FATE
We exit Baldur’s home and find ourselves back in the vale. This time, however, we’re not headed down towards the little river in the tight valley, but up towards the towering cliffs that rise sharply behind the house.
As we ascend a steep path, I see it’s been well cared for, with tight-fitted white granite stones that form a staircase. Heading up the eastern face of the cliff, we come to a spot that’s been built up like a retaining wall, holding in a deep pool of steaming water that issues right out of the rock.
The path ends and Baldur shucks his boots, stripping his leather pants away to hang them up beneath an ornately carved awning of white birchwood. I’m already naked, so I just straddle the stone wall of the steaming pool and head in.
Sinking down to find the water is just right.
Pale blue and slightly milky, thanks to the natural minerals in the volcanic hot springs, the steaming water hides my nakedness now as I find a perfectly placed shelf underneath the surface to sit my ass.
It leaves me able to fold my arms on the rock wall, gazing out over theravine to where I can see the sunset lowering down in the western sky. It’s haunting and beautiful, perfect, as Baldur steps in to settle beside me.
He doesn’t sit too close, as I feel a sudden urge in him to reach out and touch me. He smoothes it calmly back, keeping his inner drake well away from mate-tasting me.
Until we can get to know each other better.
“I suppose we shouldn’t hold back so hard. If it’s already a done deal that we’ll be mates.” I glance at him. His dark blue eyes are unfathomable as he watches me, and I get nothing now from his inner drake.
Though I can still feel it burning deep inside him.
“It’s not a done deal, not by a long shot,” he says mysteriously now as he watches me.
And I already know what he’s talking about.
“Your sister saw a vision of us being together, but we get to choose our fate.” I regard him, feeling strangely elated about having such a calm conversation about all this in such a beautiful place.
Feeling safe with the man sitting beside me, though I don’t know him at all yet.
“You have questions about me,” Baldur says now as he nods. “I get it. I would have a lot more questions, too, if I hadn’t been watching your rise and fall as Hög Skjaldmær of our people all these years. Curious about the one who would come to me.”
“You’ve been watching me?” I frown now.
“Not spying on you psychically, no. I do not have that ability.” He chuckles, though his dark blue eyes are piercing in the lowering light. “Just following the clan hubbub and hearsay concerning you for several years now. Whether you like it or not, Rikyava Andersen, you are a very public figure in our Lineage… and a unique persona, if I may say so.”
“Unique, how?” I have to ask, as I watch him now, curious.
“A highborn royal drakaina, rising like a meteor in her power, so young.” His blue eyes pierce me, seeing things unknown. “Parents gone, immediate family gone, adopted by the King and by one of the strongestHigh Matriarchs the Black Dragon Knights have seen in years… though they aren’t the True Knights, not at all.”
“You’re aware of the True and False Knights?” I ask now, blinking in surprise.
“I am.” He nods, calm as he continues. “Chosen as Maryse’s successor, you were ostracized after your sister’s coup on the palace. Living in exile, you shine like a star for the Red Letter Hotel Paris now, instead of for your King or the Knights, one of the best Guard Captains the Hotel has ever had. You put up a vicious battle against your Royal Dragon friends’ enemy, Hunter, when they needed you.” Baldur’s gaze pierces me to the quick. “You’re loyal to the end to your friends, against certain death. Now you are similarly loyal to your King and people, and to your drakes, against a fate worse than death.”
“You make it sound so easy.” I chuckle, though I’m alert as I listen.
“You make it look easy,” Baldur says, “when it’s most assuredly not.”
“No, it’s not.” I sigh now, as I’m reminded of everything we’re up against, and how impossible it all seems. Looking down at my hands, I sluice them through the milky water. “I don’t mean to drag you into this. If you don’t want to be a part of it… I understand.”
“I was here for it all before you were even born,” Baldur says now, and something in his tone makes me look up. Though he watches me, a haunted look has taken him; I can’t even begin to fathom his thoughts as he stares into me,beyondme, then regathers himself.
He’s not a Bloodwalker, but it’s a look Bloodwalkers get when they gaze beyond the Veil. It’s a there/not there look that Baldur’s had, like he has some ability to gaze into the Void of Ancestors and see what’s there.
I wonder now, with all his training and history as a shaman, if he can’t.
“My story goes way back.” He refocuses on me, and I realize he’s going to give me his full tale. “Over a thousand years ago, when I was just a youngling and my parents died in battle, my sister Hekla took over my care. You must understand that she was already a mature Bloodwalker by then, complete in her tremendous power. Though she was a Bloodwalkerlike the ancients, her power was unique; she took no drakes into a harem, but bound both sides of her dualistic magic into stability by the sigildric arts, with tattoos all over her body.”
“She bound her power with tattoos? Withnomates?” My lips fall open and I let them.
