Black Lion’s Bride (Warrior Trilogy #2)

Chapter 30

They were trapped. The tidal river surged below the ledge at their backs; on every other side of them were Frankish soldiers, brandishing their broadswords. With nowhere left to go, nowhere to turn, Zahirah clung to Sebastian as he put himself in front of her like a shield, and faced off against his own countrymen.

At the front of the knights was a man with a lumpy, bandaged nose. Zahirah recognized him: he had been the one who accosted her at the feast tent in Darum. Fallonmour, Sebastian had named him as he charged to her rescue that night. How long ago that night seemed to her now. She might have forgotten the unpleasant part of the evening, if not for seeing her attacker before her now to remind her.

Fallonmour, evidently, was still holding a grudge for the punishment he suffered at Sebastian's hand. His gaze was scathing as it lit on her, but it burned all the worse when he turned it on Sebastian. “I might have known I'd find you here. Traitor .”

There was another knight present whom Zahirah feared, and that was the one known so infamously as Blackheart. He stood among the others like a mountain of leather and steel, all darkness and cool reserve. “Stand down, Fallonmour,” he growled, turning a black scowl on his companion. “You forget yourself; you are addressing a fellow officer.”

“Nay, not anymore,” sneered the nobleman from beneath the bandaged pulp of his nose. “Haven't you heard? He lost his rank for letting this Arab whore twist his loyalties. ”

Zahirah's heart clenched at the knight's revelation. “Sebastian,” she whispered, remorse heavy in her breast, “is it true?”

That he did not reply was answer enough. She was sick to think what her mistakes had cost him. What they might cost him, still, if the wicked glee in this leering soldier's eyes were any indication.

Fallonmour lowered his head like a bull incited to charge. “By the king's decree, Montborne is no longer captain here. He is a common sergeant, mine to command. And I command he kill this assassin bitch, or face a charge of treason.”

“I'll kill you first,” Sebastian replied with deadly calm. He reached around behind him with his left hand, as if making sure she was still there, as if to reassure her that he would bring her no harm, whatever the threats against him. “If you're looking for blood, Fallonmour, search out Rashid al-Din Sinan. He's here in this crag somewhere. You've got more men than him; you should be able to catch him.”

Fallonmour seemed in no hurry to consider it. “My orders are to apprehend the woman. That's what I intend to do.” He took a step forward, motioning to the other knights to follow his lead. They moved en masse, crowding them against the lip of the river ledge. “Now, are you going to assist me in this endeavor,” Fallonmour asked, his voice echoing above the roar of the water below, “or will you defy me?”

The muscles in Sebastian's arms tensed beneath Zahirah's fingertips. She felt his right arm flex as he gripped his sword tighter, preparing himself to strike against one of his own.

Allah, help her, but she could not allow him to do it. She could not permit him to sacrifice any more than he already had in his association with her. She would not let him lose anything more when he had given her so much.

Wrapping her arms around him as far as she could reach, she embraced him with every ounce of devotion in her heart. She rose up on her toes to put her mouth near his ear. “ I love you,” she whispered. “Sebastian, I will always love you, my lord.”

She released him and took a small step back.

“Zahirah,” he said, and pivoted his head over his shoulder as she shrank away from him. “Zahirah, be careful—”

She looked over that sheer drop of rock and at the surging black water below, and told herself it was the right choice. Her only choice, if she wanted Sebastian to have a chance at a happy future.

“I love you,” she said, emotion choking her throat.

And then she turned and stepped off the ledge.

~ ~ ~

“Zahirah, no!” Sebastian reached out to pull her back, but she was gone.

Gone .

Nothing but empty space behind him, and the impossible idea that Zahirah had just willingly flung herself into that void. He was vaguely aware that the knights had moved in to crowd past him along the edge of the cavern shelf, staring over it, stupefied at what they had just seen. His heart was hammering in the hollow cavity of his chest, his mind screaming in torment, limbs numb with shock.

Slowly, as though in a dream, he heard Fallonmour call for someone to seize him, and he realized that he was standing at the very edge of the cliff now. He had tossed aside his sword. A hand clamped around his forearm as if to forcibly take him, and he shook it off with a roar. He looked down into the abyss of rushing surf below, trying to see if he could spy her somewhere in the water, yet praying he would not.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Blackheart break from the other knights and skirt down along a narrow decline in the side of the sheer wall of rock. Like a hound on the scent of fresh blood, he was going after her. Sebastian could not let him get to her first. He had to save her, if he could.

Tearing his surcoat to free himself from the grasping, gauntleted hands that tried to hold him, Sebastian pushed away from the side of the ledge and plummeted into the river below.

He fell fast, and hit the water like a stone. His chain mail pulled him down, below the racing current, which roared all around him like a raging, thrashing beast. He struggled with the added weight of his armor, commanding his limbs to move, to raise him up above the surface. He broke through, and, gulping in a mouthful of air, he began to search the water for some sign of Zahirah. Above him on the ledge, the soldiers had decided to look for her outside, someone guessing that the receding tide would eventually wash her out to the shore, dead or alive, as it had the man they found that morning.

Sebastian did not want to give up. He called her name, looking for her, feeling for her, diving down as deep and as long as he could, holding his breath until his lungs wanted to burst, and opening his eyes to the churning salt water that was too wild and too dark to provide any answers.

The current dragged him with it, no matter how hard he fought its pull. Relentlessly, it beat him against the rocks, thwarting his every move as it sucked him toward the mouth of the cave, toward daylight, and the immutable conclusion that he had just lost Zahirah for good.

~ ~ ~

Zahirah came out of the water, clinging to the side of a rock and gasping for air. The river had carried her swiftly, like driftwood caught in a tempest, ushering her nearly to the mouth of the cave. Her tunic had torn on the jagged walls of the tidal inlet, a shredded piece of it snagging on a tooth-like rock and holding her while the water rushed all around her. The current rose up over her face, filling her nose and mouth, and while she worked to free herself from the tether, her groping fingers found a crevice in the stone.

Like the corner of a building, the sheer-rising wall bent around, creating an alcove where the water pooled peacefully, tucked away from the angry roil of the tide. She pulled herself into that alcove and followed its deep cleft, listening as the soldiers shouted in the cavern outside and the current raced past without her. She had not expected to live, but life swelled strongly within her, and so she pulled herself out of the water and lay on the flat surface of the stone she clung to, waiting while her burning lungs filled with air.

After a few moments, she could breathe without gasping. Her limbs could move again. Her head urged her to run. Dripping wet and shivering from the chill of the water, she got up onto her feet and stood . . . and then she saw him.

Blackheart.

He was not twenty paces from her in the alcove, a dark shadow in a place where everything was black. His sword was down at his side, unsheathed and menacing. Zahirah stared at him, this harbinger of death, and found she could not move. She would not ask him for mercy; she had no reason to believe he would grant it. And so she simply watched him, waiting for him to charge at her in a bloodthirsty rage, or save himself the trouble and call her out to Fallonmour and the other Franks.

He had his chance when someone yelled to him from outside the cave. “Sir Cabal! Are you there? Have you found any sign of the woman?”

“Aye,” he answered back, his voice flat and emotionless. “I found her.”

Zahirah swallowed hard, wishing the current had dragged her under as had been her plan. Only her death would satisfy the king, and only her death would give Sebastian a chance to gain back that which he had lost because of her. Her heart heavy with regret, she stared at the knight called Blackheart and waited for him to give the reply that would seal her fate and Sebastian's along with it.

To her astonishment, he did no such thing.

He stood there, looking at her much the way she was looking at him, and then he simply turned and walked away. His voice boomed over the pounding surf outside as he told his companions, “The assassin is dead.”