Silverlight

by Jesberger, S. L.

  Magnus knelt and pulled Tori into his arms. “Kymber and I have something to do first, but we’re coming back to Dorso when we’re done. I want you to think about whether or not you and Mia would like to come and live with us in a land far away. It would mean leaving the goat herders, your people.”

  The girl’s eyes went wide. “Why?”

  “Because we love you. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

  “Do you? Love us?”

  “More than you know.” Magnus caught her narrow chin with two fingers. “You don’t have to give me an answer now. You may tell me when we come back. I won’t be mad if you say no.”

  Tori’s eyes shone like stars in the night sky. “I say yes. So will Mia.” She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a smacking kiss on the lips. “Come back soon, Mister Magnus. Mistress Kymber.”

  I got a hug and kiss too, and without so much as a backward glance, Tori scampered off to play in the fountain with the other girls.

  A chill settled over me as I watched her run.

  There was no guarantee we’d come back at all.

  48: MAGNUS

  Kymber and I rode away from Dorso the next morning with heavy hearts. We spent most of our travels that day in quiet reflection. When the sun began to glow gold and sink into the landscape, we stopped, gathered wood, and made a fire.

  I wanted to say something to fill the void, as Kymber seemed to be pulling away again, but it turns out I was the one in trouble. Leaving the girls behind had left my heart feeling like burnt shoe leather.

  The long silence stretched out between us, a vast expanse growing deeper with every moment that passed. I finally pulled my courage together and glanced up from the roaring fire, only to find her staring at me.

  “Kymber,” I said.

  “Magnus,” she said at the same time.

  “Ladies first.” I couldn’t look away. The fine lines of her jaw, nose, and brow entranced me. The flames played across her cheekbones and danced in her eyes. She might have come from the chisel of a master sculptor.

  I had never been curious about her parentage. She existed, and that was enough for me. Tonight, I couldn’t help wondering about the man and woman who’d come together and created this marvel of fire and ice, silk and steel. Who were they? Why had they given her up?

  She tossed a pebble into the fire. Sparks jumped when it hit the glowing coals, breaking my muse. “I never wanted that kind of life, you know,” she said.

  “What kind of life?”

  “Children. A family.” Her blue eyes caught mine across the fire. “I never wanted to be a mother.”

  A little part of my heart died inside me. Would she tell me she didn’t want Tori and Mia now that we were miles away from the village? “I didn’t know that,” was all I could say.

  “How did they do it? How did they change my mind?”

  “Does that mean you still want them?”

  “Of course I want them, but it’s pulling my focus. Distractions are often fatal.” A half-smile curved her lips. “How can I go to Pentorus if all I can think about is decorating a room for two little girls?”

  I caught her in my arms, pushed her flat on the ground, and stretched my body over hers. She squealed once, pounded on my chest, and gave up. “Brute.”

  “Distractions.” I ran my hand beneath her tunic, savoring the feel of her skin, so warm and soft. “I could teach you an excellent lesson about distractions tonight.”

  Her eyes gleamed when she smiled. “Said the biggest distraction of all.” She shifted her right hip against my erection. “What’s this?”

  “I don’t know.” I moved one hand to the waist of my breeches. “Let’s get it out and have a look.”

  “No! Not yet.” She stared past me and into the night sky. “Tell me something first.”

  “Anything.”

  “It’s a silly question, but . . . did the world notice I was missing for eight years? Did my absence create a void?” She ran two fingers over my brow and through my hair. “I know I’m a small pebble on a vast beach, but even the smallest stone can cause ripples upon water. I’d like to think I caused a ripple or two.”

  “My world noticed you were missing.” I brushed my lips over her cheek and breathed her in. “Ordinary people died, but not Kymber Oryx. Not the woman I adored.”

  Her lips quivered upward into the tiniest smile.

  “Did your absence create a void? I became one when I lost you. I scoured the battlefield from sunup to sundown, then I walked the streets of Jalartha until I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, searching for some sign, any sign, that you still lived. Tariq was wrong, I was sure of it. Someday, I’d see you step out of an alley or find you sprawled out on our divan with a book in your lap. Every moment that went by engraved the truth into my heart. You were never coming home. A full half of my whole was gone.”

  A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and fell onto the ground.

  “I had to face it then. You were dead. Gone, just like that, under tons of mud and rock with all the others who died that day, as my brother had said. I dropped to my knees and vomited until I brought up blood.” The agony of that loss was still so sharp, I ran my thumb over her jaw, just to reassure myself that she was real beneath me.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about your braid soaked with blood, trailing across someone else’s body. Your eyes. Gods, Kymber, I have always loved your eyes, but they’d have been open and crusted with dirt in that grave. By the time I faced the truth, you would’ve been unrecognizable as the woman I loved, but I didn’t care. I dug for half a day with my bare hands, then collapsed into the hole and wept. I thought maybe, if I could hold you in my arms one more time, I could let you go. It was a lie though. I never could’ve let you go.”

  “Shh.” Kymber pressed her hand to my lips. “I don’t need to hear this.”

  I was too deep into the telling to stop. “Tariq came then.” I swallowed. “No matter how many times he dragged me off your grave, I went back. He finally tied my wrists and pulled me into Jalartha, trailing behind his horse. And to think he watched me suffer, knowing where you were the whole time.”

  “No. Not another moment, Magnus,” Kymber said firmly. “Tariq paid for his treachery. I will not give him another second of my life, and neither should you.”

  My own tears fell freely. “I’ll never know what deities conspired to send you back to a broken man, and I don’t care. My heart started beating again when you woke up and hit me at The Blue Lantern Inn. A punch to the face never felt so damned good.”

  “My silly Magnus.” She choked on a sob. “I love you so much.”

  “As I love you. You asked me once if there was something wrong with the old Kymber Oryx. The answer is no, a thousand times no. What you’ve suffered is contemptible. Despicable. I’m still furious. So furious, I pressed you hard, hoping you’d feel the same way. I wanted you to fight for what you’d been, so Tariq and Garai didn’t have the final say.”

  “I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. That was a long period of darkness, Magnus.” She threw me a ghost of a smile. “I would’ve gotten there in my own good time.”

  I ran my hand over her wet cheeks and down the graceful column of her throat, unable to take my eyes off the pulse that beat there. “Scarred hand or no, you needed to be able to fight. I knew that, and I think you did too. You had what you needed when you faced Tariq and those slavers. I never want to lose you again, and if that makes me a selfish, hateful bastard, so be it.” I entwined my fingers with hers. “I have a rather lopsided apology to offer you. I don’t regret pushing you, only the way I went about it. I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” Kymber whispered. “And that was a lot of words for someone who denies he has a romantic side. Apology accepted. Past, firmly put behind us, where it belongs.” She grazed her fingernails across the back of my neck. “Will you make love to me now?”

  “My pleasure.” I lowered my mouth to hers. She was mine. Mine. Only death would par
t us permanently, but not for a good long time.

  I shifted my weight onto one elbow, so I could look at her. She was real and solid beneath me. Not the starved waif she’d been when I found her, but the curvaceous woman I remembered. So beautiful. So very, very brave.

  My romantic words had amused her, but I had more. Too bad my throat closed every time I tried to speak them. “Oh, Kymber,” was all I could manage.

  “It’s all right.” Her fingertips trailed across my cheek, my jaw. “I know.”

  She didn’t know. I didn’t know. She was my magic. The wind to my waves. I loved the feel of her beneath me, but she was so much more than that. Perhaps my poor male brain would never be to put a name to that mystery.

  I couldn’t tell her, but I could show her. I pulled her up to a sitting position with me. The faith I saw in her eyes…Gods, after everything that had befallen her, after everything my brother and I had done to her, she still trusted me. I wanted to weep.

  She trailed her fingertips across my palm when I reached for the hem of her tunic. I undressed her slowly, the gift of my life given back to me. I then forced her onto her back with kisses and slid her leggings over her hips and thighs. “I wanted to tell you what you mean to me,” I whispered. “But I don’t think those words exist.”

  She smiled and helped me off with my shirt. I allowed her pull it over my head; I then dispensed with my breeches as fast as I could, eager to feel her skin on mine. Tucking in next to her on the blanket, I covered us both with the ragged end.

  We had a bond that transcended understanding. It was at once a fragile thing, a breath of frost, the most delicate links in a gilded chain of sunlight, yet unbreakable and as strong as steel.

  We’d been intimate a few times since being reunited, but this… this was something more. I kissed her, her every breath mingling with mine. I cupped her breasts, marveling at the way they nestled into my palms. What else could I do but bend my head to pay homage?

  “Feels so good.” She gripped the back of my neck as I moved my tongue over her nipples. “Don’t stop.”

  I had no intention of stopping, not until I had her screaming my name to the sky, but I had one last thing to tell her. “There was never anyone else. I wanted to move on, to forget, but I couldn’t.” The agony in my voice was sharp. “How could I ever forget you?”

  “Fool. So many women who will never know how wonderful you are.” She gave me a gentle kiss. “I love you for waiting until I was brave enough to free myself.”

  “You are that. Brave. The bravest person I know.” My fingers trailed across her taut stomach.

  She lurched beneath me, trying to force my hand lower. I resisted with everything I had, and it almost wasn’t enough. Easy, Magnus, nice and easy, my fevered brain screamed, but I wanted to ravage her. I wanted to claim her as mine before the moons and all the stars in the sky.

  She jerked as my fingertips found the soft curls between her legs and moved beyond. “Magnus, you’re killing me.”

  “No, I’m adoring you. For all the nights I missed you, wept for you, ached for you. You’re alive, Kymber. Alive.” I laughed. “It all went very, very right for us, and I am so grateful.”

  “Well, then.” She shivered beneath me. “You’re saying all the right words. I certainly won’t stop you.”

  I knew every square inch of her lovely body, and I played her with expert fingers. How many lovers got a second chance like this? A man could spend two lifetimes searching and never find a woman like Kymber. Two halves of a whole, I’d said, and we were.

  Gods, we were.

  When I could stand it no longer, when I ached with wanting her, I eased myself into her softness. She cried out and shuddered.

  I took her hard and fast right there on the ground, whimpering her name against her shoulder. My love, my life, my woman.

  I held back as long as I could, savoring the feel of her around me, then spent myself inside her.

  This. This, I thought as tears coursed down my face.

  It felt like redemption.

  49: KYMBER

  I awoke gasping and unsettled and not terribly sure where I was. Chest heaving, I tried to get my bearings.

  The stars twinkled overhead in an inky night sky. The glowing embers of a banked fire muttered and popped nearby. Magnus and I had made love and gone to sleep. Nothing had changed, yet everything was different.

  A dream. It was only a dream. I’d taken Silverlight down from Garai’s throne room wall and, for a few dear moments, I’d cradled her like a baby, relishing my victory.

  But then I’d turned to leave and couldn’t move. Garai enjoyed his own victory by forcing me to watch as he cut the throats of everyone I loved: Magnus, Tori, Mia, Jarl. My life fell in a shower of blood as I screamed my agony.

  Having Silverlight in my hands was not enough to save them. The message was clear: I had to choose. Abandon my first sword to a man I loathed or lose those precious girls. It felt as though I could not have both.

  Magnus rolled over and draped his arm across my waist; my shoulder pillowed his head. “That was no ordinary nightmare, was it?”

  My heart still raced, though my breathing had slowed. “How did you know?”

  “Your last scream raised the hairs on my neck.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “We should head home.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Yes.” I inhaled. “No.”

  “Explain.”

  “I will not need Silverlight as Tori and Mia’s mother, and yet . . .”

  “The thought of Garai having that little piece of you will haunt you for the rest of your life,” Magnus finished for me.

  “Exactly. He’s already taken a huge chunk of my life. I don’t need to let him have my sword too.”

  “What’s the problem then?”

  “We don’t know what’s waiting for us there.” My throat burned with unshed tears. “What if he kills you and takes me captive again? What if he kills us both? Those little girls will watch for two people who are never coming back. I can’t stand the thought of them waiting and waiting for a life they’ll never have.”

  “I know. Gods, you’re freezing.” Magnus pulled me against the warmth of his body. “It won’t hurt to head toward Pentorus and check out the lay of the land. We have time. If you still feel this way after doing reconnaissance on the castle, we’ll turn around and head back to pick up the girls.”

  “Yes, and then I’ll be a coward.”

  “You can’t have it both ways. Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t know. Do I simply want to prove that I’m not broken? Or do I truly want my sword?” I sighed. “I’ll tell you this much – it’s folly of the highest order to taunt the man in his own castle. Yet I crave the confrontation.”

  “Tell me what you want to do then, and we’ll do it.”

  I closed my eyes and blanked my mind. In that small, quiet moment, I heard the distinctive ring of Jalarthian steel against an inferior metal.

  Silverlight was calling for me, begging to come home. I couldn’t abandon her any more than I could have turned my back on those girls on the mountain.

  “Well,” I finally said. “Let’s go to Pentorus and look things over. I want my sword, but I’m not willing to lose everything to get it.”

  “I agree with that,” he said. “We’ll move out first thing in the morning.”

  The sight of Garai’s castle clinging to the inside of that steep, rocky ravine brought a vague nausea that no amount of deep breathing could dispel. As I stared at the gray stones, the turrets, the arrow slits high upon the ramparts, and the wall that surrounded what little grounds they had on the slope, my mind dragged a few memories out for me to consider.

  The smell of roasting meat wafting from the kitchen as I slowly starved to death in the aviary. The click, clack of dice thrown onto a stone floor in the hallway, soldiers playing for a warmer pair of boots or a thicker cloak for winter
while I laid bare and shivering.

  Boots. The distinctive sound of his boots as he walked to the aviary to get me for the night. Tap, tap, slide, tap, tap, slide. Garai dragged his foot, an old battle injury that continued to haunt him, though he took care not to allow his limp to manifest too much. He didn’t want his men to think him weak.

  It was the only weakness I ever saw in him, though I couldn’t take advantage of it at the time. Hunger and thirst had depleted me. I was too beaten down mentally to even think of defending myself.

  When he reached into the cage for me, the extent of my rebellion was to go completely limp, thus making it more difficult for him to drag me back to his chambers. Oh, I always paid for my little mutinies, but I rather welcomed the pain as punishment. I wasn’t trying very hard to escape. I was a coward, and I deserved every stroke of his lash.

  “No,” I mumbled. “No, I didn’t deserve it.”

  “Kymber?” Magnus put a hand on my arm. “You’re shaking.”

  “I know. Give me a moment.” I turned away and hid my face against Lady Gray’s neck.

  I was the one who’d wanted to come here. Silverlight was still singing inside me. Was she worth it? Should I put us both at risk simply to retrieve her when I had a perfectly good sword strapped across my back?

  Memories whirled inside my head. All those nights that vile man climbed atop me, all the horrific things he whispered in my ear as he hurt me. The torture he allowed others to inflict upon me as I begged for mercy.

  How did I survive? Where did I find the strength to flee? Now I was planning to go back in. On purpose.

  The implications of standing within sight of Garai’s castle hit me so hard I dropped to my knees and vomited.

  “That’s it,” Magnus said firmly. “We’re going home. I know that sword means a lot to you, but not at the expense of your health. This was a bad idea.”