by Ellyn, Court
“No, I have to stay here. Sleep here.” Please don’t get sick again. Please don’t get sick again.
Rhian wrapped her arm around his neck and his arm under her knees and carried her down. The stair was so narrow that they had to go sideways. “Now, what would I tell Dathiel if you caught your death out here? It’s me he’d blame, and sure I don’t like being on the receiving end of his temper.”
“I’m not a swooner. It’s silly.”
“I fainted that first time, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
Carah thought he’d set her down at the bottom of the wallwalk, but he didn’t. He whisked her along the gravel path, under the vine-strewn arbor, and into the keep. She remembered the conversation she’d had with her father and smiled. She finally made it into the saddle of that great intimidating beast, and who should provide the stepping stool but a pearl fisher?
~~~~
He hadn’t wanted to set her down, but the nearest parlor provided no more excuses. The grip of her arm lingered on the back of his neck and the stirring of her breath on his cheek. Forath’s gloomy red light spilled through his window, onto his face. He’d not bothered lighting his lamps. When the supper bell rang, he remained on the window seat, hugging a knee to his chest. Carah probably hurt too badly to join her family at table, and the idea of facing them all, Dathiel especially, didn’t sit well with him. He needed time to compose himself.
The moment he first saw her run into the courtyard, before she flew into a rage over his being Dathiel’s apprentice, Rhian knew the course of his life was changed forever. He couldn’t have said how, and later when she behaved so hatefully toward him, he tried his damnedest to deny the feeling.
A large part of being a talented bar brawler is being a good bluffer, looking bigger and meaner and happier about beating someone’s head in than the other bloke. Usually, the others backed down before it came to a fight. Carah didn’t understand those rules; she fought tooth and nail and believed him when he said he resented watching her back. In truth, he would walk a thousand walls for a thousand years if it meant Carah knew neither threat nor danger.
He was a talented bluffer, all right. Accept to himself. Night and day she was ever on his mind. How carefully he had to guard his thoughts whenever Dathiel came around. Rhian had shaped a tidy little box where he put his thoughts of her, and at times he was able to lock it up tight. He knew some peace of mind then, and was able to convince himself that his secret obsession was nothing so shallow as infatuation and nothing as detrimental as love. Good Goddess, spare him.
But tonight, it was all he could do to keep that box locked up, to keep his thoughts from flooding freely out of his head and into hers. He shouldn’t have offered to help. He should’ve kept his hands shoved inside his sleeves and walked on down the wall.
How determined she was. If Carah learned to focus that willpower in the right direction, she’d be a force to reckon with.
“And what are you smiling about, my pearl?” Zephyr’s soft white light pushed back the darkness.
Rhian drew himself up, turned from the window and planted both feet on the floor. “I wasn’t smiling.”
“Ach, it’s blind now you think I am.”
The fairy didn’t often mimic his accent and speech patterns. “Don’t mock me, Zephyr, not you. I’m nothing, and I’ve never felt it more keenly than right now.”
The white glistening wings drooped, and his guardian settled on the cushion next to him. “You mustn’t think of yourself so. You are my pearl.”
Rhian pushed himself to his feet and lit a lamp. “Aye, to you I’m something worthy of regard. But to them?” He flung boots and cloaks and pillows into an armoire, repositioned the armchairs before the hearth, desperate for anything to keep his hands busy. No, that didn’t look right either. He dealt the leg of the chair a kick. There, that was better.
“So this is a tantrum against place, is it?”
Tantrum? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thrown a tantrum. What had happened to his careful equilibrium? When his rage in the Castaway’s Inn had nearly gotten him hanged, he learned to rein in his passions, first out of fear that he might hurt someone again, later out of habit. In the early days under Thorn’s tutelage, Rhian meditated for hours, holding a flame over each palm, finding balance through the path of extreme focus. The discipline lent him the confidence of absolute control. Over his thoughts, his emotions, his surroundings. Even while fighting ogres, dodging their rusted blades and gore-fouled claws, he exercised unnatural calm. He was as measured and deliberate as the tide, while Thorn seemed to become a raging wildfire, emotion fueling his attacks.
If Rhian’s composure had shattered, it was Carah’s doing.
“I don’t have a place, Zephyr. Neither pearl beds nor castles.”
“Ah, but you do, and if you are willing, the Mother-Father herself will put you in it.”
“What if I don’t like the place she puts me in? What if she sends me right back to the sands of Rávalin?”
“What if she does? You will have served some purpose here, at this particular time. And selfish ambitions are not yours, my pearl.”
“Ogre shit! Else I’d still be swimming for Sea Bones and caring less that I was underpaid.” He fell into the armchair, smashed his forehead into his palms. “My greatest fear is going back to Sandy Cape where I’ll rot, useless, unappreciated. Nameless bones under windblown sand. No man wants that. I send silver back to my mother, isn’t that enough?”
Zephyr nudged his cheek, like a cat demanding attention. A cat made of soft summer breezes. Her insubstantial body flowed under his chin, forcing him to look up at her. “There, there, my pearl, enough self-pity. If you return to Rávalin, it will be by your own choice.”
How desperately he needed to believe that. He often felt as if he remained only one step ahead of his true destiny, a destiny that damned him to a slow death in the sands. But if he had the choice to return, he need never return at all.
“What of Elliona?”
Zephyr might as well have pricked him with a needle. Rhian cringed. She had crossed his mind tonight as he gazed west. The sunset always made him think of her, golden and violet, but memory of her paled with Carah standing so near. One of the newer members of the Dranithion Rhithiel, the Guardians of the Western Wood, Elliona was the captain’s niece and the Elari who had volunteered to teach him the Elaran language while Thorn was busy protecting his untrained backside. When the sun fell on her golden hair, the light set loose flashes of copper, hinting at a human in her ancestry, but her eyes were lavender-gray, and she hadn’t been his tutor for long before she began looking on him with favor.
“What about her?” he asked flatly.
“Ach, now it’s daft you think I am. My pearl does not have tantrums unless his place forbids him something fine. I was there tonight, remember. I saw how you held her hand to your chest and how you looked on her while her eyes were closed.”
“Enough. Elliona is a hundred and thirty years wise. I think she’s above petty jealousies, and jealousy is pointless anyway. An Elari can have whoever she likes, even a pearl fisher who can barely read and write, but a lady is reserved for the bed of princes. Keep your judgments to yourself, fay. I know my place.”
~~~~
The headache lingered, a dull throb, well into the next morning. Esmi finally woke her by clinking cutlery on the silver breakfast tray and setting aside the silver lids. The aroma billowed from the dishes, dragging Carah’s eyes open. With a groan, she checked to make sure the basin was within arm’s reach and risked sitting up.
Her handmaid took one look at her bedraggled and pale mistress and tsked. “Feeling stronger, m’ lady?”
“Doesn’t matter. Too much to do. What time is it?” Gray, gloomy twilight cloaked the windows and darkened the room. Rain had swept in again during the night. For all she could tell, it might be dawn or midday.
“The ninth hour. You must be famished—”
“Ninth! I’m
late. They’ll be in the library already.” She flung back the covers and stumbled to her dressing room. The snug brown riding leathers would do for today. They reminded her of Uncle Thorn’s. Besides, if she vomited again, she was like to burst her dress stays.
“You really must eat, m’ lady.” Esmi shoved a saucer into her hands and stood guard while Carah forced down buttered toast and a cup of tea. Her stomach felt better afterward.
“Silverthorn, Esmi, that’s all I’ll need. Bring it to the library with the tea, will you?” She rushed out the door, tugging on her riding boots in the corridor. As she expected, Jaedren occupied the writing table. Uncle Thorn stood high on a ladder, searching for one book or another. “Good morning, beautiful azethion,” she said, interrupting their silent conversation. “How bright and starlike you both are. Why, Uncle Thorn, your azeth is all gold and fiery, and Jaedren, yours is a white so pure it’s almost blue.” Carah laughed, delighted at the sight of them.
With a crooked grin, Jaedren watched her flit across the library to the window. Thorn climbed down the ladder, eyes wide in genuine astonishment. “You’re not faking it?”
Carah propped her fists on her hips. “How could I fake knowing the colors?”
“Jaedren might have told you.”
“I never—!” the boy cried.
“How many fairies are in the room?”
Carah glanced about the library, expecting to see Saffron and Aster and maybe many more. She frowned. “None. Where are they?”
Her uncle sagged, almost managing to look ashamed for doubting her word. “I sent them to scout the Highway—for your father’s departure tomorrow. When you hadn’t joined us at the usual hour, I figured you’d given up, but Rhian told me you were … ill? A fine euphemism for learning Veil Sight.”
Rhian hadn’t spoiled her surprise, after all. “I threw up. It was humiliating. Rhian said he fainted. Did you?”
“Like a goat. Passed out at Zellel’s feet. Thought the pain was going to kill me.”
“Why didn’t I faint?” Jaedren sounded disappointed, as if he’d been cheated.
Thorn shrugged. “Maybe we should start training avedrin at a younger age, eh?” If Carah thought her uncle would gush with adulation, she was painfully mistaken. “So Rhian disobeyed my orders and helped you, did he?”
Disobeyed, for her sake? Carah started to smile, but pinched her lips between her teeth and took a quick stock of her expression. Were her eyes sparkling too much? How did Rhian keep a straight face all the damn time? Warning herself to sound unenthusiastic, she said, “He was very … helpful.”
Thorn rolled his eyes at her display of razor-sharp wit and slid into his chair with the book he’d fished from the shelf. “He has not earned my thanks, nor have you earned my permission to go with us.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Carah said, “can we resume our silence, please?”
Jaedren giggled at her copycatting her uncle, and Thorn grumbled under his breath. For once in a long time, Carah felt as if she had gained the upper hand. She sauntered to the window seat and stared out at the rain. It pelted the glass and turned the view beyond the fortress into a misty gray dreamworld, where trees and mountains lost their substance. In the garden below, leaf and vine drooped, as if they’d had enough of the rain and longed to duck free of it. The groundsmen had turned off the fountain; no point in it spitting water into the rain.
Esmi arrived with the tea service and a box of silverthorn powder. “Jaedren, do you need any?” she asked, spooning the white powder into a cup of steaming tea.
“No, ma’am. I don’t get the headaches much anymore.”
Carah took the cup back to the window seat and sipped slowly while she watched and waited. By the time the throbbing at her nape began to wane, she saw Rhian appear around the bulk of the Great Hall, far away on the northern wall. His robe hung heavy and dark, soaked through and surely doing nothing to keep him warm. The hood drooped around his face. He paused for some time on the turrets of the north gatehouse, chatted with the miserable sentries stationed there, then started along the west wall. Butterflies ran riot in Carah’s belly. “Bloody pearl fisher,” she muttered, angry at him for making her feel this way. She kicked herself off the window seat and refilled her teacup.
The commotion prompted Thorn to glance up. When he saw his apprentice approaching the library windows, he asked, “What’s his word? Eejit. He’s an eejit for walking out there in weather like this.”
“Can I go?” Jaedren asked. “I like the rain, and being a sentry.”
“No, you’ll finish translating that paragraph, then you have your regular studies with Etivva.”
“Aw…”
As long as Thorn’s attention was turned out the window, Carah had to occupy herself with something besides the view. She nibbled one of the tea cakes that propriety insisted Esmi add to the tray, and pretended to take interest in her favorite book of bardsong, which she positioned toward the gray light, just so; a quick glimpse past the book showed her that Rhian had reached the western tower and the top of the wallwalk where she had dropped the wine bottle. Someone had swept up the glass, and the rain had washed away the wasted wine. He paused there when he had no reason to, except that he must be thinking about it, too. A gloved hand rose and scraped back the soaked hood. Eyes closed, Rhian let the rain fall full on his face.
“Damn fool boy,” Thorn said at Carah’s elbow. She’d not heard him get up from the table. He must have caught her watching. “That Islander is enamored of the water, no mistake. Says his mother calls him Son of the Sea.”
“Does she? How quaint.” Carah turned a page and made an effort to read on.
Thorn eventually went about his business, rolled his ladder to another section of shelf, climbed up, and searched for a different volume. Once his back was really and truly turned, Carah risked another glance. Rhian hadn’t moved. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, hood raised once more, and though shadows swallowed his face, he was clearly gazing toward the library window. How long had he been staring at her?
Casual, think Casual, she told herself and lifted her fingers in an unenthusiastic wave. No harm in it. She needed to be more friendly, now that he’d helped her. Right?
For a moment, Rhian just stood there. Maybe he was asleep instead. Captain Maegeth was always complaining of sentries sleeping on duty, but Carah never expected laziness of Rhian. How disappointing. About the time she resolved to go sit at the table instead, his arms unfolded and a black-gloved hand flicked a wave. A small gesture, like a secret. Why so reluctant? Did he still resent her?
The butterflies in her belly died quickly at that realization. All for the better.
Rhian took a slow turn of the western tower, then continued along the wall and out of sight. Recalling his advice, Carah took a deep breath to relax. She pushed away all thoughts of time constraints and soft aquamarine eyes and listened to the rain and the buzzing in the deep wells of her mind. The headache grew again, charged and thudded against the inside of her skull like a battering ram. She sipped the tea, massaged the back of her neck, and the rain began to whisper. Dragons, it said.
No … don’t believe …
These pages … At the table, Thorn tapped the book he’d dragged down from the shelf. … Lady told me … pure magic … shapeshifters … eyes don’t change … slitted like a cat’s … gold or chartreuse.
What’s chartreuse?
Bright yellowish-green. They’re rarely seen, but supposedly they do the bidding of the Mother-Father, like the fairies. Jaedren was right. Thoughts and half-formed thoughts rolled toward her like layers of waves in the sea. Sorting through them took all her concentration. Her tongue poked out the side of her mouth. Sweat beaded at her hairline.
Do they really hoard gold, like in the stories?
Carah chuckled and projected the thought, When Laniel Falconeye isn’t slaying them.
Further thoughts from the other two stumbled. Jaedren gasped and clapped his hands. Thorn’s eyes closed, a
nd he went a bit … gray. “Leaps and bounds, eh?” he said.
Carah rose from the window seat and put out a hand to steady herself against a screaming, dizzying assault of pain. Mustn’t let him think she was too vulnerable to ride tomorrow. She sank down into the chair next to him, twined her fingers through his. “Uncle Thorn?” Her voice sounded tinny in her own ears. This is how it’s supposed to be.
I know, love. But I don’t have to like it. He was unable to hide the pain in his words. Listening to them straight from his thoughts, Carah detected unshielded fear and worry. He raised her hand and kissed it. Let’s hope the nightmare was a false alarm, eh?
But it wasn’t, Jaedren said, confused about Thorn’s attempt to wish away the truth.
“Right,” Carah said with a heavy, trembling sigh. She stood, kissed her uncle’s cheek, and made for the library door.
Where are you going? I’ve not dismissed you.
Turning on the threshold, Carah couldn’t help but grin. I’m going to put on my new robe.
Sleek and silver, she whirled before the mirror, pulled up the hood, and squealed despite the pain thundering in her head. At last! At last. The beaded sash sparkled with her every turn, and the panels of silk among the velvet flowed like moonlit water. How clumsy her brown riding boots looked poking from under the hem. She needed her gray kid gloves and gray kid shoes, not the black ones or the white ones that Esmi had packed for her.
Her handmaid was too happy over Carah’s success to mind packing her things again. “What about this silver circlet for your hair, m’ lady? I’ll just throw that in, too. Oh, you look stunning.”
Carah dug inside her jewelry box, all the way to the bottom, and lifted out the fairy pendant. The tiny hands still clung to the blue pearl, but the silver needed polishing after being neglected for so many years. No matter. Her uncle once told her the pendant had been blessed by the Lady of the Elarion, that it was charmed to protect her. If Jaedren was right, she would need an extra measure of protection after all.
