The King Of Hel (2 page)

"They'll be lowering the dinghy soon, madam. You'd best get your gear together."

Castil was startled out of her musings by the rough, friendly voice of the
Estarta
's captain. She smiled, hoping he had not been standing there long, watching her moon for something far beyond her reach.

"Will there be an escort to take me into the interior?"

Captain Lizera eyed her with what she thought was admiration. She'd been a good passenger, never complaining or causing trouble with unreasonable demands.

"Aye, madam. You'll travel with us to the dye houses. From there, we'll set up an escort for you to the Frozen Maiden.” She raised an eyebrow in question and he smiled. “The fortress of the kings."

The cold of the northern sea faded as memories of a morning in a ruined temple surfaced, and she pushed them down again. Therein lay a dangerous path, one of forbidden dreams. She turned to watch as the gray mist blanketing the shore thinned, allowing a view of ramshackle huts and nets hung on poles for mending. The captain's voice, hard with a black humor, sent shivers down her arms. “Madam il Veras, welcome to Hel.

"She has arrived. I have instructed the servants to take her to the queen's solar."

Doranis nodded once, placing his son into the arms of the waiting nursemaid. The babe squirmed for a moment before nestling contentedly against the woman's breast. Tiny and fragile, the infant looked much like his father, save for his coloring. The king still gave thanks to whatever deities listened that the curse of his blood did not pass to his offspring.

He looked to his cousin, finding the other man regarding him with hooded eyes. “The news of your wife's death will come as a blow. What do you wish me to tell Madam il Veras?"

Doranis bowed his head for a moment, wondering if such news would be more merciful coming from a stranger or from him. In the end, it mattered little. Kareena was dead, and Castil il Veras didn't know it. The pain would be no less, no matter who delivered the message.

"I will tell her. Kareena would have wished it, I think. She adored her friend. And if Madam il Veras was willing to travel so far, the sentiment was reciprocated.” He kept silent of his wish, his need, to once again speak with the woman who had haunted his dreams these many months.

"She will fear you, as Kareena did."

Doranis's light eyes narrowed. “Mayhap, but something tells me otherwise."

Marcilun's tones were diffident. “Forgive me, Sire. I meant no disrespect. I only wished to warn you that your meeting with this Caskadanian may not be pleasant. Like the queen, she may also consider us savages."

Marcilun did not know Castil il Veras, but Doranis did, after a fashion. The idea that she would react to his people in the way Kareena did seemed unlikely. He stared at his son, nursing at the maid's breast. Kareena had despised most everything about her new home. Had she been a more forceful personality, her displeasure would have manifested itself in endless harping and screaming tirades. As it was, she was a stoic, withdrawn woman, one who shut herself away in her chambers as the weeks and months passed, and Helenrisia grew no dearer to her.

Doranis didn't mourn her, as they had remained distant strangers to each other, coming together only in the darkest hours of the night to beget an heir. Such couplings were always brittle, tense, no matter how gentle or coaxing he tried to be. His wife simply lay beneath him, colder and more rigid than a corpse, until he finished with her. Her disgust was palpable in the heavy silence of the bedchamber, though she offered no resistance to his touch. Despite the parody of lovemaking in which they engaged, she soon carried a child, and he left her to her solitary bed, as relieved as she that they would no longer have to suffer physical intimacy with each other.

It was during those dismal moments, when he would rise from the bed, shivering with cold and a dull emptiness, that he thought of the fascinating Castil. Had the irony not been so harsh, he would laugh at the turnings of Fate, for she would have been a better match for him, despite her dowerless state.

She had lured him to her with her scholarly ways and ready laughter. There was about her a vibrancy, as if the heat of a Caskadanian sun burned in her blood. Unlike Kareena's exquisite blonde beauty, Castil was nondescript in appearance. Small and dark haired, she had average features graced only by a smattering of freckles across her nose. He had barely given her a second glance at their first meeting. Until she spoke the verse on his tunic.

From that moment, she grew progressively more beautiful in his eyes as he came to admire her intellect and easy humor. During the wedding celebrations, he sought her out numerous times to dance, uncaring that such attention drew conjecture. Castil fascinated him as no other woman had, and as she swayed in his arms during the numerous pre-wedding revels, they spoke of old texts and ancient civilizations, laughing at each other's quips concerning the oddities and quirks of court life.

He remembered the morning of his wedding day, when he slipped past the ever constant vigilance of his guard and walked through the streets of the city. Servants already ran errands, preparing for the day's work ahead. He moved among them, cloaked and hooded, gazing at the sights with casual interest.

Doranis pulled his hood lower over his face, protecting his sensitive eyes from the bright daylight. None paid him any heed as a side street caught his attention. He turned onto the narrow path that ultimately led to a small grotto partially hidden by vines and untended hedge. Its cool, dappled shade lured him in, and he was pleased to discover the ruins of an ancient temple.

His steps were soundless as he ascended into the roofless rotunda, and he stilled, surprised to find another had found her way here before him. Castil il Veras sat cross-legged on the floor, weaving a small garland of flowers with nimble fingers. Doranis watched her for a quiet moment, admiring the play of early light on her features, the way she chewed her lower lip in concentration as she worked.

She sucked in a startled breath, stumbling to her feet, when he made his presence known. He raised a silencing finger to his lips to halt any cry, and she blinked at him in bewilderment before tilting her head in question.

"Your Majesty?” And there was disbelief in her inquiry, as if it was far too strange a thing to find a king wandering among the city, unattended.

Doranis smiled and pulled back his hood, sighing heavily as Castil dropped her garland and bowed. “Rise, madam. We are not at court.” His smile widened to a grin as she straightened, looking behind him to see if an army of escorts hovered nearby. “Tell no one. I have run away.” She laughed at his teasing, shaking a finger at him in a gesture of disapproval.

He bent to retrieve the garland, handing it to her with a curious look. Castil shrugged. “A garland for Kareena. These flowers represent good fortune. I have only found them growing here, at this temple."

She watched him intently, her gray eyes thoughtful, and he wondered what words were forming behind her lips. He didn't have long to wait for the answer as she stiffened with an internal resolve, her features becoming set and determined.

"You will be kind to her, your Majesty?” There was a nervous warble to her voice, but she plunged onward. “Kareena knows her duties, but she is frightened, as any new bride would be."

Despite her anxiousness, Castil did not drop her eyes from his, and Doranis gazed at her in admiration. She was brave in her way, speaking in support of someone she cared for, knowing she risked offending him with an impertinence.

He stepped closer to her, smiling slightly as she refused to give ground though he did not miss the slight shiver that shook her frame. “Madam il Marcam does not fear becoming a bride. She fears becoming
my
bride.” He raised her chin with one long finger, tilting her face upward. She blinked as a stray beam of sunshine passed across her eyes. “And you, Madam il Veras, keeper of dead languages and old tales, would you fear me were you mine?"

Images flashed in his mind, the result of his concentration and touch upon her. A bright, full moon, blankets of snow on the Laybet Mountains. Things cold, beautiful, bound in winter. It was how she saw him in her mind, and his breathing slowed even as he felt hers speed up.

"Would you fear me, Castil?” he repeated.

Dark lashes brushed her cheeks as she closed her eyes. “No,” she whispered against his descending mouth. “I would welcome you."

He swallowed her gasp of surprise as he forced her lips open with the invasion of his tongue. It was a hard, almost brutal kiss, filled with desperation and suppressed hunger. And Castil responded with equal fervor, her tongue entangling with his as he pressed her against him.

Doranis couldn't get enough of her taste, plunging as deep as he could into the welcoming warmth of her mouth, mimicking the act with the thrust of his hips against hers. His upcoming nuptials were forgotten, incinerated by the fire that arced between them. He held Castil's head with one hand, while the other wandered across delicate ribs, sliding up to cup a soft, breast.

He was fast losing control, driven onward by the seduction of her scent, the taste of her mouth, the feel of her small nipple, stiff against his stroking palm. He was on the verge of stripping them both and taking her on the temple floor when the faint call of familiar voices brought him to his senses.

Castil heard the calls as well and wrenched herself out of his arms. Doranis could not suppress the deep groan of disappointment at her sudden withdrawal, the emptiness where there had been a silken warmth. She stared at him, her gaze anguished. Bright flags of color raced across her cheekbones, and her mouth was swollen from his kiss.

The voices were closer, sharp and alarmed as they searched the streets for the missing king. Doranis resisted the temptation to pull Castil back to him, even as his body urged him to capture her again.

"This is wrong,” she whispered, her voice heavy with remorse. “You are marrying Kareena."

He stared at her, his eyes hard and unapologetic. “I would have it otherwise."

Castil shook her head, clasping the small garland to her chest and backed away from him. “It cannot be otherwise. Today is your wedding day, and my closest friend will be your wife."

His gaze strayed to the token of good luck. “I will not apologize for something I do not regret, Castil. And this is no love match. Why do you suffer such guilt?"

Her gaze turned wistful and she gave him a sad smile. “Because I would rage at this, were I Kareena."

He made to touch her again, but she held up a hand to ward him off. “Your people call for you, your Majesty. May the gods bless your union."

She peeked around him again before scampering down the steps of the temple to disappear among the overgrown hedgerow. Her scent—of sunshine and salt air—remained, teasing his nostrils and lingering in his memory even as he bound himself to a woman who despised him. Even as he sailed homeward the following day.

Doranis reached out a hand, gently stroking his child's dark hair as he lay against the wet nurse's breast, nearly asleep. Marcilun shifted impatiently behind him, awaiting his next command. “See to it that her possessions are placed in one of the south chambers. There is more light in those rooms."

He touched the baby once more before striding out of the nursery and into the icy corridors. His steps barely whispered on the flagstone floor as he made his way to the solar, cold wall torches lighting with green witchfire as he passed.

Kareena's solar still held all of her possessions, and it was obvious servants had arrived earlier to light the fire in the hearth and bring in a pot of tea and cups. The lone occupant in the room had her back to him, and Doranis paused to watch as she held her hands out to the fire to warm them. By custom, it fell to a lowly minister to greet guests and see to the their initial comfort. But he wanted to see her again, gaze upon her smiling features and discern whether or not the longing he sensed she held for him still remained.

She was even lovelier than he remembered, with the firelight playing across her flushed features and her dark hair tamed into a braid. He closed the door behind him, the click of the lock alerting her to his presence. Hot blood rushed into his groin as she gave him a wide smile, her eyes revealing a hunger quickly smothered behind a more guarded gaze. But he had seen it, felt the caress of her eyes before she bowed and greeted him a deceptively cool voice.

"I am honored, your Majesty."

He walked up to her, taking her warm hand in his. Her fingers twitched in his grasp as he brushed a delicate kiss across the back of her knuckles. She blushed and looked away, taking a deep breath before gently pulling her hand free. He did not miss the light shiver that shook her frame when he spoke.

"Welcome to Helenrisia, Madam il Veras. You honor us with your presence."

She smiled and stared around her with interest. Her next words, uttered with such heartfelt eagerness, were a harsh reminder for why she had traveled so far, and why they stood in this particular room. “Thank you, your Majesty. I am looking forward to this visit. When may I see Kareena?"

Even cut so deeply into the mountain, away from the hard biting wind and squalls of snow, the burial vault of the kings was frigid. As if pulled by an invisible lodestone, Castil walked past the line of marble effigies. Ancient Helenese kings and queens immortalized in stone, lined the walls, their features captured in timeless repose. Among them, a delicate woman of the south rested in eternal sleep.

It was near the end of the line that Castil stopped. Were it not for the size and color of the statue, she could almost believe she faced a living Kareena. The sculptor had performed magic with his chisel—the stone woman who faced her was the perfect avatar for the queen. As with all the other statues, Kareena's wore the ceremonial burial robes, standing with her arms crooked, elbows against her chest. Her hands faced outward, cupped so they held a gold urn containing her ashes.