B00CGOH3US EBOK (44 page)

He closed his eyes, as if looking at her was too painful.

"My lady. Jill. I am sorry. I have hurt you and that was never my intent." He tunneled his fingers through his hair. "It is not you I am angry with. I am angry with myself."

"What for?"

"What we did…what I did…I was so stupid. So weak."

He paced away and spoke with his back to her. "Whether you knew or not, you were a maid in truth. And by dishonoring you, it could have ruined everything. My one chance to break the curse nearly lost, because I could not control myself." He shook his head. "What kind of knight am I?" He turned to face her and answered his own question. "One felled all too easily by Cupid's arrow, it would seem."

Jill felt the air rush from her lungs. It was the closest thing to a declaration of love any man had ever said to her.

He looked up at the cave and she could see the strain and exhaustion etching deep shadows in his face.

"For over two centuries I have lived as a dragon. Year after year, with the help of some poor, unfortunate maiden, I have attempted to break this damn curse. Year after year, I have lived with the disappointment of failure when we did not succeed, to return once again to live as the beast in a cave." His gaze shifted back to her, and the forlorn hope she saw in them broke her heart. "But now that I have known you—truly known you—I can never go back to that type of existence again."

"Oh, Baelin." She took one step closer, then stopped. She understood him a little more now, and shared his worry and trepidation. "If there is any kind of justice in this world, then you won't have to."

"I am sorry if I hurt you. For so long, I have not known another's touch. And yet here you are, wanting to take care of me, to touch me, and it does not seem to bother you at all."

"No, it doesn't, Baelin. It never has." She cupped his cheek, relieved he allowed her to. "Is that really so hard to believe?"

He looked at her with such raw need, she ached to throw her arms around him and show him how much she wanted him. But she didn't. She didn't want to risk scaring him off again.

"Aye, it is. Or it was, until last night." Then it was his turn to surprise her. He clasped the hand cupping his cheek and placed a gentle kiss on her palm. "Perhaps you are right. Mayhap it was meant to happen."

He took a deep breath and stepped away, but he didn't release her hand. The warmth was back in his eyes, and with it the promise that a fragment of what they had shared last night was still there.

"Come. We have a great distance to go before nightfall."

They started walking, her hand in his. It was a few moments before she dared to speak, afraid of breaking the fragile bond between them.

"So, now that we're re-supplied and you're so set on not going out of bounds, where to next, oh mighty dragon?"

Baelin's gaze looked out across the valley before them. "Home."

She glanced back at the dark hole punched high in the rocky mountainside. She thought the cave was his home.

But if they weren't already there, then where was it?

The drawbridge was gone, not that it was needed.

The deep ditch circling the earthen rampart had run dry long ago, choked now with weeds and tall marsh grass. The climb up the man-made hill proved treacherous and steep, as it was meant to be. When they reached the crest, the massive entrance of the palisade gaped open like some toothless wooden monster perched atop the high, grassy mound.

As Jill and Baelin entered what had once been the bailey, it became clear the barrier was no longer necessary to keep anything out. Only the skeletal remains of the once grand structure within still stood, the thatched roof having long ago rotted away and collapsed onto the dirt floor below.

Jill must have read the misery on his face, seen the desolation that surrounded his soul as surely as the rubble heaped at his feet.

"Oh, Baelin. I'm so sorry."

"'Tis naught more than a useless pile of rotting wood and crumbling stone now."

Jill moved to stand beside him. He watched as her gaze took in the tall wooden palisade that should have enclosed the perimeter of the mound. Built strong, meant to protect and defend the buildings within, now it was a pitiful fragment of what had once been a mighty fortress. Two of the four main walls were gone, the large timbers having toppled down the rampart at least a century before. He knew, for he had watched it happen, year by year, post by post.

"I thought castles were made of stone and could stand for centuries."

"Nay. I am aware of only a handful of keeps made entirely of stone. When my family ruled these lands, our manors were built of timber on high earthen mounds like the one we now stand upon. As you can see, though strong, they do not last forever." Baelin took in a deep breath, biting back the bitter memory of what had brought about his family's fall. "But time 'twas not the only thing that brought this fortress down."

Jill looked around at the ruin that had once been a grand manor house. "What did?"

"The people did this."

"Your people?"

"Aye. They blamed my family for the dragon's presence in the land and the villagers drove away the last of them long ago. Once they were gone, I watched from the skies as those who had once pledged fealty to my father tore down his house timber by timber, stone by stone, until all you see now was left."

"Why?"

"A few carted off timber and stones to use for their own crofts and outbuildings, but most considered the house evil and destroyed what they could so that my family would not return and bring the dragon back with them."

"I don't understand."

Baelin stood amid the ruins of his home, a place so familiar yet so changed from his distant memories of it.

"After the Dark Witch cursed me and I escaped into the world as a dragon, I returned here, to the land of my birth, to my family."

"Did they know what had happened to you?"

"Nay. They only knew that a dragon had laid claim to the nearest mountain and the surrounding land as its territory. My own family—my father, my kin—came after me, hunted me, in an effort to protect their people—my people—from the dragon. From me."

"But didn't they know the dragon was you?"

He shook his head, recalling the fear and heartbreak of being hunted by his own. Fearing even more that he would not be able to control the dragon, and would harm those he loved most, should they corner him.

"Not until after the first year, when I could take human form for the first time. Only then could I come to them and tell them of my fate."

"How did they take the news?"

"My mother cried. My sisters fled in horror. My brothers vowed to destroy the Dark Witch as she had surely destroyed me, though none of them were yet old enough to wield a sword, much less go to war against the likes of her."

"And your father? What did he do?"

Baelin tasted the bittersweet memory on the back of his throat. "He cursed. He raged. Then, for the first time in my life, my father wept before he turned me away and told me never to return."

Jill gasped. "Your own father kicked you out? How could he?"

"How could he not? He was the lord. His first duty was to his people. He could not protect them while he harbored a dragon in their midst, even one that had once been his son. He did what he had to do and I never faulted him for it."

"But you were his own son, his flesh and blood!"

"In his eyes, and those of his people, I was not. Not any longer."

Jill stood there, silent for a long moment, her gaze roaming over his face, reading the raw emotions he did not even try to conceal.

"So what did you do?"

"I retreated to my cave in the mountains and hid. From there, I was able to watch over my family…" He paused, trying to speak around the lump that had formed in his throat. "But to never be a part of them again."

"Oh, Baelin. That must have been so hard for you."

"Leaving my family 'twas not nearly so hard as watching year after year as each of them slowly grew old and died before my eyes. Always waiting, always watching from my dark hole, I remained the same while generation after generation was born and died in this house, until none were left who remembered me as more than a legend, an ancient family secret to be feared and appeased."

Jill waved her hand, indicating the destruction surrounding them. "So when did all this happen?"

"After a half century or so of living under the dragon's shadow, the villagers decided the family itself was cursed by the beast and they drove what was left of them from this place in shame and disgrace. They left these lands, left England, forever." He chuckled without humor. "But as you know, it did not work, for to this day the dragon has remained."

"I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what losing your whole family must've been like."

He looked into her sad, green-flecked eyes and knew the lie for what it was. She did know, only too well. Time was running out for both of them and with it, any hope that she might see her own family ever again.

"Do not grieve for my loss. Though they turned me away, my family did not turn their backs on me completely. True, I left to spare their honor, but not before I told them of the curse and what was required to break it. From that moment on, the tradition of offering up the maiden to the dragon began. My father asked his people to make this sacrifice each year in the hope that one day I would be set free and return to them as their son once more."

"But you never did."

"Nay, I never did. And now, though my family is gone, the dragon still remains."

"And the annual sacrifice of the maiden continues on."

Baelin gently brushed his fingers across her smooth cheek. "And so it does."

He strode through the rubble of the once great timber hall while Jill followed behind him. They passed the massive fire pit in the center of the packed dirt floor. It sat cold and empty, now more a ditch for catching the rain falling through the skeleton of the rafters than the warmth of a roaring fire. He ducked through a narrow doorway in the remaining far wall, stepping over the wooden door that now lay flat on the floor and into the small antechamber.

"This was my parents' private sleeping quarters." Baelin spoke without turning, sensing Jill's presence in the doorway behind him. "Some of the fondest memories of my life before took place in this very room."

He glanced around at what had once been a small but grand chamber, imagining a warm fire blazing in the brazier, rich hangings adorning the walls to keep the winter chill at bay, and fresh rushes scented with heather and herbs scattered across the dirt floor.

But all of that was gone now.

He listened for the remembered sound of his parents' laughter that once filled this room. He strained to catch even one faint echo that might somehow have remained trapped within these crumbling walls. But he heard only the restless breeze as it wafted across the top of the roofless chamber and the scurrying of tiny creatures making their nests in the cracks and crevices of the rotting timbers.

The enormity of all he had lost at the whim of the Dark Witch had never been more acute.

He looked at the wall where his parents' bed had once been, now a gaping hole open to the rear bailey. Only one post remained standing in silent refusal of defeat. Baelin walked over to it and shoved the massive timber, toppling it onto its kindred where it splintered at his feet.

"I am lost. Even if I break the curse and become the man I once was, what good does it do me? I have no home to return to, no lands to claim as my own. My family is gone, long ago turned to naught but bones and dust in the ground." He closed his eyes against a truth he did not want to acknowledge, but could no longer deny. "All this time I have been trying to return to what I was, and it can never be. The man I was died the day the dragon came to life within me."

"Oh, Baelin." He heard Jill walk up behind him, felt the warmth of her presence at his back. "I'm so sorry."

He felt her hands brush over his shoulders. Her small, delicate hands that could set his warrior's body to tremble with the slightest touch.

"In different ways, we have both lost our homes and families, and neither of us knows quite where we belong anymore." Her hands glided down his arms, her palms resting over his clenched fists until he relaxed enough for her to entwine their fingers. She brought their clasped hands around in front of him and wrapped both their arms around his waist before resting her head gently against his shoulder.

An embrace had never felt so dear, nor been so needed.

"If it's any consolation, you still have me."

She spoke the words softly, as if she was unsure he would value their worth.

Baelin turned in her arms and gazed down at her. "You are no mere consolation, my lady. You are a prize, a treasure beyond my wildest dreams."

"Then don't shut me out anymore."

He gazed down at her. "For over two hundred years, I have been the one shunned. And yet here you stand before me, asking me not to spurn you. What a strange pair we make."