22 Nights

by WINSTEAD JONES, LINDA

  Before entering the woods to give chase, Trinity made sure all those he had killed were well and completely dead. Magic was not unheard of in this part of the world, and he knew too well that sometimes death was not the end. Sometimes death was a trick, an illusion. Trinity pushed at one man after another with the toe of his black boot. He looked deeply into their blank, lifeless eyes. The sentinels and the one official were all good and dead, much to Trinity’s relief.

  He’d expected sentinels to provide him with a more vigorous battle, but these young men had not put up much of a fight. They’d been surprised by the attack, and none could match his speed. None was as good at killing as he was. It had all been over too soon, much too soon.

  Trinity had been dead once. His own death hadn’t lasted long, however. His inept witch of a mother had worked a spell to bring her beloved son back to life, but she’d made a miscalculation along the way.

  She had saved him, but he could not die again.

  He had lived on this earth for nearly five hundred and forty years, most of that time hidden away on a mountain-top in the far north part of the world, half mad and wishing for the death he could never have. He’d tried to find death at his own hand many times, but he always lived. He could feel pain, however, which made the attempts at ending his own life quickly lose their appeal.

  Eventually he had left the ice and snow of the north and moved toward civilization. Eventually someone had found him, someone who had discovered what he was. That someone had taught him that he did have a purpose to serve. Perhaps he could not die, but he could send others to the afterlife, when it was their time.

  It was Lady Leyla Hagan’s time.

  Just as he was about to lead his stallion into the forest, Trinity studied the battlefield and frowned. There was an extra horse, and the saddle upon it was not of imperial issue. Perhaps the lady of the party had ridden on occasion, but he didn’t think so. A man’s saddle was strapped to the horse’s back, not a sidesaddle which a proper lady would’ve insisted upon. It was a decent enough saddle, but not one which a fine lady might possess.

  Lady Leyla had not made her escape alone.

  Trinity smiled as he turned toward the thick woods, giving the twosome who had escaped his initial attack a bit of a head start. He might as well take a few moments and grab a bite to eat before giving chase. He always carried food in his saddlebags. Perhaps he could not starve to death, but being hungry was truly uncomfortable, and killing always gave him a fierce appetite.

  Rare moments of anticipation were among the few joys he had left in his unbearably long life, and as he chewed on a hard biscuit, he imagined tracking down the fleeing couple through the night.

  This might be fun. Cayse Trinity hadn’t had fun in a very long time.

  CHIEFTAIN Valeron had not been easy to sway, but finally Merin had what he wanted: the Haythorne family in a closed room. No outsiders were allowed, and the doors to this main hall were closed even against their trusted servants.

  The guard at the entrance to the village had been found wounded and bound, but very much alive. Nobel was being very careful not to harm anyone, not yet. He did not want war, not if it could be helped. He wanted Bela.

  “I still cannot believe that anyone in the village would betray us to one such as Nobel,” Lady Gayene said.

  It was Clyn who looked his mother in the eye and said, “The general is correct. Nobel knew too much.”

  “Perhaps he bought his information from someone who is in dire need. It’s apparent he’s amassed quite a lot of gems since he left us.” Gayene’s eyes lit up. “Maybe the person who told him about Bela and the general didn’t know Nobel’s intentions.”

  They began to discuss and submit and deny possible traitors, all of them talking at once. Names Merin knew and names he did not know were bandied about. Everyone was passionate about who among them might become a betrayer, for riches or out of ignorance.

  “It doesn’t matter who the traitor is,” he interrupted when the names and voices began to blur. “Not yet, at least. It might actually turn out to be a good thing, as Nobel’s appearance today warned us of his intentions. He might’ve simply ridden in with his men, slaughtered anyone in his way, and taken Bela by force.”

  “He could try,” Bela said softly.

  Her words and her tone were tough, but he had seen the fear in her eyes when her mother had been threatened. “Has he always had an interest in you?” Merin asked, his eyes on Bela.

  “For a time,” she said, sounding as much puzzled as angry. “But I made it clear that I was not interested and he turned his attentions to others. He always flirted with the prettiest girls with the frilliest dresses and the silliest giggles after he recovered from our last encounter.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “You took his fingers?” he asked.

  “That was Kitty. He had the audacity to make a grab for her, not knowing that she has the ability to move and even to fight on her own.” Bela grimaced a little. “I did not know that she could be so harsh, but she did not like Nobel at all.”

  It surely had not been pleasant to watch Kitty defend herself and send Nobel’s fingers to the ground in the process. Merin had seen worse. All who’d fought in the war against Ciro had seen worse, but no matter how manly Bela tried to be, she was still a woman, and women should not be subjected to such bloody sights.

  It was necessary.

  Merin knew the words he heard came from Kitty and were for him alone. Even Bela seemed not to hear.

  Apparently the magical weapon could read his thoughts. That was disturbing.

  “He wants Kitty,” Merin said, still feeling slightly ridiculous referring to the sword by name. “Even if he can have her only through you.”

  “Yes, but why?” Bela asked. “He cannot touch her; she won’t allow it. Even if I was his wife, he would not be able to touch her.”

  “Are you so sure?” Merin asked. “I can hear her. Perhaps any man who is your husband . . .”

  “What?” Tyman, who had been sitting silent and sulking, shot to his feet. “You heard Kitty? She has chosen you?”

  “I still hear her, too,” Bela said defensively.

  “But the general hears her, too, now,” Clyn said, remaining calmer than either of his siblings. “Does anyone else know this? Could our spy have told Nobel that being married to Bela gives a man rights to the weapon he craves? Is that why he’s back now?”

  “No one knows I heard Kitty’s voice,” Merin said with certainty.

  Bela sighed, and all eyes turned to her. “That’s not entirely true. I told Jocylen.” She looked around the room. “But she would never tell anyone. I told her it was a secret.”

  One of the whispers last night, perhaps, Merin thought. Word had traveled quickly, if that was the case.

  Tyman sighed. “She likely told her husband, who might’ve told the men he farms with or drinks with or . . .”

  “No,” Bela said. “She would not tell.”

  Merin looked down at Bela, his wife for the moment. A wife he craved but could not entirely have, a woman who was an unusual and tempting mix of innocence and brash-ness. At the moment she was hurt, but did not want anyone to know that she was in pain.

  If Nobel was here because he knew that Bela’s husband had also heard Kitty speak, then Jocylen was their traitor. Perhaps unintentionally, but still a traitor.

  SAVYN held on to Lady Leyla’s hand and pulled her along as he made a path into a deeper part of the forest where the trees grew close together and there was thick, green growth at their feet. They were headed for a small mountain, a collection of rocky hills. If they climbed a bit to an area where no horse could travel, maybe they’d be safe. Maybe. Branches whipped at his skin and scratched his cheek, but he did not slow down. The only way he could save Lady Leyla was to get her far, far away from the attacker. He would hide her; he would keep her safe.

  He had never seen such violence in his life. The most recent war had been brutal, he’d heard, but it had n
ever come so far south, not in any significant way. Their village of Childers had been sheltered. He did not feel sheltered now. The attacker had moved with speed and ruthlessness, and he had killed without hesitation. So much blood had been spilled, and all Savyn had been able to think of was getting Lady Leyla away from it all.

  Fortune had been with him. He’d been riding away from the others, on the opposite side of the carriage, where on occasion he might peek through the window and see that all was well with the women. If he had been riding with the sentinels, he’d be dead now, too, and then who would save the lady?

  Savyn broke through a section of thick growth and found himself running up a grassy hill. He was breathing hard and so was the lady, but he could not stop. They could not slow down. Would there be a place in these hills where they could hide? A cave, a deserted lean-to, a hole in the ground . . . anything would do.

  “Please, stop,” the lady called breathlessly.

  Savyn turned to look at her, and he immediately felt guilty. There were leaves and sticks caught in her hair, and her face was flushed, and her fine dress was torn in several places. The hem of her gown was generously dusted with dirt, and her breathing was labored. She was beautiful, still, though it would not be wise for him to take such notice.

  “I need to take a deep breath,” she said. “Just a moment.”

  “I’ll carry you,” he offered.

  She shook her head. “No, I can’t let you do that. We’d move too slowly and the journey would be too arduous for you.” Her eyes met his, and he felt an immediate and improper reaction. “Maybe he’s not following us. Maybe he only wanted to rob the sentinels and Deputy Bragg, and he’s headed in the other direction with whatever he took from them.”

  “I hope that is true, My Lady, but we cannot know. As soon as you are ready, we’ll climb.”

  She studied the grassy hill before them. It was oddly shaped but not horribly steep. It would be a hard climb but not an impossible one.

  Savyn realized that while they’d been resting, neither had bothered to drop the other’s hand. They stood there, frightened and sweating and red-faced and disheveled, and held hands as they readied themselves for the climb to come. It felt oddly natural, perhaps because he had begun to imagine himself in love with her.

  He squeezed her hand lightly and nodded his head, and she nodded hers. They began to climb, and Savyn had almost convinced himself that no one was following, when in the distance they heard a voice filled with dark humor shout, “You cannot hide from me, Lady Leyla. I’m coming for you. Death is coming for you both.”

  THE mood that had made Bela offer to—and even long to—give Merin the same pleasure he had offered her last night had disappeared along with Nobel’s ridiculous ultimatum. No, it was the very idea that Jocylen might’ve been the cause of this disturbing state of affairs that made her pout. She trusted Jocylen with her secrets.

  The newlywed had been coerced by her husband to tell all, that was the only explanation. Rab had forced his wife to reveal what she knew, and that made him the traitor. She could only imagine the sort of torture Rab might’ve used to make Jocylen talk. Men had quite an arsenal of weapons of which she had been ignorant until sharing a bed with Tearlach Merin.

  They had not bothered with a door between them as they undressed, not tonight. After eating a simple supper of cold oatcakes and cabbage stew, they had both silently shed their clothes, bathed with a bowl of tepid water and a few soft rags, and then fallen into bed, Merin still in his trousers, Bela in her plainest nightgown.

  They lay side by side, comfortable enough but not touching. Tonight there was no laughter and no anger, no teasing and no bantering, no pleasure at all. Neither of them was anywhere near sleep, and even when the lamp had been doused and the only light in the room was the moonlight through one small window, they did not sleep.

  After a long while of restless silence, Merin asked, “What is she? Do you know?”

  “What is who? Kitty?”

  “Yes, Kitty.”

  “A magical sword, you know that.”

  “Yes, but how and why?” He sounded only slightly perturbed. There was more curiosity in his deep voice than anything else. “Someone made her, but who, and for what purpose? How long had she been waiting in the mountains before she was found? Was it an accident that she was discovered by your brother, or was that a part of her plan?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m not sure how we can know. Rafal claims to see very little where Kitty is concerned. Clyn did try to find out more, but the seer could tell him nothing. He was so annoyed when Kitty spoke to me and no one else could hear.”

  “Yet he did accept that you heard her.”

  “Eventually.” Bela smiled in the dark. Her eldest brother had been very stubborn where Kitty was concerned, at least for a while. “When Kitty started telling me things I should not know, and when she revealed some of what she could do, others had no choice but to believe. Even Clyn.”

  “Where, precisely, did he find her?”

  Bela hesitated, wondering if it was a betrayal of any kind to tell Merin too much about Kitty. But she quickly realized that she trusted him, even with this. How odd, when she had never given her trust easily. “He found her on Forbidden Mountain, even though he should not have been there. No one is allowed there, but he’d been searching for a new mine and got lost. Clyn never gets lost, but there you have it.”

  Merin laughed harshly. “Forbidden Mountain? The Turis are not a subtle people, are they?”

  “I suppose not,” she conceded.

  “Why is this mountain forbidden?”

  She mulled over the question for a few minutes, and Merin did not push her to hurry with her explanation. “I’m not entirely sure. The mountain is pretty and harmless enough from a distance, and there’s water and growth which should make it habitable, but nothing lives there, not even animals.”

  “And yet your brother found himself on it.”

  “Yes. Later he said he should’ve realized when he moved onto Forbidden Mountain, because he began to feel uncomfortable. Unsettled. He said the place really did feel as if it were forbidden, bone deep. Once he realized how far he had traveled, he was moving down the mountain, coming home, when a windstorm whipped up and he crawled into a shallow cave for shelter. Something sparkled there, he said, and for a moment he thought he’d found an area rich with gems.”

  “But he found Kitty instead,” Merin whispered.

  “Yes. He brought her home, intending to make her his own, naturally, but normally agile Clyn was clumsy with Kitty in his hands. He practiced with her often but he kept dropping her—or else she was trying to escape from him and he just thought he’d dropped her.”

  “The crystal handle is small,” Merin said, “as if it were made for a woman.”

  “Perhaps that is so,” Bela said softly. Had Kitty been made for her? “One night I woke up to see an odd glow in my room, and it was Kitty, lying on the floor beside my bed. The next morning I tried to return her to Clyn, wondering how the weapon had come to be in my room. He was furious, and accused me of taking her.” She snorted. “As if I would stoop to stealing anything.” Her cheeks grew warm. “Well, except a husband.”

  “Let’s not discuss that at this moment, if you please.” Merin’s voice was curt, and she knew he was probably thinking that it was her fault he had been dragged into this mess with Nobel. And he was right.

  “I was able to handle Kitty quite well and Clyn was annoyed by that, but I did give her back. She followed me home.”

  Merin laughed harshly and briefly.

  “Seriously! Everywhere I turned, there she was. I kept trying to return her to Clyn, and she kept turning up in my path or in my bedchamber. This went on for months. And then she began to speak to me, and to move on her own in my presence, and . . . and she was mine.”

  “And until I came along, no one else heard her voice?”

  “No one.” Bela turned her head. Even in the dark she could see the f
ierce lines of Merin’s hard face, the gentle curl of his hair, the very nice shape of his strong chest and arms. She did not admire men, not in this way, but she did admire Merin. She admired him too much. “Why you?” The question was too vague, too powerful, so she decided to be more specific. “After all this time, why did Kitty choose you?”

  As she finished the question, Kitty answered, and Bela knew these words were for her alone. Apparently Merin did not hear, even though the voice was louder and more clear than ever before.

  I am as much in Tearlach Merin’s keeping as I am in yours.

  But why?

  We need him.

  I need no one. The thought was painful and a little lonely, Bela decided. Maybe it wasn’t a terrible curse to need something or someone.

  Kitty grew silent, almost sullenly so, and once again Bela turned her gaze to Merin. His eyes were closed, but she didn’t think he was asleep. Not yet. Should she give him a shove and make him look at her? Should she touch him and try to regain what they’d almost found in the creek that afternoon?

  Last night he had shown her great pleasure, and today she had been more than willing to do the same for him. She still wanted him . . . something in her wanted to wrap her arms around him right now and see where the kissing and the touching would take them.

  But even though Merin was attracted to her physically, he did not truly want her. He did not love her. All he wanted from her was physical, and if they were not literally connected, he would not want even that from her. Silly girl, she had never even dreamed of love, and yet here she was, lying in the dark, longing for it. She had only recently discovered passion, and already she knew that lovely as it was, powerful as it could be . . . it was not enough, not for her.

  Bela covered her face with her hands and choked back the urge to scream. She was turning into a sentimental woman, no better than the worthless girls who dreamed of nothing more than marriage and men and the motherhood which always followed. Tonight she wanted something she had never before desired. If Merin loved her, if he wished to remain with her, if what they had found could turn into something more . . .