Kjieran tried to breathe normally through this bold accusation. If Viernan hal’Jaitar even suspected that he was seeking the truth of the val Lorian princes’ deaths and Radov’s complicity in them, Kjieran knew he would not walk out of that room alive. Bond to the Prophet or no, the wielder would ensure his destruction.
“Indeed?” Kjieran replied, forcing a weak smile. “What would those motivations be, Consul?”
“We know you are here to kill your sworn liege, Truthreader,” Viernan declared in a sneer of contempt, dark eyes flashing. “Dare not deny it.”
With the fourth rolling so tumultuously in the room, Kjieran certainly would not, but nor could he confirm such a truth when the Prophet had forbidden him to speak of his assignment—much less what it would mean to his future should the words ever leave his mouth in Viernan’s company.
When Kjieran said nothing, hal’Jaitar continued, “Since Gydryn val Lorian’s demise equally suits the purposes of others who will be left unnamed, I will not prevent you from this task, but you must not act unsanctioned.”
“Assuming there is any truth to this claim,” Kjieran replied quietly, trying to maintain his footing on such a slippery slope, trying not to allow Viernan to maintain the edge above him, “what then is required of me? Whose sanction must I seek, and how?”
“That the missive will come from me is all you need know.”
“And how will you convey this sanction, Consul?” Kjieran remarked with a twitch of a derisive smile. “Shall I be on the lookout for a note penned in disappearing ink? Or perhaps a cipher, the code slipped to me within a steaming pot of tea?”
Viernan glowered, making Kjieran reconsider the wisdom in baiting him. “When the time is right, you will be instructed to act.”
Kjieran did not like where this was heading. As the Prophet had intimated, Radov apparently also wanted King Gydryn eliminated, and clearly hal’Jaitar intended Kjieran to bear the blame for the deed; but Kjieran had no intention of harming his king. What truly rankled in that moment, however, was how readily hal’Jaitar had acted to claim him as the scapegoat. “What if I refuse, Consul?”
The wielder smiled again humorlessly, his eyes icy ebony orbs. “We both know that you won’t.”
Kjieran squeezed the glass cup in his lap as anger warmed him. Hal’Jaitar’s certainty troubled him. How could the man be so sure of Kjieran’s mission? This implied spies deep in the Prophet’s inner sanctum. More frightening still, if hal’Jaitar could know such secrets as these, what information had he gained about Kjieran’s other clandestine activities?
Hal’Jaitar was still smiling at him, the cat admiring the pinned canary, knowing it could have its snack any time. His dark eyes drifted to the cup in Kjieran’s lap, and Kjieran knew the man was waiting for him to drink, that there was no way he was leaving that room without doing so.
The better to get it over with, Kjieran thought, and drank the tea. It was steeped of mint and sweet with honey. Unsurprisingly, hal’Jaitar did not share it with him.
Kjieran downed the tea, hoping the action would at least buy his freedom, but hal’Jaitar seemed in no hurry to release him from his gaze. Kjieran wondered what poison was in the tea that the man was clearly waiting for it to take effect. It was some comfort that at least hal’Jaitar knew nothing of his changed nature—or perhaps he did and was merely testing the information he’d been given. In any case, the tea was impotent—how could it trouble him when Kjieran’s body was already dying, his spirit merely pinned to the shell by force of a working of such ghastly malfeasance that none but a lunatic could have conceived of it?
Eventually the wielder’s dark eyes narrowed. He stood in a billow of ebon silk. “Until we meet again, Truthreader.”
Forty
“A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.”
- A popular pirate saying
“Wakey, wakey.”
Raine opened his eyes to Carian vran Lea’s unshaven face hovering nose to nose with his own.
“Oh, good, you’re up,” the pirate noted cheerily. His looming face was abruptly replaced with a steaming mug of Akkadian kaffe, which Raine was obliged to take from him.
As the Vestal sat up to a grey morning, Carian held up his own mug of kaffe and remarked, “I don’t know how they get all this stuff. Do you know how hard it is to come by Akkadian kaffe beans? I’ve made the trip to Hazak myself dozens of times, and I can tell you these are as fresh as they come.”
“They probably grow the beans here, Carian,” Raine pointed out.
“Oh.” The pirate scratched his head dully. Clearly this solution had been too simple. Thus, it had subsequently been overlooked by his usual convoluted thought process.
“Carian,” Raine said then, calling the pirate’s gaze to his. “Why are you in my bed chamber?”
“Oh, yeah, that. We’ve been summoned, poppet.”
Raine set his kaffe on the table by the bed. “By whom? To where?”
“You think they tell me these things? I’m the one with a dragon for a nursemaid.”
Raine pushed the sleep from his eyes with both palms and then looked at the pirate. “Rhakar is still with you?”
The pirate grinned. “Well…not exactly.”
Raine caught the images overflowing from Carian’s latest evening with Mithaiya and flinched. “Ugh! Go think those things somewhere else!” He waved the pirate away in disgust.
“I am very into lizards right now, I have to tell you,” Carian gloated as he obligingly wandered to the far side of the vast bedroom.
Raine climbed from his bed to dress, but he had the unpleasant suspicion that this day was going to be difficult.
And why shouldn’t it be? You’ve only yet to reunite with Dagmar, Isabel, Björn and about a hundred other people you either thought were dead or who you’ll surely learn have betrayed you.
As he threw on some clothes and secured his belt, Raine reflected that cynicism was probably not one of his more admirable attributes. He donned his cloak embroidered in golden boxes and looked to the pirate.
Carian grinned. “Yeah, so…this way.”
He led out into the hall, where Raine unsurprisingly found Mithaiya waiting. “Mademoiselle,” he greeted with a genteel nod.
Mithaiya smiled. “Good morning, Vestal. I hope you slept well.”
“That I slept at all is an improvement, my lady.”
“Alas, I cannot say the same,” she remarked with a telling smile.
Carian shrugged his eyebrows at her. “So I told Mithaiya,” he said, clapping Raine on the shoulder, “that I would be more than pleased to help her mother an entirely new line of Kandori princes. Lo and behold, she took me up on my offer.”
Raine didn’t tell him that he’d already seen far too many details of their lovemaking due to Carian’s very loud recollection of it.
“The pirate made extraordinary claims which I felt obligated to disprove,” Mithaiya added with her gaze pinned alluringly on Carian.
Carian shot her a saucy grin and ambled closer to her, loins in the lead. “And did you?” He wrapped arms around her waist and drew her hips against his.
“Do I need to be here for this?” Raine asked somewhat desperately.
Carian growled and buried his face in Mithaiya’s neck. She eyed Raine while the pirate gobbled at her ear but finally took pity on him and murmured, “I believe your presence is required elsewhere, Islander.”
Carian drew back looking disappointed. “Oh well. There’s always tonight.”
“Perhaps. If I am still interested. I cannot imagine there is much else to learn of you.”
“Oh, poppet,” he sighed, settling her a wanton grin, “you haven’t even begun to experience the benefits of my expertise.”
“Isn’t there somewhere we’re supposed to be?” Raine remarked pointedly.
Mithaiya seemed to enjoy tormenting him, for she leveled him a predatory smile while the pirate fondled her breasts and growled lascivious promises into her ear. Finally
she pushed him off, spun lightly and led away down the hall.
As they followed the exotic drachwyr, Carian sighed dramatically and elbowed Raine. “Hey, did you know they can breathe fire even in their human form?”
“Yes, Carian,” Raine replied through gritted teeth, “as a matter of fact I did.”
Mithaiya led them on a long walk through the sprawling palace, but eventually they reached a door guarded by a Shade. He bowed at their approach and announced, “The Vestal is within.”
Raine felt a sudden lump form in his throat as he realized he was in no condition to confront Björn. But when the Shade opened the door, Raine recognized the bedroom where he’d left Gwynnleth that night with Ramu. Fate had taken pity on him, it seemed, for the Second Vestal, not the Fifth, awaited them within.
Dagmar was standing at the window when they walked in. Seeing him, Carian fell to one knee and bowed his head, murmuring with reverent awe and unparalleled enthusiasm, “Great Master.”
Dagmar turned. His pale green eyes fastened first on Raine, then he came over and placed a hand on Carian’s shoulder. “Welcome, Carian vran Lea.” He smiled down at the pirate then. “It is a pleasure to at last greet you in the flesh.”
Feeling incredibly disconnected from reality, Raine studied Dagmar as the Vestal motioned Carian back to his feet and greeted him with a brotherly hug. In the flesh, the Second Vestal looked much the same as when Raine had last seen him that fateful day in Alorin, when Dagmar had turned his back on them to seek out Björn. Had he known then he would never return? Had it been courage and honor that drove him after Björn, as they’d suspected, or had he always been secretly sworn to the Fifth Vestal, even as had Cristien?
Dagmar released Carian and looked to Raine, and his green eyes carried within them a recognition of all that had come between them. They did not greet each other, for no greeting could bridge the distance.
Raine retrieved the coin from his pocket. “I believe this is yours.” He opened his hand to reveal the circle of bronze lying on his palm.
Dagmar took the coin, pocketed it. Perhaps he knew it had served its purpose. He motioned to the bed. “Your avieth friend,” he noted then, turning to lead the way toward Gwynnleth, “our Healers have seen to her welfare. While she sleeps, she is sustained. You need not fear for her wellbeing in this regard.”
“What about in the other regard?” Carian asked.
Dagmar cast him a look that seemed to address the genuine concern beneath the pirate’s gruff demeanor. “As to that, I have done all I could.”
“Dreamscape,” Raine supplied, understanding now why Dagmar met them here.
“Indeed, brother. I looked for her in the world of dreams, but she has traveled a great distance. My concern is that she’s passed onto the paths of the dead. If she has ventured there…”
“Then what?” Carian asked.
Dagmar shook his head. “The danger of becoming lost among those moors is immense, for their melancholy draw is powerful. Even I dare not follow to those extremes. I lit a beacon for her, however, and now we must wait and hope that she finds her way back to it. It is as much as I can do.”
Carian stood frowning over the avieth’s sleeping form. After a moment, he turned to Dagmar. “What if I went in after her? Could such a thing be done?”
Dagmar considered him. “Yes. I could bring you into dreamscape with me, but what reason have you to think it would make a difference?”
Carian turned an irritable glare back to Gwynnleth’s sleeping form. “She despises me enough that she might return just for the opportunity of pointing out my faults in front of you, my lord.”
***
Morning dawned, and Ean dreamed.
He stood on a balcony overlooking a moonlit sea. The waves of high tide crashed against and around the sturdy pillars that supported his balcony, close enough he could feel the salt spray when the wind shifted. The heavens were miraculous above him, millions of stars so brilliant in the clear night that to gaze upon them was to lose oneself in infinity.
And before him spread the mercuric sea. It called to him as well.
He didn’t want to leave this life. He didn’t want to leave her. Yet he knew that he would. For duty called to him as strongly as the bond he shared with her. These opposing desires tore at his heart, sundering his soul, soiling all that was bright.
She joined him on the balcony in silence, but he could always feel when she was near. The bond of their love had connected them long before magic sealed it permanently. Coming up behind him, she wrapped her arms around his bare chest and pulled herself close. The breeze tossed her long hair around them both, and it clung to his damp skin.
“I cannot bear to leave you,” he whispered, anguished.
“Arion, this path has long been set,” he heard her say. “We cannot but walk it now. Why do you let this guilt torment you so? It is but a sullen child lacking understanding of the world, and you cater to its petulance.”
He clenched his teeth, because he knew she was right. “But why won’t you tell me how long it must be?”
After a long silence, she answered, “Because I do not want to frighten you.”
He turned into her arms, drew her close. The grief he felt was suffocating. His throat grew tight with protest, and his soul raged against a loss he was powerless to stop, against a future he couldn’t prevent. “Death holds no sway over me,” he whispered. “It is only the years without you that threaten my resolve.”
“The better your courage may inspire us, my lord.”
He pulled away just enough to take her face in his hands. “It is you who inspires me. Always.”
The moon leached the color from the world, and her pale eyes looked like diamonds in the night. She was so beautiful, so infinitely special. In the entire universe, there was no one like her. Feeling overwhelmed by the future he faced, he pulled her close once more and pressed his cheek against her head. “I am so afraid of losing you for all time.”
“That’s because you are lacking faith,” she teased gently.
“I’ve seen too much to trust to such,” he heard himself reply. Regret anchored his soul in overpowering seas, and he was drowning from it.
Ean understood then, in the way one suddenly knows things in dreams, that while they shared these moments of stolen peace, in fact a war raged around them.
“But you know love,” she replied, “and they are of the same cloth.”
He sighed, despondent. “I would that these were not the moments I remember.” Though somehow he knew they would be.
“Then love me—love us,” she laughed, bringing joy to lighten the space between their hearts. “Never let your doubts obfuscate the truth, my lord,” and she pulled away to cup his face with her hand. “That there is hope. That my brother guides us as truly as Polaris calls her sailors home. That these sacrifices will not be for naught.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss him, long and deep. There was no divinity more pure than her kiss. “Stay the course,” she whispered then, their lips close, her advice a lover’s sweet promise. “Be our inspiration. Lead us, my General. We are all looking to you.”
Ean opened his eyes to a grey dawn where night yet lingered, clinging heavily to the world, the moon’s devoted lover disinclined to depart. Isabel lay in his arms, her chestnut hair draped across the pillow they shared, her eyes shut beneath the ever-present blindfold. The strip of black silk seemed a torment to him after that dream, a punishment. His soul felt bruised.
A name weighed heavy upon his heart.
Arion Tavestra.
It had been his name, once.
‘They say she’s loved only one man in all her life.’ Julian’s words, haunting him now. ‘His name was Arion Tavestra. He was one of the First Lord’s generals.’
Ean knew that these were just the first of many memories trying to surface, sieving through the holes in the veil of death, holes made by other memories already speared forth. But Ean didn’t want these memories. They were too painful, too laye
red with grief. There was an enormous feeling of guilt associated with them, and Ean feared their truth.
Later, as they rose together to greet the day, Isabel sensed Ean’s mood and didn’t question him on it, only kissed him deeply before she departed. Ean expected she knew his struggles better than he did.
As soon as he could break away from his lessons with Markal, Ean sought out Julian. He hadn’t seen the lad since the First Lord’s Masquerade, and he missed Julian’s effortless company, his lightness of spirit.
Ean found him in between lectures—the First Lord was running a veritable Citadel in the lower levels of the palace, with blue-robed Masters, many of them now Shades, leading classes and taking on students in advanced studies.
As he emerged to find Ean waiting for him in the back of the lecture hall, Julian’s face lit with enthusiasm. “Ean, I’m thrilled to see you!” Julian grabbed him into a hug. “We’ve just been learning about the Twelfth Law.”
“Which one is that?”
Julian quoted at once, “A pattern need not be perfect, but the wielder’s concept of it must be.”
“Interesting.”
“But tell me…” Julian adopted a conspiratorial manner and spun about to ensure they were alone in the passage. “Is it true?” He pulled Ean toward an alcove and the hall’s tall windows and then launched into a dramatic recounting of everything he’d heard of Ean’s relationship with Isabel.
The prince sighed at the stories already circulating—it didn’t seem to matter in what realm he dwelled but rumors about him spread like wildfire.
“So it’s true,” Julian surmised from his pained expression. “You worked a binding of the fifth layered with form on Epiphany’s Prophet.”
Ean grimaced, nodded.
Julian’s face lit with awe. “Brilliant!”
“Julian,” Ean said, trying to get them off the topic of his and Isabel’s romance. He affected a lightness of tone that he didn’t feel as he posed, “I wondered if I could prey upon your vast knowledge of Adept history,”
The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) Page 56
