C. Dale Brittain (22 page)

“But I am in much greater danger, I realize,” she went on, “than I ever was at home.
 
I did not know then how much King Hadros shielded me.
 
And yet, when firmness and courage are called for, I have constantly been on the verge of breaking down.
 
I wanted Valmar with me because he was my only link with the world I have known for the last ten years, and because I could trust my little brother.”

“You have not answered my question,” he said very quietly.

She tightened her lips for a second, but the joy was still in her eyes.
 
“I was starting to tell you.
 
I spent the entire night on the peak where I met the Wanderer.
 
When I returned, Hadros assumed I had spent the night with Valmar.
 
But of course Valmar no more intends to marry me than I do him, and although he remained here in the castle when Hadros went home, so far we have kept any word of this foolish marriage bargain from my father.
 
I can swear to you on steel and rowan, Roric, if you are still unwilling to believe me, that no one has lain in my arms but you.”

She looked at him seriously, but a smile tugged at her mouth.
 
“If the situation had been as you feared, who would you have killed first, him or me?”

He laughed then and crushed her to him.
 
But he could not resist asking, “You are sure he did not intend to father a child on you while he was here, to make you surely his?”

“Of course not!”
 
For a second a very strange expression flitted across her face, but she turned it into a smile.
 
“In fact Valmar has left—
 
But I can tell you all that later,” kissing him hard.

“In that case,” said Roric, “are your maids likely to come disturb you?
 
Perhaps I should try fathering a child on you myself!”

Karin put her head out of the room just long enough to tell the maids that she felt ill and would not see
anyone
all day.
 
Late in the afternoon she and Roric lay on the tumbled sheets, letting the warm air from the open window wash over their skin, talking.

“So Valmar has gone now to the Wanderers’ realm,” said Roric in wonder.
 
“If they could not get me, and you too refused them, maybe they were happy to take whatever mortal was willing to come with them.
 
It is a strange realm, Karin.
 
Here mortals try to create a life, a story, that will live on beyond them, but the immortals, at least the ones I met, have no honor …
 
Maybe it will be different for him.”

“My father is concerned about him.
 
He would not believe me when I told him where Valmar had gone.
 
For a moment I even feared he thought I had done away with him myself, but he has said nothing more about it.”

“Are you sure he is not planning your marriage to Valmar himself?” said Roric with a laugh.
 
“May he not think you have found a way to rid yourself of an unwanted suitor, especially with me appearing so soon afterwards?”

She did not laugh in return.
 
“Even if my father does not think I shoved Valmar off the headland, I fear King Hadros may think so.”

Roric’s face went sober.
 
“I defied Hadros before coming here.
 
The sea was too rough for a ship the size of his, but he may soon be after me.
 
It will indeed be hard to explain Valmar’s absence, especially since I think Hadros guessed I intended to kill him.”

She took his face in both her hands, and her eyes were teasing.
 
“Hadros did send a raven to tell us to beware of you.
 
But you would not really have done that, would you?
 
Killed your foster-brother, violated all your honor, because of jealousy?”

“Hadros himself,” he replied somewhat distantly, “tried to tell me that love conflicts with honor.”

3

As sunset came, they dressed and combed themselves, preparing to go out.
 
“You may not grow invisible this evening,” Karin said hopefully.

But Roric shook his head.
 
“I have thought that each evening since I emerged from the faeys’ tunnels.”

“I hate to have you spend all night outdoors,” said Karin, “but this time of day, right after sunset, is the only time that I will be able to smuggle you out of the castle.
 
I can think of
no
way to explain your presence here to my father unless he first meets you walking up at sunrise from the harbor.”

“It will be a warm night,” said Roric with a smile, “and besides, you may want your sleep.”

When the sun touched the horizon, Roric began to fade.
 
Karin clenched her fists, then threw herself into his arms for a final kiss.

“You do realize,” Roric said just before his voice became inaudible, “you will still be able to feel me.”

They went down the great stairway to the hall side by side, but King Kardan, looking up surprised, saw only her.

“Yes, I feel better,” said Karin.
 
Her voice in her own ears sounded calmer, less wild than it had for several days, and her father nodded almost with relief.
 
“I shall take a short stroll in the evening air to clear my head.”

They unlocked the doors for her, and Roric stayed at her shoulder.
 
As she went out the great gates of the castle, she saw two members of the guard following her.
 
She stopped, then walked up to them.

“It’s your father’s orders, Princess,” she was told.
 
“It is not safe for a young woman to walk alone.”

She had the vague sense they had followed her the day before as well, but yesterday was a blur.
 
“Of course,” she said, “but keep your distance so I can enjoy a little solitude.”
 
She returned to where she thought she had left Roric and had to stifle a startled outcry when he unexpectedly took her hand.

But she squeezed his invisible hand as they walked, trying her best not to remember any more of the details of the story about the daemon lover.
 
It was another of the old stories about a woman who had lost her man.
 
In this story the woman had longed for her husband so passionately that he had returned from Hel to her, but had returned as a wight, without his now rotting body.

Her feet found their way down the harbor road to the headland as they had ever since she heard the ravens’ messages.
 
The western sky was still shot with scarlet, but the light was going fast.
 
“Perhaps I should go back to the castle soon,” she started to say, but then she caught motion on the water’s dark surface from the corner of her eye.

She hurried to the edge for a closer look.
 
The wind had dropped at last, and the ship, with lanterns hung on bow and stern, was coming into harbor on its oars as well as its nearly slack sail.
 
Color had faded with the onset of night, so she could not see if the sail was red.

But she still recognized the ship well—she had come here on it.
 
It was Hadros’s ship, and the heavily-muscled man who was first onto the shore, his shield on his arm and his sword in his hand, was King Hadros himself.

She started to run, not back toward the castle but directly inland.
 
She still clenched Roric’s hand in hers.
 
“I can’t face Hadros—I
can’t
!”
 
She did not know where she was going, but there was no way she could explain to the king so that he would understand, at least not tonight, that neither she nor Roric had killed his son.

There was just enough light to show the startled guards closing in on her.

Karin tried to go faster but could not.
 
“I can’t outrun them in these clothes,” she gasped.

Suddenly Roric’s hand was gone.
 
She struggled onward, then heard a surprised cry behind her.
 
She turned to make out a shape that seemed to be struggling with the air—one of the guards.
 
He doubled over suddenly and dropped to the ground.
 
The second guard ran up beside the first, his sword out, but there was a sharp clang, his sword was struck from his grip, and his head jerked backwards as he was knocked down by an invisible fist.

Holding up her skirts, Karin kept running, but she smiled as she ran.
 
In a moment she felt a hand under her arm, supporting her, helping her to greater speed.

When they had passed beyond a hedgerow she paused to catch her breath.
 
Moonlight and shrubs made crazy shadows around her.
 
She firmly pushed away the thought that this might be someone else from the realm of the Wanderers beside her.
 
“I hope you didn’t have to kill them,” she said, then realized he could not answer.
 
“Squeeze my hand twice if you did.”

He did not squeeze at all.
 
“Good,” she said.
 
“When my father dies they will be
my
guards.”

She listened but heard only the ordinary sounds of the night:
 
a chirping of insects in the meadow, small creatures rustling in the hedgerow, and in the distance the slow sound of waves.
 
King Hadros had apparently not yet come up from the harbor.

Karin suddenly felt fully herself again, unafraid, able to assess dangers, able to plan.
 
In fact, since Roric did not know where they were and could not speak, she had to plan for both of them.
 
Would Queen Arane approve of this new method of manipulating men?

She smiled at this thought and started walking rapidly.
 
In the darkness it was a little better; the solidity at her shoulder felt like Roric as long as she did not look toward him.
 
“We have a head start,” she said.
 
“By the time they realize in the castle that I have been gone too long, by the time those guards recover consciousness, by the time Hadros comes up from the harbor and demands to see his son, we will be well on the way to the Mirror-seer’s lake.
 
They will not think to look for us there tonight.”

Her feet found the track that led up the valley.
 
“As long as we are
both
gone, Valmar and I,” she said to the silent presence next to her, “it will be hard for King Hadros to start the war again on the presumption that Valmar was murdered here.
 
Hadros and my father may even agree that they both were cruelly deceived by
you,
who first killed Valmar and then kidnapped me.
 
But I am afraid the two of them will agree together that Valmar and I will have to marry if we can be recovered.”

She felt the tension in the arm that touched hers and laughed.
 
“No, Roric, I really do not want to marry my foster-brother.
 
He
is
better looking than you,” she added teasingly, “but I thought today would have answered all your questions about my intentions.
 
By the time he returns from the Wanderers’ realm, I will have thought of something to change Hadros’s mind—women can always outmaneuver men if they want.”

But a thought nagged at her, driving away her laughter.
 
The Wanderer had asked all three of them if they were outcasts.
 
He might have been deliberately looking for someone with no ties because whoever went to assist the Wanderers against fate would not be coming back.

“You probably don’t know about the Mirror-seer,” she said to Roric because she did not want to think about Valmar.
 
The track was beginning to rise, and they had to go slowly in the dark.
 
“It was he who told me I would find a Wanderer on Graytop—but could not tell me where you had gone.
 
Now that the Wanderers have their mortal he’s
got
to tell us more.”