The Dark Throne (72 page)

“There is evil in every world,” Luca replied. “It takes many forms. But it is still evil, and good men must be willing to fight it.”

“Men
and
women,” I corrected him.

“Good
warriors
,” Luca amended, smiling. I glanced up at him as I worked. He’d let his golden hair grow longer during our travels, now wearing it tied back in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck, and stubble glinted along his strong jawline. Though our rations were basic, he hadn’t lost any muscle. If anything, he was leaner yet still muscular, the lines of his chest and shoulders visible even with his loose shirt. I noticed, not for the first time, the pleasurable heat that kindled in my stomach, something I’d grown used to feeling when I was close to him. I focused on working the little knots out of his hand, glancing up at him when he caught his breath.

“Am I hurting you too much?” I said quietly, brushing my fingers over the gnarled scars as I gave him a momentary break. I laid his upturned hand on my knee and slipped the strap of the Sword over my head, laying it to one side and stretching my arms overhead.

“It’s a good hurt,” he replied in a low voice. He looked down at his hand, large against both of mine. “May I ask you a question, Tess?”

“Of course,” I said lightly, but my stomach fluttered.

“Are you all right?” he asked with endearing sincerity.

I smiled. “In general, or specifically…?”

He raised his eyes to mine. “It must be very difficult, learning that the crown princess is alive and Finnead intends to rescue her.”

I brushed my thumb across his palm. “It wasn’t easy, but I had the feeling for a while that the past would rear its head at some point.”

“And so you are all right?” He shifted, but left his hand laid palm up in my grasp. I noted peripherally that Chael had silently disappeared.

That strange calm overtook me again, layering neatly atop the desire burning low in my belly. “Yes. He made his choice.” I looked at him and smiled as he met my eyes. For all that he was a brawny
ulfdrengr
, he looked sweetly vulnerable, hot hope tempered by world-wise caution written upon his face. I let the words flow from my lips without thinking too much about them; I felt that I owed Luca unsparing honesty. “I’ve experienced so much since becoming the Bearer….but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t made mistakes, or I’ve been right about everything.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he said.

“I don’t
have
to, but I want you to understand. I want you to know that I doubted my feelings about Finnead long before we found out the crown princess was alive. I think I loved him, and maybe I still do, in the way I love my friends who have fought and almost died with me. But most of what I feel…what I
felt
for him was lust.” I gave a little shrug and a smile that was a bit sheepish.

“There’s nothing wrong with appreciating the beauty of the world,” Luca replied, a glimmer in his pale eyes.

“I guess not. But what I’m saying is that…” I felt my smile soften as warmth welled up in my chest. “I’m saying that I’ve finally realized that you’re the one I want to be with. You’ve been my friend and my teacher and we’ve fought side by side, and I haven’t ever questioned my love for you. I needed to sort everything out, and at the end of it all, there you are…the constant.”

An answering smile curved his lips. “Yes. I will always be here for you.”

I took his hand between my own, guiding it up to my face; his scarred palm pressed feather-light against my cheek, his thumb brushing over my lower lip. We both leaned forward, drawn inexorably toward each other by an immutable force, and when our lips touched it felt like the most natural thing in the world, something I had always known and yet waited my entire life to discover. My hands found his neck, and he gently drew me onto his lap, one hand on my hips and the other still cupping my face with infinite tenderness. His tongue parted my lips almost hesitantly, and a pleasant shiver ran through me at the sweetness of his touch and the gentleness in the huge calloused hands that held such strength and had wielded weapons with deadly intent in battle. I ran my own hands over his shoulders, feeling his muscles harden beneath my touch. He shuddered, drawing back from our sweet kiss, his hands holding me almost reverently about my waist.

I gazed into his eyes, waiting, yet strangely content. If only I could sit here, like this, not even kissing him, but just with his skin upon my own, I could be happy forever.

“Ah, Tess,” he said, my name sounding like an invocation on his lips. His pale wolf-eyes flickered in the firelight. “You’ve given me more than I deserve. More than I’ve hoped.”

I leaned closer to him again, giving him another soft kiss. “I want to give you more than this.”

His hands tightened about my waist at my words, making me gasp a little, but the heat within me surged at the sudden gleam in his eyes. “I’m yours, Tess.” He lifted me a little so that he could lay his cheek against my chest. I stroked his hair with one hand. His voice rumbled against my breastbone as he spoke. “I’ve been yours since the day you saved my soul from the darkness.”

I pressed my lips against his golden hair in a gentle kiss and then rested my chin atop his head. “I’ve never doubted it,” I said, and it sounded like the truest words I’d ever spoken.

Though I knew we both wanted so much more of each other, I was content to hold him with his head against my chest. It felt as though all the pieces I’d been struggling to put together had finally fallen into place, yet I didn’t regret a single moment of the uncertainty and pain that I’d experienced. It had all led to this crystalline serenity, my breath and his mingling warmly against my skin, his hands pressing lightly below my shoulder blades. As gently as he’d lifted me, I shifted my body until we lay down on his cloak, his head still resting on my chest. My arms encircled him and his brawny limbs entangled with mine until I felt as though we were like the twined roots of a tree, like we’d grown for years like this, legs and arms belonging to both of us at once. I smoothed his hair beneath my hands, he gave a great sigh, and with a look of utter contentment on the part of his face that wasn’t pressed into me, he fell asleep.

I listened to his steady breathing, one hand tracing idle circles on his broad back, and I stared up into the sky. Luca’s weight felt pleasant, solid, anchoring me to the ground as the stars wheeled overhead. The fire burned low—again I felt a professional appreciation for Chael’s skill with the forge-runes that tended the flames. And eventually, with Luca’s steady breathing as my lullaby, I fell asleep, thinking as I slipped into slumber that this was perhaps the most content I’d ever felt in Faeortalam.

I woke in the morning to a cold face and numb toes, the air biting at my skin; but the rest of me had remained warm with Luca’s body heat. He didn’t seem to feel the cold as I did, sleeping peacefully without a cloak for a blanket. As I blinked sleep from my eyes, I found that not only Luca had kept me warm: Kianryk had chosen to sleep against my other side, his head very near that of the
ulfdrengr.
For a moment, I lay still and watched them sleep, a little smile turning up one corner of my mouth. But then Kianryk opened his eyes and met mine. It felt as though I was looking into Luca’s eyes. I gently freed my arm and rubbed between the wolf’s ears. Luca stirred and pushed himself up with one arm, his hair only a little mussed. Kianryk stood, stretched and padded off into the morning mist.

Luca and I didn’t speak. We merely smiled at each other and then, feeling incredibly brave, I darted close and kissed him, feeling the curve of his smile subside against my insistent mouth. He brushed a loose tendril of hair from my face and responded in kind, the rough stubble on his chin a delicious contrast to his soft lips. Then there was a rustle from nearby, somewhere on the other side of the blackened board that had held our fire; after another few heartbeats, we parted. I turned and saw Chael just awakening, his head pillowed against Rialla’s ribs. The silver-and-gray wolf merely curled into a ball and tucked her nose under her tail when Chael moved.

The one-eyed
ulfdrengr
stood and stretched, glancing at us as he picked up the board and brushed the runes clean. He muttered something that might have been
finally
as he shook out his cloak and began to pack for the day’s journey.

I followed Chael’s example and stood, stretching the stiffness from my back. I picked up the Sword and settled the scabbard against my spine. It seemed that every time Luca and I caught each other’s gaze, we smiled; the Sword’s power turned lazily in my chest and for the first time in a long time, Gwyneth’s pendant warmed against my throat. I hooked a finger through the pendant and a feeling of motherly approval washed over me. Luca tilted his head slightly in question at my sudden grin. I held up the pendant between two fingers.

“Sometimes I get messages from the last Bearer,” I said, “or more like feelings. And she approves, I think.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Luca replied, his ice-blue eyes gleaming in amusement.

Rialla grumbled in protest as Chael spoke to her softly in the Northern tongue. She flicked her tail and with a great sigh stood and stretched, her amethyst gaze unamused as she surveyed us.

“I’ll see you at the usual meet-up spot,” I said, “I think maybe some practice with daggers this morning?”

“With practice guards on the edges of the blades,” said Luca, folding his cloak. “No more mishaps.”

“You’re the expert,” I said brightly. We smiled at each other one last time, and I made my way back through the camp toward the main tent.

Calliea looked up as I pulled aside the emerald curtain and entered our little chamber. She sat back on her heels and gazed at me thoughtfully, a slow smile spreading over her face. “You smell like wolf,” she informed me with badly hidden glee.

“Well, that’s because I slept against one last night,” I replied in what I hoped was a nonchalant tone. “I couldn’t sleep and I went to the
ulfdrengr
camp.”

Calliea slipped her breastplate over her head. I stepped close to tighten the straps at her side without being asked. “So you just had a desire to sleep in the open air.”

“Oh, exactly,” I agreed with a grin.

She seized me by the shoulders. “Tell me, did you at least kiss him? Please say you did!”

“I don’t see what business it is of yours.” Despite my words, I couldn’t stop the widening of my grin or the slightly self-satisfied note in my voice.

“It is a tiny bit of my business because I have watched you dancing about with both of them for ages, and
I’m
happy that
you
finally seem happy,” Calliea pronounced. She obediently turned so that I could fasten the other set of buckles on her other side, and gave me a sidelong glance and cleared her throat lightly. “You know, if you’d like the space to, ah, yourself, you have only to ask—what?” Her brows drew together when I slapped her armored chest lightly in reproach. “I’m only
saying
, Tess.”

“Well, I’m ‘only saying’ that I appreciate the offer, but…” I shrugged. “As much as it frustrated me before, I’m alright with taking it slow now.”

“Taking it slow,” repeated Calliea blankly.

“You know, not jumping into, ah, intimacy—” I stopped at Calliea’s laugh.

“I know what you
mean
, Tess,” she said merrily. “And you’re adorable, blushing like that.” She paused. I picked up my breastplate and slid it over my head, raising one arm to let Calliea tighten the straps. “It’s your choice, and even I cannot tell you different than your own heart,” she said finally.

“I think I already know what you
would
tell me,” I said with a chuckle. Calliea shrugged, her eyes dancing, and we both turned back to our preparations for the day’s journey. “We’re going to do some dagger work, I think, if you’d like to join.”

“Oh, of course I would,” she replied as we walked out of the tent with our saddles slung over one shoulder and the straps of our packs on the other, ready for yet another day of the journey across the barren plains.

Chapter 37

“M
alravenar’s forces are gathering at the White City, and beyond,” pronounced Vell. She looked down at the map spread before her on the table. Titania stood to her right, and Mab to her left; the Three of each queen ranged down the table. Lumina surveyed the map serenely from one corner, Forsythe and Flora to one side of her and the silent Galax to the other. I stood silently at the far corner of the table, one hand resting idly on the hilt of the sword at my hip, listening to the last Queens’ Council. All told, we had traveled a month and a week. The last two sennights had brought tension and sparse rations. None went hungry, but our bellies were not exactly full either. Five days ago, Vell had sent messengers back through the army, telling all her warriors and the other Courts to fill their waterskins at this last fresh spring. All the Courts had shared the water conjured by the High Queen for the past week. Shadows still lingered beneath the Vell’s eyes, though she looked a bit better since she had stopped calling up the water from the barren ground. Titania now dressed in her bright-shining armor, her golden hair bound up in braids; and Mab seemed subdued, even preoccupied at times. I knew that she thought of her sister, and felt a strange flash of empathy for the Unseelie Queen.

“So the battle will join there,” said Ramel, leaning slightly over the table and examining the miniature sketch of the ruined city. He looked older than when I’d first met him in Darkhill, more serious. His hair gleamed with that faint spark of copper that I remembered so well.

“Fitting, that he should choose such a place,” murmured Titania.

“It gives his forces the advantage,” said Gawain at the side of the Seelie Queen.

Ramel nodded in agreement. “Would that we had a dragon of our own, to lay the ruins waste and all the enemy within along with it.”

“There are the Valkyrie,” said Gray, her bright eyes thoughtful. She looked at Vell. “We might create some spelled objects for them to carry and unleash from the sky.”