This was Kane the Warrior, and she had been a fool to ever forget it.
When the dying glow of the fire was replaced by the faint light of dawn, Jenna rose quietly. For a moment she looked down at Kane, who had barely moved all night, apparently sleeping soundly within his heart’s armor. She had no reason to feel this way, she told herself. He had kept to his part of the bargain. And more; their agreement had been only that she would act his woman, not that he would care at all if she took any pleasure in it.
But she had. She shivered at the heated memory as she stood there in the chilly dawn air. Oh, she had. And she could not regret it; if it were true, and she was to die in the effort to hold Hawk Glade, then she would die having known the possibilities between a man and woman. If she survived, it would no doubt become a bittersweet torment, but to die without knowing would surely be worse.
She dressed hurriedly, then gathered up her few things and bundled them carefully in her small pack, making certain she had the small diagram he had drawn out on a piece of hide after she had assured him they had craftsmen whose talent could be turned to the making of crossbows. She added a small parcel of dried meat she had prepared for this day. Kane slept on.
She set the small hand bow atop her pack, images flashing through her mind from the two days they had spent in the process of making it, choosing the perfect hew for the flexible bow, the gut for the bowstring, and discarding her first three attempts as Kane—with a patience that had surprised her—had guided her through the curving and recurving of the slender span of wood. And still he slept.
She added the quiver full of arrows they had made the next day, chanting silently Kane’s lessons on length, feathering, and balance, knowing she would have to teach it in turn.
And then came the crossbow, the small one built for her alone, the weapon that had its own deadly beauty. And then the bolts.
At last she was ready. She looked back at the bed of furs over soft branches where he had taught her as much as he ever had outside this cave. Still he lay quietly, lost in the slumber that had evaded her most of the night.
She couldn’t help herself. She walked over and knelt beside him.
“Thank you,” she whispered
She bent and kissed him, pressing her lips to the scar on his cheek. He never stirred.
Fighting the sudden wetness in her eyes, she backed away from him. She grabbed up her things and ran from the cave, thankful to escape before he woke and saw her tears. And a bit surprised; Kane was not normally such a heavy sleeper, and it was unusual that he had not heard her moving about in the cave, especially when she had added a log to the dying fire so that it would be warmer when at last he did awaken.
Perhaps he truly was that glad to have her gone, she thought, biting her lip. So glad that just the thought of it brought peace to his sleep.
She glanced back over her shoulder, but saw nothing but the cloth that blocked the cave’s entrance and the faint wisp of smoke that rose from the natural flue. Her steps faltered for a moment, then she made herself turn back to the narrow trail and continue on. She moved quickly, as if putting more distance between them would lessen the pull. She did not slow until she was well away, and the trees were closing in around her. Then she paused for breath, wondering just how far she had come in her emotion-driven haste.
This was not a place to be stumbling around blindly, she chided herself. Had she so quickly forgotten the difficulty of the journey here, that she went crashing along so heedlessly? She had a very long way to go, she should—
“There’s an easier path, you know.”
Her breath caught and her gaze shot upward to the source of the sound. She’d recognized the voice in the instant before she found him, perched with one foot drawn up to rest on the strong limb that overhung the barely discernible path, his other foot swinging free. The black bird was beside him on the branch, looking at her steadily, much as her master did.
Tal.
He dropped down beside her as lightly as if the distance were two feet instead of ten. Jenna looked at him, puzzled. In the shadowy light, the resemblance to the storyteller was even more pronounced. It gave an oddly silver cast to all of his hair, not just the streaks of gray at his temples. And it made his eyes look the same misty green as the storyteller’s when he was deep in concentration. At least, she thought it was the light. . . .
“Are you not . . . grayer?” she asked at last.
Tal groaned. “Again?” he muttered. Then he lifted both hands, pulling his hair back from his face in a weary gesture. “No,” he said. “ ’Tis just this light.”
He lifted his hands and his hair fell back. He tilted his head, and she saw that he was right; he looked as he had before. At least his hair did; his eyes still reminded her uncannily of the silver-haired man she prayed she would find still alive. But it was only a resemblance, nothing more, she saw now.
“So,” Tal said rather quickly, as if to forestall any further comments on his appearance, “you are leaving.”
She nodded. “It . . . is time.”
“And Kane?”
She wasn’t sure what exactly he was asking, so she took his question literally.
“He is sleeping still.”
Tal lifted a brow and glanced at the sky to the east, where the sun was beginning to streak the dawn sky with pink; early as it was, it was long past Kane’s usual rising time.
“Is he?” he observed mildly.
“I think perhaps he is so glad to be rid of me he sleeps like a babe.” The words were out before she could halt them, and she was glad they sounded merely wry rather than wounded. What was it about this man that made her blurt out such things?
“Kane has never slept like a babe since he was one,” Tal said. He gave her a speculative look. “And his life spent as a warrior is hardly training to sleep so heavily he would not hear you leave.”
Nor feel you kiss him, Jenna thought, feeling the blush that rose to her cheeks.
“I . . . thought that myself.”
Tal shrugged and said nothing, leaving her to draw the obvious conclusion. Kane had been awake. But he had chosen to feign sleep. Why?
“He is a brave man,” Tal said idly, as if apropos of nothing, “but he is in new and unfamiliar territory.”
Jenna did not have the slightest idea what he meant, so instead of commenting she said, “He said you told him if he left these mountains he would die.”
Tal blinked. “Did he?”
Her mouth quirked wryly. As charming and handsome and delightful as Tal was, he had some annoying habits. “The question is, did you?”
He laughed. “Ah, Jenna, you have grown even more intrepid.”
He had little to compare her to, so she ignored the praising effort to avoid answering.
“Did you?”
“And persistent, I see.” His mouth twisted up at one corner. “I warned him of what would happen if he left these mountains, yes. But why did he tell you of this?”
“He was . . . explaining why he could not go back with me.”
A smile of satisfaction crossed Tal’s face. “Was he, now? That is good news.”
Jenna stared at him. “Only you, Talysn ap . . .”
“Bendigeidfran,” he supplied, grinning.
“Only you,” she said, ignoring him, “could find good news in any of this.”
“Oh, I shall find much more than good news before this is through, child.”
“Child?” she looked him up and down. “You’re hardly that much older than I.”
He rolled his eyes upward for a moment. “If only you knew. And I’m aging by the day.”
“Are not we all?”
“Quite true,” Tal agreed with a laugh. He gestured down the mountain. “You would prefer to take the easier trail, would you not?�
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“I did not think there was such a thing on this mountain,” she said wryly. “Certainly Kane never showed me one.”
“Of course,” Tal said. “He would not want to make it too easy for you. I, on the other hand, have no desire to weary such a fragile creature.”
She gave him a sideways look. The sparkle in his eyes and the twitching at the corners of his mouth were irresistible, and she burst out laughing.
“A man would give much to see you laugh, Jenna of the Hawk clan.”
But not Kane. Never Kane, she thought sadly. “Where is this easy path of yours?” she asked quickly, before Tal could guess at the pang she felt.
“This way,” he said, looking at her as if he had indeed sensed her pain.
She followed him without question, not even wondering why. Nor did she wonder any longer why Kane, who professed to believe nothing of sorcerers or prophecy, had believed Tal when he’d warned him not to leave the mountain. There was something about the man that made you believe. You simply could not look into those eyes and suspect falsehood. Although she guessed he withheld more than he told, she could not doubt that what he told was truth.
And as they started down the wide, clear trail that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed before, she remembered what else Tal had told her, that promise he had made that her line would descend down into history. And for a moment she felt as Kane must, believing yet not believing, caught between the doubt of such things and the power of the man they had come from. And somehow the fact that he had not promised her a miracle, that he had not told her that the remaining Hawk clan would survive, only her own blood, made her both more able to believe, and more reluctant to do so.
Whoever Talysn ap Bendigeidfran was, wizard or no, she doubted he was a man to take lightly.
Yet he seemed like nothing more than an amiable companion as they walked, telling her things of the forest even Kane had not known. He knew each tree, each bush, and what purpose it could be put to. And he knew each creature they encountered, and Jenna did not miss the way the animals showed no fear of him.
“How long have you lived here in this forest?” she asked after he’d tossed some remnant of food he had to a curious jay.
“Several lifetimes,” he said lightly.
Jenna studied him for a moment. “Were it anyone else, I would say that was a jest.”
“I knew you were a clever girl.”
“Do you find it productive, to answer without ever answering?” Jenna asked mildly.
“Often,” Tal said with a laugh. Jenna smiled, as it seemed impossible not to, but for the first time in their brief acquaintance, she had the feeling there was something dark and haunted behind the easy facade. Questions rose to her lips, but she held them back; she barely knew the man, after all. And for the first time she truly understood Kane’s reluctance; she was not at all sure what she would do were Tal to confess to a sorcerer’s talents. And if she, who had grown up on tales of the magic of Hawk Glade, could react that way, it must be much more difficult for Kane to deal with such ideas.
When they reached the bottom of the mountain, the journey that had taken her four days in reverse, before the sun had begun to drop toward dusk, she looked at him warily.
“I told you ’twas an easier path.”
“Yes, you did.” She said no more, just looked at him.
“You will be careful, Jenna? You still have far to go.”
“I will.”
“I cannot accompany you the rest of the way,” he said. “I must see to Kane.”
“An odd way to put it.”
“He is always at his worst when he is battling himself.”
She could hardly argue with that.
“When I first found him,” Tal said softly, “I feared he might seek a permanent end to his pain.”
“She could not argue with that, either. “I . . . sensed his despair. Sometimes it seems consuming.”
“It almost was.”
Jenna opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. She did not wish to discuss Kane, not anymore. Not even with Tal. She had to put him out of her mind, or she would never accomplish what she had to do.
“I thank you for coming this far.”
For a long moment Tal just looked at her, and she had that odd feeling she’d had with him before, that he was somehow seeing clear through to her soul. “I knew a woman with a spirit such as yours once,” he said softly.
Pain, a living, twisting thing swirled in his eyes, and in that instant she saw him as clearly as he saw her. “You loved her,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
“I loved her,” he agreed. “But I could not save her.”
The twisting pain she’d seen echoed in his voice. But then it was gone, and in its place something golden glinted in his eyes. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was a warm, gentle gesture, the kiss of a friend, without the heat of Kane’s kiss, but with much more of simple comfort. So much so that she did not draw back in surprise despite the unexpectedness of it.
“Go with care, Jenna,” he said quietly.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“And do not mind Maud. She is feeling a bit . . . restless of late. She may follow you for a while.”
Jenna glanced at the bird, who looked far from restless as she sat in the morning sun, preening unconcernedly.
“Is there anything you wish me to tell Kane?”
She looked back at him. She thought, but there was nothing to say in the face of Kane’s coldness. If this was his way of saying good-bye, of making the break cleanly, then so be it.
“No,” she said. “Only . . . thank you.”
He nodded, turned to head back up the mountain, then glanced back at her.
“There is but a spark left in him, Jenna. You have found it. Don’t let it go out.”
He vanished as quickly and quietly as he had appeared. Only the whistle he gave, that up-and-down tremolo she’d heard before, lingered, echoing. The raven cocked her head, then turned her steady gaze back to Jenna.
“Is he sending you after me, then?”
The bird said nothing, merely waited.
“I suppose you won’t tell me if he is truly a wizard.”
Still nothing. Jenna sighed, then turned and started on her way. She should be anxious to get home, anxious to do what she could to save what was left of her clan.
But all she could think about were Tal’s last words.
There is but a spark left in him, Jenna. You have found it. Don’t let it go out.
Chapter 14
“WE MADE A bargain, Jenna and I.”
“Yes.”
“It is fulfilled. Over.”
“Yes.”
“There is nothing more to discuss.”
“Did I say that there was?”
Kane glared at Tal’s innocent expression, nearly snarled at the bland neutrality of his tone. Tal ignored his glower and gave a tug on his fishing line as if he thought he might have missed some shy little trout testing his bait. He seemed intent on his fishing—an odd method utilizing a thin line of some material Kane had never seen before he’d met the man—but Kane did not miss the sideways glances that were frequently cast in his direction.
“No,” Kane ground out as he paced beside the rock where Tal was perched, “you merely sit there watching me, as you have for a week, like some predator awaiting a betrayal of weakness so he can attack, like a panther waiting to rip my throat out.”
Tal grimaced eloquently. “Must you always use such gruesome analogies?”
“ ’Tis what I know.”
Tal sighed. “I thought perhaps Jenna had taught you some gentler ways.”
Kane went still. “It was I who was her teacher, remember?”
“Yes,” Tal said, his voice blandly innocent again. “And ’twas only the arts of war you taught her, nothing of gentler things, I’m sure.”
Kane felt the threat of heat rising to his cheeks as he thought of the other things he had taught Jenna. In a way it was true; there had been little enough gentleness in it, because there was little of it in him Their passion had been a fierce, hungry thing. And its absence had left him starving.
“And I’m sure she taught you nothing in turn,” Tal said in that same irritating tone of utter insouciance as he moved his line to a deeper, calmer spot in the stream. “What could anyone teach Kane the Warrior?”
Memories of all that Jenna had taught him, not just in the darkness when she had shown him the true appeal of being wanted in return, but in the sheer crackling power of her presence, the blazing undeniability of her courage and heart, flooded Kane, and put an edge in his voice that was arrow sharp.
“And what do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.”
“You never mean nothing,” Kane said shortly.
“All right. I mean then that I continue to wonder why you work so hard to fight the very transformation you came here to achieve?”
Kane frowned. “I do not understand what you mean.”
“I know. You do not even realize you are doing it; it is so ingrained in your nature. ’Tis you who have always said you don’t have a gentle side, my friend. Perhaps I’ve finally come to believe it’s true. At least not one you’ll own to.”
“There is nothing to own to, and I’ll thank you to keep your conjecture to yourself. She agreed to my terms, there was no misunderstanding involved.”
Tal shrugged. “I offered no opinion on your bargain. I’m sure Jenna knew what she was doing. She is a very intelligent woman.”
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