tales of the latter kingdom 08 - moon dance (29 page)

Lord Elwyn stood by one of those windows, but he came toward me as soon as the footman shut the door, leaving us alone. His lordship wore somber black, but a heavy gold chain set with the green tourmalines mined in the Daleskeld Hills gleamed from around his neck.

“Lady Iselda.”

“Lord Elwyn.”

He paused a few feet away from me and smiled as he seemed to inspect me from top to toe. “You are looking very well, my lady. No one would think to look at you that you had just lost your lover a day earlier.”

“He was not my lover,” I said calmly. “A fact which you knew all too well. What is it you want, Lord Elwyn?”

This question seemed not to discomfit him at all. “You are a very direct young woman, Iselda. I appreciate that. So many girls your age are all simpering and coyness, with not a brain to them.”

“If you are attempting to flatter me, you are not doing a very good job of it,” I replied. “But that is no matter. I do wish to know why you have brought me down here for this interview.”

“Is it flattery to tell you the truth?” he inquired. Again he gave me one of those searching looks, and I felt warm blood rush to my cheeks. Something about his gaze made me feel as if he was trying to determine what I looked like under my gown and chemise, and my flesh positively crawled. “By the way, that color is very becoming to you. I am glad you wore that dress, on this most special of days.”

“And what is so special about it, pray?” I attempted to keep my tone cool and almost uninterested, but my heart began to beat faster for all that. Something about this meeting had begun to feel horribly wrong.

“Why, it is the day when I will marry you, Iselda.”

CHAPTER 17

I stared at him, aghast. “You are mad.”

“No, I think not.” He turned away from me and made a sort of “come here” gesture with his right hand. A door at the far end of the room, one I hadn’t noted previously because it was cunningly hidden in the paneling, opened, and an elderly man wearing the grey robes of one of Inyanna’s priests emerged.

No.
My mind rebelled, even as I realized how neatly Lord Elwyn had trapped me. I had thought I had another day to make some sort of attempt at escape, but he had never planned to give me the leisure of that much time. A hidden ceremony, and then everyone who arrived for the wedding the next day would be presented with the deed already done. The marriage made…and consummated. And no one would question a thing because of the way Lord Elwyn could manipulate all their minds.

Bile rose in my throat. “I will not,” I choked out, and took a step backward.

But he had anticipated that maneuver as well, and grasped me by the wrist before I could move any farther away. “Oh, yes, you will,” he replied. “You will stand there, and you will repeat the words of the vows. And you will kiss me at the end…and tonight you will share my bed.”

Not caring what the approaching priest might think, I sought to wrench my arm from Lord Elwyn’s grasp. Unfortunately, my struggles accomplished very little, except to increase his determination. He held on, his grip tightening so much that I gave a gasp of pain.

“This is what happens if you fight me,” he said, his voice an ugly rasp. “You might as well bow to the inevitable, my dear Iselda, for there is nothing you can do to stop me, or to prevent this marriage from happening. I won’t say I will not enjoy your struggles, for they are rather enticing, but the end result will be the same.”

“You’re a monster,” I retorted, beyond caring what I said. As his lordship had just informed me, there seemed to be little I could do to change the inevitable outcome of this horrible day. I might as well tell him precisely what I thought of him.

“No, I am not. Merely a determined man, no more.” He turned toward the priest, who had paused a few feet away. “We are ready, your honor.”

Up close, the priest appeared even more aged and decrepit than he had seemed at a distance. His dark eyes were rheumy and tired, and his grey beard reached almost to his waist. It also appeared stained and yellow around the mouth. I wondered where on earth Lord Elwyn had dug up this specimen. But then, I supposed it served his purposes to use a down-on-his-luck priest for this ceremony, someone who had no real connection to the estate and who would disappear after he had done what the earl requested.

The priest glanced over at me. His eyes, which had seemed so distant a few seconds ago, suddenly grew piercing. “And are you ready, my lady?”

“I already said we were,” Lord Elwyn responded, irritation clear in his tone.

“I was asking the lady.”

“No!” I burst out. “He is forcing me to marry him! He murdered his son and now wishes to make me his wife instead. Please, sir — you must help me!”

“Ah,” said the priest. He looked back toward Lord Elwyn. “Is this true?”

“Of course, it’s not true. She is a foolish girl beset by foolish fancies. All will be well once we are wed.”

“Ah.” Another pause. “Well, that is unfortunate. For I do believe her. And I also believe that you should let her go.”

And then he seemed to straighten, and grow taller, and in the next instant, it was no longer the tired old priest who stood before us, but Reynar, his silver eyes sparkling with anger.

“You!” Lord Elwyn burst out, even as my heart swelled with relief.

Reynar had not abandoned me. He had only been waiting for the right moment to come and take me away.

“Oh, thank the gods!” I nearly sobbed at the thought of my deliverance, even though I knew I should not be too confident. Not yet. For Reynar was still the apprentice and Lord Elwyn the master, and I truly had no idea how my lover would be able to best the man who had trained him.

“You have nothing to be thankful for,” Elwyn snarled, then raised his hand, just as he had with Mayson the day before.

And yet — the effect was not the same, for while Reynar took a few staggering paces backward, he still more or less maintained his ground, and certainly was not flung back against the wall, as no doubt Lord Elwyn had intended.

“Neither — do — you,” Reynar panted, and made an odd gesture with his left hand, middle and ring fingers held by his thumb as he seemed to flick something away from him.

An icy unseen wind wrapped around us, breaking Elwyn’s grip on my arm. I stumbled away, not sure what had just happened, but very glad that I no longer was the earl’s prisoner.

“Ungrateful boy!” Lord Elwyn snarled. “I gave you everything — a home, food on your table, training in magic. And you would take her side? She is mine.”

“No,” Reynar said calmly. “She is her own. And her heart is hers to give.”

“You are a fool,” Elwyn replied, jaw clenched. “Do you think I care about her heart? I only care about the sons she will give me, sons whose powers will make yours look as trifling as you yourself are.”

“I’d rather die first!” I broke in, but Reynar only shook his head.

“No, my love, there is no need for such sacrifice. You and I will leave his place, and Lord Elwyn will have to get his sons elsewhere.”

“You think it is as simple as that?” Again Lord Elwyn raised his hands, and this time the blow was much stronger, knocking Reynar backward a good ten paces. Luckily, the center of the room was empty, and so he did not land on any furniture, only the heavy wool rug. Even so, I let out a cry of worry and began to move forward, only to have Elwyn lunge for me and grasp me by the sleeve. I yanked my arm away, and heard the silk tear.

No matter. The only important thing was that he had not caught me, and I was still free to run to Reynar’s side. He had begun to push himself back up to a sitting position when I came to kneel next to him.

“Are you hurt?”

He shook his head, even as I saw him try to hold back a wince of pain. “Not really.”

But that brief exchange was all we had time for, as in the next instant Lord Elwyn was beside us as well, his face contorted with fury. From the corner of my eye, I saw him reaching for my arm so he might pull me away, and something within me seemed to snap. No, I would not allow him to manhandle me again in such a fashion. He had lost, even if he did not know it.

For the briefest flash of a second, Reynar’s eyes met mine. I seemed to be drowning in a sea of silver, falling into a moonlit rain.

And then his voice in my mind,
We must do this together, Iselda.

His hand came out to me, and I grasped it. Quicksilver fire rippled through my veins, cold and hot at the same time, flooding through every limb. I had never experienced such a sensation before, and yet I thought I knew what it was.

Magic.

I did not know how to use it. But Reynar did.

Our clasped hands were surrounded by a ball of shimmering light, like the godfire some sailors reported seeing dancing on the open waves. It awoke shimmering reflections in Lord Elwyn’s shocked eyes, even as he stumbled backward a pace, clearly uncertain as to what he should do next. Still holding hands, Reynar and I stood. And then he nodded.

Together, we hurled the ball of light at the earl. It hit him and spread out along his arms and down his legs, appearing to cover him in garments of flaring incandescence, even as his limbs jerked in a macabre imitation of some kind of pagan dance. And then the light was gone, and he had fallen to the floor, eyes staring and blank. As I watched, his face began to alter, lines forming at the corners of his eyes, dragging cruel furrows from nose to mouth, while at the same time his hair turned almost as pale as Reynar’s own. All those stolen years, returned to him tenfold in but an instant, once his own magic had died with him.

For the longest moment, Reynar and I stood there in silence, staring down at what we had done.

I hated to ask, but knew I must. We had to face what had just happened. A question began to form in my mind.
Did we —

“Yes,” Reynar said aloud, stopping me before I could give mental voice to the words. “We killed him. It was the only way. He would never have let you go.”

“How — ?” I had to stop there, for I had begun to tremble all over, and my voice shook. My mind did not want to grasp the enormity of what we had just done.

At once Reynar’s arms were around me, and he kissed the top of my head as he held me close. “You had the power within you all along, Iselda. You just did not know it was there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The words sounded far more accusing than I had intended them to, but I did not seem to have a very good grasp on my emotions in that moment.

“Come here, dearest.” He led me over to one of the chairs and sat me down, then stood in front of me so he blocked my view of Lord Elwyn’s body, slumped on the floor. “I would have told you, at the proper time. Indeed, at first I was not even sure. While it is true that all mage-born can sense one another, my facility for doing so is not as strong as — as my late master’s. And what I sensed from you was very different from the power I had always felt within Lord Elwyn. I had to be certain, and it was not until I guessed at his plans that I realized why he desired you so badly for his son.”

“His son that he murdered,” I said bitterly, for the guilt of that death would weigh on me for years to come. “He said it was because Mayson was a disappointment to him, but now I rather wonder if the main motive for that murder was to arrange things so he could claim me for his own.”

“Most likely,” Reynar agreed. “And I am sorry that I could not be here to reassure you, but I could not risk being caught by his lordship.”

“I understand.” And I did. I would never wish to live through another night like the one I had just spent, but better that than to have Reynar come rushing in without a clear plan and risk capture. A sudden thought struck me, and I slanted a glance up at him through my eyelashes. “So where is the real priest?”

“Sleeping it off in Daleskeld Forest,” Reynar replied with a grin. “Poor man, he could not resist the temptation of a flask of brandy that a stranger offered him. He will wake up with a headache in a few hours, but should suffer no other ill effects than that.”

“I am glad,” I said. “But how did you know at all what Lord Elwyn intended?”

“I knew that he planned to marry you to Mayson, and I began making my plans then. But after I heard what had happened to him, I realized my master had no intention of allowing you to return to your aunt. This gift of disguise is a valuable one, for I was able to come and go here in the castle without him even realizing I was about.”

“But….” I shook my head as I attempted to put together the pieces of the story. “Lord Elwyn claimed that he could sense anyone who was mage-born. So how did you escape his notice?”

“I can hide that about myself as well, when I take on one of my disguises.” A flash of a grin, and he extended his hands to me. I took them and let him pull me upright. “Something I discovered purely by accident, once upon a time. It seemed a useful gift, but I
may
have neglected to inform my master that I had such a skill.”

“Well, I am very glad you did.”

“As am I.” And he drew me toward him, and kissed me swiftly, and said, “But we should go. His lordship informed the household staff that he was not to be disturbed, but his spells will begin to dissipate, now that he is gone.”

“Where will we go?” I asked, for indeed, in that moment I could not begin to guess what lay ahead of us. I still could barely grasp the realization that I possessed strange powers, powers which had lain dormant within me for all these years.

“First, to your aunt and uncle. They deserve some sort of explanation. After that…?” His shoulders lifted, and although he still smiled, I thought I detected a hint of worry in his eyes. “I suppose that depends on you.”

“North Eredor,” I said at once, and an eyebrow went up. I went on quickly, for his expression remained dubious, “Is it not the most logical choice? You can practice magic openly there, and my sister and her husband dwell there as well, in the capital of Tarenmar, and will most certainly give us a warm welcome. We would be part of a family.”

“A family,” Reynar repeated in musing tones. “I think I should like that.”