The nearest sentry came and took the note Mikael held in his hand to forward it to a messenger, then left the two of them alone.
Eli shook his head. “Fortunate escape for you, Mikael.”
The betrothal. He couldn’t tell Eli why the betrothal arrangement had ended, although it would become evident in a few more months. “I have to admit I was relieved. Why don’t you inform the consort that Kai’s taken control of his sister for now?”
“Yes, sir,” Eli said. “Oh, can you meet for a lesson tonight?”
Meaning, would Sera cause so much trouble that his schedule would be ruined? “That should be fine, Eli. If not, I’ll send you a note.”
Mikael was just glad that Sera wasn’t his problem. For now.
* * *
“Did you get here by yourself?” Elisabet asked.
Shironne remembered the guard’s flat, emotionless voice. A month past, Mikael and Shironne had saved her life, and in turn, she’d saved Shironne’s. That created a bond, even with a person as closed-off as Elisabet. Shironne smiled in Elisabet’s direction, hoping to get off on a good footing as her student. Mikael admired her, and Deborah loved her, which made her worth having as a friend. “Yes.”
The firing rooms took up a third of Six Down. They seemed to have this room to themselves, for Shironne could neither hear nor sense anyone else. “May I ask after my cousin, Kai, or is that inappropriate?”
Elisabet considered, her closed-off mind ticking away. “I’ve not been told not to discuss another black with you.”
That means she’ll bend the rules. “Is he well?”
“He is much improved now that he’s decided to step down as the king’s heir,” Elisabet said. “He has apprenticed to the Battlemaster instead.”
It was the first time she’d heard that, but Shironne didn’t feel surprised, so Mikael must know. “Oh.”
Elisabet guided Shironne across the room, then directed her to sit. Shironne settled on the floor, grateful for its warmth. This particular level of Below always stayed warmer. Even the light felt different on her skin.
“Take your gloves off,” Elisabet told her once she was settled.
“Are you certain?”
A pause, while Elisabet considered the exact meaning of the question. “Yes.”
Shironne stripped off her gloves and tucked them into a pocket of her uniform jacket. Elisabet took her hand and pressed a pistol into it.
Shironne felt it in that fleeting contact—Elisabet’s imperative never to feel, only to do and to work. That was how she kept her memories at bay. The Family taught damaged children like Elisabet to control their feelings by hiding them away in small lock-boxes in their minds, dealing with them only when they felt ready. Elisabet had never done so, not until last month.
“Memorize the shape of it,” Elisabet instructed, safe now in her role as teacher.
Shironne turned her mind back to the metal and wood in her hand. Hands had touched this before, oils from many fingers filming the metal, bits of saliva clinging to its surface from people talking while holding the weapon, gun oil and burnt powder—no worse than most things she handled. Shironne turned it about, fitting her hand to the grip. She opened the breech but found no ammunition inside.
“How did you know how to do that?” Elisabet asked
“Um, I just knew,” Shironne said, the best explanation she could give.
“Because it’s something Mr. Lee knows how to do?”
“Yes,” Shironne answered. She’d checked the breech because Mikael always made sure there wasn’t a bullet there.
“Interesting,” Elisabet commented. “Do you know how to load it?”
“I suppose I do, in theory.”
“Try.” Elisabet took Shironne’s other hand and placed it on a metal surface that was hollow underneath. A bucket? Linen wrapped cartridges lay there, lead and incendiary held together.
Loading the gun was more difficult than Shironne expected. Mikael’s hands had been doing this for years, but hers didn’t know the pattern of it. She lifted one of the cartridges in her right hand, turned it about, and then experimented with fitting it to the weapon in her left.
“Do not point the barrel in my direction.”
Feeling her cheeks flush at that sharp rebuke, Shironne shifted, pointing the gun away from where she thought Elisabet sat. After a few false starts, she slid the cartridge successfully into the barrel and closed the breech.
“Unload it now.”
Shironne obediently reversed the process. Elisabet would probably have her do this for hours before she ever fired the thing, possibly days; she strove for perfection.
“Good. Start over,” Elisabet said.
And so it went, until Shironne lost count. “Do you think I’ll ever have a call to use one of these?” she asked when the silence became boring.
“I have.”
Elisabet favored her rifle, but Shironne knew the woman had used a pistol to kill before as well. “I’ll remember.”
“He’s pleased that I’ve accepted his contract.”
Kai, she meant Kai. Shironne wondered if Elisabet had been working up the nerve to make a personal comment. “Are you pleased?”
“It is a different situation now,” Elisabet returned. “I believe I made the correct decision.”
“I’m glad for both of you, then. I know my cousin loves you.” She’d had a good walk through Kai’s mind once. His passion for Elisabet was one of the most consistent truths of his heart.
“Beyond reason.” Elisabet’s tone indicated discomfort.
Shironne sighed. Her cousin must find this reticent woman maddening. “Kai is like you in many ways, Elisabet, but he’s very different in others. He needs . . . um, he needs to belong with someone. He needs to know you won’t leave him.”
A short silence. “I have accepted his contract. I won’t leave.”
Shironne set the pistol down on the bucket. “Kai needs to be told that, though, every day. He’s more fragile than you.”
After a long moment, Elisabet said, “I don’t share his constant need for reassurance.”
That told her Elisabet was already aware of that issue. “Everyone else has left him before, ma’am. He doesn’t share your confidence.”
“I was his guard for three years. I will not leave him.” A guard’s duty included faithfulness. A guard couldn’t even marry someone else while serving as an Anvarrid’s primary guard. That kept their loyalties clear.
“Kai’s mother wasn’t faithful, ma’am,” Shironne reminded her instructor. “He can never forget that.” That was a large part of why Kai had stepped down as the king’s heir, Shironne suspected. He’d felt that not actually being Dahar’s son disqualified him in some way.
From Mikael’s mind, Shironne knew that Anvarrid rules about inheritance were vastly different that Larossan ones. Anvarrid could simply adopt someone into their house by voting on it, so even if a child wasn’t related by blood, they could still inherit. And Kai was actually the son of Dahar’s half-brother, Stephen, so he was still related. But that single additional step in his bloodline distancing him from Dahar somehow made him uncomfortable with inheriting. Or perhaps now that Kai knew he wasn’t Dahar’s son, he no longer needed to conform to Dahar’s wishes for him, or the king’s.
“I understand,” Elisabet said, yanking Shironne’s attention back. “Load it again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She did as ordered.
“Elisabet. Address me as Elisabet.”
Shironne picked up another cartridge, keeping her smile hidden. What might be a minor concession from anyone else was, from Elisabet Lucas, a broad overture of friendship. “Of course.”
So it went, the hour passing as Shironne loaded and unloaded a weapon to Elisabet’s exacting standards, the woman’s hands occasionally touching hers to correct her grip or her actions. When satisfied with Shironne’s proficiency, Elisabet pronounced, “You will meet with me again on Seventh.”
Secretly relie
ved, Shironne rose awkwardly and gave her a half bow, the appropriate gesture for one’s teacher. Then she thanked her and left, wishing desperately she could talk with Mikael.
Chapter 18
* * *
DEBORAH WAS SURPRISED when Mikael showed up at the infirmary, looking for her. Usually if he sought her out, it was after work hours. She had plenty of help today, though, so when he came through the main doors, she gestured for him to come join her where she was reviewing an infirmary student’s paperwork on the quiet side of the ward. “How did the meeting with Jason go?”
“Well enough.” Mikael ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it. It had gotten longer than he usually wore it, showing brown at the roots. “Amserian showed up today. She came to the office and demanded that Perrin be removed from her old bedroom.”
Oh Hel. Deborah pinched the bridge of her nose. How did I not hear about that?
Dahar’s youngest child, Sera had been sent to Halvdan Province to learn better manners from her cousin Trent. Deborah had read some of the spite-filled letters her niece had sent to Mikael, though, and doubted Sera had learned anything in the past three years. “And as Dahar is walking his sister through legal paperwork, he’s not around to put Sera in her place.”
“Kai showed up to rescue me,” Mikael admitted. “I don’t know who sent for him, but I’m grateful.”
Kai handled Sera better than anyone in that family. Rachel was intimidated by her strong-willed younger sister, while Dahar inevitably fell into yelling matches with her. Sera possessed the unfortunate combination of being too much like Dahar, yet just enough like her mother to remind him of her. Almost every time Sera opened her mouth, she rubbed him the wrong way. Not that she was completely at fault; Dahar could work harder to curb his anger.
I’m going to be playing peacemaker all the time, now.
Deborah patted Mikael’s arm. “Well, at least she doesn’t think you’re going to marry her any longer.”
He shook his head ruefully. “She railed at me for that, then said she was glad she wasn’t going to marry me, then maligned my birth, my father, and tried to slap me.”
Deborah couldn’t hold in her laugh, as much as she wanted to. “I am sorry, Mikael. She’s always loved her drama.”
“I wonder where she got that from,” he mused jokingly. Then he added, “I don’t know who told her about my father.”
It was a sensitive topic for him. “What did she say?”
“Just . . . something about his not being faithful to my mother,” he said. “It’s not as if I didn’t know, so it’s stupid to be bothered by it.”
The charming and feckless Valerion. Deborah had heard about the man’s many conquests and understood why Mikael might find his father incomprehensible. “Did I ever tell you that I met him once?”
Mikael’s eyes lit up, curiosity replacing the weariness on his face. “Truly. Where?”
Deborah cast back, trying to call up the memory. She had a vague recollection of beautiful blue eyes and a handsome face. “Here, in the infirmary. He’d been sparring with . . . someone and ended up cut . . . somehow.”
“And you had to bandage him up?”
“Yes. Oh, he’d been sparring with Elias.” Fighting with Master Elias came near to a death sentence, not because of Elias’ skill with a blade, but rather his eternal ineptness with one. It was a running joke among the Fightmasters, because Elias had always been an excellent wrestler, yet couldn’t seem to fight with a weapon in his hand.
Mikael half-smiled, clearly in on that joke. “Well, that explains the injury, then. Did my father try to seduce you, ma’am?”
“No, dear. I’m certain he found me quite uninteresting. I bandaged the . . . hmmm, arm, I believe, and he left. Not an exciting story, I’m afraid.” Actually, Valerion had attempted to flirt with her, but when she ignored his specious flattery, he gave up.
“Did he come here often?”
Something in his tone changed, a hint of gravity now, so Deborah weighed her answer carefully. “As the Vandriyen heir, he must have come to Noikinos often, but I don’t recall hearing about him coming Below more than the once. I suppose you could check the entry logs, but that would be hideously time-consuming. Perhaps you should just ask Elias.”
A brown-clothed body hurtled into the ward. Melanna Anjir had entered the infirmary ahead of whoever was monitoring her. She flung herself into Deborah’s arms. “I won!” she exclaimed.
Deborah dropped a hand on the girl’s head to still her. Melanna already approached Shironne’s height, clearly destined to be the tallest of the Anjir girls. A few coarse strands of reddish-brown hair had worked their way loose from her braids, so unlike Shironne’s smooth chocolate brown curls. “Won what, dear?”
“I wrestled Taavi and I won. I hit him on the head with my splint,” she announced excitedly, waving her splinted arm to demonstrate the blow.
Deborah grasped Melanna’s arm firmly above the elbow to inspect it. “This is not a weapon,” she said sternly. “Nor is it fair for you to use it when he doesn’t have one. And you could have hurt your arm.”
“It’s all right, ma’am,” Melanna said without guilt or a hint of worry.
Deborah could see exactly why Savelle had placed this imp among the Family children; Melanna was likely a handful at the best of times. “If you do such a thing again, dear, I’ll talk to your Fightmaster and have him forbid you from the class. Your arm needs to heal.”
Melanna glowered unrepentantly. Mikael watched the girl curiously but didn’t speak to her.
“And why are you here alone?” Deborah asked. “Is your sponsor not with you?”
“Shironne brought me, only she’s slow.” Barely pausing for breath, she turned on Mikael. “Who are you?”
“Melanna, are you allowed to address a black other than me or your teachers?”
Melanna’s mouth turned down in a sulky moue. The girl turned away from Mikael but cast a glance back at him under her lashes. “No, ma’am. Who is he?” she whispered loudly to Deborah instead.
Since Deborah acted as the girl’s sponsor, it was a question she was allowed to answer. “Mr. Lee is a friend of mine, dear.”
Mikael smiled. “I should go, ma’am.”
Shironne stood hesitating before the threshold of the infirmary ward, the reason for Mikael’s sudden desire to retreat. “Yes, dear,” Deborah said. “Would you please keep me informed if you have more trouble with my niece?”
“Of course.” He walked away, brushing past Shironne as he exited. Deborah thought he touched the girl’s gloved hand in passing.
“What did he do?” Melanna asked in a curious tone. “He went away.”
She didn’t mean he’d left physically. All the sensitives noticed when Mikael did that—he simply disappeared from the world, notable for his sudden absence. Shironne came to where Deborah waited and, once directed to an empty chair, sat down with a wistful smile on her face.
“Shironne, why did you end up bringing your sister?”
Shironne let out a gusty breath. “Master Elisabet was teaching me and . . . when I was walking back to the stairs on Six Down, Melanna’s Fightmaster asked me if I could bring her to let you check the splint. I guess he knew I was coming here.”
That would be Benjamin, Deborah decided, the Fightmaster who instructed the youngest yeargroups in wrestling. He would have recognized Shironne. I’ve certainly told him enough about her over dinner.
“Well, I should officially tell you,” Deborah said, glancing at Melanna, who grinned up at her, “that your sister has been placed here for a trial period. If she can behave . . .”
* * *
Melanna was ecstatic to be in the Fortress, so Shironne felt no fear letting her sister go with Gabriel when he showed up after his class to serve runner duty. He promised to escort Melanna to her yeargroup, and together they’d strolled away, instantly best of friends.
From the briefest touch of Mikael’s fingers, she knew that Sera had arrived, causing a
n uproar up in the palace above, her tactless words to Mikael not the worst of it. Apparently, she’d yelled at Perrin first, and the king’s consort was thoroughly annoyed with Sera as a result. Once Melanna was gone, Deborah went up to the palace to intervene with her fractious niece, leaving Shironne to sort bandages while she waited for her fifth pregnant patient to arrive for an examination.
Sorting bandages wasn’t any more difficult—or more trivial—than anything Captain Kassannan had set her at, so she focused on memorizing details that would help her identify them later. The differing weights helped, but some bandages she had to handle from end to end before she decided which type they were.
After a time, Deborah returned to the infirmary and sat with Shironne to check her work.
Shironne listened to be sure there was no one near, then said, “I know who Sera is. That she was supposed to be engaged to Mikael, I mean.”
“It would never have gone forward,” Deborah responded. “She would make him miserable, and as his sponsor, I would have stopped it.”
Shironne could tell from the infirmarian’s partial attentiveness that she was still inspecting the bandages. “You can do that?”
“Yes,” Deborah said. “Well, done. These piles are all correct. Did you sense his distress when Sera showed up at his office?”
Shironne held in a laugh. His moment of panic had been very clear to her. “Yes. He was . . . uncomfortable. It all happened in front of Eli, too.”
The doctor’s mind was ticking away like a clock, emotionless now. “Ah, he didn’t mention that part when he came to talk to me. He had other things on his mind. At this distance, can you hear his thoughts? Or he, yours?”
“Um, sort of,” Shironne admitted. “I can hear him, but I’m sure he can’t hear me. Not words, at least. And sometimes I just know things he knows. Is that normal . . . for people like us?”
“I don’t have a good idea what normal is, dear. There have been relatively few binders, so there aren’t sufficient records for me to determine that.”
In Dreaming Bound Page 16
