The Beauty of Darkness (26 page)

After a mile, the silence broke me. “I'll send a note once I'm there,” I blurted out.

Rafe's eyes remained fixed ahead. “I don't want any more notes from you.”

“Please, Rafe, I don't want to part this way. Try to understand. Lives are at stake.”

“Lives are always at stake,
Your Highness
,” he answered, his tone ripe with sarcasm once again. “For hundreds of years, kingdoms have battled. For hundreds more, battles will be waged. Your going back to Morrighan won't change that.”

“And likewise, Your Majesty,” I snapped back, “cabinets will always bicker, generals always threaten rebellion, and kings will always prance home all lathered and puckered to appease them.”

His nostrils flared. I could almost see words blazing in his eyes, but he held them back.

After a long silence, I stirred the conversation again. I needed resolution before I was gone, and I'd heard the way he had bandied
Your Highness
at me as if it meant just the opposite. “I have a duty too, Rafe. Why should your duty be any more important than mine? Just because you're a
king
?”

A frustrated breath hissed through his teeth. “It's as good a reason as any of the ones you've offered, Princess.”

“Are you mocking me?” I eyed my canteen, remembering it could be useful for more than just drinking.

He didn't answer.

“A storm brews, Rafe. Not a skirmish or a battle. A war is coming. A war like the kingdoms haven't seen since the devastation.”

Anger rose off him like heat on a skillet. “And now the Komizar is even able to pluck stars from the heavens? What spell has Venda cast on you, Lia?”

This time it was I who didn't answer. I looked away from the canteen, my fingers itching to swing it. We rode on, but he was only successful at being quiet for a short while. When he lashed out, I understood why there was such a great distance between us and the other riders. He abruptly stopped his horse, and I heard a succession of
halt
s and
whoa
s behind us, the whole caravan grinding to a sudden stop behind us.

His hand slashed through the air. “Do you think I'm not concerned about the Vendan army? I'm not blind, Lia! I saw what that small flask of liquid did to the bridge. But my first duty is to Dalbreck and to make sure our own borders are safe. To make right the shambles of my capital, and to make sure I even have a kingdom to go back to. I owe that much to every single citizen there. I owe it to every single soldier riding here with us today, including the ones who helped save
your
neck.” He paused, his eyes fiercely locked on mine. “How can you not understand that?”

His scrutiny was desperate and demanding. “I do understand, Rafe,” I answered. “That's why I never tried to stop
you
from going.”

A reply stalled on his lips, as if I had punched the air from his arguments, then he angrily snapped his reins to move forward again. He couldn't accept that what was right might also come with a cost to both of us. I heard the creaks and moans of wagons starting to roll again, heard my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Minutes passed, and I wondered if he was acknowledging the allowance I had afforded him that he couldn't quite give to me.

Instead, he uttered another complaint. “You're allowing a dusty old book to control your destiny!”

A book controlling me?
Heat shot to my temples. I shifted in my saddle to face him fully. “Understand this,
Your Majesty
, there's been a lot of effort to control my life, but it hasn't come from books! Look a little further back! A kingdom that betrothed me to an unknown prince controlled my destiny. A Komizar who commandeered my voice controlled my destiny. And a young king who would force protection on me thought he would control my destiny. Make no mistake about it, Rafe.
I
am choosing my destiny now—not a book, nor a man or a kingdom. If my goals and heart coincide with something in an old dusty book, so be it. I choose to serve this goal, just as you are free to choose yours!” I lowered my voice and added with cold certainty, “I promise you, King Jaxon, if Morrighan falls, Dalbreck will be next, and then every other kingdom on the continent until the Komizar has consumed them all.”

“They're only stories, Lia! Myths! You do not have to be the one to do this.”

“It has to be someone, Rafe! Why not me? Yes, I could turn away and ignore everything in my heart. Leave it to someone else! Maybe hundreds have! But maybe I choose to step forward, instead of stepping back. And how do you explain this?” I asked, angrily pointing to my shoulder where the kavah still lay beneath my shirt.

He looked at me, his expression unmoved. “The same way you explained it when we first met. It's a mistake. Little more than the marks of grunting barbarians.”

I heaved a deliberate, grumbling sigh. He was being impossible. “You're not even trying to understand.”

“I don't want to understand, Lia! And I don't want you to believe any of it. I want you to come with me.”

“You're asking me to ignore what's happened? Aster took a risk because she wanted a chance for a future for herself and her family. You're asking me to do less than a small child? I won't.”

“Do I need to remind you?
Aster is dead.
”

He may as well have added
because of you.
It was the cruelest blow he could have dealt to me. I was unable to speak.

He looked down, his mouth pulled in a grimace. “Let's just ride and not talk before we both say something we'll regret.”

My eyes burned with misery. It was already too late for that.

*   *   *

The sun was high, midday, and I knew we had to be getting close to the point where Kaden and I would leave the caravan. Whatever landscape we passed, I saw none of it. My insides were raw—shredded from one end to the other by someone who I had thought loved me. Yes, it was the longest twelve miles of my life.

Orrin, Jeb, and Tavish rode ahead, and when they pulled out of the caravan, for the first time I noticed that their horses were as heavily laden with supplies as mine was. They stopped about thirty yards away between two low knolls. Kaden joined them. Waiting. And that's when I understood—they were coming with us.

I couldn't bring myself to tell Rafe thank you. I wasn't even sure if their added presence was protection or a trick.

He motioned for me to pull off the trail, and we stopped halfway between Kaden and the caravan. We both sat there waiting for the other to speak, seconds stretching as far as the horizon.

“This is it,” he finally said. His tone was subdued, weary, as if all the fight was gone out of him. “After all we've been through, this is where we part ways?”

I nodded, meeting his stare with silence.

“You choose a duty you once scorned over me?”

“I could turn that right back on you,” I answered quietly.

The blue of his eyes grew deeper, like a bottomless sea, and they threatened to swallow me whole. “I never scorned my duty, Lia. I came to Morrighan to marry you. I sacrificed everything for you. I put my own kingdom at risk—for you.”

The bloody furrow inside me tore wider. What he said was true. He had risked everything. “Is that my debt to you, Rafe? Do I have to give up all that I am and everything I believe in to pay you back? Is that really who you want me to be?”

His eyes locked on mine and it seemed there was no air left in the universe. Time stretched impossibly, and he finally looked away. He eyed my pack and weapons—the sword, the knife at my side, the shield, all the supplies he himself had carefully selected. He shook his head as if it wasn't enough.

His attention turned toward the waiting trio. “I will not risk their lives again by sending them into a hostile kingdom. Their only duty is to escort you safely back to your border. After that Dalbreck is done with Morrighan. Your fate will be in your own kingdom's hands, not mine.”

His horse stamped as if sensing his frustration, and Rafe cast one last look at Kaden. He turned back to me, the anger drained from his face. “You've made your choice. It's for the best, then. We're each called somewhere else.”

My stomach turned queasy, and a sick salty taste filled my mouth. I felt him letting go. This was it. I forced myself to nod. “For the best.”

“Good-bye, Lia. I wish you well.”

He turned his horse before I could even offer my own last farewell, riding off without so much as a backward glance. I watched him go, his hair blowing in the wind, the shine of his swords glinting in the sun, and a memory flashed in my mind. My dreams rushed back, large and crushing like a wave, the dream I'd had so many times back at the Sanctum—a confirmation of the knowing that I didn't welcome—Rafe was leaving me. Every detail I had dreamed was now laid out before my eyes, stark and clear: the cold wide sky, Rafe sitting tall on his horse, a fierce warrior dressed in garb I had never seen before—the warrior dress of a Dalbreck soldier with a sword at each side.

But this wasn't a dream.

I wish you well.

The distant words of an acquaintance, a diplomat, a king.

And then I lost sight of him somewhere near the front of the caravan where a king should ride.

 

CHAPTE
R
THIRTY-SEVE
N

We rode hard. I focused on the sky, the hills, the rocks, the trees. I scanned the horizon, the shadows, always watching. I planned. I devised. No moment was left without purpose. No moment left for my mind to steep in dangerous thoughts that would consume me.
What if …

Doubt was a poison I couldn't afford to sip.

I rode faster, and the others worked to keep up. The next day, I did the same. I said my remembrances morning and evening without fail, remembering Morrighan's journey, remembering Gaudrel and Venda, remembering the voices in the valley where I had buried my brother. Every memory was another bead on a necklace strung somewhere inside me. I fingered them, squeezed them, held them, polished them bright and warm. They were the real and true. They had to be.

And when fatigue washed over me, I remembered more. The easy things. The things that could pull another mile, another ten, out of me and my horse.

My brother's face, desolate and weeping as he told me about Greta.

The shine of Aster's lifeless eyes.

The traitorous grins of the scholars in the caverns.

The Komizar's promise that it wasn't over.

The endless games of courts and kingdoms that traded lives for power.

Each bead of memory that I added helped me move forward.

On the first night, when I had unloaded the pack on my horse, the necklace of carefully polished beads suddenly snapped and spilled to the ground. It was the simplest of things that broke it loose. An extra blanket tucked inside the bedroll. A change of riding clothes. An additional belt and knife. They were only the basics for a long journey, but I saw Rafe's hand behind it all, the way he folded a blanket, the knots he made to secure it. He had chosen and packed each piece himself.

And then his last words struck me.

Cruel words.
Aster is dead.

Words that piled on guilt.
I sacrificed everything for you.

Parting words.
It's for the best.

I had clutched my stomach, and Kaden was immediately at my side. Jeb, Orrin, and Tavish stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I claimed it was only a cramp, and I willed the pain twisting in me into a small hard bead and knotted my resolve with it. It wouldn't undo me again.

Kaden reached out. “Lia—”

I shook him loose. “It's nothing!” I ran down to the creek and washed my face. Washed my arms. My neck. Washed until my skin shivered with cold. What I left behind would not jeopardize what lay ahead.

Over the next few days, Jeb, Orrin, and Tavish regarded me carefully. I guessed they were not comfortable with their quest. Before, they had been leading me away from danger, and now they were depositing me on its doorstep.

In the early evening, when there was still light, I practiced with knife and sword, ax and arrow, not knowing when or where I might need any of them. Since it was his specialty, I enlisted Jeb to teach me the silent art of breaking a neck, and he reluctantly agreed, then showed me more methods to dispatch an enemy without a weapon—though many of those methods were not exactly silent.

Later, when it was dark and there was nothing left to do but sleep, I listened for the sounds of the Rahtan—howls, footsteps, the sliding of a knife from a sheath. I slept with my dagger on one side of my bedroll and my sword on the other, ready. There was always a thought, a task, another bead to polish and add to my string, and then when there was only silence, I would wait for the veil of darkness to overtake me.

The one thing I couldn't control were my moments of restless half sleep, when I rolled over and my arm searched for the warmth of a chest that was no longer there, or my head tried to nestle in the crook of a shoulder that was gone. In that netherworld, I heard words trailing behind me, like wolves stalking their prey, waiting for it to weaken and drop, strings of words that would pounce.
How can you not understand?
And, maybe worse, the bite of words that were never said.

 

CHAPTE
R
THIRTY-EIGHT

KADEN

I knew she was hurting. It had been three days. I wanted to hold her. Make her stop. Slow down. I wanted her to look into my eyes and answer a question I was too afraid to ask. But trying to make Lia do anything right now was the wrong course of action.

On the first day when she had joined us on the trail and Tavish had asked if she was all right, I had watched her turn to stone. She knew what Tavish was implying, that she was weak or wounded by Rafe's departure.