Part 8 (2/2)

Chapter 9

Even pride couldn't stop her from going to him. When time was so short there was no room for pride in her world. She brought him gifts she hoped he would accept.

And she brought him herself.

”Kylar.” She waited at his chamber door until he turned from the window where he stared out at the dark night. So handsome, she thought, her dark prince. ”Would you speak with me?”

”I'm trying to understand you.”

That alone, that he would try, lightened her heart. ”I wish you could.”

She came forward and laid what she carried on the chest by his bed.

”I've brought you a cloak, since yours was ruined. It was my grandfather's, and with its lining of fur is warmer than what you had. It befits a prince. And this brooch that was his. Will you take it?”

He crossed to her, picked up the gold brooch with its carved rose. ”Why do you give it to me?”

”Because I treasure it.” She lifted a hand, closed it over his on the brooch. ”You think I don't cherish what you've given me, what you've been to me. I can't let you leave believing that. I can't bear the thought of you going when there's anger and hard words between us.”

There was a storm in his eyes as they met hers. ”I could take you from here, whether you're willing or not. No one could stop me.”

”I would not allow it, nor would my people.”

He stepped closer, and circled her throat with his hand with just enough force that the pulse against his palm fluttered with fear. ”No one could stop me.” His free hand clamped over hers before she could draw her dagger. ”Not even you.”

”I would never forgive you for it. Nor lie willingly with you again. Anger makes you think of using force as an answer. You know it's not.”

”How can you be so calm, and so sure, Deirdre?”

”I'm sure of nothing. And I am not calm. I want to go with you. I want to run and never look back, to live with you in the sunlight. To once smell the gra.s.s, to breathe the summer. Once,” she said in a fierce whisper.

”And what would that make me?”

”My wife.”

The hand under his trembled, then steadied before she drew it away.

”You honor me, but I will never marry.”

”Because of who made you, how you were made?” He took her by the shoulders now so that their gazes locked. ”Can you be so wise, so warm, Deirdre, and at the same time so cold and closed?”

”I will never marry because my most sacred trust is to do no harm. If I were to take a husband, he would be king. I would share the welfare of all my people with him. This is a heavy burden.”

”Do you think I would s.h.i.+rk it?”

”I don't, no. I've been inside your mind and heart. You keep your promises, Kylar, even if they harm you.”

”So you spurn me to save me?”

”Spurn you? I have lain with you. I have shared with you my body, my mind, as I have never shared with another. Will never share again in my lifetime. If I take your vow and keep you here, if you keep your vow and stay, how many will be harmed? What destinies would we alter if you did not take your place as king in your own land? And if I went with you, my people would lose hope. They would have no one to look to for guidance. No one to heal them. There is no one here to take my place.”

She thought of the child she knew grew inside her.

”I accept that you must go, and honor you for it,” she said. ”Why can't you accept that I must stay?”

”You see only black and white.”

”I know only black and white.” Her voice turned desperate now, with a pleading he'd never heard from her. ”My life, the whole of it, has been here. And one single purpose was taught to me. To keep my people alive and well. I've done this as best I can.”

”No one could have done better.” ”But it isn't finished. You want to understand me?” Now she moved to the window, pulled the hangings over the black gla.s.s to shut out the dark and the cold. ”When I was a babe, my mother gave me to Orna. I never remember my mother's arms around me. She was kind, but she couldn't love me. I have my father's eyes, and looking at me caused her pain. I felt that pain.”

She pressed her hands to her heart. ”I felt it inside me, the hurt and the longing and the despair. So I closed myself off from it. Hadn't I the right?”

There was no room for anger in him now. ”She had no right to turn from you.”

”She did turn from me, and that can't be changed. I was tended well, and taught. I had duties, and I had playmates. And once, when I was very young there were dogs. They died off, one by one. When the last... his name was Griffen-a foolish name for a dog, I suppose. He was very old, and I couldn't heal him. When he died, it broke something in me. That's foolish, too, isn't it, to be shattered by the death of a dog.”

”No. You loved him.”

”Oh, I did.” She sat now, with a weary sigh. ”So much love I had for that old hound. And so much fury when I lost him. I was mad with grief and tried to destroy the ice rose. I thought if I could chop it down, hack it to bits, all this would end. Somehow it would end, for even death could never be so bleak. But a sword is nothing against magic. My mother sent for me. There would be loss, she told me. I had to accept it. I had duties, and the most vital was to care for my people. To put their well-being above my own. She was right.”

”As a queen,” Kylar agreed. ”But not as a mother.”

”How could she give what she didn't have? I realize now, with her bond with the animals, she must have felt grief as I did for the loss. She was grief, my mother. I watched her pine and yearn for the man who'd ruined her. Even as she died, she wept for him. His deceit, his selfishness stole the color and warmth from her life, and doomed her and her people to eternal winter. Yet she died loving him, and I vowed that nothing and no one would ever rule my heart. It is trapped inside me, as frozen as the rose in the tower of ice outside this window. If it were free, Kylar, I would give it to you.”

”You trap yourself. It's not a sword that will cut through the ice. It's love.”

”What I have is yours. I wish it could be more. If I were not queen, I would go with you on the morrow. I would trust you to take me to beyond, or would die fighting to get there with you. But I can't go, and you can't stay. Kylar, I saw your mother's face.”

”My mother?”

”In your mind, your heart, when I healed you. I would have given anything, anything, to have seen such love and pride for me in the eyes of the one who bore me. You can't let her grieve for a son who still lives.”

Guilt clawed at him. ”She would want me happy.”

”I believe she would. But if you stay, she will never know what became of you. Whatever you want for yourself, you have too much inside you for her to leave her not knowing. And too much honor to turn away from your duties to your family and your own land.”

His fists clenched. She had, with the skill of a soldier, outflanked him.

”Does it always come to duty?”

”We're born what we're born, Kylar. Neither you nor I could live well or happy if we cast off our duty.”

<script>