Bridge of Souls (45 page)

He shook his head gently. “I’m sorry. By all means, let us sit by your fire.”

She smiled. “I’m afraid I do hate to be cold,” she admitted, “although I must give the fire away soon. Each eve is milder than the next these days.”

“Which means summer is beckoning,” he reminded. She did not miss what he left unspoken.

“Is that why you are here?”

“Yes,” but he seemed to hesitate, as if unwilling to broach the subject. “This is a most pleasant room.”

“Thank you. Is Farrow your friend?”

He grinned at the odd question. “As a matter of fact he is.”

“Which would explain his fury at being asked to leave?”

He nodded. “No doubt, although he has no right to feel that way.”

“Indeed, sire. I hear that you don’t treat your friends all that well,” she baited, handing him a cup of wine.

“I can’t imagine what you refer to, Valentyna,” the Mountain King responded calmly.

“I refer to Lothryn, your second in command, your closest friend. The man you murdered.”

“He is not dead,” Wyl answered simply. His mind raced. Why in Shar’s name had he come here? How would he explain any of this to her? What could he possibly say—other than
that he worshiped her—that would make her listen to him, prevent a courier being sent to Morgravia that night?

“Not dead?” she spluttered. “But Elspyth told me—”

“Elspyth is wrong, your highness. I have left Lothryn alive in the Razors.”

Valentyna knew that there was no love lost between Cailech and Elspyth. But every fiber of her being screamed at her that this man was an impostor, in the same curious way Ylena Thirsk had seemed to embody someone else, and she decided to test him. “Elspyth may never live to hear that good news, my lord.”

“What?” Cailech said, spilling wine on his hand as he leaned forward in his chair.

Intrigued by his reaction, she continued: “The last I heard, she was near death and being carried to Pearlis—or so Liryk tells me.”

The King’s face drained of color. “What happened to her?”

“Why do you care? She is a Morgravian slut to you, surely?”

She watched the King hesitate, his gaze darkening as he collected his thoughts.

“I care,” was all he said. “Is she alive?”

“Yes,” she said. “But that’s all I know.”

Wyl put the cup down and, without realizing it, began to pull at an earlobe as he thought on this news. He did not see the sudden sick expression that crossed the Queen’s face. Presumably Crys Donal was with Elspyth, he decided. He asked as much and the Queen nodded. He could not know that she did not trust her voice to speak, her eyes riveted by the habit she had seen four people demonstrate now, starting with Wyl Thirsk.

“Valentyna,” Cailech began, but the Queen was no longer interested in the strange game that was being played out between them. She stood suddenly and demanded, “Why is it that Knave sits at your side? He belonged to Wyl Thirsk and looks kindly only on those Wyl loved. So why does he choose to accompany you?”

Wyl could no longer stand the tension between them. He put down his wine and stood also, facing the woman he so loved. He was very close and a head taller than she. To her credit, he thought, she did not flinch. The defiance in her eyes only fired his desire more and he took her hand and pulled her toward him. This time he would kiss her as a man, and to hell with the consequences.

Valentyna did not fight him. She did not think she could have resisted even if she had wanted to. Cailech, King of the Mountains, had a raw and blistering charisma that burned around him like a halo. If her heartbeat had increased for Romen, it was hammering for Cailech, and if her body had yearned for Romen’s touch, it cried for Cailech’s so strongly that she was tempted to throw herself down before the hearth and have him take her like the barbarian he was purported to be. The ardor she had felt for Romen was nothing compared with the carnal desire she felt for this golden man who was standing too close, his huge hands gripping her upper arms, their faces a hairbreadth apart, the fire of passion burning between them.

Wyl found his courage. He touched his lips to hers, instantly becoming lost in a sizzling rush of desire and need he had hungered after for too long.

T
he fire had burned so low it was only glowing embers, but neither noticed the cool of the air. Their naked bodies were still entwined and to Valentyna it was as though they were one. She could not feel where her lean limbs ended and his muscled limbs began. They lay facing each other and she stroked his golden hair while he held her in an embrace she never wanted to leave and stared at her in a way that made her heart leap all over again.

“Perhaps I should have asked first?” he said.

She laughed, full-throated and tinged with a devil-may-care happiness she had never thought she would feel again. “Particularly as it was my first time,” she said, pulling a face.

“I’ll kill myself if I hurt you,” he said fiercely.

“That’s not the sort of comment I would expect from a barbarian king.”

“We are not barbarians,” he said, dropping his hand away.

Her expression betrayed her anguish. “Oh, Cailech, no, I didn’t mean it that way. It was a jest. It’s just that…”

“Just what?” he asked softly, returning his hand to the crook of her back, resting it in the soft dip before the rise of her buttocks.

She felt his fresh arousal and smiled to herself as she realized what power women had over men. Even Kings were vulnerable. No weapon, no threat, no blood; a woman’s body was all it took to make an enemy king compliant. Cailech should have come and seen her before to discuss the problem in the north—she and her kind could have solved it in an instant, she thought, delighting in the fact that she had just lost her virginity to him, and did not have to gift it to Celimus.

“It’s just that I feel as though I know you,” she risked, daring to venture toward her wild thoughts of earlier.

“You do,” he said gently, watching her carefully.

She sat up, her breasts high yet irresistibly heavy and rounded. Wyl could not believe he was really here with her, and more, she was not merely returning his affections but was inviting them, loving them. He too sat up and reached toward her, but she took his hands and put them into her lap.

“We’ve known each other less than two hours, Cailech, and we’ve spent more than half of that time making love. No preamble, no honeyed words, no romantic gestures. It’s impossible that I would act this way—impossible! But I felt a burning for you from the moment we met. Before, in fact. I watched you from my window as you stood on Werryl Bridge, surrounded by guards, and my heart was pounding for you then.”

“Valentyna, I—”

“No, wait. I have to say this.” She smiled, suddenly embarrassed, and pulled around her the dress she remembered him unbuttoning not so long ago. “There are a lot of voices
crowding in my mind—a boy called Fynch, for one, whom I adore.” She noticed something dark flicker across his face at the mention of Fynch, but she pressed on, determined to say what had been niggling at her for so long. “He once said something profound to me, which I dismissed as a child’s fancy. I think now I was wrong. Then a friend of mine from Yentro, Elspyth, encouraged me to open up my heart to someone else after I was betrayed by the man I loved, Romen Koreldy.”

Again Wyl tried to speak and again she hushed him, this time with a hand to his lips. Tears welled in her eyes at the mention of Romen. “A noblewoman called Ylena Thirsk came to me to offer her help and then gave herself up like a sacrifice to King Celimus so that the Legion would be withdrawn from our borders. You were there at Felrawthy, Cailech; you would have met her. It was a lie that I sent her to him. It was all her own selfless idea to walk into the dragon’s den.”

He nodded and she saw grief in him. “Where is she now?” she asked, almost too frightened to hear the truth.

“She is dead, Valentyna. She showed the courage to match her name. The Thirsks have always been true to Morgravia and yet both Wyl and Ylena pledged themselves to you. They both loved you in their own way.”

His words made her weep openly. “Who killed her?”

“I did,” he whispered.

She looked at him, not understanding. “You?”

He nodded so sadly she had to believe him. “It was an accident. I rescued her from Celimus—he had planned a horrible death for her, which I won’t sully your presence by describing. Suffice to say it was up to his usual cruel and humiliating standard. Aremys and I took her away from Felrawthy and into the Razors.”

“What happened there?”

“She did something very brave—may I leave it at that? I find it painful to think on.”

Valentyna heard the tremor in his voice. The description Romen had given of Cailech was of a man who was anything
but tender as this man was. In fact, nothing she had seen of the Mountain King matched the description she had heard of the arrogant sovereign. But then, all that was hearsay—always secondhand. She needed to find out the truth for herself.

“I will grieve for Ylena. She was my friend.”

It was Wyl’s turn to take a chance. “She told me you parted on bad terms.”

Valentyna pushed her hair back from her face. “We parted amicably, although there was something between us…Ylena tried to make love to me,” she stammered, surprisingly herself with her candor.

Cailech looked down at their linked hands. “Yes, she told me her error. Wished she could take it back.”

“I wish I could have reacted differently. I was flustered and tactless with her.” Valentyna paused. “But, Cailech—how is it that Knave favors you in the same way he favored Wyl Thirsk, Fynch, Ylena, and Romen?”

I could tell her,
he thought frantically,
and see what happens.
Or he could preserve the lie and not trouble her life with talk of magic. Already a plan was forming in his mind. Now that he had possessed her so completely, he knew he could never let her go, never allow her to be with Celimus. The most daring yet logical scenario seemed to be to call the Mountain warriors into Briavel and take their chances on war with the Legion. If Crys Donal had taken his advice, he would be stirring up trouble within the Legion anyway, and with powerful people such as the Benches behind that push, perhaps Celimus would not have so many of his Legionnaires to count on.

Wyl made his decision. “I have a plan, Valentyna, which may prevent your marrying Celimus. It is dangerous, and spells death for some Briavellians, but I believe it is the right path for your realm. You know that Celimus has killed so many, not the least of whom was your father,” he said, hating to see how his words brought tears, “and so perhaps it is the way you want to go anyway. Until now I haven’t been able to help you. I thought you were as trapped as I am.”

She looked at him and frowned. “You’re not making sense. Why are you trapped?”

It was time. This had not been his intention when he set out from the Razors, but then he had not expected that he would be holding a naked Valentyna in his arms. Sharing her body had changed everything. He swallowed hard, wondering at how she would react. “I have to tell you something,” he said.

“I hear fear in your voice,” she replied. “Why does what you are about to say scare you?”

“Because it requires an honesty I have been unable to find before with you. I was scared it would push you away.”

She shook her head. “But you have never met me before,” she said, feeling the soft hairs lift on her arms and behind her neck. This was it. This was what she had searched her soul for.

“I have met you before, Valentyna. I first met you and fell in love with you in this very chamber. Your father was present and we took supper together and you laughed at me because was I too short in your opinion to be an emissary from the King of Morgravia.”

If time could stand still, if a heart could stop beating, if all breath could cease and one could still live, Valentyna believed these things are happening to her now. She kept silent, her eyes riveted on Cailech’s.

“And when I met you again, my beloved”—the King reached for his trousers, pulling from them a handkerchief—“you gave me this.”

Valentyna started sobbing now, deep, heartfelt sobs. She shook her head in denial. What she had wanted to hear suddenly sounded too frightening to contemplate. “I gave that to Romen Koreldy,” she pleaded, squeezing Cailech’s hands so tight her own felt numb. “He was a Grenadyne nobleman, a mercenary.”

“He was me,” Wyl said gently, tears welling in his own eyes. “It was me you loved, Valentyna. Romen was dead—you never knew the real man. I am Wyl Thirsk and I was trapped in Romen’s body.”

Words failed her. It was as if she were listening to a lan
guage she did not understand. He continued, driving the painful understanding deeper into her heart.

“I returned to your life as Ylena, my own sister. My brave girl tried to stand up to Romen’s killer.”

“Hildyth, the whore,” Valentyna whispered.

“Her real name was Faryl. She was an assassin sent by Celimus to kill Romen, which she successfully achieved, except that it was me inside Romen’s body and the magic, known as the Quickening, forced me to take her life. She died instead.” He pulled Valentyna close, and to his surprise, she permitted it. He went on, determined to tell her everything. “Ylena heard about Faryl. She took her chance at Tenterdyn as I raced to catch up with her and Elspyth, and a lucky blow killed me once again, this time compelling me to take my sister’s life.”

Valentyna sobbed audibly.

“I had to see you, to try to help you,” Wyl went on. “I came back to Werryl and tried so hard not to make a fool of myself, but still I succeeded in doing so. I have loved you, Valentyna, since that very first night. I’m sorry for humiliating you and making you feel so bad about Ylena.”

Valentyna took the linen handkerchief from his lap and dried her eyes. She told herself to find some strength. Her father would be ashamed to see her so undone, although it was unlikely he had ever faced anything this daunting in his long life. She sniffed and tried for a watery smile, but failed. She raised her hand to wipe away Wyl’s tears, too.