Author's Note: Sorry for the wait! The rest should follow before September! This chapter is intense, so hang on tight...

Passion

Inside their suite, Jedrek closed and locked the door. Laurel retreated to her vanity to remove her jeweled necklace and rings and to take the pins from her hair. She could still hear as he poured himself a glass of brandy on the sideboard in the front room.

"They're sending me on border patrol," he said through the open doorway. Her back stiffened from her place on her stool—he never told her things like this, about his work as a knight. "I was the last sent down to Corus after the war, and now I'm to be the first sent back to look after some dirty, commoner soldiers?" he speculated aloud.

He downed the glass and poured another. The girl waited. Crossing into the bedroom, he held it up to the light of the fireplace and examined it. Laurel watched him move around behind her through her mirror but remained frozen in her seat. He continued, "And at the same time, Roald's favorites get to play in his pleasure palace…" He suddenly threw the full glass at the wall next to her vanity, and it shattered. Laurel's crystal blue eyes shut hard and she flinched at the collision, but she did not feel any of the shards hit her.

Jedrek's rough hands pulled at the cords on the back of her gown, and she let him unlace them without a struggle even though he was jerking her corset against her bruised ribs. A large hand wrapped around her upper arm to pull her to her feet. Laurel slid her arms quickly out of the gown's sleeves so that it could fall to a crumpled heap around her feet, leaving her in only a simple shift. She stepped out of her high-heeled shoes, knowing what he would want next. Jedrek yanked her across the room towards their bed, and her stockinged foot stepped on some of the broken glass. An uncontrollable yelp of pain escaped her throat.

Abruptly changing course, he slammed her back against the rough stone wall and wrapped a bruising grip around her delicate neck. "Don't you dare call out," he said, spitting on her face in anger. The girl tensed, but her gaze was transfixed on his face which was contorted into something positively evil, something she had never seen on any person before. His harsh, dark eyes considered her for a moment over his scowl. "Your old friends are among Roald's favorites. You're behind this aren't you, you little viper?" he accused. He took a step back solely for the purpose of gaining some space; his right arm swung across his body to backhand her against the cheek.

The girl staggered sideways as far as his grip would allow, her eyes pressing shut again. She tried to protest in a quiet voice, "I don't see them anymore. I stay here like you want me to. You always know where I am!"

"How can I trust you?" he roared. "I heard about you sneaking around with Vikison Lane before I got here. How can I know you don't do the same now?"

The blue-eyed girl blinked a few times to clear her watering eyes and tried to defend herself, her voice beginning to strain from desperation. "I did nothing with him! You're the only man I've known!" Laurel tried to control her shaking lower lip.

All of the sudden, he stopped. The knight dropped his grip on her and took a few steps back. "That's right," he whispered thickly, more to himself than to anyone else. "I was the first."

Laurel sank to the floor, immobile for the moment. Jedrek was more unhinged than usual tonight—Dom, Merric, and the Prince must have said something to him that made him angry at her. One arm snaked itself around her middle, an unconscious action. It was there to protect what was inside her. She closed her eyes. She did not want to see where he would strike his next blow.

But none came. After a few minutes of waiting with eyes squeezed shut, she lay down on her side and curled up with her knees to her chest. She felt the tiny pieces of glass still embedded in her feet, but she did not dare move to pick them out. The girl lay there waiting that night, but no sound of warning before a kick or slap ever came. At some point, she fell asleep.

When she woke at the first hint of light streaming through the windows, everything was quiet. So quiet that it seemed that something was about to happen or that something was bound to happen to shatter the silence. Laurel sat up, her body protesting its recent beating as well as the soreness from a night on the floor. She did not see Jedrek anywhere. She stood slowly and tiptoed across the bedchamber to the main room. He was there, sitting in his favorite armchair.

Before she had time to run or hide or do anything, he stood. He took a few tentative steps forward, staring at her frozen form. Then, he came at her in a rage. She stumbled backwards into the wall and screamed. He was on her in an instant, his body pressed down on hers and one of his hands catching and holding both of hers over her head against a wall. "You trapped me!" he yelled inches from her face. "You tricked my grandfather into this marriage and then you killed him!"

"I wouldn't… can't… kill… anyone," she heaved out. His weight was crushing her lungs. She could hardly breathe.

The knight pulled her off of the wall and half-dragged her to the window in the main room. He yanked it open and grabbed her again. The girl instinctively pulled back from the cold outdoor air. "You're not going to torture me like this anymore!" he yelled. Jedrek was much too strong to be resisted; he pushed her head out the window. "You're going down there!" Laurel stared down wide-eyed into the little courtyard she had so often stared at and wished to visit. It was three or four stories down to a deadly stone landing.

As she stared into her death, Jedrek struggled to pick up her legs to toss her out the window head-first. The girl braced her arms against the window frame. "Stop!" she screamed. She started to panic and kick at him. Laurel had never dared to fight back, but now she realized that she had to do something to save the child. It was not just her life on the line now, and it is always easier to be brave when you have someone else for whom to be brave.

His hands were on her hips trying to shove her out. The girl twisted out of his grip and slid down to the floor safely inside the room. Jedrek roared and grabbed her arms to put her on her feet again. She gripped him tightly back and desperately forced her white gold sleeping magic into him, but it was not enough. Her resources were drained from the big healing she had done the day before for the ball.

With her dwindling stream of Gift, she shoved her own life force into him from where she found a pinpoint of bright light in her mind's eye. She had never seen it before but instinctively recognized it. Using all of her strength, she shoved the flickering light with bluish-white flames straight into his mind. There was no regret in her heart. He collapsed forward.

When he at last lay limp and still, Laurel pushed her husband's body off of her and retreated into the bedroom. She slumped on the stool at her vanity, looking at her face in the mirror. She did not look any different after fighting a man, after magically fighting her husband. Her hands did not shake. All she felt was calm and exhaustion. He was never going to lay a hurting hand on her child, and that was all that mattered to her.

Dully, the girl wondered what she should do now. She had no idea how long he would sleep—probably days, if not weeks with such power involved. Should she run? Escape from her tormentor now that he was incapacitated? She did not know how to run and hide. She did not know where to go or what to do for food or shelter. What would happen to her child if she tried such a thing? In the convent, they do not teach ladies how to survive on their own.

The girl could not think of anything to do, so she just sat there, staring at herself in the mirror in a trance. Laurel felt cold, she realized, but she could not make herself stand for a robe to cover her shift. At some point she heard the palace servant enter the main room as usual to stir up the fire. When she heard quick retreating footsteps and the door opening and shutting loudly, she knew that the time for action was up. She was about to be discovered, yet she could not find the will to move.

Laurel was still sitting there when the palace guards came in with healers. Many noises filled the other room, noises she could hear through the cracked door. The voices were exclaiming over what had been done to Sir Jedrek of Gethin.

From her vanity mirror, she saw a guard open the door to the bedchamber, but she did not move. "There's a girl in here!" he called to the crowd on the other side of the wall. Yes, she was still a girl. Why had a girl been given these burdens to deal with? she wondered to herself.

Another guard entered the bedroom with the first and a female healer trailed behind. Recognizing the girl from her time spent in the infirmary, the woman rushed forward. "It's Lady Laurel in here, Neal!" she yelled back. Her glowing hands were on the girl in a flash of muddy-brown magic. It cooled the already chilled Laurel, and she shivered involuntarily. "It's bad," the female voice said, softer now.

Neal had come in. The blue-eyed girl did not see him, but she saw the flash of green magic that touched her eyelids and made her slip into sleep. Her last thought was that it was not as soothing as her sleeping magic…

Laurel woke up in a private room of the infirmary. Recognizing her surroundings, she immediately tried to use her healing to check herself, but it hit something invisible that made her head ache. Neal came in right away with another man behind him. "You're testing your shield," the strange mage accused.

"Sorry," she replied with a grimace. "I didn't know that I had one. It makes my head feel fuzzy." She moved to put a hand to her forehead and found that it was chained to the side of the bed. So was her other one. "What is this for?" she asked bewilderedly.

"I think that you can continue to hold the shield from the other room," Neal drawled meaningfully to the other man. "Give us some privacy so I can do my healer things, please." The mage gave her one more suspicious look and left, shutting the door behind him.

Neal's concerned, almost sad green eyes met hers, and she refused to look away. "A right mess you've gotten yourself into, Lady Laurel." His hand glowed green and he rested his fingertips on her side. "At least you've been still enough to let those ribs heal."

"Why am I tied down like this?" she demanded, now feeling confused.

The healer sighed and pulled his hand back. "You are charged with the magical attack of Jedrek. You did some strange work on him—even my father can't find a way to wake him up. Though I wouldn't mind if he didn't…" the last part was mumbled, and Laurel did not think that she was supposed to hear it.

"He was trying to kill me," she said quietly. "And my baby…" she added in a whisper.

"So you did know," he replied calmly. His hand reached out for her middle and green seeped out again. "All's well there… for now." He stopped to choose his words, not something that Neal did very often. "Why didn't you let us help you before? This has gone very far, Laurel. The whole court is in uproar and the rumors—" he paused, looking up trying to find the most delicate words possible. "The rumors are terrible. You had a lover. He had a lover, and you were jealous. They go on in all sorts of disgusting ways. No one knows about your bruises since you hid them so well. I'm just glad that I'm on prisoner guard duty so I don't have to hear any more."

"So I'm a prisoner," she said evenly. Her blue eyes had lost their cloudiness and were as crystal-sharp as the healer remembered them. She was beginning to grasp the situation.

Pointing to the closed door, Neal explained things to her in a lower voice. "There is a mage and two palace guards outside, and when you're in a better condition, you will be moved to the dungeons. But I think your recovery might take awhile… Complications can arise over the simplest things," he told her conspiratorially, waggling his long fingers. The knight stood from his perch on the bed. "Now that you're awake, I should send for your legal representation."

"Legal what?" Laurel gasped. Her head was starting to hurt again, and she could not use her own healing magic to fix it.

Neal regarded the young lady gravely. "There's to be a legal inquiry. And I think you'll want to speak to a lawyer about this."

Laurel was unchained from her bed and given a clean, if rather old dress to change into for her meeting with her lawyer. She sat up in her bed with pillows supporting her since her ribs were still tender. Just as she had settled in, a man in his early thirties entered the room by himself. With a head of fair curls framing a clean-shaven face and clear grey eyes, his body was the model of one who works behind a desk. Wearing the black velvet robes of an advocate, he carried a thick leather satchel on one shoulder. The man gave her a small bow from the foot of her bed and said, "I am Vasiliy of Raven's Cliff. What you must understand is that I am your best chance at clearing your name, so I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Honesty is key here, Lady Laurel. If he doesn't wake up, this could be construed as murder, you know."

"I understand that, sir," she replied weakly, feeling more like a child than ever. Only this young, somber lawyer could save her? How had her life come to this?

"Good." He rounded the bed to sit on the chair beside her. From his satchel came a wooden panel on which to write, an inkwell, two quills (he tested them both and selected the sharper one), and a leather-bound notebook which he opened to a blank page. The blue-eyed girl watched all of this in disbelief. This man was so calm about everything while she was beginning to feel anxiety taking a hold in her gut. He looked up at her expectantly.

Laurel swallowed hard and spoke up. "I wasn't trying to be brave or stand up for justice or anything. I was just scared of what he might do to me next. He said he was going to kill me. He was going to toss me out a window, and I had to act to save my child's life. It was fight or let both of us be killed."

Vasiliy made a few notes in his book. "Okay, self-defense, we can work with that. Now I've already talked to a few people so far. The Goddess's people can't help us directly—you didn't establish a record of what he was doing since you were healing the evidence yourself. Sir Nealean said he found bruises on you the night before the incident and will testify to that. We can possibly find some of the previous women who made complaints or the healers that treated them. Gethin paid some of them off, so it might be hard to get them to come forward." The girl's eyes widened at this list of people. Who knew that so much would have to happen to show the truth of what happened between her and Jedrek. Could she not just tell people herself? Would they not believe her?

"Now," Vasiliy said, leaning back in the chair to get comfortable, "tell me exactly what happened that night." As she spoke, he recorded her words in some form of shorthand writing in the notebook. The girl did her best to remember everything accurately, from the meeting of Jedrek and the knights at the ball to Neal putting her to sleep the next morning.

When she finished, the girl's mouth felt dry and her body drained. Vasiliy was nodding slowly as he flipped back through the pages they had filled. "Ultimately, we can say this was a crime of passion," the lawyer said. "You were caught up in a struggle, like one of the many before it, and you finally had to fight back against your abuser to save your and the child's lives. That will help your case."

Passion? How ironic, Laurel thought. That was what Iden had said she lacked, yet it had apparently driven her to nearly kill her husband.

Laurel was perusing a novel that had been left on her bedside table, some light courtly romance that the infirmary room's last occupant must have been reading, when one of her guards knocked and opened the door to her room. "An approved visitor," he said curtly when he popped his head in. Not knowing what to expect, the appearance of little Amelie in a pretty lavender dress made the young prisoner gasp.

Stepping in, the dark beauty smiled timidly. The door was locked behind her, and she finally said, "Laurel, are you all right here? It's terrible—!" Her hands flew to cover her mouth.

The blue-eyed girl waved her over. "Come here, Amelie. I am so pleased to see you! Sit here with me."

The lady crossed the room, perched in the chair next to the bed, and took Laurel's hand. "I am so glad you are well. When they found you and… and Jedrek, I feared the worst—we all did! Neal was furious when you were brought in and as you were sleeping and healing. And when he let it slip about the baby…" she trailed off.

"Let me assure you that both I and my child are just fine under the care of Neal; he is the kindest man I know. And I am humbled to know that you and the others were so concerned." Laurel squeezed her hand. "Thank you for thinking of me. You are a true friend."

At that, Amelie looked down. "This is a terrible time, but I've wanted to tell you since it happened, since it is partially thanks to you." Her warm brown eyes sparkled when she looked up. "I will marry Merric. He asked me the night of the party, and I accepted."

"A love match? Your parents agree?" the blue-eyed girl asked rather worriedly. Was it going to work out?

"They just want me to be happy. And I do love him." That much was evident on the girl's face.

Relief and joy flooded the prisoner's body. "Then, you will be happy, Amelie. Merric is a good man." Tentatively, Laurel asked, "And what else has happened since I've been… away?"

Amelie sat forward on the edge of the chair and began to chatter excitedly.

"Roxanna is marrying a Yamani knight!"