The Tears of the Rose (23 page)

“One reason. But that's not one of the stories you asked for.” He waited and I stayed silent so he'd continue. He took in a long breath and tipped his head to look at the sky. “So here's a juicy secret for your arsenal—I killed the priest and retrieved my father's blood.”

We walked in silence while I assimilated that. I sent a prayer to Glorianna, expecting a sense of horror and outrage that he'd killed one of her priests, but nothing came. Except a rush of admiration for the lost and wounded thirteen-year-old boy who'd avenged his father.

“Go on,” I said. Apparently that was enough for him.

“Of course, I bungled it. I destroyed the blood, but they caught me and sent me to prison. I was not . . . a good prisoner.”

Which explained the lashings.

“I was so full of rage. Most days I felt more like a wild animal than a boy or a man. As if some beast was trying to claw its way out of me, shredding my humanity in the process.” He shook his head, the cowl moving back and forth. “What the prison guards didn't destroy of my heart, the beast did.”

“Because you couldn't . . . change into the beast?”

“Probably. Some think so. My father tried to teach me, before he died. For years. But we had to work in secret because my mother—rightly so, it turned out—feared we'd be discovered. Besides . . .” He paused, gathered himself to admit it. “I never could.”

“Andi told me—she said something similar. That my daughter would need to come to Annfwn, to learn her magic, or it could tear her apart. I wonder if that's what she means.”

“If you want to learn from my tale, I'd take that advice seriously.”

I mulled that over, letting him collect his thoughts, willing the smell of old failure away.

“Fortunately”—his voice held deep irony for the word—“the prison teemed with Tala part-bloods. They taught me how to use my heritage to fight and win. When I hadn't run afoul of the guards—which happened regularly—and thus was recovering from yet another lashing, I built my strength and speed. There wasn't much else to do with ourselves.

“We staged matches, which the guards encouraged, placing bets and pitting us one against the other. I liked winning, so I got better at it. Some of the others taught me how, though the inner beast couldn't come out, I could use it to be even stronger and faster.”

He paused and I gathered that some of those lessons had been harsh ones.

“One old Tala man, though, who'd been in the prison and fought in the Great War—he recognized how the magic was killing me from the inside out. He caught me when I was down from a bad beating and couldn't fight him off. He taught me to channel the beast. I couldn't change my own flesh into something else, but I could heal myself to some extent and others even more so. I practiced on the other prisoners—the ones that let me—and learned something of compassion along with it. By then I was twenty-three.”

I wanted to touch him then but felt I couldn't. Ten years locked in that prison when he should have been growing up, learning to be a man.

“He was the one who told me the way to Annfwn. And he told me about you.” Ash looked over at me then, gaze bright before he looked away. “You were but twelve years old then, younger than I was when I went to that place, and they sang songs about you that made it even into our hellhole.”

I flushed, beyond uncomfortable, but he seemed to enjoy my discomfort, because he pressed on.

“You want to understand me, Princess? Imagine a prisoner, beaten, starved, more animal than man, living among other animals, discovering compassion for the first time in my life, finding that maybe I could do more than kill and destroy—and hearing about you.”

“You hated me,” I whispered, puffing the words into the cold air.

“I hated you,” he confirmed. “Living in your white palace with your father the High King, showered in jewels and dresses, favored by Glorianna—Her living avatar, they said—beautiful and perfect with the world at your feet.”

“I don't blame you.” How many others had felt that way? And I'd never given any of them a thought. Had never known they existed so I could. Living in a crystal bubble, indeed.

“I loved you, too.” He spoke it as a confession, not looking at me still. “Obviously not
you
, the person. But the idea of you. I used to dream that I'd escape and track you down. That I'd kidnap you from your pretty palace, throw you over my shoulder, and . . .”

“Ravage me?” I couldn't help the humor in my voice. “And look at you now.”

“It isn't funny, Amelia.” His voice was tight with self-loathing.

“It took me a long time to become a different person than that. That wounded boy—he's gone. Buried under scar tissue. He didn't even know what he really wanted.”

“And yet, he found a way to have it.” I pointed out, feeling merciless.

“It's not the same.”

He'd dug in his heels, but I knew that this lay at the core of his regret. As if his younger self had somehow managed to break free and steal me away, raping me in the wilderness. Though we both knew the truth of how it had gone between us.

“Tell me the rest. Your escape and the scars.”

“You assume I escaped?”

“I know there are no pardons.”

He was quiet a moment. “How long have you known that?”

I shrugged a little. “It wasn't part of my world, but I suppose I've always known that, on some level. But Marin told me, when she told me what the scars meant.”

“The ones on my face?”

“The lash marks. She said the ones on your face are from burns.” I said it matter-of-factly, the only way I could think of to show him I didn't care about them.

“I see. I escaped because a man I healed was capable of gratitude. He killed three guards to set me free, knowing they'd execute him for it.”

“He gave his life because you saved it? That makes no sense.”

“I know. He said that it was the only thing anyone had ever done for him out of the goodness of their heart and he didn't want to live long enough to forget the feeling.”

“Glorianna save us,” I breathed.

“She had nothing to do with it.”

I almost argued but decided to wait. Perhaps meditate on the matter. “After you escaped, then?”

“Prisoners are branded, with an emblem on their chests and on their cheeks—did you know that part?”

“No.” My stomach, which had been behaving so well, turned over. Farmers branded their animals in springtime in Mohraya, and sometimes the flower-scented breezes also carried the smell of burned flesh and the panicked cries of young creatures. “I've never seen one, I think.”

He laughed, soundlessly. “You wouldn't. It's the surest way to be recaptured and sent to the nearest prison. So the first night I was free, I cut mine off with a knife I stole from a farmhouse. I also took an oil lantern, a loaf of bread, and a chunk of cured jerky.” He recited the list as if he were enumerating his sins. I imagined he repeated them to himself, in the sealed-over recesses of his mind, those scarred places he claimed no longer capable of tender feeling.

“I was worried that the placement of the scars would be too obvious. So I doused them with oil from the lantern and . . .”

“Oh, stop!” I held up a hand, trying to master the image, then lost it and turned away, puking into the snow. He held me, bracing my forehead with his hand. Not revolted by it. Of course, he'd seen much worse than my sick.

“I'm sorry, Ami,” he whispered, gravelly. “I didn't think.”

“No.” I kicked snow over my puke and grabbed some fresh to rinse my mouth before facing him. “It's not your fault. I'm weak stomached these days and the thought of you . . .” Truly his scars had never bothered me much, I'd been so tortured by what lurked in his pained gaze. But now I couldn't look away. Compelled, I pulled off my glove and reached up to touch the rippling scars. He flinched, then held still, wariness in the air, and then something else. I glimpsed him then, that young man Ash thought had died. He looked at me with such love and longing, I could barely breathe.

His eyes locked with mine, Ash slowly turned his head and pressed his roughened lips against my palm.

A shout in the distance had us both shading our eyes to look out over the glittering snow. Graves and the other soldiers trotted toward us over the meadow, waving and calling out in relieved joy. They were fine—and even had our horses—exactly as Andi had promised.

22

“A
t last,” Ash spoke with pained irony, pulling away, “rescue arrives.”

“Thank you for telling me your story.”

He regarded me with a twist of a smile, already sealing himself off again. “You're the only one I've ever told.”

“I'll keep your secrets.”

“Not that it matters. Do as you wish—I don't expect you to protect me.”

I put my hand on Ash's cloaked arm. “Nor do I plan to, even if I thought you needed it. But I want you to finish your quest. Graves and the others can see me safely to Windroven.”

He looked down at my gloved hand on his arm, still unwilling to see the face, that so troubled him. “What are you saying?”

“I'm telling you to go. Back up the hill and across the border. Your destiny awaits in Annfwn. You deserve the chance to take it.”

“Princess Amelia!” Graves called out, clearly having forgotten his earlier cautions. Though it hardly mattered anymore. “Are you all right? Were you harmed in any way?”

“I'm fine, Commander,” I said, stepping away from Ash and drawing myself up. “We have been concerned for you.”

“It was the damnedest thing.” He shook his head and Skunk grimaced in agreement. “We were climbing that path, thinking you were right behind us, and then we seemed to be going downhill. We found ourselves in the next drainage over, with no path behind us and none of you in sight. It's taken all night and most of the day to make our way around.”

Sliding off his horse and sinking to one knee, Graves yanked off his helm and bowed his head. “I failed you, Your Highness. As a soldier derelict in his duty, I accept whatever punishment you deem right and just. I only ask that you allow us to try again to reach the border. After that, should you wish to have me executed, I'll at least die knowing I completed my mission.”

“You weren't derelict, Commander.” I placed my hand on his bent head. “You faced a cunning enemy who simply waged the battle on a different field. Now rise.”

I stepped back and nearly trod on Ash's toes, he stood so close behind me. Ignoring him, I said, “Besides, the White Monk and I reached the border.”

The air around me stilled, tense and waiting.

“And the mission?” Graves asked, carefully.

I shook my head. “Neither of us could even see where it was. The rumors are true. No one can enter Annfwn. It's as if it fell off the map.”

“Sad news, indeed, Your Highness.”

“Yes. I propose to leave the White Monk here, to keep an eye on the border in Glorianna's name. He can stay at yon cabin through the winter. My midwife is taking shelter there.”

I looked up at Ash over my shoulder, his transparent gaze at last meeting mine. “You'll indulge me in this request, White Monk, yes?”

He wavered, uncertain. That turbulent mix of emotions tumbled around us. I stared him down, willing him to take the opportunity.

“As you wish, Princess.” He inclined his head. “Tomorrow I will watch you ride away without me.”

I gave him a court smile, full of benevolent pleasure, but a bitter taste of regret lingered in my mouth.

Marin greeted us at the cabin as if we'd only been out for a short pleasure jaunt. Of course she couldn't know all that had transpired, but her unflappability made for a welcome homecoming.

The soldiers cooked a stew and we sat around the fire, exchanging more of our stories. The only deaths had been the horse and soldier who went over the cliff, which only one of the men had witnessed and seemed to remember only vaguely.

That disturbed me, in a forlorn way, but Graves's insistent questions about our experience wouldn't let me dwell on it. Fortunately Ash stepped in to elaborate on my thin story, inventing a convenient cave where we sheltered for the night before trying to find the impassable border once more. He never wavered from my tale, that neither of us could pass through, even when we thought we might have come close to it, for which I was grateful.

Though he carefully avoided looking at me, the bit of silent collusion gave me a cozy sense of companionship with him. Even if we never saw each other again, at least we would forever share these secrets. His and mine, tied together.

Something private for me to hold on to, like my mother's treasure chest. Perhaps I'd sew something out of the silk scraps I'd saved from the night before. A memento.

I meditated on it while I brushed my hair and Ash—and the other soldiers—pretended not to watch. Here in the remote cabin on frozen ground, he didn't fill my senses as he had in Annfwn, but I knew enough of
him
to separate his desire from the idle lust of the others. His had a certain bittersweet flavor to it.

I needed just one more taste—and I had no intention of ever again missing out on something because I hadn't asked for it.

As everyone settled into their blankets for the night, I announced that I needed to answer the call of nature, yet again. Sometimes being with child offers convenient excuses. As I knew he would, Ash ignored the groans of the other soldiers and said he'd go with me, for protection.

The others were happy enough to leave us to it, though Marin gave me the side eye. As with Andi, though, she didn't judge. Of course, she liked Ash. More than she did me, when it came down to it. Somehow the thought didn't sting as much as it once had.

We donned the layers of our cold-weather gear once more and went out into the night.

Above, the same nearly full moon that had shined on us the night before ducked in and out of tattered clouds. Only a few stars pricked the sky, with pale white gleams.

“Why do even the stars look different here?”

Crunching through the snow beside me, Ash shrugged his shoulders. “Why should I know?”

We reached the ring of trees and he pointed to a pile of fallen logs. When Ash led me toward the semiprivate screening, I tipped back the hood of my cloak, letting my hair spill free. A glint from the shadows of his cowl confirmed that my gambit worked. I had his attention. Taking his hand, I tugged him along with me.

“What are you up to, Princess?” He tried to sound stern and genuinely confused, but the way his desire thickened the space between us told me all I needed. He'd lost that calloused membrane of anger that he'd used to wedge us apart, and before he could raise his guard, I slipped inside.

“I'm cold. Can I get under your cloak?” I had already parted the folds and burrowed inside by the time he broke through the shock and tried to refuse me. Then my hand found that hard ridge of his cock that never seemed confused about how it felt, and I had his pants open.

“Ami!” He gasped, a harsh whisper. I stripped off my glove and wrapped my fingers around his length, hot in contrast to the cold night. He made a strangled sound and then buried his hands in the long fall of my hair. “You can't—oh, Moranu.”

Because I'd found him with my mouth. He felt as velvety as I'd imagined and I ran my tongue over his smooth flesh, savoring the sensation. Not sure what to do, for surely his techniques wouldn't work in reverse, we were so differently shaped, I followed instinct, letting his intensifying desire guide me.

It seemed to work, because his fingers tightened with brutal strength in my hair, pulling on my scalp. He caused me pain only when he lost his caution, and this was how I wanted him. Just like this. Harder. Bucking his hips and clinging to me as if he were dying.

With a low growl, he tore himself free of my mouth and pushed me to all fours in the snow. He shoved up my skirts—which I'd changed into with expressly this in mind—and groaned to find me naked beneath. Then reached around to cover my mouth with his hand and plunged into me.

He took me as he had at the end the night before, with ruthless strength and wild abandon. Pressing low over my spine, one hand clamping my hip into place, he pounded into me, hot breath in my ear. Coming at me from behind, the pleasure worked me in a different way, and I bit down on the meaty part of his hand because I couldn't stand not to.

And then I shattered, dissolving under his thrusts, sobbing into the palm of his hand. His body went rigid and he moaned through clenched teeth—so it sounded. Flexing my one bare hand in the snow, I made myself stay awake and alert, enjoying the way he milked himself in and out of me, those last few finishing shudders of his muscles and the way the bitterness of his longing smoothed into sweet satisfaction, if only for a few moments.

“Don't move,” he whispered in my ear, and I shivered in delight at the gravelly command, then in earnest as the cold air hit my naked bottom when he pulled away. A tearing sound and then a woolen cloth, scraping my thighs and spread tissues, tenderly wiping away the fluids of our union. He must have done this for me the previous night, before he wrapped me up in the blankets. The thought moved me.

He helped me up and, not looking at me, cleaned himself with a fistful of snow before the cloth, then fastened his pants. “You might do the same,” he said, almost as if speaking to himself, “or they might smell it on you.”

“Let them.”

His hands stilled. “It's a reckless game you play, Princess. Unfortunately I will be the one to pay the forfeit.”

Winding up my hair, I tucked it behind my neck and pulled up my hood. “You will be beyond anyone's reach tomorrow. And this was no game for me.”

“What is it, then?” His strained voice reached across the gap between us. Nothing of him showed but his cloaked silhouette. But my body still throbbed from his touch and that was enough. It would have to be.

“I wanted more. Something to remember you by.”

“You didn't have enough already?” He sounded wry, a hint of bitter flavor in the air.

“Stop that,” I snapped, still quiet but with the same demanding force he used. It took him by surprise, the bitterness popping like a soap bubble. “No. I didn't have enough. I'm starting to learn that we maybe never do. That things and people and pleasures can be yanked away from us at any moment, but it's not because we had enough. I wanted you while I could have you.

“Also, I wanted something
here
. Look at the sky, the moon, the stars—even they seem less beautiful. It's not fair that Annfwn keeps all the magic. I understand you regret our time together, but I needed to know that you still wanted me regardless, outside the sway of paradise. We likely will never meet again. I didn't want to leave it the way we did.”

“Ami . . .” He trailed off, sounded defeated.

“It's okay. You don't need to explain. I'm all right with this.”

In a breath, he closed the space between us, gripping my arms and staring fiercely down into my face from the depth of his hood. “You don't understand,” he ground out.

“Then explain,” I answered gently. “Tell me, Ash.”

“I don't regret knowing you. Being with you, touching your skin, and drowning in that insane passion burning in you—I feel as if I've been immolated.”

“Burned to ash?”

“Yes.” He laughed soundlessly, under his breath. “That's what happens when you stare into the sun.”

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

“No.” He was shaking his head, slowly, from side to side, eyes fixed on mine. “Never be sorry for this. I'm not.”

“But you said—”

“I lied.”

I absorbed that. “Why?”

“Why does anyone lie, Ami? To hide the truth.”

“And what is the truth, Ash?”

“I'll give you one. The most important truth. That you own me, body and soul. I'm helpless to resist you. My only freedom will be to stay far, far away.”

“Annfwn is far, far away.”

“Yes.”

“Then go.” I'd said it earlier today, but this felt more final.

“I have no wish to burn a man alive, much less you. Go, if you have to.”

“I think I have to.”

“I understand that.”

“You're different now,” he observed, hands relaxing and flexing on my arms in an almost caress. “I'm not quite sure how to define it.”

“Good. I wanted to change. I didn't like who I was.”

“I liked you.” He searched my face, his longing as quenching as water in my parched mouth. “I always will.”

“No matter who I become?”

“You will always be my sun.”

“Will you kiss me good-bye?”

Instead of replying, with an urgent gasp of breath, he released my arms, knifed his hands inside my hood, and wound his fingers in my hair. Clasping my skull, he held me tight and plundered my mouth with his. It was less a kiss than a devouring, and I held on to his wrists, though I couldn't have fallen over if I tried. I opened my mouth to him and let him take whatever he felt safe to have of me.