Wyndham’s footsteps came closer and Kaelyn’s blood rushed in her ears. Now that she was here on the window ledge outside his room, she had no idea what she’d say to him. Maybe she shouldn’t have come. If the rumors were true and they were in love it was cruel of her to visit him on the night his betrothal was confirmed. At least she couldn’t remember anything. But he knew it all–which was the problem.
His face appeared in the small view she had of the room and he sat on the edge of the bed. He looked tired–everyone of late seemed tired–with dark shadows under his eyes. He dragged his shirt over his head, not bothering with the buttons, revealing a narrow, well-muscled chest.
The candle flickered, rippling light through his pale hair, hinting at a halo trying to break free. He didn’t deserve any pain she might bring him, even unwittingly. There would be others who could tell her who she was. What she wanted of him was unkind.
He leaned over to blow out a candle, and glanced at the window. She eased back into the shadow, her heart pounding. Please don’t let him have seen her. But the sigh of bare feet on the stone floor drew near.
“I thought you’d come,” he said.
She froze.
“I didn’t think you’d let me go without saying goodbye.”
Instinct told her he was close, very close, just on the other side of the shutter. She stood still, she wasn’t even sure if she breathed. It seemed absurd that she trembled on a ledge, clinging to ivy, afraid of the very reason for her being there. All she had to do was talk to him, find out what she was going to lose tomorrow with the flick of a quill. What was so difficult about a conversation?
She should go. Say goodbye and go. She’d been wrong to come. No matter who she asked or where she sought, she was never going to find the answers she was looking for. She wasn’t even sure if she knew the right question.
She peered through the ivy to the cobblestone courtyard two stories below. If she was careful, she could use the vines to climb down.
“Kaelyn, why won’t you talk to me?” The shutter creaked and she imagined his hand resting on the other side.
She raised her palm to meet his between wood and imagination.
“Why can’t it be like it was?” he asked.
Because it just wasn’t. It would never be like it was even if she could remember. Even if she was whole when she’d begun her journey she wasn’t the same person now. Too much had happened. And yet nothing had happened at all. She’d traveled north to find herself and had found only a cold, snowy blanket covering everything. Before she might not have been whole but at least she’d been warm. Now, it felt as if she could never be warm again.
The northern moon, full and cold and uncaring, filled her memory and she felt more empty than she had before.
“Tomorrow the treaty will be signed and as an act of good faith I will be wed in the north.”
She knew that. It frightened her to think of Wyndham returning to a land of seemingly unending winter.
“You’ll visit?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to find her voice, yet knowing he couldn’t see her behind the shutter.
“You were gone for so long–”
Had she thought of him? She couldn’t remember. She knew he’d held back during their time together, but in what way he wouldn’t say, and she’d been in no mood to find out then. Now, she had to know.
“What were we?” she asked, so quiet she feared he hadn’t heard her.
“Nothing. . . ,” he said, his voice just as soft.
She swallowed.
“And everything.”
Her eyes burned with tears. Against all logic, she fought them back. She hadn’t cried at the temple, hadn’t been able to cry, why would this be what broke her? Even if he’d wanted her in this life or the last it could have never been. He, even more than her, was a political pawn of his family, regardless of desire or fate. Their paths would never be joined. Perhaps it was better having no memory of what was, knowing that it would never be. She knew she would always wonder, but would never suffer as he would.
“I will visit.” The words spilled out even as she justified to herself why she should never see him again.
She pressed her cheek to the shutter. What was left to say? In the end, their desires were as empty and elusive as her memory.
A breeze, cool but smelling of spring, swept through the vines, pulling last year’s brown and withered growth away from the small spouts of this year. A new year. A new life.
And old sorrows she couldn’t remember. Curse whatever gods were out there.
The door crashed open. Men yelled, calling in broken northern.
Kaelyn’s throat tightened. She sucked in a shaky breath and inched the shutter open. Wyndham stood halfway to his sword, arms raised in supplication. She couldn’t see the assailants but their numbers didn’t matter. Only Wyndham did.
She kicked open the shutter and leapt into the room, drawing her blade. Three men, dressed as clansmen, stood in the doorway. They were tall, taller than the average clansman, and their hair was too short. Someone was going to an awful lot of trouble to make this look like the north was attacking.
“I thought you said the bitch wouldn’t be here,” said one of the men in southern over his shoulder to a fourth man standing in the hall.
“I was sure she wouldn’t.” It sounded like Aric.
Kaelyn glanced at Wyndham who narrowed his eyes.
“I’m a little confused,” she said in northern, knowing if it was Aric he would understand but hopefully the clansmen impersonators wouldn’t.
Aric shoved the men forward stood in the doorway. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“From the looks of it, neither are you.” She squeezed the hilt of her blade, her palms suddenly sweaty.
Wyndham inched closer to his sword. “So much for obeying the crown.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“Excuse me?”
Aric raised his blade and grimaced. “The treaty can’t go through.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Kaelyn. She couldn’t believe after all the time they’d spent together he’d try to kill them.
“Stand aside, Kaelyn.”
“You’re trying to kill a prince of the House of Vitreah, and a friend.” Maybe she could get him to see reason. She had no idea what had led to this.
Aric sucked in a shaky breath. “I have my orders. It must be done.”
The three men between them stepped forward.
“You arrogant little nothing,” said Wyndham.
Kaelyn lengthened her stance. “I won’t let you kill him.”
“You’re good, Kaelyn,” said Aric. “But you’re out-numbered.”
He was right about that. And if she fell, Wyndham wouldn’t stand a chance. They needed to escape instead of fight.
“Plan?” asked Wyndham.
“Window.”
The closest man swung at her and she stepped aside, sliding her blade between his ribs and into a lung. He collapsed, gasping. The other men hesitated for just a moment, then leapt for her. She dodged a strike from the one on her left, only to step toward a jab from the man on her right. She twisted to avoid a fatal blow. The blade brushed past her midriff, and dipped, shearing through pant and flesh on her thigh.
Hot pain raced up her leg. She ground her teeth and spared a glance behind her. Wyndham scrambled out the window. Good. She blocked another strike, backed up, and glanced out. In the dark with the vines in the way, she had no way of knowing if Wyndham had reached the bottom yet. It would just have to hold both of them.
Turning, she hopped onto the ledge, jerked the shutter closed and slid her sword into its sheath. She grabbed the vines and scrambled down, dropping the last few feet into Wyndham’s embrace.
Her skin tingled where he touched her, even through her clothes and his breath warmed her cheeks.
They had been nothing and everything to each other.
She didn’t know how she felt about that, but now certainly wasn’t the time to contemplate it.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, easing away from him.
“We alert the guard.”
“I think that was the guard.”
“Someone has to still be loyal to my mother.”
“Yes, but who?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Wyndham. “I have to warn her.” He rushed to a small door inset in the heavy stone wall.
“Wyndham, wait.”
“There should be a guard around the corner,” he said, and ran inside.
That was what she was afraid of. She slid her sword from its scabbard and chased after him. “Slow down.”
He stopped and turned back as a guardsman stepped around the corner, sword in hand.
Time slowed. Recognition flashed across the guard’s face. He grimaced and brought his weapon up to swing at Wyndham’s head. She yelled. Wyndham jerked around, but he wasn’t going to get out of the way in time and she was too far away.
Blood rushed in her ears, devouring all sound. She raised her arm and threw her sword. It hurtled through the air, spearing the guard with a wet thunk. The man shuddered, slamming his blade into the wall a hairsbreadth above Wyndham.
Wyndham staggered away and Kaelyn raced to the guard. Blood pooled around the man and he didn’t move.
“I–” Wyndham’s eyes were wide.
“The two of us can’t fight our way to your mother.” She yanked her sword from the guard’s body.
“Two of us?”
“Yes.” She grabbed the guard’s weapon. “Now you’re armed.”
He took it and offered his familiar lopsided smile. “But it has a dent.”
She didn’t return his smile. Now was not the time for flippant remarks. “Don’t leave my side again. You know what this means,” she said, pointing to the guardsman.
He nodded, all mirth gone. “All the guards are in on it–”
“Which means we are not safe here.”
“But–”
“It’s you and me. No one else against a garrison of what. . . ? How many? If it’s not all of them, or there are still a few who are loyal, then your parents are safe. You and I can’t save them.”
The color drained from his face. “We might not be able to save ourselves.”
Her stomach roiled at the realization, and she wondered if she looked as afraid as she felt. “All right. How do we get out of here.”
“The guards will be at the gate.”
“Any other options? I’d rather not fight our way out.”
A muffled scream cut through the eerie silence filling the hall.
“Through the catacombs. There’s a door,” said Wyndham.
“And the guards don’t know about it?” Not that Wyndham could know for certain either way.
“It didn’t look like anyone knew about it when I found it.”
“It will have to do.” She wasn’t going to ask where it led. Hopefully far away from here.
