Honor-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book III ]

Prologue

Uachi leaned against the window pane, gazing out across the nightscape of the Imperial Gardens. The world was awash in a thousand shades of blue, lit by the rising moon.

It had been so long since he'd been here. Had he ever found such beauty in the Holy City before?

There came a rustling from behind him. Uachi smiled, knowing what he would see even before he turned his head. Ealin was smoothing out the quilt, still dressed only in her shift. She always made the bed like this as soon as she arose. It was a habit Uachi assumed was left over from her upbringing as a novice in the Mage's Keep.

"Going somewhere?" he asked, leaving the window. He went to his side of their bed and helped her straighten the blankets.

"I'm due back in the kitchens to prepare for tomorrow's baking," Ealin said. She smiled at him, her gaze skating down over his naked chest.

"A late night."

"There's always work to be done. You know that better than anyone."

Uachi straightened his pillow. Then, he approached her, skirting the bed, and he opened his arms. Ealin fell into his embrace with a laugh, responding to his soft sound of protest. As she rested her head against his collarbone, he folded his arms around her, pulling her toward him, pulling her into his arms. He kissed her hair.

There they stood for a moment, embracing in the early hours of the night. Uachi felt something close to peace.

"Uachi?" Ealin's voice was soft.

"Yes?"

"Was it true, do you think? Prince Koren and...and the archmage?"

When they had sat down to their light supper earlier that evening, Uachi had told Ealin the news he'd carried north for the Blood-Bound Sovereigns: that the runaway prince, Matei's half-brother Koren, had been seen in battle at the front—and that a mage had been at his side. Although each account was unclear, none of the soldiers who came bearing the news had any doubts about who that mage had been: Jaeron, the archmage, who had lurked in shadows all his life but had risen to notoriety in the quelling of the Arcborn Rebellion.

Uachi sighed. Perhaps he should have kept the news from his sweetheart. Ealin knew Uachi had good reason to fear Jaeron; he had told her how the archmage had killed his younger brother, Uaran, and passed his corpse off for Prince Koreti's.

But Ealin had lived under Jaeron's hand as an apprentice since her childhood, and she had not been surprised by the tale. She had more to fear from the archmage than Uachi ever had. He still did not know what had caused the ugly scars on Ealin's wrist and over her heart. She had never told him, and after a few gentle attempts to coax her secrets from her, he'd let her keep them.

Some things are simply too painful to confess, and he did not need to see into the darkest corners of her heart to love her. It was a love that he had long denied and, when he'd finally embraced it, it had frightened him—but no longer. This love was as familiar to him now as his own breath.

"I can't know for certain, but I think so," Uachi said, pulling back from Ealin's embrace. "We've been lucky. Five years of relative peace. Koren was foolish to wait so long to make his play, but I suspect it has taken him this long to build up enough support in a nation where he must be as hated as he was here."

Ealin bent down to pick up her gown from the floor. She shook it out, then pulled it on over her head.

"Don't be frightened," Uachi said. As Ealin began to smooth her gown over her hips, he gently tipped her head up so that the moonlight fell across her beautiful face. "He cannot reach you here...and even if he could, I would never let him touch you."

Ealin searched Uachi's face. He thought he saw the ghost of a smile at the corner of her mouth as she considered his words. Her eyes were gleaming. That little smile faded as quickly as it had come, and she began to button the front of the gown. "You don't know how powerful he is," she said.

"I can guess. It is enough." He wondered how he could make her feel safe. Protected. Uachi had spent his adulthood cultivating his strength and his skills so that he would never have to feel unsafe or vulnerable. To love a woman, though, and wish the same for her—sometimes it made a man feel strong, and sometimes it made him feel very weak indeed.

"There are very few things I want in this life, Ealin, and those things I do desire, I yearn for with everything in me."

"To save the Arcborn," Ealin said.

Uachi gave a soft laugh. "Yes. To lift the lot of the Arcborn—I've given much toward that goal, and I'll continue to fight for a day when the Arcborn in Penrua have nothing to fear. Another thing I desire is you."

She lowered her gaze, her long, dark lashes veiling her eyes.

"I love you, Ealin, more than I have ever loved anything in this broken world, and I will do anything to keep you safe." He fell silent, hoping she would believe him, because he spoke the truth. "Long before I knew you, though, there was another thing I wanted: to drive a dagger into the archmage's heart."

When the woman he loved did not look up at him, Uachi took Ealin's face gently between his calloused palms and leaned down to kiss her with all the tenderness he had in him. He pulled back a fraction, his lips nearly brushing hers when he whispered, "I would give much to deliver you from your fear of him, but he is far away, and you are safe so long as you are with me."

"Soon you, too, will be far away."

"Aye...between you and him."

Ealin looked at Uachi gravely for a long moment, lifting a hand to rest over his on her cheek. "I love you," she said, her voice soft and solemn. "If tomorrow should not come for us, I want you to remember that."

Something in her tone unsettled him, but the look she gave him was so sweet and so sincere that he was compelled to soothe her. "We'll have a lifetime of tomorrows, Ealin."

"All the same, will you remember?"

Uachi leaned down to kiss her again, long and slow, and she pressed her body against his. He held her close, one hand brushing the silken hair back from her face, the other resting firm against the small of her back.

Ealin was stronger than she seemed. She was the one person in the world who could unman Uachi, the one person who held him in her sway; even Matei, to whom Uachi had been loyal for many years, could not bend him to his will always. Sometimes, Uachi feared Ealin was stronger than he was, more powerful than he was.

But holding her like this made him feel for a moment as if it were the other way around; he felt as if he could shield her from the pain of the world when she folded herself into his arms, melting into his embrace. Ealin was still as frail as she had been the day they'd rescued her from the Mage's Keep, and Uachi, ever since he had come into manhood, had been tall, broad-shouldered, and strong. Physically, they could not have been more different, and part of him savored their differences. It made it possible for him to believe, almost, that he could protect her.

When he broke the kiss, Uachi kept his eyes closed, noticing the faint tickle of Ealin's breath against his naked collar bone, the warmth of her body in his arms. "I will remember," he whispered.

She pulled away from him. "Then I'm at peace. I'm overdue. Enjoy the night, Uachi. Perhaps a walk in the gardens."

Ealin hesitated on the threshold, looking back over her shoulder at Uachi, a faraway look in her eyes. Then, abruptly, she turned away.

The door fell closed behind her.