Chapter Four
Shattered, I watchedher stride away. The guards came to attention, saluting as she passed, the warm breeze catching the long coattail skirts of the black velvet gown, making them snap like the tower pennants, the silver of the leggings flashing in the cuts, black boots making crisp sounds now that she wasn’t being stealthy. She looked long, lean, and as dangerous as her sword.
How cleanly she’d cut out my heart, taking it with her and leaving me hollow.
Every muscle and nerve in my body urged me to run after her. To say what, though? In her usual fashion, Ursula had sliced to the bones of the problem. I’d never thought of my loyalties as divided, but they were. With another woman, that wouldn’t matter. The way we felt about each other would outweigh everything else.Another woman wouldn’t allow a matter of principle to override her heart.
But then, I hadn’t fallen in love with another woman.
It had only ever been Ursula for me, and always would be—despite those past vows.
Pledging theElskastholrrto her had been an easy decision. I’d been a simpler person then. A mercenary captain, disinherited from my past. The secrets I’d carried hadn’t been so heavy,and it had been easy—that word again—to let them lie buried. Easy at that time to forget I’d ever been anyone else.
In its purest form, theElskastholrrexists only in the heart and mind of the one who vows it. Ursula, heir to the throne of a tyrant, beloved of her people and obvious choice as their savior, had been a fine recipient for my vow. After witnessing the abuse of power in far too manyforms and places, I had no desire to be king, but I would happily serve as kingmaker. In that crystal moment of decision, I saw a scenario where I’d serve out my vows and Ursula would never know about theElskastholrr.
Deceptively simple.
I had told her, eventually, because she’d asked—and because I’d been unable to resist the temptation to have her. Nothing had remained simple for me afterthat. And, now, like the undead creatures animated by Deyrr’s cursed magic, the events of the past trudged relentlessly forward to convene with the present.
There is no easy way out of this.Ursula had the right of it. Even if I could mark the boundaries of the vows in my mind, tell her everything but the essentials I’d sworn in blood and flesh never to reveal, the secrets I kept would stilllie festering between us.
When I pledged theElskastholrrto Ursula, I hadn’t given those other, older vows I’d taken to protect Jenna a second thought. I’d had no expectation that Ursula would become my lover, that she’d return my love. A mercenary in love with a princess—nothing should have come of it.
Kral had himself a good laugh about it when he found out. Though with his practical, ambitiousnature, he’d always thought theElskastholrra hopelessly romantic and self-destructive tradition anyway. He’d never see his way to being so selfless that he’d pledge himself to a woman for the rest of his life, whether she returned his regard or not. Though Jepp may have changed that. She wouldn’t want eternal devotion so much, but shewoulddemand commitment—at knife point, if necessary.
Beinghonest with myself, I’d have to admit that I’d embraced the hopeless, even punitive aspects of pledging myself to an impossible love. Though I’d pursued Ursula, I hadn’t hoped for more than a night or two in her bed to sustain me.We always knew our love affair might be short-lived.I huffed out a laugh, a despairing edge to it that made a nearby guard look at me sharply.
I hadn’t known thatshe hadn’t had any real lovers before—or that in enticing her to unfurl her tightly closed heart, I’d become the sole caretaker of her intimate self.
Ursula would say this is why I shouldn’t have vowed myself to her without even having a conversation first. She’d have a fair point, too, except that I suspected we could’ve conversed for years and I wouldn’t have learned what I needed to know.
I knew I could spend the rest of my life with her and not be able to predict where her canny mind would go next.
Knowing her as I did now, however, how things had fallen out between us was all too predictable. I’d breached her walls and found my way to the heart of her as no one else had. Ursula didn’t trust or love easily, but when she did, she committed herself entirely, with unflagging loyaltyand determination.
Her own version of theElskastholrr, in a way.
I had no doubt that if I did leave, she’d never give her heart again. She might eventually agree to a marriage, perhaps even take another man to her bed to produce an heir of her own body for the High Throne and the realm she loved above all else. But she was the kind to give her heart only once. Another way that she and I werethe same.
From the beginning I’d been cognizant that if we succeeded in putting her on the High Throne, she’d one day make a marriage of state and not to me, a foreign mercenary. I would handle that eventuality when it happened—though the thought of another man making love to my Essla filled me with protective fury.
How could another man understand her particular fragility? Especially sinceshe hid it so well under that tough skin and slicing wit. She’d be so easy to injure. If she succeeded in sending me away, and she married another, I wouldn’t even be there to help her through that painful transition.
No matter what, I needed to make sure I stayed. I’d have to do what I could to bridge this chasm I’d created.
The great irony was that the vows I’d taken no longer served any realpurpose. I couldn’t reveal where Jenna had gone, because I didn’t know. I’d once had guesses. We’d planned to flee together to Halabahna, to see the elephants, but I’d looked for her there and never found a trace of her.
Elephants. Had Jenna ever found them? For a long time I’d thought if I looked where elephants are, I’d eventually find her, but no.
I had to face that she’d probably died longago. Or been captured, enslaved. An extraordinarily beautiful young woman with no ability to defend herself… It was a mark of my foolish idealism that I could even entertain anything but the worst fears for her fate. I’d likely never know what happened to her—and that I’d kept these heavy, destructive secrets all this time for no reason at all.
An alarmed shout went up from the lookout.
I spun,drawing my broadsword as I did, gratified that my sweeping glance verified all the guards in sight did likewise, brandishing whatever weapons they used best. The shout came from the highest tower, from a young woman I knew to be one of Jepp’s protégées, a scout for the Hawks. She waved a flag in a complicated series of dips and twirls—one of their cryptic codes I had yet to learn—and I scannedfor the nearest Hawk commander. Brant. With a gesture I summoned him and he came at a run.
“Report,” I ordered.
He turned to watch the flag. “Unidentified movement. Request to be alert. Shadows in motion.”
