Chapter 10 - TAAR #3
Artoris dips his hand next and begins to speak the same vows, more graciously, perhaps, than Ilsevel managed, but still without truth, without beauty or real meaning.
They are simply words: hollow, devoid of sacred power.
When he is through, he plants two fingers at the hollow of her throat and trails water down her breast, marking the marriage sigil.
Then his fingers begin to wander, slipping underneath her gown . . . and I see red.
My muscles, flooded once again with heat, tense for a spring.
In another moment, I will launch myself from this hiding place and slaughter this man, rip him apart with my bare hands, and leave him broken and bleeding in that basin, turning that pure water red with his death, and damn any consequences.
A hand falls on my shoulder.
“Don’t,” a voice whispers in my ear.
Turning sharply, I find myself face-to-face with a stranger.
She must have approached up the stair behind me, absolutely silent as a phantom.
My heart jumps to my throat, choking out any cry of surprise.
She’s a young woman, fine-boned and elegant, but with a hard strength in the line of her jaw.
There’s something strange about her, something I cannot first grasp in those initial moments of surprise. Then I take a closer look.
Her eyes are blue, very pale in her equally pale face . . . and yet, somehow, almost inexplicably, she looks like Ilsevel. So alike, in fact, that the family resemblance cannot be ignored. I know at once that she must be Ilsevel’s sister.
I could throw her hand off easily enough, and yet .
. . there’s something about her grip that freezes me in place, preventing me from taking action.
Magic—I sense it in the atmosphere. Similar magic to that which I perceived on Ilsevel.
I know suddenly who is the source of Ilsevel’s profound memory loss.
She seems to be reading my mind, her eyes intent as they fix on mine. “If you care about Ilsevel as you claimed to a few minutes ago,” she says in a smooth, unruffled sort of cadence, “you’d best keep your voice down and not move a muscle.”
It sounds like a threat, but could be merely a warning. “Who are you?” I demand.
Her lips curve. “Guess.”
The answer is already there in my mind. “Lyria?”
“The same. Interesting that she told you that story about the two of us finding this place all those years ago. I didn’t think she remembered.”
“She said neither of you ever found it again.”
“She didn’t,” Lyria concedes. “I made sure of that. This is a dangerous place, and her gods-gift was as yet undeveloped. She couldn’t navigate these ways safely. It might be different now, only her gift seems to have vanished altogether.”
“Along with her memory,” I growl.
“Yes.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Sorry about that. Apparently the little curse you put on her was tied to powerful emotions. It would kill her if I’d let those emotions remain, and I could not remove them without removing the memory of what had caused them in the first place.”
“It wasn’t a curse,” I answer, though there were times, gods help me, when our bond did indeed feel rather curse-like. “It was the velra.”
She looks interested. “I don’t know that particular term.”
“It’s Licornyn.”
“Ah! So you’re a Licornyn warrior, are you? Where is your unicorn?”
“Do you think I keep it in my pocket?”
She smirks. “I shouldn’t think this scanty garb of yours sported any pockets.”
Her gaze runs critically over my muscular frame, not without a trace of admiration. I don’t care for that. Turning away, I peer out at Artoris and Ilsevel once more, just in time to see them exit the garden. The far door shuts behind them, and she is gone from my sight.
“There, you needn’t worry,” Lyria says, as though reading my thoughts.
“Larongar is just on the other side of that door, you know. He’ll protect his daughter, at least up until the wedding ceremony this evening.
After that he’ll wash his hands of her, to be sure.
But so long as she belongs to him, he’ll care enough to keep her safe. ”
“I must go after her,” I say, pulling once more against that hand on my shoulder, but finding myself strangely unable to break its hold.
“I must make her remember.” I look down at the slender fingers gripping me, then flick my gaze to the young woman’s bizarrely familiar face. “How are you doing that?”
She smiles, a dangerous expression. “Ilsevel’s not the only one who’s gods-gifted in the family.” Her smile vanishes then, and she frowns a little, not with displeasure, but rather in consideration. “Did you mean what you said? About loving her?”
I look her straight in the eye. “My love for Ilsevel is the only great and true thing in my entire sorry existence.”
She blinks. “My, my. How vigorously spoken. It would seem Ilsevel had quite the little adventure following the temple attack. Tell me, did you fall for her before or after slaughtering our unarmed priests?”
My mouth settles in a grim line. “The Licornyn were not involved in the killing of the priests.”
“Oh? But there were rumors aplenty of unicorn-riders in the region.”
I offer no answer. It is not my concern to give her any defense, nor do I care what she thinks of me.
I care only about getting free of this grip on my shoulder and this strange paralysis that seems to have come over my will.
My limbs still feel as though they should function correctly, I simply lack the energy to shake her off. It’s a strangely focused inertia.
She chuckles, amused at my consternation. “Have no fear; I will let you go, but first you must be honest with me. If I like the tale you tell, if you convince me that you’re a better option for my little sister than the monster she’s about to wed, well . . . you might even find in me a friend.”
I turn my head slightly, eyeing her. “What do you want to know?”
“First of all, who is Ilsevel to you exactly?”
I hesitate for a count of three breaths. Then: “She is—was—my wife.”
That shocks her at last. “Wife?” she repeats in a little bleat of sound. Shaking her head, she laughs again, her teeth flashing in the sunlight which gleams between the ivy vines. “All right, unicorn-rider. You’ve got my attention now.”