A Little Fate by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online

enough.”
    â€œYour flesh may.” Kern waved a hand and the wall between them and the banquet hall shimmered away. “But your heart is another matter. She is very beautiful.”
    â€œA fair face is easy beauty. She isn’t what I thought she was . . . would be. I don’t want her.”
    Kern smiled. “One doesn’t always want destiny.”
    Thane turned. Kern was old, old as time. His long gray beard covered plump cheeks and spun down to the waist of his bright red robes. But his eyes were merry as a child’s, and green as Lost Forest.
    â€œYou show me these things. This woman, this world, and you hint of changes, of restoration.” Frustration edged Thane’s voice and hardened his face. “You train me for battle, and you heal my hurts when Owen or Lorcan or one of their dogs beats me. But what good does it do me? My mother, my young sister, are no more than prisoners still. And Leia—”
    â€œShe is safe. Have I not told you?”
    â€œSafe, at least.” Struggling to compose himself, Thane looked back at the feasting, at little Dira. “One sister safe, and lost to me, the other trapped here until she’s old enough for me to find sanctuary for her. There will never be one for my mother. She grows so thin.”
    â€œShe worries for you, for her daughters.”
    â€œLeia bides with the women in the Valley of Secrets, at least for now. And Dira is yet too young for the snake to pay her mind—or to plan to marry her off to some slathering lackey. She need not worry for them. She need not think of me at all. I am nothing but a coward who hides his sword.”
    â€œIt’s not cowardice to hide your sword until the time comes to wield it. The time draws near.”
    â€œSo you always say,” Thane replied, and though he knew that Kern’s magick kept those who were feasting from seeing him above them, he felt Aurora’s gaze as it scanned the gallery. He knew she looked at him, just as he looked at her. “Is she a witch, then, and the visions between us an amusement to her?”
    â€œShe is many things.”
    Thane shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. She isn’t for me, nor I for her. That was fantasy and foolishness, and is done. It’s Dira who concerns me now. Another two years, then Lorcan will seek to marry her off. Then she must be sent away from here, for her own safety. My mother will have no daughter to comfort her, and no son to stand for her.”
    â€œYou are no good to them dead.” Kern’s voice went sharp as honed steel. “And no good to any when you wallow in pity.”
    â€œEasily said when your time is spent in a raft, and mine in a stable. I gave up my pride, Kern, and have lived without it since my seventh season. Is it so surprising I should be ready to give up my hope?”
    â€œIf you do, it will be the end for you.”
    â€œThere are times I’d welcome the end.” But he looked at Dira. She was so young. Innocent and defenseless. He thought of how she had wept to find him beaten and bleeding in the stables. It hurt her, he knew, more than the lash hurt him. Lorcan’s blood might have run through her, but she had none of his cruelty.
    She was, he thought, his only real pleasure since Leia’s escape. So he would hold on to his hope a while longer, for her.
    â€œI don’t give up yet,” Thane said quietly. “Not yet. But it had best be soon.”
    â€œCome, then, let me tend your wounds.”
    â€œNo,” Thane rolled his shoulders, welcomed the pain. “It reminds me. I have work.”
    â€œWhen it’s done, meet me. It’s time to practice.”
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    F INGERTIP to fingertip, Aurora circled with Owen in a dance. The music was lively, and pleased her a great deal more than her partner. But he couldn’t have known of her displeasure as she smiled at him and sent him a laughing glance over her shoulder