Lost Lord
Today was a strange day. Darken couldn't shake the thought that there was something he was supposed to be doing.
And he couldn't stop thinking about Cara.
The day they first met—the color of her hair, like sunlight and honey (not that he was of a poetical turn of mind), her fierce savagery—she was by far the best warrior he'd ever had, and one of the few people whose advice he ever listened to—one of the few people who dared give him advice.
And then she turned against him for Richard (always Richard), and he woke in the Underworld.
Furious, Darken paced the room, glaring indiscriminately. He needed something to cool his blood.
On balance, Darken thought later that the bath had been a mistake.
If only Richard had never been born, Darken lamented, closing his eyes and wishing for Cara's warm body in the water beside him.
All Darken's troubles were because of Richard. Why else would he feel so…inadequate? If, at their first sight of Richard, Darken could no longer keep his subordinates' loyalty—how could he ever expect to regain his lost throne?
The dacras' hiss woke him from his abstraction—and he smiled viciously at darling Sister Nicci.
She was not to know how relieved he was for the distraction.