by Nora Roberts
“What, like an Ariel thing?”
Puzzled, she frowned. “Ariel is . . . of the air?”
“Maybe. It’s a character—a mermaid in a story.”
“Oh! I don’t know the story of Ariel. Will you tell me?”
“I’ll do better. I’ll show you. We’ll see if there’s a way to get the DVD or stream it—it’s a movie. A Disney movie. Anyway, she had to wait for the prince to kiss her in the story.”
“You’re a King. Sawyer King.” Laughing, she lifted her head, kissed him again. Her tail swirled back and forth. Then her legs kicked before they both stood in thigh-high water.
“Will you kiss me when I have legs? I can ask now.”
Amused, allured, he cupped her face again, kissed her.
“We’ve got to get back—and you need that dress. Small chance of the polizia coming along, but we could get arrested.”
“For kissing?”
“For public nudity.”
“There are strange laws and rules here.”
But she waded back to the rock, slipped the dress over her head. He grabbed his jeans, his shirt, tugged the jeans over the wet boxers.
Instead of taking her hand, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Ready?”
She circled his waist with hers. “Yes.”
When they stood in front of the villa again, still entwined, she hugged harder.
“It’s different to travel when you hold me. Everything is different when you hold me. If you came to my room, we could lie together and you could hold me.”
He asked any god listening for strength. “Long, hard day tomorrow. You need to go up, get some sleep.”
“It’s hard to do what needs, but you need sleep, too.”
“Yeah. You go on in. I’ll be in, in a minute.”
To please them both, he kissed her, then again, and once more until her eyes were dreamy when she turned to go.
“Good night.”
“Night,” he said as the door closed behind her, then sat on the step until he could settle down.
An instant later he was on his feet, the knife out of the sheath on his belt and in his hand.
Doyle stepped out of the shadows. “Stand down, soldier. Just taking a last pass before turning in.”
As Sawyer slid the knife home again, Doyle sauntered forward. “Hell of an offer you just turned down. I don’t know whether to admire or pity your willpower.”
“Neither do I.”
“I’d tell you to try a cold shower, but you’re already dripping. Taking a chance shifting down to the sea. Then again,” Doyle added when Sawyer remained silent, “even admirable or pitiable willpower only goes so far.”
“I think I liked you better when you didn’t say much of anything.”
“Can’t blame you.” As he passed to go inside, Doyle gave Sawyer a friendly punch on the arm.
For himself, Sawyer decided to stay outside, and drip, a few minutes longer.
At least he didn’t have breakfast duty, and considering the hike ahead of them, no calisthenics at dawn. He made up an hour of the sleep he’d lost in the night trying not to dream of a naked Annika.
He figured coffee would do the rest.
In the kitchen, Bran cooked his one and only breakfast specialty—a full fry. Since Sawyer had no complaints, he grunted a greeting, grabbed a mug for coffee.
“Ready here in ten minutes,” Bran told him. “Doyle wants to be off as soon as we’ve cleaned our plates.”
“I’m ready.” Literally, as he’d spent some of the restless night ordering his pack. “Need help here?”
“Under control.”
“Then I’m taking this outside.”
He stepped out, and there was Annika, dressed for the day in cargo pants and boots and a tie-dyed tee she’d wanted because she’d thought it looked like rainbows. She sang under her breath as she created one of her tablescapes. A pyramid of juice glasses had chains of little flowers and clover spilling out of them and into a pool at the base.
At the base stood what he thought were figures she’d fashioned out of toothpicks, leaves, more clover.
As he started over, she looked up.
“Good morning!” She ran to him, jumped into his arms. The kiss managed to be as bright as a May morning and dark as midnight.
“Wow.” Riley came out with her own coffee. “What did I miss?”
“Sawyer kissed me.”
“Yeah, got that. Congrats. Slow and steady wins the race, huh, cutie?” she said to Sawyer.
He wasn’t feeling slow or steady at the moment, so just sat down. Natural, he decided. Everybody should just act natural.
“Flowerfall?”
“Yes! And we’re all having a holiday. See, the mirror it sits on is the Island of Glass, and we can have one perfect day after we find the stars, take them back.”
“I could do with a perfect day,” Riley decided.
“It will be. I wanted to make a garden, but we don’t have time.”
“A flowerfall’s its own garden.”
Pleased with Sawyer’s comment, Annika lifted her face to the sun. “Maybe this will be a perfect day.”
If perfect days included hard, sweaty climbs, this one qualified.
“The Phoenician Steps.”
As Sasha stared up, and up, Riley grinned. “Named so because they once thought the Phoenicians built them. Now we know they’re courtesy of the ancient Greeks. And,” she continued as they started the climb, “were once the only way to access Anacapri. Remember, when you start to huff and puff, when your quads start to whimper, the women who used to have to go up and down them, nearly a thousand steps each way, to get water, carried that filled jug on their head all the way up again.”
“Did you say a thousand?” Sasha demanded.
“Nine hundred and twenty-one, to be exact.”
“There are times I wish you didn’t know so damn much.”
“But it’s pretty.” Looking everywhere, Annika practically danced her way up. “All the flowers and the green.”
“And easier going up than coming down. Steep, uneven,” Riley qualified.
“We nearly lost two men in a rock fall the last time I climbed these steps,” Doyle remembered.
“That’s what the nets are for now.”
Up they went, past houses and fields of wildflowers and yellow broom. Up beyond chestnut trees and a tiny vineyard with grapes still young and green.
When they reached the top, Riley checked her watch. “Thirty-six minutes. Solid.”
“There won’t be stairs for the rest.” So saying Doyle continued on, and Riley rolled her eyes behind his back.
The sun beat down, relentless, and at times even the excuse for a track Doyle chose gave way to huddles of rock. Annika clambered over and around them, as hardy, it seemed, as the tiny wildflowers that pushed their way through crevices to find the sun.
Birds winged overhead, and now and then one might dart by, in absolute silence. The occasional lizard baked itself or scrambled into its own crevice as boot struck rock.
Sawyer gave a passing thought to snakes, of which he was distinctly unfond.
When Annika let out a gasp, he gave snakes a more direct thought. One hand grabbed hers, the other his gun.
“What is it?”
She pointed toward a tall stand of rocks and the scrub that clung to it. Sawyer’s hand relaxed on his gun. “A goat. A mountain goat.”
“A goat.” She stared up at the goat as the goat stared down at her. “It doesn’t look like the cheese. We ate the cheese. The goat cheese.”
“Right. They make the cheese from milk. Goat’s milk. They milk the goat.” He began to see the hole he was currently sliding into. “Ask Riley. She’s the smart one. She’ll explain it.”
“All right.” Annika scrambled up ahead, nimble as the damn mountain goat, to ask Riley.
“One way to avoid explaining teats.” Bran hauled himself up, reached back, helped haul up Sasha.
“In this
case, I didn’t know where to begin.”
“I could begin by stopping for ten minutes.” Sasha swiped her forehead, pointed. “There’s some stingy shade over there. God knows when we might get another chance.”
“There’s a thought. Doyle!” After the call, Bran signaled the group ahead. “Ten-minute break, in this bit of shade. I swear the man could march from here to Naples if there was a bridge.”
They sat on the ground, on rock, angled into the shade from a shrub arching out of rock. Overhead, the goat let out a derisive call.
“Easy for him to say,” Sasha muttered, and sipped from her water bottle. “I suppose the three spots you’ve marked for the bombs aren’t enough.”
“It’s a fine start.” Bran patted her knee.
“Hell of a view.”
Sasha might have scowled at Riley, but she looked back down, and could only sigh. “Yes, it’s a hell of a view, and I’d love to paint it sometime. But I swear I thought we’d climbed as high as Mount Vesuvius by now, and it’s still a good half mile to the cave Doyle’s aiming for.”
“What cave?” Doyle demanded.
“The one you remember from when you soldiered here. The one we’re heading to.”
“I never said anything about that cave.”
She looked back into his cool, steady gaze. “But . . . No, you didn’t. You didn’t say anything. But that’s where you’re leading us.”
“Reading minds now?”
“No. No. I just—” She shook her head, rose. “Give me a minute.” She got up, walked out on the goat track, stared northwest. “I can see it. I don’t know if what I see is your memory of it or something to come. I don’t know if she’ll use it, but she’s not there, not now. Bats, spiders, dung in the cool and dry. But she’s not there.”
She re-angled herself, southwest. “Inside the great mountain she’ll make her palace. Those who climb on it, bask in its views, drink and dine around it are but ants to her. Less than nothing. She’ll be there, soon enough. But it isn’t the time, it isn’t the place to strike the final blow. Her weapon’s forged, but ours isn’t. We won’t end her here, but lives will end.”
Suddenly, she clutched her head in her hand.
“She feels me. Bran.”
He rushed to her, laid his hands on her head. “Block her out. You know what to do.”
“She claws at my mind. She’s so strong.”
“So are you, fáidh. Look at me, look here.”
Her eyes, full of pain, lifted to his.
“Stronger together. Pull from me.”
She nodded, drew from him, shuddered once, then just dropped her head on his shoulder. “She came in so fast. I wasn’t prepared.”
“But you blocked her, and quickly. You get better, stronger every day.” He took her back to the shade, then skimmed his hands over her water bottle to cool it. “She’ll have the time she needs to rest.”
“Just until my head clears all the way.”
“You should have water.” Annika nudged Sasha’s water bottle back on her. “Bran made it cool to drink. And this—this is the energy bar. But they don’t taste so nice.”
“No, they really don’t, but I can use the boost.”
“You were talking about Monte Solaro,” Riley said.
“If you say so.”
“That direction, great mountain. In Anacapri.”
“We’re on the Anacapri side of the island now,” Doyle told her. “But we’re one hell of a hike from Solaro.”
“Malmon won’t base there, or base any of his troops.” Clearer now, Sasha drew in a breath. “It’s for her. She’ll deck it out, probably bring Malmon there, but your cave, I think. He may use that. I might see more when we get there.”
“I can get us there.” Sawyer rubbed her knee. “It’s been a hard climb already.”
“I’m okay, really. I think I was having such a hard time because this was building up, and she was . . . scratching at me and I didn’t know what it was. I’ll make it fine.”
“If you change your mind, I’ll get you there.”
To prove she could handle it, Sasha got to her feet. “About half a mile, right?”
“About,” Doyle agreed. “You’ll make it, Blondie, or it’s double the squats tomorrow morning.”
“Hell with that.” Swinging her pack back on, she headed up the rocky track.
Annika dashed forward to walk with her. “We’re mountain goats.”
“You move like one. Nimbly.”
“I was given very good legs. You were born with yours, and they’re also very good.”
“They have muscles I didn’t know legs could have—which is something. But right now every one of them is crying, and that’s something else.”
“We should sing.”
“Sing?”
“To take your mind away from the crying muscles. I heard this from a boat when I was a little girl, and it’s fun to sing. ‘Buddy, you’re a boy make a big noise—’”
“Queen?” Sasha said with a quick laugh.
“What queen?”
“No, Queen’s the band who sang it. The name of the band.”
“But the voices I heard were men, not queens.”
“Hard to explain. Anyway, good, classic rock choice, but I don’t know all the words.”
“I do.” As Riley sang the next line, Annika laughed, joined in.
“Freddie Mercury would be proud,” Sawyer decided when they hit the chorus—words Sasha knew, and all three rocked it out.
“The sea queen had a good point. There’s a reason soldiers sing or chant on a long march.” Doyle glanced back at Bran. “She’ll make it.”
“Oh, I never doubted it.” Pride and love simply swarmed through him. “Her strength of will would carry her even when her legs tire. She’s more courage than the lot of us as she came into this with more fear and less knowledge.”
“She’s more knowledge now, because if my memory serves, she’s headed straight for the cave I’ve chosen.”
“You’ll let her keep point then, and see if she leads us to it.”
“I don’t mind bringing up the rear,” Sawyer put in. “Singing’s not the only way to distract the mind on a march.”
“It’s a fact they’re not hard on a man’s eyes on the walking away.”
“Hard to comment,” Doyle decided. “I make one on the blonde’s ass, I risk a jolt from the sorcerer. Make one on the sea nymph’s, the traveler may take a swing at me.”
“There’s one more besides,” Bran pointed out.
“The she-wolf?” Doyle shrugged. “Not bad.”
“We should sing another!” Annika swung up on a pile of rock—yes, as nimble as that mountain goat.
“Do you know another one?” Maybe she had to catch her breath, but Sasha was game.
“Oh, yes. I love listening to music from the boats or from the places on the shore. I know this one, but I don’t understand most of the words.”
She shut her eyes, ticked her hands in the air a moment as if reaching for the beat. Then to the astonishment of everyone on the hillside, lifted her voice into a soaring aria.
“Tvoyu mat,” Sawyer said, reverently. “She’s . . . Is that opera?”
“It certainly sounds like opera. And beautifully rendered,” Bran added, as with her voice still winging through the air, Annika jumped down to continue the climb.
“La Traviata. She’s gone from Queen to Verdi.”
“You know opera?”
Doyle shrugged off Sawyer’s surprise as the men moved forward. “Live a few centuries, you know a lot of things. Just as I know a siren’s voice when I hear it. Mind yourself, brother, or she’ll have you wrapped up like a trout.”
“Already wrapped, I’d say.” Bran gave Sawyer’s shoulder a slap.
When the last note echoed off, and her companions applauded, Annika took a laughing bow.
“First, wow, major kudos on the pipes. Where’d you learn that?” Riley wondered.
“There is a bi
g theater by the sea, far from here. For three nights they told this story with songs. It’s not happy because the woman who sang that song dies.”
“That’s opera for you,” Riley told her.
“But the songs and voices? So beautiful, so I went to listen every night they sang. I can teach you the song.”
“You couldn’t teach me to sing like that if we had a couple decades.”
“And we don’t.” Sasha stopped. “It’s there. The cave, it’s there.”
The mouth opened, tall and narrow, in the rock. Spindly brush clung to the top, drooping down like a sagging awning. And over that a black snake slithered.
“Wall lizard,” Riley said.
“That’s no damn lizard.” Sawyer’s fingers itched for the gun tucked at his back under his shirt.
“Just a whip snake—not poisonous.” Smirking, Riley took out her water bottle. “But they do like to bite.”
She took a quick swig, replaced her bottle, started forward toward the cave. Muttering about snakes, Sawyer stepped behind her.
“Wait! Stop!”
Leaping after him, Sasha grabbed his hand. Nearly at the mouth, Doyle and Riley turned.
“Don’t go in. Don’t . . .” Her eyes went darker, deeper. “Don’t go in. Don’t go near.” She turned to Sawyer. “Pain, fear, the shadows of death. Blood and rage. Water and traps. I don’t know. I can’t see clearly. You. Annika.”
“Annika?”
“It’s not safe for you. For either of you. Don’t go in. Stay away, Anni.”
“I’m here. Don’t worry.” Her voice pitched to soothe, Annika took Sasha’s