It annoyed the young women working on Mirabel’s new wardrobe that she scarcely reacted to the prick of a needle, which left no doubt in their minds that the prince and his beloved engaged in extremely perverse and wicked acts together. Yet they did not condemn Loric. They appeared almost satisfied by the evidence of rope burns on Mirabel’s wrists and ankles and throat. At least the prince was handling her roughly, the way she deserved to be treated—with no respect. His dark sensual appetites had long been a secret topic of conversation in the women’s quarters of every tower in the keep and the common consensus was that he had finally found the perfect victim for his lusts—a girl unprotected by family and friends to whom he could do absolutely anything he desired. If, shortly after they were wed, his wife died of some ailment or another, no one would ask any questions or even care. It was twisted logic but it worked to keep the jealousy burning in Mirabel’s rivals under control. However, they could not satisfy their hostile desire to make the prince’s betrothed ill-fitting and unflattering dresses, for not only would this lose them their positions, it would adversely affect the pleasure their lord took in his possession.
As Mirabel stared out the open window at the sky’s infinitely fine cloth, wishing she could have kept Janlay’s final creations for herself, a sad yet lovely music drifted up from the gardens.
The young woman pinning up her hem carelessly let it fall and ran to the window. “Young lords from Blackroot!” she exclaimed.
“From Blackroot?” The younger girl adjusting Mirabel’s bodice immediately abandoned the gilded strings and went to kneel beside her friend on the window seat.
“What are you two silly creatures so excited about?” the head seamstress supervising them demanded. “They’re here to find wives and there’s no hope of you two—”
“It’s common knowledge that lords from Blackroot don’t care if a girl is born to a Color or not!” her eldest assistant retorted. “They wander the kingdom in search of true love and take it wherever they find it, whether it be in the highest tower or in the scullery!”
“That’s right!” Her companion leaned out the window, eagerly trying to catch a glimpse of the singer.
“That’s just a tale concocted by dreamy kitchen maids,” the older woman argued scornfully. “Cats mate with cats and dogs with dogs and everything else is fantasy.”
“Is that so?” The girls looked significantly at Mirabel, who was straining to make out the words of the lovely song. The singer’s voice was at once lighthearted and deep, urging her along the melody’s seductive path amidst soft, dark minor notes from an accompanying lute.
“That’s enough for today.” She peeled the unfinished dress off her, disregarding all the pins that scattered like gleaming seeds onto the floor.
“Now look what you’ve done!” The seamstress forgot herself for a moment and yelled at Mirabel as if she was only a servant. “The prince wants these gowns ready by the next full moon, my lady,” she added with strained respect.
Her assistants continued leaning eagerly out the window. “Oh, Lords!” the youngest one sighed. “They are such marvelous players!”
“I would kill for a lord from Blackroot!” her friend declared fiercely.
There was an uncomfortable silence as they all suddenly seemed to remember Mirabel’s mother. In that moment the singer’s voice rose with a passionate melancholy that retained a beautiful ring of hope. Mirabel was captivated, held motionless by the way he drew out every syllable until it was as round and smooth as a naked limb his warm voice was caressing. She quickly finished lacing her comfortable and familiar black bodice and was impatiently slipping into her worn sandals when the marvelous song ended. Amidst a sigh of skirts the young seamstresses reluctantly turned away from the window’s clean expanse of sky and began picking up the mess they had made fitting their future princess for her new life.
“Thank you for your time,” Mirabel murmured and hurried out of the room in search of the musicians. This was another thing her beloved plants couldn’t do—compose. Music was such a generous and beautiful way of growing out of the seed of one’s feelings toward everyone else’s. A song’s lyrics were like branches the hearts of listeners could find rest and solace amongst.
She found herself on the western grounds in search of a music that far surpassed that of the birds in power and beauty. The singer’s voice was deep as the earth yet it ascended and carried with the ease of a falcon taking flight. The lute accompanying him was the world’s most sophisticated web, spun straight from one end of a curved piece of wood to another, and when the sensual spider of a human hand passed across it, her heart was instantly caught. There was always music in the great hall at night. She heard it all the way down in the kitchen, for she had never sat and dined with the rest of the court. Now that she was his betrothed, she was invited to sit by the prince’s side but she had begged him to let her eat with Megran as she had always done or alone with him in his chambers until after their wedding. By then, she hoped, she would have learned how not to lose her appetite amidst so much burning hostility.
The western grounds were on the opposite side of the keep from the herb and vegetable gardens that were her safe and familiar domains. For the most part she avoided the formal gardens, except on the rare occasions she accompanied Megran to a sacred rite because there were always ladies strolling between the flowerbeds, couples embracing beneath the trees and groups of energetic young men laughing as loudly as dogs barked, around which she felt tense and vulnerable as a cat. Today, however, she had no choice but to be here because the young lords from Blackroot were walking somewhere along these curving paths, serenading any ladies who struck their fancy along the way. She craved the bittersweet flow of the singer’s voice as her body did wine. She could drink almost as much wine as Loric now. He had even complained she was dangerously depleting his stores and suggested she go marry Starpoint’s prince instead, but she knew he approved of this passion of hers as much as he did of all her others.
The day was still young when she discovered the one particular tree-lined path that began beneath the window through which the seamstresses were no longer leaning. She felt sorry for them, trapped in the room’s husk working on her dresses. The materials she had chosen for them were the kingdom’s finest yet they could not compare with Janlay’s fabrics and part of her resented this. The least her father could do was give her some bolts of cloth as a wedding present but she was grateful to at least be alive. Loric had saved her. He had always protected her. The only reason she was following a moss-carpeted trail after some musicians from Blackroot was that her prince had defied the Lords for her. She still didn’t dare wonder how determined they had been to take her away or how eloquently he had been forced to argue in order to keep her. Thinking about it only set her feelings and desires at each other’s throats. The Lord she had first met as a little girl—and whom she had since seen again a handful of times in Loric’s room— had said that if he took her with him it would be an end yet also a beginning, like the loss of her virginity. He must have known this comparison would relax her fears and, despite her love for Loric, tempt her.
Mirabel was so intent on her thoughts and the pleasant search she had embarked upon that she didn’t notice dark clouds moving in from the west. The dappled sunlight beneath the trees dimmed and fluctuated like water as gusts of wind stirred the higher branches but she was aware only of the fact that the sudden cool breeze felt wonderful on such a warm day as it reached beneath her sleeves and skirt to caress her perspiring skin. Her blood responded to the rushing sound of the leaves and the images behind her eyes became even more vivid in the darkening atmosphere. She kept seeing the tall Lord with the dark golden hair standing on the polished floor just as he had stood on the ice outside her childhood home. She kept wondering what it would be like if she allowed him to take the virginity of her physical existence.
“Whoa there, where are you off to in such a hurry, my lady?”
Mirabel realized she had bro
ken into a run when a man’s hand caught her arm. She fell back against him and the warm friction of their bodies caressing as she regained her balance seemed to inspire a rumble of thunder overhead.
“If you’re trying to beat the rain, you’re headed in the wrong direction, my lady. The keep is behind you.”
She disengaged herself from him and her first breathless impression was that she had come upon an enchanted garden. She was surrounded by three beautiful growths such as she might always have dreamed of if she had believed them possible. The illusion that they were half plant and half man lasted only for a second, yet even after reason slapped her into seeing them clearly, their enchanted aura did not dissipate. There were three of them and it was the cut of their black-and-white clothing that for some reason made her feel they were part of the foliage. “Is it going to rain?” she asked foolishly.
“Yes,” the one who had caught her replied. “It seems the beautiful day has remembered some sorrow and is preparing to cry for a while.”
Mirabel focused exclusively on him. His long legs were slender black trunks beneath a formfitting black jacket and down the center of his chest flowed what resembled a row of lilies, their limp petals also growing around his wrists as if sprouting out of his black sleeves’ smoothly packed soil. She glanced at his companions. They too were tall and broad shouldered, their handsome faces softly cupped by hair that was neither as long as a nobleman’s or as short as the hair of two Lords she had met so far. One of them had straight hair so fair it reminded her of the brilliant white of the sun’s disc when glimpsed through a cloud’s protective veil and the other had hair so black that even in the tree’s shadow it shone with blue highlights. The one who had arrested her flight down the path possessed a full head of fine golden-brown hair that fell straight down almost into his eyes even as it curled softly around his high cheekbones and sinuous mouth.
“Are you the one I heard singing?” she asked him.
He inclined his head briefly. “If you weren’t afraid of getting wet, my lady, why were you running?”
She looked over at the delicate wooden harp held in the dark-haired lord’s hand. It rested casually against his left leg, its strings ready to catch her heart again. “I was running after your music,” she confessed, once again staring into the singer’s unusual honey-colored eyes. They were so deep and luminous she knew there was a danger she would miss how they tasted to her soul when she was looking into them.
“You were running after our music?” The young noble with hair like infinite rays of light inquired in a pleasantly lilted voice, smiling softly at her. “Why? Did you plan to take it prisoner?”
She laughed. “Why, no, as a matter of fact, I wished to reclaim my heart, which the notes of your song caught in its web.” She looked back at the singer. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him for more than an instant.
He inhaled deeply and grasped one of her hands. “Mirabel!” he sighed.
“Yes… How did you know my name?” She was so gratified he had recognized her she didn’t hear another menacing rumble of thunder.
“Well?” He glanced significantly at his companions while smoothly slipping her other hand into his.
“I say we wait.” The blond’s sensual mouth tightened and his midnight-blue eyes held hers for a stimulating moment.
“Why?” The dark-haired lord holding the stringed instrument smiled at her as if he knew just how much she loved that word.
“Because we don’t have permission yet.”
“We never will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t care.”
The singer listened impassively to their argument while slowly and lightly caressing her palms with the balls of his thumbs.
“What are you talking about?” she asked as the sky rumbled another warning. She was having a hard time concentrating on anything except the singer’s touch.
“We’re wondering if we should wait for the prince’s permission to play for you,” he explained quietly, drawing all her attention to his lips…and into him. The air was as warm and humid as his tongue. The wind caressing her hair and tugging on her skirt was related to his breath in an exciting way. “My name is Dur and my companions and I are from Blackroot Keep, where it is forbidden to play for a lady already spoken for.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because that’s the way of things.”
“Well then perhaps you can find another lady and play for her while I listen,” she suggested.
“You don’t understand.” Two rose petals seemed to be floating near the surface of his creamy cheeks. “You are right—our music is a web we spin in the hope of catching hearts as deep as ours. All our desires and hopes are spun into the melody which is, even more than our flesh and blood, who we are. The notes contain our moods and our thoughts, their harmony reflecting the way our beliefs and convictions make sense out of chaos. We do not play lightly.”
“And I do not listen lightly,” she assured him fervently.
“Then you see why it could be…dangerous.”
She glanced down at their joined hands. “Then you should be more careful who happens to hear you.”
“That is where destiny comes into play.”
“It sits in sometimes.” The dark-haired lord smiled at her teasingly but his brooding, smoky gray stare made the overcast sky look dull and calm by comparison.
“And what is your name?”
Dur leaned down toward her. “You want to know too much,” he whispered.
“I only asked his name.” Blackroot Keep had some very strange ideas indeed.
“But don’t you see?” he kept whispering in her ear, “he is his name. It is the note and tone, the vibration and breath that manifest his soul. If he tells you his name, it gives you power over him.”
She was definitely interested in what he was saying but the warmth of his breath against her skin felt even more meaningful. Then, with sobering abruptness, she wondered if they were simply making fun of her. Unless they had only just arrived, they must have heard the rumors about her and even though the Green Tower defended her, it certainly didn’t go around praising her. These young lords visiting from another keep must have formed an opinion of her already that, judging by the information available to them, could only be bad. She snatched her hands away and stepped back. “No doubt you’ve heard some vile things about me,” she said tightly.
Dur looked profoundly saddened by this comment and his friends’ eyes flashed angrily.
“What we hear does not matter at all,” the blond stated firmly. “We form our own opinions.”
“Thank the Lords for that.” She smiled happily. “I think I would like it in Blackroot. But you know my name. Mirabel. Mirabel. Mirabel.” She offered it to each of them in turn. “There, now you all have power over me.”
With a compelling air of concentration, Dur slowly raised his left hand and caressed the complex map etched into his palm with the tip of his right index finger, following one specific path in his flesh. The graceful intensity of the gesture mesmerized her as he said, “You have given us the gift of your trust, Mirabel.”
“Yes,” she whispered, so entranced by his sensual movements it seemed wonderfully natural when he suddenly slipped the tip of his finger between her lips. The gesture felt perfectly innocent, as if he only wished to moisten his skin with her tongue, until she looked up into his eyes. Their penetrating expression plucked the low, deep note of a moan from so deep inside her there was no way she could resist sucking on the firm length of flesh and bone he offered her.
The thought that she was being dangerously wanton flashed in the back of her mind as lightning flickered in the corner of her eye. How intensely drawn she was to the brewing storm of desires he was pointing out existed inside her made it impossible for her to resist as his companions suddenly pushed her back against the trunk of the ancient oak. Dur emptied her mouth, giving her the chance to protest, but it was too late. She had already told
him everything he needed to know with her tongue, wordlessly.
He seemed captivated by the way her saliva shone on his skin. “You are special, Mirabel. The only question is how special.”
“I still don’t think this is the time or the place.” The blond lord sounded tense as he looked around them but the coming storm had apparently herded everyone else back into the shelter of the keep.
Still holding his instrument in one hand, the dark-haired lord wrapped the long fingers of his other hand gently around her throat. “We only want a taste, just to see…”
Vaguely, Mirabel wondered if Dur had drugged her as she suffered the strangely sublime impression that night had fallen and she was looking up at six moons all orbiting her. When she gazed into their eyes it was impossible to be aware of, or to even remotely care about, anything else. The dark-haired lord’s silver-gray irises were the mysterious heart of the approaching storm and yet Dur’s golden regard was the most hypnotic of all, more important, more vital than the breath she couldn’t take…
He kissed her, filling her mouth with the invisible force of his own life, forcing air into her lungs as another man’s hand around her throat dangerously tightened its hold.
Her breasts heaved, nearly swelling out of her bodice as Dur grasped them, roughly digging his fingers into their tender swells. She told herself she should be afraid but the space between her legs was growing so deep and wet she could almost believe she didn’t need air to live. She needed something else to truly feel alive.
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