Veiled Innocence (Book One, The Soul Cycle) (14 page)

Taking a deep b
reath for courage, she began pushing
the door open when a warbly high-pitched voice sounded from the yard. She stopped, her breath catching in her chest, for she knew the owner of the voice though she had not heard it in several days.
What’s Ursa doing down here at this hour? Surely it’s drawing upon dinnertime
,
and she’ll be needed in the kitchen.
 

Her stomach felt inexplicably heavy, like she had swallowed rocks.
She
braced herself – for what exactly, she didn’t know – and carefully peered around the slightly ajar door into the growing twilight.

Her breath caught.

Gabriel was in the far corner of the yard polishing a sword. Judging from the neatly stowed rack next to him, he had been there for a while.
She
smiled.

When she had first caught him doing “squire’s work,” inquiring why a White Knight would tend to such trivial tasks, he had replied, “I f
ind it soothing.” His voice grew
softer, more somber. “And I suppose I feel it’s a small retribution of sorts for the lives I’ve taken.”
 

She
had never thought of Gabriel as a killer, though she certainly knew he was more than capable of defending himself in battle. He had seen a few fights, but it had been centuries since Accalia had gone to all-out war. The Age of Stars – the time marked by bloodshed and brutal battles between emerging countries – was past them. 

She watched him work, unable to breathe or move as fear and desire rushed through her, making her dizzy. 

Thicker shadows were starting to fall across the yard as the nonexistent sun sank behind the outer wall, coloring the sky even deeper shades
of gray. She took a small step and
then froze when she glimpsed a second shadowy figure. She hastily
slipped
through the crack once more.
I forgot Ursa was here. Why hasn’t she left yet?

As if on cue, the dinner bell chimed, but Ursa made no move to leave.

As her eyes adjusted to the growing darkness, physical details became more apparent. Ursa looked like she had slept in the fireplace. She wore what looked to be a brown floor-length dress with a badly stained apron that barely hung from her tiny waist. Her mop of mousy hair looked like bramble around her shoulders. Her face was in profile view, but the corners of Ursa’s petite lips were pulled into a frown. Lian thought she saw the light reflected in thin watery lines on her flushed cheeks. 

Lian was so caught up in trying to figure out what was going on that Ursa’s voice startled her. “Won’t you at least look at me? Please?” Her voice broke on the last word.

Gabriel did not look up and made no reply as he flipped the sword over to work on the other side.

Ursa faltered, fiddling with her apron. “Why won’t you say something?” Her features twisted with her deepening despair
,
and her head bowed as she continued. “You used to be able to tell me anything. Now you barely speak to me, and you look at me as if I am no more than a stranger.” She lifted a shaking hand to touch his arm. “Please, Gabriel.” 

His hand froze mid-swipe, and his whole body tensed as her fingers rested along the curve of his forearm. The sword slid from his hand
,
and the polishing cloth fluttered to the ground, landing on top of the blade a few seconds later. 

Disbelief
coursed through Lian as she watched Ursa close the distance between them with a few hesitant steps, settling at last into the fold of his arms as he turned to embrace her. Lian gripped the door frame so hard t
hat her knuckles turned white.

Gabriel closed his eyes and tucked her head against his shoulder, letting her cry onto his shirt. “You know we can’t do this,” he said softly, his breath ruffling her hair. “It’s been over between us for some time now.
We were only kids then.
I… my feelings are still the same.”

“So you’ve outgrown me then?” Ursa said bitterly.

He sighed. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Ursa reached up to stroke his cheek with her thumb, brushing back wisps of sandy blond hair that had escaped his hair tie. He tilted his head away, but her fingers followed, tracing the
outline of his jaw
and finally
his lips.

“I miss you so much,” she whispered. 

Then she kissed him
,
and Lian’s world shattered. She staggered backwards and clutched the door for balance as her
emotions spun out of control. It wasn’t so much seeing Gabriel kiss another girl as it was the fact he was kissing Ursa.

She had to run, had
to be anywhere else but there.
She turned to bolt for her
chambers
when Ursa gasped in surprise.

It was like her life depended on that gasp. Lian whirled around so fast she almost fell. Leaning forward as far as the shadows would allow, she strained to hear the tense conversation taking place.

“What are you doing?” The hurt on Ursa's face almost made Lian feel sorry for her, but those feelings evaporated as the sting of betrayal made her numb to pity. Everything had changed in a single drop of time. Ursa had been her best friend, as close to her as any person had ever been in her life. They were almost sisters, and now she had
broken
Lian’s
trust
with a single kiss. Memories of Ursa's strange behavior over the past few months flooded her mind, a hundred signs she had ignored, assuming there was nothing more to them. 

Oh, but there was. There had been so much more.

Ursa looked at Gabriel's blank face, her eyes bright with a silent plea. At last, her shoulders sagged. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

Gabriel removed her hands from his neck and clasped them together in his own. “You will always be very dear to me,” he said carefully as he backed away from her, releasing her hands as he did. “But I cannot be what you want me to be. Not anymore.”

Lian’s heart skipped a beat as the color drained from Ursa’s shocked face. Her arms swung to her sides, limp as a doll’s. 

Gabriel placed the last sword, the one he had dropped, in its designated gr
oove. Then he grabbed the cloth
and strode toward the door where Lian was eavesdropping. Panic fluttered
in her chest, and she slinked fa
rther into the shadows as he drew nearer.

“I see the way you look at her,” Ursa called.

Gabriel paused. The expression on his face was pained, but his voice was steady when he spoke. “You don’t know what you see.” He kept walking.

Grief stricken, Ursa stumbled toward him, her arms outstretched as if to reach for his sleeve. “It is a fool’s wish!” she cried. “The law forbids she marry below her station. Have some sense, Gabriel!”

“I know the law!” he snarled with such ferocity that both Ursa and Lian shrank back. He took a few heavy breaths, and when he spoke again, his voice was calmer. “But nowhere does it say I am not allowed to love whom I chose. Maybe I
can’t have her –” he shrugged “–
but that’s a risk I’m more than prepared to take.” He paused, changed directions, and left through the garden door at the opposite side of the yard. 

Ursa’s bottom lip trembled as she collapsed to her knees. “Then it’s your heart that will be broken next,” she
whispered. She stared after him
and
then buried her face into her apron and wept. 

Lian listened as Ursa’s sobs filled the uneasy silence that followed. She didn’t know how long she stood there, listening to her best friend weep. At last, she gently drew the door closed and slid down the wall onto the cold stone floor. 

She might as well have been run over by a carriage; it would feel no different. Every part of her felt raw and hot, like a piece of overcooked meat. What other secrets had Ursa been keeping from her? Who was Gabriel truly in love with? With dread, she considered the possibility he might
be in love with her half-sister
or with the countess.

Ursa, why didn’t you tell me you were in love with him?

Sud
denly, she felt extremely tired.
N
ot knowing what else to do
,
she slowly rose to her feet and walked in a trance back to her chambers, not seeing or hearing anything around her. 

She was going to need some time to think.

Broken

ROWAN COULDN’T WRAP HIS
mind around it. Never had he seen a crime of that capacity. Even more astounding had been the choice of victims.

Yesterday
, a city patrol had reported a foul stench coming from an alley in one of the poorer districts within the southern sectors. A few hours later, Rowan assembled a team – Orris included – and they had descended underground to find a room full of rotting corpses. There had been no sense in the killing. Men and women both had been slaughtered like animals.  He remembered the look of terror frozen on Gerard’s face.

Something had frightened and slain the most notorious crime lord that side of Mariah’s River.  Even Orris had seemed unus
ually edgy
. For the first time in his life, his father, a monster in his own right, had seemed afraid, and it had hit Rowan what they were truly up against.

Rowan had exhausted all possibilities for the mass murder, and he was still no closer to understanding what had happened than when he started. It had consumed him bo
dy and soul; he had not slept
and had all but lost his appetite. He had thought coming to the garden would help him think better, but he had been sitting on his favorite wrought-iron bench for nearly two hours with nothing to show for his efforts. 

He yawned and trudged over to the elaborate new fountain nestled in the heart of the restored garden. He scowled at its polished white marble.

Damn thing probably cost the city a fortune. What do the poor do now, Feron?  What do
we
do, for that matter?
Opulence bred debt, at least in Accalia where Feron’s greed and poor judgment was costing the city its welfare.

He
half-dreaded seeing his reflection as he reached the side of the fountain. He had to look like death; he certainly felt like it. Leaning over the edge, he cupped his hands beneath the pool’s surface and splashed his face with lukewarm water. He couldn’t afford to face his father again without answers. He needed progress, and he needed it now.

When Orris found out he had nothing new for him at the end of the first day, he had attacked Rowan with a full-blown word lashing that would have made the most vulgar of men cringe. He had never seen anyone throw around a stream of expletives the way his father could. For as long as he could remember, Orris had always been a monster, both at home and on the battlefield. On his best days, he was tolerable. When he was in a foul mood, it was the verbal equivalent to stepping on broken glass:
it was
painful and sharp, each hateful remark cutting so deep they left scars.
The fact he had completely forgotten about Lianora’s necklace was the near fatal blow. Never had he seen his father so obsessed over anything as much as he was with that crystal.
When Rowan asked h
im about it, Orris only grunted
and pretended to be called away for some imaginary task.

Sometimes, Rowan wondered if his memories were perhaps only dreams of a better yesterday.
Orris had once been a completely different man, up until the day he left for that damnable village.

Being a kid was supposed to be fun, where
mother
kept the house and garden,
father
brought
home the money, and everyone
gathered
at suppertime to share how their days went. Most of the time, Rowan and his mother were lucky if they could get in two bites before Orris came storming home, drunk from having spent the evening at the local pub with the other officers. He remembered being scared as Orris beat his mother, screaming about how the house was still dirty or the food was bland (seasoning had grown too expensive for them to afford once the
duke
began sinking into debt). And his eyes, oh, how his eyes had changed, from a thoughtful dark brown to harsh burning coals when his anger was aroused.

If his mother was not around to abuse, then his father would turn on him, sometimes leaving his skin so covered in bruises he would not go out to play with his friends for fear they would make fun of him. Not that Orris had ever granted him much playtime; he had put a sword in his hands as soon as he was old enough to wield o
ne. “Train harder,” he had said.
“Be a soldier like me, my father, his father before him, and so forth.” Rowan loved being a knight with all his heart. Perhaps
that part was in his blood. Yet despite that love
,
he felt empty, consumed by his resentment for his father’s iron will. 

He stared at the haggard young man in the pool, hardly recognizing him. As the residing Black Knight, he was expected to oversee investigations and any acts of crime concerning civilians. Every cit
y had one. He scheduled patrols.
H
is job was exhausting at times, but never so much as it was now. Bags gathered under his eyes, and the hollow
s of his narrow face were deep,
giving him a haunted look.