“Dante.” I held his gaze. Let him see the understanding in my eyes. “It’s not going to work. I’m not going to kill you. Drop the sword.”
A flicker in his eyes—surprise, wariness—as I began to walk toward him. He stood alone. All others had fallen back, encircling us.
“It would be foolish of me to drop my only weapon,” Dante said, his tone easy, reasonable. I was not fooled by it.
“And you are not a foolish man,” I said as I shortened the distance between us. “So why would you reveal yourself like that here in my circle of power, surrounded by over a hundred of my men, all armed? Bad odds, even for you.”
“I was discovered, not revealed.”
“You revealed yourself deliberately,” I corrected. “Why would you do that unless you wanted me to strike you down through my men.”
I turned to fasten my gaze upon my guards, each and every one of them. “No one here is to lift a hand against Dante or his family, or you will be foresworn by me and cast out of my court. That is my command as your Queen.”
As I drew uncomfortably closer to Dante, Dontaine dared speak. “Mona Lisa. My Queen, please—”
“He will not hurt me.”
“How can you say that and believe it?” Dante said, his calm façade dropping away. “I killed you before.”
“If you wanted to hurt me, you could have done so before now. You had ample opportunity.” He hadn’t known me at first, when he had been stricken by the light-craving madness. Only when I had healed him and he had sought me out afterward. When I had lifted my hands up to him in an unconscious gesture to keep him away. He’d seen my moles then.
I stopped before him, unarmed. Sure of him, sure of myself. “If you wish to hurt me, you can do so now and none of my men will stop you.”
He did nothing. A most telling inaction.
“Dante.” My hand reached out slowly to rest upon his hand, the one gripping his sword. “I know what is in your heart. I will not give the order for your death as you intend.”
His hand spasmed beneath my light touch. “You should if you are merciful. It might end the curse. Satisfy it. My life for yours.”
“Or begin it anew. Please, Dante.”
His fingers opened and his sword fell to the ground.
I raised my voice to the others. “Sheathe your swords, men.”
They did as I commanded.
I pulled Dante away from the temptation of his dropped weapon, and he came docilely along, looking confused, baffled. I drew him to his father, who watched us with shattered eyes.
“Milady,” Nolan said, dropping to his knees, his head bent to the ground. “Thank you for your mercy. I had not realized. My family and I will leave here immediately.”
“There is no need to go,” I told Nolan. “And every need to stay.”
“For what possible reason would you want my family and I to stay here with you?” Dante asked. His hand was still clasped in mine, and he gazed down at our joined hands with almost a bewildered blankness.
“For the reason fate crossed our paths once more,” I said. “For a second chance. This time as friends instead of foes.”
Dante dragged his eyes back up to mine. In a low, deep voice, he asked, “Do you remember me?”
“Not clearly, but some part of me does. Enough to be afraid of you,” I said honestly.
“Not as much as you should,” Dante said. But he left his hand in mine.
“We were enemies once, long ago,” I said. “And could have been again. First, when your father and brother snatched me. Then just now, when you made our past known.” And what a past it was. One that had taken place over four million years ago, in another world. But I could not doubt it, not when my soul recognized his.
“We’re different people now,” I told him. “We’ve made different choices. If there is a way to end your curse, I believe that this is the way—to live a different life and not repeat the same mistakes of our past.”
“You have no memories of before, do you?” Dante asked.
“No. Do you?”
“Some. Flashes of it. You may feel differently when you remember.”
“Then I’d rather not” was my reply. “Remember it, that is. Whatever was then, now is a new time, a new life.” I looked at Nolan. “What I offered you before still stands. You and Hannah are welcome to stay here. Your sons also, until they go to seek service with another Queen. My sponsorship still holds, nothing on that has changed. If in the next week you and Hannah decide to seek another position elsewhere, you may do so at the next Service Fair with my full blessing. All I ask is that you stay here for a little while. Give us a try until then.”
Nolan glanced at Dante, and some silent communication passed between father and son.
Nolan nodded. “We’ll stay, milady.”
I felt both relieved and nervous at his agreement. Just a handful of days, I thought, after which time husband and wife would hopefully stay, and the two sons depart. What could happen in that short span of time?
TWELVE
I HAD MY first dream of that long-ago time when I lay down to sleep that day. We were in the midst of battle. So much blood, I thought. And even worse than what coated my hands…so many lives I’d taken. Mostly innocent in the fact that they were merely following orders, their Queen’s. And therein lay the most guilt—with the ones who had decided this war, been eager for it. Blood had been spilled, but not theirs. Not yet. Their blood, now…I would not feel so guilty about theirs. Only then would this madness stop. And only then would the healing begin. But the healer part of me wondered if the lives I saved before and after would ever balance out the blood-drenched scales of now.
A cry drew my attention, a voice that I knew. I cut down the one I was battling and turned, bloody blade in hand, to see Shel, one of my last few remaining strong warriors, run through by a sword. A heart wound, I saw, as the blade was pulled from him and he toppled to the ground almost gently. Incapacitating, but not fatal. Not yet.
As the one who had bested my warrior lifted his sword for the killing blow, the beheading one, I lifted my hand and threw a punch of power from where I stood, making him stagger back away from Shel.
He turned and looked at me, and I recognized him through the feel of his powerful presence and from his red-brown warrior bracelets that gleamed darkly against his wrists. Barrabus. Mona Ella’s warlord general himself. A warrior of great renown who had killed two dear to me in the last battle—Ewart and Trey, my strongest fighters. It was odd seeing his features in this dream, and recognizing the same likeness in his son, Dante, whom I’d come to know intimately in another lifetime.
“Here, Barrabus. To me!” I called.
With a fierce smile, he plowed his way toward me, sending those who tried to stop him hurtling away. Our blades met and I fought him as he deserved. With sword, with skill. With brute strength. He was a fearsome fighter, a most gifted swordsman who moved with swift, cutting grace.
“Draw your dagger,” I commanded as the sword blades caught and held for a moment, interlocked. I tangled my foot behind him and shoved. He rolled backward, surprised at my strength, and sprang to his feet with the dagger I’d asked him to draw clutched in hand. He waited there, poised, ready.
“You do not draw yours,” he said.
I held up my left hand. The Goddess Tear in the center of my palm pulsed and thrummed with power. “I have something much deadlier than a dagger. But that you ask and wait for me to draw my weapon speaks of the warrior you are. An honorable one. You are on the wrong side, Barrabus, serving a Queen who has no honor.”
Something passed in his eyes. Silent acknowledgment of what I said. “She is my Queen.”