Morgaine rode alone.
A calculated risk bordering on madness, and every officer she had told her not to do it. Power was perception. A woman who rode alone into enemy territory was either a fool or so certain of her strength she needed no escort.
She had not survived eight hundred years by being a fool.
The wind died as she descended. The valley went quiet. Black and crimson banners snapped ahead, and on the ancient stone of Veth Bridge — stone laid before memory, before the wars — dark armor moved in precise formation.
His soldiers.
She wondered if he was watching. The thought sent a shiver down her spine and she sat straighter.
Let him watch.
She stopped at the near end of the bridge. Close enough to see faces. They watched her with the wary respect of men who’d heard the stories. The Eternal Lady, who could not die.
She waited.
Silence stretched taut as a bowstring.
“My Lady Morgaine.”
The voice came from the far archway, deep and carrying command. “I wondered if you would come.”
He stepped into the light and her breath caught.
She’d seen portraits. Known he was tall, dark gold hair, eyes the pale grey of winter. None of it had prepared her.
He was beautiful. Not soft-pretty. Hard, like a blade tempered in fire. Every motion precise, controlled. And those eyes fixed on her like he could see straight through.
She had expected to hate him on sight.
Instead she wanted him. Sudden, shocking, undeniable. Wanted to feel heat under her hands, to find out if the control he wore like armor broke.
“Caelum of the Broken Sun,” she said, flat. “I see the stories of your modesty were exaggerated.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “And I see the stories of your beauty fell short.”
A line. Practiced flattery she should have dismissed. Heat hit her cheeks anyway — actual heat, the kind she hadn’t felt in centuries — and she cursed herself.
“You took my bridge. I want it back.”
“Do you?” He stepped closer. Close enough she could smell leather and steel and something darker, like a fire that might burn too hot. “Or did you come to see the man who’s been your shadow for eleven years?”
“I came to negotiate.”
“Then negotiate.”
She should have had demands. Threats. The careful strategy that had kept her people alive for centuries.
She looked into his winter-grey eyes and couldn’t remember a single one.
“The bridge. Return it, and I will consider—”
“What will you consider, Morgaine?”
He said her name like a caress. Like something forbidden. Her body leaned toward him without permission and she knew, with terrible clarity, that she was in more danger from this man than from any army.
“Peace,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened. “Is that what you want, Morgaine? Or what you think you should want?”
She wanted him. Crystal clear and terrifying. Wanted his hands on her skin. Wanted to know what it felt like to be consumed by an equal.
“I want the bridge,” she said. “And I want you to stop looking at me like you can see through me.”
“I can see through you. I’ve watched you for eleven years. I know your strategies. Your weaknesses. I know how you look at me when you think I’m not watching.”
“You want me, Morgaine. Just as I want you. The question is what we do about it.”
“We’re enemies.”
“Are we?”
His hand hovered near her cheek, not quite touching, heat coming off him like a brand. Then one finger traced her jaw, devastatingly gentle.
She didn’t push him away. She reached up, leather glove wrapping his wrist, feeling the heavy, steady pulse against her palm. Strong. Intoxicating.
With agonizing slowness, she lowered his hand.
“We will see what the future holds,” she murmured. “But for now, we are at war. And I do not lose.”
She gathered her reins and spurred north, not looking back, the phantom heat of his touch burning on her jaw.
He watched her go, silver hair glinting, until she was safely in her own territory. Then he let out an unsteady breath.
He could still feel her glove around his wrist. Startlingly strong. Dangerously intoxicating.
He forced his hand to unclench.
By the time he reached his officers, his face was stone again.
“Casualties,” he said to Reth, his intelligence chief falling into step beside him.
“Forty-two dead. Seventy wounded.”
“Theirs?”
“Four hundred and twelve.”
Ten to one. He filed it away. It meant the Crossing had been fortified more heavily than his scouts reported. Either his intelligence had a gap, or she had reinforced anticipating him.
“When did she reinforce?”
“Last two months. Newer boots, less worn. She knew you were considering the Crossing.”
“She calculates in possibilities, not certainties. Same as us. Which means she can be surprised.”
Reth’s voice stayed neutral. “Can she? No commander has fought her for thirty years and—”
“None of them are me.”
He looked north, at the empty ridge where she had stood.
“Double the perimeter on the north approach. Mine the bridge — don’t blow it. If she moves to retake it I want to know before her vanguard hits midpoint.”
He started toward the command hall, maps already waiting. Outside, wind blew from the north, carrying her highland chill and the phantom scent of ozone and leather he couldn’t scrub from his senses.
He forced his jaw to unclench and began to read.