The Beauty of Darkness (2 page)

“But they will try to follow,” I said. “Eventually.”

He nodded.

I had killed the Komizar. Griz had lifted my hand to the clans who were the backbone of Venda. He had declared me queen and Komizar in a single breath. The clans had cheered. Only producing my dead body would prove a successor's claim to rule. I imagined that successor to be Malich. I tried not to think about what had happened to Kaden. I couldn't allow my mind to drift there, but still, his face loomed before me, and his last expression of hurt and betrayal. Had Malich struck him down? Or one of his other countrymen? He had fought against them for me. Ultimately, he chose me over the Komizar. Was it the sight of a child's body in the snow that had finally pushed him over the edge? It was what had pushed me.

I had killed the Komizar.
It had been easy. I'd had no hesitation, no remorse. Would my mother think of me as little more than an animal? I'd felt nothing as I plunged the knife into him. Nothing when I plunged it in again, except for the slight tug of flesh and gut. Nothing when I killed three more Vendans after that. Or was it five? Their shocked faces blended together in a distant rush.

But none of it had come soon enough to save Aster.

Now it was her face that loomed, an image I couldn't bear.

Sven held a cup of broth to my lips, claiming I needed nutrition, but I already felt darkness closing in again, and I gratefully let it overtake me.

 

CHAPTE
R
TWO

I woke to the sound of silence. The howl of the storm was gone.

My brow was sticky, and strands of hair were plastered across my forehead. I hoped dampness was a sign the fever was breaking. And then I heard strained whispers. I carefully slivered my eyes open, peering from beneath my lashes. There was soft light filtering through the cave, and I saw them huddled close together. What secrets were they keeping now?

Tavish was shaking his head. “The storm's over, and they'll be on the move. We need to go.”

“She's too weak to ride,” Rafe said in a low voice. “Besides, the bridge is damaged. They can't get across. We have time.”

“True,” Sven said, “but there's the lower river. They'll cross there.”

“That was a good week's ride for us from the Sanctum,” Jeb countered.

Rafe took a sip from a steaming mug. “And now with the snow, it will be twice that.”

“Which will also slow us down,” Tavish reminded him.

Orrin rocked on his heels. “Hang me, they probably think we're all dead. I would. No one could ever make it across that demon river.”

Rafe rubbed the back of his neck, then shook his head. “Except that we did. And if they don't find a single body floating anywhere downriver, they'll know.”

“But even once they cross, they'll have no idea where we are,” Jeb said. “We could have exited anywhere. That's hundreds of miles to search with no tracks to follow.”

“No tracks
yet
,” Tavish warned.

Sven turned and walked over to the fire. I closed my eyes and heard him pouring something from the kettle into his tin cup, then sensed him standing over me. Did he know I was awake? I kept my eyes closed until I heard him walk back to the others.

Their discussions continued as they weighed their options, Rafe arguing in favor of waiting until I was stronger. Was he risking himself and the others because of me?

I mumbled as if I was just waking “Good morning. Rafe, can you help me up?” They all turned and watched me expectantly.

Rafe came over and knelt by my side. He pressed his hand to my forehead. “You're still hot. It's too soon—”

“I'm feeling better. I just—” He continued to resist, holding my shoulders down.

“I have to pee, Rafe,” I said firmly. That stopped him. He looked sheepishly over his shoulder at the others. Sven shrugged as if he didn't know how to advise him.

“I'm afraid to even think of the indignities I may have suffered these past days,” I said. “But I'm awake now, and I will relieve myself in private.”

Rafe nodded and carefully helped me up. I did my best not to grimace. It was a long, awkward, painful process to get to my feet, and putting the slightest amount of weight on my now-stitched thigh sent fiery shocks through my leg and up my groin. I leaned heavily on Rafe for support. My head spun with dizziness, and I felt beads of moisture spring to my upper lip, but I knew they were all watching, gauging my strength. I forced a smile. “There now, that's better.” I clutched the blanket around me for modesty's sake, because all I had on were my underclothes.

“Your dress is dry now,” Rafe said. “I can help you put it back on.”

I stared at the wedding dress spread out on a rock, the crimson dyes of many fabrics bleeding into the others. Its weight had pulled me under in the river and nearly killed me. All I could see when I looked at it was the Komizar. I felt his hands running down my arms, once again claiming me as his own.

I knew they sensed my reluctance to put it back on, but there was nothing else to wear. We had all narrowly escaped with just the clothes on our backs.

“I have an extra pair of trousers in my saddlebag,” Jeb said.

Orrin gawked at him in disbelief. “Extra trousers?”

Sven rolled his eyes. “Of course you do.”

“We can cut away the bottom of the dress so the rest can serve as a shirt,” Tavish said.

They seemed eager to busy themselves with something that would distract them from my more personal task at hand, and began to move away.

“Wait,” I said, and they paused mid-stride. “Thank you. Rafe told me you were the best of Dalbreck's soldiers. Now I know that he didn't overestimate your abilities.” I turned to Sven. “And I'm sorry I threatened to feed your face to the hogs.”

Sven smiled. “All in a day's work, Your Highness,” he said, and then he bowed.

*   *   *

I sat between Rafe's legs and leaned back against his chest. His arms circled around me, and a blanket covered us both. We huddled near the mouth of the cave looking out at a mountain range, watching the sun dip between its peaks. It wasn't a beautiful sunset. The sky was hazy and gray, and a dismal shroud of clouds hung over the mountains, but it was the direction of home.

I was weaker than I thought, and my few solitary steps down another arm of the cave to my requested private moment had me collapsing against a wall for support. I took care of my business, but then had to call Rafe to help me walk back. He had scooped me into his arms as if I weighed nothing and carried me here when I asked to see where we were. All I saw for miles was a white canvas, a landscape transformed by a single night of snow.

My throat swelled when the last glimpse of sun disappeared. Now I had nothing else to focus on, and other images crept in behind my eyes. I saw my own face. How could I possibly see my own terrified expression? But I did, as though I watched from some high vantage point, maybe from the vantage point of a god who could have intervened. Every footstep replayed in my head, trying to see what I could have done—or should have done differently.

“It's not your fault, Lia,” Rafe said, as if he were able to see Aster's image in my thoughts. “Sven was standing on an upper walk and saw what happened. There's nothing you could have done.”

My chest jumped, and I stifled a sob in my throat. I hadn't had a chance to mourn her death. There'd been only a few cries of disbelief before I had stabbed the Komizar and everything tumbled out of control.

Rafe's hand laced with mine beneath the blanket. “Do you want to talk about it?” he whispered against my cheek.

I didn't know how. Too many feelings crowded my mind. Guilt, rage, and even relief; complete, utter relief to be alive; for Rafe and his men to be alive; thankful to be here in Rafe's arms. A second chance. The better ending that Rafe had promised. But in just the next breath, a drowning wave of guilt overwhelmed me for those very same feelings. How could I feel relief when Aster was dead?

Then rage at the Komizar would bubble up again.
He's dead. I killed him.
And I wished with every beat of my heart that I could kill him all over again.

“My mind flies in circles, Rafe,” I said. “Like a bird trapped in the rafters. There seems to be no way to turn, no window to fly through. No way to make this right in my head. What if I had—”

“What were you to do? Stay in Venda? Marry the Komizar? Be his mouthpiece? Tell Aster his lies until she was as corrupted as the rest of them?
If
you lived that long. Aster worked in the Sanctum. She was always a step from danger long before you ever got there.”

I remembered Aster telling me
nothing's safe around here
. That was why she knew all the secret tunnels so well. There was always a quick exit at hand. Except this time, because she was watching out for me instead of herself.

Dammit, I should have known!

I should have known she wouldn't listen. I told her to go home, but telling her wasn't enough. Aster yearned to be a part of everything. She wanted to please so very badly. Whether it was proudly presenting me with my polished boots, ducking low to retrieve a discarded book in the caverns, guiding me through tunnels, or hiding my knife in a chamber pot, she always wanted to help.
I can whistle loud.
It was her plea to stay. Aster was eager for any kind of—

Chance.
She had only wanted a chance
. A way out, a greater story than the one that had been written for her, just like I had wanted.
Tell my bapa I tried, Miz.
A chance to control her own destiny. But for her, escape was impossible.

“She brought me the key, Rafe. She went into the Komizar's room and took it. If I hadn't asked her—”

“Lia, you're not the only one questioning your decisions. For miles I walked with you half dead in my arms. And with every step, I wondered what I could have done differently. I asked myself a hundred times why I ignored your note. Everything might have been different if I'd just taken two minutes to answer you. I finally had to push it out of my head. If we spend too much time reliving the past, it gets us nowhere.”

I laid my head back against his chest. “That's where I am, Rafe. Nowhere.”

He reached up, his knuckle gently tracing the line of my jaw. “Lia, when we lose a battle, we have to regroup and move forward again. Choose an alternate path if necessary. But if we dwell on every action we've taken, it will cripple us, and soon we'll take no action at all.”

“Those sound like a soldier's words,” I said.

“They are. That's what I am, Lia. A soldier.”

And a prince. One who was surely wanted by the Council now as much as the princess who stabbed the Komizar.

I could only hope the bloodbath had eliminated the worst of the lot. It had certainly taken the best.

 

CHAPTE
R
THREE

RAFE

I kissed her and laid her down carefully on the bed of blankets. She'd fallen asleep in my arms, mid-sentence, still insisting she could walk back in on her own. I covered her and went outside to where Orrin was roasting tonight's dinner.

Nurse the rage, Lia
, I had told her.
Use it.
Because I knew the guilt would destroy her, and I couldn't bear for her to suffer any more than she already had.

Orrin had built the fire under a rocky overhang to diffuse the smoke. Just in case. But the skies were thick with gray and mist. Even if there was someone searching the horizon, smoke would be impossible to see. The others warmed themselves by the coals while Orrin turned the spit.

“How is she?” Sven asked.

“Weak. Hurting.”

“But she put on a good show of it,” Tavish said.

None of them had been fooled by her smile, me least of all. Every part of my own body was beaten and bruised by the river, knuckles cracked, muscles strained—and I hadn't been pierced by two arrows on top of it all. She'd lost a lot of blood. Little wonder her head swam when she stood.

Orrin nodded approvingly at the roasted badger that was turning a dark golden brown. “This'll fix her up. A good meal and—”

“It's not just her body that's hurting,” I said. “Aster's death weighs on her. She's second-guessing every step she made.”

Sven rubbed his hands over the fire. “That's what a good soldier does. Analyzes past moves and then—”

“I know, Sven. I know!” I snapped. “Regroups and moves forward. You've told me a thousand times. But she's not a soldier.”

Sven returned his hands to his pockets. The others eyed me cautiously.

“Not a soldier like us, maybe,” Jeb said, “but a soldier just the same.”

I shot him an icy stare. I didn't want to hear about her being a soldier. I was tired of her being in danger and didn't want to invite more. “I'm going to go check on the horses,” I said and left.

“Good idea,” Sven called after me.

They knew the horses didn't need checking. We'd found a stand of bitter pea for them to graze on and they were securely tethered.

A soldier just the same.

There was far more that I looked back on during my twelve-mile walk than just my failure to answer her note. I also saw Griz, over and over again, lifting her hand and declaring her queen and Komizar. I saw the alarm in her face and remembered my own rage surging. The barbarians of Venda were trying to sink their claws in deeper, and they'd already done enough damage.

She was not their queen or Komizar, and she was not a soldier.

The sooner I could get her safely to Dalbreck, the better.

 

CHAPTE
R
FOUR

One by one, they dropped to a knee, offering formal introductions. Though they had all already seen me half naked and held me down in the most familiar ways while I was stitched, perhaps this was the first time they thought I might actually live long enough to remember any of it.