Impossible Things (25 page)

Her hand went up to the large central stone in the necklace he’d given her. Such a gift, from such a man, and she’d misjudged him badly.

I know what gift to give him, she thought, with sudden perfect clarity. I know the right thing to do.

Kael found himself pacing. He’d said goodnight to the rest of the well-fed, boozed-up inhabitants of the longhouse and put the boys to bed, then he’d gone to his room and fussed around making sure it was warm and bright and welcoming. Not that Ishtaer would be able to see that he’d lit candles and tidied things up, but it made him feel like he was making an effort.

He poured out a glass of aquavit and downed it in one. His heart was still thumping.

Just think about how to say it, he told himself, pacing.
Ishtaer, that necklace isn’t what you think it is.
What is it then, a type of biscuit?
Ishtaer, that necklace has a meaning
. Ugh, like moonstruck youngsters assigning meanings to flowers.
Ishtaer, I shouldn’t have given it to you
. Yeah, she’d love that rejection.

Ishtaer, I love you.
She’d run screaming.

He ran his hands over his face and moaned. ‘This is going to be a disaster.’

‘What is?’

Bollocks. He spun around, realising he hadn’t shut the door properly. Eirenn stood there, looking unhappy.

‘I’m going to tell her,’ Kael said pre-emptively.

‘So you bloody should. She has no idea what that thing symbolises.’

‘I know, which is why I’m going to tell her.’

‘Did you not think of this before? What it would look like? “By the way, Ish, wearing that means you’re engaged to me.”’

‘No, clearly I didn’t,’ Kael snapped. ‘When it comes to her I can’t think at all. I saw that necklace and I knew she had to have it and I knew I wanted it to be—I wanted her to be—’

He broke off helplessly.

Eirenn straightened up, his expression unreadable. Kael made an angry gesture at him.

‘You want her to be your wife?’

Wordless, he nodded.

‘You love her?’ Eirenn’s voice sounded hollow.

Kael nodded again.

‘I see. Well, I … I see.’

And he did, Kael thought, looking at the boy’s face. Only he didn’t look like a boy standing there, he looked like a man who’d just had his heart broken.

‘Right then,’ Eirenn said, squaring his shoulders. ‘Good luck,’ and he walked away rapidly.

Kael was about to go after him when he heard Ishtaer say, ‘Eirenn, are you all right?’

‘Sure. Just too much food and wine. Bed for me, I think. Night, Ishtaer.’

‘Night,’ she said, and appeared at his door a moment later. ‘What on earth did you say to Eirenn?’

‘I, uh.’ Kael stared at her, taking in the sight of her. She’d bathed and changed and wore a green gown with a fur trim, her hair loose about her shoulders, her skin glowing with warmth and vitality. The crystal necklace lay against her collarbone, twinkling in the light of the candles.

He wanted to close his eyes and keep the image of her there so he could look at it whenever he wanted. She was magnificent.

‘Kael?’ She took a step into the room, closing the door behind her. For once she was alone.

‘Where’s Brutus?’

‘Oh, he was tired. I left him in my room.’ She smiled at him, but there was a tightness around her eyes that worried him.

‘Someone told you,’ he said heavily, all his practised words fleeing hopelessly.

‘Told me what?’

‘About the necklace. That it means we’re engaged.’

Ishtaer went very still.

Kael wanted to kill himself.

‘We’re engaged?’ she said carefully. ‘To be married?’

‘Well, not in a duel,’ Kael said helplessly, and regretted it before he’d even finished saying it.

‘That’s what this necklace means? That’s why everyone’s been looking at me strangely?’ Horror came over her face. ‘That’s what Eirenn meant about promises and engagements! Does everyone know?’

‘Uh, no, not everyone. It’s a Chosen thing, not a Krullish thing as such—’

‘But everyone here knows about the Chosen. You’re part of the Empire. Even in Utgangen people knew what my marks meant,’ Ishtaer said, anger rising in her voice.

Panic swamped him. ‘Yes, I know, but—’

‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice? What’s next? Will you buy me a ring and forget to tell me we’re married? What about children? Am I supposed to notice when I’ve had those?’

Her face was flushed. She’d never looked more lovely or more angry.

‘What were you thinking, Kael?’

‘I wasn’t thinking. I can’t think,’ he said, trying to remember how he’d explained it to Eirenn.

‘No, that’s obvious! How could you make such a fool of me? When you know how hard I try, all the time, not to be an object of mirth or hate, how—I thought you liked me, I thought—’

‘I do like you,’ he burst out desperately. ‘Ishtaer—’

‘I came here tonight,’ she said, trembling, ‘because I wanted to give you something. Something I’ve never given anyone before. Not willingly. I wanted to show you how I felt. And now – now I feel like a fool, and what’s worse is I feel like a possession. Like you can marry me and lock me away in your castle, like you lock away your sons—’

‘Hey, you leave my sons out of this.’

‘What? Even though this morning you proclaimed to all of Skjultfjell that I was going to be their stepmother? My gods, Kael, I actually thought you had some respect for me.’

‘I do. I do respect you.’

‘Well it doesn’t bloody feel like it!’ she yelled.

For a long moment they faced each other, her eyes blazing like the stone at her throat. Then she reached up and unclasped the necklace.

‘Here.’ She held it out to him. ‘Give this to someone who doesn’t mind being treated like something you own. I’ve already wasted enough of my life like that.’

His heart breaking, Kael couldn’t take it from her. She waited for a long moment, then dropped it on the floor and walked out.

No one said anything to Ishtaer about the absence of her necklace the next day. Or the day after that. Even Eirenn held his tongue. She stormed about the castle in a filthy mood and reversed course if she so much as heard Kael’s voice. At mealtimes she sat stonily beside him and turned her head away to talk to Eirenn and Mags, both of whom seemed increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.

At night she tossed and turned in her bed, crying hot angry tears into her pillow. Angry at him, yes, but so damn angry with herself for being so damn stupid. How could she have misjudged him that badly? She’d thought he understood her, and all the time he was just blithely marching down his own path and expecting her to fall in beside him.

Well, no more! When spring came she was leaving, going back to the Empire, going back to … All right, she didn’t know yet, but she’d work something out. Kael was as bad as all those fortune seekers in the Empire, all the Citizens who wanted to breed more Chosen. A Twice-Marked marrying a Thrice-Marked! They’d have the world’s first Child of Five Marks.

A treacherous vision came to her of a little girl, dark-haired and blue-eyed, laughing and waving a wooden sword with her chubby arm at her doting brothers.

No! It wasn’t going to happen. Ishtaer had sworn she would never raise a child created by an act of hate, and she was damn sure unlikely to have one created in love. Because no matter how much she loved Kael, he thought of her as just something else to own. Not even important enough to be consulted on her own marriage. Someone who could be kept, who owned nothing, not even her own mind. A slave.

Two days after the Dark found her in the high courtyard dragging out archery butts and firing savagely again and again with Eirenn’s bow. If the damn Wild Hunt came back now she’d shoot them all. So she couldn’t see the target, she still knew where it was, she could still—

‘Ishtaer. Come inside. You’ll freeze.’

She stiffened, and fired another arrow. ‘You. Go away.’

Kael sighed. ‘No. We need to talk.’

‘We really don’t.’

‘Ishtaer—’

She swung around and aimed her arrow at the sound of his voice. ‘You have humiliated me in front of your family and my friends, and you want to
talk
? I want to
kill
you! You of all people know why this is so hard for me, and to try and make me some kind of
possession
—’

She broke off, tears stinging her eyes and stealing her breath.

‘Ishtaer,’ said Kael, and to his credit he sounded appalled. The snow crunched as he took a step forward. Brutus growled at him. ‘Don’t cry. You never cry.’

‘I know I don’t,’ gulped Ishtaer, who’d been doing little else all week when no one could see her.

‘Will you listen to me? Just at least listen to what I’ve got to say?’

She sniffed loudly and kept the bow up. ‘I don’t see how you could make it any worse.’

‘I love you,’ he said, and her fingers tightened on the bow. ‘That’s why I bought the necklace. Because I couldn’t see it on anyone but you. Because I want to marry you. I love you. I don’t want to possess you. I just want to be with you.’

Her aim wavered. She told herself it was because of the cold.

‘I know I did this all wrong. I got … confused. I wasn’t thinking. I’ve never done this before.’

‘Obviously,’ she spat. ‘If you had someone would have shot you already.’

‘Touché,’ he said. ‘Look. I’m really sorry about the way I handled things. I wanted to tell you, that night – and I know I should have done it before, I should have explained, I’m sorry, I’m an idiot. I can’t think straight when I’m around you. Or even not around you. I did this all wrong. And I’m sorry.’

Ishtaer said nothing. But she didn’t lower the bow.

‘I wish you could see yourself,’ he said softly. ‘You look like a warrior queen. You’re magnificent. I could never possess you. No one could.’

‘But they did,’ she whispered, another hot tear rolling down her cold cheek.

‘Not all of you. Not right down to the heart of you. Or you wouldn’t be here. With me.’

But I was, you don’t understand, I was hers
 …

‘You belong to yourself. Always have. Even then. Soon as I called you by your name you remembered that.’ He sighed. ‘I’m not asking you to be mine. I’m asking you to call me yours. Because I am. Even if you never speak to me again. You don’t have to wear the necklace. You don’t have to marry me. You don’t have to bear my children. You just have to be your magnificent self.’

The bow wobbled in her hand.

‘I love you, Ishtaer.’

Her hands shook too badly to hold her aim. She dropped her hands to her side and marched past Kael, back inside the castle, away from all the confusion he was creating in her.

But it didn’t go away. She locked herself in her room and cried, and then she busied herself restocking ointments and potions, and then she sat and wound bandages, and all the time she heard his voice, over and over.
I couldn’t see it on anyone but you. I want to be with you. I could never possess you. I love you
.

She wiped more tears from her eyes.

What
are
you afraid of, Ishtaer? Did you really think he was going to lock you away like chattel? Don’t you know him by now? Don’t you know yourself?

What do you want?

‘I want to be with him,’ she said, and realised it was true.

Every shutter had been closed for weeks, and the longhouse was starting to suffer the effects of a large fire and lots of people. Dark, hot, stifling after the stark fresh air of the courtyard—air so cold you could slice it, air so cold it hurt.

Kael barely noticed any of it.

He stared out at the hall blankly, at a jumble of people laughing and talking and eating. The seat beside him was empty. Mags said something and he replied, although even if put to swordpoint he couldn’t have said what the conversation was about. The seat beside him remained empty. Durran splashed his toy animals through his soup on some sort of epic journey, and Mags scolded him, and the seat beside Kael was still empty.

He’d told Ishtaer he loved her, and she’d walked away.

Someone nudged his arm. Then someone hit his arm. ‘You need to talk to her,’ said Eirenn, and everything inside Kael hurt.

‘I did. I did talk.’

‘And?’

And? He wanted to weep. He’d ruined everything, completely destroyed forever the chance of happiness with the one woman he’d ever really loved through his own arrogance and stupidity, and—

‘Huh,’ said Eirenn, but Kael was too mired in self-pity to notice. Until the lad added, ‘Well, it’s certainly had some effect.’

His head came up. Causing a stir as she walked the length of the longhouse, her wolf at her side, was Ishtaer. She wore her green gown with the fur trim, cut wide on the shoulders, her sword belt an embellished gold affair. Her hair drifted loose around her bare shoulders. Her face was serene, and so lovely it hurt to look at.

Kael stared like the lovestruck fool he was, trying to commit every detail to his memory to save forever, so he could see her when his eyes closed. He watched her sweep up to the dais, cross it towards him and take her carved seat with the grace of a queen.

Preparing for her to ignore him as she had all week, Kael clenched his fist so hard blood trickled from his palm.

And Ishtaer turned to him, cupped his unshaven cheek in her palm, and kissed him.

Kael couldn’t have been more astonished if she’d stripped naked and performed a circus act.

Her kiss was hesitant, nervous, betraying the sangfroid of her appearance, and after the first astonished second, when she seemed like she might be about to pull away, Kael reached up to touch that vulnerable skin between her shoulder and neck and held her where she was, kissing her back.

And Ishtaer, strong, brave Ishtaer who could cut a man to ribbons if he did something she didn’t want, simply pressed herself closer with a soft sigh, allowing him to take charge and kiss her. Her lips were soft, her tongue hesitant, as if she wanted to please but didn’t know how to go about it. It was nearly too much for Kael to take. Tenderness overwhelmed him and he urged her closer, half off her chair, half onto his lap, his hand sliding to her back and holding her against him as her arm went around his shoulders and she pulled herself closer still.

He might have kissed her for hours, had it not been for the high-pitched, shocked, ‘Papa!’ and the childish giggle that followed it.

Guiltily, he recalled that this act of foreplay was being performed not just in front of the whole castle, but his children in particular.

He pulled back from Ishtaer, whose eyes were closed, cheeks flushed and lips red with desire. If not for their surroundings he could have taken her there on the table.

Except, he realised as he held her in his arms, that he’d never take her anywhere at all. Even if this was all she was willing to give, he was nothing more than a grateful recipient.

Now who’s the slave, my lord?

‘Kael, really, at the dinner table?’ said Mags briskly, but he heard the laughter in her voice.

‘Yes, really, at the dinner table,’ he said, and on his other side Verak snorted with laughter.

Ishtaer pressed her face against his neck, breathing hard, and her heart hammered against him.

‘Not that I’m complaining,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘but what was that about?’

‘I don’t,’ she began, her voice muffled, then she lifted her head to whisper in his ear, her hot breath doing lurid things to his imagination. ‘I want—I want you. What you said – I want …’

He waited, his entire body strung painfully on the knifepoint of desire.

‘I
want
,’ Ishtaer said, and Kael very nearly forgot his children were sitting opposite him as he kissed her until neither of them could breathe.

‘All right, all right, you’ve made your point,’ said Eirenn, sounding as if he’d eaten a toad. ‘Could you do that away from the dinner table, please?’

‘Yes,’ Kael said, breathing in the scent of her. ‘Let’s.’

‘After dinner,’ Mags said sharply. ‘Or you can explain to the boys exactly what you’re sloping away to do.’

Durran and Garik looked at him with bright, inquisitive eyes. Kael felt his cheeks heat with a blush he didn’t think he’d displayed since … well, ever.

‘Yes, good point,’ he said, and tipped an equally blushing Ishtaer back into her seat, holding onto her hand with lightheaded joy. ‘After dinner,’ he whispered to her. ‘We’ll … we’ll … we’ll talk, is what we’ll do, and then we’ll, you know, we’ll—’

‘Yes,’ she whispered back, and Kael knew he wasn’t going to get much eating done that night.

After a dinner she was too nervous to eat, after walking together to Durran and Garik’s room to tuck them in rather distractedly, after asking Eirenn, her face scarlet, if he’d take care of Brutus tonight, Ishtaer walked hand in hand with Kael to his room. Neither of them said anything.

When they were inside, he shut the door, turned the key, and said, ‘I’m leaving the key in. You can leave any time you want. I just don’t want to be interrupted.’

‘I think everyone knows we don’t want to be interrupted,’ Ishtaer whispered. It seemed very hard to find her voice.

‘Look, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,’ Kael said, and her courage came flooding back.

‘But I want to do everything,’ she said.

Kael let out a ragged breath.

‘I don’t want to be afraid any more,’ she said, and he was there, kissing her.

For something she’d never done before, Ishtaer was finding it surprisingly easy to kiss Kael. Her body moulded itself against his, her hands sliding over his back, her arms holding him to her. He held her as if she was something precious, as if he couldn’t stop touching her, as if he loved her.

He drew back, breathing hard, and said, ‘We should take this slowly.’

‘Yes. Maybe. I think.’

He laughed softly. ‘And we can stop any time you want to,’ he said caressing her cheek in a manner guaranteed to make her never want to stop.

She nodded, wordless, and Kael kissed her softly again before moving away. She heard the clank of buckets, the splash of water, and frowned.

‘Um, what are you doing?’

‘I had an idea. I had to think of something during dinner, after all. Was it just me or did it go on for years?’

‘It wasn’t just you,’ said Ishtaer, who’d barely eaten anything because she was trembling too much to pick up a fork.

‘Good. I thought, why don’t I ask Verak to nip back here and heat up some water for a bath?’

‘I bathed before I came to dinner,’ she said uncertainly. Was this some custom she didn’t understand?

‘Sure, but … look, my thinking is this.’ He came to stand before her again, taking her hands in his. ‘This will be the first time you’ve ever made love with anyone, won’t it?’

She nodded, her fingers tightening around his.

‘Well then.’ He kissed her fingers. ‘Then you should start anew. Wash away the past.’

Her heart swelled. He
did
understand.

‘This is a fresh start. A brand new day.’ His lips brushed hers. ‘Do you trust me?’

She nodded, too emotional to speak.

Kael undressed her, unlacing the finest dress she owned and laying it with her sword belt across a chest.

‘I have to ask,’ he said, toying with the edges of her chemise, ‘the sword?’

‘Just in case you turned out to have been messing me around,’ she said as lightly as she could.

‘I’ll never do that,’ he promised.

‘I know,’ Ishtaer gulped, on the edge of tears again. Kael kissed her until they went away, then he raised her chemise over her head and the warmth of the fire and his body breathed against her bare skin.

‘Oh, Ishtaer. You are so beautiful,’ he said, his fingertips tracing a line from her shoulders to her hands, and listening to the reverence in his voice, she felt beautiful. He removed her undergarments so gently he might have been unwrapping a priceless artefact. Ishtaer felt no shame, no embarrassment, but instead a kind of power.

‘I’m not made of glass,’ she said, smiling as he rolled down one stocking. ‘And you have seen me naked before.’