Morrigan's Cross - Circle Trilogy 1 Part 36

In the moment between wake and sleep, there was candlelight, and the bliss of nothing.

Easy warmth and sheets scented with lavender, and floating on the comfort of nothing.

But the moment pa.s.sed, and Glenna remembered.

King was dead, hurled into the sea by monsters with the same carelessness of a boy tossing a pebble into a lake.

She'd gone upstairs alone, by her own request, to seek the solitude and oblivion of sleep.

Watching the candle flicker, she wondered if she would ever be able to sleep in the dark again. If she would ever be able to see night coming and not think their time was coming with it. To walk in the moonlight without fear? Would she ever know that simplicity again? Or would even a rainy day forever send chills down her spine?

She turned her head on the pillow. And she saw him silhouetted by the silver light that slid through the window that overlooked his herb garden. Keeping watch in the night, she thought, over her. Over them all. Whatever burdens they all bore, his were heavier. And still he'd come to stand between her and the dark.

"Hoyt."

She sat up as he turned, and she held out her hands to him.

"I didn't want to wake you." He crossed to her, took her hands while studying her face in the dim light. "Are you in pain?"

"No. No, it's gone under, at least for now.

I have you and Moira to thank for that."

"You helped yourself as much as we did.

And sleep will help as well."

"Don't go. Please. Cian?"

"I don't know." He sent a troubled look toward the door. "Closed in his rooms with the whiskey." Looking at her, he brushed back her hair, turning her face to take a closer study at the bruising. "We're all using what we can tonight, so the pain goes under."

"She would never have let him go. She would never have released King. No matter what we'd done."

"No." He eased down to sit on the side of the bed. "Cian must have known that somewhere inside him, but he had to try. We had to try." By pretending to be a bargaining chip, she thought, remembering Hoyt's explanation of what they'd seen on the cliffs.

"Now we all know there can be no bargaining in this," he continued. "Are you strong enough to hear what I have to say?"

"Yes."

"We've lost one of us. One of the six we were told we needed to fight this battle, to win this war. I don't know what it means."

"Our warrior. Maybe it means we all have to become warriors. Better ones. I killed tonight, Hoyt-more from luck than skill-but I destroyed what had once been human. I can and will do it again. But with more skill. Every day with more skill. She took one of us, and she thinks it'll make us weak and frightened. But she's wrong. We'll show her she's wrong."

"I'm to lead this battle. You have great skill in magicks. You'll work in the tower on weapons, s.h.i.+elds, spells. A protective circle to- "

"Whoa, wait." She held up a hand. "Am I getting this? I'm consigned to the tower-what, like Rapunzel?"

"I don't know this person."

"Just another helpless female waiting to be rescued. I'll work on the magicks, and I'll work harder and longer. Just like I'll train harder and longer. But what I won't do is sit up in the tower day and night with my cauldron and crystals, writing spells while the rest of you fight."

"You had your first battle today, and it nearly killed you."

"And gave me a lot more respect for what we're up against. I was called to this, just like the rest of us. I won't hide from it."

"Using your strengths isn't hiding. I was given the charge of this army-"

"Well, let me slap some bars on you and call you Colonel."

"Why are you so angry?"

"I don't want you to protect me. I want you to value me."

"Value you?" He shoved to his feet so the red s.h.i.+mmer from the fire washed over his face.

"I value you almost more than I can bear. I've lost too much already. I've watched my brother, the one who shared the womb with me, taken.

I've stood over the graves of my family. I won't see you cut down by these things-you, the single light for me in all of this. I won't risk your life again. I won't stand over your grave."

"But I can risk your life? I can stand over your grave?" "I'm a man."

He said it so simply, the way an adult might tell a child the sky is blue, that she couldn't speak for ten full seconds. Then she plopped back against the pillows. "The only reason I'm not working on turning you into a braying jacka.s.s this very moment is I'm giving you some slack due to the fact you come from an unenlightened age."

"Un... unenlightened?"

"Let me clue you in to mine, Merlin.

Women are equals. We work, we go into combat, we vote, and above all, we make our own decisions regarding our own lives, our own bodies, our own minds. Men don't rule here."

"I've never known a world where men rule," he muttered. "In physical strength, Glenna, you're not equal."

"We make up for it with other advantages."

"However keen your minds, your wiles, your bodies are more fragile. They're made to bear children."

"You just gave me a contradiction in terms. If men were responsible for childbearing, the world would've ended a long time ago, with no help from a bunch of glory-seeking vampires.

And let me point out one little fact. The one causing this whole mess is a female." "Somehow that should be my point."

"Well, it's just not. So forget it. And the one who brought us together is also female, so you're way outnumbered. And I have more ammo, but this ridiculous conversation is giving me a headache."

"You should rest. We'll talk more of this tomorrow."

"I'm not going to rest, and we're not going to talk about this tomorrow."

His single light? he thought. Sometimes she was a beam searing straight into his eyes.

"You are a contrary and exasperating woman."

"Yes." Now she smiled, and once more held out her hands. "Sit down here, would you?

You're worried about me, and for me. I understand that, appreciate that."

"If you would do this thing for me." He lifted her hands to his lips. "It would ease my mind. Make me a better leader."

"Oh, that's good." She drew her hands away to poke him gently in the chest. "Very good. Women aren't the only ones with wiles."

"Not wile, but truth."

"Ask me for something else, and I'll try to give it to you. But I can't give you this, Hoyt. I worry for you, too, and about you. For all of us. And I question what we can do, what we're capable of. And I wonder why in all the world- the worlds-we're the ones who have to do this thing. But none of that changes anything. We are the ones. And we've lost a very good man already."

"If I lose you... Glenna, there's a void in me at the very thought of it."

Sometimes, she knew, the woman had to be stronger. "There are so many worlds, and so many ways. I don't think we could ever lose each other now. What I have now is more than I've ever had before. I think it makes us better than we were. Maybe that's part of why we're here. To find each other."

She leaned into him, sighed when his arms encircled her. "Stay with me. Come lie with me. Love me."

"You need to heal."

"Yes." She drew him down with her, touched her lips to his. "I do."

He hoped he had the tenderness in him that she needed. He wanted to give her that, the magic of it.

"Slowly then." He brushed kisses over her cheek. "Quietly."

He used just his lips, skimming kisses over her mouth, her face, her throat. Warm and soothing. He brushed away the thin gown she wore to trace those easy kisses over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, over her bruises. In comfort and with care.

Soft as birds' wings, lips and fingertips to ease her mind and her body, and to stir them.

And when their eyes met, he knew more than he'd ever known. Held more than he'd ever owned.

He lifted her up onto a pillow of air and silver light, making magic their bed. Around the room, the candles came to life with a sound like a sigh. And the light they shed was like melted gold.

"It's beautiful." She took his hands as they floated, closed her eyes on the sumptuous joy of it. "This is beautiful."

"I would give you all I have, and still it wouldn't be enough."

"You're wrong. It's everything."

More than pleasure, more than pa.s.sion.

Did he know what he made of her when he touched her like this? Nothing they faced, no terror or pain, no death or d.a.m.nation could overcome this. The light inside her was like a beacon, and it would never be dark again.

Here was life at its sweetest and most generous. The taste of him was a balm to her soul even as his touch roused desires. Steeped in him, she lifted her arms, turned up her palms.

Rose petals, white as snow, streamed down like rain.

She smiled when he slipped into her, when they moved together, silky and slow. Light and air, scent and sensation surrounded the rise and fall of bodies and hearts.

Once more their fingers meshed, once more their lips met. And as they drifted together, love healed them both.

In the kitchen, Moira puzzled over a can of soup. No one had eaten, and she was determined to make some sort of meal should Glenna awake. She'd managed the tea, but she'd been shown how to conquer that.

She'd only watched King open one of the cylinders with the little machine that made the nasty noise. She'd tried and failed three times to make it work, and was seriously considering getting her sword and hacking the cylinder open.

She had a little kitchen magic-precious little, she admitted. Glancing around to be sure she was alone, she pulled what she had together, and visualized the can open.

It s.h.i.+mmied a bit on the counter, but remained stubbornly whole. "All right, one more time then."

She bent down, studied the opener that was attached to the underside of the cupboard.

With the proper tools she could take it apart, find out how it worked. She loved taking things apart. But if she had the proper tools, she could just open the b.l.o.o.d.y cylinder in the first place.

She straightened, shook her hair back, rolled her shoulders. Muttering to herself, she tried once again to do the deed. This time, when the machine whirled, the can revolved. She clasped her hands together in delight, then bent close again to watch it work.

It was so clever, she thought. So much here was clever. She wondered if she'd ever be allowed to drive the van. King had said he'd teach her how it was done.

Her lips trembled at the thought of it, of him, and she pressed them hard together. She prayed his death had been quick, and his suffering brief. In the morning, she would put up a stone for him in the graveyard she and Larkin had seen when they'd been walking.

And when she returned to Geall, she would erect another, and ask the harper to write a song for him.

She emptied the contents into a pot and set it on the burner, turning it on as Glenna had showed her. They needed to eat. Grief and hunger would make them weak, and weakness would make them easier prey. Bread, she decided.

They would have some bread. It would be a simple meal, but filling.

She turned toward the pantry, then stumbled back when she saw Cian in the doorway. He leaned against the wall, the nearly empty whiskey bottle dangling from his fingers.

"Midnight snack?" His teeth showed white with his smile. "I've a fondness for them myself."

"No one's eaten. I thought we should."

"Always thinking, aren't you, little queen? Mind's always going."

He was drunk, she could see that. Too much whiskey had dulled his eyes and thickened his voice. But she could also see the pain. "You should sit before you fall over."

"Thanks for the kind invitation, in my own b.l.o.o.d.y house. But I just came down for another bottle." He shook the one he held.

"Someone appears to have made off with this one."

"Drink yourself sick if you want to be stupid about it. But you might as well eat something. I know you eat, I've seen you. I've gone to the trouble to make it." He glanced at the counter, smirked. "You opened a tin."

"It's sorry I am I didn't have time to kill the fatted calf. So you'll make do."

She turned around to busy herself, then went very still when she felt him behind her. His fingers skimmed the side of her throat, light as a moth's wings.

"I'd have thought you tasty once upon a time."