“If I’m a traitor, I can hardly have an honorable death, can I?” Owen said. He kept his voice calm and his hand on Elspeth’s arm.
The warrior sneered. “Death in battle restores all honor.”
“But a life well lived is better than honorable death.” Owen stepped forward, putting himself nose to nose with the warrior.
He saw the man’s eyes shift, realized the warrior was looking at something past his shoulder, and then Elspeth screamed his name, wrenching away from his grip. He whirled around in time to see another warrior’s short sword plunge into Elspeth’s stomach as she moved to intercept the blow meant for Owen.
Owen’s vision went red. He threw himself at the soldier who’d struck Elspeth, bearing him to the ground beneath his weight. With his left hand, he grabbed the warrior’s long hair and slammed his head to crack sickeningly against the hard tile floor of the Rotunda. With his right, he went for the warrior’s longsword, drawing it from its sheath. He leaped to his feet and plunged the sword into the man’s body until it struck tile, down and then up toward the warrior’s breastbone.
He tore the sword free and attacked the next closest warrior, whose sword was half-drawn. With a snarl, he drove the longsword deep into the warrior’s belly and twisted, taking fierce pleasure in the man’s scream of agony. He shoved the man off his blade to fall atop his comrade’s bloody body and turned to face his next opponent. The red haze across his vision had faded. Everything was sharp-edged and clear and moving as slowly as everything always did when he was in a battle rage.
The other warriors closed in, but Owen was past caring. He thrust, slashed, darted back and found another target. Distantly, he was aware of shouting, but this was battle, and paying attention to anything that wasn’t right in front of you meant death. He gutted another warrior, disarmed him of his short sword, and used both his stolen weapons to drive back someone who dared try the same tactic on him.
Then the warriors were gone, fallen or retreated, he wasn’t sure which, and he lowered his bloody swords and tried to catch his breath. The shouting had gotten louder, and he shook sweat from his eyes and focused on what was nearest: Jafvran, screaming at his warriors to retreat to protect him; soldiers in Tremontane colors, approaching Owen warily; Jeffrey, a few feet away and shouting things Owen couldn’t understand; and several bodies lying sprawled around him. One of them was much smaller than the others.
Elspeth.
Owen flung the swords away and knelt beside her. Blood spread from beneath her hands, which clutched her stomach. She was paler than usual and her eyes were closed. “Elspeth,” Owen said. He tried to lift her hands so he could see the wound more clearly, but she shook her head, making it flop slowly from side to side, and clutched herself more tightly.
Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear her. “What?” he said in Ruskeldin, leaning close to put his ear nearly to her mouth.
There was blood on her lips. “…watch…your back…” she whispered.
He felt as if the sword had stabbed him, after all. “Elspeth,” he said hoarsely. “You idiot.”
She smiled, and lay still.
“Elspeth!” he screamed. He grabbed her by the shoulders and clutched her to him. He was aware of someone kneeling beside him—Jeffrey, with his hand on Owen’s shoulder, shouting at him. His grasp of Tremontanese deserted him, and Jeffrey’s words washed unintelligibly over him. Then Jeffrey punched him in the face.
Owen jerked back, his grip on Elspeth’s body loosening. He stared at Jeffrey, stunned by the blow. Jeffrey grabbed his shoulder again. “Dr. Worthing is coming,” he shouted. “It’s not too late. What happened?”
Not too late. Owen realized the body he held was still breathing, though the movement of Elspeth’s chest was so slight it was no wonder he’d missed it. “She saved my life,” he said in Ruskeldin, then repeated the words in Tremontanese when Jeffrey looked confused. “It was—” He looked past Jeffrey at where Jafvran had stood. The Ruskalder were gone. “The Ruskalder ambassador, he ask his men to kill me. Elspeth is in the way.”
Jeffrey’s lips tightened in fury. “He’ll pay for this.” He touched Elspeth’s shoulder. “Accident or no, that’s an assault on the heir to the Crown. That is the end of our diplomatic relationship with Ruskald. And if I could justify hanging him and every one of his warriors, I would.”
Owen barely heard him. All his attention was on Elspeth. She was so small and so still… His eyes burned with tears that wouldn’t fall. “It does not help her,” he pointed out, though he still felt deep satisfaction at having killed the man who’d hurt her.
Jeffrey looked away. “I know.”
The Rotunda was crowded with people, soldiers in green and brown, servants in North blue and silver, men and women in varying degrees of formal wear, all of them surrounding Owen and Jeffrey and Elspeth and murmuring words Owen couldn’t make out. Five Ruskalder soldiers lay dead around him. He didn’t remember killing that many. Maybe the murmuring was fear of him. Good. Fear meant no one was likely to attack him again, for Elspeth to get in the way—
Someone pushed through the crowd and went to his knees beside Owen. “Excuse me,” Dr. Worthing said, putting his arms around Elspeth. Owen fought him for half a breath before coming to his senses and releasing her. Dr. Worthing laid her gently on the floor and took her hands in both of his. He bowed his head, and the entire Rotunda went still.
Owen watched, though there was nothing to see. Elspeth didn’t seem to be breathing. He reminded himself that Dr. Worthing was a competent healer, possessed of the cadhaen-rach, inherent magic. The doctor had healed Owen’s wound when they arrived in Aurilien, leaving him feeling as if the injury were six months in the past. He knew what the doctor could do. But he didn’t think Dr. Worthing could raise someone from the dead. And Elspeth looked dead.
He closed his eyes and prayed, not to Balderan, but to ungoverned heaven. It felt fitting that he address his prayers to what Elspeth believed in, even though he felt stupid about praying to a place instead of the gods. Don’t take her, he begged. I can’t bear it.
He heard Dr. Worthing shift position, and he closed his eyes tighter. If Elspeth was dead, he didn’t want to know about it until he had no choice. Then Dr. Worthing stood, and Owen couldn’t take the suspense. He opened his eyes.
Elspeth still lay there, perfectly still, but her chest was rising and falling naturally and she looked, not dead, but asleep. Jeffrey had stood as well and was talking quietly to the doctor. Owen took one of Elspeth’s hands, sticky with blood, and gripped it tightly. For a moment, her fingers moved, clutching his, and then they relaxed.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and realized Jeffrey was crouched beside him. “She’s lost so much blood,” Jeffrey said, “but the doctor says she will recover. I’ve called for someone to take her to her rooms—”
“No,” Owen said, and took Elspeth in his arms. “It is for me to do. She saved my life.”
Jeffrey nodded. They both stood, and Owen surveyed the crowd surrounding them. Everyone looked afraid, though he couldn’t tell if it was fear of him or fear for their Princess’s life. It didn’t matter. She was alive.
He carried her through the halls, feeling like a man in a dream that stank of blood and sweat. He and Jeffrey started to gain a following about halfway to the east wing. By the time they were there, it was a following of twenty people, all of them silently intent on Elspeth. Owen laid her on her bed and stood there, looking at her, until a short, round woman with a fierce expression shooed him and Jeffrey away. “She doesn’t need men staring at her while we get her cleaned up,” the woman said. Owen came to his senses and went back to the east wing drawing room.
He sat on the hearth and stared at his hands, streaked with blood. Jeffrey took a seat nearby and said, “Can you tell me what happened?”
Owen nodded. He heard himself tell Jeffrey everything, from seeing Jafvran to the horrible wrenching agony of watching that warrior stab Elspeth. “He mean—meant t
o kill me in the back,” he said. “Elspeth saw it and put herself in my way. She is stupid.”
“It was a damn fool thing to do,” Jeffrey agreed. “But typical of her. She’s impulsive where her…her friends are concerned.”
Owen’s mind was still with Elspeth, lying motionless in her bed. “I cannot stay,” he said.
“You have somewhere else to be? Owen, this had better not be about you going after Jafvran and the rest of those warriors. I can’t let you enact vigilante justice on their bodies.”
Owen didn’t know what “vigilante” meant, but he could guess at Jeffrey’s meaning. “I bring this on you,” he tried to explain. “On Elspeth. She does not die if I am not here.”
Jeffrey swore explosively. “Don’t you dare think that way,” he said. “It’s not your fault Jafvran saw you, it’s not your fault he let his warriors attack you, and it’s definitely not your fault Elspeth thought you were worth saving. All of this is on Hrovald, ultimately. And how do you think Elspeth will feel if she wakes up and you’re gone?”
He hadn’t thought of that. “Relieved?” he ventured.
Jeffrey laughed. “She would hunt you down and give you a tongue-lashing the likes of which no one’s ever seen before. Besides, I don’t think you want to go.”
Owen shook his head. If he left, his last memory of Elspeth would be of her still, bloody body. “I will stay.”
“Good.” Jeffrey stood. “Go get cleaned up. I’m going to find out where Jafvran went. Did you kill the man who stabbed Elspeth?”
Owen nodded.
“Then I won’t have to demand he be handed over to face our justice. That would be tricky, diplomatically. But I won’t be surprised to learn Jafvran is already on his way back to Ruskald. I’ll have to send a letter formalizing his expulsion…damn, but I wish I could kick him all the way back to Hrovald, then kick Hrovald.”
Owen watched Jeffrey walk away. He felt numb inside, his thoughts sluggish. Get cleaned up. He could manage that.
He took his second bath of the day and dressed in clean, unstained clothes, then lit a fire in his sitting room and burned the clothes with Elspeth’s blood on them. Then he lay on his bed and let his thoughts drift. She would recover. Everything could go back to how it had been…
…but it really couldn’t. Holding Elspeth’s lifeless body close to his heart had been a revelation. He’d lied to himself for so many weeks, convinced himself that age and rank and nationality mattered more than what he felt. Maybe it was wrong of him to love her; maybe he was taking advantage of her youth and inexperience. He didn’t care. He loved Elspeth North.
He drifted off to sleep, wearied from the fight and the emotional distress, and woke to find the room in near-darkness. In the next moment, he shot to his feet, startled to find someone seated on the bed beside him. “I’m sorry,” Elspeth said in Ruskeldin. “I should have thought how you’d react.”
His heart, which had lurched in fear, sped up until he could hear his pulse thrumming through his ears. “What are you doing here?”
Elspeth shifted. She was wearing a white nightdress, and that and her fair hair were all he could see of her in the dimness. “I was afraid you would leave. I know you must blame yourself for what happened.”
Owen sat on the edge of the bed, half-turned to face her. “What were you thinking, putting yourself in the way of that sword? Elspeth, I can take care of myself.”
She shrugged. “I saw him aim the blade at your back, and it infuriated me that he would make such a cowardly attack. And then I stepped into its path. I really didn’t think it through.”
“No, you didn’t. Swear you’ll never do anything so foolish again.”
There was silence for a few moments. Then Elspeth said, “I don’t think I can promise that. Not if it means letting you get hurt.”
Owen’s breath caught. “You think I give a damn about my safety?” he demanded. “That I wouldn’t give my life to see you protected from all harm? Elspeth, I don’t—you can’t think like that.”
To his surprise, she laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her laugh. “Owen,” she said, “listen to us. Fighting over who gets to sacrifice for the other.”
He had to laugh in turn. “I win,” he said, “because I am bigger and stronger, and you will just have to sit by and let me give my life for you.”
“I don’t know if I could bear that,” Elspeth said. “You’re not leaving, right?”
He sighed. “I should. But Jeffrey convinced me I had a duty.”
He heard her take a sharp breath. “Duty? Is that all?” She sounded angry, and hurt, and his heart ached as if she’d stabbed him.
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
Elspeth went silent.
Owen closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m too old, or you’re too young, and I have no business taking advantage of you—no, let me finish,” he said when he heard her draw in another breath to protest. “It’s not right, you and I, it doesn’t make any sense. I am no one a Princess of Tremontane should even consider falling in love with. And yet I am drawn to you, over and over again, no matter what’s right or wrong. I love you. I never want to leave you. So, please, tell me to go and never return, because I can’t bring myself to do it.”
Silence fell between them, still and dense and cold. Then he heard her shift, rustling the bedclothes, until he felt the heat of her body next to him. He didn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at her.
A small hand took his, warm fingers curling around his cold ones. Elspeth put her head on his shoulder. “So what you’re saying,” she said, “is that you will only go if I tell you to.”
Owen nodded.
“Which means, if I tell you to stay, you’d have to do that instead.”
He nodded again.
Her other hand rested atop their joined ones. “Stay with me,” she whispered. “I love you. Stay with me.”
His heart felt as if it might overflow with joy. “Elspeth,” he said, and she lifted her head and kissed him. He put his arms around her and kissed her in return, pulling her close so he could feel her body against him, her warm, living body that fit itself so perfectly to his. Elspeth moved then, shifting so she was sitting on his lap, and he shivered with pleasure and ran his hands down her sides to the small of her back.
She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed, gently. “Lie down,” she whispered between kisses.
The thought of lying with her, of taking off her nightgown and feeling her skin against his, nearly drove him mad with desire. With his last scrap of self-control, he took hold of her wrists and said, “We can’t do that.”
She moved from kissing his lips to kissing his cheek, which he suddenly realized was scratchy with beard growth because he’d forgotten to shave that morning. “I just want to lie next to you,” she said.
He hadn’t really understood what an innocent she was in some ways until that moment. “We wouldn’t stop at that,” he assured her, and kissed her one last time.
“Oh,” Elspeth said. He thought she sounded embarrassed. So he put his arms around her again and held her close, this time thinking only of how glad he was that she was alive and that she loved him.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting more than kisses,” he said, “but in my country, a man does a woman honor by waiting to share that intimacy until after they’re married.”
Elspeth drew in a sharp breath. “Is that a proposal?”
He’d meant only to reassure her that her desires were normal, and her question caught him off-guard. “It…I…”
“I’m sorry, that was presumptuous of me,” Elspeth said. “I should have said, Owen Hunter, will you marry me? I’ll understand if it’s too sudden.”
Happiness threatened to carry him away. “I didn’t know women were allowed to propose marriage,” he teased.
“This is Tremontane. Women can do all sorts of things.”
He tightened his arms around her. “I would love
nothing better than to marry you, Elspeth.”
She sighed with pleasure. “That’s fortunate, because I would have felt very foolish if I’d misunderstood your intentions.”
His intentions were rapidly becoming physical again. “I will walk you back to your room, and we will say goodnight, and in the morning we will plan to be married. I suppose that requires a lot of preparation?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. Can you bear to wait until Wintersmeet? The solstice? There are so many things to do, and I’m supposed to visit a friend in Veribold in a month or so—I’d rather get all those things out of the way, so we can be married with no other demands on our time.”
The solstice was two and a half months away. An eternity. “I can wait that long.”
Elspeth laughed, a sound that thrilled through him. She slipped her hand into his. “Just a few months,” she said. “I suppose, technically, you should ask Jeffrey’s permission to marry me. He won’t say no. He knows what I’d do to him if he did.”
“He already said yes, weeks ago. At least, he said he’d rather I loved you than that any of the nobles of Tremontane did.”
Elspeth squealed and swatted Owen’s chest. “Giving me away like I was a prize!”
Owen smiled and kissed her one last time, slow and sweet. “The implication was that I was your prize, love.”
“Oh. In that case, I don’t mind.” She rested her head briefly on his shoulder. “I love you, Owen. Promise you won’t leave me.”
He drew her beneath his arm. “I will never leave you,” he said. “And I swear to protect you from all harm.”
* * *
Day 239
Owen’s horse didn’t seem to mind that he’d demanded it carry two people. Though Elspeth was so small and light, he wasn’t sure the horse even noticed her weight. She felt like a bundle of bones in his arms, more fragile than he’d ever known her, and he was almost afraid to hold her close, in case those bones snapped.
They hadn’t spoken all day, all through the long ride, except when they stopped to eat. Owen didn’t like the dark circles under her eyes, like she was already exhausted, but the war camp hadn’t had a carriage, and riding was the only option that would get Elspeth back to Aurilien before battle was joined. He intended to buy or borrow a carriage somewhere when they stopped for the night. He would do anything if it meant protecting his love.
Tales of the Crown Page 12