Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

Ada and Gervas collected the gear and headed toward the house. Gerek waited, uncertain. Kosenmark had made no move to dismount. Finally the man glanced down. He smiled, the first Gerek had seen since …

… since almost never.

“Go,” Kosenmark said softly. “And thank you, Gerek.”

Wordlessly, Gerek handed over his reins to a stable hand. His muscles cried out with every step, but he trudged between the sheds and low buildings, to the wide swath of green outside the gates. Three guards stood at watch. They admitted him without challenge or greeting, for which he was grateful.

He passed through the gates into the wild lower gardens. A hush lay over the grounds, a sweet soft quiet of twilight. It was like the pause between one breath and the next, Gerek thought. Between the invocation of magic and its presence. He paused in the middle gardens and breathed in the ripe scent of roses and lilies, the crushed grass beneath his feet. From the house came a rill of incense floating through the air.

Inside that house waited his duties, regular and dull.

(Though not so dull as he had first expected.)

Somewhere, in the kitchen no doubt, Kathe and her mother supervised the preparations for the evening. He had not allowed himself to think of Kathe since landing on Hallau Island.

I must talk with her later. Tomorrow. She will grant me that much, I think.

He followed the lane down the side of the house, slipped past the kitchens, bright and busy with noise, and entered by another door. This wing of the house proved deserted, but from a distance he heard the echo of conversation and music. Nadine’s voice rose in a laughing exclamation, answered by Eduard and another man’s voice. Gerek paused and smiled painfully, thinking of his own first encounter with Nadine. A stranger would see only the glittering exterior of the house. They would not perceive the secret corridors, the sudden trips and traps, the shadows underneath.

Was he sorry he came here?

No. He had done good work, if not the work he had expected.

He turned into the stairwell and climbed to the floor where he had his rooms. As he rounded the corner from the landing, he saw a figure standing far off. A woman, whose height and form were familiar to him, even in the shadows. She turned, and the light from a lamp fell across her face.

Kathe.

Gerek’s heart gave a painful leap. He took three swift steps toward her before doubt stopped him. But Kathe was already running toward him. She took his hands in a fierce grip. Gerek could not trust himself to speak. He could only take in her presence, the warmth and strength of her hands, the brightness of her eyes as she stared back at him with a wondering gaze that called up all manner of hope.

“You’re not in the kitchen,” he said at last.

A fluid sentence that made no sense, and yet said everything he wished. Kathe laughed as if she understood him completely. “No, I’m not in the kitchen. Why should I be?”

There were tears beneath that laughter. He drew her closer. “Kathe, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. At least—I hope nothing. I heard you had come. Ada sent word throughout the house. And so I came to say— If you would still like an answer to your question. The one you asked before. And I can’t see why you would. But I have one.” She stopped and met his gaze directly, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She drew a long breath and said, almost steadily, “If you would still like an answer to your question, my answer is yes.”

Yes. She said yes.

All the weariness and doubts tumbled away from him. He was grinning, and saw that foolish grin mirrored in Kathe’s face. For a moment, the briefest sorrow overtook his delight—it was not fair that he should have such joy when Lord Kosenmark had none—but just as quickly, he forgot Kosenmark and the rest of the world in the amazement of his own great happiness.

“Do you still want that answer?” Kathe whispered.

Gerek lifted a hand to her cheek. “Oh, yes. Yes, I do.”