Casey glanced up slowly as a tap on the door roused her from her stitching. “Come in,” she called softly, her voice cracking a bit. She set aside her embroidery, pausing a moment to brush her fingers across the yellow dragon sewn into the canvas. The threads tingled slightly with magic; Casey had chosen this thread for a reason. The magic twisted into each strand had a calming effect that Casey found essential in her daily life. When she was finished, the picture would depict two dragons in a skydance. One would be yellow, the other a tawny gold-brown—an image that had been reoccurring in Casey’s dreams for days now.
The door creaked open, and Casey rose when Tialura leaned her head in. “Your Highness,” she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper to hide its quaver. “I didn’t expect this.” She curtsied, but Tialura waved her up.
“Please don’t do that, Casey,” she said, taking the younger woman’s hands. “I came to invite you to dinner.”
“I don’t know, Your Highness—”
“Tia please.”
“—Tia. I don’t know if I’d be able to confront a crowd.”
Tialura cupped her cheek in one soft hand. “Casey, it’s been a year. It’s time to set this aside.” She gestured to Casey’s black gown and the mourning brown draping it. “The grief’s killing you.”
Casey turned away. “How can I be happy now that Danjo....”
Tialura rubbed Casey’s shoulder. “Come try. Just for tonight.”
Weakly, Casey nodded. “I will,” she whispered.
Tialura kissed her cheek. “Thank you.” With that, she turned and left in a quiet swish of white skirts.
Casey turned to the mirror and gently touched the small painting of Danjo. His laughing face looked off to the side somewhere, and Casey kissed her fingertips and touched them to his lips. “I love you, Danjo,” she breathed, then turned away to change her clothes.
The room grew silent as Casey entered, wearing an emerald-green gown and golden thinai armor. Balking, she almost fled the room, until Lyon walked forward and took her hand. “You look beautiful tonight,” he said softly, kissing her forehead. His eyes rested a moment on the mourning band encircling her arm and the widow’s braids she wore, but he said nothing. Instead, he led her toward the long dining table.
Others joined them, all of the Guardians included, and Casey found herself seated between Jonas and Shaulon. Suspicious, she glanced around the table and realized they were all seated to alternate man-woman. She glared at Tialura, who shook her head and pointed to Aeuli.
Jonas, after greeting Casey, turned back to his wife. Casey didn’t expect much from him in the way of conversation. Jonas had eyes only for Lowe, who was quite pregnant yet again. Casey turned away before tears could start. She and Danjo had not been able to conceive before the mountain cat had killed him....
Shaulon, on the other hand, was just as despondent as Casey. A mourning band encircled his arm as well—his wife Cicao had died in childbirth little over a year ago, and the babe had been stillborn—and widower’s bands had been wrapped around his wrists. He smiled weakly at Casey, since Jiraeta on his other side was as engrossed in Hiraetied as Jonas was in Lowe. Jiraeta’s belly was even as swollen as Lowe’s.
“That’s a lovely dress, Casey,” Shaulon whispered.
She blushed. “Thank you.” She tried not to notice how she and Shaulon had chosen clothes of the exact same color.
Aeuli stood, and her husband of two weeks, Arden, glanced up lovingly at her slender form.
“Welcome friends,” she said cheerily, silencing the conversations that had been going on. “Tonight, the meal is also a game. This is a popular game in much of Tiammas, but some of you who were born in Oordon might not know how to play. The pots of cheese in the center of the table are for you to dip bread in, but you must use the long forks next to you. If you drop the bread, you must kiss the person to your right.”
Casey seethed at this, but a hand on her elbow stilled her. “Just eat neatly,” Shaulon whispered. “I know I will.”
She nodded reluctantly, as Aeuli signaled the meal to begin.
Casey ate very daintily, making sure never to drop her bread once while eating. Shaulon, she noticed, was just as careful, as was Jonas—Lowe did enough bread-dropping for the two of them. Every now and then, someone would drop a piece, and everyone else would cheer and whistle as kissing commenced.
Then the unthinkable happened.
Casey was pulling her fork back after dipping some bread, when a presence brushed past her. Lyon glanced up quickly, as sensitive to magic as Casey, and they both watched as the cheese-dipped bread quivered and jumped off of the fork. It hit the table with a soft plop.
She sat frozen in shock, disbelieving what her senses had told her. She would’ve suspected one of the Guardians of meddling, except the feel of the presence was not that of anyone seated at the table. The name brushed across her trembling mind:
Danjo.
“Come on, Casey,” Aeuli said, glancing teasingly at her Guardian counterpart Shaulon. “You hafta’ kiss Shau now.”
Shaulon’s head jerked up quickly, his green eyes flashing angrily. Casey could almost feel the storm of elemental magic raging in the man, except his stone shielded him against her hyper-sensitive mage-senses.
“C’mon Shau, Casey,” some of the others began to chant. “Kiss! Kiss!” Tialura and Lyon, however, sat in stony silence.
Shaulon glared at them all, but when he turned toward Casey his expression softened. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he whispered, his voice low and tinged with grief and something else.
“I don’t think we can skirt rules tonight,” she replied, lowering her blue eyes to her lap. “Just make it quick.”
Just as she raised her head to look at him, his lips brushed against hers. She trembled slightly as he leaned into the kiss, and almost found herself in tears when he pulled away. He still held his face close a few moments longer, staring into her eyes with some unspoken emotion heavy in his features. Then he turned back to his dinner, and she to hers.
The meal finished rather uneventfully, with some of the married couples vanishing into the shadows of the keep and the unmarried diners retiring to a sitting room to chat. Casey rose slowly, gathering her green skirts in her hands as she began to head for her own suite.
Shaulon stopped her. “Casey, I’m sorry. If that wasn’t—”
She cut him off with a delicate wave of her hand. “It’s quite all right. We had to follow the rules of the game. It wouldn’t be fair for them to make an exception just for us. But thank you. It was...comforting.”
He smiled wanly. “Cicao always said I was a good kisser,” he tried to joke. She laughed politely, knowing that the man still grieved his wife’s passing, and that not laughing would hurt him more.
“I agree with her,” she replied, before turning away again.
Shaulon stopped her again, rising to stand before her. “If you ever need someone to talk to,” he began, “a shoulder to cry on or a listening ear, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you.” She curtsied, then left the room.
Two nights later, she walked through the long gallery between the small room in which she’d been embroidering and the main staircase. As she walked, she absently brushed the fingers of her free hand against the tapestries of past Tiammasite rulers and beautiful scenes, drinking in the scent of magic in each thread. In the gloomy shadows of twilight, she felt as though the rest of the world had left her to herself, and she was grateful for the solitude. With no one around, she could freely roam through her memories without having to explain herself to anyone.
As she turned a corner, though, her shoulder struck someone else coming from the other direction. Her threads and canvas spilled onto the floor, and she dropped to her knees in a cloud of skirts to pick them up. The other person—Shaulon, she realized with surprise—stooped to help her. “I’m sorry Casey,” he apologized as he carefully gathered spools and rolls of embroidery floss. “I was lost in thought and didn’t hear you coming. I didn’t mean to—”
“That’s all right,” she replied quickly, poking her needles into her canvas so she wouldn’t drop them again. “I wasn’t paying attention either.” She accidentally pricked her finger on a needle and paused to put the fingertip in her mouth to lessen the sudden pain.
He held out his hand. “Here, let me see that,” he whispered. She showed him the fingertip, and he gently brushed his fingers across it. A trace of warmth flowed into her hand, and the would stopped bleeding.
“How...?”
“Latathi taught me that one. I sort of cauterized the wound with the fire aspect of my Gift. It’s not very hard.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She gratefully took the last of the threads from his hands and rose again. “And thank you for helping to pick these up.” She nodded down to the canvas and thread.
He shook his head. “No problem Casey.” She tried not to show him how comforting it was to hear her name spoken the way he whispered it. Danjo had whispered it like that....
She quickly ducked her head and turned to leave. Something caught her skirt.
She looked down to find it snagged on a broken piece of the trim on the wall, and immediately halted to keep it from ripping. She turned back to release it, at the same moment that Shaulon bent down to unsnag the delicate satin. “This is really a gorgeous dress,” he breathed as they worked the pale green fabric free.
“Thank you,” she replied, blushing down to her low neckline. “It was a naming-day gift from Tialura.” She noticed again how she and Shaulon were wearing similar colors. She started to wonder how they managed that one, but brushed the thought aside. With similar hair color, wouldn’t it be reasonable that she and Shaulon would wear similar colors?
When they loosed the cloth, they both rose at the same time. “Thank you, Shaulon,” she whispered. “I’ll have to find some way to pay you back for helping.”
“Please, no,” he replied. “I helped because I could.”
“Still—”
She never finished the thought. Something suddenly shoved her roughly toward Shaulon, and only his strong arms kept her from falling. They held that pose for a few brief moments, she leaning against him, he holding her by her elbows. Then she whipped her head around. There was nothing behind her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, a worried expression crossing his handsome, grief-touched face.
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just....”
“Just what?” he asked, when she hesitated.
“Something pushed me. I felt hands on my back.”
“There was no one there.”
“Still....” She trailed off, then looked up at him. He stared back down at her, but there was no sign of disbelief in his eyes. Instead, they stood there, lost in each other’s expressions for some time. Then, suddenly, she broke away. “I can’t do this...” she whispered to herself, holding her embroidery materials close to her chest. “I can’t.” Without a backward glance at Shaulon, she turned and hurried down the hallway.
Danjo leaned across the gap between their horses and gave her a firm, passionate kiss, completely oblivious of the snow dusting down around them. Casey shivered in her thick furs, and gratefully accepted the warmth of his mouth against hers. In the long ride through the snowy, rocky foothills of the Monarch’s Mountains, she was grateful for the exchange of emotion.
He looked deep into her eyes as he pulled away, smiling. “Casey,” he breathed in her ear, “I love you. We may not have any children yet, but I love you nonetheless. I always will. We’ll always be together, I promise.”
She smiled back at him and pulled him close, almost toppling him from his saddle. “I know,” she murmured against his mouth.
They both froze at the growl above them. Looking slowly away from each other, they stared in horror at the large catamount crouched on the rocky overhang that their horses stood next to. Its tail lashed hungrily, and its eyes bored into them. Their horses noticed the feline as well, and snorted and shied away. Danjo quickly pulled himself back into his saddle as Casey clung to her horse’s mane and reins—the beast reared and whinnied, almost throwing her off.
Danjo drew his sword, but he wasn’t quick enough. The catamount leaped from the rock and bowled Casey over. She and the cat tumbled to the snowdrifts as her horse bolted in terror. Something in Casey’s leg snapped, and her head struck a rock sharply. Dazed, she couldn’t move as the catamount judged the best place to begin eating.
Danjo jumped from his horse’s saddle and was on the feline in those few brief moments it took to consider its prey. With a wild southern warcry, Danjo tackled the cat, shoving it away from Casey’s limp form. He and the catamount struggled, but it wasn’t a long fight. Danjo soon lay, unmoving, in the reddened snow. The feline limped, but it had survived. Again, it moved cautiously toward Casey, where she lay sprawled in the snow, disoriented and lamed.
An arrow whistled through the air mere seconds before the catamount would’ve torn into Casey’s throat. The arrow pierced the cat’s shoulder, driving it back, as a handful people rushed over the outcroppings to chase the feline off.
Tialura, Latathi, and Gerton managed to heal Casey so that there was not even a hint of a limp in her leg, but Danjo was beyond all help. Casey holed herself up in her suite for an entire week, screaming and throwing things at anyone who tried to enter, until Tialura finally cast a sleep-spell on her.
For an entire year, Casey wore the color of mourning—brown—but now, this night, she stood in an open space, clad in greens and yellows. Around her, mists swirled, occasionally parting to reveal visions of her past, visions she wished to forget: her parents beating her, the Witchfinders on the hunt, her parents’ deaths, her lonely time in the orphanage in Heartstone before Becca found her, Danjo’s death.... The painful memories swam through the mists, taunting her. She tried to brush them away.
Arms suddenly slid around her waist, pulling her up against a strong chest. Lips caressed her ear, and hair tickled her face. “I will love you always,” a familiar voice breathed into her neck. She turned her face to look Danjo in the eyes.
“Why did you leave me?” she demanded of him.
“I had to. I was called by Them.” He looked up, and Casey followed his gaze to see images of Mercios and Clementia. “I had to join Cicao here. We had business we needed to attend to, and could only do it here. I’m sorry.”
She tried to pull away. “You promised me we’d always be together,” she whispered.
He rested his head sadly against her bare shoulder. “I know I promised, saka, but I must break that promise now. Things did not work out the way they were supposed to.” He brushed her cheek with a ghostly hand. “Things happened that shouldn’t have, people met when they were not supposed to, and the great scheme of things was disturbed.” He looked her in the eyes. “I am not the one you truly need, saka. There is another.”
She looked away. “How can you say that?” she asked angrily.
“Because it is true.”
She managed to pull free of his arms. “Who, then? Who is it?”
He looked behind her, and she turned to see the image of Shaulon swirl up. “Him,” her husband’s shade whispered.
She shook her head. “No. No, I can’t. He grieves too. I can’t love him. I love you.”
Danjo took her hands. “Saka, we weren’t meant to be together. It was supposed to be him who took you from Stormcall that night when the Witchfinders came to Cotran’s inn, not me. I was meant for Cicao, and you were meant for him.” Danjo leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “I will love you always,” he repeated, “but I can only love Cicao all the more for that.” As he spoke, Cicao’s shade drifted up behind him, her golden hair spilling about her shoulders. “And you must learn to love Shaulon all the more for having loved me first. He needs you.”
“I can’t,” she replied weakly.
“Yes, you can. The grief is killing you, saka, and I can’t bear to see that. You do not deserve to pine away for my loss, nor does he deserve to wear himself out in grieving for Cicao.” Cicao’s shade nodded, placing a slender hand on Danjo’s shoulder. “This is the way it has to be,” Danjo whispered. “Go to him. Do not mourn my passing any longer, and be happy. Seeing you happy makes me happy, and seeing you hurt pains my soul. Hurt no longer.” He brushed his fingers above her heart, warming it, and leaned forward to kiss her one last time.
She awoke with tears fresh on her cheek, the memory of his kiss warm on her lips. “Danjo, why?” she whispered into the night, though she already knew the answer.
Shaulon was waiting for her in the small Hall of Kings the next morning, standing before a tapestry of King Savollin and Princess Shivala. He turned to face her when she entered the room, smiling slightly as they both realized they’d again worn the same shade of green. “You look lovely this morning, Casey,” he breathed, looking down at her as she stood by his side, facing the tapestry. She felt her heart melt at the way he said her name, almost as if it was a treasure he was gently placing around her neck or across her shoulders.
“Th...thank you,” she stammered, blushing to her neckline.
“Especially when you blush like that,” he added, almost grinning. She flushed deeper.
They stood in silence for a while, contemplating the tapestry of the twins who had once ruled Tirammadon. Then, in a whisper that barely reached Shaulon’s ears, she said, “I saw Danjo last night.”
He nodded, as if he half expected it. “Cicao came to me,” he said in response.
Her eyes widened. “He told me...he told me that....” Her throat caught on the words, and she half turned away, her eyes brimming with hot tears.
He took her shoulders and pulled her into a firm embrace, stroking her hair to soothe her sobs and offering her his ever comforting presence. She gratefully held him close, thankful for his friendship.
“I know what he told you,” Shaulon said quietly. “Cicao told me the same thing.”
She looked up to find tears in his eyes, and she pulled his head down to lean against her shoulder. Together, they eased the pain in each other’s hearts.
Finally, tight-eyed and shaky-voiced, she whispered, “So I guess we should thank Aeuli?”
She felt his faint smile against the exposed skin of her shoulder. “Why? I can tell you for a fact that ’Li was indeed meddling, so we should have absolutely no reason to thank her. Now that spirit that knocked your bread off of your fork, on the other hand....” He held her tighter, rubbing her back. “If I ever see either of them again, I’ll have to thank them.”
She didn’t answer, only nodded against his chest.
He lifted his lips to her ear. “Marry me,” he breathed into the silence of the room.
She lay against the pillows, waiting for Shaulon to escape the other Guardians who wished to talk to him. Her hand still burned from the ritual that had allowed her to touch Shaulon’s stone, but there was no longer any sign of the wound that the knife had made. She flexed her fingers. Her hand worked fine, though it hurt like crazy. The raging storm within his stone had affected more than just her physical senses, too. Her mind roiled from the powerful wash of energy that encompassed the elemental Gifts Shaulon bore.
The door creaked open, and Shaulon entered slowly. The scent of magic accompanied him, though Casey knew that a Witchfinder hound wouldn’t be able to scent it. The only reason she could was because she had been innured to his stone. The crisp scent of fire, the balmy breath of air, the loamy odor of earth, and the wet smell of water met her senses, and she breathed in deeply the essence of her new husband. She sat up on the bed, her tawny gold-brown hair spilling over her bare shoulders and the low-cut bodice of the pale green gown in which she’d gone through the marriage ceremonies. Shaulon paused as he considered her, a faint smile slowly spreading across his face. “Sweet Heavens, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, pulling off his boots and armor. For once, he and Casey had not worn the same colors. Her gown was a pale yellow-green, while his entire garb was in shades of yellow and gold—his Guardian colors.
Once his boots and armor were off, he moved to her side, settling gently on the bed. He reached out one hand to brush across her cheek and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Are you okay?” he asked carefully, noticing the brief flash of sadness that must’ve shown in her features.
She turned her face away, rubbing her left hand against the stinging skin of her right palm. He noticed, and took her hand in his, lifting it to his stone. She tensed, but the moment her skin touched the cold necklace, the pain went away. She turned back toward him.
“That’s one Tia told me about,” he whispered. “The closer we get, the less it will hurt.”
She smiled wanly. “Thank you.”
He pulled her close, and she leaned her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat through his shirt. He ducked his head down, his lips finding her ears, and he teased at them gently with his mouth. “There’s something else, saka,” he murmured into her hair.
She pulled away suddenly, ashamed to tell him. He must’ve read it in her features, because he pulled her head down to lean on his shoulder. “I feel I’ve betrayed Danjo,” she breathed into the silence.
He began to rock her gently as he rubbed her shoulder and arm in a slow, soothing motion. “It was meant to be this way,” he began, holding her tightly. “It was supposed to be Danjo and Cicao, and you and me. Don’t feel you’ve betrayed him. You need this. He told you so himself.” He pulled her away for a moment to look deep into her blue eyes. “We’ve been killing ourselves with grief, and someone finally decided to do something about it. We’ve been too deep in our own pain to realize that there is always a reason for what happens. We need each other more than anyone could possibly need someone, but we were too soulsick to realize that.” He pulled her close again, leaning his face close to hers as he rocked her again. “Saka, I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone...even Cicao.” The last words caught in his throat, and she realized he spoke the truth.
“And I need you more than ever,” she replied, pulling him down for a kiss. “But I can’t help but feel like I’ve betrayed Danjo.”
He held her ever closer. “You need this more than I do,” he replied, and kissed her deeply, passionately, until they were lost in each other. |