Chalice 2 - Dream Stone Read online

  But that had been before he’d seen Llynya lying in a tree bound with river mist. Naught in his imagination had ever compared to the reality of her.

  “Nay,” he belatedly said, recalling her accusation that he was concerned with no one. “There is one I think about overmuch of late.”

  The words were no sooner out than she made an abrupt about-face on the stairs. He nearly ran into her. Unfortunately, he was far too quick to run into someone accidentally, and she was far too surefooted to stumble, even on narrow, rough-hewn stairs.

  “Who?”

  He’d trapped himself. He could hardly tell her that ’twas she he thought about day and night. That he’d awoken that morn without the scent of lavender about him and had felt, along with all his other aches, a distressing sense of loss; or that the taste of her fingers had done more to restore him than any simple.

  Or that the sight of her bare leg was enough to turn him into a lusting beast.

  When he didn’t answer, he sensed a stiffening in her stance.

  “Massalet?” she demanded, standing far too close for reason to take hold.

  Kiss her, was all he could think.

  “If she’s made you a promise,” Llynya went on, “ ’twill come to naught. An Ebiurrane man awaits her in the north.”

  “And you? Who waits for you?” Kiss her.

  Surprise widened her eyes. “No one waits for me. I am not for any man,” she said as if the fact was self-evident and inviolate.

  “What of Morgan ab Kynan?” The question was hard to ask, but he would know.

  “Morgan?” Her eyes widened even further, and so help him God, he saw her ears twitch. “What sayeth you of Morgan?” The angels themselves had never sounded so innocent.

  He was not fooled. “I say if you think to look for him in the time weir, ’tis death you’ll find, not love.”

  Her face paled in the golden light curving down the tower wall. “You know naught of what you speak.”

  “I know more than you think and would have you hear me out,” he said, growing earnest. He mounted a stair between them, bringing them on a level, face-to-face. “The path is not easily trod, Llynya. The light blinds your eyes and skitters across your skin. Ofttimes it sears in a screaming bolt. Thunder roars in the Weir Gate, and the air is so heavy, it near bursts your lungs to breathe it. Even if you can bear all of that, there are still the winds to contend with—fierce and sudden, coming at crosscurrents from all quarters, a destroying tempest that could rip a man in two. Verily, I tell you, all of love is not worth such a journey.”

  “I am stronger than you think,” she said, but in truth sounded no more convinced than he.

  “Even if you survived the descent, there is no surety of what you would find.” Frustration edged his voice. “The weir changes all. Naught goes in that comes out the same.”

  “The stripe in your hair?”

  “Aye, and this.” He lifted his arm and pulled his sleeve up to reveal the pinkish bronze skin that ran along the inside of his forearm. He had not planned to show her the scars, but the loss of vanity was a small price to pay if it dissuaded her from her course.

  Delicate fingers smoothed across the welted skin. “Does it hurt?”

  “No longer, except when—” He stopped himself, and her gaze rose to meet his.

  “Except when?” she prompted.

  He shrugged and gave a negligible shake of his head.

  She returned her attention to his arm, her fingers sliding off the scar to unmarked skin and back again. “ ’Tis warmer,” she said, looking up again, a question in her voice.

  “The heat of its making returns sometimes.”

  “Like last night?”

  He hesitated only a moment before admitting the truth. “Aye.”

  She pushed his sleeve farther up, past his elbow to the curve of his bicep. The scar continued. “How far does it reach?”

  “From my skull to the soles of my feet.”

  In disbelief she lifted her gaze to his, then without preamble pushed aside the torn corner of his tunic. The scar arced across his shoulder. With hands gentler than he remembered, she followed the faintly metallic trail up his neck and behind his ear to where it aligned itself with the copper strands in his hair. When she reached for the hem of his tunic, though, he restrained her by grasping her wrist. Vanity might have fallen, but he would still have his pride. Her exploration, however gentle, had its consequences, and he would not have her know that her slightest touch was enough to rouse him.

  “You’ll not find the love you had, Llynya.” His voice was rough as he felt himself teetering on the edge of an abyss, made vulnerable by her scent and her touch and the sight of her close enough to kiss.

  Her gaze slid away from him. “ ’Twas not love I lost when Morgan fell, but honor.”

  Honor? Confused, he let his hand fall back to his side. With the release, she turned up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

  When the curve of the tower took her from sight, he scrambled after her. “Honor? You would die for honor?” Any joy he’d felt at knowing she was not pining away for love had been shocked out of him by the rest of her admission.

  “There is worse than death to fear,” she retorted.

  He swore, a crude word she should not know, though the startled look she cast over her shoulder told him she did. ’Twas true what she said about death. He knew it well enough, but she should not. He should have kissed her when the thought had come to him, for now all he wanted to do was shake her.

  They made the first landing with its open door spilling light into the shadows and kept on up the stairs. Moira’s drying room was on the top floor. He’d been there a few times when the older woman had sent him to fetch something for her. The second landing was dark, the door to the topmost solar closed. Someone had strewn hyssop on the floor, and the pale scent of oranges rose up from their footsteps as they crossed to the door. Llynya reached for the latch, but he covered her hand with his, keeping the door closed.

  “Honor?” he asked. “What honor?” Then a thought struck him, and his hand tightened on hers. “Did Morgan dishonor you? Is it vengeance you seek?” He would go after the Thief himself if that was the truth.

  “Nay. He kissed me, true, but there was no dishonor in it, only a certain . . . ah, I don’t know . . . sweetness.”

  Jealousy, as pure and galling as anything he’d ever felt, pierced his heart. Morgan had kissed her.

  “Then where was honor lost?”

  “Morgan was in my keeping, twice by Rhuddlan’s orders. I should have been by his side to block the Boar’s final blow.”

  “You did well to survive,” he told her vehemently. “No one holds you responsible for what happened to Morgan.”

  “I need no one to tell me where my responsibility lies.” Her chin lifted. “I am Yr Is-ddwfn. What passes for Quicken-tree honor will not suffice for me.”

  Arrogant, stubborn wench. “Does Rhuddlan know the high regard in which you hold him?” he asked, straining to hold his own anger at bay. “Or the lengths to which you’ll let your foolishness lead you?”

  “Nay, and if he did, he would banish me from Merioneth, which suits neither my purpose nor yours.”

  His purpose. Had she divined it then? Impossible, unless she meant his purpose with her. Aye, and she did aright. He could tell by the color suffusing her face. She knew he wanted her—and she was not running in the opposite direction.

  Nay, she was not like the other girls in Merioneth. She was not afraid to be alone with him, yet of them all, she had more reason to be afraid. For that alone her banishment would not suit him, to have her exiled from the land where he was held by visions of war and dragons. He feared his days would be devoid of all light if there was not even a chance of coming across her in the bailey.

  The realization brought him no pleasure. Had he truly become so besotted in less than a sennight? Morgan had kissed her, and she’d thought the Thief’s kiss sweet. Now she dared him, Mychael, to h
ave her banished if he would, and lose whatever chance he might have for a kiss himself.

  Was she so sure he wouldn’t do it? Was he so easily read?

  Aye, he probably was, and that thought gave him no pleasure either. Only one thing could give him pleasure.

  Damn. He stood before her, and his frustration grew until there was no help for it. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers, and a sorrier excuse for a kiss he couldn’t have imagined: lips chilled by the dank cold of the tower, an unyielding body, harsh words lingering in the air. It was a hopeless kiss—yet she did not pull away. She took his clumsy kiss and by the sheer grace of her acceptance turned it into more than it was. Her sweet breath blew against his skin, softly, so softly, and the tension ebbed out of him. He stepped closer, so her body brushed against his, and sighed at the relief given him by the light pressure. She opened her mouth, and he fell headlong into desire.

  Shadana . . . shadana . . . Llynya had wondered about his kiss since Crai Force, and now she knew. ’Twas a thing of heat and power. The change in his body temperature had been almost instantaneous with the touching of their mouths. The muscles in his arms, at first relaxed, were tightening beneath her hands, gathering strength as he moved closer. With his last step, she felt the hard warmth of his body pressed fully against her. ’Twas unlike anything she’d ever known.

  And the taste of him. Gods. She’d opened her mouth and been flooded with a tidal wave of sensations. His tongue had swept across hers and she’d been drenched with an aching sweetness. He was all instinct and no finesse, devouring where she would savor, filling her with an overwhelming number of scents, each of them telling of a need beyond her understanding. Yet she felt it too, the inexpressible longing inherent in his body’s movements. The difference between them, she quickly discovered, was in the level of daring. Where she would have balked, he pressed forward, inexorably pushing her farther than even an ounce of common sense would have allowed her to go. His hands slid from one forbidden caress to the next, with her own deflecting moves a half step behind, until she’d been touched everywhere. Or so she thought.

  When his hand slid under her overtunic and above her hose to bare leg, the kiss changed. His groan echoed in her mouth, and ’twas all she could do to keep her feet beneath her. His hand, so warm on top of her clothes, was like a brand beneath them.

  “Mychael,” she gasped, pulling her mouth from his.

  He did naught but take the opportunity to kiss her cheek, and her jaw, and her brow, murmuring her name while his other hand was busy at her waist. Her belt slid clattering to the floor, and she knew she was lost.

  In a trice, his hand was under her shirt, his palm cupping her breast. Her clothes pushed up, her laces coming undone, she was falling at breakneck speed into uncharted territory.

  Into heaven. Mychael was awash in wonder. He’d never in his life held anything as delicate and alive as the woman in his arms. The taste of lavender filled his mouth and infused his senses. Her skin was soft, so soft he feared the roughness of his hands would mark her somehow. Thus he was careful, molding her breast with a gentle palm, feeling the slight weight and falling deeper in love just for having touched her.

  She smelled of flowers, hot flowers, like a riot of them blooming under a fiery summer sun. The perfumed redolence rose from her skin; he could taste it on her. Elusive violets and gillyflowers, sweet woodruff and peonies, lavender and lilies mingling together in an intoxicating scent. It went to his head like wine, swirling through reason and longing and mixing one with the other until he knew not where the first left off and the other began. Her heart raced beneath his hand, echoing his pulse where his wrist lay against her skin. He’d never been close enough to feel another’s heartbeat, yet he was not nearly close enough to her.

  Not nearly.

  He pressed himself against her, his chest to her breast, and felt her melt into him, the soft giving way of a woman to a man. He pressed lower, a slow thrust of his hips; she gasped, and liquid fire ran into his loins. The scent of flowers deepened around him, making it harder to think beyond the fierce, running edge of desire. He thrust again and heard her breath catch in her throat. Again, and her fingers clutched at his shoulders.

  He slid his hand farther up her leg, pulling her tighter against him, reveling in the silky slide of her skin, until he reached the apex of her thighs and felt her braies. Softer than Quicken-tree cloth they were, yet not as soft as what lay beneath, verily at his fingertips.

  The intimate awareness washed through him, dragging a rutting heat in its wake. He was burned by it and worked feverishly at his own belt and braies to free himself. She moved to stop him, another protest of “No” on her lips, and in the confusion of hands and rough linen, her fingers found him—and did not pull away.

  ’Twas enough.

  With no more movement on her part, he was stripped of all vanity and pride, his life’s seed spurting out of him in equal measures of ecstasy and shame. The last left him, and she slipped from his embrace with a shocked expulsion of breath. Snatching her belt up from the floor, she disappeared down the tower stairs on silent, soft-booted feet. Naught but the sound of his own ragged breath echoed back from the surrounding stone.

  Groaning, he leaned against the door, his head held in his hands. Humiliation seeped into his every pore even as his body pulsed with the exquisite aftermath of being brought to climax by her hand. Gods! The crudeness of what he’d done appalled him, as well as his total lack of control. She’d touched him and a floodgate had opened, releasing every pent-up longing he’d ever had. He had not known it could happen so suddenly, so intensely, or be triggered by no more than a single touch.

  Her touch.

  He swore through gritted teeth and hit the door. He’d made an utter fool of himself and had probably horrified her beyond all forgiveness. Mayhaps his luck would improve on the journey to Lanbarrdein and one of Tabor’s ponies would mortally wound him. A quiet death in the caves was no more than he deserved.

  Yet for all his humiliation, the release she’d given him had been sweet, so very sweet. And for all that she’d gone, she’d not left him until the deed was over.

  Chapter 13

  Nia smelled the desert long before she felt the heat of it winding down into the caves. Her nerves were on edge, her strength and her courage faltering from the long, hard march. She’d done her time in the deep dark, but the Sha-shakrieg had done naught but descend from the damson shaft, and by the third day of her capture they’d gone deeper than she would have thought it possible to go and still live. Even now, after two days of climbing, she was not sure if she would survive the lingering malaise that had beset her on the steep descent—or the memory of what she’d seen, and felt, and heard in those far depths.

  The nadir of their trek had been crossing a tide-pulled sea via a narrow causeway of stone. Far below the path, waves had crashed into one side of the cliff face. Salt spray from the wind-whipped water had lain in pools along the track, making every step a treachery. On the other side of the causeway, a huge ice cavern had loomed up out of the darkness. Glistening blue-white dripshanks the girth of a hundred men hung like grim sentinels at the cavern’s entrance. By the light of the Sha-shakrieg’s torches, she’d seen frozen waterfalls gushing out of the cave’s inner walls, floes of blue-green ice roiling up from the floor, and a ceiling encrusted with slender white icicles.

  “The Dangoes,” the man in front of her had said in the common tongue. Varga was his name, and he was the leader, the one who held the rope binding her wrists. Naught else had been done to hurt her, though ’twas not for lack of enmity. Strange, frightening beings, the spider people were bound from head to toe in layers of brown cloth with gray gauze wrapped around their faces. They seemed of elfin or human shape—descended from a common ancient race, mayhaps—but only their dark eyes could be seen, watching her every move with hostility and a wariness she didn’t understand. What did they think she could do against so many?

  They’d throw
n an extra cloak over her before they’d gotten to the causeway, yet ’twould have taken more than a cloak to keep the cold horror of the place from seeping into her bones. The vast, frigid cave smelled of death, of cold beyond the grave reaching out to hold life hostage in an icy grip. Passing the mouth of the cavern, she felt the caress of unseen wintry fingers, one across her cheek, another curling around her ankle. Light gusts of wind, she thought, until whatever spirit ruled the cave tightened its grasp—the better to pull her off the track and down into its gaping maw. Her cry brought Varga to her side with his torch. He swept the fire between her and the cave, and in the arc of sparks and flames she saw wisps of icy vapor twined and gnarled like old bones. Varga’s quick action freed her, but fear had gotten a hold with that arctic touch and would not release her.

  A true wind came up behind them as they followed the long, sinuous track over water and ice. Its frigid draft set the icicles in the cavern to singing, an eerie resonance of the earth’s breath blowing through frozen strings. “Ice music,” someone close to her muttered while making a warding sign. Varga walked on, pulling her behind, seemingly unaffected, but others of the spider people tightened their wraps over their ears for protection against the otherworldly strain.

  The song floated out over the track to the sea, wordlessly melodic, its notes rippling through the raw air and running like ice water down her spine. Madness lurked in the song, the promise of a sweet, sleeping death to lure the weak or unwary, or those too tired to go on, whether their weariness was from the march or life itself. She was not so far gone as that and set her mind to other things, trying to block the eldritch tones. They were halfway across the causeway when a new melody came into play, and the fine hairs on her nape rose like hoarfrost. She stopped, unwillingly, her attention drawn and held by the glacial cavern.