Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [68]
For the first time, Lyetha looked at him, and he saw her azure eyes gleaming into his own. She was as beautiful as he had ever seen her. Her ruby lips parted slightly and she smiled at him. She ran a silky hand down his cheek.
"It is not long until dawn," the half-elf woman said. "The moonshadows grow longest in this dark time."
"Yes." Greyt smiled. He remembered those words, the words she had spoken to him that first time they had awakened together.
He bent in and kissed her. After a long moment, she returned the kiss, releasing her robe and holding his face with both hands.
* * * * *
Later they lay in each other's arms in silence and watched the sunrise out Greyt's window, rising somewhere past the Moonwood.
"Love," whispered Greyt.
Lyetha did not respond, but he could tell by her breathing she was listening.
"I know I am a hero in their eyes, the people of Quaervarr, but I care nothing for what they think." His voice wavered, but he ignored his own misgivings. "I only care what you think."
Lyetha met his eyes. "You have been very good to me, my love," she said, touching his cheek.
For a moment, Greyt could see the old fire in her sapphire eyes, and his heart felt so light.
Then she sat up and pulled her robe around her shoulders. "But you have never been a hero, and I fear you never will be," she finished.
His eyes widened and softened. She could not have stung him more with a knife.
Then she stood and walked silently away, leaving the Lord Singer to greet the morning with damp eyes.
CHAPTER 12
29 Tarsakh
She woke from a dream where a hauntingly beautiful melody surrounded her, bathing her in its dark warmth, like a lover draped in a black cloak…
Awareness returned to Arya gently as she relaxed in the grove, bathing in the warm dawn sunlight that pierced the clouds overhead. The grass was softer than any bed she had ever known. The breeze was cool and soothing and, despite the winter, the air felt almost warm. She was dimly aware that her armor sat stacked a couple paces to her right. Clad in the light garments she wore beneath, she stretched languidly.
It was only when she rolled over onto her side that Arya remembered where she was and how she had come there. She saw that Walker lay limply on his back a short distance away. His cloak pooled around him like blood and the black of his heavy collar made the exposed half of his face seem a skull.
"Torm's shield," Arya breathed. She pushed herself to her knees and crawled over to Walker. Her limbs were surprisingly sore, and she took quite some time to make it those few steps.
"Walker?" she asked. She unlaced his collar so that he could breathe and saw his face for the first time. His handsome elf-touched features were pale and clammy, and his limbs were stiff. She slapped his cheeks and listened at his lips, but there was no breath. Neither could she feel his heart beating within his chest. "Walker!"
Arya tore open the leaf-shaped clasp of his cloak and pulled the dark leather apart. He wore a much-patched cuirass of boiled leather under the cloak and she immediately unlaced the clasp at his shoulder. Her dexterous fingers, used to working with armor ties, had it free in moments, and she ripped it off to give him space to breathe. She was almost surprised to find that his face was not scarred.
Walker's chest, muscular and pale, was another matter. Upon his skin lay a network of crisscrossing scars from countless wounds, some minor, some serious. Standing out against his bone-white skin, four wounds in particular caught her eye. Two seemed half-healed: a shallow cut on his chest where his ribs had been crushed and a devastating scar on his upper chest, near his throat. There were two others-a gash on his shoulder and a puncture in his left arm-that were closed and seemed to be healing. The scar below his throat was the worst, a sort of wound Arya had never seen a man live through.
At first she thought the wounds