03 - Sworn (39 page)

I went back offered Kel the water skin, but he refused. “Save it for later,” he said. “I don’t want to be the weak spot in the group.”

“You’re not.” I looked back at Qurwin.
Maybe after we stop…
“You want to help me forage later? I might have a surprise for you.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course.”

The sky remained cloudy, providing a respite from the sun but offering no rain.
Tease,
I thought, and glared upward.
Just a little rain. Please.

The sky rumbled again, but nothing changed.

Nothing changes unless we make it happen
, I realized. I couldn’t make the sky give up the rain, but I could renew my efforts to change Ulric’s situation. If Aren were truly incapable of defeating Severn, I had to find a way to make sure Ulric could do it.

We made camp late in the afternoon, when Qurwin said we’d reached the last reasonable safe stopping place for many hours. After some tense discussion with Ulric, Griselda sent Gwyn off to Belleisle with a cryptic message tied to one of her back legs. Ulric seemed entirely uncomfortable with the idea of exposing his need for help, but the time for pride had passed.

“I need to collect some things,” I told Ulric after Griselda left him. “I don’t have Mama Bunn or her equipment now, but I want to see what ingredients might be available in this area to help you.” In truth, I thought I had a far better shot of finding something to help Kel, but doubted Ulric would let me wander off just for that.

He nodded, dismissing me.

I found Qurwin setting up his tent. “Where did you say the water was?”

He smiled kindly. “Your friend having problems?”

“You could say that. And I’ve been lacking in aquatic ingredients for my potions. I thought if I could reach it without too much trouble, I should take a look.”

He pointed to my left. “Go straight that way. North by north-west, if you know your directions. If you take a horse, you’ll get there in an hour or so. Lake. That’s all I can tell from here.”

I could have hugged him. “That’s an amazing skill. Thank you.”

His smile tightened. “I had a mer once. Couldn’t get her to stay, but damn. Best week of my life.”

I borrowed Ulric’s horse. He always claimed the finest ones, and the strong animal would carry us easily. Kel mounted behind me. It took more than the hour Qurwin had suggested, but after a hard ride through pine forest and a detour around a wide ravine, we found it.

I sighed. “Not much of a lake, really.”

Kel’s arms snaked around my waist and he kissed my hair as thunder rumbled again. “It’ll do. Thank you.”

It was really more of a bog, a huge area of rocky mud with a flat circle of silvery gray water in the center that looked deeper. Kel and I dismounted, and the horse set to finding something to eat. The air crackled and hummed, and a light sprinkle of rain began to fall.

Kel closed his eyes and turned his face up. I did the same, and he laughed as I tried to catch the rain on my tongue.

We waited for it to stop again, to disappoint us, but the rain only came harder as the droplets grew heavier. Kel looked like he might cry as it became clear that we were in for a real storm. Water soaked our clothes and our hair, and Kel came alive under it. His hands trembled as he fumbled with his shirt. “Nox, help.”

My fingers flicked over the buttons as though I’d undressed him a hundred times. He lifted his arms into the downpour and took deep, heaving breaths. Water slicked his body, rippling over his skin.

“It’s incredible!” He had to yell to be heard over the fat raindrops that slapped down on the thirsty ground.

“It is,” I agreed, and stripped my own shirts off over my head to let my bare skin drink in the glorious rain.

Lightning flashed across the sky from west to east, with a crash of thunder on its heels that shook my bones. Drawing in a breath became difficult under the downpour, which now crashed over us as though we stood under a waterfall. My heart leapt as sheets of rain soaked my hair and chilled my skin, washing away the dirt and the cares of the past weeks, melting the stony armor that I’d built up to protect me from the world.

I tilted my face up and closed my eyes. Before I could open them again, Kel’s lips were pressed to mine. Water sluiced between my fingers as my hands slid over his body, unable to get the grip on him that I wanted so desperately. I tangled the fingers of one hand in his hair, anchoring myself to him, afraid I might wash away otherwise. His mouth was hot against my rain-chilled skin as he worked at the waterlogged laces of my trousers, then allowed his hands to stray upward, apparently trying to cover every bit of exposed skin with his touch.

I understood. I couldn’t stop doing the same, though my smaller hands covered far less area than his did on me. Unable to open my eyes against the downpour, I was left to focus on the sensations that flooded my body, driving all other thoughts from my mind. The chill of the rain, the warmth of his hands, his lips. All I knew was that I wanted him, completely and without reservation.

No more holding back.
The past would not anchor me to my fears and doubts, and the worries of the future could wait. If such a thing as soul-mates existed, Kel was mine. No more running from love, from connection, from hope.

Our clothes landed in the mud and were quickly trampled under our feet as we moved to a grassy area farther from the pond. Kel scooped me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck to keep from slipping, pressing myself to the warmth of his skin as cool rain washed down my back.

“Kel, you’re sure this is what you want? I mean, if this is forever...”

His lips curved into a familiar grin. “I’ve never been so certain of anything. Are you?”

My breath caught in my throat, and I laughed. “Yes.”

He dropped to his knees and set me on the grass, shielding me from the worst of the downpour with his body even as he pulled back.

“What’s wrong?”

He chewed his lower lip. “I’m actually a little nervous.”

I laughed and pulled him closer to plant a tender kiss between his eyebrows. “You have no reason to be. You’re already the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I—”

He covered my mouth with his. “I love you, Nox,” he whispered.

I tried to say I loved him, too, but couldn’t speak the words. Instead, I let my body answer, hoping it could express the affection, the passion, the admiration I felt for him.

The rain pounded down on us as the storm raged. I thought I might drown in Kel if not in the deluge, and yet I wished the storm would never cease.

But all things end, no matter how hard we wish it could be otherwise. The thunder moved off into the distance, and all too soon the early evening sun broke through the clouds. It found us wrapped in each other’s arms and lying under the open sky, drenched, exhausted, and completely at peace.

“It is different this way,” Kel whispered as he brushed my rain-sodden hair away from my face.

“Better?”

“So much. I’ve never known anything like it before.”

“Me, either.” I sat up slowly and reoriented myself. “The lake looks a little more promising now, if you want to go for a swim. If we stay out too much longer they’re going to send a search party.”

He stretched his arms over his head and stood. “I think you mean a roll in the mud, not a swim. It’s probably shallow and filthy, but I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.”

I took a moment to appreciate the view as he walked away, then called for him to rinse our clothes out if he could. He didn’t reply, but scooped the muddy items out of the muck on his way by. He walked out into the water, which covered his ankles, then his legs to the knees.

Not much of a lake, indeed.

Then he grinned back at me over his shoulder and dove, disappearing completely.

I hurried to the edge of the lake, hopping from rock to rock instead of letting the mud squelch between my toes. At the spot where Kel had disappeared, the murky water became clear and deep. I held my breath and stepped forward, plunging toes-first into icy water that took my breath from me. Strong hands closed around my waist, and our heads broke the surface together. I laughed. When my hand strayed downward, I found that his body below the hips had become a smooth, muscular tail that moved gently, bearing us up.

“We’re going to make this work,” he said. I smiled at the certainty in his voice. “I’ve just figured it out. A house by the sea, right on the beach. We can live together there, I can take to the water whenever I want, gather food and whatever ingredients you want to experiment with. If we’re near enough to a town, you can do your work for those people. When word gets out about your talents, they’ll come from all over the country to see you. Maybe farther. Or you can tell them to flick off, and it can just be the two of us.” He grinned.

“That sounds amazing.” I still had trouble imagining such loveliness in my future, but I tried. “Will your elders be happy with that?”

He planted a solid kiss under my jaw. “No, but I don’t care. They can banish me if they won’t accept this, and I’ll be free to be with you.”

His words surprised me. His loyalty to them had always been unshakable. “Kel, you love your people.”

“I do. But I can’t let them confine me.”

I sighed and held him close. “I want that future, so much.”

“We could just ride off, right now.”

“And abandon everyone here?” I ran my fingers through his wet hair, brushing it back from his face. “If I leave now, Ulric loses the throne. Aren is bull-headed enough to try to take Severn down even though it’s a fight he can’t win without my help, and then what?”

He slipped his arms more fully around my waist. “I know. I suppose our future will keep, at least for a while.”

He helped me out of the water and dove to retrieve the clothing he’d dropped.

I wrung the lake water out of each item. “I’ll spread these out to dry a little, but I think we’re going back to camp wet.”

“Suits me. Just gives me few minutes to swim.”

When Kel emerged from the lake, he brought an armload of plants with him. I sorted through and selected three that felt promising, and sent him back for more.

“See how well this works?” he asked when he returned.

“I do,” I said. “And look, there’s pondsquinch. If I pick some dusty blarch along the way, you can have that lovely potion again that Mama Bunn came up with.”

He made a gagging noise. “Better than drying up and blowing away. I suppose.”

I dressed as he went back for more of the pondsquinch. Something warm still burned within me even as my damp clothing chilled my skin. It took me a few moments to realize it was hope. This was what had been growing in me since my conversation with Aren, since I’d decided to look to the future instead of the past. I couldn’t remember ever feeling it before. The thought of living a life with more meaning than mere survival, of finding peace when the need to fight was past, was completely foreign to me. Thinking of it was like trying to look at the sun, so bright it was blinding.

The immediate future was uncertain, but if we could just get through that...

“Kel?”

“Hmm?”

I slipped my foot into a boot that squelched with rainwater. “Let’s make it a plan. Officially. As soon as we’re free to leave, as soon as all of this mess is on its way to being cleaned up and everyone can do without us, let’s find that house by the sea. Let’s buy a big, warm bed and spend days on end in it. Just us.”

His grin undid my heart. “It’s a deal.”

26

ROWAN

W
e walked through the night. Aren and I didn’t speak more about our situation. Even if Victoria hadn’t been with us, there still wouldn’t have been anything left to say. We loved each other. We couldn’t be together. It wasn’t the first time my expectations or plans for my life had gone off the road.

It just hurt more this time.

As the sun broke over the forest we found Florizel in the field outside of the town where we’d left Patience.

“Where’s Ruby?” I asked. “Did she go on?”

“No,” Florizel said. “She took shelter in the wilder parts of the forest so as not to frighten the townsfolk.”

Aren raised an eyebrow. “That was decent of her.”

Florizel snorted. “She wanted to head straight into town and demand a tribute in exchange for not razing the place to the dirt, but I convinced her that the people here are probably richer in pointy weapons than they are in jewels.”

“Thank you,” I said, and tried not to laugh.

I left Aren and Victoria with her while I went to look for Patience. I crossed the fields, careful not to trample the new sprouts, and found her in a dusty yard playing with a pair of boys about her own age, perhaps a little older.

“Avast!” she yelled, and brandished a wooden sword at the side of the new barn. “Board her and pillage, men!”

The boys obliged, climbing a stack of crates and throwing themselves in through an upper window. Moments later they scrambled back down, arms loaded with small burlap sacks.

“Well done,” she said.

“I don’t think pirates are so free with praise,” I said as I approached.

Patience’s face lit up in a broad grin, and she ran toward me with open arms. I squeezed her tight, and my heart swelled. I’d missed the kid.

“I’m not a mean captain,” she said.

“Deadeye, watch out! That traitorous wench may be skleevin’ ye!” hollered one of the boys, a mop-haired thing with a healthy belly under his brown overalls.

I laughed. “Deadeye? Really?”

The boy nodded solemnly. “Only it’s not ’cause of her you-know.” He motioned to his own face and squinted one eye closed. “Pa took us all hunting and she killt more rabbits than any of us.”

His brother, a slightly taller fellow with an impressively freckled face, kicked at the dirt. “She was lucky.”

“Was not!” Patience released me and punched her pirate friend in the arm. He winced. “Your Pa said by rights I shouldn’t be able to shoot with one eye. That makes me even
better
.” She turned back to me. “He said it must be a blessing from the Goddess, if I don’t do it by magic.”