He stumbled back, motioning for her to follow and she walked into the house that used to be hers. Those who had served Svein Ragnarson before now stood broken and wretched along the corridors of the house. They shuffled aside as Hugh de Gifford approached. All but one woman.
“Dalla,” she said. No longer proud or pretentious, the woman could not even raise her gaze to Ran’s.
“Is that her name?” Hugh asked. There was no hint of sarcasm in his voice now.
“What have you done to her? To them?” she asked. They turned down a corridor that led to the servants’ rooms.
“They have been made to serve me,” Hugh said. “She thought her place as Svein’s favorite would save her somehow. She offered his secrets and his wealth to bargain with me.” They stopped before the smallest chamber in the house and Hugh lifted the latch. “They all learned.”
Ran stumbled and gasped when she saw her father. All sense of power seeped away in the face of his condition. For a moment, she was simply the daughter of a dying man. A dying man with his soul lost.
“Father?” she said, kneeling at the side of the small cot. “Father?” She took his hand and found it cold. “Papa, can you hear me?”
Ran could hear Hugh behind her. Turning she found him smirking. He had done this. He had taken her father, her people, even her house and destroyed all that was good. With no more thought than that, she created a wall of water that knocked him down and pushed him from the room. Ran dropped the bar on the door. Hugh could return and get in if he wanted to but she did not want him there now. Face him she must, but it would be later.
She leaned in closer and examined her father. His breaths were barely raising his chest and his skin was gray. She lifted the bed linens and pulled up his sleeve. Burns. Burns. Bruises on his stomach when she looked there. More burns and bruising on his legs.
He did not move with one exception—his lips tried to speak. From the bruising on his neck and throat, she doubted he could get a word out at all. Leaning closer, she tried to hear, but they were simply breaths without sound.
Ran placed her hand on his face and moved into him, her water joining with his. Coursing through his body, she saw the injuries that were not visible outside. But when she came to his head and his mind, she pulled herself back.
His mind was gone. What made him Svein Ragnarson was gone.
Knowing the only thing she could do was keep him at ease until he passed, Ran entered his flesh again and sent more of her healing water into him. Circling through him, pushing herself into his muscles and bones, she did what she could. But even with the goddess’s power, she could not sustain his life.
She formed at his side, pulling back into her human body and watched as he sank into a deeper sleep. His pallor was not as gray as before.
It would be harder now knowing the truth of his impending death. Her role in this tragic play was that of hopeful daughter. She must convince Hugh that her father was the price of her cooperation.
Give him words as smooth as the calm sea,the goddess said.
Ran stood and lifted the bar on the door, opening it to find Hugh waiting there. He entered and stood next to her father.
“He is the price of my help,” she said, pointing at her father. “He is the only reason I will help you and Soren. When the goddess is released, I want him made whole and returned to me. Along with all you’ve taken.”
“There will be many changes when the goddess returns, Waterblood,” Hugh said. Not all of them good, she knew, even without him saying so.
“I want your word, your bond on this,” she said, holding out her arm.
His gaze narrowed as he took her hand in his. She shuddered when he sent his fire into her, but let the water flow through and against it. The silent battle continued as his fire fought with her water. The last time they’d touched, he’d won. This time . . .
He released her first. With a wary look, he nodded and stepped away. “And what about Soren?” he asked.
“I care not,” she said.Smoothly,the goddess urged. “He betrayed me and destroyed my family. I want my father’s life and nothing else.”
The fireblood stepped closer and smiled. He was a handsome man and now filled with a vitality she’d not noticed before. He exuded a sensuality as he approached her. Arousal. He smelled of arousal.
“You care not about him, yet you have taken him back as your lover. You let him in your body. You pleasured him.”
“I have needs,” she said.
The heat in his breath against her neck had nothing to do with the fire that lived in his blood. He wanted her.
“I could see to them,” he said as he slid his finger along her neck. “We could see to them.”
Smoothly, daughter,the goddess urged.
“As you have said”—Ran turned to face him, moving away from his touch—“once the goddess is free, many things will be possible.” Bile rose in her mouth as she said such a blasphemy, but she kept her expression one of interest. “It all depends on my father’s life.”
