~ 6 ~
Two years later
The Maiden awakened, Year 3840
Jahna sat next to her father amidst a crowd of other noble families who gathered to watch the Exhibition. As usual, the bookmakers were busy taking wagers over who among the combatants would win in this year’s bouts, and Uhlfrida himself had laid down a sizeable sum in favor of his son, despite Sodrin’s loss two years prior. While her brother didn’t think their father believed in his abilities to show well during Exhibition, Jahna saw the wager as proof of his faith in Sodrin’s chances of winning.
She huddled inside her cloak, gloved hands wrapped around a goblet of hot mulled wine. This year the snows fell heavy during Delyalda, but it didn’t stop the crowds from packing into the palace grounds for the spectacle and pageantry of the Exhibition or the Firehound ceremony that would take place the following night.
Uhlfrida drank from his own goblet and gestured at the figure striding across the arena toward them. Radimar’s red hair shimmered, even under the winter sun’s dull light, a beacon that drew many a gaze, including Jahna’s. Her father shifted in his seat, restless and eager for the bouts to begin. “I expect Sodrin to win this time. Three years of Radimar’s instruction, and he should know how to wield a sword without lopping off his own arm.”
“Have a little faith, Father. You’ve seen yourself how far Sodrin has come. He’ll make you and Sir Radimar proud.”
They weren’t empty reassurances. Jahna still practiced basic skills in the morning with both men, but Sodrin had progressed so far beyond her under Radimar’s grueling training that they were no longer equal sparring partners. It pleased her to see the gap widen so far between them.
Her time in the training solar had been the result of a bargain made between her and the swordmaster—her time under his tutelage in exchange for his information regarding the Ilinfan Brotherhood to record and keep for Scripture House. She could hold her own against the likes of Evaline Lacramor now, but her best skills were reserved for the quill and ink and her ability to write down those things most important to the record keeping of Belawat’s history.
Radimar reached them and bowed, a dusting of snow spilling off his shoulders as he did. “Lord Uhlfrida, my lady. Sodrin is as ready as he’ll ever be for the Exhibition. He’s eager instead of anxious. He’ll do well in the bouts.”
“He better,” Uhlfrida groused. “Or I’ll be considerably poorer than when we first arrived here.”
Radimar slid a knowing look to Jahna who tilted her head and arched her eyebrows in an expression of “Same thing every year.” He returned his attention to Uhlfrida. “He’ll have to work hard for the win, my lord. One of his opponents is good, very good. Swordmaster Finulis trained his father.”
Uhlfrida groaned. “Then he’s lost already.”
“Father!” Jahna scowled at him, annoyed by her sire’s pessimism.
The swordmaster shrugged. “Not necessarily, my lord. Remember, it was the father, not the son whom Finulis taught. I don’t know who taught him, but it wasn’t an Ilinfan swordmaster.”
“Any missive from the king this year, Sir Radimar?” Jahna had asked the same question last year when everyone gathered for the Exhibition. Many people wondered if Radimar Velus would ever again face the king’s champion in the arena.
Radimar’s smile was more of a smirk. “No, my lady. I think I may have permanently satisfied Sir Alreed’s curiosity about the blade skills of the Brotherhood.”
Jahna was glad to hear it. There had been no rematch the previous year, and she’d been just as relieved then too. Something about the bout between Radimar and Alreed went beyond just a display of fighting skills. Her heart had been in her throat at one point when the champion had knocked Radimar to his back and tried to smash in his face. Radimar’s quick reflexes had saved him from a brutal mauling, and he had delivered his own retribution in cold, calculated maneuvers that left Alreed bloody and nearly unconscious at the end of the bout.
She would never forget Radimar’s expression, or lack of it, when the king proclaimed the winner. Not even a flicker of triumph crossed his features. No joy or relief, just a flat acceptance of the outcome. Still, when he retreated from the arena and stopped to bow before her and her father, she had sensed something dark and boiling beneath the surface, as if he were a cauldron set over a roaring fire whose contents threatened not just to bubble over, but to erupt in a violent geyser.
Radimar bid them both goodbye so he might return to give Sodrin last minute guidance before his bouts and promised to see them after the Exhibition closed. Jahna’s gaze followed him, admiring the way his long stride ate the distance to the billet and how his cloak draped his wide shoulders. She dropped her eyes, afraid someone might see the yearning in them.
Her fate was to love him from afar. He didn’t return her feelings and never gave any hint of doing so, though he occasionally complimented her on her appearance and often sought her out for conversation.
Once he even opened up to her about his childhood and how he came to reside and train at such a young age with the Brotherhood. “The Tribe Wars,” he told her one cool spring evening at Hollowfell.
They sat on the slope of a gentle hill, enjoying the view below. Radimar had built a small fire after he, Sodrin and Jahna had returned from a run through the forest. Sodrin had slipped in a mud wallow at one point and agreed to join them around the fire once he changed and cleaned up.
Radimar stirred the embers to greater life with a stick. “My village was razed during the conflict. The Brotherhood mostly teaches now, but then they also hired out as mercenaries and armed escorts for people traveling through the conflicted lands. A party of the Brotherhood came upon my village right after the battle was over. I was three at the time. I don’t remember it, but they tell me one of the Brotherhood, a master named Odanat, found me under my mother’s body. I was the only one to survive the raid.” He gave her a brief smile when she laid her hand across his in sympathy. “For whatever reason, the Brotherhood chose to foster me and train me in the ways of Ilinfan.” He patted her hand. “Something else you can write about in your histories.”
She had refused. “No. There are some things that belong only to the people who experienced them. This isn’t a story of Ilinfan but of Radimar Velus. It’s yours to share with whom you choose.”
The compliment he gave her was one she still held close and sometimes spooled out of her memory to cheer her. “You’re wise for one so young, Jahna,” he said. “And possess a great heart. Those you love are fortunate.”
The words echoed inside her mind now. He would never know he was one of those he considered fortunate. I love you, she thought as he disappeared into the billet. I have for a long time.
Once the Exhibition started, she put aside her melancholy thoughts, caught up in the excitement of the bouts and cheering on her brother. Uhlfrida’s shouted encouragement beside her nearly deafened her, and when Sodrin won emerged the victor of all his bouts, father and daughter embraced amid cheers from the crowd and congratulatory slaps on the back from those sitting nearby.
Sodrin was giddy and nearly incoherent when he rejoined his father and sister, Radimar beside him wearing an equally happy grin. Uhlfrida pulled his son into a hard hug before thrusting him away, hands still on his arms. “We celebrate tonight! Come! There are friends who want to congratulate you.” He clapped Radimar on the back as well. “You too, Radimar. You and Jahna are part of this celebration as well.”
Jahna had her excuses ready for why she wouldn’t attend what promised to be a raucous gathering complete with shouting, arm punches and the heady flow of wine from numerous barrels. The room they celebrated in was guaranteed to be hot, pungent and crowded. She could think of few things that appealed to her less.
“Father, you, Sodrin and Sir Radimar go without me. I’m much more interested in the dances than I am in listening to the recountings of battles and brawls and who stole whose cattle or woman during the Tribe Wars.” She pulled Sodrin down for a quick kiss on both his cheeks. “You,” she said. “I’m so very proud of you.”
Uhlfrida didn’t protest and pulled Sodrin along with him. He called to Radimar over his shoulder. “You coming, swordmaster?”
“I’ll meet you there, my lord.” Radimar waved them on, and the two men disappeared into the throng of people dispersing toward the pubs and impromptu gatherings that clustered around street musicians and storytellers. “Sometimes it’s best not to mention a time of arrival,” he admitted to Jahna with a grin.
“Don’t you want to join them?” Excited flutters danced in Jahna’s belly. Did he prefer to keep her company instead?
He tucked her arm in his and set a leisurely stroll in the opposite direction. “For the past three years, your brother has spent nearly all of his time with me. I think it a good thing if I make myself scarce this one night so that father and son might celebrate this victory together without me.”
“Very perceptive of you, sir.” Jahna was even more glad now that she declined to accompany them. Her stomach transformed itself into a trapped butterfly, wings beating frantically against her abdomen when Radimar raised her hand to his lips and dropped a light kiss on her knuckles.
“Besides,” he said. “I’m a little tired of looking at Sodrin’s face, handsome as it is. I’d rather spend time with his lovely sister and maybe convince her that a dance or two with me in the forgotten garden is a good idea, especially since she still refuses to dance with others.”
Had she wings, she would have flown at that moment from pure joy. Instead, she adopted what she hoped was a friendly but poised expression. “Promise not to step on my feet?” As agile as he was, the chance of that happening was almost non-existent, but she couldn’t resist teasing him.
He gave a mock sigh of frustration. “You ask much of me, Lady Uhlfrida.”
The forgotten garden grew ever more weedy and wild each year. The square of space where the verge still held some vague hint of an orderly pattern had shrunk considerably. Fortunately, a level blanket of snow covered the tangle of dead vines and runners that normally choked the garden’s paths, leaving it a pristine expanse of white.
Radimar hummed in accompaniment to the distant music as he clasped Jahna’s hand to lead her through the steps. Jahna’s insides trembled at the soft look in his eyes, the way his gaze never wavered from her as they circled each other, leaving prints in the snow. His body brushed close against her with each twirl, teasing her senses with the perfumes of woodsmoke and incense and hints of strength hidden under layers of wool.
Her heart beat so hard in her chest, she feared it might break free, and she groped frantically for something to say that would restore her equilibrium. “Sodrin has made our father a happy man thanks to you.”
A small frown line appeared between Radimar’s eyebrows before it smoothed away. He continued to sweep her along with the music’s rhythm. “You give me undeserved credit. Your brother has trained hard these three years, especially this last year. He’s learned many skills to help him win.”
“Like how to listen?”
She loved his thin-lipped smile. “The most useful skill of all.”
“He still couldn’t have done without your teachings. Trained by an Ilinfan swordmaster, he’s proven his ability. The king will likely want him in his personal guard now. A true honor.”
He swept behind her, only to pivot until he stood beside her, his feet moving in time with hers. “How does your father feel about that? Both of you leaving Hollowfell to live here in the capital?”
She had wondered the same thing at first until Uhlfrida assured her it just gave him an excuse to visit more often. “He’ll miss us, but he’s ambitious and very aware of our standing and status. Sodrin in the royal guard would only help the family name.” A sudden thought occurred to her, and she frowned a little. “Don’t you have one more year with us to teach him? What will you and Father do so that Sodrin may continue to train with you?”
The excited flutters in her stomach turned to anxious ones when Radimar halted their dance and faced her. The somber cast to his features alarmed her.
“There aren’t any plans, Jahna. I received a message two days ago from Ilinfan. The leader of the Brotherhood, the Ghan, is on his deathbed. All swordmasters have been recalled and are to return to Ilinfan as soon as possible. Our students will be reassigned as the teachers take new places within the Brotherhood. I would have already left by now were it not for the Exhibition.”
Her throat was so tight, it hurt to speak, and her eyes stung with the threat of tears. “You can’t just come back to us when all has settled at Ilinfan? Sodrin is used to your methods.”
He shook his head, and she didn’t imagine the regret darkening his eyes. “It doesn’t work that way, my lady.”
They gazed at each in silence until Jahna could force more words past the constriction in her throat. “We’ll miss you. You’ve been a part of our family for three years now.”
His hard face softened with an unspoken regret. “And you, Sodrin and your father have made me feel welcomed in your home. I will think of Hollowfell and all of you often.” He captured her hand once more, fingers laced with his as he drew her into another dance. “Come, Jahna. No sadness here. We will dance as we have before in the garden no one remembers and carry with us this moment when we’re far from each other.”
For all that Radimar spoke the words as ones of reassurance, they sounded like those of a lover. Jahna inwardly chastised herself for such silly, fanciful thoughts, forced down her tears and pasted on a smile for his sake, and if she was honest with herself, hers as well. The expression might make her face ache with its insincerity, but at least she wouldn’t break down with sobs.
The faint strains of music changed tempo, slowing, and the two of them slowed with it. The silence, thick with unspoken sentiments, settled between them, and for one fleeting moment, Radimar’s hands settled on her back to draw her closer to him. Just as quickly he pulled away, and his movements lost their fluidity, as if something invisible now stood between them, solid as a stone wall and just as impenetrable.
At the end of the tune, Radimar stepped back, his face shuttered, eyes half closed to hide any telltale emotion there. His bow to Jahna was both formal and stiff. “Come, my lady. I think it best if we rejoin the others.”
She almost begged him to stay—stay in the garden, stay at Hollowfell, but she held her tongue and only nodded. The world outside the garden gates seemed a strange and desolate place to her, despite the laughter and revelry. They didn’t speak as he guided her through the crowd that swirled around them.
Sodrin found them near one of the blessing trees where people hung or tied bits of cloth, dried flowers, and handmade beads as small tributes to the gods of winter. Those deities who held sway through the dark cold would reach the pinnacle of their power the following night before giving way to the gods of spring. The snows would linger, but the nights would shorten as the sun grew in its power once more.
“There you are.” Sodrin wove toward them, a tipsy smile plastered across his slack features. His words slurred a little, and Radimar steadied him with a hand on his elbow as he listed sideways. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. There’s ale and wine to drink and beautiful women to woo.” He waved a clumsy hand at Jahna. “You’re welcome to join us too, Jahna.”
The strong fumes of someone’s home brew wafting off him made her wrinkle her nose. “I don’t think so, and since when did you learn how to properly woo a woman?”
He patted Radimar’s shoulder before leaning on it for support. “Sir Radimar here teaches other things besides sword fighting.”
Her eyebrows rose. Did he? A flare of jealousy burned itself out in her chest. He was a circumspect man, private and reserved. Whatever relationships he sought or nurtured during his stay at Hollowfell never became the subject of village or estate gossip, and Jahna was glad for it. She really didn’t want to know what lucky woman managed to inspire his affections.
Radimar propped Sodrin up a little straighter. “Already deep into your cups, aren’t you?” Sodrin hiccuped in answer, and the swordmaster sighed. “Come on. We’ll take a walk.” He gave Jahna an apologetic look. “Jahna, can you find your father and let him know your brother is with me and will be courting a soft pillow very soon?”
“Of course, and good luck.” She winced as they staggered toward the palace, Sodrin singing a bawdy song at the top of his lungs and begging Radimar to join him. She hoped he had left their father in a more sober state.
She found Uhlfrida in the great hall, amidst the clamor of good-natured argument with a circle of his friends. He raised his goblet to Jahna when he saw her and motioned for her to join him. He guided her to a spot at the hall’s perimeter where fewer people stood, and they didn’t have to shout to be heard.
“I didn’t expect to see you until morning, Jahna,” he said.
She set aside Radimar’s message for a moment. “Father, did you know Sir Radimar was leaving us?”
His cheerful visage sombered and he nodded. “I did. He came to me as soon as he received the message from Ilinfan. He asked me to wait in sharing the news because he didn’t want Sodrin distracted before the Exhibition.”
“You could have told me.” Whether or not he did wasn’t truly important and wouldn’t change a thing, but Jahna felt somehow betrayed by both Uhlfrida’s and Radimar’s silence.
He eyed her a long time, a myriad of puzzling emotions flashing across his features, including some unnamed revelation that sharpened his gaze as he continued to stare at her. “I intended to tell you both together. How did you find out?”
“Sir Radimar told me, after you took Sodrin to celebrate.”
“Then Sodrin doesn’t know yet?
“No.” Even if Radimar told him tonight, she doubted Sodrin would remember by morning. “Sir Radimar is with him now. Sodrin is so drunk, he can hardly stand. They’ve gone to our chambers so he can sleep it off. I was sent to tell you so you wouldn’t worry.”
Uhlfrida patted her hand. “I’m glad you found me. Sodrin will pay for that overindulgence tomorrow. I warned him to slow down on the ale and wine. I’ll be up soon to check on him. Are you going there as well?”
Jahna doubted she’d find any sleep tonight, and the rest of the evening’s festivities didn’t hold any interest for her, especially now with the knowledge of Radimar’s upcoming departure. “Dame Stalt left a scroll in one of the Archives’ repositories. It describes the fading of the Gullperi from the world. She thought I might enjoy it. I’ll stop there first to pick it up before joining Sodrin. I suspect I’ll find him him either asleep or hunched over a basin tossing up the contents of his stomach.”
She went on tiptoe to kiss her father’s cheek and bid him goodnight. She headed for the door, stopping when he called her name. An inscrutable look had settled over Uhlfrida’s face. “Jahna, it may not seem so, but it’s probably a good thing that Radimar is returning to Ilinfan now.”
Good for whom, Father? She wanted to ask him but stayed silent, only nodding before turning away to escape the hall with its roar of noise and sea of people.
Except for a few scribes who greeted her with a wave or quick “Happy Delyalda, Lady Uhlfrida,” the Archives were deserted. Jahna found the scroll Dame Stalt had left for her on one of the writing tables, a card bearing her name tied to a ribbon that held the scroll shut. It was a heavy thing, promising several hours of reading that Jahna hoped would either engross her in its contents or help her fall asleep so she didn’t succumb to the sadness purling just under the surface of her serene demeanor.
The palace corridors were almost as quiet as the Archives except for the strains of music drifting through the cloisters’ open archways from the bailey below. Jahna had almost reached the doors to their chambers when she found herself suddenly blocked and cast back to three years earlier and the terror of the hunt when she was the prey.
Evaline Lacramor stood in the hallway, flanked by Nadel, Tefila and three others Jahna didn’t recognize—all women except for one man who seemed puzzled as to why they all decided to stop here. They spanned the hall’s width, cutting off Jahna’s access to her rooms and the safety they offered.
Still pretty, still petty, still driven by some strange need to seek out Jahna simply for the pleasure of tormenting her, Evaline took a few steps closer and eyed Jahna as if she were some particularly gruesome specimen someone had unearthed from a forgotten midden.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Fireface, roaming about the palace all alone.” The cruel smile blossoming across her full lips diminished her beauty. “Searching for something, Jahna? Lose your friends?” She tilted her head to one side and tittered. “Oh wait. You don’t have any.” Her brittle trill of laughter was echoed by the other women. The man, recognizing he was clearly out of his element, looked even more baffled.
“Too busy writing on parchment all day with those shriveled up prunes in the Archives,” Nadel added.
Evaline’s lip curled, her disdain obvious. “They’re probably the only ones who can stand to look at her.” Her eyes narrowed at her quarry’s continued silence and impassive face.
Three years ago, Jahna had huddled in terror within the shadows of an alcove, praying she’d remain invisible to those who tracked her. Things were different now. She was different. Evaline seemed far less monstrous to her and far more petty, a shallow creature made of sharp-edged sparkle and little substance, and Jahna had no patience for her.
She strode forward, straight through their little group. Their surprise at her forceful action was no less than hers when they parted to let her through. A tiny part of her cheered. This might end without trouble.
That spark of hope died a quick death when Evaline’s hand wrapped around her arm, sharp nails digging into her sleeve. Her voice was the hiss of a viper that snaked through the corridor and scraped across Jahna’s ear. “Don’t you walk away from me, you haughty cunt! I’m talking to you.”
“I will teach you how to save yourself.” Radimar’s declaration when she first met him, echoed in Jahna’s mind, and something inside her snapped.
She pivoted so fast, the movement jerked Evaline forward before she lost her grip on Jahna’s arm. Jahna’s hand swung up, then down again, striking Evaline so hard across the face, it slammed her into the adjacent wall. She ricocheted off the stone and fell, clutching the side of her face with one hand while screeching in pain. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, and both her cheek and bottom lip were already swelling. She scuttled back on her haunches with a shriek when Jahna advanced a step toward her. Evaline’s cadre of lickspittles did nothing to help, their own faces open-mouthed with shock and a new fear.
“Don’t touch me. Ever.” Jahna warned her fallen tormenter in a voice she hardly recognized as hers. She raised the scroll as if it were a club. “Anyone else?” As one, the rest took several steps back. Jahna pinned them all with her gaze before settling back on the cowering Evaline who had stopped screeching when she realized no one was leaping to her defense.
“I owe no one an apology for my appearance, least of all you and your toadies. You don’t like it?” Jahna shrugged. “I don’t care. Go look at something else. Come near me again, and I’ll make sure the next time you won’t be able to stand up, even with help.”
The first rush of bracing fury was fading, and Jahna’s calves flexed with the urge to sprint to the chamber doors so very close and oh so far away, but she didn’t dare turn her back. The voice that spoke behind her her couldn’t have been more welcome.
“Is there a problem here?” Radimar’s green gaze swept Jahna from head to toe first before turning to Evaline and her group, who finally decided to help her off the floor. “Something I need to take to Lord Uhlfrida and Lord Lacramor?” he continued. “I have excellent sight and even better hearing, but there might be a detail or two I missed, and you’re all more than welcome to accompany me to fill in the gaps when we tell our version of events.”
Whether it was the scroll Jahna still held like a mace or Radimar’s implacable expression, none of Evaline’s followers put up a protest or accepted Radimar’s offer. They backed away slowly before turning to scurry back the way they came, Nadel and Tefila dragging a slumped Evaline along with them.
“You should have called for help, Jahna.”
She dragged her gaze away from the fleeing group to find Radimar scowling at her. “Who would hear me? You heard Evaline screeching there. No one came to see what all that racket was about.” She looked past him to the hallway from which he appeared. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“I wasn’t until right before you landed that blow on…”
“Evaline.” He always managed to coax at least a lip twitch from her with his purposeful absentmindedness regarding Evaline’s name.
“The whelp’s face,” he continued. “That wasn’t the wisest decision to face her down with you outnumbered six to one and no help in sight.” He paused. “Though I believe you managed to shift the balance of power permanently in your favor.”
Jahna wasn’t so sure, and in the aftermath of that rush of fury which had buoyed her courage, shivers began a slow ratchet down her spine and up her arms. “She’ll probably be out for revenge.” Her hand throbbed, a reminder of just how hard she’d struck her enemy.
Radimar’s assessing gaze lingered on her face. “Maybe, maybe not. That type is usually cowardly. Their best skill is sniffing out an easy target. You’ve just proven you are no longer one of those targets. I suspect she’ll avoid you in the future. Once you feared her. Now she fears you.”
There was a certain cold comfort to the idea, and Jahna pushed it to the back of her mind to take out and analyze later when she was alone and more contemplative. She reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear and hissed at the pain that sizzled down her fingers.
Pale ribbons of dried blood streaked her knuckles, and the middle one was starting to swell a little. Either her blow was harder than she thought or Evaline possessed one very sturdy cheekbone.
Radimar caught her palm in his in a gentle clasp. “Let me see.” He turned her palm this way and that, his own callused fingers sliding lightly over hers. “Nothing broken. Just some bruising. The whelp, on the other hand, will look a little worse for wear by morning. You probably knocked a few of her teeth loose.”
Jahna had never considered herself either temperamental or violent before. She suffered remorse over killing a spider, but somehow that ready guilt refused to surface to plague her when she recalled the image of Evaline’s shock as Jahna’s hand connected with her cheek. “I’m not sorry if I did,” she said. Some small remnant of that white-hot anger flared to life. “In fact I wish I’d hit her harder.”
“Why ever should you be sorry?” Radimar’s eyes held a glint of knowing. “Justice is sometimes ruthless.”
How did he do it? Clarify the chaos of her thoughts without coddling her? Even when he questioned the soundness of her timing, it sprang only from concern for her welfare, never from doubt in her judgment. He had been a well of heuristic wisdom for both her and Sodrin these past three years, and he was leaving. The unwelcome thought made her want to weep.
“Thank you,” she said in a shuddering voice.
His ginger eyebrows crashed down in a scowl. He guided her toward the door of her father’s suite, and slipped inside on silent feet. The tiny antechamber was empty and dark, the only source of illumination slats of moonlight that managed to slice through the sliver-thin gaps between the shutters. Beyond the closed doors leading to a sitting room and two bedrooms, Sodrin snored down the rafters in solitary inebriation.
Radimar loomed in front of her, the shadowy expanse of his shoulders a living wall between her and the entry door, as if he automatically sought to protect her from some future, unknown intruder. “Thank me for what, Jahna?”
His voice wound around her body like a silk ribbon. She wished she could see his face.
“For making me brave. If you hadn’t taught me how to fight, I would have run or hidden again. I don’t think I would have fought back. You did as you said you would, taught me how to save myself.”
He shook his head. “I taught you a few skills. I didn’t teach you courage. You’ve possessed that all along. It just needed to be coaxed out of the shadows. A few years of growing up and lessons from me just brought it to the forefront.” A smile crept into his voice, along with an unmistakable note of satisfaction. “You should be proud of yourself. That was one impressive strike. You remembered everything I taught you.”
The guilt that hadn’t reared its head earlier surfaced now. “It might have been better if I could use what I learned in the arena instead of against another woman.”
He paused for so long before answering, she began to wonder if he heard her. “How long have…”
“Evaline.”
“The whelp and her lickspittles tormented you?”
Sometimes it seemed like forever. “Years,” she said.
“That corridor was its own arena tonight. Sometimes you take your stand in unlikely spots against your adversaries.”
“Could you love me?” she wanted to ask but instead said “Are you proud of me?”
The darkness obscured his expression, but his low sigh caressed the crown of her head. “Does it matter so much to you, Jahna?”
“Yes. Yes it does.”
She leaned into his palm where it cupped her elbow. “How could I not be proud? And if your brother and father knew, they’d be proud as well. Bravery often rises when you’re most frightened.”
The last of her righteous fury over Evaline’s unwarranted persecution burned itself out, and reaction over her response set in fully, along with the melancholy that had threatened to drown her earlier over Radimar’s news. Her throat closed, making it difficult to talk. Radimar’s black silhouette blurred at the edges as tears filled her eyes. “I like being brave,” she warbled. “I just wish I wasn’t ugly.”
The mournful admission shamed her, but she couldn’t help it. Her birthmark had been the source of numerous miseries once she was old enough to understand the ridicule it generated. How different would her life have been had she been born without it or even with it in a less visible spot?
Radimar swooped closer, and his hands rested heavy on her shoulders. This close, and she could make out the angles of his hard face and the glitter of his eyes. “Stop,” he ordered in a soft voice, no less stern for its quietness. “Don’t give that shallow bitch’s words a weight they aren’t worth.”
Jahna scrubbed away her tears and sniffled. They stubbornly trickled down her face. “She isn’t the only one to say it. People can whisper loudly. I wish I could make this go away.” She touched the blemish spread across her cheek. “Evaline is a bitch, but she’s pretty, and she has friends. I don’t have to be pretty, but I would have liked to have friends.”
He shook her gently, as if to snap her out of a bad dream. “Are we not friends, you and I? And Lacramor’s spoiled brat is a friend to no one, nor are they to her. They cling together because they’re too weak to stand alone. Trust me when I tell you they’d stab each other in the back at the smallest provocation and turn on each other like dogs at the first opportunity. That isn’t friendship, Jahna. Far from it.”
He was right. Her reason argued he was right, and she’d seen with her own eyes how those “friends” had done nothing to help Evaline.
Every thought fled her mind when his hands cupped her face, thumbs smearing the tears that still dripped down her cheeks. The fingers resting against her blemish fluttered across her cheekbone like a moth’s wings. “This is part of who you are, Jahna,” he whispered. “What makes you strong and resilient, gives you purpose beyond the arm ornament of some nobleman. You’re beautiful. Let no one make you believe otherwise.”
She leaned into his touch, savoring the feel of his hands on her skin, and closed her eyes. “You’ve always been so kind to me. Never looked at me as if I’m lesser.” More tears seeped under her closed lids. “I think I will mourn forever when you return to Ilinfan.”
“Shhh, Jahna,” he murmured against her temple. “Shhh.”
His mouth drifted from her temple to the corner of her eye, the kiss as ephemeral as a snowflake but not at all cold. Jahna forgot her sorrow, entranced by the touch of his hands and lips on her face. He kissed every curve and angle of her face: forehead and damp eyelids, the bridge of her nose and fullness of her cheeks. She shuddered under his hands when he paused for several moments to map her birthmark, his clasp gentle and reassuring.
At some point during Radimar’s exploration of her features, Jahna’s hands found their way to his torso, her fingers pressing into his heavy winter tunic to grip his sides. She tilted her chin up, instinctively seeking his mouth with hers. Her sigh when his lower lip touched hers unfurled between them, and the kiss transformed.
No longer a delicate touch that coaxed and teased and encouraged, Radimar’s kiss consumed her. Jahna sank into it, not caring if her response was a clumsy effort of eagerness, wonder and inexperience. Radimar didn’t seem to care either. His mouth played along hers with the skill of an adept, the sweep of his tongue edging the underside of her upper lip, making her startle at first and then moan against his mouth at the sensations that sizzled from her face to her feet.
His hands slid from her face to her shoulders and down her back to gather her close. Even with layers of clothing between them, Jahna still felt the muscular contours of his chest pressed to her breasts, the way his broad shoulders flexed under her massaging fingers.
And that kiss. The first she’d ever received that wasn’t a peck on the cheek from her father or Sodrin. There was no comparison between those casual displays of familial affection and this wonder of sensuality that sent the blood rushing under her skin like fire and burned ever hotter when he coaxed her mouth open a little wider and slid his tongue inside.
She shivered but didn’t pull away, enjoying the taste and feel of him inside her, the scent of him in her nostrils, and most of all the telling groan that traveled deep from within his chest to flow from his mouth to hers. Magic, Jahna thought. This was magic no sorcerer could create with potions or invocations.
The spell Radimar wove around them shattered when Sodrin’s steady snores broke into a series of explosive snorts and a round of coughing. Radimar backed away from Jahna. Caught by surprise at both her brother’s porcine racket and Radimar’s abrupt withdrawal, she stumbled toward the swordmaster who restored her balance with a hand on her elbow.
She still couldn’t clearly see his face in the dark room, but she didn’t have to. The horror in his voice clanged like a discordant bell in her ears.
“Gods,” he uttered on a hard exhale. “What am I doing?” He let her go as if she’d suddenly been set ablaze and might burn him as well. “I’m sorry, Jahna,” he said, and pivoted away on a rush of cold air and the snap of his cloak. Before she could call out to him to wait, he was gone, the door closing behind him with a quiet click.
Shock nailed Jahna’s feet to the floor but only for a moment. She raced after him, yanking the door open to skid into the corridor. Its emptiness mocked her. The man who wove sorcery with a kiss had disappeared like smoke.
“Come back.” Jahna’s soft plea spilled into the silence. No one replied.
She spent the rest of the night in her bed, staring at the ceiling and reliving those moments in Radimar’s arms. It might have been an exercise of euphoric wonder were it not tainted by his appalled apology. She touched her stained cheek. In the dark, it was no different from her other cheek. Same smooth skin, same shape. Had a stray beam of moonlight shone on her birthmark? Reminded Radimar that he kissed a woman whose face once frightened a small child so much, he cried into his mother’s skirts?
Jahna swallowed down a knot of tears. She’d done more than enough weeping for the night, nor would she torture herself any longer with questions only the swordmaster could answer. In the morning, at first light, she’d seek him out, demand to know why he had fled, for that’s exactly what he had done. The reasons for his flight remained a mystery to her, but the sick feeling in the pit of her belly warned her none of them were good.
Her resolve to catch Radimar early proved futile. Jahna had no idea where he disappeared to after he left Uhlfrida’s suite, but she assumed he would return for no other reason than to haul an ailing Sodrin out of bed for more training.
Sodrin huddled in his bed with a wash basin tucked against his side. He clutched it like a lover and glared at Jahna with bleary eyes. “I haven’t seen him, brat, and thank the gods for it this morning. Now go away.”
She searched for Radimar throughout the palace grounds to no avail. He might as well have been a ghost. Her father had also vanished, and Jahna didn’t find him until the torches had been lit and the crowds packed every nook and cranny of the palace and its grounds in preparation for the Firehound spectacle and the closing of the Delyalda festival.
Uhlfrida stood on one of the upper loggias among a gathering of other nobles. Jahna raced into the palace and up a flight of stairs to reach him, ignoring the gasps that followed her from visitors who hadn’t met or seen her before. Her father’s wide-eyed surprise when she yanked him around to face her might have been laughable if she wasn’t desperate.
“Jahna!” His hearty smile welcomed her, but there was a sadness in his eyes that made her stomach roil with dread. “Glad you’re here. You can watch the Firehound with me. Your brother is still in no shape to crawl out of his bed.”
“Where is Sir Radimar?” she said without preamble.
Her father’s voice adopted a more guarded tone. “Gone, Jahna. Back to Ilinfan. I thought he told you about the letter he received from the Brotherhood.”
Gone. The word repeated in her head, becoming a monosyllabic dirge that reached deep into her spirit to suffocate her. She stared at her father so long without replying that he frowned and pressed a hand to her arm.
“Jahna?”
“I knew about the letter and that he would be returning to Ilinfan,” she said, congratulating herself on the steadiness of her voice. “I just thought he’d wait until we all returned to Hollowfell before he left.”
He hadn’t told her goodbye. Not a word or a note or even a message delivered by another party. Nothing except the memory of his mouth on hers, his hands on her back, and the dismay in his voice when he beseeched the gods and left her in the darkness.
Uhlfrida gave her a puzzled look. “Why would he do that? He’d have to double back. Ilinfan is closer to the capital than to Hollowfell.”
Because I hoped he’d delay or change his mind. He’d done neither, and Jahna clenched her teeth to keep from sobbing.
“He didn’t tell you or Sodrin goodbye?”
“He came to me this morning and said he could wait no longer in his leavetaking if he was to have any chance of seeing the Brotherhood’s leader before he died. He asked that I deliver his farewells to you and Sodrin for him. It worked out for the best I think. The king was so impressed with Sodrin’s performance in the Exhibition yesterday that he has requested Sodrin join his royal guard.” Uhlfrida beamed, the expression dimming at Jahna’s weak smile. “Radimar also bid me to tell you he wishes you good fortune in your apprenticeship as a chronicler.”
That first sharp swell of pain had subsided, leaving behind a distant numbness. Jahna nodded. “Thank you for telling me, Father.”
Uhlfrida patted her shoulder. “Radimar was a good man and an unparalleled swordsman and teacher. Worth every coin I paid him and then some. I made sure he took with him a hefty bonus. I’m ready for home, especially since we’ll be back here in the spring to deliver Sodrin to the royal guard and you to the Archives.”
She left him to his socializing with the promise she’d be ready to leave the following day for Hollowfell. That night she watched the Firehound spectacle from the forgotten garden, alone among the brambles and scatter of silver-gilt roses.
The king’s sorcerers outdid themselves this year, fashioning spectacular creatures of smoke and flame to tell the story of how the Firehound chased the Darkness across the rim of the world, until it caught it by the hem of its cloak and tore away a remnant in its teeth. The rip exposed the sky and all the stars, the moon and the sun, which gave life to the once desolate earth.
While the Hound had defeated the Darkness, it hadn’t destroyed it completely, and every year its tenebrous power stretched over the land, attempting to enrobe the world in its cloak of cold and never-ending night. Its power reached its zenith on the last day of winter, when the day was shortest and night held its grip longest—the Darkest Midnight—before yielding to the Firehound’s triumph and the heralding of spring.
The crowds screamed their delight as the magicians told the story with dramatic flourishes of arcing fire in the shape of a colossal dog that lit the evening in a sunburst of sparks. The palace, its subordinate buildings, and the revelers stood under an invisible ward, protecting all from the danger of immolation.
When all the torches, lamps and candles were snuffed and the palace plunged into temporary darkness, the spectators went silent, the expectant hush a living, breathing thing as real as the Darkest Midnight itself. The silence stretched for a span of moments before the sky exploded in a blaze of light, with the monstrous Firehound at the center of numerous starbursts that mimicked the sun and celebrated the triumph of life over eternal night.
In the garden, Jahna watched it all and wept.