Her Knight's Quest: A Warriors of the Mist Novel Page 9

  Murdoch slowed again, finally stopping to lean against the wall once more. “Yes, but it’s also true that he saved Alina from Fagan, and me as well. I hate that I owe him a debt of honor, but that doesn’t change the fact that I do.”

  Gideon shared his frustration. “What would you have me do? We cannot allow him to wander freely in the keep. One act of mercy cannot absolve him of everything that went before.”

  And if anyone understood that, it was the Damned. After Murdoch and the others had failed in their duty centuries ago, the gods had allowed them to redeem their honor by serving as their avatars. The price they’d paid for such a boon was the knowledge that someday they would face final judgment, either finding peace in the halls of their forefathers or eternal damnation. There was no middle ground. With that in mind, Murdoch considered their two options regarding Sigil: keep him or kill him.

  A tough choice. Killing a nameless enemy in battle was hard enough, but the more time they spent with Sigil, the harder it would be to order his death. Murdoch also suspected Alina, with her tender heart, would be devastated if it came to that. She saw the man as heroic for saving their lives. She wouldn’t appreciate nursing the man back to health just so the Damned could execute him soon thereafter.

  “For now, let’s give him a day or two more to see what happens. If his memories come back, we’ll deal with him the same way we would have any of Keirthan’s other men. If they don’t, we’ll keep an eye on him and see if we can put him to use against his former master.”

  Gideon didn’t look any happier about the situation than Murdoch was.

  “Let’s get you back to your bed.”

  Murdoch pushed himself off the wall and shuffled forward. He knew his friend would lend him support if he needed it, but a man had his pride. He’d make it back to his bed on his own if it killed him.

  And right now, it felt as if it just might.

  * * *

  Sigil shifted in his narrow bed, trying to find a more comfortable position. He’d been lying there too long, his body stiff and sore from inactivity. There was also the stress that came from trying to look calm while two warriors stood out in the hall and discussed whether or not to kill him.

  Perhaps they thought they were far enough away that he couldn’t hear them, but he doubted it. He might not know who he was, but he was certain about a few things. One was that he was used to trusting his instincts when it came to judging the nature of a man’s character.

  There was something different about Gideon and Murdoch, and even that younger one who was clearly part of their inner circle. It was more than the easy camaraderie of men who served together. He’d been too caught up in his own predicament at first to notice that all three of them had the same freakishly pale eyes.

  Given their very different physical appearances and builds, it was doubtful that it came from a shared bloodline, which left only one explanation. They’d been marked by magic, but what kind he couldn’t say.

  They were headed in his direction. If he could believe their conversation out in the hall, he’d live to see another day. Fine. He supposed he should be relieved about their decision.

  But this not knowing was killing him.

  He braced himself and pushed himself upright. When the pain didn’t knock him right back down, he kicked his legs free of the quilt and swung his feet down to the ground. He took sitting up for the victory it was, a step back toward normal.

  Just as Murdoch shuffled across the threshold, Sigil stiffened his spine and pretended he wasn’t about to fall right back down on the mattress. Captain Gideon followed his friend into the room, making sure to keep himself between Murdoch and Sigil.

  Did he really think Sigil could offer any kind of threat right now? At the moment, a stiff breeze would knock him flat. It was more likely Gideon’s habit to scan any room he entered for possible danger.

  Murdoch’s reaction to seeing Sigil sitting up was slightly friendlier. Gideon’s pale eyes remained ice-cold, but there was a small degree of warmth in the wounded warrior’s gaze and maybe a hint of guilt because of the conversation he’d had with his captain a few minutes earlier.

  Sigil didn’t hold it against him. After all, until the night of the battle, they’d fought for opposing sides. And if Duke Keirthan was anywhere as bad as he’d been told, what kind of man would serve him? No one Sigil wanted to be, or at least he’d like to think so.

  Murdoch paused at the foot of the bed. “Good to see you sitting upright. Maybe the next time I decide to prowl the hall, you’ll be up to walking with me.”

  Even if Gideon wasn’t particularly friendly, Murdoch’s invitation seemed sincere. However, right now the big man was weaving from side to side. Sigil struggled to stand up to catch him. When that failed, he settled for a verbal warning.

  “Watch it, Murdoch!”

  Gideon had been too busy staring at Sigil to notice. He belatedly grabbed Murdoch’s arm in time to keep him from toppling over. After wrapping it around his own shoulder, he braced himself to support his friend’s considerable weight.

  “Damn it, Murdoch; get back to bed before Lady Alina comes in and finds you sprawled on the floor. If you get hurt again, she’ll come after me with a dull blade.”

  Murdoch laughed even as he let Gideon support him. “It might be worth a few extra bruises to see that.”

  The doorway was too narrow for the two of them to clear standing side by side, so Gideon angled his position to go through first. Murdoch looked back at Sigil one last time.

  “Do you play chess?”

  “Yes, I do.” Something else he knew for certain, another small step forward in regaining his identity. “I think I’m pretty good at it.”

  Murdoch nodded as he disappeared into his room. “Guess we’ll both find out tomorrow which of us is the better man.”

  Sigil’s brief surge of victory faded as quickly as it had come. He already knew the answer to that particular challenge, and it wasn’t him.

  Chapter 10

  There’d been an odd note in Lavinia’s voice that had Duncan thinking she’d just looked him straight in the eye and lied. The question was why?

  Now wasn’t the time to confront her, not with all that dark magic pulsing in the coins. He smiled at her in response, making sure his expression reflected less acceptance and more accusation. Her fair skin paled, but she didn’t recant. Fine. They had a more pressing problem right now.

  “How do you suggest we destroy the coins?”

  She stared at the bright, shiny gold, biting down hard on her lower lip while she thought. He was hit with the impulse to soothe that small hurt by kissing away the pain and her worry. The strength of that urge shocked him. The Damned weren’t given to impulsive behavior, especially not him.

  It was far more in character for him to study a problem from all angles, to research, to ponder. He didn’t know if it was the swirling currents of magic that surrounded them or the presence of Lavinia herself that had his blood running hot. He tamped the impulse down as best he could, not liking the threat to his control when they could least afford it.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  Lavinia continued to stare at the coin. “I would learn more if I were to touch it directly.”

  He remembered her reaction to just holding her hand above it yesterday in the workroom. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m not sure of anything, but I need to know the true nature of the spell before I can best discern how to counter it.” She drew a shuddering breath and held out her hand.

  He held the coin over her upturned palm and released it. As soon as it touched her skin, she hissed as if it burned, but her hand held steady. She closed her eyes and slowly curled her fingers around the coin. After a time, she gently laid the coin back down on the table and picked up the second one. “It has been infused with the duke’s personal power.”

  She glanced at him briefly. “I have encountered his work before, but never anything this intense. His gift has grown in strength
.”

  The second coin dropped back down on the granite surface with a dull thud. It was as if the magic embedded in the metal had increased the coin’s weight a hundred-fold. Lavinia immediately wiped her hand on her skirt.

  “It was created with blood magic, not simply drawn off his own personal source of power.” Her dark eyes were sorrowful when she stepped back. “Someone bled to fuel these weapons.”

  Duncan stared at the coins, repulsed by the depths of the duke’s perfidy. “Bled unto death?”

  “There’s no way to know for sure. But from what I know of the duke, he is not a trusting man, and his hold over Agathia is tenuous. He can’t risk having many witnesses to the kind of magic he is practicing for fear his subjects will rise up against him. As long as there are only whispers of his villainy, he can continue to build his strength.”

  Once again, she stared at the coins. “The blood may have been a willing donation by one of his followers, but more likely it came from a victim. Someone with a touch of power of his own.”

  Duncan thought of the young girl who’d spoken to him in Lavinia’s office. “Like Sarra’s mother?”

  Lavinia nodded. “Magic begets magic. Even blood that carries only a weak gift can be used to enhance the power of a spell, especially at the hands of a powerful mage.”

  “And Duke Keirthan is such a mage?”

  She nodded, her eyes looking in every direction but Duncan’s. “He is now, although he didn’t used to be. His family line has produced some fine mages over the centuries, good men and women who have served Agathia well.”

  “But Keirthan himself isn’t one of them.”

  Her expression was bleak. “No, he’s not. He’s a jealous, spiteful man who will steal what he doesn’t rightly own or deserve, no matter the cost to others. He does not deserve to rule Agathia.”

  In a sudden burst of motion and power, she screamed out a plea to the gods of the earth and sky, her words spoken in an old tongue as she slammed her hand down on top of the two coins. The air around them crackled with a flash of heat and light that sent them both stumbling back. If Duncan hadn’t caught Lavinia when he did, she would’ve fallen across the circle of stone in the floor, breaking the wards that surrounded them.

  His ears hurt from the clap of thunder created by the clash of Lavinia’s spell with the blood magic. Power bounced around them, trapped inside the wards, buffeting them both as if they were caught within a maelstrom. When it finally burned itself out, all that was left of the coins was a small pile of dust.

  Duncan had no idea precisely what Lavinia had been thinking about right before she destroyed the coins, but there was no mistaking the grief in her voice or the trickle of tears down her cheeks. This time he didn’t resist the impulse to offer comfort. He gathered Lavinia in his arms, keeping his touch gentle.

  To his surprise, her arms snaked around his waist and held him in a death grip. He wasn’t sure how to react, but he hoped his embrace conveyed the simple concern of a friend for a friend.

  In truth, however, the sweet press of her body against his had him thinking along entirely different lines. Having gone centuries without the pleasure of a woman in his arms, much less his bed, was no excuse for taking advantage of a woman who was clearly in pain. Shame had him easing a little more room between them.

  He sensed Lavinia pulling herself back together, her hold on him loosening. Finally, she breathed deeply and lifted her face to look up at him.

  “I apologize for losing control. At the very least I should’ve warned you before I attempted to destroy the blood magic. Were you hurt in the backlash?”

  He used the pads of his thumbs to wipe the last few tears from her soft skin. Then he forced a smile. “My ears may never be the same, but otherwise I’m fine.”

  At first she looked horrified but then realized he was teasing. “Next time I’ll remind you to stuff cotton in your ears.”

  This time his grin was genuine. “I think I’ll remember on my own.”

  He should back away now and let her go, but he couldn’t bring himself to take that first step. Not with Lavinia staring up at him with a sunshine-bright smile. “We did it!”

  For the first time she looked truly happy. “That we did!”

  On impulse, Duncan picked Lavinia up and swung her around in a circle, the two of them laughing in relief. The coins no longer called out to them with a terrible power; their first obstacle had been vanquished. Holding her high enough that she was looking down at him, he stared at her lush mouth. In a moment of weakness, he gave in to the impulse to end their brief celebration with a simple kiss; except there was nothing simple about it, not with the jolt of heat and hunger that rolled through him as soon as his lips brushed across hers. He immediately broke off the kiss, lowered her back to the ground, and stepped away, breathing hard and fighting the urge to pick up where they’d left off.

  When he could speak, he said, “I apologize if this is forbidden, Lavinia. I would not tarnish your honor.”

  “Or your own.”

  “Or my own,” he agreed.

  Her mouth softened into a smile. “It is not forbidden, but neither is it wise. I serve the gods, but not as a sister who has taken vows.”

  Still, she made no move to step back. Her indecision only fueled his own. They both had obligations, duties, people who depended on them, roles to play. But those things existed only beyond the confines of this room, their existence for the moment held at bay by the wards that Lavinia had invoked.

  Inside those layers of power, there were only the two of them sharing this one moment, the weight of their burden lightened by the comfort of each other’s touch. Wise? Perhaps not, but damned if he was going to regret this opportunity to remember what it was like to be wholly human and a man.

  Her expression turned serious. “This cannot happen again, Sir Duncan. We can’t . . . I can’t.”

  When she struggled to find the words, he hushed her with a finger across her lips. “I know. We both have responsibilities and vows to fulfill.”

  Lavinia stepped back, putting far more distance between them than a few inches of space.

  “We should go.”

  “Yes, we should.”

  He bent down to retrieve the empty steel box while she released the wards that had them penned in. As he followed her to the door, he had one more thing to say, something that needed to be spoken before they returned to the world on the other side.

  “Lavinia, there’s one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “I have no regrets and would hope that you feel the same way.”

  Her smile was infinitely sad. “If you have no regrets in your life, Duncan, then you are indeed blessed. I have many, but kissing you will not be one of them.”

  When Lavinia stepped through the door, she was once again the abbess, her slender shoulders bearing all the weight of that office. He stopped to retrieve his weapons, but she kept going. She never stopped to look back, not even once.

  Chapter 11

  “Your wine, Sire.”

  Ifre Keirthan, Duke of Agathia, didn’t bother looking up from the manuscript he was studying. “Just set it down and go. Tell everyone else that I am to remain undisturbed until the evening meal.”

  When he finally raised his eyes to stare across the desk at the servant, he spoke in a grave tone he knew would not be misunderstood. “If anyone does cross that threshold, I will be most displeased.”

  The servant swallowed hard, his face already covered with a sheen of nervous sweat. “Y-yes, Sire. I will ensure that your wishes are carried out.”

  “Good. Now go.”

  Keirthan watched the man bolt for the door and smiled. Striking fear in his underlings was such a pleasure. He turned his attention back to the passage he’d been trying to translate. He’d never been the scholarly one in the family, but now he wished he’d paid more attention to his brother’s efforts to teach him the old tongues.

  Too late now. Ifre glanced at his brother’s
portrait on the wall and smiled. There’d been that unfortunate accident that ended up with Armel dead, followed by Ifre Keirthan regretfully assuming his brother’s duties as ruler of Agathia. The official period of mourning was almost over, but he’d kept his brother’s portrait where he could look at it and gloat.

  He set down his pen to savor the moment. Armel had possessed a vast potential as a mage. Magic had come easily to him, and so had the gift for tongues that so many of the old texts were written in—especially the forbidden ones.

  Everyone knew Armel had been blessed, but potential magic was worthless when a man was burdened with a conscience and an overabundance of honor. No, it only had value when a man had the courage to exploit that potential and to let it take him down the darker roads where true power could be found.

  A man like Ifre.

  “Armel, you would be amazed at what I’ve accomplished.” He lifted his glass in a mocking toast to his much-detested older brother. “And horrified, which is even better.”

  Time to get back to work. He’d managed to strengthen the spell he’d been working on for weeks, enough that he’d succeeded in sending several bolts of death soaring across the grasslands. He wasn’t sure what the bolts had killed, but he’d savored the pain and terror right up until the energy had burned itself out.

  The effort had left him exhausted, but the sweet taste of death more than made up for the temporary discomfort. What he really needed was to find a way to repeat the spell, but this time aim the backlash at someone else. He’d drained the woman whose blood had fueled the spell. Maybe he should’ve kept her alive long enough to bear the brunt of the pain. He jotted that thought down in his notes to consider later.

  There had to be a way to do that, which led him back to the text he’d been working his way through one word at a time. He’d make faster progress if he hired someone to translate the archaic language for him. The drawback would be having to trust the scribe to keep his mouth shut about the nature of Ifre’s studies. For now, he’d continue to struggle along on his own.