Silverlight (7 page)

I was terrified to try, yet terrified not to.

I nodded at the case before me, at the short,
straight sword with the leather-bound handle. “That one. If I’m ever able to
hold a sword again, I want that one.”

“Done.” He took me into his arms, the embrace
of a friend.

I pushed him back with a finger in his chest.
“The techniques, the moves are still in my head. Will you train me?”

“Of course I will.” His eyes lit up like stars
in a summer sky. “I’m pleased that you’d think enough of me to ask.”

I stared at the sword behind the glass. Endless
possibilities lay before me, if…

If I could just get over my fear of everything.

I
’d been eager to show Kymber my weapons room,
though I had not expected a positive response. 

She favored her maimed hand, often trying to
hide it by tucking it under her arm. She still thought like a warrior though. I
had hoped a fine blade would trigger an enthusiastic response, and I was not
disappointed. She’d asked for a specific sword, one that I knew reminded her of
Silverlight. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

My Kymber was still in there. I just had to
find a way to coax her out.

Mrs. Toolwin outdid herself that night. Roast
lamb and dumplings served with a fine mustard and herb sauce. Kymber was overwhelmed
by the amount of food set upon the table. It warmed my heart to see her load
her plate, the first step to getting some meat on her bones.

She enjoyed the wine I served – a fifteen-year-old
mead – and that was also part of my plan. I did not want her drunk; I
did
want her relaxed. She seemed unusually timid now, though her pride seemed
intact. I knew it would be difficult for her to put that scarred right hand in
mine.

“Do you remember the time we had to fight our
way out of the cantina in Dia Soso?” Kymber leaned forward with a devilish
smile. “One of those smelly Biforians had sliced the belt on your breeches. You
had to swing your sword with one hand and hold your pants up with the other.”

“All while trying to escape down the street.” I
threw my head back and roared with laughter. “I remember it well, you little
vixen. You laughed so hard you couldn’t hold your water anymore. I should
remind you of the enormous wet spot you had on your breeches.”

“That’s right!” She laughed with me. “I
couldn’t hold it any longer, so I just let go. I smelled so awful, my horse
barely tolerated having me on her back that night.”

“The Biforians were formidable swordsman. It’s
a wonder you didn’t get hurt yourself.”

The smile left her face as fast as it had come.
“There were many times I should’ve gotten hurt and didn’t. And that one time I
should’ve been safe and I wasn’t.”

“You’re safe here with me. Always.” It seemed
as good a time as any to broach the subject of her injury. “Will you allow me
to look at your hand now?”

“Not here.” She grabbed her goblet and drained
the last of her wine in a single gulp. “Could we go somewhere private?”

“Would you like to go down to the beach?”

Her eyes brightened; the smile returned. “Yes!”

“Follow me, then. Mrs. Toolwin and her ladies
can clean up.”

The world suddenly felt like a very different
place. I would have Kymber all to myself at water’s edge this beautiful
evening.

I was one lucky man.

I
was fuzzy from the wine, but I suspect Magnus
wanted it that way. I certainly did. 

We walked out the back door of his villa onto a
covered flagstone patio. A gray stone walkway led from the patio, curved around
a splashing fountain, and headed off to what looked like the edge of a cliff.

The light-gray marble fountain was massive. A
life-sized, bare-breasted woman stood on a pedestal in the center. She bent
slightly at the waist, pouring her perpetual urn of rushing water into the
fountain’s round base, a coy smile frozen upon her face.

The detail was amazing. The sculptor’s
handiwork included a braid that fell onto the woman’s smooth, curvaceous
shoulder. He’d even placed a few stray wisps of hair at her temples. The color
of sunlit honey, I imagined.

I turned to Magnus. “Does she ever step off her
pedestal and wander the gardens?”

“Gods.” He frowned. “If she does, I don’t want
to know.”

“She’s lovely.” I stopped to look up at her.
“Whoever carved her was a master.”

“A master indeed. He lives just outside Adamar
near the marble quarry. Tablo Mirak. I’ll introduce you someday.” His face flushed
red. “I bought her because she reminded me of you.”

“Did she?” I asked and took a second look.

 I didn’t see the resemblance, but perhaps
Magnus was simply looking for comfort. He didn’t have to believe I was dead if
I stood frozen in his back yard, pouring water into the stone basin. I couldn’t
fault him for that.

“Art. Another of life’s little pleasures I
thought I’d never experience again.” I ran my hand over the statue’s curvaceous
thigh, peeking out from beneath her marble tunic. “There’s nothing this lovely
. . .” I couldn’t finish the thought. “Lovely” and “Pentorus” didn’t belong in
the same sentence.

The walkway ended at the edge of a steep cliff
then transitioned into wide stairs cut into the cliff face. I peered over the ledge.
The steps led down to the beach.

“How long did this take?” I gestured at the
stairs.

“Not as long as you’d think. I had a small army
working on them.”

“It’s none of my business, but . . .” I took a
deep breath. “What did you do after I went missing? It certainly must’ve been
lucrative.”

He caught my arm up in his and stared out at
the setting sun. “I was a soldier for hire. A mercenary. I took only the most
dangerous jobs.”

“Why?”

“Good question. The challenge, maybe. Or
perhaps I was hoping I’d be killed. I don’t know how I wasn’t.” He shrugged. “I
was deliberately and incorrigibly reckless. I did many of the jobs so drunk I
could barely stay on my feet, but the gods saw fit to spare me. I always
thought they knew my pain and didn’t care.” His eyes became dark pools. “That
wasn’t the case at all. They were simply looking after a fool until we could be
reunited.”

“Oh, Magnus. I’m sorry. I don’t–”

He put two fingers to my lips. “Shh. Those days
are behind us. Come.” He tugged me toward the stairs.

We made small talk all the way down. The sun
was sinking into the horizon; the water looked like rippled glass. It was
warmer and less windy on the beach. Such a soothing place.

We settled into the white sand near a sharp
rock that had broken away from the cliff, both of us silent for the longest
time. I gathered my courage, certain he would take one look at my right hand
and tell me it was beyond hope.

But what if he didn’t? It would mean a great
deal of hard work and training, and I would have to get strong first. I was
nothing but a bag of bones. Did I have it in me?

Fear and self-doubt are funny things. Once
they’ve settled into your psyche, they’re almost impossible to dislodge. Though
I’d excelled with a sword, I still felt fear when I went into battle. Then, I
had used it as fuel.

Those long years of captivity had taught me a
different kind of fear. I learned to lower my gaze and stay silent. I tried to
avoid calling attention to myself, if I could.
The woman I’d become in
that awful place –
had
to become if I wanted Garai to leave me alone – was
directly opposed to my warrior’s training.

Magnus sat patiently beside me, waiting for me
to dispatch my demons, but there was no point in further delay. I bit my lip
and placed my right hand into Magnus’s left palm.

Did that withered hand belong to me? It looked
pathetic and foreign in the middle of his large, masculine hand. Frail had
never been a word that applied to me. It did now.

I glanced up at him, wondering if he thought
the same, swearing that if I saw pity, I was going back to the house.

I should’ve known better. This was Magnus. Love
and compassion shone in his eyes, so much that I nearly snatched my hand back.

Trust. I had to trust him no matter how this
examination played out. That would surely prove to be the hardest task of all.

 I didn’t trust
anyone
.

I
was shocked when Kymber placed her hand into
mine, though I was not oblivious to the moment. Vulnerability and trust, fear
and optimism. I saw them all on her beautiful face.

“I’ll try not to hurt you, but I need to see
how much movement you have left.” I placed my right hand atop hers. “Please tell
me if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry.” She nodded. “I will.”

I slowly turned her hand over, cringing at what
I saw. The scars on both sides were wide and white, slightly raised and
streaked with red. The one on her palm was a little worse. Scar tissue was
permanent and would limit her. I needed to find a way to loosen it up.

Every finger except her thumb folded over on
itself; her fingertips pressed against the top of her palm. Despite this, the
nails were short and clean.

I pushed on the unyielding scar. “It’s a good
thing your hand didn’t heal in a fist. Your fingernails would’ve grown into
your skin.”

“Both my hands were clenched into fists while
it healed.” She said it casually, as though everyone faces such a challenge.

“Why?”

“The pain was nearly unbearable. I did
everything I could to stay silent, including biting right through my bottom
lip.” She pointed to a scar near her chin that I hadn’t noticed, then shrugged.
“Some days weren’t bad, if I didn’t think about it too much. Others were
endless.”

I stared at her hand in mine, unable to
comprehend that much pain. “How did you get it open like this?”

“I worked with it every day. It gave me
something to do in the cage. My thumb was uninjured. I could still use it to grasp
things, though it was hard with my fingers folded over like the crust on a meat
pie. And I had the same thought you did about the fingernails.” She gave me a
weak smile. “I didn’t want them growing into my palm and out the back of my
hand.”

“So it’s not as bad as it was. How did you do
it?”

“I exercised my fingers every day. I bent and
unbent each one thirty times in the morning and again in the evening.” She gave
a short laugh. “There must have been a chicken coop somewhere on the grounds.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The window near my cage was open to the
outside in the summer. Every morning a red rooster would come and sit on the
windowsill and crow to wake me up. I felt as though he knew my situation and
had come to commiserate.” A flush rose on her cheeks. “Oh, never mind. It
sounds silly.”

I gripped her hand. “Tell me.” 

“It was as though he came to show me there was
still a world out there. I named him James. Anyway, he would come in the
morning and evening. When I saw him in the window, I knew it was time to work
with my stiff fingers.”

As she spoke, I massaged her little finger then
tried to straighten it. There was minimal movement – the joints were stiff as
wood – so I applied a little more pressure.

“Ouch! No!” She grimaced then laughed. “I’m sorry.”

“No,
I’m
sorry. I hurt you after I
promised I wouldn’t. I just needed to see if there was any flexibility in the
joints.” I moved on to the next frozen finger. 

“There isn’t. What you see before you is the
best I could do.”

“Which I think is fairly remarkable, given the
severity of the injury. Cut into the center of your palm, you say?” I ran my
fingers over the scar again.

 “Right down into the center.” She sighed. “I
suppose you want to hear the story.”

“Not if you don’t wish to tell me.”

“Well.” She winced, staring at her hand as I
worked it over. “I don’t remember everything, and what I can recall comes to me
in bits and pieces. I can still see Tariq swing his sword. It was like being
hit with a hammer. He struck with so much force I went to my knees, but I
didn’t feel pain at first. Then I made the mistake of lifting my hand to look
and the world fell apart. Ouch!” She squirmed and gave me a look when I tried
to straighten her little finger again. “I truly think he was trying to cut half
my hand away. The goal was to disable me but keep me alive. He was worried I’d
bleed to death for a time.”

I drew in a slow breath. Her tale made me sick,
and I wanted to stop her, but it was important that I hear it.

“It looked so odd, split in half like that. As
I said, it didn’t really hurt, at least not at first. But then it began to
burn. Before long, I was howling with pain. Tariq gagged me before he took me
into the forest and that was probably the best thing he could’ve done. It gave
me something to bite down on and kept me from grinding my teeth together.”

I wanted to kill him. Why did Tariq do this to
her? To
me
? He knew how much I loved her. I’d grieved for her until I
nearly wasted away. My brother had watched my decline, knowing it was a lie the
whole time.

A lie. A damned lie. I leapt to my feet and
turned away.

“You’re angry with me,” she whispered. “Please.
I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I could never, ever be angry with you, but I
swear by all the gods of Calari, I am going to hunt Tariq down, and I am going
to kill him. Slowly. I am going to strip his skin from him in thin sheets,
piece by piece, until he begs me for death.”

“Magnus, please. Sit down.”

I turned to face her. “If you’re going to tell
me I shouldn’t go after him, save your breath. He deserves to die.”

“I know he does. Tariq and Garai deserve to die
in the most painful and humiliating way for what they’ve done to us.”

“You see?” I jabbed a finger into the air.
“That’s what infuriates me the most. Why did they do it? Why you? Your capture
speaks of meticulous planning and careful timing. There must have been a reason
for their actions.”

She glared. “I get the feeling you’re
suggesting I did something to deserve–”

“No, no, no! That’s not what I’m suggesting at
all. But didn’t either one of them tell you why they’d taken you? Didn’t you
ask?”

That question seemed to anger her even more.
“Of course I asked! Repeatedly. I never got an answer. Why? Because I was less
than human in Pentorus. I went from Kymber Oryx of Jalartha to nameless animal
in the time it took Tariq to nearly sever my hand from my wrist. Do you
understand that I was simply another one of Garai’s possessions? Like his sword
. . . or . . . or his horse or his fucking parrots. He didn’t talk to me like
I’m talking to you. I was just another pet for him.”

“I’m going to kill them both.” I fisted my
hands.

“Wonderful. I wish you the best of luck. I’m
not capable of helping you.”

“Not now, at least,” I said. “You
will
hold a sword again.”

“You, sir, must face reality. I can’t even open
my hand to hold a horse’s reins, let alone a sword. The first rule of battle
states–”

“Never fight while angry,” I said.

“We’d both get ourselves killed for sure.”
Rolling up onto her knees, Kymber extended her left hand to me. “Listen to me,
Magnus. Ten long years stand between us, but here we are together on this
beautiful beach. They didn’t win after all.”

She was so beautiful, so brave. Her suffering
had been physical. Mine had been mental, but she was at least partially right. We
were together again.

But I would not stop until I avenged her.

“I’m going after them, Kymber. Both of them.
Tariq for his betrayal, and Garai for what he did to you. I will not rest until
their bones are bleaching in the sun.”

“And I know better than to stand in your way, but
let’s think about this first. Someday, I may be able to fight beside you with a
sword in my hand, but I need to get my strength back. Will you help me?”

I opened my arms to her. She rose and fell into
my embrace. “Kymber, my sweet Kymber.” I rubbed small circles on her back. “I
would do
anything
for you.”