A Legacy of Dragons(3)

The words stung and the hurt showed in Emel's eyes. "Take that back. You're as much a part of this as I am."

Galia laughed coolly. "You've stolen nothing that wasn't allowed you. You are nothing but an amusement, a needed distraction."

"For him or you?"

Galia swam away, toward the edge of the pool. Emel swam after her, repeated, "For him or you?"

With her back to him, she said, "Great Father help me. I love you. You great fool."

As Galia started to get out of the hot pool, Emel grabbed her and pulled her back in. Turning her to face him, he knew at once she had turned away because of the tears on her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," he said, cupping her face in the palm of his hand. "Sorry, I know you are true to me, as I am to you. But this thing I do is something you must understand with all your heart as well. I've sworn an oath to Great Kingdom and to King Andrew Alder."

Galia held his hand against her cheek, her exquisite gray eyes still full of tears. "As I've sworn an oath to my father, to my kingdom, and yet you ask me time and again to betray all I've ever known. For what? Who cares who claims the dirt beneath our feet?"

"Spoken like one who's never had to want for anything."

"You bastard." Galia pulled her hand away from his and tried to turn away, but he held her gaze.

"I am the voice of a kingdom lost, a people lost. I will give my last breath to restore the Alders to their rightful throne."

She saw the truth in his eyes and it cut into her heart as surely as ever a knife could. "I let down my walls. I let you in--only you--and you've taken the beautiful thing I gave you and cleaved it in two."

Emel balled his outstretched hand into a fist. "You knew from the first who I was and what I stood for. I hid nothing from you."

After getting out of the pool, Galia turned back to him, her nakedness making her seem more vulnerable than she was. "And I accepted that. Why can't you accept who I am? I am my father's daughter. I am a Tyr'anth. My father's allowed me this fancy, this time away, but when he calls I must go. It is the way of things."

Emel followed her out of the pool, took her hands in his. "Come away with me. North, to Imtal. With the great world between him and us, we can be free."

"My defiance would be your death. Don't you see this?"

Emel kissed her hand, her cheek. He brushed back her long blond hair. "Don't you see? Come what may, I don't care."

Galia's tears returned. She wrapped her arms around him, whispered in his ear, "Before you, I am nothing. You bring tears to eyes that have never known them. Damn you for that and damn me for loving so great a fool."





Chapter 3





Clear blue skies and bright morning sunshine belied the harsh realities ahead. Vilmos shivered in the saddle as Warbær loped across the ice-crusted snow, watching as Ærühn, riding Lilbær, disappeared from sight. Soon after he and his fighting bear crested the same rise.

As he rode down into the dark recess, he began to wonder about all that had happened the day before. The encounter with the giants. The battle with the trolls. The keep spun of ice, snow and magic by Windstorm, the giant king.

He stared at Ærühn, wondered if Ærühn knew what it meant to be Watcher of the Ice. Ærühn looked back at him, almost as if the iceman could feel the weight of his stare. Whatever he knew, he wasn't sharing.

Upon entering the darkness, Vilmos' first instinct was to reach for his magic but just as he was about to touch the Abundance the iceman wheeled Lilbær around.

"Not here," Ærühn hissed. "We are close now."

Vilmos tested the saddle and rigging beneath him with the muscles of his legs, preparing for a fight that might soon come. "Wouldn't mage flame make this easier?"

"The exact reason I've never taken you to hunt the depths with me. Ever wonder why fighting bears have black fur and just about everything else on the Ice has white fur?"

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Vilmos asked, his voice tense but no more than a whisper. His thoughts went to his birth mother and father, Delinna and Ansh. The whole point of the journey was to find them and bring them back to Midsetten.

"This is a hunting ground. Before we go through the door and leave the bears behind, we have to be certain the troll troops are gone. A bear can easily take down a troll or two, but doesn't stand a chance against the organized troops we encountered last night."

As Ærühn unsheathed his dual blades, Vilmos guided Warbær to Lilbær's side. "But I can use magic?"

"When it begins," Ærühn said, his eyes probing the dark corners of the recess. "Not a moment before--and only if you must."