Dragon Rose(59)

“What is it that you want, Rhianne?”

That was a good question. I wanted to know what had happened to all his former wives…I wanted to know the source of the bottomless despair I’d felt when I read that pitiful scrap of paper…I wanted to sit down and talk all this over with Lilianth in real life, and not just in a dream. So many things I wanted, but I realized there was one thing I wanted more than all else. Something I could have that was real, and not just a memory from a dream.

“I want to kiss you,” I told him.

“You cannot.” The words were cold, implacable.

“Do you mean I cannot possibly want such a thing, or simply that you will not allow me to kiss you? You kissed me on our wedding day, if you will recall.”

“That was different.”

“True, in that I did not know you then, and did not welcome the kiss. But now it is some months later, and I know very well what I want.”

“You cannot possibly know what you are asking. You have no idea what would be kissing you back.”

A rough brush of skin, a mouth whose shape did not feel like any other mouth. These things I remembered clearly enough, and yet now they did not trouble me the way they had on that bright day back in Augeste, when I had feared I would die that same night. Now I knew that mouth belonged to someone who cared about my safety, who had given me the gift of time enough to paint, who had tried, in his own rather prickly and difficult way, to make me feel as if I had a home here. And all that put together, and all the time I had spent in his company and listened to his voice and come to understand what a quick mind hid under that hood…all that and so much more had brought me to where I stood now.

“I have some idea,” I said stoutly. “The Dragon of Black’s Keep. I know you are as no other man. And I am glad of that, because I would want you no other way.”

He stood still, and I saw his gloved fingers knot themselves into the heavy wool of his robes, as if he were wrestling with himself, struggling for his next words. When he did speak, his tone was harsh.

“And is this some fancy you have conceived, that if you kiss the dread Dragon Lord, then the spell will be broken and the curse will fall away?”

I might not have put it in so many words, but perhaps somewhere in the back of my mind I had fostered a hope that such a thing would be true. After all, when one is already living a life that might have come out of a storybook, it is no great stretch to think such actions might be the only thing required to reverse some long-ago mage’s fearsome spell.

But to say such things aloud seemed a sure way to invite Theran’s ridicule, and so I said nothing, but only glanced away from him, as if doing so might shield me from any further comments on the subject. I should have known better.

“Let me disabuse you of that notion,” he went on. “Even in your tale of Alende and Allaire, Alende was doomed to his deformity for the rest of his life. In his case at least that life was mercifully short, no greater than the span of a normal man. I have not that grace. Neither will a single kiss—even when bestowed by such a lovely young woman—relieve me of this torment. Were it that simple, the curse would have been broken years ago.”

Each word seemed to be a death knell for the simple hope I had let bloom in my breast. And yet something in his words told me there was a solution…if only I could think of what it might be.

I lifted my chin so that I stared directly into his face—or at least where his face should be, could I but see it. “And what if I wanted to kiss you only because you are my husband, and I as your wife should have that right?”

“I would say that ours is not the first marriage made for reasons which have nothing to do with love…and it will not be the last.”

That remark, in its casual cruelty, made tears sting at the back of my eyes. I blinked; I did not want him to see how he had hurt me. I took a breath, willing myself to stay calm. “And I would say, my lord, that although you have ruled this castle for five centuries and more, and I am only a woman with but two decades to her name, still I am wiser than you. At least I am willing to admit to the truth of what lies between us, even if you would deny it.”

Then I truly knew I could not bear to be in his presence any longer, and I ran past him, out the door and down the steps, and finally back up the staircase that led to my own rooms. I rushed through the outer chamber and flung myself on the bed, weeping noisily, letting the tears flow until my pillowcase was quite damp with them. As if my own misery summoned it, a cloud of dark anguish seemed to descend upon me, choking me with its insufferable pressure, until I gasped and flung myself off the bed, going to the window and pressing my cheek against the icy panes. Something about that chill touch brought me back to myself, and I shook my head.

What was wrong with me? Had I, by going to those deserted chambers, unwittingly awakened some demon that would now haunt me with its despairing presence?

I didn’t know. I only knew that although I should sleep, I could not bear to shut my eyes, in case I fell into darkness and never awoke again. Instead I went to my worktable and feverishly went about setting up my paints, and then used the single lit candle by my bedside to touch off all the others in all the sconces and candelabras around the room so it was illuminated as brightly as I could make it.

The sharp scent of the linseed oil also helped to clear my head, and with a jaw gritted in determination I pulled out the portrait and set it on its easel before I turned to freshen the pigments required. I still wasn’t entirely satisfied with the set of his mouth, nor the tiniest etchings of laugh lines on either side of it. If I focused on such minutiae, perhaps I could forget Theran’s cruel words, his refusal to allow any sort of intimacy between us.