The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(62)

“There’s blood on your face,” I said. “And in your hair, too, it looks.”

“I don’t care,” Lleu said, and went to collect clean snow.

Eventually he held my torn palm between his hands, needle at ready. He bre





athed deeply for a few moments but did not move, apparently lacking the courage to begin the operation. Again I underestimated him. Without warning he stabbed viciously at the deep slash across my palm.

I yelped in surprise and pain and snatched my hand away. Lleu said credulously, “I thought you couldn’t feel anything in those fingers.”

“You cretin,” I gasped. “Give me the needle, I’ll do it myself.”

“I’ll do it, Medraut,” he said quietly. “I’ll do it. But I will not let you take me.” This time he bent to the work with patience and gentleness. And it was bitterly cold.





XIV


The Year’s Turning




LLEU TOOK A LONG time, for he worked meticulously and carefully. When it was over we sat in the gray predawn in silence, both of us drained beyond speaking, or even moving. At last Lleu bandaged my hand and then began to gather and fold the blankets. When he had done I rekindled the fire and heated the last of the wine for us to drink with what was left of the dried fruit and bread. While I worked, Lleu sat by the fire with his face in his hands, and when I offered him food he shook his head.

The morning was cold and clear, breathtaking, brilliant. The splendor of the sun was almost unbearable after so many continuous clouded days. The brightness of it seemed to hurt Lleu; he winced, squinting, when he finally raised his #x2be of tface from his hands, and for a long time he kept a shielding hand over his eyes. He could not stop shivering. But when I held his cloak to him he shuddered and said, “Burn it.” It was filthy with my blood. I tossed the cloak on the dying fire and then threw the blankets on top of it. They smoked and smoldered, disintegrating.

We set out once more through light, powdery snow and trees with branches sparkling where icicles were forming in the sunlight. We crossed into moorland and began to journey downhill. We walked miles without speaking, left the high moor and once more traveled through forest. But it was a different forest than the one we had left behind; here the trees were taller and farther apart. Lleu did not notice. After his scant few hours of sleep he no longer hallucinated, but he could scarcely keep his feet. He stumbled more and more often, and finally he stopped walking altogether. He stood motionless and waited for me to face him.

I turned toward him when he halted. The fury and tension of the night still hung between us like a thunderhead. I knew that he had reached the end of his strength and that only a little resistance on my part would make him mine. I broke an icicle from a frozen branch to use as a weapon and dragged it across his cheek.

He stood still and closed his eyes, but did not attempt to reach for the knives at his waist. I ran the ice over his throat, sharp as a hunting knife and even colder, held the crystalline blade beneath his chin and watched the reflected sunlight dancing there. “Even now you seem undefeated,” I whispered, “and though I might take you easily I do not really want your inheritance. It is your self, your soul, that I envy. More than anything I want your birthright without shame, your clean lineage.”

“You can never have that,” Lleu said, with his eyes closed and his head held still; though one of his hands had flown to his ashen face, almost accidentally, guarding his eyes. “How can anyone change that?”

I trailed the ice across his gloved palm, then took him by the wrist and eased his arm back down. Lleu opened his eyes cautiously, dazzled by sunlight and the sparkling ice so close to his face. “I cannot change it,” I admitted, “but with you at my mercy I can make my father acknowledge that the fault was his. That I am no more a creature of my mother’s making than he is.”

“Not her creature!” Lleu burst out. “Why else would you ransom my life to solace your own bruised pride? No one cares who your parents were! People admire you or despise you for yourself, for what you have made yourself. What have I to do with it? You do not envy my parentage, you envy me.”

I stood gazing at him without any answer to give, feeling myself to be so base, so wrong, so ruined. My fingers were locked around his wrist as surely as steel. He said half wondering, “Ai, my brother, you are so strong and light in form, so wise and deft in mind, so gentle and true in semblance…”