The Sea King by C. L. Wilson

She tried to free herself from the arcane magic of Dilys Merimydion’s voice. It was impossible with him so close, looking so seductively solemn and strong. The best she could manage was a weak, flimsy challenge.

  “And you think a Calbernan’s desire for a wife justifies taking a child from his mother’s arms at so young an age?”

  “Not the desire, no. But the bond? Yes. That is worth everything.” His words rang with unwavering certainty. “Our women—our wives—are the heart of Calberna. Without them, Calbernan males could not function. We would die. Just as you would die without the heart that beats in your chest.”

  He reached out slowly, laid three fingers lightly on the thin fabric that covered her left breast. Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at him in shocked silence. She made no attempt to move or to remove his hand. There was nothing sexual or teasing about his touch this time. It stunned her all the same.

  “But for all its strength, the heart is a vulnerable thing,” he continued. “It needs must be surrounded by a cage of bone to protect it. At all cost, at all times, the heart must be protected.” His hand turned over. Now it was the back of his fingers that caressed her skin just above the neckline of her gown, the touch featherlight, impossibly gentle. “Calberna’s sons are those bones. We are the spear, the sword, the unbreakable shield that protects Calberna’s vulnerable heart. It’s why we are born. It’s what we live for.”

  Her body started trembling. Did he sense the battle waging inside herself? Did he have any clue how close she was to throwing herself into his arms and begging him to be her unbreakable shield?

  “I still couldn’t bear to surrender my child to someone else’s keeping,” she told him. Her voice came out a rasping whisper. “I would never let anyone take my baby away from me.” The fire locked deep down inside her flared at the mere thought of it.

  At last she found the strength to lean back and put a little much-needed distance between them.

  He frowned down at his hand, still outstretched in the now empty, his loosely curled fingers moving ever so slightly, as if still caressing her skin. His hand closed in a fist, which he drew back to his side.

  Then, as quickly as it had come, his odd solemnity disappeared, replaced once more with the charming, easy smile she’d come to expect from him. And she could breathe again. Think again. She pressed a shaking hand to her lips.

  “My mother felt much the same as you.” He took a small forkful of the second fish, this one a flounder stuffed with sautéed mushrooms, green onions, and herbed breadcrumbs. “But I was betrothed at a young age to an imlani daughter of royal blood. It was imperative that my training begin as early as possible. Still, my mother had her way.” His smile grew affectionate, the love in his eyes clear to see. “Most sons are trained at the academy in Cali Va’Lua. My mother would not permit it. She allowed me to move to the training villa on the family estate, but forced the instructors to come to me. It was her way of keeping me close, long past the time when other boys would leave their family.”

  Summer barely heard anything beyond the word “betrothed.” Her breathless yearning evaporated. A violent flare of something that felt suspiciously like possessiveness welled up in its place.

  “You were betrothed?” There’d been no mention of a betrothal in the reports she’d read about him.

  “Tey, when I was four. It was a long-standing betrothal contract, forged decades before I was even born.”

  There was a story there. Not a good one, judging by his fading smile. The savagery in her soul calmed slightly. Rationality resurfaced. He would not be here, courting her now, if he had a wife waiting for him back in Calberna. Unlike the Vermese, Calbernans did not practice polygamy. And considering the way Calbernans felt about the inviolability of their contracts, a betrothal between two of the queendom’s greatest Houses would not have been broken by choice. “What happened?”

  “She died in the same accident that killed our crown princess, Sianna. Our queen followed her daughter in death a few days later. That was how my mother came to be Myerial.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you.” He traced a finger across the snowy white linen tablecloth. “But the wound is not as painful as it once was. Nyamialine and I were only children when she was taken from me, and our bond wasn’t fully formed.”

  Nyamialine. His childhood betrothed’s name was Nyamialine.

  He gave the long ropes of his hair a quick shake that sent them dancing across his back, and blasted her with a soft, warm smile that stole her breath. He leaned over in his chair, reaching down to pluck a single, creamy flower from a nearby bed, and offered it to her. “Enough sad talk. Let us speak of happier things as we enjoy the rest of our meal.”

  “All right.” She took the flower and lifted the blossom to her nose, inhaling the lovely fragrance. The sadness, the awkwardness, the inexplicable flare of jealousy, all faded in the face of his encouraging smile and the warm glow in his golden eyes.

  “Excellent. You can tell me about your work at Queen Khamsin’s school. I have seen how the students adore you.”

  They stuck to safer, less emotion-laden topics for the rest of their meal. To her surprise, Summer found Dilys a genuinely entertaining companion: smart, witty, observant, full of both amusing and poignant anecdotes from his many travels. He was also a skillful interrogator. He coaxed more information out of her about herself than she would ever have intentionally offered up.

  When the meal was done and Ingarra’s splendid dessert—a small, iced cake covered with exquisitely rendered sugar flowers—was naught but crumbs, Dilys escorted Summer back to her rooms and bid her good night.

  He did not try to kiss her. Not on the lips, not even on the hand. He merely stood before her, so tall and strong, and offered her one last gift: a single, perfect rose. Only the rose he gave her this time wasn’t one of the local cold-hardy blooms that grew in Wintercraig. It was one of her mother’s most fragile and most exquisite hybrid blooms. A rose created and cultivated exclusively in the carefully-tended greenhouses of Vera Sola in Summerlea. A tender pink bloom with edges of soft rose and a surprising golden center, named Queen Rosalind’s Radiant Beauty.

  Tears rose to her eyes as she accepted the flower. Even had she still been in the mood to return every one of his courtship gifts, she wouldn’t have returned this rose. It was like holding a little piece of home—a treasured memory of her mother—in her hands.

  “It occurred to me,” he said, “that having been away from Summerlea so long, you might be missing your home, so I thought I’d bring a little home to you here.”

  She stroked the soft, velvety petals of the flower, then looked back up into his darkly handsome face. The gold eyes gleaming softly, framed by thick black lashes and dark bronze skin. The shimmering blue stylized waves curling along the bridge of his cheekbone. Tenderness welled inside her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She didn’t know if one of her sisters had told him of her particular attachment to her mother’s roses, or if he’d just made a lucky guess, but of all the gifts he’d showered upon her, this one touched her the most deeply.

  Never had he appealed to her so completely as he did now, this very moment. He stood before her, a haven of strength and otherworldly beauty and beckoning welcome. Everything about him called to her senses. The soft drape of his pure white shuma circling narrow hips, his feet bare on the marble floor, the broad, muscular expanse of his chest and shoulders—shoulders that looked strong enough to bear the weight of the world. Most of all the dark, warm, silky skin shimmering with hypnotic swirls of iridescent ink and fragrant with the exotic oils that made her ache to snuggle close and breathe him in like the flowers she loved so much.

  It was as if every part of Dilys’s being was standing before her, murmuring softly, “I am everything you’ve ever wanted. I am all that you will ever need. I can keep you safe—even from yourself—if you will just let yourself love me.”

  The Rose on her wrist pulsed warm against h
er skin. It was so hard—so dreadfully, painfully hard—to be alone when everything in her cried out with the need to feel complete.

  If he leaned down right now to kiss her, as the soft light in his eyes told her he wanted to do, she would let him. And she would kiss him back.

  But instead, with one last, faint smile, he bowed his head and stepped back. “Good night, princess. May your dreams be sweet.”

  Then he was turning . . . walking away . . . and then he was gone.

  Gabriella stood beside her doorway for a long time, staring at the empty space where Dilys had been. It occurred to her that, apart from her initial resistance and the rough start to their dinner, she’d never enjoyed a more wonderful, perfect evening in her life. She’d never lost herself in conversation with any man like she had tonight—never revealed as much of herself to anyone either.

  Never felt such a perfect sense of peace. Of belonging.

  Of coming home.

  Long after Amaryllis had helped her change into her nightclothes, Gabriella lay awake in her bed, staring at the Summerlea rose she’d placed in a bud vase and set on her nightstand. Throughout the few brief hours of Konumarr’s short summer night, she seriously thought about Dilys Merimydion, contemplated what life with him might be like, imagined letting herself love him. And she waited for the familiar sense of terror to rise up and clamp its jaws around her. Waited for the monster to roar with triumph and claw for its freedom.

  But for the first time in her life, the terror didn’t come and the monster didn’t rouse.

  Chapter 16

  Every day for the next week, Dilys spent several carefully planned and frugally apportioned hours in the company of the woman he planned to wed.

  He was careful to keep his desires tightly checked. The more he wanted her, the less he allowed himself to touch her. He had made his desire for her clear. Now it was time to let that knowledge of that desire work upon on her.

  That she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her, he did not doubt, but she was still too skittish, too ready to bolt if he came at her directly. Forcing her to admit her desire hadn’t worked. She’d only accused him of using his magic against her and then run away. Seduction hadn’t worked. She’d only resented him for the ease with which he’d broken down her will to resist him. Absence did work, but he couldn’t make himself stay away—at least not completely. With both of them bound in liakapua, they needed to spend time with one another, to share emotions, to share touch.

  So he saw her every day, for a few short hours. He abandoned all the seductive techniques he’d spent a lifetime learning in order to win the bond of his chosen liana. Instead, in the time he and Summer spent together, he offered her simple companionship. Friendship. Laughter. Even a little adventure—something to break up the sheltered monotony of her gilded royal cage. One day he took her hiking up the mountains. Another day, he took her out on one of the local Winterfolk’s small skiffs and taught her how to read the wind and work the sails. And just yesterday, they had gone cloudberry picking with several dozen other couples and children, then joined the group in one of the plazas, where they spent a laughing hour or two making and baking cloudberry pies with the fruits of their excursion. Gabriella—who’d never baked anything in her life—ended up wearing almost as much flour as went into the pie crusts, but the day was delightful, the pies delicious, and he could have sworn she was sorry when the afternoon ended and he escorted her back to the palace.

  There were weddings daily, as Summerlander and Winterfolk women chose their mates from among the Calbernans. Dilys attended several of the ceremonies with Summer—including the marriage of her friend, Lily, to his ballista operator, Talin. And even though Summer fretted that Lily had chosen too fast and was acting recklessly, it was clear that Talin doted on his new liana, and that the Summerlass had blossomed in his care. Lily was still shy—she probably always would be—but there was a new confidence about her, a greater readiness to laugh and smile. As for Talin, he strutted around in his new obah, grinning like a koku fish and bragging about his impending fatherhood with as much pride as if he’d done the deed himself.

  Each time Summer and Dilys were together, he tried in dozens of different ways to get her to talk about the terrible event in her childhood that had frightened her so badly she had spent a lifetime walling up her emotions, caging her power, and damming up the driving, Siren-born need to love and be loved in return.

  She hadn’t confided in him yet, but his patience was beginning to pay off in other ways. She’d become less guarded in her conversation. She’d stopped constantly lying to him . . . well, for the most part. She’d stopped trying to put as much physical space between them as possible, too. Now, in fact, she frequently chose to close the distance between them rather than widen it. And yesterday, when he’d taken his leave of her, she’d leaned towards him, a slight flush in her lovely cheeks, and he’d known he could have bent his head and kissed her and she would not have stopped him.

  But passive acquiescence was not what he wanted from her.

  The next time he kissed her, it would be because she initiated it.

  He only hoped that time would come soon, because being with her but withholding himself from her was killing him. Each moment in her company was an exquisite torment that kept him lying awake in his bed every night, racked with need and longing.

  He took comfort from the knowledge that the most precious of victories were always the hardest won. When his Siren finally claimed him, every sleepless night, every painful moment of self-denial, would be worth it.

  Or, at least, that’s what he told himself each time he had to wrestle his desire into submission and don the increasingly torturous mask of Dilys the Patient Suitor before heading out to meet the Siren whose claim he was determined to win.

  Dilys grimaced at his reflection in the mirror as he arranged the fall of his green, blue and gold shuma, then gave his emerald-and-sapphire-encrusted belt a final, unnecessary adjustment and headed downstairs to collect his future bride for today’s adventure.

  Summer and Dilys shared a light afternoon tea, complete with dozens of the delicious little iced cakes that she loved and a full tray of sinfully delicious chocolates from Zephyr Hallowill’s shop. Summer couldn’t decide between the two, and ended up eating far too many of both her favorite confections. Dilys didn’t seem to mind her gluttony. He only smiled at her with indulgent delight and offered her more iced cakes and chocolates, seeming to thrive on her pleasure as if it were his own.

  “You will not find this so amusing when I double my weight,” she warned him.

  He only laughed softly and drained his tea glass. “Come walk with me then, if it worries you. I’ve been wanting to try the labyrinth in the western garden. Ryll tells me there’s a pretty fountain at its center.”

  She took his arm and allowed him to escort her through the terraced gardens towards the large four-acre spruce maze that ran along the shores of the fjord west of the palace. The maze was a delight, designed several centuries ago by one of Wintercraig’s queens. In addition to the many twisting paths, it included half a dozen covered bridges built of stone and painted timber that rose up above the tops of the tall spruce hedges, crossing over paths below, to give maze walkers an elevated glimpse of the maze from various angles.

  As they walked the maze and chatted, they somehow ended up on the subject of Dilys’s childhood betrothal. Gabriella wasn’t entirely sure how the subject came about, but once it did she found herself growing tense and slightly irritable. Dilys, of course, noticed instantly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She plucked a fragrant, soft-needled branch from the spruce hedge, and glanced down as she twirled in in her hands. “Nothing. I don’t know . . . I just can’t imagine you betrothed.” She tossed the branch away.

  He bent down to retrieve it. “Perhaps, moa leia, it isn’t that you can’t imagine me betrothed to another, it’s that you don’t like to imagine it.”

  She looked up at
him sharply. “I’m sure that’s not it.”

  He gave a wry smile. “You are still so quick to deny me at every opportunity. Why is that?”

  “I told you from the beginning I would not marry you.”

  “You did,” he agreed, “but you’ve never told me why. What makes the prospect of being my wife so unappealing? I am not a cruel man, nor an ill-favored one. We enjoy each other’s company and are never at a loss for things to talk about. And, of course, sexually, we couldn’t be any more compatible.”

  She blushed and gave him a warning glare. He merely grinned and continued listing all the reasons why he was such an excellent husband material.

  “I am Calbernan, so you know I would never hurt you or be unfaithful. Nor would I ever try to control you.”

  “No, you’d only seduce me into doing whatever you wanted.”

  His eyes gleamed with warm golden lights. “A man has to have some way to keep the woman he loves from walking all over him. How could she ever love him back if he didn’t?” He brushed the soft needles of the spruce wand against her lips, a gentle caress that made her gasp a little and back away.

  “You don’t l-love me.” She stammered over the L word. “You can’t.”

  “Can I not?” He lifted the branch to brush its soft needles against his own lips. She watched with rapt attention. It was almost like a kiss. From her lips to his, with the small, fragrant spruce wand as the messenger. “I think I can.”

  “You don’t know anything about me!”

  “I know a great deal more about you than your father knew about your mother when they wed, I imagine. Besides familiarizing myself with the information prepared by the Queen’s Council, I have spent the last month learning everything I can about you. Your likes and dislikes. How to make you smile, even when you don’t want to. How to tell when you’re lying—which you do with abominable regularity, by the way. At least when it comes to subjects you don’t want to talk about. I know that you like children, and womanly things. I know that you would follow Hekane herself into Hel if she but baited a trail with Zephyr Hallowill’s chocolates. I know that you like me—more than like me—even though for reasons you will not share with me, you are determined to deny it. And I know, Gabriella Coruscate”—he brushed the small, fragrant wand against his lips again and leaned closer to caress her mouth in the same manner—“that you are all that I could ever desire, all that I have ever needed, all that I can imagine when I think of my life bound to another’s.”