Keverin arrived at Wardenvale with his handful of men in the middle of an attack. The sounds of battle were all too familiar to him now, as were the explosions he associated with magic. He galloped across the lowered drawbridge and through the gates ignoring the sentries who attempted to question him. He dismounted, and with Brian and Lorcan at his back went straight away to the keep looking for Julia.
A maidservant rushed by as he entered and he put out his arm to stop her. “Where is Lady Julia?”
The woman shook her head and rushed away.
Keverin scowled, and began opening doors looking for someone in authority. The keep was much smaller than Athione of course, but there should have been more people than he found in his wanderings. Those few people he did find did not know where Julia was.
Keverin stopped and turned to Brian. “Send Burke and the others to find Marcus. I want to know our situation here. I’ll join him as soon as I have spoken with Julia.”
Brian nodded and went to give Burke and his men their orders. They had not yet unsaddled their mounts, and were waiting patiently in the stable court ignoring the questions aimed at them.
“The woman’s quarter, m’lord,” Lorcan suggested.
“Good thinking,” Keverin said. Although he doubted Julia would be there, Lady Direlle should be able to direct him. They had not yet reached the tower steps when someone called his name.
“Keverin!”
* * *
Julia snarled and ripped at the fabric of the world. Shelim shook with the effort of feeding her power through the link. The others sank to their knees groaning. He would not submit to the urge to do the same, but it was hard. The pain... the burning as the power raged through him was beyond anything he had ever known.
He sank to his knees fighting it all the way, but losing. Darnath collapsed beside him and Larn was howling silently next to Julia. Her eyes burned with the magic, and her hands like claws glowed with it. She did not see Larn’s pain, or maybe she did and didn’t care.
Shelim felt Darnath falter. There was nothing he could do for him. The link could only be broken by Julia, she was the focus, and the lessening flow was miniscule. He doubted she even noticed the loss. She kept working.
Shelim was freezing, no he was burning. He was drowning in an ocean of fire. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the pain. He became the pain, fed it back on itself trying to become its master. His body writhed upon the ground, but his mind cleared and suddenly he was somewhere else. He was floating. Below, he saw his body still writhing in agony, but he was divorced from it, separate and uncaring.
Was this the other world then? No, it couldn’t be; he wasn’t dead. One quick look down and he knew that he still lived. Was this one of Julia’s realms then? It might be. It just might. He watched his body dying by inches and couldn’t make himself care, but Darnath and the others needed him. He must go back, but the pain...
Julia staggered and went to her knees still vainly trying to work her magic. The air before her was shimmering and the wall was twisting and wavering, but the gate would not stabilise. Shelim watched her claw at it, and knew this wasn’t going to work. The gate needed something... a kind of focus. Just as Julia was the focus for the magic raging through her, the gate needed something to anchor it to the real world.
Shelim willed himself back into his body and screamed as he was submerged into fire. Every part of his body cried out for relief. He pushed himself back onto his knees, but could not go further. It was enough. He wondered at the change within himself. The pain was still eating him alive, but he mastered it, ignored it, became one with it. His thoughts were as sharp as a steel sword. He watched Julia twist and rip at the substance of the world and endured. There was nothing else he could do.
* * *
Julia pulled and twisted, wove the magic and spun out threads into the pattern she wanted. The magic thundered through her trying to pound her into the ground. She rode it like a wilful horse and insisted that it obey her. Grudgingly it did, but there was something wrong. The gate would not stabilise.
The pattern was complete, but still it drew magic from her. The flow was like nothing she had ever experienced. At least the pain was familiar. It felt like the end of the world. The same pain she had felt when she knew Keverin was dead; the pain that had not left her since that night and never would. It was despair. It felt like utter despair, and the God help her, it was as familiar as Keverin’s embrace.
The air wavered before her eyes, and the wall twisted into a vortex of crackling energy, but still the gate would not stabilise. She wanted to scream in frustration just as Larn and the others were screaming at the pain. What was wrong? Why wouldn’t it work?
The gate felt like a living thing. It breathed magic, and excreted lightning. The blue crackles of energy bled away into the room climbing the walls and running like magic rivers across the floor searching for the ocean. She had given birth to this monster and it hungered, oh how it hungered. It quested for that which would give it purpose, but found nothing. Julia did not understand. It was searching for something, something she could not provide. How could she when she didn’t know what it wanted?
Frustrated in its search, the matrix changed. She was no longer feeding it, it was feeding itself! Oh God it was hungry, it sucked at her magic like a babe at its mother’s breast. It drank her power down and yet more tendrils of magic spun out and into the void created by the gate. Julia tried to cut the flow. She ripped and tore at her creation trying to sever her link to it and the others.
The matrix twisted and the gate roared as if in agony, yet the search it had begun continued. Julia sank to her knees fighting and ripping at the monster she had conceived but it wouldn’t let her go. She could feel the others wavering, they were near collapse, but that wouldn’t stop the insanity. The gate would suck them dry of magic and then of their very lives to feed its insatiable need.
Julia fell forward and caught herself with one hand. The other was still futilely reaching for the gate, almost in supplication. She would have prayed if she thought it would help, but the God had turned his face from her the day Keverin died. She no longer believed that praying did any good. She was cursed, but wasn’t that right? Right or not, it was certainly justice. She deserved no better for all she had done since coming to Deva.
The roaring and crackling ceased abruptly and the gate snapped into stability with a soundless explosion. A wind gusted into the room bringing with it the scent of hot dust.
Julia panted and gasped as she pushed herself up onto shaky legs. There was no pain, just a steady and pleasant flow of magic flowing smoothly through her and into the gate’s matrix, which hummed and chuckled happily to itself. Julia blinked at the absurd thought that went through her mind, but she would swear now and later that the gate was immensely pleased with itself—almost proud to have found what it was searching for.
Julia staggered forward and looked into what had been a void, but was now a doorway to another place. Ruins met her tired eyes. This place wasn’t Castle Black.
“Where the fuck is it?” she said harshly.
That was when she saw the robed figure staring at her with his mouth agape. She stepped hastily back as the glow of a mage sprang up around him. She should have killed him when he ran toward her, but she was tired and not at her best. She severed her link to the gate and it slammed shut before the sorcerer could reach her.
“Well?” Larn said, climbing slowly to his feet.
Julia helped him up. “Wrong address,” she croaked and wobbled on legs gone rubbery. “I don’t feel well...” she slumped onto her backside at his feet trying to take deep breathes. She watched the coloured lights burst before her eyes and waited for the dizziness to pass. “I’ll try again in a little while.”
“That won’t work,” an impossible voice said from the open doorway.
Julia looked up, still panting. There was a tall figure standing in the shadows of the doorway. “Kev?”
The figure moved and the meagre light of the lamps fell upon his face, but Julia was beyond caring. She slumped back, unconscious before she hit the floor.
Julia opened her eyes to darkness. “Kev?” she whispered, afraid to hope.
A shadowy shape rose from a nearby chair and approached the bed. “I’m here.”
“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” she said calmly, though her heart was beating so fast he could surely hear it. The ghost of the man she loved laughed. That beloved voice and now his laugh too. “Aren’t I?”
“No, Julia. You’re not dreaming. You’re as awake as I am. Give me your hand and see.”
She reached out and he took her hand in his. She pulled gently, and he allowed himself to be guided to the bed. He sat on the edge, so that she could explore his hand with her fingers. She felt the strength of it, remembered the feel of it upon her body. Tears came to her eyes and rolled down her face to soak into the pillow unheeded. She reached up to his face and he kissed her palm. His beard tickled.
“How can this be? We searched for you. I searched for days and days and found no sign. I’m dreaming. I must be, but I don’t want it to end. God is cruel. He will make me wake as my punishment. I know it.”
Keverin leaned forward and kissed her. “Shush, don’t talk that way,” he said, his own tears mingling with hers. “I don’t know why you couldn’t find me, but I’m here now, that’s all that matters.”
“Yes,” Julia pulled him down beside her. “Yes, now is all that matters.”
She kissed him, hard and long on the mouth until she felt light headed for lack of breath, and still she wanted more of him. Kev was her breath, her life, everything. She was his and he hers, forever. He pulled back a little, breathing heavily and looking at her with eyes full of tears and love. He stroked her cheek, and it was then that she saw he had not returned to her whole. He lay beside her, propped on one elbow and the hand of that arm was… gone.
“Oh Kev, your poor hand.”
Keverin looked down, avoiding her eyes and nodded. “Can you forgive me? You warned me, and I did not listen. I should have listened to you… I… my men, our friends…” he took a shuddering breath fighting to keep the pain from escaping. “I killed them all. Oh God, I killed them.”
She clutched him tightly and cried for his loss. “You are not to blame. It’s him,” she hissed, the hatred blazing up again in her heart despite her tears. “Navarien.”
“No Julia, don’t hate him. Never hate anyone; it will twist you until you become that which you despise. Gideon taught me that when I was a boy, and he is wise. Much wiser than you or I.”
Julia didn’t want to talk about Navarien. She didn’t want to talk at all. She pushed Keverin down onto his back and kissed him hungrily. He tried to hide his stump from her by pushing beneath the pillow under his head, but she stopped him. She took the arm and kissed the scars to show he did not need to hide it. She unbuttoned his shirt, and he let her keeping his eyes upon hers. When she reached for the buttons of his trousers, he captured her hand with his.
“We should not,” he said, his voice husky with need for her.
She smiled. “The King is here, did you know?”
He shook his head. “What does that…?”
“Gylaren and Purcell are both here. Gideon is with Marcus… it’s time you did what you promised. Marry me right away… well, tomorrow. It’s late.”
Keverin chuckled. “Jessica will cry when she hears she missed it, but yes. I will wed you tomorrow. I should have done it before Devarr…”
“Shush, I don’t want to hear any more about should haves and could haves, Kev. We will be wed tomorrow no matter what anyone says or does. You promise?”
Keverin nodded. “Come what may, we will be wed tomorrow.”
Julia sighed and nodded. She worked the buttons and helped him remove his clothes until he lay naked on her bed. Her eyes devoured him hungrily. He was everything she had ever wanted in a man. She had thought him dead, lost to her forever, but here he was, restored to her. It was a miracle. Julia stepped back from the bed and slowly undressed for him, letting his eyes see what they desired. It was only fair. She blushed at the heat and desire in his eyes.
“You are more beautiful than I remember, Julia. How is that possible?”
Funny, she had been thinking the same about him. “I love you so much, Kev. I can’t go through all this again. Don’t ever leave me. I couldn’t bear it.”
“Never,” he agreed.
Julia climbed onto the bed and straddled his hips. Keverin stroked her thigh up to her hip and then caressed the skin over her ribs. Julia shivered with anticipation as his hand moved over her stomach and dipped down to her core. She hissed and arched her back as the spike of pleasure ripped through her. Her nipples pebbled and she captured the hand, bringing it up to her breast. He thumbed a nipple, and she groaned. It had been so long.
They lost themselves in each other.
* * *