by Pati Nagle
Luruthin shouldered his saddle packs and turned gratefully to the warm lights burning in Highstone’s windows. The door of the public lodge stood wide, revealing a large fire on the welcoming hearth and the lodge keeper chattering brightly to the guardians who were already crowding inside the house. Guessing that it would take some while to settle twenty guardians, Luruthin turned to Vanorin.
“There will likely be a vacant bed in the theyns’ lodge, if that would suit you.”
Vanorin’s brows rose. “Must one be a theyn to stop there?”
“A theyn or a theyn’s guest. I hereby invite you.”
The Greenglen returned a weary smile. “Is it very far? I should stay near my guardians.”
Luruthin grinned and gestured toward the lodge. “Nothing is far from anything in Highstone. It is just the other side of the circle.”
Vanorin shouldered his packs. “Lead on, then.”
The theyns’ lodge was smaller than the public lodge, and the fire in its hearthroom was banked. Strains of hesitant lute music came from deep within the house. Luruthin rang the guest chime, smiling an apology to Vanorin.
“Bithanan is sometimes slow to answer. Never fear; his table makes up for it.”
The music ceased, and the lodge keeper appeared after a few more moments. Slender almost to thinness, with his russet hair caught back in a simple clasp, he blinked at them in surprise.
“Theyn Luruthin! Has the Council ended?”
“Not nearly. Eliani and I are riding northward on an errand at their behest and will only be stopping the night. This is Vanorin of the Southfæld Guard. I trust you can accommodate him?”
“Of course! Let me show you to rooms. When you are refreshed, come down again and I will have a meal ready for you.”
Bithanan led them up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, opening a door to either side. “Be at home, my lords. I will send hot water for you presently.”
He bowed and withdrew, leaving them standing in the hall. Luruthin gestured to one of the doors.
“Perhaps you would like the room overlooking the circle. You can keep an eye on your guardians.”
Vanorin stepped into the room and across to the window to pull back the tapestry. Luruthin could see the windows of the public lodge ablaze with light. Vanorin looked over his shoulder.
“Thank you.”
Smiling, Luruthin crossed the hall to his own room and set his packs on a chest at the foot of the bed. He rummaged in them for his comb and untied the thong that secured his braid, sitting on the bed with a sigh of pleasure.
A bed for the night. Sheer luxury.
The last bed he had been in was Jhinani’s. He closed his eyes as he worked the knots from his hair, remembering his departure from Glenhallow.
While Governor Jharan was making speeches to a throng of cheering citizens in Glenhallow’s public circle, Luruthin had drawn Jhinani aside, reached into his tunic, and pulled out a slender crystal, half a finger’s length, clear and perfect and set in a silver mounting hanging from a matching chain. A short time earlier he had pulled apart all his luggage—thoughtfully packed for him by one of Hallowhall’s many attendants—to find it. Now he pressed it into Jhinani’s hand.
Her fair skin flushed pink with pleasure and surprise. Luruthin smiled as he watched her hold the stone up to the sunlight.
“Mined and wrought in Clerestone.”
“It is beautiful. Thank you.” She glanced at her attire, a gown of silver cloth, unadorned, needing no jewels to augment it. “I have no gift to offer in return.”
“You have given me enough.”
The roughness of his own voice surprised him; he felt an urge to catch her in his arms. Instead he helped her don the crystal, relishing the feel of her silken hair in his fingers as he held it clear, the soft skin of her neck as he laid the silver chain against it. Her scent came to him on a breeze, and he inhaled deeply, thinking of the previous night.
The memory of that scent stayed with him even now. He had not thought so much could change in a single evening. He had watched the celebration of Turisan and Eliani’s handfasting, feeling rather sorry for himself, until Jhinani had invited him to share a private cup of wine. They had shared much more than that, and what had begun as a casual encounter had ended, to their mutual surprise and delight, with their conceiving a child.
No one knew. There had been no time to tell anyone in Glenhallow, what with the fuss surrounding Eliani’s departure, and since then he had not found a comfortable opportunity to mention it. He was glad, actually, to have this secret to treasure to himself for a while. A child was a rare gift among the ælven, and conception the rarest and most remarkable of experiences.
He remembered lying close to Jhinani afterward, gazing into her warm brown eyes. Their khi still flowed together, and he could just sense the lighter tone of their child’s khi. The spirit of their child had greeted them at the moment of conception and would remain near Jhinani until the body she would build for it was ready to be inhabited. Male or female? The child had not informed them.
A fateful evening, that last in Glenhallow. For Eliani, also. His love for her had not diminished but had somehow transformed. He no longer felt desperation or hopelessness. He loved her as the cousin she was and had no need for more. This he owed to Jhinani, to whom he had pledged himself for a year and a day. With a silent thought of thanks to his Greenglen lady, he smiled.
Eliani stood in her father’s study with Luruthin, Vanorin, and Gharinan, drinking mead as they discussed the map spread on the table around which they stood. Vanorin’s fingers followed the North Road from Highstone.
“Is this the route? It looks mountainous.”
Eliani nodded. “There are roads on the plains, but they are well to the east. To use them would add to the length of the journey.”
“Unless the weather becomes inclement.”
Eliani turned to Gharinan. “How were the roads on your journey hither?”
“Clear, but that was more than a moon ago.”
“And when did you last hear from Heahrued?”
Gharinan smiled wryly, acknowledging her deduction. He was not one to ignore his village even when called upon to serve as temporary governor.
“Four days ago. The road was then clear, though snowy in places.”
“We will take the mountain road, then. We start at dawn. Will the provisions be ready?”
“I cannot swear that all will be ready by dawn. More likely by midday.”
Gharinan offered to pour more wine for her. She nodded but indicated a small measure.
“Very well. Dawn if possible, midday otherwise. I thank you, all of you, for your help and support.” She took a last swallow, sweet and mellow on the tongue, then set down her cup. “Time for the Guardian’s Reward.”
Luruthin’s eyes lit up. “Cousin, you are brilliant! Gharinan, do you join us?”
“Absolutely.”
Eliani smiled mischievously at Vanorin, who looked bewildered. “Shall you accompany us as well?”
“If it is something a stranger may share, my lady.”
Luruthin laughed. “You are no stranger—we have been under attack together! You are entitled to the reward.”
Eliani held up a chastening finger. “But only if you cease calling me ‘my lady.’ I am never addressed so by those with whom I have gone unclad.”
Vanorin’s eyes widened, and Luruthin laughed again. “It is a hot spring. Do you not have them in Glenhallow?”
The Greenglen looked relieved. “Oh. Yes, there are springs above the city. I have not visited them in years.”
Eliani chuckled. “Then you shall refresh your memory as well as your body. You may tell us which are better—Glenhallow’s springs or the Guardian’s Reward.”
She sent him off with Luruthin to collect a change of clothing while she fetched a fresh tunic and legs from her own room. Spotting a small jar of Heléri’s sage-scented soap on her shelves, she caught it up and went out.
&nbs
p; The night air was bracing as they left the city, climbing north and west on the main road from Highstone. Above, a half moon was already riding westward. The breeze sharpened as they rounded a bluff, then dropped as they turned from the road to follow a trickling, sulfurous stream up into the woods.
The path ascended a wide, pine-filled canyon, then ran beside the stream up a steep, rocky wall. Stripes of moonlight filtered through the dense branches, dappling the ground and flashing over Vanorin’s pale hair as he passed through them. The sight made Eliani wish it was Turisan who walked before her, but she swiftly dismissed that. Someday she would bring him here, she decided as they reached the small clearing surrounding the spring.
The pool looked fathomless in the moonlight, a trick of the black sand that covered its base. In fact it was little more than knee-deep. The surface was still except for tiny ripples spreading out from the spring’s source in the face of the rocky hillside.
Drifts of steam rose from the water into the night, pale against the black boulders that surrounded the pool. Eliani piled her belongings on one of them and pulled off her boots, tunic, and legs, then stepped into the hot water with a hiss of pleasure.
Leaning her back against a rock whose edges had been worn smooth by ælven bodies over the centuries, she slid down until the water reached her chin. Her sigh was echoed by her companions as they entered the pool. She closed her eyes, enjoying the grittiness of the sand beneath her and the sharp pine scent of the woods.
Slowly her muscles yielded up their aches and stiffness to the water’s heat. She rubbed her hands along her legs, then with a start sat up and pulled her arm from the pool, staring in dismay at the handfasting ribbon.
She had forgotten she was wearing it! Peering at it in the moonlight, she wondered if she had ruined it.
Luruthin had seen her reaction and drifted toward her across the pool. “It does not appear to have taken any harm.”
Annoyed with herself, Eliani frowned as she squeezed the ribbon about her wrist. Though she could not see the colors well at night, the images seemed unchanged, and the trickle of water that ran across her fingers was clear. The ribbon still tingled slightly with khi, though the water inhibited her sense of it.
“Well, if it shrinks and my hand drops off by morning, we shall know.”
Luruthin laughed softly. “I think Heléri’s craft is better than that.”
“I suppose they are not usually worn while bathing.”
The ribbon still felt firm and secure on her arm. It was meant to come unbound once its wearer and her partner had arrived at their new home.
Spirits knew when that would be. Eliani felt a pang of loneliness and wondered if Turisan was still feasting. As he had not spoken to her or sent the strange calling he had shown her, she assumed that he was.
She submerged her chilled arm again. If water could harm the ribbon, the harm was already done.
She ducked her head underwater, reached for her soap, and rubbed some vigorously into her scalp, then offered the jar to the others. Their ablutions sent clusters of bubbles floating across the pool, eventually to slide out between two of the boulders and spill down the hillside with the escaping stream.
Vanorin leaned against the rocks, fair hair drifting about his shoulders in the water as he turned his head to look at Eliani. “Please tell me there are such springs all along the road we are to travel.”
She chuckled. “Not as many as we would like, but there are a few. Gharinan, does Heahrued have a spring? I misremember.”
“Not within a league of the village, alas.”
Luruthin stirred the water before him with his hands. “There is a very hot one near Althill, though it is reached by a bit of a climb.”
Eliani grinned. “We shall see how badly we want it by the time we are there.”
“We may have to make camp at that spring if Theyn Mirithan is feeling unfriendly.”
Eliani sent a splash of water toward Luruthin’s grinning face, then stood and moved closer to the spring’s source, where the water was hottest, enjoying the momentary sting of the night air on her wet flesh before she sank back into the pool. She was aware that the males were watching, but their regard did not trouble her.
That was part of the Guardian’s Reward, the chance to admire one another’s flesh. She had often taken advantage of it during her years riding scout with the Guard and knew Gharinan’s and Luruthin’s forms well enough to tell them apart at a glance.
Vanorin she did not know. She looked his way and saw him avert his eyes. She smiled, letting her gaze linger on the strong, lean lines of his body, pale against the dark floor of the pool. He was her clan-brother, she thought, still surprised to remember that she was now a Greenglen.
Luruthin moved to join her, reaching his hands toward the place where the heat welled from deep within the mountain. “Ah. The best spot. You are willing to share it, cousin?”
“Of course.”
“I did not wish to crowd you.”
There was curiosity in his eyes, and the faintest shadow of something else—she could not read his khi here in the water. Perhaps he thought she had moved away so as to speak to Turisan. She moved a little to one side, allowing him a better share of the spring.
“You do not like Turisan, do you?”
Luruthin hesitated for an instant before answering. “How can I like or dislike him? I scarcely know him.” He looked away, down at his hands in the water and spoke again in a lower voice. “If I had thought him unworthy of you, I would not have participated in your handfasting.”
“My father obliged you to. I regret that; I would never have placed you in such a position—”
“Hush. Let it go, Eliani. I have.” He looked up, smiling. “I am happy for you.”
She frowned, concerned for him. He had never given up hoping to resume their past romance, she had recently learned, much to her chagrin.
“Truly?”
“Truly.” His smile widened. “I have something to tell you.”
“What?”
“I have sired a child.”
Eliani gasped. “Luruthin!”
He shushed her with a gesture, chuckling as he glanced at the others. She lowered her voice.
“When?”
“The night of your handfasting!” He looked down again, still smiling. “I was not in the best of moods. A lady offered me consolation, and—well, we were both surprised. Both delighted.”
“What lady?”
“Lady Jhinani.”
Luruthin looked up at her, his expression a mixture of pride, humor, and a touch of chagrin. She felt a weight of worry fall from her and reached toward him without considering their unclad state. She hastily changed the offered embrace to a clasp of arms.
“Congratulations! What a blessing, cousin!”
He gripped her arm, soaked ribbon and all. “Thank you. I am still amazed.”
“The child spoke to you?”
“Yes. I think that was the best moment of my life.”
His voice and expression were so tender that Eliani felt a twinge of jealousy. She was glad for him, though, and infinitely relieved. Now he had someone to live for and cherish without reserve—a child, and Lady Jhinani as well.
“Do you think you may handfast?”
“I do not know. We did cup-bond before I left.”
“Lady Jhinani is Governor Jharan’s sister?”
“Kin-sister. Yes.”
Eliani nodded, remembering now what her father had told her. Jhinani was sister to Jharan’s lady, Turisan’s mother, who had died bearing Jharan’s second child. Sadly, the child had also perished.
A new thought occurred to Eliani, and she turned to Luruthin. “You should not go to Fireshore.”
He smiled. “I discussed that with Jhinani. She felt I could best serve by going.”
“You should be with her!”
“Eliani, we will be back by midwinter, spirits willing. If I had stayed, I would only have ended up at Midrange, serving
in the defense. I would not be with her either way.”
His words were gentle, but they fell heavily, reminding her of the dangers drawing nigh. She swallowed, thinking of what might happen if kobalen came through Midrange Pass in force before she returned from Fireshore. She had not wanted to acknowledge that this was possible. She drew a breath.
“Well, we shall have to bring you back swiftly, that is all.”
Luruthin smiled, nodding agreement. Neither of them voiced the thought Eliani suspected they shared—that he might yet serve at Midrange, as might they all. She shivered despite the warmth of the pool and leaned her head back, looking up at the stars and reaching for happier thoughts.
“From the palace, my lord.”
Rephanin accepted the folded note from Tivhari and returned to the work chamber, where Heléri and Valani had finished their cloaks and were placing them on the table. Valani smiled up at him, then looked disconcerted. Plainly she was trying to speak to him, but his leaving the chamber had broken their contact. She smiled again, as plainly hoping he would engage her in mindspeech. Instead he nodded.
“Thank you for your work.”
She hid her disappointment with a jest. “I will soon become a night-bider at this pace.”
“Keep to what is comfortable for you.” Softening the dismissal with a smile, he stepped past her and opened his message.
Heléri spent a moment straightening the cloaks on the table, then came toward him. “An invitation?”
“More a summons, I think. It is from Jharan. Very brief and very formal. I wonder if he is displeased.”
“What about?”
Rephanin glanced up and, seeing that Valani had left, smiled at Heléri. Perhaps he dislikes my monopolizing one of his guests.
He heard me offer to work with the circle. He cannot object to that and has no claim on my time of rest.
Rephanin could not help smiling. I was going to offer you refreshment, but I had better see what Jharan wants.
Come to my chamber afterward.
Is that wise? Perhaps others have noticed the time we are spending together. Certainly our attendants have.
Heléri’s smile lit a fire in his heart. Misani is the soul of discretion, my dear friend, and I am sure Tivhari is of the same temper.
