her, the ache in his heart beyond pain. "I will not hurt you," he promised. "I ask only a kiss of farewell, one kiss, to warm me through eternity."
She could not refuse him. His lips were cool against her own. Her eyelids fluttered down as he deepened the kiss, and she felt his loneliness, his need, the bitterness that welled within his soul.
It was a kiss that branded her soul. And then, like a shadow running from the sun, he was gone, and she knew she would never see him again.
Part Two Chapter Ten
During the next few years, time lost all meaning. He went on a voyage of discovery, experiencing the things he had only read about in the scrolls. He learned to ride a horse, to fight with a sword, to sail a ship by the light of the stars.
He took up residence in an abandoned cottage and surrounded himself with animals of every kind - dogs and cats, sheep and goats, pigs and chickens, horses and cattle, ducks and swans - watching them as they bred and bore young, watching the young ones grow to adulthood and repeat the never-ending cycle of life.
He planted flowers and watched them bloom.
He planted a vegetable garden and watched it grow, though he had no use for the food itself.
He ventured into the nearest town and observed the people. Except for his mother, Katlaina, and Markos, he had never interacted with others. He knew nothing of courtship or marriage, nothing of ordinary, day-to-day living.
He lingered in the shadows, listening to the farmers as they talked of crops, of planting and harvesting. He tried to imagine what it would be like to toil in the heat of the noonday sun, to till the ground, to feel the sun-warmed earth in his hands. He watched the women gather their children close as darkness spread her cloak across the face of the land. He heard the lullabies they sang, the stories they told - tales of kings and queens, of enchanted cottages, of demon creatures of the night. He watched the children, marveling at their innocence and their insatiable curiosity, at the way they embraced life without fear.
And always, lurking in the back of his mind like the ache of an old wound, was the memory of his own child. He saw babies learning to walk and lamented the fact that he had not been there to see his own child take its first step. His son would be almost five now. What was he like? Had Katlaina told the boy of his father?
Sometimes, alone in the dark of night, he wept for his own lost youth and innocence, for the learning and experiences that had been denied him. At those times, he cursed the fate that had kept him locked in a cage for the first five-and-twenty years of his life, that had deprived him of a normal childhood.
On a whim, he booked passage on a ship and left the Isle of Mikos. Like a vagabond, he wandered the earth, never at peace, never at rest, a part of his heart always yearning for home.
Try as he might, he could not forget Katlaina, or his son. Twenty-five years later, drawn like the tide to the shore, he returned to Mikos and made his way to Katlaina's village high in the mountains to the north. At dusk, he walked down the narrow dirt road toward Katlaina's cottage.
She was sitting outside, shelling peas. A young woman sat beside her, a dark-haired child suckling at her breast.
Navarrepaused in the shadows, careful to stay out of their sight. Katlaina, still beautiful in spite of the passage of time, in spite of the fine lines that fanned out from her eyes, in spite of the gray in her hair. Katlaina...
His gaze moved to the young woman. Was this Katlaina's daughter? He frowned, trying to find a resemblance, but there was none.
He drew back as the cottage door opened, and a tall, handsome young man with curly black hair and eyes the color of thunderclouds stepped outside. Smiling with pride, the young man ruffled the babe's hair, kissed the young woman, then caressed Katlaina's cheek.
Something deep withinNavarre 's heart cracked as he stared at his son. He opened his mind and let their thoughts flow into his soul, felt his throat grow thick as he sensed the love that bonded them together.
He looked at his son, now over thirty years old and a man grown, at the child in the