Dawnsinger (12 page)

****

”What do you want?” Shae did not mean to sound curt, but Kai’s request for a word with her came as unwelcome. She sought the hearth, as if the fire might lend her its strength, and then remembered her servant. “Chaeldra, you may go—for now.”

Chaeldra hesitated, but strode into her own chamber—leaving the door ajar.

Kai leaned against the mantel with nonchalance, a tilt to his head she knew well. “What do I want?” His tone denied his casual posture. “We can only wonder what our mother would say about your behavior tonight.”

“
My
behavior?” she cried. “So you fault
me
?”

“How can you stand there looking the picture of innocence and outrage—as if you didn’t invite Freaer’s attention?”

“I didn’t—” She paused, mid-protest.
Had
she invited Freaer’s attention?

He pushed away from the door and paced toward her. “You didn’t
what
? I saw you watching him. Do you not know what a maid’s eyes can do?” He caught her shoulders and turned her toward the gilt-edged mirrorglass above the mantel. “Look at yourself! You’ve grown to a woman.”

Somehow Shae found no joy in his acknowledgment, although she’d sought it in recent days. They stood together, framed in the mirror, something they’d done before, but never like this. How often she’d measured herself against him, a slender reed next to an ironwood, stretching to make herself taller. She came to his shoulder now, still slender, but with a rounded figure beneath the tunic she wore. Her face had lost its baby fat. Her expression held innocence, but also the beginning of knowledge.

She searched Kai’s face in the mirrorglass. Where was her familiar, unruffled protector? Here was a stranger with more than a hint of danger about him. She caught her breath, shaken by the change in him.

He released her and stepped backward. She continued to watch him in the mirror, caught by the play of emotions that chased across his features. “Let this attachment die,” he urged. “Nothing good can come of it.”

“Why not?” She felt the need to challenge him, although in truth she agreed with his assessment.

He shook his head. “Just let it die.” Unspoken words churned near the surface. She could hear their whisper.

“Tell me!”

“Must you plague me?” He ran a hand through his hair, abandoning all pretense of calmness. “You make me regret bringing you to Torindan!”

She flinched, both at what he said and at the raggedness in his voice. She couldn’t bring herself to ask for answers again, but went to the window, keeping her back to him. She fingered the hangings, not really seeing them. Wind buffeted the pane and drafts leaked in, making her shiver.

A scrape and thud carried to her, and she rushed across the chamber to bolt the door behind Kai.

Drawn to the window again, she opened the shutters and measured the storm’s progress. Blackened clouds boiled over peaks above moonlit snowfields as they flowed toward Torindan. Strongwoods in the garden tossed their heads like skittish ponies. Their branches glistened in the first pattering onslaught of rain.

This wild prelude must mark the inception of a fierce storm. She placed her hands on the pane as rain struck. Such a thin barrier to separate her from the storm’s fury. She bowed her head and touched her forehead to the cold glass. Perhaps she should remove all barriers and join herself to the storm. Its strength might serve to overcome her own inner turbulence. It was an odd thought, not quite sane, but not quite crazed. So many mysteries lurked in Torindan—unspoken words, distant echoes, restless dreams, souls touching in the night—and now she did not even understand the fabric of her relationship with Kai. She preferred the honest energy of nature to these nameless, shifting realities.

She donned her cloak and pulled its hood over her hair, then slipped out of the room. The clunk of her outer door shutting behind her echoed through the deserted corridor. She found her way with ease, as if guided by some other hand. The strongwood door leading outside resisted, groaning in protest.
‘There are other reasons, too, for caution.’
Elcon’s voice spoke in memory, but his warning went unheeded. Nothing mattered now but her need to escape.

The door gave at last, a gust tearing it from her hand, and it banged open. She hurried to secure it.

The wind snatched her hood away and combed through her hair. Rain washed her face. She lowered her head and fought the wind, grateful to find the path, although it was slick and flanked by drowned starflowers. Her feet slipped on an incline, and she put out a hand to save herself. Thorns pierced her palm and pain twisted through her injured foot.

“Steady, there!” A masculine voice came out of the darkness. Arms slid around her and rough fabric ground against her face. “I knew you would come!”

Shae jerked her head back, but blinded by rain, still couldn’t see who spoke. The wind tore her breath away, and then cold lips slid over hers.

She sank her fingernails into the soft skin at the back of her attacker’s neck.

He flinched and jerked her hand down.

She fought to free her other hand, crushed between them. Her pulse drummed. Pressure built in her chest. Air—she needed air. She plucked at her assailant’s cloak as blackness swirled about her and the storm’s thrashing faded to silence…

“Shae!”

A voice roused her and she saw, in a flare of lightning, Freaer bending over her. His grip shifted, and her feet left the ground. With an effort, she dragged her arms upward and put them around his neck. A world of noise and fury, illumined by flashes of light, swung around her. The storm lashed at her back and every step Freaer took jarred. She hid her face against his neck with a sob, glad to be rescued.

The wind, rain, and noise abated, and Shae raised her head in sudden and profound silence. The glow of an oil lamp wedged in a niche revealed a ceiling that hung low. Its raw stone surface glistened with moisture that dripped into circular pools. A smooth floor stretched to lamplight’s edge, where stone steps led down into darkness. Opposite the stair, and beyond a gaping black maw, the storm still raged, sending wild currents to lift her hair.

Freaer set her on her feet, and she rested in his arms. He hooked a finger beneath her chin and turned her face to the light with a smile. “Will you faint if I kiss you again?”

Freaer?
He
had been her assailant? She had never been kissed in such a way before. It seemed a strange business, and she couldn’t say she liked it. She watched him, captured by the emotions that played across his face as his thumbs traced a path from the hollow at the base of her throat to her lips. His next kiss, when it came, did not match his hands in gentleness.

He lifted his head, his breathing unsteady. “Don’t hold back, Shae. You can’t stop this.”

Tendrils of sensation curled about her soul, a soft seduction. How easy to surrender…

“No!” She voiced her alarm. “I should not be here with you.”

He rested his forehead against hers and his hands stroked her temples. “Shae, I called you to me tonight and you came, even in the storm.” A whiplash of reigned-in power brushed the edge of her mind as he let her feel the strength of his will.

She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “Who
are
you?”

“The end of your journey.” His kiss was violent this time, tearing at the roots of her being. She whimpered but just managed to curl into a hiding place in her inner being.

Freaer groaned and put her from him. “I should have given you more time.”

She shook her head. “This is very wrong. I want to go back to my chambers.”

“Through the downpour?”

She took a shaky breath. “Better the rain than this.”

His lips smiled, but his face looked bleak. “How you flatter me.”

She could say nothing as she stepped out of the puddle formed of droplets from their clothing.

Freaer sighed. “All right, Shae, I’ll give you time.” He reached for the lamp, and it swung in his hand. She saw then what lay hidden in the shadows, a bed of furs. Freaer steadied the lamp and tilted his head. “But know this—I won’t wait long.”

She jerked her gaze from his and caught sight of droplets of moisture streaming down the smooth stone wall behind him. Teardrops on a tender cheek?

As the chill penetrated her cloak, she shivered and pushed away the strange fancy. “What place is this?”

He lifted the lamp, and the movement raised grotesque shadows. “We stand in a sallyport, a hidden gateway in the curtain wall that leads through the motte. It was built to provide escape from the hold, or access to it, in time of war, but few remember this place of secrets.”

Secrets.
The word hissed in Shae’s mind.

“Why bring me here?”

His mouth quirked. A feather-light touch brushed her soul and withdrew. She pictured the bed of furs. He’d meant to lie with her tonight. Mother had told her of such goings on between a man and woman, but within marriage. Not like this. “You will meet me here, Shae, when the time is right. Our souls have touched.”

“
You?
That was you? But I felt
two
souls.”

He shook his head, his hair gleaming in the lantern light. “I am only one soul, but with many sides.”

She stared at him, remembering. “You terrified me.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t always control it.”

“I don’t understand.”

He looked at her, his eyes shadowed. “You will come to trust our bond.”

“Our bond?”

“You cannot deny we are joined.”

“No!” she cried, and then, “Yes! What binds us?”

He touched her face, and her knees went weak. “Can’t you guess?”

She stepped away. “A fool trusts another who answers with a question.”

Freaer threw back his head and laughed. “Another ancient saying? Your words prick like thorns that guard a tender rose.” He caught her hand and carried it to his lips. “Never mind, sweet flower. A few scratches won’t turn me aside. But I’ve promised to wait, and I shall. Come.”

She hesitated, but took the hand he extended. His fingers curled around hers, lending warmth. Light from the lamp rushed ahead to show the way out of shelter and into the storm. As they crossed the bailey, wind snatched her breath away and rain slapped her face.

Freaer flung open the keep’s side door and pulled her into the corridor.

Shae pushed back her hood and shook her hair free, blinking rain from her lashes. The corridor lay mantled in the stillness of deep night. The torches flared, then guttered and hissed, on the verge of extinguishing. Her stomach knotted. How long had she been gone? “I must return to my room! I never meant to leave for so long. What if someone looks for me?”

He gave her a light shake. “Peace, be still. Think of the worst that could happen in that event.”

Her mind reeled at the suggestion.

His smile steadied her. “You’d have to wed me, of course. Would that be so terrible?”

She stared at him, unable to answer, taken by the memory of Kai in her mirror.
‘Just let it die.’

Freaer accompanied her up a flight of darkened stairs and down a silent corridor. She sighed when they reached her chamber door, relieved they’d met no one and that the night’s adventures were over. A pang went through her. What had she gotten herself into this time? Why had she promised Maeven she would learn to behave, only to break her word at once? She meant to prove herself to Maeven and if she could bear the truth, Kai—but she seemed incapable of following her best intentions.

Freaer caught Shae’s wrist when she would turn away. “You look weary. Make an excuse to lie abed tomorrow.”

She shook her head and spoke to the image of Kai, which would not leave her. “I deserve to suffer for my recklessness.”

Freaer’s lips curved. He put a hand to her cheek, and his gaze probed her face.

Heaviness settled over her. She must pull away, get away. There was more here than she knew.

The door to her chamber opened and there, as if her thoughts had summoned him, stood Kai. “Shae! Are you well?” His voice carried an edge. Firelight spilled over him, revealing an alertness she’d seen in him once before—when he faced the messengers at the White Feather Inn.

Freaer must have noticed it, too, for he stepped away from her. She registered this almost as an aside, her whole attention given to Kai. A heedless impulse to run to Kai and shelter in his embrace shook her, but such a move would find no welcome. Something had shifted between Kai and herself, and she feared they could never go back to what had once been.

“I am well,” she answered as she brushed past him, not altogether certain she spoke truth. Something had also shifted between Freaer and herself.

****

Kai’s gaze locked with Freaer’s. He stepped into the corridor and shut Shae’s outer door. “Leave…Shae….alone.”

Freaer strode toward him, drawing a quick response from Kai’s nerves. “How come you to tell me this? You wrong me. I found your sister wandering in the storm and brought her again to safety.”

Kai hesitated. Shae did have a tendency to stray into trouble, but something rang false in Freaer’s assertions. “Thank you, but I expect you will not approach Shae further.”

Freaer stood his ground. He seemed, by some trick of torchlight or imagination, to grow in stature, and the hair on the back of Kai’s neck stood on end. Time seemed to expand and contract.

“I will follow Shae’s wishes in the matter.” Freaer turned away with a curt nod.

“I’ll thank you to keep Shae’s honor. Speak of this night’s events to no one.”

Freaer turned back with a faint smile. “Would that Shae had your concern for her honor.”

Although his hands balled into fists, Kai kept hold of his temper. “I will see she does.”

Kai returned to Shae’s outer chamber and bolted the door. Leaning against its solid wood, he breathed in quick gasps. What had just happened? Something uncanny had wended its way into that corridor to wound his spirit. Even now, shut behind a locked door and embraced by the comfort of fire and hearth, he did not feel quite safe.