“Do you not wish to follow me to the great room, Father?” Anna kept her eyes on the rushes and her birthmark turned from him.
“If you would, Anna, could you fetch the lady here?” Although he had visited many times, tonight he was loath to go deeper inside.
Before Anna had time to leave, Elisabeta arrived in a sumptuous dark green gown cinched tight around her slender waist. “My dear Father Korza! It is rare to see you about so late. Do come into the great room. Anna just laid a fresh fire.”
“I must decline. I believe that my errand … my task … that we are best served if I remain here.”
Her sculpted eyebrows raised in surprise. “How mysterious!”
She waved Anna away, then glided to a high table by the door and lit the beeswax candles. Their honey scent wafted up, reminding him of innocent summers too long past.
Flickering candlelight fell across a face lovelier than he had ever seen. Light glinted off jet-black hair, and silvery eyes danced with mischief. She clasped her hands as she faced him. “Tell me of your errand, Father.”
“I come bearing tidings.” His throat closed.
She stood quite still. The smile vanished from her face, and her silver eyes darkened like a storm cloud. “Of my husband, the Count Nádasy?”
He could not tell her. He could not hurt her. He gripped the silver cross of his office, hoping that it would give him strength. As usual, it only gave him pain.
“He has fallen,” she said.
Of course, as a soldier’s wife, she knew.
“It was with honor. In—”
She sagged back against the wall. “Spare me such details.”
Rhun stood fixed, unable to speak.
She ducked her head, trying to hide tears.
As a priest, he should go to her. He should pray with her, talk of God’s will, explain that Ferenc now dwelt with the exalted. He had filled that role many times and for many mourners.
But he could not do it for her.
Not her.
Because in truth, he longed to enfold her slim form in his arms, to hold her sorrow against his chest. So, instead, he backed away, letting his cowardice become cruelty, forsaking her at this hard time.
“I offer my deepest condolences for your loss,” he said stiffly.
She raised grief-filled eyes to his. Surprise and confusion flickered across them, then only deeper sadness. She did her best to fix her mask of normality back in place, but she wore it crookedly, unable to fully hide the hurt of his coldness.
“I shall not detain you, Father. The hour is late, and your journey long.”
He said not another word and fled.
Because he loved her, he abandoned her.
As he stumbled down the frost-rimed road that led away from Elisabeta, he realized that everything had shifted between them. Surely she knew it, too. Ferenc had been the wall that kept them both safe, kept them apart.
Without that wall, anything might escape.
Rhun returned to himself, back to the present, sprawled flat on the chapel’s stone floor. As he lay there, he thought again upon that visit to the castle. He should have followed his instinct and fled forever, never to return to her side.
Then, as now, he had buried himself in the dark quiet of the Church. The bright scents in his life dissolved into nothing more than stone dust, the sweat of men, and traces of frankincense, spicy with an undertone of the conifer from which it had bled.
But nothing green and alive.
During those long-ago nights, he had performed his priestly duties. But during the days, he gazed into the Virgin Mary’s clear eyes as she wept for her son, and he thought only of Elisabeta. He slept only when he had to, because when he slept he dreamed that he had not failed her, that he held her warm body against his and comforted her. He kissed her tears, and sunshine returned to her smile, a smile meant for him.
In his long years of priesthood, his faith had never wavered. But, then, it did.
He had put aside thoughts of her and prayed until the stone rubbed his knees raw. He had fasted until his bones ached. Only he and one other Sanguinist in all the centuries had not tasted human blood, had never taken a human life. He had thought his faith stronger than his flesh and his feelings.
And he had thought that he conquered them.
His hubris still ate at him.
His pride had caused his downfall, and hers.
Why had the wine shown him this part of his penance tonight?
A heartbeat thrummed through his thoughts, pulling him back to the candlelit chapel.
A human, here? Such trespass was forbidden.
He raised his head from the stones. A woman sat with her back to him, her head bowed over her knees. The angle of her head called to him. The nape of her neck smelled familiar.
Erin.
The name drifted through the fog of memories and time.
Erin Granger.
The Woman of Learning.
Rage burned inside him. Another innocent had been forced into his path. Better that he kill her now, simply and quickly, than abandon her to a crueler fate. He stood as crimson tinged his vision. He fought against the lust with prayer.
Then another faint, familiar heartbeat reached his ears, thick and irregular.
Ambrose.
The priest had locked Erin in with Rhun, either to shame him, or perhaps with the hope that Rhun’s penance might cause him to lose control, as it almost had.
He crossed the room so swiftly that Erin flinched and held her hands up in a placating gesture.
“I’m sorry, Rhun. I didn’t mean to—”
“I know.”
He reached past her and shoved the door open with the force that only a Sanguinist could muster, taking satisfaction at the sound of Ambrose’s heavy body thudding into the wall.
Then he heard the man’s rushed and frightened footsteps retreating up the stairs.
He returned to Erin and helped her to her feet, smelling the lavender off her hair, the slight muskiness of her fading fear. The beat of her heart settled, her breathing softened. He held her hand a moment too long, feeling her warmth and not wanting to let go of it.
She was alive.
Even if it cost the world, he would make sure that this never changed.
26
October 26, 11:41 P.M., IST
Undisclosed location, Israel
Tommy rested his forehead against the window of his hospital room, slowly rapping his knuckles against its thick glass, listening to the dull thud. By now, he had convinced himself that this place was a military hospital or maybe even a prison.
He pulled his IV pole closer, wondering if he could use it like a battering ram to break his way free.
But then what?
If he managed to break the window and jumped, would he die? A television show he watched a couple of years ago said that any fall above thirty feet was probably not survivable. He was higher than that.