Draco A Medieval Scottish Roma - Jayne Castel Page 0,85
he gasped out the words, “you know what that means … about us?”
“Aye,” she whispered.
His fingers tightened around hers. “I’m a fool, Gavina. I should have been honest with myself … I would have been if I wasn’t so bull-headed.” He heaved in a pained breath. Mithras, it hurt to talk. He could feel darkness pulling at the edges of his vision, drawing him down, yet he resisted.
He wanted to remain awake a while, to gaze upon his wife.
Draco’s throat thickened, a pain rising under his breastbone that had nothing to do with the festering arrow wounds.
There was no numbness in his chest now. Instead, he felt everything.
Gavina’s mouth trembled. “Dolt,” she whispered. “Why did ye have to go and throw yerself in the path of those arrows?”
He drew in a shallow breath, fighting the pain. “It wasn’t deliberate … I was defending the wall … but I was careless … I’ve gotten too used to being invincible.”
As he stared up at her, Draco saw tears escape Gavina’s glittering eyes and trickle down her cheeks. Her fingers clenched around his. “I love ye, Draco,” she whispered, “so much that it hurts to breathe.”
“You are the best thing to ever come into my life,” he whispered back, his voice cracking. “I never knew true joy … till I met you.” She was right, they had left it too late. All these years, he’d sought the oblivion of death, had dreamed of breaking the curse so that he could finally let nature take its course. But now that he perched on the brink while death’s cold hands reached for him, Draco didn’t want to die.
He desperately wanted to live.
Maximus and Cassian came to see him, and he saw from the somber expressions they wore, their guarded gazes, that things were indeed dire.
“I’m not a corpse yet,” he greeted them, attempting a wan smile and failing. “You don’t have to both look so tragic.”
Maximus snorted, attempting a tight smile of his own. “Half-dead and you still manage to be aggravating. Some things never change.”
Next to him, Cassian’s hazel eyes guttered, his throat bobbing. His friend, whom Draco had never seen weep, looked on the verge of breaking down.
“Sit by my side,” Draco rasped, patting the coverlet next to him. He was so weak that it was an effort to do even that. Agony pulsed in time with his heartbeat, but while he hurt, he was still alive—and before he died, he had things to say to these two.
Maximus and Cassian did as bid, lowering themselves onto the bed. The mattress dipped beneath their weight, causing a jolt of hot fire to lance through Draco, and his vision speckled. He needed to say this fast; he could tell he didn’t have much time left.
“You know I was the youngest of five brothers,” he said weakly. It frustrated him just how feeble his voice sounded, but he pressed on nonetheless. “All the same, my father … the proudest Moor in Valentia … was furious when I enlisted in the Roman army. In one afternoon, I gave up my heritage and became a Roman citizen.” Draco swallowed then, wetting his parched lips. “Despite everything, it was the best decision I ever made. You two are kin to me.”
Maximus stared down at him, his proud face all taught angles. Tears shone in his eyes. “Don’t try to speak,” he rasped. “It’s taking its toll on you.”
“I must … say this,” Draco countered. “I don’t have much longer … and I want you both to know about what happened to me … why I turned into such a bitter bastard.”
“You lost Magda,” Cassian replied gently. “In that raid … we know.”
Draco shook his head. Weakness was suffusing his body now. The soured wound was spreading its poison through him. “No,” he gasped. “That’s not the reason.”
Seated outside the bed-chamber in her solar, Gavina stared sightlessly at the flickering hearth. It was a warm day, yet she felt chilled to the marrow. Outdoors, through the open window, she could hear the cry of gulls, the clang of metal, and shouts of men as they worked on repairing the damage to the fortress.
Work would continue on Dunnottar for a long while, before all signs of that attack were erased. Huge chunks had been ripped out of the western curtain wall, the grey stone blackened from Greek fire.
Nearby, Heather and Aila sat silently. All three women had taken up sewing or knitting projects, but none had touched their work.