Gaelin looked up as Seriene slid down the hillside toward him. An ugly purple bruise was already forming on her jaw.
She knelt beside him, and looked up at his face. “Gaelin, I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
He cradled Madislav’s head in his lap and leaned forward, tears falling on the warrior’s face. There was one brief flicker of life, the eyes opened, and for a moment the old Madislav was looking up at him. The expression, the cast of his eyes -
Gaelin knew at a glance his friend had returned. Madislav breathed softly, “Gaelin?”
“Madislav! You’re back!” Gaelin tried to show him a reassuring smile, but he bowed his head instead, weeping.
“Bannier is dead?”
“No. He said that he’d return to his own body when…”
Gaelin couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I saw his stronghold. He took me into the Shadow World.” Madislav’s voice was growing weak. “He has Ilwyn… it is a cold place, Gaelin. I am glad I am not being there.”
“We’ll find a priest, Madislav, one of the Haelynites who knows the healing spells!” Gaelin started to pick him up, to carry him to help. “Don’t give up!”
“Burn my body, Gaelin, in the Vos way,” the warrior whispered.
“Destevnye duma, my friend.”
Gaelin laid Madislav back to the ground and turned away.
He knelt in the cold, wet grass of the hillside, his hands over his eyes. After a long time, Seriene put her hand on his shoulder.
“Come, Gaelin. It’s time for us to go.”
Chapter Thirteen
In the days that followed, Gaelin wandered the weathered battlements of Caer Winoene, pacing the castle’s walls like an animal measuring the dimensions of a cage. He realized that Bannier had deliberately avoided him except for a few brief conversations; the true Madislav had been absent for weeks.
Over and over, he replayed the confrontation on the hillside in his mind’s eye, trying to imagine how it might have gone differently.
In accordance with the custom of the Vos, Gaelin burned Madislav’s body on a pyre two days after his death, as the moon was rising over the shadowed hills. Gaelin himself set the pile to flame, and he stayed hours after most of the others had left, watching the twisting pall of smoke curling up into the starry sky. It was also a tradition of the Vos to watch over a warrior’s pyre until sunrise, and Gaelin stood by in silence all through the cold night.
As the sky was lightening in the east, Gaelin’s reverie was broken by the arrival of Seriene. She rode up and stopped a respectful distance from the bier, dismounting and leaving her horse with her guards. Since Bannier’s attack, both Gaelin and Seriene had been much more carefully watched by their respective bodyguards, allowing them little time alone with each other.
Seriene was dressed in fine riding clothes, a warm fur cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She paused for a respectful moment of silence and asked quietly, “Am I intruding? ”
“No, of course not,” Gaelin replied. He shook himself a little and turned away from the smoldering ashes. His limbs ached with cold, and he knew he needed sleep, but he was not tired. Instead, his senses were alert. “I’ve observed the vigil, as he would have liked. I’m just daydreaming now.”
“Thinking of Madislav?”
He nodded. “He was my best friend. I’ll miss him.”
“There was nothing more you could have done, Gaelin.”
He laughed with acidic scorn. “I seem to be hearing that a lot lately. ‘Sorry, Gaelin, it couldn’t be helped.’ It feels like a poor excuse for causing the death of my friend.”
Seriene remained silent for a long time. “What are you going to do about Ilwyn?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “If I do nothing, I don’t doubt that Bannier will do exactly what he threatens. And if I give myself up, how do I know that he’ll keep his word?”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about surrendering yourself!”
He looked into the smoking ashes of Madislav’s pyre.
“How many people have died for me already? Daene, Ruide, Madislav, Tiery, my entire family! All the people who made Shieldhaven my home are gone.” Although he fought to control himself, his voice grew higher and hot tears stung his eyes. “How can I let the last living member of my family die in my place?”
Seriene glared, with no hint of compassion in her face.
“You’re a selfish bastard if you think that you’re the only one with a stake in this,” she said angrily. “Don’t you realize there are thousands of people who are counting on you to see them through to the end of this? What do you think Tuorel will do to those nobles and soldiers, their families, if you abandon them because you feel bad that you’re alive? Tuorel will slaughter them for rebels, and you know it.”
Anger burned in Gaelin’s chest as Seriene finished. Coldly, he said, “Ilwyn is the gentlest soul I know. The thought of Bannier torturing her makes me want to tear my own heart out. But he’ll do it, if I don’t surrender.”
“So you’d place one life against the hopes of an entire kingdom? ”
Gaelin turned away. “What kind of monster would I be if I didn’t, Seriene? What kind of Mhor would I be, to hide here in safety while Bannier holds my sister hostage?”
Seriene snorted and tossed her head. “Gaelin, you’ve got to weigh the consequences of your actions. If that means you have to do things you don’t like, that’s too bad! You have a responsibility to more than your conscience. Ilwyn’s life is nothing compared to the life of Mhoried itself!”
He looked up and met her eyes. “Do you mean the life of Mhoried, or the life of Diemed’s northern ally?”
Seriene’s face turned white, as if from a blow, but her voice remained steady. “Do you think that’s all this is about? An alliance against Ghoere?” Her voice grew colder still. “Do you think I planned to give you my heart, Gaelin?”
Gaelin stared at her, his mind racing. She waited for his answer, fuming, fiercely beautiful. He was nearly overwhelmed by the desire to take her in his arms and drown his reservations in passion. “No,” he said carefully. “I believe your feelings are sincere. But whether or not you feel anything for me, your interests lie in keeping me alive – no matter what it takes for me to stay on the throne, what I have to give up for the sake of being the Mhor.”
“Of course, you idiot! Gaelin, I care about you! I don’t want to see you dead!” Tears glimmered in Seriene’s eyes. She stood there for a moment, too angry or upset for words, and then stormed off. She caught her horse’s reins and swung back into the saddle, kicking her heels into the animal’s flanks and riding off at a full gallop while her guards followed at a respectful distance.
Gaelin pitched a stone aside with a sigh, staring off across the moors. The orange rim of the sun climbed above the horizon.
The vigil was over. He said one last goodbye to Madislav and then walked down the hill to join his guards and return to Caer Winoene for some sleep.
When he woke in the late afternoon, Huire informed him that Erin had returned from Cariele. Gaelin’s dark mood dissipated immediately. He rushed to pull on his boots and throw a clean tunic over his shirt He started toward the great hall with an excited spring in his step, Huire striding quickly to keep up with him. But as Gaelin hurried to greet her, his feet slowed. There was no reason he should feel guilty about his tryst with Seriene. Erin had no claim on Gaelin, and they had never spoken of any feelings between them. But Gaelin still felt as if he had betrayed her.