Broken Lords: Book Two of the Broken Mirrors Duology

by A. F. Dery

  Thane barely suppressed a frown of his own. There was a lot she wasn’t saying, and it troubled him. He knew his people were not exactly kind to foreigners, of course, and that even her treatment in his own Keep had left something to be desired. Hell, his own Cook had tried to have him kill her. But he was suddenly confronted by still broader implications of being an outsider in a country full of xenophobes, when the outsider in question happened to be someone he had come to consider important, and it was…uncomfortable. Strangely so.

  “I want you to tell me about that,” he said quietly. “Later. When you’re ready to tell me. If you really don’t mind sleeping outdoors…although, you could always sleep in the carriage. Without me in there, I’m sure it will feel a lot more spacious.”

  Kesara glanced up at him, a smile trembling on her lips. “Thank you,” she said.

  Thane wasn’t sure what to say to that. He settled for occupying himself directing the rest of his escort in making camping preparations. The innkeeper had been gracious enough to surrender his rear courtyard, a not inconsiderable stretch of land, fortunately for them. He then went to Graunt, who was comfortably ensconced in an open wagon which she drove herself, the rear filled with all manner of sacks containing Graunt-only-knew-what.

  “Do you need any help, old mother?” he asked politely. “Would you like me to set up a tent or something for you?”

  Graunt snorted. “Hardly, lad. I’ll be just fine, though it’s kind of you to finally ask after me. You’ve been sealed up in that carriage with the little rabbit all day long, and scarcely looked my way when we stopped for luncheon.”

  “My apologies, old mother,” he said meekly, lowering his eyes, but not before he caught Graunt giving him a look not unlike Kesara’s of a few minutes’ before. “If it makes you feel better, it is not the most pleasant trip I have ever been on.”

  “It’s your own stupid fault for agreeing to a carriage. There’s no reason you can’t ride while she stays in the carriage,” Graunt said flatly. “In fact, she’d probably be relieved to have some time on her own to come to terms with everything that’s happened. Bonding is no small thing for one like her. This is a big change in her life, the last such change she can ever expect to have.”

  “You may be right,” Thane allowed, but inside, he felt a certain reluctance. He could not say it to Graunt, but he became uneasy being too far from Kesara. He wasn’t sure if it was actually her uneasiness seeping into him through the bond, or if it was all his own, or some blend of the two, but it felt somehow natural to keep her close. He couldn’t even imagine locking her away somewhere and forgetting about her, as Kesara had told him happened with some bonded Mirrors.

  Graunt was looking at him curiously, a sly smile starting to curve her mouth, so Thane quickly excused himself, only to hear her cackle at his retreat.

  The arrangements were quickly finished, bed pallets laid out, a watch set up. Even on Eladrian soil, he would have to be careful now; he knew he would not rest easily until Malachi had answered for his actions and been brought to justice. He checked on Kesara, who was cocooned in blankets on the bench inside the carriage, by all appearances already asleep before he could bid her goodnight. Thus satisfied, he laid down himself on his pallet, and sleep quickly overtook him.

  It didn’t last long. Or at least, he thought blearily, pushing himself up onto his elbows, it didn’t feel like long. But the waxing moon was by now overhead and on the descent. He tried to push through thoughts foggy with sleep, frowning in concentration as he tried to figure out what had disturbed him. All was silent. He saw the soldier appointed watchman making his patrol as usual, disappearing into Thane’s periphery.

  Cold. That’s what it was. Thane’s frown deepened and he pulled the blanket up to his shoulder. Normally he was extremely tolerant of his native climate, and it was still spring, and quite mild by his standards. But the sense of coldness failed to abate.

  Then his brain caught up with reality. Kesara was cold. Odd that it had woken him up, he thought, pushing back the blankets. It was a feeling he could easily dismiss if he wished, now that he recognized it, but he wondered how many blankets he would have tried before figuring it out if he had not.

  He made his way carefully to the carriage and peeked inside the window. In the moonlight, he could only just make out the cocoon of blankets on the bench, shivering.

  “Ah, you poor thing,” he said sympathetically, clucking his tongue a little. No easy feat for him. “Ytar is tropical, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve heard.”

  He heard nothing but a faint clicking that may have been her teeth. He pulled open the door and reached inside easily with one arm, hooking it around the cocoon and tugging it out as it let out a yelp of protest.

  “Now, now, Kes. If you freeze to death, that would be unfortunate. I’ve not even come halfway down the list of all the things I have in mind to tease you about,” he said gravely. He set her gently on her feet, and only just prevented her from falling back over. She was so snugly swathed in blankets, it didn’t appear like she could even move her feet. “How did you even get yourself in there so tightly?”

  “I’m talented,” he thought she said. Her voice was muffled by blanket, but now he could see bright blue eyes blinking at him sleepily from a parting in the cloth. Then either: “why’d you wake me up?” or “time to take tea, huh?” He decided it was probably the first one and said, “It must have been the chattering of your teeth. I have very delicate ears, Kes.”

  A brief noise came from the blankets that may have been a snort, a laugh, or something less tactful. He shook his head at her. “I really can’t understand you very well through all those blankets. Why don’t you let me take you inside to warm up?”

  The cocoon wagged back and forth in the negative.

  “There isn’t a fire pit out here,” Thane pointed out reasonably. “And you’re not the only one who’s tired…so…why not be practical?”

  She answered unintelligibly.

  “I guess this is my just recompense for being deformed and forcing innocent bystanders to interpret my lordly ravings,” he lamented, rolling his eyes towards the heavens.

  Another, possibly rude, noise, followed by a shuffling in the arrangement of the blankets. “I s-said I’m f-fine in the c-carriage, m-milord.”

  “Oh, so this is an impediment of speech you’ve just now developed, then? Forgive my mentioning it,” Thane said sweetly. Kesara sighed.

  “I’m a l-little c-c-old but I’ll b-be f-fine,” she insisted.

  “You’re so stubborn. I’ve already told you, I don’t trust the word ‘fine’ coming from your lips. You’re going to force me to be a barbarian and violate all propriety, aren’t you? This is what I get for practicing my manners. All these ‘milords’ in return, but not a jot of actual obedience or servility,” Thane said mournfully, tucking her easily under one arm and trudging towards the inn. Kesara started to squirm, then no doubt quickly realizing that to succeed in her aim would be to fall on her head, instead opted to hold herself stiffly still as he marched her into the inn.

  Fortunately, the innkeeper was still awake, wiping down a wooden counter with a towel and looking astonished to see the Dread Lord himself casually strolling into his common room, a vaguely person-shaped bundle of blankets under one arm. “Would you mind if we sat a while by your hearth, sir?” Thane asked, slowly and clearly. The innkeeper mutely shook his head, and Thane settled himself in a chair that was only slightly too small next to the fireplace. A small fire still crackled within. The room was empty apart from themselves, the inn’s other patrons evidently having already retired. Thane set the blanket cocoon on top of his leg, now uncertain as to which end was actually up and not relishing the prospect of cracking open Kesara’s head. Again.

  Fortuitously, it appeared he had guessed right, because gradually Kesara shrugged out of the blankets and turned out to be sitting on his lap. She was blushing furiously, but the effect was detracted from by the persistent chattering of her
teeth. He kindly picked her up again and set her down on the floor next to the hearth instead. “You can get a chair if you want, Kes, but you might want to be closer to the fire rather than farther. If you know what I mean.”

  Kesara just shook her head at him and hugged her mass of blankets to herself, drawing her knees up to her chest and sitting as close to the grate as her sense of self preservation would allow. Which was still sufficiently close to cause Thane some mild alarm, but he bit it back and kept a watchful eye on her rather than commenting.

  He glanced at the innkeeper. “If it is not too much trouble, do you have anything warm for my companion? Some mulled wine or something?” he asked slowly. The innkeeper nodded, still apparently beyond speech, and quickly began to bustle around behind the counter.

  A few moments later, he presented a steaming earthenware mug to Thane, who accepted it with a wink that caused the man to jump backwards, knocking over a nearby chair. He stammered apologies as he set it right and scuttled back to his former post. Thane felt like telling the man that he need not wait up, he was hardly going to rob one of his loyal citizens or anything, but he knew it wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t every day the Dread Lord brought apparently mummified foreigners into one’s common room, after all. He offered the drink to Kesara, holding it squarely in her periphery and hoping the steam rising from it would have a siren-like appeal to her.

  She sighed and turned to him, stretching out her hands with obvious reluctance, but they were shaking so badly he was loathe to let go of the tankard when her fingers reached it. “Wait a moment,” he told her. He unfolded himself from the chair and sat down on the floor next to her cross-legged, then offered again. Again she reached for it, looking faintly puzzled this time, her dark brows knit together in what was either confusion or concentration. He moved his hands out of the way so she could grip the bottom of the tankard, then he guided it to her lips, letting her tip it to drink while he held it steady. She gave a little shudder and wince when she swallowed.

  “We’re not very good bartenders, either,” he said regretfully. “But if you need something mined, or killed, you’ll find no one better suited to the task.” He was pleased to see a brief smile curve her lips.

  “You go to far too much trouble over me,” Kesara said, eyeing the mug’s murky contents. “I’m trying not to be a bother here, but you thwart me at every turn and make me twice the trouble I would have been!”

  “Oh, don’t tell me we’re back to that, I thought we’d made so much progress, you and I,” Thane teased, helping her take another sip.

  “You don’t feel awkward at all…after the ritual?” she asked after a moment. She stared at the mug as though divining impenetrable secrets from its depths.

  “Nothing has really changed, has it? Apart from everything? And ‘everything’ was changing from the moment you brought me that tea tray, so I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it.” Thane barely suppressed his smile before she looked up at him again. He was surprised to see her eyes were welling up with tears, and felt all humor desert him.

  “Nothing has gone the way it is supposed to,” Kesara said quietly. “I still feel terrible for putting you in the position that I did. I want to make up for it somehow, but I know I can’t. I have never known such kindness as I have known from you, and I don’t know how to be someone worthy of that. Of you.”

  Thane stared wide-eyed in horror as first one tear slipped down her cheek, then another. He gently pulled the mug away from her hands and set it down on the hearth. “I didn’t realize you were so easily affected by drink, or that you would be a sad drunk,” he said uncertainly. “But please think nothing of the rest of it, Kes. You have done more for me than you know. I have never thought of you as being unworthy.” He dabbed helplessly at her face with the edge of his sleeve, hoping if he erased the evidence, it might never have happened. She gave a little gurgling laugh, pulling back from his efforts with a shake of her head.

  “I’m not drunk, and that really isn’t helping, Thane,” she said with a weak, watery smile.

  “How do I make you stop, then?” he asked, concerned. “Will it take violence? I might have to get the innkeeper to do it, in that case. I like to think I can control the force of my blows most expertly, but you’re not much stronger than a twig, Kes. I might snap your neck by mistake, and I would regret it terribly.”

  “Please be serious,” she pleaded.

  “I am,” he replied, equally pleading.

  “I just…need a moment.”

  “No, if that’s all you needed, I’d know about it,” and here Thane tapped the side of his head. “As it is, the bond isn’t as helpful as one might hope.” Indeed, all he sensed from her at the moment, now that she was warming up, was sadness and confusion, and something else he couldn’t quite identify. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing about it.

  A terrible thought occurred to him. “Do you need a hug?” he asked skeptically, eyeing her with fresh suspicion. “Because I’m really not well disposed to that sort of thing. I might could talk Graunt into doing it, if you really, really need one.” Oh, but what that would cost him…he did not even want to think about it.

  “Ach, no!” she cried, then quickly clamped her lips together and looked down at her lap. “I mean, no, thank you. I’ll be fine. Without…hugging.”

  “Thank the gods,” Thane said earnestly.

  “Maybe I could do with a pat on the shoulder or something, though,” Kesara said with a sniffle, still addressing her lap. “I mean, if you’re really that concerned about it.”

  “A pat?” Thane studied her, looking for some indication she was kidding, but as she still appeared both tearful and grave, he sighed. “A pat. Hmmm.” He reached out a hand awkwardly and gave a gentle bop to one slender shoulder, nearly tipping her over backwards. His other hand shot out to her opposite arm to steady her. “You’re determined to hit your head again, I just know it,” he told her miserably. She looked up into his eyes, her own impossibly deep and blue, tears still glistening in trails on her cheeks, and he suddenly realized how close their faces were, now that he had leaned forward to grab for her. He froze, uncertainty and confusion warring inside of him as he awaited with an odd sense of dread the inevitable reaction. Recoiling, or gasping, or perhaps just fear. He knew he ought to let her go and back away, but he suddenly couldn’t remember, for the life of him, how to open his hands. He was sure it had something to do with his fingers, though. Fairly sure, anyway.

  But Kesara reached up with a hand that was once again trembling. Or perhaps it had never stopped. Her cool fingertips grazed his cheek and she bit her bottom lip. His mouth went dry and his chest begged for air.

  Then she dropped her eyes, and it was like a spell had been broken. He released her, remembering just in time to be slow about it so she wouldn’t fall over backwards, and somehow managed to get himself off the floor and back into the chair with what he hoped was an air of nonchalance.

  He felt her eyes on his face, but he stared stubbornly at his hands, until finally she said, “That was…a good effort. Thank you, milord.”

  “I’d say you’re welcome,” Thane said, trying to rally, “but really, you’re not. This obsession you have with causing yourself head trauma simply has got to stop, Kes.”

  “Yes, milord,” she murmured meekly. He darted a glance at her suspiciously, to find, to his immense relief, that she looked like she was wiping away the last of her tears with the back of her hand.

  “All right, then,” he said, and quickly looked away again before anything in his face could betray the growing turmoil inside of him.

  There was still the matter of Kesara freezing outside, though. “I’m sorry, Kes, but you’re going to have to take the vacant room whether you care to or not. I can’t have you freezing to death in the night.”

  “I know, milord,” she said, her voice almost inaudible.

  “It’s only for a couple of hours, now,” Thane said bracingly. “You’ll be fine. I c
an sleep out here if it will make you feel better.”

  Kesara looked pointedly at the slightly-too-small chair he was balanced on. “I, er, don’t think that would be a very good idea, milord. Just…come get me in the morning, please?”

  “Of course,” he agreed quickly. “And I’ll walk you to the door.” He stood and motioned to the innkeeper across the room, who materialized at his elbow. “That room is still vacant, yes, sir?”

  “Of course, my lord,” the man said, bowing.

  Kesara climbed to her feet. He felt her fatigue anew through the bond. “My companion will not be disturbed,” Thane stated, looking the shorter man in the eyes and giving a brief, humorless flash of teeth.

  “N-no, my lord, of course not,” the innkeeper stammered, paling.

  “Let us get on with it, then,” Thane said, and the innkeeper showed them hastily up the stairs to a room at the end of the hall. Thane turned to Kesara as the portly man turned the key in the door. “If it isn’t satisfactory, Kes, you need only say the word.”

  “I’m sure it can’t be any worse than my arrangements were on the way to your Keep, milord,” she answered dryly. He raised an eyebrow and took the proffered key from the innkeeper, handing it to her. They waited just outside the room until the innkeeper lit a fire in the small fireplace within, after which he disappeared down the hallway, his retreat punctuated with bows.

  “I don’t understand why I get that reaction,” Thane said sadly. Kesara had the grace not to reply. He waited in the doorway while she stepped inside and looked around. The room consisted of a single bed, too small to be comfortable for Thane, but surely large enough to dwarf the little Ytaren woman; a chest of drawers; a chair, and not much more.

  “It is fine, Thane,” Kesara told him, smothering a yawn with her hand.

  Thane tried not to smile. “Goodnight, Kes. Lock the door behind me, and I’ll be up to collect you when we’re ready to depart. If you need me before then, you can either yell out the window or go for the innkeeper. I doubt he would give you any trouble.”