Medieval 02 - Forbidden

her face by a silver circlet set with amber gems the precise color of her eyes.
    Duncan looked at Amber as though she were a stranger. A glance, no more, before he turned again to watch the Learned woman whose gray eyes had never looked more like a winter sky.
    “As you see,” Duncan said curtly, gesturing toward the doorway, “Amber is unharmed.”
    Cassandra turned and looked at the girl she had raised as her own daughter.
    “How goes it with you?” Cassandra asked.
    “It is as you foresaw.”
    Pain passed like a shadow over the Learned woman’s face at Amber’s soft words. Cassandra bowed her head for a moment. When she looked up again, there was no expression on her face at all. She turned toward Duncan.
    “Thank you, lord,” Cassandra said quietly. “I will trouble you no more.”
    “Hold,” Duncan said when Cassandra would have turned away.
    “Yes?” she asked calmly.
    “What did you foresee for Amber?”
    “Nothing that would affect your ability to rule Stone Ring Keep, its people, or its lands.”
    “Amber,” Duncan said without looking away from Cassandra. “Touch the Learned woman while I question her.”
    Disbelief showed in Amber’s face for an instant. Then anger came.
    “There is no reason to doubt her word,” Amber said stiffly.
    Duncan’s smile was as cold as Cassandra’s eyes.
    “No reason for you, perhaps,” he said. “She has no affection for me.”
    “Daughter,” Cassandra said, holding out her hand. “Your husband is uneasy. Reassure him.”
    Amber took the other woman’s elegant fingers between her own. The emotions that poured into Amber were complex, powerful, darkly seething with all that had been risked.
    And lost.
    Closing her eyes, Amber fought against the tears that Cassandra would not shed.
    “I have foreseen nothing that would affect your hold on Stone Ring Keep, its people, or its lands,” Cassandra repeated.
    “It is the truth,” Amber said.
    She put Cassandra’s palm against her cheek in a brief caress and released her.
    Unease rippled through Duncan. Though nothing more was said, he could feel the sadness flowing between the two women.
    It was as though they were saying good-bye.
    “What did you foresee for Amber?” he demanded again.
    Neither woman spoke.
    “ What did you foresee ?”
    Cassandra looked at Amber. She shook her head.
    “That is a matter between Amber and myself,” Cassandra said, looking back at Duncan.
    “I am lord of this keep. You will answer me!”
    “Aye,” the Learned woman said, “you are lord of this keep. My answer is that what passed betweenAmber and myself has naught to do with the safety of this keep.”
    Duncan looked into Cassandra’s calm gray eyes and knew that he would get no better answer from her.
    “Amber,” he said, “you will tell me what I seek.”
    “To use my gift merely to satisfy idle curiosity would be a sin. You are lord of the people’s bodies, not of their minds.”
    Duncan came out of the riven oak chair as though shot from a bow. His hand clamped around Amber’s arm. She barely had time to prepare herself for whatever pain might come along with the pleasure of his touch.
    But there was no preparation possible for what poured into Amber with Duncan’s touch. Rage and desire, contempt and yearning, restraint and grief, a torment that knew no bounds. There was no beginning to it, no end, no place to hide.
    His pain and her own combined.
    A keening sound of anguish was dragged from between Amber’s clenched teeth.
    “Amber?” he said roughly.
    She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. It was all she could do simply to stand upright against the combined torrent of their emotions.
    “It would be kinder to take a whip to her,” Cassandra said bitterly. “But you feel no kindness toward her now, do you?”
    “What in the name of God are you chattering about?” Duncan shot back. “I’m not holding her tightly enough to give pain.”
    “You could break her bones and she would feel no worse.”
    “Make sense, woman!” Duncan snarled.
    “I am. Whether light or heavy, your touch is agony to her.”
    Duncan looked at Amber, seeing her rather than his own rage. She was as pale as salt. The centersof her eyes had dilated until there were only glittering rims of gold. A sheen of sweat stood on her cold skin. Strength visibly drained from her with every quick, shallow breath she took.
    Shaken, Duncan released Amber as though she were a burning brand.
    She sank to her knees, put her arms