Read Online Rapture's Etesian by Charlotte Boyett-Compo - Free Book Online

second or two and when he opened them, there was moisture rimming the golden orbs. “By the time I returned, she had been in her grave for nearly a week.”
    “Did no one tell you what was happening?” she asked, shock in her tone.
    “My father would not allow me to be informed of Callista’s fate.” He smiled sadly. “She was my little sister and I loved her dearly. He knew I would have tried to save her if I had been told she was to be hanged.”
    Kynthia winced and put a hand to her throat. “And he couldn’t save her?”
    “He didn’t want to,” her companion answered. “To him, she was nothing more than a nuisance, a female to be auctioned off when the time came. Had she not killed the man who had raped her, she would not have received a decent bride price, for she was damaged goods.”
    “Like me,” Kynthia mumbled.
    “On Ghaoithe, such women are handed over to the brothels so in a way, it was best Callista met her fate at the executioner’s hands. Had my father turned her over to such a place, I would have gone berserk and he knew it.”
    “But couldn’t he have gone to your King and—”
    “He was the King,” Cainer stated.
    “Oh.”
    “I came home to find my mother and father on holiday in the mountains. They had taken my younger brother with them. My older brother—the Prince Regent—stayed behind as token head of the State. It was he who told me about Callista.”
    “How did he feel about her death?”
    Cainer shrugged. “No one loved her save me and…” He smiled sadly. “…and Aisling.”
    “Your sister?”
    “Nay. The woman with whom I intended to Join.” He turned and looked at her. “And the niece of the man who had raped my twelve-year-old sister.”
    Kynthia’s eyes grew wide. “Twelve?” she echoed.
    “A mere child,” he repeated. “A babe, really, but old enough to procure a dagger and slip into Korsun Lalor’s room and cut his throat from ear to ear.”
    “I am so sorry,” she whispered.
    “My only delight after that was in Aisling and the love we shared for one another. Not even my flying gave me the kind of joy it once did for whenever I left Ghaoithe, I could not help but remember what had happened when I had been gone. I worried that something would happen to Aisling.”
    “Did it?”
    He shook his head. “No. I imagine she lived to be an old woman with dozens of grandchildren clamoring around her knee.” He laughed. “She was a Sha nachie, a storyteller who could spin yarns with the best of the bards. There would have been stories flying fast and furious from those pretty lips and her grandchildren would be sitting there mesmerized.”
    “ Sha nachie,” Kynthia said. “What a beautiful word.”
    “She was a beautiful woman.”
    “You never Joined with her, then.”
    “No.”
    “Because of the woman whose name you don’t wish to repeat?”
    He nodded. “I learned that witch was going to harm Aisling, and I thought to lure her out into space and rid myself of her once and for all.”
    “I take it she was bothering you.”
    “Everywhere I went she showed up. Every event found her there in attendance. No matter where I turned, she was there. The very sight of her caused my stomach to churn. I loathed her and I feared what she might do if given the chance. I could not endanger Aisling’s life so I climbed aboard The Levant and led that crone out to the very limits of our galaxy.”
    “You came here.”
    “Not by choice, I didn’t,” he replied. “Fate drew us here and when we landed, I wound up a prisoner on this island and she wound up dead at the hand of my warden.”
    “You are a prisoner here?”
    He turned to look at her, fusing his gaze with hers. “Do you not know what this place is?” he asked. “Have you not heard the tales?”
    “I know it is called the Isle of Uaigneas and I had heard a strange, wild man lived there, but beyond that, I don’t recall hearing anything else.”
    “A strange, wild man,” he repeated and