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‘Weeks, Brother.’
The pity in his brother’s voice made rage crawl up his throat, but he bit back the bitter words that would have spewed out. It couldn’t be that bad. If it had been weeks, then it could have healed by now, regardless of the pain. ‘Move, I’m getting up.’ He waved his hand to push Vidar aside.
‘Nay, you shouldn’t get up yet.’ Vidar moved to keep him down, but Gunnar swung his right leg over the edge of the bed and grabbed a hold of his brother’s tunic to pull himself up.
‘I’ve a need to take a piss and I won’t do it here like an invalid.’ But the words were barely out of his mouth when his weight moving forward pulled his injured leg off the bed and his foot crashed to the floor. Pain like he’d never felt sliced up his leg and reverberated throughout the limb. His breath caught. A strong wave of nausea rolled over him as darts of light flashed before his eyes. Just as he felt himself falling to the floor, he saw a vision of Kadlin. She stood behind Vidar, eyes wide and arms out as if to help him, but that’s all he saw before he fell unconscious.
When Gunnar next awoke it was to the warm, soothing strokes of a washcloth moving slowly across his chest. A woman hummed and the soft sound would have lulled him back to sleep if his head hadn’t begun to ache. But he didn’t want to acknowledge the pain, so he kept his eyes closed to enjoy the music a moment longer. It was pleasant, something a woman might sing to her child as she bathed him. He wondered if his own mother had ever sung to him like that as she held him close. He only had vague recollections of the woman: long red hair, dark eyes. She had been a shadow behind his father and Eirik’s mother, lurking, or perhaps banished, to stand behind the dais at meals, to serve rather than be served. Then one day she had disappeared altogether. He could remember the child he had been, wandering from one chamber to the next, from one outbuilding to the other, looking for her.
Nay, she had probably never sung to him. He didn’t know why the ridiculous question had even come into his head. To ponder those memories only made his head ache more, so he opened his eyes instead of facing them. But he wasn’t prepared for the dream in front of him.
Kadlin.
It took a moment for his eyes to focus in the flickering light of the single candle, but he knew it was her. Even with her gorgeous hair subdued in braids and pinned to her scalp, he knew it was her. He’d seen her beloved face in dreams enough to know that he had woken from one dream only to be thrust into the next. Or perhaps he was awake now, as the pain in his head would suggest, but he had finally gone mad and was seeing her when he knew that her presence was impossible. It didn’t matter. He’d gone beyond caring if he was mad, especially if it meant that she would be with him.
‘I dream of you often, you know.’ The timbre of his voice was rough from disuse. He didn’t even recognise it; more proof of his unconscious state.
Her blue eyes shot to his, widened in surprise, and just as quickly returned to their study of his hand as she drew the cloth between his fingers. ‘That sounds like a sentimental endeavour. Surely too sentimental for a warrior such as you.’
He smiled and waited for her to finish, enjoying the feel of her gentle-but-sure strokes. Though he was becoming aware of the way his entire body thrummed with pain, focusing on that small pleasure helped him to push the discomfort to the back of his mind and he didn’t want to say or do anything to make her stop. Eventually she finished and went to place his hand gently back at his side, but, instead of letting her go, he turned his hand and captured hers. It was warm and small in his own. He caressed his thumb across her knuckles and then laced his fingers with hers. It had never been like this before. In all of his dreams, he’d never been able to recreate the heat and spark of excitement that warmed his belly from her touch. He glanced at her long, graceful fingers to make sure that he actually held them. ‘A warrior such as me? I fear you’re mistaken. Warriors are required to swing their swords in battle and recite poetry over the fire at night.’
She gave a soft laugh as if she were humouring him. He didn’t care. He loved her laugh, even if it was given to placate him. She smiled as she said, ‘You’ve never recited a poem in your life, Gunnar.’
‘Nay, I suppose I haven’t.’ He loved the pink of her lips, the vivid blue of her eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin. All of his other dreams had never got her completely right. There was a challenge in her eyes now that he’d left out before. It wasn’t a mistake he’d repeat. She was captivating, truly the most becoming woman he’d ever seen. ‘But it’s a testament to my sorry ways. I should have said a poem for you every night of my existence. Perhaps that’s why you haunt my dreams, a recompense for my wrongs.’
A shadow passed over her eyes, stealing the joy that had sparked there and he was sorry to see it go. When she would have pulled her hand free, he held tight and reached for her other one with his free hand. She pulled that one back, though, so his dropped limply to his side. ‘You’re angry. I’ll accept your anger if it means you can stay with me and not dissipate as you have before.’
‘You’re not dreaming and I’m no phantom to disappear.’
He smiled. ‘You’ve said that before. It’s a trick that rouses me to waking, but I’ve not fallen for it in a long time.’
‘Believe as you wish, but I need my hand to finish bathing you.’ Her eyes softened again as she tugged gently on her hand.
He reluctantly let her go, but only because she promised more of that wonderfully soothing caress, and he watched her closely as she fulfilled her promise. But when she had finished his left arm and hand and moved to draw back the blanket, he moved quickly to grip it tight and hold it in place. The abrupt movement caused a sharp pain to lance through his head and left leg. It was so bad that he disgraced himself by gasping aloud.
‘Please, you must keep yourself still.’ She rose over him and pressed his shoulders to the bed at his back.
‘I’ll not let you bathe me there like a child,’ he panted, when he caught his breath.
‘All right, I won’t, but you must be calm before you injure yourself further.’
She wasn’t a dream! As waves of pain crashed through his body, he realised with unyielding clarity that he was awake and not dreaming at all. He remembered Vidar explaining his injury to him and he had a vague recollection of getting to his feet and falling just as he saw her. None of this was a dream. He had been gravely injured and then Vidar had accompanied him on a journey to...to where? He didn’t even know where he was.
‘Has Vidar brought me home?’ But that didn’t seem right. This wasn’t his chamber and he knew the chambers and alcoves of Kadlin’s home enough to know that he wasn’t there. Another thought—an excruciatingly horrible one—pounded through his head: that he had been delivered to Kadlin at her husband’s home.
She had turned her head, as if searching for someone to help, but looked back at him after his question. ‘Aye, Eirik believed that your recovery would best take place here.’ One hand stayed on his chest, but the other stroked his face to calm him. ‘We are at Eirik’s farm. Do you not remember it?’
He blinked and tried to look past her, but had trouble pulling his gaze from her face. It seemed so unbelievable that she was with him, after all of their time apart, that he had trouble believing she wouldn’t disappear on him if he looked away. Besides, she held him mesmerised, the stroke of her fingers on his cheek like a balm. Then he realised that there was nothing between the flesh of her hand and the skin of his face. He raised a hand to his chin, expecting to feel his beard there, but there was nothing. ‘You shaved me, woman?’
‘Aye, you were quite disgusting when you came here. I cut your hair, too. You can thank Vidar that it’s not shaved, as well. He refused to let me.’
‘Then it’s true? The battle? My horse?’
She