traveled a full week, step by painful step, through ice and wind, through cold and dark.
"Do you have a sweetheart, Dilys?"
"Sir?"
"A sweetheart?" Taking his turn in the saddle, Kylar rode on a tiring Cathmor with his chin on his chest. "A girl you love."
"I do. Her name is Wynne. She works in the kitchens. We'll wed when I return."
Kylar smiled, drifted. The man never lost hope, he thought, nor wavered in his steady faith. "I will give you a hundred gold coins as a marriage gift."
"My thanks, my lord. What is gold coins?"
Kylar managed a weak chuckle. "As useless just now as a bull with teats. And what is a bull, you'd ask," Kylar continued, anticipating his man. "For surely you've seen a teat in your day."
"I have, my lord, and a wonder of nature they are to a man. A bull I have heard of. It is a beast, is it not? I read a story once—" Dilys broke off, raising his head sharply at the sound overhead. With a shout, he snagged the horse's reins, dragged at them roughly. Cathmor screamed and stumbled. Only instinct and a spurt of will kept Kylar in the saddle as the great tree fell inches from
Cathmor's rearing hooves.
"Ears like a bat," Kylar said a second time while his heart thundered in his ears. The tree was fully six feet across, more than a hundred in length. One more step in its path and they would have been crushed. "It is a sign."
The shock roused Kylar enough to clear his mind. "It is a dead tree broken by the weight of snow and ice."
"It is a sign," Dilys said stubbornly. "Its branches point there." He gestured, and still holding the reins, he began to lead the horse to the left.
"You would follow the branches of a dead tree?" Kylar shook his head, shrugged.
"Very well, then. How could it matter?"
He dozed and dreamed for an hour. Walked blind and stiff for another. But when they stopped for midday rations from their dwindling supply, Dilys held up a hand.
"What is that sound?"
"The bloody wind. Is it never silent?"
"No, my lord. Beneath the wind. Listen." He closed his eyes. "It is like… music."
"I hear nothing, and certainly no music."
"There."
When Dilys went off at a stumbling run, Kylar shouted after him. Furious that the man would lose himself without food or horse, he mounted as quickly as he could manage and hurried after.
He found Dilys standing knee-deep in snow, one hand lifted, and trembling. "What is it? My lord, what is this thing?"
"It's only a stream." Concerned that the man's mind had snapped, Kylar leaped down from the horse. "It's just a… a stream," he whispered as the import raced through him. "Running water. Not ice, but running water. The snow." He turned a quick circle. "It's not so deep here. And the air. Is it warmer?"
"It's beautiful." Dilys was hypnotized by the clear water rushing and bubbling over rock. "It sings."
"Yes, by the blood, it is, and it does. Come. Quick now. We follow the stream."
The wind still blew, but the snow was thinning. He could see clearly now, the shape of the trees, and tracks from game. He had only to find the strength to draw his bow, and they would have meat.
There was life here.
Rocks, stumps, brambles began to show themselves beneath the snow. The first call of a bird had Dilys falling to his knees in shock.
Snow had melted from their hair, their cloaks, but now it was Dilys's face that was white as ice.
"It's a magpie," Kylar told him, both amused and touched when his stalwart man trembled at the sound. "A song of summer. Rise now. We've left winter behind us."
Soon Cathmor's hooves hit ground, solid and springy, and a single beam of light streamed through trees that were thick with leaves.
"What magic is this?"
"Sun." Kylar closed his hand over the rose brooch. "We found the sun." He dismounted and on legs weak and weary walked slowly to a brilliant splash of color. Here, at the edge of the Forgotten, grew wild roses, red as blood.
He plucked one, breathed in its sweet scent, and said: "Deirdre."
And sh
e, carrying a bucket of melted snow to her garden, swayed. She pressed a hand to her heart as it leaped with joy. "He is home."
She moved through her days now with an easy contentment. Her lover was safe, and the child they'd made warm inside her. The child would be loved, would be cherished. Her heart would never be cold again.
If there was yearning in her, it was natural. But she would rather yearn than have him trapped in her world.
On the night she knew he was safe, she gave a celebration with wine and music and dancing. The story would be told, she decreed, of Kylar of Mrydon. Kylar the brave. And of the faithful Dilys. And all of her people, all who came after, would know of it.
On a silver chain around her neck, she wore his ring.
She hummed as she cleared the paths in her rose garden.
"You sent men out to scout for Dilys," Orna said.
"It is probably too early. But I know he'll start for home as soon as he's able."
"And Prince Kylar. You don't look for him?"
"He doesn't belong here. He has family in his world, and one day a throne. I found love with him, and it blooms in me—heart and womb. So I wish for him health and happiness. And one day, when these memories have faded from his mind, a woman who loves him as I do."
Orna glanced toward the ice rose, but said nothing of it. "Do you doubt his love for you?"
"No." Her smile was warm and sweet as she said it. "But I've learned, Orna. I believe he was sent to me to teach me what I never knew. Love can't come from cold. If it does, it's selfish, and is not love but simply desire. It gives me such joy to think of him in the sunlight. I don't wish for him as my mother wished for my father, or curse him as my aunt cursed us all. I no longer see my life here as prison or duty. Without it, I would never have known him."
"You're wiser than those who made you."
"I'm luckier," Deirdre corrected, then leaned on her shovel as Phelan rushed into the garden.
"My lady, I've finished my story. Will you hear it?"
"I will. Fetch that shovel by the wall. You can tell me while we work."
"It's a grand story." He ran for the shovel and began heaving snow with great enthusiasm. "The best I've done. And it begins like this: Once, a brave and handsome prince from a far-off land fought a great battle against men who would plunder his kingdom and kill his people. His name was Kylar, and his land was Mrydon."
"It is a good beginning, Phelan the bard."
"Yes, my lady. But it gets better. Kylar the brave defeated the invaders, but, sorely wounded, became lost in the great forest known as the Forgotten."
Deirdre continued to work, smiling as the boy's words brought her memories back so clearly. She remembered her first glimpse of those bold blue eyes, that first foolish brush of lips.
She would give Phelan precious paper and ink to scribe the story. She would bind it herself in leather tanned from deer hide. In this way, she thought with pride, her love would live forever.
One day, their child would read the story, and know what a man his father was.
She cleared the path past jeweled benches, toward the great frozen rose while the boy told his tale and labored tirelessly beside her.
"And the beautiful queen gave him a rose carved on a brooch that he wore pinned over his heart. For days and nights, with his faithful horse, Cathmor, and the valiant and true Dilys, he fought the wild storms, crossed the iced shadows of the Forgotten. It was his lady's love that sustained him."
"You have a romantic heart, young bard."
"It is a true story, my lady. I saw it in my head." He continued on, entertaining and delighting her with words of Dilys's stubborn loyalty, of black nights and white days, of a giant tree crashing and leading them toward a stream where water ran over rock like music.
"Sunlight struck the water and made it sparkle like diamonds."
A bit surprised by the description, she glanced toward him. "Do you think sun on water makes diamonds?"
"It makes tiny bright lights, my lady. It dazzles the eye."
Something inside her heart trembled. "Dazzles the eye," she repeated on a whisper. "Yes, I have heard of this."
"And at the edge of the Forgotten grew wild roses, fire-red. The handsome prince plucked one, as he had promised, and when its sweetness surrounded him, he said his lady's name."
"It's a lovely story."
"It is not the end." He all but danced with excitement.
"Tell me the rest, then." She started to smile, to rest on her shovel. Then there came the sound of wild cheering and shouts from without the garden.
"This is the end!" The boy threw his shovel carelessly aside and raced to the archway. "He is come!"
"Who?" she began, but couldn't hear her own voice over the shouts, over the pounding of her blood.
Suddenly the light went brilliant, searing into her eyes so that with a little cry of shock, she threw a hand up to shield them. Wild wind turned to breeze soft as silk. And she heard her name spoken.
Her hand trembled as she lowered it, and her eyes blinked against a light she'd never known. She saw him in the archway of the garden, surrounded by a kind of shimmering halo that gleamed like melted gold.
"Kylar." Her heart, every chamber filled with joy, bounded in her breast. Her shovel clattered on the path as she ran to him.
He caught her up, spinning her in circles as she clung to him. "Oh, my love, my heart. How can this be?" Her tears fell on his neck, her kisses on his face.
"You should not be here. You should never have come back. How can I let you go again?"
"Look at me. Sweetheart, look at me." He tipped up her chin. "So there are tears now. I'd hoped there would be. I ask you again. Do you love me, Deirdre?"
"So much I could live on nothing else my whole life. I would not have had to risk yours to come back." She laid her palms on his cheeks. Then her lips trembled open, her fingers shook. "You came back," she whispered.
"I would have crossed hell for you. Perhaps I did."
She closed her eyes. "That light. What is that light?"
"It is the sun. Unveiled. Here, take off your cloak. Feel the sun, Deirdre."
"I'm not cold."
"You'll never be cold again. Open your eyes, my love, and look. Winter is over."
Gripping his hand, she turned to watch the snow melting away, vanishing before her staring eyes. Blackened stalks began to crackle, break out green and at their feet soft, tender blades of grass spread in a shimmering carpet.
"The sky." Dazed, she reached up as if she could touch it. "It's blue. Like your eyes. Feel it, feel the sun." She held her hands out to cup the warmth.
On a cry of wonder, she knelt, ran her hands over the soft grass, brought her hands to her face to breathe in the scent. Though tears continued to fall, she laughed and held those hands out to him. "Is it grass?"
"It is."
"Oh." She covered her face with her hands again, as if she could drink it. "Such perfume."
He knelt with her, and would remember, he knew, the rapture on her face the first time she touched a simple blade of grass. "Your roses are blooming, my lady."
Speechless, she watched buds spear, blooms unfold. Yellows, pinks, reds, whites in petals that flowed from bud to flower, and flowers so heavy they bent the graceful green branches. The fragrance all but made her drunk.
"Roses." Her voice quivered as she reached out to touch, felt the silky texture.
"Flowers." And buried her face in blooms.
She squealed like a girl when a butterfly fluttered by her face and landed on a tender bud to drink.
"Oh!" There was so much, almost too much, and she was dizzy from it. "See how it moves! It's so beautiful."
In turn, she tipped her face back and drank in the sunlight.
"What is that across the blue of the sky? That curve of colors?"
"It's a rainbow." Watching her was like watching something be born. And once again, he thought, she humbled him. "Your first rainbow, my love."
; "It's lovelier than in the books. In them it seemed false and impossible. But it's soft and it's real."
"I brought you a gift."
"You brought me summer," she murmured.
"And this." He snapped his fingers, and through the arch, down the path raced a fat brown puppy. Barking cheerfully, it leaped into Deirdre's lap. "His name is
Griffen."
Drowned in emotion, she cradled the pup as she might a child, pressed her face into its warm fur. She felt its heartbeat, and the quick, wet lash of its tongue on her cheek.
"I'm sorry," she managed, and broke down and sobbed.
"Weep, then." Kylar bent to touch his lips to her hair. "As long as it's for joy."
"How can this be? How can you bring me so much? I turned you away, without love."
"No, you let me go, with love. It took me time to understand that—and you. To understand what it cost you. There would have been no summer if I hadn't left you, and returned."
He lifted her damp face now, and the puppy wiggled free and began to race joyfully through the garden. "Is that not so?"
"It is so. Only the greatest and truest love, freely given, could break the spell and turn away winter."
"I knew. When I plucked the rose, I understood. I watched summer bloom. It came with me through the forest. As I rode, the trees behind me went into leaf, brooks and streams sprang free of ice. With every mile I put behind me, every mile I came closer to you, the world awoke. Others will come tomorrow. I couldn't wait."
"But how? How did you come back so quickly?"
"My land is only a day's journey from here. It was magic that kept you hidden.
It's love that frees you."
"It's more." Phelan wiggled his way through the crowd of people who gathered in the archway. He gave a cry of delight as the pup leaped at him. "It is truth," he began, "and sacrifice and honor. All these tied by love are stronger than a shield of ice and break the spell of the winter rose. When summer comes to Rose
Castle, the Isle of Winter becomes the Isle of Flowers and the Sea of Ice becomes the Sea of Hope. And here, the good queen gives hand and heart to her valiant prince."
"It is a good ending," Kylar commented. "But perhaps you would wait until I ask the good queen for her hand and her heart."
Books by Nora Roberts Page 338