Impostress Read Free

you ever ask."
    "But Mother gave this to you. Before she died."
    " 'Tis yours now."
    "Hush. This is silly. Kiera, you don't have to—"
    "Yes, yes, I do. Please, Elyn. I ... I'm indebted to you for life," Kiera insisted, overwhelmed. "And ... and whenever you wish the debt repaid, just give the necklace back to me and I'll remember this vow. I'll do anything for you."
    "Anything?" Elyn asked, shaking her head as if Kiera was talking nonsense.
    "I mean it. Whatever you ask me to do, I'll do it, Elyn You saved my life. Of that I have no doubt. None. Now, please, take this and remember to ask me to return the favor. Please." She pressed the crucifix with its fine gold chain into her sister's gloved palm.
    "Mayhap I should have my punishment from Father laid upon you," Elyn said, and for the first time Kiera saw a flash of a white—a bit of a smile—upon her sister's face.
    "Yes!" Kiera lifted her chin proudly. "Ask him."
    Elyn laughed a little, though the sound that rippled over the moonlit fields sounded hollow. "Nay. You'll suffer enough at his hand. I'll save calling in your debt for later, when I need a favor. Now, come on, we're already in trouble. Let's not make it any worse."
    "What will happen to ..." Kiera nodded toward the woods.
    "The man who attacked you? And Obsidian?" With a sigh, Elyn blew a strand of hair from her eyes. "Any form of torture would be too good for the outlaw and we should let him rot and die, but I suppose we'll have to tell Father the truth. All of it. The horse will have to be found and the thug attended to before being imprisoned.
    " 'Twould be a blessing if he were to be caught and left forgotten in a dungeon, would it not?" Elyn said, then glanced sadly up at the sky. "A blessing."
    "Yes." Kiera shuddered. "I hope I never see him again."
    "Me, too," Elyn said vehemently, in anger—or pain? She spurred her horse and the bay whirled, then shot forward across the silvery fields. "Me, too."

Chapter One
    Castle Lawenydd
Winter 1286
     
     
    "You
can't
be serious." Kiera was dumbstruck at A her sister's request. "Have you gone daft?"
    They were walking swiftly through the outer bailey, past the squealing pigs and bleating sheep. Wintry sunlight pierced through a thin veil of high clouds, and the smell of the sea gave a briny tinge to the odors of cook fires, burning tallow, and dung from the stables.
    "You can't expect me to stand in for you ... to pretend that I'm you and take your wedding vows!"
    "Shh," Elyn whispered harshly as they slipped through the gates to the inner bailey, where displayed upon the chapel, the bans announcing Elyn's marriage to Baron Kelan of Penbrooke caught in the winter breeze. "Did you not promise to do anything I asked when I saved your life?"
    "Yes, but—"
    "And when I tried to talk you out of it, did you not insist?" She pulled Kiera around the corner of the carter's hut to a path between the garden and a wagon with a broken wheel. The spokes had splintered, and the wagon bed was tipped as it rested on its axle.
    "Aye." Kiera nodded. "But this is madness! I cannot marry a man promised to you."
    "You're not marrying him," Elyn insisted, her full lips pulled into a knot of concentration. Her eyes, a shade of green identical to Kiera's, pleaded. "You're just taking the vows for me. You know as well as I do that what is important in this marriage is not me, but my name and position as firstborn." Elyn sighed. "If only the estate were not entailed upon me because we have no brother to be the heir. It's not fair. Father has just sold me to gain access to the river that runs through Penbrooke to further trade."
    "And you expect no one to tell the difference?"
    "The chapel is poorly lit, and my veil is heavy enough that your face will be indistinct. You will whisper the vows and you will be dressed in my wedding dress."
    Kiera laughed nervously. "But the guests—"
    " 'Tis a small ceremony," Elyn insisted. "And rushed! So rushed. Because the groom's mother ails, I am to