The Fire Lord's Lover - 1 (17 page)

Eleven

Dominic watched her delicate features subtly shift as she considered the meaning of his words. He'd expected to see fear, but his bride surprised him as usual.

   "I won't need your protection. Now that I have your trust, we can defeat him together."

   For a moment he could only stare at her in stunned amazement. Then he threw back his head and laughed, his voice a wild accompaniment to the song produced by the flowers of Elfhame.

   She pulled a bit away from him, and her lips twisted into a disgruntled frown. "I do not jest."

   Dominic wiped his sleeve across his eyes. "Oh, my girl, that's what I'm afraid of. You have no idea of the power my father possesses."

   She rose with the grace of a dancer and he sobered, watching her pace the confines of the pavilion. Now that he'd revealed his secrets to her, perhaps she would feel free to do the same. "What makes you think you can take on an elven lord, Cassandra? Do you truly think a few elven death dances can kill him?"

   She froze, slowly turned her head to stare down at him where he still sat. Her tussle with the guardian vines had mussed her hair, strands of silky brown curling about her cheeks and forehead. Her stomacher fell sideways, half the cording stripped from its holes. Her abandoned hoops made her hem drag where it had escaped the girdle meant to hold it up. The sleeve of her gown had been torn half off, dirt streaked her bodice and skirt, and her toes peeped through holes in her stockings. She looked ravishing.

   "You knew?" she breathed.

   "I suspected," he countered, "when I found you over the dead bodies of your two captors."

   "Oh." She started to pace again, but this time her feet appeared to pick up the rhythm of the flowers' song. "And yet you said nothing?"

   "At first… should you have managed to kill him, I would have only been grateful. Do you think you're the first assassin sent against my father? Although I have to admit, the Rebellion is getting clever. Who would have suspected that my innocently raised wife had been trained in the art of—"

   She moved then, faster than he would have credited, possibly even fast enough that if she managed to catch his father unawares, she had a slim chance of being successful. She had her girdle half around his throat when he encased her in dull gray fire.

   "You are good, my lady. But not good enough."

   Her brown eyes blazed with a fire of their own. "You knew I would try. But Mor'ded won't. I have a chance."

   Dominic shook his head. "You will not risk it."

"I must try."

   "Damn it, you little hoyden. Must I keep you imprisoned to ensure your safety?"

   Her mouth narrowed in a stubborn line. Faith, how he admired this slip of a woman.

   "You will stay like that until I have your promise."

   She glanced down. Fire ringed her body in shimmering flames of gray, held fast her hands with her girdle still clutched between them, trapped her waist in a bent-over position. Dominic sighed and slipped away from her garrote, rose to walk around her, a half smile crooking his mouth. "The position has its merits."

   "You wouldn't."

   "No, I would not. But my father…" And he let the threat hang between them, for he'd seen Mor'ded perform acts that had threatened to make him ill. He did not want to expose Cassandra to the atrocities his father committed. Despite her ties with the Rebellion, she had been raised innocent of the brutal natures of men and elvenkind.

   He released the gray fire and caught her up in his arms. "I will kill the one who coerced you to be the Rebellion's tool," he muttered.

   She laid her head against his shoulder with a sigh. "I chose to do this, Dominic. I would willingly give up my life to free the people of England."

   "Well I am not so unselfish," he replied. "I will not give you up for anything or anyone. You cannot succeed, Cassandra. Promise me you will cease this notion of trying to kill my father. Allow me to
try t
o keep you safe."

   She looked up at him, a wealth of sadness on her face. "I love you, Dominic, but I fear you carry too much elven blood to truly see the world the same way that I do."

   Her words, ah, her words made his heart sing and fear plunge through him like a knife. "You will get used to it."

   "Nay, I shall not. I will never get used to the slavery of my people."

   Dominic held her quietly in his arms for a time, while the wind died and the flowers ceased their song. "I have tried to kill him," he whispered. "And I could not succeed."

   She twisted out of his arms and stood at his side, a tiny girl with a will of iron. "But together we might."

   Dominic shook his head. She still did not understand. He could not protect her innocence in this matter. He would have to show her.

* * *

He showed her the hidden gate in the garden, taught her the word to open it, and then brought her into the palace by way of another hidden passage, lighting their path with a handful of warm yellow fire. Dominic hadn't used this particular entrance since he was a child, sneaking out to the elven garden that his father had forbidden him. Since Father rarely went there now, he hadn't the need for such secrecy.

   The passage had sprouted a wealth of cobwebs since he'd last been inside, and he'd taken wrong turns twice, but he finally arrived at the door that led into the great room. He turned and held his flame closer to his wife's face. "Are you sure you still want to do this?"

   She nodded, brushing at a strand of web at her cheek. Cassandra had barely said a word since he'd dragged her from the garden and shown her the hidden door to the passage. She looked frightened. And very determined.

   Dominic squelched the fire in his palm and lowered his head and kissed her, wanting to linger the moment his lips touched hers but not daring to do so. He straightened and pushed the lever that unlatched the door, slowly opening it and peering around before stepping into the great room. Cassandra followed, and the door shut behind her with the slightest of creaks.

   They stood behind a stone pillar, over a hundred paces from the dais that held Mor'ded's throne.

   His father would not be back for at least another couple of days, and his attention would be focused on hunting the gifted elven children. Still, the general led Cassandra from pillar to pillar, avoiding the sconces of red fire that lit the long hall, listening for the clacking heels of the gentry or the softer footsteps of a slave.

   His shoulders finally relaxed when they reached Mor'ded's throne without discovery. He opened the door in the wall behind it, calling back the yellow fire to light the way. He stopped at the stout oak door halfway down the passage and took a deep breath. If Ador had not told him that he possessed the power to dispel the wards on this door, he never would have attempted it the other night. Father's spells glowed with deadly threat in a sparkling web that covered the oak.

   "Beware," he murmured to Cassandra, gently pushing her small body behind his. He raised his hands to the door, calling to the gray fire, encasing each strand of the seeming web with the dull flame. It took him much longer to neutralize the wards than it would have taken his father, and they wouldn't stay down permanently—as he'd discovered last night, to his infinite relief. He didn't want Mor'ded to know his secret had been uncovered. As he reached the last strands, flames shot toward him as if they protested against his meddling with their final strength. His magical defenses quickly responded with a blaze of their own, squelching the attack. Dominic encased the remaining strands, lowered his arms, and turned to his wife.

   "Down this passage," he said, pointing to his left, "is the entrance to Mor'ded's private chambers. It's not warded with a spell of fire, as it saps even an elven lord's energies to keep up an active ward like this one, but there's a plant within that's nastier than the vine guardian."

   "I understand," she said. "I will be careful, Dominic."

   He raised a brow. She'd already proven how little she valued her life when it came to her passion for the Rebellion. He only hoped that what he now showed her would convince her of the futility of matching her powers against Mor'ded's.

   Dominic opened the heavy door and tried not to breathe too deeply of the dust inside the passage. With a handful of yellow flame he followed the twisting tunnel, his wife hard on his heels, and they descended deep into the earth, the walls becoming rough and jagged as they neared their destination.

   The tunnel abruptly ended at an opening that widened into a large underground cavern. The general put one foot into the chamber, gently catching Cassandra about the waist as she attempted to brush past him. "Do not go any farther."

   "What is it?" she whispered. "Is it warded here as well?"

   "No. But you don't want to… ah God, I shouldn't have brought you here."

   "Do not take the Lord's name in vain," she whispered.

   Her faith continued to puzzle him. "That was a prayer to him, my lady. If he should indeed exist."

   Her eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't have time to debate theology with her. He itched to be gone from this place. He exchanged the yellow fire for white, the brighter flame spilling from his hands to light the rough-hewn ceiling, revealing the contents of the cave in horrid detail.

   Cassandra blinked and stared in confusion.

   Dominic did not blame her. If it hadn't been for Ador's words, he wouldn't have understood what lay within this cavern.

   A black platform made of stone stood in the center of the chamber. Mounds of grayish white dust layered the back of the cavern, spilled over to small trickles near their feet.

   "Behold the fabled land of Elfhame," said Dominic.

   "I don't… what do you mean? What is all this ash?"

   "Children."

   Her soft brown eyes blinked in confusion as she stared at the powder near her feet, and he saw horror slowly harden them to a glittering bronze when the full import of his explanation dawned on her. Cassandra gasped a wordless denial, and she shivered while he clutched her tightly to him.

   "This is where the children who hold too much of the elven power are sent. After they are put to the flame by the Imperial Lord."

   "No," she breathed. "They are sent to Elfhame. To a better life of richness and happiness."

   "Think on it, Cassandra. Would families bring their children to the trials if they knew what fate awaited them? But with the promise of being sent to the fabled land of Elfhame, it's easy for the Imperial Lords to gather together children who might be a threat to their rule. Even then some still refuse."

   She covered her face with her hands, her words muffled by her fingers. "But only one or two a year are chosen. There is so much ash here… Dear heaven, the generations of innocents…"

   Dominic could not stop the self-recrimination that flowed through him. "That's why my father left the palace. To hunt down the families who refused to give up their children to the trials. And I sent hi
m after them."

   She slowly lowered her hands and looked up at him.

   "I didn't know. Do not look at me like that." Dominic wanted to shake her, so he loosed her, and she swayed. "
I did not know.
I did not know I had enough power to dispel the wards until Ador told me last eve. But I should have tried. I know better than anyone the madness of the elven lords. I should have guessed something more lay behind the trials. Instead I chose to turn my back on everything human, including that which lay inside of me."

   She put her small hand against his chest, covering his heart with her palm. "You are
not
the monster, Dominic. Your father is."

   "And powerful enough to destroy you with a flick of his scepter," he pressed. "Powerful enough to enslave an entire country. You have been lied to, my dear. You have no hope of killing him. The Rebellion is nothing but the hum of an angry insect against Mor'ded's ear. If they become too much of a nuisance, he will swat them."

   "He knows of the Rebellion, then?"

   Dominic reined in his patience. When would she think of the danger to herself? "Not yet. I haven't chosen to share their existence with him yet, although I'm sure he's aware there
is
a resistance. I've been saving it for when he becomes bored."

   "Bored?"

   "You may say it with contempt, my dear, but you do not know the danger when an Imperial Lord becomes bored. Why do you think they left their perfect land of Elfhame?" Her hand made a fist against his heart, and he saw the tight furl of the petals on her rose ring. He covered that fist with his larger hand. "Oh yes, Elfhame does exist, but I don't know if the elven lords can even return, much less how they first shattered the barrier between our world and theirs. But my father once told me that's why they left. They became bored with peace and perfection."

   She made a strangled sound and it tore at his soul. It made him wish his elven blood hadn't betrayed him and allowed his human heart to rule. He did not like feeling her pain as if it were his own.

   "Please, Dominic," she whispered. "No more. Have mercy and take me from this wretched place."

   He called back the white fire and plunged the cavern into darkness, but it could not change what lay there. He lifted his wife into his arms and carried her back up through the tunnel, unburdened by her weight but worried for her soul. Perhaps he had pushed too hard. But she would heal; he knew her inner strength. And he hoped he'd convinced her to give up the Rebellion and their futile attempts to win back England.

   Luck stayed with him and he found the great hall empty, used the servants' stairs to carry her up to their rooms. Her two little slaves waited for them at the door to their apartments, both of their faces twisting with alarm at the sight of their mistress.

   "What happened?" demanded the younger, always the cheekiest.

   "She got tangled up in a guardian vine," he deigned to reply. "She's not injured. She but needs some care."