The Tears of the Rose (18 page)

“I want to go on. If you think my invitation will protect me—after all, I have the babe to think of—then I'll continue.” I didn't like the idea of going alone, but I couldn't place him in jeopardy, either. That's how a good queen would decide, wasn't it? “You and Marin can go to the cabin and wait for me there.”

He laughed, that soundless, under-the-breath one. “You're not going alone. I'll be with you every step of the way.”

“But what if they come after you?”

“I can take care of myself.” And his eyes glittered again, with that odd joy I'd glimpsed before. He
wanted
to come with me. More than he cared for his continued safety. This was why he'd wormed his way into being my priest confessor and bodyguard. He wanted to see Annfwn.

He gave his pack to Marin. Now I understood why he kept it tied to his back instead of his horse, as the rest of us had. A rush of relief poured through me that I hadn't had the doll with me after all. It would be vanished with my horse, who was maybe broken at the bottom of a ravine. I hated to think of that fate for her. She'd been a good steed and the guilt ate at me that I might have brought her to her death.

We said good-bye to Marin, watching her steady, surefooted march down the trail. Then we headed up. This time I led the way, the White Monk at my back, by unspoken agreement. If I was the key to passage, then I should be in front.

When we reached the place where the soldier and horse had gone over, I couldn't help but look, more than a little afraid of what I'd see, but unable to stop the horrid desire to find out. The White Monk put his hand on my arm. “Don't look,” he said in my ear.

“Did . . . did they all go over?” I had to know.

“No. Only the pair we saw, I think. I have no idea where the others are.”

Of course, he had looked. Even though he'd shed the tears I'd wanted to at their sudden, wrenching demise, he'd had the stomach to see. Nevertheless, I was glad he'd stopped me, even if it meant I lacked his courage.

We continued around the bend to where Graves and the other men had been attacked. The trail widened into a clearing here, and a vast circle of disrupted snow bore silent witness to the strange battle that had occurred. Mud scuffed up from beneath stained the snow in patches, but no blood.

Still, something about the clearing felt odd. I stared around it, trying to discern why my nerves hummed and my grief, always in the background like a faithful hunting dog, descended, leaden and impenetrable in the corners of my vision.

“What is it?”

“I don't know,” I answered. “Something.”

He waited patiently. I wandered through the clearing. No strange shadows prowled the perimeter, validating the White Monk's theory that my presence gave us passage. Not sure what I was looking for, I spotted a clear patch that held, of all things, a spot of green. Bright, acid green, like the White Monk's eyes when he was most amused—or most hateful.

Kicked-up snow mounded around it, but now melted, sliding off and making a damp, muddy ring. A patch of grass, incongruous in the frozen landscape, with a flower inside. A forget-me-not, but larger than it should be, the vivid summer-sky blue of Hugh's eyes.

My heart clutched, the painful ball in my throat spinning. The White Monk crouched beside me. “What do you see?”

“I think—” My voice croaked and broke. I swallowed down the cursed ball of thorns. “I think this is where Hugh died.”

“I don't see anything—just snow.”

“It's like a little hothouse. Living grass and a forget-me-not, but the biggest, most beautiful one I've ever seen. It's not possible that it's here.”

His breath sighed out. “Then this is a memorial. An eternal blossom. Created and preserved by magic.”

I nodded, unable to say more.

“Only one person that I know of could do such a thing—and would want to.”

Andi. I tried to conjure up that image I'd nursed, of her fierce and corrupted joy as she plunged the knife into Hugh's breast. Instead I saw her here, planting this blossom and making a little dome of eternal summer around it. I pulled off my glove and reached in, my hand passing into the moist warmth, the petals velvety and vibrantly alive.

I said a prayer, wordless, a formless burst of love, sorrow, gratitude, and remorse.

When I drew my hand away, the cold stung my skin, a reminder of what was real.

“May I try?”

I wasn't sure why he asked my permission, but I nodded. The White Monk yanked off his glove and reached out as I had, but his fingers stopped in midair, as if encountering glass. He ran his hand over it, forming an invisible dome in the air.

“As the border will be,” I breathed out the revelation.

He seemed disappointed, a tinge of bitterness in the air. Then he took my hand and searched my face. “Will you try something with me?” The simplicity of the question belied the deep, emotional earnestness in his gaze. This mattered greatly to him.

“Yes.”

His scarred lip twitched into a smile and he opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and tugged off my glove, gently, finger by finger. With a rush, the fantasy of him ripping off my clothes hit me again, and I had to bite my lip against it—and to stave off the black guilt that followed. Here I knelt at the spot where Hugh had given up his life only months before, possessed by this insane lust for another man. If the White Monk knew, he gave no clue, but he did cradle my naked hand in his, our skin touching in some deep communication. With our fingers laced together, he lowered our hands toward the blossom.

Seamlessly our hands slid inside, penetrating the perfect slice of summer together.

“I see it!” He turned his head and grinned at me, a smile so broad even the scar didn't distort it, the greatest expression of pure happiness I'd ever seen on him. It made the thorns inside me prick with envy.

Nothing could ever make me that happy again.

17

A
s if he sensed my shift in mood, his smile dimmed. Suddenly

I was sorry to have ruined the moment for him. I created a smile, the party one that usually charmed everyone, but it was too late. Besides, he always seemed to see through me. He pulled our hands out and handed me my glove.

“Do you want some time here?”

Ever considerate of me and my hair shirt of grief.

“No.” I stood, pulling on my glove and adjusting my cloak. I couldn't explain my irrational anger at Hugh. At Andi for first killing him and then making this memorial, as if that changed anything at all. But I could walk away for now. “Let's move on. Surely the border isn't far from here.”

It wasn't. We'd barely gone the distance it would take to cross Ordnung's great courtyard before the snow, which had been growing thin, melted completely into mud. Ahead, the same tall evergreen trees marched on in their great columns, but beneath, on the forest floor, grass and riotous wildflowers grew in a rampant tapestry of color.

With a breath of wonder, I reached down and plucked a scarlet blossom. It was exotic and fragrant, unlike anything I'd ever seen.

“Princess?”

I looked back, and the White Monk stood an arm's length away, as if stopped by a wall, his gaze unfocused into the distance.

“Ami!” he called, with greater urgency.

“Right here,” I said, but he didn't seem to hear me. I went to him and the near panic in his face changed to relief. He seemed about to embrace me in a rush of emotion but stopped himself. “Couldn't you see me?”

“No. It was as if you disappeared. Like you vanished into that blizzard.” He gestured at the summer landscape beyond.

“You see a blizzard there?”

“You don't?”

“No.” I felt a bit of the happiness that I'd longed for only a few minutes before seep into my limbs, like a draught of good wine, warming and relaxing, diffusing the anger. “I see paradise.”

We practiced with the barrier for a bit. The White Monk said he didn't wish to leave any important bits of himself behind. Turned out it was much more difficult to move two bodies in tandem than it had been our interlaced hands. When our bodies grew too far apart, say, where our forearms diverged due to the angle of our elbows, he'd begin to feel a burning, repellent sensation.

He tried tossing a rock through, but it ricocheted. The same happened when I tried. But I could carry that rock over. Wryly, he remarked that it would be best if I could carry him over, but I could never lift his weight. With rapt wonder, we watched as a flock of birds flew through.

“If only we hadn't lost the horses,” he sighed. “I bet that would have worked.”

“You don't have to go through, do you? I could go in and, um, look around a little.” Really, according to my assignment, we could leave. We knew I could cross the border. I sincerely doubted that I could bring Erich's—or Uorsin's—armies across, but that was a problem for another day. Something to think about later.

The White Monk stood, hands fisted on his lean hips, staring down at the snow as if it might give him the answers he sought. He looked up at me when I suggested he stay behind, the green dimmed, the bitter grit of frustration and disappointment in the air. He wanted this. There could be no doubt of that.

“What if you carry me?” I blurted out.

“We could try that.”

We both knew that the alternative would be for us to somehow plaster ourselves together. He came close to me and paused, oddly diffident in that moment, though he'd carried me before. Seeming unsure how to touch me, he stroked a hand down my back, barely touching.

“Ready?”

I stood on tiptoe and wound my arms around his neck, laying my cheek against his, rough with his scruffy beard and the ridged scars. He felt good. Hard and warm. I pushed the fantasies aside. “Like you did before. It's fine.”

He bent his knees, scooping me up with easy strength. I pressed my face into his neck, as if the skin-to-skin contact would help, but shamelessly indulging myself, breathing in his scent, campfire smoke and man. He smelled nothing like Hugh had, and that helped immeasurably. I'd missed being touched. So, so much. This small thing meant nothing. Here and gone.

Taking a deep breath, he curled me tighter against his chest and stepped up to the barrier. Moving slowly, head bent tight over mine, he eased through. Under my ear, his heart pounded, echoing through his body, a drumbeat of fear—and wild excitement.

With a sensation of a bubble popping, we emerged into full summer. The White Monk looked around in unbelieving amazement, then down at me, the radiance of his joy as palpable as the welcoming sunshine. He let me down, then tossed his head back, whooping with a full-throated cry of celebration, much like a wolf baying at the full moon.

A laugh escaped me, released from its barbed prison by his sheer exuberance. He snapped his gaze down to me.

Then seized my face in his big hands and kissed me.

Shock held me still for a blink, and then all that yearning, that bottled-up longing, surged up to meet him. I opened my mouth, giving in to the hard, seductive strength of his. Just as in my lurid fantasies, he wasn't gentle or sweet or reverent. He didn't treat me like some fragile doll to be protected. He devoured me, drinking me in, and my entire body melted into a hot stream for him to consume.

He broke away from me and I staggered, momentarily unanchored and bewildered.

Moving away a few steps, eyes wild and panicked, he bent over, resting hands on knees and panting. I took a step toward him and he held up one hand, forbidding me to come closer.

Too hot—from the sun, nothing more—I busied myself with removing my winter outer garments, neatly folding the heavy cloak, my gloves and scarf. Already chagrined and more than a little humiliated by my response, I decided he'd already seen plenty of me, and it hardly mattered now, so I stripped off a few layers of pants and shirts, so I wore only a few light silk ones. They still covered me modestly enough to please Lady Zevondeth, but after wearing so many layers, I felt nearly naked.

When I finished, I found the White Monk regarding me with a deliberately opaque expression, one I recognized from early in our acquaintance.

“Forgive me my trespass, Princess.” He bowed, formal and deep. “I was overcome by the moment and forgot who you are. Inexcusable of me, nevertheless.”

Not exactly what a girl wants to hear from the man who just kissed her with more passion than she knew existed in the world. Tempted to fling myself against him and pound my fists against his chest, I nearly yelled that I wanted him to be overcome by me. By
me
and not the stupid moment.

But that was the old Ami. I ran a hand over my messily braided, likely knotted, and days-oily hair. I wore this odd assortment of patchwork garments and likely smelled to Glorianna's bower and beyond. Of course he wasn't overcome by me. Even at my best, the beauty that had always been my glory seemed to disgust and repel him.

He'd “forgotten” who I was. I supposed that was the only way he'd forget whatever it was that made him hate me so.

“We'll forget it ever happened.” I tried to make it a crisp order from the offended but forgiving royal personage, but my voice sounded dull. What was wrong with me?

He lost the impassive expression and held out a hand toward me. “Ami—”

“Ami.”

The other voice overlapped his, an eerie almost echo. Andi.

I turned and there she stood, smiling tentatively at me. My first impulse—born of long habit—sent me running toward her, for one of our gleeful, squealing hugs. But that was before, and I managed to yank myself up short before she, too, could reject me.

No, I rejected
her
! She had murdered Hugh. I hated her. I didn't care about her guilt in planting that flower.

And she looked so amazingly beautiful. Had she always been this way? She looked . . . taller somehow. Her hair, which had always seemed a muddy brown mix somewhere between my red-gold and Ursula's deep auburn, now seemed a deeper, richer color, the crimson-black of banked coals. Her gray eyes, not cloudy anymore, were the color of thunderheads, shimmering full of ominous power, large in her face and fringed with thick, dark lashes.

Worse, that
thing
, that strange prickle she'd always had, loomed large in the air, the static charge of lightning about to strike. And when she tipped her head to the side to study me, an oddly animal movement, a kind of unearthly light shimmered over the gray in her eyes.

“I'm glad you came,” she ventured, her smile fading.

“I'm not here because you said to come,” I said with defiance.

“All right.” She considered me, gaze flicking to the White Monk, who was, at long last, living up to his reputation of silence. “Why are you here?”

All of these answers stuck in my throat with the rest of my grief, rage, and uncertainty—and an odd longing. It was mixed up somehow with the plaguing desire for the White Monk and the hurt that he didn't want me, that no one loved me, that Hugh hadn't even seen me for myself and the jealousy that Andi had a real home, where I . . . I didn't somehow.

She nodded, as if I had said something. “Are you ready to hear my apology, perhaps?”

“No!” I flung it at her. “There is no apologizing for what you did. You destroyed Hugh and thus may as well have plunged the knife in my breast yourself. You killed me, too.”

She continued nodding, her gorgeous witchy eyes filling with tears that then poured down her face with enviable ease. “I understand.”

“Why did you do it?
How
could you do it?” Without realizing, I'd been moving closer to her, drawn by our old connection. I missed her as much as I hated her as much as I loved her as much as I wanted to destroy her and everything she cared about.

She twisted her hands together, weeping still. “It was a horrible, terrible accident. If I had the power, I would change it. As it is, I go back over and over that moment, wishing that I could make it so it never happened. But I can't.”

“You're not so powerful, then,” I sneered at her.

She shook her head, long, thick hair roping over her shoulders, gleaming and vibrant. “No one has the power over death. No one should, much as we might long for it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“No.” Her gaze cleared and sharpened, though the tears still fell. “Never think it's easy.”

“You have everything and I have nothing.” My voice cracked, pain oozing through my heart. A comforting hand touched the small of my back, rested there. I looked up and the White Monk stood right behind me.

“You're not real,” he said to Andi, surprising me.

She tilted her head, that movement like a predator seeing potential prey, and wiped her face clear of tears, assessing him with keen interest.

“Who are you?”

“Queen Andromeda.” He bowed. “I am the White Monk.”

“That's a title, not a name,” she observed.

“That's what I keep saying,” I muttered. “What do you mean she's not real?”

“Try touching her.”

I reached out to touch her sleeve, a gorgeous, filmy aqua that reminded me of the summer ocean at Windroven. My hand passed through it as easily as it had the magical barriers.

She smiled, rueful. “It's true, I'm not physically here. I'm sort of—making an image of myself from far away. When I sensed you cross the barrier, it would have taken me too long to reach you physically. I wanted to be here to greet you.”

“You've been watching me?”

“Only since you crossed the border.”

“The first time.”

She smoothed her expression and gave me a slight nod, studiously not looking at the White Monk. She'd seen, then. She'd seen him kiss me and how I'd responded. My cheeks burned, the skin tight and hot. So much for my impassioned righteousness over losing Hugh.

“I don't judge, Ami,” she said with gentle forgiveness that only fueled my embarrassed anger. “It's good for people to move on, to live life. We have only a short time—”

“Spare me your philosophy, murderer,” I snarled.

She flinched. Some buried part of me was sorry. Still, rage felt better than being naïve and pitiful.

“I want you to know that I'll never send my child to you. Never! More, I
will
find a way to destroy you. You won't benefit from your ill deeds. Glorianna seeks justice. Annfwn belongs to her, and I am her avatar!” I finished on a triumphant shout, but Andi seemed only confused.