LC02 Crystal Flame

  Ridge eyed her balefully as she knelt to pour the wine into his glass. Everyone watched in fascination as Kalena set down the decanter and picked up the goblet she had just filled. If Ridge accepted the goblet from her, he would have to take his hand from the handle of the sintar.

  Kalena did not attempt to hand him the goblet straight off. Instead, she sipped delicately at the wine herself; then she offered him the delicately chased cup.

  The incipient blaze in Ridge’s eyes died out, to be replaced by rueful amusement. “It would seem you have a talent for the wifely arts, Kalena.” He released his grip on the sintar and took the goblet from her hand. A small sigh of relief circled the table as he took a healthy swallow.

  Kalena said nothing, sensing the immediate problem was solved. She got to her feet and walked back to her end of the table. The feasting and the laughter resumed, unabated.

  It was when Kalena knelt again on her cushion that she happened to glance down the row of faces at the table and notice that Quintel was gone.

  She looked toward the back of the room and saw his dark figure disappear in the direction of his private apartments. No one else seemed to notice. When she glanced at the crystal water clock she saw that it was the hour when Quintel always retired to pursue his studies. She had learned his habits well during the past three days.

  It was time for her to carry out the task for which Olara had raised and trained her.

  Kalena felt a twisting nausea in the pit of her stomach. A suitable sensation for a woman who was about to commit murder with the aid of poison, she told herself grimly. She waited for a few minutes longer and then slowly rose to her feet. The next moment would be tricky, as the bride could hardly slip away unnoticed from her own wedding celebration.

  All eyes turned to her almost at once.

  “Kalena, are you tired already?” Arrisa called laughingly.

  “Your bride grows impatient, Ridge,” one of the men hooted.

  There were several other remarks made that were guaranteed to make any bride blush. Kalena merely lowered her eyes. She was beyond the blushing stage. The knowledge of what lay ahead of her had made her pale, not pink.

  “If you will excuse me, I claim my hour of privacy in which to make the proper preparations,” she told the guests, keeping her eyes lowered in what she hoped passed for modest confusion. “I have no wish to break up the celebration. You must all continue without me.”

  “Don’t worry, Kalena, we’ll send your groom along in a while,” Vertina assured her with a grin. “You have your hour. Use it well.”

  One of the men added, “It will give her enough time to grow bored and fall asleep.”

  “Never mind, Kalena, we’ll keep the men under control here,” Arrisa said. “Every bride deserves her time of privacy. Be on your way.”

  Ridge got to his feet, facing Kalena from the far end of the table. His face was strangely expressionless, and when he spoke his voice was gravely formal.

  “I wish you a good evening, wife.”

  She inclined her head politely. “I wish you good evening also, husband.” Kalena turned, the scarlet sarsilk cloak flowing around her as she walked out of the hall. She was very conscious of the black and white amber necklace around her neck.

  When she was out of sight and could hear the noise level growing once again in the feasting hall, Kalena picked up the hem of her cloak and began to run. She raced across the moonlit garden and into the safety of her apartments. Breathing far more heavily than the slight exercise warranted, she closed the door behind her and leaned back against it.

  It was now or never. This was the moment Olara had predicted, the moment in time on which the honor of the House of the Ice Harvest depended. The vial of poison waited in its hiding place in the travel bag. Kalena knew she must act or forever endure the shame of failure.

  Her fingers were trembling more than ever. Nightmarish images of a man writhing in his death throes, his black eyes full of accusation and fear, threatened to swamp her mind.

  She wanted nothing to do with death, Kalena raged silently. It all happened so long ago. Why must she be called upon to settle the account?

  No wonder the task of avenging House honor was traditionally a male responsibility. Just look at how she was weakening now that the moment was upon her. A man would be stronger, Kalena told herself derisively. Olara had been right to fear the weakness in her niece.

  Perhaps, Kalena thought, if she had seen Quintel murder her father and her brother, she would not be having such qualms.

  But there was only Olara’s assurance that Quintel had been the cause of their death. Olara claimed to have discovered the truth in a trance shortly after the death of the men of the House. The older woman had emerged from that trance in a daze of embittered rage. The shock of learning of the double murder had hit Kalena’s mother very hard. She had sunk into a deep, despairing depression from which none of Olara’s remedies could rouse her. Olara had taken over what was left of the House, sweeping Kalena and her mother to safety. From that moment on Kalena’s destiny had been clear. No amount of internal arguing could change the truth or her own destiny, Kalena told herself.

  Her body stiff with tension, she moved away from the door and walked slowly to where her travel bag rested near the sleeping pallet. Reaching inside, she ripped at the stitching in the lining. The small leather packet of poison and her father’s jeweled sintar fell into her hands.

  Kalena sat on the pallet’s edge, staring at the blade, wondering not for the first time just what sort of man her father had been. She hadn’t known him well. He was a distant figure from her childhood, strong and aristocratic, but remote. He had been gone a lot, frequently taking her older brother with him on his travels. Kalena had been left behind in the care of her mother and her aunt. And then one day the Lord of the House of the Ice Harvest and his heir had failed to return. After that there had been only Kalena’s mother and Olara. Finally, there had been only Olara.

  Poison was a dishonorable weapon, Kalena thought, holding up the packet of evil powder. A coward’s weapon. A woman’s weapon, some would say. But while Olara had disdained the method, she had seen no option. There was no way a mere woman could kill Trade Baron Quintel in honorable hand-to-hand combat. Nor was there any way, Olara had learned in a trance, that Kalena could be introduced into her victim’s bed. Quintel was not the type to be seduced by a woman.

  That left only poison.

  Nausea roiled again in Kalena’s stomach. She had to act. Soon the servant would be going down the hall in Quintel’s wing of the house. He would be carrying the nightly potion of Encana wine that Quintel enjoyed with his studies. The poison must be put into the wine. Kalena had spent many hours deciding just how that could be done.

  Time had run out. She must be about the business for which she had been trained.

  Still wearing her cloak, she dropped the poison into a pocket in her tunic, secreted the sintar beneath the cloak and went back out into the garden. She stepped onto the rainstone paving and followed the bloodred path toward Quintel’s apartments.

  Back in the feasting hall, Ridge was aware of a new kind of restlessness within himself. He had been on edge all day, filled with a painful sense of awareness, the unwelcome, vivid kind that so often preceded violence. He had known it more than once in his life, the most recent time being out on the treacherous road that went through the Talon Pass. But he couldn’t imagine why he felt it tonight.

  He had told himself that once the wedding was complete the strange restlessness in him would be stilled, but that hadn’t happened. If anything, the mood was stronger than ever. Something was very wrong, and he knew with a deep certainty that the wrongness was connected with his new bride.

  She had been tense each time he had seen her during the day. Bridal nerves, Ridge had told himself. After last night she must be finally realizing just how real the marriage was to be. He had tried to quiet his own uneasiness by reminding himself of the previous night’s lovemaking. B
y the Stones, it had been good. Unlike anything he had ever known.

  It wasn’t simply that the sex had been satisfying. Ridge knew on some level that a bond had been forged between himself and Kalena last night. She was his. In some indefinable manner he had known the moment he had taken her that this woman was his destiny.

  Off and on during the day, stray thoughts of the future had floated in and out of his mind. With Kalena by his side and the profit from the shipment of Sand he intended to bring back from Variance, Ridge knew he could at last take steps to found his House.

  Kalena was the woman he had been waiting for, the one who fit him as the lock fit the key. He had discovered that for certain the night before, but he thought he had known it all along from the moment he had met her. The knowledge had burned within him all day. He had been equally aware that he might have to force Kalena to accept that her destiny lay in his hands. But he had a good start on that goal. After all, he was now her husband.

  “Another round of ale, my friend. You have a full night’s work ahead of you,” one of the men called from halfway down the table. “We must get you in shape to perform it, eh?”

  Ridge came to a decision. He didn’t bother to question it. He had learned long ago not to question his hunches. With a deceptively lazy movement he got to his feet. Knowing laughter burst out along the length of the table. He regarded his guests with a host’s polite expression, unaware that his hand was resting absently on the handle of his sintar.

  “The servants have instructions to keep you fed and entertained until dawn if you last that long. You must, however, excuse me. I have other plans for the night.”

  “Don’t let us delay you, Ridge,” someone called. More laughter greeted the comment.

  “I won’t,” Ridge said calmly. “I wish you all good night.”

  “Wait, Ridge,” Arrisa called. “Your bride has not had her hour.”

  “She can spend what’s left of it with me.” With an arrogant inclination of his head that he had unconsciously picked up from watching Quintel over the years, Ridge bid his guests farewell and strode from the hall.

  When he was alone at last he came to a halt. The restless unease in him was stronger than ever. The sense of wrongness was growing. Frowning, Ridge stepped out into the long colonnaded walkway, intending to follow it around to Kalena’s apartment. The thought of his bride waiting for him did not bring the pleasant anticipation it should have.

  Red moonlight reflected from the rainstone paths out in the garden. Ridge watched it from the deep shadows of the colonnade as he moved silently over the stone. For no reason that he could explain, he found himself walking like a hunting fangcat.

  He was halfway toward his goal when he saw the dark shape of Kalena’s wedding cloak drifting across the garden. Ridge went utterly still, his hand tightening around the handle of the sintar. For an instant he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Not after last night, he told himself savagely. She could not possibly long for the unattainable Quintel after the way she had responded to Ridge last night. She would not dare to seek out Quintel now.

  But her direction was clear. The only chambers that lay on that side of the house were those that were occupied by Quintel.

  Hot rage washed over Ridge in a boiling wave as he stood watching his new bride make her way to another man’s chambers. He had never known anything like the blistering fury that gripped him now. He knew that if he touched the sintar, it would glow red. It took an instant of iron willpower to control the anger to the point where he could function. And then Ridge stepped out into the garden, moving along behind Kalena in lethal silence.

  Kalena reached the far side of the garden and stepped, shaking, into the shadows of the colonnade. Desperately she tried to breathe through the growing tightness in her chest. The night whirled in a dark haze around her, disorienting her and increasing her sense of inner sickness. She clung to a pillar to steady herself as her fingers tightened frantically around the packet in her hand.

  Suddenly, she was transfixed by the thought that she very well might not survive the night. The way her body was reacting, she began to wonder if the act of murder would actually result in her own death. Never had she felt so ill. Everything within her was resisting the task that lay ahead. Her body and mind were at total war with her destiny. Olara must have known it would be this way if the strange barrier in her mind was broken. Her aunt had tried to protect her from this weakness, Kalena thought as she took another step toward her goal. Olara had warned her.

  Moving forward required more effort than wading through a cauldron of mud. The entire world narrowed down to the few steps that would take her to her goal. Kalena knew she was losing not only her nerve but her will. She wanted to give up, to surrender to the powerful forces that were trying to halt her. In that moment she wished for the coming together of the Keys, the return of the legendary Dawn Lords or even the final cataclysmic reaction that was said to be the result of the Dark and Light Stones being brought into proximity with each other. Any suitable catastrophe would be welcome tonight, anything that would give her the excuse she needed to turn aside from her duty.

  No one guarded the entrance to Quintel’s private rooms. Kalena had her explanations ready in case she was challenged, but as she had guessed, no one confronted her. Quintel was secure in his own household. The packet of poison was like ice beneath her fingers, or perhaps it was her fingers that were like ice.

  It is your duty, Kalena. You are the last of the House. You have no choice.

  Olara’s words pounded in Kalena’s mind as she strove to reach the door that would open onto Quintel’s private wing.

  Your duty.

  Her hand was on the heavy, wrought metal handle. She desperately searched for the strength to twist it. Kalena shuddered with the effort, and in that moment suddenly knew that the task before her was impossible.

  She had failed.

  Even as she tried to come to grips with that bitter knowledge, hard fingers closed over her mouth from behind. Kalena’s instinctive scream was locked in her throat. A man’s arm circled her waist, trapping her. She knew even before he spoke who held her so fiercely.

  “Damn you to the far end of the Spectrum,” Ridge snarled softly in her ear. “He is not for you. I told you that. How do you dare try to betray me this way? Do you long so much to feel the touch of a creet whip? How do you dare go to him on the very night I put my lock and key around your throat?”

  Kalena’s eyes were wide in disbelief and fear; she made no move to struggle. She couldn’t move, both because her will was totally depleted and because Ridge held her in bonds of steel. The steel of Countervail.

  “Say nothing. Make no noise, do you understand? Or I will beat you where you stand. If you want the servants to hear your cries, so be it.”

  Kalena tried to nod her head to show that she had no intention of making any noise. She was beyond such action. Ridge freed her mouth, yanking her around so hard that she stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught hold of her arm. His fingers dug into the fabric of her cloak, biting into her skin. Kalena could barely breathe beneath the glittering fury in his eyes.

  He pulled her after him along the rainstone path. Kalena felt dizzy. She was vaguely aware that some of her physical strength was returning as she was dragged farther and farther from Quintel’s door. But she couldn’t think clearly. The only thing her disoriented mind could focus on was that the catastrophe for which she had wished had struck. Unlike the coming together of the Stones, it had not brought the end of Zantalia, but it would surely change her private world forever. Ridge had caught her in the act of trying to kill Quintel.

  A few moments later she was being shoved inside her chamber. The door closed with awful care and Ridge turned to face her. Kalena stood her ground, concentrating on trying to steady her breathing.

  “Before I give you what you deserve, tell me why,” Ridge ground out softly. “Tell me why you are so fascinated with Quintel? Is
it because he has no interest in women and you were challenged? Was it curiosity after last night to find out what it feels like to have another man possess you? Why?”

  “I…I can’t explain,” Kalena managed, her throat tight with the effort of speaking. She began to realize the source of Ridge’s fury. He was jealous. Well, he would be far more angry if he understood the real reason she had sought Quintel tonight. A dull sense of fatalistic apathy began to replace the sick tension that had been swamping her senses. It was over. Everything was over, including her future. No wonder she had always had trouble envisioning exactly what form her freedom would take; there was no freedom awaiting her. “But I swear on the honor of my House that I did not go to the trade baron’s rooms tonight with the intention of sharing his sleeping pallet. I swear it!”

  “The honor of your House? That’s a joke. You come from some small farm in the Interlock valley. Your family might once have been respectable, but that’s about all you can say for it. What you have done tonight has destroyed even that much.”

  Kalena’s pride came to her aid. The oath had slipped out under the stress of the moment, but she had meant every word of it. It would seem that when all else was gone, several generations of House pride still remained. She drew herself up, her eyes ice cold in the light of the firegel lamps. “You are a Houseless bastard. Don’t lecture me on honor and respectability. I am the daughter of a Great House and you are nothing but a rich man’s tool. His whip.”

  Ridge took a menacing step forward. “Don’t lie to me on top of everything else, woman. I will punish you as harshly for that as I will for trying to betray me in another man’s arms.”

  “I did not betray you! At least, not in the way you mean.”

  “Words!” he said between set teeth. “If you had any sense you would be on your knees pleading with me and instead you stand there throwing words at me. You went to Quintel’s apartments tonight. You cannot deny that.”