Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (41 page)

He stopped, and above them the Rose coiled again as Soren
realised what it was he meant, why she could help where Aristide could
not. "The baby."

"The boy has approached you twice. That which impels him should have been
overwhelmingly urging him to strike you down for the Rathen you bear. That same child is what affords you
protection."

"How would he know?" Soren, after all, had not. She could scarcely have been pregnant, the
first time. That had been less than half
an hour after Strake had run from her.

Thoughts tumbling over timing, Soren took a slow
breath. How much did the Rose know? Had it known pregnancy would protect
her? Had that been another factor in
whatever reasoning had led it to force her and Strake together? And–

It didn't matter, not right now. The Tzel Aviar was standing here, his steady
gaze saying as clearly as any words that if he knew she was pregnant the boy certainly
did. Child of the Moon, death and life
welded into one. Killer of a previous
Tzel Aviar, a Crown princess, Strake's
Vahse
, too
many others. Did Damaris really expect
Soren to risk her own child to aid someone whose purpose was to cut down her Rathen? Someone who had stood before her, silver eyes
wide, and asked her to stop him?

"What is his name? The boy – did the book say?"

"A name is power, Champion. A foothold for resistance against imposed
will. He was not given one."

The northern lord had treated her children like tools, Soren
thought. Her insides were knotted with
sick confusion, anger leaking into fear and all bound up in uncertainty and an
intense desire to be anywhere but here. "Why did she use people?" she asked, the question a protest. "Why not an animal?"

Damaris had turned his face slightly away from her, although
palace-sight showed her that his expression had not changed. "
Laramae
of
Seldareth
did not record her reasons," he said. "Only her results. Perhaps because the Moon is more responsive
to the People, or because a mind is the greatest weapon a hunter can
own." He looked now towards
Strake's rose, black with impending death. "There are other ways I can approach this problem, Champion, but
this places the fewest possible in danger. Your enchantments allow you to detect his presence. And it was to you the Moon-cast child made
his appeal."

And you the Queen gave the task. But Soren was torn by the memory of silver
eyes, a feeling of being on a precipice, about to take a step over the
edge. "What – what is it exactly
you want me to do?" she asked.

"Hold him." That assessing gaze had returned. "I believe I can strike at the enchantment where it lies on him,
beyond the blood and outside the defence which warps casting. But it will not be a quick thing, and I will
need to be touching him, drawing the Moon. You he cannot harm, and you are also powerfully bound to this land by
the enchantment of the Rose, which will offer some measure of protection
against any side-effects of my attack."

He was making no attempt to hide that there was danger. How could Soren possibly do as he asked? Strake had only just accepted his desire for
her, he was – after all the loss he had suffered, this would be the last thing
he would be able to bear. Quite aside
from the threat to herself, she was carrying his child. Heir to Darest. Involving herself directly in trying to rescue
the nameless Fae killer was simply out of the question.

Except that anyone else would be more at risk, and if they
did not move quickly the boy's need to kill would grow with the Moon. He had slaughtered the Rathen hunting party
effortlessly, and was quite capable of turning Tor Darest into a charnel house. He would remain a threat to all
Rathens
, unless this was done. He had looked at her out of those unnatural
silver eyes and said 'please'.

And Soren was Champion.

"I need to ask." Ask her Rathen to risk his Champion, his lover and his child. She couldn't even say it.

Tzel Damaris simply nodded. "It must be done before the Moon is black."

She wondered how he expected to find the boy, have him
conveniently to hand for the attempt. They couldn't just go continually walking on
Vostal
Hill in the hope that he would turn up. But those were details, and nothing beside the hurdle she had to take
first. Strake. An argument, unavoidable and potentially
terrible. Why had Damaris had to ask for
her help and put her in this position?

Staring at the shadow beneath the dripping Rose, Soren found
herself full of angry distrust. His
priority was the boy, not
Rathens
. The Fair had been willing to let Darest
founder over a secret. How could they be
trusted?

"What happened to the Fair who once lived in Darest,
Tzel Damaris?" The words were
forced through stiff lips. "What is
the taint which lies beneath all this?"

"That is not spoken of outside the People."

The words were as quietly unperturbed as anything else he
had said to her. And yet foreboding
crawled beneath Soren's skin, took her by the spine and pulled her back. It should not be possible to feel this
isolated, here where she was strongest. But she did and it was only despite knees which threatened to knock
together and a throat inconveniently frozen that she managed to ask a question
which had been at the back of her mind since the Council on the hill.

"Were they Shaped?"

Damaris of the
Wryve
simply turned
and walked away.

-
oOo
-

"A midnight
stroll?"

Soren's stomach dropped. Caught up in sick anger transmuting to queasy relief, she hadn't been
paying attention to Strake's breathing. He lay in his bed, still curled around the space where she had slept,
watching her walk toward him from the door.

"The Tzel Aviar wanted to see me."

Blunt, because he was not going to like anything to do with
the Fae, no matter how she couched it.

"He asked me to help him," she went on, as Strake
sat up. "
Laramae's
notes say that because he's tied to the Moon, the boy can't attack someone
who's pregnant. The Tzel Aviar wants me
to hold the boy while he tries to break the casting." She sat down on the edge of the bed, meeting
Strake's eyes. Her stomach sank further
at what she found there, but she managed to take a deep breath and add: "I
think I should do it."

"Do you?" Incredulous, scathing.

"It's what I'm here for," Soren explained,
determined not to cringe. She felt odd
inside. Her title had been awarded for
reasons she thoroughly disliked; only by her actions could she earn the right
to bear it. "Rathen Champion:
protector of King and country. If I
don't help him, how many might die before he captures the boy?"

"He can find some other woman." There was no room for compromise in her
Rathen now, and Soren bowed her head under the beating force of his anger. She was making him hate her again and it felt
even worse than before because he'd only just started to see her as something
other than a trap. Wasn't it also her
duty to support him, to be there for him? And didn't it make far more sense to find someone whose child wasn't
heir to the kingdom, who wasn't Soren's own child, to make the attempt first?

"I can't do that." The words were wrung out of her. "How can I send some random pregnant woman into danger when I have
all the protections of the Rose?"

"The Rose places you at greater risk!" The mattress jerked beneath Strake from the
recoil of his body. "That
Moon-forsaken monster disrupts enchantments. You're the last person to send out after him!"

She could argue at least on points of accuracy, even as the
half-contained explosion blasted away at her resolution. "He disrupts spells cast on him,"
she said, holding her head high. "I'm not about to do that. And we don't know if the Rose was a factor stopping him from striking at
me before. We do know that he's stood as
close as you are to me now, and not raised a hand to me." Her voice wobbled, but she swallowed,
determined at last to be Champion in more than name. She made herself still inside and stood firm,
refusing to crumble. "I couldn't
live with myself, Strake. If it's the
Rose which protects me, and someone gets killed because they were sent in my
place – I just couldn't."

Strake flung out of the far side of the bed and stood there,
naked and seething and apparently too furious for words. He should look ridiculous, but all Soren
could think of was that she really was in love with him and that she was
driving back the wedge it had taken so much to remove. The price of this stupid need of hers to be
something other than a woman who looked good in a uniform.

"So you want me to sit here – locked up and ignorant –
while you lay your life on the line?" His voice was shaking, and those dark blue eyes were entirely black.

"I–" Soren
stopped, pierced by a sudden, thankful realisation. Strake was as angry as she'd ever seen him,
but the hate which had so battered her before wasn't there. Her choice would cost her, but not nearly so
much as she'd feared. "I was
thinking that they're the same," she said obliquely, finding this an odd
moment to be so happy.

"What?" His
voice had risen in pitch.

"The Rose and the boy – the..." She stumbled and looked up at him, and
something in her face at least made him hold his tongue. "They were both constructed to perform
certain tasks – they were truly made to be something. The Rose to protect
Rathens
,
the boy to kill them. They're horrible
things and we hate – want to kill them both. And can't, either of them. And –
they're just doing what they've been made for. Puppets. The boy at least fights
against it."

"Do you expect me to be sorry for
Vahse's
killer?"

"Aren't you?"

He tossed his head, turned to one side. It wasn't something he was going to admit,
any more than the obvious parallel between his own temper and the murder laid
on the boy.

"You called me a composite, once," Soren
faltered. "Something made to get a
child off you. Let me be more than
that."

"Is that what you think? Damn it, Soren–" He came toward her, anger washed out by
dismay. Snaring her fingers he found his
black frown once again. "Your hands
are like ice."

"That's the weather." She tried not to think about the boy, injured
and somewhere out in the night. "You could watch from the residences."

This did not impress. "I'm not going to simply stand by while you–" He shook his head, squeezed her hands. "I'll talk to the Fae. This can't be the best solution. Even if it was, there's no way I'd let you go
out there unless I was with you–"

"So that we can spend all our time trying to make sure
you didn't get killed?"

"Soren–"

"I'm Champion, Strake. I'm – I need to do this."

"No."

There was just enough uncertainty in the word to bring a
frantic look to his eyes, and he covered it with sudden, urgent passion. It did nothing to solve the impasse, but
served to set it briefly at a distance and return them to tangled warmth in the
bed.

Dawn was creeping up on them by the time he had exhausted
everything but slow caresses. The Tzel
Aviar was asleep and Aristide had woken early, was blinking in the dark. The doubled patrols of the palace looked
bored and restless, and the kitchens were starting to stir.

"I...vowed never to marry you," Strake said
abruptly. "Stupid, hot-headed thing
to do, guaranteed to turn around just as it has. But the kind of vow I made – it's not easily
broken."

Soren didn't answer for the moment, sorting out the idea of
having Strake and marrying him. "Does it make a difference?"

"Of course it does." He sounded annoyed, then sighed. "Quite aside from having to deal with
the Court's expectations for my bedding arrangements, I want – I want that. I want our child to have that."

A declaration of intent, not love. Like Aristide, Strake had faced his
impossibilities, that mass of anger and desire, and found a compromise. Despite all that the Rose had done to them,
he was going to try to make the best of it.

She should feel happy, should catch hold of this fragile
thread of hope, and look for a future with a partner not an adversary. But there was another issue, something the
risk to her made suddenly important to establish.

"What about Aristide?"

"What? What
about him?"

"If you're talking Court's expectations, that's one
which hasn't wavered. They're all
expecting you to marry him."

Strake snorted. "He's not."

"No. But
he–" Soren broke off, thinking of
future possibilities, watching Aristide staring at his ceiling. "It feels unbalanced. When he swore that oath to you, I think he
was gambling on your death. Now – he
serves you more than well and will continue to do so. Forced to, no matter how he feels about
it. I don't know why it bothers me so
much."

Her Rathen, unusually, did not fire up or grow irritable,
but looked at her with long dark eyes which saw far more than she'd
expected. "Perhaps because you're
forced to serve me, no matter how you feel about it," he said.

"Strake–"

"Without the Rose you would be in Carn Keep, and I
would not be King." Strake's tone
was meditative. "I would have
returned to a land where Queen Arista had withdrawn from rule, where Prince
Aristide was the focus of a fascinated Court. Feared quite possibly, and thoroughly disliked by those whose ambitions
run counter to his. But – ah, I was not
an hour back before I realised the rest of them hang on his every word. They were eager to have him rule, but instead
they have me. And Darest has one King
too many."

"Because of the Rose."

"Oh yes. Far too
much in this land is 'because of the Rose', good and bad all tangled together
and no way to undo it. The
Couerveurs
were kept as regents rather than kings, which is
certainly good for me, for the Rathen line. It was terrible for Darest. You
and I – how different would it have been, if the Rose had not made you
Champion, but had left you in Carn Keep for me to one day see and want without
feeling you were being forced down my throat? Let alone–" His voice
quivered, and she felt his entire body tense. "Let alone the rest of it."