Come to Me (11 page)

"It goes down my leg and half over my foot," Nicolae said. "My arm was broken, and my leg in two places, although one of those breaks I gained while escaping from him."

"Who?" Samira asked, appalled. "Who could have done such a thing to you?"

Nicolae's lips narrowed. "Dragosh of Maramures."

The name hit Samira like a blow to the chest, stunning her. She felt as if she were suffocating. "Dragosh," she barely managed to repeat. "W-why?"

"He's a madman." Nicolae shrugged, as if he was beyond answering such questions. He struggled back into his tunic. "I was to have married his sister Lucia six years ago. It was hoped that such an arrangement would ease the tensions between Dragosh and my father, Bogdan, and put an end to a foolish curse the entire family believes in, started by our great-grandmother—Dragosh and I are distant cousins. But at the last moment Dragosh changed his mind and attacked Moldavia. Maramures and Moldavia have been at war ever since.
This
," he said, tilting his head toward his left side, "was Dragosh's gift to me nearly three years ago, when I fell into his hands."

"You… you are one of five brothers?" Samira asked, her thoughts a jumble in her head, swirling dizzily. She'd known that Bodgan had five sons, but not what they looked like, nor their names. Nicolae was one of those princes she had put in Dragosh's dream, molesting his sister. Good gods of the night!

He nodded. "I have four brothers, all older than myself."

"The wolf…" she said.

"The Dacian Wolf is our emblem." He frowned at her, pausing as he tied the loose cord of his shirt at his neck. "What do you know of it?"

"I knew too little," she said, and sank down to her knees, feeling weak and sick. She bent forward and rested her forehead against the rough stone of the floor, her arms wrapped around her head, as if she could shut out what he had said.

She understood now what the effect had been of the dream she had given to Dragosh. A war had started because of it, and Nicolae himself had suffered untold agonies when instead he should have been married to Lucia, bedding her and making babies, and keeping two principalities at peace.

The scars upon his body were
her
, Samira's, fault. His loneliness and misery, the shadows on his heart, they were all there because of
her
, and her careless acquiescence to Theron's request. She hadn't cared what would happen to people, and now she was seeing the results of such thoughtlessness.

What had Theron gained from all this? Nothing had changed for him. Vlad's part of the bargain had not been fulfilled, and might never be. All Nicolae's suffering had been for nothing. She moaned.

"What is it? What do you know of this?" Nicolae demanded.

"I have known too little," she said from beneath her arms, and then more softly, "Too little."

"Come out from there," he ordered. "Look at me.
What do you know of this
?"

She dropped her arms and sat back on her haunches. She looked into his dark eyes, and her courage flagged. How could she tell him the role she had played in his own maiming? He would despise her, and she would deserve it. If he had the power, he would destroy her.

A crushing emptiness weighed upon her. Her one mortal contact was the one man who would have every reason to hate her. She wished she were human and had tears she could shed to drain away the sorrow.

She didn't have the courage to tell him that she had been involved. What end would that serve? She
could
tell him the piece of information that he needed most, though. "Your enemy is not Dragosh of Maramures," she said. "It is Vlad of Wallachia. It is he who changed Dragosh's mind about wedding Lucia into your family."

Nicolae snorted. "When Dragosh changed his mind, he and Vlad were anything but trusting friends. Dragosh would never have listened to him—he would never have allowed Vlad within a hundred miles of him. You only suggest such a thing because Lucia has now been promised to Vlad, and because Vlad has joined forces with Dragosh against Moldavia. Together they are trying to crush us."

Samira stared at him. "I did not know that."

His look said he did not believe her.

"If they were such enemies, then what changed to create such an alliance?" she asked.

Nicolae sighed. "What doesn't change? Alliances change with the wind, as each tries to hold his own place. The Turks threaten Vlad from the south, as they threaten Moldavia and even Transylvania, despite Transylvania's Hungarian support. Hungary is trying to spread Catholicism into Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, creating enemies with each step. Moldavia wishes to remain Orthodox, and has support in both Wallachia and Transylvania. For the most part, we're outnumbered and alone.

"Power is precarious," Nicolae continued. "It cannot be held without the help of friends. Of course Vlad will marry Lucia if he can: Dragosh is her brother, but even more importantly, her sister Elena is married to the Hungarian-appointed ruler of Transylvania, Iancu. Iancu is nephew to the king of Hungary, and as such makes a better friend than an enemy."

"I can't keep them all straight," Samira complained. "Iancu, Elena, Hungary, Turks…"

Nicolae laughed dryly. "Far cleverer minds than yours have failed, and seen their heads separated from their necks. And even should success come, the only thing more dangerous than seeking power is possessing it."

"Then why pursue it at all?" He seemed to have temporarily forgotten his disgust of her, and was speaking to her as if she were human.

"Because to be without it is to have no control over your own fate. What man could stomach such a life?"

"At least it
is
a life," she said. Theron, Nicolae, Vlad—would they all pursue power unto their deaths?

"What would you know of how to live a life?" Nicolae asked.

She didn't want to get onto that topic again, and remind him of all she was not. She returned to her original point. "All I know is that it was Vlad of Wallachia who did not want Lucia to marry into your family. It was Vlad who caused Dragosh to change his mind."

"How are you so sure?" he asked, his eyes narrowed.

"A… a demon told me," she said somewhat truthfully.

He shook his head. "Given a choice, Dragosh would rather have re-allied himself with my family than forge a bond with Vlad. It would have taken more than a few persuasive words from Vlad to get him to change his mind."

"Why?"

Nicolae sighed, and his voice took on the tone of one tired of explaining a familiar story. "Maramures and Bucovina—Bucovina is the northern portion of Moldavia—were once both under the rule of my great-grandparents. Their two children divided between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and those children's descendants—including Dragosh and my father, Bogdan—have been fighting ever since. Dragosh's branch of the family is Catholic and hates us, but he was eager to mend the rift."

"Why?" she asked again.

"Because of a curse made by my great-grandmother Raveca, when she saw what was happening between her children. Some say she was a seer, and there are family legends of the many events she foresaw. Her curse was thus:
Cats and dogs will snarl and fight, and misery be their sustenance. Not until a whelp and a kit bear young will lands again be one, and peace and prosperity come to the children of Raveca
.

"The symbol of Dragosh's family is the wildcat," he explained. "My own family's is the wolf. Cats and dogs. Dragosh and my father were hoping that a marriage between their children, and the offspring to follow, would bring peace and prosperity magically descending from the heavens.

"I think it was the prosperity more than the peace that appealed," he added dryly. "And I don't know how Vlad could have swayed Dragosh from such a goal."

For a moment Samira allowed herself to hope that the dream she'd sent to Dragosh hadn't had any effect after all; that Dragosh could not have been swayed by any influence but his own will. Nicolae's next words crushed any such hope.

"One day the plans for the wedding were being laid; the next, Lucia was being sent off under guard to live with nuns, and Dragosh led his army on a foray into Bucovina. His hatred won out over hope, and when he found one of my brothers patrolling with his troops, Dragosh slaughtered them all."

Samira's eyes went wide. Any small urge she might have had to explain her own role in the story vanished. "I am sorry you lost your brother," Samira said.

He gave her a look that told her she was not worthy to have expressed such a thought. Then he turned away and went to the window, and looked out at the night. Several minutes passed. Samira sought something to say, anything, but nothing came to mind. She was not human. She did not understand what was needed at this moment.

As she waited silently, Samira felt the faint prickling on her skin that said the night was coming to a close. Dawn was not far off. She was going to have to start bargaining for her release.

Or perhaps it would be better if she did not, and let herself be torn apart into nothingness by the dawn. It would be a fitting punishment for the pain she had caused Nicolae.

She shook off the selfish thought. She couldn't do that, not when she had made such a mess of things. It was up to her to amend the situation, to put things right in whatever way she could. There had to be a way to make it up to Nicolae. Somehow.

Nicolae turned back to her, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed in thought.

The prickling on her skin was growing stronger; almost painful. She shifted and fluttered her wings in futile hope of cooling herself.

Nicolae absently brushed his fingertips over the scar on his cheek, then rested his jaw on his thumb and forefinger, thinking. His gaze took on a faraway look, a vertical line of concentration settling between his dark brows.

Samira glanced at a window and saw the lightening of the sky. A searing burn began to run through her flesh, like blood through the veins of a mortal. "Nicolae," she said, and then with urgency, "Nicolae, please!"

"Hmm?" he said, half stirring from his thoughts.

"You must let me go."

He blinked back into full awareness of his surroundings. "Not yet."

"I'll help you, as I said I would," she said quickly. "I swore it. I won't go back on my word."

"I'm not sure now that I want you to visit Dragosh. Not yet. I think there might be better ways to use you."

"Nicolae, the dawn!"

He glanced at the window, and his frown deepened. "You'll be free in a moment, won't you? Damn! Don't visit Dragosh tonight. I have to think. I'll call you back again at nightfall, into the circle, to tell you what I want you to do. Do you swear not to attack me before I have it formed?"

"I swear it!"

His mouth twisted. "I'll have to trust you, won't I?"

She nodded her head fervently. "Trust me!" The burning of dawn was spreading through her body, flames of it biting at her from inside. Was this what it had felt like when Nicolae had received his burns?

He shook his head and gave a small, bitter laugh. "I don't trust you. I warn you, though—do me harm and I will make you pay for it."

She nodded, grimacing, her whole body tensed against the pain. She had little doubt he would make her suffer if she broke her word. He was not the man she had thought him. What vulnerability and softness there were, was buried deep beneath the yearning for power. He was like so many other men in that. "I understand."

He stood, staring at her.

She widened her eyes at him, her jaw tight, trying to hang on to control.

"You'll just disappear with the dawn, right?" he asked a little uncertainly, as she remained where she was, still visible.

"You have to destroy the circle," she gasped, barely managing to hold herself still.

"I'm not freeing you a moment before I have to. As I said, I don't trust you!"

She arched her back, unable to conceal her pain any longer. A burning agony twisted through her. "It's killing me! The dawn!" she screeched. "Candles! Snuff a candle!"

"But you said you'd be free—"

"I lied! Please, Nicolae, the candles!"

"You're lying now," he said, crossing his arms again, although there was the faintest quaver of doubt in his voice, and his face was tight with tension. He made no move toward the circle.

She met his gaze, and felt her body begin to break into a million fragments and expand outward, the fabric of her existence slowly rending apart with the coming of the day.

In what was left of her vision she saw the look of stunned surprise come over Nicolae's face. Her last sight was of him diving for the candles of the circle.

Her last thought was that he did so only because he saw his tool for power being destroyed. It did not matter that she was Samira. It did not matter that she had a voice, and thoughts, and wishes. She did not matter at all.

And then all was light.