A Little Fate (5 page)

“You would leave me with so many choices?” He gestured toward the women in the banquet hall as Aurora moved away.

“So you will see them . . . but think of me.” She left him with a laugh, then turned to a mumbled oath when she was certain she was out of earshot.

“Empty-headed, fat-fingered
toad
! He's a man who thinks first with the lance between his legs. Well, there is little warrior in him. I've learned that much at least. Cyra, I need you to talk with the other women, find out all you can about the queen and her daughters. What are they in this puzzle?”

She cut herself off as they walked past guards and began to talk brightly of the feasting and dancing until she was back in her chambers.

“Rhiann.” She let out a huge sigh. “Help me out of this gown. How do women of court bear the weight every day? I need the black tunic.”

“You're going out again?”

“Yes. I felt eyes on me when I was at banquet. Eyes from above. Gwayne said there was a spy hole next to the minstrel's gallery. I want a look. Would Lorcan station guards there during a feast? He seems too sure of himself to bother.”

No, it had not been guards watching her, Aurora knew. It had been the grass-green eyes of her wolf. She needed to learn why he'd been there.

“And I need to see how the castle is protected during the night.” She pulled on her tunic. “I have enough magic to go unnoticed if need be. Did you learn anything of use?” she asked as she strapped on her sword.

“I learned that Owen went back and beat the stable hand after all.”

Aurora's mouth tightened. “I'm sorry for it.”

“And that the stable hand is Thane, son of Brynn, whom Lorcan took as queen.”

Aurora's hands paused in the act of braiding her hair, and her eyes met Rhiann's in the glass. “Brynn's son is cast to the stables? And remains there? His father was a warrior who died in battle beside mine. His mother was my own mother's handmaid. Yet their son grovels at Owen's feet and grooms horses.”

“He was not yet four when Lorcan took the throne. Only a child.”

“He is not a child today.” She swirled on her cloak, drew up the hood. “Stay inside,” she ordered.

She slipped out of the chamber, moved silently down the corridors toward the stairs. She drew on her magic to bring smoke into the air, blunt the guards' senses as she hurried by them.

She dashed up to the minstrel's gallery and found the mechanism Gwayne had described for her to open the secret room beside it. Once inside, she approached the spy hole and looked down at the hall.

It was nearly empty now, and servants were beginning to clear the remnants of the feast. The queen had retired, and all but the boldest ladies had followed suit. The laughter had taken on a raucous edge. She saw one of the courtiers slide his hand under the bodice of a woman's gown and fondle her breast.

She hadn't been sheltered from the ways of men and women. The Travelers could be earthy, but there was always a respect and good nature. This, she thought, had neither.

She turned away from it, and focused instead on the essence of what had been in the room before her.

One that was human, she thought, and one that was not. Man and faerie-folk. But what had been their purpose?

To find out, she followed the trail of that essence from the room and out of the castle. Into the night.

There were guards posted on walls, at the gates, but to Aurora's eyes they looked sleepy and dull. Even two hundred good men, she calculated, could take the castle if it was done swiftly and with help from inside. As she worked her way along the wall, she heard the snores of a guard sleeping on duty.

Lorcan, she thought, took much for granted.

She looked toward the south gate. It was there that Gwayne had fled with the queen on the night of the battle. Many brave men had lost their lives so that her mother could escape, so that she could be born.

She would not forget it. And she would take nothing for granted.

Her senses drew her toward the stables. She smelled the horses, heard them shifting in their stalls as she approached. Though she scented man as well—sweat and blood—she knew she wouldn't find him there.

She stopped to stroke her horse's nose, to inspect the stall, and others. Whatever Thane was, he did his job here well. And lived poorly, she noted as she studied the tiny room that held his bedding, the stub of a candle, and a trunk of rough clothes.

Following the diagram in her mind, she searched the floor for the trapdoor that led to the tunnels below the
stables. One channel ran to the sea, she remembered, the other to the forest.

It would be a good route to bring in her soldiers, to have them take the castle from the inside. If Lorcan hadn't found it and destroyed it.

But when she opened the door, she felt the air stir. Taking the candle stub, she lit the wick and let its wavery light guide her down the rough steps.

She could hear the roar of the sea, and though she was tempted to take that channel, just to stand by the water, to breathe it in, she turned toward the second path.

She would have Gwayne bring the men through the forest, split into companies. Some to take the walls, others to take the tunnels. Attack the walls first, she calculated, drawing Lorcan's forces there while the second wave came in from under—and behind.

Before he could turn and brace for the second assault, they would run him over. And it would be done.

She prayed that it could be done, and that she would not be sending good men to their deaths for nothing.

She moved slowly through the dark. The low ceiling made it impossible to stand upright, and she could imagine the strain of a man making the same trek in full armor.

And it would be done not after a night of feasting and dancing but after a hard march from the hills, through the forest, with the knowledge that death could wait at the end of the journey.

She was asking this of her people, and asking that they trust the fates that she would be worthy of their sacrifice. That she would be a worthy queen.

She stopped, bracing her back against the wall of stone and dirt as her heart ached. She would wish with every ounce of her blood that it was not so. That she was only an ordinary woman and could leap onto her horse and ride with the Travelers again, as she had always done. She would wish that she could hunt and laugh, love a man and bear his children. Live a life that she understood.

But to wish it was to wish against the fates, to diminish the sacrifices her parents had made, and to turn her back on
those who prayed for the True One to come and bring them back into light.

So she lifted her candle again and headed down the tunnel to plot out her strategy.

When she heard the clash of steel, she drew her own sword. Snuffing out the candle, she set it down and moved soft as a cat toward the narrow opening.

She could see them battling in the moonlight, the young man and the old. And neither noticed as she boosted herself out of the tunnel and crouched on the floor of the forest.

H
ERE
was her wolf, and she thrilled to see him.

He fought with an icy focus and relentless strength that Aurora admired and respected—and envied. The skill, yes, the skill of a warrior was there, but it was enhanced by that cold-blooded, cold-eyed style that told her he would accept death or mete it out with equal dispatch.

The faerie was old, it was true, but a faerie nonetheless. Such creatures were not vanquished easily.

She could see the sweat of effort gleaming on Thane's face, and how it dampened his shirt. And she saw the blood that seeped onto the cloth from the wounds on his back, still fresh from a lashing.

How could a man wield a sword with such great talent and allow himself to be flogged?

And why had he watched the feasting through the spy hole? It was his gaze she had sensed on her. And his essence she had sensed there. His, and that of the old graybeard he battled now.

Even as she puzzled it over, two columns of smoke spiraled on either side of Thane. And became armed warriors.
He blocked the sword of the one on his right and spun away from the sword of the one on his left as it whizzed through the air.

Raising her own, Aurora leapt. She cleaved her blade through one of the warriors and vanished it back to smoke. “Foul play, old one.” She pivoted, and would have struck Kern down if Thane hadn't crossed swords with her.

“At your back,” she snapped out, but the warrior was smoke again with a wave of Kern's hand.

“Lady,” the faerie said with an undeniable chuckle, “you mistake us. I only help my young friend with his training.” To prove it, Kern lowered his sword and bowed.

“Why am I dreaming?” Thane demanded. He was out of breath as he hadn't been during the bout, and the surging of his blood had nothing to do with swordplay. “What test is this?”

“You are not dreaming,” Kern assured him.

“She's not real. I've seen her now, in flesh. And this is the vision, not the woman.” Love, lust, longing knotted inside him so that he fought to ice his words with annoyance. “And neither holds interest for me any longer.”

“I'm as real as you,” Aurora tossed back, then sheathing her sword, she twisted her lips into a sneer. “You fight well. For a groveling stableboy. And your sword would be all that interests me, if I believed you'd gather the courage and wit to use it on something more than smoke.”

“So, no vision, then, but the simpering, swooning female.” He lifted the cape she'd tossed aside when she leapt to his defense. With a mocking bow, he held it out. “Go back to your feather bed, else you catch a chill.”

“I'm chilled enough from you.” She knocked his hand aside and turned on Kern. “Why haven't you treated his wounds?”

“He doesn't wish it.”

“Ah, he's stupid, then.” She inclined her head toward Thane again. “Whether you are stupid or not, I regret you were beaten on my account.”

“It's nothing to do with you.” Because the beating still
shamed him, he rammed his sword back into its sheath. “It's not safe for a woman alone beyond the walls. Kern will show you the way back.”

“I found my way out, I can find my way back. I'm not some helpless female,” she said impatiently. “You of all men should know—”

“I do not know you,” Thane said dully.

She absorbed the blow to her heart. They stood in the dappled moonlight, with only the call of an owl and the rushing of a stream over rocks to break the silence between them.

Even knowing the risk of mediation, Kern stepped up, laying a hand on Thane's shoulder, the other on Aurora's. “Children,” he began brightly.

“We're not children any longer. Are we, lady? Not children splashing in rivers, running through the forest.” It scored his heart to remember it, to remember the joy and pleasure, the simple comfort of those times with her. To know they were ended forever. “Not children taking innocent pleasure in each other's company.”

She shook her head, and thought how she had lain with him, in love, in visions. Him and no other. “I wonder,” she said after a moment, “why we need to hurt each other this way. Why we strike out where we once—where we always reached out. And I fear you're right. You don't know me, nor I you. But I know you're the son of a warrior, you have noble blood. Why do you sleep in the stables?”

“Why do you smile at Lorcan, dance with Owen, then wander the night with a sword?”

She only smiled. “It's not safe for a woman alone beyond the walls.” There was, for just an instant, a glint of humor in his eyes. “You watched me dance.”

He cursed himself for speaking of it. Now she knew of the spy hole as well as the tunnels. And one word to Owen . . . “If you wish to make amends for the beating, you won't speak of seeing me here.”

“I have no reason to speak of you at all,” she said coolly. “I was told faeries no longer bided near the city.”

At her comment Kern shrugged. “We bide where we will,
lady, even under Lorcan's reign. Here is my place, and he is my charge.”

“I am no one's charge. Are you a witch?” Thane demanded.

“A witch is one of what I am.” He looked so angry and frustrated. How she longed to stroke her finger over the lightning-bolt scar above his eye. “Do you fear witchcraft, Thane of the stables?”

Those eyes fired at the insult, as she'd hoped. “I don't fear you.”

“Why should an armed man and his faerie guard fear a lone witch?”

“Leave us,” Thane demanded of Kern, and his gaze stayed locked on Aurora's face.

“As you wish.” Kern bowed deeply, then disappeared.

“Why are you here?”

“Prince Owen needs a wife. Why shouldn't it be me?”

He had to choke down a rage, bubbling black, at the thought of it. “Whatever you are, you're not like the others.”

“Why? Because I walk alone at night in the Black Forest, where wild beasts are said to roam?”

“You're not like the others. I know you. I do know you, or what you were once.” He had to curl his hand into a fist to keep from touching her. “I've seen you in my dreams. I've tasted your mouth. I'll taste it again.”

“In your dreams perhaps you will. But I don't give my kisses to cowards who fight only smoke.”

She turned, and was both surprised and aroused when he gripped her arm and dragged her around. “I'll taste it again,” he repeated.

Even as he yanked her close, she had the point of her dagger at his throat. “You're slow.” She all but purred it. “Release me. I don't wish to slit your throat for so small an offense.”

He eased back and, when she lowered the dagger, moved like lightning. He wrested the dagger from her hand, kicked her feet out from under her before she could draw her sword. The force of the fall knocked the wind out of her, and she was pinned under him before she could draw a breath.

“You're rash,” he told her, “to trust an enemy.”

She had to swallow the joy, and the laugh. They'd wrestled like this before, when there had been only love and innocence between them. Here was her man, after all.

“You're right. The likes of you would have no honor.”

With the same cold look in his eyes that she'd seen when he fought, he dragged her arms over her head. She felt the first licks of real fear, but even that she held tight. No groveling stableboy could make her fear. “I will taste you again. I will take something. There has to be something.”

She didn't struggle. He'd wanted her to, wanted her to spit and buck and fight him so he wouldn't have to think. For one blessed moment, not to think but only feel. But she went still as stone when he crushed his lips to hers.

Her taste was the same, the same as he'd imagined, remembered, wished. Hot and strong and sweet. So he couldn't think, after all, but simply sank into the blessed relief of her. And all the aches and misery, the rage and the despair, washed out of him in the flood of her.

She didn't fight him, as she knew she wouldn't win with force. She remained still, knowing that a man wanted response—heat, anger or acquiescence, but not indifference.

She didn't fight him, but she began to fight herself as his mouth stirred her needs, as the weight of his body on hers brought back wisps of memories.

She'd never really been with a man, but only with him in visions, in dreams. She had wanted no man but him, for the whole of her life. But what she'd found wasn't the wolf she'd known, nor the coward she thought she'd found. It was a bitter and haunted man.

Still, her heart thundered, her skin trembled, and beneath his, her mouth opened and offered. She heard him speak, one word, in the oldest tongue of Twylia. The desperation in his voice, the pain and the longing in it made her heart weep.

The word was “Beloved.”

He eased up to look at her. There was a tear on her cheek, and more in her eyes where the moonlight struck them. He closed his own eyes and rolled onto his bloody back.

“I've lived with horses too long, and forget how to be a man.”

She was shaken to the bone from her feelings, from her needs, from the loss. “Yes, you forget to be a man.” As she had forgotten to be a queen. “But we'll blame this on the night, on the strangeness of it.” She got to her feet, walked over to pick up her dagger. “I think perhaps this is some sort of test, for both of us. I've loved you as long as I remember.”

He looked at her, into her, and for one moment that was all there was, the love between them. It shimmered, wide and deep as the Sea of Wonders. But in the next moment the heavy hand of duty took over.

“If things were different . . .” Her vision blurred—not with magicks but with a woman's tears. It was the queen who forced them back, and denied herself the comfort. “But they aren't, and this can't be between us, Thane, for there's more at stake. Yet I have such longing for you, as I have always. Whatever's changed, that never will.”

“We're not what we were in visions, Aurora. Don't seek me in them, for I won't come to you. We live as we live in the world.”

She crouched beside him, brushed the hair from his brow. “Why won't you fight? You have a warrior's skill. You could leave this place, join the rebels and make something of yourself. Why raise a pitchfork in the stables when you can raise a sword against an enemy? I see more in you than what they've made you.”

And want more of you, she thought. So much more of you.

“You speak of treason.” His voice was colorless in the dark.

“I speak of hope, of right. Have you no beliefs in the world, Thane? None of yourself?”

“I do what I'm fated to do. No more, no less.” He moved away from her and sat, staring into the thick shadows. “You should not be here, my lady. Owen would never select a wife bold enough to roam the forest alone, or one who would permit a stable hand to take . . . liberties.”

“And if he selects me, what will you do?”

“Do you taunt me?” He sprang to his feet, and she saw what she'd hoped to see in his face. The strength and the
fury. “Does it amuse you to find that I could pine for one who would offer herself to another like a sweetmeat on a platter?”

“If you were a man, you would take me—then it would be done.” If you would take me, she thought, perhaps things would be different after all.

“Simply said when you have nothing to lose.”

“Is your life so precious you won't risk it to take what belongs to you? To stand for yourself and your world?”

He looked at her, the beauty of her face and the purpose that lit it like a hundred candles glowing from within her. “Yes, life is precious. Precious enough that I would debase myself day after day to preserve it. Your place isn't here. Go back before you're missed.”

“I'll go, but this isn't done.” She reached out, touched his cheek. “You needn't worry. I won't tell Owen or Lorcan about the tunnels or the spy hole. I'll do nothing to take away your small pleasures or to bring you harm. I swear it.”

His face went to stone as he stepped back, and he executed a mocking little bow. “Thank you, my lady, for your indulgence.”

Her head snapped back as if he'd slapped her. “It's all I can give you.” She hurried back to the tunnel and left him alone.

 

S
HE
slept poorly and watched the dawn rise in mists. In that half-light, Aurora took the globe out of its box, held it in the palm of her hand.

“Show me,” she ordered, and waited while the sphere shimmered with colors, with shapes.

She saw the ballroom filled with people, heard the music and the gaiety of a masque. Lorcan slithered among the guests, a serpent in royal robes with his son and heir strutting in his wake. The black wolf prowled among them like a tame dog. Though his eyes were green and fierce, he kept his head lowered and kept to heel. Aurora saw the thick and bloody collar that choked his neck.

She saw Brynn chained to the throne with her daughter bound at her feet, and the ghost of another girl weeping behind a wall of glass.

And through the sounds of lutes and harps she heard the calls and cries of the people shut outside the castle. Pleas for mercy, for food, for salvation.

She was robed in regal red. The sword she raised shot hot white light from its killing point. As she whirled toward Lorcan, bent on vengeance, the world erupted. The battle raged—the clash of steel, the screams of the dying. She heard the hawk cry as an arrow pierced its heart. The dragon folded its black wings and sank into a pool of blood.

Flames sprang up at her feet, ate up her body until she was a pillar of fire.

And while she burned, Lorcan smiled, and the black wolf licked his hand.

Failure and death, she thought as the globe went black as pitch in her hand. Had she come all this way to be told her sword would not stand against Lorcan? Her friends would die, the battle would be lost, and she would be burned as a witch while Lorcan continued to rule—with the man she loved as little more than his cowed pet.