by Ellyn, Court
“They’re young. Eager to get things done in their own way. They probably get tired of you old folks thinking them incompetent.”
“Old folks?”
Thorn grinned. “You could be Valryk’s father, Kelyn. That makes you old. Give him time. He may need to make a few mistakes before he realizes he needs you.”
Kelyn grunted in a way that implied he agreed and didn’t like it.
Thorn’s gaze locked on a boy in the stable yard, and he forgot about kings and grouchy, neglected advisers. “Who is that?” The skinny sapling of a kid sponged down Thorn’s black horse. Rhian’s stood nearby, white suds dripping down her flanks. The boy, as blond as the dawn, was about ten years old and had long limbs and oversized feet that hinted at a potential for great height. At first, Thorn mistook him for an Elaran child, until he remembered where he was. “Those snobby animals can’t abide human touch, but look at them.” Thorn had left strict orders to leave the horses tethered until he and Rhian could come see to their comfort themselves, but both were enrapt with the boy. When he carried his bucket to the well for a refill, they tried to follow him. He jabbed a finger at the cobblestones ordering them to stay put, and they obeyed, standing forlorn in the soapy puddle.
“That’s Jaedren, my newest squire,” Kelyn said.
“Whose son is he?”
Kelyn grinned. “Look again, and you tell me.”
Thorn studied the boy. He was about to give up the game, when the squire dropped the sponge and bent to retrieve it. Thorn laughed. “That cannot be Laral’s boy.”
“His youngest.”
“His youngest?”
“Aye. His girl is sixteen, I believe. And there’s another boy in between.”
“Goddess, we are old,” Thorn whined. “And Laral’s growing old with us. How splendid. I’ll be sure to point it out to him next time I see him.”
“The middle boy,” Kelyn went on, “he’s sickly. He wanted to stay at Ilswythe with his younger brother. I agreed, but Bethyn flatly told me no. I wasn’t about to cross her. Nobody crosses that little woman. Not even Laral.”
“Do they visit often?”
“No, sadly. Too much distrust, I think, and pain. But Eliad invited them to Drenéleth last fall, and Laral’s boys didn’t let him refuse.”
“Years ago he told me … I’m afraid to look ….” He blinked to focus his Veil Sight. Fingers of light shimmered around the boy, reaching as high as the parapets. “Goddess, curse you, but I knew it.”
“What’s wrong?”
Thorn breathed deeply to cool his anger. “Do you know if Laral’s other children are avedra?”
“Jaedren’s avedra?”
“Shh.”
“What, is that word taboo now?”
“Before the Battle of Tor Roth, I warned Laral this was a possibility. For a moment I thought he was avedra. He told me he’d never seen fairies or understood birdsong, and that he would never have a family. I wish he’d kept his word.”
“Why would you wish such a thing?”
“Bad times, that’s why.”
“This war you mentioned?” Kelyn fired the question before Thorn could cut him off again. “And this sword. Since when do you wear a sword?”
“Since I’ve been hunted.”
“Look, are you going to tell me what this is about or keep me worrying?”
“Keep worrying. Tonight, when everyone is joined in the dances, we’ll talk.”
“Why not now, damn it?”
Thorn ignored the demand and started for the stairwell. “As soon as Jaedren is free, I need to speak with him. I’ll be in the library.”
Kelyn grabbed his sleeve.
“Be patient!” Thorn snapped. “It’s vital I begin Carah’s training as soon as possible. Jaedren’s, too, now. That’s why I came back. All right?”
“Why didn’t you come two years ago, as you’d promised, train her then?”
Thorn sighed. He had misjudged so much. Even that. Especially that. “I thought I could protect her better out there.” He gestured toward the horizon, any horizon.
“Protect her?”
Thorn laid a gentle hand on Kelyn’s arm. “She’ll be safer when she can protect herself. We’ll talk tonight. Promise.”
~~~~
Thorn sat across the table from Etivva. The dust fell softly around them, settling on the shelves and books almost audibly in the stiff silence. The shaddra’s mouth pinched thin with worry while she digested all Thorn had told her. In her sixties now, Etivva’s dark desert hair would be white if she permitted it to grow. Brown fingers fiddled uneasily with an inkpot. Her response rolled out slow and careful, “I was not unaware of the signs. Not long after you left the last time, m’ lord, I felt it. I thought, yes, times are changing. The world is not the same as it was yesterday. I felt the shift in the Triangle. The unbalance began. Soon everyone was speaking of the vanishings. I will pray to Ana that they do not portend what you say, but I think … I think the Mother-Father is angry.”
It relieved Thorn to hear his old tutor confirm his suspicions. “Do you remember when we talked of my encounter with the Mother-Father?”
“Of course.”
“I didn’t tell you everything she said. I still won’t. But she warned me that the days to come wouldn’t be easy. For any of her children, she said. She told me that her Third Children, her avedrin, exist for this very era, Etivva. And yet we’re all slowly disappearing.”
“You think someone is aware of the Mother’s game and tries to … how do you say? … head her off?”
“Game, eh? I never expected you to put it so crassly, but yes. I think I know who’s behind it, and they—”
Etivva stopped him with an uplifted finger. A boot scuffed the tiles in the corridor. Thorn had been so happy to see Etivva that he’d left the library doors standing open. He admonished himself for his oversight.
“Master squire?” Etivva called. “It is rude to linger in doorways, you know. Get in here.”
A boy groaned and peeked around a bookshelf, certainly expecting a scolding. Prepared to bear the shaddra’s wrath, Jaedren squared his shoulders and aimed his eyes at the wall over her head in true soldier’s fashion.
Etivva’s tongue stabbed deep into her scarred cheek. Waving the boy closer, she told Thorn, “This one I enjoy tutoring. Unlike your niece and nephew. Lord Jaedren is far more patient and diligent in his studies, a blessing in my old age.” She vacated her chair and gestured him into it. He hesitated, however, distracted by an intent study of the stranger at the table.
Thorn smiled. “You have your father’s gray eyes.”
Jaedren slid into the chair. “Yessir.”
Etivva patted his wiry shoulder, saying to them, “I’ll be below.” Her shaved head bobbed lower and lower, round and round, as she descended the spiral iron stair to the ledger room. Her quarters were there, too, and her shrine to the Mother-Father.
“You’re His Lordship’s brother,” Jaedren said, confident of his assessment. “His twin.”
“I’m Kieryn Dathiel. Thorn to you, as I am to your father.”
“Yessir.”
Thorn grinned at the typical Laral-ish reply.
“Let’s get down to business, shall we? Even though you and I don’t know each other, I need to ask some nosey questions. And you need to be as honest as you can. Even if the answers might seem … well, kinda silly.”
Jaedren shrugged. “You’re going to ask me about fairies and stuff. Right?”
Thorn blink in surprise. “How do you reckon that?”
“My fairy told me. At least, I think that’s what she is. I see her in dreams sometimes. She’s … a blue light. Bright blue, kinda like the soldiers’ uniforms. Even her hair is blue. She tells me stuff.”
Using Veil Sight, Thorn found the fairy hovering over the boy’s shoulder. Saffron’s soft golden light glowed nearby, and the two fairies chatted in their own strange, singing language. “What stuff does she tell you?” Thorn leaned forward o
n the table, intrigued.
“She told me her name is Aster,” Jaedren said, shyness giving way to excitement, “you know, like the flower. She told me that as long as she’s with me, nothing bad will happen to me. So I’m never scared. Not even of the dark.”
“What about birds?” Thorn asked.
“Am I afraid of birds?”
Thorn laughed. “No, I mean, do birds say things as well?”
“Sure,” the boy said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “They sing to the Mother-Father a lot. They tell other birds to stay away from them. Birds can be kinda mean to one another, you know, defending their territories and nests and all. And just a little while ago, your horses were very demanding.”
“Oh, they were?” How extraordinary that no one had told this boy to ignore the voices.
“Oh, yes,” he insisted, fists going to his hips in a paternal manner. “I was told to leave them be, saddled and all, but when I walked by them, they said they wanted to be fed now. So I fed them. But then they said I didn’t feed them enough. And I said, ‘I’m feeding you the same as I feed all the other horses, so be quiet.’ They snorted and stomped. Real pouts, those two. They even insulted the other horses and called them ‘common.’ But those horses belong to His Lordship, so I didn’t know what that meant. But I got them to behave. They liked their baths, so they like me now, too.”
Thorn shook himself from the tale and asked, “Have you ever told anyone else about these things?”
“Only Andy. He’s my older brother. I was going to tell Mum and Da, too, but Andy said I shouldn’t. He said they might not understand. But you understand, don’t you, Thorn?”
“Yes, son,” he said, trying to hide his sorrow. “Most avedrin have a fay guardian and understand birds and other things.”
Jaedren’s eyebrows knitted. “I’m avedrin?”
“Avedra,” Thorn corrected, resolving to teach the boy basic Elaran. “And, yes, you are.”
“His Lordship told me you’re avedra. So is Lady Carah, and that other man who came here with you. A long time ago, Etivva had me read about the avedras—”
“Avedrin—”
“Yessir, but I never guessed I was one. What am I supposed to do?”
Charmed right down to his toes, Thorn said, “First, no one but His Lordship and Her Grace need to know. People have always had an aversion to we avedrin, but now things are … getting a little less friendly for us.”
Jaedren’s eyes sprang wide. “You mean the green men!”
“The green men?”
Jaedren gnawed his upper lip as he put a knee in his chair and leaned across the table. In an urgent whisper, he confided, “I saw them in a dream, too. Only Aster didn’t have to tell me about them. I’ve had the dream lots of times. There’s this beautiful lady. Black, black hair. And a bright light like the sun around her—only it doesn’t hurt me to look at it. She smiles at me, then she looks real scared, and these ugly green men come out of the dark and grab her. They have blood-red eyes and huge teeth, like wild pigs. The lady screams and tells me to run, don’t let them find me, ‘cause they wanna lock me up. I try to run, but I can’t go fast enough. Dreams are like that, you know. Sometimes I think I get away. Sometimes I wake up because I think they’ve got me.” He paused. “Sir?”
Thorn roused himself. Lord Rhogan’s granddaughter had black hair. Like a raven’s wing, the farmer had said. How long had Thorn been searching for her? From the wilds of the Drakhans to the Shadow Mounds he had searched. He’d even traveled as far as the Glacier, taking narrow winding dwarf roads. Was Jaedren’s dream merely coincidence, or had he somehow been aware of her abduction and the growing threat to the avedrin? “Yes, I … I mean these green men, son. And it’s important that I teach you how to see them. With your avedra senses, I mean. Most of the time the green men are hidden by magic and can’t be seen with your ordinary eyes.”
“Is that how they took the lady?” Jaedren asked. “She couldn’t see them?”
“You’re certain she wasn’t just a dream?”
The boy nodded, mournful. “And I’m sure she’s dead now. It makes me sad.”
“Me, too.” How could he have guessed that he’d find the end of his search in his own library? “She might have survived if she could see them.”
“Once you show me how, I’ll be able to escape them?”
“You think they’re coming?”
Thin shoulders shrugged. “Aren’t they?”
~~~~
Silhouettes spun, laughing and singing about the bonfires. The waters of the Avidan rippled orange and black beneath festoons of lanterns hung along the banks. Harpists, drummers, and pipers weaved between the fires, playing tirelessly while the people danced. Rhian kept watch. He’d put away his avedra robe in the hopes of drawing less attention. In a black jerkin and black riding leathers he tried to blend into the darkness, but a stranger was a stranger and people stared anyway.
Though he tried to remain as objective as the cold, white stars overhead, his heart hurt with unexpected longing. Sandy Cape might have been a dying town, but its people knew how to throw a dance. At the end of whaling season, when the whalers returned from the icy waters off the Dovnyan shore, their wives and daughters celebrated with song and skirt hems flying high. Back then, he would have felt at ease with these folk of earth and sweat. He might’ve grabbed the baker’s plump daughter and taken a turn about the bonfire himself. But now Rhian felt as much a stranger among these commoners as he did among the silken leagues of the nobility.
He had a duty. He would see to it.
Carah made a show of shunning him. Her laughter and squeals were loud and forced, like fingernails digging a little deeper. Every time the dances swept her close, the turn of her nose belied her success in pretending he didn’t exist.
In the middle of the first dance, shortly after sunset, she spied him lurking among the spectators. Her foot missed a step, she shook off Eliad’s hands and advanced on Rhian like a cyclone. “What are you doing here?”
For a moment, Rhian debated whether he ought to bother answering. No words from him would cool the spoiled brat’s temper. “Dathiel assigned me to keep an eye on you.”
Carah’s fist went to her hip. “Oh, he did? I don’t need another chaperone. I have Eliad.”
“Eliad couldn’t see an ogre till it tromped up and bit his head off.”
“It’s Lord Drenéleth to you, pearl fisher.”
Rhian grabbed that finger stabbing at his face. Carah gasped and twisted, but Rhian held on tight. One of her knuckles popped; it must’ve hurt because she stopped struggling. He hissed into her ear, “Believe me, lady, I’m no happier about this assignment than you are. It’s a snob you are, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to see you get yours, but Dathiel dotes on you, so here I’ll stay.”
Her mouth opened, but only voiceless puffs of astonishment came out. Hadn’t anyone dared tell her how they really felt? She stomped off and rejoined the throng in time for the second dance. That was hours ago, and Rhian was getting tired of seeing the underside of Lady Carah’s nose. If she only knew ...
The hillsides were quiet so far, blacker than the star-freckled sky. A cluster of bright lifelights approached Ilswythe Village. Just latecomers to the party, all huddling together in an ox-drawn cart. The only other azethion whirled about the bonfires or drifted high atop the castle walls. Zephyr’s white glow hovered near Rhian’s shoulder. His guardian was lost in the music, whirling and humming, but never more than two feet away. The fairy deserved a moment’s respite from keeping watch. Ach, the constant watching. Rhian felt as if he’d been pulling sentry duty for four years. Four bloody years. If he’d known what that seal was leading him to, he would have swum back to shore and taken his chances with the noose.
He grinned to himself. That wasn’t true at all.
A hand reached from the dark and clenched his shoulder.
Rhian’s hand darted for his sword hilt.
Thor
n asked, “See anything?”
“Curses on you, Dathiel! It’s an eejit you are. Sure I mighta struck, then looked to see who was tackling me.”
“Twitchy.”
“If I am, it’s your fault. ‘Anything happens to her, I’ll skin you alive.’ And I don’t doubt you’d try. Guard her yourself next time.”
“Tsk, tsk. She yell at you again?”
“Bitch.” Carah floated gracefully among the heavy-footed farmers. A diamond among stones. The firelight glistened on her brow and throat like topazes set in smooth ivory. Too bad her attitude didn’t match her face.
Thorn snickered. “That’s my fault, too. It’s not you she despises, not really. She might even get over it. Eventually. Come along. We’re to meet in council with the War Commander. He won’t wait any longer.”
“Why so formal?”
Thorn shrugged. “He’s the War Commander, and this is war.”
“But what about …” He flicked a hand toward Carah.
“None of the people were abducted from the middle of a crowd. Saffron is with her. She’ll fetch us if she detects anything. Unless you’d rather stay?”
“Hnh.” Rhian started up the hill toward the gatehouse. The warmth of the bonfires receded and the night-chill settled on his shoulders. He glanced back and found Carah standing outside the ring of dancers, watching them go.
~~~~
Kelyn paced the library. The stink of dust and old paper offended his nose, but Thorn insisted they meet here. His domain, his information. Since receiving Thorn’s vague news of trouble, Kelyn hadn’t enjoyed a moment’s peace. At the supper table, Rhoslyn asked why he was so fidgety. Of course, Carah had been sitting between them, so he refrained from voicing his concern. He responded instead with a curse upon his brother’s mother-loving hide.
He realized the two avedrin had arrived only when he heard the library doors shut. They moved as softly as assassins. Thorn snicked the lock. “Is Etivva below?” he asked.
“No, I asked her to sit with Rhoz.” Kelyn pulled out a chair but didn’t feel like sitting. He pushed it under the table again. “Let’s not waste any more time. Why does my daughter need to learn to protect herself? Before it was just ‘training another avedra,’ but now it’s become ‘protection’?”
