Fear slammed into her chest, the power of it like a herd of galloping Varveh. The blood in her veins turned to ice and it felt like frost began to spread over her skin. She turned her cheek up to the moon and tried to steady her breath and calm the swell of dread rushing through her. The glow of the moonlight felt cool upon her, reminding her that she had faced worse.

With a tremulous breath outward she turned to face him.

Valdr stood just inside the door. His eyes were narrow with doubt but they widened as she met his gaze, a tremor rocking through him causing him to rock slightly. She thought perhaps his legs would not hold him.

Then he took a small step toward her. Then another.

One hand knotted in the thick fabric of her cloak, the other curled around the potent loop of steel in her pocket. For a brief, fleeting moment she wished she wore it still, wished she still had the power of his protection here, now. She thought about going to him, about throwing herself on her knees to beg forgiveness. What she told herself she would need to do if she were ever dragged before him after fleeing with Galyn.

But she had not been dragged or forced here. She had walked, freely, back to him.

Her brother looked leaner than she remembered, taller too. The cruel slant of his mouth had been smoothed away by shock and it made him look younger, though dark shadows hung like death beneath his eyes. She tried then to recall the last time she saw him. Then she tried to forget it. The king's robe of black and gold skimmed the floor by his bare feet, tied loosely at the waist under which she could see he wore nothing. His hair was ruffled from sleep or, she supposed, from his marital bed. Rancour scratched at her throat, turgid and bile-like.

She felt her gaze lower to the floor.

'Leave us, Dacian,' Valdr said then, his voice like tempered steel in the quiet chill of the room.

She had not forgotten the musical sound his voice, for did it not live inside her. His commands, his threats, his declarations, his promises. All had been committed upon her with that same tongue. That noble curse.

She swallowed and lifted her head to look at Wyll. He looked as though he might question his king's command, but then he bowed and backed from the room, his eyes never leaving Fara's as he went. This time the sound of the doors closing thundered like an executioner's drum.

Valdr did not move for many moments. He merely stared at her from across the chamber, his eyes over wide and his breathing quick. She felt of stone. Of marble. One soft breeze and she would crumble to dust at his feet.

'Speak,' he said. 'Speak so that I know it is not a spectre standing before me.'

'I am no spectre, Valdr,' she replied.

He blinked, and she saw something crumble behind his eyes, something vulnerable move into them. Tears. Scrubbing both hands over his mouth, he shook his head, lost. Her heart pinched, betraying her as it often did where her brother was concerned. The look he gave her was a plea for comfort perhaps, or mercy, and it only served to magnify the tenderness she felt for him then. Always these two sides warred with her. Love, hate. Disgust, reverence. Devotion, fear.

He moved toward her slowly, carefully, as though she were some deadly thing that sought to hurt him. When he was an arm's reach from her he made a soft sound, a scrape of anguish from the back of his throat.

He reached out, hesitant, to smooth his fingers over the curve of her jaw, tracing her mouth with his thumb. The scent of him flooded her nose; that rich intoxicating oil of darkberry and oakenwood. It soothed and sickened her all at once.

She closed her eyes and thought of Theodan. Of Leoth. Of the scents and sounds of Teredia. Of his warmth, the hitched sound of his breathing whenever he touched her, the slow soft movement of his fingers over her skin.

'They heard me,' Valdr whispered, his breath warm and familiar.

She blinked open her eyes. 'Who?'

'The Gods.' There was a crease of pain in his brow. 'I prayed to every God and entity known across the four realms for you to be returned to me, and I was delivered.' He slid his hand under her hair to grip the back of her neck and pulled her head to his. 'No force in this world could take you from me. Not Galyn of Azura, or a beast of Ethis, nor the Gods themselves.'

Dropping to his knees before her, he gripped her skirts and began to sob. It was so violent, so raw, that she felt her heart split in two. His shoulders heaved with the force of it, and independent of her mind, her hand moved to his hair to stroke and soothe him. Just as she had done many times before. After a time his sobs began to slow and quiet, the cadence of his breaths easing before he turned his head to rest his cheek against her stomach.

'To have your touch upon me again is a benediction, my love,' he said, gently. A soft rustle of fabric, a cool draught, and then she felt his warm fingers skim her thigh. Up, up and up. She stepped back out of his reach and he fell forward slightly.

A beat later he turned to pin her with a colder stare.

She could see how fast his breaths came, could see the tense set to his jaw and the curled fingers making a fist. Then, he rose to his feet. Slow and graceful he brushed a hand through his hair, his ring glinting in the glow of the moonlight. Deference was stitched to her soul and so she cast her eyes downward. His stare hissed and snapped and burned against her skin. Wrists, thighs and back flaming from the weight of a thousand memories.

'You are tired,' he told her. 'Your journey... I cannot imagine what you have gone through. I shall have them bring you some spiced broth and your favourite honey wine. Then I shall watch over you while you sleep.' He moved to go.

'I am not hungry Valdr,' she said, her voice bold in the quiet. He stopped and turned toward her slowly. 'I am not tired either.'

A muscle in his jaw tightened as he nodded once. So many moments passed between them then, silent and weighty. It took a great deal of strength to hold his eyes, more strength still to look away from them. She looked at the moon, gripped at the steel, spoke a silent prayer to the Goddess.

'Why did you not return to me when I commanded it?' His voice sliced through the silence. 'When I wrote that I would send an escort for you, to bring you home, you refused me. When I begged you to leave that place and return to me at once, you refused? Why?'

She swallowed. 'You begged me to leave my husband behind to die. I would not do it.'

'You will not speak of him in my presence!' he snapped. It was only a moment later when a pained expression crept into his eyes. Apology. Regret.

Gods, how well she knew each of his faces.

Little by little the strength she had harnessed before he entered the chamber had begun to return.

'I suppose it does not matter,' he lied. 'They returned you to me. Now I shall repay what I owe...'

'Of what do you speak? Whom do you owe?'

'The Gods. I told them my sacrifice to them would be great if they granted me this.'

She wanted to laugh. 'You do not have the Gods to thank for my return, Valdr. You have the honour and valour of a Leoth commander.'

She was certain she heard a crack as his head snapped toward her. 'The one you brought with you into this castle?'

Her eyes widened with surprise.

'You did not expect Dacian would keep such a thing from me?'

No, she supposed he would not keep such a thing from his king.

'He is not to be harmed, Valdr' she told him. 'He saved my life, brought me home.'

He studied her carefully, before nodding a fraction.

'I would be dead if not for Leoth. Torrik of Zybar would have seen me suffer the same fate as Arielle, I would have been that burned mass of bones they brought to you.'

'He would not have dared harm you.'

'Oh, he threw Queen Arielle to his dogs for sport and he would not have hesitated to do the same to me, I assure you, Valdr.'

He shook his head. 'Torrik was instructed to return you to me, unharmed.'

Something crawled up her spine. 'Instructed?'

In the meadow, Panos had told her of Torrik's claim; that he'd ordered her unharmed but that Theodan had defied him. Panos had spoken nothing of any instruction from Valdr.

'Yes. Instructed.'

She shook her head. 'I do not understand...'

He took a deep breath and began to speak, his hands looped together at the small of his back. 'He was really not hard to persuade; such violence and brutality live in his blood - in the blood of each of them in fact. Do you know that he crushed his own brother's skull to take that chair he calls a throne?' His voice was laced with wonder. 'His son wants his chair and his daughter despises him of course. And as sweet Dura is entirely in love with me I wager that it will work out rather well, despite my misgivings.' It was as though he did not speak to her, but to himself, a congratulatory speech on a plan come to fruition.

She could barely breathe, could barely stand. Broiling poison churned in her gut. 'What do you mean? Hard to persuade? What did you do?'

He did not need to speak, did not need to say the words for she knew already. His eyes gleamed from it. Cunning and sly.

'Why, I started a war, of course. For you.'

She shook her head as she took a step back from him. He followed. 'No. No, you did not... you would not.'

'Did you so easily forget my promise?' He asked as he came toward her, his shadow black as night. 'Did I not promise to scorch Ethis to dust to do it? Did I not promise that should you ever leave me, I would do everything in my power to have you returned?'

You let them destroy her...' she whispered, broken. 'You let them rape her women and kill her men. Let them burn her temples and pillage her treasures? You could have warned us, warned me. Given us a chance to save some innocents at least.'

He shrugged one shoulder, dismissive. 'I have never cared much for Azurian's, Fara, or their trinkets, as you know. Well,' his gaze sharpened on her, 'but for one trinket. One which was never theirs, not truly. For it has ever belonged to me.'