Maria Isabel Pita

by As Above, So Below

  *

  It took them another three days to reach Shadowmoon. On the middle of the third day Mirabel stripped down to the sleeveless, thigh-length white shirt she wore tucked into her leggings beneath her leather jacket. She stopped to take her clothes off as Markan and Donlan kept walking. Darmond watched her, saying not a word as she peeled off the sticky animal flesh and then carefully folded it into a small bundle he could stash away in his pack. He shrugged the weight off his shoulders and the way he was looking at her made her think there was something wrong with her. Was she physically different from other people? He shoved her clothes in amongst his possessions and she wondered anxiously what it was about her naked thighs that made him look so angry.

  “I suppose there wasn’t much point in Janlay teaching you modesty.” He finally spoke. “Only a certain kind of woman strips before a man like that, Mirabel.”

  “Yes, I know.” She nodded, proud of the scant knowledge she had acquired so far. “A witch.”

  His eyes narrowed until they resembled luminous needles piercing her with his stare.

  She fell silent, noticing a distinct difference between her breathlessness of a few moments before and the kind she was suddenly experiencing.

  “Nice girls,” his heavy pack was still lying at his feet, “especially virgins, don’t—”

  “They don’t get hot just like anyone else? I was dying in that skin. Aren’t you? Why don’t you take your clothes off?”

  “Lords,” his eyes rolled up toward the heavens they reflected, “she’s asking for it!”

  “I don’t want your jacket.” She was confused yet also strangely fascinated by his reaction. “I just thought you might feel better without your clothes on, that’s all.”

  In three strides he was on her.

  The arm he slipped around her waist felt hard as stone. His other hand caressed the front of her shirt as lightly as a feather falling, all the way from where the material tented over her pert breasts to where it grazed her slender thighs.

  “Mirabel!” His breath was hotter than the sun on her forehead as she stared down at his fingers kneading the soft inner flesh of one of her legs like raw dough. Then she cried out, frightened as his hand’s hungry spider slipped between her legs. He began exploring her mysterious nether lips, spinning a sensation within her so delicious and yet so subtle she didn’t dare breathe for fear of breaking its warm, strangely glowing thread…

  “Darmond!” It was Markan’s angry voice. “What in the Lords’ names are you doing?”

  “Let go of her or be prepared to share,” Donlan added firmly.

  Darmond shoved her away from him so violently she fell onto her backside.

  The three men stared down at her while Shane and Shannon came and sat on either side of her.

  “She’s her mother’s daughter all right,” Donlan remarked approvingly but he didn’t smile.

  “It’s her fault!” Darmond gasped. “She took her clothes off right in front of me!”

  “Get a hold of yourself,” Markan commanded. “We’re almost at Shadowmoon.”

  Donlan’s frown deepened. “She does look ripe enough to pluck…”

  “I won’t let you.” Mirabel leapt to her feet. “Only Darmond.” She stared pleadingly at the younger man, disappointed his exploration of her body had been interrupted.

  He squeezed his eyes and his hands shut so tightly his fists blanched white as his eyelids. Then he turned, picked up his heavy pack as if it weighed nothing at all, flung it onto his back and kept walking.

  “I want you to understand, Mirabel, that we’re not bound by any code of honor to protect you.” Markan shifted the weight of his burden as he spoke. “We could deflower you and toss you away right here and now and no one would ever know or care. You’re lucky, very lucky, that we liked your mother and that she was so generous with us. For her sake we’ll respect her wish that no harm come to you, otherwise…”

  “Otherwise…” Donlan echoed, still staring at her with the same inexplicable anger Darmond had displayed.

  “My father would know what you did,” she said, tossing her head back defiantly even though she had no idea what being deflowered meant.

  “I think you’re going to cause more trouble than anyone can imagine,” Markan stated very quietly, “but my son’s decided he likes you and he’s set himself the task of delivering you safely to Visioncrest and I won’t quarrel with him for your sake.” He turned away and after a moment Donlan followed him, whistling Shane and Shannon to his side.

  Mirabel was stunned. Markan was Darmond’s father? Simultaneously she felt sorry for herself and for Darmond because even though her father was so much more powerful than Markan, she had never spent so much as one full day in his company. They were both fortunate and unfortunate at the same time but perhaps they had found a way to comfort each other.

  She didn’t have time to ponder this possibility because she had to run to catch up with her escorts. Yet Darmond was angry with her now and as a result the natural unease arriving at Shadowmoon inspired in her was sharpened by the young merchant’s cold silence for the rest of the afternoon.

  There were towers at Shadowmoon just as at Snowvale and Starpoint but they were squatter, as if the yeast within them had failed and they had not risen as high as they should have. The keep was situated in the middle of a valley instead of at the foot or at the summit of a mountain and for this reason, and because she lacked Darmond’s emotional support, Shadowmoon made Mirabel very nervous. And to make matters worse, they arrived at the same time as a caravan of goods that threatened to drown her in a torrent of impressions. Markan and Donlan disappeared again and Darmond’s broad shoulders were swiftly bobbing out of sight, caught by the surging current of life in which she felt as insignificant as a leaf. She yelled his name over and over again but he didn’t seem to hear her, or if he did he was deliberately ignoring her. She was about to sink to the ground and curl up into a ball so all the noise and confusion would rush around her without hurting her, like water flowing over a stone, when she finally saw him turn around and search the crowd for her.

  Darmond spotted her at once in the throng of travelers, horses and crate-laden wagons. Her black hair was almost as long as the white shirt caught between her thighs, her eyes as big as a terrified doe’s. All he wanted to do was bite her vulnerable neck and shake her, shake her until she went limp in his arms and he could do whatever he wanted with her. He would have her—by all the Lords he would! He could not for the life of him understand what was holding him back. She was little more than an animal, undeserving of his respect, and this struggle with himself was threatening to drive him mad because it had nothing to do with his own will and desires. Her innocence meant less than nothing to him, yet he couldn’t bring himself to violate it.

  A power beyond his control and comprehension was using him, mysteriously strumming his veins and filling him with a sweet concern for her well-being. Her voice was a lovely melody to his ears, her endless questions ringing notes that delighted a part of him even as the rest of him grew ever more frustrated and furious. The sharpness of his lust would have cut her maidenhead off days ago if it had not encountered the sword of an invisible force in its way, using him to protect her. No one would believe him, he didn’t believe it himself but he knew she was being saved for someone else and sensing this enraged him and made him even more determined to possess her. He had only to wait…

  *

  Mirabel was safe again beneath Darmond’s heavy arm but his stony countenance afforded her no comfort whatsoever. She struggled to make the best of her new loneliness. It helped that they were almost at Visioncrest, the place she imagined her father wanted her to go. It had been five days since they had left Shadowmoon.

  “Thank the Lords she’s almost off our hands,” Markan said, still treating her like an animal that couldn’t really understand him. “We’ll be at Visioncrest tonight.”

  The ensuing silence lasted the rest of the afternoon until it
was broken by what sounded like distant thunder, or the earth’s own heart beating. They were traversing a featureless valley and, straining her vision, Mirabel discerned a man on horseback approaching them.

  “Posting sentries this far out, are they?” Markan wondered out loud.

  Donlan’s voice was tense, “That’s no sentry. The keep isn’t even in sight and they never ride out this far. By the Lords, that looks like the prince himself! His horse is black and he’s wearing the royal colors!”

  “I knew it!” Darmond stopped walking and shoved the load off his back.

  “You knew what?” His father looked at him with mingled concern and irritation. “You’ve been acting strange ever since the morning Janlay disappeared. What’s the matter with you? Why are you so concerned what happens to this creature? Has she cast a spell on you? What do you know?”

  “The prince, that’s who I’m saving her for!” Darmond clamped his head between his hands as if he was afraid it might fly off. “I’ve delivered her safely to his table so he can feast on her! It isn’t fair!”

  “He’s lost his mind,” Donlan muttered but his eyes were still fixed suspiciously on the dark rider.

  Mirabel was as fascinated by the approaching figure as he was, her attention divided between Darmond and the black cloud billowing behind the rider’s shoulders in which a lovely violet lightning kept flashing.

  “He hasn’t lost his mind—he’s just bewitched,” Markan defended his son. “But not for long.”

  Mirabel glanced at him, curious as to what remedy he intended. The knife he always wore in his belt caught her eye when the setting sun shone lovingly off its naked blade.

  “You’ve both lost your minds.” Donlan moved quickly to her side. “It’s too late to kill her now! Or can you explain a freshly stabbed virgin to Visioncrest’s lord?”

  Markan grudgingly sheathed his weapon as Darmond seated himself on the lumpy boulder of his pack, his head falling into his hands as if it was the heaviest thing he carried.

  Mirabel tore her gaze away from the horse and rider to go to kneel beside Darmond. “Are you all right?” she asked, tentatively touching one of his knees.

  “Get away from him,” Markan snapped.

  She obeyed as Shane and Shannon took her place, trying to sniff Darmond’s hidden face. The horse’s thunderous approach demanded all her attention now. She felt as though the darkness was falling straight toward them, leaving only a lovely lavender glow on the horizon.

  Then the rider was upon them, his horse dramatically silhouetted against the dying light as it reared to a stop, the urgent kicking of its legs followed by a contrastingly intense stillness.

  “My lord!” It was Donlan who spoke as he sank to one knee and lowered his head respectfully.

  Mirabel watched as Markan did the same, sullenly followed by Darmond, who simply plunged forward off his pack onto both knees.

  It did not even occur to her to imitate their gesture as she looked up and met the rider’s eyes. It was too dark to tell what color they were but his penetrating stare caused a strangely pleasurable sensation in her belly. He dismounted abruptly and she saw he was dressed entirely in black, yet his clothes were nothing like her father’s.

  “You may rise.” He addressed her three companions, his voice reverberating inside her as she studied his reassuring attire. He wore a sleeveless vest of the finest leather she had ever seen that clung to him and was cut so low it exposed most of the firm pale slopes of his chest, across which grew a sparse black bush of hair. She was especially intrigued by the snowy rocks that were a man’s bare arms, a sight she had never seen before. His thighs—visible beneath a wide belt and a short pleated skirt—looked just as unyielding. His knee bones were miniature boulders in themselves, disappointing her that she could not see the rest of his legs, which were hidden inside black lace-up boots. His entire body was framed by a cloak that flowed down from his broad shoulders to his ankles in folds as deep as the night, its shimmering violet trim capturing the fading light. His hair was as dark as hers and pulled tightly back from his face.

  “My lord, I have delivered her safely into your hands,” Darmond said stiffly.

  “And for that you have my heartfelt thanks.”

  After a startled glance at his son, Markan repeated his usual speech with only a slight variation. “We are humble merchants, my lord, who seek only a night’s lodging within your walls before we proceed on our way in the morning.”

  “You will of course have that and more.” With one hand the Prince untied a small violet pouch hanging from his belt and tossed it to Darmond, who almost dropped it he was so surprised. “For your trouble. The Lords know it must have been hard work protecting such a beautiful girl.”

  “On the contrary,” the reply somehow got past Darmond’s gritted teeth, “it was my pleasure.”

  “And how did you come to be expecting her, my lord?” Markan inquired with strained civility.

  Waiting breathlessly for the prince’s reply, Mirabel suddenly found herself in his arms. He had deposited her on his horse and slipped up behind her before she even had time to think about what was happening. She moaned beneath a confused rush of emotions—excitement at being perched high above the earth on the beautiful beast’s back. Sadness at leaving Darmond behind. Relief that she was finally where she was meant to be. And another feeling she couldn’t define which had something to do with the firm warmth of the prince behind her and the hard pressure of his arms against her as he reached forward into her lap and took hold of the reins.

  “Hold on!” he whispered into her hair and from that moment on, his was the shadow cast by her every thought.

  Chapter Four

  Mirabel was overwhelmed by how abundant everything was in the kingdom. Her senses felt like overstuffed packs her awareness was forced to carry around everywhere without respite. Very often she longed for the weightless silence of her isolated mountaintop. She had been there for almost nine full cycles of the moon and everything still felt strange.

  “Mirabel, my dear, I know it’s a lot to take in but you simply must learn these things. Even the youngest child knows the names of the nine keeps by heart. So tell me, dear, what are they? And I want them in their proper order, mind you.” The chef minced neat little words out with her gentle tongue as swiftly as she chopped vegetables with her sharp knives.

  Megran’s immense, rotund figure had frightened Mirabel at first. For days she waited expectantly for her to lay a huge egg but she realized now this was never going to happen, which was both a relief and a disappointment.

  “Go ahead and recite them to me while you fetch that basket of tomatoes over there, dear.”

  “Oh, I love tomatoes!” Mirabel obeyed this part of the request with pleasure.

  “Mirabel…” Megran’s knife paused over a leek’s slender form.

  “Snowvale Keep,” she began obediently. That one was easy to remember because it was the first keep she had seen on her way down the mountain with Darmond and the other merchants. “Starpoint Keep. Shadowmoon Keep. And Visioncrest Keep, where I am now.”

  “Go on.”

  She caressed the tender red fruit as she concentrated. “Swordriver?” At a nod from Megran she continued. “Blackroot… I think I would like that one… Bloodflower, Silverfall and Greenpalm!” she finished triumphantly.

  “Very good, dear.” Megran cut a carrot’s long, green hair off and tossed it into a growing pile of vegetable parts at her feet. “And where do the king and queen live?”

  “In Goldentower, the sacred heart of all the keeps, which are part of one body called the kingdom. What part of the kingdom’s body is Visioncrest?”

  Megran laughed in her chortling way. “The ladies who have been with the prince have no doubt about that!”

  This reply, like many of the other answers she received, only sprouted more questions like an old potato, so Mirabel tossed it away knowing it would crop up again eventually. She had arrived at Visioncrest nine moons ago
, which meant it was at least ten moons since she had left her home.

  “Anyway, that was very good, Mirabel.” Megran always seemed to be smiling, quite untroubled by all the extra weight she had to carry around compared to other people. “Just quickly recite to me the colors of each noble house and their place in the keep’s hierarchy.”

  “Again?”

  “Humor me, dear.”

  “The prince is above everyone of course and his colors are black and violet. The White Lord is the next most powerful man in the keep. Then there’s the Blue Lord, the Green Lord and the Brown Lord in that order of importance. Now may I go help outside?” This was her favorite part of Visioncrest—the vast stone-walled garden crowded with plants blossoming side by side like the brilliantly clad people who lived inside the stone pots of the towers.

  “Megran, the prince trusts me to teach you certain things and the next time he sends for you he’ll expect you to know it all by heart.”

  Mention of the keep’s lord always made Mirabel feel strangely weak. Even if she was standing perfectly still, whenever her next visit to the prince was mentioned she felt as though she had just raced across an entire valley. Her pulse went wild in an oddly painful way because she couldn’t control it. The only cure for this strange breathlessness was not to think about him at all.

  Very often she almost felt sick she was so stuffed with facts her comprehension couldn’t digest. She carefully swept the vegetable parts into a brown sack. It seemed her perception of everything existed in similar useless pieces and that often what she felt was important everyone else considered irrelevant. The meaning of it all was hidden like a carrot in dark soil, beyond her grasp. As she concentrated on the lush beauty of the surface, she kept tripping over all the mysteriously buried roots of the people’s beliefs. “I’m tired, Megran.” She shoved the sack beneath the long wooden table. “May I go to my room now?”

  “But I thought you wanted to work out in the gardens? All right, go ahead. I think you’ve learned enough for one day.” Megran put down her knife and wiped her hands clean on her apron before laying one gently on Mirabel’s shoulder. “The air is much richer down here. You’re not used to it yet but you’ll adjust soon enough and it’s actually better for you than that thin frigid atmosphere you were living in, in more ways than one I dare say! So go ahead, run along to your room and take a nice nap.”