Sorrows of Adoration (66 page)

He squeezed me tighter,
and I regretted my words. I had not meant to cause him further
anguish. It was then that I realized I believed his apologies and
promises to make things right. My mind reeled against that, telling
me that I was bound to be crushed again by this man if I trusted
him fully. Yet I knew, in my heart, that I did believe him and
trust him. No pattern of logic could dissuade that.

“I do love you, Kurit.”
I pulled back from his embrace to look at him sincerely. “And
though it might not be the wisest course, I believe you when you
say that you have set about making things right. I believe you, and
I’m proud of you for having given up your addiction.”

He shook his head
slowly. “That is kind, Aenna, but I still must prove myself to you.
I take strength from my desire to prove to you that I can live
without drunkenness. I admit, a large part of the inspiration is
not from you but rather from knowing that I have finally relieved
myself of the burden of my mother’s madness. But the rest of it is
inspired to do what is right for you, my good wife, and for our
son. And I suppose somewhere in the mixture is a sense of duty by
my kingdom, but truly, though that possibly should be the foremost
motivation, it is not. I simply cannot bear to let you down again.
I cannot fathom the idea of having my son raised by a drunken
brute.

“
Aenna, striking
you was the most revolting, unacceptable, and evil thing I have
ever done. In time, I hope you can forgive me for it, but you
should know that I never shall.” He put a finger to his forehead
and said, “In here shall always live the image of you sprawled out
of the floor from my hand’s strike. I would sooner die than ever do
such a thing again, and I shall use that
memory to ensure I am never again tempted to lose
control inside a glass.”

Kurit pulled me back
towards him in a tender embrace, kissing my forehead repeatedly. “I
love you, my Aenna,” he said. “I shall spend the rest of my days
proving that to you.”

After a few minutes of
a silent embrace, he cautiously asked, “Is it too soon for me to
request the honour of kissing you?”

I leaned back in his
arms and smiled. “You may request it,” I gently teased, trying to
lighten the tension.

Kurit smiled
endearingly and, in his best formal voice eloquently asked,
“Dearest Queen Aenna, whom I love and adore beyond all things, whom
I have wronged but seek now to pay loving restitution, would you do
this humble man the honour of granting him a kiss?”

I laughed delightedly
for a moment, and then said, “I would like that very much.”

Kurit slipped his hand
behind my head and pulled me towards him. When our lips met, I had
to suppress a shudder, but the anxiety faded as I felt his mouth
moving slowly against my own. His kisses were different than
Jarik’s, I realized—neither better nor worse, but certainly
different. Less intense, but somehow happier. Then I realized I was
too busy thinking to enjoy the kiss, and I promptly told my mind to
hush itself.

When the kiss ended, he
followed it with another on my cheek and then one on my forehead as
he held me against him once more. “Everything shall be well again,
Aenna, I promise you that. We shall know happiness again. All of
us: you, me, Raelik, and even Jarik. Poor Jarik, the man has ached
to put me in my place but has not done so for your sake. I should
go speak with him, and tell him of the promises I have made you,
and make them to him as well. I have missed his friendship.”

Then he stiffened as
though something was wrong, and my heart leapt in fear. He stepped
back out of the embrace and said, “I almost forgot!” He went
quickly to the door between the workrooms, disappeared into his for
a moment, and then returned, closing the door once more behind
him.

Kurit held out a closed
hand before me. I looked at him in puzzlement.

“I have something for
you, if you would accept it,” he said tenderly. When he slowly
opened his fingers, I saw sitting on his palm a golden chain, and
affixed to it a pendant of two hearts entwined. It was almost
exactly like the one that had been torn from my neck by my fiendish
abductors.

“When you returned from
Wusul and I bathed you, I noticed the one I gave you before was
gone,” he said softly. “But at the time, there were so many other
things to worry about. I had this made as you were recovering, but
there never seemed the proper time to give it to you. I intended to
do so on the night you had first conceived the notion of your
marketplace when I was to come to your room, but as you well know,
I foolishly fell asleep drunk and disappointed you. After that,
things were always simply too awful to think of this. And if
everything is still too upsetting and you do not wish it now, then
I can put it away again,” he said with a bit of sadness in his
voice.

“Kurit, it would make
me dearly happy to have you put it around my neck right now,” I
said, trembling, knowing the meaning of the gift. It was a symbol
of our love and union. I wanted that back.

He smiled like a little
boy as he stepped behind me to clasp the chain around my neck. I
touched the pendant with my fingertips; it felt right, as though it
had been there all along.

Kurit put his hands on
my shoulders, and I turned to face him. He was still smiling. I put
my arms around him again and felt joy as he did likewise.

When we ended the
embrace, he took my hands up and kissed them happily. “I should
speak with my cousin now,” he said. “Do you wish to come with me?
To see Jarik, I mean?”

I shook my head. “My
face is still puffy from my silly tears. Besides, knowing my
Champion, he is but a few paces outside that door. Why don’t you
take him into your workroom and speak with him? You can tell him
that I’m safely next door, that he might relax sufficiently to
speak with you.”

Kurit touched my cheek
fondly again and nodded. “I shall do just that,” he said, “and then
perhaps you will come with me to be with our boy. I have missed him
as well, and though he is too young to understand, I wish to pledge
to him too that I will not fail either of you again.”

With that, Kurit went
to my door and opened it. He laughed and turned back to me to say,
“Wise Queen, you spoke the truth, for here stands your Champion,
not five paces from your door.” He held an arm outside, and Jarik
came to the doorway.

Jarik looked at me in
concern, so I quickly smiled and said, “I am fine, Jarik. You and
Kurit have things to speak about. I shall be right here, so you
needn’t worry.”

Jarik looked at Kurit,
then me again and said bluntly, “You have been weeping.”

“For relief,” I said,
rubbing the last of the tears from my cheeks. “For happy, sweet
relief. Go now. Honestly, Jarik, I am feeling better than I have
for a long time. Both of you go to Kurit’s workroom and speak
kindly to each other.”

They both nodded. Kurit
closed my door as he left.

I sat back down and
sighed with relief, though I felt another shudder of guilt for
knowing I had betrayed Kurit. I knew also that Jarik and I would
have to sit with him soon and tell him what had occurred while we
were all still experiencing the spirit of hope and forgiveness.
Kurit had made an effort to set things right. It would be unfair, I
told myself, to keep a significant truth from him. I knew that he
would be hurt and possibly angry, but for some reason I believed
that if we were honest soon, it could all be worked out without
anyone having to be sent away.

I realized that that
was my real fear—that Kurit would send Jarik away, and Jarik, in an
attempt to be loyal and honourable, would indeed go. And while that
might have been the best thing for Jarik, to go and forget about
his love for me, I very selfishly wanted him to be with me as my
beloved friend forever.

As I pondered my
conflicting emotions of relief and secret shame, the outward door
of my workroom opened without so much as a polite knock. Kasha
strode purposefully into the room, turning my blood cold.

She closed the door
behind her, turned the bolt to lock it, and stood staring at me
blankly. Then I noticed she was smiling. Very quietly, almost
whispering, she said, “You have returned after all.”

My heart beat so hard
in my chest that I wondered if she heard it. I wondered if it were
possible that she had taken Kurit’s words to heart and had come to
make peace. My stomach fluttered unpleasantly, and I found that I
could not speak.

Then I was struck with
horror as her smile changed to a hideous and deadly sneer. Before I
could react, she pulled forth from the folds of her dress a long,
thin blade and pounced upon me.

By some miracle of the
Gods, I caught her descending wrist and pulled it to one side. I
had not noticed before just how much larger I was than she. My hand
encircled her scrawny little wrist, but between my continuing
weakness from not eating and sleeping and her fury to see me dead,
I could not force her to drop the poignard she held over me. I saw
that the tip was encrusted in some kind of yellow dirt but spared
no time to wonder at that. As she pushed me backwards, the chair
tipped and I had finally the good sense to scream.

As I fell I knew that I
had to make sure above all else that I did not let go of her wrist,
lest it give her the mere second she needed to plunge her blade
into me. She dropped herself upon me and tried to force the tip of
the poignard back towards my throat as I screamed again.

All of a sudden she was
flying upwards away from me. I saw Jarik, his hands roughly about
the horrible woman’s waist, pick her up and throw her clear across
the room. I heard a brutal thud as she landed against the wall.

“Aenna!” cried a voice
above me. Kurit was there, a look of absolute horror upon his face.
He embraced me quickly, shielding me with his arms. I was so
stunned from what had happened that I could not speak, and it took
me a moment to realize that I had stopped breathing. When the next
breath came, it carried with it an involuntary noise of alarm.

“It’s all right,
Aenna,” Kurit said as he tried to lift me to my feet. I staggered
and stumbled, still in shock. In fact, I do not recall by what
power I did finally manage to stand—only that I found myself
upright and leaning against my husband.

“Mother, by the Gods,
what have you done?” Kurit cried in anguish, looking at the vile
woman as she tried to regain her own breath and stand.

I looked to Jarik. He
held the poignard in his hand, his other hand a fist. He stared at
Kasha in obvious loathing, and I thought that he might at any
moment lunge forward and plunge the blade into her skull.

There came a pounding
at the bolted outer door and calls asking if all was well.

“Unlock the door and
let the guards in,” Kurit said to Jarik. “And give me the blade.”
Jarik handed the poignard to Kurit and went towards the outer door.
“The guards shall escort you away, Mother. I do not wish to see
your face ever again,” he growled, though I could see that he was
close to tears of fear and sadness for what had almost
occurred.

A guard entered the
room from Kurit’s workroom, his sword drawn. As I watched him
enter, everything seemed to slow in time with a low hum, just it
had when I had spied the man with the crossbow at Endren’s gate
when my new love had first brought me to his city.

Kurit turned to speak
to the guard, still holding his mother’s poignard. I turned to see
Kasha rising from the floor and pushing herself away from the wall
behind her with both arms. She glanced at Jarik, who was facing the
door he had just opened. Then she looked to Kurit, who was handing
the blade over to the guard. I watched, unable to make a sound, as
she leapt forth and snatched the weapon out of Kurit’s open
hand.

I think Kurit made some
kind of cry of alarm, because Jarik spun around to look at the
scene. He leapt across the room towards me, but I saw Kasha’s blade
coming down and knew he would be too late. I stumbled backwards out
of her way, but my legs felt water-logged and did not move quickly
enough. My eyes became transfixed on the blade as it moved towards
my chest.

Then I was moving to
the side. I felt Jarik’s hands on me, pulling me out of the way of
Kasha’s strike. The jarring effect brought time and sound back to
normal, and I heard myself scream as the mother of my husband
plunged her poignard into my left shoulder, almost in the same
place where the bolt meant for Kurit had buried itself.

Kurit was there,
shoving his mother away from me. As he did so, she pulled her blade
out of me, which hurt a great deal worse than it had going in. I
felt myself fall against Jarik as Kurit furiously bellowed a
hateful cry at Kasha and knocked her down.

She sat on the ground,
the poignard still in her hand, and cried, “I did this for you, my
beloved son, that you might be free of her evil grasp!” Then she
closed her eyes, held the dagger in both hands, and plunged it into
her own breast.

Blood sprayed from her
self-inflicted wood, and she began to twitch. I buried my face in
Jarik’s shoulder when she began to cough and gag on the blood that
filled her lungs and throat as she died. I could not bear to watch
the revolting scene.

I heard Jarik bellow
for someone to fetch Tash. Then there were other hands on my back,
and I heard Kurit say, “Come, Aenna, let’s get you out of
here.”

I lifted my head from
Jarik to look at Kurit, and a wave of nausea and dizziness overcame
me. I think I began to fall, for when my eyes cleared a moment
later, both men were holding me upright and speaking to me.

My chest felt odd, as
if there were a great weight upon it. I gagged, though I had been
turned away from Kasha’s gory corpse. A terrible fear seized me as
I realized that something was very wrong. My fingers and toes felt
as though they were on fire, but the rest of me shivered in
cold.