The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“I am an Eagle.” The hate she felt for what he’d done to her spilled into the words. “I pledged my service to King Henry.” But with each of her defiant words, his fury built; she could feel it like an actual hand gripping her throat. He would hit her again. And again. No matter how much anger she spat at him he was still stronger. If Sanglant’s fingers had not steadied her, she would have fled.

But Hugh liked the chase.

“I’m not your slave!”

“We shall see,” said Hugh, all elegance and hauteur even with the last traces of ale trickling along the curve of his jaw. “We shall see, my rose, whether King Henry judges the matter in my favor—or in Wolfhere’s.” With a thin smile, confident of victory, he left them.

It took five heartbeats for the words to register, and when they did, she went weak at the knees and collapsed onto the bench. “He’ll take it before the king. He’ll protest he didn’t consent to give me up, that Wolfhere bought off the debt price unlawfully. You know how the king hates Wolfhere!”. Her chest felt caught in a vise. “I’m lost!”

sively, she raised a hand to touch his face. No trace of beard chafed her fingers. This close, she could smell him: sweat, dust, the fading scent of recently-dyed cloth, all of it sharp and overwhelming. Nothing of his Eika prison remained. In the wild lands beyond the city of memory, frozen under ice, the summer sun flooded the wilderness smothered in ice with a heat so intense that it ripped through her with the power of liquid fire: A torch flared across the yard, surprised murmurs rose from inside the hall, and she staggered under the hideous memory of the palace at Augensburg going up in flames.

He drew her hand down to his chest. His touch was like the wash of cool water, soothing, quieting, healing. Where he held her hand pressed against his tunic, she felt the beat of his heart. He was not less unsteady than she was.

Lady Above! This was madness. But she couldn’t bring herself to move away.

Suddenly, Sanglant threw back his head and half-growled, pushed her brusquely aside as he stepped forward. Surprised, turning, she saw Hugh behind her with an arm outstretched to grab her. She yelped and began to bolt, but Sanglant had already put himself between her and the enemy. She began to shake, could do nothing more than press a hand weakly against Sanglant’s back.

“Hugh,” said Sanglant in the way that a devout man utters one of the thousand names of the Enemy.

“She is mine.” Hugh looked so consumed by rage that for an instant she scarcely recognized the elegant courtier who graced the king’s progress. Then he controlled himself. “And I will have her back.”

Sanglant snorted. “She belongs to no man, nor woman either. Her service as a King’s Eagle is pledged to the regnant.”

Hugh did not back down. Sanglant was taller, and broader across the shoulders; certainly Sanglant had the posture of a man well-trained at war. But Hugh had that indefinable aura of confidence of a man who always gets what he wants. “We may as well set this straight now so that there are no further misunder-standings between us, my lord prince. She is my slave and has been in the past my concubine. Do not believe otherwise, no matter what she tells you.”

The words fell like ice, but Sanglant did not move to expose her. “At least I do not number among my faults having to compel women to lie with me.”

The difference between them was that Hugh made no unstudied movement, allowed no unthought expression to mar either his beauty or his poise, while Sanglant made no such pretense—or perhaps he had simply forgotten what it meant to be a man, a creature halfway between the beasts and the angels.

The smile that touched Hugh’s lips fell short of a sneer; rather, he looked saddened and amused as he slid his gaze past Sanglant to fix on Liath. She could not look away from him. “‘Whoever has unnatural connection with a beast shall be put to death,’” he said softly.

She grabbed the cup of ale and dashed the liquid into his face. Shaking, she lost hold of the cup. It thudded onto the bench, rolled, and struck her foot. But the pain only brought her fully awake, out of the blinding haze of desire that had surged over her when she first walked into the hall and saw Sanglant waiting for her.

Someone laughed; not Sanglant. The prince’s fingers touched her sleeve, to rein her back.

Hugh laughed, delighted, even as he licked ale from his lips. He did not wipe the ale from his face or blot it from the damp front of his handsomely-embroidered tunic, grape leaves entwined with purple flowers. She was so painfully alive to the currents running between them that Hugh’s laughter came this time with revelation: Her defiance excited him physically. He laughed to cover it, to release an energy fueled of fury and lust.

“I am an Eagle.” The hate she felt for what he’d done to her spilled into the words. “I pledged my service to King Henry.” But with each of her defiant words, his fury built; she could feel it like an actual hand gripping her throat. He would hit her again. And again. No matter how much anger she spat at him he was still stronger. If Sanglant’s fingers had not steadied her, she would have fled.

But Hugh liked the chase.

“I’m not your slave!”

“We shall see,” said Hugh, all elegance and hauteur even with the last traces of ale trickling along the curve of his jaw. “We shall see, my rose, whether King Henry judges the matter in my favor—or in Wolfhere’s.” With a thin smile, confident of victory, he left them.

It took five heartbeats for the words to register, and when they did, she went weak at the knees and collapsed onto the bench. “He’ll take it before the king. He’ll protest he didn’t consent to give me up, that Wolfhere bought off the debt price unlawfully. You know how the king hates Wolfhere!”. Her chest felt caught in a vise. “I’m lost!”

“Liath!” His hand cupped her elbow and he lifted her up. “I beg you, Liath, look at me.”

She looked up. She had forgotten how green his eyes were. The wildish underglaze in them had not vanished entirely, but it had fled back as if to hide, leaving him with a clear gaze, determined and dead stubborn.

“Liath, if you consent to marry me, then I can protect you from him.”

“You’re half mad, Sanglant,” she murmured.

“So I am. God Above! I’d be nothing but a beast in truth if you hadn’t saved me! No better than those dogs that bite at my heels. But you waited for me all that time. Knowing that, I kept hold of what it means to be a man instead of becoming only a chained beast for him to torment.”

“I don’t understand you. Ai, Lady! It’s true what Hugh said of me, made his slave and his—” The shame was too deep. She could not get the word out.