Ghost Wounds, preview 2 of 2
Caina scared Lucan, just a little bit.
He hadn’t noticed her scars, the first time he had seen her undressed, because…well, he had other things on his mind just then. But later he had seen them. Long thin ones on her forearms, leftover from sword and knife cuts. A vicious purple streak across her right hip. A deep one in her left shoulder, as if someone had tried to stab her in the back and missed. And a series of old wounds across her belly. Little wonder she had said she could not have children.
She had seen just as much violence as he had.
Plus there was the way she knew things about people, just by looking at them. Like what he had eaten for breakfast (she saw the crumbs on his sleeve) or where he been in the city (she noticed the dust on his boots). He could not have kept a secret from her if he tried. It would have been disconcerting, with anyone he trusted less. Besides, more than once that cunning brain of hers had saved his life. His life, and many others.
Lucan was a Ghost in all but name, these days. Not that he cared about the Empire or its politics, but he did it for her. That, and she hated the magi as much as he did. Maybe more.
One night they sat together in his rooms at the Black Cuirass Inn.
“Tell me about your first wife,” Caina said.
Lucan blinked. How had she known he was thinking about Lydia? Foolish question. “I love you, you know.”
She smiled, and when she did, for a moment her blue eyes did not seem so winter-cold. “I know. But, still. Tell me.”
“Livia wasn’t anything like you,” said Lucan. “She was…frail. Hair so blonde it was almost like platinum. She looked like a doll, almost. She spent the better part of two hours getting dressed every morning. My father forced me to marry her, and I didn’t want anything to do with her.” He shook his head. “But I was wrong. Livia had steel in her. She actually browbeat my father into lowering taxes on the Szaldic peasants while he was Lord Governor of Marsis. And if you know my father, no one browbeats him into anything.”
Caina’s mouth twisted. “I’ve met Lord Corbould a few times.”
“My condolences. I was wrong about Livia,” said Lucan, “and I loved her for it. She wasn’t anything like you…but she was just as brave as you are. When she thought something was right, she would not back down, not for anything. Then she saw a master magus named Morneus and his apprentices practicing necromancy. She told them to stop or she would report them to the Magisterium. So Morneus killed her.”
“And you killed Morneus,” said Caina.
“And almost all his apprentices,” said Lucan, “save for a few who fled to Catekharon.”
“You were thinking about her,” said Caina.
“Eleven years,” said Lucan, “next month.”
“You blame yourself?”
“I used to,” said Lucan. “If I had warned her what the magi were really like. If I had paid better attention. If she had come to me, instead of Morneus. Or even to my father, instead of Morneus. But…what’s done is done. We should think about the future, instead.” He took a deep breath. “Marry me.”
For a brief moment, he had the satisfaction of seeing absolute astonishment on Caina’s face. He never caught her off guard. Then her expression smoothed over, the way it did when she did not want to show some powerful emotion.
“You already know,” she said at last, “that I can’t have children.”
“I have five older brothers,” said Lucan. “The name of House Maraeus will go on without me.”
“Your father will never allow it.”
“My father hates me,” said Lucan. “We haven’t spoken since he threw me out of his townhouse after that business with Rhazion and the mavrokh. He doesn’t care what I do, so long as I stay out of his affairs.”
“If you do,” said Caina, voice quiet, “you’ll probably regret it one day.”
Lucan shrugged. “I think I would regret it more if I did not.”
They sat in silence for a long time.
“All right,” said Caina, and her smile returned. “I will.”