Horatio shakes his head slowly, his dark eyes shadowed.
“No—I came to kill her. For in my ignorance, I thought she was evil. I was told that I must cleanse the forest of her power.”
Not too surprising, I think. He probably comes from a people like Irena’s. Their kind fears what they cannot control. But I wonder why he didn’t complete his mission.
“Really?” I frown, arms crossed. “And what changed your mind, friend?”
“Why, the moment I laid eyes upon her lovely face, I knew such beauty must belong to a pure heart.” He sighs, his entire expression softening. “For she is the most lovely thing I ever beheld. The moment I saw her, I knew I would spend all my days serving her. And so I have. It has been five and fifty years since I came upon my Lady in her bower, and thus ever have I served her since.”
My brows rise.
“Five and fifty years?” Irena echoes, blinking in disbelief. “But surely you cannot be more than thirty, Sir Knight.”
“Ah, I am as I was when first I came here and found my Lady,” Horatio answers. “For she keeps and preserves us in the flower of our youth—I and my fellow knights who serve her. Darrin is sixty and Fenric has seventy and eight years to his name.”
Fuck—how is she preserving their lives? Because Irena is right—none of them looks a day past thirty. Another question occurs to me—how is she controlling them?
Is it a spell? A potion? Some magical pact? Why are they so eager to share her and live eternally at her side like obedient dogs at a goddess’s heel?
“And do you like serving her?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light, though unease knots in my gut.
Horatio frowns slightly, as though I’ve asked if water is wet.
“Of a certainty I love serving her,” he says. “For she is my light and my life—I would never wish to leave her.”
There’s something in his voice that bothers me—devotion so total it has become obsession. But the black knight doesn’t give me time to question him further. He claps his hands and gives us a smile.
“And now, refresh yourselves, for if I know my Lady, she shall prepare a great feast for you in the banqueting chamber.”
“Oh dear—I don’t think I’m fit to be seen at a banquet,” Irena murmurs, looking down at her torn gown in dismay.
“Fear not, my lady, for I am certain that my Lady-wife has thought of everything,” Horatio tells her. “Simply open the wardrobe in the corner and you will find all you need.”
He gestures to the corner, where a grand wardrobe stands—its wooden doors carved in curling spirals and knotwork so intricate it looks like woven ivy.
“And now, I must go,” the black knight says, bowing deeply. “For every moment I spend away from my Lady is agony. So I bid you adieu, until we meet again.”
He backs out of the room, closing the bark-formed door behind him with a soft creak, leaving Irena and me in the golden-lit quiet of the living bower.
I turn to her slowly, watching the light catch in her long, golden-brown hair.
“You heard him,” I murmur. “Looks like we’re expected to dress for dinner.”
Though if I had my way, I’d undress her first.
44
IRENA
“I can’t get dressed until I bathe first,” I say, trying to ignore the look Valen is giving me. I think watching the three knights “pay obeisance” to the Sorceress has gotten him excited.
It excited me too, but I’m not admitting it—not even to myself. Instead, I study the tub in the corner, which is lined with large, green leaves. It’s wooden, just like the one at The Slaughtered Lamb, but that’s where the similarities end.
The tub at the Lamb was crudely carved and rough to the touch. The tub in this magical flower room where the Lady of Thornmere has placed us, is smooth and polished and the outside is carved all over with what looks like runes in the Old Tongue. I frown as I puzzle them out.
“Be ye Clean,” I mutter, under my breath.
“What?” Valen frowns, confused.
