WINDREAPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "He loves you, Conar. Make peace with him. He has been a good husband and a loving father to your child. Please do this for me out of whatever love you still have."

  "Whatever love?" he asked, his face filled with pain. "My love for you is the same as it has ever been. Don't you know that?"

  She ached for him, spiritually and physically, and that ache must have shown, for he shook his head.

  "I would do anything for you, Elizabeth. I would give my life, my soul, for you. But if you stay one moment longer…go while I will still let you."

  At the door, she looked back, but saw only his silhouette framed in the window. "You asked if I wanted you," she whispered. "As all the gods in the heavens are my witnesses, I always shall."

  * * *

  Conar waited until she was gone before he opened the doors leading to the garden. Bracing his hands to either side of the double doors, he let the rain wash over his fevered flesh.

  He knew he'd eventually gather up as many bottles of liquor he could carry. He knew he would eventually step into the garden, leave the keep through the sea gate, and make his way to the grotto where, in a special niche, Sern would have hidden fresh drugs. He knew he would eventually end up in a stupor that would have him dead to the world for most of the next day.

  But at that moment, he stood in the rain, his bare chest speckled with the chilling water, and shivered.

  The thought of Liza seeing him in his coffin filled him with such despair, it was hard to breathe. He would have spared her the sight, the ugliness of what they had done to him. It was more than the scars on his face and the brutal condition of his back. What hurt him the most was knowing she believed him dead.

  And lost to her forever.

  Tears gathered in his eyes.

  What if she had taken her life that day? The mere thought of it drove stark terror through his soul. He could picture her lying lifeless on their bed, a dagger in her hand, scarlet plumes of blood flowing from wrists to soak the coverlet. A vision of her rigid form doubled upon itself, her lips blue from poison she had consumed.

  He shuddered.

  "Merciful Alel, thank you," he whispered, tears falling. "Thank you for keeping her safe for me."

  Safe, but out of his reach.

  "Alel!" he moaned, his entire being sick with the thought.

  Despair crashed down on his strong shoulders. He bent his head, his tears falling bitterly down his scarred cheek. The pain in his soul was so intense, he was finding it hard to keep from screaming.

  She had been in his arms this night. Close to his body. He had held her, felt her arms around him, heard her speak to him tenderly as she had so long ago. For one brief, shining moment, they had dared to admit the forbidden—they still loved one another.

  For what good it did either of them.

  She was no longer his. Their marriage had been voided long ago. She belonged to his brother and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing she would do about it. As much as it hurt him to admit, Liza loved Legion, and her honor would not allow her to leave him. He was the father of her children, her lawful husband, and she would remain at his side.

  "Liza," he cried, sorrow choking him.

  She had confessed she had loved him all her life. But what did it matter? If they could not be together, their love was a torment he would have to learn to live with.

  "I love you," he whispered. He put his hands over his face, weeping uncontrollably. "I love you with all my heart."

  He sank to his knees, slumping into his pain, giving in to the soul-shattering grief that claimed him as its own.

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Conar looked up as she came down the stairs. For a moment, his heart leapt—he had thought the slender figure was Liza. But when he recognized the lady, he tried to hide his keen disappointment behind a too-fierce scowl. "You shouldn't be down here, Mam'selle."

  Gezelle stopped at his door. She looked about the cell, taking in the bleak and spartan furnishings. "It isn't a cheerful place."

  A faint smile crossed his lips. "Dungeons rarely are. I think it is written some place that they be dark and dreary."

  "I can see the logic in that."

  His grin widening, he patted the place beside him on the cot. "Why are you here?"

  She seated herself and studied him. "I was worried about you."

  "Why?"

  "You slept most of the day away yesterday."

  "Getting lazy in my old age, I guess."

  "Were you drunk?" she asked, jerking her chin toward a score of empty bottles cluttering the floor.

  From years of knowing this diminutive woman, from an intimate knowledge of her, Conar was neither shocked nor annoyed at her question. Long ago they had ceased to be master and servant; they had become friends. Her inquiry was consistent with that friendship and nothing more than something one of his men would have asked. If they'd had the nerve.

  "A good year, it was. Several good years, actually."

  Gezelle drew in a long breath, then exhaled slowly. "We haven't had a chance to talk since you came home. I haven't thanked you for Adair's baby gift."

  He made a throwaway motion with his hand. "No need." He smiled. "The babe's lovely. Like her mother."

  "You went to see her?"

  "Does that surprise you?" He laughed.

  "It isn't in keeping with the way I'm told you've been of late," she answered. "I didn't hear her howling, so I suppose it was you and not the Darkwind who went to her nursery."

  The smile left his face. He turned away. "I have no quarrel with you, 'Zelle."

  "Nor I with you."

  "Then, let's not begin one." He swung his legs onto the cot and laid down. "I don't feel like arguing."

  She frowned. "Have you been rolling around in poison oak?" She pointed to the slight discoloring dotting the undersides of his upper arms and across his chest, dipping down toward the thick pelt of hair at his waist.

  "Would you do me a favor?" he asked, wanting to take her mind from the rash tickling his skin.

  "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "On what you want." She cocked a fine brow. "I'm a married lady."

  "I pity the poor fool." He grinned. "Sean, isn't it?"

  "He was one of your Elite."

  Conar flinched. Her husband had spent more than a year in a Kansan penal colony for having served in that unit. "He's got me to thank for that."

  "Why?" she snapped. "Because he was loyal to you and the royal family? Because he believed in freeing our homeland from the Domination just as you did? If he had known you were alive, he and many other Elite would have found a way to the Labyrinth!"

  "And died there." Conar turned his back to her.

  She laid a hand on his back. His muscles tightened beneath her touch.

  "Turn over."

  He looked over his shoulder. "You gonna rub my back?"

  "Wasn't that the favor?" she asked, her lips pursed.

  A grin formed on his face.

  "I thought as much," she grumbled. "Well, turn over. I can't do it with you on your side."

  "We did once."

  Gezelle blushed to the roots of her hair.

  He chuckled. "Gotcha."

  "You're horrible."

  "As I recall, you said I was—"

  "Hush!" Her fingers dug into the soft muscles of his shoulders with enough force to make him groan.

  "You're getting to be a shrew in your old age."

  She began to expertly massage the tense muscles in his lower back. "Why? Because I'll stand up to you?"

  "Is that what you call it? I was thinking more along the lines of torture." He grimaced as her fingers found a sore spot.

  "A chemise?" she asked, obviously noting the neatly folded chemise that lay atop a stack of books in the corner. "Who's this girl you have living with you on occasion?"

  He grinned, craning his head to look at her. "Jealous?"

  "Curious." Her gaze roamed over the cell. "No
t much of a housekeeper."

  "It wasn't for her housekeeping abilities that I took her in."

  "Obviously not," she retorted, frowning at the abandoned clothing littering the floor, draped over the chair, stuffed into any available space.

  "Her name is Amber-lea. She's really a nice girl." At Gezelle's snort, he fixed her with an unwavering glower. "She is, mam'selle."

  Gezelle apparently refused to get drawn into a discussion of his current woman, since she seemed to refocus all her attention on his back. When studying his back, she shuddered.

  "I don't even know they're there anymore, 'Zelle," he said, reading her mind regarding his scars.

  Her hands stilled. He turned over, facing her, but her hands were still on his flesh. She made no attempt to move them as he stared up at her.

  "Why did you come down here?"

  Gezelle shrugged.

  "She sent you, didn't she?"

  "Milady was worried about you."

  "Why?" When she started to look away, Conar gently gripped her chin.

  "She thought you needed…that you might want to…" Her face turned scarlet. "I reminded her about your…I didn't know the girl's name, but…"

  "But she sent you anyway." A bitter sadness laced his tone.

  "I…we thought you would best be served by me rather than a stranger."

  "Why is that, 'Zelle? Could it have been because you look so much like her that she thought you better than the auburn-haired woman I now have?"

  Gezelle ducked her head. "You can pretend it is our lady beneath you. Call me by her name and I will answer—I have before. Let me make the hurt go away. Let me…"

  "You think that is what I need? You think having her will stop what hurts me? Is that what she thinks, as well?"

  "We know you, Milord. Two eves ago, you—"

  "Made a mistake. Go back and tell her I thank her for the pity—"

  "It is not pity!"

  "What would you call it?" he snapped. "You came here to…to service me. In your own words, you thought I would best be served by you rather than Amber-lea! If that isn't pity, 'Zelle, I don't know what is!"

  "Mayhaps, love?"

  "I can not, and I will not, make love to you."

  "You find me unworthy."

  "It is I who am unworthy of you, precious. You are a good woman, a married woman, not some whore from the gutters. I respect you too much to ever touch you in that way again."

  "You need a woman to—"

  "He has a woman," came a quiet voice.

  Gezelle's face went hostile as she glared at the red-haired beauty. When she swept her disdainful glance down Amber-lea's perfectly formed body, her green gaze narrowed dangerously. She turned to Conar, one black brow cocked as though asking if he had not, for once in his life, made a rather horrible mistake in his choice of feminine companionship.

  He almost smiled. Almost. Had it not been for the ache in his heart, he would have.

  "Tell your lady I am well cared for, 'Zelle. There is no need for either of you to worry about me."

  When Amber-Lea stooped down to gather clothing, Gezelle's chin lifted and she fixed her Overlord, and friend, with a warning look. "I hope you know what you're doing," she whispered.

  He smiled sadly.

  Rising from the cot, Gezelle turned up her nose at the girl. As she passed, her voice was bitter and her words like daggers. "Hurt him, even a little, and you'll have this entire keep of women down on your ugly red head!"

  " 'Zelle," Conar warned, scowling at his long-time friend.

  Ignoring him, Gezelle tossed her head and marched from the cell, her fists clutched.

  "She loves you, too," Amber-lea said, her arms full of his discarded shirts and breeches.

  "Come here," he whispered, his hand out to her. When she dropped the clothing and sat beside him, he twisted his body until his head was in her lap, his arms wrapped around her. He pressed his face into the softness of her belly. "Stay with me."

  "For as long as you want me, Milord." She threaded her slim fingers through his hair.

  He sighed. For the moment, that was all he wanted, or needed.

  "Did you tell her, Milord?" she asked.

  "I've told no one." His lips grazed her belly. "They'll know soon enough when you start to show."

  "Are you still angry?"

  "I was never angry, Ambie. Just damned unhappy about it." He looked up into her sweet face. "I have no right to ever bring another bastard child into this world. I can't even take care of my legal son."

  Amber-lea shivered, as if somehow disturbed by his words.

  Conar shivered, too, because the moment he'd said the words, his soul lurched inside his chest, and a cold shaft of premonition stabbed deep.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  Conar, Shalu, and Sentian dismounted and handed the reins of their mounts to the soldier waiting in the yard of the old Hound and Stag Tavern. Conar pushed open the rotting wooden gate that hung from only one rusted hinge. The sharp squeal of the decaying metal and the snort of the horses cut through the quiet, early morning air. As booted feet scraped across mud-splattered planking to reach the door, a hawk flying overhead shrieked and dipped behind the old stables. Conar frowned.

  "Not a good sign," Shalu commented, eyeing the two guards at the door as they saluted their commander.

  Conar stopped at the entranceway, squinting as he tried to see into the tavern's darkness. He lifted one eyebrow at a guard.

  "They are unarmed, Lord Conar." The guard patted the dagger resting at his thigh. "We reconnoitered the interior and there are no weapons in there."

  Conar was about to walk through the door when Sentian eased him aside and went in first.

  "Precaution," Shalu mumbled to Conar, then forged ahead of his commander, as well.

  They were there to meet intermediaries from Kaileel Tohre, and as the guard had indicated, every precaution had been made to insure Conar's safety. There were men stationed in the nearby forest, on the roofs of the tavern and stables, along the trail, and leaning against the tavern's crossbuck fence. The men who had arrived with a message from Tohre had been stripped and searched.

  "It smells like rats in here," Sentian remarked as they walked into the taproom. Rushes crinkled beneath his boots and sent up musty smells of dried ale, petrified food, and rodent droppings. He looked around him. "How long's this place been shut down?"

  "Two years," Conar answered. His eyes went to the table where once he had sat, contemplating three men he was positive were going to try to rob him. Then he remembered the pretty girl who had helped him make sure they hadn't. A grim smile touched his lips. The memories were painful to recall.

  Shalu and Sentian flanked their commander as he strode forward, deeper into the taproom. Conar scanned the room's depths, probed dark corners, squinted through slivers of sunlight filtering through cracks in the walls and ceiling. His eyes finally came to rest on the men, surrounded by guards, standing at the far end of the bar.

  "Lord Conar?" one asked, his right hand nervously plucking at a rolled parchment in his left.

  "Who else would he be?" Shalu growled.

  Conar stood in the semi-darkness, alert, confident, his careless stance making it plain to Kaileel's messenger just how much contempt he had for the danger in which he had placed himself. He didn't fear these men; he despised them.

  "We came in peace, Lord Conar," one of the others said. He took a step backward when Conar's lips stretched into a malevolent grin.

  "Let's hope you don't go home in pieces," Conar said in a soft, warning voice, noting the man's Temple Guard uniform.

  The men looked to one another, betraying their fear.

  "What is it you want?" Conar asked, bored.

  One intermediary, likely a flunky within the lower echelons of the Temple, took a hesitant step forward. He froze when Shalu eased his sword from the baldric slung over his back. "We mean you no harm!" he wailed, dropping to his knees in the smelly rushes. Lips t
rembling, he brought up a placating hand. The other men joined him on the floor. "We…we…brought a present to you from His Holiness!"

  "I want nothing that bastard can offer me, save his beating heart on an iron spike!"

  "Please, Lord Conar," the man begged, scooting forward on his knees. "You must accept His Holiness' present. If we go back with the child, he'll kill us!"

  "Whose child?" Conar asked in a low, deadly voice.

  "His Holiness said you would know him when you saw him." He brought his trembling hands together in an unconscious attitude of prayer. "Please, Lord Conar! Take the boy. We can not return to the Monastery with him. Please!" He dropped his head.

  There was a long moment of silence as Conar regarded the kneeling men. At last he stared at the closed kitchen door.

  Shalu swept past Conar and jerked the intermediary to his feet. The man gasped. A dark golden stain spread over the crotch of his breeches. A vile stench rose up from the quaking messenger.

  Shalu thrust him away, looking with amusement at Conar when the man fell to his knees once more. "This little bastard shit his pants!"

  Conar truly found nothing amusing in the situation. Nearly all of his children had been slain by the Temple Guards a long time ago. Legion and Liza had managed to hide three or four of the male children, but the boys had eventually been found and slain on the altar for the Dark Ones. Their mothers had also been slain, condemned for having mated with the exiled Prince. Save Prince Corbin, there had been no child of Conar's loins left alive within the realm by the time Legion A'Lex ascended the throne.

  "What kind of game are you playing?" Sentian hissed, his sword drawn.

  "Heil," Conar warned, holding up his hand. He hunkered before the man, staring into a face sweating profusely with terror. "Where is the boy?"