Solace Shattered (23 page)

He turned sharply from her and started walking again. “Then why are you upset with me?”

“Might I be less than cheerful for reasons other than your decision not to finish your study of winter campaigns? For reasons that don’t concern you?”

“So you understand?”

“I understand we worked together nearly every day for several moons. I understand that when you could not come, I should feel no moment of disappointment. After all, because I wear this dress, I have none of the usual human feelings—” Her voice broke and her brow contracted, centering a pulsing pain between her eyes. “You had no obligation. I understand completely.”

“What would you have had me say? What could have made any difference?”

Oh Maker! Indeed, what had she expected him to say? Dreaded tears welled in the throbbing corners of her eyes. “Nothing, General,” she whispered. “Nothing.”

With a gentleness that was a hundred times harder to bear than his military superiority—because it was Nan speaking—he said, “Hera, the last thing I wished was to hurt you. Tell me you understand.”

No, she vowed not to cry. She nodded as she tilted her face upward and rolled her eyes to keep the tears in check.

As if he’d followed the line of her gaze, he said, “There’s no halo about the moon. No breeze. We’ll have good traveling weather tomorrow. I imagine you’re no less eager than I am to leave this place.”

She twisted the novice’s ring. After weeks of no appetite, it slid easily over her knuckle. Though the words were farthest from the truth, she said, “Yes, I’m eager to see Sylvania again.”

“What? I thought you couldn’t go home.”

Had she spoken those words aloud? She’d not meant to. Not in a thousand years. She crushed her eyes closed and hid her face in her hands.

They didn’t walk hand in hand like lovers, Chane thought as he watched from a distance behind a statue of his father that stood at the entrance to the wooded area. Miss Gallivere was wrong. Certainly, they knew each other; Willow admitted it. But why would she be alone with him out here? They stopped walking. The Sarapostan’s silhouette neared hers.

When the import of her words filtered through his surprise, Degarius felt the simultaneous waves of elation and distress of a young captain about to lead his first charge. All he could think was to ask, “Why have you decided on such a thing?”

“I hope to find work as a tutor or music teacher in Sylvania.” Her hands covering her face muffled her already tenuous voice.

“Sylvania? You wouldn’t renounce your vows to be a tutor.”

“Teaching is a noble profession.”

“You’re an instructor already.”

“Please, this isn’t your concern.”

“But it makes no sense.”

“Why do you ask me to say what you don’t want to hear? To gratify your vanity or humiliate mine?”

Damn it. She was right. It was to gratify his vanity. A part of him had wanted to hear it, to know that she’d felt at least a fraction of what he had. But what she proposed? He couldn’t bear responsibility for it. “You make a precipitous decision. Stay at Solace.”

“I
am
going back. I must do this the right way—return my ring. But I can’t stay. My brother will come for me. He owes me this one thing. I would rather sacrifice my word than dishonor my profession. Surely, you understand this.”

“You’ve not broken your vows. There’s no dishonor.”

“I...I can’t forget.”

What did she expect of him? Degarius paused uncomfortably as the terrible weight of her choice sank into his conscience. It had been wrong of him to indulge his desire without considering the price of hers, a price he couldn’t repay, a debt he couldn’t honor. “I’m sorry if you judged my regard other than what it was.” It was a baldfaced lie; he knew it as he spoke it, but what else was he to say? The only way she could have misjudged his regard was to underestimate it. But there were other things in life besides desire. “I don’t want you to give up anything or break any vow on my account. You know how I’ve chosen to live my life.”

“I give nothing up for you. I knew you’d never ask or offer anything. This is my concern alone.”

He took her hands from her eyes. They were luminous, full of earnest yearning for a spiritual love that lifted his soul in a way he couldn’t understand and a human one that reached into his heart and compelled him to speak the truth. “Ari, what kind of life could I give you? Waiting alone in Sarapost or at Ferne Clyffe? Following with the supply train? All you would have is worry. And then, if anything should happen... I’ve seen it too often, seen what it did to my grandmother. How could I want that for you?”

“Is worry worse than regret?” There were tears in her voice and eyes.

“One can’t regret what is impossible.” He unpinned his medal, took her hand, and laid it in her palm. “I won’t forget what you did for me. You shouldn’t have returned this. It wasn’t a gift. You were brave to help me with Assaea. Let me honor you the only way I can.”

She looked at the medal and burst into tears.

What had the bastard done to make Willow cry? She hadn’t wept like that to leave him. In the quiet between each convulsed sob, Miss Gallivere’s insinuating words filled Chane’s ears.
You have given him a sword and now a woman of your household
. The suggestion took on new and more damning meanings with each repetition, yet he couldn’t believe his own constructs. She had promised him they would start anew when he returned, and she was everything honorable, good, and noble.

It was unendurable to stand like a spectator idly watching a proud woman weep and shudder. Degarius unclasped his cape, wrapped it around her shoulders, and then gathered her to him so she might cry into his shoulder. He stroked her back and brushed his lips to her forehead. When she became still, he held her tighter. Her scent of jasmine soap, the softness of her body close to his made all the sorrow, pity, and doubt belong to another time and place, to another man. With that thought, he let go of all others and dissolved into the oblivion where there is no self and other.

The bell in the Saviors’ Gate began to ring eleven, and she stirred. He raised her chin to look at her face, which though swollen and damp with tears, was the most beautiful to him. What was worry when there was comfort such as this? What was impossible mere moments ago was now inevitable and the regret unbearable. “Ari.”

Chane’s eyes opened wide. The Sarapostan was arduously kissing her. Did the dark deceive him? It was a trick of the shadows. Chane’s chest ached and his head raced with thoughts that fought for expression. It was forbidden. Forbidden. He forbade it. Here, on his grounds! His stomach pushed into his throat. The foreigner was soiling her with his ugly mouth. What other parts of her body did his hands dirty?

She no longer cried. Why didn’t she scream? Push him away? Try to flee? Why did her arms reach around him, completing the embrace?

Chane’s fingers uncontrollably stiffened and flexed. To calm their restless spasms, he wrapped them around the handle of the knife he wore on his belt.
Ten minutes ago, you promised me. You promised me, Willow. Didn’t you see I’ve become what you are? Good and selfless. What has he done to make you betray yourself and me? What has that whoreson bastard done to you? I forbid it.

The knife came silently from its leather sheath, and he stepped from behind the statue of his father.

N
an had taken her face in his hands, wiped her tears with his thumbs. Calluses ridged his palms, but the sides of his thumbs were smooth and his touch was gentle. Arvana had seen him fight, knew the strength in those hands, and it made her want to cry anew to know how sweet they could be—and to think she’d never feel them again.

But his eyes locked on hers and told her not to think such things. Drawing her closer, his broad shoulders engulfed her. His eyelids drifted closed, his lips parted and daubed hers in a small kiss, barely a kiss, but it resonated a thousand times stronger through her.

She had to feel it again. She grazed her nose against his and met his lips with hers. Lingering on them, she mapped in her mind their warmth, taste, how their softness gave way to the rough, hard curve of his chin. He opened his mouth slightly, and she kissed him harder, pressing her lips to his teeth.

He pressed back and then took his mouth from hers to kiss her chin and neck.

Her hand, poised on his chest, rose and fell with his heavy breaths.

“Can you endure the worry? Can you forgive me for thinking I could?” he whispered and brushed his lips to her ear. “I can’t forsake you.” He drew her veil back and laid his face against her hair. His voice, sounding from his jaw into hers, seemed to come from within her. “Don’t go with your brother. I’ll send someone. Will you wait?”

Her body was turning into a million particles of shimmering white bliss. That was her answer. She was going to evaporate into pure joy. But she had to stay real, had to hold onto him. She reached around his back, nestled her chest to his, and drew herself tight against his beautiful hardness. Between her legs, the hollow space of her body ached. She kissed him to quell that pain.

Suddenly, Nan’s lips jerked away. What was wrong?

She opened her eyes.