Page 115 of Forbidden

“Do you know what will happen then?”

“Yes.”

“You agree so easily,” Cassandra said. “Look at me. Do you trulyknow?”

Slowly Amber’s eyes opened and she turned to face the woman who was watching her with Learned eyes. The turmoil of the wedding feast receded as gray eyes searched golden ones for the space of one breath, two breaths, three. Four.

Abruptly Cassandra looked away, for her Learned discipline was being eroded by the bleakness that lay within Amber’s eyes.

“Aye,” Cassandra said raggedly. “Youknow. I salute your courage.”

“While you deplore my common sense?” Amber asked.

Cassandra looked back at the girl who was her daughter in all but birth. Tears glittered like ice in Cassandra’s eyes.

Amber was too stunned to speak. Never had she seen the Learned woman weep.

“I deplore only that God has asked this of you rather than of me,” Cassandra said in a low voice. “I would rather the suffering be mine.”

Before Amber could answer, another toast came from the knights. She raised her goblet, smiled rather fiercely, and drank a small swallow.

When she put down the heavy silver goblet, Duncan was standing in front of her. He held out his hand. She rose as gracefully as flame and went to him, putting her hand in his.

The moment Duncan’s flesh met Amber’s, pleasure rippled through her. The lines of strain that had drawn her smiles as fine as a knife’s edge vanished like mist beneath a fiery sun. Her mouth softened, shadows retreated from her eyes, and she gave Duncan a smile that squeezed Cassandra’s heart.

“Now do you understand?” Erik murmured in Cassandra’s ear. “She needs her dark warrior even more than I do.”

“I understand everything save what you will do when he awakens Duncan of Maxwell and kills her—”

“Nay,” Erik interrupted in a low voice.

“—touch by touch, her heart bleeding—”

“Silence!” he hissed.

“—from ten thousand cuts no one else would have felt,” Cassandra finished relentlessly. “What will you do then, mighty lord?”

“Duncan will love her in spite of all! How could a man not love a maid who looks at him with such transparent joy?”

“‘He will love her in spite of all,’” Cassandra mimicked with icy sarcasm. “This from the sorcerer who believes only in lust between a man and a woman? I would laugh at you, but I fear my soul would break at the sound.”

“Duncan will love her. Hemust.”

“Could you love a woman who had betrayed you?”

“I am not Duncan.”

“You are a man. So is Duncan. When he understands how much Amber has cost him, he will hate her.”

“What would you have done in my place?” Erik demanded in a low voice.

“I would have surrendered Stone Ring Keep to Dominic le Sabre.”

“Never,” Erik said flatly.

“That is pride speaking.”

“What good is a man with no pride?”