Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,211

was true, but in her heart had held out some last vestige of hope.

“And he will not be the last,” Siobhan went on. Her gaze drifted back up to the stars, and Katerin didn’t hate her quite so much in that moment, recognizing the sincere pain that had washed over her fair, angular features. “I will never forget Luthien Bedwyr,” the half-elf said, her voice barely a whisper. “Nor you, Katerin O’Hale, and when you are both buried deep in the earth, I, young still by the measures of my race, will try to visit your graves, or at least to pause and remember.”

She turned back to Katerin, who stood, mouth agape. Tears rimmed Siobhan’s green eyes; Katerin could see the glistening lines that had crossed the half-elf’s high cheekbones.

“Yes,” Siobhan continued, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, feeling the warm breeze and tasting the first subtle scents of the coming spring. “I will mark this very night,” she explained. “The smells and the sights, the warmth of the air, the world reawakening, and when in the centuries to come I feel a night such as this, it will remind me of Luthien and Katerin, the two lovers, the folk of legend.”

Katerin stared at her, not knowing what to make of the unexpected speech and uncharacteristic openness.

Siobhan locked that stare with her own and firmed her jaw. “It should pain you that Luthien and I have loved,” the half-elf said bluntly, catching Katerin off her guard, turning her emotions over once again. “And yet,” Siobhan continued unabashedly, “I take some of the credit, much of the credit, for the person the young Luthien Bedwyr has become. This person can understand love now, and he can look at Katerin O’Hale through the eyes of a man, not the starry orbs of a lustful boy.”

Katerin looked away, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Deny it if you will,” Siobhan said, moving about so that the young woman had to look at her. “Let your foolish pride encase your heart in coldness if that is what you must do. But know that Luthien Bedwyr loves you, only you, and know that I am no threat.”

Siobhan smiled warmly then, a necessary ending, and walked away, leaving Katerin alone with her thoughts, alone with the night.

Luthien and Oliver were camped on the fields south of Bronegan that night, part of a force nearly half the size of the army in Glen Albyn. After the victory over the Dark Knight, Estabrooke had indeed talked to his “friends” as Luthien had asked, giving Oliver and Luthien some breathing room and some time.

Noble to the core, Estabrooke promptly and openly ceded to Luthien his earned leadership position over the thousand assembled riders. Luthien eyed the man with concern as he did so, understanding that such a transition would not be easy.

Kayryn Kulthwain, a huge and fierce woman, the finest rider in all of Eradoch and the one Estabrooke had defeated in open challenge just a few days before, immediately reclaimed that position. By the ancient codes of the riders, the title could not be passed from outsider to outsider.

Luthien, son of an eorl and somewhat trained in the matters of etiquette, understood the basic traditions of Eradoch. Estabrooke had ascended to a position of leadership by defeating the leader of the gathered rulers, but that position would have never been more than temporary.

Very temporary. Estabrooke was an outsider, and as soon as the highlanders could have determined a proper order of challenge, the Dark Knight would have been forced to battle and win against every one of the riders, one after another. And if any of them had defeated Estabrooke on the field, there would have been no mercy.

“Is Kayryn Kulthwain the rightful leader?” Luthien had asked those around him.

“By deed and by blood,” one man answered, and others bobbed their heads in agreement.

“I came not to Eradoch to lead you,” Luthien assured them all, “but to ask for your alliance. To ask that you join with me and my folk of Caer MacDonald against Greensparrow, who is not our king.”

The men and women of Eradoch were not a complicated folk. Their lives were straightforward and honest, following a narrow set of precepts, basic guidelines that ensured their survival and their honor. It was all Luthien had to say. When he turned back for Bronegan, the riders of Eradoch were not behind him, they were beside him—and it seemed to both Luthien and Oliver that the fiercely independent