Sodrin had promised to send her a message the instant Radimar contacted him, if indeed he was here at all. As the day wore on and no message came, her hope that it might have been him she’d seen in the market withered. Foolish, she thought. Foolish and pathetic to still be mooning over a man who had likely forgotten her name after all this time.
It was well past the time she put aside such juvenile infatuation. She was twenty and six, a woman grown and to some, past her desirability as a wife, even if she hadn’t been disfigured by the purple stain that marred her face and neck. There would be no lover for her, no husband or father to children she’d never bear.
There were worse things in life. She had shelter, a safe place among people of like minds and similar passion, and a brother who doted on her. Yes, things could be much worse.
She repeated that to herself as she left the Archives to join the crowds celebrating in the bailey, and again as she watched couples laughing and dancing in each other’s arms, and a third time when she entered the forgotten garden and stood just inside the gates, remembering another year, another Delyalda festival, when a man with eyes the color of sea glass danced with her under the light of a winter’s moon.
8
The Master returned
Music drifted across the bailey, the familiar heartbeat of drums as the musicians struck up the chords that called the women to join the Maiden Flower dance. From Radimar’s lofty vantage point on one of the palace loggias, the dancers looked like flowers blooming, their silk petals of crimson and yellow, blue and violet, gilding or darkening by turns as they moved in and out of the light and shadows painted by the fire.
Many believed the tune’s composer had been a sorcerer who wove magic into the notes, an insidious seduction that beckoned until the most reluctant person found themselves swaying and spinning to its tune. Radimar was a believer. The music drew the women to the dance like moths to a flame, all save one. Jahna Uhlfrida had never succumbed to the enchantment of the Maiden Flower dance though she always watched it with an avid expression from the perimeters.
His gaze swept the edge of the dancers’ circle, where the crowds not dancing had gathered to watch. He searched for a small, cloaked figure and found a few, but none were built like the woman he remembered, the woman who still made his heart beat heavy after all this time.
A flicker of motion teased the corner of his eye and he turned his head, spotting what he sought. She was cloaked and hooded as he expected, and he couldn’t see her face from this vantage point, but he knew it was her. He knew.
She wove adeptly through the horde of people, moving away from the thick of the celebration toward the place one could find some semblance of privacy and peace during chaotic Delyalda.
Radimar strode past the celebrants who packed the loggia, the nobility of Belawat in all their silk, furred and jeweled glory. He was nobility himself, but much farther down the chain of hierarchy and considered as much a peasant by these people as the ones who thronged the bailey below them. He had come at Sodrin’s behest, suffered through introductions and made small talk with people in whom he found little interest and nothing in common.
His long strides ate the distance between the palace and the forgotten garden. One of the garden’s gates was open just enough to allow someone to ease through, and he sidled in on silent feet. If it wasn’t Jahna who had come here, he could turn around and leave without the other person knowing. He prayed to the gods that his instincts proved accurate and it was she who had come here.
By the look of it, someone remembered this patch of land during the eight years he’d been away. It was still wild and mostly overgrown, especially at the perimeters where even the hint of once-manicured verge had disappeared in a tangle of bramble, ivy, and roses. A part of the garden though, where he had once led Jahna through the intricate steps of the Delyalda dances, had been cut back enough to reclaim a small square of cleared space. In its center, a familiar figure spun and pirouetted to the faint strains of a Delyalda song played beyond the garden’s enclosure.
Silver-plated light, softened by snow, spilled across the landscape. For a moment, the dancer pivoted through the luminescence, and Radimar’s heart jumped in his chest. Jahna—supple, disfigured, indescribably beautiful—danced alone in the moonlight.
She had shed her cloak. It lay draped across a nearby bench, leaving her bare-headed and unshielded from the cold. Lost hairpins glittered in the snow under her feet, and her unbound hair whipped around her like a flag as she spun and arched and danced the steps with effortless grace. The gown she wore covered her from neck to ankles, leaving only her hands exposed, but it hugged her body, emphasizing the sleek length of her waist and curve of her hips and breasts.
When the song ended, she came to a slow, twirling halt, her skirts setting around her like flower petals closing against the sunset. As if she’d been expecting him and simply waited for his arrival, she turned and met his eyes, regal as any queen. “Welcome back, Sir Velus,” she said, using the most formal address.
More than a decade earlier, Radimar had looked beyond the chubby remnants of awkward girlhood and the violet birthmark and seen the potential of the woman Jahna might become given time, maturity, and a greater awareness of her own strength. The woman standing before him now not only confirmed that belief, she had surpassed it.
He wished he might call her by her given name and have her call him by his, but she had laid down the boundaries of address at the outset of this conversation, and he abided by her unspoken rule. “Hello, Lady Uhlfrida,” he said, drawn to her and the solemn dignity she exuded from every pore. “It’s been a long time.”
“It has.” Her gaze traveled over him, revealing nothing of what she thought. “You look well, much as I remembered you.”
He chuffed. “You’re kind. I’ve collected a few more scars, a few more lines.” Clothing covered the worst of the souvenirs he’d brought back with him from the Lobak Valley. The fighting there had been especially vicious. He was lucky to be alive.
“Have you seen Sodrin yet?” At his nod, her expression eased into a smile that made his breath catch. “He’s ecstatic you could make the wedding. Thank you for coming all this way to attend. I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.”
“I wouldn’t miss it, even if it were.”