Dryloch

On Midwinter morning, Kael’s bride awakened him with a kiss. Then she whispered into his ear, “You were sleeping so soundly, I could have put a dagger to your throat.”

Without opening his eyes, he grinned and reached for her—not catching her bare limbs, but the sleeve of her tunic. Already dressed again?

Neither he nor his wife had slept that night, and the moment that dawn had arrived, he’d unbound the red ribbon, stripped Anja naked, and truly kissed every inch. Only afterward had they finally found their rest, though it could not be a long one. If they didn’t leave by midmorning, then they couldn’t reach Ivermere and return to the village without being caught in Scalewood when night fell—which meant delaying for another day. The wards kept the forest safe after dark, but it was harrowing enough when the sun was high, and Anja had already told him she preferred not to stay overnight in Ivermere.

Kael would have gladly stayed in bed here for another day. But he was even more eager to finish their journey to Ivermere and kill the cursed spider, so his bride would have no worries preying upon her mind. Then he would take her to bed for a week. Before they left, Kael would tell the innkeeper to keep the chamber ready for their return and a longer stay. They had no reason to rush the journey home. They could wait for the caravan with her trunks to arrive, and make use of the benches in the carriage all the way back to the stronghold.

It was a fine and wonderful thing, being king.

Easing open one eye, he judged the light in the room. Too bright for early winter morning. “Did we sleep too late?”

“Almost. But there is time enough for you to break your fast before we go.” With her white hair braided into a pretty crown, she smiled down at him—and Kael had never seen such a beautiful sight in all his life. “Tarry in bed another moment, though, or else you will give the villagers an eyeful. They have asked to bring us a small Midwinter feast, since we will miss the midday feast in Ivermere.”

“I would rather feast upon my wife.”

A blush stained her cheeks, but there was promise and heat in her dark eyes when he brought her down for a lingering kiss…then reluctantly let her go.

The innkeeper had made up the adjoining chamber to be a parlor for them, and by the time Kael had relieved himself and dragged his breeches on, the villagers had come and gone. Their small feast had a trestle table groaning beneath its weight, and no doubt included the roasts and pies that the villagers had intended for their own Midwinter celebrations. Which meant that he would need to sample a small amount of everything on that table, so that no one was slighted by the king—or left with nothing.

Fortunately he had a strong appetite, and a wife with an appetite of her own. With a laughing smile, she gestured to one end of the table.

“I can manage these dishes,” she said, tossing to him a pewter spoon. “But you will have to see to the remainder.”

It would be no challenge at all. A flavorful roast was first, then a bite of pork pie, then a sausage with crackling. He glanced up at Anja when she made a soft exclamation, her mouth stuffed with a pear tart. Her widened eyes met his, but as he could see the laughter in them, so he continued on to a slice of venison until she could speak.

“I have just remembered that my mother asked me to bring winter pears back from one of my rides,” she said while dipping her spoon into a cherry pudding. She had taken the end of the table that held the sweets, he suddenly realized, and felt a swell of pride at his wife’s cunning. “She doesn’t like pears for herself, but they are common Midwinter gifts and we were nearing that season, so I thought nothing of it since. But it was later the same day when she and my father told me that your letter had arrived. So they had already intended to send me to you as a bride, because she planned to give me the kissing potion even then—so that I could be sent away without any resistance. They must have been astonished that I agreed so easily, instead!”

She was laughing but Kael couldn’t join in. Just mention of that potion darkened his mood—and he didn’t follow the rest. “What do pears have to do with it?”

“Winter pear seeds are part of the potion, and it’s more effective if they are gathered by the person whom the potion is intended for. Otherwise the potion will only last a few days. But if tailored to one person…weeks. Months, if the body is cared for properly. They can only be awakened with another sip of the potion.” Suddenly her amusement faded. Her face clouded, and she pressed her bottom lip between her teeth before turning to cut free a piece of cake. “But they didn’t need to use it after I agreed to go. Not until I saw the spider a day or two later. Then they believed I’d changed my mind, yet sent me anyway.”

Into the arms of a man that everyone believed would be cruel to her. “Did they know you intended to kill me and take my throne?”

Silently she shook her head.

He contained the rage boiling through his veins. “You never need to see them again. I will continue to Ivermere today and kill the spider. Or not, if you wish us to be done with them completely.”

“I am already here,” she said in a quiet voice, and resolutely dipped her spoon into another pudding. “I will see it finished.”

He could not bear her hurt. Swiftly he strode around the table and caught her chin, tilting her face up to claim a kiss. Warm honey and tart cherry flavored her lips, and she softly sighed and melted against him.

When he lifted his head, there was still a touch of melancholy and pain in her smile, but also steely resolution. “After today, I will not think of them again,” she said.

She would not be able to help it, but Kael would do his best to keep her distracted, so she would not think of them too often. He swiftly kissed her again, then looked over the sweet dishes, looking for apple pastries to take back to his end of the table.

Her spoon digging into a nearby bowl, Anja made a small sound of surprise. He glanced at her and found her tilting her head, to better see the faintly glowing rune etched into his side. With her fingers she traced the shape that curved along his ribs, her brow furrowing.

Her puzzled gaze lifted to his. “Why is a ward marked into your skin?”

“To protect me from sorcerers’ spells.” He could not have defeated any of Geofry’s warlords without it. They’d have burst his eyes or broken his neck with a few words. But the ward made him impervious to their magic.

Not impervious to other things affected by their magic, though. If they had cast a spell to fill a room with water and locked the doors, Kael might have drowned. But in all cases, Kael had destroyed them before they’d figured out that they needed to kill him with indirect spells.

“Yes, but…in your skin? And it’s active and glowing,” she said in wonder. “Does your Minister of Wards do this for you? Where did he hear of such a thing? Not in Ivermere. And how did he maintain its power in the two weeks since you left the stronghold? It should have faded within days.”

Should have. Except it was nothing like she assumed. And suddenly Kael realized that, of all people, Anja might be most hurt by the truth of this. Because he had never lied to her. But she had believed he would be angry when he discovered the truth about her magic. She’d thought such omissions of truth were something to be angry about. Now it was the same situation…but reversed.

With tension gripping his throat, Kael shook his head. “I made it.”

She fell silent. For the longest moments of his life, she simply regarded him with solemn, dark eyes.

When she spoke, her tone was flat. “You are a spellcaster?”

“No.” He knew no spells, and wouldn’t have used them if he did. “But I was born in the Dead Lands—and the Reckoning did not destroy the ability to use corrupt magic, only everything that had been changed by it before. So my people are still born with the ability, just as everyone in Ivermere is. But aside from the witches and a few healers, none use corrupted magics. And there is this.”

He showed her the small mark at the inside of his elbow. As if he’d shown her a crawler, Anja gasped in horror and fell back a step. Her hand flew to her lips and her eyes shot to his, outrage and astonishment combining into— “Who did that to you?”

She looked as if she might strike down the culprit with her sword. She would not have to go far.

“I did.” Because it bound his magic to his skin. He could not even inadvertently cast a spell, because he couldn’t draw on anything from outside himself, stealing it from elsewhere. His natural ability could power the ward embedded in his skin, but that was only a shield that prevented corrupted magics from touching him, not a spell that stole safety from one place and gave it to another.

His answer had not lessened her horror. “In Ivermere,” she said, “this is the worst punishment. A mark of shame, even worse than death.”

Did she think he had been punished? “And in the Dead Lands, it is a choice.” Because she was still shaking her head, with tears standing in her eyes, he added, “There’s no shame in it. Instead it declares the kind of man I choose to be. If I harm anyone, it will be because I mean to harm them, not because a spell has scaled and stolen something from someone else.”

Drawing in a shuddering breath, she finally nodded, as if accepting that view of it. She smoothed her fingers over the small mark—as if she meant to comfort him, to ease his pain, though there was no pain to ease.

No pain that was his. Because her voice was thick as she told him, “It’s not chosen in Ivermere. It’s a punishment given to criminals. It means exclusion and exile from the realm. And if you delay in going, they will hunt you down and cast you out.”

Ragged emotion opened a hole in his chest as understanding speared through him. In many ways, she had been wearing that mark all of her life, though invisibly. A mark that was a punishment, a mark of shame.

And she had said so many times that she was her parents’ shame. As if her inability to cast spells was a punishment. Then this very morning, she’d realized that her king and queen had essentially cast her out.

He’d understood that she’d been hurt. But he hadn’t understood how deep the hurt must have gone…or how deeply he must have hurt her last night, too. When she’d asked for a kiss, everything Kael wanted was suddenly placed in his hands, and he’d rushed to secure it before she slipped away. Yet to Anja, it must have seemed another part of her lifelong pain. She had once again been unwanted, rejected. Cast away.

Never again would he allow her to feel that way.

Catching her face in his hands, he looked into her eyes. “You are not a punishment, my Anja. You are the greatest gift.”

Her lips parted in surprise, her brow furrowing. She stared at him with a chaotic storm of emotions sweeping across her face, chief among them confusion. As if she couldn’t understand what he was saying—or why he would say it.

Then he would make certain she knew. “Never could I imagine a woman who has added so much light to my life. I was smothered and dying, and now every breath is free. When we return to Grimhold, no matter how many meetings I sit through, with you at my side every moment will be a joy.”

He knew from last night what her happy tears looked like, and they were the same as the ones now shimmering in her eyes. In a trembling voice, she said, “We will still make certain there are not so many meetings.”

If that was her response, then she didn’t understand what he was trying to say. “I won’t care if there are. Everything else might remain the same, but everything for me will be changed,” he told her gruffly. “That is what loving you has done to me. It has changed everything.”

She went still, her dark gaze searching his, her face alight with wonder and hope. “You love me?”

“I do.” His voice deepened. “I know you do not yet feel the same, but I will win your heart—”

“I do! I do feel the same.” Those happy tears filled her eyes again. “Did I not tell you last night?”

Anja loved him. Him. The Conqueror, the Butcherer, the Raviner. He had more blood on his hands than an ocean could wash away. Yet she loved him.

The emotions swelling and rising in his chest threatened to choke him. “You only said that you wanted me.”

A blush stained her cheeks. “Maybe I was too distracted by the rest.”

“Too distracted by a kiss to say you love me? You will have to do better than that, my wife.” With his heart in his throat, he lowered his head and brushed his lips to hers. “Tell me.”

Breathlessly she whispered, “I love you.”

He kissed her throat and waited.

Hoarsely now, she said, “I love you.”

He went to his knees. Her breath caught. Then her fingers slid into his hair as he lifted the hem of her tunic, revealing the sleek skin at the tops of her thighs, the soft tangle of white curls, the glistening pink flesh peeking out. “Now I will show you how a king eats his Midwinter feast.”

She laughed, a sound lightened by amusement and roughened by her need. “By the gods, how I love you!”

And he could taste it, the sweetness of her love and need bursting across his tongue when he teased her with a single lick. She gasped another “I love you,” her thighs trembling, the magic she possessed shining from her skin.

Powerful magic. It had to be. Because every one of his Midwinter wishes had come true. Anja the Kind would be at his side every day and in his bed every night. Anja the Courageous had pledged herself as his wife. And now Anja the Beloved had given her love in return.

And with every kiss, every lick, she would tell him again.

So Kael claimed her cunt and feasted like a king did—on his knees before the queen who owned every part of his heart.