Some three hours from the hut, I believed I had lost the trail, and I considered going back. I wasn’t at all familiar with the crumpled wasteland, and to stay out all night had its own risks. The first touch of the morning sun would alter the snowy landmarks. As I sat on a rock to rest and take my bearings, I realized that fifty paces beyond my position, behind a cluster of boulder stacks standing sentinel like a giant’s wardens, gleamed a pool of light that was far too yellow and far too unsteady to be moonlight.
I scrambled up the steep side of the ravine and crept forward until I had passed the boulder stacks and could look down on a small, protected grotto where a smoky fire flickered next to a half-frozen pool. Lara stood beside the fire, locked in a fierce embrace with a man.
I was stunned ... and unreasoningly embarrassed. Never in all my considerations had I come within fifty leagues of the idea that Lara might have a lover. Why had I thought that because such a blessing was inconceivable for me, it was equally inconceivable for a young woman so filled with passionate life? Her hatreds were for me and my kind, not for everyone in the world. And her scars, so dreadful on an otherwise pleasing face ... I rarely noticed them anymore. Why shouldn’t some other man develop the same blindness?
But as quickly as my view of the world was set so profoundly askew, it was reversed again. Lara stepped away from her visitor, but left her hands in his, and I looked back and forth between the two figures and gaped at the revelation. He was of exactly her height, with the same pointed chin, fine-boned cheeks, and huge eyes. He wore the same dusting of freckles across his straight nose, the same generous mouth. Only the breadth of shoulders and back, and the chin-length trim of the gold-brown hair distinguished him ... and, of course, the finished perfection of his face. He could be no one but her brother.
“... all arranged,” he was saying in earnest excitement. “We can go this very night. Everyone is waiting to welcome you back, to give you every privilege that is yours by right.”
“I can’t believe it.” Lara bit her lip and wrinkled her brow while examining his face as if to capture every morsel of information left unspoken.
“You were only a child. They’ve finally come to understand it. A strong-willed child with a warrior’s heart and your family’s stubbornness. These are virtues, not crimes. The only crime is that it’s taken them so long to see it.”
“You heard this with your own ears? From the high commander himself?” Tentative. Touching on the very edge of hope.
“He showed me the order of pardon. The moment you’re back, he’ll proclaim it to the Council of Twelve.”
Controlled and wary, Lara pulled back a little, while still clinging to his hands. “But he’ll never let me ride.” She was not accustomed to hope.
Never had I seen anyone show such triumph as Lara’s brother when he produced his gift. “He has promised to consider it. He will hear you. He said to tell you, ‘Riders are born, not chosen. It is a precept to which we’ve not always been faithful.’ Lara, it’s as good as done.”
Lara hung limp as he swung her about joyfully, then pulled her back into his fierce embrace. “By the gods, little sister. You will be the first. A woman will ride for the Mark, and you will show them the true heart of a warrior.”
“To ride for the Mark. Oh, Vanir’s fire, Desmond.”
She could scarcely speak, and, even as I struggled with my dismay at her betrayal, I caught my first unfiltered glimpse of Lara. Everything I had yet seen of her—except perhaps for that first handclasp with Narim and the brief moment of her night terror—everything had been but layer upon layer of armor, the shell she had fashioned from scars and pain, from loneliness and bitterness. All of it fell away in the moment of her brother’s pronouncement, revealing a woman of pride and dignity and lonely strength, whose face shone like a second moon. I had never thought of her as beautiful until that night, never heard the music in her voice, the simple melody laced with her glorious passion. At the same moment I began to be afraid for her. Surely she could sense the danger, the dissonance that marred the harmony of this family reunion.
Lara sank to a fallen tree that had been pulled up to the fire like a garden bench, and her brother crouched on one knee in front of her. I brushed away a clump of stickery jackweed that the wind had lodged under my nose, and edged carefully down the snowy, rock-strewn hillside on my belly, not thinking of danger in my craving to hear more.
“What’s changed then?” she said. “A tradition so long bound. I never thought ... never in the last instance believed they would relent.” Yes, she had seen it. Already her shutters were being drawn again.
“I don’t know. I’ve hammered at it so long with every one of the twelve councilors and they’ve always been deaf to me. Every year for eighteen years another failed petition—”
“You have been my true knight, brother.”
“Then a few weeks ago, MacEachern himself summoned me. He wished me to fetch you right away, but I said our regular meeting was still three weeks hence. He was surprised I didn’t know where you lived.” Long grievance festered beneath Desmond’s devotion, pushing him to his feet to step away from Lara.
“You know why I can’t tell you.”
“Well, now you’re to be a Rider of the Mark, you’ll no longer have to live with these divided loyalties. It will be your own people who claim you now, and your family and your high commander who shape your path.”
The young man began adjusting the fittings of his saddle as if to accommodate two riders, so he couldn’t see Lara’s countenance freeze. I saw it and felt a knot in my gut loosen one notch.
“Desmond, did the high commander say anything about what he wants from me when I return? Surely he expects some payment for this honor he does me.”
Yes, I thought. A good question. Listen well to his answer. Though he is your brother who cares for you, he has but one heart to give. No question where it is lodged.
“Want from you?” Desmond turned to her, puzzled. “Nothing but what you’ve wished to give him all these years—your loyalty and service. Come on. We can be home before dawn.”
Lara kicked at the fire, scattering the coals until a cloud of sparks flew about her like a swarm of fireflies. “I’ve got to think it over.” She flung the words into the air casually, like the sparks from her boot.
Her brother’s jaw dropped in shock and disbelief. “Think it over? Lara! What is there to think about?” Anger hardened his pointed jaw. “You will come with me. The head of your family commands you.”
She chucked him playfully under the chin. “Don’t fret, sweet Desmond. It’s only I’ve got a bit of business to finish, some debts to pay. This is so unexpected. I’ve got to get accustomed to the idea.” She laughed uproariously, but with far too little mirth to my ear. A dangerous laugh. I just wasn’t sure for whom.
Desmond looked confused. I certainly was. Fatally so, for I was oblivious to the brush of the bushes behind me and the soft grit of footsteps in the crusted snow. Only when the leather strap stung my neck and tightened about it and I was flipped backward onto the hard ground did I know there was a fourth member of our little nighttime party. A heavy boot stomped on my wrist, and my hastily drawn knife leaped out of my fingers of its own volition. A vast landscape of wind-coarsened skin, pitted with deep pores and tufted with wiry red hair, exuding a virulent odor of onion, presented itself a hand’s breadth from my nose. That was all I was able to see before he sat his massive bulk on my chest and stomach, making unnatural white stars bloom from the hazy darkness. While I fought to squeeze in a breath, I felt leather straps being wound tightly about my wrists.