Unbound (The Griever's Mark series Book 3) (28 page)

Chapter 41

WHEN I COLLAPSE into the slush, I don’t look to see who almost killed me. We almost killed ourselves, and the blame lies so thickly over us all that trying to shift it is both pointless and cowardly. We all reacted, linking ourselves together in a chain of death.

Stiff with cold and shivering in my wet clothes, I push to my hands and knees. I can’t yet raise my head. Someone falls beside me. I can see only the scuffed leather at his knees, but I know every inch of him, and I gasp Logan’s name as he pulls me into his arms. I wrap my own stiff arms around him, and they slowly warm. I hold on as tightly as my strength allows, and his arms encircle me almost painfully. But it is a good pain, such a very good pain.

As my numbness fades, I feel every detail of him: his stubbled jaw pressed to my cheek, his hair curling into my eye, his tunic clinging wetly to his hard, lean body, the belt pressing coldly to my stomach. Most of all, his thundering heartbeat, which booms through his whole body in time with my own.

The rest of the world starts to intrude. Men groan, weapons slide into sheaths, chainmail clinks, and boots crunch and slide through the melting snow.

Logan and I unwind enough to stand, but he doesn’t take his hands away from me. He is wary, unsure whether the fight is over.

Aron and the Polemarc emerge from the shifting line of men. So. They were part of this. Aron’s eyes stick at Logan’s chest, not rising to his face, but Clitus looks him in the eye.

Clitus opens his mouth to speak, but Logan cuts him off. “There is no need to speak of it.” Logan’s tone is weary rather than angry, and he’s right. There is nothing to say.

The Polemarc’s jaw tightens, but he nods. “The Wardens will take Heborian’s troops through the Current back to Tornelaine. Someone will need to stand in Heborian’s place until he is recovered or until...”

As he trails off, the sight that has been catching the corner of my eye grows to a prickling awareness. I follow the Polemarc’s eyes to where Heborian lies in the melting snow. Horik, Rood, Lief, and Jarl crouch around him. I break my contact with Logan to join them, though Logan stays close to my back.

I kneel, the slushy snow soaking my knees anew. Heborian lies half-sunken in the snow, his skin wan, his eyes dull.

“Did the Old Ones do this?” Rood directs the question at me with some anger.

None of us will soon forget what happened this day. Rood may never forgive me; he may never believe that I acted without thinking, that I didn’t want to kill him. It is a faint excuse anyway. I did almost kill him. Suddenly, I am weary, so very weary.

I tell Rood, “The Old Ones didn’t do this. This, he did to himself.”

Rood’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t argue.

Heborian makes no response. I’m not sure if he is unable to speak or simply unwilling.

Logan says tightly, “We need to get him out of the snow.”

Horik works his hands under Heborian’s prone form. “Lief and Jarl should return to Tornelaine with the others. I will take the king to Sunhild. Rood, you come with me. Astarti? What of you?”

*     *     *

We step from the Drift outside Sunhild’s hall, within the light of the guards’ torches but far enough back that they don’t immediately attack. They spring from the door to the steps, Drift-weapons at the ready and cries of alarm on their lips. Logan, Rood, and I raise our hands in surrender.

Horik, with Heborian slung over his shoulder, addresses them in Runish. I catch Heborian’s name in the exchange, and the guards wave us forward.

When the heavy doors swing open and we step into the light and warmth of the hall, Sunhild rises from her seat at the central hearth. Her harp notes fade into the air. Color drains from her face at the sight of us, and she strides across the hall. Her heavy gray braid swings with her long stride, and her amber necklace flashes in the light of the braziers.

Sunhild goes straight to Horik and Heborian, and her fierce Runish words make Horik stiffen.

He answers her in Keldan, “He has been cutting away his soul, Sunhild, and this is what is left.”

She lays her gnarled hands on her son’s hanging head and closes her eyes. “What have you done?”

She beckons Horik to follow her, and the rest of us trail uncertainly behind until she snaps, “Stay here.”

Logan, Rood, and I hover by the hearth, letting the heat chase off a little of the chill.

Rood darts a look around, taking in the stark wood paneling of the walls and the raised platforms running the length of the long, narrow hall. Sunhild’s retainers—her huskarls—hover around us, fierce with their Runish tattoos and the weapons held so casually.
Just cleaning them
, their body language says.
But we are ready for you.
Their eyes linger mostly on Logan. The last they saw of him, he was possessed by Belos, and he tore a hole in the roof. My eyes drift to the ceiling, where beams of bright new wood and a section of fresh thatching mark the repair. Logan frowns up at it, his expression slightly confused. I doubt he remembers that very well.

Rood shakes his head. “He wasn’t so ill this morning.”

I tell him, “Belos was not dead this morning and the portion of energy Heborian lodged in him was not yet gone.”

Rood’s eyebrows draw together, and he scowls into the fire. He rubs his hands together. He doesn’t say anything, but his expression speaks loudly enough. He is troubled by what his father did. Relief eases my chest.

“Did you know?” I ask him, keeping my voice carefully neutral so that he doesn’t mistake the question for an accusation.

“Not until he called the men together. He tried to leave me behind. Again. I snuck in with the Wardens. The Current was...incredible, like a golden river flowing between the trees.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“He told you, though?” I am curious, and it makes me push him. Heborian is so stingy with information that I find it surprising he would tell Rood.

“I accused him of it. There was no other way he could have known where you had taken Belos. He guessed, Astarti, everything you would do.”

“I know. Apparently, I am more predictable than I like to think myself.”

A smile teases the corner of his mouth, and a breath I did not know I was holding eases out of me.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I did not know it was you.” I want him to know this, not to erase my guilt but because I can’t bear the thought of him believing I would willingly kill him.

He mutters, darting a look at Logan, whom he almost killed, “I’m sorry, too. I did not know how quickly everything could go wrong.”

Logan says gruffly, “We all have much to be sorry for, enough, perhaps, that we can let it go.”

Rood’s mouth tightens briefly, then he sighs. “Yes. I think that’s best.”

*     *     *

After dinner with Sunhild—which mostly amounts to an interrogation—Logan and I are taken to the same private room we shared last time we were here. Logan and I share a look of mutual relief to be free of company as the chambermaid leaves us with a half-barrel of steaming water and some spare clothes. I don’t know what became of my pack. Probably still in the mountain cavern.

Logan ushers me toward the barrel. He unties the laces of my semi-dry tunic. I raise my arms as he lifts it over my head. He tugs my breast-band free. His fingers brush gently over my cold-pebbled skin and tightened nipples. The touch is sensual, wonderful, arousing. He kisses my cheek, my jaw, my ear. My hands start scrabbling at him, tugging at his clothes, but he sets my hands gently aside. He tugs my pants loose and pushes them off my hips, trailing kisses down my hips and thighs as he kneels to pull my socks and pants off my feet.

Still kneeling, he wraps his arms around my legs. His face is pressed to my belly. Though it has me panting and clutching at him, wrapping my hands in his hair, he only holds on.

“I love you, Astarti,” he says against my flesh. Though the words are simple, I hear everything in them: how much those words mean to him; how afraid he was to lose me—either to death or to time; how he will never leave me or turn away.

I slide down, and his face turns upward. The sight of him clasping my naked body, letting me pass through his arms, fills all the cold, empty places that have formed inside me through this long day.

I kneel with him, bringing my face to his. “I love you, too.”

I kiss the corner of his eye, where a tear clings to his lashes. I feel him smile against my jaw.

He eases me toward the tub, which is only large enough for me to kneel in. The water, though, is blissfully hot. Logan dips the washing cloth in the water and gently scrubs the grime, the cold, and the sorrow from my body.

When I stand from the water, he wraps me in a linen towel. He tries to usher me toward the bed, but I plant my feet.

“That’s not how this works.”

He starts to look stubborn, then he sighs. He plucks off his tunic and kicks off his pants as I tighten the towel around myself and kneel by the tub. I trail my fingers through the water. It’s no longer hot, but it’s warm enough. He crouches in the tub because his legs are too long for him to kneel. He relaxes as I clean the signs of the fight from his body, gently wiping away the lingering traces of blood from his face. The gash near his hairline has stopped bleeding, but it’s red and painful-looking. He flinches when I press my lips to it, then his body eases as I let my energy flow into him. I trace a finger over the Healed flesh.

“You’re getting good at that,” he says.

“I like it,” I tell him. “It’s what I want to do.”

He looks at me like I am utterly beautiful. “Then you will.”

When he stands from the tub, his bad knee cracks loudly. The damaged joint is stiff from the cramped position, and I steady him as he steps from the water.

“I wish I could Heal that.”

“Not everything can be erased or cast off. But I can carry this with me.”

“I’ll help you, when it gets too heavy.”

He pauses as my words sink in, as he considers all I am trying to say. He pulls me to him, the water that slicks his body seeping through my towel. “I know. I will do the same for you.”

Our hands meet at the edge of the towel, pulling it free by unspoken agreement. He presses hard against me. I touch him in all the ways I’ve learned he enjoys, and he shows me he’s been just as good a student.

When he lays me down, he is gentle but firm, his body commanding mine, mine commanding his. He slides himself into me, our bodies completing each other, just like our souls.

Chapter 42

I STAND NEXT to Rood at Heborian’s bedside. Morning light streams through the window onto Heborian’s still figure. Horik hovers behind us, uncertain of his place.

Resting through the night has brought some color back to Heborian’s face, and he fixes his eyes on me. He finds the strength—or maybe the will—to speak. “Just you.”

Rood casts me a nervous glance as he leaves with Horik. At first I think he is worried for his father, but when he gives me a slight nod I realize he’s worried about me.

I am not worried. Nothing Heborian might say could hurt me. For the first time, I am sure of myself with him. We have both learned where we draw our lines. Though I am grateful that Logan caught my spear, to spare me the memory of having killed my father, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t throw the spear again.

Heborian’s thoughts must be on the same moment, for he says weakly, “So. We are more alike after all.”

“In some ways,” I admit, sinking onto the edge of the mattress. To deny that would be absurd, but that doesn’t make me his reflection.

“I was proud of you,” he says. “That you had the steel in yourself to kill me for what you thought right. You should be queen, Astarti.”

“No,” I say firmly. “You know better than that, or you would not have held Rood away from all these things.”

“That was weakness.”

“That was your soul telling you when you were wrong.”

He closes his eyes wearily.

I ask, because I want to know for certain what is killing him, “You’ve been doing it for years, haven’t you? Carving away at your soul. The barriers. Belos. Even the bone weapons.” The last is a guess, but his silence confirms it. “That is what gives them such power. And that is why you are dying now. You’ve cut away too much of yourself.”

“Rood,” he says. “Will you help him?”

“When he needs me. But I will not live in Tornelaine. I will have a life of my own choosing.”

A slow breath goes out of him. “You deserve that.”

I had planned to tell him I saw my mother, but I find that it doesn’t matter now. Logan is right: we need to move forward.

I lean down and press my lips to his forehead, which is clammy with sweat. “I forgive you,” I murmur, even though he has never asked my forgiveness. As I draw back, his fingers lift from the blanket to catch my hand. He squeezes weakly. I smile down at him, telling him I understand what he is saying, that I’ve known it for a while. Yes, in his way, he loves me.

I stand from the bed. “I’ll send in your son.”

“Your brother,” he corrects.

“I’ll send in my brother.”

In the hallway, I find Rood and Horik waiting anxiously. Rood is so young for all that is about to fall on him. By the end of the day, he will be king.

I don’t know if he will welcome the gesture, but I decide to risk his reproof when I step to him and offer my arms. He haltingly leans into them. Though the embrace is awkward, I feel in it the promise that someday it will not be.

“He wants you,” I tell him.

He breaks away from me, nodding, and disappears into the room.

*     *     *

I find Logan sitting on the porch steps with Sunhild. The snow is quickly melting in the fields, revealing patches and swaths of green.

I ask, “Will the crops survive?”

“Many of them,” Sunhild answers.

“And the people? Will they survive the loss of their crops?”

She says wryly, “Many of them.” She pushes to her feet. “Rune has been through worse.” As she turns to leave me with Logan, she adds, “He is much better. You have done something.”

I shrug. “I love him.”

Sunhild cracks a smile. “Ah. The best magic of all.” At first, I think she is laughing at me, but her expression grows wistful and she says, leaving us, “I miss my husband. Do not waste a moment.”

I don’t intend to.

I take my place beside Logan to watch the melting icicles drip in the sunlight. When my legs grow cold from the stone, Logan pulls me into his lap. He presses his face into my hair and breathes deeply. After a while, he reaches inside his jacket. He pulls out a glittering silver bracelet, letting it catch the light.

“I will keep it for you until you want it.”

“I want it.”

I hold out my wrist and let him hook the bracelet around it. It lies comfortably, warm with Logan’s body heat, against my skin. It is not a reminder of my failures, as I once thought; it is a reminder of a woman who loved me and who did not get the chance to live. I settle back against Logan’s chest. His arms tighten around me.

When heavy footsteps sound behind us, I stay where I am. I am not embarrassed to sit like this with Logan. Besides, it’s only Horik.

He starts to turn away, thinking we prefer to be alone. I call to him. He sits beside us, letting his long legs dangle down the steps. He says in obvious relief, “He is not angry with me.”

“I didn’t think he would be.”

“He could have stripped me of my position. I moved to save you when I should have moved to save him. I broke my oath.”

I don’t want to dismiss what Horik has said, for it means too much to him. I ask carefully, “If you had to do it again, would you choose differently?” That is what matters most: whether his guilt is over his actions or over the oath.

He looks at me in surprise. “Heborian asked the same thing.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said I would do the same again.”

It’s no small thing. He chose me. I whisper, “Thank you, Horik.”

He claps a large hand on my shoulder. I kiss his knuckles, which makes him chuckle. The sound is such a relief to hear. I can scarcely bear to see Horik so grim.

He says, “Rood and I will stay here until the end, then I will guide him back to Tornelaine. What of you?”

“I have said my goodbye. I’m ready to leave.”

Logan stirs beneath me. He, too, is ready. He has only been waiting for me.

Horik asks, “What will you do? Go back to the city?”

Logan shifts to look down at me. I look up, speaking to him more than to Horik. “There’s only once place I ever loved, but I don’t know if it’s still standing.”

Logan grins and pushes me to my feet. “We’ll find out.”

Horik rises with us, and I throw my arms around his thick waist. He hugs me back. I say into his shirt, “You’re a good friend, Horik.”

“Don’t say that like I’ll never see you again,” he chides.

I draw away from him to rejoin Logan, who is already stirring the wind around us. I promise, “I will see you again.”

As Logan shapes us into the wind and we rise from the steps, Horik calls after me, “You better! You still owe me money!”