Medieval 02 - Forbidden

If you die at Duncan’s hands, I will declare a blood feud.”
    For once Erik didn’t know what to say. Of all the patterns and possibilities he had foreseen, this hadn’t been one.
    Wordlessly he opened his arms to the woman who had been his mother in spirit if not in flesh. Cassandra returned the hug without hesitation, savoring the strength and vitality of the man whose birth wouldn’t have been possible without her Learned intervention.
    “I would prefer a different monument to my passing than the beginning of a war only my enemy can win,” Erik said after a few moments.
    “Then examine your enemy with an eye to future good. Dominic le Sabre might make a better ally than your cousins do.”
    “Satan himself would make a better ally than my cousins.”
    “Aye,” Cassandra said ironically. “It is a thing to think upon, is it not?”
    Erik gave a crack of laughter and released Cassandra.
    “You never give up,” he said, smiling, “yet you call me stubborn.”
    “You are.”
    “I am merely following my gift.”
    “Stubbornness?” she asked dryly.
    “Insight,” he retorted. “I see the means to success where others see only the certainty of failure.”
    Cassandra touched Erik’s forehead with her fingertips as she looked into his clear, tawny eyes.
    “I pray that clarity rather than arrogance will be your guiding star,” she whispered.
     
    D ISTANT thunder rumbled over Duncan and Amber as they rode their horses toward Stone Ring and the sacred, unbloomingrowan. Uneasily Duncan turned toward the grumbling sound and wondered if the storm would break near or far away.
    The clouds that had formed a lid over the fells were flowing lower and lower, dragging a thick mist with them. Yet it wasn’t the damp weather that prickled coolly down Duncan’s spine. He sensed the possibility of danger, yet all about him seemed safe.
    Absently he checked that the hammer he had taken from the armory lay ready to hand.
    “Stormhold,” Amber said.
    Duncan turned toward her quickly. “What?”
    “’Tis just Stormhold purring like a great, contented cat now that winter is on the way.”
    “Then you think the fells love the storms?” he asked.
    “I think they were born for one another. The storms reach their greatest glory in the fells. The fells are never more magnificent than in the fierce grasp of a storm.”
    “Dangerous, too,” Duncan muttered.
    The whisper of peril came again to him. Again he looked around, but saw nothing moving except the silent, sweeping veils of mist.
    “Danger whets beauty,” Amber said.
    “Does peace dull it, then?”
    “Peace renews beauty.”
    “Is that part of your Learned teachings?” Duncan asked dryly.
    “’Tis part of common sense, and well you know it,” she retorted, rising to the bait.
    Duncan laughed, enjoying Amber’s quickness even though it made him ache to touch her again. Despite his hunger, he made no move to reach for her. He wasn’t certain why she had carefully avoided touching him since Whispering Fen, but he was certain that she had.
    Smiling, Amber turned her face to the wild, seething sky. Against the violet folds of her cowland mantle, her skin had the glow of a fine pearl. The deep rose of the mantle’s lining was repeated in her lips. When the cowl fell back, it revealed the circlet of silver and amber holding her loosely braided hair.
    Gems of amber were everywhere on her. Bracelets of clear, golden pieces of amber circled her wrists, gleaming with every movement she made. The silver dagger at her waist was set with a single red amber eye. The hand-sized silver pin that fastened her cloak was set with translucent amber gems in the shape of a phoenix, symbol of death and rebirth through fire. A necklace of amber pieces hung around her neck, as did the pendant in whose golden depths Amber could sometimes see shadows of the past.
    Yet as Duncan watched her, it wasn’t the fortune in costly gems he saw. He saw the thick fringe of her eyelashes and the wild roses blooming in her cheeks. He ached to taste the chill of the wind on her skin, and then to drink the warmth behind her rosy lips.
    He wished she were riding in front of him rather than on her own horse. If she were in front of him, he could gather her close, slide his hand into the opening of her mantle, and caress the soft warmth of her breasts. Then he would feel the softness change as her nipples tightened, pouting for the heat of his mouth.
    Duncan’s thoughts had an immediate