There was a bond between us I couldn’t name. A sadness, a regret, a falling short, a past. I saw the yearning in his eyes, not just for me but for something more, a peace, a wholeness, and I wanted to give it to him.
I was immersed again in his tenderness … his finger tracing a line down my shoulder, slipping my strap free so he could kiss my back, his lips barely brushing along my kavah, my whole body tingling at his touch, our lips meeting over and over again.
From the first day, Lia, I wanted this, wanted you.
Our fingers laced together, tumbling in a bed of leaves, my head resting on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart, his hand stroking my hair. I had to get some sleep, but I couldn’t stop reliving it. I hadn’t thought it could be this way. Ever. With anyone.
We had talked for hours. He loved fishing from a riverbank, but he rarely had the time. He hesitated when I asked about his parents, but then told me they had died when he was young. He had no one else, which explained why he had no schooling in the Holy Text. He had worked on a farm, mostly tending the horses and other livestock, but also helping with the fields. Yes, melons were one of the things they grew, just as I had imagined. He hated pigeon meat and was glad we left the dinner early yesterday. I shared my stories too, mostly about forays into the mountains or forests with my brothers, who remained unnamed. I was careful to leave royal details out. He was surprised to learn I had favored swordplay over stitchery, backroom card games over music lessons. He promised to challenge me to a game one day.
It was late when he walked me back. Pauline had left the lantern out for me. Our words just kept stringing on and on, always one more thing to say to keep us from parting, one more thing we needed to share. Finally I kissed him one last time and told him good night, but as I reached for the door handle, he stopped me.
“Lia, there’s one more thing, something else I need to—”
“Tomorrow, Rafe. We have all day tomorrow. It’s late.”
He nodded, then lifted my hand to his lips and left.
A perfect night … a perfect forever.
I was in that half-awake dreamworld all night long, until the early morning hours, when the first muted light tiptoed along the ledge of the window, and my dreams finally gave way to sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Lia.”
A nudge on my shoulder.
“Lia, wake up.”
Another nudge.
“Lia! You have to wake up!”
I startled awake, sitting upright. Pauline sat on the edge of the bed. The room was bright. I had slept all morning.
“What is it?” I said, shielding my eyes against the light. And then I noticed Pauline’s expression. “What?”
“It’s Walther. He’s behind the icehouse. Something’s wrong, Lia. He’s—”
I was out of the bed, groggy, rummaging for pants, a shirt, something to throw on. Walther behind the icehouse? My palms were damp with sweat. Pauline’s voice was shrill. Something’s wrong. I threw down whatever was bunched in my hands and ran out of the cottage barefoot and in my nightdress.
I saw his tobiano first, lathered and snorting, as if it had been ridden all night. “Take him to the barn and wipe him down,” I called to Pauline, who was running behind me. I rounded the corner of the icehouse and saw Walther sitting on the ground, leaning against a broken overturned wheelbarrow that was stored there along with unused crates and a jumble of other castoffs.
“Lia,” he said when he saw me.
My breath stopped dead against my ribs. He had a gash on his forehead, but worse, his expression was crazed—this was a wild man pretending to be my brother.
“Walther, what is it?” I rushed to his side and fell to my knees. My hand went to his forehead, and he looked at me and said “Lia” again, as if it were the first time.
“Walther, you’re hurt. What happened?”
His eyes were desolate. “I have to do something, Lia. I have to do something.”
I took his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. “Walther, please,” I said firmly. “You have to tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.”
He looked at me, almost like a child. “You’re strong, Lia. You were always the strongest of us. That’s what worried Mother.”
He was making no sense at all. His gaze drifted away, and his eyes were glassy and rimmed in red. “There was nothing I could do,” he said. “Not for either of them.”
I grabbed his shirt and shook him. “Walther! What happened?”
He looked back at me, his lips cracked, his hair falling in his face in filthy, oily strands. His voice was passionless. “She’s dead. Greta’s dead.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t possible.
“An arrow straight through her throat.” His gaze remained vacant. “She looked at me, Lia. She knew. Her eyes. She couldn’t speak. She just looked at me, knowing, and then she fell forward into my lap. Dead.”
I listened as my brother recounted each shattered piece of his dream. I held him, rocked him, huddled with him in the squalor and mud. When I saw Pauline and Berdi round the corner of the icehouse, I waved them away. My brother, my strapping soldier brother, wept in my arms. He straddled a line between tears and dispassionate belief and told me every detail, unable to separate the relevant from the inconsequential. Her dress was blue. She had braided her hair in a circle around her head that morning. The baby was moving. They were on their way to Greta’s aunt’s house. It was only an hour’s ride in the carriage from her parents’ manor. Her sister and her family were in the carriage just behind them. They were going to have lunch. Only an hour, he repeated over and over again. An hour. And daylight. It was daylight. They were just about to cross the bridge from Chetsworth into Briarglen when there was a tremendous roar. He heard the driver shout, there was a loud thump, and then the carriage lurched. He was about to look out to see what had happened when he heard another sound, the thump, thump, thump of arrows. He turned to shove Greta down, but it was too late.
“They were there to destroy the bridge,” he said. His eyes were wide, his voice numb again, as if he had replayed the scene over in his own head a thousand times already. “We came along just as it was going down. The driver shouted at them, and they killed him. Then sprayed us with more arrows before they galloped off.”
“Who, Walther? Who did this?”
“I took her back to her parents. I knew that’s where she’d want to go. I took her back, Lia. I washed her. I wrapped her in a blanket and held her. Her and the baby. I held her for two days before they made me give her to them.”
“Who did this?”
He looked at me, his eyes suddenly focused again, his mouth contorting in disgust as if I hadn’t been listening. “I have to go.”
“No,” I whispered softly, trying to soothe him. “No.” I reached up to push his hair aside and check the gash in his forehead. He hadn’t told me how he got it. In his crazed state, he probably didn’t even know it was there.
He pushed my hand away. “I have to go.”
He tried to get up, and I pushed him back against the carcass of the wheelbarrow. “Go where? You can’t go anywhere like—”
He pushed me away roughly, and I fell back. “I have to go!” he yelled. “My platoon. I have to catch up.”