“Yes.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Sorry about that. Apparently the little curse you put on her was tied to powerful emotions. It would kill her if I’d let those emotions remain, and I could not remove them without removing the memory of what had caused them in the first place.”
“It wasn’t a curse,” I answer, though there were times, gods help me, when our bond did indeed feel rather curse-like. “It was thevelra.”
She looks interested. “I don’t know that particular term.”
“It’s Licornyn.”
“Ah! So you’re a Licornyn warrior, are you? Where is your unicorn?”
“Do you think I keep it in my pocket?”
She smirks. “I shouldn’t think this scanty garb of yours sported any pockets.”
Her gaze runs critically over my muscular frame, not without a trace of admiration. I don’t care for that. Turning away, I peer out at Artoris and Ilsevel once more, just in time to see them exit the garden. The far door shuts behind them, and she is gone from my sight.
“There, you needn’t worry,” Lyria says, as though reading my thoughts. “Larongar is just on the other side of that door, you know. He’ll protect his daughter, at least up until the wedding ceremony this evening. After that he’ll wash his hands of her, to be sure. But so long as she belongs to him, he’ll care enough to keep her safe.”
“I must go after her,” I say, pulling once more against that hand on my shoulder, but finding myself strangely unable to break its hold. “I must make her remember.” I look down at the slender fingers gripping me, then flick my gaze to the young woman’s bizarrely familiar face. “How are you doing that?”
She smiles, a dangerous expression. “Ilsevel’s not the only one who’s gods-gifted in the family.” Her smile vanishes then, and she frowns a little, not with displeasure, but rather in consideration. “Did you mean what you said? About loving her?”
I look her straight in the eye. “My love for Ilsevel is the only great and true thing in my entire sorry existence.”
She blinks. “My, my. Howvigorouslyspoken. It would seem Ilsevel had quite the little adventure following the temple attack. Tell me, did you fall for her before or after slaughtering our unarmed priests?”
My mouth settles in a grim line. “The Licornyn were notinvolved in the killing of the priests.”
“Oh? But there were rumors aplenty of unicorn-riders in the region.”
I offer no answer. It is not my concern to give her any defense, nor do I care what she thinks of me. I care only about getting free of this grip on my shoulder and this strange paralysis that seems to have come over my will. My limbs still feel as though they should function correctly, I simply lack the energy to shake her off. It’s a strangely focused inertia.
She chuckles, amused at my consternation. “Have no fear; I will let you go, but first you must be honest with me. If I like the tale you tell, if you convince me that you’re a better option for my little sister than the monster she’s about to wed, well . . . you might even find in me a friend.”
I turn my head slightly, eyeing her. “What do you want to know?”
“First of all, who is Ilsevel to you exactly?”
I hesitate for a count of three breaths. Then: “She is—was—my wife.”
That shocks her at last.“Wife?”she repeats in a little bleat of sound. Shaking her head, she laughs again, her teeth flashing in the sunlight which gleams between the ivy vines. “All right, unicorn-rider. You’ve got my attention now.”
11
ILSEVEL
My flesh shudders at the touch of Artoris’s fingers, trailing delicately from the hollow of my throat down between my breasts as he traces the heartfasting sigil. What is meant to be a holy moment, he renders dirty.
When the sigil is complete, and he begins to run his finger along the lower curve of my breast, slipping it beneath the white fabric of my gown, I catch hold of his hand, wrenching his two fingers back roughly, and glare furiously up at him from beneath my veil.
He holds my gaze for a tense sequence of breaths. There’s no more trace of the lover’s mask about his features. When I look at him, I see once more the young man he was seven years ago: the young man who pushed me onto my bed and covered me with his body, ignoring my stifled protests as he shoved his tongue into my mouth. The young man who stared at me with such shock and betrayal when he was hauled off me bymy guards and dragged out to the pillory.
The young man who screamed in agony at the first fall of the lash; who fainted by the time the fourth lash fell.
He remembers it. All of it. It’s there in his gaze as he looks down at me. And I know for certain what this marriage truly is: vengeance.
He slowly removes his hand from my grip and steps back a pace. His mouth curves in a cruel smile. “Just a few more hours now, my sweet,” he purrs, his eyes bright beneath heavy lids. “A few more hours, and then you can scream all you like. No one will interfere with us then. Not when you are mine.”
With that he turns on heel and strides across the courtyard, leaving me standing alone at the stone basin.
