Veil of Shadows (26 page)

“Danae,” Trasa called. “Do not speak.”

Her mouth clamped firmly shut, and tears of defeat rolled from her eyes. She made her way down the scaffold steps, and no one hindered her progress as she walked through the clearing, toward the path that led away from the encampment.

“Guards, see that she goes,” Cerridwen said quietly, and the two holding Cedric released him to do her bidding. He swayed on his feet and fell to the floor.

In an instant, Cerridwen was at his side, her beautiful face lined with concern, her white hands moving over his hair, his back, his arms. “He needs a healer,” she told the executioner.

“Could you please bring one, and help him into the Palace?”

The man who had been only seconds away from ending his life now lifted Cedric to his feet and helped him make his way down from the scaffold. The crowd cheered, and Cerridwen shouted over them, “Let Danae.s banishment be a lesson to all who have witnessed it today. I am your Queene. My throne in ensured by the will of the Gods. My life is protected by their good graces. Any who seek to destroy me will fail. And any who seek to destroy you will be met with my wrath.”

They cheered louder. Cedric turned his head, wished he could see her in her moment of triumph, but he glimpsed only the curve of her back, and her arm raised, hand clenched to a fist over her head as she stood in the adulation of her Court.

Cerridwen left the scaffold without further remark. She did not have an ounce of eloquence left in her tired body. The heady mix of emotions pounding through her veins had nearly robbed her of the few words she had managed. Now, she wished only for solitude, and silence.

Trasa met her at the bottom of the steps, and Amergin, as well. They both offered their congratulations and embraced her enthusiastically, but she could only stand stiff in their arms. “I want every trace of Danae removed from this colony. Start with the Palace. I want all of it, everything she owned, out of my sight.”

“Yes, of course, Your Majesty,” Trasa said with a bow, her worry plain on her face. “Will you require anything else at present?”

“I want to be alone,” she replied, knowing how impossible that would be, now. She was Queene. There would never be a moment alone.

Still, she went up the steps, into the Palace, in the vain hope of solitude. The room behind the Throne Room was a flurry of activity, the healers tending to Cedric. She went into the room to her left, a small sitting space with stools and a low table set with fruit and wine, probably put there by Danae in anticipation of an execution celebration. Cerridwen sat and miserably picked over the apples and grapes but ate nothing.

She did not wish to see Cedric. The healers could do their work, and make him strong again, and then he could return to Bauchan.s camp, or go farther, if he wished. Perhaps to another settlement, somewhere far from her. The idea was at once painful and enticing. If he stayed, she would have to face him, sooner or later. She might see him at festivals and celebrations. He might expect to stay on as her advisor, and she would see him every day. That would only prolong her hurt, but when she thought of him leaving, of never seeing him again, she wondered which would cause her more pain.

She would not force him to stay. Not now that she knew his declaration of love to be false. Somehow, it had been less depressing when the proof of his lie had been his act of attempted murder. She might have been able to force herself to hate him, over time. Now, she knew that he had not told her he loved her to be cruel. He had not told her because he truly loved her, either. He had told her because he had no other choice, and no emotion, negative or positive, had molded his words at all.

She kicked the bowl of fruit, sent it clattering from the table in a move so sudden that she surprised herself.

How had Danae known that this was the way to strike at her heart most effectively? Had she been able to see something that Cerridwen herself had not, some lack of warmth or tenderness that her affection-starved brain hid from her so to continue her delusions? How could she have been so foolish as to not have seen it herself?

How could she have believed that impassioned declaration?

Because she had wanted it, more than she had ever wanted anything. She wanted him, and she wanted him to feel the same, to think of no one else but her, to have the passion for her that he had felt for the Human Gypsy he mourned. She wanted him to feel for her what Fenrick had pretended, wanted for herself what her mother had felt for Malachi. An immortal life without love was not something she thought she could bear, and she could not be Queene of this Court alone.

“Your Majesty?” Trasa pulled back the fabric and stepped into the room, glancing quickly away from the food strewn across the floor. “I think you should submit to the healers, as well. You have not fully recovered, and you will need your strength.”

“Yes, fine, send them in.” They could try to heal her, but nothing, short of the power of the Gods and Goddesses themselves, would make her whole again.

Seventeen

C edric slept through the evening, past the start of supper, and Cerridwen was glad for it. She called Trasa and Amergin to sup with her, and they ate in relative silence.

“This is strange,” Cerridwen said, for what had to have been the third time since they had all sat down. “Being here. I suppose I knew I would be Queene one day, but yet not so soon.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Trasa said with a nod.

“We need to think about the Humans,” Amergin said suddenly. “The ones you saw at the cottage. They were Enforcers, there is no doubt. Why they are drawn to this place, when we have such powerful magic shielding us, is a concern.”

“There is little Cerridwen can do about this right now,” Trasa said, almost scolding. “She has only just healed, and this camp has been greatly disrupted. We must simply hope that they do not come any closer than the edge of the woods.”

Cerridwen slipped the sleeve of her gown back to examine her arms. The healers had done what they could, but too much time had passed, and lumpy, pink scars, tight and shiny, marked her flesh in each place that Cedric.s knife had fallen. “They will come closer. They will probably come in greater number, too, if they realize that the white bull wasn.t Earthly in origin…” she said absently. She looked up at Trasa. “You should not return to your cottage. They might follow your trail. You could lead them directly here.”

“My cottage is my home—” Trasa protested, but stopped herself. “No, Your Majesty is correct. For Danae, I would not abide such a request, but for you, I will stay here. Some of the Sisters live in the colony, and I can stay with them.”

“You could take Bauchan.s tent,” Amergin said, biting off a bit of bread. He spoke around it.

“No one.s using it now.”

“Cedric will need somewhere to stay,” Cerridwen said, a little faster and harsher than she had intended.

“I do not see why,” a voice said from the doorway. Cerridwen looked up reluctantly to meet Cedric.s eyes.

“May we be alone?” he asked Trasa and Amergin, and they both stood, nodding, and took their plates with them when they left.

Cedric sat on the stool Trasa had vacated, at Cerridwen.s left. He did not speak at first, and he did not touch her. He gazed at her with an intensity that made her fidget, and she would not meet his eyes.

“Why,” he asked slowly, “why would I not stay here, with you?”

She did not want to have this conversation. She did not wish to show him how he had hurt her, and that there was no way she could pretend he had not. There was nothing she could say to disguise how she felt for him, not after she had admitted to it that night. Still, he would not accept silence from her, she knew him too well to expect that. “Because you do not love me, and I will not force you to stay.”

He reached for her hand, and she fought to control its trembling. “You would not have to force me to stay. And I do love you, Cerridwen. I was under a spell—that was the only reason I harmed you. You cannot believe that any part of that was me.”

“I do not.” Gods, how she could not stand it if he thought she held him accountable for that attack. “I know that you would never have…I could not believe it, even as you wielded the dagger against me. Even as I lay on the forest floor, it did not seem real to me. I tried to accept it as reality, and every time, I could not bring myself to hate you…. You were under a spell. That, I know all too well. That same spell bade you to tell me that you…love me.” She stumbled over the words, feeling foolish that she had to utter them.

“No.” Cedric squeezed her hand. “No, I did not say those things because of the spell. Or I did. But the spell did not make me feel them. I said what I felt in my heart, truly.”

She pulled her hand back.

With a curse, Cedric stood, and, though she did not wish to, she shrank from his sudden movement. His face paled in horror. “Do you still believe that I would harm you? I love you, Cerridwen. I went to the block today happy, glad to know that my life would end and I would no longer have to bear the grief and guilt I felt over your death.”

“Stop!” She could not hear it, because she could not believe it was true. There had been so many stories read to her as a child, the valiant prince breaking the evil spell out of true love for his princess. It was foolish, she knew, but her heart broke at the thought that whatever Cedric had felt for her, it had not been enough to stop the knife from cutting into her. “If you love me, why did you do it? Why did you…hold me down and…why could you not stop?”

“I wanted to!” He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I fought so hard to warn you. Holding myself back until you woke was…Gods, I have never felt such pain! I took no pleasure in what I did to you! How could you even think that of me?”

She stared at the tabletop, unable to think of the words to forgive him, certain she would not be able to say them if she could.

A guttural noise of disgust broke from his throat and he stalked toward the opening in the tent wall. Without knowing why, Cerridwen sprang to her feet and ran for him, his name tearing from her lips on a desperate cry. He turned and caught her in her flight, gripped her shoulders and hauled her up to smash his lips against hers. The tears that fell onto her cheeks were not her own.

“I have wanted to touch you—” he gasped against her mouth “—since I saw you come into the clearing. I thought you were dead. She told me you were—”

“I know,” she whispered, fitting her palm against the hard curve of his jaw. “I thought that you had wanted me dead.”

“Never.” He kissed her again, with less grateful urgency than before. The need in him now was not simply to touch her, but something closer to the desperate passion he had displayed the night before their horrible parting.

She pressed herself against him, arched as his mouth slid down to the hollow between her collarbones. An ache rose up in her, pulsed between her legs, and she wound them around his waist as he dragged her skirts up and laid her on the end of the long table.

Trasa and Amergin, not to mention other members of the Morrigan.s strange Sisterhood, remained in the Palace, and a flush heated her skin at the thought that they would certainly know what was transpiring in the dining room. “Someone will hear,” she whispered against his ear, and then she could not resist biting it.

“I do not care,” he growled, pulling his robes open. He hissed as she traced her tongue over the Guild Mark at his neck, paused as if trying to regain self-control, despite his remark.

It occurred to her that she did not care, either. The fear of someone condemning her behavior was the only motivation she could think of for caring what they thought of her, a trait drummed into her from her time in her mother.s Palace. After all that had happened here in the Upworld, she could no longer pretend that the opinions of others mattered to her.

All that mattered to her, in that moment, was that Cedric was safe and healed, and that she was alive, and that, despite the tremendous hardships they had faced, no force existed that could drive them apart.

She lifted her hips, eager to feel him again, ignoring the pain in her still-tender wings as her weight settled back against them. As before, the excitement of touching him was all her body had needed to make itself ready for him, and when the wide, firm tip of him pressed against her opening, he slid in easily. Sheathed in her completely, he rested his forehead against hers, hot breath brushing over her face.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Do not ever doubt that again.”

There were no words that could convey the answer she wished to give him, so she held his face between her hands and kissed him, body rigid with the tension of not moving, though her every instinct demanded it.

With a rough groan, he tore his mouth from hers and gripped her hips, pulling her hard against him, so quickly that it forced a shocked moan from her throat. His hands slid to the curve of her buttocks, to her thighs, underneath her knees, where he urged her wordlessly to wrap her legs about him again. She complied readily, grinding against him, and with a growl deep in his throat, he pounded into her, over and over, fingers digging into the flesh of her thighs.

The table beneath her rocked and creaked; for a hysterical moment, she wondered if it would fall. But the thought fled on the wave of energy that flooded her, forcing her into the other sight. The usual green color of her energy had been replaced by something bright white, something not moving in bubbles or sparks but blazing flame through each part of her, most specifically to the place where she and Cedric were joined. The light in her pulsed with her heat, with his heartbeat, each ripple growing in intensity until it was so bright that she could not look at it anymore. She opened her eyes to the sight of the dining room as her body jerked and her mouth opened to release a cry that hung suspended on the very edge she teetered over: herself. She did not need the other sight to know the moment she went over and the flames within consumed her. She shuddered, gripped his arms as anchors in fear of being swept away, and shouted, finding her voice again in the moment of pleasure so intense that it both grounded her and unhinged her further.