Cursed by Fire (19 page)

She had braided her hair and pinned it decoratively to her head. Then she’d found herself fussing. Primping in other ways. This time she had painted her lips, although in a more subdued fashion than the brilliant sunset colors. She didn’t want to look too eager. Then she’d perfumed herself—not too heavily like some women did, choking anyone in range, but lightly. Sweetly. Using her most delicately scented perfume.

With a touch of lotion to soften her hands, she deemed herself ready and presentable. But just as she was about to go, her stomach sickened with nerves. She reached out and grabbed on to Hanit, in whom she had confided everything.

“My lady, perhaps you should rethink this bargain. If he should get you with child …”

“I believe that is partly his purpose in this,” she said in a soft, heated whisper. “And it is not an idea I am adverse to. I’d rather a bastard child than one of Grannish’s.
But the child would be in danger every day of its life as long as Grannish remained in favor. It would need a strong father and protector.”

“Strong or not, nothing can defy poison. Grannish’s favored weapon,” Hanit reminded her with disgust.

“I know. I think the only reason my brother lives is because he is a backup plan. Grannish cannot marry him, but he could control him. Be king by proxy.”

“My lady, that would require your father’s dea—No! He would not dare!”

Selinda looked at her hard. “Wouldn’t he?”

“I … I suppose he would at that. I forgot about his earlier threats.”

“How could you? I never will. I am thinking of them even now as I ready to do this thing.” She took a deep breath. “I am to be off, then,” she said shakily and moved herself out the door.

Once she had left the safety of her rooms, she moved with haste through the fortress, terrified with every minute that she would be seen. Earlier a page—not Dethan’s new one—had been sent to tell her that Dethan’s rooms had been moved. She was grateful for this because it meant she had a shorter distance to go. However, it took her past the rooms of those who would recognize her. Luckily most of them would be safe in their beds by now.

She stopped in front of his door, nervously hoping she had the right rooms. She was about to push in on the handle when a sudden hulking presence came up behind her, covering her hand with his. She squealed a short, crisp sound of panic and jerked about … only to look up into the burned face of the man she was supposed to be meeting. She gasped in horror at the sight and smell of him. He looked even worse than the night before and this close she could smell the burnt flesh on his body; he overwhelmed her with his presence. He
hushed her gently, then used her hand to open the door. She hurried into the room and he staggered in behind her. The first thing he did was drop his cloak from his shoulders and skim out of his pants, all the while gritting back sounds of torment. The feel of the clothes must have been agonizing.

Selinda leapt into action, helping him toward his bedchamber and into his bed. He could only bear to sit up on the edge of it, gritting his teeth and breathing hard through them.

“What is this?” she demanded to know. “Why does this keep happening to you?”

He remained stubbornly close-mouthed. With a sound that was a hybrid of frustration and anger at him, she marched back through his sitting room and banged on the door to the opposite suite room, raising the page from his sleep. He came to the door looking grouchy and tired.

“What’s this, then? Can’t a man get some sleep?”

“You are a page,” Selinda reminded him. “You are beholden to your master at any time of the day or night.”

“Well, if I’d known that, I might not have taken the job!”

Selinda stared at him incredulously. “Your master needs you direly and you are
complaining
about having a job most would kill for in these times?”

That brought him up to his full height, which was not inconsiderable. He rivaled his master in both height and build. He had stood out amongst the prettier page boys that night at supper.

“Right. Sorry, my lady.” Then he seemed to recognize her and his eyes went a little wider. He hastened to bow to her, but she stopped him impatiently.

“Enough of that. Go to the kitchens and fetch me a bottle of hyaita juice, some kettle greed, gloaming goat,
and juni beet juice. Do you know where the kitchens are?”

“Found them first thing,” the man said with a pat on his belly and a chuckle. “Will anyone be there? How will I know where all these things are and what they are?”

Selinda sighed with impatience. “You are right and I am sorry. Go find my rooms and fetch my pagette. Tell her what I need and you can go together. Now, be quick about it!”

“Yes, my lady. Right away, and I don’t mind seeing that pretty Hanit again, I do say!” And he was off like a shot before she could say anything further in reprimand. “You could have put a shirt on,” she said to the empty room. No doubt the page was going to shock her conservative Hanit.

She moved back into the bedroom.

“Now, you are going to tell me what is going on right this very instant,” she said sternly to Dethan, her hands on her hips. “And I will not accept any dithering about it. The truth. Right now!”

“It’s a curse,” he said after only a moment in which she was certain he was considering arguing with her. “I’m to be burned, every night, from dusk to juquil’s hour.”

“Oh my sweet merciful gods,” she breathed. That was why he left in the middle of dinner!

“The gods are anything but merciful, I assure you,” he said bitterly. “It is they who have cursed me. And rightfully so. I was a man of much arrogance and am made to suffer for it.”

“And the other part?” she asked.

“What other part?”

“The part where you heal with incredible rapidity.”

He laughed bitterly. “Another part of my curse, although
this was self-inflicted. I am immortal. I cannot be killed.”

She gasped with disbelief. “That’s impossible!”

“Oh, it is quite possible, I assure you. I have been burned to the bone, chained in the eight hells, every minute of every day for the past … What is the turning, anyway?”

“The turning? It’s twenty and twenty-two.”

“Gods, it has been nearly two hundred full turnings.”

“Two hundred full turnings!” she cried. “You’ve been … But that is … Oh my gods.” She knew it was true. Every last bit of it. She knew it because she could see it in his face.

“I don’t want anyone to know. Not even Tonkin.”

“Someone is eventually bound to notice. I have. And it would be best if your man was by your side for this. Where do you go every night?” Understanding rushed through her. “You go to the mouth. You go back into the hells.”

“Not fully. I can barely make myself cross the threshold of the mouth.”

“I can imagine why.” Sympathy tugged through her.

“Do not feel badly for me. I am not an innocent victim. I am made to suffer because I deserve to suffer.”

“No one deserves this,” she said harshly. “And certainly not two hundred full turnings of it. How did you get out? Did you somehow escape?”

“Weysa set me free. Not entirely, as you see. But she gave me my days back and I am grateful for that.”

“So … you knew that every night you would be weak and injured?”

“Yes,” he said.

Understanding dawned in her eyes and she sagged into a sitting position on the bed beside him. “You knew. You knew you couldn’t touch me in this condition! You made me worry and fret, and all this time …”

He reached out then, snagging her wrist and pulling her eyes to his with the action. “I will not be this injured the whole of the night. I will heal. And you are mine until just before dawn. I promised you that you would be able to test my abilities as a lover and I intend to deliver on that promise.” But the moment he saw the anxiety clawing its way up into her eyes, he eased. “But only when you are ready, my lady. You think little of me if you think I will force myself upon you.”

She cleared her throat and looked down at their connected hands. “And if I never want to … to …?”

“Oh, you will want to. I promise you that.”

“I could easily say I don’t. Whether I mean it or not.”

“You mean you would lie. Somehow I doubt you will do that. You are not the lying sort.”

“How do you know what sort I am?” she asked softly, looking down again. “You barely know me.”

“I know enough. I know enough to know you are honest. That you are strong and brave, that you are a champion of those less fortunate than you are. I know you would have kissed that barbarian had I not stepped forward, because he had been promised a prize and you were willing to live up to that promise however repugnant you found it. Tell me … was that one of Grannish’s ideas?”

She flushed and lowered her lashes, but not before he could see the fire of anger entering her eyes.

“He loves to humiliate me at every opportunity. He probably paid that barbarian to win. It is just the sort of machination he likes to take part in.”

“That sounds a little paranoid,” he mused.

“With good cause,” she muttered.

“No doubt. Tomorrow I am to inspect the city guard and I wish to begin to accept volunteers of additional troops. Conscription will come later.”

“It seems a sound plan,” she said.

“It is, but I was wondering if you could help me garner volunteers. It is one thing for a soldier to ask, quite another for the beautiful grandina of Hexis to ask her people to help her fight off their enemy. The people look up to you. They think good things about you. They want to help you.”

“Well, I don’t know if all that is true. But I will help you. I will do anything you need. Tomorrow I will go to the fair, in the square, and make a public address.”

Just then Hanit and Tonkin arrived back at the rooms.

“Thank you, Tonkin,” Selinda said dismissively. “You may go back to bed and you will speak of this to no one.”

“My lady, I’m not the speaking sort, I can promise you that. Does my lord need me?” Tonkin hedged when he saw Hanit moving into Dethan’s bedroom.

“Not anymore. Good eve and good night.”

“Good night,” the man said, although he didn’t seem to want to go to bed and not be a part of whatever was happening beyond the other door.

Selinda went back into the bedroom, and with Hanit’s help, she once again dressed Dethan’s burns. He was able to sit back in bed in a certain amount of relief, the numbing agent in the herbs she used doing wonders.

He pulled a blanket up to cover himself from the waist down but she stopped him.

“I know the weight of it will be uncomfortable. Do not worry about my discomfiture. It is twice now I have seen you naked. It’s rather becoming a habit.”

“Speak to me again in a few hours when my vigor … and other things … are restored. In fact, I insist you stay around for that. You will sleep beside me. I would know the feel of your warmth in my bed. Up against me,” he said, reaching to touch a finger to her temple, to the right side of her face, and drawing a line down along it to the very tip of her chin. The touch was so personal,
so connecting, that she almost didn’t comprehend the meaning of the words accompanying it. She felt incredibly drawn to him, more so with every passing minute, and she knew it was because he was the better choice presented to her. He had to be, and she had to accept that … and everything that went with it. If these were his demands in order for her to be free of Grannish, then she would submit to them.

“Now come, sit beside me, and let us get to know each other.”

“Gods above,” Hanit said softly, fanning herself with both hands and blinking rapidly. “If his lordship knew what you were doing … gods above.”

“But he will not know,” Dethan said sharply. “If he does, then we know exactly where it has come from, and I promise you I will not take kindly to my lady being put in danger.”

Hanit gasped, then clenched her hands into fists and jammed them onto her hips.

“Oh dear, you are going to regret that,” Selinda muttered quickly.

“Now, you listen here, Sor Baked-and-Roasted, I have been taking care of this girl for a year. Certainly longer than you have. She means the world to me, and I should matter. And who are
you
exactly? You are no one of any significance.”

“Hanit …” Selinda tried to stop her. “Please forgive her. She’s overprotective—”

“No! I’ll speak my mind, and why shouldn’t I? I don’t like what you’re into, your ladyship. I know I shouldn’t have an opinion on the matter, but I do. I worry this vagabond is going to compromise you and leave your life in ruins … or worse. You heard Grannish today. That man would just as soon kill you if he had another way to get onto the throne!”

“Wait. Grannish came to you today?” Dethan asked
harshly, taking Selinda’s chin in his hand and forcing her eyes to his. “What happened?”

“Nothing. It was nothing,” she said, trying to reassure him. Her instinct was to placate the source of anger she was faced with at any cost. Of course she would react that way. It was the only way she knew how to survive, and it sickened Dethan when he thought about it.

“I am not angry with you, Selinda. And Hanit has every right to feel the need to protect you. There is much around you from which you need to be protected. But, Hanit, I promise you I am not one of them. We have honesty between us. I make no claims at romance or play at fanciful emotions and ideals. This is a contract between your mistress and me. I will fulfill my side of it and she hers, and nothing will muddy it up in between. Now, I am pleased to see how loyal you are to your mistress and I hope her trust in you is well justified, but we are all strangers in this room, so you will understand my mistrust … especially when it could mean your mistress will be in danger.”

This speech seemed to mollify Hanit somewhat, for her body relaxed a little from its steadfast, bristling pose.

“I do not care how big or how dangerous you may be. If you hurt her, you will have me to answer to, make no mistake about that!” Hanit reminded him sternly.

“And you have my permission to do so. Now, head back to your mistress’s rooms and make certain no one finds her missing. This will be your task every night.”