Last Song Before Night

by Ilana C. Myer

  “One song and many,” a voice said. Darien turned and saw that a man stood in the corridor. He wore a harp at his side, a moon opal shining palely on the ring that adorned his hand. Valanir Ocune.

  “First Edrien Letrell, now you,” said Darien.

  “So you’ve seen the visions.”

  “Dreams,” said Darien.

  “No,” said Valanir. “You must have a vital part in all this, Darien Aldemoor, given what’s been happening.”

  “In all what? What is going on?”

  “Lin Amaristoth will tell you,” said Valanir. “You must work together to avert the dark that is coming.”

  “A red star rising,” Darien recalled.

  “Yes.”

  Darien shook his head. “Are you saying what I saw … Sarmanca. That wasn’t a dream?”

  “You did well, Darien. Destroying the sacred wine has hindered Nickon Gerrard, if only for a little time. It’s why he can use portals only within the city walls, for now. And it’s why he can’t pursue you himself … not yet. You stopped him from expanding his powers—he needed as many poets as possible gathered together to accomplish that.”

  “This is all beyond me,” said Darien. “It seems far beyond any poet … especially one not a Seer.”

  “And what do you think a Seer truly is, Darien … or is meant to be?” Valanir Ocune extended his hand, indicating another door. “Through there is where you must go. Be shielded from ill winds, young singer. This will not be the first portal to open for you, nor the last.”

  The Seer was gone the next moment. Darien paused only an instant to wonder at this. The lifting of many voices still tingled in his mind. He grasped the handle to the door that Valanir had indicated and unhesitatingly pushed it open.

  * * *

  DARIEN lay flat on his back, gazing up at the stars again. But now there were torches, and someone was bending over him, looking incredulously into his face. It took a moment for Darien to make sense of what he was seeing.

  Then with an effort, he smiled. “Hallo, Lin.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  FIRST light was breaking over the bare hillside, grasses gently waving in a dawn breeze. So weary were they both by this time that they clasped hands, for balance, as they trudged up the hill. Hassen watched them come, his hands on his hips, shaking his head. When he deemed them within earshot he called out, “Do I want to know?”

  Lin waved to him. “Hallo, Hassen Styr,” she called back. Her heart lifted when she saw him smile. She had always liked him. And she’d had a long, lonely road up to this point, with smiles few and far between.

  “No sooner do I go to sleep than this character goes off to get drunk in a village tavern and some floozy seduces him,” said Hassen. He was still smiling.

  Lin smiled back. “It was surprisingly easy.”

  Darien gave a martyred sigh. “Why must you assume the worst of me? The truth is, rather, that Valanir Ocune sent me into Eirne. As I was sleeping.”

  Before Hassen could send him tumbling down the hill with a well-placed punch, Darien went on to tell of his dream, of waking to see Lin bending over him. She said, “I could swear that he appeared out of nowhere—I almost tripped over him. The street was well-lit.” Lin hesitated, not wanting to lose Hassen’s goodwill by seeming insane. “I think … I think Valanir meant for us to find each other.”

  “And why would that be?” Hassen asked. “With no offense intended, lady—your company would be delightful. But that’s hardly a concern of Valanir Ocune.”

  Unable to stand any longer—she had not slept all that night—Lin dropped into a cross-legged position in the grass. The two men dropped beside her. In the stillness before sunrise, there was no sound but the breeze.

  “We seek the same thing,” Lin said. “Valanir advised me to begin my search on Academy Isle. And he gave me this.” She had noticed that engraved on the key was an ornate knot: the mark of the Seers.

  “What does it open?” asked Hassen.

  “I don’t know,” said Lin. “I think it might have been important to him that I discover that for myself. Or that we discover it, since he has brought us together.”

  “And why do you seek the enchantments?” Hassen asked. “Meaning no disrespect, of course.”

  “It is a fair question,” Lin said. Quickly she recounted to the two men all that Valanir had told her about Nickon Gerrard.

  “You mean to say Lord Gerrard is a murderer,” said Darien. “I can’t even pretend to be surprised.”

  “A dark spirit rides him,” said Lin. “He can’t be killed. His use of blood divination all these years has brought a darkness to Eivar. It’s begun already, in the south.”

  “What’s begun?” asked Hassen.

  Lin avoided his eyes. They both seemed so buoyant, and she brought these tidings to ruin it. “The Red Death,” she said. “And other disasters, besides. But that plague hasn’t been seen since—”

  “Since Davyd Dreamweaver. The Order of the Red Knife. Of course,” said Darien. His face changed. “I know it seems crazy, Hassen … I’m not usually inclined to believe these things, either.”

  Hassen was shaking his head. “Lady, how do we know any of this is true? Forgive me, but it’s all … it’s all rather far-fetched. We don’t even have proof that Nickon Gerrard is committing the terrible crime you suggest.”

  “Do you doubt Valanir Ocune?” Lin said. “Do you think for anything less he would have risked capture, and his life?”

  “There’s that,” said Darien. “But here is one thing we know beyond doubt: last night I went to sleep on this hill, which is an hour’s journey by foot from Eirne, and when I awoke I was lying in the village street just as Lin turned the corner.”

  The three of them were quiet a moment. The sun was climbing from beyond the hills, bathing the grasses in its light.

  Finally Hassen said, “So you’re telling me that what we do now is … for all of Eivar? Perhaps the world?”

  Darien suddenly grinned. “Looks that way.”

  Hassen sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a drink.”

  “Likewise,” Darien said. “Meanwhile, I’m hankering to see what we’re going to unlock with that key of yours, Lin. That is, if Hassen approves of these new developments.”

  “You mean, do I approve of Lin traveling with us?” Hassen said. “You ought to be grateful: one more day alone with you and I might have throttled you in your sleep.”

  “So that’s settled then,” said Darien.

  “There is one more thing that is not settled,” said Lin. Her heart had begun to beat fast. “This is important,” she said, unnecessarily, wishing not to continue.

  “Go on,” said Hassen. Lin wondered if she imagined the compassion she saw in his eyes.

  Lin drew a breath and exhaled slowly, willing her heart to calm itself. “I owe it to you—if we are to travel together—to tell you that my full name is Kimbralin Amaristoth, and that my brother, an experienced hunter, is searching for me.”

  “You are Kimbralin Amaristoth?” Darien was incredulous. “Oh my.”

  Hassen looked blank. “I’m sorry—who’s Amaristoth?”

  “Only the most notorious family this side of the mountains,” said Darien. “Marlen used to say that even his father was wary of Kalinda Amaristoth and drew a breath of relief when he heard of her death. Wait, that would be your mother, right? I’m sorry,” he said to Lin.

  She smiled thinly. “Quite all right,” she said. “I had a similar reaction.”

  “And your brother,” said Hassen. “What happens if he finds you?”

  “Nothing that has not happened before.” She meant it lightly, but it did not come out that way. She was disconcerted to see comprehension in his eyes.

  “Then I hope he does find us,” Hassen said, “so I can avenge you.”

  “It would not be—simple, to do that,” said Lin. “But I’m grateful for your words.”

  “Come, come,” Darien said, smiling but impatie
nt. “Sleep now, and then we go. West this time.”

  “To the Academy,” said Hassen.

  “Yes,” said Darien. The wind had picked up and blew his hair, which had grown shaggy, about his face. Despite his fatigue and the new, strange things they now knew, he looked exhilarated. “We’re going home.”

  * * *

  SHE was collapsed against the garden wall, gasping for breath. “Still too weak,” said the man behind her, and she gritted her teeth. As if she didn’t know that her arms trembled like harp strings, that her chest heaved uncontrollably. Rianna Gelvan no longer felt the autumn chill that had laid bare the ornamental garden trees and withered the rose hedges.

  Rayen Amaristoth laid a hand on her arm. “It’s difficult to build up the strength,” he said. “It means daily practice, nothing less.”

  “I know,” Rianna replied. “And why not? I have nothing else to do.” Then she regretted her words, not wanting to seem to him like a petulant child. If he had such thoughts, he gave no sign. His dark hair and eyes were so much like those of his sister. But while Lin could blend into shadows, Rayen Amaristoth was a striking presence.

  During his earlier visits, she had kept away from him, mindful of her loyalties to Lin. When Lord Amaristoth had first begun calling on her father, for business purposes, she had been struck by the timing of it. It was not unusual for Master Gelvan to receive partners in his home. Even less unusual for it to happen at the time of the fair, when so many of the aristocracy and mercantile class descended on Tamryllin. But of course, this was different. She remembered Lin’s words, her flat tone not quite a mask for emotion. My brother is looking for me.

  At first, she succeeded in avoiding him. It was when he found her practicing with her dagger in the garden that the lessons had begun. She had been wearing an old pair of her father’s trousers and a tunic, her lips pursed in concentration. Repeating the thrust and parry that Lin had shown her, the only moves she knew.

  “A woman of hidden talents,” said a voice.

  Rianna had spun to see Rayen in the shadow of a rowan tree that had begun to turn crimson with the season. He was clad in dark blue that contrasted with his pale skin, his lips curved in a half smile.

  She had not gotten a good look at him until now, and it threw her off balance. That, and her awareness that she was not groomed as she usually wanted to be when in the presence of anyone other than her father. Her hair had been carelessly pinned up and was escaping in wild tendrils around her face.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Rayen asked. “Though your technique is—you’ll forgive me, lady—rather basic, there is something in your style that is of the north. It reminds me of home.”

  Rianna’s mouth went dry. It reminds me of home. “I—had a fencing master for a short time,” she said. “There wasn’t time for me to learn much from him. He had to leave.”

  “Well, he didn’t stay long enough to show you how to perfect your parry,” he said. “May I?”

  Caught off guard, Rianna nodded. Rayen came up behind her and held her wrist cupped in his hand. Gently he guided her arm around, down, in a motion reminiscent of the Sirian dancers she had seen the night of the masque.

  “Now practice it with me,” he instructed. He kept his hold on her arm, correcting her when she wandered off course. “And naturally,” he added, “you must stay lower, much lower than that. You would do well to practice squats and lunges in addition to bladework.”

  “I see,” Rianna said, a bit stiffly. She was relieved when he disengaged and moved aside.

  “It interests me that you want to learn,” said Rayen. “It’s not what I would expect of a woman of your origins.”

  “You mean, a Galician woman?” Rianna asked with narrowed eyes.

  “No,” said Rayen, and laughed. “I suppose I mean any woman not of the north. I have never known any woman with the fierceness, the technique of my sister, for example. She is a northern woman to her bones.”

  “Your sister,” said Rianna. Her pulse had quickened slightly. “You mean, the one who disappeared?”

  Rayen looked startled. She explained, “We received the painting last year. She’s beautiful.” He continued to be silent. Rianna was afraid she had betrayed her knowledge of Lin’s secret. “It must be so difficult for you,” she offered. “I’m sorry.”

  Finally, he nodded. “It is difficult, yes,” he said. “Sometimes more than I would have thought possible. Thank you—thank you for that.” He paused, seemed to be thinking something over. Then he said, hesitantly, “You know, I intend to be in the city for a time. Perhaps, if you like, I can instruct you in the art of daggers? Since it seems to be an area of interest for you.”

  “I’m betrothed, you know.”

  “Are you?” Rayen said. “Your father had mentioned that your betrothal to Ned Alterra was—dissolved.”

  Rianna’s brow furrowed. And then, unbidden, her eyes filled with tears.

  “There now,” said Rayen. His tone was gentle. “There is someone else, isn’t there? Someone you can’t talk about to your father?”

  Rianna’s eyes widened. She could hear the blood pulsing in her ears.

  “It’s all right,” said Rayen. “I understand. Your man, whoever he is, must consider himself luckier than anyone in the world. And must himself be exceptional.”

  Rianna nodded emphatically, forced out a weak, “Yes.”

  Now Rayen gifted her with a full smile. “Rianna,” he said, “in the north we know how to conceal our hearts behind walls of stone. Sometimes we know this too well. But that is just a long way of telling you that your secret is safe—I will tell no one. And,” he went on, his face becoming earnest, “I would still be happy to teach you.”

  She had thought that if Rayen could guide her in her purpose, so much the better. She wasn’t sure she understood why she felt such passion now to learn the dagger, but thought perhaps she had finally seen that to be weak was to be left in the shelter of garden walls while the strong went forth on adventures—leaving the weak behind. And her father, she thought. He had regarded her as a chess piece, to guard and protect—in his plans, she had no will of her own.

  Rianna knew that was unfair, but she was quietly furious with him nonetheless. She submerged her rage in the cut and thrust of her lessons with Rayen, in the burning of every muscle with fatigue. At the dinner table she was often unkempt, for she sometimes did not bathe and change until just before bed. Though Master Gelvan seemed to eye her with concern at times, he otherwise did not comment. Or he would ask, “How go the lessons, my dear?”

  Normally he would have disapproved, she thought, and wondered what had changed. Was it that he thought she might need this skill one day—or was he coldly weighing his options now that Ned Alterra was gone, hoping she might take to Rayen Amaristoth? She was not thinking clearly, she knew—on some days, she could impute devious motives to anyone, even her father.

  Rayen, for his part, was impressed, albeit bemused, by her ferocity, and guided her in channeling it through practiced technique.

  “I know,” he said one day, straightening during a lesson to look at her. “You want to carve through that tree over there with your fingernails. You want to pummel it until your knuckles bleed. Don’t you?”

  Rianna’s breath was coming hard. “How do you know?” she forced out between breaths.

  Rayen looked sad. “I know too much about anger,” he said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  “What good would getting bloody knuckles do me?” Rianna demanded. “What can I do?”

  “There isn’t really anything you can do,” said Rayen. “But I promise you that if you are patient and learn the technique—there is no shortcut to that—you will find that your energy will be turned more and more to your skill and less to your rage. At least, that is how it is with me.”

  He dropped to a seated position on a garden bench, and motioned for Rianna to sit by him. She did, at a careful distance. Her hair had come loose from its ties and fell in a t
angled mass around her face. She wondered what Darien would think if he could see her now, with the sweat and the knotted hair and her father’s cast-off clothes. Would I still be the Snow Queen of his heart?

  “All my life, rage has been my enemy,” said Rayen. He was not looking at Rianna, gazing at and yet seemingly beyond the garden wall. “The only way I could escape it, prevent myself from harming others, was by retreating into the black forests surrounding our home. Of course, they were not really black, but in those moments I felt they were—cold, dark, deep, a place to get lost. I would lose myself there for days, hunting prey as if I had no other purpose.…” He trailed off.

  “This garden is a poor substitute for the forests of your home,” said Rianna. “I cannot get lost.”

  “And you are a woman,” said Rayen. “Remember, that makes you even more vulnerable.”

  “I know,” said Rianna, and thought that this, too, was both an immovable truth and perhaps the most enraging thing of all.

  “But you have spirit,” said Rayen, and now he was looking at her. In his eyes, Rianna saw something that both thrilled her and made her deeply uneasy, and she turned away from his gaze. “You have strength, Rianna Gelvan. I see it in your determination … even in your anger.”

  She kept her eyes averted, and after a moment he rose. “I will see you at dinner,” he said, and went back to the house. Rianna remained seated on the bench, her arms wrapped around herself, until the chill of twilight made it impossible to stay in the garden anymore.

  * * *

  THEY had been on the road nearly a week when a town perched on a hill came into view. In the course of those days, the autumn winds had become fierce on the high hills, whipping their hair and penetrating clothing to skin. That day, icy sheets of rain drummed down on the hillsides, and the travelers were fortunate to find leaky shelter in an abandoned hut. Wrapping themselves tightly in cloaks, they fixed their sights on the town as if it were a beacon, and tantalizing images of warm rooms, beds, and hot food tormented their waking thoughts.