Shianan walked to the nearest table, never meeting her gaze. “These are for you,” he said gruffly. “Accept them or not as you will, but I have no use for them elsewhere.” He pulled the tunic away from an armload of flowers and dropped them on the table before turning back toward the door.
Ariana stared at the flowers, colorful and bright in full bloom. He had come to apologize. For her irrational tears and anger. She could hardly think of how to respond. “Shianan...”
He did not answer her as he continued toward the door.
“Shianan, wait...”
He was at the door now, never looking at her, reaching for the latch.
She flung a small burst of power to slam the door from his grasp. “Shianan, wait!”
He recoiled, startled at the door’s movement, and glanced uncertainly at her.
She looked from him to the door and back. “I did it.”
Shianan reached for the door again.
“Shianan!” She hurried forward and caught his sleeve as he tried the door. “Look—I’m sorry. I’m—stay a moment.”
She had pushed the door closed, against his grasp, from across the room. Achievement thrilled in her even as shame twisted around it.
He did not look at her. “Let me go, my lady mage.”
“No. Please wait.” Her face was hot with humiliation. “You were bringing those to me?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry. I was—I can’t explain it right now. But I’m sorry.”
Shianan stared at the door. “No, I was bringing them to apologize. For what I said the other day. I didn’t mean... I never meant to offend you.”
Trusting that he would not bolt, she released his sleeve and edged toward the flowers. “Wherever did you find fresh flowers? They’re beautiful.”
His shoulders dropped marginally. “Sunlight on flowers, you said once. I couldn’t do much for the weather...”
She burned with shame. “I’m sorry, about the laundry. You were only keeping them from freezing, right?”
He shifted. “I was anxious to find you before they spoiled. I did not know how long they would last.”
“They’re not so fragile as that! With some water and care, they’ll last for days.” She turned and scanned the room. “Where is that pitcher...?” She eyed the shelves and then remembered leaving it beside Tamaryl’s makeshift bed when they had last bathed him. She started for the door and then swiftly corrected herself, turning back toward Shianan. “Well, I can find it. They’ll last a few hours as they are.” She smiled brightly.
Shianan pulled back a chair at the table. “May I?”
“Oh, yes, please.”
He sank shakily into it, looking anxious. He laced his fingers and leaned his forehead against them. “I was only worried for you, that day. I never meant that you would—that you—I only worried that someone might have hurt you.” He flushed.
She took the chair opposite him. “I should have known your intent.”
“We are friends, then?”
“Of course.”
He exhaled slowly, deeply, as if releasing a great pressure. He lowered one hand, leaving the other to prop his tired face. “You’re having company?”
“What? Oh.” Ariana’s eye fell on the three mugs of soup. “I forgot that I needed to warm these. Father is coming soon, and he—he might be bringing someone.” She scooped up the mugs and arranged them over the little burning furnace, where they could gently heat sensitive potions.
“Oh?” Shianan’s eyes followed her. “I thought your guest might already be here.”
“Father left only a moment before you came. You might have passed him in the corridor.”
“Then who is in the back room?”
She froze. “What?”
His voice was quiet, weary. “You closed that door rather sharply when I came. You thought about opening it for the pitcher and then chose to leave it closed. You have soup for three here. And I thought I saw, just for an instant, something long like a body wrapped on a table before you closed the door.” He gave her a long, sad look. “Please, not now. I have hoped and hurt too much these past days, I cannot face a puzzle. Please, if there’s something—you know I will help you if I can. We are friends, are we not? Shouldn’t friends be honest with one another?” He offered a weak smile. “Haven’t I proved I will keep your secrets?”
Ariana’s breath caught. “Some secrets are harder to keep.” She looked down. “Or to tell.”
“Ariana. Trust me.”
She stared at him, and all the words clustered together, making a knot which bound in her throat. “My magic,” she said, a brutal truth easier to tell than the Ryuven behind her. “My magic had—”
A dull crash sounded from the rear room. Ariana spun as her heart leapt into her throat and she ran for the rear room. Tamaryl—!
Tamaryl was stirring on the table, shifting in his blankets. He had knocked the bowl of crushed jackwort to the floor. Ariana rushed to the table. “Tamaryl?”
His fingers seized her sleeve and twisted into it, clutching her close. “Shh!” he tried, his eyes blinking and wide. His wings worked weakly over the edge of the table.
She stared at him, seeing him awake for the first time since his return.
His hand shook in her sleeve. “Shhinn...!” he hissed urgently.
“Shianan?” she ventured. “Do you mean Shianan?”
“Mmmmaru!”
“Maru?”
“Maru!” he confirmed, and he seemed to weaken, his message conveyed. As he stilled, Shianan’s hand closed over his, peeling the fingers from Ariana and laying the hand on the table once more. Then Shianan stepped backward, unspeaking.
Ariana hesitated, seeing Tamaryl was slipping into sleep, and then turned slowly to face him. Shianan’s face was shuttered, and he said nothing.
“He came back,” Ariana offered. “Through the shield—it almost killed him. He hasn’t spoken before. I don’t know what—it must have been something important to make him risk it...”
Maru, he’d said. If he had come for her, would that be his first word? But why had he come only to say that? What did he mean?
Shianan finally spoke, with seeming effort. “What did they do to coerce you?”
“What?”
“How many are there?”
“What are you talking about?”
Shianan’s jaw set, but his voice was strained. “I do not want to bring you trouble. But my first duty is still to protect Chrenada from the Ryuven.”
“Protect from what? It’s just Tamaryl, come just—I don’t know why. Not yet. But it had to be urgent.”
“Urgent,” he repeated. “Did you know I’ve been out of the city, visiting raid sites? I am writing a report for the Wheel, to ask how there could be Ryuven raiding through the shield.”
Ariana stared at him. “That’s impossible. It must have been bandits.”
“I know the marks of a Ryuven attack well enough. And there were survivors to describe them.”
“But the shield is up.”
Shianan’s eyes moved from her to Tamaryl and back to her.
“No! They might not be the same Ryuven at all—I know there are different clans. Or maybe some Ryuven were here when we erected the shield and now they cannot go home. I don’t know! But Tamaryl’s only just arrived through the shield, and it nearly killed him. If I hadn’t been here, hadn’t helped him, he would have died. He only made it at all because he’s so powerful—” She stopped.
“He’s the Pairvyn ni’Ai,” Shianan finished. He stared at her. “You knew that.”
She nodded.
“You know what he is, and you still shelter him?”
“I know him,” she said unhappily. “He is not what the stories say. He took care of me in the Ryuven world. He saved me in the mountains, remember? That’s what exposed him. He left the Ryuven in the beginning because he couldn’t agree with the war. You knew him, for a time. Didn’t you see that he’s not a heartless mu
rderer?”
“Tell that to the widows of Caftford,” snarled Shianan. He glared at the still form as if he could kill with a glance. “Tell that to the families I’ve just left.”
“Shianan, you can’t tell anyone. Please, you can’t. They would kill him.”
“As he killed—how many? Hundreds? Thousands?”
“You said you would help me!”
He took a breath. “You commit treason for him? You risk your life for him?”
“He protected me,” she protested. “He risked his life for me.”
“And so did—!” Shianan stopped, looking quickly away. “And so you will protect him while he is here.” He crossed his arms, facing the shelf on the wall. “What did he mean? What did he say?”
“Maru is the name of his friend. Maru cared for me while I was ill there.”
“And why would he come here to discuss Maru?”
“I don’t know.”
The outer door opened and Mage Hazelrig entered. “I have the—ah, flowers. How nice.” He came to the workroom door and stood, looking seriously at each of them. “Your lordship. Good day.”
Shianan’s voice came strained. “My lord mage, I did not know you had a guest.”
“Bailaha...”
Shianan made a short, terse bow. “My lord mage, forgive my intrusion. By your leave, I will go and leave you to your work.” He made an identically quick bow toward Ariana and then pushed past Hazelrig, hurrying to the door. Ariana took a quick breath, and then the outer door slammed.
She stared at her father, her heart pounding. “He came—he saw the soup, he guessed—I didn’t mean...”
“It’s all right,” he replied heavily. “He will say nothing.”
“I’m not sure. He knows Tamaryl is the Pairvyn ni’Ai.”
“And that tears at him, I’m sure, but he will say nothing.”
“How can you know?” she asked, ashamed that her father had more trust in her friend than she did.
“He dares not,” came the quiet answer. “He knows my treason, and I know his.” He shook his head and extended a paper packet to her. “More jackwort.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LUCA STRETCHED HIS arms overhead, savoring the luxurious freedom of movement, and paused at the top of the slope. Beside him the wagons rumbled on, the slaves grabbing quick breaths as they shifted their weight to steady the loads on the downward slope. His eyes, however, were on the town at the base of the foothill.
Abbar was a village lying outside Ivat, providing a less expensive resting place for those who couldn’t afford the city. Ivat was visible up the coastline, but Abbar’s smaller docks welcomed enough traffic to make the village a bustling, successful marketplace.
A shout from the line drew his attention, and with a stretch of his neck he started forward again. He jogged ahead, deliciously aware that he could change pace as he chose, and slowed to match the third wagon.
Cole was in the second pair this morning. Luca fell into step alongside him. “We’ll be leaving the caravan in Abbar. At the base of the hill. It’s all downhill, then.” The joke was weaker than breakfast gruel, but he grinned anyway.
Cole nodded, still catching his breath from the final climb.
An overseer stalked along the line, scowling. He snapped an order to a slave at another wagon. Cole’s fingers clenched on the crossbeam.
Luca’s throat closed. The overseer continued toward them, his eyes on the team beside Luca.
“I—” Luca’s voice failed, and he coughed and tried again. “I will need you close in Abbar,” he said quickly. “I’m not sure yet what work Jarrick will have for you, but I’ll need to find something, anyway. And Abbar is only a short walk from Ivat, which is where I was born. I think I’ll be staying in Abbar for a time. I hope the weather holds.” He was babbling, he knew it, but he forced himself to keep talking, to say anything at all. “The docking fees are less in Abbar, but there are fewer warehouses and storage can cost more if there’s much demand, and so quite often there’s no real benefit to using Abbar over Ivat. It depends. But we always had our own warehouses as well, so we did most of our business in Ivat, although there were times when we had to use Abbar, and then we had to run back and forth between our offices—”
“Hold up, you lot,” barked the overseer. “You, big brute in the back, do your part! You’re rolling too fast.” The switch twitched in his hand. Cole bent his knees and pulled on the crossbar, but the wagon did not change speed. The overseer took a step. “I said, slow it!” The switch rose.
Luca raised his chin and envisioned his master holding a staff. Hold your ground, Luca. Use your weapon. Luca’s fingers clenched, wanting the feel of a staff to give him strength. But he did not flinch as the overseer moved toward Cole. “Sometimes then I would remain in Abbar and they would send runners, sometimes two or three before the first could return, and—”
The overseer hesitated, eying Luca. Luca gulped and forced his voice to steady. “You aren’t thinking of using that over me, are you?”
The overseer did not quite know how to speak to the slave-turned-master. “If you’d step aside...”
“I think no one can complain if I use this time to instruct my new servant?” Luca returned, trying to imitate Master Shianan’s tone. How had he spoken to the soldiers who had first toyed with Luca? “I own his ears, after all.” He thought desperately of Shianan. “You would not interfere with the orders I give my own slave?”
The overseer gave him a flat stare. “No.” He glared at Cole, irritated at Luca’s scant protection but uncertain of how to safely circumvent it. “Not until it interferes with our orders.”
Luca drew himself upright. “There’s no trouble here.”
“That’s mine to determine,” grumbled the overseer, but he moved down the line.
Luca sagged, his shoulders dropping with released tension and all his breath escaping in a rush. He passed a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes and forehead. His legs tingled.
Cole had said something. “What was that?” Luca asked breathlessly.
“I said, thank you, master.” Cole kept his voice quiet, and the words were reluctant, if sincere. “There was no reason...”
“Quit mewling,” another snapped. “He didn’t face him down for us. He was flaunting his own place.”
Luca gave a tiny laugh of disbelief. “Face him down?” He took a deep breath. “I was shaking.”
Cole looked at him. “You held your place.”
Luca glanced at the paved road. “I owe much to my old master, then.”
“Your brother?”
“No.” Luca answered before he could think. “I mean, perhaps my brother, but... I wasn’t thinking of him.”
The caravan came to a slow halt on the level road just outside the outermost buildings, before the traffic thickened. “Change out,” ordered Matteo. “Fresh draft.”
Luca started toward the trader, trusting that Cole would follow in a moment. Trader Matteo turned to face him. “Yes, my fortunate young man?”
“I’m interested in another of your slaves.” Luca gestured toward the line.
Matteo crossed his arms. “Some of these will go to the auction block, some will be sold for a set price. Let’s see which you’re favoring.”
Luca turned and pointed to Andrew, who was extending his wrists for an overseer. Apparently he was being rotated into the pulling team. “That one.”
“Him?” Matteo made a face. “I can’t see your interest. He’s not much, I’ll grant you.”
“Auction or fixed price?”
“I tend to deal in labor—slaves for pulling, lifting, carrying. Warehouse workers, dock slaves, mill slaves, mine labor, oarsmen, litter bearers, plowmen, you see. He’s a little reedy to bring a good price, though he might do for the narrows of a mine. Still, I’d likely sell or trade him to a friend who hawks lighter labor and servitors, to be cleaned up, given some proper manners and sold at a profit.” He eyed Luca. “What’s your t
ake on him?”
“He was a kitchen drudge,” Luca answered. “He’s not worth the price of a draft slave.”
“What do you think he’s worth?”
Luca shifted uneasily.
Matteo chuckled. “Been a long time since you saw the other side of the block?” He nodded toward Andrew, now waiting unhappily behind a crossbar. “He’d auction for maybe three hundred, if he were in the middle of my line, because I’d have a crowd expecting big useful brutes. In Gregor’s line he’d fetch maybe four and half. He’s not much to look at, so no one’s going to fight over him to serve at table, and drudges are easy to come by.”
“And what would Gregor pay you for him?”
Matteo burst into laughter, making several heads turn. “If ever I doubted you were a merchant’s brat from birth, boy, that would put me straight. All right, I’ll be honest with you—if we did coin instead of trade, I’d get something about three hundred for him. It’s possible I could do better at auction, but I might not, and it’s not worth annoying my customers with an untrained reedy runny-nose when I can be rid of him more quickly.”
Three hundred... Luca wished he had money, wished he didn’t have to beg Jarrick for this. “And so if I offer you three hundred, and you don’t have even the trouble of taking him on or haggling with your friend, you’ll be satisfied?”
“Near enough.” Matteo grinned. “Friend of yours?”
“I suppose, in a way. We knew one another.”
“You going to free him?”
Luca had not even thought beyond the purchase. “It is my brother’s money,” he answered uncomfortably. “I can’t say where he will be put.”
“Well, good luck to you.” Matteo nodded. “You’d best hurry to your brother. We’re ready to go again.”
Luca looked around and saw Jarrick with his own slave. Cole stood a few paces from them, watching Luca. “I’ll be one moment,” Luca said, and he started for Jarrick, trying to find the right words.
Jarrick was not pleased. “Three hundred for another slave? Luca...”
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