Lyngfen

She had lied.

Anja had said she didn’t fear him. But she did. Not that he would harm her—or harm anyone undeserving—but she feared that her heart would be sliced open when they parted.

Every time he touched her, she craved more. Every time he spoke, she wished never to stop talking with him. Every hour she spent with him, she wanted another. But not merely hours. Days. Years.

But only a week remained until she would be home.

And her lie had put distance between them. Since that night, he had not left her alone in her bedchamber—had not left her unprotected—but he slept on the floor, no matter that she implored him to take comfort beside her.

She missed his strength. She missed his warmth. She did not miss being tied—but she missed the tying, that breathless moment when he bound her. When he seemed to loom over her, dark and ravenous. When the silence between them seemed full of anticipation and the tension coiled so tight.

The tension was still there, but little silence remained. So many times she’d been reprimanded for her unguarded tongue, but now she was a slopmouth in truth, talking on and on, yet saying nothing of importance.

Because she had not the courage to say what she most wanted to. To tell him how much she wanted a kiss or a touch. Any would do. But she dared not speak when everything she told him without words was ignored. Every alluring glance she’d made, every flirtatious gesture, had been made as if to a wall. Or worse, made him turn away.

But on the road, he did not ignore her or turn away. And although the better she knew him, the more danger her heart was in, she could not stop trying to discover more.

He probably thought it was only boredom. The landscape offered little to engage the attention. Snow had fallen over the mire, then frozen hard, crusting the long, dried grasses in brittle ice. A bitter wind drove into their backs, and every time she turned her head it bit into her cheeks. This day they had met few other travelers, and their horses’ tracks were the first to mark the road. Though she had traveled through this kingdom on her journey to the stronghold, she had no memory of it while sleeping. Never before had she been anywhere so bleak and desolate.

Perhaps Kael had.

“Are the Dead Lands much like this?”

He shook his head. “Too many trees grow here.”

A laugh burst from her on a puff of frozen air. For there were trees—but only a few, their bare and gnarled limbs burdened with hundreds of ravens that watched them pass in eerie silence.

His smile answered her laugh but it did not last. With a lift of his chin, he gestured ahead. “That is similar.”

The ruins of a walled village. They had passed through many such ruins, but unlike in the Dead Lands, it had not been a scaling that had destroyed so many homes along this road. Instead it had been Qul Wrac, who had served Geofry in Lyngfen.

It was said when Kael had first cut his corpse-strewn path from Lyngfen to Vale, that he’d carried Qul Wrac’s head on the horn of his saddle. But when Anja had asked him whether it was true, he’d denied it—and said he’d carried Qul Wrac’s head upon a pike, instead.

She could not see him as that bloody conqueror, though she had no doubt of its truth. Even now, he was surrounded by the tools of battle. His sword, an axe, daggers in his boot. Yet more and more, she could not imagine him in a butcherer’s rage. Always he had such restraint.

Ahead, the wooden gate that had once guarded the entrance to the village lay in splinters between the stone walls. Beyond the broken gate, the road continued through what remained of mud homes, the thatched roofs caved in.

A few hundred paces from the gate, Kael halted his horse, gaze fixed intently ahead. Immediately Anja did the same. Silently she waited—this was something he often did when they approached a point in the road where the view ahead was obstructed, or where someone might lay in wait to ambush. She didn’t know exactly what he looked for—the only movement Anja could see was a scrap of cloth fluttering at the broken edge of the gate, the only sound she heard was the rustle of wind through the frozen grasses. Yet he must have heard or seen or perhaps smelled something.

“I feel eyes upon us,” he said.

She did not. With pounding heart, she looked and listened—then gestured subtly to a twisted tree near the village wall. “Perhaps the ravens?” she whispered.

A faint smile touched his lips. “No. Come.”

He nudged his horse forward, but did not go far. Instead he led her off the road, pausing near the tree she’d indicated, within a stone’s throw of the old gate. “I’ll ride ahead and return for you. If anyone lies in wait, it will be within the village.”

Because there was nowhere else to plan an ambush. Behind them, the mire was an empty waste; not a single traveler could be seen in the distance. The only concealment was offered by these ruins.

At her nod, he asked grimly, “You know spells of defense—the ones that kill?”

“I know many spells. Even one that could burst a man’s eyes within his head.” Anja’s mother had seen that she was educated well, for all the good it did her.

“If anyone but me comes through that gate, use it. Do not fear the scaling. Your spells will not touch me.”

How could he be so certain? But Kael did not wait to explain. Instead he threw the sides of his cloak back from his shoulders—to free his arms, she realized. If he drew his sword, the heavy material would not hamper his swing.

As he disappeared into the village and the sound of the hoof beats retreated, all was quiet. Then a raven cawed, the hoarse sound rubbing prickles over her unease-tightened skin. She shivered despite the heavy comfort of her coat. Beneath her, the big mare moved restlessly. She tossed her head and snorted, sending plumes of steam into the air.

And there were eyes upon her.

Anja stilled, her gaze searching. There was no one in sight. Yet whatever she had sensed—that Kael had sensed earlier—she knew with absolute certainty that it was close…and coming closer.

Sudden fear knocked her heart against her ribs. She dug her heels in and the horse sprang forward—

Then whipped around, the mare rearing and her hindquarters pivoting as if her reins had suddenly been yanked to the side. Unseated by the abrupt movement, Anja couldn’t regain her balance. Her cry cut short as she crashed to the ground on a clump of frozen grass. Stunned, she lay on her side, coughing and trying to regain her breath.

“Whoa, there! Easy, girl.” The deep voice was joined by another man’s cackling laugh. “Easy.”

Gasping air into her pained chest, Anja scrambled back toward the wall, regaining her feet and drawing her sword with hands that shook wildly.

The “easy, girl” had not been for her. A full-bearded giant of a man held her horse’s reins, trying to soothe the startled animal. Four other men were with him, watching Anja with expressions that ranged from cruelly amused to darkly irritated to hotly eager. A spell, she realized. A cloaking spell of some sort had allowed these bandits to come upon her unseen.

Were there more? Had they done the same to— “Kael!” she screamed his name. “Kael!”

That drew more cackling laughter from a wiry figure standing behind a man who watched her with an amused expression. Long blond hair framed a face reddened by the wind. The bandits’ leader, she thought. A leather cuirass armored his chest, a heavy cloak fell around his shoulders, and he stood with the point of his sword buried in the ground between his booted feet, hands resting lightly on the hilt in a careless pose.

His blond eyebrows arched. “Kael?” Laughing, he shook his head. “Your companion was a giant, for certain, but no bigger than my shaggy friend there—and no king. Did you see a golden crown upon his head? Perhaps there was a spell upon his crown, to disguise it as we were disguised.”

He addressed the last to the dark-haired man who stood a few paces away, and who did not wait as carelessly as his leader. With crossbow braced at his shoulder, he faced the broken gate—where Kael would come through.

He cast an irritated glance back at them before resuming his watch. “Crown or not, he must still be dealt with. Hogtie his slattern and come back to her when we’ve finished him. It’s cursed cold out here.”

“You are the greatest bowman in all of the fen, Erac,” the leader said. “Fly a bolt through his throat when he comes for her. Then his woman can keep you warm.”

So they had not ambushed Kael while concealed by the spell. He was alive. “You are all fools,” Anja said coldly. “Dead fools, now. For that warrior is Kael the Conqueror.”

Smiling, the blond tugged his sword from the ground. “And who are you?” he asked mockingly. “His fair queen?”

She only wished it so. “I am Princess Anja of Ivermere.”

“Ivermere?” His grin flashed white teeth. “Here is your princess, Ulber! Perhaps she will give your poor father pardon for his magical crimes, burn that rune from his arm, and you will all return home!”

Holding her sword in front of her, Anja spared the quickest glance to the sullen figure behind him, wearing a ragged cloak with hood drawn up.

“Ulber is not much of a spellcaster,” the blond confided to her in a lower voice, slow steps carrying him closer. “He only knows a trick or two, and his mother’s got no more magic in her than I do. But a princess, eh? You could crack our necks with a single word.”

“That spell is five words,” Anja told him, “but I have no need of it.”

Not when she had firm ground beneath her feet and a wall at her back. With easy grace, Anja slipped her arms out of her coat sleeves and let the heavy wolfskin fall to the ground. Immediately the wind gnawed through her tunic, lifting the hair at her nape and slithering down her collar, but with hot blood racing through her veins, she did not feel the cold.

Without taking her eyes from the blond bandit, she kicked the fur aside so it would not tangle her feet. She arched a brow—challenging him to attack.

Behind him came another cackle. “I like this one, Nahk! I will have her after you are done.”

“I’d best go last,” said the bearded giant holding her horse. “You’ll not get much use out of her after.”

“Take my place,” the spellcaster beside him said. “I would rather have her coat than fuck a ghost.”

“And I want to know whether her muff’s as white as her hair,” Nahk said, inching closer.

Another cackling laugh. “After that old woman this summer, you’ve gotten a taste for gray twat.”

“Then spread her thighs and get on with it!” Erac snapped at them. “He ought to have returned to her by now, and with her screaming his name we have lost the surprise.”

“We need no surprise,” Nahk said. “Because unless he can fly upon the wind over that stone wall, he cannot come upon us here without first exposing himself to our arrows.”

So far as Anja knew, Kael could not fly. According to legend, however, after breaking his chains he had climbed an unscalable shaft within the Blackworm mines. If he had done that, then a village wall would be nothing.

But like the head upon a saddlehorn, not every detail within the stories was true. So she would not depend upon Kael to save her.

“I hear his horse,” the giant said, cocking his head. “He returns through the gate.”

“Well, then,” Nahk said, suddenly advancing with speed. “Erac’s crossbow will end him. Let the last thing he witnesses be his woman beneath us.”

With cheers and laughter urging him on, Nahk aimed a heavy two-handed blow at the base of Anja’s blade—clearly meaning to disarm her by knocking the sword from her grip. On light feet, she danced to the right, and as his swing carried his arms downward, leaving his neck unguarded, she sliced in an upward arc toward his throat.

His head jerked back at the last moment. A stripe opened up the side of his face, from the corner of his mouth to his ear. The cheers from the others fell silent.

Eyes wide and disbelieving, Nahk touched fingers to his bleeding cheek. No longer did he care about the color of her muff, Anja saw. Her death lay in his furious gaze when he looked to her again.

But she had no intention of dying.

He struck. Anja parried with a ring of steel on steel, the force of his blow shivering through the blade and into her arms. Swiftly she pivoted and swung low, needing to wound and slow him, for his chest was armored from shoulder to hip and a fatal strike would not be easily found there. He evaded her thrust and there was no letting up after that, only the crunch of frozen grasses beneath her feet and the crash of steel, as she parried and returned blow after blow.

Then her boot slipped on a film of ice. In a heartstopping moment, Anja’s knee slammed into the ground and he came at her, swinging his blade high, preparing to bring the sharpened edge down upon her head.

With an upward thrust, she drove her sword into his abdomen, into the softness exposed beneath the waist of his cuirass. His blade made its downward swing, but with no direction and no force. His bloodied mouth opened wide in a soundless scream. He stared at her with bulging eyes, his face turning red and the veins in his temples throbbing. Anja ruthlessly shoved the blade deeper as she stood, and his sword fell harmlessly from his weakened hands. Quickly she pulled her weapon free and spun to face the others.

Hoofbeats approached, and she dared a hopeful glance—but it was only Kael’s horse, no rider. The other bandits must have already seen and dismissed the riderless animal as no threat, and now stared at her with expressions of dismay, shock…anger.

“Murdering whore!” Face contorted with rage, Erac pivoted, leveling his crossbow at her heart. “You’ll pray that we finish—”

A flash of steel spun through the air—Kael’s battle-axe. With a wet, terrible thunk, Erac’s head split open.

A deafening roar thundered across the mire. The ravens took to startled wing, bursting from the tree in a raucous black cloud even as Kael sprang from the high wall, slamming to the ground in a pantherish crouch. Fury lighted his eyes with deadly blue fire. His gaze swept Anja’s length, lingering on the blood staining her blade, before touching upon the dying man at her feet. As if satisfied she was unharmed, he rose from his crouch on tightly coiled muscles—and drew his sword.

“There’s only one of him.” The bearded giant stepped forward, weapon at ready. “We’ll take him together—”

Kael charged the giant.

Anja had heard stories of the Butcherer. Some from his own lips. And she had seen death before, both monstrous and gentle, and had just killed a man with her sword. But that painful death was a bloodless mercy compared to the violence of Kael’s blade, and the legends had not prepared Anja for the man. Every blow rent limbs, not simply stopping the giant but destroying him in great gouts of spurting blood. No longer did his companion laugh and cackle but spilled guts onto the reddened snow, and his horrendous screams were abruptly silenced. Shouting a cloaking spell, clutching a dagger in his raised fist, the spellcaster rushed forward and vanished. Without a break in his stride, Kael jerked his axe free of Erac’s skull and hurled the weapon. The spellcaster appeared again, bloodied fingers clawing at the heavy blade embedded in his chest. Staggering, he fell to his knees, and Kael ended him with a swing of his sword that cleaved head from neck.

Chest heaving, he ripped his axe free and turned toward Anja. His voice had a thick and guttural bite as he asked, “Are you hurt?”

Mutely she shook her head.

Jaw tightening, he crouched and wiped the blade of his sword on the spellcaster’s cloak. “Why did you not use your magic?”

Still stunned by the carnage before her, she was unprepared to answer. She stumbled over her tongue a few times before finally giving an explanation. “I wished to test my skill with a sword.”

“You are no fool, Anja,” he said harshly. “But you are a liar. And—”

Abruptly he stopped, looking at her. His face darkened. Rising to his feet, he stalked toward her. Pulse racing, Anja held her ground. She had lied to him. And whatever he meant to do now, she didn’t believe he would hurt—

He dropped to his knees before her. “This is your blood.” With rough hands, he shoved the hem of her tunic upward, exposing the straps that secured her leggings to the tops of her thighs. With a single tug, that strap untied, and the heavy stocking slipped down. She sucked in a hissing breath. A slash cut across the outside of her thigh—a thrust of Nakh’s blade that she had parried, but had still found a mark. But she had not even felt it until this moment.

At that hiss of breath, Kael’s gaze flew to hers. So stricken was his expression that for a moment, she felt a rush of fear that the wound was far worse than it looked.

But it wasn’t. If anything, it looked worse than it truly was.

“It is only a shallow cut,” she whispered.

Returning his gaze to her injury and bent his head for a better look. “It still bleeds. And it needs cleaning.”

As he spoke, Kael gently cupped the column of her thigh, callused fingers sliding over the sensitive inner skin. Anja went rigid, her body responding to that touch, her senses a wild riot of stinging pain and pleasure.

Face bleak, Kael immediately withdrew his hand—leaving the bloodied mark his fingers had left on her skin. Spitting a foul curse, he stood and glowered down at her.

“Heal it,” he commanded.

Pleasure vanished, replaced by pure pain—and dread. Silently Anja shook her head.

He bent closer and growled, “Heal it.”

In a desperate whisper, she hissed, “It will scale.”

“And injure a raven? Then we will roast it and eat it.” Kael’s mouth twisted. “Or it might finish off that dying bastard.”

The bandit leader, who had not yet succumbed to Anja’s blade. Instead he had been trying to escape, crawling upon the ground toward the gate, leaving a bloodied trail through the snow. He had not gotten more than a few paces.

Her heart aching, Anja yielded. “I can’t heal it.”

Kael stared at her with burning eyes—and abruptly left her, sweeping up the bandit’s fallen sword and shoving it through the back of his leather armor and into his heart. Immediately the bandit’s crawling ceased.

Trying to breathe past the ragged pain in her chest, Anja watched him continue to his horse, where he loosened the wineskin from the saddle and poured water over his hands, washing them.

With tears clogging her throat, she tugged up the stocking, feeling every painful edge of the injury as it was covered.

“Leave it,” Kael barked. He was returning to her, a small ceramic jar cupped in his hand, and a wetted strip of cloth in the other. He scooped up her coat and swung it over her shoulders, for a brief moment surrounding her in his scent and warmth.

He sank to his knees again. Intending to tend her wound, she realized.

She tried to take the wet cloth from him. “I can do this—”

“With magic?” He slashed her an angry glance. “Be still.”

Tears filled her eyes and she looked upward, blinking them away. It was several moments before her raw throat felt capable of passing words through it without ripping her flesh apart.

“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely.

He flashed her another hard, sharp glance. “For what?”

“For lying.” Her breath shuddered. “I’ve made you angry.”

“I am angry,” he ground through gritted teeth, “because I left you unprotected, with only a sword to defend yourself. And because I did not see it before. I had noted that you never used magic, and thought there might be reasons for it, but a reason I never was considered that you couldn’t.”

Angry…at himself. “But I lied. I let you believe that I was a spellcaster.”

“What of it?” He gently began cleaning the blood from her skin. “What better protection for a woman than everyone believing she can burst their eyes with a spell? I do not tell my enemies all of my weaknesses or strengths. Letting them believe what they like has saved me trouble and given me an advantage many times.”

An advantage such as an affinity for climbing walls. With heart pounding, she asked, “Are we enemies?”

A wry glance answered her. “I do not often share them with my allies, either.”

A tremulous smile touched her mouth. An ally. She wished for far more. But she would take what he gave.

He opened the small pot. “This ointment not only has a foul smell, it will feel like fire in your wound and numb the joints in that limb—but it will keep an injury from festering.”

She nodded and steeled her nerves. His blunt fingers slicked the ointment the length of the cut—and he had not been jesting. It felt as if a hot poker had been jabbed into her leg. She made a small sound, and had to brace her hand against his broad shoulder when the strength in that knee seemed to give out.

“Only a few moments,” he murmured soothingly, spreading more.

“I know how long your moments are,” she gritted.

He grinned. “Why do you have no magic?”

Speaking of it was more agonizing than the ointment. Yet he deserved to hear. “I was born this way.”

“Are the king and queen not your parents, then?”

“They are.” With a thick voice, she said, “My father could not bear my mother’s pain in childbirth, so cast a spell to take it away. If I ever had any magic, the scaling of that spell stole it. It took her pain and gave it to me.”

Frowning, he looked up at her. “You are always in pain?”

Bitterly she said, “What do you think my life has been? I am the only one in Ivermere without magic. Me, the princess. I am a disappointment and a shameful stain upon the realm.”

“Your father is the shame.”

Was he? “He did it out of love. To help her. Is that not a kindness?”

“It was selfishness, because he could not bear her pain. She was not dying. Instead of casting a spell to take her pain, he should have asked her if she could bear it.”

“You did not ask me if I could bear this scratch.”

His frown deepened as he looked up at her. “When I asked, I knew you had no magic. But if I had been wrong, I risked harming nothing but a dying bandit and a dinner. I would not risk a child. And I would not punish that child afterwards for what my spell did.”

And this was why she feared him. How quickly he had taken hold of her heart. Less than a week of their journey remained. By the last day, he would have it all.

Then take it with him when he left her in Ivermere.

She could not hide her despair. But he mistook the reason for it.

“Even if you cannot cast spells, you still have great magic, Anja,” he said softly. “Today I saw your courage.”

She laughed, a harsh and painful sound. “Was it courage or desperation?”

He frowned. “Why do you think desperation makes it less admirable?”

“Because I had no choice. That is not courage.”

“There is always a choice. You could have chosen to do nothing.”

“My choice was the pain they planned for me, or the pain I might know if my sword failed. That is no choice.”

“You decided which pain was more acceptable to your heart.” His voice roughened. “You decided how you would live—or die. You did not let them decide for you. That is courage, too.” He used strong teeth to rip a length of cloth, then said, “If people were never desperate, if there was no fear or danger, we would not need courage. Do you think I fought so much because I was content and the choice was easy? My courage has always come from desperation. That does not lessen it. Just as yours is not lessened.”

Her gaze searched his face. “You are kind to me.”

“Kindness is easy. Courage is not.” He eyed her solemnly. “Neither is living without magic in Ivermere. I think you have more courage than I knew, Anja.”

Her heart full, she could not speak. As if sensing how overwhelmed she was, he lowered his gaze to offer her privacy and slowly began wrapping the clean strip of linen around her thigh.

And it was not only her heart that was overwhelmed. Her exposed leg ought to have been freezing, yet she felt so hot—and he was so close. His fingers slipped over her skin, so carefully, almost reverently. He had said the ointment had a foul smell yet he seemed to be leaning in toward the juncture of her thighs, breathing deep, and she felt a great strain within the muscles beneath her hands.

By the gods, and what she imagined then—of lifting the hem of her tunic and exposing bare flesh beneath. Of urging him closer, until his mouth met the part of her that burned hotter than any wound. The part of her that was so wet, her inner thighs felt the icy kiss of the wind more sharply than the rest of her skin, and she was uncertain whether the ointment was all that slicked his fingers. But she could pull him forward, and know the kiss and the touch she so desperately craved.

Unless he turned away again.

He suddenly stilled, and looked up to her with eyes that seemed to burn with hunger.

Anja trembled as a war waged within her. She had not enough courage to pull him closer, not enough courage to face his rejection again. This gentle touch as he tended to her might be all she would ever know of him. But from now until they reached Ivermere, perhaps she could have the small joy of touching him.

Her fingers slipped over his upturned face, tracing the sharp lines of his cheekbones. “There is blood here. Do you wish me to wash it for you?”

Catching her fingers, he shook his head. “I have blood everywhere upon me,” he said gruffly. “And it doesn’t wash.”

He did not mean the crimson staining his skin. “Will mine?”

“This was no stain upon you. It is their stain.”

The bandits’. “Then this blood on your face and hands is their stain, too. You wear the stains of many villains.”

Smiling, he pressed a kiss to her fingers. She caught her breath, in pleasure and hope, but he only rose to his feet.

“You are cold,” he said, folding her hands between his. “Let us ride to find a warm inn and a hot meal.”

“What of them?” She glanced at the bandits’ bloodied remains.

“The ravens will make use of them.”

With that, he swept her up and lifted her astride the mare. And as she gathered up her reins, Anja knew her heart would not be merely sliced open when this was done. Instead it would be rended into bloodied pieces, left as carrion.

That was what the Conqueror did.