22 Nights

by WINSTEAD JONES, LINDA

  There was no time. A shock might slow him down. She held out her hand. “Here, Kitty!” In an instant, the sword streaked through the air and the shining grip smacked into Bela’s palm. She grabbed it, spun her head aside so her throat was no longer in immediate danger, and ran the blade of the sword through the adversary’s side, just as Merin did the same.

  The last of the assailants fell, not quite dead but quickly headed in that direction.

  Merin looked to Bela first and studied her quickly and efficiently, making sure she was unharmed. She nodded, and he dropped to his haunches to confront the wounded man. “Who hired you, and why? Was it Nobel?”

  “I would not call my profession a noble one . . .”

  “No, Nobel Andyrs,” Merin said impatiently. “Do not play games with me in the short time you have left.”

  “Why should I tell you anything?” the man asked angrily. “You have killed me.”

  Kitty whispered, and Bela could tell by the expression on Merin’s face, and by the words that followed, that they both heard.

  “You are concerned about the fate of your soul,” Merin said. “You’ve killed before. You’ve done murder for money, and it has tainted your spirit. Confession at the end of your life might make amends for some of your sins. Perhaps you won’t burn, if you confess.”

  The terror on the man’s face was real enough. “Fine. I was hired by the Lady Rikka to kill Belavalari Haythorne before she reached Arthes. If I could make it look like an accident, all the better. She did not tell me you would delay so long before beginning the return journey, or that it would be so damned difficult to get onto Turi land.” He coughed, and a trickle of blood ran out the side of his mouth. “During the commotion of a few days past, we were able to sneak onto the land and wait, and since you two headed into the mountains, we have been following.”

  “Why?” Merin asked. “Why would Lady Rikka want Bela dead?”

  “Didn’t ask,” the man on the ground said. “Don’t care.” He looked Bela in the eye, and she saw death there. Death and fear. “If you do not die, she will take her anger out on my family. I have a wife. I have children. I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “I’m very . . .”

  With the last of his strength, the dying man burst up and grabbed Bela’s shirtfront. He yanked at her, and he screamed as he ran toward the rock’s edge.

  And then he jumped. Bela’s feet came out from under her, and she felt only air and a heart-stopping fear.

  THE failed assassin’s final act took Merin by surprise. In a split second, the man went over the edge, taking Bela with him.

  Merin was pulled along just as she was, thanks to the rope that bound them, but he dug in his feet and held on to the braided rope with both hands, dropping his sword to the ground. Near the precipice he latched onto a protruding rock, waiting for the force of Bela’s fall to pull at him, to try to yank him with her as she dropped. The sharp edge of the rock cut his hand, but he held on.

  He was not pulled over the edge; the pressure that had dragged him this far ceased abruptly. Merin had a horrific vision of the rope that connected them coming undone so that Bela dropped to her death. After all, it was made of nothing more than fabric. Red, black, and white. It was not meant to hold the weight of a woman who dangled over the side of a mountain.

  Bela deserved better than such an end. She should live to be an old woman surrounded by children and grandchildren, she deserved to live her life happy and wonderfully different and defiant. She deserved happiness.

  He was heartened by the curses which reached his ears, and by the fact that while he was supporting Bela’s weight, she was obviously not free-falling down the mountain.

  Sitting up carefully and keeping one arm around the rock for support, Merin glanced over the edge. Bela hung there, just a few feet away, holding onto a small protrusion in the side of the mountain. The man who had pulled her to the ledge and beyond lay far below, dead and broken. Merin tried not to look at that body and imagine Bela lying there, but it was difficult. It could’ve been her. It might still be her, if he was not careful.

  She looked up and caught his eye. “Cut the rope.”

  “I will not,” he said, holding on with all he had.

  “If I fall, you might be pulled down with me!” she argued.

  “Then don’t fall,” he said almost calmly.

  Bela was stubborn, as usual. “Kitty!” she screamed. “Cut the rope that binds me to this stubborn man. Now!”

  The sword, lying behind him where it had fallen when the attacker had pulled Bela to the edge, remained silent.

  Merin turned all of his attention to getting Bela up and out of danger. If she could continue to support some of her weight by holding on to the side of the rock wall, he could pull her up and over the edge in short order. He dug in his feet and pulled. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Kitty’s grip shone bright.

  Save her.

  “I’m trying,” Merin said anxiously.

  We need her. You need her. The world needs her.

  That was taking things a bit too far. Maybe Kitty needed Bela—maybe he did, too. But the world?

  There is much you do not yet know.

  Of course there was. What else was new?

  Merin ignored the interfering sword and gave all his attention to pulling Bela up to him. He drew her up a short way, and she was able to grab on to another protrusion in the rock. Bela was not very far down—the length of the rope prevented a distance of more than a few feet—and she had a hold on the mountain and would not let go. He pulled, she climbed. In a matter of minutes that seemed like hours, she was hauling herself over the edge and onto solid ground.

  Merin pulled her the rest of the way and drew her into his arms, yanking her close and holding her so that their beating hearts pounded against one another. So close. He had come so damn close to watching her die.

  Eventually Bela spoke. “Blast, Merin, why didn’t you cut the damn rope?”

  “You don’t know me at all, if you think I could do that.”

  “But . . .”

  “Would you?” he interrupted harshly. “If I had been dangling over the side of the mountain and you were up here, would you have cut the rope?”

  She sighed in evident resignation. “Never.”

  “Then you should not expect less of me.”

  They sat there for a long while, panting and clinging to one another, both of them fighting off the images of what might have been. It was Bela who spoke first.

  “I knew there was a good reason I didn’t want to go to Arthes.” She was slightly breathless. “People there want to kill me. Who the hell is Lady Rikka?”

  Merin drew away slightly, but he did not let Bela go. “She was once married to Emperor Sebestyen, the current emperor’s father.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I don’t know.” He smoothed away a strand of misbehaving red-brown hair.

  Bela grabbed on to the rope that bound them together—the rope that had saved her life—and ran her fingers along a frayed portion where the rope had scraped against rock.

  “Thank goodness the cord didn’t break,” Merin said, trying to hide the absolute terror that washed through him at the very thought.

  “It is a strong rope, as the bonds of marriage are meant to be strong. Everlasting,” she added. “Indestructible.”

  She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry I tricked you,” she said. “I never should’ve lied to you, I never should’ve forced you into a marriage you didn’t even understand just so I could have what I wanted. What I did was terribly selfish and childish, and if I had it to do over again . . .”

  Merin silenced Bela with a kiss which quickly turned deep and desperate. He wasn’t sorry she’d tricked him; he wasn’t sorry they were bound together. If he could do it all over again, he would do very little differently.

  When the kiss ended, they were both breathless again.

  “We still have a sho
rt way to travel before we reach the place where Clyn found Kitty,” Bela said, in an obvious attempt to divert Merin and dismiss the kiss. Something about the power of the moment made her nervous. Was she afraid to get what she said she most wanted?

  “Are you ready to resume the journey?” he asked.

  She nodded, and together they rose to their feet. Merin glanced at the bodies. There was no way to bury the men who had died, not here where there was no dirt to be dug. He did not have the time nor the supplies to build a proper funeral pyre. They had died in an act of violence and evil, and so he had few qualms about leaving them to rot where they lay.

  Bela retrieved Kitty and stored her properly. Merin did the same with his weapon, and they resumed their expedition. No, their quest. He had no idea what awaited them at the site of Kitty’s discovery. Perhaps answers to all their questions were waiting to be found. Perhaps they would find nothing at all. No, Kitty’s words hinted at something momentous. The world needs her.

  Merin suspected he would find more than answers on this journey. Perhaps he would find a wife. A true wife, a woman he could keep forever. Such a discovery would change everything in his life, if not in the world. He couldn’t very well choose to keep a woman intended for the emperor and then expect to retain his position in Arthes. And did he want to retain his position? Had he truly been content for the past six years?

  As they turned onto another rocky trail, he wondered if he would still feel this way when the shock and horror of seeing Bela hanging from a mountain ledge faded.

  SAVYN lay on his back, eyes open to see nothing but darkness before him.

  They had decided to remain in this hut until he was at least somewhat recovered. No, that was not right. Lady Leyla had decided that they would remain here. It was right that she make the important decisions, he supposed, as she was a lady intended for the emperor and he was a lowly craftsman.

  Still, something in him rebelled at the way she was taking care of him, the way she dribbled water into his mouth, the way she tended and fussed over him. She had changed the bandage on his head, she’d clucked over him like a mother hen. It was not right. He had intended to care for her, to protect her, and yet she had been the one to get rid of Trinity and now she was caring for him.

  He was useless, and would forever be so if his sight did not return.

  Savyn could smell Leyla as she neared him, and the scent was sweet and arousing and familiar. He could hear the rustle of her skirt as she knelt beside him, and the sound was comforting and wonderfully near. “I found some dried meat in Trinity’s saddlebag,” she said, her whispering voice soft as a spring breeze and just as welcome.

  Unbidden, he had a startlingly clear vision of Leyla naked and spread before him. In this mental picture she smiled and beckoned him to come to her. She smelled just as sweet as she did at this moment. Her voice was just as welcome.

  He shook off the fantasy before he gave himself away with the natural reaction of his body.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “I will not eat until you do.”

  She sighed and settled more comfortably beside him. “You are so stubborn,” she said, but he heard her take a bite. He smelled the meat, and it made his empty stomach rumble. “There are quite a few supplies in Trinity’s bags,” she said between the first bite and the second one. She placed a broken bit of the meat to his lips, and he opened his mouth to accept it. “Weapons, of course, but also coins and a change of clothing and a razor and a goodly supply of a traveler’s food. Meat and biscuits, mostly, but there are also a few apples. He left his flint behind, too.”

  The food that hit Savyn’s stomach was welcome, but he found he could not eat very much. Neither could Leyla, apparently. She sat beside him and talked, but she didn’t eat much.

  “We could stay here for a while,” she said. “Until you’re better, at least. Once your sight returns . . .”

  “What if it doesn’t?” he asked sharply. “I have never heard of a blind wheelwright or a sightless swordmaker. The only blind man I ever saw was a beggar. Is that what I will become if the world stays dark?”

  Leyla placed a soft hand on his rough cheek, and he almost buckled with the pleasure of that simple touch. “You will not become a beggar. Not only is it not in your nature, I will not allow it to happen.”

  “Am I supposed to allow you to take care of me for the rest of my days?”

  “If necessary, yes,” she responded.

  Savyn reached up and found Leyla’s delicate wrist with his fumbling hand. He held on to her and guided her palm to his mouth, where he kissed it as if he had that right. She tasted as familiar as she smelled. “I will not allow you to care for me,” he whispered. “I would prefer to beg, or to die.”

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered, and she did not jerk her hand away, as he had thought she might.

  “This is wrong,” he said darkly.

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed too calmly. “But I have faith that your sight will return. I heard of such a case years ago. A man fell from the roof and hit his temple, much as Trinity hit yours. This man lost his sight for a time, but it eventually returned. Yours will, too.” Finally he heard a hint of uncertainty in her voice. “I will have it no other way.”

  He had not been talking about his injury or his lost eyesight, but it was just as well that she believed that had been his meaning.

  Savyn realized with a thump of his heart and a soaring of something bitter in his stomach that he loved Lady Leyla. He did not only admire her beauty and her kindness, he did not wish to protect her because she was of a powerful family from his village and had smiled at him when he’d been a child. Wrong as it was, impossible as it was, he loved her.

  Would she laugh at him if he told her how he felt? No, he didn’t think she would. She was not the kind of woman who would be cruel.

  Not that it mattered. Savyn would not burden the woman he loved with the affections of a worthless blind man. Until and unless his sight returned, he would keep what he felt to himself.

  Chapter Eleven

  MERIN seemed to feel the energy as they approached the site where Clyn had found Kitty, just as Bela did. The sun shone a bit brighter, even though it was now hanging low in the western sky. The air that filled their lungs was cleaner. Crisper. And Kitty was happier. Her glow was bright; her hum, content.

  Not long after leaving the site of the battle, they had come across a cold, rushing creek. It would be their last chance to bathe and to collect water before stopping here, on their way down the mountain. From that point on, the way was rocky and rough, so they had no choice but to stop for a short while and take advantage of the water source. They had bathed, accomplishing the chore quickly, as the water was so cold. They had drunk greedily and filled their waterskins, and then they had collected what wood they could carry. There were no trees, no fuel for a fire near their destination. They could not carry enough for more than a small fire, but perhaps that was all they’d need before they headed down the mountain again.

  Bela led the way as they took their final steps toward their destination. She had been here once before, with Clyn, but at that time she had not felt this brilliant energy, shimmering and palpable. She had not felt Kitty’s joy.

  She came to a halt on a flat expanse of rock, her eyes on the low entrance to a cave that was little more than a hole in the rock wall. The cave was tiny; she had explored it briefly on her last visit and had not been comfortable in the dark confines for more than a few seconds. She wondered how Clyn had fit in there when he’d retrieved Kitty.

  Bela pointed, and Merin nodded. They dropped their armloads of wood and Merin took a step toward the cave, but Bela delayed him with a tug on the rope which bound them. The braided rope was no longer crisply colored. The black was gray and frayed, the red was faded, and the white was turning an ugly gray, like muddy snow. And yet the meanings of those colors remained unchanged.

  “Maybe we should wait u
ntil morning,” she said. “It will soon be dark, and I really don’t want to be in that tiny cave when the sun sets. Besides, it’s colder this high on the mountain, and I think it would be a good idea to get the fire going before the sun is gone.”

  Merin looked dismayed. “We’ve come all this way, and you want to wait until morning?”

  Bela shrugged her shoulders. “After we build a fire we can explore the immediate area, if you’d like, but I suggest that we save the actual exploration of the cave for morning, yes.” She felt rather like a coward, which was odd for her. Kitty was too bright, too excited, as if she expected something momentous to happen here. Bela knew that once they found what they were looking for, her time with Merin would change. She liked having him all to herself, and wanted that to continue for a while longer. One more night. Just one.

  “Did you and Clyn search far beyond this area when you were here?”

  Bela shook her head. “No. He showed me where he’d found Kitty, I poked my head into the cave, and the next morning we left before the sun had fully risen.”

  Merin was obviously impatient, so Bela pointed upward. “There are more caves there. If we can get the fire going well before the daylight is gone, we can always search there.”

  “Yes,” he said, sounding relieved to have a plan that would keep them both busy until night fell.

  And when night fell . . . what then?

  TRINITY had regained some of his senses when he ran across the family traveling in the opposite direction. He actually had no direction in mind. He stumbled along the road mindlessly, afraid of the sleep which brought such realistic nightmares. Afraid of the waking moments which were filled with hallucinations. No, not hallucinations. Memories. Memories so vivid they made him scream and weep.

  He could not remember shedding a tear since he’d been a small boy, even though he had certainly had opportunity and reason since his mother both had saved and ruined him. Since the witch had cursed him, he’d shed many. How long had it been? A day? Two? A week? Time had no meaning, not for him, not anymore.