Heart of the Flame Page 23

  And as much as she mourned her own sad circumstance, she felt it tenfold for the pain that her part in this must have caused Randwulf of Greycliff. He had lost his wife and child--his dearest family. The part of her that was still shifter, the warrior who had been silenced all this time by the searing of her memory, whispered that Rand's losses were but casualties of the battle that waged around them for the Dragon Chalice.

  What a feeble justification.

  She could not fathom the person--nay, the unfeeling creature--who could parcel life and death into such neat compartments. For certain, she no longer knew the woman she once was. She would never be her again, now that Kenrick and his kin had shown her what it was to truly live.

  To truly love, with all one's heart.

  She closed the lid of the bedside chest and rose to her feet. Dressing hastily, she threw her old garb over her head and smoothed down the rough-spun skirts, just in time to hear booted feet pause outside the closed chamber door. She hadn't bothered to bolt it. Whatever wrath she faced now, she would face with courage...and total honesty, no matter its cost.

  The iron latch snicked free of its cradle and the heavy panel swung inward.

  Kenrick walked in without a word.

  She heard his purposeful strides come to pause in the space behind her.

  Haven, who had feared so little in her life, now shook with dread. Not for the thought of facing his fury, which would be fierce, understandably, but for the emptiness she knew would be hers in a few precious moments.

  "I can explain," she murmured, summoning all her strength to turn and face the man she loved. The man she had unwittingly deceived with her very presence in his keep. "Until this afternoon, I did not know what I had done. But my memory is back now--all of it."

  "A miracle, to be sure," he scoffed.

  "Kenrick, I would have told you everything...I had planned to, this very evening--"

  He cut her off with a sharp command. "That pendant belongs to my family. Take it off."

  She obeyed at once, unclasping the golden chain and feeling the cool weight of the gems slide down between her breasts, where her heart thudded so desperately. "Ariana let me wear it," she said feebly, holding the necklace out to him in her palm.

  Without acknowledging, indeed, without so much as looking at her, Kenrick took the pendant. He tossed it onto the bed behind her with a curt flick of his wrist.

  "I can hardly believe Randwulf of Greycliff is standing down there, alive, in your hall--"

  "No doubt. It came as a shock to me as well, when he approached me today to tell me of the hell he lived through."

  "I hadn't thought--faith, but I hadn't dared hope--that anyone survived. I am so relieved that he is well."

  "Relieved," Kenrick replied, his tone bitingly flat. "The look on your face seemed not to speak of relief. Guilt, I thought. And fear that you had been found out."

  Haven's gaze welled with the rise of hot, stinging tears. "I feared that you would think the worst of me. That is the very reason I delayed telling you today about all that occurred at Greycliff the night they were attacked. I feared you would not accept me once you knew the full truth. I fear it all the more, now that I am standing here before you."

  "Better to deceive, is that your way of thinking?"

  "No. I had no wish to deceive you--or anyone else. You were the one who brought me here. I only wanted to be left alone."

  "You would have died of your injuries."

  "I might have preferred that," she whispered, a stabbing bite of pain twisting in her heart. "What of Rand? Does he know I am here?"

  "Nay," Kenrick answered. "He knows none of it yet. I wanted to see for myself if my suspicions were correct, before I told him I was housing his family's betrayer."

  "I did not betray them, Kenrick. Not intentionally."

  He gave a humorless bark of laughter. "Intention hardly matters when a gentle lady and her young son are lying dead in cold graves."

  "Would that I could trade places with them. I would have, even then. Elspeth became my friend at Greycliff. I cared for her and her family. I did not want to see them harmed. You may find that hard to credit now, but it is true. As dear as they were to me, it is nothing compared to what I feel for you. I love you, Kenrick."

  His expression wavered no more than his stance: rigid, unyielding. Despite her clothes, which rasped against her skin as she trembled, Haven felt all but naked, utterly vulnerable, standing there before him. Her chance to explain herself was spent; nothing more she said now would convince him she spoke true.

  Looking at him, knowing how he valued fact and truth--how he loathed deceit--she understood his anger. Not even her magic could shield her from the ice of Kenrick's mistrust.

  "Say something. Please."

  An interminable silence stretched between them.

  Her heart aching, Haven waited for something from him, some indication of what he was feeling. But she could not read him. He would not permit her that. His steely logic sealed him off like a gate slammed tight against her.

  Impenetrable.

  "Kenrick...do not do this. Please," she said, reaching out to grasp his arm. "Don't shut me out with your silence."

  "What would you have me do, lady?"

  She made a noise of frustration, somewhere between a sob and a curse. "Bellow your rage at me! Demand recompense for my actions." She took his hand, and brought it up toward her face. It hovered there, unmoving. "Strike me if you will--that I can bear!"

  His strong fingers, rigid and radiating heat where they held near her cheek, slowly curled into his palm. He refused to touch her now, even in anger. "No. I am not going to shout, nor raise my hand to you, Haven. That would require passion. Something I don't have for you. Not anymore."

  A cry broke from her throat, ragged against the stillness of the chamber. "Can you put me out of your heart so easily?"

  "I already have." He glanced up, meeting her gaze for the first time since he had entered the room. "Would that I had banished you sooner--before you worked your shifter's witchery on anyone else in this keep. For that is what you are, is it not? You are a shifter."

  Shame made her chin heavy, but she forced herself to hold her head high, to not waver under Kenrick's accusing gaze. "I am Anavrin-born, yes. I was sent to the Outside with others of my clan to seek the Dragon Chalice and see it returned to our kingdom."

  "Shifter," he accused, his tone cold as any steel. "One of de Mortaine's minions. You made a clever spy--indeed, you had me fooled. How long would you have waited before you summoned your kin to attack Clairmont as they did Greycliff? Or do they come as we speak?"

  "I have summoned no one, nor did I when the raid occurred on Rand and Elspeth's home."

  "You would have me believe it was coincidence that you were there?"

  "Nay, it was not coincidence. I was sent to their keep to gather information about the Dragon Chalice. Silas de Mortaine knew of your visits to Greycliff, and he suspected you had given Rand a portion of your work. I was supposed to search for answers and report back to him, but I found nothing. Rand kept your secret well, never speaking of your agreement nor betraying your trust in any way."

  "Yes," Kenrick said. "He is a true friend."

  Haven winced at the implication, then continued. "I knew the longer I delayed at Greycliff, the more likely that reinforcements would be sent to investigate. Before I could warn Elspeth and Rand of the danger they were in, de Mortaine ordered the attack on the keep. I had no idea it was coming." She took a fortifying breath, recalling the horror of that night. "The raiding shifters swooped in like a tempest. No one stood a chance against them."

  "And what of you, Haven?" Kenrick's voice was wooden, flat. "What did you do during all of this bloodshed--join in with your clan?"

  "No!" she gasped. "No, I tried to help Elspeth and Rand escape the raid, I swear it!"

  His gaze was hard with suspicion.

  "You don't believe me."

  "No more than Rand himself, I e
xpect." He gestured to her neck, where the faint marks of punishing fingers still lingered. "Those bruises you said you suffered in the attack. Rand told me how he had been betrayed to de Mortaine. He explained how he turned the betrayer's own blade on her breast, how he would have choked the life out of you, had he not lost hold of you amid the smoke and fire of the raid."

  Haven nodded slowly. "His rage was uncontrolled; he would have killed me, I am certain. I would not have fought him. But one of my clan would have slain him not long afterward, and then he would have stood no chance at all of saving his family."

  "What are you saying?"

  "The smoke was thick, so thick all around us that it concealed me like a cloak. I shifted out of his grasp and fled into the night."

  "Jesu Criste," Kenrick swore, raking his fingers through the golden waves of his hair.

  "I would have told you all of this tonight, I swear it--with or without the surprise of Rand's presence."

  He stared at her, his jaw held taut. "Show me."

  "What?"

  "I want to see you as you truly are--in your shifter form. Show me. Now."

  "No," she said, recoiling at the idea. "I won't--I cannot! I do not want to be what I was."

  "'Tis too late for that, don't you think?"

  She shook her head in mute denial. "I am no longer that person. That part of me is dead now. It has been, whether I remembered my origins or nay, nearly since the day I met you. Since the moment I fell in lo--"

  "Do not say it again, Haven. Spare me any more of your lies."

  "It is the truth, whether or not you choose to believe it. I love you."

  "Nay." He reeled on her and seized her by the wrist before she knew what he was about. "You speak of love? There is but one thing a shifter truly loves."

  He pivoted, and stalked across the width of her chamber, her arm caught in an unrelenting grasp. His long strides carried them into the corridor and to the stairwell that led to his private chambers in the tower. He did not free her until they were standing in the middle of the room.

  She took in the space with a wary eye. His desk was in uncustomary disarray, one journal swept off the surface entirely and lying broken apart on the floor. At the opposite end of the room, a large tapestry had been rent from its hooks and left where it had fallen, exposing a flight of narrow, darkened stairs.

  "Kenrick," she gasped, feeling real terror as her body raced with the sudden quicksilver tremors of her glamour rising in alarm. Tiny needles of sensation pricked the tips of her fingers and raced along the length of her limbs. "What is this about?"

  "The truth, Haven. Finally."

  He turned toward his desk, his hands reaching for a small wooden chest that sat there, its size and shape no bigger than a lady's mending box.

  "If 'tis love that drives you," Kenrick said as he lifted the coffer from its place, "then let us see it now."

  "What is the meaning of this? What is in that chest?"

  "I expect you know what it contains." He turned around to face her once more, his eyes hard with judgment. "The very thing you've wanted all along for your employer, de Mortaine."

  Haven dared not move, her gaze rooted to his despite the pain it caused to see such loathing reflected back at her.

  Especially from him.

  "Kenrick, please...what is in there?"

  He was standing very close to her, no more than the width of the little box between them. This close, Haven felt the current of a thousand bolts of lightning thrumming from within the confines of the chest. Whatever it contained was alive with power--as strong as any magic she had ever known. It pulsed through her limbs and up along her spine, raising the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.

  By all she was, every drop of Anavrin blood that coursed within her veins, she knew now what the coffer contained.

  There could be no mistaking it.

  Calasaar.

  The Stone of Light--one of the four cups of the Dragon Chalice.

  Holding the small casket before him like a prize, his knowing blue gaze impaling her, Kenrick reached to the front and lifted the hammered brass clasp.

  "This is what you wanted, Haven," he told her grimly. "Open it."

  * * *

  She would not lift the lid, Kenrick knew. She could not allow herself so close to the treasure that was wrought from her kingdom's enchanted forge. He knew this, and so he did the deed himself. His fingers grasping the lip of the casket's hinged cover, he slowly opened the box.

  Haven instantly took several steps back, but was barred from flight by the solid weight of the desk behind her. She stared at the gaping mouth of the coffer as though transfixed. Unmoving now, she stood frozen, save the visible tremor that traveled the length of her slender arms to the tips of her elegant fingers. Kenrick could hardly tell if she so much as breathed.

  "Calasaar," she finally whispered. "It was here all along."

  Light emanated from the heart of the golden cup--one fourth of the most incredible treasure in all of Christendom. Each of the four pieces of the Dragon Chalice bore a winged serpent, coiled about the stem and clutching in its talons a priceless stone of immense power. For this cup, the stone was illumination itself--purest white, shining clear with a life-giving heat that just a few months ago had brought Kenrick's own sister back from the abyss of darkest death.

  But as it healed some, it could also harm others.

  Especially Haven.

  Where Anavrin's shifters were charged with assisting in the return of the Dragon Chalice, for them to touch any part of it was to court a hellish death. Kenrick had heard a horrific tale of how Silas de Mortaine once punished a shifter by forcing her to hold one of the four sacred cups. She perished in a ball of flames--paying a steep price for daring to defy her evil employer.

  "What now, Kenrick?" Haven asked quietly. There was fear in her eyes when she at last looked up at him. In their jewel-green depths, he saw a keen sorrow he tried hard not to acknowledge. "Will you command me touch this cup as I stand here before you?"

  "You think I want you dead?"

  "Don't you?"

  He couldn't answer. Emotions warred within him. Clashing feelings of rage and regret, pain and passion, competed for dominance in his heart. He knew not what to feel, or what he wanted from Haven in that moment.

  "Here," she said suddenly, and lunged toward the box he held. "I will make it easy for you. Easy for both of us--"

  "No!"

  As her hand shot out, Kenrick seized her by the wrist. A mere heartbeat away from placing her fingers against the Calasaar cup--a fractional instant before she would have sought her own death by its deadly magic--he stopped her. The fine bones in her wrist went taut with strain.

  She struggled against his hold, surprisingly strong, and flexible as a willow switch. Pinioned, she nearly twisted free. One hand loosed, she made another grab for the cup.

  With a curse, Kenrick dropped his spellbound parcel to take Haven in both hands. She startled, flinching as the wooden box and the cup it contained fell from his grasp and thudded softly to the floor, its freefall tumble cushioned by the thick rug beneath their feet. He kicked the priceless vessel out of range, hearing it roll onto the wood planks some distance away.

  "Why?" she cried. "Why did you stop me?"

  "Because as much as I loathe what you are--" He broke off, his voice a harsh whisper very near to her face. "God's blood, but as much as I wish to deny you ever existed, I do not crave your death. But I do want you gone."

  "Kenrick--"

  "Go. Go now, before I have the chance to think on what I am doing in letting you leave."

  "Kenrick, please. Let me explain--"

  He thrust her away from him. "Go!"

  A raw sob tore from her throat. She held her arms out to him, beseeching, weeping mutely. Her hair was a halo of auburn fire, her skin luminescent--almost shimmering--infused with light from the torches in the corridor outside the tower chamber.

  But there was something more than mere rushli
ght surrounding her, he realized. In that moment, her face stricken with anguish, her fingers reaching for him, she was enveloped in a glittering, twisting sheath of glowing power.

  "Jesu," he whispered, awestruck by the change coming over her.

  He said her name, but he did not think she could hear him. Her features were transforming, veiled by the brilliance of the magic that had been unleashed. Her mane of long hair spread over her, golden-red, shortening to a glossy pelt. Her eyes tilted up at the corners, stretching, pupils elongating as her face took on a wilder form. She arched her neck and gave a sharp-pitched howl as the change swept over her, faster now, becoming something feral, something fierce and untamed.

  The light grew brighter, nearly blinding him.

  Kenrick shielded his face with his arm, transfixed by this impossible reality. He peered through slitted eyes, searching for the woman who had been standing before him, engulfed in the shimmering wonder of her glamour.

  She was gone.

  Haven was there no longer, but in her place stood a beautiful, terrified looking little fox.

  Just like the one that had eluded him at Greycliff the first time he had laid eyes on Haven.

  "God's love. It was you that day at Greycliff. And when the hens attacked you and Ariana here at Clairmont, provoked by an unseen alarm...it was because of you."

  The vixen gave a short, high-pitched whine, hesitating only a heartbeat before it darted out of the tower chamber.

  Chapter 26

  Kenrick bolted into the corridor, disbelieving yet unable to deny what he had just seen. Dashing ahead of him, the fox was naught but a streak of pale russet fur and fast-flying feet.

  It made an abrupt turn for the stairwell, its speed too much for Kenrick to keep up. He heard the startled cry of a servant on the stairs, then the crash of pottery. Taking the steps several at a time, he passed the maid who was now stooping to pick up the shards of a broken water jug.

  "Have a care, milord! There be a nasty beast loose in the keep!"