Page 8 of HeartTorn (WarBride #2)

TAAR

Ice washes through my veins.

I knew they were connected, possibly more deeply connected than she’d let on. But this? This is more than I let myself imagine. She wrote to him. She asked him to come and he . . . gods damn it, he came at her request. He left behind the safety of Evisar and the mage-paths, allowed himself to be made vulnerable. Because she asked him to.

“Why?”

The word erupts from my throat, a deep growl. “Why did you summon him?”

She tilts her head, her hard gaze catching mine. In the swiftly fading light, her features are mostly obscured, but the burning despair in her eye shines brighter and fiercer than stars. “I loved him,” she says.

Those words might as well be blows.

I take a step back then another, reeling. The velra cord around my forearm tightens to the brink of severing bone. I want to scream, to tear it free, to turn and flee from this moment, this revelation, and all the while a voice in the back of my head persists, It doesn’t matter! She’s a stranger. She’s not your wife. You don’t even know her. None of this should matter to you.

But it does. Far more than it should. And I cannot, in this moment, believe that it is merely the inconvenient potency of the velra making me feel this way.

A smile curls her lips. “I loved him,”

she says again. “And I asked him to come find me at the Temple of Lamruil. To run away with me.”

My mind revolts, playing back that image of the mage dragging her from the building, even as she struggled against him. That memory, burned across my brain, does not fit with this confession of hers. She’s lying; she must be. But why? Does she know what her words are doing to me? Does she even suspect?

Her nostrils flare. She lifts her chin slightly, as though daring me to lash out at her. Why does it feel as though she’s trying to provoke me to violence? I realize suddenly that my hands are on her shoulders, my fingers digging in tight, pinching the fabric of her cloak. Do I want to hurt her? Maybe. If there’s any truth to her words, if she and Artoris are intimately connected, then hurting her may in turn hurt him. After all he’s done to my people—after the deaths he wrought only three nights ago—ah! I would give a great deal to hurt that man. And here before me I have the means: Artoris’s weakness.

My breath is tight in my lungs. My hands twitch, muscles tense with unexpected eagerness. What if I were to give in? I wouldn’t have to kill her; that would only endanger my own life, bound as we are. But there are so many ways I could make her existence a living hell, all without compromising my own eventual release from our binding.

But . . . I do not want to hurt her.

I want to possess her.

I want to take her head between my hands and squeeze out any thought of him—of Artoris or any other man.

Then I want to kiss her. To kiss her and kiss her until she weeps with hunger, with need.

I want to fill her, body and soul, until there is no room in even the darkest recesses of her being for anyone but me.

These are not the thoughts of a sane man. This is the madness of velra trying to take over yet again. I must hold on to the truth of who I am at the center of this intoxicating tangle of sacred vows and profane desires.

Ilsevel winces suddenly. I realize that my fingers, still gripping her shoulders, are pressing to the bone. Hastily I let go and back away from her, leaving her where she stands on the edge of that drop. For a moment I do not trust myself to speak. Every time I open my mouth, words I dare not say pile up behind my teeth, vicious and dangerous by turns.

I turn away only to find myself facing Elydark. My licorneir stands at a little distance, half-hidden in the shadow of the Luin Stone. His eyes are on me, and I feel suddenly that song-connection between us, which is always present, even when I try to ignore it. It hums through my soul, into my bones. In that song I remember who I am: Taarthalor Ragnataarthane. Luinar of the Licornyn, king of a decimated people. I live for them, for those remnants of my kind who stand on the edge of extinction. And for the licorneir whose souls are linked inextricably with ours. Every choice I make, every thought, deed, or act of will must be for the good of Licorna.

Elydark holds my gaze until the certainty of my purpose is fully restored. Only then do I look back at Ilsevel. What am I to do with her? It was bad enough to find myself bound to a human, but to the love of my great enemy? How am I supposed to manage this storm of jealousy and hatred and longing and loathing all at once? How am I supposed to protect her from the dangers of Cruor when I’m not even certain I can protect her from myself?

In an act of self-preservation, I take hold of Elydark’s song and wrap it around me like armor. Turning my back on Ilsevel, I take a step toward the campfire, then pause.

“You did not make Lurodos slaughter the priests of Lamruil.”

I don’t know what comes over me, what drives me to speak those words. Behind me, I hear the sharp intake of her breath.

“Nor did you make Artoris a target of Licornyn fury,”

I continue coldly. “Whatever you are to him, or he to you, makes no difference. The choices made that night were far beyond your control.”

As though to prove to myself that I can, I turn, careful to feel nothing as I take in the sight of her, standing silhouetted against the bruised sky, her back straight, her chin high, her eyes burning with hatred and pain. “You cannot bear the weight of your sister’s death,”

I say. “It is too great a burden. It will crush you.”

Wind catches strands of dark hair, blowing it across her eyes like a veil. She tosses it back, the short gesture almost ferocious. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have to—I can see that my words have no effect. She has assumed the mantel of guilt, and she will wear it until such a time as she can find a punishment harsh enough to strip her bare once more. Whether or not she will survive the process, I cannot say.

But my own task is clear. I must guard both my heart and body and never once forget the truth: this woman, entirely unknown to herself, has the means to destroy me in the palm of her hand.

“Come back to the fire, Ilsevel,”

I say, putting my back to her. “We have a long journey before us. You’ll need whatever rest you can get.”