“Does he survive the encounter you saw?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I think his chances are better with me there.”
Back in the growing turns, when Grinsa had risked so much to save Tavis from the dungeon of Kentigern, Keziah had asked him if the boy was worth the possible costs. She nearly asked him again now.
“I don’t know how you can bring yourself to leave them,” she said instead. “It would kill me.”
He closed his eyes briefly, taking a long breath. “I’m not sure that I can explain it. He has a role to play in this war before it ends. Killing the assassin isn’t it-to be honest, I’m not certain what it is-but I sense that he can’t do the rest if he’s still consumed with his need for vengeance. And if he dies, and his destiny remains unfulfilled, we’ll all suffer for the loss.”
“And what of Cresenne? Doesn’t she have a part to play in this as well?”
“Yes, of course she does. But I fear that. . that I love her too much to see clearly what it might be.” He swallowed, looking more unsure of himself than Keziah could remember. “For all I know, she did her part by having Brienne killed and betraying me.”
Keziah shook her head. “I think there’s more to it than that. She’s not the same person she was then.”
“I know.”
She felt his weariness as if it were her own. Much as she wanted to convince him to remain, she understood that she could help him best by not trying to do so.
“If the Weaver comes for her again, you’ll have to find a way to wake her,” he said. “He can’t make her remain asleep, although it may seem that way at times. This is something you need to learn as well.” He held his face close to hers, his yellow eyes fixed on her own, as if he could will her to comprehend what he was saying. “When he hurts you, when he closes a hand round your throat, it’s all an illusion. His magic only allows him to reach into your dreams. After that, he’s using your magic and your mind to hurt you. So you have to train your mind to resist him. You can’t panic, you can’t give in to fear of what he seems to be doing to you. He can’t kill you without your complicity. If you keep your thoughts clear, you should be able to wake yourself before he can harm you. Explain this to Cresenne. Work on it together.”
Keziah nodded, feeling tears on her face again. “We’ll try.”
He started to say something, then stopped himself. Trying isn’t enough, Kezi. He had said this to her before and no doubt he was thinking it now. But he merely kissed her and wiped away her tears with a gentle hand. “I know you will,” he whispered. And left her.
The light in her chamber was just as she had envisioned it, soft and golden, deep orange from the sunset seeping through the small window to mingle with the bright yellow of the torches. She had bathed earlier in the day, rousing herself from her tears and her fright to clean the stale smell from her limbs and hair. Then she had bathed Bryntelle as well, so that they would both be clean for him on this last night.
He entered the chamber with food from the kitchens and a small carafe of wine. After the guard closed the door, Grinsa asked that he and his comrade leave the corridor so that the three of them might have some privacy. Just to the bottom of the tower, he pleaded. When the men refused, he pulled two daggers from his belt, stuck them in the wooden door just above its steel grate, and draped his overshirt from them so that it hung in front of the small window. This, too, was just as she had seen.
They ate, he sang to Bryntelle until she slept. And as night settled over the castle, moonless and cool, Grinsa took Cresenne in his arms and began to remove her clothes, gently and silently.
She hadn’t been with any other man since their time together, and the memory of his touch seemed to awaken her passion as from a long sleep. His lips on her neck and breasts, his hands traveling her body, deft and sure. There was something familiar about it, and yet something new as well. Moving above him, her back arched, her hair falling loose, she finally found it within herself to admit what she had known for so long. She loved this man, and somehow, a gift of the gods, an offer of forgiveness beyond any she had imagined possible, he loved her as well.
She felt it in the rhythm of their movements on the small bed, in the way he gazed up at her, watching her love him.
A part of her wanted to hate herself for all that she had done to him, to the world in which their daughter would live. But his touch wouldn’t allow it. If I can forgive you, he seemed to say with his kisses, his caresses, if I can love you, you must do the same for yourself.
And as she arced over him one last time, biting back a soft cry, her body seeming to burn with what he had done to her, what they had done together, she realized that she could do this much, for him, for herself, for Bryntelle.
Afterward, drained and sated, happier than she had been in many turns, and more afraid as well, she watched him sleep, touching his white hair, studying his face by the faint light that the window allowed into the chamber.
When the sky began to brighten with morning, he awoke, dressed quickly, and stooped to kiss her where she lay.
“I’ll come back to you,” he whispered. “To both of you. I promise.”
He kissed Bryntelle, brushed her cheek with a slender finger. Then he straightened, and left the chamber, tears glistening on his cheeks.
It was all just as she had dreamed it would be.
She had seen much else in her vision as well, things that made her tremble for herself and for her child. She hadn’t seen enough, however, to know if Grinsa could keep this last promise he had made.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Curtell, Braedon, Amon’s Moon waxing
The high chancellor didn’t have to look at Nitara to know that she was watching him, following his every movement with her ghostly pale eyes. He felt her stares as he might the breath of a lover, stirring his hair, touching the nape of his neck, the harbinger of a kiss. He had regretted turning her away from his bed every night since their encounter in his chamber, though he knew he had been right to do so. For years he had dreamed of finding a woman with whom he could lead the Forelands when at last his plans bore fruit. He had thought to make Cresenne his queen, and when he realized that she had betrayed him, he had turned such thoughts to Jastanne. Certainly it had never occurred to him to look for his queen within Harel’s court.
There could be no denying that Nitara was beautiful and intelligent. When Dusaan first thought to turn Kayiv and her to his cause, he had considered the man the more promising of the two. Only as he spoke to them of the movement and its needs did he begin to see just how wrong he had been. She was brilliant, and Kayiv proved far more limited than the Weaver had hoped.
That she knew who and what he was only served to deepen Dusaan’s fascination with the woman. It was one thing to touch Jastanne with his mind as she stood naked before him, her hair dancing in the wind on the plain he had conjured for her dreams. It would have been quite another to lie with a woman who knew his face and his name, as well as the extent of his power. He realized, however, that there were dangers as well, and thus far, his caution had overmatched his need and his passion.
The greatest risk, he felt certain, came not from Nitara herself but rather from Kayiv, who had been her lover until recently. Dusaan didn’t know what she had told him, or how she had explained her decision to end their love affair. The Weaver had made her swear that she wouldn’t tell anyone what she knew about him, and he had urged her to go back to Kayiv and repair their relationship. But though she had promised to keep his secret, she had made it clear that she couldn’t love the minister anymore. And judging from the way Kayiv was glaring at the high chancellor, as the other Qirsi in the ministerial chamber argued some arcane point of Braedon law, Dusaan could only assume that the man had guessed where her affections were now directed. He might even have concluded that Nitara was already sharing the chancellor’s bed.