She raised her gaze, the anger faded now as she stood, releasing his hands to enfold his head, pulling him close. “We both have much still to do, Vaelin. And I believe our queen’s purpose would be better served with you at her side.” She moved back, smiling down at him, her smooth, warm hand tracing from his brow to his chin before placing a kiss on his lips. “Did you happen to find a key for this door?”
Later she lay with her head resting on his chest, her small and perfect form pressed against him, dispelling any vestige of the chill. It had begun at Alltor with scarcely any word spoken that first night. There had been no preamble, just silent and unabashed need as they coiled together in the dark, drawn together by something neither felt any inclination to resist.
“The queen hates me,” she whispered now, her breath ruffling the hairs on his chest. “She strives to hide it, but I can feel it.”
Whereas I can only suspect it, he thought. “We break no law and offer no insult,” he said. “And even a queen is allowed her own feelings.”
“You and her, when you were young, did you . . . ?”
He gave a faint chuckle. “No, such a thing could never have happened.” His smile faded as Linden Al Hestian’s face came to mind, so many years on and still the guilt of it cut him.
“She loves you,” Dahrena went on. “You must see it.”
“I see only the queen I am bound to follow.” Best for all if I see nothing more. “What do the Seordah say of her?”
He felt her tense, her head shifting on his chest. “Nothing, to me that is. What they say to each other, however, I cannot say.”
He knew the Seordah’s attitude to them both had undergone a severe transformation since Alltor, a deep wariness replacing the affection they held for her and the reluctant respect they had begun to show him. “What is it?” he asked her. “Why do they fear us so?”
She remained silent for a long time, eventually raising herself up to rest her chin on her hands, her face hidden in the dark but her eyes catching the light from the small opening in the basement wall. “Like the Faithful, the Seordah do not see death as a curse. But they believe when a soul takes leave of the body it goes not to a world beyond this, but to a hidden place, a world that exists in every shadow and dark corner, unseen and unknowable by living eyes. In this world you take every lesson learned when alive, every hunter’s trick or warrior’s skill, every scrap of lore, and you embark upon the great and endless hunt, but free of fear or uncertainty, every burden carried in life gone, leaving only the hunt. You may have seen them in the forest sometimes, reaching a hand into the shadowed hollow of a tree or the shade cast by a rock, hoping for a whispered message from a loved soul lost to the hunt.”
“When you brought me back,” he said. “You deprived me of a gift.”
“The greatest gift.”
“You should talk to them, tell them the truth of it.”
“I did. It didn’t help. In their eyes I am a transgressor and you should no longer be walking this earth. They are lost to me now.”
He held her as she lowered her gaze once more, playing his hands over her shoulders and feeling her sorrow. “Then why do they stay?” he asked.
Her reply was soft, sighed through tears, “They do what we do: heed the wolf’s call.”
? ? ?
Reva’s sword thumped against his bruised side drawing a pain-filled grunt. She hopped nimbly backwards as he answered with a clumsy upward slash, then lunged forward in a crouch, jabbing a thrust at his chest. He dodged away, flicking her wooden blade up and aiming a cut at her legs which struck home as she waited too long to form the parry.
“Better,” she said. “Don’t you think?”
Vaelin moved to the nearby tree stump where his canteen sat, drinking deep. The sky was overcast today and the air chilled, heralding the onset of autumn and the prospect of a less-than-easy march to Varinshold. They had lingered at Warnsclave for three days now as they waited for the Meldenean fleet to appear. The supply situation had been alleviated by Lord Al Bera’s provisions but they still lacked sufficient stocks to sustain the northward advance, especially in light of their ever-growing number of recruits. Over a thousand people had made their way to the ruined city since their arrival, forcing the addition of yet more companies to Nortah’s regiment. The Volarians, it seemed, hadn’t been quite so efficient as they imagined in gathering slaves, though scouts brought daily evidence of their proficiency in slaughter, telling tales of one ruined village after another, each well stocked with rotting corpses.
“No,” he told Reva. “If anything I’m worse today.” He tossed his canteen aside and charged at her, delivering a rapid series of thrusts and slashes, his wooden sword moving in a blur. She dodged and parried with a fluency that put her early lessons to shame; battle-honed skill always counted for more, he knew. He also knew she was going easy on him, allowing him to land strokes she could have easily blocked, making her replies just fractionally slower than they should have been.
“This won’t do,” he muttered, pulling up short from another lunge.