Stormqueen! by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Paul Edwin Zimmer Page A

to rest in the ancient burying ground by the shores of Hali; and all the Hastur kin of the Lowland Domains, from the Aillards on the plains of Valeron, to the Hasturs of Carcosa, had come to do him honor. King Regis, stooped and old, looking almost too frail to ride, had stood beside the grave of his half-brother, leaning heavily on the arm of his only son.
Prince Felix, heir to the throne of Thendara and the crown of the Domains, had come to embrace Allart and Damon-Rafael, calling them “dear cousins.” Felix was a slight, effeminate young man with gilt hair and colorless eyes, and he had the long, narrow pale face and hands of chieri blood. When the funeral rites were ended there was a great ceremony. Then the old king, pleading age and ill health, was taken home by his courtiers, but Felix remained to do honor to the new Lord of Elhalyn, Damon-Rafael.
Even the Ridenow lord had sent an envoy from far Serrais, proffering an unasked truce for twice forty days.
Allart, welcoming guests in the hall, came suddenly upon a face he knew - though he had never set eyes upon her before. Dark hair, like a cloud of darkness under a blue veil; gray eyes, but so darkly lashed that for a moment the eyes themselves seemed as dark as the eyes of some animal. Allart felt a strange tightening in his chest as he looked upon the face of the dark woman whose face had haunted him for so many days.
“Kinsman,” she said courteously, but he could not lower his eyes as custom demanded before an unmarried woman who was a stranger to him.
I know you well. You have haunted me, dreams and waking, and already I am more than half in love with you … Erotic images attacked him, unfitting for this company, and he struggled with them.
“Kinsman,” she said again, “why do you stare at me in such unseemly fashion?”
Allart felt the blood rising in his face; indeed it was discourtesy, almost indecency, to stare so at a woman who was a stranger to him, and he colored at the thought that she might possess laran , might be aware of the images that tormented him. He finally found a scrap of his voice.
“But I am no stranger to you, damisela . Nor is it discourtesy that a man shall look his handfasted bride directly in the face; I am Allart Hastur, and soon to be your husband.”
She raised her eyes and returned his gaze fairly. But there was tension in her voice. “Why, is it so? Still, I can hardly believe that you have borne my image in your mind since you last looked on my face, when I was an infant girl of four years. And I had heard, Dom Allart, that you had withdrawn yourself to Nevarsin, that you were ill or mad, that you wished to be a monk and renounce your heritage. Was it only idle gossip, then?”
“It is true that I had such thoughts for a time. I dwelt for six years among the brethren of Saint-Valentine-of-the-Snows, and would gladly have remained there.”
If I love this woman, I will destroy her … I will father children who will be monsters… she will die in bearing them… Blessed Cassilda, foremother of the Domains, let me not see so much, now, of my destiny, since I can do so little to avert it …
“I am neither ill nor mad, damisela; you need not fear me.”
“Indeed,” said the young woman, meeting his eyes again. “You do not seem demented, only very troubled. Is it the thought of our marriage which troubles you, then, cousin?”
Allart said, with a nervous smile, “Should I not be well-content, to see what beauty and grace the gods have given me in a handfasted bride?”
“Oh!” She moved her head, impatient. “This is no time for pretty speeches and flatteries, kinsman! Or are you one of those who think a woman is a silly child, to be turned away with a courtly compliment or two?”
“Believe me, I meant you no discourtesy, Lady Cassandra,” he said, “but I have been taught that it is unseemly to share my own troubles and fears when they are still formless.”
Again the quick, direct look from the dark-lashed