King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

But she would never be free of him. He knew. Of course he knew.

She let go of Hanna’s hands and stood. Hanna scrambled to her feet and turned just as Hugh opened the door.

“Get out,” he said coldly. Hanna glanced once at Liath. “Out!”

He held the door until Hanna left. Then he shut it firmly behind her. “I do not like you having visitors.” He crossed to Liath and took her chin in his left hand; his fingers cupped her jaw. He stared down at her. The deep azure dye of his tunic brought out the penetrating blue of his eyes. “You will no longer entertain any visitors, Liath.”

She wrenched her face out of his grasp. “I’ll see whom I wish!”

He slapped her. She slapped him back, hard.

He went white, except where her fingers had left their red imprint on his fine skin. He pinned her back onto the table, pressing her wrists painfully against the hard wood surface, and held her there. He was pale with anger, and his breath came ragged as he glared at her.

“You will not—” he began. His gaze shifted over her shoulder. He caught in a breath. He dragged her off the table and shoved her away. Whatever will had momentarily possessed her was already sapped. She stood numbly and watched as he brushed his palm over the tabletop. He inscribed his hand in a circle, narrowing, spiraling in, to trace the outline of a rose burned lightly into the burnished wood grain. His expression was rapt, avid. Finally he turned.

“What have you done?”

“I’ve done nothing.”

He grabbed one of her hands and tugged her forward, placed her hand over the table where she had to see, although the outline was almost invisible. The lines felt like fire along her skin.

“The Rose of Healing,” he said. “You have burned its shape into the table. How did you do this?”

She tried to pull her hand out of his, but his grip was too strong. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her. “You don’t know?” If anything, he looked more furious than when she had slapped him. “You will tell me!”

“I don’t know.”

He struck her backhanded. His heavy rings scored her cheek. He struck her again. He was diving into a rare fury. “How many years have I studied to find the key to the Rose of Healing, and you don’t know? Where is your father’s book? What did he teach you?”

“No,” she said, while blood trickled down her cheek.

He lifted her up bodily and carried her out of the room and into his own cell. There, he dropped her onto the bed. There she lay, staring up at him. He studied her, and all the while his left hand opened and shut to a rhythm known only to him.

Finally he knelt on the bed beside her. He wiped the thin film of blood off her skin. His touch was gentle.

“Liath.” His voice was coaxing, persuasive. “What use is knowledge if it is not shared? Have we not learned well together this past winter? Can we not learn more?” He kissed her cheek, where the rings had cut it open, then her throat, then her mouth, lingering, insistent.

But the fire had woken in her, however damped down it might burn. Ever since she had drawn the rose, a thin edge of sensation burned inside her where before she had felt nothing. Fire melts ice. Each time he kissed her she shuddered away from him.

“No,” she said softly, and braced herself for the blow.

“Liath,” he sighed. He ran a hand along the curve of her body. His breathing came in unsteady bursts, more ragged even than it had been when he was angry. “I have never treated you ill, in my bed.”

“No,” she said, compelled to answer with the truth.

“You could have pleasure. But you must trust me. I have seen how quickly you learn. How much you want to learn. That you want to learn more.” He laid his full weight on her. Even through their clothing, she felt the heat of his skin, burning off, enveloping her. “You know very well, my beauty, there is no one else you can ask. No one else you can turn to. I am the only one. There were rumors about your Da, dear old Master Bernard, but these villagers let it alone, let him alone, because they liked him. Because the biscop of Freelas has worse things to worry about than one stray sorcerer who sets hex spells to keep foxes out of henhouses.”

Trapped in this tiny cell, the walls so thick, the air so still, she was already walled up, lost in a prison of Hugh’s making.

“But you would not be so lucky, as young as you are, and the way you look.” He stroked her hair in that way he had, running a hand up her neck and catching the hair on the back of his hand, in his fingers, stroking free. “This hair is too fine and too lovely, your skin stays dark through the winter, like the folk from the southern lands, and who in these Lady-forsaken parts has seen such folk, or even believes in them? And your eyes. As blue as the deep fire, or did you know that? I know. I have sought since I was a boy to unlock the secrets of sorcery. There are others like me, others who struggle to learn and to master. Somehow you were born with it in your blood. I know what you are, but I will never betray your secret to anyone else. Do you believe me?”

Even trapped under him, knowing he would say anything to convince her to give him the book, to tell him everything she knew, the horror of it was she did believe him. She had a sudden premonition he had spoken those words rashly and without thinking he might be swearing himself to them.

“I believe you,” she said, but the words hurt. He knew what she was. A sorcerer makes herself, but two sorcerers must never marry. Her mother had said it once, placing a hand on Liath’s brow. Because the child of two sorcerers might inherit a wild streak of magic more dangerous than the king’s wrath. Except Liath had inherited a kind of deafness instead. Da taught her, but only so she could protect herself by having that knowledge. “You cannot use them, for you are deaf to magic.”

Or so she had always thought. But now she had burned the Rose of Healing into the wooden grain of the table.